The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The Beast: Inside Brugler's 2022 NFL Draft Guide + Bruce Feldman's mock draft

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

The Beast is back! Dane Brugler discusses his 2022 NFL Draft Guide with NFL.com analyst Lance Zierlein. They also break down Derek Stingley Jr.’s pro day as well as the Saints trade with the Eagles and how it impacts the first round. Then, The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman joins the show to talk about his mock draft, the QBs and much more.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome back. I'm Dane Brugler, joined as always with NFL.com's Lance Zerline. This is the Athletic Football Show, our NFL draft edition. Today, we have a special guest, Bruce Feldman, who's going to talk to us about his mock draft that he posted earlier this week. A lot of good nuggets in there, great conversation with Bruce. Today's also Happy Beast Day, the draft guide, officially out and on the athletic. So all you need is your success. description and the draft guide is all yours. You can download it right now on the site, 400 reports,

1,700 prospects that are ranked with verified testing data for all 1,700. I promise you, there's no draft guide that has that. Yeah, I'm going through this. How did you get, like, it's so slow to come in for me, how did you get this in time for publication on this many players? A lot of favors called in. I guess. To get, I mean, it's, that takes the most time is to look at these numbers, figure out, okay, which one of these guys are realistic prospects, talking with teams to find out, oh yeah, don't worry about this guy. Or yeah, we like him. He needs to be in there. I made it. Everyone from LSU to Mount Union, and there are some schools I've never heard of that are, and that usually every year that will happen where there's at least one school that I've never heard of. This year, a small school named Lindsay Wilson. a small N-A-I-A-A school who's got a quarterback who is not going to get drafted, but he's at least received some looks that made him semi-relevant and, hey,

needs to be represented in the draft guide. So, yeah, I think my favorite, a lot of good names, too. The 1,700 names in there, a lot of good ones. I think my favorite is probably Bear Hunter Center for Appalachian State. I mean, I don't think it gets better than that. It's pretty self-explanatory. So, and, you know, as always, a lot of good nuggets in there, things that, you know, a lot of draft nerds like you and I appreciate.

Like us. Yeah, there's a player in there who was high school teammates with Harold Landry. You know, that's how far back he goes. Wow. You know, there's a lot of random stuff in there. So hopefully people check it out. It's, if you like the NFL draft at all, I'm assuming you do or you would not be listening to this podcast right now. But you will not be disappointed.

with the amount of information that's in there and just use it as a resource. You won't be disappointed. So Lance, we had a pretty, the reason that I waited to do the draft guide, release it today was because there was one Pro Day that I had to get in there. And that was LSU's yesterday.

We're taping Thursday. LSU's Pro Day was yesterday, Wednesday. Had to get that information in there. Obviously, LSU is a program that turns out a ton of NFL talent. and this year, especially with one of the more talented players in this draft, who is just not a clean evaluation, and that's Derek Stingley. Coming off, you know, an injury-plagued season,

where does he stand? How does he work out? How is he going to look during positional drills, things like that? Well, he had his workout, and he looked terrific. I heard a lot of rave reviews from Scouts about how he looked, how he tested. I had a scout text me the results yesterday at noon right after the event happened. And I mean, I'll just read it right off the sheet. This is what Derek Stingley was.

He was 6-002, so just over 6 foot, 188 pounds, 30 and 5-8 inch hands, which not great but not terrible. And for this scout, they had a 4444 and a 447. Those are the two 40s that they took. 6983 cone, 38.5 inch vert, 102, broad, 419 short shuttle. So all in all, and Derek, he did everything except for the bench press. So he did not skip out on, you know, we see that a lot of times with guys working their way back from injury. Maybe they'll just do a couple events because, you know, they didn't have as much training time. So they really only focused on the 40 or the 3 cone or whatever.

No, I mean, Derek did everything. So that was good to see. all in all, I think a pretty good day for Derek Stingley. Yeah, I think it was too. I think, you know, when you look at the numbers, so I work off a set of numbers that are NFL starting standards. They're a couple years old. I need to update him.

But his numbers came in at fairly average for an NFL starter, which is fine. That's not bad. His vertical leap, his broad jump is 40 times, his size are basically average for the NFL starter, which is what you want. and I don't think that's uh that obviously to me was never an issue dane i i never had any you know height weight speed is not a concern explosiveness not a concern the concern you have is the same concern that cannot be alleviated through a pro day it's that why is his best tape not why is his best tape is from 2019 his best football was pre-pandemic so how do we work through

that with his traits, you know, we're trying to project the players. We project the traits. What is the personality like? What is the maturity? Like these are things that you and I are not going to be able to, and really anyone listening to this who doesn't work in the league, we're not going to have access to that information. And there won't be a consensus probably, right? No, and it won't be a consensus. Some guys or some teams will look at him and say, look, he's just not tough enough for what we want at that position. And at least for a player, we're talking about taking in the top 15. And so, But other teams look at it and say, you know what, he's just too talented. You know, it's not a perfectly squeaky clean prospect, but he's too talented.

We'll gladly take him somewhere in the top 15th. So, yeah, I think everything you're saying is spot on. And I think just the fact that every team is going to look at it a little bit differently, complicates it even further. Yeah, but with that said, he plays a position of great importance. His 2019 tape was absolutely spectacular. we've seen the ball skills on tape so we know it's there we're not worried about that he has the athletic he has the the measurables height weight speed and fluidity to play the position at a potentially high

level i think he's more of um you know so i've got a grade which is 6.5 in our grading scale that's a boomer bus grade but that's kind of a simplified way of looking at it for me i use it as kind of a line of demarcation where I stick a line right in the middle of the boom and the bust and I say, okay, which side of this does he fall on? And I would say he's a 6.5 plus, meaning he's more likely to boom than he is to bust based on what I know about him, where I could give you some other players sometimes that I might feel the other way about them, but they have phenomenal, you know, measurables or traits or whatever the case may be.

But with Derek Stingley, I really felt this entire time that, Once he had his pro day, he would pick up juice. It usually happens that way. He would get his name talked about more. And I think what has happened is Derek Stingley, for me, is clearly going to be cornerback two in this draft. It's going to be Sauce 1. It's going to be Stingley too.

I think Stingley goes inside the first 13 picks. You know, after that, we could talk about that. But Stingley, I think his workout and just reaffirming for people, just being available doing football stuff, getting himself back in the consciousness of NFL evaluators. I think that is going to push him up in this draft a little bit. I think my guess is 12 would be the latest he falls to the Minnesota Vikings. I could see him potentially falling 13, but I don't think the Texans would let him get by

because it's such a huge need for the Texans. And I think Stingley is firmly planted in the number two corner. or back spot. I think 12 to the Vikings is just the perfect spot for him. I do too. I think that when talking with different people about Stingley, someone mentioned how he kind of needs like a, if you expect him to come in and be the alpha,

he's going to let you down. But if he comes in and you give him a chance to grow, mature, you know, he goes someplace where there's a big brother. He's going to be able to do that. And what better place than Minnesota, where Patrick Peterson is back for another year.

You know, two LSU guys, I think that would be the perfect landing spot for Stingley. But he doesn't even get to that point. I think that, you know, what you're saying is absolutely fair. You look at Seattle at 9 as a possibility. You know, there's, you know, we're going to see some trade action. It's, you know, it's, we're going to see a little bit of movement. I don't see, I don't think we're going to see a ton, but a little bit. That could shake up how the first half,

the first round plays out. So just shifting gears real quick, I want to get your take on that big Saints Eagles trade that we had where it's really, really curious. And you talk to different people, because that's the first thing I did once the trade happened was I sent text to different people and said, okay, what is this? What are we thinking here?

And, you know, I don't think it's for, to trade up for a quarterback. I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's ammo to trade up because, you know, why? why not just keep your one next year and use that as a trade chip to when next year is generally viewed as a better draft? Why not just keep next year as one and use that as a trade chip to go up and if that's really what you want to do? To me, I mean, I think this is they want to get two players here. They want to they want to compete right away and they want to get two players that they can help them do that. Now, whether or not a quarterback's involved, that's the big wild card.

is there a quarterback that they really have their eye on here at this point? From the Eagles perspective, it makes a ton of sense. They kind of push the timeline back a little bit. They can go up and get a quarterback next year if Jalen Hertz does not prove to be the guy. So from the Eagles perspective, it makes sense. From the Saints perspective, a little more mystery behind it. That's really fascinating. Yeah, I see it the same way.

I think the answer is it's one of two things. Either number one, they could be pulling a modified version of what the Eagles pulled to get their hands on Carson Wentz, where you have a preemptive first trade that moved them up to the dolphin spot, and then later they moved that draft pick all the way to two, so they had two different trades to be able to move up far enough to get their hands on Carson Wentz. Here's the thing.

There's no quarterback going one or two in this draft. So either they're doing one or two things, and probably there's some of both in this. They want to have the firepower necessary to, to move up if a quarterback falls below a certain level, they will want to trade up and take a quarterback. Or, as you're mentioning, they want to win now because they know we have a win now defense, we have a win now running back who's on a, you know,

who's a win now running back who has a, you know, just he's on a second contract and those things don't last forever. We got Mike Thomas for right now. We need to win now. We want to find players who can help us win now. So I think it's one of those two things. It doesn't, on the surface, it doesn't make a lot of sense. For Philadelphia, it's a huge win, huge win.

For the Saints, it is either a win now move or it's a move to get a targeted player and they want to be in a position to move up and get that player. And all I can think of is there's a quarterback that they have a really good grade on, that they have a lot of confidence. And that's if they moved up so that they had firepower to move up again, the only thing I can think of is that that would be for a quarter. quarterback. Yeah, I think that makes sense.

And I mean, I keep coming back to Kenny Pickett. I don't, I mean, I know they would like to get left tackle as well. I think, you know, Charles Cross could be that guy. And they could also use a receiver if they want to go after one of those Ohio State guys. So Saints will be interesting. They're definitely one of, I mean, one of several teams that have multiple first round picks, but one of the, one of the bigger mysteries, I think, in this draft, just because how, you know, with a new head coach, They think that they're close, which is reality or not, time will tell.

But, yeah, that's a fascinating trade that we don't see all that often. Okay, let's get into this conversation with Bruce Feldman after the break. So one of the best parts about working at the athletic is the deep bench of talent on our roster. And when it comes to college football coverage, it doesn't get any better than Bruce Feldman, who's as plugged in on everything college football as anyone out there. So this week, he posted a mock draft. Make sure you check it out on the athletic. What's unique about Bruce's mock is just a level of insight from his roll of decks of sources around college football.

A lot of juicy draft nuggets in there. Make sure you check it out straight from coaches, personnel guys. So Bruce, thanks for hopping on with us. I know, you know, talking with you last year about your mock, it was kind of a love, hate type of exercise. What about this year? What was it like putting the end of your mock draft? Oh, thank you for the kind of words, Dane. I think what it really is for me is it's a different perspective into who these players are from either coaches who've coached them or mostly it's coaches who face them.

So you've seen them on film for a lot and then you actually, okay, this is what I thought of them on film. And then in the game, this is what we felt, which is different. I'd be lying if I said I'm not at you know we there are people more plugged into front office people to know oh there's going to be a trade here or not in that I'm just trying to provide as much context with here's what I think your team may end up taking and why and there's also sometimes where I think when I did this it's probably when I filed that it's about I don't know 25 to 30 days before the actual draft there's a couple players in there I was like I think this guy may be, just from everything I've heard, may be more valued than maybe what we've seen

for mock drafts for really the last couple of months. And maybe there's a couple guys who are on the other side. And I'm not saying they're falling or rising because I don't, you know, it's like the NFL, you know, people inside the building may feel differently than, you know, there's so many mock drafts out there that, you know, may not have that pulse or that kind of thing. So, you know, it's one of those things, beauties in the eye of the holder. as well and and what some some college coaches may may flag somebody for, you know, maybe certain NFL teams go, you know, we're not going to, we know that's an issue for that guy. We're going to try to make sure he doesn't have to do that.

You know, one of the cool things, as Dane kind of referenced, is I love getting intel from different coaches and insiders from some of these programs or players or, you know, coaches who have coached against some of these players, Bruce. How difficult is it like your choice on what to share versus what not to share? Because most of what you share that I see is is the more positive stuff. How often do you, how often do you grapple with putting the negative stuff that you get? Because surely you have a coach or an insider that you run into from time to time who are not really, do not have glowing commentary for some of the players.

Yeah, it's a good question. So I definitely wanted to try to have at least three voices for each player. And there was one particular player who the first two were not that glowing. And it's a player that I thought was a great college player. And yet the first couple of voices I had were high-level coaches who face this player and were kind of underwhelmed by him. And it's not to say that this guy would be a bust or this guy's not worthy of a top five or top ten pick. But their perspective was, yeah, I'm not surprised he's a first round pick.

I'm surprised to hear people think might be a top five pick. And, you know, full disclosure, that player was Kyle Hamilton because they saw things that they felt were exploitable and vulnerabilities, which, you know, we'll see. Is he going to be covering slot receivers, little slot receivers in the NFL? Is he going to be primarily covering tight ends if he's in, you know, man coverage? And I think so there's some of that. But then, you know, I did talk to more people. And I'm not like searching for somebody to say a nice thing. But at the same time, you know, I'm kind of mindful of it.

One of the guys who I think probably got the most critical analysis was Kava on Tibido. And it wasn't like I found one guy. There was a lot of people who had a lot of coaches who had some issue with him. And it was nobody said he's a bad guy or anything like that. but it was more, you know, what are, you know, we've heard him speak and what, what are the things that are most important to him? How, it's the corner of the, you know, boils down to how just how much does he love football? Not does he love football, just how much does he love football? How committed to it is he.

And in the context of that, it comes up as, you know, he disappears a lot in games. Why is he not dominating in some of these games against really lesser competition? So it's in concert with that. And you get a guy who, you know, some of the, some of the comments I had towards him was, you know, there's some wow in his skill set, especially his getoff and things like that. But then there's some other things where he's not 280 pounds. He's not Chase Young, you know, combination of things. And so you don't want to be slamming a guy left and right. But at the same time, this is a guy who some people, including himself, are saying could be the first, thinks he should be the first pick of the draft. I want to ask Dane something for a second. Let me step in and play. the role of hosts since I do it on radio every morning anyway.

Dane, I find it interesting in the positions we're in because we have to deal with the national narrative that builds over time. And then so when we inject initially and we run contrary to what the national narrative has been on a player, we take a lot of heat on social media at the beginning and then it levels off as everyone else kind of catches up to it. How difficult is it for you to get to a player to study a player and say, wow, I don't know how this continues to be the national narrative on player A when I know that watching tape and putting the time in or maybe even talk with NFL teams. This is not the narrative that is going to be out there come draft day. Yeah.

And, you know, it goes both ways with players that are worthy of being talked about more but just aren't at that level. I think, you know, Trevon Walker is a perfect example. He just, you know, he was my number six overall player before the combine. And people think, oh, this rise that Trouon Walker, quote unquote, rise on Trouin Walker is based off of just his combine numbers, which were unbelievable. But, I mean, I think you see these things on the tape. And, I mean, there's still things he has to prove. But, again, teams draft traits. They don't draft production.

So I think, yeah, it works both ways with players that maybe aren't being talked about enough, like a Trouon Walker. And then guys that, you know, are getting some praise like Kavon Tibido. And when talking about Tibado throughout the season, it was always the same kind of qualified it by saying he's not on that same level as the Bosa brothers, as Chase Young, as Miles Garrett. But he's still a good player, still has a chance to be one of the better players in this draft. And, you know, I think that it's not a surprise when, you know, we start to talk to teams and not everyone has them as a top 10 pick. And it's not a surprise when you, you know, talk to Bruce and read his mock who, you know, he's hearing some of the similar things. But, you know, I think, you know, Lance, you and I mostly talk with NFL teams where Bruce is getting this from college coaches. And that's really interesting to see it, you know, from that dynamic.

And on the flip side, a player that I know a lot of college coaches. coaches and sticking with the PAC 12, a lot of college coaches were very, you know, had a lot of praise for was who you have going number five overall in your mock to the Giants, Devin Lloyd, the linebacker from Utah, who is, I think he's worthy. He's a top 10 player for me in this draft. So, you know, that's great to hear it. What was the feedback like from coaches on Lloyd? Yeah, it was glowing.

It was effusive to the point where of all the players that, I talked to guys about, I talked to six about Lloyd. There, everything, everybody was glowing about him, about how. And I wondered a little bit if some of that had to do with, and I'd be curious to get both your thoughts just because you've been doing this a long time. But also, I think there's an aspect of this guy is kind of underrated. And so when people think that, just like a lot about what Utah football has been, you know what? No, that's the guy you should be talking about because this guy is good at everything.

He's a good tackler. He can blitz. He can get in the passing lanes. He gets better every week. He always shows up. All those things. And I wonder if coaches are kind of propping him up a little more just because they can look around and go, yeah, everybody's talked about Tibado for like pretty much since he signed with Oregon. And yes, he's talented. This other guy impacts games. more. And so, you know, the more I thought about it, because there was a few guys who were not, you know, on the same, like, yeah, we, I wasn't asking, there wasn't all uniform crossover between these two guys. There might be somebody who didn't play him at it, you know, and whatnot. But for by and large, it was. And I just think that, you know, I don't want to say he is, because the last linebacker who came out, I think is generational talent, right? And, Michael Parsons. He's not that, but I think he can be a elite NFL player because he's so good at everything. He's been so well coached and he's instinctive and he's checking off all the boxes.

Was he as explosive as like Channing Tyndall was in terms of like a 42 inch vertical and do some of those same things? Not quite, but he's still a really, really good athlete and a really, really good football player. And the reason why I had him going higher, the other day I did a radio, interview with the Brent Musburger, you know, studio set up in Vegas where they really approaching it from a gambling perspective. And I think the odds from him being a top five pick were like 50 to one and top 10 pick is 20 to one. And I'm not going to, you know, weigh in whether that's right or wrong. But he's somebody, it would not surprise me if people inside the building liked a lot more than maybe he's been talked about in the draft chatter running up to at least till

April. And I think there are a few things working against him. He's going to be a 24-year-old rookie. You know, some teams view off-ball linebacker as a position. They can wait on. They don't necessarily have to use a top 10 pick. But I mean, I agree with a lot of what you're saying with Lloyd because, and he's, like you say, he's kind of the opposite of Tibado, where Tibadoe comes in as this, you know, top prospect, highest rated prospect in Oregon history. Devin Lloyd was a three-star safety who, you know, didn't really have any Pac-12 offers until Utah saw. him playing basketball right before signing day. So it's really different journeys to get to this point.

And with Lloyd, I just, I mean, I just got done saying how teams draft traits, not production, but you do love when the production matches up. And Devin Lloyd certainly has that. And what you love about his production, over 100 tackles, so you know he can play the run, 22 tackles for loss. Only Will Anderson and Alabama had more, which it's never a shame to be. a runner up to Will Anderson and anything. Eight sacks so he can rush the passer a little bit,

10 passes defended, four interceptions, so he can play in coverage. He can do a little bit of everything that you want. Lance, I know you're not quite as high. I know you like Devin Lloyd. You're just not quite as high on him. What were some of your reservations with the Utah lineback? I didn't think he was super instinctive in terms of his fits

and where he needed a fit as an inside linebacker. And of course, you know, one of the things is that doesn't matter as much if you don't have him in the middle or if you play him in a 3-4, you play him as a 4-3 Sam or Will. I mean, he's very strong, he's very physical. I just, I specifically kind of wrote him up as what I think is, I know people talk about his rush. He's not going to be a 3-4 edge. So I think that you can use him and have some versatility. You know, it's also, you know, honestly, Dane, it may be when I wrote him up because there's

different periods of time where I have the ability. to stack a player against another player I've seen. And I wrote him up fairly early in the process. And so what I'm grading him against are linebackers from the last few drafts. That's, that's the thing was a lot different for me. One quick thing on this is so mid-year, I did, and I appreciate Jim Nagy from the Senior Bowl for help let me sit on this. So they had a two-day Zoom with all their scouts. And so I was on that. It was, I don't know, it was like 15 hours worth of Zoom, which is a lot, obviously. And I remember the Devin Lloyd conversation, again, that was early mid-October. It wasn't as glowing as I would have, you know, as I, in retrospect,

would have thought. And I come back to, and one of the coaches was like, this guy got better every week to the point where I don't know if there's things, maybe there was a little hesitation that, you know, the second half of the year was that much better than the first half of the year. I don't No, it was like when I interviewed a lot of these guys, except for the last one, that wasn't kind of the context of it. So I don't know if that kind of underscores what you're saying to Lance, but it was something that I remember thinking one of the West Coast Senior Bowl scouts was like liked them, didn't love them at that point.

This is what I said, Dane, and that's why I had to go back to it. Lloyd can be a little inconsistent with early diagnosis and fit recognition and unorthodox in the way he flows to the football. With that said, he has a stat sheet full of production in every major category, including 43 tackles for loss over three seasons. I think one of the things that did concern me, just go inside baseball here a little bit, is how do you get to the ball? Like one of the things I really like is when, like, there's a guy named Malcolm Rodriguez

out of Oklahoma State who has this unbelievably uncanny GPS to the ball where he's able to slide around 10.000. tacklers, I mean, slide around blockers and get from point A to point B, even if it's a very wavy, uh, trafficked, uh, traffic, trip that he needs to take. He's just, he's instinctive. Nicoby Dean tends to find blockers. Um, it's, it, that, that is a natural gift that a linebacker has. And I think, you know, the ability to get from point A to point B is what made, um, is really what made Luke Kekley so special. Is it Luke Keeckley just knew how to get there. And I think Devin Lloyd is a guy to me that, yeah, go ahead.

How did, I mean, just going back, it's probably two years now, but how, how did you evaluate Patrick Queen on that when he was coming out of LSU? I knew he was, I loved, I love Patrick Queen. I thought Patrick Queen, but it was, you had to take one year of productivity. One year. And, and I saw what I thought was a much more aggressive alpha type player. I have not seen it manifests itself up to this point with the Ravens in the same way, but I was a big Patrick Queen, fan. I had a higher grade on Patrick Queen and Kenneth Murray than I did, for example, on Devin Lloyd, and I may end up missing on that. The one thing that kind of like goes, goes to that, I think is so Patrick Queen was a great running back in high school. And I think

some of that kind of carries over. Malcolm Rodriguez was a, you know, it was obviously a great wrestler in high school, but he was also a really good offensive player. And again, I think, you know, there's an interesting kind of arc to that. That's why I brought up Patrick because I remember I was really familiar with the situation being around LSU a lot. And I knew that part of it. And so I was curious as to how that connects where you're talking about, you know,

Devin White was a really good running back. And there are certain guys who just kind of have that feel or that vision. And that's why that's interesting kind of like I don't want to hijack the podcast on that. No, I think it's, Dane, do you look at players? I look at tackles and defensive ends as mirrors. Like one guy does it moving forward, one guy does it moving backwards. And I look at running backs and linebackers the same way to Bruce's point.

Do you look at it the same way where they're kind of mirror the skills are slightly different, but there's some similarities to? Absolutely. And you could, to maybe a lesser extent, do the same thing with receivers and corners or even quarterbacks and safeties in terms of eye use and discipline and spatial awareness, things like that. So there's no question. I think with running backs and linebackers, the ability to process and sort is so paramount to playing both those positions because you have to make these split-second decisions on the move, on the fly.

And it's not just waiting for something to happen and then hitting it. It's anticipating. So you're hitting the holes as they open. not when they open, but as they open. So, you know, it's the timing's there. And same thing for linebackers. You have to beat the blocker to the point. You have to be able to know not just flowing with the play,

but keying on who you're supposed to be keying on and then beating them to that spot. Yeah, it's so key. So that's a fun conversation for sure. But I do want to talk about these quarterbacks too. So you had four quarterbacks in your mock draft, Bruce. You had picket number six to the panes. Panthers and then a big gap and then three quarterbacks with, I think, the three final picks in the first round.

So starting with Pickett at six, do you think based on the feedback that you received that he is worthy of the number six pick? Or do you think it was more, you know, we know the Panthers are a little quarterback desperate? There's some connections there with that franchise with, you know, who the head coach is, who the ownership is. Was it more connection-based or was it more, yeah, this guy deserves to go top 10 based off of what coaches are saying? It's a little more of the latter than the first part. I mean, as you say the connections, I mean, you know, now I think people know it's in the story. You know, when Matt Ruhle before he was at Baylor, he was the head coach at Temple. And at one point, Kenny Pickett was committed to play quarterback for him.

We know that Matt Ruhl needs to win soon. Kenny Pickett came from, you know, very pro-style, awesome. offense, has played a lot of football. He's good athlete. I know he doesn't have a huge arm, but if you watch, you know, certain games, especially Clemson, you can see some throws in there. That'll be like, okay, he's going to check that box that he's the most ready to play for a franchise that needs something. And whereas you have Malik Willis, and I think, hopefully it's right, because I saw it on the beast this morning, but he was your second quarterback. And you're, you know, he's got the wow physical tools, especially the big arm, but coming from Hugh Freeze's offense, which is so

RPO heavy, you wonder how much of a learning curve there's going to be. You know, whereas it's not to say Kenny Pickett didn't have any hesitation, but he felt like he kept getting better and better, whereas Malik would have some of those games where he was pretty shaky. And I just think that for them being the Panthers, if you really need a quarterback, is that, you know, if you have to take somebody, do you drop down and say, hey, we're going to take our chances to drop down to maybe somewhere in the middle of the first round and say, let's get more value. And then we get Kenny Pickett. And it's not as much of a,

it's not as hefty of a price. I don't know. I mean, you know, is he, you know, if he has the career that Andy Dalton has, are you comfortable taking that with the sixth pick? and that's kind of where I see it. And that's why I was like, that's why I think it's more of the latter. I don't think he's, like I feel like he has a relatively high floor, whereas the other guys,

I have big hesitation on the other three guys at the end of my first round. Malik, in terms of, I feel like there's a learning curve. I feel like Desmond Ritter, I'm very concerned about how accurate he is. And then with Matt Corral, there's just a wild card personality from a maturity standpoint. How durable is he going to be?

We know he's tough, but he's not, you know, he's not very big physically. And if he's going to take a pounding, how will that hold up? And, you know, when I was at the Combine, one NFL coach made an interesting point and said, how comfortable are you if Matt Corral is leading your team and he is leading a bunch of men with families? And that it's a lot different than being Lane Kiffin's coach in Oxford, Mississippi, Lane Kiffin's quarterback in Oxford, Mississippi. When you put it in that perspective, it definitely, it makes you think. It really does.

And these quarterbacks, it's just, we know that draft classes, they can be judged based on the quarterbacks. And we know this quarterback class is just, it's a little different, especially different than last year. We had five quarterbacks go top 15. This year, we're just not sure when's that first quarterback going to come off the board. And I think there's a good chance that it could be to the Panthers. I also think there's a good chance they could trade back.

I know they want to trade back. based off of the calls that they're making to other teams, just trying to, you know, set the foundation for a possible deal to move back a few spots. And then what you said about Malik Willis, I think, ties into what Lance and I have been talking about all draft season about, you talk to scouts or coaches, and they use words or phrases like JV offense, you know, just things like that where you're just, you're concerned about the, the transition. How long is it going to take?

Because Malik Willis has so much talent. He's such a gifted guy. But in terms of how long it's going to take before he's ready for NFL reps and to compete for an NFL starting job, just what is that? What kind of timing are we talking about? We're talking about one year? We're talking about more than one year. And so where do you draft a player like that? It's going to be fascinating on draft free time.

Also on Malik, where I've got a little more hesitance is. you know, when he came from Auburn, then obviously he transferred. When he was in the sun, you know, he's playing a lot of Sunbelt teams. And when he did play a couple of ACC teams, North Carolina State got him. But, you know, by and large, you know, one thing I asked different people was, yes, he runs well. How well does he run? We're not going to say he's Lamar Jackson, right? He's a really good athlete, but it's not quite to that degree.

And I think the question is when you have a guy who, who certainly has a big arm, but if he's done a lot of damage with his legs, and he's playing at like, he's not playing in the power five level. He's certainly not playing in the SEC where you have linebackers that some of them may be faster than him. Like a lot of times I talk to people who are like,

yeah, he was probably, might have been the second fastest player on the field. You know, those things, you know, we just talked about Patrick Queen a minute ago. Like,

he's not going to be faster than him. He's not going to be faster than a lot of guys who are, in the defense. And so you wonder like that stuff that you can rely on at times as your as your kind of backup plan, that's not as that's not as a good as good a backup plan now in terms of in the NFL if you can't do if you can't consistently know where you're going with the ball or be or, you know, can get that done as you're processing it fast enough. Lance, would you be surprised if we saw one quarterback going the first 25 picks? Yeah, I'd be shocked. I just, I think that.

there's going to be two. But I will admit, I really don't know what's going to happen with Pickett and Willis. I don't have a good feel. This is probably the least feel. It's the least amount of feel I've had for the quarterback position since I started doing this for NFL. Dot com back in fall of 2014. It reminds me of 2014, frankly, the 2014 draft where we just didn't know where teams saw Bortles, Mansell, and Teddy Bridgewater.

Bridgewater. The top three. And, of course, Carr was early second. And then Jimmy Groplo in that same draft. But, Dane, I don't know if that was the way you saw it. Bruce, I don't know if that was how you saw it. But I remember in 14, I really didn't have any good feel for where those quarterbacks could end up.

And I feel like, I do feel like it's going to be Pickett and Willis are the top two. I feel confident about that. I'm not, I just kind of have a feel like, I don't know where to slot Matt Corral. There was no senior bowl. He didn't throw at the combine. He's undersized, but I think you could turn on the tape and like his tape as much as any quarterbacks from 2021 that you see. And Desmond Ritter, you have to be okay with everything about him looks very professional, but then just standard ball placement and accuracy throws with timing just are not always there.

And so Malik Willis's tape said it multiple times. It's not good this year. There were games where it was atrocious. I would have told you after the season was over, I don't see any way Malik Willis is inside the top three picks. I mean, top three quarterbacks based on his tape. People say trust the tape, but obviously they don't really mean trust the tape

when they want to put a cape on for a quarterback because quarterbacks get drafted higher. We know that. But I always hear quarterbacks get pushed up, but it didn't happen when E.J. Manuel and Gino Smith were the first two quarterbacks picked in that draft. I think that was 13, I believe. and I don't know if quarterbacks get pushed up in this one.

I mean, I can't see it. Bruce, you reference number two. There's buzz. I think Detroit's probably creating to see if anyone will bite on Malik Willisett too. I can't see Detroit draft of Malik Willisit too. No, and I would say last year around this time, you had Trey Lance, who was kind of a wild card.

He hadn't played that much football, right? But Trey, you know, to me, Trey was a much different, like, prospect than Malik. They both were certainly not playing at Power 5 level, but you had a guy, I think that there were still some consistency issues with, but, and he can run well, but I don't think, you know, he came from a much different system. He was coached much differently.

And also, I think from everything I heard, he just was a process things a lot differently as well. And that's no guarantee that. he's going to turn out to be a Pro Bowl quarterback five years from now either. But I just think you have such a wildcard component. What had been interesting is if Trey Lance decided I was going to stay one more year, you know, he's probably, maybe he is the Detroit Lions, you know, quarterback and the, you know, with the second pick of the draft, who knows.

But I think that was the issue was guys came out early and it really changed things. And all of a sudden now you're looking at, you know, again, I come back to this like, this story I did last year at this time talking to people. And they were like, man, there really isn't somebody there. You know, Kenny Pickett had a really good year for Pitt. But it wasn't like people were looking down the road. There was concerns about Sam Howl. You know, Spencer Ratt was not in this draft, but you talked to people who study it.

And they were like, yeah, I'm not seeing the spend of love. So it's just, it was an interesting kind of time because you expect some guy, because we've seen it. We saw it with Joe Burrow. We saw it with Zach Wilson where some quarterback, you know, rockets up in that one year. I guess Kenny Pickett was that guy to some degree, but I'm not sure about the rest. And I'm with you. I was like, man, that's a huge roll of the dice

if you're the lions and a huge projection if you're telling me anybody's taken Malik as a top five pick. Yeah, that makes sense and goes along with what Lance and I have been talking about for a few months now. Going through your mock, there's so many good quotes in here. I mean, everyone listening just needs to go read it. I think my favorite is under Sauce Gardner, quote, this is from an opposing coach. Quote, I thought he was very good, but I didn't know how good he was because nobody really went at him.

We didn't want to. We put a slap dick receiver over there the whole game and never looked at him. And it is so true because, I mean, I was I was a little late to really seeing the praises of sauce Garder because we knew the stats were there in terms of, you know, he just, he did not give up a lot of completions, but it was because no one went after him. And so when you watch him on tape, you can see him move well out there. And but at the same time, he wasn't being tested all that much. And so that was, I thought, just a phenomenal quote that fits really well with the tape.

there was is just like interesting because you start talking to guys about him and one one of the coaches I spoke to said you know we were like all right we're going after him and then the first series like oh boy that's not a good like jams our receiver and sudden the next thing he's baiting our quarterback and it's like oh this is going to be a disaster we're not messing with that dude and then you know things that i heard and it's like you guys will know this name obviously too but like the other cornerback cobi brine spelled differently in kobe but it really good player too And so it was like a little bit of pick your poison. And I think, you know, look, because he has the cool first nickname and I think there was, you know, he was on a team that had a great year. And there was a lot of really elite talent at Cincinnati. But I think it's hard when sometimes if no one's going out of guy, you kind of kind of fly under the writer, at least for the college football media, right? It's different if you're the guy who's getting tested and you end up with seven picks or you're the, you know, you know, like that tends to make you an All-American, whereas if you take away one side of the field for your team and the other team, you know, that should probably make you the All-American.

I want to get to, I've got to do this. This is required reading every year for anyone who is involved in the NFL draft is your freak list. Because traits get drafted. Traits pop at the combine traits pop at the pro day. Right now I'm chasing Ghost List on players, meaning I've got to go find. guys that might get drafted because if they get drafted and I don't have a draft profile on them, guess what I have to do after the drafts over? I got to go watch tape and write a profile and I don't want to have to do that. So the best way to find guys who get drafted are to go find

guys who are explosive testers. And please someone would ask me about Jason Poe because I feel like he's like adopted into my family after two years of talking to him about his freakishness. Well, you know, this is this is what's interesting to me. Every year when it comes out, I book market so I can because I won't know a lot of the players because I get to them later because I want to I want to have as much of your body as work to consume as possible when I'm going to write you up. And so I like to have a bunch of tape and I don't like to create filters, positive and negative filters based on a single game if possible. I like to watch your games for enjoyment.

I try not to evaluate too much when it's happening. Your freak list is extremely important because it gives athletic context and strength context to players and background. That takes an unbelievable amount of, you have to have a great relationship with strength coaches around the country to do that. And by this point, you've already laid the groundwork. Tell us about how I got started

and what some of your process is and putting together those lists. Because if I'm not mistaken, you've had to expand the freak list to more and more players. Yeah, it started around almost 20 years ago now. And I'd always heard the term and I was like, okay, let's try to quantify. And it could be all sorts of different things on there. Like this is back in the day when Calvin Johnson was at Georgia Tech.

And not far, maybe the second year was Adrian Peterson. But then you had some other guys. It was a linebacker in the Mac named Turner Nande. And I just remembered one of, I worked at ESPN and one of our announcers, one of our analysts had told me about him. And just all the stuff you'd hear about this guy. And at some point this offseason, I think I'm going to reconnect with him because it was almost like that's the, that was the definition of it, you know, of the guy who was just the guy inside the program everybody raves about for some thing, you know, some ability. And there are guys I definitely, when I say missed on, I mean, I should have known about, but I didn't. I mean, like, Byron Jones is top. Like, I mean, I don't know if he has the world record for the world record for the.

the broad jump what he did in the combine like i probably watched that thing a thousand times you know and there are guys where you definitely i'm like why did i not i talk to somebody at that school or i talk you know and it's like um and there's definitely a handful of guys each year that i'm like man i should have had that guy but what used to happen was people would say there's no way that's true and then the guys would go to the combine or they go to the pro day and they would actually do it like there's a um And you guys are both in Texas. So this is like there was a Estonian shot putter slash kick blocker. Marcus Hunt.

And he was probably in year four, year five. And I remember I talked to the track coach who'd worked with him and, you know, talk to June Jones and talked to people there. And the crazy numbers. And he did them all, right? And so much of the so that like not long after that, I remember visiting University of Houston. I think Tony Levine had just become the head coach, and he took a former Arizona basketball player, I think to play tight end. Fendi, Anabon, maybe that's who it was, Lance.

Yeah, it is. It is. That's good. Yeah. So, but I was like, you know what? Which is becoming more and more the norm. Everyone's looking for that next basketball player. Well, I said, you know what you ought to do? I don't even know if you can do this.

But if I was a coach, I would go down to like the European or some kind of international junior international track meet. And I would try to find all the guys who are like throwers, discus guys, shot putters, because those guys are usually super explosive. And, you know, whether they can be an offensive tackle or defensive end, who knows. You know, how, but it's interesting because not long after that, Brandon Collier had this PPI group. He's a former UMass defensive lineman.

And you have a lot of, you know, high level athletes who are now, pivoting to football at a relatively young age. And so, you know, one of the guys on the list, and it's a guy you know, you guys both know well. And I know Dane wrote about him last, maybe last summer, you know, Bernhard Riemann. You know, it's a guy who was like an Australian exchange student came over here, it was tight end. You know, it's just, there are a lot of guys like that who either have that unique background or there's just something about them. Like, and then, you know, to go like bring it up to speed like last summer i remember i talked to some of the coaches at uh-u-sa and they started telling me about tarique woolen and i was like i was like skeptical at first

and then it was like almost like hey when are you going to run this because i think there was a little hesitation i put this out somebody's going to try to coach tarik woolen because like to have a cornerback with that length and that kind of explosiveness and athleticism whether he could be a first-round pick or not he could help somebody else in power five and maybe he'd get wooed. For people who don't know, Tariq Wollin is a 6-4 corner who can run into four-toos. It's pretty much never existed in history. Yeah.

I mean, that's a unicorn, right? And so there are those guys. And so I work on it. And I'm grateful, like you said, I've always had good relationships with the strength coaches and just schools and coaches and scouts like just I'm a sideline reporter for Fox. So before the games, when I'm out kind of, you know, talking to coaches, I always, always run into three or four NFL scouts who are, you know, on the field. And we'll talk about that. And and, um, so it's been really cool. It's like, um, it's a, I get more like, I hear more about that than

anything I do. Um, I love working. I love the conversations in the process of it because it makes me a better college football reporter. And it's just cool to have those things on my radar. That's one of my favorite days of the year when that your freaks list comes out. It's so good. Last question real quick before we'll let you go. One player from your mock draft that did not make it, that did not make your top 32 that you hated leaving off. Who's one player that just fell short?

I wrote a book with Mike Leach and I feel like I snubbed his offensive tackle. He was like at one point, Ross was like nine and then he was kind of trickling down. And then I was like, well, I got the quarterbacks. there's going to be run on quarterbacks. And probably that one, although one player I really like, and he, to me, plays bigger than his measurable as Jehan Dodson from Penn State. And I was like, man, he's not in here either. Those guys would be it.

This is not what you asked me, but there's a couple of guys whose name came up as, like, players, coaches I know really liked. I don't think they're anywhere near the first round. But like both linebackers won is Jojo Domain. You know, somebody told me they think he could be a, another Pete Warner. And the other one was Cam Good from Cal, who just, there's certain people I talked to,

really raved about him. Interesting. That's good. I mean, John Dotson might have the best ball skills in the draft for a player that's not all that big, but he plays much bigger than he looks. So, all right, Bruce, this is awesome. Thank you for the time.

Everyone, go read Bruce's stuff at The Athletic. Just another reason why you need to subscribe. Follow him at Twitter at Bruce Feldman's. CFB, I believe. And so everyone go follow Bruce there as well. Thank you guys. Always a pleasure talking football. Thanks, Bruce.

All right. See you guys. Okay, that'll do it for us this week. Remember read Lance's work at NFL.com, all of his draft profiles. My draft guides out. Make sure and check it out on the athletic. Read the beast. Read the beast.

It's all you need. I'm going right now and copying all your work and pasting it for mine. I'm tired of working. Control C, control V. Hey, I've had people. We'll do it to me before. I'm going to do it to you. Thanks for listening to everyone.

Review. Yeah, exactly. We'll talk to you next week. Thanks, guys. This was the Athletic Football Show.