The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The latest on the Washington Commanders investigation with Ben Standing + answering questions about the 2022 OL class with Brandon Thorn

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones welcome The Athletic’s Ben Standig to discuss the latest with the investigation into Dan Snyder and the Washington Commanders. Then, Robert and Lindsay talk about Derek Carr’s contract extension with the Raiders, their thoughts on the deal and what is says about the QB market. Plus, Trench Warfare’s Brandon Thorn joins the show to break down the offensive lineman in the 2022 draft class. Brandon shares his thoughts on the top tackles, where Tyler Linderbaum will go, why he loves Zion Johnson and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Today is Thursday, April 14th. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. Brandon Thorne from the Trench Warfare Substack and Podcast is going to be joining us a little bit later. He's going to entertain my stupid questions about the offensive line class in the 2022 NFL draft. We're going to go through just some of the overarching things with the position and some of the guys available,

why they are the top guys, what their upsides are, what their upsides are, what. their downsides are excited to do that. Before we get to Brandon, though, I am very excited to be joined by my friend, Lindsey Jung. Lindsay, how you doing? I'm great. How about you, Robert? I'm doing very well. So you and I were trying to figure out what we wanted to talk about, either this week or next week. And the news cycle helps solve that problem for us. Obviously, the stuff that's been going on with the Washington football team has been ongoing for months. I mean, everything about them, it seems like there's a new scandal or there's a new bit of news to dig through every week. And I wanted to use this this week and what's happened over the last couple days as a chance to kind of take a step

back and talk about everything that's happened with the Washington football franchise. How we arrived at this point, where things go from here. I just think it's important to talk about this because we really haven't dug into it at all. And I do think that this is a unique opportunity. and to help us do that today is the Washington writer from the athletic who can help put all of this into context for us, Ben Standick. Ben, thank you very much for joining us today. You guys don't want to talk about who's replacing Brandon Shurf? We'll circle around to that. We will get into some of the football aspects of this because I do think that they're intertwined in a certain way.

But we felt like this is a good time to have this discussion because there was new news this week that the commercial oversight committee that's looking into the Washington. football team sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission outlining ways that the Washington franchise under Dan Snyder, and I'm quoting here, may have engaged in a troubling, long-running, and potentially unlawful pattern of financial conduct. And that decision to send that letter was based partially on claims made by Jason Friedman, who's a former vice president of sales within the organization. The NFL on Tuesday said that Mary Joe White will be investigating these allegations as an extension of the investigation into sexual harassment claims against Dan Snyder.

So I wanted to kind of use this as a moment to have a larger conversation about everything that's happened and how we've arrived at this point. So, Ben, what were those major allegations that Friedman alleged in his testimony that pushed the committee to ultimately send that letter to the FTC? Well, a couple things. One, the allegation of potentially defrauding season ticket holders by not returning their deposits they had been made. You know, we all kind of various things where we may buy something.

and you're supposed to get a deposit back. Sometimes it's done easily, sometimes difficult. Sometimes, I guess, not at all. And that's what the allegation is here. And it's upwards of like $5 million that could have been kept behind. There is also the idea that they may have classified money from tickets in such a way, thus to prevent it from going to the other owners as part of the money sharing that goes on when you're visiting teams.

So the allegation is, for example, tickets for a game, an NFL regular season game, may have been labeled for a Notre Dame Navy game or a Kenny Chesney concert, thus going into a different bucket and not being part of that poll. So those are the primary allegations kind of made in terms of this part of the equation. So I think it's important, though, that we kind of step back and figure out how we got here, right, that Congress is in the middle of this and that there's, you know, another NFL investigation after there was the Beth Wilkinson investigation last year. So then if you could just take a back, I guess now almost two years to the initial investigations that went into Dan Snyder and the

workplace culture within his organization. What really was the tipping point that got all of this started? Yeah. So in the summer of 2020, they fired a couple of employees who were and fired two members of the front office and their longtime radio announcer. And that was eventually unearthed as part of what the Washington Post detailed, lengthy history, or alleged history, I guess, but lengthy history of sexual and workplace harassment inside the organization. That led to the Wilkinson report, and ultimately, a year later, the NFL, fine Dan Snyder, $10 million, sort of put him in a timeout to some degree that's come up recently as to whether he actually was off the clock from running things day to day or not.

they did not release the Wilkinson report. They said they're going to put it to bed. They even said they told the attorney, Beth Wilkinson, to not write it down because they didn't want it in that form. And the claim was that they did all this to protect the women involved. So the details would not necessarily come out. And obviously, a lot of question as to that as to why would you just not release the report. But all that said, it kind of was a little quiet.

it. When the John Gruden emails, though, resurfaced. This is last year, these emails resurfaced because of the investigation into Washington in the first place, into their emails and thousands and thousands of emails. More than obviously there were other negative emails that came out. All this then led to, wait, a minute, wait a minute, what's going on here with this organization? Why are all these things coming out from here. A few months later, Congress gets involved and they tell everybody, hey, not only are we going to do some digging here, we're bringing forth a new claim of harassment specifically against Dan Snyder, a woman named Tiffany Johnson, a former employee, claims that he groped her. And a witness there was actually this person, Jason Friedman, who is the employee who was now currently involved in this

situation, who has provided Congress with some potential evidence that suggests. they've done these financial improprieties. That's the gist of kind of how we got from there to hear and why Congress is involved today. And from that point of Congress looking into the harassment charges has led to, hey, wait, we may now have uncovered some financial questions here as well. I want to go back to the Wilkinson report a little bit because you and I have both done reporting on this. We've talked to a lot of people kind of over the last year and a half or so. And it still is confounding to me about why there was no actual report. I remember, you know, they kind of, it was one of those weird news dumps.

I believe it came out, um, fourth of July weekend last summer, you know, kind of trying to sneak this news in here. And, you know, there was kind of like a conference call and a brief press release that had some bullet points about their findings. You know, in the months since, you know, you and I have both spoken to people kind of on both sides of this. And I wrote a story last fall with one of the women who was part of the former employee of the Washington football team who, you know, was very clear on the record that if they had

there wasn't going to be a written report and there was not going to be transparency, they wouldn't have been part of this process. And they weren't going to engage in the interviews with Beth Wilkinson and her team of investigators. So it's been really confusing, I think, still. And we haven't really gotten great answers out of Roger Goodell and the NFL staff and certainly out of Dan Snyder about why there wasn't a report. So to me, the big question was always, well, who is being protected here? And Roger Goodell's explanation has been that they were protected. the women, the former team employees protecting their anonymity. And while that's, you know, that could be maybe a broad characterization that maybe there were one or two who wanted that.

There are certainly others who've been very, very vocal. You know, I think there's like the hashtag release the report. They've held some rallies outside of the stadium. They showed up at the league owners meetings back in October requesting, kind of demanding more transparency and releasing the findings of this investigation. From your understanding right now, is there any chance that at some point we might get to learn a little bit more about what was in that report. And at this point, what has been preventing the league from releasing any more details? I don't get any sense that the Wilkinson report's going to come light a day by normal processes. I guess there's always a potential for some sort of a leak or whistleblower or something along those lines.

But in general, no, it doesn't get, we don't have any sense that the league is going to do that. And, you know, look, ultimately at the end of the day, when you ask the question as to what is preventing them from doing this, I think the real question is, the real answer I think focuses on the owner, Dan Snyder, that maybe it's not so much protecting him per se, but protecting him to a degree because it is part of the protecting the shield, as it were. But it's also, I think there's a fear of what happens if they do put stuff out there about him. The fact that just the other day, when we were at the NFL owner's meeting and Roger Goodell was asked, He said, what is Dan Snyder's status? Because there's been indications that I've written about and others have talked about that he is, in fact, back running the day-to-day operations when just a few months ago, Roger Goodell was saying, not true.

He's been stepped away. And now when presented with this, Roger Goodell said, no, no, no, he's still, there's nothing to see here. He's still, he's still doing his thing, which immediately, Dan Snyder's world said, it was put out there. We can at least say that, no, Dan Snyder's never stepped away, that he's been, here the whole time? I don't know what you guys are talking about. And the fact that this is such an obvious, wait, what do you mean? Was he or was he not? The suspended, told to stand down,

whatever, it just sort of goes to show that there is some trepidation here, I think, of calling him out too much. And because of a fear of, I don't know, retribution, what he might do, what he might say. And ultimately, Lindsay, I think this comes down to the overall broad point. And that is, people are looking, especially fans of this team, what is it going to take to take Dan Snyder down? ultimately, I've saved for all the time, not just now, for months, for years, it will take the other owners deciding they've had enough. And it is a lot. I think that is a huge threshold to cross because they don't want their own stuff put out there in the world necessarily. And they are, Dan Snyder has been around for 20 years. He knows a lot. And I think there is some fear perhaps

of what he might do in retaliation if he's the one who's shoved out the door. And that's why the most recent allegations, this financial stuff to me, feels like a significant turning point because as bad as the allegations were and the very, very credible allegations of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment that was kind of pervasive through the organization, the stuff that the Washington Post reported, and then in subsequent kind of now two years basically of reporting since then, even through all of that, it never felt like there was a push from other owners to really do anything. All of the years where, you know, Washington Stadium has been empty. I think they were what second worst in attendance in the last

year. There's a lot of issues with the stadium. We've seen, you know, railings falling down and among other problems going on at that stadium to say the least. There was never this push of like, okay, well, we got to do something about Dan Snyder. You know, the NFL has never forced another owner to sell. I mean, the Panther situation with Jerry Richardson a few years ago was probably, you know, the closest situation, but Richardson put the team up for sale before ultimately like owners had to come to that conclusion on their own. But now that there's allegations of financial impropriety. And to be clear, Washington as an organization, the commanders have denied all wrongdoing here. They say that they go through intense audits, that they would have caught

all of this. They're disparaging the Jason Friedman, the former employee who's made these allegations in the statements that they put out last week. I think they, you know, were basically threatening to counter sue. I mean, there was just, there was a lot of really, you know, there's a lot of back and statements. It's really, really ugly. But now that we're talking about money and potentially money that impacts the rest of the league and the rest of the owners, even if it's not hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, but it's still money that is impacting the rest of the league, that's where I feel like this could be some sort of a shift in the perception of owners. They were more than willing to turn the blind eye to sexual harassment. And, you know, even sexual harassment

claims directly against Stan Snyder. It's not like, you know, after the congressional hearings where Tiffany Johnston made her claims that all of a sudden you were hearing, you know, other prominent owners saying, okay, now that's it. Now we really got to look at this guy. There wasn't movement like that. But now that all of a sudden we're going to get money involved, I think this could be, you know, this stuff becomes more real where we're talking about could an owner actually be forced to sell his team. Ten million dollars on having a four billion dollar net worth is like what I would pay for a really bad speeding ticket. Like that's how important this was to that. And it feels like this is such a shift, even if it's like you said, Lindsay,

it's not a huge amount of money. And Ben, what you what you said about their ultimate reaction to this and whether or not the owners do want to do something about it, I think it's going to be incredibly telling. Because if they choose not to do anything, what message does that send? And how afraid are they of their own actions, what they're doing in terms of their financial practices? That to me is as big a message as they could probably send here is if they look at what's happening now and choose again not to do anything based on the things that have come to light or potentially come to light based on these allegations. Absolutely. And look, I would love for sort of Lindsay's view to be the one that actually happens. Well, let me look,

let me just note a couple things here. One, part of the reason why I think there's a question of whether the owners will actually ever really act on this is they don't, the owners don't want their own worlds exposed. We think about that in some culture ways. Well, there's also potentially the financial ways. I mean, is Dan Snyder, if this is, they'll say any of this is accurate? Is he the only non-boy Scout there? Or is everybody else on their peas and cubes with every financial aspect of their business? I don't know, but that would be a question to ask. Secondly, Lindsay mentioned Mary Joe White was, the NFL said yesterday that she was going to oversee this aspect of the investigation. Okay, she's already being tasked with investigating the

claims of the sexual harassment claims against Dan Snyder. this is under the purview of Dan Snyder and I'm not smart enough to know but like sexual harassment claims and a financial investigation seem like very different things. Not to mention why is in the NFL just doing it themselves? Why do they need a special person to do this? They have their own auditors and accountants and books and things like that. It almost feels like they're kind of saying, yeah, we're going to do this. We're just going to pile it on to this other person who's doing a completely separate investigation. I could interpret that.

I think if I wanted to as like, boy, this is kind of a, you know, indication that really not pursuing it that aggressively, that they're not taking it so seriously. They're just sort of saying, yeah, yeah, we're doing it. We're promising you because we already have this person do it. In fact, we're just going to have her do this too because we believe in her so much. And Mary Jo White sounds like a perfectly, very, very respectable attorney who's capable of doing these things, but it feels like there would be another way to handle this if you're truly going to investigate the situation. Yeah, Mary Joe White was the former chair of the Securities Exchange Commission under during the Obama and

So if anything, the financial stuff probably seems to be more in her wheelhouse than maybe the investigation investigating the sexual harassment claims. And I don't think it's just her. She has the team of people. But yeah, I mean, this tends to be like Roger Goodell's M.O. Right. Whenever there's any sort of thing, we bring some outside investigator in. And then we can just say, it wasn't our investigation. They're the ones who made this determination and they can kind of try to keep their hands clean or whatever. Or decide to not release any of the findings from the investigation. with however they choose to handle it. Yeah. And that's the other thing too where, you know, he has been asked, like, so you're going to publish producer report and publicly release the findings of this. And they've been a little bit cagey about what's going to happen there. Ben, before we move on, I do want to ask you kind of one other question about like a 30,000 foot view of, you know, the rest of us, we don't know, you know, see the daily things that are going on with Washington. But there's been a lot of just kind of like abnormal things that have been going on elsewhere within that organization in terms of departures.

media relationships with the radio and broadcast partners. There's just a lot of some other things. A lack of movement on the football side. I mean, just like the way they operate day to day as an organization seems to be affected by everything else that's happening. Yeah. So can you kind of give us a sense of like what's been going on over the last couple

years in terms of just the way that this organization has been running that maybe is abnormal from what the other 30 or 31 teams, because there's some other teams that operate do some things weird. But in general, just what are some. some of those other things, whether it's, you know, sponsorships, Anheiser Bush, you know, those sorts of things that have been maybe newsworthy or notable to you that maybe haven't gotten as much play nationally. Sure.

I don't know who coined the term the Mike Tyson's own, meaning at some point, Mike Tyson, no matter what you said he did or didn't do. That was my old boss. That was the Bill Simmons. Yeah. Whatever he claimed, you could be sure. It seems plausible. Well, I think that's basically how it is with Washington to use the.

It's been that way for like 15 years. I was rereading the Dave McKenna thing today from 2010. It's unbelievable how long this has been happening. Yeah. No, it's off the charts and most of it is justified to be skeptical of everything. But like as an example, you mentioned some media change. So they redid their radio broadcast partnerships. They've had a long time deal with one of the local sports radio stations.

They've now moved it to a rock station. And when this immediately came out, everybody was like, oh, here's another example of somebody wanting to dump Washington. This had just come off the Anheiser-Busch situation and which Anheuser-Busch, they've got relationships with all people all over the league, but somehow they pick this organization to end their ties with. But to the radio station, it's actually a pretty normal deal. They decided to open it up for a bid. The previous deal was with a radio station, a sports station.

It was on AM. Not as good a signal. This one is on a huge FM deal. It's actually a pretty normal deal, but immediately everybody just assumes it's a negative. that's just one example of where it's like no matter what you think it's not always the bad case. And maybe that's also true for Anheiser-Busch. I've been told that, hey, the deal is coming up.

Anheuser-Busch may be reshifting how they do some money and things like that. All that said, there are tons of, it is impossible to look at the situation and ever view it as completely normal by any stretch of the imagination. There are always topics that are coming up. And, Robert, to your point of like, how does this affect the football team? That was my next question. I can't sit here and say that as we stand here right now, that they've only signed two outside free agents at this point, which I believe only Dallas has signed as few. And both of their outside free agents had previous ties to Ron Rivera at Carolina.

So really, they've signed zero players that have no previous ties to the head coach or the team. That's weird. And it does bring up the question of like, do players want to come here or do they not? There's also the question of, are they being potentially hamstrung financially? I asked Ron Rivera at the owner's meeting, hey, you guys have been pretty quiet. You make football decisions, but you have a boss. Are you being told you need to cool it on the money? He said no, that they're just only watching from a salary cap perspective.

Maybe. But they also released several players earlier in free agency. They have Landon Collins' contract, which has made a post-June 1 designation, so even more money will be coming off the books. And yet they still haven't done much. Now, maybe they will here in a few weeks once we get past the draft, and things will look normal. and what I just said doesn't really matter,

but it all does seem to connect in some way, shape, or form. Because, you know, when, no matter what the industry is, if you have a boss who is setting, whatever tone they're setting, that permeates down, you attract people to work there who either want to work for that type of individual or this is the best you can kind of get to some degree. And it all connects here in various ways. It's very weird what is happening here this offseason with the football side.

We'll see the end result, but it is hard to separate. one from another right now. Absolutely. And I think that obviously, you know, last two years ago when they made the playoffs and they stumbled into it.

And it was a weird way to make the playoffs, but they still did. And I feel like the narrative around the team at that point in the first year Rivera was, he was brought in to be a stabilizing force. He's such a respected figure

throughout the league and bringing him in to be that for an organization that has been in disarray and a mess and an embarrassment for much of the past two decades was a huge step forward. But like you just, said, it doesn't matter if your head coach is an incredibly respected figure in the professional football world. If every other aspect of the organization is still a mess, it's always going to

seep into whatever you end up doing and whatever the optics and public perception of the organization ends up being. And it feels like even with that brief stint of respectability brought on by his arrival, we are now back in the same place that we're used to being when we're talking about this team and this franchise. For sure. And just to use, you know, Ron Rivera and Team President Jason Wright, are the two people that were hired that have got the most high-profile situations for kind of the reasons that you're saying to help put a fresh new face on the circumstance. But let's also note, Ron Rivera was given personnel say,

I don't think he's getting that say from anywhere else. This is, I think, an example of Dan Snyder kind of fishing for the best he could get. And Ron Rivera saying, hey, this is a good opportunity for me. I'm not going to get anywhere else. So they did that. And when you look at how we judge, Washington's team, there are questions about what is happening here with free agency. Did they panic in the Carson Wendt's trade?

Things like that. And he's not had that previous experience. Then on the side of the Jason Wright, a guy who's, his resume is pretty impressive. He's a very impressive thinker, speaker, all that. They have made a lot of mistakes on his side of the building from things, including like sort of botching the unbotchable Sean Taylor jersey retirement ceremony that gave fans like three days notice. They had a photo op literally in front of a bank of porta potties for this.

Like they botches in a hundred ways. It's not to say that Jason Wright isn't capable. It's to say maybe he wasn't 100% ready for this. He maybe will be fantastic in a couple more years. But he got thrust into this, I think in part because you got to find somebody to do these things and how do you do that? And you did want to, you know, I think with some perhaps some input from the league a little bit as to how to help do this.

They came up at these solutions that do help from the press conference standpoint, but ultimately are they going to solve all your problems? Well, at the moment, the answer would be no. Time will tell ultimately if Revere and Wright can help, but it's 20 years of this. The people shift over and over and over. The one staple is the guy in the owner's box and nothing changes on that front. Do you feel, is your gut feeling that with the financial stuff now being included into this, that this might be the.

a moment where something might change. Or do you think that they have too many incentives to continue sweeping this stuff under the rug? I know that's a tough spot to put you in, but I just, that, to me, is the core of this, right? Like, is this finally going to be it? Or is it just going to be one more bump that they drive right over because of the rest of the league when it's all said and done is not incentivized to invite greater scrutiny into the way that they operate?

You know, I, I grew up here. This was a team of my youth, all my friends and family still here. I would love, they always want to come to me and say, yeah, this is it. Here we go. Let's go. And I'm always like, okay, but I'm just telling you, you're going to be Charlie Brown going to kick the football. I just don't see it. I mean, this one is certainly a little more interesting. I'm not enough of a congressional expert in the FTC. You know, I don't know. Is that a new cable network? I don't know. But like, there's a lot here. It is interesting to see where this goes. But at the end of the day, Congress can't kick Dan Snyder out of the club. Only the other owners can. And ultimately, until we see real. evidence that they're willing to do it, I just don't buy it. And like I said, it feels like they are either afraid of what Dan Snyder might do as retribution or they're just covering up from themselves. I just don't see what happens. Maybe there's, maybe there's another hefty fine on the way. Maybe there's a massive slap on the wrist, public embarrassment, all that. But I,

I need to see more. And by the way, even just now, it is only Jason Friedman, the one, the one, as the one source. I think they're going to need a lot more to really hammer this home if there is something there to hammer home. You're talking about Dan Snyder as if though he's not a very gracious and not petty person, though. And I think that's a mischaracterization of his history. I mean, you mentioned

it before. If you go back and read, if you go online and search Dave McKenna is a local reporter. He had just an insane article, this is years ago. Like you said, detailing just all these so many of them were small and petty grievances that Dan Snyder levied at people, season ticket holders and others,

And just, it's just amazing. And, you know, it continues and continues and continues. I don't know. We'll see where this goes. I mean, I think we're also waiting to hear what his side is, how his side is going to react to this. But usually there's a flurry of statements. It's been, it was relatively quiet. You know, immediately after news of this letter came out that went to the FTC and we'll see what happens there.

But there's always something. And, you know, I'm not expecting them to be mute here for long. I will also say this. Right now, the Democrats run the House Oversight Committee. Political projections suggest that there will be a switch in who's running the House come November. And if that happens, I think a lot of this stuff goes away. Because now that because it has been partisan up on the hill, the Republicans have come very behind Dan Snyder, say whatever you want about that. But if that happens, then a lot of this investigation goes away.

And to some degree, if you're Dan Snyder's group, I got to. imagine you're just thinking how do we run out the clock enough to get to that point if the political projections are accurate. Just bonkers that this is like a political. I know. I'm so glad that we're looking forward to the midterms here. I mean, there is the FTC may be slightly different than what I just said, but and maybe that's a different pipeline. But in terms of this congressional investigation aspect, I think that is accurate. Well, congressional Republicans have made it very clear in their statements that they want nothing to do with any sort of investigation in the NFL. And we know where NFL owners donate a lot of their money,

and it's not too Democratic candidates. So who is going to replace Brennan Sheriff? Right? I mean, let's get to the heart of the question. Right. This is really what it matters, right? We're going to have you back on in October, Ben, to do some polling analysis.

That's the next time we're going to swing back towards this. Oh, absolutely. Right. I'm going to get Nate Silver on as like a podcast guest instead of, you know, instead of you to, to break down the team, I got him to break down if Congress is going to take over. Yeah, I mean, the brain of sheriff joke aside, like they still have a lot of holes. Like they did get dressed the quarterback, say whatever you wanted about Carson Wednesday.

They now have a lot more holes, though, I think, than they did earlier on, especially depth. They've got questions. There is obviously a draft, but they only have two picks in the top 100. So they're going to have to get busy and free agency here at some point to address them. I'll say West Schweitzer. I don't want to tease America too long. West Schweitzer looks like the leading candidate to replace Sheriff. He's actually not terrible.

but I think they could probably use more offensive line help somewhere here. We will have plenty of time to dig into the ins and outs of the Washington football team, which I am going to continue to call them, by the way. You can't make me say it. Washington football team's roster and the state of their football organization. For now, really appreciate the time, Ben. Thank you very much for helping us just dig through one more circus as it relates to this team. I appreciate it.

It's cathartic for me to talk it out. Appreciate it. All right, Lindsay, before we get to Brandon Thorne, before we started recording to The news came down that the Raiders handed Derek Carr a new three-year extension. The initial reports were that it was for about $120 million. So you can do the math there. It's a new money average of $40 million per year. So far, there hasn't been a ton of reporting on the specifics, which is typically telling, right?

If we're not getting the guarantees right off the bat, there might be a reason for that. Pro football talk right before we started recording reported that it looks like it's only going to be $25 million guaranteed at signing. with injury guarantees for 2023, meaning that, let's say things go south this year and year one of a new regime, the Raiders theoretically, if Derek Carr is healthy, could cut him after this season and move on. That seems somewhat unlikely. I think things have to go pretty badly for that to happen, but just something to take into account as we're thinking about the nuances of the finances that have been thrown out there. Yeah, because we saw, I mean, the initial kind of takes were all over the place that like, oh, he's another. guy in the $40 million range. And I think really because it's an extension, it's not a significant

adjustment to his 2022 salary. It looks like he gets a small bump in 2022. It gets $5 million. I think we went from 20 to 25. Ultimately, it's going to be about $35 million a year over the course of this through 2025, assuming he plays out the course of this deal. So, you know, to me, it seems like a very fair deal. Like, you know, it kind of puts him in the range with the comparable quarterbacks. You know, this isn't like excessive money. but it's kind of where the market is for a upper range starter, you know, not necessarily elite quarterback money, but I think you could argue that Derek Carr isn't necessarily an elite quarterback.

He's a quarterback that you can win with. I think he's going to make them competitive in a lot of AFC West games, which is going to be really hard to do. I mean, it's going to be a wild AFC West. We were joking about this and I tweeted this. It was my first thing I tweeted this morning was like, all right, power rank, the AFC West quarterbacks. and I had Derek Carr last.

So you're spending a lot of money to have arguably the fourth quarterback in your division. You could make the case that all four of those quarterbacks probably deserve to be in the, you know, top six or seven of the AFC, if not, you know, these are all really good quarterbacks, right? But it seems to be pretty team friendly. You know, I think the Raiders probably looked around and saw we're not going to do better than Derek Carr in the current quarterback market. he deserves to have a little bit of security, not having all these questions hanging over him the previous regime, didn't seem that eager to give him any sort of extension. The things that were interesting to me are that I wanted to see and we'll see in coming days

as we get to get a full reading of the contract. What exactly are the guarantees? Because this is the first contract post Watson when Deshaun Watson got basically a fully guaranteed $230 million contract. And so there's a lot of discussion over the last few. weeks of is that going to change the future of these quarterback deals? And will all quarterbacks who come after this be getting significant guarantees, if not fully guaranteed deals? Right now, it doesn't seem like Derek Carr got that. If Derek Carr got a fully guaranteed deal, his agent would

probably be- We'd know about it. Yeah, he would be broadcasting that everywhere. That hasn't really happened. And if anything, it seems like maybe he didn't even get close to that in terms of fully guarantees. And then the other thing that I think is interesting is that this deal does include to no trade class. And this is not uncommon necessarily for quarterbacks, but given the power that we've seen quarterbacks have, given with no trade clauses, this offseason, Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson, most notably, there was a lot of discussion at the league meetings late last month from team executives who were real unhappy with no trade clauses and did not want to be including them in their future deals. If it used to be something that we'd throw in as like a

little bit of goodwill to a guy who's meant a lot to your your franchise or whatever. Maybe you did that as a way to get a deal done. But we've seen quarterbacks wield that power. No trade cause does not mean we're not going to trade you. All it does is kind of give the player back some control and some power, which two guys have used to their advantage this off season. And Kirk Cousins also got one. I think the Kirk Cousins comparisons with the Derrick Carr deal makes sense. his one year, 35 million. It's really just a way to kind of buy themselves a little bit more time as they figure this out.

I think that's the one year of guarantees that Carr got. But let's say just hypothetically, he does play this out. And he does make a new money average $40 million over the years three to four of this extension. I think that's fine. And you look at where that deal falls now. It's in, I think, the fifth highest deal in the league in terms of APY among quarterbacks.

By the time some of these other extensions roll in. Lamar potentially, Kyler Murray, if Carr plays out this contract, Russell Wilson is going to get a new deal. Russell Wilson is probably going to get a new deal. What happens with Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert, in two years,

there's a chance that Derek Carr is sitting at $40 million with the 10th highest quarterback salary in the league, which I think is fine. I'm not overly worked up about this. It's definitely another reminder that paying a veteran quarterback isn't cheap. And that's why you have teams that are going to, I think as we continue to go here,

you're going to have teams that are more willing to roll the dice on the guys than the draft because it's such a market advantage. And you look at this, you look at $40 million a year for Derek Carr, even with the cap going up, and you look at what you have to pay somebody on a rookie deal if you hit. And it's just such a huge chasm. And I think this is a reminder of that even if I don't think the Derek Carr deal on its own is necessarily bad.

So you look at right now, okay, the cap, let's say next year hits $225 million for argument sake. It might even be higher than that. But let's say it's $2.25 from 208 this year. At $40 million a year and new money, that's about 18% of the salary cap. If you look at the deal that Derek Carr got in 2017 when the salary cap was $167 million, that was $25 million a year. That's 15% of the cap. It's not that big of a difference. And I think that right now, based on the way he played last year, Derek Carr in 2020,

is a more valuable quarterback relative to his peers in the league than he was in 2017 when he got that extension. So even if he plays this out, I don't think this deal as it relates to the overall quarterback market is offensive to me in any way, even if it absolutely is expensive. But when you factor in where the deals might be going, the increase in the cap, and the fact that they do have a potential trapdoor after year one that gives themselves a little bit of flexibility, I can understand how if you're the Raiders and looking at possible alternatives, a deal you just made for Devante Adams, just some organizational urgency overall, you land on this being the best case scenario for you. Look, I'm excited to see what Josh McDaniels is going to do with Derek Carr. You know, I think Derek Carr is pretty good.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, he's not. Look, I ranked him fourth in the AFC. West. He's the line to me. Derek Carr is the line.

Yeah. I think if you're worse than Derek Carr, committing to your. your quarterback long term is a dicey proposition. I think if you're better than Derek Carr, you should commit to that quarterback. I think if you have Derek Carr, I can understand both ways. And it feels like they've tried to split the difference exactly with the way that they've orchestrated this. He's so it's like the car continuum. Like what's that what's the exact? It's not the Mendoza line. It's going to be like a car. We need to coin that before Sando steals it from us. makes it a column.

What does continuum mean? I was just trying to do some alliteration. So just something that's alliteration. Continuum. I don't know. I don't know if that works. A continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct.

The car continuum actually works. All right. Car continuum. That is the rule that we are using to hand out quarterback contracts here moving forward. Don't make me define things on air ever again. That was scary. That's okay. All right.

So moving forward, we will use the car continuum to decide whether or not a quarterback deserves to be extended. If you are on one side of the car continuum, whatever you want. If it's $60 million a year, we could talk ourselves into it. If you're on the wrong side of the car continuum, no. No extension, no matter what it is unless it's far below market value. I think as a general rule moving forward, that's totally acceptable. I like it. Where would you put Baker Mayfield?

Oh, he's on the wrong side of the car continuum. His dog is on the right side of the car continuum. him now. If Baker Mayfield's dog came to me right now, was like, I want $35 million a year to be the starting quarterback of the Panthers. Like, if he went to David Tepper, I think David Tepper would have to consider it. That dog, talk about having a resting heart rate, just like a slow pulse when you want as a quarterback, that dog not bothered by anything. When the bullets are flying, he'd be great. If you don't know what we're saying, Baker Mayfield did a podcast. It was like a video podcast and his, I believe, Australian Shepherd, who we do not know the dog's name, which is a big fail on my part as a journalist. here just snoozed through the whole thing did like the full on the back legs in the air um i just don't know how baker didn't just sit there and give him a belly rub the entire time though that like that's some like cold-hearted shit it's a red flag see a belly there and not not rub it i mean you guys you can't see where this is an audio medium right now but i have two dogs sleeping directly behind me i'm going to back my chair up so robber can see them at least i mean we don't have like full

bellies exposed right now, but I've got like sleeping dog. This is a, oh, we got an now one's awake. So hello, Nellie. This is a very pro dog podcast, at least when Nate is not on, Midge would have some objections. But yeah, look, but Baker Mayfield felt disrespected, thinks he might still play for the Seahawks and has an awesome dog. That's the takeaways. That's the most important thing that we learned today. All right. That's all we got. It is time to get to our conversation with Brandon Thorne. Let's chat about some big boys in this year's draft. All right. It's time now to get to a conversation I love having every single year. And that's one about the big boys in this draft. And I really didn't want to have it with anyone else, except for my buddy, Brandon Thorne,

who runs the Trench Warfare Substack and Podcast. If you guys have not subscribed to it and want to learn more about offensive line play, I could not recommend it any more strongly. He had several film rooms with guys that we're going to talk about in this class, you know, hour-long breakdowns with their film, Bernard Raymond, Trevor Penning. Who else? did you talk to Brandon a bunch of different guys um equanim ikey yep yickey um marquise hayes is kind of one of my guys i got him in there i did luke go decky today zion johnson too right zion yeah um yeah and i had one with charles cross i forgot to hit record oh no i know dude hopefully i can get that one again and i'm doing one with uh cole strange so oh that's awesome okay yeah just a really cool look into their process

These are deep dives into a dozen, 15, 20 plays, and you hear them talk through what was happening on those plays. Again, if you guys want to learn more about offensive line play, Brandon's work is a fantastic resource. So I'm coming to this class late. We all know this. I'm open about it. I don't shy away from it. So here's what I wanted to do today. I wanted to ask you 10 stupid questions about this offensive line class.

Just have you walk me through my novice understanding. of this and see if I can be a little bit smarter by the time we get to the end. I only have 10. I could have done a lot more, but I limited myself to 10. All right. Sounds good to me. All right. Let's start at the top here. Evan Neal is 6-7 and change. He was a five-star recruit. He was a true freshman starter at the University of Alabama. You can list on one hand the guys that did that. There are a lot of superstar level players who managed it, Julio Jones, guys of that ilk.

he moved to left tackle this year, played very well at left tackle. He seems to me to check a lot of boxes. So why isn't Evan Neal like the clear cut number one offensive tackle prospect, number one pick type of guy in this class? I think you have to mention that he didn't test. So that kind of, which to me isn't maybe as big of a deal as it is to maybe some other people. but he has no testing numbers at all. So, you know, pro day or combine. So that right there just kind of, you know,

throws a little bit of an unknown in there. Another kind of, you know, notch under his belt, I guess, is he was a number one freak on Bruce Feldman's freak list. So we know that's why the testing seems a little less important to me. Right, right. I'm just trying to play the devil's advocate here. But, yeah, so that. And then in terms of like on film,

I think the main kind of knock on him would be that he falls off blocks. in the run game a little bit too much, kind of a tendency to lean on guys and not really like reset his hands and refit and kind of reestablished position when guys shed off. So he, you know, he's on the ground a little bit more than you would ideally want to see. But man, it's not, it's not like a too glaring of an issue to me. That's really like the main thing that's on tape that's kind of a knock. But you also have to consider that he hasn't played the same position twice or in consecutive seasons in his college career. He went right card, right tackle, left tackle. So he doesn't really have any sort of consistency or that ability to build upon,

you know, the same position in back to back years, which I think is important. And he's also only 21 years old. So, well, him, Aquano and Cross were all just 21. So they're all young. But yeah, there's so many things working in his favor. And I agree. I think, you know, it's kind of surprising that He's not kind of considered the runaway favorite, but those are the reasons that I can think of to why he's not. When you watch him, and I was watching the Georgia game earlier this morning, the explosiveness is obviously on display, right? I mean, he busts out of his stance and he's smooth. He's clearly a fantastic athlete. And when he knows where guys are coming from, he's a pain in the ass.

I mean, strong anchor, everything that you want to see, his change of direction might worry me a little bit. on stunts and beyond the leaning in the run game, it feels like if he's starting to lean one way and there's a twist coming back the other way, he doesn't always react as quickly as you would want someone with his physical profile to react in those moments. Is that something you also saw when you were watching him? Well, the Georgia game specifically you saw that.

I think that's probably the game you saw more than any other. But I would say that... Of course, I picked the one game where that happened all the time. Yeah, I mean, granted, you know, probably best competition, best defense, things like that. lot of, you know, multiple looks with great athletes everywhere and, you know, that kind of thing. And, you know, he's listed to 350 pounds. You know, he was heavier than that, I think, prior, you know, in prior seasons. So, you know, elite lateral quickness, you know, raw lateral quickness is probably not there. I would qualify it more as like above average, you know,

which is fine. And, you know, he also has dropped weight since the end of season, I think around 15 pounds. You know, he's like 335, 3.35, 3.3. 40 now. That might help him a little bit in that regard. And also just seeing things quicker and I think some of that would come with playing the position a little bit more. Granted, he played left tackle in high school, I believe, but still, you know, just not having that consistency there. So I think it's kind of a little bit of both, you know, a little bit of being just such a massive dude and also maybe not seeing it as quick as you would, you know, ideally won every time. That game, like I said, is it's kind of on display more than any other. But yeah, I think that's definitely

another thing that you would kind of put under the, you know, areas to improve tab for him. But, man, there's there's so many positives and you touched on some of them. When I initially started watching him, I was expecting more of like a Orlando Brown, Trent Brown, you know, kind of guy in terms of how he was moving in past protection. You know, they get out of their stance fine, but really they stay inside out on rushers and they force guys to go around them. Neil, like you said. They use the size.

They leverage their frames in very obvious ways. Yeah, they do. And I think part of that is because they don't have the athletic ability that Neil has. And that's what really jumped out to me is he's a much better mover just out of his stance. He's very fluid and smooth, like you said. And to be that big and that long as well, man, I just think there's a lot to like in pass protection. And in the run game, I mentioned the weakness. But, man, he could really generate a lot of movement in the run game as well.

he's a powerful dude. And having that positional versatility is huge as well. So, yeah. That tendency to lean. Is that something that you feel like with some technique work and just the right amount of coaching? That's something that can be improved? Or do you think that that's just like a style of play consideration? It's a really good question.

And I think it really is dependent on the player. You know, I know that that one thing has probably been the main focus for him in training with Duke Mannyweather down there in Dallas. So that's something that they're working on. They've worked on. I think they believe they've corrected it or at least made dramatic improvement on it. But I do think theoretically it is improvable. You can correct that because I think a lot of it has to do with how you use your hands.

You know, maybe staying a little bit lighter on your hands, keeping your feet underneath you, and just learning kind of the feel of when to reset yourself on blocks a little bit more. So I think it is correctable. It doesn't always get corrected. You know, I think we're going to have to kind of wait and see. And, you know, hopefully it is. But, yeah, it's something they're aware of. He's aware of and that they're working on.

So, yeah, it would be very interesting to see how he does as a rookie. It just feels like with his physical profile. And like you said, the frame combined with the explosiveness and the movement skills that come with that frame, it's just a dice roll work taken. I mean, it's one of those things where you figure out the weaknesses later based on everything you can talk yourself into with him as a prospect. All right. Next question here.

Among first round tackle prospects, you know, guys that we see as left tackles most likely to play left tackle in college that we expect to go in the top half of the first round. There's a reason I'm qualifying this is because more malling type right tackle prospects are in a different conversation. Among those high-end left tackle prospects from the past decade, where would you say Iku Kuanu ranks as a run blocker? Gosh.

I mean, it's hard not to say, I mean, he's definitely like in the top three. You know, I haven't. Would you say he's better than Bechton? I think so. What's on film, not what you would project forward based on traits. Yeah, I think so, yeah, because he brings the element of that Trent Williams-esque movement in space, where Bechton is more so just his sheer power at the point of attack was just outrageous. I mean, Aquano has that as well, but it's his ability to pull, get out, you know, in space around the corner and track down second and third level guys and not just track them down, but absolutely, absolutely destroy them.

It's very, it has kind of shades of like a Jason Peters, Trent Williams kind of feel to him in that specific area of his game. So he also can dominate the first level, but to have that second and third level dominant ability, you know, I think the best way to describe him is his run blocking is better than any other offensive linemen in the class is run blocking or pass blocking. That's how I feel about Aquano. And it's just how much you value that in the right place, of course, that would be able to be accentuated the most. But I think there's higher variance in pass protection with him.

So that's my question here. Are we getting too intoxicated by the run blocking? Because it's so easy to get intoxicated by it. I think there was a two-play stretch. I want to say it was the Alabama game where he threw a DB, like just turned and threw him. And on the very next play, he just buried a defensive end. And it's like back-to-back plays against really good competition. And that happens every game.

I mean, every single game you watch him, there's a handful of those plays. And it's so easy to fall in love with the physicality and the approach. And beyond that, I mean, by all accounts, super sharp dude. Yes. I mean, very intelligent. I mean, a lot of things to like about him and all these intangible. ways. But do we want to get distracted by that stuff when we're talking about top 10 left tackle prospects and what ultimately drives high-end production at the position when we're getting to the

NFL? Yeah, that's the question. I think that was the Mississippi State game that you're referring to. Oh, that was it. That was the Mississippi State game. That's exactly what it was. Yep. That game is incredible. And then shortly after that, the Clemson game, I mean, that game went. It was 100 plays. I refused to watch it. Dude, I watched that game multiple times. It was 115 or 118 plays. And you look at 100 on, you know, those last 20 plays, 100, you know, 115.

He looks the same that he did in play one. And it's just like, oh, my gosh. So there's this level of like endurance with him too. That's just, you know, unreal. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I just think, you know, where he goes is going to be important. If you're looking at a team in the top five, somewhere like the Jets, you know, I think because they run that Shanahan-esque system, that scheme, you would think they're going to have a lot of play action, RPO's, allow him to be aggressive in pass protection. Yeah, it's a really good point. I think that that will really help him.

That's where he looks best, right? Yeah, yeah, that's where you want him because you're selling the run, obviously, on those plays. So you get to, you know, be aggressive, get your hands on a guy, jump set, a lot. eliminate space and kind of, you know, put the game in his hands a little bit more, not have him get out in space on true dropback passes. That's where you're going to see a lot of variance with his game. And, you know, if you are one of those teams, obviously, you're not going to value him as high. If you're a Shanahan kind of system where, you know, you can kind of lead with the run game and then you play action off of it, move the pocket, kind of, you know, things like

that. He, you know, I could very, you know, I could see he's the best tackle in the draft for you. if you're in that kind of you're running that scheme. But yeah, I mean, it's going to depend on where he goes because of that. And that's why I ultimately lean Neil, but I have them as the top two tackles in the draft in the same tier. It's just like kind of like a pick your flavor thing. I mean, Neil is a little bit more polished, a little bit more well-rounded, less to maybe clean up. But again, Icky has that trump card that is just, it's very difficult to overlook that. and people have compared him to Greg Robinson as well.

I've seen that. I see the similarities, but I've heard from former teammates of Greg Robinson that in practice, he was absolutely dominant, but in the games, it was just too big for him. It was a mental thing.

He just couldn't connect the play calls to the plays and be on the same page with the offense, things like that. I don't think Ike is going to have that problem. So when you have a guy as sharp as he is, like you mentioned with football, intelligence and all that kind of stuff, It makes you a little bit more encouraged, I guess, to want to roll the dice on a guy like that because of what he does well is so, it's rare.

Greg Robinson, obviously, his NFL career didn't turn out. I think that when you mentioned his name, people, it's kind of a punchline in terms of the league itself. His college tape was absolutely insane. Like, shit you've never seen before from a man that size in the run game. So that comparison, while it may not seem like a flattering one, when we're talking about as prospects, it's a very flattering one. So as a pass blocker, what do you think, what's like the main weakness in your mind? What's the thing that you kind of, it's sticking with you as you think, ah, this, this worries me. I can't get over this.

I would say oversetting guys. He has a tendency to be a little over aggressive with his set points and landmarks and just over, overset guys. get a little bit too far, kind of lean outside. His weight distribution gets a little bit too far outside the cylinder of his body. And, you know, guys can set them up. You know, they can use some stutters. They can, you know, vary their tempo. And in the NFL, everybody can pretty much do that if you're starting in the NFL as an edge rusher.

So, man, if you could set him up, you know, vary your tempo, give them some stutters, hesitations. You're going to be able to cross his face and go inside. And that's the worst way to lose. tackle inside, obviously, quickest path to quarterback, all that. So the oversetting is pretty persistent on his tape. And then his hands as well, I think the strike timing of them, you know, is a little off. Sometimes he could be early, sometimes he could be late. I think that's more of a product of kind of where his feet are and being a little bit too, you know, far outside. He can open up a little too early as well, you know, kind of like his shoulders and his hips, you know, towards the

sideline, you know, and that's never a good thing either. That kind of exacerbates the issue of oversetting as well. So, you know, there's all those things, you know, there's a lot to clean up. And I think as the year went on, when you watch them against Wake Forest, when you watch him against Syracuse, later in the year, his technique, I thought progressively got worse as the season went on. It kind of broke down a little bit. So those are some very real concerns. concerns. Again, they're technically fixable. Technique. It kind of is, you know, but those things don't always get fixed, man. I mean, it's, you know, it's one of those things is you got to be, you have to have a plan for that and be careful about it and, you know, put them in the right situation with the right

coach who can cue it the right way. And, you know, so there's just more variance there, man. It's tricky because it's a very real concern. Speaking of variance, and we talk about the different flavors of these guys. It's wild, how different all the guys the tackles at the top of this class are in your mind how much of a gap is there between the top two guys and charles crossed from mississippi state not a huge gap so um but but there is a tier difference i would say uh for me so for our you know just give people context our grading scale at leach report um you know eight five to eight nine is an impact player first round grade nine o to nine four is a top ten grade i have um neal and

as a 90. So that's basically, you know, a low end top 10 grade. And then 8.5 to 8.9, I have Ike and Cross in that same tier, but on the opposite side. So I have Ikey as 89, crosses 8.5. So, and the reason for that is, you know, I think Cross's scheme that he comes from. It's kind of a cliche at this point, but I think there's some validity to it is the air raid scheme. He's coming from Mike Leach's offensive system, you know, where pass protection is made, a little bit easier for you at tackle. Part of that is the increased splits that you play with. It eliminates space between you and the pass rusher a lot of the time. So you don't really have to set out on an island a whole lot. Granted, he does do that on tape, you know, periodically, but it's just

not at the frequency. I don't think that you see it again, you know, in terms of like Evan Neal. So that to me is going to cause, I think, a little bit of a, you know, an adjustment period for him. I do think he has the physical traits to do that. He has good reps, you know, against wide nine, you know, aligned rushers. Because, I mean, on money downs in the NFL, you're going to see a wide nine. It's just the way it is, you know. So he's going to see that a lot more in the NFL. So that, to me, is the biggest question.

Another thing about him that gives me a lot of confidence is he, while he played in the air raid for his two years of starting, you know, in college, he got recruited in a totally different scheme. and then that coaching staff got let go and the air raid, you know, Mike Leach came in. So he actually got recruited for like a downhill power run game. So he has that element to his game. Like he's physical.

His play strength, I think is above average. And I think he's an above average to very good run blocker. I mean, he has a lot of good tapes, especially against Alabama as a run blocker. So he's not a typical air raid guy who, you know, maybe a little soft or you have questions like that. I don't have those questions across. It's more so just the alignments that he's going to see are just going to be very different in the NFL.

But yeah, I mean, I do still like him a lot. He has a, you know, like a mid first round grade for me. So I like him. I mean, you look at it. His physical profile is very impressive. His movement testing is exactly where you'd want it to be. And his length shows up. He gets on guys.

I thought he used his hands really well. And we talk about that balance issue where Neil occasionally can have. have some trouble redirecting on stunts. Across the opposite. He is so smooth in almost all of those situations, great awareness. Like all the things you'd want to see from a pass blocker as a prospect, he checks a lot of those boxes for me. I mean, he's just snatching guys and ending plays pretty often in an impressive way against

real competition. Yeah, that's the thing. Definitely real competition in the SEC, obviously, a lot of really good pass rushes this year. You know, when I went back and watched his tape, I kind of had it in mind to watch where these passersers were aligned. And you see a lot of five techniques, you know, even like a ghost seven technique, I call it if a titan is there or not, you know, a little bit wider than a five technique, not quite a wide nine. You see some of that too, you know,

that's common. But I mean, when guys are aligned tight on you like that as a five technique right outside your outside shoulder, you should look very smooth and good on those reps. I mean, you're not going to see that in the NFL a whole lot. But, you know, if you, if you have that scenario, you should lock that guy down every time. So you see him do that. It's like, yeah, you check the box. But you really have to kind of signal or, you know, you kind of have to identify those reps where he has that wide nine alignment.

And there's not a whole lot of those, but they are there on tape. The Arkansas one against Trey Williams is a very good one to watch. You could see him get tested a lot in that one and get beat a few times. Alabama, you see it a few times. Didn't see Will Anderson. and once in that game, unfortunately, which sucks. But yeah, I mean, the more you watch, you know, you see it more. But yeah, that's going to be the question because he's going to be, he's going to be tested a lot more than he was in college,

even though he's coming from the SEC, just in terms of the alignment and the space that he's going to have to deal with. So for most people, including yourself, the next tier down for tackles, it consists of Bernard Raymond from Central Michigan and Trevor Penning from Northern Iowa. It's funny because they're both really like 90 percentile athletes at, in 6-6-ish frames, but very different play styles. So where would you feel comfortable taking both of those guys and which of them do you prefer? So both of them have the same grade essentially for me, which is a fringe first-round grade. So for us is, you know, 8-0 to 8-4. I have them with 8-0s, and that's a year-one starter, but it's at the down, you know, the low end of that.

So it's very, it's like right on the fringe, you know, like I said. So ideally you get them at the, you know, end of the first or early second. I think Penning is definitely going before that. Raymond will probably go around there, I would think. I actually favor Raymond, though. And the reason for that is because you look at his background, very interesting background, you know, coming from Austria, you know, came as a tight end to central Michigan, moved to the offensive line in 2020.

So he's only been playing offensive line for two years of his last. life 18 starts but he has picked up on things exceptionally quick in terms of body control um his balance is outstanding plays with amazing balance he you hear him talk he sounds like a mild manored Austrian man and when you watch him play he plays football like a mild mannered Austrian man and I mean that in the best way possible it's like very in control very balanced like there was a play against LSU where they ran a stunt and he came off in a long touchdown. Like that's the play that keeps coming back to me where it's just like super in control,

just never outside of himself. I guess is how I would describe. That's a good way to say it. Yep, exactly. And to do that, you know, only 18 games. And at that point, LSU, it was what, like nine or 10 games into his career. Yeah. The position in his life.

That to me really is intriguing to me because even though he's going to be older, you know, he's going to be a 25 year old rookie, I think he's a very young. football player obviously with room to grow more so than a typical 24 25 year old would have. So the age concern is a little bit, you know, lower for me because of that. And then the length thing, I think is a valid question, you know. So up 33 inch arms. Yeah, 32 and 7.8 at the combine, 33 at the senior bowl, whatever it is. It's, you know, 33, whatever.

So that is an issue sometimes, but it's also kind of a technique thing as well, opening up. too quickly, basically, and creating a short corner for pass rushers. I've heard that a lot of teams like him at guard, and I think that's the main reason why. That to me is fine. I would prefer to try him to tackle one of those things and then, you know, kind of let him fail and go inside if need be. But I think his play strength, too, is better than you would think for a guy who's, you know, barely 300 pounds. I've heard some people say he gets blown up in his anchor. I just didn't see that on tape. I thought his anchor was really impressive.

I mean, guys, there's multiple, on the film room we did, there's multiple examples of him taking on speed to power, a bull rush, and guys at his feet behind him, you know, like kind of trash around his feet. A lot of the times you see guys fall down or get off balance in that. He can play through that trash very well, maintain his base, maintain his balance, his posture, all that kind of stuff. And he's a really good finisher as well. He doesn't have as many knockdowns as a guy like penning, but he's an excellent finisher as well.

So he plays with kind of that physicality. I mean, there's a lot to like there. It's just, you know, there's a couple of concerns. And that's why I have him as a fringe first. But I just think his upside and his trajectory is clearly headed up for me. And then penning, man, you know, height, weight, length, prototypical in all those ways. Obviously, the testing was outstanding. the best tester in the draft.

I don't think he plays like that in terms of his athletic ability on the field. I qualify it more as like above average, but it's nice for him to kind of check that box. To me, it's all about technique for penning and leverage. He plays very high. He's a tall guy, you know, 6, 7. He plays high. He lets guys get underneath and inside his frame too often,

and he doesn't recover very well when that happens. So that to me is my biggest concern. and then his hands as well. He needs a lot of work with his hands in terms of placement and strike timing and things like that. He can just straight up miss guys, get swiped, lose quickly. You saw it at the Senior Bowl as well. So for that to happen at Northern Iowa, you know, that scares me. But the thing is about him, he's wired the right way.

I've heard NFL teams love him. He's highly intelligent, very serious about his craft, all that kind of stuff. that kind of gives you some comfort that he can improve these things. But man, I just have questions about pad level use of hands and just letting guys get inside of him too often. It's kind of funny because like I said with Raymond, he very rarely plays outside of himself. Penning plays outside of himself a lot. And the fact that they physically have, you know, Raymond had great testing numbers,

really good movement. I mean, it doesn't always show up when you watch him play. But he also is the same sort of physical size and moves really well. And just when you watch them, their style and like the flavor of how they play the game is just so, so different, which is fascinating to me. All right, outside of those top five guys, is there a toolsy tackle prospect that you would love to see the right offensive line coach get his hands on? I mean, I think the obvious answer is Tyler Smith from Tulsa. You know, he could play guard potentially, but I have him graded as a tackle. He's extremely young.

He turned 21 this month. Ideal height, weight, arm length, tested very well, all that kind of stuff. Checks the boxes. He's a guy you would build in a lab, basically, on paper. He's coming from Tulsa, though. Didn't see great competition. It's a decent competition. And his technique is, I would, it's very, very raw.

I would say that. He plays wild. I love you dancing around with words you were going to pick there. Yeah, I didn't want to, yeah. I mean, he's just kind of like a wild stallion out there. I mean, he really just kind of wings it a lot with his hands, his pads, carries his hands down by his waist even lower. And he's in his pass set with his hands almost just like his arms are fully extended. And he's just almost standing straight up. I mean, that kind of stuff, that's just a no-go in the NFL.

Guys are going to eat him alive. and they did sometimes in college tape as well. He had 16 penalties this year, I believe 12 or 13 holding penalties. And there was a lot of them that were not called as well. The Houston game, there's a pass rush that was at the shrine game. David and I want to say, man, he just tore Tyler Smith up in that game and pass protection. However, he kind of reminds me of Trace Smith a little bit in terms of how he looks on tape. and when he gets locked into a guy, the rep is over.

He has dominant grip strength, legit power. He can naturally anchor. I mean, there's just a lot of natural ability there and a competitive toughness that is just very, very enticing. I have him graded in the third round, and I really like him. Now, that's going to kind of seem crazy because people have them mocked in the first round. and from what I've heard he's going to go on the first round, that to me, there's no way I would do that. But man, if you can get him in the third round, you know, I love him in a place like that. And I had a third round grade on Trey Smith last year.

I could see him having that type of impact if he goes to the right spot, which Trey Smith went to the ideal spot. Absolutely. So that's one guy. You're in a room with Joe Tuni getting coached by Andy Hack is not a bad place to jumpstart your office line development. Right. I know. It's the absolute perfect spot. So if he can go to an absolute perfect spot, I could see him being kind of his deal potentially.

But the difference is, Trace Smith had the medical concerns. Obviously, he won the sixth round. You know, Tyler Smith in the first, I just don't see that. So that one's going to be interesting to see. There's a couple later round guys that are interesting. I like Spencer Burford from UTSA. He's kind of a shorter guy, but very long arms, almost 35-inch arms, and he's like six-four and change. and he uses his length very well.

He's an intriguing guy that I'd roll the dice on, you know, day three. He might have to play inside, but I like him. That would probably be my guy. I kind of like Rashid Walker as well from Penn State. Another like fourth round grade for me. A lot of power. He can anchor naturally. Again, technique is all over the place.

But, man, you know, when it clicks, he has stuff he can't teach that you can really work with. So I like Rashid Walker a little bit as well. All right. Is Tyler Linderbaum, the center from Iowa, enough of a talent outlier to justify taking him in the first round? I believe so, yeah, I do, man. His run blocking is after Icky, I think his run blocking is the best in the class for any position. It's, he's a dynamic run blocker. I mean, it's just is what it is.

He's played, I think 2019, I heard Mike Renner from P. FFF save is he played around 265 pounds and he was an excellent run blocker in the big 10. It's great. There's just there's something about this guy in terms of the leverage he plays with and the power he has. He like my comp for him is a more powerful, stronger Garrett Bradbury and that's Garrett Bradbury's Achilles heel is a lack of play strength and power. And I think Lindervaum has that. Now granted he's still going to need a little bit more protection in built into the scheme. and pass protection. You don't want to, you know, let him be by himself against elite pass rushers.

Granted, you know, as I say that, there's maybe like two or three centers in the game that you would be comfortable with that. But still, you look at a place like Philly, a big reason why Jason Kelsey has had as much success as he has had is because, you know, I've heard this from Brandon Brooks and Lane Johnson. They're all masterminds. The tackles their play on an island and the guards are helping Kelsey. The tackles literally cannot come inside. They're on a lot. an island do your own thing we're going to build this pocket in the middle with these giant guards there's 335 pound guards exactly and that's why you do that for somebody the reason why you do that for somebody like kelsey is because of what he does is in the run game i feel like if you can build

something similar like what the saints did back in the day with drew breeze having those big hulking guards the sea hawks with russ wilson big carl nix yeah exactly i mean if you could put a couple guys like that next to them. They don't have to be all pros, just bigger dudes who can hold, you know, that are very good against the bull rush, stuff like that, then you can accentuate everything that he does well. He has plenty of quickness and I think fluidity and pass protection to handle like subpackage type smaller rushers. His lateral quickness is outstanding. You know, and he has a pretty good anchor as well. But he's guys are just going to be able to establish first meaningful contact on him more often than not, because of his length. That's just kind of the thing you have to live with with him.

So a typical first round pick, you don't want to have these caveats and say, yeah, if you build this, you know, if you incorporate this into the scheme, that's typically not what you want to say with the first round offensive Wyman. But I think what he does in the run game is special enough to warrant those considerations. And for that reason, I would definitely say he's a first round pick. All right. I want to be clear about this. I loved watching his tape. All right, it's hard not to. If you like offensive line play and you watch him, reach guys a gap and a half over consistently and smoothly all the time, it's hard not to be impressed by that. And again, I'm wondering if we're getting too intoxicated by that ability because it's so rare.

And then you look at just the history of players built like him in the league. Some other guys that have played center and they've come through the combine at less than 300 pounds recently. Corey Lindsley was 296, Brian Allen was 298. We're talking about fourth and fifth round picks with these guys. So that's the gap. And Garrett Bradbury is another good example, but the Garrett-Bradberry experience and experiment has not gone very well.

So it's just such a sliver when you talk about the outcomes necessary to justify taking him that high. And that's beyond even positional value stuff, where you just think about the excess value you get from hitting on an all-pro-level center compared to other positions. I hope it works because when you watch him in that scheme, he is a true weapon in the run game of what he allows your guards to do. And that's fun to watch. But again, I think it's important to take into account all of the different factors

when you're talking about a player at that position at his size and where and how he can succeed in the league. Yeah, I mean, all really good points. I think it's not just reaching guys gap in a half with him. Like, he can do that obviously. but I think it's the grip strength, the leg drive, the hip mobility, all these type of things. I mean, he's explosive through contact and he can really. It's not just the movement.

He really takes guys over when he does that. Yeah. I mean, it's impressive on a bunch of different levels. Right, right, right. And, you know, for him, I think what really helped him as well in the pro day. You know, he weighed over 300 pounds and he had the best three cone of all time. It was better than receivers. Yeah.

His three cone was about the same as Sky Moors three cone from the combine. Right, and he was 302, I want to say. Yeah, something like that, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, the fact that he could test like an elite athlete over 300 pounds, I think could, you know, I would assume he's going to play right around 300. And to maintain all that athletic ability and all that type of stuff is comforting. But, yeah, I mean, to me, when I watched him, you know, I was going into it thinking, okay, yeah, this is a guy's going to be able to reach a three technique, stuff like that.

That's fine. We saw Bradbury do it, you know, in his sleep at NC State. but we didn't see him, you know, in terms of vertical displacement, finishing guys way down the field. I mean, and his ability to track guys at the second and third levels and stuff like that as well. He has all that. But again, you know, for me, even though I have him graded as a mid first round pick, I think ideally you get a guy like that late first. And again, you have to kind of build things around him a little bit like the Eagles did with Kelsey.

because Kelsey has a lot of help in past protection. The scheme caters to Kelsey. And I think that's why a lot of sub 300 pound centers have failed is because a lot of guys, a lot of teams and stuff are not catering, you know, things to you to that degree. And I think if a team could do that even a little bit, it can help him because his biggest concern, and you saw it on tape against Keanu Benton from Wisconsin. I think the Illinois tape as well, you see this, him get knocked off levels. guys get into him and just kind of drive him back.

He's a little slow to anchor sometimes, especially when he's not expecting it. He can get picked and stuff like that. That can be kind of mitigated a little bit if you're willing to do that as an offensive play designer and things like that. And just how you're constructing your offensive lines. So, yeah, I mean, valid points. I agree with pretty much all of them.

But, man, I do think his run blocking and sort of his blend of explosiveness and power is really special and it's kind of worth making those adjustments for. I think that's totally fair. And you watch him, the power stands out compared to other guys who play at that size. It's not just the movement skills. He really does play with exceptional leverage and hand strength, and that is obvious.

So there's a chance that he's able to transcend some of this stuff, but it would require him transcending it. I mean, even beyond the weight, he's 6-2. He has 31-inch arms. Like, he's just a small guy compared to what we typically, Yeah. I mean, he, first percentile arm length compared to other offensive line prospects to come through the combine in the last 20 years.

He would just be a physical outlier compared to people we've seen succeed at that position, but he is a talent outlier. And it's just about squaring those two things and how you're able to do it. That's the conversation you have to have with yourself in the room. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the ideal spot, you know, somewhere like 31, you know, to Cincinnati. you know, that'd be a really good spot for him, you know, play inside. I don't know who their left guard is going to be. If it's Jackson, Carmen, that's a bigger dude. You know, Cap is not the biggest

guy, but, you know, so maybe the personnel around him is an ideal, but like late first, yeah, that's probably the best place to get a guy like that. And he'll be with a really good line coach and, you know, things like that as well. So, yeah, that's kind of a spot that I think of, you know, that could be very intriguing for him. All right. If you had to bet on one lineman in this, draft at any position being a 10-year starter in the NFL. Are you taking Zion Johnson? Yes. Yes. Why? Yes. So, yeah, I mean, when you watch his tape, I just think he's the most polished guy that I've seen probably in this class, honestly, in terms of fundamentals and technique, you know, playing with good leverage, not playing outside of himself, being balanced. But he also

has the play strength and the power that you want. He can uproot guys and create displacement on gap concepts on duo. And the great thing about Boston colleges, you saw them do everything. So they're just a joy to watch. I mean, they're well coached. You're seeing duo, outside zone, inside zone, pinpole, counter, power.

Just every box checked. You see every block you would want to see an interior or an offensive lineman execute. So you've got to see him do everything. And he does it all at a high level. It's consistent. He sees things very quickly. His processing is very good.

His play speed is very good because of that. I mean, I just think he's very efficient. And, you know, he tested better than I thought he would. Like to me, I thought he was an above average athlete on tape. But man, he tested elite. He did good at the senior ball playing center for the first time, you know, in his life. I think he repped there in practice at Boston College, but never saw live game action. So, you know, that helped his case.

He's checked every box in the off season. He has a lot of experience. he has a lot of tape to draw from. There's just so many things that make you feel good about his evaluation compared to every other guy to me. And not to mention absolutely like a, you know, like a brilliant kind of guy as well, you know, all that type of stuff off the field, football intelligence, very high, all that, all that stuff. So it's like to me, I compared him to Kevin Zitler, you know, a guy late first round pick, you know, pretty much the same size.

you plug him in maybe not you know ever be an all pro you know maybe get a Kevin Seidler's been a 10 year pro like it's exactly what I'm saying yes that's exactly that was my comparison for him in December after I finished watching his film and I still feel the same way about it so that he's just one of those guys man they you know I don't like using plug and play a lot but man like he fits the bill for that to me all right speaking of plug and play we got two more we're going to run through here very quickly which day two into your offensive line prospect, do you think has the best chance to come in and be an immediate starter? That's a very hard question because I have Kenyon Green on day two. He's probably going

to go first round. So maybe we can eliminate him. I have him as a high second round pick. But aside from him, I have a lot. So round three for me, I have like seven or eight guys graded in round three that I really like. Round three for us is a potential starter slash high level backup. There's a lot of guys in that in that range for me. You get two. Okay, thank you. All right. So I would I would probably say Luke Fortner from Kentucky. He's a center prospect, played guard as well. He's a guy who just got much better this season compared to last season at guard. 2020, he was at guard. 2021. He is at center. I think he got a lot stronger. And I think that really helped him. He's in a depth zone run blocker, very smart processes things quickly,

just negotiates leverage, I think is the best way to put it very well. I really like Luke Fortner's game at center. Another guy, man, I really like probably Ed Ingram at LSU might be a guy that I, that I would say. Very good polar, one of the best polars in the class. So if you're talking about a scheme that runs, you know, power, some gap type concepts, he could do that at a very high level. He's a force when uncovered in pass protection. He can clean up the pocket at a very high level. But the thing that really sold me on him was his patience in past protection. He doesn't chase a lot of stuff in terms of guys setting him up.

He stays square and balanced very well in pass protection. We saw that at the Senior Bowl as well. So Ed Ingram is probably a guy. I mean, I have Jamari Sawyer with the same grade. I had two. You had two. Okay, yeah. There's a small.

Round three, I love in this draft. So that's my round. All right. We only got to eight questions, but we ran out of time. I think those are the most important eight questions. But it's always great to do this with you. I love doing it every single year. Hopefully next year we'll have.

You were already on the show like two weeks ago. So I couldn't justify us doing an entire show on the offensive Wyman. But I'm glad we got to do this. This was like a perfect little sliver of this group and this class and there's no one I would rather talk about that with than you. Please go check out Brandon's work on Bleacher Report, breaking down all these guys. And if you are interested in, I highly recommend checking out the Trent Warfare Stubstack to read Brandon's work on these players to check out the film rooms. It is an invaluable resource if you want to learn more about the

position. It's always great to chat with you, buddy. I appreciate the time. Absolutely, man. It was a pleasure. Thanks. All right, guys, that's all we got. Thank you so much to Lindsay. Thank you to Ben. Thank you to Brandon. enjoyed the show today. I have some exciting news before we get out of here. Draft weekend. Round one. Live from Las Vegas, me, Nate Tice, Dane Brugler, are going to be in Las Vegas together doing a live draft show from a house in Vegas. We cannot wait. We're going to bring in plenty of other friends from the athletic over the course of the night. We're going to be there for several hours,

breaking down every single pick. I'm pumped about this. We'll be able to to check it out live on YouTube. Really, really looking forward to it. I hope you guys are as well. Now that it's all sewn up and we can talk about it, I'm pretty thrilled. So please, we will be talking about that over the next couple weeks. I will give you plenty of reminders, so do not be worried about that. In the meantime, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice.

I really appreciate it. Please subscribe to the athletic. That's where you can check out Dane's draft guide, which is worth the price of your subscription all on its own. It's where you can read all of the work that Nate is doing. You can go read his monster piece on the quarterbacks that he wrote last week and all the other stuff that we have coming down. The Pike here over the next couple weeks before the draft starts.

So please go get your subscription if you do not have one. We will be back tomorrow with a little look at how analytics and how some modern thinking are playing into the draft process from a couple of great guests. So please come back and check that out. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Appreciate it. See you later. This was the athletic football show.