The Fumblerooski Podcast - Running Behind -Ep 249 The Fumblerooski Podcast

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

What's causing the top QB draft prospects to skip the NFL Combine? Why are so many teams refusing to pay their star running backs? Adam Wright and Chris Costich debate these topics and more!

star running backs won't get their big deals for the second year in a row first round quarterbacks are not going to throw at the combine i'm adam wright and you're listening to the fumble ruski podcast it may not have always showed it in the stat sheet but you can see him making throws when he needs to make the throws back-to-back games where he has three touchdowns someone's got to get that six or seven spot he's an elite wide receiver as a rookie truly a lose-lose scenario for both sides welcome to the fumble ruski podcast by power 88 and secret weapon consulting i'm adam right with chris kostich yes that is our new intro new and improved it was overdue man that was that was a four i believe that was over a

three-year old uh intro that that was from the 2019 season yeah that was it was from 2020 but it was it that was it was 45 seconds long most of the players in that clip were out of the league at that point so or not on the same team yeah or not on the same team. Sammy Watkins is out of the league. I'm pretty sure he is out of the league. No, he definitely is. And it was, that's all you heard. Sammy Watkins for the touchdown. Great play. And he, he did something for the chiefs, but, uh, he's not on the chiefs anymore, nor is he in football but without further ado we do have an episode planned for you guys tonight and uh this is this is pretty eventful so first of all we've received news about several teams with their franchise running backs i say franchise running backs because these guys

are true bell cows in this league among the best who are not only not going to get tagged but they may not even reach their uh they may hit free agency without a deal with their former teams so saquon barkley austin eckler derrick henry josh jacobs this um we thought it was a mess last off season it looks like it's just getting worse at this point but chris what are your thoughts austin eglert i feel like was you kind of see that one coming just seeing the way he was running this past year he looked like he was running like a fullback so you could kind of figure that he wasn't going to get a a great deal or at least the tag. Derek Henry already knew this wasn't going to get a deal. And you know,

it, that was one. That's why he got the standing ovation at his last game. This was going to be a given. He's now coming back to Tennessee. Josh Jacobson, Saquon Barkley for Saquon. I expect him to get signed to whatever deal it may be for the Giants.

Obviously not going to be that big of a deal, considering that they signed Daniel Jones to that lucrative contract. Josh Jacobs kind of struggled this year. I wouldn't mind seeing him back with the Raiders, especially under a new head coach in Antonio Pierce. See how they do with the new offense and just new leadership in general. And maybe you would thrive under the new leadership. Yeah. So a couple of these, I do expect to return to their old teams. One side is going to cave one way or another, and we are going to see one of these guys back um that being said a few of them i do not expect to be back for example i don't i think derrick henry's as good as gone and i think

it would be in both teams in both sides best interests to let him go derrick henry is 29 he's not going to reach a long long- deal, probably not for the rest of his career. And the Titans, they're looking to get younger. They're not looking to, they shouldn't, if they are looking to extend Derrick Henry, they shouldn't. Because they should be looking to get younger. You can easily find another running back, maybe not as good as Derrick Henry, but you can find one who is still productive in this league at a cheaper price and who is much younger and will last much longer in this league at a cheaper price and who is much younger and

will last much longer in this league because who knows with derrick henry we're taking it year by year at this point he's 29 um josh jacobs i don't again another player i don't think the raiders should resign but it looks like they want to that's the biggest issue here um which is which would be a big mistake because he's another running back who's, yeah, he's not as old as Derrick Henry, but he's also, he looks kind of in the same boat. It does not look like he's the same player. You can finish. And I just think with Josh Jacobs and all of these running backs,

pretty much all, I believe they're all in their late twenties, which usually for the running back position is not young. I just think a lot of these guys, it would not be smart for the, these franchises to bring them back. They, a lot of them will,

I think the giants will bring back Barkley. And, uh, I think Eckler becomes a charger again. But with Henry and Jacobs, I'm not sure what happens here. I would honestly say Eckler could even be gone from the chargers, but I feel like that the rate, like, I don't know, Josh Jacobs had under 1,000 yards and only six touchdowns, averaged under four yards of carry, which is not good by any means. Like, you want your premier running back to be averaging four and a half,

even more than five yards carry at that rate. But there was just so much dysfunction on that Raiders team up until the last part of the year when Antonio Pierce finally took over so I feel like that a lot of that would have to come down to all the BS that was going on in the organization and now you actually have um what seems like some sort of stability now with Antonio Pierce at the helm. And a lot of these Raiders players are very well receptive to that. They really wanted Antonio Pierce to be their guy, their next guy,

especially because they got it wrong, not hiring back Basaccia or whatever his name is. So they really wanted Antonio Pierce back because he actually connects with the players. He actually actually connects with the players. He would, he actually gets along with the players well, and the players receive them very well. So I think that if the Raiders brought back Josh Jacobs,

maybe we don't see him in the same light that we did a couple of years ago, but he would, he would definitely get back to over 1,000 rushing yards. He would definitely get back to at least close to what he was a couple years ago. Yeah, so Josh Jacobs is going to be 26 this season, which is actually not bad. That's actually not as bad as I thought it was.

I thought he was like 26, 27. That being said, once you reach anywhere past your mid-20s, which he's about to go past, he doesn't play quite as well, which is something that I'm a little nervous about, especially since he's coming off a down season. Could he bounce back? He certainly could. He could have a 1,200-yard season, average four yards a carry,

maybe eight touchdowns. That's a really good season. But how many do we think that he'll get like that? Because 26, okay. 27, pushing it. 28, that's the point where you're going to be like, okay, are we going to continue to get this kind of production? Where you're not looking at it from how is he going to be three years from now you're looking at it as can we just get something out of him now because this is unfortunately how the running back position ages especially nowadays with the bell cow back they almost never last very they almost never last past their mid-20s mid mid to late 20s. Look at Delvin Cook right now. He's 27, and everyone's saying he's past his prime, he's washed. Any other position in professional sports, let alone football,

and you're saying, oh, he still has a lot of time left. With running backs, you're 27, you're done. How insane is that? Yeah, and Todd Gurley hasn't even hit 30 he's been out of the league for the last three years and he has better stats since 20 since he got into the league than everyone else and i'm pretty sure ezekiel elliott was he started to really decline once he reached his mid-20s as well like i believe he's 30 now, but he was, I mean, he was never the same player like three years ago. Yeah. You know, like we're looking at him. He used to be one of

the best backs in the league back in the, uh, back in the mid to late 2010s. Now it's 20 in like 2019, it was almost over for him. So that's just how insane that this position is. All right. I wanted to move on. We're going to get to these first round quarterbacks who did not throw at the combine. This is interesting. Not just first rounders, like top of the draft, potential number one, overall picks Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels, most notably are not going to be throwing at the NFL Combine. That's next. This is the Fumble Rooski Podcast.

It may not have always showed it in the stat sheet, but you can see him making throws when he needs to make the throws. Back-to-back games where he has three touchdowns. Someone's got to get that six or seven spot. He's an elite wide receiver as a rookie. Truly a lose-lose scenario for both sides. I love that intro. Welcome back to the Fumbaruski Podcast by Powered88 and Secret Weapon Consulting.

Adam Wright with Chris Kostic. We are on to the NFL Combine. And these quarterbacks who wanted to throw, actually who will not be, some of them will be throwing at their pro day. I guess Jaden Daniels will, I forgot. I forget about Caleb,

Caleb Williams, but Chris Williams won't throw Jaden Daniels won't throw. So guys like JJ McCarthy are going to have a chance here. So really? Yeah. Yeah. And it makes sense for them because there's like Michael Pitt, Michael Pennix,

Bo Nix, J J J McCarthy. Their stock is actually really low right now, which stinks because they did have pretty solid seasons, all three of them. Yeah. So it makes sense for those guys to throw, but for Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels, again, I have to look back into into into drake may i'm not seeing a whole lot about drake may right now i believe he is not throwing but don't quote me on that um because i saw it this morning and uh i just i need to confirm that before i say that on a on a show where we spread facts not you know not misinformation um if you wanted to look at that while i'm speaking well i got i got this

other thing too it's from nbc sports chicago so it it seems that it's williams not throwing like it's not gonna hinder whatever the hell the bears were going to do anyways, because obviously Caleb Williams is most notably probably going to be the number one pick. So the quote here in NBC sports, Chicago Williams is just the latest in a line of top prospects to forego throwing at the combine in favor of the scripted controlled environment of their pro day. Andrew Luck,

Stafford, RG three, Bryce Young, young sam darnold joe burrow and cali murray all did not participate in drills at the combine right and a lot of those players panned out yeah like if you think about it a lot of the players who really flashed their abilities um and we went over this lap we went over this last year around this time we did an entire episode where we showed you all of the players who had great pro days and combines and all the players who didn't do well it's actually insane to look at the amount of players who who did not pan out but had so much hype going into their pro day now some of them pan out Trayvon Walker is one of the most

notable ones in recent memory because he went from being a late round first to the number one overall pick. I say it's not as bad now because he's kind of panned out now. He's a good player. I don't know if he's better than Aiden Hutchinson, but he held his own this year, which is good for him. Anthony Richardson is another one. That viral clip of him hitting the wall of a stadium when he was throwing in his pro day. Absolutely insane. His draft stock went through the roof. Now, I'm pretty sure he was still going to be a top 10 pick,

but I mean, that definitely didn't help things. And he's another player who still looks pretty solid. He could work out. We're not sure yet. But you can kind of see how the NFL draft really puts a lot of stock into the combine. And these players with already high stock, Drake May, Caleb Williams, and I just confirmed Drake May is not throwing at the combine per JPA Football. It was Jordan Schultz who said it.

Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, Drake May, all not throwing. They're projected to be the top three picks in the draft. So why would they throw? It kind of makes sense. I mean, these prospects aren't dumb. They're watching football. I mean, these other guys who aren't going in drafts they're also watching this now right the guys who aren't yet eligible for the nfl draft they're watching this now they probably watched when anthony richardson was overvalued right or when other players like

drew breeze his stock dropped you know like you're going to people are going to look at that and they're going to say well if my stock is through the roof why would i jeopardize that by possibly not having a good a good combine i mean look at look at tom brady he had one of the worst combines of all time i mean granted there was other factors that went into him plummeting to picking 199, like his age, bad combine, the weird battle that he had with Drew Henson in Michigan. So yeah, a bad combine can really hinder your stock. And honestly, I'm kind of surprised that Drake May isn't competing in this combine.

This is, nevermind Jaden Daniels or anything like that. Heck even Jaden Daniels, but nevermind those two Williams and Daniels, Drake May, the hype around Drake May was very sudden, very, very sudden. And I still have a lot of questions about Drake May.

It seems a lot of critics even have questions about Drake May. There was one that I saw that he was a more athletic Mason Rudolph with worse arm talent. I did see that. They were talking about it on Felger and Maz while I was listening, walking the dog off leash a couple hours ago. And I was like, wait, these people are saying that this guy is an unbelievable talent, that he could be the next Josh Allen, which take that how you,

how you please, how you want to. Um, he is one of the better quarterbacks in the league right now. Um, Mason Rudolph, more athletic, less arm talent.

He was a third-round pick. Not a third overall pick. Still, I mean, look, Mason Rudolph is a pretty decent quarterback by standards. But, like, it just goes to show what I was saying. The Drake May hype was very very very sudden very very quick and that's why i'm a little queasy about drake may is because of that it's the media hopped on this bandwagon so fast out of nowhere and i don't even know which game it was i don't even know the stats that he had for whatever particular game that he just blew up all of a

sudden obviously jayden daniels he put up 700 yards in that one game, and that's when he blew up. So I still even have questions about that. Some of his lowlights, I'm like, what are you doing? But at least Jaden Daniels came away with a Heisman, and Drake May, you don't really know what the hell is going to happen with that. All right. I want to go, because I don't want to i want to go because i don't

want to go too much in depth with this but i i have a list of uh from bleacher report i have a list of players who had terrible pro terrible pro days but overcome it and they actually went into these pro days having high draft stock it plummeted right after vontaze perfect ever heard of him well for better or worse for better or worse for better or worse antonio brown has a few things to say about him anquan bolden there's a name uh justin houston arguably the best pass rusher in Chiefs history, had a terrible pro day. Joe Hayden apparently went into the 2010 draft class as the top corner. After his pro day, fell like a rock. Navarro Bowman, one of the better linebackers in not only 49er history, but also football history.

Now, he did retire early, so he probably won't be looked at that way, but he was still an incredible linebacker had a bad luck. He had, again, I'm not going in depth about this, but, um, he had a bad, a bad combine Terrell Suggs. Again, a great defensive player, Drew Brees, Tom Brady. So I just don't blame a lot of these players who already have high draft stock not participating in the combine. And the more that executives and scouts see this, the less stock that they're going to put in the combine. Which I think good riddance. I think the closer we get to ending the NFL combine, the better off we are all going to be. Because I think you can't just look at, you can't just put guys in spandexes, have them run a million times, have them throw in all these different angles, have them do all these drills just to test their athleticism.

You have to look at pure game film. See how they react to NFL defenses or the closest that they get with the better defenses in college, look at their film, look at how they respond to things, right? Like we're going to see if Drake may did throw, we would think, wow, look at that athleticism. He's a number one overall pick. He's not going to, but he would have that kind of stock if he actually threw in there. Um, and they're not going to understand that he was gullible on the field cj says this all the time but whenever defenses in college would bait

him would try to bait it would try to fool him into doing something he would fall for it all the time that's what i mean so it's really it's not like it just it's not an accurate depiction of how they're going to do in the foot, in the football, on the football field. It just isn't. All right. We want to move on to our final segment, which is we are going back to the franchise tag. So we talked about it in our last episode this past Friday with CJ, um, all of the best, most popular franchise tag candidates.

Now we wanted to ask you, which player do you want to see franchised? That's next. You're listening to the Fumble Rooski Podcast. It may not have always showed it in the stat sheet, but you can see him making throws when he needs to make the throws. Back-to-back games where he has three touchdowns. Someone's got to get that six or seven spot he's an elite wide receiver as a rookie truly a lose-lose scenario for both sides

welcome back to the fumble ruski podcast by power 88 and secret weapon consulting i am adam right with chris kostich and uh so we are on to our fan box portion of this show where we post a question filter on our instagram every monday and you can respond with hot takes questions and more and we will discuss it and give you a shout out on our podcast respond to next week's fan box question to be featured on our show i memorized that entire thing for like the first time ever good job um all right ian mulhern had a good one and i think brian burns is one that deserves a lot of recognition he's one of the better most underrated defensive players in all of football and the only reason he doesn't get recognition is because he plays for the panthers and not just the pan not just that he plays for the Panthers. And not just that he plays for the Panthers, but because the Panthers suck.

At least when Luke Keekly and Josh Norman were in the league, those teams were gritty. They may not have been winning Super Bowls, but they were a tough out any time you ran into them in the regular season. Our Patriots lost to them a couple of times. If you remember the 2013 season? Oh, yeah.

Yep. Aqib Tlaib, Steve Smith got in his head. I think he got himself ejected, didn't he? Yeah, he did. They straight up fought each other, which I mean, that's exactly what you would think would happen between Aqib Tlaib and Steve Smith, which means it wasn't a, which means it was not a disappointment, a disappointment of a game in any sense. But the defense, there's a lot of bad things about this Panthers team.

The defense is not one of them. And they have a lot of good players on this defense. Brian Burns is the best one on that team, which does say something. So that's a player you don't want to let run out the door. Yeah, my only quarrel with it is he did lead the team in sacks. There's no if, ands, buts about it. But he only had 50 tackles this year. But you could also say that most of his duties were doing pass rush too. So I don't know.

It wouldn't hurt to have him back. Really? Yeah. Um, Alex Nardone said Saquon Barkley. Yeah. And, uh,

we've had a couple of giants fans say that now. Yeah. And I get that you want, I think Saquon Barkley is the one who makes the most sense to be tagged out of that whole group that we mentioned in a couple segments ago. The only thing is, I just don't think... You don't want to piss him off. You want to bring this guy back. We've also had our thoughts last episode, me and CJ,

that the Giants may not deserve him. And that doesn't mean they shouldn't try to keep him and try to make him happy, which means don't piss him off. Don't make him play under the franchise tag for the second year in a row, because then he'll really walk and he may not even play this season. I mean, we've already seen Le'Veon Bell miss a bunch of games. Didn't, I'm completely forgetting who did this, but didn't somebody else also miss out on a lot of games because he didn't want to play? It was Le'Veon.

Was it? I wanted to say Jonathan Taylor, but he was injured. Taylor was injured. I think he was a player who wanted to, who wanted to skip out. Yeah. I might be thinking of, I was thinking of Alvin Kamara, I think, but I think that all got resolved before the season started. And then he, then he played.

Yeah. But regardless, that Saquon should be a guy that you sign not tag regardless of that fact. Either way. And please let us know in the comments if there was another player who did hold out, if we're just missing him. It's on the tip of my tongue right now. But yeah, he's definitely a player you want to re-sign.

And regardless of if somebody else did it or not levion did it and it's been a threat for pretty much every running back who's whose contract was about to go up ever since that has happened so it's a possibility if you piss him off then you lose your best offensive player so i don't know if you want to franchise tag this guy. You might want to just try to get an extension going before the deadline even passes. Yeah. And if you let him hit the open market, then he's going to be tempted by much more competitive teams who have a little bit more money. And then you may not get him back at all. So if you like, yes, I think he's a good franchise tag candidate.

But you don't want to let him, uh, you want to get the best case scenario is you want to get a deal done. Yeah. All right. Um, this next one, it says King Tex Mex. Nice. Nice. Uh, he said Josh Allen defensive end and Antonio Winfield, uh, end, and Antoine Winfield Jr. Yeah, I mean, Josh Allen is one that CJ and I were a little hesitant on because he's always been a decent, like he's never been bad.

If they bring him back on a big deal then he'll be fine is he going to get 19 sacks every year i don't think so no this is about this is and cj has said this as well there's something that is a massive red flag about free age about free agents to be players on contract years who have uh who have career years right before they hit free agency like where was this the past four years you've been in the league you've been a first round pick for how many years this guy's a this guy was a first round pick so he's on he was on his fifth year he got drafted 2017 too right so he's uh so he's on his seventh year then i thought it was five was it not i forget i thought that him and the other josh allen both came in at the same time

um either way it would be uh because josh allen was drafted in 2018. 2018, whatever it was. So sixth year. Jesus. Josh Allen. 2019 was for Josh Allen's rookie year. So he is in his fifth year in the league. He just completed his fifth year because he was a first-round pick, and they picked up his fifth-year option. So it's not like he's that young anymore. It's not like he's a fourth year player who's starting to break out five five it's like

you're a super senior at this point and now you're breaking out under a contract year yeah i'm not saying he won't be still really good because he is a good defensive player for them, but he's not this good. I mean, who knows? Maybe he ends up being like TJ Watt or Bosa or Michael Strahan or something like that that ends up breaking out year four and just continues on that tear. It's a possibility. I'm not ruling it out.

No. It's a red flag is it not like it definitely is but who knows like i said it could it could end up being a potential strahan bosa thing like huge breakout season and they continue on yeah late bloomer he also said antoine winfield jr um which is an interesting one i think um he's another one that's kind of like josh allen where like he's always been a really good safety but have we ever saw him as a top five safety probably that super bowl run if anything like he was good he's always been a good safety like he was a really good safety

i consider him a top seven safety maybe he's seven like i mean they just they i mean the bucks also just released shaq barrett too so they can make room for guys like winfield and evans and baker so right which maybe maybe he doesn't get the tag. He just gets the contract. So he's always been a really good, he's, he was an all pro this year. He was a pro bowler in 2021 and he was a good, he was still a really good safety in his rookie year in 2020. So he's always been a good, like, he's always been a good player. Um, but this, I think this feels a little bit less of a red flag because he's always been a really good player and he's still somewhat close to his level that, um, that he was,

that he was playing at prior with Josh Allen. It's ridiculous. It's like night and day, right? Like Josh Allen, he was like six seven sacks sacks a year and then out of nowhere it's 19 like where the hell did this come from you know what i mean so it's it's an interesting situation um but isaac zonana said christian wilkins um this is to be my last one. I'm running short on time right now.

Okay. This is our last one, too. Oh, okay. Oh, it worked. Christian Wilkins, he had a career year. He's a defensive end. And he's never, outside of this year, where he had nine sacks, good year,

four and a half, his previous highest. And, again, another player who just finished his fifth year he's a super senior so again like he was never that playing on that high of a level up until this year and didn't and forget correct me if i'm wrong didn Didn't Bradley Chubb just get hurt this season? Just towards Achilles this year, I think, yeah. Right. Or ACL, whatever it was. I just said Achilles because everyone seems to be going down

with an Achilles injury this year. Yeah, it was insane. Is that not something where you look at and you say, well, he just had the extra opportunity but bradley chubb also got hurt towards the end of the season too so you could also say that christian well we'd have to look at christian wilkins stats after chubb got hurt and prior to chubb getting hurt um yeah you can keep going while i figure this out yeah um and christian will and uh bradley chubb um i'm not sure when he got hurt either it was somewhat late in the season yes um but on top of that um like either way i just don't he was never that good of a player

you know what i mean so so we look at 2023 i'm all right uh so chris's laptop just died but um this is i just i just think christian wilkins is a bit of a a bit of a red flag here um and if they're going to use the the franchise tag i guess they could use it on him it It's a possibility. Um, but I would probably stick to not using it probably. All right. Well, that is all the scheduled content we have for today, but thank you for listening to us. We have all our episodes available on Spotify, Spreaker, Apple podcasts,, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts, and so much more. And tune in to us on Tuesdays at 7.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and Fridays at 5 p.m.

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