The Herd with Colin Cowherd - 3 and Out - Draft Week Kickoff

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

John kicks off draft week by looking at what appears to be a weak draft, how some teams get into their own heads at the last minute, if any QB’s are worth a first rounder, and why the best GM’s understand value. Follow John and The Volume on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for the latest content and updates and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games.

This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to. Listen and learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes.

Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of Tontons and Wampas on the ice planet, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The volume. The three and out podcast is presented by Fandual Sportsbook. There is no better place to bet every moment more than with Fandual.

With football ending, we have the NBA rolling, March madness right around the corner, and my personal favorite betting on the PGA. tour. I cannot recommend it enough. You get winnings fast, and winnings are also delivered in under two hours. It's a fun to combine multiple bets from the same game parlay. No big deal. NBA, Steph Curry, Clay Thompson. That would be what I would do. If you are new, just download the Fandual app. To get started now, sign up with promo code Colin so they know we sent you. What is going on, everybody? John Middlecops, three and out podcast. We've got a big week.

We're going to keep it short and sweet today. And we will hit the ground running Tuesday's pod. We'll have a little golf podcast Wednesday. We'll have a draft podcast come Friday. I'm definitely going to do something on the weekend. I think I mentioned last week the schedule. I have to figure that out whether I do something on Friday or just wait to put it out for Sunday and just let it live until Monday.

I don't know. But it would be a lot, a lot of content coming out this week. draft week. And yeah, if you're a Jets fan, if you're a Giants fan, if you're a Jax fan, if you're a Lions, you got picks. Now, not a great draft. We'll dive into that a little bit, but subscribe to the podcast, share it with your friends, three and out podcast.

You listen through Collins feed. Subscribe to this feed, three and out, leave a review, slide up into those Instagram DMs. I have like two weeks worth of Instagram DMs. If I haven't answered your question here on the show that I have to manually get back to, my bad. I'd say I was busy, but I mean, not that busy. That'll be a project this week to answer a bunch of DMs.

At John Middlecoff is the Instagram. At John Middlecoff is the Instagram. But I was thinking about this. My first year in the NFL, you know, I was the lowest guy in the totem pole, I got to go to Radio City Music Hall. And for a long period of time, right, it was there. And they sent me, I was, you know, that every member, I guess they still do this, but we'll have to see this week.

At Radio City, it was set up, right? It was this huge kind of concert venue or whatever, and at the front was every team with a table and the helmet in the middle. And there was a phone, and there were two or three people sitting at every table. And I got to be the guy when they called in a player, write it down on the piece of paper, hand it to the person that took it up to the commissioner. Right? Well, I think first it went to like the league office personnel,

types it into this basically service that's on the internet and the teams know the pick. You know, the television broadcast is usually, I would say, as it goes, gets like five minutes behind, but on draft night's probably two or three minutes behind. But when you're there, you know, you're finding information, you hear something, you relay it back because you're basically on a headset with your team.

And it was really, really cool. Now, that draft was, that would have been the 10 season, And so the 11 draft was pretty historic, right? Cam Newton, J.J. Watt, Vaughn Miller, A.J. Green, Julio Jones, Alden Smith. Like, it was a, I'm missing guys. I mean, I don't have the draft. Robert Quinn. It was a star-studied group. The quarterbacks beside Cam were not great.

I think it was Ponder and Blank Aber. But it was a really, really cool event. I remember thinking, like, I've been to baseball games, basketball games, football games, golf majors. It's one of the most unique sporting events. I've ever been to because nothing is actually happening. Guys are getting announced to go to teams, them being all be there. But I just remember thinking like, this is unique.

It was really cool. I give the NFL a lot of credit because when they move to go to different cities, I was like, is this really going to work? And it's worked out pretty well. And this draft, let's call a spade a spade, sucks. Is not very good. And part of that is doesn't have that much star power.

Why? It doesn't have any quarterbacks. I don't think there's, one quarterback in this draft who should go in the top 32 picks. Now, that doesn't mean that guys won't, but I actually think that less quarterbacks are going to go in the first round than people assume like three or four are going to go. My guess would be two, because I think if you are going to draft some of these guys,

you're going to lose your job. Guys are going to get fired. Now, you could argue that happens no matter what, right? If Zach Wilson sucks, they're going to lose their job in New York in the next couple years, right? If Trevor Lawrence sucks, more people will get fired in Jacksonville because they'll be playing, not the quarterback. Mac Jones is already solid enough. If Trey Lance sucks, who knows, Jed won't want to hire a new coach, but it'll be a disaster for the 49ers. So just because

guys have hype doesn't mean they're going to be good, but based on their college careers, these quarterbacks are not viewed as difference makers. And when you don't have quarterbacks that are going to get drafted really high in a draft, and then you don't have many guys that are viewed as like, can't miss guys, and there's no such thing as can't miss guys, the quarterbacks pushed down players last year. Right? There was a reason that Micah Parsons could go at, what are you go? 11 or 12 or 10? I forget the order. I guess it was Devante Smith,

Justin Fields, Micah Parsons, was 10, 11, 12, if memory serves me correct? Maybe I had that flip-flop. Maybe it was Michael Parsons, Justin Fields, Devante Smith. But that stretch of players was because we had three quarterbacks go one, two, three. Well, no quarterback's going to go high, so there's not going to be, you know, one of the star offensive linemen or star defensive linemen. They're at 11 or 12. It's just not going to happen.

And ultimately, this draft hasn't excited me that much. And I watch a boatload of college football. I consume a ton of college football, and it's just next year feels like part of it is C.J. Stroud's going to be in it. Bryce Young's going to be in it. But regardless what I feel, what you feel, what anyone feels is ultimately these teams have to pick good players. And as a general manager and as a team and as a front office, this is the lifeblood of your family.

franchise. Because ultimately in free agency, you're paying a premium for most guys that aren't elite players. Like even Devante Adams and Tyra Kill, they were traded. Like the 49ers got Trent Williams, they traded for him. The elite elite guys don't hit the open market. Think about the best free agent over the last like five or six years, like Kirk Cousins. The top guys, that just doesn't happen. Think of Amari Cooper now has been on several teams. Every single one was through trade. But if you're a general manager and you're a coach, the way you sustain good teams is by picking players that become starters for you in the draft.

Because for the first, if it's a first rounder, it's obviously four years because you get the, in the fifth year option. But if it's anywhere between second or seventh round, you have them under contract for four seasons at a very, very cheap number. When you hit a four, fifth, sixth, sixth, seventh round pick, you get that guy on a cost control of deal at basically the veteran minimum. And the only way you have to bump up his pay, or rookie minimum or whatever, it's $7,800 grant.

And the only reason that guy ends up making by his third year or fourth year, three or four million dollars is because he's hit incentives like being a pro bowler, being an all pro. Well, you'll gladly play, you know, an all pro level player who was a fifth round pick, $3 million, his fourth year in the league. So you can set up your franchise for sustained success. doing it. And this is, this is the biggest moment. You spend all season, like you saw Netflix stock went into the tank. Why did that happen? Because their quarterly results said they lost 200,000 subscribers. And in business, you're either getting better or you're getting worse. You're either

growing or you're dying. You're either making more money or you're losing more money. And that signaled people like it was going the wrong way. And really in public companies, we judge you four times a year. Now obviously other things happen throughout the year that can negatively impact a stock or whatever but those quarterly earnings anyone that plays a stock market

no they can have a big big impact especially negatively when really bad things happen in quarterly earnings when you miss stuff or when you have subscribers and they disappear you're screwed. Well when you miss draft picks and some of these teams

was it eight teams have multiple picks you better get it right and in a draft that to me does not look look great on paper. Doesn't mean they're not going to be a lot of good players. Doesn't mean there won't be an all-pro player out of here. It doesn't mean there won't be a Hall of Fame. But I'll be honest, talking to a lot of people, no one truly knows who that player's going to be. Like, we have most drafts we go, this guy's going to be sweet. Like last year, most people

thought, Jamar Chase, badass. Kyle Pitts, badass. Obviously, Trevor Lawrence can't miss. Even Pena Sewell, like whether he was going to be immediate starter left tackle. the year before, Judy, C.D. Lamb, Roquan Smith. I mean, I can just keep rattling off names that were drafted. It doesn't feel like that at all in this draft. One of the most talented guy, Stingley, hasn't been good for like two years. And he's still going to go really high. Sauce Gardner, I talked to someone in the corner out of Cincinnati that was like, you know,

in a good draft, he's probably going somewhere between like 13 to 18. But in this draft, he'll probably end up going six or seven. So I think it's a lot of pressure, man. And I think these next couple days, you either stick with what you got. Your board speaks to you and you feel the haze in the barn, or you start getting cold feet and you start overthinking it. And I understand, listen, I think a lot of humans are overthinkers. But part of overthinking, like, think of who we mentally question sometimes in sports a lot.

Kickers, golfers, people that have time. Like, it's hard to be mentally like overthink stuff as a basketball player. It's just rapid fire. Now, you might crumble in the moment like James Harden typically does, but I don't view James Hardin's like an over- I just think his skills don't translate to the playoffs. But in the sport of basketball, you either got it or you don't.

Like, as a kicker, I understand when guys miss kicks are getting to a funk because you just have so much time to think. I played golf on Saturday, like the wheels came off for me, just because you're walking between shots, you're in your own head. Well, the draft is a lot like that. Right?

Because in free agency, you basically, if you have a playoff team, you play to early mid-January, the season ends, you've evaluated all the players, and then within less than a month, the combine's happening, you're negotiating with free agents. It's very rapid fire. The draft, think how many college teams, most teams do not play in the playoffs.

Most teams seasons over, hell half the seasons are over, they don't go to bowl games. And the teams that do, they're done by like right around Christmas time. The draft doesn't happen until the end of April. So we go through the underwear Olympics, which I do think is necessary because you like seeing guys body types.

I was watching, I just saw a picture of Caleb Williams, who's going to be a highly touted guy the next couple of years. Bryce Young, we're seeing a lot of these quarterbacks that are smaller now in college football. It's like, are all of them just going to work in the NFL? Because for the most part, the guys in the NFL are big.

It's a big man's league. It's why when you see a player come, you know, in the off season, when you get ready for a draft, like as a scout and go out there on the road, you get measurables. Like, this guy's 6-2-2-10 or, you know, whatever. This guy's offensive tackle, 6-5-3-30. You want to go see them. That's why you go to practice.

It's why you go to games and go on the field as a scout. Because you want to see the body type and go, this guy looks a lot like the guy we have on our team. Or this looks like a lot like a guy two years ago that, you know, is now playing for the chiefs for Seattle or whatever. whatever. And you've done all this information, but you have so much time to argue it, all these different opinions, you have so many different variables, the coaches get involved, the head coach gets involved, the coordinator's get involved, the owner might get involved, your college scout might like them, your pro scout might not like them, your general manager's torn because he doesn't want to piss off the coach. This is not an easy process. And I've seen firsthand how much time goes into it.

I understand how it's easy to say, and listen, I can be as critical as anyone of like, That was a dumb pick. That was a good pick. But I get it's very, very difficult. It really is. In time can just be a killer, I think. You know, sometimes it helps accumulating more information with character stuff. But even that, like some guys make decisions.

I mean, some stuff's a non-starter with a lot of teams, right? Like domestic violence or whatever, hardcore drug use maybe. But even that, I mean, I've heard a lot of teams look past it. But you just try to feel good about the person. But I think you end up then. overthinking the player. And you're trying to balance on the market value of where I got to pay for what. Because ultimately this is an economic exercise.

What do I have to pay in draft capital for this player? Because if I would draft him 30th overall and I have the 30th pick, let's say. Well, can I get the guy at 60? Because if I can get the guy at 60, I don't need to take them at 30. I can take someone else at 30 or trade back and gain another pick and end up taking them at 45 but gain more assets. that is also a big game. It's why I hate meathead GMs

that don't understand the value aspect of the draft. It's why John Gruden was such a bad drafter in the top of the rounds because he didn't give a shit about any of that. Chip Kelly didn't care about any of that. A lot of times coaches don't care about any of that. Just give me the player. That is the wrong mindset to have in the draft.

It's more understandable in free agency. I want this guy in my team. But even then you have to balance like, do we have the cap space are we willing to pay this much. The draft specifically is understanding who's going to fit on your team and then figuring out what you have to pay for them. Because you would never want to pay a million dollars

for a $700,000 house. You don't want to use the 24th pick on a guy that you could get in the 70s. Right? Just like you would love to take a guy at 70 that you would have gladly taken in the early second round. So that's, a lot of this is incumbent on, information. This is an information business, and you have to balance with what's true or not,

and there's no right or wrong answers. But the better GMs can balance that stuff. The better GMs know that stuff. And it's all educated guesses, but if you do it long enough, your educated guesses get a pretty good idea of like, yeah, we got something going here. Like, ultimately, like Netflix, I saw some people like, I'll buy a bunch more stock at 220. You know, my personal take is on Netflix? And I loved it. And I was someone who owned stock years ago in Netflix. I go on, when I sign into my account, I'm like, there's nothing to watch. This service kind of sucks. When's the last time they produced an awesome show?

Like, I honestly, I thought Squid Game was a little overrated. Didn't do that much for me. It wasn't bad. I mean, I like a little action and some violence, but like, that's the best you got? Like, I don't know. You're in trouble. You know, I know you have a lot of content, but I'd argue most of your content sucks. I've stumbled upon, I've watched a lot of stuff on Hulu.

I actually think Hulu, hot take, better than Netflix, over the last year and a half. again. But that's why one's trending down. So things change. I don't know why we keep talking about the streaming wars, but, you know, the draft wars. So let's get excited for a little, uh, the draft. Maybe we'll get a little trade. Maybe Debo be on the move. And I'll talk to you on Tuesday. Peace. Are you looking for the hottest gambling advice out there? Check out the Moneyline Monaco podcast powered by Fandul every weekday. Our guy Alex Monaco will give you his best bets, including games.

Game picks, props, same game parlayes, and much more. Monaco is in another groove and is won nearly 60% of his bets all time. So don't miss your chance to make some money by downloading the Moneyline, Monaco, wherever you get your podcast, only on the volumes podcast network. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite, unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an

a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere,

but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan,

and so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of taun tons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.