The Bill Simmons Podcast - NFL Draft Predictions With Peter Schrager and Police Reform 2021 With DeRay Mckesson
Episode Date: April 28, 2021The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Fox and NFL Network's Peter Schrager to discuss the upcoming NFL draft including what the 49ers will do with the third overall pick, rumors of quarterback Justin... Fields sliding, the Bengals choosing between a top wide receiver and a (possibly) generational offensive lineman, trying to get a read on the Patriots, NFL draft prop bets, and more (3:30). Then Bill talks with civil rights activist and podcaster DeRay Mckesson about continuing the fight for police reform in the United States. They discuss the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, police departments that have reformed their policies with the 8 Can't Wait campaign, some of the challenges to reforming police policy, informative statistics, and more (1:01:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hey, if you care about the NFL draft, we have some amazing coverage on the podcast network
this week for the ringer, including the ringer NFL show, Danny Hyphens, Danny Kelly, Kevin Clark,
Norm Princiati, special guests, Warren Sharp. They're going to be breaking it down all week,
doing big board stuff, all kinds of things. Check that out. Also check out Ryan Rosillo's
podcast as well. He is hitting the draft as well. We're about to hit it. One second. Stay tuned.
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Coming up, Peter Schrager, our old buddy.
He's going to talk NFL draft.
And then DeRay McKesson is going to update us on everything going on with
police reform. He's been on a few times. He is always fantastic. This is a fun podcast. Don't
forget, we did one yesterday as well. If you want to hear some basketball talk with Joe House,
you want to hear Oscar's talk was, was the worst that went up on Monday. So two pods,
two days in a row. Good times. First Pearl Jam.
All right. The good, Charmers here.
Peter Schrager from Fox and NFL Network.
We're still celebrating just an incredible million dollar picks run in the playoffs.
And I don't think it's too early to say you're probably coming back for Thursdays for the NFL season.
I think we've had so much success.
America needs it and wants it, right?
We definitely need to do it. I don't know if America wants it, but we're going to give it to them anyway. That's what we're doing.
We were red hot throughout the Super Bowl and it ended with Devin White sending us both notes of
thank you for having the support of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which is incredible. I know. You know,
it's funny. I was thinking, I heard Frances on JJ's New York pod on Sunday and he was talking
about, he was like, if that tight end, tight end on the,
on the Saints had caught,
had fumbled,
Saints would win in that game.
And I was like,
he's kind of not wrong.
He's not wrong.
Like if the Saints go up by 10,
I'd be really interested to see
if the Bucks could have come back,
but that's why we love football.
That's it.
Most,
most fun,
craziest draft
of this last 10 years,
at least, that we're in right now. I, I, I'm so
fascinated by 40 different storylines. What's it been like to try to cover and get information for?
Yeah. So I'm pretty accurate on these mock drafts and I do this work all day long where I'm talking
to everyone. And this year I've got this pit in my stomach because I feel like I don't have a grasp on things after a couple of picks like I used to.
And this isn't because I'm not doing the same work I always do.
I'm talking to the same people.
I've heard from multiple teams saying this is unlike any other draft because, A, after the top 15, Bill, and this is going to be my NFL network bosses, Mike Crane.
This is not a great draft after the top 15 it is wide open so you have 15 guys who are potentially
pro bowlers and then you have so many unknowns beyond that there's also this thing there there's
no medical reports like used to like there used to be because of the combine not being in the
same place at the same time in february they're still getting medical reports trickling in. And a lot of these guys have things. So you have now, one team told me,
50 different players on their board of like 400, 50 different ones have the letters INC next to
them, meaning incomplete medicals. So now you're debating, all right, I don't know if this guy
can actually still play. Is he hurt? What do we got?
I don't even know. Am I taking him over someone I know is healthy, but isn't as good a player?
There's that. And the last part about it, which leads to so much indecision,
there's a lot of group think in the NFL and a lot of that develops in the months of February
and March. So you get to the combine and it's every single member of a staff, front office,
coaching staff, they're all in Indianapolis. And like any other convention, it's just gossip,
gossip, gossip. And you talk about the players and you start convincing yourselves that you're
in the same thought pattern as another team. Then you go on these pro days and the same
personnel guys who are at the pro days at Ohio State are at the ones at Alabama. Then they go
to the one at Clemson. They go to the one in Georgia. Who do you think they're getting beers
with? Who do you think they're eating with at night? Who do you think they're going out with
all the same guys? So eventually you have crystallized notions of, all right, this guy's
a top corner. This guy's the same. There was none of that this year. So there's no group think it's
32 different teams in silos with their own boards, basing it on a college season that kind of existed, but then kind of didn't.
Well, that's your fourth piece of it, right?
Like you had this weird college season and some of the guys who were first rounders and second rounders didn't play.
Didn't play.
They just sat out.
How do you judge that?
All right.
So there's A, the I don't have the film and then there's B the taboo
topic of, is it being held against some of these guys that they chose not to play because of a
potentially COVID reasons or B they just wanted to train for the draft. And it's one of these
topics that like the NFL doesn't want to look like archaic, you know, cavemen saying that,
but I'll tell you this, Jalenaddle who's an alabama wide
receiver hurt his ankle in week five decided to play in the national title game basically on
a still very injured ankle but played and i've had multiple teams saying you know what we like
about waddle we like that he opted in he's a gamer wanted to be on the field he's a gamer or a lot of
these guys they didn't and you know no one ties a name to it.
No one's going to judge.
And I did talk to someone who was like, if you have any idea how effed up the Pac-12
was this year, you can't hold it against any of these players in the Pac-12 who didn't
want to play and risk anything.
There was no rhyme or reason to a lot of this.
It was so up in the air.
No one can blame him.
But there is that football mentality of Jalen Waddle played on a bad ankle.
I like that.
Some guys decided to be down in Arizona training for the last 12 months.
It's going to be fascinating to see if any teams hold that against a player, which obviously
in a normal situation, you never would.
But here we are.
It's the NFL.
It's not everybody's normal situation.
Well, can I tell you something?
Jalen Waddle played on a bad ankle. I really like that.
I do too. I like that he did that.
Fucking gamer. Bring him to the Pats.
Can you fall to 15?
Alright, let's go. We're taping this.
It is 11 in the morning
Pacific time on Tuesday.
I don't think there will be any trades or weird
stuff happening, so I feel pretty safe
going through. San Francisco is down to Mac Jones and I don't think there will be any trades or weird stuff happening. So I feel pretty safe going,
uh,
going through San Francisco is down to Mac Jones and Trey Lance. It looks like all signs have pointed to that for the last couple of weeks
for there was the gambling action on.
This has been fascinating to watch.
There was a point on Justin Fields was like the favorite to go to the
Niners like a week and a half ago.
Now he's like basically off the board.
There's rumors of split camps on Mac Jones or Trey Lance.
And I just can't imagine that Kyle Shanahan doesn't have the deciding vote.
I don't care what the camps are split.
Whoever he wants, they're going to end up taking, right?
This one selection has been everything I've lived and breathed over the last two weeks. And I'll just empty the bag here. Here's what it is. It's going
to be Kyle Shanahan's decision. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But first and foremost,
he's the guy. He's the quarterback guru. Lynch knows that they're getting a quarterback and you
put it in Kyle Shanahan's hands. That's what you do. Second thing, which doesn't come from the Niners,
but is pretty much if someone were to tell Kyle Shanahan who to pick and he went with that pick
and that pick wasn't the guy and the guy that he wanted went on to be a great quarterback,
it would be hell, hell to work with Kyle Shanahan for the next four years because he would let you
know that. Nothing against Kyle. He's an offensive guy.
And Sean McVay wanted Matthew Stafford.
And the front office might have said, well, maybe we should.
He wanted Matthew Stafford.
And to make everyone happy, you keep the coach happy.
Unless you plan on moving on from this coach, you get him whatever he wants.
Kyle Shanahan.
By the way, that was Tibbs with Derrick Rose.
Exactly right.
It's like, why do they need Derrick Rose?
They have five guards.
It's like, because they wanted Tibbs to be happy.
That was his guy.
And exactly right.
And that's what's going to be with this one.
So it will be Kyle Shanahan's pick.
So then you say, okay, it's definitely Mac Jones, right?
I don't know about that.
And it might've been out of the gates.
And it might've been Mac Jones when they made the trade.
But I can tell you-
A lot of good interview buzz on Trey Lance. He's getting that kind of Gandhi level character.
We love hyperbole in our world. And I'll tell you, they went to the pro day on Monday. They
all went from the 49ers and this was last week and they came back and look, Trey Lance's parents
were there. His father played
in the CFL and the world league. His mom is wonderful. They got to meet with the parents.
You get this feel. And there's a lot of things that are coming out about Trey Lance that like,
I kind of like it. You know, he played this one game this year against central Arkansas
and he went 15 to 30 and it was his worst game at North Dakota state. And it should hurt him,
right? His explanation is I didn't have to play the game I could have been a opt-out COVID we couldn't have to play but because he
played that game a lot of his teammates partial scholarships were guaranteed like if he wasn't
gonna play they weren't gonna play the game so Trey Lance was like all right to get these guys
their scholarships I'll play I'll put my name on it and let's go um teams love that the interviews
there this is why I get silly. Like we had the
Gruden quarterback camp. We don't have that this year, so we can't see it. But apparently
he's like a savant on the board. And he's a guy who came from a running offense in a high school
in Minnesota, where he attempted very few passes, was a one-star recruit, goes to North Dakota
state where he played nobody and then played one game in the last
16 months. And they're saying this guy can digest an offense and spit it back to you and doesn't
turn 21 until May. So, well, and then they do the thing. Good family. His father was a professional
athlete. He knows how this goes. You look atomes mahomes his father was a professional athlete he came into
the league ready he understands how to be an adult i think they care about that stuff they do and how
about this you're kyle shanahan and you've got a really high bar for what you want this is your
mold of clay you can shape him however you want because he's still raw so let's say jimmy is there
plays next year or maybe eight weeks whatever it is and we'll let's say jimmy is there plays next year or maybe
eight weeks whatever it is and we'll get to the jimmy thing i'm sure that'll come up um but this
is the ideal situation where if you want that alex smith and mahomes thing and if jimmy's willing to
be the mentor it is kind of perfect if everyone's kumbaya that for next year jimmy garoppolo is
your quarterback and then you hand off the reins to Trey Lance.
So if they take, if they take Trey, they keep Jimmy.
If they take Mac Jones, they probably trade Jimmy.
I would, I would try to get a high second runner.
Oh yeah.
Or you keep Jimmy, uh, or you have Jimmy start the first six to eight games.
And whenever Mac Jones is ready, then you just bench Jimmy and it's, and it's, it's
Mac Jones's team.
Here's the rub. But then you can't, you can't trade them after that though. Plus he's got
the no trade clause. He's got the no trade clause anyway. F you over with it. Right.
Yeah. And you know, everyone says, well, why would you want Mac Jones instead of Jimmy?
They're the same guy. They're not like Mac Jones, whatever you want to say is a really,
really cool kid. And they're saying is like the alpha on that Alabama team is the guy.
And Jimmy's a leader in his own way.
But when you've got the Alabama Crimson Tide
and Mac Jones is the name that everyone brings up
as their bonafide leader and he's Saban's right arm,
there's something appealing to that.
And this whole feeling that he's a stiff
or he's not a great athlete,
done a lot of work on Mac Jones.
Cause I'm like,
if the Niners don't take them,
where's he go?
And like,
he'll still go high.
So they view his pocket skills as impeccable.
And you say,
well,
pocket skills,
what's that mean?
And the comparison was made to Brady in the pocket.
And you say,
well,
that's not great.
Brady's not a great athlete.
You know,
he's great in the pocket.
He's unbelievable.
He would move side to side as good as anybody.
And that's what Mac Jones did.
And he threw for 4,500 yards and completed 77% of his passes.
And the athleticism isn't necessarily a 4-4-40, which is what Fields has.
Or this incredible arm, which might be what Lance has, what Mac Jones has.
And this is like people roll their eyes.
His father was a professional tennis player.
His mother played tennis. His sister played tennis. His brother played tennis. He played
tennis growing up. Incredible tennis skills. And think about the tennis ability of going baseline
and then going up to the top of the net, to the front of the net. All that footwork stuff,
quick twitch stuff, he has been trained and drilled. because when you're a tennis player it is drills it is that kind of training that his footwork is impeccable so it might not be as sexy a pick as
lance and i can tell you just doing the morning show on nfl network when i say like there's stuff
to like about mac jones niners fans are throwing the remote at the niners fans have never wanted
to pick less than mac jones for some reason this guy has become the bane of their existence they
find it boring i don't think nfl personnel guys see him that way. They see him with a tremendous upside
and great athletic ability, despite what you might think, just because you say,
okay, here's another Alabama quarterback. Yeah. I remember when Brady started playing
for the Pats when Butzo went down. Butzo had this cannon arm, but he was this big lumbering
goofball as a quarterback, Right. And it was one
of the reasons he got hurt by Mo Lewis. Like he just took a point blank cannonball hit. Cause
yeah, you know, um, athletically he was a little weird. Brady came in and his footwork and the
play action and everything was like so meticulous. And that was why I got behind him initially.
It was like, this guy's, it's just harder to figure out what we're doing.
You know, like he was just so smooth
at all of like the subtle stuff with being a quarterback.
And it seems like that's where the Mac Jones piece is.
Like, I think the Tua thing really hurts him though.
The fact that-
In what way? Let me hear.
Because Tua sucked last year.
And you look at that and you go,
well, if you're the Alabama QB and you're just loaded and you're on an all-star team, basically,
how do we assess how good you are? Like you really, you really have to do the extra due
diligence. And I just wonder like if Tua had been awesome last year, I wonder if that's better for
Mac Jones. Yeah. Or is it the fact that they got better once Mac Jones went in to show that he's a better quarterback than Tua? It's not like
Alabama took some dip. If you want to do the control of the experiment, they went on and won
the national title. The thing with Mac Jones, let's say at his bare minimum, and this is some
of the comparisons they're making, it's Kirk Cousins. All right. Well, you probably wouldn't
want a third overall pick to be Kirk Cousins. You got higher expectations. So what's the ceiling? Kirk Cousins is an above average quarterback.
It's fine. Yeah, he's fine. If you're going third overall, maybe you want a little better.
The ultimate ceiling for Mac Jones, which it sounds blasphemous, but okay,
super accurate quarterback, tennis background, can mobilize in the pocket.
Drew Brees was the ultimate ceiling. And that's how you have to
kind of look at it. Are you at third overall? But he's bigger than Drew Brees.
And he's bigger than Drew Brees. And are you cool with having someone between Kirk Cousins
and Drew Brees at third overall? If that's the case, because they don't think he's going to be
worse than Kirk Cousins, I think that might be the decision there. Now with Trey Lance,
it could be Rodgers. It could be Mahomes.
It could be who knows,
but I don't know what the basement is.
It could also fall on its face.
Danny Kelly has Mac Jones,
shades of Matt Ryan.
It's fair.
Smart quarterback, good footwork.
He also went third overall.
I think it's weird
that the Niners made this trade
not knowing who the pick was going to be. I just,
and I felt like for weeks and weeks, I was like, oh, they're full of shit. They're just trying to
fuck with the other teams and they know who they're taking. They just, they just want other
teams to spend more guys scouting and just spend more time scouting and wasting time. And it's like
a red herring, but it really does seem like they don't know who they're going to pick.
And they just liked a couple of guys and they traded up.
I think it was very unconventional for a trade that I think could have been
there a month later is pretty,
in my opinion,
pretty risky.
It is risky because they not only gave up next year's first round pick,
but 2023 also.
So whatever this pick is,
they're lining that bed and you know, Kyle Shanahan can be a temperamental guy with his quarterbacks. He better love this guy.
And I can get ugly real fast if he does. Where were they? They were 12 initially,
right? 12 moved up to three. We're 12 where they could have potentially gotten a QB anyway. We
might have, of course, the number five guy might fall to 12. This is a reality of this draft.
So here was their thinking.
And I'll tell you straight up, we're doing this on Tuesday.
It's middle of the day on the East Coast here.
In the past, I've had McGlinchey go into the Niners in my mock draft, the final one.
I've had Bosa.
I've done events with the 49ers.
I was a sideline reporter for Lynch.
I feel like I'm pretty good with the Niners.
I don't know the answer.
I don't think they have their final pick yet. And it might've swayed. It might've been Mac
at the start and now it's Lance and now it's Mac. And the reason they made-
That's reasonable to me. They thought it was going to be Mac Jones and they did more research
and maybe they really started to fall in love with Trey Lance. And now they're debating between
those two guys. I think that's 100% the case.
And they're still talking about it.
And I don't think they've made their decision yet.
And you say, well, why would they do it?
Because now they have the choice.
If you're sitting at 12,
you never were going to have the choice.
You were dealt with the fifth quarterback.
And I believe them in their thinking.
I think they would have maybe traded up to five or four,
but three was willing to.
And so they go up to Miami.
And now, all right,
we know two quarterbacks are off the board.
There's going to be three guys that we can take.
We can take Jones, Lance, or Fields.
Let's narrow it down.
Let's say they now have their choice.
They still have their choice.
We're going to take a break and then we're going to go through
the rest of the draft.
But more importantly, do some draft props.
Because the magic is back.
The Schrager-Simmons team is back.
All we do is make you money.
That's coming up after this.
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So on FanDuel right now, it is 1123 Pacific time.
They have Mac Jones now minus 340 to be the third pick.
Trey Lance is three to one underdog to be the number three pick.
So there's been a lot of Mac Jones movement.
Somebody.
Minus 200 yesterday.
Somebody a long time ago told me when it comes to
intel on the nfl draft and all that stuff what you first heard is what you should probably go with
at the end and the first thing we heard was mac jones this can go a million different ways i'm
just picturing kyle shanahan waking up friday morning and saying oh wait i just fell in love
with this trey lance and And now I think you.
Right.
It's like a fling.
Right.
It's like in the Bahamas, drunk one night.
He's with Trey Lance.
That's it.
And then you get the call nine months later and suddenly that's your baby.
So I think maybe I would say that if I were to be doing a mock draft right now and putting my name on it, I'd still go Mac Jones.
I would not be shocked if it's Trey Lance. but I feel like Mac Jones is just for the fact that
we were hearing that for two months leading up to this thing. Atlanta at number four,
Kyle Pitts is minus 135 as the favorite. It's felt like Pitts this whole time. I think people,
I include myself about three, four weeks ago, realized like, wait a second, why wouldn't you take a generational tight end over a receiver? There's two of these guys every 12 years. You
have a chance to get this guy. You know what he is. He's like, worst case scenario is Travis Kelsey.
You might actually be a Travis Kelsey 2.0. New coach there, Arthur Smith. Is he your guy?
He's one of my, I love my... Have you adopted him yet?
I love him. Great dude.
Matt Ryan, I think he's 33 years old,
maybe 34.
I think he's older. I think he's 36.
Is he 36?
Quarterback ages don't matter anymore as long as he's not 45.
Logically,
it makes sense to me to take Kyle Pitts and to bank on, we might have four or five
years left here with Matt Ryan, who maybe he's not a level one quarterback, but he's somebody
that took a team to a Superbowl who, who, you know, can really produce. And it's more logical
to do that than bring in Trey Lance,
whoever's left Mack Jones,
Trey Lance fields even,
um,
and then have the shadow over Matt Ryan.
Now,
now Matt Ryan's going to suck next year.
Cause he's got this guy went and take his job.
We also haven't leveraged the fourth pick into somebody who can actually play
for us.
Pitt seems like the guy,
it seems like the smart choice.
What do you think?
Yeah. Just about every team I've spoken to says their top non-quarterback on their board is Kyle
Pitts. Here's the argument why you wouldn't. All right. First year coach, first year GM,
you don't expect to ever be in the top five again. So if you love one of these quarterbacks,
you can say, we got our guy. That's our cornerstone.
Let's build around him.
And we have him and we'll figure out the Matt Ryan piece later.
The real red flag on this though, is the stuff that I'm hearing about Julio now being on
the block and they've got salary issues with Julio Jones and maybe they can trade him.
You're not trading Julio Jones and not getting an offensive weapon.
Like that doesn't make sense.
You wouldn't trade Julio Jones or get rid of him unless you have some other guy that you think is going to be
part of that offense. And with Arthur Smith, what they did in Tennessee with two guys who I think
are inferior to their two tight ends, Johnnie Smith and Anthony Ferkser was a lot of two times.
Be careful on Johnnie. I know you love Johnnie. What are you doing to me there?
I think Johnnie's going to be a solid player for the Patriots, but Kyle Pitts blows him out of the water in what he can do.
So I would think this makes a lot of sense.
And there's a lot of talk that like Arthur Blank is making this pick.
And I'm pretty plugged in in that organization to the point that I feel like Arthur Smith could have taken other jobs.
He was a hot name and he chose Atlanta. So you think he has the juice?
I don't think he would go to Atlanta to have the owner tell him, take a quarterback. I think he
would go to Atlanta so that he can build his own thing. And I don't think he's going there
thinking that Matt Ryan is not his quarterback. So I would say Kyle Pitts at four would make a
lot of sense. Hot take. Makes total sense to trade Julio Jones to me.
32 years old.
Makes a ton of money.
32 years old.
He got Ridley.
Dipped last year.
Expensive.
The history of these receivers,
even the superstar ones,
when they hit that 32, 33, 34 range,
they just dip.
If they lose, I don't know,
6% of their superior athleticism that they had in their 20s, they become different guys.
And it's down the line.
It's the way it's gone.
The only exception is Jerry Rice.
But Jerry Rice blew out his knee on that terrible Warren Sapp play that somehow doesn't get held against Warren Sapp.
But for the most part, 32-33 is kind of when i want to get off my 20 to 25 million
dollar receiver my question is who would want julio at the price like well it's interesting
right aj green just signed a quiet one year like eight million dollar deal and they were the same
draft class and it's what's the value at julio and who would what would he what would they get
for him i i don't even know And there's going to be aggressive teams,
especially at that position.
But I think Kyle Pitts and Calvin Ridley
on rookie contracts and a third-year guy contract
is a lot more digestible than the Julio deal.
That feels like a crazy coach move
where it's like a Gruden move.
Gruden's like, ah, I'm trading for Julio Jones.
Game breaker.
Here's my second round pick.
And it's like, all right, good luck with that one.
I'm with you. I think Pitts goes there.
And I think either they try to trade Julio Jones
or they end up getting stuck with him.
Five, everyone had a line to go to the Bengals.
But now it's like, no, why wouldn't they take a wide receiver?
These wide receivers, all three of them could be incredible.
People seem to like Sewell though,
cause it seemed like, all right, he, he has a chance to be an all pro versus that guy's a
multi all pro it's people seem to be somewhere in between those two. What would you do if you
were the Bengals and what do you think they will do? All right. So I originally was like,
oh, Jamar chase played with burrow. He had 20 touchdowns in a college season two years ago he was the number
one justin jefferson was the number two at lsu it makes a lot of sense and then i heard no you
got to protect burrow because look at his knee it's all scarred up after one year because he
got clobbered and now that we're two days away i'm gonna say it's gonna be chase just on the
intel i'm getting um and it's not so much a negative on Sewell or what a team needs. It's Zach Taylor
is an offensive coach. They drafted Jonah Williams two years ago. They got Billy Price
three years ago on the draft. They've got offensive linemen. They signed Riley Reif.
And there are three good wide receivers. I'm going to say three very good wide receivers
in this draft. And then there's a huge drop off. Huge. Chase is one of them. The offensive line, Sewell's really good. So is Vera Tucker. So is Mayfield out of Michigan.
In the second round, you can still get an offensive tackle, but you will not get a wide
receiver like Jamar Chase. And Zach Taylor coming from the McVay world in offense, I'm going receiver
at five. That makes sense to me. Take your tackle in the second round
and you'll still get somebody who's high level.
Look at last year's final four teams
or the final eight teams.
Very rarely do you see a first round offensive tackle
be on the Super Bowl team.
It's usually a nice collection of offensive tackles
or guards that you get in the second, third, fourth.
I don't think you necessarily need that at five.
Well, I forgot to mention one of the Fando bets.
Lawrence, Wilson, Mack Jones, Kyle Pitts being the one, two, three, four
in that exact order is basically even odds.
I like it.
Which I thought was enticing.
But talking about Chase, they have bets about first receiver,
first running back, first offensive lineman drafted.
Exact order.
Rosillo's on Najee Harris.
He thinks he's going to go higher than everybody
thinks because he was just like,
the inefficiency is now to Zig.
He's right, I think. Bill, I think he's right.
Take an awesome running back.
I think he can go as high as 16.
He can go 18 to the Dolphins,
or he can go 24 to the Steelers. He will not go beyond 24. But Cardinals, those guys,
they're not in win-now mode, but at 16 with this draft where it is a crapshoot, they know Najee
Harris can play running back, and they know they can win right away if he can do something. So I
wouldn't be shocked if he went as high as 16 to the Cardinals or 18 to the Dolphins.
Well, that would make him first running back.
You can get Chase, Najee Harris,
and Sewell as first
offensive linemen. So that could be your first
receiver running back offensive linemen.
Even odds.
We might have to bring back million-dollar picks
for a couple of these.
I want to put $100,000 on that.
I would feel confident.
The first four receivers drafted.
This one is...
The fourth receiver is a
great topic if you're really into the NFL
draft because it is...
What kind of cup of tea do you like?
I like Bateman for some reason.
Do you have
Waddle or Smith?
Go on second. You have Chase first, Waddle or Smith. All right. So second, so you have chase first Watto or Smith.
So Miami is going to take,
we think whoever is left out of pits chase.
And then everybody thought it was going to be Smith.
But now it's like,
well,
Smith weighs 120 pounds.
He's basically.
And Sue was on board with the NFL.
Oh,
you think Miami could go lineman?
I don't know.
I mean, you've got this Tua Tunga-Vailoa investment.
You've got an 18th overall pick.
I would think best pass-catching option,
but suddenly, you know, they could be anything.
Well, wait a second.
If they take Sewell, that flips the whole draft.
Yeah, I'm telling you.
Because now we have two receivers still
sitting there that people think could be
potential franchise receivers.
You also have a couple quarterbacks left too
from the way this is shaking out.
Let's play this out. Miami takes...
I'm taking Devontae Smith.
That's what I would think for Miami.
I was just putting out a hypothetical. They could take
Suel, but I think they're going pass catcher and I would say Devontae Smith fits what they need I would think for Miami. I was just putting out a hypothetical. They could take Sewell, but I think they're going pass catcher.
And I would say Devontae Smith fits what they need
more than Jalen Waddell.
I also think Smith will go there,
but Sewell is a really fun thought exercise.
All right.
So then seven is-
That sets it all off.
Seven's Detroit.
Seven's Detroit, who you,
they're doing their lines, right?
It's one line or the other line?
I think. All right. They got only six picks. They're doing their lines, right? It's one line or the other line? I think. See,
they got only six picks. They're not doing
quarterback, so they're going to
look to be that team that's like, is there anyone
who wants this pick? We'll trade back. We'll trade back. We'll trade back.
I don't know if anyone's trading up to get one of these
guys at seven.
Danny has the Chargers
flipping 13 for seven and
throwing in 77 in a
2022 season. Who does Danny have him taking? Sewell? Sewell. Yeah, it wouldn't be crazy. Chargers flipping 13 for seven and thrown in 77 in a 2022.
And who does Danny have him taken?
Sewell?
Sewell.
Yeah.
It wouldn't be crazy.
Get a buddy for Herbert.
Yeah, it'd be great.
Friends from college.
There we go. I would think Detroit would either go Sewell.
All right.
Because I just know those guys.
And between Dan Campbell and Chris Spielman and Brad Holmes, those guys just eat, breathe. And you know what football, that's what they want. Sewell's that guy
or I wouldn't be shocked if they went one of the, you know, one of the receivers that's left and
just said, okay, we lost, you know, we lost Galladay. We lost golden tape. We lost Marvin
Jones. We lost all these guys. Let's just at least get one of these guys, but receiver,
the Lions receiver legacy there though. I was just at least get one of these guys. But receiver doesn't seem... If you have the Lions receiver
legacy there, though. I was going to say, it
haunts that franchise. It's
tortured. But you might just want
to build from the ground up, take the most boring
pick possible. And they don't want to be good this year anyway.
No. And I think that's why. They would
love to get more picks and collect, collect,
and collect. So even if the offer is not going to blow
them away, they might just accept it just to get another pick.
So look for that spot to
be maybe New England
if they love one of the quarterbacks. Well, that's what I was going to
say. I think the Pats
are trading back because they want to hurt my dad's feelings.
I'm going to be with my dad for the draft.
I love that. I'm going to take Kyle Duggar again.
He's like seven Detroit.
Get there.
Mack Jones could be there. Lance Fields.
We'll move up. We'll give next year's
first. Belichick blows first anyway.
And then we're going to trade back from
15 to 29 and pick up
a 2023 first or something.
Can I tell you something? I wouldn't be shocked if they
did. And it doesn't come from
inside information up in Foxborough.
Trade up or down? Trade up.
The way I see it, there's these
market inefficiencies that you always mention,
and there's arbitrage and all these things. And it's like, who was the one team that went nuts
in free agency? The Patriots. They saw a window. If everyone is saying, this is not my draft and
I'm going to trade down, maybe they value Justin Fields in a way that others don't. And maybe this
is the year they finally draft a quarterback and they're not gonna ever be up at 15 overall
again and if they look at it that way they're like this is the year so we trade next year's
first where we're looking to be a playoff team again anyway or we trade next year's second
whatever it is move up eight spots and we get the fourth quarterback on the board and we're set for
the next 10 years like it's not crazy And after what we just saw in free agency,
I don't think there's anyone who could say with a straight face
that that's just what Belichick doesn't do.
No, Belichick doesn't spend in free agency like they did.
And they went nuts in free agency.
So if that happened,
if they were to trade up to seven
and whether your father's doing flips
and you're happy or not,
I wouldn't be the slightest bit shocked
because I feel like it's a different time.
If they trade for seven,
I'm going to have to have paramedics here.
I'm honestly worried. I think he might have to paramedics here. I'm honestly worried.
I think he would,
might have a heart attack out of joy.
We never trade up every 20 years.
We've been,
we've made one trade up fields on Fando is the over under for him is eight
and a half.
Do you go under,
which means you're saying he's a top eight pick two to one odds.
You do over eight and a half.
It's plus one 60. I personally do not think he's going to one odds. You do over eight and a half, it's plus 160.
I personally
do not think he's going to be in the top eight.
I think he's going to drop out because
it would be...
It would have to be Detroit trading back and somebody
moving up to take a QB.
Or Carolina saying,
fuck it. Let's go Sean Payton
on this. We traded for Darnold.
We have Bridgewater. We'll also have a third quarterback. Let's go Sean Payton on this. We traded for Darnold. We have Bridgewater. We'll
also have a third quarterback and let's go. This is the most important position. We got three swings
at it. I think you're underestimating this owner if you don't think that's possible. This guy,
Tepper, is as much of a maverick as Mark Cuban was in the NBA. And he's all about forward thinking
and flipping things on its head and being asymmetrical. And look, they traded a future second round pick, a fourth round pick, and a sixth round
pick for Sam Darnold.
That is 40 cents on the dollar.
And they're paying Sam Darnold, I believe, $11 million over the next two years.
They haven't picked up his fifth year option yet.
They haven't extended it.
That was a good trade.
Yeah.
He's 23 years old. So you could say, all right, let's go with it. But what if Matt rule
and Scott fitter, the GM did all the work on the quarterbacks and they fell in love with fields.
And they said, gosh, if he fell to eight, that would be amazing. And then this offer comes for
next to nothing for Sam Darnold. I don't think that makes them rip up their papers
and say, we still don't want Justin Fields. Like, I don't think it's crazy that Justin Fields goes
eight to Carolina. And I would say knowing the owner and the head coach rule who was on the
recruiting trail and knows these college prospects way better than a lot of these NFL GMs and coaches
do. If they were like, you know what? Justin Fields should have been the number two or three pick.
He's sitting here at eight.
We're taking him.
Well, one thing we've learned with quarterbacks over the years,
Russo did a good thing on his pod yesterday
about just how stupid this quarterback thing is.
Yeah, it's even basketball.
I remember I did a big piece for Greenland,
maybe 2014 range, just on how stupid the lottery is
and how much more of a crapshoot it is
than people seem to realize.
And year after year, the best guys in the draft,
unless they were the number one pick,
were usually 15, 17, 29, whatever.
With this draft,
you can see teams falling in love with certain guys
because that's what happens all the time,
right? Chicago fell in love with Trubisky. What made them fall in love with Trubisky?
We'll never know, but they fell in love with them. It seems like someone would fall in love
with Fields here to try to move up to get him. There's a lot to like about Fields. He never
lost a Big Ten game. He went 20 touchdowns, two interceptions, runs a 4-4-40.
He's a great kid.
Here are the negatives on Fields, and I'm not dragging.
Huge.
You forgot his body.
He's got a kick-ass body.
Awesome body.
Durable, thick, strong body.
And he's been a five-star recruit his entire life, and he has lived up to it.
The only negative on Justin Fields, and this might not be fair to him, is that Jake Fromm beat him out at Georgia.
And Jake Fromm is your classic gym rat,
doesn't have the physical traits, whatever it is.
But for whatever reason, that UGA team
that went to a national title
was unanimously Jake Fromm's team.
So Fields transfers...
Can I defend my Fields guy for a second here?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I'm not...
Fromm was well-respected.
Fromm had... What was his show? QB1 or Last here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm not... Fromm was well-respected. Fromm had...
What was his show?
QB1 or Last Chance?
Yeah, he had the TV show.
Whatever it was.
He was a really, really highly recruited guy.
He just hasn't panned out as a pro.
But I don't think it's...
I don't think it's shameful to lose your job to Jake Fromm.
He was really highly regarded.
And guess what?
That was Kirby Smart's choice.
That might have been his cup of tea. Who knows? Maybe they go on and win a lot more if Justin Fields is the quarterback. Whatever the reason is, that has been held against them. And a lot of teams have told me and been like, I don't have anything on Justin Fields that's a negative. But why would Georgia choose? Well, that's not your decision. Because guess what? Ohio State went with Dwayne Haskins over Joe Burrow. And that is fact. And Joe Burrow had to transfer to LSU. And you can't question these things. It's college football and the pros. And I think Fields has done a really good job in this held up high. He's not listening to the whispers.
He is holding himself.
I wouldn't be shocked if he went seven or eight and everyone's like, oh, Justin Fields.
Yeah, of course he went seven or eight.
He's that good.
Like he's a good, good quarterback.
And a lot of people like what they've done
when they do the work on him.
So I wouldn't be shocked.
In fact, I think seven or eight sounds about right to me.
The only thing I've heard about him that I didn't like was the,
when some of the QB guru people are like,
I don't like his arm angle.
He throws from his elbow and they do that thing.
And it's like,
ah,
that all right.
That's something.
But other than that,
I don't get it.
I don't know why he wasn't a top five pick.
I wanted to,
I wanted to say something on the Trubisky thing because,
uh,
I said this on our morning show and it, and people were shocked, but it's true.
All right.
So the Bears get clobbered for taking Trubisky over Mahomes and Watson, right?
Do you remember who the Niners took with the third overall pick that year?
They took Solomon Thomas, a defensive tackle who's now playing for the Raiders on a one-year deal.
And it's like, that is how much of a crapshoot this is.
Yes, we know that Trubisky was taken
before Mahomes and Watson,
but the Niners who were doing flips over that trade
that they got an extra pick
and they took Solomon Thomas,
who's not on the team anymore.
So the quarterback deal to Ryan's point
is so, so hit or miss.
And it really depends on where you go.
Yeah.
All right.
One more break.
Then we have 15 minutes
left to bang out some
picks.
Alright, so we have
Carolina. I think one of
the reasons this is such a great draft
is you go on down the line and
each team is an I don't know what
the hell they're going to do team, right?
Detroit, I don't know. You could present any scenario to do team, right? Like Detroit, I don't
know. You could, you could present any scenario to me and I would believe Detroit. It'd be like,
oh, they got their QB of the future. Okay. Makes sense. Same thing for Carolina. Could they trade
back? Could they just draft the QB? Will they just go chalk and take an offensive lineman?
Would they add another receiver to try to really load up for Donald? I have no idea. It starts to get Denver to be a nine.
I'd be shocked if they didn't take whatever QB was left.
That's why I think Fields was minus 370 to be a top 10 pick.
I have now come around.
I think we have five QBs in the top nine.
I just think it's logical.
It makes sense to have the most value. And if you're not going to take a QB with in the top nine. I just think it's logical. It makes sense to have the most
value. And if you're not going to take a QB with one of those nine picks, trade back and somebody
will move up and you'll get a little extra. I just don't see how any of these guys fall past Denver.
How does Denver not take a QB? Have they watched the QB they had? He's not a starter.
Here's how it goes though. All so trent balky let's say
he's a first year gm with the with the jaguars he's been gm before but he's the first year with
them uh number four is fontenot in atlanta first year gm for the falcons then you start going
through the list and it's like oh seven brad holmes in detroit first year gm matt rule his gm
is scott fitter he's a first year gm and And now Bronco's George Payton, first-year GM.
So there's no resume that we have of like,
this guy likes this kind of player
or this guy likes that kind of player.
George Payton just signed a six-year deal
from what it was reported.
He doesn't have the pressure to be like,
I need to get the quarterback this year,
especially if it's the fifth quarterback on his board.
He's secure.
Now Vic Fangio, if they fall on their face,
maybe they changed a coach, whatever. But the GM doesn't feel the pressure necessarily to make a
rushed pick. That said, I think Fields, Lance, and Mac Jones make a lot of sense for Denver at nine,
especially because they've got one of the best secondaries in the league. And that's a spot that
is right about there for Sertan and Horn. And they've got some of the best young receivers
in the league.
So Smith or Waddell, they're not needs.
Their needs, quarterback,
and then defensive end,
which is a terrible defensive draft.
Yeah, and being healthy
and keeping Von Miller and Bradley Chubb on the field.
So I would think quarterback makes a ton of sense at nine.
I would be surprised if they didn't go there.
I also think if you're Denver,
you can talk yourself into pretty quickly.
We could have been good either of the last two years.
We'd stayed healthy.
Our quarterback isn't good.
We have really good skill position guys.
And if we strike oil with a QB,
we might be good next year.
If he can play,
especially because those young offensive guys are entering year two,
year three,
year four.
And, you know, Trey Lance grew up in Minnesota, went to North Dakota State. Denver would be a perfect
spot for him. That's the team that has Hamler, right? Yeah. The speedster who showed flashes
last year. Right. I liked him. Super fast. And Jerry Judy showed up. Not to mention all the
other guys. They're good. And Tim Patrick is really good. They're good.
So 10 is Dallas.
Danny Kelly thinks this is how the Pats move up because if Fields drops to 10 in Dallas,
they move up.
The Cowboys move back five spots.
They'll get the D-back they want.
Everyone thinks they're taking a D-back.
The Cowboys usually are pretty transparent.
They're usually fairly
easy to figure out.
I know what you're going to say and I'm going to ask you.
Let me hear it.
Are we sure they wouldn't take a QB there?
They're not going
QB. They're not taking a quarterback.
Are you sure? Jerry Jones
trying to outsmart everybody yet again.
We thought Justin Fields. It just seems like a weird Jerry Jones thing to dosmart everybody yet again we was like oh we thought Justin Fields like it just
seems like a weird Jerry Jones thing to do
it would be funny if he did
watch how smart I am
it could happen and it could you know you say
okay well Jerry all bets are off last year
I had it on good record that no matter
what they were taking this guy
Kaylevan Chason
from LSU he was going to be
sitting there and center and then
cd lamb falls and they draft cd lamb and it's like that's that wasn't on their board but like
that's just how they operate so if something happens like that who knows if kyle pitts were
to fall or chase or whatever it is but here's the thing with this draft there are two elite
cornerbacks i'm talking guys that can start day one that are awesome. Sertan and Horn.
I think the Giants at 11 and the Eagles at 12 are prime for both those guys. I don't see Dallas
letting them get one of those two corners and training back and missing out on one of them.
So I would think Dallas and the name I'm hearing is not Sertan for them. I'm hearing JC Horn could be the guy
for them. Six foot two, like a complete, uh, just mauler on the line of scrimmage. Like one of these
guys that is a big body and he's the son of one of our favorite NFL players ever, Joe Horn.
We love that. Come on. This is Joe. So you have, so Horn is even odds to be a top 10 pick on
Fandle and Sertan is minus 190.
It's either or of those two for Dallas, I think.
I think I would go Horn or Sertan.
And if one of them is taken by the Cowboys, the other ones go into the Eagles or Giants.
So it's funny when the Eagles traded back, everyone thought they were trading back
because they're going to take a receiver.
But this is one of the reasons why when I look at the Pats at 15,
where it becomes conceivable,
a receiver might fall to them at like Waddle might.
It's like,
no way,
no way Waddle falls to the pats at 15.
I think it's conceivable because we have three teams in a row and
everybody's like the giants.
Well,
they'll take a receiver.
Well,
they just signed Galladay.
Yeah.
And they have,
they have receivers.
Why would they draft a receiver at 11? Why are
you tripling down on Daniel Jones who nobody even knows is any good? I think it makes much more
sense for them to take a D back. And then if you're the Eagles and you trade it back and that
was what you wanted and you're in a situation where the Cowboys and the Giants might've stolen
the two guys you wanted, right? Yeah. Giants really hit a home run there in free agency
in addressing two needs and getting Galladay and a Dory Jackson,
who's their corner, who they like.
But they've got Bradbury, who's a good corner.
They've got a Dory Jackson.
And I've mocked, draft them to take Horn last time around.
And all the Giants fans came out,
oh, that's not, that's ridiculous.
We're good, we're good, we're good.
You can never have enough
really good quarterbacks in this league.
And I think we've learned that.
And when it comes to Sertan and Horn,
the drop-off after them is so enormous.
These two guys are viewed as potential all pros.
I wouldn't be shocked if the Giants went with a corner,
which would leave the Eagles
with one of the wide receivers.
So 10, 11, 12, two D-backs in that three-pick stretch.
Yes.
Yes.
Eagles, let's say both of those D-backs are gone.
Yeah, then they get Jalen Waddell and they're doing flips.
Or Devontae Smith.
Are we sure they're taking a receiver, though?
No, no, there's also...
They spent a first-rounder on one last year.
I don't know no dude i davante smith is a player he's great jalen waddle's a player he's great the other name that's not getting a lot of love on all these mock drafts and everyone loves
slater and all that is taking up a lot of heat right now is this kid uh vera tucker at a usc
and the reason they like him he can play both tackle spots and both guard spots,
and he could play like tomorrow. And if you look at his 2019 tape, and again, I'll tell you,
I don't watch tape. This is just me reiterating what I'm told. This guy was dominant and at points
better than Sewell on paper. So like, I wouldn't be shocked if the Eagles said, you know what,
12th overall, let's just get ourselves a really good offensive lineman who's going to be there for 10 years and let's roll with that. And it could be Vera Tucker as high as 12.
FanDuel has odds for the Giants' first draft pick and for the Eagles' first draft pick,
which I think is wonderful. I wish they did this for everybody. But Sertan plus 650.
JC Horn 13 to 1.
Hey.
So if you feel like the Giants are taking a D-back,
that's unbelievable value.
Devonta Smith is plus 300.
Waddles plus 380.
I would think it's one of those four.
I know that feels like I'm hedging,
but I'm not trying to get this nail at 100%. I'm just saying it'll probably be one of those four for the Giants.
But if you think D-back, that's incredible value there.
I do.
I think it's a very good possibility.
Those two D-backs are really good, and they're in the top 10 on a lot of boards.
And for the teams that don't need quarterbacks, they're both in the top five.
That's how good Sertan and Horn are.
Horn for the Eagles is plus 280.
Sertan is plus
470.
Smith and Waddle are both plus
430. There's a way
to game this. You got to figure that
out.
I'm with you, though. I think
it's the D-back rush.
They're all in the same division.
If they feel like the Eagles really want one of these D-back rush. And you know, they're all in the same division. Yeah. So if they feel like
the Eagles really want
one of these D-backs
and they're like,
oh, let's cock-block them
on the D-back
and now it's like,
oh, I guess we'll take
a receiver again.
I think that helps everybody
if the Eagles,
I think they have a lot more needs
than receiver.
Absolutely.
Who's done a worse job
of picking receivers than them?
All right.
With the Pats at 15,
they got, they have the Chargers in front of them,
who I think if the Chargers stay at 13,
they're going to take an offensive tackle.
Or if one of those two guys, if Sertan or Horn is there,
I could see that happening too.
They lost Casey Hayward.
That could be a possibility.
But yes, Slater, Vera Tucker, those types, or Horn or Sertan.
Cardinals are at 14.
No, no. Vikings are at 14. Oh, I'm sorry.
Danny has a fake trade. The Vikings, the Cardinals, I'm looking at his mic drop. All right. So Vikings
at 14. I'm trying to figure out a scenario because we do this every year with the draft.
Two teams go rogue. Two teams go wildcard. And they, you said there's a top 15 in this draft. And I agree
with you. I think there's a consensus 15 drop. That doesn't mean those 15 guys will be the first
15 picks. There's always the two wait, whoa, whoa, where'd he come from? Oh my God. And I'm
wondering if somebody could fall down to the pathsats that would be ridiculous. Now,
receivers most likely.
QB is possible.
But then the other one is Mika Parsons
who I think is a
top 15 talent. It seems
like he's the guy this year that
people are a little like, hmm, I don't
know.
Off the field stuff.
Maybe, who knows.
Belichick hasn't rolled the dice with one of those guys in a while.
And if we stayed at 15 and we took Parsons
and it was like, look, this guy's just fucking talented.
We'll keep him in shape.
We'll make sure he's good.
And then we traded for Minshew.
That's a great scenario. You love Minshew.
I do love Minshew.
The Parsons-Minshew
combo is my fallback plan if we don't
trade up. Alright, what about
Kadarius-Tony?
Does that do anything for you?
Have you heard that name at all? Make the case.
Sell him to me. Really good
wide receiver out of Florida.
Also has some off-the-field funk to him. Really good wide receiver out of Florida also has some off the field funk to him.
We can't take another receipt. We can't take a non top three receiver. I'm not allowing it.
After the Nikhil hair thing, I can't. This is it. Um, Parsons. So you think he's the talented
upside receiver? Yeah. He's the guy who, if the right team wants to roll the dice on them,
because there's some stuff off the field from years ago not even
recently he went to the senior bowl and was actually great and charismatic and teams liked
him but he is unbelievable really good this is the wild card of the first round does even go in
the first round i don't know but they compare him to debo samuel in that he can run the ball he can
catch the ball and what happens is everyone's watching this this pits video and they're like
who the hell's number one and it's the other receiver cadarious tony making all these oh wow
he could be that one player where it's like he's my wow guy of like oh my god where who
what why and he might be that one if a team just says you know what we'll figure it out with him
we'll take him the michael parsons thing i've never had a defensive draft and i've been doing
it for 15 years which is not 100 years and it's not mel kuyper 43 years but i've never had a
defensive draft where they i'm being told there are no defensive tackles worthy of first round
there might be some taken but there's no like defensive ends every single one of them has
something wrong and when i say that wrong it's all you know relative it could be an injury it
could be off the field could be uh something and then the lineback, it's all relative. It could be an injury. It could be off the field. Could be something.
And then the linebackers, it's this guy Parsons and Zavin Collins out of Tulsa, who you're
not seeing anywhere.
He's apparently a name that can go in the top 20 because he's clean.
He was a high school valedictorian.
He was really good.
And he's a safe pick.
You put Zavin Collins on your team, you have him for 10 years. So Parsons, two years ago, I was told he was the greatest thing. Didn't play last year and now
suddenly he might fall out of the first round. I don't get it. So it depends on where he goes and
what team is willing to say, we're good. We'll take a guy that has top 10 talent.
On Fando right now, top four receivers in order.
Yeah.
Plus 430,
Chase,
Smith,
Waddle,
and your guy,
Tony.
Tony or Bateman
will probably be the fourth receiver.
Plus 500,
Chase,
Waddle,
Smith,
Tony.
Mm-hmm.
And then Bateman,
where is he?
Bateman might be that fourth guy.
Yeah, I was looking at, Oh, Bateman is a chase.
Waddle Smith.
Bateman is six to one.
Give me this one.
Give me chase Smith.
Waddle Tony.
What is that one?
Chase Smith.
Chase Smith.
Waddle Tony.
Plus four 30.
Okay.
You like that one?
I don't know.
Tony's the ultimate X factor for me.
He could go 15. Is this like a Randy Moss Marshall situation
where he goes five picks later than he should
and then we see the highlights during the draft
and we're like, wait, what the fuck is going on?
How did this guy go 23rd?
Dude, the Cardinals took Andy Isabella over DK Metcalf.
Like this shit happens.
Like, and DK Metcalf was awesome in college.
Kadarius Tony, that's my wild card.
And he, like I said, I'm not putting my name on it.
Top 15, but he could go really high.
Kellen Mond, first round.
Maybe.
I know I've heard you and Ryan talk about it.
You're like, I kind of like Kellen Mond.
A little bit. I know I've heard you and Ryan talk about it. You're like, I kind of like killing Mond. A little bit.
I don't know.
I think if the Pats got him at 46, I wouldn't throw a tantrum.
Yeah, I think Mond is viewed higher than Trask.
And Davis Mills is kind of that wildcard guy.
He only played seven games at Stanford, has two ACL injuries, but was the number one high
school recruit.
Yeah.
All right.
Stanford, ACL injuries, I'm out.
Before we go, one wild prediction for round one.
One wild prediction for round one.
This is good um i think you are gonna see
naji harris he'll definitely go on the first round i think 16 or 18 is where it's where he
might go and people are gonna be like wow a running back actually did go that high i just
feel like those two teams cardinals and the dolphins they both need running back actually did go that high. I just feel like those two teams, Cardinals and the
Dolphins, they both need running back. And that could be the guy. I don't know if that's wild
enough for you. I don't know. That might not have done it for you. It's pretty wild because
no, he's over under on fan doors, 28 and a half for when he's going to get drafted.
He won't fall past the Steelers. I would be confident to say that this guy is, he scored 57 touchdowns. He led the nation or the
sec and receiving touchdowns two years ago. And he played last year. He played like he was awesome.
This guy, I think Najee Harris is a name being there. He's not Damien Harris, but I think he
could be really good. He's he could be a poor man's Damien Harris. I think it's funny though.
The Sony Michelle pick the Clyde Edwards Hilaire,
there's been a couple of these late first-round running backs
that haven't been as super what a steal, super dynamic, all that stuff.
Oh, I can get that guy in the second round.
So now the zig would be, no, Najee Harris is actually going to be incredible.
And instead of taking him with the fourth pick, I get him at 20.
Sounds awesome.
I had a GM tell me if this draft was 10 years ago,
Najee Harris goes top 10.
We don't question it.
So what does that mean?
I don't know.
Are we getting smarter in that maybe running backs
just aren't worth it?
Or is it this guy's really good?
And a couple of years ago,
six teams passed on Adrian Peterson.
I bet they regretted that.
So I think Najee Harris goes.
All right.
Schrags, it was a pleasure.
We didn't make this an official million-dollar picks,
but I think we gave some people some winners.
I look forward to texting with you during this crazy draft.
Thanks for coming on.
Wait, my man.
I'll be on NFL Network's coverage on Friday and Saturday and I'm excited for it. So excellent. All right. Thanks, Rex.
All right. Doreen McKesson is here. He has been on a couple of months. We've been checking in
with him really for the last year. We've had some stuff happened. There was a verdict in Minnesota.
We were texting afterwards.
It's been pretty much a week since that happened.
How's the mood changed for you in the country and what positives have come out of it?
Yeah, I think that in a lot of ways,
the George Floyd video was seeing
as believing for people.
That they saw it, they were like,
wow, I didn't realize it was this bad.
I think that the trial,
in some ways with some form of accountability for people, people were like, wow, I didn't realize it was this bad. I think the trial in some ways was some form of accountability for people. People were like,
wow, the system does work. I think the sobering news is that as of today, the police have killed
about 335 people in 2021. And that we sort of people prematurely declared victory in 2020.
People like 2020 record conversation about the protests, all this stuff happening.
And really, when we look at the numbers, the police actually killed more people in 2020
than every single year of data we have by 2018.
So what do you think the reasons are beyond the typical reasons? How much does the pandemic
play into that? How much do people, you know, struggling with whatever, like the police
struggling with whatever? Are there other factors than just 2020 is this aberration year?
Yeah, I don't know. You know, to anything, if anything, we would have thought that the pandemic
would be a wild decrease, right? Like that was our, it was like everybody's home. Like who are
you even, who's even outside? Who are you even in conversation with? You know, like I said before,
I think that what people are more,
are starting to pay attention to is that the police actually just kill
far more people in the suburbs
than in cities and rural communities.
So like Brooklyn Center is the suburbs, right?
Like that was, that wasn't a city,
that was a suburb.
So I think that that's what's happening.
And remember that if you get killed by a police officer
and a newspaper doesn't write about it,
then you're just not in any of the data sets.
So I think that like, sort of what's the fix?
I think that some of the stuff is immediate, right?
When we did 8K and 8, that was like,
we can tomorrow just like restrict you
from shooting at moving vehicles.
We can require you to, you know, this is it.
This came out since we last spoke,
is that, you know, one of the things that we called for
was the officers have to report
every time they point their gun at somebody,
which seems like a pretty simple thing. In the places where this happens, this is often the most commonly
used force. And there's a new report that just came out like a month ago about the Dallas PD
that showed that like since they implemented that policy, officer-involved shootings have
decreased, officer-involved killings have decreased. Like it's some of this stuff that
like will just save people's lives. Is that a total systemic fix? No. But what we say as organizers is that one
is the biggest number. When one is your sister or your brother, one's a big deal, right? So we
believe in that. The second, though, is, like, we got to do some of the bigger stuff. So, like,
you know, there's a really good police bill that just passed in Maryland. We were a part of
helping to shape that. And it's like the
best ban on no-knock raids in the United States. And it's basic stuff. It's like in Maryland now,
you have to wait 20 seconds before you enter somebody's property. 20 seconds is not long,
but Maryland is the only state in the country that has a mandated requirement where officers
have to wait before they enter your house. This is easy, right? Officers in Maryland now have to wait before they enter your house. That is, that's like, this is easy, right?
Officers in Maryland now have to wear uniforms.
You're like, that seems like we should have done that a long time ago, right?
So those sort of things matter.
And the third thing is the federal government.
I get nervous because I think people don't understand that the federal government, like Biden can't like wave a wand and make the 18,000 police departments just do something.
That's like not how the federal government works.
But what he can do tomorrow, no task force, no commission, no Congress,
is that he can rein in the federal agencies.
Border Patrol is 20,000 people.
They kill a lot of people across the border,
but Border Patrol also can police communities across the border.
And he could tighten that up tomorrow.
He could tighten up ICE, the DEA,
the ATF, like all that stuff, all the federal agencies, he could just like change their
practices pretty easily because he is the president. Last time you were on, we were
talking about some of the successes with 8 Can't Wait, which I think the first time you came on
was in June and we did that whole
initiative and some good stuff happened. Did good stuff continue to happen or was it just a first
wave? What happened? No, no. My thought about 8 Can't Wait is that it is one strategy and no one
strategy will get us to zero. So we're proud of it. We also know that it is not enough, right?
It's the floor, not the ceiling. But about 350 cities have changed at least one of the policies in 18 weeks, and 15 states
have adopted at least one of the policies, New Jersey being the far outlier.
New Jersey has all of them.
They did it well.
Maryland has a couple.
They just did theirs.
And then I think we started the No Knock campaign after I came on.
So we're working in about 50 cities and states on No Knocks, like banning No Knock raids.
And then we also lead the work on police unions.
So we're always looking for volunteers.
But we have 700 contracts on the website.
We have 2,500 that we're coding.
It takes three people to read every contract.
And then we have volunteers looking for the next 10,000 contracts so that we can continue to support communities across the country as they try and like weaken
the power of the police union.
So these are like concrete things that we can do tomorrow.
And there's some, you know, Bill, I didn't,
did you know that there are some states that only,
the legislature is only open every other year?
Did you know that?
I didn't know that.
No.
Is that true?
Yeah, yeah.
So, and I only know,
cause we're working on these bills right now in Nevada, Texas, they don't legislate every year.
They legislate every other year.
Maryland, in Maryland, they only legislate for 90 days.
The 90 days is over.
So we have to wait till January to get a new law.
You know, like that is wild, you know?
Like the system isn't even designed so people can adequately participate like for the long haul, you know.
So the girl who just got shot when she was in the knife fight and, you know, was clearly attacking somebody.
But at the same time, the policeman came in and just fired four rounds right away.
And you've been you've been tweeting about that and talking about it ever since where that ends.
There's this nebulous zone here, right? Where
the police's job is to protect there's a person in danger, but the way they're protected
seemed way excessive compared to maybe some other steps that could have been taken.
How do you think that policeman should have handled it?
Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's interesting. The police will tell us all day that they're
skilled professionals. That's like their whole day they're like we are skilled professionals i just watched that video again today on the phone
with my father and like not being dramatic from the moment that he gets out of the car to he
shoots her is maybe six seconds he gets out he's like what uh uh stop that papa and you're like
what's the skill that's what i want to what's the skill? That's what I want to know. What's the skill? What skill did you demonstrate in that moment? Because if it's just killing people,
then we actually, that is a great case for defund. We should just give everybody guns.
If the whole skill is like, can you shoot somebody? That is, I'm not convinced that
you demonstrated a high level of any skill. I know teachers. I was a teacher who broke up
fights where kids had, they had scissors, they had pencils,
they had pens, they had the bottom of a desk.
They had all types of stuff.
And I didn't even, there was not a world where I had a gun or anything.
And we defused all of them.
Everybody went home.
Maybe you got a little bruise.
Everybody survived.
Teachers in high schools across the country can tell you that they have been in wild situations.
Everybody lived.
So when people say to me, like,
she was clearly stabbing somebody, I watched that video 10 times. I just saw it two hours ago.
And it's like, they were, it was a fight, you know, like they were fighting. He shot her so
quickly that it's like, I don't even know if he could convince me that he knows what happened in
that moment. He literally was like, uh, uh, uh, stop. What? And shoots her.
And you're like,
you can't convince me that you're a skilled professional in moments like this.
Cause I'm trying to figure out like, what's the skill.
Yeah. Well, so, you know, this has been,
we're talking 10 months here since police reform and all that stuff really
moved into the forefront. And there seems like
there should be a little bit of a middle ground, right? Because people, we don't want people to
become anti-police. We just want the police to behave better in certain situations, right? And
this is a line you've had to straddle this whole time. How do we, How do we walk that line without this becoming even more adversarial?
Because I think, unfortunately, that's social media. That's what social media does, right?
They try to inflame one way or the other. They try to pit things against each other. They try
to blow things up. How do we just make stuff better without everything being like, I'm either
on this side all the way over here or this side all the way over here. What about the middle? No, Bill, it's hard. It's like, I don't know what the middle is when it's
okay to kill a 15-year-old like that, right? Or like, you know, it's interesting. You look at
Columbus. The Columbus PD has killed as many kids under the age of 18 as the NYPD. The Chicago PD
kills more kids under the age of 18 than any police department in the
country. And you look at this and it's like, I have to believe that we can think about an
intervention in conflict and harm that is not the police. Like if the police are trying to convince
you that like they got a nail down, they are not doing a good job. Like they're not doing it.
Right. So when I think about this idea of like anti-police, it's like what I think is true is
that we can think about safety beyond policing, that like our response to all conflict in community and all harm cannot be somebody with
a gun. Like that just isn't a, that's a bad response. And again, schools across the country
have demonstrated that like, we figured out a way to do it. I can't even tell you some of the
stories that I've been a part of, that my friends have been a part of in schools that like, that
were hard. Kids had a lot of conflict and like, we always survive, you know, we made it out.
So, so I don't know. I do think that in the short term, we can do things like accountability. We
can fire the bad people. We can be really quick on that. But I do think that the long-term goal
is to think about like, what is a response to conflict in community that is not a person with
a gun? It's like, we shouldn't have somebody with a gun respond to mental health issues, to homelessness.
And the reality is that those are the vast majority of things that we call the police for.
Like I said before, only 5% of 911 calls are for violent crime.
It's just not the police would have you believe it's 90.
It's 5%, you know?
Yeah. Do you feel like the police and people in position of power are
listening to people like you and the people who are trying to change this in a baby steps kind
of way? Like, do they care? Do they listen? Have you had conversations with people in positions
of power that are like, hey, you guys are making some good points. We need to fix this.
Yeah, I think that, so I think the Maryland legislators were definitely
listening and the police are really organized, right? So when people are like, well, the, you
know, the power of the police is really diminished. It is not. The police are very organized. They
remain really organized. And I don't think that, you know, there's this conversation about how to
eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time. And there's a version that says one bite after another,
which is a piecemeal version. And I just don't think we'll win that way. There's another version
that says everybody bites at the same time. It's like all the strategies in
place. So it is removing traffic from policing. It is banning no knocks. It is banning the end
of low-level arrests, which a lot of states across the country have actually done, which is amazing.
It's no more criminalizing weed. It's like all of these things at one time,
like that is how we actually do it. And I think people are listening. I think that the rub though
is that, you know, in a lot of places, even when there are good people, the legislative cycle is
not on our side. So like, again, if you can only make laws once every two years, we're,
that is not great. And then there, the police lobby is actually just really strong. So,
you know, when we did A Can't Wait, one of
the things the police would say is, are you telling me that, like, we should pull out a book,
our rule book, every time there's a crime, and we should flip through and see what we can and
cannot do? And you're like, come on, guys, like, that is, you are not operating good faith and you
know it, but that response scares a lot of people. And we have to work up against that often. In
Maryland, we tried to get all police discipline records public.
And what the police said to the legislators is that they said, you know, if you make our disciplinary records public, then you should make all ethics complaints against legislators public.
And then the legislators got on their, you know, like the police are very, very good fear mongers.
But I don't think that we need to just piece them out.
I think that we can make big strides really quickly.
And then I think we also need to build up the alternatives, right?
So like if we say that there's going to be a different response to homelessness,
we got to make sure that there's like a really good response, right?
If there's a different response to adult issues,
we need to make sure there's like a really robust response.
And in most cities, we don't have that yet, but we got to build to it.
I don't want to say their sides, but they're clearly sides.
The other side, the people that are saying, wait a second, this is too much.
You don't understand.
What's the best point you've heard over the last year as people try to counter some of the logical stuff you're suggesting?
I think a lot of things.
I think that one is that the numbers actually
don't support the case, right? So like, you know, the clearance rates in almost all the cities are
low, like 20s, 30% of the homicides or the crimes are actually being solved. It's pretty low.
So that's one. I think though, the second is that, and this isn't even like a controversial
thing, is that the police rarely stop crime. Normally they get there once something has happened. Like the police are a response
to things. The police wouldn't even try and convince you that they are preventative,
that they know that they're not, right? So our big goal has always been, how do we stop the
bad things from happening? The big goal is not how do we respond once the bad things happen?
The big goal is like, how do we stop the bad thing? So when I think about this idea of shifting
resources, I think that's actually like a compelling idea that people
across the aisle actually believe in. I think the third thing is that most of us agree that
experts should do what experts do. And who's an expert on mental health? The police won't even
say they're experts on mental health, right? They won't even say that. Who's an expert on
homelessness? The police won't even say they're experts on homelessness, right? They know they're
not. We should have experts for resources. I think that's like easy. But with the Micaiah
video in Columbus, to me, something that really was compelling to me was this idea of like,
what is the skill? That if your response to all conflict is shooting somebody, then like you
aren't even making the best case for this idea of like a skilled profession that if, if people in neighborhoods could have diffused this situation with everybody
being alive, then like,
I don't know what you're bringing to the table that is so special or magical
that like warrants how much money and energy and power we put into this
force. Cause like, or even, you know, even Derek Chauvin, you're like,
what was that skill? Right. Nine minutes.
There's no skill there.
The last time you were on, we were talking about, I mean, the biggest thing I've learned
from you from the conversations we've had is that it's not federal.
It's state by state.
And it's exerting pressure and the baby steps thing, but also trying to, you never know
who the right legislator is going to be or whatever in each state. And you said you had success in Maryland. Are there other states
that you feel like are on the fringe or is there a state that could be a tipping point state that
if something happened, good, some reform, whatever, that other people would emulate it? Or
do you think it's just 50 states that are
just moving at their own pace that are not connected in any way? The biggest shot I could
give is Brian Benjamin is a state senator in New York, and this man is on it. His slate of bills,
you're like, you got it. He has the juice. So he is the best no-knock bill in the United States.
It hasn't been voted on yet, but the best bill around no-knocks. He has a bill around wandering officers. His bill would prevent any department in New York
from hiring officers who've been fired anywhere else in the country or fired in New York. I mean,
so he has like a lot of bills. He has a bill that would make sure that people leaving
prisons have IDs. I'm trying to think of what else. He has a bill raising the felony death
threshold. So in New York, if you steal over $1,000,
it is considered a felony.
That is wild.
You can get over a year in prison
for stealing a laptop or a cell phone, right?
And like, that doesn't make sense.
He has a bill that would make it 5,000.
It would be the highest in American history right now.
And I didn't ask you this before.
What do you think the lowest amount is in the country?
New Jersey has the lowest amount in the country.
If you steal the amount in New Jersey,
which is the lowest,
you can be charged with a felony.
What do you think it is, the lowest amount?
I would have said a thousand.
The lowest amount in the country is $200.
If you steal over $200 in New Jersey,
it's considered a felony.
Wow.
You can get over a year in prison.
That is wild, right? So Senator Benjamin in New Jersey is considered a felony. Wow. You can get over a year in prison. That is wild, right?
So Senator Benjamin in New York has a bill for New York
that would make it the highest
that it's ever been in American history.
The highest it is today is Texas and Wisconsin,
which is $2,500, which is low.
You know, like a year in prison for stealing,
what, two cell phones is,
I mean, that doesn't make sense.
So I would say that he is really, like, I think that what he's doing in New York state is really
a gold standard. Like he's the, he's the bright star. And how about the, the celebrities and some
people who have, you know, pretty big platforms? Cause they seem like they've gotten behind a lot
of this stuff over the last year. Has that, has that helped them or you're, you're making a face.
So you think there's some people left that should be
helping. Yeah, I think that the hard thing about the celebrities is that celebrities are great for
awareness. The hard part is that when we need them to really put the rubber to the road, either they
do it and get a lot of backlash or they just get nervous. So LeBron's tweet about Micaiah was right. He was right.
She should be alive today.
Point blank.
And any parent would say
that if their kid was in a conflict,
they could imagine scenarios,
especially given that one,
where like everybody comes out alive.
Somebody might be bruised.
You know, we might have to have an intervention,
but like LeBron was right.
He took a lot of heat for being right, though. He had to delete
it. And it's like,
and you get a lot of celebrities who
get, you know, they
feel like they need to delete it, or
this isn't sort of their lane, so they
feel like they gotta defend something. You know, it's just
like, but he was right. He was
right. That is, he should be
asking questions about the Columbus
Police Department. They have killed
a ton of people. There are racial disparities that are wild in that department. It is one of
the worst police union contracts in the United States. I mean, that department is a storied
bad department. LeBron was right, but he got a lot of flack for being right. And I think that
him deleting the tweet signals to other people that like, I should probably stay out of this. Right. LeBron was right. And the third is
that you get a lot of people who like, they don't really want to fight the police. Like you might
have to fight the police. You know, you might have to go up against, you know, a legislator who is a
good person, but wrong on the issue. And some people just don't want to, they don't, you know,
a lot of celebrities, they built their whole career being liked, right? They don't want to be the person in the room being
like, well, you know, why do you destroy police officer disciplinary records every two years?
That doesn't make a lot of sense, right? Like, so, so a lot of celebrities choose like really
sort of easy things or they choose things they don't understand. Like I'm, I swear to God,
I'm convinced people don't understand qualified immunity. And every time I hear a politician talk about it or on the news, I'm like, I wish we had
like a primer.
And the very quick version is that qualified immunity is about civil.
It's a civil process, not criminal.
So when people are like, we're going to prosecute officers when we end qualified immunity, we're
not.
Qualified immunity is not a criminal.
It's not criminal.
It's civil.
And in almost every place across the country, police officers are indemnified,
which means that they aren't individually liable
for what they do as police officers.
So when we get rid of qualified immunity,
which does provide a protection
so that officers cannot be held liable,
the city is what you'll be able to sue.
So the unqualified immunity will lead to more lawsuits
against cities for victims, which is a good thing.
Victims should be compensated for the terror of the police. It's not going to lead to whatever people think accountability is
for individual officers. But the number of celebrities I see say things like that on
Twitter or on the news, and I'm like, this is not, it literally is not going to do what you
are telling people it's going to do. It's going to do something. It's just not going to do what
you're telling people it's going to do. It's going to do something. It's just not going to do what you're telling people it's going to do.
So you're saying Twitter might be a little bit harmful in some ways.
I can't believe it.
Oh no,
wait.
It's Twitter.
It's the news.
The politicians on the news.
I'm like,
but LeBron was right.
Like we need more people like LeBron in that moment where his gut was like,
she should be a lot that his gut was right.
And we need more of those people.
And I wish that we could get more celebrities to like focus on some of the structural stuff, to put a light on like these contracts that say, you know,
like in Louisville, when Breonna Taylor was killed,
the contract literally made it impossible for the other officers to be
suspended without pay. Like he just couldn't do it, you know?
And it's like, that doesn't,
there are very few professions where like you could kill somebody and we can't even suspend you without pay. I mean,
that's like a wild thing. So we need more people to dig in the weeds.
Well, there's also a union piece to that, right? Which you've been pretty passionate about bringing
up the different, different issues with some of the police unions, the things they've been able
to carve out in their deals. But we live in a country now where a lot of people are pro-union.
You can't kind of pick and choose.
You can be pro-union,
but then say that the police unions are wrong.
They negotiated for all this stuff that people gave them.
But at the same time,
they negotiated for stuff that we need to change.
So I don't even know how you fix that.
I think you can be pro-union and against the police.
There's no, like I used to be in teachers unions
and then I used to, I was a chief human capital in the school system in Baltimore. So I managed
the district implementation of the contract. So I've seen it from both sides. The worst part of
teachers unions is not protecting them, killing people. I mean, that's like, right. But like the,
the police union contracts literally make it so like in San Antonio, it's something like 70% of officers who get fired
get rehired because of the contract.
That is wild.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's those sort of things
or destroying disciplinary records.
Like that's not normal.
There's no teacher's contract I've ever seen
where we destroy the teacher's disciplinary record
every two years.
Yeah, that's weird.
Well, the Biden administration
compared to the last administration we have,
you would think fundamentally,
maybe that would make a difference,
but you seem to think it doesn't,
does it even matter who the president is with this stuff?
I mean, he can, clearly he can be more empathetic
when we have bad situations,
but can he actually make a difference?
Because it doesn't seem like he really can.
Yeah, so, you know,
this is a good thing for us under Trump
that the president just doesn't,
can't like randomly do things
to local police departments.
The federal government's biggest power
with local agencies is money.
They can withhold money,
they can get money.
That's sort of like the magic power
of the federal government
with regard to police departments.
The rub is,
is that almost no president
has ever really not given money to
police departments. So for instance, there is a federal law today requiring police departments
to submit all deaths in custody to the federal government. Only 40% of local agencies submit,
and there's no consequence. So if they don't submit, they don't lose money, they're fine,
right? I think Biden, we learned a lot from the Obama task force. And at the end, I think he was trying to punt to Hillary and
Hillary didn't win. I think that what Biden could do again is model with the agencies.
And there's some good parts of the George Floyd, the George Floyd policing act, like it would
expand the federal government's power to investigate police departments. It would allow state attorney
generals to do investigations. So there's like some parts in it
that are not bad.
But he doesn't need that to,
like, I don't want to underestimate
what the federal government signaling
by reining in its own agencies
would do to police departments
across the country.
Like if Border Patrol
suddenly had to tighten up
and like had to stop doing,
like stop shooting people
from helicopters,
like all this stuff that we know is happening, then that would signal to other agencies like
this is how we do it.
Like they could just do that very quickly.
Like he doesn't need a commission or anything to do that.
And I worry that the Biden administration is going to continue to say that they are
like waiting for Congress.
And it's like, you know, even the private prisons, I don't know if you remember, he
did an executive order about private prisons, stopping the federal government from using private prisons. What percentage of people incarcerated do you think is in a private prison, Bill?
I have no idea. Tell me.
But guess. You gotta guess. This is still a point.
10%? It's like around 8%. So of the people sort of under the DOJ banner, it's apply to DHS, which is where ICE is under.
So if Biden wanted to do something big, he would have extended that to DHS. That would have been
a big, I mean, ICE would not be able to detain people if they couldn't use, like they just don't
own enough property to detain that many people. They don't. ICE is actually renting out local
prisons and jails across the country. So if he had actually banned private facilities from ICE, it would decimate ICE's ability
to detain kids and families in one fell swoop.
And he didn't do that.
It's those sort of things that we should be requiring of the Biden administration.
The Chauvin verdict, people feel like we got over the hump, but yet we haven't had the
sentencing yet.
Do you worry about what if the sentencing is late?
I think Chauvin is like the sacrificial lamb for the system, right?
I think he's like the salve where even the police are like, please give them a conviction so that people will let the heat up on us, right?
But when you zoom out and look at the numbers, so the police kill about 1,100 people every year.
Like that is sort of an average of 1,100.
The highest number of convictions we have ever had, ever, ever, in a given year is 11.
Wow.
It normally is one, two, and three.
The highest number of officers for any data set that we have of people convicted of murder is like five or six, right?
So even in that year with 11,
they weren't convicted of murder.
They were convicted of something regarding the murder,
but it was not actually murder.
So like Chauvin is in a small set of these cases
that is going to happen this year.
What Biden did do, I will give one kudos to Biden,
is that Merrick Garland, the new AG,
has announced a pattern in practice in Minneapolis,
in Louisville, and they just opened up an investigation in, I think, Elizabeth City,
North Carolina. I mean, so we have not seen an administration ever roll out these pattern in
practice or investigations like this. And I mean, it was like two weeks. You know, a lot of people
don't realize, too, that the federal government's power to investigate local police departments is relatively new.
You actually know the case.
You probably saw it when it happened on the news
is Rodney King, you know?
It was the fallout from Rodney King
that gave the federal government the power
to investigate local police departments.
So it's a pretty new power.
The challenge is that on average,
they do about three investigations a year.
There are 18,000 police departments.
So like three out of 18,000 is not a lot.
But we'll see.
Garland is off to a start.
And like we have never seen this many investigations announced back to back.
And the team that he has over there, Vanita Gupta, just got confirmed.
She is a civil rights legend.
Lisa Monaco is over there now.
She's dope.
Kristen, who used to be at the
leadership committee, is amazing. Hopefully she gets confirmed soon. So the team in the DOJ who
focuses on race and justice, they will probably be the best team we have ever had in a generation.
And that is a good thing. Last question. The infrastructure you were putting together,
we talked about it in June. And when you came on the second, you needed volunteers, you needed people to find data to go through all this stuff. How's that looking almost a year later? What kind of database do you have at this point? It's got us, Kira, and we actually use their software
to code these contracts all across the country.
So shout out to Kira, shout out to the team at Kira.
Could not, literally wouldn't be able to do our work without them,
but they got to us because of you, Bill.
So like, thank you for that.
Oh, that's nice.
And we always need more volunteers.
So we are working on,
we're finding police shooting contracts and coding them.
If you want to help us,
you can just email me at deray at deray.com.
Super easy. D-E-R-A-Y at D-E-R-A-Y.com. And we might do something around felony
theft. So what I was talking about before, like in New Jersey, if you steal over $200,
it's considered a felony. So if you want to help out with police union contracts, email me. If
you're interested in other stuff around policing, email me. We'd love to get you looped in because
there are a lot of people, especially where you are,
like there's a bill in Maine coming up around No Knocks and there's a dope set of people in Maine who are organizing.
I just had a call today with some folks in Delaware
who are organizing.
So like, we'd love to plug you in
because there is systemic stuff happening.
And we believe as organizers
that the only way the outcomes will change
is if the system changes.
Like programs aren't enough, speeches aren't enough.
Like the structure has to change.
All right, DeRay.
Congrats on everything. Great to see you again.
I'm glad we were able to catch up.
Talk to you in a couple months.
See you soon.
All right, that's it for this podcast.
We have one more podcast coming up
Thursday night after the NFL
draft. Stay tuned for that. Don't forget about
the rewatchables via Predator.
Have another good one coming next week as well.
And I will see you in this podcast on Thursday. I don't have feelings within.
On the wayside, I'm a bruised soul. I don't have feelings within.