The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Wild NFL Draft, Rodgers Drama, and a Big Mac Fest With Warren Sharp, Kevin Hench, and Bill’s Dad

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Warren Sharp of NBC Sports and Sharp Football Analysis to discuss an exciting first round of the NFL draft. They discuss the 49ers drafting Trey Lance third overall, the Bears trading up to draft Justin Fields, the Falcons’ savvy move drafting TE Kyle Pitts with the fourth pick, the Patriots securing QB Mac Jones, the Vikings' great first round, Ja’Marr Chase to the Bengals, the Aaron Rodgers news surfacing just hours before the draft began, and much more (3:50)! Then Bill talks with his dad and his longtime pal and fellow Patriots fan Kevin Hench about QB Mac Jones falling to the Patriots with the 15th pick (53:30). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Warren Sharp, Kevin Hench, and Bill's Dad Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, if you want more NFL draft reactions, we're about to do it on this podcast. You also have Ryan Rosillo's podcast. You have the Ringer NFL show. You have ontheringer.com. You can read Danny Kelly and everybody else from our NFL team. Pick by pick grades. We got it all here. Check it out.

The Ringer and the Ringer Podcast Network. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium.

It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer

with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I

love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs, the next drive. They have so much stuff. It's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do.

Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states, gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler, or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by theringer.com as well as the Ringer Podcast Network. I mentioned at the top of this one, we have a whole bunch of NFL stuff. You can go to the website, theringer.com.

You can go to the Ringer NFL show. You can go to Rosillo's podcast. This was an awesome draft. We're about to hit it in a bunch of different ways here in this podcast. I went on Locker Room today. You know, Spotify bought Locker Room. You probably saw the stories and they're going to turn it into their live audio app.

We've been messing around with it and Mallory, Ruben, Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlback, they were in there for like the first two hours of the draft. I popped in there for a while. Basically, as it became more and more clear that a quarterback might drop to the pats, I finally had to leave. I was like almost hyperventilating.

I left like around pick 12, pick 13. I was just so excited that at that point, it seemed like Mac Jones was going to fall, but the Bears traded up. You know the whole story. But it was really fun to experience that one live and just shoot the shit. It felt different than a podcast,

but we're going to be messing around with locker room a lot more over the next couple weeks. So go, it's free. Subscribe to the app. You can start rooms yourself. You can pop in other people's rooms. But it's a cool app, I got to say. I was skeptical.

I'll be honest. It was a little skeptical, but I do think it's additive to all the stuff we do at The Ringer, and we're going to be messing around with it more and more. We're going to do some live watches of NBA games, and we're just going to start messing around with it more and more. We're going to do some live watches of NBA games and we're just going to start messing around. It's pretty neat.

We can bring in people. You can ask questions. Check it out. Locker Room. Subscribe. It's free. Create a username. Do the whole thing.

Coming up, Warren Sharp, our old friend from the Ringer NFL show and sharpfootball.com. He's going to break down round one of the NFL draft. And then my dad is here. He's in LA. We got to experience the Mac Jones thing together. So we called my friend Hench and we relived just an incredible turn of events for the

New England Patriots. We're back, baby! First Pearl Jam. All right, Warren Sharpe is here. If you want to hear me having an orgasm about the Patriots getting back Jones, that's coming later in the second segment with my dad and my buddy Hench. I want to cover one of the most entertaining drafts we've had and try not to make this past-centric. We'll remember this as, I guess, the quarterback draft.

Five quarterbacks in the top 15 picks. Starts out with the Niners at three. We think it's going to be Mack Jones. We think it's going to be Mack Jones. Suddenly it's Mack Jones or Trey Lance. It ends up being Trey Lance, which leads to, they keep Jimmy G probably for this year. He's the starter. There's an Alex Smith-Mahomes type situation. Do you think they made the right move? I do. I do. Look, the right move ultimately is whichever quarterback that Kyle Shanahan is in love with, because if he's wrong, he's going to lose his job. So I don't really know his evaluation process and specifically what he prefers most. And it seems

like a lot of the evaluators in the media did not either because so many people were pounding the table that you need to go with Justin Fields and other guys were saying that, no, no, actually, Mac Jones is a good fit too. And then, so I don't think anybody actually knew what he truly wanted to do in his heart of hearts. I'm glad that he went with the guy that he thinks he's going to win with because if he ends up losing all, all that's going to be on him and he's going to lose his job. Well, they'll do the Mahomes scenario, right? Where it's like, he'll sit, he'll watch, he'll learn, he'll learn from the master Shanahan. We have a veteran QB who's good, who got us to a Super Bowl two years ago. And we'll kind of ease into this, but it set off a chain of events that leads to Fields going to the Bears

at 11 and Matt Jones dropping all the way to the Pats at 15. The Fields thing, so hilarious. The Bears, their tortured fan base, they never get a QB. This guy who a lot of people had as the second-ranked QB in the entire draft, who won at Ohio State, who I think is a really safe bet to be a good quarterback. They trade up, they get aggressive and they get him on the flip side,

Chicago's QB history. And just the, the stink of the, of the bears. Was this the right place for him? Cause I want this to work. I really like him. I think it's going to be good,

but would you have picked this team for him? Of a quarterback needy team, I think he will fit with some of the things that Matt Nagy would like him to do. And I think Matt Nagy is a creative enough coach that he's going to be able to get some upside out of Justin Fields, whereas some other coaches may not use him in that regard to that degree. So I do think that this is a good landing spot. And I think all of these quarterbacks that went at the top, we didn't know what order some of these guys would go in after number two, but I like the fit of Justin Fields to the Chicago bears. I like the fit of, uh, Trey Lance to the 49ers to that extent. And I absolutely like the fit of Mac Jones to the Pats.

Oh, tell me more. Tell me more. So we could have traded up to try to get Belichick sits there. He waits. Guy falls for him. Now they have him at a rookie salary, the 15th pick salary, even better. Hopefully he could start. And as a million people pointed out over the years, that's the single greatest thing to have. It's one thing to have the rookie QB, even on the number one slot, number two slot salary. But once you fall like 12 and below, if he can even be above average, what a massive advantage for them, right? Huge, absolutely huge.

I mean, we don't know what's gonna happen down with the 50-year extension and all of that down the road. Hopefully he ends up working out, but you had a guy like Cam Newton, and I'm sure you guys cover this later on, but you know, Cam's accuracy down the field was just abysmal. You guys couldn't do anything deep down the field. And you know, some of that's got to be, we got to improve some of our personnel, but I like the fact that now you've got a quarterback who is known for a bigger arm and accuracy and ability to move around in the pocket and still hit receivers down the field a little bit. I think that we're going to see the upside. There were so many people, Bill, who were trashing Mac Jones when it was thought that he was going to go to the 49ers at

three. And I'm going to be interested to see how Mac ends up doing with Bill Belichick in this offense. And, you know, if those people will end up coming around, if Mac Jones ends up performing pretty well here. Oh yeah. There's a huge difference if he's going three and he's going ahead of Kyle Pitts and chase and Sewell, it's a big difference between that and him going, you know, three picks ahead of the dude, the Raiders drafted or two picks ahead. So it was the guy who was, what was that guy's name? Leatherwood. Alex Leatherwood. I actually, I actually like, I like Leatherwood. I mean, he is a mammoth of a man. Um, his talent is immense, but, uh, some people didn't know if he could play tackle or would have to

kick inside the guard. He was very good and was very consistent at Alabama. He did not miss a start. He played the last three years. Every single game did not miss a game. So he's Mr. Reliable for that offense. But, you know, was it a little bit of a reach? Could you have gotten Leatherwood later on? Would the Raiders have been more advised to just trade down and potentially get him? Yes, absolutely. Because he was the, uh, I think Darisaw went after him and Darisaw, every single person had Darisaw mocked as a better prospect than Leatherwood. And there was not a single other offensive lineman that went after Darisaw in the first round. So you could have traded to the back of this round if you have a trade partner and still

gotten Leatherwood. Well, the Vikings end up getting two thirds going backwards and getting the tackle anyway, which was amazing. I think after the 15th pick, I think it became really hard to trade back because I do think there was a drop off and you could really feel it. Mac Jones was kind of the last one before all of a sudden now teams drafted more for need teams going for the riskier guys like the guys, the guy, the Giants took right home run pick might be out of the league in two years. Who knows? But I thought that was a I thought that was that was terrible personally. So you're going out of the league in two years. Well, okay. So I talked, I talked to some, some agents behind the scenes and some of the mock drafters that I was working with on the site. And, and they liked Cradery's Tony and they thought, Oh, under 33 and a half, meaning he

gets drafted earlier than 33 and a half was a good bet to make, but to take him at number 20. And here's the best thing about this pick. And we talk about winners or losers. I think the giants were a loser. They're a winner because they're more of a loser than a winner. I was happy that Dave Gettleman finally came to his senses and he gets a participation medal that he actually executed a trade down his first trade down in 55 picks over eight different drafts as a general manager on two teams. However, you trade down to number 20. And the issue for him is he got totally scooped by the Philadelphia Eagles. The Philadelphia Eagles are sitting there at 12 and Dave Gettleman makes it

too well known. There's a leak in his building or something that he is interested in Devonta Smith. And if Devonta Smith is there, they were going to take him. And that was known by several people a week before the draft. And it made some more noise this morning before the draft was started. And so I think Philadelphia, they would have loved to probably take Jalen Waddle, but they, he wasn't on the board anymore. And they knew that Gettleman was probably going to go at 11 and get Smith. They trade with the Cowboys move up in front of him. So Gettleman says, screw this. I'm going to just trade down first time ever. I'll just go out and trade down, gets the extra pick. He wins the trade, gets more value, but then he still goes for the same exact position that he got scooped on,

which is a wide receiver and Cadareous Tony makes absolutely no sense. So he completely reached, he still wanted a wide receiver. It was in he completely reached. He still wanted a wide receiver. It was in his heart that I need to get a wide receiver. I lost Devonta Smith, but I'm still going to go for one. And there were wide receivers that were drafted after him that I thought were better, that are still on the board even now, that I thought were better than Kateri's Tony potentially. Well, you had that situation.

We had the three NFC East teams all back to back to back. Two of them, probably all three really wanted a defensive back. Two of them needed a receiver. And you think like, well, if the D-backs are there, Horn and Sertan, they're not getting past 12. Maybe they won't even get past 11. And what happens is they go 8-9. And that sets off this chain of events.

And so when that happens, I'm watching with my dad. We're thinking the Pats are going to trade up to 10 and get either Jones or Fields. Then you see the Eagles moving up. That's like, what? Are they moving up for a QB? Nope. They're moving up for the receiver.

The Giants are moving. And then all of a sudden it was chaos. I thought this was such a fun draft. And I really thought a lot of the moves were logical. Like you go on down the line, Atlanta taking Pitts was the most logical move, right? They could have taken a quarterback of the future and kind of stashed them the same way San Francisco was doing at Lance. But the reality is Matt Ryan is still an above average quarterback.

Give him the guy who is the best non-quarterback in the entire draft, who is worst case scenario if he stays healthy, somewhere between Gronk and Kelsey as a receiving tight end. And they're just like, fuck it. Let's take this guy. The Bengals are at five and it's like, should we take the tackle? Should we take the tackle? They're like, fuck it. Let's take the awesome receiver, put him with Burr. I personally might have taken the tackle. Six, Watto, who I think both of us like for Miami. And then Detroit, who I think was ready to trade back. And they're like, wait, we get to just take Sewell here?

We get a franchise left tackle? Awesome, let's go. And so those seven picks made sense in order. But then eight was when it got wonky. Carolina taking Horn. What'd you think of that? I loved it personally. I mean, like you said, we can say that the stuff at the top went chalk. It maybe went chalk late, um, up through the first five, right? We didn't know about three, but then like I had really good information that water was going to be going six. So we, I mean, most, I don't want to say most, it was probably about like 12% of my bankroll was spread around different things related to Waddle under his, his draft prop Waddle to be drafted before Smith.

We were heavy into Waddle. So we love that. You had pits too, right? You had pits under four and a half. We had pits under, uh, five and a half. We came back and we took a Jamar chase today under, uh, five and a half, basically to go pick five. Uh, we took Penny Sewell over, uh, five and a half, I think it was, or six and a half, whatever, whatever it ended up being. We, we acted late on Sewell. We did them yesterday and today for like max bets. And I was I was glad that they were taking some big bets from us because we cleaned up. And then J.C. Horn, a lot of people were shocked about J.C. Horn going here. But all the latest news and rumors and information were like this guy could be better than Sertain. And a lot of people who were looking at corner liked it. We, I not only bet as my second largest position, JC Horn under 13 and a half, but we also took JC Horn to be the first defensive player drafted. And so that was a really nice payday as well. Um, so I like Horn. I think he's a very good DB. Um, he's going to play aggressive Carolina needed that. It's a perfect fit for them. Um, I, I. I frankly, I love the pick.

Now you could argue that they needed offensive line or a couple of other positions, but they absolutely needed this guy. And I think he's going to be a really big benefit for them. Well, I wonder, does Carolina do the Darnold trade if they know there's a scenario a month later that at number eight, Mack Jones and Justin Fields would be available.

Because they gave up a second rounder for Donald, right? They could have just stayed with their first rounder, taken the QB, kept their second rounder, and been off. I do think they really liked Arnold, but I also thought Carolina, smart team, or like to think they're a smart team. They like to think that. A little aggressive, good coach that we like. I wouldn't have been surprised if they took the QB, even though they made the Darnold trade and did the Sean Payton,

let's just fucking stack it. We'll just have multiple QBs that might make it. So I was surprised when they took corn. That's when I knew the Pats had a chance to get somebody. Then it comes back. Number nine, another DB goes. And it was just an amazing draft. The best part was you knew the Chargers were taking the tackle. And then Minnesota was the wild card.

And I'm sure if you're a Vikings fan, if Mac Jones turns out to be good, which I think there's a good chance, that's a tough one. Because you're basically embedded with Cousins now. You had a chance to fix that. You didn't fix it. Now you're back with Cousins again. I don't know. It was a bizarre one. We're going to take a quick break

and then I want to go through some picks that I love and get your reactions. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer.

Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. Okay. So the Chargers got potentially a franchise tackle. People thought Slater was

two behind Sewell, but the way offensive tackles go in the first round in draft history, the guy people think is number one or whatever the order is, sometimes the fourth guy can end up being the best guy, whatever. There's a chance Slater might end up being the best guy. I think we both like the Chargers a little bit as a potential team to watch, like one of those long shot bets. The one thing they really needed to do was make their offensive line better, which they did. Are they starting to look a little sleepery to you? Absolutely.

Look, anytime you got a quarterback who did what Justin Herbert did, right? Set the rookie record for touchdowns and he was even supposed to start at the beginning of that game against the Chiefs, gets inserted in all of a sudden, boom, this is the guy and let's see what he can do. And their play calling was atrocious.

We commented on it last year on your show about the offensive coordinator there. And so you get a better play calling in there and then you go out and get Slater, which, you know, sometimes the best moves are the moves that are the biggest no brainers out there. You just can't screw it up. You can't mess it up. You can't like overthink it. And they didn't, they just stayed Pat. And like you said, there are some people in the process who are like, could we bet Slater to be the first O-lineman selected? Like some teams really like Slater a lot.

They just held their ground, stayed still, mocked the rest of the teams thinking, well, the Eagles are probably going to go weapon and the Cowboys might go cornerback. But those guys, like they knew that these corners are going and they're like, fall to me, offensive lineman, fall to me. And I'm glad that they just held Pat and got Slater. I think it's going to be great for Justin Herbert's career to pair him up with this guy at this early age for, for Justin Herbert. I love it. And FanDuel there, they're 31 to one now to win the Superbowl, which seems low. So I wonder, I don't know if that moved at all. That division could get really interesting if Denver does land Aaron Rogers. So I don't know what's going to happen with that potential trade. Um, but that division is, is interesting. And

I agree. You mentioned this team before. I just want to make sure I insert them here. What Minnesota did was absolutely tremendous because they do the trade down with the Jets. And all along, I think they were targeting Christian Derrissaw and they could have taken him at pick 14 right after the Chargers get Slater, but they choose to trade down and they end up getting Derrissaw, a pick 23 and a bunch of capital in the future. The rest of this draft, that was an extremely, extremely savvy move. So those two teams, actually, if I was to isolate two teams that I think made great moves or non-moves, but got players to fill needs in particular, the Chargers at 13 and then the Vikings at 23, both getting offensive linemen was absolutely great.

And I really am a fan of the pairings that these teams made with their young quarterbacks to these wide receivers. When we talk about Bengals going Jamar Chase to help out Joe Burrow, his college teammate, we talk about Jalen Waddle going to play with Tua. They wanted a guy who could make Tua comfortable. And the same thing with Hertz, the Eagles going with Devonta Smith. We've got three young quarterbacks entering the early stages of their career, getting some of their favorite weapons in college. And these are all dangerous weapons, right? It doesn't matter that they work with them or not.

The key here is comfort. And especially with Miami and Philly, what the teams want to see is, do we have a franchise quarterback? We don't know if two is a franchise quarterback yet. We don't know if Hertz could be a franchise quarterback. Let's go all in in this draft and get a weapon for them to utilize and then evaluate his performance in 2021. And if he doesn't deliver, you know where these two teams sit.

Miami has the number three most draft capital of 2022, and the Eagles have the number one most draft capital of 2022, and the Eagles have the number one most draft capital of 2022. And these guys could go and get a quarterback in 2022 if it doesn't work out now that they've got their weapons for their quarterbacks. Denver's odds dropped to 17 to one on FanDuel today. Based on a rumor that nobody knows is true or not, that Aaron Rodgers might end up in Denver and Rodgers unbelievable job by him

to drop a nuclear bomb right out of the draft like eight hours before get everybody panicking. Sertan going to Denver at nine, which I think both of us like Denver.

You, me and House have talked about them. They've kind of been the sexy long shot team for a couple of years. They've had injuries each year. And now they add to a defense that I think is going to be good. But that's also

if you're trying to trade for Aaron Rodgers, it's like, hey, cool. Here's this awesome cornerback we just drafted. You already have Jordan Love. You don't need a quarterback. So we'll give you him. We'll give you more first rounders. I just don't need a quarterback. So we'll give you him. We'll give you more first rounders. I just don't know what the price is for soon-to-be 38-year-old Aaron Rodgers

if you're Denver, because the Brady Bucks would be a parallel. Manning Broncos that first year would be a parallel. But neither of those teams had to give up a ton of assets. They were kind of ready to go. They were a contender missing the last piece. If you're trading all this capital for Rogers, you better be ready to win like this year. And I don't know if we can say that about Denver. So I'm not, I'm not sure I understand the Rogers Denver thing. What do you think? Well, I disagree a little bit. I think Denver is poised. If you look at that, they've got a good, competent enough offensive line. It is fine. Juwan James is going to be back at right tackle. I think their offensive line is going to be okay. Aaron Riders had a great offensive line his last couple of years in green Bay.

It's not going to be that good, but it's going to be competent enough. You look at that receiving weaponry he's got there. Jerry Judy, Cortland Sutton, Deshaun Hamilton, Noah Fant. Hamler, my guy Hamler. Hamler. Yeah. KJ Hamler. Of course, you've got Noah Fant. You've got a couple of running backs who cares, whatever. Melvin Gordon is there like I think they've got enough weapons offensively and then of course you've got Vic Fangio and this defense that like they had some injuries and their secondary was terrible last year due to injury I remember when they played the Buffalo Bills and the Bills just like rolled up a ton of points on him and we knew that heading in because the bill the the secondary the Broncos they were trotting this was like a

Saturday game in December and the Bills were the, the Broncos rather were trotting out some terrible players. So they needed to go after a cornerback here. Um, I think this roster is decent enough, uh, that they could win. Now the question that you had though is appropriate. What would they have to give up to get Aaron Rogers? You know, they actually do have capital in the future. A team like Rodgers, I think, wanted to go to the 49ers, which didn't make any sense at all because the 49ers have nothing of value to give back from a picks perspective to the Packers because they spent all their first round picks just moving up to three. So this location makes more sense from the perspective that I think you can give enough compensation back.

But an older Aaron Rodgers, who's just off of an MVP season, is difficult to value. Well, I think you made the key point earlier. I agree that they do have good weapons. Defense on paper, good. I do think they have long shot potential. Pretty average offensive line.

He's not going to like that. You know what House's nickname for Vic Fangio is, right? have long shot potential. Pretty average offensive line. He's not going to like that. You know what House's nickname for a big Fangio is, right? He calls him Fanny Pack Fangio. Aaron Rodgers has struggled with coaches that maybe aren't offensive savants over the years. I can just see putting him in Denver in this new situation where he's not 100% on the coach. The offensive line is a C plus being generous and it's got all worked that

first year for this to work. This has to be Manning's first Denver season, Brady's first buck season. I don't know if that's a slam dunk. I actually thought the team for him, weirdly, would have been Vegas. But I think that ship sailed, especially with the pick they made at 17. But I was thinking Vegas because I do think he might want to be in California.

I do think the Jeopardy thing's real. I thought it was hilarious that Ian Rappaport had some tweet about, he could absolutely host Jeopardy. They were really impressed by his thing. It's like, how does Ian Rappaport have Jeopardy sources? What does he like wired into the Jeopardy EP conference room? Obviously that was being fed to by Rodgers.

I think Rodgers really might want to host Jeopardy and live on the West Coast, date his actress girlfriend. But unfortunately, both LA teams are out. So then it's got to be either Vegas, maybe Denver. Is there another team I'm missing? It can't be Seattle. Yeah, Seattle is a team out there.

I don't know. I haven't spent enough time because it broke so late of trying to figure out where I think he could fit. I mean, certainly Adam Schefter, like when he first broke that report, was very strong with the sentiment from Aaron Rodgers that he does not want to play there anymore, and he absolutely wants out.

Because it came from Aaron Rodgers. Yeah. Aaron Rodgers was power playing the draft. He was trying to get to San Francisco. And that obviously didn't work. And so now we'll see what ends up happening. I saw the Packers come out after the draft. Gunakunst came out and said tonight, there's no chance we're trading him.

We are not trading Aaron Rodgers. So I don't know what's going to happen with that. I did hear a rumor that they won't trade him this year, but look out for next year. So I mean, the Packers and some people close to the Packers are suggesting they are not going to trade him this year. So, I mean, the Packers and some people close to the Packers are suggesting they are not going to trade him this year. But as we know, some of that stuff, we're not trading him until we actually trade him. So, I mean, there's a price for everything. I don't know which team is actually going to make an offer that they feel is worth it to do that. Well, here's a tweet that I saw from a guy on Twitter named Warren Sharp. How Green Bay used their first pick in the draft every year since 2012. Defensive end, defensive end, defensive back, safety, defensive tackle,

cornerback, cornerback, linebacker, backup QB, cornerback. If you add all that together, it says fuck you in all caps. So I can see why he probably wants to get the F out of there. In basketball, this would be easy. You just do what James Harden does. You gain 10 pounds. You stop trying. You don't play defense. You just give sad preps conferences and eventually your team just breaks and you trade them for a bunch of picks. You can't really do that in football. You can't be the quarterback who gains 15 pounds and just acts like a sad sack because it's so much of a team sport, guys,

depending on each other, people's livelihoods, careers, physicality, all that stuff. I don't know if you can mail in an NFL season. So I don't know what his moves are other than to stomp his feet and throw a hissy fit. I don't think it's going to work. I think Packers called his bluff, right? I think they are planning on calling his bluff. Absolutely. I think, I think he's, he holds some power. Um, but, uh, but at the end of the

day, if they're not going to get compensated appropriately for him, I don't really know what he's going to be capable of doing. I haven't looked at his contract enough to see what his abilities are from that perspective to not risk losing a bunch of money. I don't see it either. Well, my favorite pick of the draft was pits to Atlanta. I'm all in on Atlanta being at least frisky. I'm going to not bet on them to win the Superbowl because it's Atlanta and it's Matt Ryan. And we all know they're not actually winning the Super Bowl. But I just like that they said, screw it. And they just took the best guy.

That was great. We mentioned the Chargers. The Philly Devontae Smith thing. So it seems like he just dropped because he was 166 pounds. Right. dropped because he was 166 pounds. Right? That's really the only reason other than not everybody needed a receiver in the top 10, but

has a chance to be the most exciting Philly athlete in a while. And Bede's exciting, I guess. This is like Iverson level buzz electricity. Maybe Terrell Owens is the last guy we've had in Philly like that early Lindros like that. There hasn't been a lot of dudes like this. If you had to bet on those three

receivers, like to win offensive rookie of the year, just one of those three, which one would you pick? I think chase because I'm not convinced enough about the defense. I really, really love the chemistry. I think they're throw the ball a lot there. And I think I have more confidence in Joe Burrow right now than they do in Tua. So I just think that Chase is going to see the volume that it would take to supersede the rest of these guys. So it's not just that he's picked at five. It's because I think he's got the best quarterback. And I think because the team is going to be struggling this year. You know, Miami is a team that won a lot of games last year.

They've got a really solid defense and they will want to run the football a lot more. So Jalen Waddle, plus they have a number of other weapons there. They just brought in a new weapon in free agency. I'll be it on a one year, one or two year deal. But so they don't really need Waddle to do quite as much. The Eagles, like I still do have a lot of questions about Hurts. Devonta Smith is obviously going to be a big factor in that offense. And they asked him after the draft,

what is your favorite route to run? He said, all the routes. I love all the routes. I'm not picky here. And so it will be interesting to see how he looks out there on the field. You mentioned the Atlanta Falcons and Kyle Pitts. I think Arthur Smith is going to love working with Kyle Pitts, the way that they use their 12 personnel or heavy sets

and then use play action and pre-snap motion and target the tight ends off of that in the passing game with run fakes. That is right up Kyle Pitts' alley. I think that is a big X factor. And oddly enough, I agree. I'm not going to probably do anything on Atlanta's long shot type stuff because I don't have confidence in their defense. And also Matt Ryan really has to stay healthy for them. Do you know that the only quarterback, the only team that has only one quarterback on the

roster is the Atlanta Falcons and it's Matt Ryan. They literally do not even have a rostered backup behind Matt Ryan. It's a fantasy move where you're all in on one quarterback. You don't even bother to draft the backup because you're screwed if he gets hurt. Exactly. Their roster right now is so top heavy with just money to like five or six players. If you look at their cap, I mean, this team is in somewhat trouble. But last year, interestingly enough, if you look at count the number of wins, I like to do this in the off season, the number of wins that a team had plus the number of losses by one score or less games that could have been a coin flip, but they ended up losing. Okay. Of the teams that picked in the top 10 for this draft, the Atlanta Falcons had the third

best combined wins versus one score losses. They had 12 of those. I mean, this could have been a 12 and four team had they won all of their one score games. They would have been 12 and four. So this is a team that wasn't as far off as like our memory thinks that they were last year. But I still don't see them making enough of a change.

Their offense is going to look better. Ryan's going to look better because of Arthur Smith, but I just don't see their defense being able to keep up. Plus 750 to win the division on Fandle. Yeah, that was tough. You got the Saints that are probably going to fall back. I'm going to be really interested to see. We took a long shot on the Saints to draft Kyle Trask. That's a 35 to

one long shot that we took before the draft. And the Saints obviously still don't have a quarterback. They didn't go after a quarterback. There was rumors they were trying to move up into the top 10 in this draft. And the rumor was they were going to go up for a corner, but to move up from where they were just to draft a corner seemed like a ridiculously, uh, insane amount of draft capital to just get a corner out of it. Especially when you're starting quarterbacks are so terrible. Like, I don't know that we can say they're terrible, but Jamis Winston is a starting caliber quarterback potentially if things go well for him, but he's only on a one-year deal. So after this year, the Saints owe him nothing

and he owes them nothing. He's no Mac Jones. The Chargers, 6-1 to win the AFC West. You have the Bucs, by the way, minus 160 to win that division. So they're the heavy faves.

And then my New England Patriots, plus 390 to win the AFC East. Here's the path. If Pat Jones is above average right away, Hightower comes back. All the free agents they signed. They nailed day two in the draft. Belichick's back. They were 7-9 last year. The question is, could they go four to five wins up just by having a competent QB plus way better skill guys, this new tight end

offense, an offense that's built for Mac Jones, easier schedule? There's some chips lining up. You got to admit, Warren. No, I do. Just if you look at the guys that are coming back and the guys that they brought in in free agency, even if the quarterback wasn't that much better, I think that you are going to have a much higher floor this year than you did last year. I still have questions. Like if you look at the wide receivers that Mac Jones was able to work with over like the end of the 2019 season and then the 2020 season. I mean, it just pales in comparison. You've got like I know Nelson Aguilar, like he had a good year last year and you got Kendrick Bourne in there now. But like you don't have anybody like close to what the Alabama receivers were able to do with like spacing and speed and separation.

So I don't think that that's going to hinder Mac Jones tremendously, but it's definitely not going to help him. But the fact that he can actually throw the ball down the field a little bit more than what Cam was able to do. I mean, we know it's a passing league and they're going to, they can bring, if they think Mac needs to come along a little bit slower, they can do that. We've seen this team, even in some of Brady's years at the end, they can run the ball a

little bit more if they need to, right? They can play good defense. They can do the types of things that you need to do if you have a young quarterback. And then if Mac Jones has a higher ceiling in terms of his deep downfield accuracy and passing the football and opening things up, they didn't use a lot of too tight end sets at Alabama or any of that, but he could probably get schemed up to find guys that are open based upon mismatches.

I think I would be excited if I'm a Patriots fan. You lost out on Tom Brady. You had one year that you had to struggle with Cam Newton. And now you got a quarterback in the first round who like it or not, he was a decent at worst college quarterback. And some people liked him a heck of a lot that know a lot more about evaluating quarterbacks than I certainly do.

And I think you've got a nice ceiling here for the season. If things go right, Damian Harris is going to rush for 1700 yards extra, a lot of good advanced metrics stats on him. right. Damien Harris is going to rush for 1700 yards extra. A lot of good advanced metrics stats on him. Can you just make fun of Pittsburgh really quickly for, I think Najee Harris is going to be really good, but I feel like we've established at this point, do not draft a running back in the first round when you can't block.

It's kind of like, it's like buying an awesome TV for your house that has a broken front door lock and no alarm system. It's great. You have a TV. Oh wait, it's gone. Somebody stole it. Where'd it go?

Oh yeah. How are you going to use the TV if it's not even there? Cause somebody took it. And in this case, how are you going to get the upside from the running back when the line's not opening holes? And we know now the analytics show it's how good is that whole block to open for you by your offensive line and how many defenders are in the box. And you can control the defenders in the box based upon what plays you call, when you call them and with what personnel that you're in.

I like Najee Harris. I think he's a good player. I don't have a vendetta against Najee Harris, but the point is we have seen teams that have good offensive lines that felt that they were just one piece away, go out and get a first round running back, and it doesn't end up working. The majority of the first round running backs that have been drafted over the last 20 years end up performing equal to or worse than the other running backs that are already on that roster. And when guys are first round running backs and then they're playing for a while and they're looking good and then they get hurt and the backup has to come in, those backups end up doing about the same as what the first round guys were doing. And why is that? Because the running back isn't

quite as important. It's what the line's doing and the defenders in the box. And so with Najee Harris, like I just think that with a battle line in front of you, it's not going to be able to open up those holes that you need. I worry about Ben Roethlisberger and his arm strength and everything that they're trying to do down the football field. So if you have like a confined offense, I like the fact that they got rid of their old offensive coordinator and Randy Fichtner, I like the fact that they got rid of their old offensive coordinator and Randy Fichtner. I like the fact that they they're going to elevate Matt Canada to calling plays now. I think he's much more creative than Fichtner was. But, you know, if we look the last two years, they moved from like a top five run blocking

offensive line. And we're talking forget the running backs. How good is the offensive line block the opposing defenders? They were top five for 2017 and 2018. Then their line coach leaves. Then they have some injuries. Then they lose some offensive linemen and they go down to bottom 10 and then bottom two, the last two years, last year, they were 31st. If you can't run block and you have a weaker line this year than you did last year, a first round running back might look like a fourth round running back. Before we go, I have some Jets fans in my life. For a team that drafted second and then traded up for another top 15 pick. I can't believe how sad they were.

They just felt like, wow, we might have actually fucked this up. We had the second pick in the draft. We somehow didn't get Trevor Lawrence because we won these two stupid games or shouldn't have won. I have to talk myself into this Zach Wilson guy who looks

like he's 11 years old. And then we traded up for this guy that we probably didn't even necessarily have to trade up for. We could have just stayed where we were and this sucks. And then fields could go to the bears and completely turn that franchise around for all we know. What would you tell the jets fans today? Well, the, what I think that you should realize is that you were going Zach Wilson for a while, so it shouldn't have been too big of a surprise. I know that when you actually see him up there on the stage, he looks like the guy from the Disney movie that's playing Zach Wilson. But it really actually is Zach Wilson. But if you look at Elijah Vera Tucker,

he is an absolute stud. And I know the track record of drafting guards in the first round hasn't been as elite or as ideal, but he, everybody that I talked to thinks that he is going to be an excellent offensive lineman. You take him, you take your quarterback. This is the way that you start rebuilding a football team. I think the best move that you guys made was the addition by subtraction of getting rid of Adam Gase. The thing that we were talking about earlier with Carolina, what are they going to do and how are they going to look at Sam Darnold? I can't wait to just see Sam Darnold without Adam Gase calling plays and running Adam Gase's offense. That's going to be fun to see what he's actually capable of doing

unless he's too scarred over. But I'm excited to see what this Jets offense looks like without Adam Gase there and with a new quarterback and with a better offensive line. So I would not be disappointed. I don't see how the Jets fans could be disappointed at all. I think that they are in good shape out of the first round. Let's see what Joe Douglas is able to do from here on out. You hear that Jets fans settle down. I'm worried that you're not going to have enough coaches to make fun of this year. We got some of some, we got rid of some of your favorites like Adam Gase. You don't get to throw some punches at him anymore. Matt Nagy, I guess you still have, um, maybe Mike McCarthy. Maybe he has to step it up a little bit this year. Who else? Is there anyone,

anyone in your crosshairs you're looking at? Well, now we get to see what's going to happen in Jacksonville with urban Meyer. There's a lot of new coaches that have come into play, right? There's a lot of new teams that have new coaching. So we get to see what these guys are going to do. And I never do any, make any comments personally. I would be the first to say, oh my gosh, the San Diego charters, you started passing the ball. Congratulations. Like let's heap praise upon that coaching staff. So I am going to always critique what I actually see, not the people behind the scenes as to what kind of people they are.

And so we can certainly find new offensive coaches this year who make poor decisions, especially with some of the young quarterbacks around the league that will have ample opportunity to critique and criticize. I'm sure you'll find some victims. They usually present themselves. They offer themselves to you. It happens every year. Also seems like you might have done really, really well on your draft props this year. You have a little glow to you. Things went even better than normal. I'm just getting a feeling as a fellow gambler. We went in really hard, really hard for a couple of weeks now. I worked with some new people that I haven't worked with before in terms of their expertise in the draft. The key

is when you're betting on things, especially when you're betting a lot, uh, you want to find the people that are good at doing those things and work with them. And so like, I am not a college evaluator. I'm not an expert in that field, but when you work with some guys at the site who are, you know, that, and I'm grilling them left and right. I'm having phone calls all the time with them. I'm asking them all sorts of these questions. And so our process was great. We were able to get down a lot that I was, I w we were tired of like getting limited to like 25 bucks on this random long shot type thing. Like we just skipped those books that would give us that. And we were able to get like pretty big limits down and we're multiple dimes on some of these things. And we hit a multiple times and all of our big stuff came through like JC horn under Penny Sewell over. We got lucky on

Micah Parsons going over there because Dave Gettleman could have drafted him in 11 and just stay there and done it. But he trades down. And so Micah Parsons goes over. We ended up betting a fair amount on Najee Harris to go to the Pittsburgh Steelers because I felt like that was the case. You're betting on Pittsburgh being that predictable. Yes. And we did a lot. Our heaviest stuff was Jalen Waddle. Jalen Waddle to go before Smith, Jalen Waddle under 11 and a half, Kyle Pitts under five and a half. All this stuff at the top really set the table. But I'll tell you what, we we're in a really good position right now, but we've got some of these guys that are going to be drafted tomorrow. And then the next day of these longer props that could really just be the icing on the cake. Like if, if a Sean Wade, a cornerback from Ohio state goes earlier than like

pick 168 and pick 138. If, if Quinn miners pay attention to Quinn miners, I tweeted a video about him. He's the guy, did you see him lifting propane tanks and doing this workout on an island? He's a D3 guy, a D3 guy out of Wisconsin Whitewater. The record for a D3 pick is pick number 61. And we were betting him under 82 and a half, under 66 and a half. We are hoping that he sets the record for the highest drafted D three kid. Maybe he doesn't. And we, and we lose some of that, but we got a lot of these guys that are very random that nobody really knows about unless you're really a heavy draft Nick that are here in the next couple of days. So we still have a chance

to do even better, but it's been a fun, fun draft. Like you said, a super exciting draft, a couple moves and the whole Aaron Rodgers stuff before the day started, uh, really made, made the whole lead up and build up to this. Like just, it seemed like it poured gasoline and lit that sucker on fire before the draft even started. Yeah. I remember I watched the Dan Marino draft live when that was happening. And that to me is still the most exciting draft I ever watched because it was, it was like when Rogers fell,

but even more unbelievable because Dan Marino was such an accomplished college guy. And it was just, and they were openly talking on the telecast about, well, there's been some rumors about him. You know, it was just a different era. And he's talked about it since there's been a documentary about him you know it's just a different era um and he's talked about it since there's been a documentary about that draft but that draft start to finish was probably the craziest one i've watched this is definitely was in the top the first 15 picks today definitely in the top four there were so many moments just not knowing all right so what is san francisco

gonna do what is what is mi going to do? Oh my God. Both quarterbacks are on the board for Carolina and just on and on. It just kept going for two plus hours. And then on top of it, this Rogers thing was hanging over everything. I thought, uh, I don't know if they talked about Rogers enough during the draft. I actually felt like it was a bigger story, you know, especially as the odds started dropping for the Broncos, it was hard to story, you know, especially as the odds started dropping for the Broncos, it was hard to concentrate on another pop, but I guess they knew that he wasn't going to actually get traded. Cause I think another great moment of this draft was everybody was thinking Dallas

is going cornerback and then both guys go off right before them. And, you know, pulling their hair out, like, Oh my God, what just happened here? And so they end up trading down to pick number 12 and they get Micah Parsons. But there was a few moves here that were a lot of fun to watch. I thought that this was really entertaining. And I think the cool part about this is there's a lot of teams that made some good draft picks that their fans should be really excited about. I think that there were some very good fits and some very smart picks in this first round. And I'm excited to, uh, hopefully some of these fans are more excited than those jets fans were. I don't see what they have to complain about.

Wow. And it's going to be an unbelievable football card draft too. This is, I can't wait for the football cards. I can't pits. I'm just going after Kyle pits. I'm just telling everybody now. All right. This was the rational part of the podcast. We're going to take a break and then we're going to go to the rational part when our reaction, all the Pats fans,

the Mac Jones pick, but Warren Sharp, great job as always. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on, staying up late. I appreciate it. Thanks, Bill.

All right. We are taping this part of the podcast. It is 745 Pacific time, NFL draft night. My dad is here. My dad was visiting. We were hoping something good would happen with the draft. My buddy Hatch, Kevin Hatch is on Zoom. The three of us are here. Guys, 20 plus years of Belichick. It was all leading to this moment where the quarterback falls to us at number 15. And it's, and you're just, you're waiting for him to trade back and just punch us in the balls. And what happens, Hench? We take the quarterback finally. God, this never happens.

Every year it's like, oh, that guy would have been available three rounds from now or you know if one or if either of his knees comes back from the acl he'll be okay like every or like oh i've never heard of the college that guy plays that this year it's like quarterback from the national champion alabama your best friend coaches like it's like quarterback from the national champion, Alabama, your best friend coaches. It's such a home run. I'm out of my mind. I really wanted Fields.

I didn't even know if – I had no idea, Jones, there was any scenario where he falls to 15. I'm watching with my dad. My dad has all the Belichick DNA kicking in, just assuming we're going to trade back. Somebody's going to trade ahead of us. The Bears make the big move. And then we kind of had a Sophie's Choice moment with Fields or Mac Jones.

And my dad, who did you want? In that moment, you wanted Mac Jones. It was weird. You know, you all recall the national championship game. Mac Jones was out of this world in that game. Over 400 yards. Good decision-making, very accurate. Liked the guy a lot. And I'm sure Saban gave him a big recommendation. But I thought he was going number three. I thought that he'd be long gone.

Hedge. Obviously, everybody can be know, obviously everybody, you know, it can be wrong about these things. And, you know, the people who know a lot more about it than we do are wrong all the time. But when you watch a guy who's playing against NFL talent in the SEC, he's playing against NFL talent every day in practice. He can make all the throws as Dr. Bill just pointed out.

I mean, that national championship game, he's throwing these 45-yard teardrops right on the money. And so, I mean, I know that we all kind of get into the, this guy's going to go here, this guy's going to go here. And I feel like, why is no one asking this girl to dance? Like, I don't understand like she's she's so hot and and and she's available at 15 and then of course i was having a panic attack we're not going to mess this up are we uh and we didn't and and i've never been so excited

i mean you know i was like oh he's going to trade for a third round for six third round picks for two tight ends nobody wants right i was i was panicking but i i feel like um i i like that pick i i agree with dr bill i thought he was possibly the 49ers were doing that to get him um there's all his game film is against legit competition and it's awesome. Right. Right. I mean, you know, you, when you're watching the Jalen Waddle, Devante Smith highlight packages, all those throws are on the money. You know, it's funny.

We're sitting there at 15. We're praying for a quarterback. We don't want to go through. I just think Cam Newton's done as a starter. I guess we'll find out for sure. But I just think he is. Talking myself into a Gardner Minshew possibility or maybe Jimmy G who's had two major injuries.

But at 15, it's like if any of these guys fall down, this would be great. It's almost like when you're driving to Vegas and you have that barstow stop and you're just like, I'm hungry. Whatever it, whether, I don't know whether it's going to be Arby's, McDonald's, Burger King. Whatever it is, it's going to be delicious because I'm starving.

So when it became Fields and Mac Jones, I honestly didn't care. I really liked Fields too. I was so happy we had a chance. It seemed too good to be true. Even when Goodell had the card, it's like, oh, here it comes, the kick and the balls. They're going to take the Notre Dame linebacker. And then he took Mac Jones.

I kept worrying about other teams trading in. Or Minnesota. You know, Minnesota has cousins. He's my age. I thought they could use a young quarterback. He doesn't have your foot speed, though, in fairness, Dr. Bill. You know, watching Mac Jones sit there with nobody calling him and no smiles, didn't it remind you of the year that Rodgers was sitting there so late in the draft in the first round? It's a great comparison. Let's hope it's accurate.

And this is like, Patriot fans are having the best draft day they've had in a long time. And Packer fans must have not stopped throwing up since early in the afternoon. Like, it's so brutal, you know, to just have that thunderbolt dropped on you hours before the draft. Well, and intentionally too,

where he's like, this is my maximum, uh, nuclear bomb impact would be seven hours before the draft. I'm going to leak this to Adam Schefter. I am unhappy and have expressed my discontent to everybody who runs the Packers. It seems like if that's not a power move right before the draft,

and I thought the Niners were just going to end up training for him, but obviously they love Trey Lance, which was another weird subplot. They trade up to three and everybody's like, it's going to be Mac Jones. It's going to be Mac Jones. Mac Jones goes from three to 15 seemingly in like three days because even on FanDuel, the Trey Lance odds didn't really start moving until two days ago. But I just assumed it was always going to be Mack Jones.

Even when they took Trey Lance, I was shocked. Well, you know, as the beneficiaries of a huge Kyle Shanahan mistake, it could definitely have happened again. I, it wasn't until the corners went eight,

nine in succession that I started to believe. I was like, don't get your hopes up, Hench. Don't get your hopes up. And like Dr. Bill, even at 14, I was like, Sean Payton's going to swoop in here. Belichick's not going to add the extra pick to sweeten the pot. We thought it was going to be Vegas. We thought it would just be Gruden popping three spots up. And all of a sudden sudden they have Mac Jones.

So the fact that it played out like this and, you know, obviously, if we're not sitting right next to each other, I will text you on Cam Newton's first one hopper. Get him in! Get the kid in! Now! Now! You're not the only one who would be doing that. Yeah. So we're watching the draft together. And I don't think I've ever spent more time studying mock drafts and scenarios. And there's a specific scenario where it's like, whoever the Niners take at three, it has to be QB. Atlanta has to take pits at four and not trade. So that happens.

Then it goes to five and Sewell, the top tackle, needed to go five, six, or seven for the QBs to drop, right? So five, the Bengals take Chase. It's like, okay, that's fine. We're still in this. Six, Miami thought they might take a tackle. If they take a tackle,

I think Detroit trades out a seven, but they take Waddle. And then Detroit happily takes the tackle at seven. So now it's like, all right, we're at pick eight here. Now we're in range for Belichick to maybe trade up, goes to Carolina at eight. Carolina goes curveball. They take JC Horn, the D-back. It's like, this is great.

And then at nine, another D-back, Sertan goes. And now it's like all three NFC East teams, they have no chance at a D-back. You know Dallas is at 10. They're not taking wide receiver. They're not taking quarterback. I thought we were trading up to 10, right? We don't.

Dallas flips with Philly. Philly takes the receiver, Smith. So now it's on 11. It's the Giants. We're like, well, maybe we'll trade with the Giants. Bears move in to 11. And that's when it got dark for my dad. I actually was worried about your health at that point.

You got really surly. I was so upset that Belichick wasn't moving up. Because at 11, it was looking good. Oh, this is looking good. We know they're not taking a QB. We know they're not taking a QB. We know they're not taking a QB. And then when the Bears swooped in, the odds fell back to 50-50 that he would make it to us. We knew the Chargers were taking the tackle at 13. So that was a cross off. And then 12,

Dallas, it seemed like they would go defense or something weird. So that the, then once, once the bears locked in on fields, which I was really happy for the bears, we can talk about them in a second. Then it really seemed like Minnesota was the Mac Jones and it would be that classic scenario that's happened with so many Boston drafts dating back to like the days of Joe Dumars and the guy one pick ahead of us and your legs get cut out. And then Minnesota trades and they traded the jets. And at that point it's like, well, jets aren't taking a QB. Yeah. That was the best moment.

Yeah. So it's like, then you just had to sweat out the Belichick. Yeah. Then you, then you were waiting for the, uh, obscure cornerback pick.

Yeah. So then it, then when we're on the clock, then all the Belichick DNA kicks in. But this is the thing. This is a new Belichick. This is a splurging and free-agency Belichick. This is playing the chessboard perfectly,

ending up at the QB. Hench, this reminded me of the Seattle Super Bowl. The clock's ticking down on second down. Everybody's expecting us to call a timeout. Belichick, he's calm. He's waiting. He sees something on the sideline that he, he, he sees chaos. He's screw it. Let's send the goal line defense in. We get the, we get the Butler pick. This was the same thing. Everyone's like trade up, trade up, trade up. Belichick's like, hold on, hold on. I see chaos.

Let's wait here. Let's wait for 15. Let's wait for Mac Jones. Maybe, maybe. Yeah, maybe. It's what I like to tell myself. You know, because I would have, I would have traded up for him. Me too. To get him without spending anything is incredible. And, you know, I do think like,

you know, Justin Fields ran a 4-4. And I was thinking like, that might actually be bad for a quarterback in the NFL. Like you might actually go, I know this sounds weird, but that might be a deal breaker. Like you don't want, there's a weird thing that happens that obviously, you know, Bill and I've been texting with Lamar Jackson playoff games. There is a weird thing that happens when your quarterback is like too athletic and too fast and not, uh, you know, look at Matt, Matt Jones has the exact concave chest of Tom Brady. He's exactly as unathletic as Tom Brady. And so I know, I believe that Matt Jones is lack of athleticism is why he fell to us. And I think it's like Moneyball with Billy Bean.

We're not selling blue jeans. We're completing screen passes to James White. That's the actual sport. Hench goes to the combine and he's crossing up guys who are too fast, too strong. Way too fast. Way too fast. He likes slow. He's making them take their shirt off. It's like, oh, I see some doughiness. This is appealing.

Yeah, you should not go to the beach, Matt Jones, but you're on my team. Well, the Fields thing, I really think Fields is going to be good. Mainly because I think, I've said it before on the pod, I think he's got that like Roethlisberger kind of body. He's just thick. So he's fast, but he's also durable, which I think with QBs, that was why I was so afraid of the Jimmy G pit trade. Because Jimmy G's had two major injuries already. You wouldn't call him like a physical specimen.

It seems like Mac Jones is pretty big guy, right? Yeah, he's a sturdy guy. He looks sturdy. Sturdy former tennis player. The key is, he's not going to get going fast enough to get hurt. Like, seriously. Like, you only, I mean,

even going back to the Bledsoe injury that changed Patriots history, you know, he's out on the sideline turning the corner like, what are you doing? Brady, the only serious injury was the Bernard Pollard torpedo that you can't avoid. But otherwise, it's just a lot of gentle turtling to the ground at low speed, which is how you play every week in the NFL. The one comparison, Justin Fields needs at least seven more chins to match Roethlisberger physically. True.

He needs to gain 50 pounds. You might be hearing from Justin Fields' publicist comparing those two bodies. Well, I was really happy for the Bears fans because we were in, we were doing a thing on locker room as that stuff was happening. All of a sudden, the Bears trade up and you're thinking like, here's this fan base

that basically hasn't had a good QB ever, except for like a year and a half of Jim McMahon. And then that one Jay Cutler stretch when it seemed like they actually might make the Super Bowl with them and it was pretty good. But other than that, just a million of Cordell Stewart, Mike Avellini, just year after year of these guys that suck.

Nick Foles last year. And then they, they address it this off season with Andy Dalton. And you think like, it's just rock bottom there. The Bears fans, they almost don't even care if they win another Super Bowl. They just want to watch a competent QB. All of a sudden they go up and they get fields at 11. Who's going to have a chip on his shoulder because a lot of people think he was the second best QB and he ends up going 11th. So you get like a motivated, there's a little Deshaun Watson kind of chip on the shoulder thing going. I just thought I was really psyched for the Bears. I thought that was a good one. Yeah. I actually got a text message from a friend in Chicago, very, very excited to get fields. This was before

we had our pick. Yeah. That's when you were getting surly. I was getting nervous. Dr. Bill just got here like five hours ago and within five hours, just surly sitting on the couch. And I'm like, oh my God, this is setting the tone for the weekend. A good part of my six-hour flight was reading different NFL blogs and forecasts, and there was no way Mac Jones was going to be there at 15. Maybe Lance would have been there. That was in a couple of the blogs. Yeah, Lance seems like a really, really high upside guy. He's just so young, it's impossible to predict.

With Mac Jones, like Danny Kelly, who does the draft guide for us, who had fields higher than Mac Jones, but he basically was like shades of Matt Ryan. And I was thinking like, if Mac Jones is Matt Ryan, as much as we make fun of Matt Ryan, um,

with Belichick, with all, you know, assuming Belichick Scott, I don't know, eight to 10 years left. If he can be like at 90% as good as Matt Ryan, that's a huge win with the 15th pick.

Cause we also have him on a rookie salary, you know, which is the best thing you can have. The other thing about the Trey Lance thing, which is these coaches, except for ours, but these coaches just get fired. So you need, you can't really think it's going to take a while to to unlock a guy um and you know shanahan might have a little room because he took him to the super bowl uh but you know i would want guys that are ready to play not guys who go you know if he sits and learns for

a year he might be okay and And I don't know what, what, when you watch what Joe Burrow did playing in the same conference against the same competition as Mac Jones, you're like, you can't be any more ready than dominating the SEC. Yeah, it's true. Highest level of college football. Well, and the other thing, you know, the Belichick Saban friendship, long story, like these guys are legitimately close. They've known each other forever.

So I always thought with Mac Jones watching this from afar, if they traded up to get him or if they drafted him, that had to have been a seal of approval from Saban because ultimately this is your buddy, right? You're like, you know, if you're buying a house from your buddy and it's like, or a house that your buddy lived in and it's like, Hey, should I buy this house? And your, your buddy's not going to steer you wrong. But Saban is only watching what we're watching. You can only win. You can only blow out the other team in the national championship game by so much. It's like, yeah, that went great for Nick Saban. Sure. He enjoyed the hell out of Matt Jones's season last year.

Well, he recommended Damian Harris to us and Damian Harris was unbelievable last year. And I actually think is a huge fantasy sleeper for this year if he can stay on the field. So yeah, the Mac Jones thing. I also liked tonight when the first Alabama receiver got picked and you saw Mac Jones running down the hallway to give him a hug. Yeah. You know, you need a leader in the huddle. And we were talking about Wilson, who the Jets picked. I'm not sure when that guy walks in the huddle that he's going to have a lot of followers right away.

Mac Jones, I think, will. I think his personality is different. I did, of course, because I'm a Boston sports fan, immediately have the other moment where Mac Jones goes to practice. Neither Bourne nor Aguilar can get open in practice because part of our spending orgy, our spending orgy, it was like, I don't know about Nelson Aguilar. I was like, what's happening here? Like, we need tight ends

because you whiffed on those two guys in the draft. But what about these two guys? And I can just see Mac Jones going, yeah, Devontae Smith and Jalen Waddle were wide open all the time. What's this? Well, we could take a receiver tomorrow. There's a couple of good receivers sitting there

tomorrow. These are Patriot receivers, but again, the game is won dumping the ball off to James White and throwing it underneath the Hunter Henry. Yeah, they're going to be like the first time Mac Jones is having a throwing session with Nikhil Har, they're going to be like,

hey Mac, I know you were kind of used to Waddle and Smith being wide open. This is going to be a little different. The D-back's going to be like, hey, Mac, I know you were kind of used to Waddle and Smith being wide open. This is going to be a little different. The D-back's going to be all over him, so you're really going to have to make some tight throws and make this happen. Well, we're going to have a different offense anyway with these two tight ends.

We're not going to be so wide receiver dependent. This is the drill. It's like, hey, Mac, this is when we do our small windows drill okay nikhil get in here practice throwing into guys who are not open to kill yeah with with uh mac jones like you talked about him celebrating with the alabama guy i saw davante smith on first take this week and and he went out of his way to praise what an awesome teammate and leader Mac Jones was

and just how he loved playing with them. And it was a little beyond. These guys are going to say something nice about their QB, right? But he was really passionate about it. I got excited about that. Listen, Hench, what's our worst case scenario with Mac Jones? Is it that he's just Kirk Cousins?

That he only wins four Super Bowls in the next 20 years? Well, look, I'm sure he could be Josh Rosen. I don't know anything. I'm just excited right now.

And I will say this about Nikhil Harry. Not only have we suffered through his tenure in boston but you every draft tonight when they were when you were watching the draft you saw like 20 comparisons to aj brown and dk metcalf like for the rest of our lives we're going to be seeing aj brown and dk metalf highlights. We'll never see one of them without going, Oh Christ could have had either could have had either Tom Brady doesn't leave. If we draft DK Metcalf, Tom Brady stays the parades never end. Uh, but, but you know, we, we took the guy who ran a four, five, three, instead of the guy who ran a four, three, three, Metcalf's even bigger than him,

but why do you want all that speed on the outside? Well, they talked about what a beast he was after he had the ball in the Kilharry. Irrelevant. Yeah. Well, after he had the ball. We just haven't seen that yet. Yeah, which usually had to just be on reverses.

So Belichick, he basically does 19 years with Brady. Or 18, however long it was. Two decades of Brady. We have the year, the first year, pre-Brady, when Brady's on the team but not playing. We go 6-10. All the Brady years. Then last year, 7-9.

That sucked. Now Mack is here. And best case scenario, it's like another 10 years of the Mac Jones era. And then at that point, I think Belichick, he's not going to coach until he's 82. Don't you think his goal is to pass George Hallis? Yes. Most wins ever? Yes.

So that's probably four to five years. And just don't forget 11 and five with matt castle in in the middle of that run because like if you're looking for a floor for matt jones remember that we went 11 and five with matt castle it's a good point so so i i uh i'm feeling super confident very giddy. Might break out some alcohol tonight. Rare for me, but I think it's an occasion that calls for it. Hedge, did this Mac Jones pick make up at all for the excruciating eyesore of the Celtics season that we've had to endure?

One of the most unlikable over 500 seasons of our lifetime? It's funny, we mean, it's funny. We were talking about draft picks. I was like, I'm going to bleed into Danny Angel's first round picks. I was like, is there any way we can take the euphoria of Mac Jones and pivot to Romeo Langford,

Romeo Langford. I swear to God, you can't play 90 minutes over five games and not get an assist or a rebound. Like where, like, it's not, this is like, you know, fantasy baseball camp. Like a civilian has been allowed to run up and down the court with the team, you know, and we've been watching these, adding up Semmy Ojale, You know, and we've been watching these, adding up Semih Ojele, Grant Williams, and Romeo Langford's minutes every night.

And you're like, you can't have a position from which you are getting zero everything. It's 48 minutes of zero. Well, finally, Stevens last night, Langford didn't play. Grant Williams played one minute. No, that's what I said. That's the right amount of minutes, by the way. That's exactly right.

It might have been a half minute too high. But then Neesmith has shown real signs the last two weeks. And last night was the Neesmith game. And I actually... They don't win without him last night. Because he moves. He gets offensive rebounds. He was jumping passing lanes for steals and was active.

And up until about two weeks ago, he just looked like a chicken with his head cut off. He had energy. It was kind of misplaced. But I thought yesterday might have been a breakthrough for him. Now watch him go 0 for 12 in the next Celtics game because that's how the season's gone. Well, I guess the short answer to your question is yes, this does make up for that excruciating Celtics season. It's incomprehensible to me that you can have two guys that good and lose the games we've lost.

You've got the two best players on the court, and you're losing it home to the Bulls without Zach Levine. You're losing to OKC, and you're losing to Charlotte by 21. What's going on? Bright days ahead. Hey, man. I know a lot of NFL fans don't know how rough it is to miss the playoffs. That was tough. We went a whole year.

That was rough. Now we're back. The dark days of 2020 when we didn't experience a round one. It was so disarming. back. The dark days of 2020 when we didn't experience a round one. It was so disarming. I like how it motivated all

this free agency spending on our part on top of Mac Jones. I'm pretty optimistic about next year. Yeah, if Mac Jones is good right away, to me this is unquestionably a playoff team. The thing that bummed me out, though,

and we were talking about it when he got drafted, that when Miami got Waddle, I just think Waddle's going to be great. It was like, oh, fuck. This guy's in our division now. We basically have Tyreek Hill in our division now, and then we have to deal with Tyreek Hill

again when we play the chiefs. Um, hopefully two is a bust. Yeah. He's still got to her. Yeah. We got to her. I can't,

I'm not so optimistic about tour getting on the ball. We need to, it'd be a bust. And then Buffalo is going to be there, but, and then the jets who got a tackle and, uh, and got Zach Wilson.

I assume he's going to play this year, but, um, Oh, the steer, as we're taping this, the Steelers just took Najee Harris, which is the most Steelers pick possible.

Yeah. Check guaranteed it. Wait, it was that, is that a 24? Yeah. Yeah. So Najee Harris,

you're 28 and a half. If you, if you knew the Steelers were going to take him, that was free money. You know, and, And there it is. I do think, you know, we were talking about Sonny Michel and how you're not going to get a second contract out of an NFL running back. Like, you're just going to basically obliterate them as best you can

for their rookie contract. And when you look at the postseason that Sonny Michel had, it's like, well, that's absolutely worth the price of a pick. He carried us to a Super Bowl championship with postseason numbers that will stand the test of time in New England. Like a crazy postseason. So, you know,

if the Steelers get three and a half good seasons out of that guy, that's a good pick. Well, with the rookie QB thing, as has been said a million times, if you actually get a good QB on a rookie contract, it's the most valuable thing in any sport. It's even more valuable than in basketball. Belichick knows this. This actually worked out in a crazy way for him, where it's like they could have had to pay 20 million for Jimmy G or do whatever.

Instead, they get this guy. Plus, it's the 15th pick and the salary scale goes down. It's even cheaper. And we were going to trade Gilmore to trade up for this guy. Right. It's Christmas. You figure like there's this four year window for Belichick here with the guy. Although I guess they can. It's a five year window with Mac Jones, but if he's good, they'll

have to give him the extension. That this is, this is the exclamation point for Belichick, right? We saw, we had Brady, that seventh Super Bowl was the, the I didn't need Belichick exclamation point for him. Now Belichick has it set up. He did this free agency splurge. He has a QB that has played as Hensh said in this crazy SEC schedule, which is basically like AAA NFL. And if he's good right away, this could be the last Belichick run, dad. Dad, you might have to move to LA. We should have enjoyed this together.

There's only one thing that worries me slightly. I just don't understand why Belichick didn't trade up to make it a certainty if he was really high on Mac Jones. Well, but that's, I mean, we could have taken Tom Brady in the fourth round, fifth round. We didn't take him to 199, right? Like at some point, it's a value thing. You really like the guy, but you don't you you still want to kind of play the odds i think well he just doesn't trade up how many times what was the one time he

traded up chandler jones jones the only time jones and uh and the linebacker uh a high tower and jones went in the same first round that's a pretty good first round um well, Dr. Bill, let Bill's analogy sink in and marinate a little bit. What he's saying is he let the clock run, let the pressure be on the other guys. And so, you know, don't worry that Bill Belichick didn't want it. Know that Belichick knew something the rest of us didn't know. Yes, I love it, Hench. That he could get him for free. Yeah, Hench, I love what you did there. I do think they map out these drafts,

and I think they have a really good idea of what teams are going to do, and the wild card would be the trade-ups. But if you're looking at trade-ups for a QB, who else was trading up for a QB other than Chicago? I thought Vegas might. Right, Vegas would have been the other one you're worried about, but they know the Vegas guys, so maybe they had intel that Vegas wasn't trading up. Do you think Saban and

Belichick are close enough friends? Like, real friendship. Like, I would do this for you, Bill. Real friendship, okay? That Belichick could call Saban and go, Hey, man. I just need you to call five GMs and tell them he's a serious intravenous drug user.

You're my friend. You're my friend. That's all I'm asking. Five GMs, not everybody. You don't have to have a press conference. I just need these five teams to not take my guy and we're golden. When Gruden calls, just tell him,

Mac Jones, worst human being I've ever been around. Horrible. Rude to waiters. Rude to bartenders. Rude to the clubhouse attendants. Kicks dogs. Hates dogs. Huge animal abuser. Yeah, maybe he did that.

Maybe he threw four people off the scent. So, I'm like obviously thrilled, but as you start talking about Do-Re-Mi and how much money has to go to that position and the money it frees up, now I'm thinking I'll be pissed if we don't win it in two years.

All right. Kevin Hedge, a pleasure as always. We did it did it we got our guy we didn't know who we just hoped he was a quarterback he was my he was my guy all along he's my dad's guy all along apparently that didn't come up all day but it's this guy what guys some reason it doesn't work out he can go stand in the corner for the Celtics and get zero rebounds, zero assists, and two points and be a professional athlete. That's true. Matt, go in the left corner.

Watch Tatum or Jalen dribble between their legs and shoot a three. Who should I guard? Don't worry about it. All right, Hench, we did it. Good to see you, buddy. Thank you, guys. Good to see it. Good to see you, buddy. Thank you, guys. Nice to see you.

Bye. All right. That is it for Thursday night's podcast. Sorry it went up so late, but we wanted to wait to the end of the first round. Don't forget to get ready for the rewatchables. It's coming Monday. What about Bob? Was it the greatest therapist movie of all time?

We're going to debate that and more. It's me, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan. And then Sunday night, Rosillo and I have a whole bunch of fun NBA stuff planned. So we didn't talk NBA really a lot the last two podcasts, but Sunday you will be getting your NBA fix. Enjoy the weekend. Go Pats.