The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - What's Dianna Hearing? The latest talk around the NFL at the start of draft week, with Dianna Russini

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Play time is over, NFL fans. Draft week is here, and everything is finally starting to get serious. Dianna Russini joins Robert Mays on this episode of The Athletic Football Show to dive into what she's hearing behind the scenes as draft week begins.Read the 2024 Edition of The Beast, By Dane BruglerFollow Robert on Twitter/X: @robertmaysFollow Dianna on Twitter/X: @DMRussiniSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining us today. It is the senior NFL insider at the Athletic. Diane, how are you? I am good. I'm well.

I'm excited. I went for a walk at a park yesterday with a neighbor of mine who knows nothing about football. And I spoke the entire time. We pushed our strollers about this upcoming draft. And he didn't say much afterwards. But that's okay. He knows everything, though. He knows every single thing that I know. He's actually the person we should have on the show. But I will say I've been listening to a lot of the shows. And I've heard about this mustache that you've got rocking. I hadn't seen it yet.

I am a fan. I would like to put that on the record. I think you need to keep this thing. I really appreciate that. You're making my decision even harder. I'm going to keep it until we at least all get together in Detroit a little bit later. I know you won't be joining us, but you will be joining us live via satellite. I don't think that's. That's how the technology works. But you will be joining us during our live shows on Thursday and Friday. For people who have not heard about this, we are doing our NFL draft shows live from Detroit. Not with an audience. I want to be clear about that.

There's been a little bit of confusion. It'll not be with an audience, but it will be with me, Nate, and Dane, breaking down, reacting to every single pick from the first three rounds on Thursday and Friday night. We're going to have some special guests popping in and out. you are going to be one of those very special guests joining us, giving us some insight on some of the bigger moves that may happen over those couple nights. So we are very excited for you to be joining us. And you guys, the listeners, we're very excited for all of you to come hang out with us Thursday, Friday night, live on YouTube, the athletic NFL YouTube channel. I'll be talking about it all week. I'll be tweeting about it all week.

If you miss it, I screwed up. But just keep it on your radar because we are very, very excited about this. All right, let's get into it. What we wanted to do today after, you know, a month or so of mostly prospect-centric analysis is kind of what I would say we've been doing a lot of on this show with Dana Nate and then also digging into some specific team needs. We haven't done a lot of scuttlebutt. Who might be moving? Why might they be moving? What's going to happen?

And that's why it was a perfect timing in my mind to bring you on to do this. We're going to do a little what Diana's hearing now that we are about 72 hours. remove from the draft here. Let's start with what really matters, and that is the quarterbacks and where they might be going. What I want to ask you is, which teams are really in on quarterbacks? Because there's some speculation about a couple that maybe it's a little bit wishy-washy. I don't even think it's worth spending any time on the Bears.

We know they're going to draft Caleb Williams. He's essentially on the team already, which I fully support. It removes a lot of anxiety and fear from my night. But let's go to Washington and two. I assume, like most people, that you believe Washington is going to take a quarterback. Adam Peters explicitly stated that they're probably going to stick it to and draft a quarterback. What are you hearing about Washington as we sit a few days out from the draft here? Yeah, I think at a time where a lot of GMs are standing up there and kind of winking at the media and at the cameras like,

hey, I'm saying this, but that may not be what I'm doing. I'm going to take AP's word for this, that they are going quarterback here. And this really has been the chatter for a while. And when you start looking at why and the reasoning, starting from something as simple and superficial as the fact that they have a new ownership, they have a new head coach, they have a new play caller, it all just aligns and makes a lot of sense. Now, who that quarterback is going to be. This is something that changed after this top golf visit in terms of what the chatter was around the league.

So I want to kind of start there. I'm so in on this. Just download all of this for me. This is exactly what I want right now. So when I heard about this initially, my reaction, whenever I see something that just seems or sounds bizarre to just me as a human being, I immediately go to like my NFL people that I can rely on a lot that have the experience and the knowledge of, hey, what do you think of this? And I was getting so many incredible responses of like, what? Why would you ever do that? And then really just the logistics of why you wouldn't do that is because you're just taking away from that one-on-one time.

If this is going to be your number two pick, the quarterback, your franchise guy, you want to absorb every second of them. You want to see them in the classroom. You want to see them in the whiteboard. You want to install. You want to do all these things. You don't care how they're mingling with guys that aren't even going to be their teammates. At this point, you kind of know who the people are as guys based on talking to their teammates. and doing all the research that you've done up to this point.

Now it's about the football. You get them in the building to do football. So when I heard this, I know San Francisco has done this because I remember in Tennessee when Rand Carthon came there, I think that that discussed a bit about perhaps doing the top golf thing or another fun activity in Nashville. I was going to ask, is it just top golf?

Has top golf filled a void in the draft industrial complex these days? Good for top golf. I think it's like gut people, a, most guys love golf. And it's always so funny to see, like, you have the greatest athletes at this specific sport, yet they want to be the greatest athlete at a different one. Like they're enamored with golfers, you know, and look at how many NFL players now play. It's an obsession. In fact, I took lessons last year because I felt like when I was going to a lot of these league events, players and coaches were always going out to play, and I could never play.

I'm like, I can drive the cart, barely. So I figured if I could play, I could fit in a little bit more. This is why you're successful when I'm not, is that that's where your mind goes to. It's that I need to learn how to play golf so I can do my job better. I'm just content playing golf shittily continuously. I also, I have so much pride in my athleticism that I'd be mortified to go out there, especially as a woman and not be able to hang with the boys. So my husband got that for me as a gift for Mother's Day, actually.

So I thought that was a really smart gift, too, because I'd been complaining, like, I've been missing opportunities because that's, I don't get to go back. He's listening. That's what you want. Always, right? So the top golf thing makes sense, but also, you know, look, from their perspective, their philosophy was,

let's just bring them all in together and just see how they mesh, see what this looks like. You know, remember, this is also a franchise right now. Even their setup, like in their building from what I was told, from someone that works there, it's very open-aired. It's not like cubicles. Like I remember back in the day when I covered Washington, it was just like a typical office where, you know,

everyone has their own door and an area, but it's a little bit more open now. So things are not saying that it's not breaking news, right? It's a period of transition. Like I think that's just the way to frame it and the way to think about it. And that applies to every choice that they can make, including a franchise altering one like the quarterback. Correct.

So here they are trying to just do something that they think works, right? You have to give the commanders credit for trying to lean into ideas. from all different people, right? So this is obviously an idea that came from Adam Peters who learned this in San Francisco when they did this. It just didn't make big waves because I'm not 100% sure they did this with the quarterback visits. I think this was with other players.

And I did have a very obnoxious person that works and personnel say, well, they picked Tray Lance. So obviously, top confidence didn't work last time, which is so cheap and mean. but something to think about it. Has that franchise played like multiple NFC championship games and Super Bowls over the last five years?

I'm just curious. Correct. So go top golf, right? All right. So they do this. So now what? So what changes? You said something might have shifted.

So what shifted? When I talk about shifting, I mean, just it seemed some smoke. And some of that was media driven. Gotcha. Obviously, the agent didn't seem happy with this visit. And look, at the end of the day,

from what I was trying, old. If Daniels had a choice, he would play for the Raiders. That is a team he really wants to play for. That's talk I've heard in the league for a while now that that's where he wants to go. The Raiders, of course, would love to get him there. But that's not most likely going to happen because the commander seemed to be locked in on drafting him. Well, unfortunately for him, he doesn't have a choice in all of this.

The Washington is the one that has a choice. So in your mind, if you had to get him, he didn't. guess who which direction they will go at number two are you kind of in lockstep with what has become essentially the consensus that jaden daniels is probably going to be the pick yeah from the conversations i've had for weeks now daniels seem to be the the player that they have been doing the most work on and they're most comfortable with cliff kingsbury wants to coach him um and they believe that this is the the type of player that they want to build around knowing that they've got six picks and so the top 100. So they've got lots of choices here after they get their

quarterback, but they are locked in and focused on getting that quarterback there. Do you think that's mostly rooted in him being more of a finished product, more of a sure thing, more of a safe bet than somebody like Drake May would be in this spot? So let's have that conversation because I found it really interesting over the weekend. I was doing digging on information specific to teams, but I really really, just wanted to get an idea from those that have been that are in on quarterbacks and those that aren't on who they had on their board uh in terms of ranking and i thought i was going to get more drake may at two and that was my mistake i i had read a bunch of different mocks and and just

based on some of the things that i was observing i i just figured it was it was a it was closer and it wasn't. In fact, I spoke to a team who was in on a quarterback who thinks that Daniels is better than Caleb Williams, who would have put him above Caleb. But in terms of ranking around the league, it just seemed that more teams were in favor of Daniels over Drake May. So here's my question about this. One, I'm not going to address the Daniels, Caleb Williams thing. That's no win. That's a that's a no win situation for me. Anything I say about that, I cannot win. I did not do that to give you draft scaries here. That wasn't it. It was just the person said it to me. I push back a little bit and I realized I'm not going to get. I'm not going to battle this right now.

So let's just move on. They're not this person that's part of this team. They're not going to get Caleb Williams. So it doesn't matter anyway. So let's continue. So the people that you are surveying about this, if you had to look at a pie chart of where those people work, either in coaching or personnel, which is the majority? Coaching. So that's not surprising to me. That's why I asked the question because I think if I were a coach, it's hard to say this. It's not surprising to me that a pool mostly made up of coaches would look at Jane Daniels and say, I can.

win with that and more people in personnel would look at Drake May's upside and say, I want to bet on that. If I had to do a split and kind of a wide swath and paint them with a broad brush, that that is not surprising that that's how maybe that group would feel about this. The combine is what really switched it up for me in terms of who I believed was the better quarterback. That's when it started. I came home from Indy and I just remembered kind of reflecting a lot of the conversations

I was having and it just, it seemed every coach wanted to talk about Daniels and how good he was and his natural ability. Whereas I feel like when we started the offseason, Drake, Drake May really had what I thought was the inside lane after Caleb Williams. But here we are a few days out from the draft. And it just feels like Daniels has more steam over Drake May at this point. So let's assume that Caleb Williams goes one and Jayden Daniels goes two to Washington. New England is sitting there at three. Do you anticipate that the Patriots, no matter who's available, let's say Daniels and May are there.

Let's say there's a curve ball or two. Do you anticipate the Patriots sticking and picking a quarterback at three, no matter which of the top three quarterbacks are still available there? All right. So the sense I'm getting from around the league, and this is just having conversations with people in New England, this is having conversations with teams that are trying to get in there, is that it would take a King's ransom to get New England to move off what they want to do,

which is go quarterback. And you and I could probably sit here for the full podcast and discuss why we believe that they should probably trade out here and get more picks and build up a roster that doesn't look like it has much on it. But I can tell you, Jonathan Kraft is overseeing a lot of this. And that was something that was told to me from another team that was trying to do some business with them, that Jonathan Kraft is very hands-on in.

some of this decision making here coming up on what they're going to do with that pick. So yes, Elliot Wolf is running the show. He is the general manager, but ownership is fully involved here. And the thought is they do not want to experience what they did over the last few seasons, which is confusion at quarterback. Yes, they brought into Kobe Bresset and he can ride this ship here. But getting a quarterback that they believe they can grow into a winning one is the priority there, from what I understand.

Again, they could take a deal if it's something that they think blows the doors off. But for now, from what I can gather, it appears they are in on quarterback. Yeah, I totally understand that. I think that the way I've looked at this for the most part over the last couple months is it worries me when you consider the supporting cast and the lack of help that guy would have if you want him to play right away. That's scary to me. What can develop the bad habits that can develop the scar tissue that can develop when you put a quarterback into a bad situation early? That's real. And so that worries me about New England specifically.

At the same time, I get looking at this pool of quarterbacks, looking forward to to 2024 and thinking, this is our best chance. Maybe we don't play him for half the year. Maybe we sit in for a little bit longer than that. We've seen guys come out on the other side with bad situations. Josh Allen's supporting cast in 2018 was horrendous. It was absolutely horrendous. And he ended up becoming fine.

I get thinking, we got to come away from a quarterback here. And if they end up picking Drake May at three, I have no issues with that whatsoever. I just think that threading the needle with drafting a quarterback there and trying to surround him with the right pieces for him to even be in a decent spot early on is going to be difficult for this team to pull off considering where it's starting from. I just think you have someone that is familiar with that organization in Houston who built something over the last few seasons. And look, do I think the Texans could have predicted everything to work out the way it did? No, some of this was luck, but some of this was really just smart roster building by Nick Casario. And maybe it didn't get off to the hottest start, but it appears that there was a lot of really

aggressive moves made to build and eventually wait to get the right quarterback. And why not use that blueprint? That's sort of how I've looked at what New England's doing and why they're, they have an opportunity to do this to get more picks, collect, and continue to build. But if ownership feels like they need to get a quarterback in that building, that may just be what they need to do. It just. Well, that's the problem. It appears to be more short term to me than it does long term.

It absolutely is. But how teams often operate that way, the human nature of all this starts to creep in. If you look at what was happening in Houston, after the Sean Watson, the first draft, I think was 20, 21, correct? They didn't have a first or second round pick. So they had two threes. They ended up taking Davis, Mills, and Nico Collins with those two picks. So they weren't even in a position to draft quarterback back then. Also, between 2021 and 2024, they fired two head coaches.

Two head coaches got canned as part of this process. And you have an absentee owner there in Houston who probably doesn't give a shit when you're going to end up drafting a quarterback because there's no sense of urgency there. That's not the situation that's currently happening in New England. You have a coach coming in who is the heir parent, who was the pan pick successor. There's urgency on that side. There's urgency from an ownership group that I think, desperately wants to wrestle the narrative back and start to reclaim what they are in building

this team up and in success this team has had. And with all of those different factors, I don't think it's the right decision because of those things, but I think it's a different set of circumstances than what Houston has been dealing with. Between the documentary that was put out, between the ESPN article that came out, Robert Kraft seems or at least appears to have been doing, he's been doing a lot of talking. Sure has. You know what happens when you, when you talk, you better be able to back it up. Right. So when you talk about this pressure, this idea of needing to do this now, I think it really falls on some of that because he's setting this up,

basically saying, come get me. He's got the target on his back now for putting all of this out this way. So I do think while we can sit here and say, man, it'd be a lot smarter for them to just continue to build. They need to improve almost in every single area. But while, yes, quarterback is a priority there, for them, it seems that they think they can address this now and figure the rest out later. And we'll see if they'll be able to do it. Now, this being said, it's important to know teams have called them.

They are reaching out. They've been all weekend long trying to see what it would take. Are they willing to do it? In fact, teams that I've been talking to that are trying to get up are asking me is, you know, what are you hearing it's going to take? What can we do? How far? Can we wiggle them out? And they are doing a good job, I will say, New England, is working the phones and allowing teams to believe that they can be wiggled.

Yet people in the building have told me that they're probably going to stick and pick. So I think that's expected, you know, this idea that the top three teams would stick and pick quarterbacks. That's what most people would probably anticipate at this point. After that is when things start getting real interesting. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to go actually in track. order with some of these other teams and ask you how much they really are in for a quarterback and what sort of urgency we're talking about here. Let's start with the Giants at 6 because there's been some noise about whether they want to leave them top five with the quarterback.

They've done homework on the quarterbacks. How motivated do you think the Giants really are to potentially go get the fourth quarterback as part of this process? I think the Giants are sitting in a position where if the quarterback they want is available when they're on the clock, I think they'd be willing to do it. But from what I can gather here, and this is just talking to a few people there, they want to build.

They want to get more. If there's any team that I think could possibly even trade out, it would be the Giants. I could see them trading out before getting a quarterback to get more picks to continue to build because they are another team that have a lot of needs.

And obviously we know the history. This general manager, Joe Shane did not draft Daniel Jones, but he did give him that contract last year. There was a time where I was digging on trying to find out if they were willing to trade up. There have been some mocks out there that had the Giants moving up to go get a quarterback. And it was explained to me that that was just a really tough sell to ownership after giving Daniel Jones that contract last year that we're going to now give up assets to replace a quarterback that were paying $40 million.

So I think there's a really small chance that they do that. I think there's a better chance that they trade out for more picks. And perhaps, let's just say in order, I guess, then most likely they would probably just stick and pick there. That hurts me. You want to roll up? No, it's just the idea that we gave Daniel Jones that contract. So now how can we trade up for a quarterback?

That's how bad teams they bet. you gave Daniel Jones that contract. It was a mistake. You do not want to pay him what he's going to have to make next year. You are in a position potentially to get on a rookie quarterback timeline and reset yourself and course correct from the mistake that you made. And not seeing it that way and seeing it as how we've already invested so much in quarterback, how can we do it again?

That hurts me physically to hear that that might be the thinking. I also think it's the way to keep jobs, right? because if you're Joe Shane and you want to win this thing, you want to get a better quarterback in place. But he doesn't have the time. I don't believe Joe Shane has some deal with the Mara family going, all right, I have a five-year building program here. No, he's got to figure out a way to win with Daniel Jones, especially after last season. And I would argue that there's no hot seat there, but I would think Brian Daible probably has a lot more pressure than Joe Shane. usually that's how that works, right?

The head coach usually gets it a little bit more than the GM, but they have to figure out how to make this team work next year. They don't have the time to build around a rookie quarterback. I think that's fair, and I understand that. I think your best chance to win in the relative short term, so let's say over the next two years, is to have a quarterback, you're paying $6 million against the cap in 2025, and you can spend whatever you want to build up the rest of the roster

rather than paying Daniel Jones $42 million against the cap in 2020. 2025. So if 2024, maybe their best way to win is to pick a receiver, stick him next to Daniel Jones, maybe we can win eight or nine games, show people that we're making progress. But I think that tops you out over a two to three year span in a way that drafting a cheap quarterback and building around him does not. Yeah. But again, it's going to be the results of next season onto whether or not they will continue their time in New York. Again, bad team stay bad. This is we keep Keep revisiting this. It feels like it might be a theme here as we keep going through.

All right. So those are the teams picking in the top 10. They theoretically are in a position to get a quarterback. I want to talk about three other teams that are outside the top 10, but also might have some urgency in landing their guy. Let's start with Minnesota at 11. What are you hearing about the mindset the Vikings are bringing into this draft? And what are you hearing about the machinations that we might see from Minnesota in trying to go get their guy?

I'm freaking out from Minnesota. And the reason why I'm freaking out from Minnesota is because I know how committed they are to getting a quarterback in this draft. So does everybody else? They have made it very known. They are trying to get a quarterback. They didn't pay Kirk Cousins.

Ownership decided they don't want to pay him. They don't want to give him those guaranteed money. They don't want to pay a 36-year-old quarterback or 35-year-old quarterback coming off in Achilles. We want to draft. We have this great head coaching Kevin O'Connell. We saw what he can do with basically any quarterback. He can coach up a rookie and we can get this thing back on track.

Okay, great. But did anyone think about how this will play out? Is Kevin O'Connell getting one of the top quarterbacks? We don't know because there's other teams that are in trying to move up ahead of them, which we'll get to in a second. So you have Minnesota now willing to make. this trade willing to give up assets the you know we know that they've got these two picks in the first round they've got a pick next year that they got from euston are they willing to go as far

and use all the assets and and i've had this conversation with a lot of different people in the league does minnesota have the most to give a team that's willing to trade Minnesota will tell me they do other teams trying to get up there tell me no that's not true. That you teams that don't have that type of draft capital can figure out better and smarter ways and even more lucrative ways to move up. So when I started talking about Minnesota saying, I'm very scared for them. It's because of this. It's this idea that there's teams that don't have this draft capital that believe that they can get up to get their guy. Is that a team like Denver? Denver is a team that appears to be committed, focused, targeting all those awesome words that we love to use on draft night.

Trying to do this. And doesn't that just make all the sense in the world? You mean, you have their head coach and Sean Payton there who was brought in last year to fix it all. Guess what he did not do? He didn't fix anything. He went and cut a quarterback that's going to cost them $80 million. against the cab. Okay, anybody could have done that.

So why would you bring Sean Payton in if he didn't fix it? Well, you're about to bring, you brought Sean Payton in for what you are about to see, which is for him to get a quarterback that he will call it loves, wants to coach, and build him up to be what they are hoping to be, you know, Drew Breeze part two. So I think Denver sitting here trying to figure out the lay the land, what they have to give, how they're. going to be able to come together with the package to try to move up with teams like New England, like Arizona, like L.A. Chargers, who are open for business. So what's the argument

for how a team like Denver who does not have the same amount of draft capital or the same amount ammunition than Minnesota does putting together a package that's more enticing to one of those teams? Denver right now doesn't have a two. That's like the main issue here, right? If we're looking at what they're missing, they do not have their second round pick. They don't have their fourth round pick because of the Sean Payton trade. So that's going back to New Orleans. They're looking at. They don't have their, they're also missing a couple other picks just randomly. They don't have their fourth round pick, but they do have Miami's fourth round pick. So it was the argument that they're just willing to dip into the 2025 capital in a way that

some of these other teams aren't willing to like Minnesota, and that's why this is possible. Because Minnesota doesn't have a 25-2, but the reason they don't have a 20-25-2 is because they have a second first-round pick this year. I think different teams go about it with their own philosophies. I think in these kind of situations, you have to figure players are thrown in here, right? You throw a few players as asset. And if you're Sean Payton, why, what are you afraid of in terms of getting rid of picks for the future? In his mind, if he can get the quarterback, he has a lot of his questions answered and he could,

in his mind, I'm sure, believe he can win. It's just, is the quarterback he wants going to A, be available? and is he going to be able to get this done and beat out Minnesota. And this is all stuff that's going down at this moment. And I can tell you, let's just start with Arizona. I know they're not willing to do any trades until draft night. So Monty operated the same way last year with Houston, with Tennessee, with teams that were all talking to Arizona trying to get a deal struck.

He would not do a thing until everyone was on the clock. So he's doing it again. It's smart. I like that because somebody's going to get really desperate and somebody's going to be willing to do something in the moment that they would not be willing to do right now. And I think it's a very good way to approach it. Correct. And so that's why I think a lot of fans are wondering, well, if the Vikings really had this blockbuster deal in place, Arizona would have took it already. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Because Monty believes that he could probably get even more on draft night, knowing these teams like the Minnesota Vikings, like the Denver Broncos, and like the Vegas Raiders. are all trying to get up to get a quarterback. Okay. So now my gears are turning because you're talking about players and sending those as part of that trade. So if you're the Broncos, you're calling Arizona at 4. And they have a deal in place that would give them an 1123 and change from the Vikings. So let's say even if it's not a 2025 first,

let's say it's a 2025 third for argument's sake. If you're Denver, okay, here is 12. here is our third rounder this year. Here's a second rounder next year and Patrick Sartan for four. How does that sound to you? Are they, are the Broncos in such a restart mode that maybe want to do something like that? Is that more valuable? Is that more valuable to Arizona than Minnesota's two ones and next year's one?

Do you believe that that carries more weight? I'd have to think about the actual draft points of it, but on a broad level, if I were Arizona, I have all this cap space. I have tons of it. And like the Bears last year with DJ Moore, I'm never going to be able to spend it on worthwhile players. In free agency, I'm never going to be able to get my bang for the buck with this. So if I include a player as part of this and I can eat up some of that cap space on a

player that's worth paying, is that more appealing to me than even more draft capital when I already have tons of it coming out of my ears. I understand that argument. right, they've got seven picks in the top 104. Okay. So they've already got plenty. That being said, I was told that Arizona is not looking to move back that far.

Okay, so does this mean then, does Denver have to trade up in the top 10 to then get up? Because Monty doesn't want to have to wait all the way at 11, 12, or 13. Or do what he did last year coming back in. And get back in, right? That was obviously a brilliant move. that a lot of people did not see coming, do they pull that same move?

Which, by the way, just to add, I was told to keep a lookout for that maneuvering again outside of Arizona as well in the top five. So we could see that type of strategy. The charges, you think, too? I think the charges can do it. Somebody that I really trust throughout the commanders as an option, they didn't believe they were going to do it,

but remember, the commanders could do something wild like that as well. You can't screw around like that with the quarterbacks, though. If it's a quarterback, you cannot screw around like that. I saw somebody talking about that with New England today. I think it might have been out with Brewer and SportsOster talking about the Patriots potentially doing that. I was like never in a million years. If it's a quarterback, never in a million years.

I had a great executive this morning tell me we were playing this kind of game of like wild scenarios. And he's not very fun at the game because he doesn't do it. He says the same thing. He's like people don't get cute on draft night. Like what do you think this is? You know, like this isn't a podcast. This is draft night. Hey.

Hey. Hey. I know shots. He's not coming on Scoop City ever. That's my new podcast coming out in a few months. So, yeah, I think you're right. I don't think teams are going to get cute unless they know, unless they have a deal worked out.

They've had these conversations with GMs that they're familiar with, that they've got this trust with, that they have something where they can bank on it. But you're right. I think just going clean and stick and picking is going to most likely be the style. But going back to the quarterbacks that are the teams that are trying to get up. a quarterback. To me, it just, you have more teams that are in need of a quarterback and not enough

quarterback for those teams. So this is why I have been sweating for days for these teams because someone is going to be left out of the party and I don't know who it's going to be. So let's go back to the Vikings and the Broncos here because I think we know what Minnesota wants to do. We know Minnesota wants to go into the top five and get one of these guys. With the Vikings and the Broncos think it's a little bit murkier. You meant the Denver is probably a team that for the right trade, for the right set of moves, they would be willing to do it. Let's say they can't do it. And let's say the Raiders can't either.

What do you think is the more likely scenario? Do you think it's more likely that those two teams will pick a quarterback if they like one there? Or do you think it's more like that they will wait and either try to come back into round one or maybe even wait into round two for Michael Penix or a Bonix? I think Denver trades out. I think they're going to try to get more picks. If they can't get a deal, if they can't do that, I think they'll just start addressing some needs, right? Defensive side of the ball for them, they need to get better at.

I think they could do that. I think the Raiders, I've been told they really like Michael Panics. He seems to be a quarterback that's on their radar. And the Pennick's name in the last 48 hours, Robert, I've had more GMs tell me he is the best kept secret right now in the league, that we are not screaming his name. We're not talking about him on our shows. No one's really writing about him that much.

Yet he's the quarterback that a lot of teams have on their radar and the Raiders are one of them. It makes sense to me. It just in the sense of like, if we're going to take him at 25, why wouldn't we just take him at 13? and let's just not be cute about it. And sometimes we can overrate how how these guys are going to go. I remember the Will Levis conversation from this time last year. I remember what it was like even if some other people have forgotten it.

So I'm always hesitant to just say, there's going to be like five of them drafted in the top 12. Don't worry about it. With the Raiders specifically, I think it might line up with urgency availability. And just this is the cleanest path forward for us. Yeah. I know you don't title your podcast. We just do them.

I think we should title this if you guys don't. mind, Michael, if you can take care of this, don't be cute. That's what I like. But the thing is there's, there's intelligence to that. And I do think it's going to apply. It always feels like it's going to be crazier than it usually turns out to be, right? Because right now the board is clear and we are all trying to fit these different situations, the butterfly effect of all of this on top of tons of bad info that is getting floated around.

But at the same time, at this point, this thing starts to get clearer and it's starting to. If you're looking at the pool of quarterbacks, right, we know we have the guys who are probably going to go in the top three, J.J. McCarthy has kind of consensus become the fourth guy. Do you think that the league views a big gap between Pennix and Knicks as the fifth and sixth option? I do. I do. And that was just newly learned. I had been operating the last few weeks, at least since the combine. that I guess I was, in my mind, I was kind of grouping them within two or three picks apart, one or the other. But Pennix has, his stock has been up.

And this is talking to teams in the quarterback market, that this is the guy that whose name just keeps coming up. So I expect him to go in the first round. If you had to pick between the Broncos and the Raiders, which team is more likely to leave this draft with a quarterback. You think it's the Raiders? I believe it's good. If it, if the Denver Broncos organization can somehow get up, if they can figure out a way, whatever magic they have there, along with the new uniforms, I think they'll get the quarterback. But if they can't get up, if they're stuck, I think they're to walk out of this thing without a quarterback. And the Raiders are going to get theirs. So breeding the tea leaves there, I think that means they like J.G. McCarthy.

Is that how I should be reading this? Yes, I've been told that they like J.J. McCarthy. I know that Daniels was on their board as a top guy. And in regards to the Raiders, you look at Tom Telesco's history. He's not a big trade guy. He is not. He doesn't do that. So I could see them just sitting there.

And do I think they're making calls to try to get up? Yeah, absolutely. But I don't think they're as pressed as, let's say, the Minnesota Vikings and the Denver Broncos, who you have to figure the GMs and both those teams. There's no way they're sleeping, no way, knowing that they have no idea how this is going to pan out because the teams that they're probably doing business with won't give them answers yet. I don't know how you feel about this. I've said this a couple different times over the past month.

I am more excited about this top 10 than I think any drafts that I have covered, thought about written about in the dozen years that I've done this. Maybe that's just recency bias and my ability to get excited about just about anything. But I really do feel like this year specifically has so much intrigue baked into all of these picks. I think it has a lot of intrigue, but I can't believe in how many directions it's all going in. That's what I like about it. So many things could happen. Yeah. And I can't believe how many people are willing to put their name on things that they believe were going to happen. And then I'll talk to someone.

Like, I love when I get a text message from a general manager or head coach after someone's mock draft comes out or somebody's piece comes out and be like, what drugs is this person taking? And it just blows my mind to think how someone could be so off. And I'm sure someone is going to read me on Wednesday after my column comes out and be like, Rucini's on crap. But this is just the time of year. This is how this works.

And I can tell you that. a lot of the conversations I have with specific teams, Robert, I try to do a lot more work on other teams through them because they're all talking to each other. All the jams are chatting. You can always get more about another team than you can about a specific team that you're speaking with. And, you know, starting probably Saturday night, everyone just started to shut it down in terms of, yeah, I'm not going to get into what we're doing, but I can tell you, I know this team is doing this, this, and this, or they called us about this, this and that. So this is all going to get clearer. But I'm with you.

The excitement I have towards this draft is even, it's much better than last year. But the only reason why I can admit that is because I didn't expect last year to happen the way it did. I did not believe the Uson Texans were kicking CJ Shrap. That is still my favorite smokescreen. And at the time, I was working at ESPN and I went on television a few times and definitely said that they were not going quarterback. They did. Yeah, everything you're saying just makes me conceive of the entire collection of NFL personnel people, like a middle school lunchroom with them all just sitting around gossiping about one another, which I really enjoy. And also, people may not know this, but yeah, Dane has been on an ayahuasca kick.

So when you're looking at his mock draft, everyone's like, what drugs is everyone on that? That's the reason. He's just experimenting. Yeah. I look forward to experimenting after this draft. I feel like I've had to be so focused and caffeinated and locked in. And even just, you know, I've shared this with you as my friend. Sometimes, you know, you don't know when people in the league are going to call you.

So when they do, you have to take it. And I had multiple examples of speaking where I was in the worst position ever to take a phone call. But when this person who has a top five pick is calling and you need to get some info, you're taking it, even if you're in a pool at a swim lesson with your two-year-old and you're in your bathing suit. It's ridiculous. But my husband is waving the phone to me like saying the part like you need to get this, you know. I don't understand. Like I can only imagine what the parents are thinking too.

Like, oh, look at this mother. I think she's so important. In the meantime, I'm trying to help figure out what the heck this team's doing. The fact that you're even there, I think says more about you than most other people in a similar situation. Let's move beyond the quarterbacks here, but stick in the top 10 for a minute. Any other teams in the top 10 than it. as you've dug around and as you've had conversations, you find particularly juicy. Either the decision that they're going to make or what other teams think they're going to do.

So I was bored by the Titans initially. And when I say bored, it's a compliment to them, right? Because everyone is mock Joe Alt there. Everyone has mocked Joe Alt there for like two months. It is a boring pick in the top 10 compared to the other ones. I think that's more than fair. Give them a bar on Broadway at this point, the way it's just, it's so predictable. It's such an easy pick and a smart pick and it makes so much sense.

And because it's boring, I'm like, it can't be right. It can't be right. They went online last year. You know, maybe this year they changed it up. You have a new head coach. It is a completely different building, completely different. Everything about that team is different than what it was six months ago, five months ago. So that in mind.

Okay. So I get it makes sense. Brian Callahan, the head coach. He, of course, has his great father coaching the offensive line now. Why not get dad a great O-Lyman? Will Levis, obviously, is the future here. At least they believe him to be. We need protection.

This is an area. They are desperate to improve on. But, but, but, but you have an offensive-minded head coach that comes from Cincinnati. All right. And we know how they build that team. We know what that team looks like on offense. And this Titans team could use another wide receiver. So while I have not.

not been told in detail or specifics. Yes, wide receiver is where we are going in Tennessee. I do know it's an option. I do know it's something that they are discussing. It is up on the board. They've done tons of homework on it. And I would not be surprised if they decide to go that way. I would be surprised, but I understand how someone would connect the dots. If you look at Brian Calhans' entire history, I mean, it goes beyond Cincinnati. His first job in the NFL, was with the Peyton Manning Broncos. It was a couple years before Peyton Manning got there, but he was with the Broncos during the Peyton Manning era

when it was Eric Decker, Demarius Thomas, West Welker, Julius Thomas, past catching options everywhere. He was in Detroit when Calvin Johnson was there with Matthew Stafford, and obviously he was with the Bengals when they drafted Jamar Chase over the offensive lineman in that spot. Look at what they've done in free agency. Look at how much urgency there was

and how much motivation there was to go get a Calvin Ridley. he believes that surrounding your quarterback, especially your young quarterback with past catchers, is a worthwhile pursuit. And I get that. And if you look at the way the roster is constructed, even though right now you have DeAndre Hopkins, you have Calvin Ridley, there's murkiness beyond them. And DeAndre Hopkins is in his 30s and I believe only under contract for next season, correct? So if you're thinking about this as a long-term prospect, I totally get it. That being said, they need an offensive lineman so desperately. Even with Skoransky and even with signing Lloyd Cushenberry, look at what they got. I mean, there are a tackle situation right now. It's not in a good spot.

So I still think even if you're betting on Bill Callahan as a developer and you can wait a little bit and you look at Brian Callahan's history and how past catcher centric it has been, I still think the most likely outcome is for them to draft the best tackle available with a seventh overall pick. I think back to let's not get cute. This would fall on it. Let's not get cute. But you have to wonder how much Callahan is going. I need to get this offense going.

It's why I was brought here. I want to score points. He has said this. And is he going to fight that urge? Or is he going to recognize, okay, we're going to probably need to build here on our offensive line to protect our young quarterback. And obviously, training out is also an option for a team like 10 and 3, knowing what this draft looks like, knowing that they still can get some of their needs met.

if they were to move out. And it's not, if they don't take an offensive lineman with the seventh overall pick, it doesn't mean they won't take an offensive lineman, period, whether that's with the trade back, or could they do something in the second round and try to find a guy? And again, bet on one of the best talent developers at that position in the entire NFL. One of the reasons and one of the benefits of having Bill Callahan is that you can try to skimp a little bit and try to get the most out of these guys when you look at his history and you look at how proven he is in that role specifically.

So I still think they take an offensive lineman. That's still my hunchier. But I understand why there's maybe a little bit more smoke around this than it might have seemed like a couple weeks ago. I always feel bad when people are really good at what they do. It's like, well, let's just give them less. Hey, Patrick Mahomes, we're not going to give you angry targets. Because you're just that good, right? It's like, hey, you're so great to coach the O line.

We're just going to give you scraps. Figure it out. We'll just keep building the receiving core. You know, so do I think that's probably part of the plan? Yes, but I like the word shock that you said. Like if they go out of receiver, you'll be, or you said a little surprise is what you said. I would be a little bit surprised,

but I wouldn't be shocked because I understand the thought process that can get us there. What I now am just kind of fixated on is if you drop them into the mix for one of the receivers at seven, how does this all end up shaking out? Because you said two things when we were chatting earlier about some of these picks that I think are worth keeping in mind when talking about the receivers. One, Arizona does not want to move. back too far because even if they don't think they need to grab Marvin Harrison Jr. with that fourth overall pick and that there's a small gap between the receivers, I still think they want to leave the top 10 of this year's draft with a receiver most likely. So they're in that market.

And then you said, well, what if the Giants want to move back? Because if you're looking at this and you know that if Arizona moves back, they want a receiver, if the Titans potentially want a receiver, if you're one of these teams that really thinks that we need a pass catcher, we need one of these top three guys. Do the Giants then become a trade partner because you think you need to get ahead of a couple of these teams? So beyond the quarterbacks, what's going to happen with the receivers and all of the movement that could potentially go on there is kind of like a three-card Monty game? I'm very excited to watch how that all unfolds. The other team that we didn't get into, and I would like to touch on it really quickly, is just the Chargers. I view them as a as a restart, but

I don't necessarily believe that they are in this to try to gather more picks here. I do think they're going to wind up going after the player that they want, knowing that they need them, especially after the offseason they had. So while I do believe that they're taking phone calls and there are teams trying to get into that spot, I could see the Chargers just staying and trying to get, trying to get a receiver, trying to get an O line. We know how much Jim Harbo loves offensive line, you know, if that's the direction he wants to go. if he thinks he needs to pick at that point to get his guy.

And, you know, I had a great conversation with the personnel person recently. And he's like, look, sometimes in these situations, yeah, it's tempting to go get more picked. But you need someone to move the needle. You need guys. So this may be, this could be a future Hall of Fame receiver that you can go grab if you're on the clock there. Rather than taking a risk on trying to get more picks than maybe have those players not pan out. Yeah, we always over, and this is just historically, there's been papers written about this for the last 20 years. We overrate our ability as just the football world to understand who's going to be good and who's not in the draft.

So saying, I'd rather make sure I get the needle mover here rather than accumulate more picks. A lot of mistakes have been made thinking about it that way. But if you're looking at some of these receivers and you're looking at Justin Herbert and knowing we'll probably never be this bad again. With this quarterback, we will probably never be this bad again. Are we ever going to be in a spot where we will be able to draft a guy like Marvin Harrison Jr., like Malik neighbors, one of these game-changing type guys? The answer is probably no, but you can make the same argument for offensive tackles because of where offensive tackles are typically drafted. So I get it. I get saying our quarterback is so good.

We have enough faith in our infrastructure that we don't think we're going to be drafted in the top five anytime soon. Let's make sure we can get one of these elites-type prospects in what we consider an outlier type year for us in the draft. Right. Before we get out of here, you alluded to this a little bit, I think when talking about the Giants, but I wanted to ask you, five head coaches or GMs that you think need to nail this draft, five guys that you think have a lot riding on what happens this week. Where would you want to start? So I don't believe that this means hot seat. Do I mean the seat's probably a little cozy? Yeah. And when I say they need a nail, it's it's, it's, it's, they're. need to now so they can get the confidence from their owners, confidence from the fan base, that, all right, there's a plan here. Some of them based on their history, some of them based on really just what they've done recently. So I'll just start with really off the top of my head. The Joe's in New York. When I say the Joe's, I mean, Joe Shane with the New York Giants and Joe Douglas

with the Jets. Both teams have need for improvement all over the field. Obviously, we know the Jets really want to get a playmaker in there. They could use an offensive lineman as well. They also got the Zach Wilson situation there, right? He's still the quarterback. He's on the roster. Are they going to try to move him at some point here? Are they going to be able to move them before the draft?

Who would be in on him? What are they going to get for him? But also, where are they going to go? What direction are they going to go in this draft? It appears that they're going to go with this playmaker because that's what Aaron Rogers wants. Bowers seems to be the name we're hearing a lot about. And then, of course,

Yoshane, which we really dove into here. And I do think this pick tells you a lot about how Joe Shane feels about his job security. Yeah. I think if they're looking at this is a short-term thing, and that's the most important consideration with that pick, I think that's exactly what it tells you. The Bauer stuff to the Jets is fascinating. So you think if there's an option between an offensive lineman and a pass catcher at that spot,

the place that they're in right now would lead you to believe that they'd lean toward the past catcher. Yeah, I think that's just knowing that that's what Aaron wants and that's an area where they have to get better in. Although I think you and I could probably make an argument. Offensive line needs to significantly improve after it was the reason why everything fell apart last year. But we'll see what they do. We'll see if they'll be willing to trade out of that to maybe perhaps get some more to build up. But from the conversations I've been having that appears to be where they're going to stick and pick. My number two would be Minnesota Vikings gym,

Kresi Adolpho Mensa. And this is really, this, look, we're three years into his regime, right? We know he didn't pay Kirk Cousins. His head coach was very vocal about wanting to keep Kirk cousins, right? Like, it was the worst kept secret because Kevin pretty much put it out there.

Like, we want Kirk, we love Kirk. And some of that was recruiting to perhaps get Kirk to agree to a deal that would be less than what he would get in the market. And of course, we saw what the Atlanta Falcons did. But I think this is a, he has to have an answer here. And relying on Kevin O'Connell's coaching ability may not be fair. So we'll see if he'll be able to get the quarterback that everyone in that organization is psyched to bring on the team.

I've talked about this 100 times over the past two or three months. It's the team I'm most fascinated by what they're going to do. This entire process as football experiment, I cannot get enough of it. and we are very, very close to figuring out what the final stage of this looks like. The final stage of the build, right? Not the final stage of the execution because we're going to have to wait until how we're going to have to wait until we see what that quarterback looks like in this situation. But in terms of putting the pieces in place, we are about to find out how this all ends for what has been a years long process for the Vikings, years long. And this is the culmination of it.

So I'm going to throw in a name here that I don't think his job is, he's not in trouble, he just got it. But I think Adam Peters is very interesting in terms of what direction he goes in, how many voices he's listening to. You know, I think from the outside looking at it, it just seems there's a lot of people there, which in one hand I think is great. I love that they've got NBA experience in there. They've got the NFL front office people and they've got a mixture of experience. But when they are on the clock is Adam Peters, fully in on who they're going with. He's been very quiet during all this process.

That's something I know local media has discovered about Adam is he's not a big talker. And I want to see if he's going to be able to nail us because remember, the only thing I heard about Washington before the hiring process was how obsessed they were with getting Adam Peters in that building to make him the GM. So now I just want to see what all the fuss is. This is nothing against him. I just would like to see what Washington sort of fell in love with here to name him the new GM to really change this entire organization and put them into a successful position. This draft is going to dictate out the next decade of the franchise goes, you're picking a quarterback, you have a ton of draft capital.

What are you going to do with all that draft capital in the second and third round? How are you going to maneuver around? Are you looking for cornerstone pieces? You're going to try to add more picks. I mean, this is going to be a transformational draft for this team. team one way or the other. So I don't think you can make this list without putting him on it. I have no nerve anymore as I've gotten older because like you, you just explaining how important this pick is. I'm, I'm sweating thinking about, oh my, he has a lot of pressure on him

for a first year GM. That is a lot of pressure to figure out the answer for a fan base that is starving. They were able to get rid of their owner. And it just seems that everything has been unicorns and rainbow since. And now it's now it now it's real. Now it's time to play. I'll see for me, this is that James Franco meme with where he's getting hanged and he looks over, he goes first time. This is old hat for me. The pressure and the anxiety and the fear that comes with drafting a quarterback in the first round, I know Washington is familiar with that, but your trepidation about it. I don't feel that anymore. I'm cold and numb to it all because I've done it so many times. Well, here's the thing. I think Washington would be fully prepared

for this whole thing to be a bust because they just, they're so, um, well, I think they're almost immune to it at this point. After working there, all the years I did, uh,

that fan base is incredible, uh, in terms of just their belief and commitment into wanting to win. And, and I think now is the time where they, like, let's go, let's do this.

We've got all the right pieces. Everything is, it's, it's almost just too perfect, right? It's, it's, it's perfect. So we will see if they botch it.

Um, I'm going to say they're going to get it right because I want to be a positive person this week. Um, okay, I haven't, owner in here, Robert, because I rarely do this. I really go after the owners. And we touched on this. And it's Robert Kraft. And it has everything to do with how much all the smoke lately

about Bill Belichick and Patriots, I'm seeing the way this has all come together, his choice at head coach, why he's doing the things he's doing, how he's doing them. Now the pressure's on. And I would like to see all of this come together. I want to see what this vision is after moving on from the greatest coach of all time. You have to get this right. And I understand why they want a quarterback to be part of that process because they want to get started as soon as possible. So both of those teams with Washington and two and New England at three,

this is going to dictate how the next four, five, six years of this end up going. All right. My final one. And we touched on this too. It is Denver Broncos head coach, Sean Payne. Why are you bringing in this coach if he can't win? And I understand it was just one year. It was one year.

A lot of things need to happen in order for him to have success there. And finding a quarterback is his thing. Like he is the quarterback guru. And he is smart. And I very rarely have challenged him any times. I've had conversations with him over the years about what he's doing on offense with his quarterbacks. When I've spoken to his quarterbacks, just his brilliance. I understand why Denver did what they did to get him in the building.

why they're paying him so much money, why they gave up picks. But now it begins because I think everyone's letting him off a little too easy for the way that all came about in Denver. He got the job because he said he could fix Russell. He didn't. So now you've got to fix it. And you've got to fix the Denver Broncos. And I'm interested to see what this plan is going to be. I understand painting him as a quarterback group because he's had so much offensive success.

You know, for two decades that Saints essentially had a top 10 offense, if not a top. five offense almost every single year. It was remarkable. The level of consistency they brought to that side of the ball. He has never developed a quarterback before because he had Drew Brees. From 2006 through 2020, he had Drew Brees. Then they brought in James Winston. Winston played well. I mean, they've had moments where they've gotten the most out of some of these quarterbacks. Teddy Bridgewater had stretches of success relatively when he was there, but they have never had to long term develop a quarterback under Sean Payton as we have understood him in the the modern era. This is going to be a new experience for him and for us as we watch them move through

it. And I have no idea how it's going to go because we have nothing to base it on. Well, we talked about the word nerve before. I was admitting I have none. He has plenty of it. So while I'm sitting here panicked, I don't know what their answer is going to be here. I don't know if there's a quarterback in this class that he actually believes he can get. but I have to figure they have they have some thought of how they are going to make this work over the next few years and look his leash is long and this is just understanding that building and knowing what ownership how they've really allowed him to run the show it is it is Sean Peyton's team top to bottom so I don't think this is something where they're going he's going to

swing and miss here in this draft and Sean Payton's out next year I don't believe that to be true but at the end of the day, he has to answer. He has to figure out a way to get the Denver Broncos able to compete in that division. And now you putting this in my mind that a potential trade, because they don't have enough draft capital might include players, it's probably all I'm going to think about for the next three days until we get there. Well, what else would they got? I love it.

I love it. And I'm sure some people are sitting there thinking like, well, you know, if you train away your good players, what are you? You need quarterbacks in this league. Patrick Sartan is a phenomenal player. I would not want to trade him if I were the Broncos, but I also understand that at some point along the way, you need to get a quarterback. And because of the lack of draft capital, they need to potentially do something creative to get that done. Diana Rusini, that is all we've got.

Like I mentioned at the top of the show, you will be joining us a little bit later this week during our live draft shows on Thursday and Friday. Popping in, maybe giving us a little bit of color, a little bit of context for some of these moves that we've been talking about here. over the past hour. Very, very excited about that. As a reminder, guys, live Thursday night, Friday night. Athletic NFL YouTube channel, please come and join us. Me, Dane, Nate, reacting, breaking down every single pick of the first three rounds. We'll have some special guests, a lot of fun stuff coming your guys' way.

So please be on the lookout for that. We will have one more show between now and then. It'll be at least me and Nate. Dane's playing a little bit hurt right now. If you've seen the amount of work and the amount of appearances he's done over the last month, not surprising that his body has started to give up on him. So game time decision for Dane as to whether he'll be a part of that Wednesday show, but you'll at least be getting me and Nate on Wednesday.

That'll be the last pod we do before the draft. That's all we got coming your way. Very, very excited about it. It's going to be a great week for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.

You know,