The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Travis Hunter, Abdul Carter lead Dane Brugler's first Top 100 of 2025

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

OK, enough with the 2024 season, it's time for 2025! Dane Brugler's post-Super Bowl Top 100 is out, and he joins Robert Mays on this episode of The Athletic Football Show to get us firmly pointed toward the combine and the draft.Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenWith: Dane BruglerExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dane on X: @dpbruglerTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. It's February. It's post Super Bowl. We're a couple weeks away from the Combine. There is no better time to roll Dane Brugler out of cryosleep and to get our draft conversations started in a big way. Dane's Top 100 came out on the Athletic earlier this week on Tuesday.

If you have not checked that out, the print version of it, highly encourage you guys to look at it. The interface that we've done with these is very good. You can sort them by position. There are little breakdowns for every single. player. This is like an appetizer. It's like going to moose Bush before we get to the Beast a couple months from now. So what your appetite with the top 100 that we have on the athletic right now, we spent today's show digging into that top 100. We talked a lot about the quarterbacks at the

top, who we're discussing here, how high those guys are going to go, how teams may approach the quarterback position in this draft. Dan said something I thought was interesting. He said there may be more day two quarterbacks that go here than day one quarterbacks. That's only happened one other time since 2014 and we might have that again and why this class lends to that I think is particularly interesting. We talked about some of Dane's biggest risers and fallers in this group, some bigger, the biggest changes from his kind of between Thanksgiving and Halloween, big board that he did earlier this year.

So really enjoyed digging into all of this and getting our draft conversations kickstarted with Dane. Let's get to that chat right now. Having this guy on the show at this point in the calendar means we've officially turn the page and we are in the early stages of draft season. Dana and I were talking while I was in New Orleans, just chopping it up about some stuff. And he's like, my top 100 comes out on Tuesday if we wanted to do a show about that. And I was like, you know what?

It's exactly what I want to do this week. So here he is the man himself, Dan Bruegler, kicking off draft season in the right way. Dane, how you feeling? We're post Super Bowl. Now it's all, it's your world now. I love the coverage from New Orleans. You guys did such an awesome job, crushed it. Have you been fasting since you got home from New Orleans?

So the answer to that is no. Whenever I get home, even if I've eaten like absolute garbage for the last like 10 days, whenever I get home from a trip, I always just kind of like am a piece of shit that night, like I order junk food. And I was like sit on the couch and eat garbage with my wife. So that's exactly what I did last night. Today it starts. I might not consume like human food today.

There's a chance I just go the whole day without it. It's just water and coffee. And then I'll just start my life tomorrow. We're on track to that. It's 12.40 p.m. I have not put any sort of food in my body. And there's a chance I just don't. The Robert Mays diet.

I love it. It's all or nothing, man. That's all I got. When you're going as hard as I was last week, you have to offset it somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, I have a wedding that I have to fit into a suit for in like four days, which when my wife told me that, that we had a family wedding the weekend after the Super Bowl. I was like, well, this is going to be a gauntlet. I'm not sure how this is going to go.

Oof, that's four days. Good luck. Yeah, and then we have a week in Indy in like two weeks. So the offseason no longer exists, really. We're back in Indianapolis, essentially right after the Super Bowl. But I'm excited to get the draft conversations kicked off. You did that in a big way this week. You drop in your real kind of offseason top 100. The last one you did was just a big board in November, right?

This is your first top 100 overall. Yeah, I mean, I did it. I've done two top 50s. I did one in August, kind of kickoff. the season and then one just after Halloween, kind of like a mid-season check-in. This is what we're looking at. But yeah, this is the first top 100 since we know the underclassmen that have declared. We have the All-Star season, Shrine Bowl, Hula Bowl, Senior Bowl, all in the rearview mirror. This is the gear up to the combine. And this is what teams are doing right now.

They are all the scouts are back in their respective cities for meetings every single day where they are going through and building. a preliminary board where, you know, they take guys and throw them in the trash can, not going to be considered for us. And they'll put guys on the board. And they kind of figure it out to get a baseline for going into the combine. So there's some level of expectations about what they're looking at, the players that they want to hone in on. And that's kind of what this top 100 is. It's trying to, there will be plenty of fluctuation as we go through, especially after the combine, some of the testing. But this is maybe a little bit of, all right, let's get them the right neighborhood.

Let's, you know, they'll keep moving these guys as we get closer, but trying to boil it down to get a good idea of how NFL teams see these guys and where the evaluations are currently going into the combine. Have you ever thought about what your entrance music would be? Like you're at bat walk-up music or like if you were a wrestler, what your music would be?

No, I honestly can say I've never thought of that. Do you have any suggestions? I'm just curious what it is because I want us to put, together like some sort of video or some sort of graphic where like we drop the music and like somebody photoshopps your face on the Stone Cold Steve Austin. And that's just how we start draft season every single year. Like all, it's Dave Brueglars music.

Right. The glass break is so good that like I, yeah, I would hate the copy something, but oh, you hear that glass break and that the stone cold, that'd be awesome. We might just have to do that because we have to, some way we have to celebrate us getting to this point in the year and you just getting deep right away about like guys putting together their draft boards. This is exactly what I wanted out of this show. So I appreciate all the retweets and, you know, people, I mean, Ian Rappaport's retweeted and said, all right, now it begins. So it does kind of feel like that of, all right, this is the starting point. Now let's race to April. So I want to start kind of zoomed out a little bit

because we're just waiting into this. As you were going through your initial top 100 and you kind took this bird's eye view of the class for the first time and put it on paper. What were your initial thoughts as you were going through this exercise? There were just some of your bigger picture takeaways about this class overall as we get started. Yeah, and I don't think there was anything groundbreaking that we didn't already know. Tight end, running back, defensive line, those are the three positions that are just loaded. Several of those guys at those positions, I had to leave off.

the top 100 and I hated doing it, especially D-line. It's just such a loaded group edge and defensive tackles. A lot of future starters are going to come from this draft. And going into the fourth round, there's still going to be plenty of names that are quality players. So those three positions certainly stand out. I think that when you look at the top of the draft, I feel really good about the top two guys, just being, you know, those are the blue chippers talking about Travis

Hunter from Colorado. Abdul Carter from Penn State. And then I agonized over who I was putting at three. I think that there's maybe a tier of 10 guys. But any of those 10, I think you could make a case for why they would belong at three. And you know, you hate to do it by position where you like say, well, it's got to be a left tackle or it's got to be a pass rusher.

You don't want to think about it necessarily in those terms. You just give me the best impact player. and I settled on Jalen Walker from Georgia, who is a big projection, but the traits are awesome, the character's awesome. There's just a lot that I would want to make that bet. So,

you know, just after those top two guys, ranking three through like 12 is really interesting and it's going to be a wild difference from board to board. But, I mean, I keep going back to the quarterbacks. And this is something that,

you know, I, trying to think the best way to frame how to talk about this quarterback class. And I think that we'll have plenty of time to dissect each individual guy. But I kind of want to look at it through this lens. Since 2014, so like the last 11 drafts, only once has there been a draft where we had more day two quarterbacks drafted than day one. That was the Kenny Pickett year. One first round quarterback and then a pretty rough group later on with Ritter and Malik

Willis and Matt Corral. And the immediate Emanuel year was the other year that was a little bit wonky in there, right? Was that 2013? Yeah. That was 2013. So that was right before. That's why I cut it off into 2014.

Yeah, that was, yeah, E.J. Manuel had no business going first round, but he did. And then Matt Barclay, Ryan Nassab was in that group. Yeah, a couple other names. But so just the last 11 drafts just once. And but when you look at this class, I think based on my evals, based off of how teams talk about these quarterbacks, there's a very good chance we have more day two quarterbacks than first round quarterbacks. And it's it's one of those things where teams are going to look at it and say, yeah, you know, like let's let's get our tackle here. Let's get, let's take a chance on a pass

rusher here in the first round. And then we'll take our swing on day two. And if it works out, great. But, you know, drafting a quarterback at pick 60 or pick 80, it's not going to stop us from drafting one next year or the year after that if it doesn't work out. And so I realize how unique the Eagles situation has been the last five years. But Jalen Hertz was basically a flyer in the second round and outside the top 50 picks. So and the Eagles were debating between him and another player up into the wire. So it's not like they, you know, trade it up and, you know, really targeted him. Like it just kind of worked out that they drafted Jalen Hertz. And so, and I'm not going to say that day two quarterbacks is now the norm. That's not it. The playoffs still chock full of first

round guys. But in a class like this one, it is not going to be surprising when there's more day two quarterbacks drafted, especially when, okay, for example, I'm thinking about the Colts. If you're Ballard and you might feel like you have to go all in on this version of what you've built to keep your job, but I would argue that you look at one of these day two quarterbacks as a potential off ramp if Anthony Richardson in that trajectory, it just doesn't take shape by Halloween. You know, the chances of threading a needle like the Eagles did with Hertz, it's unlikely, flat out, low percentage. But it's still a potential option that I think several teams are going to examine based off of what this draft is giving us. And so, you know, the Rams have a unique

situation with Stafford. I mean, there's going to be a lot of dominoes that fall these next few months before we get to the draft. And we'll get into more team-specific discussions later and as we get closer. But thinking about what we can learn from the Eagles Super Bowl, and then with this draft specifically, it's just a unique year with these day two quarterbacks. I think we can learn something from the Eagles and the Niners out through in there as well, a team that their off-ramp for quarterback ended up becoming a franchise-altering thing.

We talk less about what happened with Trey Lance because they landed on Brock Purdy. We talk less about the Carson Went situation blowing up for the Eagles because they had an off-ramp for J-1 Hertz. Just giving yourself multiple chances here. And I think that is worthwhile. The Colts are a good team to mention because they don't really have a ready-made backup. They had 38-year-old Joe Flacco last year. So you can easily talk yourself into it and say, we need a backup quarterback anyway. If we take a guy on the fourth round, that's a worthwhile price for that roster spot.

And then potentially does it give us another solution? If you don't feel great about what's happening at your quarterback position, taking multiple bites at the apple over a series of several years is typically worthwhile. So I think a lot of teams could be thinking about it that way. You and I had this discussion after the senior bowl. We had this conversation. Some of it made it into the live stream we did last week from New Orleans. Some of it did not.

So it's worth rehashing some of it here. As we look at the top of the draft, I think the biggest, most important conversation for me is how many quarterbacks are going to go is ultimately going to be driven by how many teams feel compelled to leave the top 10 with a quarterback. And that is going to be probably the most important question. And if you look at the teams at the top, Tennessee is fascinating to me because I would not be surprised if after last offseason, they overcorrected and just unraveled everything they did.

We were super, super aggressive. Maybe let's pull back a little bit and understand what our timeline should be. Let's just try to get good players. We don't need a quarterback out of this draft. That approach would not surprise me. I think the Browns are super interesting, right? Do the Browns think this is our best chance in the top five to go get one? We're not going to be drafting this high again.

Or are they so far in rebuild mode that they're not really thinking about it that way? I don't know how the Browns see themselves. And so that, to me, is going to be one of the defining aspects of how we think about the top five. The one team, we talked about this coming out of Mobile, and it's been kind of the murmurs about the entire draft process that does, feel compelled to come out of this process with a quarterback is the giants. So if we think the giants are going to leave the top five with a quarterback come hell or high water because out of self-preservation, out of their team building timeline, everything, it aligns for them to do this.

If there's only one team that's feeling that way, it's easy to talk yourself into a timeline where there's only one quarterback that goes in the first round. And I don't really know how many other teams we can say that about. Like you could say that about the Raiders, but this is a team that's now. in year one of a new regime. Do they feel like they have to come out of this draft with the quarterback? I'd be surprised if they felt that way. And I don't know what other teams would fit that billing. So if it really just is the Giants, do we just get Cam Ward in the top five and then we have to wait a long time before the second one comes off the board? That wouldn't surprise me, just based on the

league and what it feels and that it needs right now. And that's a big part of this. Another big part of it is ownership. Again, ownership is as much a drive of teams drafting quarterbacks early as anything. And so sometimes it's a mandate from ownership, hey, we have to upgrade the quarterback position. I need to know how we're going to do that. And they're not going to want to hear, you know, enter Free Agent B as the answer.

And so for some teams, it will be, okay, well, we could go, you know, Shador Sanders at seven, you know, if you're the Jets. But, you know, is that really how a lot of teams want to attack this? draft and I don't think it is. And I think we also have to, you know, I could know how every single Area Scout feels about these quarterbacks, but once the coaches and the play callers get involved in the process, it really changes everything. An Area Scout could have a second round grade on a quarterback, but it doesn't mean much if the coaches don't connect with that player during

interviews and boardwork and all of the steps of the process. So, you know, and, you know, for bad organizations, it might not matter. You know, I always think. back to the 2019 class. Jay Gruden wanted, I believe, Darnel Savage in Washington. He didn't want Dwayne Haskins, but Dan Snyder did. And so that was the pick in the first round. And when you don't have a connect between the coaches in the front office, obviously it's due from the start.

For most smart organizations, I think the coaching staff, how they feel about the quarterbacks, it directly influences how you stack them on the board, and then ultimately whether or not you draft him. And so, I mean, looking at this class specifically, I don't think a ton has changed since Halloween, you know, based on what we thought. Cam Ward is most likely to do that. Where you have them is so telling to me. The fact that all these other guys ping ponged up and down and you were just like,

nah, the quarterbacks are what they are. I'm not doing this. I are. I have the exact same spot in your rankings. Very, very much so. And I think you can, if you had a bet on one of these guys, I understand the Cam Ward bet because of just the way he's gotten better every year. There's a real explosive nature to the way he plays. He walks a fine line of being loose, but not reckless all the times, but sometimes he is. He is a tough evaluation because it's just,

he's going to need some time to continue developing. He is far from a finished product. And then Shador, I think it's, I think you can start in the league. It's just more of an, what's the upside here? You know,

how, what is the ceiling of him? Can he really, truly elevate an offense regardless of what's around him. And a lot of teams struggle with that, answering that question. I think something interesting is going to be quarterback three. When it's all said and done, do we have a third quarterback being talked about as a possibility? And every year, this happens every year.

I mean, two years ago, people were talking about Hendon Hooker going top 25. There were mock drafts. I can't remember who. I won't call them out. But there were some people that had Hen and Hooker in the top 10. like it's just not it we get i don't know if people just get bored and they want to just throw quarterback options in there and you know what sometimes it actually does happen the week before the draft that somebody's doing something crazy like that remember the malik willis at number two

you know buzz and like the five days before the draft it always happens because we've been staring at it for way too long the malik wars we fought those battles long ago uh but even like i mean think of last year with bow nix like that's an example of it a lot of people thought in the league and out the league he wasn't going to go top 20 he would go somewhere between 21 and 40 late one early two and he goes 12 and you know we all look at it as a reach and hey it turns out Sean Peyton knows what he's doing and so where these guys end up is a big factor but sometimes the the buzz about another quarterback getting in there it it actually happens this year I think the buzzy name is Jackson Dart from Ole Miss who

the timing of this buzz is kind of strange. It's on the heels of the senior bowl where he was very average down in Mobile. I think it got better every day. But if you knew nothing about him going into the week, you didn't leave the week saying, oh, yeah, that's an obvious top 50 type of player. And so my theory with Dart is he might get that Bo Knicks bump,

where Nix wasn't supposed to be the guy, you know, the lead his team to the playoffs as a rookie. everyone's kind of looking for that next bone nix and when you look at dart I can understand how some people if you squint you might be able to get there and make that comparison good size athlete six to 22 26 pounds highly productive in the SEC very willing to push the ball downfield he led the fbs and yards per completion this past year about 10.8 the character the competitiveness are outstanding and that's the type of thing that evaluators can really latch up on to during the process. I don't think he's the same arm talent as Nix, and he's not as NFL ready as NICS was. Now, I think there's a spot on day two where I would probably

roll the dice on DART because they're starting upside there. It's just, it's hard to make a bet like that in the first round, especially coming from an Ole Miss offense where he wasn't asked to make whole field reads consistently. It's a lot of one read, one side of the field, drop the eyes, scramble. He benefited from a lot of play action. It was like over 53% second most in all of college football last year. So with DART, it's not that he can't do what an NFL team is going to ask him to do. It's more of he's unproven on a lot of those areas. And I'm not going to say it's impossible

for him to go in the first round. All it takes is one rogue team to push all the chips in. But I am surprised that some people are talking about him. It'd be easy to make that bet on a guy who just he needs a lot of developing. If you look at how the six quarterbacks came off the board last year and you think about the teams that again talking about their urgency to find one, Minnesota needed one, right? Minnesota needed one based on the other decisions that they had made. Check. You mentioned the coaching staff getting involved. I think that's exactly what happened in Atlanta where they signed Kirk Cousins and then

the coaches got involved. The coaches loved Pennix. They saw Staffordish stuff and now we have an urgency. to get this guy because we have the eighth overall pick. And then with Knicks, same kind of deal. Like, I think Sean Payton wanted a quarterback out of that draft so they could just kind of get things kickstarted. So until we, you can read some of the tea leaves and guess about which teams are in

those sorts of positions. Obviously, the Vikings made it very obvious with the trades that they made. We all knew that that's the direction they probably needed to go. Maybe some of those breadcrumbs will be left for us in the next couple months. Well, we'll start to get an understanding of like, okay, the Jets really do. need a quarterback based on X, Y, and Z reasons. I just think at this stage of the proceedings, we're so early that it's hard to know what that handful of teams is going to be that maybe has more interest in coming away

with this draft with one than we think right now. And I think you're right to think that way because, you know, the situation with Stafford and L.A., that's going to impact what teams do. You know, you think of the Steelers. They're at a crossroads right now with their quarterback position. And it's, how are they going to attack at this off season? I'm sure they have, you know, maybe a priority list of option A through option F. And where does drafting a quarterback in the first round appear on that list?

Is it C or is it down at the bottom and it's their last option available? So it's, yeah, it's a really interesting year and it's still pretty early to know exactly the teams that might be a little more aggressive than others, aside from probably the Giants. but it's also just such a unique year to have the conversation because of the nature of these quarterbacks and the fact that I think there will be more day two picks. It's a more interesting quarterback class on day two than it is day one. And that's something that I don't think I've ever said before. Those words have never come out of my mouth. So it's just, it's really, and I'll just run through the rest of the quarterbacks that appear to my top 100.

I'm curious you think it's the most interesting among this group. Those two, they two guys, like who do you have circled is the most intriguing option. To me, it's Tyler Shuck at Louisville. And I received plenty of raised eyebrows when he came in as a top 60 guy for me in my top 100. But I promise you, there's going to be, based on how I know teams feel about him, there's going to be more and more buzz. Since my top 100 came out, I've already been tagged and a lot more appreciation tweets about Shuck than, you know, the last six months. I think people are blinded with him by two things. he's 25 years old and injuries derailed his college career as a seventh year senior.

Two things that are not ideal. But I think first of all, with the age, I think people are too obsessed with the age. We're talking about somebody outside the top 50 picks. Who cares if he's not 21? So it's not as edge rusher. This isn't a window or a running back. I think with quarterbacks, we're starting to learn our lesson a little bit. That extra time to marinate, I think, has been a positive for some of these guys

over the last couple years and not a negative. You have to trace why they were in college that long and not every case is the same. But Bo Nix and Jaden Daniels having the experiences they had in college, I think undeniably was a factor in their favor coming into their rookie years. I think that bared out. There's no doubt. There's no doubt.

The common thread between Daniels and Nicks, there were five-year starters. And we've talked about it before. Jaden Daniels went to the NFL after his junior year. He's a fifth-round pick at best. So the ability to work through a lot of that stuff personally and on the field in just terms of maturation, that is, and teams look at that as a positive. The fact that he is an older guy and, you know, you have a better idea of what you're getting.

Now, the medicals have to come back clean. That's something that could change his grade, but he stayed healthy all of this season, which is certainly a positive or a reason to be optimistic about him moving forward. He's one of the best pure throwers of the first. football in this class. The ball explodes off his hand. He's got some mobility to him. Sometimes he is late to see things. But again, we're talking about someone outside the top 50 picks. So DART, I think, was at 57. Shuck was at 59. Jalen Milrow was next. He's such a wild card, phenomenal athlete. He'll light up the combine if he tests at 220 pounds. Just so raw as a

passer. The senior bowl is rough. You could tell he was trying to work through a lot of different things mechanically. And that really affected his timing, his accuracy. The athletic profile is awesome. And the person is awesome. He's a really smart guy, awesome guy. It makes it easier to make a bet on him when you have the athletic profile and you have the type of person he is.

But it's a long-term type of developmental plan for him. And there's only going to be- What are we talking about with him versus like a Hertz coming out in terms of how that's the comparison? Is that comparison? an apt i'm not just like helmet scouting here like you think that's actually the argument you can talk yourself into that's if you are thinking about it in the most optimistic light you are saying okay i am you know because jalen hurts jalen hurts had more success in in college um i mean he led

oklahoma to college football playoffs that year um you know talking about heisman trophy i mean he had a lot more success at the college level but uh it's just terms of pure skill set jaylon milro is further, but he's not on the same level as a passer, but he is a much better athlete. I mean, Jalen Hertz is, you know, at his best, at his peak was running in the mid-four-sixes, maybe. Now he's not even at that level, where Jalen Milro should run in the low four-fours, if not get into four-threes at 220 pounds. The arm is NFL quality in terms of velocity.

Now it's just a matter of repeatable consistency with the. mechanics, the accuracy, the touch. And you see it in flashes. And if you really grade to the flashes, you can justify drafting him on day two and saying, this is a long-term development, but we think, you know, where he could be down the line is something that that could be, you know, a worthy bet at this point. And, you know, absolute worst case scenario, you know, move him to running back. If that's, if, if you have to give up on the plan after two years, because he is such a

a ridiculous athlete. So it just, there's only so many teams that are going to be willing to make a bet like that. And so that just diminishes the landing spots for him. It makes it tough to project.

But he's a top 100 guy. It's just a matter of where he goes. And then after. It's funny for me. There aren't that many guys. There aren't that many teams in the NFL. If we had had this conversation five years ago, think about how many teams a player like that

could make sense for because they had a 37, 38 year old quarterback. All those guys are, gone like the only real teams that have 37 38 year old starting quarterbacks now the rams the jets the jets we know they're getting rid of that guy the rams may get rid of their guy so they may need they may need an immediate answer the team that comes to mind for me and again i have no idea what they think of him even like scheme fit with what they're trying to do this year i don't know if that makes sense but i'm talking purely timeline would be like seattle right if you want to roll with gino for like

two more years you want to have this guy sit you develop him you make a best on what the two, three year projection can be, that would make sense to me just based on what they have currently on the roster. But there aren't that many teams currently in that position, especially when you compare it to what the landscape look like a few years ago. I'll be surprised if Seattle comes out of this draft without a quarterback. I will. They should take one.

I love, you know, they should take a quarterback at some point. And exactly what we've been talking about. You know, you draft a guy in a third or fourth round and who knows, it might hit. It might be Seattle's next Russell Wilson. And it doesn't need to be from day one, obviously, with Gino's still there. Maybe not even in year two. You know, we'll see how that plays out. But that's the type of bet that you make in a class like this.

Will Howard also made the top 100. I think he's more of a career backup. I mean, he just, he finished the season so strong winning the national championship at Ohio State. The progress that he made was really promising. He's a really competitive, smart kid. Physical tools are there, probably more of a backup profile. So, I mean, those are six, yes, six quarterbacks that crack the top 100. But there were even a few more that just missed that I know some teams really like.

Kyle McCord from Syracuse, strictly a pocket passer, but he anticipates well. He gets a ball out. He does a lot of NFL things pretty well. Quinn Ewers from Texas. He's another guy that just plays with poise. There's things that like about him. The durability questions that might hurt him a little bit, but wouldn't shock me if he ends up in the top 100 picks. What do you think he didn't come back to school?

or didn't try to like refresh himself somewhere else after this year. Have you talked to anybody about that? It was just a mindset from the start like this is my last year. Like he was ready. Obviously with the situation in Texas is a little unique because of with Archmanning kind of waiting in the wings. Like that specific situation was so unique. And then I mean, he had several teams calling him. Miami did not take Carson Beck as a transfer until they checked in with Quinn Ewers.

So there were several teams that were throwing around some big money. And I mean, Quinn yours is already a millionaire. He was a millionaire before he took his first college snap with all the NIL money that he had coming in. He was ready coming into this year kind of saying this is my fourth year in college. This will be my last year. And so he's an interesting one because I think he'll impress when he sits down with teams and they get a chance to interview him and understand how he thinks and how he sees the field. the thing that bothers some teams is just he's missed multiple games every single year. And while that's, I think I commend him for being the toughness that he shows,

playing through a lot of these injuries, especially an ankle injury late in the year, you have to be, all quarterbacks are banged up. That's just part of the job description in the NFL. And if you're not, if you can't play at a high level when you're banged up, that's just, it's not going to work. And so teams are going to look at viewers a little bit differently. He's going to be a really interesting one. And one other quarterback I wanted to throw out there, too, is Dylan Gabriel, who has some fans across the league because he's, in terms of the interview process, he's been the most impressive.

He's undersized. He's the ball does, it dies. I mean, he's good in the short to intermediate game. It'll die deep. But he's, in terms of the mind, the character, he's got some fans across the league. And so I think those nine quarterbacks, they're all going to go in the top four rounds. and it's going to be really interesting how early some of these teams maybe, you know, pull the trigger based off of, you know, not wanting to miss out on their guy. And who does it and why?

I think is going to be one of the things worth paying attention to. Like the Colts are a great team to bring up. If they take a guy in the third round, it's like, oh, okay. Telling us what you think about how this season is going to potentially go. So the messages that teams send about their long-term plans based on their quarterback plan in this draft is, is absolutely going to be a fun thing. But just smart, right? Sure.

The Browns are another, like you mentioned the Browns and all the different ways they could go. If you don't love one of these quarterbacks, like with the whole Miles Garrett situation, I've heard a lot of people saying how, oh, well, this might change,

you know, how they look at the second overall pick and a court, it doesn't. Whether Miles Garrett is on this team or not, if you love a quarterback at two, you take them, plain and simple. If you don't, you don't draft one.

But drafting a quarterback, if you're the Browns, it still makes sense to draft a quarterback on day two. And, you know, like a Tyler Shuck, for example, he's ready to go. I mean, he's not going, he's going to compete for the starting job in camp. And, you know, if he has a promising rookie year gets better and better, we don't have to force the issue next year and overdraft a quarterback if there's not one there for us. And so the Colts, it's not, it wouldn't be an indictment of Anthony Richardson necessarily. It's just more, it's about being smart with your team building and creating insurance.

You know, if you're, you're not going to buy a brand new house and then not have insurance for it. Like, you know, if you, having an insurance plan in case plan A doesn't work out is just smart business. And so why teams don't do more of that on day two? But I think looking at the Eagle situation and seeing how they handle the Carson Went situation, again, very unique. But still, having that insurance, I think is just smart business. I think when you look at what the Texans did a couple years ago, and we talk about ownership, we talk about pressure, talk about outside forces, all that stuff matters. The fact that the Texans kind of got to operate and complete anonymity for like two full seasons

allowed them to do the Davis Mills thing. But if you can do that, if that's where the urgency of your owner is, if that's the sort of methodical plan that you can see through as a team builder, there's not a lot of downside to that. Like if we can just kind of take a guy in the third or fourth round, he can start, we can see what he is because we know we're not going anywhere anyway, that sort of patience is probably the right approach in a lot of situations that not enough teams take because they're trying to speed themselves up unnecessarily. So I think how a lot of teams approach it and whether we see something like that, if you're the Jets, for example, right, the Jets is a very different

market than Houston. There's very different outside forces. But if you do something like that, because you kind of know where you are in your timeline. Is that actually the better way to approach the position when you're thinking about a two, three, four year plan than forcing the issue at seven when there isn't a guy that you like there? And obviously the track record of day two quarterbacks isn't great. But it's, I think we're in a place in the NFL.

But the downside, the risk reward is in your favor. Exactly. We're in a place in the NFL where I think teams are more open to thinking, in those terms where it's about placing smart bets. And that's how the Eagles were built. Placing a lot of smart bets. Even some bets didn't work out. Okay, let's place more smart bets.

And at the end of the day, if you place enough smart bets, you have a chance to be a really good team and compete for a Super Bowl. And I think drafting a promising quarterback on day two who might have one thing wrong with them or has a discount sticker on for one reason or another, it's just smart business. What's the downside? The worst case scenario is that he's your backup quarterback for the rest of his rookie contract

if you take him in the fourth round. What's the hit rate on fourth round picks at any position? So I just think that, again, the cost benefit is in your favor if you're going to approach it that way. There are. It's not as hard to move away from him if it doesn't work out.

Whereas with first rounders. There's nothing preventing you from doing it. Exactly. First rounders, it feels like you get tied to those guys for, you know, three years, for Daniel Jones like you feel like you have to you know stick with it and give them more patience and it's just it's different when those guys aren't drafted in the first round

it gives you a little more freedom all right before we move on we're going to take a quick break I want to look at your November big board and the top 100 that you just put out this week and just look at the biggest risers and fallers guys who have the furthest separation either in a good way or a bad way between those two rankings There are a couple guys that stood out to me, but just off the top of your head, who in your mind changed the most in how you see them over the last three-ish months? Definitely Tyler Warren, the Penn State tight end, you know, ranking him at 10, ranking him at 10 is basically an appreciation ranking for just a really good football player. Like there's still, there are teams around the league that say he's not going top 20 because he's a tight end.

He's just so dang consistent. Really strong through contact. He's going to test really well at 255 pounds. He is a factory. He's not just a possession guy. 56% of his yardage this year came after the catch. His dad was a safety at Richmond. And his nickname was the hitman.

So it's no mystery where Tyler got his competitiveness from. I love these little nuggets that we're getting. These little beast nuggets already. It's February 12th. They're just going to be sprinkling the breadcrumbs here for the next month and a half. Yeah, I don't think he's ultimately going to go top 10 where I have him ranked. He's not Brock Bowers. He's not on that level.

But it's almost similar to drafting a running back in the first round in that conversation, where if you feel like you are one piece away from elevating your offense, go make it happen. And, you know, like I think I think of Denver. It would be such a great fit. You drop him in that offense. He's ready to go. I don't know if he's going to last that long, but I mean, John Payton's not afraid to move around on draft day.

And so, but right after Tyler Warren, I had Colston Loveland, who the Michigan tight end, I, it's interesting because they're two different skill sets. And for most of this process, I have had Loveland ahead of Warren, just because he's got a lot more upside. And I usually lean that way. But in this instance, in instance, I went with the more proven player. Loveland's basically a big wide receiver with speed. And I'll admit, I think there's a little recency bias baked into dropping him one spot below Warren

because of how Dalton Kincaid has performed the last two years in Buffalo, where he is a, you know, he's not going to give you a ton as a blocker, primarily a receiver. And that I believe Loveland is a first round pass catcher can be a mismatch weapon. But I think it's fair to critique that style of tight end and how it might fit. especially with certain schemes and what they want another tight end. It's interesting comparing the Dalton Kincaid draft to this draft when you look at the receivers available and the tight ads available, right? So you have Ted McMillan in your top 10, but you don't have another pure wide receiver now until the 20s, right, because of how far Luther Burden fell. And then you have two tight ends.

They're top 15 picks. If you look back at the 2023 draft in some of your rankings, I'm sure Michael Mayer was higher than he was drafted. I'm sure Dalton Kincaid was higher than he was drafted. And we didn't see a receiver go off the board in that draft until 2020, right? Wasn't JSN, the 20th overall pick. Yeah. Yeah. So it's J.S.

and then run. Zay and then, Justin, Nelson. Yeah. And then Jordan Addison. And so comparing those two drafts, I think, is telling here, you have these two tight ends that we think are better players potentially. And I think that's what the bills told themselves is that we're willing to wait out

the receivers that went there and draft Dalton Kincaid because we actually thought Dalton Kincaid was the best past catcher we could come out of this draft with. That ended up not being true. Like Zay Flowers is a very good football player and JSN really broke out this year. But just in terms of the contours of the class positionally, this does feel a little bit from a pure outsider's perspective like the 2023 draft felt a little bit. No, and that's fair. Something that will, a common theme in that draft, one of the reasons why I think we didn't,

because Kincaid was the first tight end drafted. didn't have a tight end drafted in the top 25 that year. And I think one of the reason. Mayor was surprising, right? Like we thought mayor would go higher. Yeah. Probably. Yeah.

Well, I thought he would. I think I mocked him to like the Cowboys at 27 or 28. So yeah, we thought he'd go first round. He just fell a couple of picks into the second round. Um, but I want a, a theme that year was it was a loaded tight end class where I mean, Tucker Kraft. I had him rated really high. Shocked he fell as far as he did.

Um, Sam Laporta. Um, Luke Musgrave. Yeah, Luke Musgrave. The Cowboys, they drafted the Michigan kid who has not worked out so far. Scoot maker. Yes. So, you know, I think that's similar this year, which might hurt a Tyler Warren, a Colston

Loveland. This is a loaded tight end class. I had, I think five in my top 64, seven overall in the top 100. And so targeting a guy like Mason Taylor from LSU, Elijah Royo, Miami, Gunner Helm, Texas, this targeting one of those guys in round two, I think is going to be a really appealing option for teams that are maybe looking at the tight end, passing in the first round,

maybe waiting till the second. We're talking about who was going to go after those top two guys when you were looking at Carter and Travis Hunter. And for a while, Will Johnson was in that conversation with for you, the cornerback out of Michigan. And, you know, he didn't fall precipitously in your latest top 100,

but he went from the top five to now outside of the top 10. that was notable for me. Like what had him drop a little bit for you based on how the back half of this season went? Yeah, I think just being honest about the evaluation and seeing a really good player who's going to start in the league, but maybe not an elite player. And I think, you know, he was banged up most of this year. So it's not like out of sight, out of mind. Oh, he's going to drop.

It wasn't necessarily that. It was more the questions about pure speed. Does he even run a 40-yard dash this spring? You know, I would love for him to go out there, roll a 4-3 and prove me wrong. I just, I'm not sure we're even going to see him run a 40-yard dash because I don't think he has that type of speed. And so if you don't have, it's very rare for a corner to go top 10 when you don't run a 4-4-4 or below.

And I'm not sure that Will Johnson would be. I think he'd be more high four-fors. And so I think that's the main hang up there. I still need he's a good player. I still think that he's, you know, I would take him in the top 15 picks. But I, some of the pushback from teams on Will Johnson has been just the pure speed

and questioning how that's going to hold up the next level, especially because he will bite on double moves. You know, Roma Dunezay got him in the national title game last year. There were a couple times on this year's tape. I think it was actually the Washington tape this year where his, his misstep in cover. basically gave up the winning touchdown for the Huskies. So, you know, it is something that is a little bit of a concern, just to pure speed,

and not going to knock him out of the first round. It doesn't mean he's not a good player. It just means he's not a slam dunk top five guy. Tumazoo guys, I wanted to hit. You had Luther Burden higher on your last big board than you do on this one. Again, talking about that receiving group. What about how his season unfolded kind of made you pushed you toward that tweak? What you love the most about him is with the ball in his hands and how we can create and basically becoming a running back after the catch.

But is he a guy that you have to necessarily manufacture touches for where you have to get him on those ISOs where you have to get them across the field where you can get a runway for him? Do you have to be a little more specialized with him? I think that's that's kind of the question mark with him. I mean, he could go top 12 and I wouldn't bat an eye because I get it. You know, he's an explosive guy. And he's not a smaller player. He's 210 pounds, good size athlete. And he can create, he can bring an explosive element to your offense.

I just, I'm not sold enough as him as a complete receiver to say, oh, yeah, definitely, you know, top 12, top 15 guy. But like I said, after, I don't know, maybe after the top 12 guys between picks 13 and 40, It's, you could really have a conversation about, you know, should this be over him? It's not as obvious. Like, you know, I agonize over, okay, 18, 19, 20, you know, like, you want to make sure you're getting these guys in the right neighborhood. But it's not these big gaps, but from player to player, as some people might think, when you see a player at 20 compared to 12. That was, I was going to ask you, when does it flatten out a little bit? And so in your mind, it's like 12 through 40-ish.

I mean, I think there's the top two guys are the top two guys and then maybe three to 12 and then 13 to 45 around there. And then, you know, like I think it's fair to look at it in those terms where these, there's not a huge gap between these, these guys. There's a tier level where, and honestly, I think that's going to make for a really fun, you know, and we're all together in a few. months doing the draft Thursday night we might have a few cold strange moments where it's you know we didn't see that coming you're already fantasizing about this is why i just love you so much you're

already cannot wait off at cold strange mindset two months from now uh maybe something you know playing around my kids but besides that nothing gives me more joy than seeing a coal strange come off the board in the first round good sense yeah uh but you know it's This draft is going to set up where we can get a few of those moments because there is not huge gaps between these players among these tiers. And so, you know, if Mecca Buka is a second receiver drafted or Matthew Golden from Texas, not a huge surprise because I can understand how a team might look at a specific skill set and say, yeah, we want that over maybe what a Luther burden offers. And so, you know, there's not these big gaps between these players. So you're saying, based on what we talk about at the beginning positionally and where the draft is, that if you were a team that, let's say, hypothetically, had the 10th pick, the 39th pick, and the 41st pick,

and you needed defensive line help, that this would be a draft that sets up well for you? That would be a fair thing to say. Hypothetic, purely hypothetically speaking. Purely hypothetical. It's not based in reality. No, but yes, that would make sense. And it speaks to this defensive line class. It is a loaded group.

And so you're going to have options top 10 and then into the second round, whether you want edge rusher, you want interior defensive line help. You know, I think it in really the bears are so interesting because at picking at 10, there's so many different directions they could go while I think everybody thinks it's going to be somewhere in the trenches, right? it's going to be offensive lines going to be defensive line and i think there's some really interesting options on both sides what armand membu from missouri another missouri guy because he was not on your your initial big board correct the no when i did a top 50 back in yeah november he he was not on it he was honestly i did not really study him until maybe thanksgiving

because he was a junior i wasn't convinced he was coming out like it was just you know you don't you don't get to every underclassman until maybe November. And so Membue was one of those guys for me. And then once I got word that he was coming out, I watched him and I was blown away. I mean, I was okay. I immediately, usually I watched like three or four tapes on a guy and then take a break, watch a few more guys. And then maybe the next day come back to him and watch a few more tapes, just to make sure what I'm seeing with Membu. Before I knew it, I was on his eighth tape. I was, Oh, my guy. Okay.

This guy, I just, I enjoy watching this guy play football. 20 years old, right tackle, Missouri, really coordinated in his movements, just exceptional body control. It's, and, you know, one of the biggest, you know, Kelvin Banks, for example, from Texas, who a lot of people have him in the top 10. I've never had him in my top 10. I've never saw the top 10 with him. I think he's a fine player.

I think he's just a potential starter. He's a really solid player. there's just too much rough tape out there on on him where he's losing balance he's falling off blocks I think he's probably a better guard talking about Kelvin Banks but I think you can go back and forth about whether moving him inside the guard's going to exasperate those issues or help hide them he's just a really interesting player but I think when you watch Kelvin Banks and Membu back to back I don't think there's any doubt who's the better player and that's Membu And again, just 20 years old, still learning.

Some teams look at tackle. Some think he's going to move inside to guard. But I think he's someone that the Bears would be pretty wise to consider him at 10. Do you think he's somebody that could potentially play guard for a year and then move to tackle? Just hypothetically. He played tackle in the SEC this year. And there was nothing on his tape that said he couldn't do it. He's long enough.

He's got almost 34 inch arms. you know, he's 6-4. I don't, I understand people wanting to move him inside to guard because I think he could do it. But there's nothing about his tape that says he can't play tackle. So, yes, I think that he's a, he'd be a good candidate to come in and you could maybe work around him. He's, again, 20 years old. So there's going to be some young things you have. It's not as, it's not like the Yale kid, you know, where he's just so raw that it's going to take years before he's ready to give you legit snap.

Membu is ready to go out there. It's just there might be some bumps in the road that he's going to have to work through until you feel really comfortable with him, you know, locking down a position. Membue might be your answer to this, but who do you feel like in this initial top 100 your ranking aggressively, either way below consensus or way above consensus? Yeah, I mean, Memboo and Kelvin Banks are, you know, Memboos at eight, Kelvin Banks at 22. I think those two guys qualify.

Jalen Walker at three, you know, we kind of talked about that a little bit, just how three and three to 12 is kind of, they're closely ranked for me. And so you could really make an argument for different guys there at that third spot. And it's,

I don't think there's an obvious answer. I think once you get to day two and even outside the top 50, a guy like Nick Scorton, from Texas A&M, pass rusher. I mean, I still see people talking about him as a top 10 player. And I just, I don't know. I don't see that at all. He's a good player, but I don't think he's a, he's not a lock to go in the top 40, top 50 picks.

You know, just not how teams view him. He could, you know, teams always need pass rush, but teams don't view him as a, that type of guy. We mentioned out it's a loaded running back class. I had eight in my top 100. And I hated leaving off some guys like Devin Niel. at Kansas, a few others, but a back who did make it, who's severely underrated, I think. Oregon's Jordan James. It's not a home run hitter, but he might lead the league in doubles.

Consistently gets more than what's blocked for him. He's tough. He's quick. He finishes. I don't see a lot of love for him top 100, but he came in at 62 for me. So I think that's probably a little more aggressive than where most people look at him. The David Montgomery sort of. Sure. Well, I think of watching him and Bucky Irving last year in the same backfield.

And I don't know, I thought Jordan James was the better back. And so, you know, they kind of offer some of the similar things. I mean, you look at what Bucky Irving meant for the Bucks this year. James can come in and give you a same type of impact. All right. Before we move on, we're going to take one more quick break. Before we get back to our conversation with Dane, I want to tell you about Connections Sports Edition, a new game for sports fans from the athletic. It's basically a daily dose of trivia and so satisfying to solve.

I have to say, I've done a few puzzles already and I'm hooked. Play now at theathletic.com slash connections. Now that you've kind of started talking to more people in the league, we're getting a little bit closer and the, let's say the volume is being turned up on some of these conversations. You feel like we're closer or further away from Gentie going really, really high? Honestly, it's so tough because this goes back to kind of, of the Bijon Robinson conversation where it was so hard to do a mock draft with Bijon Robinson because there was not a clear place to put him.

And then like even the Eagles, you're like, the Eagles make sense, but they're not going to drive the running back in the first round. And so it became tough. And so with Gentie, it's kind of a similar thing in the top 20 picks where, yeah, the Cowboys, it's kind of makes, it makes sense. It fits for a lot of different reasons. But is there still any, any other team in a top 20? that you can maybe talk yourself into,

and I don't see a lot of landing spots. And so could we see a Denver trade up and get them or a Washington to trade up and get them? Sure, I think that's definitely on the table. But as much as, you know, we mentioned with tight ends, how being a loaded class might hurt the tight ends at the top, that could be true for running back as well. This is a loaded running back group.

And that could affect, even though Gentie is the top guy, it could affect how early teams are willing to draft. running back. So if the Cowboys don't draft him at 12, it's just, it's hard to find a landing spot in a top 20 picks. So I would lean towards Genti being talked about going later as opposed to earlier just because it's hard to find those spots. Now, maybe over time, a team like the Falcons with Bejohn that will present itself. You know, who knows? I mean, we didn't see Jamir Gibbs coming in terms of where you landed. No problem with him going top 20.

It praised that pick when it happened. But no one saw the Lions doing that. So could we see a shocker like that again with Genti? Yeah, I mean, you can't rule that out. It's interesting. Looking at the teams in the top 10-ish where it's like, all right, Carolina's already spent on running back. They're drafted.

I mean, obviously, Bruce got hurt, but they've already spent a lot on that position. The bear is like, people are going to do that. people already have, like, you need to eat your vegetables first before we're allowed to have dessert. Like, that's where I am with the Bears of Gentile. Like, when you need three or four starters on your two lines, you're not allowed to draft a running back in the top ten. It's unacceptable. What about what about the Raiders? So that's the other one where I think, but they just have enough holes and they're starting not from square one, but they're starting far enough behind the

eight ball where it's like, can you really justify this? Like, I like some of the pieces have along the offensive line. I actually think that group with Chip Kelly, the running game is going to be pretty interesting to me pretty quickly as I sit and think about it. But with how many things you probably need along the defensive? I don't know. I think they still just need enough high impact pieces

where it's hard to justify that sort of move. But I think that is one spot where it wouldn't be a complete shock if they did it, where you can, you know, a new regime coming in, you make a splashy draft pick like this, who could be the, you don't know what quarterback, what the quarterback position is going to look like.

So let's add an impact running back. He's going to help open things up for whoever's that quarterback. You know, Pete Carroll, you know, the way he looks at, you know, the run game is obviously important to him and what he wants the offense to look like. So, you know, I don't think it's a likely thing to happen, but I at least would not be completely shocked. even though I agree with you, the smarter way of attacking it would be to build up the roster and address the position later. But yeah, I mean, just looking through the teams, it's like I said, besides Dallas, there aren't a lot of, I mean, like Arizona made sense, but they just re-uped James Connor,

so I don't see that. And they drafted Benson in the day two last year. You know, I mean, the Bengals are interesting because, I mean, I think Chase Brown has had a pretty good year, but I don't think they're necessarily tied to the hip with him, but they have so many other need areas that would they really draft a running back with the 17th overall pick, given the current state of their defense and the holes they have along the offensive line, then we need to like run people out of town. But that's exactly it.

All the needs elsewhere makes it just so hard to draft a run. But there will be a point where a team says, all right, you know what, screw it. We can't let him fall another spot. And, you know, that's why I think, you know, a team like Washington would make sense if you would make it that far. But that's, they would, I think they'd have to trade up to go get them because I just don't see them falling that far. But yeah, Gentie will be a wild card in this first round. There's no doubt about it. The Denver thing we keep coming back to.

Like, that to me is fun. I think a tight end and a running back for Denver is just, it's so apparent, like what that would do for their offense is currently constructed. The fact that that offensive line is intact. But you look at the Raiders and like the Raiders are, I think the only team in the top. 10 as it currently stands, where when you, maybe Carolina too, but I think I want to say Austin Corbett is a free agent

after this season. But if you look at the Raiders right now, of all the teams in the top 10, they might be the only team where you could say, we know that they're starting offensive line at the end of last year. They can roll into it into 2025 with that group, and you could justify.

I don't think you can really say that about any of the other teams in the top 10. So if we're trying to like find a path or how a team talks themselves into Ashen Gensi. I think the Raiders are probably the most likely team in the top 10, even if I think it's probably a little bit aggressive, given some of the other needs that they still have. Well, and it's interesting with Chip Kelly now in the fold,

there are two Ohio State running backs that are going to go top 75 in this draft. And so do they target one of those guys because, you know, proofs in the pudding? They know, and obviously, Chip will have no better idea of who those running backs are as impact players. So, you know, that's just an interesting wrinkle when you have a college OC like Chip Kelly going to a pro team. Not that, you know, what he says is going to determine the draft pick, but he has such a unique understanding of, because Ohio State is going to, they probably, because they had a few guys go back, they probably don't set the record for draft picks, but I think they're going to tie it at 15.

And so it's just a unique situation when you have a guy like Chip Kelly who knows a lot of those offensive guys. intimately about their strengths, weaknesses, who they are as people, and how will we see that factor into what the Raiders do on draft weekend? Any other thoughts about your initial top 100 that we have not gotten to that you want to to get across to people as they're combing through it? No, I mean, I would say, you know, this is going to fluctuate. It will. And like, Jalen Walker at 3, I understand it's aggressive.

And I think the combine is going to be big for him because so much of his evaluation is it's projection. You know, for Georgia last year, he was all over the front seven, mostly as an off ball player. So he made plays in different ways, but by far he was most impressive as an edge rusher. So that's where I have him as an edge rusher. And the combine will be important to show that.

You know, he's listed at a 6-2-4-5. He plays really long, but coming in with, you know, 33 and a half, 34-inch arms, that'll be important just to make sure we're cementing what we see on tape. You know, what's his 10-yard split? How does he move in space?

I think we know the answer to all those questions, but just seeing it at the combine helps reinforce what you're seeing on tape. And if he doesn't, then it's, okay, let's go back and figure it out. Because, yeah, he could probably be an off-ball linebacker and develop. He needs more development. But I think he could do it at the NFL level, but I think his strength is getting after the quarterback. So that's where I have him.

and he does a lot of freaky things. And so that's why he's at three, but it's a projection. And there's a couple of those guys in this draft where you have to maybe fudge a little bit about what they're going to be at the next level. And Jalen Walker is the best example of that, which isn't ideal when you're talking about drafting a player top five, top 10, but it's just one of those years.

And, you know, Jalen Walker is going to be one of the more fascinating players that teams might be a little bit split on as we, get closer to draft weekend. Michael Parsons fell out of the top 10. You know, little things like that. You know, we forget when we talk about guys that maybe they blur the lines a little bit and what they do best, but you draft the freaky athlete on defense and you figure it out

later. There are some risks with that. There are also some rewards waiting at the end of that process. Especially in this draft. In this class. Yeah. When there's no clear cut guys outside of the top two where you're like, that guy's a day one difference maker.

I already see what it is. If it is, if you're having to tell yourself a story about everybody, you know, you might as well tell yourself a story about the guy who is uber, uber, super talented. It's betting on upside. I love Mason Graham. Defensive tackle,

Michigan, he's my number four player. Love Mason Graham. I don't think he's anything close to Quinn and Williams. You know, he's not that type of defensive tackle. And so if you want to bet on upside, I totally understand that with a guy like a Jalid Walker or,

you know, maybe one of the, the biggest maybe, you know, in terms of just freakiness is Shamar Stewart from Texas A&M. He's 285 pounds. but you know the sack product you have four and a half career sacks um but it's it's interesting because when you look at the pressures he actually led texas a and m and pressures

39 pressures but only one and a half sacks so he would get there he just couldn't finish and so a guy that is that freaky who at 285 pounds is explosive off the ball can corner he can flatten he can win with power uh it's just he needs continue continue continue to be continued to be coached up. I think it'll be easy for teams to talk themselves into the traits of Shemar Stewart. And he's going to be one of the more interesting evaluations about how early he goes because just how unique his profile is. So he's definitely one we'll be talking about more throughout the process.

Talking about J-Wen Walker at the Combine, it's a good thing to mention because that is the next time we will be chatting with you. We will be doing a Combine preview here in about what day is it, Beller. I have no idea like where I am or what day it is. A combine preview in about a week and a half, I think is the answer to that heading into that week in Indy. I'm very excited about that. I am very excited for Bruegler season, which I'm just, that's what the draft is now. And I'm looking forward to seeing you when we get to Indianapolis.

It is a fun stretch of the calendar. And I'm happy that we're leaning back into it. No, I can't wait, man. All right, guys, that's all we've got for today. We have one more show coming your way this week. We've done this every year the week after the Super Bowl. I always like doing it as sort of a table setter for what February and March are going to feel like. Me and Derek are just going to ask the biggest questions we have about this NFL offseason.

What are the biggest dominoes? What are the free agent names we're paying attention to? What are some of the quarterback movement questions that we want to ask? So we're going to be doing that on Friday. A reminder, I'm saying weekly-ish because there are going to be exceptions to this. For example, when we're at the Combine, we're going to be doing a show every week, so there will be no mailbag. The first week of free agency, we're going to be doing. a show every day so there's not going to be a mailback but for the most part we're going to have a

weekly mailbag every single week during the off season i love doing them i miss doing them the last one we did a couple weeks ago was my favorite show we did in a while so i need you guys to help me with that the reason we do these things is because you guys ask such good questions and you make them worthwhile so please send along your questions because we're going to be doing them so consistently there's not really a deadline on this. Just keep sending in your questions and thoughts, and I will be consistently combing through it over the course of the offseason.

Athletic Football Show at gmail.com, whether it's a rant about your favorite team, whether you're having an existential crisis about your favorite team, whether you have a specific question about your favorite team or something that's going to come this off season, just unload it in the email,

and I will take a look at it, and we will hopefully fold it into the show. So just a reminder that I'm going to be prodding you guys with over the course of this entire off season. For now, that is all we've got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.