The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cousins To Washington?

Episode Date: March 3, 2024

Kevin with a ton on this Saturday show including a reaction to Dianna Russini/The Athletic reporting that Washington could be in the mix for Kirk Cousins. It was "QB Day" at the Indy Combine and while the perceived top three (Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye) didn't throw, two of the three measured. Kevin with thoughts on the one that chose not to measure plus he played/reacted to some of his radio interview with Merrill Hoge from the other day. New Commanders' GM Adam Peters made his first roster decisions yesterday while also discussing "trade-up and trade-down" possibilities....Kevin shared his reaction to what Peters said.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it, but you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Chean Show. Here's Kevin. The presenting sponsor of this show is Windonation. Call them at 86690 Nation or head to Windonation.com. If you're in the market for new windows, mention my name and you'll get a free in-home estimate. No guests on the show today.

However, I'm going to play back for you some of my interview from radio the other day with Merrill Hodge. He was excellent. He was very insightful on what you should be looking for in the college quarterback that translates to the NFL. He had strong feelings about Drake May, but also thoughts on Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels. He also went back and talked about Sam Howell coming out of North Carolina and then what he thought of Sam Howell's season in 2023. I think you'll enjoy some of this. I took just a couple of the cuts and they're long cuts. He got, you know, he got on a roll on some of these answers, but I thought he was very good. And he's got a track record for getting quarterback right as an analyst, which he's been for many years. So Merrill Hodge, some of the highlight.

from his interview with me the other day on radio will be on the show. So I'm doing this show on Saturday afternoon, early afternoon. I had some stuff to do yesterday. Actually had a guest scheduled. Waited and waited. He bailed. Not his fault. Had some issues.

Hopefully we'll get him on this upcoming week. And then it got a little bit late. And so I figured we'd do it today after the quarterbacks. had weighed in and measured in at the combine. Now, we know that at the combine, the top three quarterbacks, Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, and Drake May are not throwing. But they were still scheduled to measure in, where we would get height, we would get weight, we would get hand size.

So that data is now in. And very interestingly, Jaden Daniels decided not to even measure today. I think that was somewhat unexpected. I could be wrong on that. You know, one of the issues may be that his listed 6-4 and 210 at LSU may be a little bit inflated. It may be program height and weight. if Daniels ended up weighing in at less than 205 pounds, he would have joined a group of quarterbacks that weighed in at less than 205

that really struggled at the NFL level. Only five starting quarterbacks under that weight have started at least 14 games in a single season since 2000. So perhaps his weight is less than 205, and he is going to measure in on LSU's Pro Day, which is at the end of this month. But he chose not to measure in today. I would assume the weight had something to do with it. Now, the other quarterbacks measured in, Caleb Williams, 6-1 and an 8th, 214-21, Drake May measured in at 6'4-9. 3-8s and 223. J.J. McCarthy, it's funny because I heard people talking about how J.J. McCarthy is 6-3-6-4.

I'm like, man, he doesn't play like he's 6-3-6-4. He measured in at 6-2.5, 219. Michael Pennix Jr. was 6-2 in a quarter, 216, and Bo Nix was 6-2 in an eighth and 2-14. Those were, you know, I just gave you five of the top six quarterbacks, excluding Jaden Daniels. You know, there's a lot of discussion about what J.J. McCarthy will be by the time we get to the draft. People are absolutely convinced that he will interview very well, that the intangibles are off the charts. And then there was just a lot of talk about how, you know, his big arm and his big size wasn't used at Michigan and the way it'll be used in the NFL because they were just such a dominant team up front and such a dominant run first team.

But six two and a half, I think, is a little bit less than what they were expecting. But anyway, the weight is encouraging, you know, at 219, because I think he actually played at a little bit less than that. But it is interesting. This 205-pound cut-off coming in under that is a concern to NFL teams, and I'm guessing that's why Jaden Daniels did not weigh in today at the Combine. Anyway, there is Washington News, which I will save for the final segment. There were three cuts yesterday.

I'll have some thoughts on those. but I did want to mention in this opening segment, Diana Rusini's tweet and athletic story today about the quarterback market that does not include the draft portion of this off-season quarterback market. She wrote a story titled, What I'm hearing at the NFL Combine on the Bears, Kirk Cousins, and more.

And what's interesting is that she's hearing that the market for Justin Fields right now may be softening a bit, in part because Cousins is the number one veteran quarterback, non-draftable quarterback out there. People in the draft who are going to draft a quarterback, you know, Washington, New England, in particular at two and three, Chicago more likely than not after they trade Justin Fields are kind of waiting for the Justin Field shoe to drop. But there are other things going on, including an increasing market for Kirk Cousins. Minnesota wants to keep him. Diana Rusini reports, but Atlanta now really wants cousins, more than Fields.

She's not the only one to report this. but there's another piece to Diana Rusini's story and tweet today that got me interested. And this is why I'm bringing this up. She writes, Minnesota, the quarterback market all starts with Kirk Cousins. Minnesota wants to keep them, but they may have to fend off Atlanta, Denver, or possibly even Washington. Plus, Baker Mayfield isn't a lock back to 10.

Tampa and Justin Fields market is soft for now. So do I think that Kirk Cousins has interest in Washington or Washington has interest in Kirk Cousins? I don't think the latter. I think that Washington plans on drafting a quarterback at number two. There is, you know, some information out there. people have been talking about the tradeback possibility. Adam Peters actually weighed in on that.

I'm going to get to some of the more commander-specific news from yesterday, including what Adam Peters said about the trade-back possibility in the final segment of the show today. I think that Kirk's agent, more likely than not, is getting the market as ginned up as possible right now. that Minnesota's got to come to a level that is agreeable for Kirk. Look, nobody has negotiated better as an unrestricted free agent than Kirk Cousins has, even as, you know, a player with Minnesota in the last contract negotiation. He's been amazing at that, you know, and a lot of people will say that's what he's going to be known for more than anything else, is one of the

all-time great business people in the history of the NFL. I'll remind everybody that that would have never happened. He would have never had the opportunity to sort of chart that course if Washington had any vision as an organization and they had locked them up after the 2015 season. There was an opportunity to do that, you know, during the 2015 season and immediately after, but they didn't see it. They didn't have vision. They lowballed them for a second time. And that's when the franchise tag process started, which really was the beginning of this incredible journey of two franchise tags, playing well on both franchise tags. And then hitting the market at the perfect time where there were teams that were willing to spend that had the cap space.

And he locked up the first all game. guaranteed contract in NFL history. I don't think that Washington is going to have interest in Kirk Cousins. I don't. I know that Kirk and his wife, Julie, loved their time in Washington and loved living in Washington. They may not have the best of memories with respect to, you know, some of the people in the organization when he was the quarterback, but they really liked D.C. Now, her family's from Atlanta, and he and his wife Julie love Minnesota.

I still think he ends up back in Minnesota, and if it's not Minnesota, it's Atlanta. I think that while D.C. might not be his top option. I just don't think he's D.C.'s top option. Washington's top option. I think his agent Mike McCartney does a very good job in managing this process. for, you know, his client who has hit the market seemingly at the right time every time he's hit it. And I think that the agents doing a pretty good job of ginning up, you know, even teams like Denver and Washington, who are possibilities to really make Minnesota come to the table with their best offer.

That is just a guess. but I would call it based on understanding how his agent has worked the media and worked the room in past negotiations. I would call it, you know, a slightly educated hunch. But that is a trending story today, Diana Rusini, saying the quarterback market starts with cousins. It's Minnesota who wants to keep them. Atlanta wants them badly, and they may have to fend off the Vikings, not only Atlanta, but Denver and possibly Washington as well. I do not think Kirk Cousins will be the starting quarterback in Washington next year. I would love it if he were, but quite honestly, I'd much prefer that they fall in love with one of the prospects that they can draft at number two and draft a rookie quarterback and go that route.

as much as I am a Kirk guy, a you-know-who guy, my preference would be draft Jaden Daniels at number two overall. And that leads me to this. I got this email from Jared. Jared had in the subject heading, is your desire to be right about Daniels, as in Jaden Daniels, blinding your perspective? That's the title to the email.

that Jared wrote. So he writes, as much as the next fan, I want to be right about this upcoming QB decision. I myself am very intrigued with Daniels. Of course, I'm no keen talent evaluator, and quite frankly, we as fans are allowed to swing and miss. We will still be fans. Unfortunately, for Peters and Quinn, they don't have the luxury to be wrong at number two. Being wrong likely means an eventual dismissal as we've seen with countless other coaches and staffs. I'm starting to think that this group is not as infatuated or sold on the fact that May or Daniels is a franchise changing QB. I think over the next month, we will start to see this group fall intrigued with J.J. McCarthy. Trust me, I didn't see it all season either. I'll

interject right there before I get to the rest of his email. He's referring to the fact that I've said all season long, I just didn't see it with J.J. McCarthy. They just never really asked him to do what NFL teams will ask him to do. I mean, he threw the ball eight times in the Penn State game. But they were great, you know, and he made some big plays, certainly in that Bama game for sure. It's not that I don't like J.J. McCarthy.

I just don't, in watching him as a college football fan, never once thought of him as like a top half of the first round draft guy. To be honest with you, I never really viewed him as a first round guy. I will tell you this, though, because of the intangibles and the way NFL teams think, it's more likely he climbs the board from where he's projected to go, call it, you know, 12 to 16 or whatever, than it is that he falls down the board. Although maybe the height today is, you know, a bit of a of a hit on McCarthy. But, you know, he's still, he's not a short quarterback, that's for sure. All right. So back to Jared's email. So then Jared writes, when all the fans want one guy, May and Daniels, 90% of the time those fans are

wrong. They're allowed to be wrong. That's why we are fans. Remember, Kevin, when you want to to trade for Josh Rosen, Drew Locke, Malik Willis, Justin Fields. This isn't a criticism just more of how long I've listened and respected your opinion. Peters and Company cannot get this wrong. I'm open to the idea of trading down to increase their chances on getting it right. I'll be tuning in, as always. So that's a good email, Jared. I appreciate that.

You guys can email me through the Kevin, Sheehan Show website at the kevin sheeonshow.com. That's where most of you email me. And I actually, you know, the tweets are great. I spend more time reading some of your emails and trying to bring the good ones to the show because they are content creating because sometimes they're really smart or sometimes they really fire me up to a certain degree like this one did, which I will get to here momentarily. You can follow me on Twitter as well at Kevin Sheff.

She in D.C. and tweet me there because I read a lot of the tweets on the show as well. So look, I love this email mostly because it gives me a chance right now on this show to either back off Daniels a bit, you know, tread with caution a bit more on Daniels or double down on Daniels. but I do want to start by just making sure that some of the, you know, it's not criticism. It's just that I've been listening to you so long and respect your opinion after he ripped off four quarterbacks who, you know, he says that I wanted to trade for. So for the purposes of at least making that portion of his email more factual, I did advocate for trading up for Justin Fields. That is true.

I really like Justin Fields, and what the Bears did, I advocated doing for Washington. I also really liked Josh Rosen. You're right about that. But I am pretty sure I did not suggest trading up for Josh Rosen. I think the quarterback actually, you should have mentioned from that draft that I liked the most was Darnold. And Darnold would not be a feather in my cap either. But that draft was the draft that I really liked Derwin James for Washington, where they were picking at 14, I think. Wanted them to continue to add defense, which they had started the year before with John Allen.

And I did like Duran Payne, too, but I really liked Derwin James. The player in that draft that I talked up the most was Carri-on Johnson, the running back from Auburn, who by the way, Washington was on the verge of taking in the second round, but the Lions took them one pick early before Washington was on the clock. And so then Washington traded back later in the second round and took Darius Geis and remember how they pounded their chest like they had stolen Darius Geis. They had a first round grade on them. I mean, there were red flags all over Geis, and they took him anyway.

Carryon Johnson did not end up with, you know, a solid NFL career, mostly because he just could not stay healthy. Drew Locke, you mentioned, Jared. I think Drew Locke was much more Coolie's guy in the draft. That was coolies guy. I liked Drew Locke. I did, but I didn't, I don't think I ever advocated trading up for Drew. Lock. Malik Willis and Pickett were, Malik Willis was one of the quarterbacks, one of the two

quarterbacks that I thought had a high ceiling, higher ceiling than the others in the 2022 draft, but I did not advocate that they pick him at number 11. I advocated that they picked Kyle Hamilton in that draft. I was adamant that Kyle Hamilton should be the pick that he should have been the best player on the board by a lot at 11. And then when they traded back with New Orleans so that New Orleans could get Alave, I didn't mind the trade back. So I was probably wrong on that too, because I liked Johan Dotson in that draft. But I loved Hamilton in 2020. But yeah, look, you're right that we are fans. I certainly hope we don't get it wrong. of the time, as you refer to, it's probably more like 50, a little bit more than 50% of the time

were wrong, maybe 60%. I don't know. But you focused on the quarterbacks with me. And, you know, you took a veiled shot there, which is fine. You know, but trust me, like this is one of those things. When you do what some of us do in this format of talk show host, you rarely hear about the ones you got right, but almost always hear about the ones you got wrong, especially quarterbacks, because people really remember what you said about quarterbacks. So with that, let me just first of all point out the big ones that you missed. Like if you really wanted to take a shot at my quarterback evaluation skill, you should have started with James Winston because I loved James Winston. I still do. Like, I still think that he's got a chance to resurrect his career,

although I guess at this point he's had so many chances. That was a dead wrong. Like, I'll, you mentioned guys that, you know, I definitely liked Justin Fields and thought that he was worthy to trade up for. And I did. I was a Josh Rosen fan, not to trade up for him. But man, Winston was my guy. And I did not like Justin Herbert at all. I was very much on the record saying that I didn't think Justin Herbert was worthy of a pick that high that I thought he didn't play in the big games at Oregon very well. And I was always on board with the Chase Young pick at number two instead of Herbert. So I was dead wrong on that. I mean, there are plenty of others. Like I didn't like Derek Carr at all. I didn't think he could play. Cooley and

I used to get into a big debate about Derek Carr. Cooley and I weren't doing the show at the time, but Cooley would come on occasionally if Tommy was out with me. Cooley and I were friends long before we started to do the show together. And I remember that was a guy he really liked. And I was not necessarily the biggest fan. Not that he's turned into a superstar, but he turned into a good enough quarterback where I was wrong on that one. But there have been a couple that I've gotten right, all right, and I'll leave out the obvious ones. I was a big Andrew Luckin Joe Burrow fan, huge Joe Burrow fan, but those were obvious calls by

anybody watching, you know, any level of college football. But, you know, I would say that one of my better called shots of all time was Kirk Cousins way before the 2012 draft. suggested that he'd be the perfect fit for Shanahan, for Mike and Kyle. Tommy and I used to do that. You heard it here first segment. I think there were two quarterbacks that I called as guys that would be perfect fits for the Shanahan scheme long before their drafts, cousins and Prescott. I was a big Dak Prescott fan at Mississippi State. By the way, in 2012, I also talked up Russell Wilson.

I thought he had a chance to be a really good pro. By the way, the draft in which I liked Dak Prescott, I also talked up Jacoby Brissette. I was a big fan of Brissette at NC State, and I thought he would be a good NFL quarterback. Look, that's not a great call because Brissette's been a backup, a career backup. In 2019, look, I may have, once he started to play in the play,

pros said that I want to see more of Dwayne Haskins because I thought I was watching a big confident dude and talented. But if you go back before that 2019 draft, I did not think Dwayne Haskins was worthy of a first round pick. And that was without even knowing anything about work ethic, maturity, etc. I remember begging Cooley to watch Dwayne Haskins tape to get his opinion because Haskins was being projected, you know, super high in the draft. And I'm like, I don't see it. So I was right about Haskins before the draft. I like Daniel Jones more than most people.

I was talking up Daniel Jones. I remember in 2020 liking Hertz and could not stand Kellyn Monde in 2021. There was a lot of talk on day two or day three. Washington should take Kellyn Monde, you know, from Texas A&M. I'm like, he stinks. You know, I'm giving you some obscure calls, but some of the ones that Jared brought up were kind of obscure. I did not like Desmond Ritter. A lot of people wanted Washington to take Desmond Ritter, didn't like him at all.

I was not a big Sam Hal guy. We talked about Sam Hal before the 2022 draft. I didn't get it in terms of the people talking about him, you know, as a high draft choice at all. Anyway, just a few. It's not like I went back and I've got like the list to go to. I just went through the quarterback draft history and just went back to 2012 and went through the list because I remember what I thought about the quarterbacks and what I said. And clearly, you know, whether it was Wentz or Wentz in particular, you know, in recent years. I didn't mind the Fitzpatrick signing,

so I was kind of wrong on that one, although we'll never know because he got injured. But I still, with Carson Wentz, don't understand how so many of you just missed on the obvious, I mean, big billboards screaming, nobody wants this guy, and not only did we trade for him,

We overpaid in compensation and then picked up his entire contract. That is honestly one of the worst trades in recent memory. And this organization's made a lot of them. It wasn't even the player who had red flags all over them, which were easy to spot if you were paying attention. It was just this notion that Washington felt like there was competition for him and gave Indy way too much and then picked up his whole. salary. I mean, they were completely, completely taken to the cleaners by Chris Ballard and

the Colts in that trade. But, you know, back to Jared's email. When you suggest that my desire to be right about Daniels is blinding my perspective, there's another emailer that definitely agrees with you. His name is Darren, and Darren wrote Kevin, I agree that Daniel's tape is amazing, but it's keeping you from focusing on some key analytic numbers that don't bode well for him at the NFL level. His pressure to sack ratio is too high at 24% for his college career, and he doesn't throw the all-important intermediate ball well at all. Just 10.5% of his throws were between 10 and 19 yards per PFF, and his PFF. And his PF, uh, FF grade on those throws was average.

You've mentioned some of these things previously, but you seem to be blowing them off as unimportant. Really love the show, though. So let's do some Jaden Daniels here. Not that we haven't done enough of it, but I want to get into this, because the two things that Darren mentions are interesting to me,

because when it first came up a month or so ago, Jaden Daniels has a terrible pressure to sack ratio, and he doesn't throw the intermediate ball well at all. I'm like, really? Like, I watched a lot of his games. I didn't see him taking a high percentage of sacks on pressures. So, you know, Darren's right. The tape, as I've suggested to all of you, is one of the most unbelievable highlight tapes you'll ever see from a college quarterback. I mean, he had an incredible year. You know, 40 touchdown passes, four picks, 10 touchdown runs, 50 touchdowns. Over 5,000, you know, combined passing and rushing yards. He led college football in QBR.

He led college football in total EPA, expected points added. He completed 72.2% of his passes, average nearly 12 yards per completion. And he became the best deep ball thrower in the country per PFF with a 99.2 grade on throws of 20 yards or longer. So I want to get in to the two big red flag numbers on Jaden Daniels. Maybe the weight is part of that too, and we've talked about it. For me, the number one concern is his frame. I want to address these because I think that there is some nuance to these numbers. the pressure to sack percentage number is one of those numbers that all of the advanced people

are convinced really is an indicator of whether or not a quarterback will be good at the NFL level. For those of you that don't know, pressure to sack percentage measures the percentage of quarterbacks pressured dropbacks that result in the sack. So what percentage of the times the quarterback is actually pressured, under pressure, does he take a sack? The higher the number, the worse, the lower the number, the better. This is really a reflection of the ability of the quarterback, you know, under duress, under pressure to avoid sacks, which every analytic nerd, you know, has emphasized in recent years as the number one thing that derails offensive drives more than anything else. Sacks taken.

And when you derail offensive drives, you're decreasing your point potential and your win probability. You know, especially, by the way, at the NFL level, where teams average fewer drives and fewer offensive snaps per game than in college. I would suggest that sacks and big penalties are the biggest, you know, impact, negative impacts on drives. drives end more often than not when you've got a big sack or, you know, a 10-yard penalty or more. So, Darren, on the pressure-to-sac percentage, your number was a career number, just for the purposes of keeping it to this past year. Jaden Daniels' number was down to 20.2%. The pressure-to-sack percentage number was 20.2%.

that was the lowest of his career. That's good news because he got better as he grew. Williams and May, just for comparison purposes, don't grate out very well in this area either. Williams is over 23%, and May is at 19.6%. So Daniel's, you know, right in the middle of the two at 20.2%. But I want to talk about something that I've actually brought up to some of my guests on shows before, Some of the PFF guys are the Sumer sports guys, which Eric Eager and a couple of other guys left PFF to go with Thomas Demetroff in, you know, one of these analytics-based groups. And I've brought it up to some of these guys a couple of times because to me, the sack stat can be misleading. And I'm not talking about whose responsibility it was for a sack. You know, what we've learned in recent years is that the.

sack stat isn't an offensive line stat. It's an offensive line and quarterback stat. We've learned as NFL fans over, you know, say the last 10 years, very often it's more of a quarterback stat than it is an offensive line stat. But in terms of sacks, I think one of the misleading parts of sack percentage or even this pressure to sack rate is that not all sacks are alike. If a quarterback drops back and gets sacked in the pocket and loses seven to eight yards, that's the sack we all recognize as a sack. You know, he couldn't escape, under pressure, hit, dropped, seven-yard loss, second and 17. But if a quarterback is pressured and escapes the pressure and either gets outside or gets up into the pocket and creates more time,

I mean, the eyes are continuing to stay downfield. But ultimately, that quarterback doesn't throw the football and is either sacked further up in the pocket, let's just say a yard or two short of the line of scrimmage, or gets out of the pocket, escapes, you know, and envision a guy like Daniels. This happened a lot with him. He's escaping.

He's looking downfield. You know, he decided not to turn it up and run it, and he runs out of bounds two yards short of the line of scrimmings. scrimmage, those are sacks too. But those sacks are less impactful because instead of losing seven or eight yards on the sack, they lost one to two yards on the sack. So I went and did something off of the Darren email because I keep hearing pressure to sack percentage as a bad number for Daniels. And by the way, for May too. This goes for May as well. Because in watching those guys, I didn't feel like they had a major sack problem.

It just never occurred to me that this was an area in which they had this issue. So I looked at the sacks that were taken, and I looked at the average lost yards per sack to see if there was like a striking difference between the quarterback, specifically May and Daniels, and then a guy like McCarthy, who in watching him, him during the year, I never felt like he was a guy that was escaping consistently and turning an eight-yard sack into a one or a two-yard sack. And sure enough, there are big differences here. McCarthy was sacked 19 times for 153 yards lost on those sacks, or 8.055 yards lost per sack. Caleb Williams, 33 sacks, the most of all four of the quarterbacks.

Negative 258 in terms of yards lost, 7.82 yards lost per sack. Now we go to May and Daniels. May was sacked 29 times for 130 lost yards. That's 4.48 yards loss per sack. And Daniels was the best. First of all, he was only sacked 22 times. 96 yards or 4.36 yards lost per sack. This matters to me, and I've actually, in bringing it up to some of my guests from PFF and Sumer Sports, they have acknowledged that the sack stat is limited

in that it doesn't really look at sacks as different from one another, but they are. You know, Jaden Daniels may be pressured and may have taken a sack which led to his 20.2% percentage, or Drake May may have been pressured, took a sack which led to a 19.6%. But what they really did on many of those sacks is they turned an eight-yard sack into a one or a two-yard sack. And by the way, in the process of doing that, kept the big play potential or a-play potential down the field a lot. I think that's relevant. As far as the other Darren note on Daniels, that he doesn't throw the intermediate ball enough and doesn't throw it well. Just 10.5% of Daniels throws were between 10 and 19 yards, which is what PFF refers to as an intermediate throw.

And the grade on those throws was very average for Daniels. here's something that really stuck out as it relates to this number. And yes, I am kind of creating the case that some of the knocks against Daniels, other than he's too thin, which would be my knock against Daniels, some of these others, there are reasonable explanations for them. Like the, you know, pressure to sack number. Yeah, but he had the lowest yards lost per sack of the, of the of the top four quarterbacks. So listen to this one on the intermediate throw thing. LSU had the fewest number of third downs in the country in 2023, by a lot.

Eight fewer than the next team on the list. Take all the Division I college football teams. LSU faced third down less than anybody else in college football. Now, why is that relevant? Well, you know, a lot of the intermediate throws, all right, happen and are attempted on third down. Third and five, third and three, third and seven, third and nine, third and ten. You know, you're under pressure more, balls got to come out typically faster. You got to process quickly and the balls that typically are open and you make, you get more intermediate throws 10 to 19 yards.

on third down than you do on first down where you run more or on second down where there are more running place. They had the fewest third downs in the country. That might explain why they had fewer intermediate throws. You're going to take more shots on first down. You might call more, you know, screens on second and, you know, 12 or whatever. And then the flip side to that is, do you know, who led the nation in third down conversions, LSU did. 54.6% on third down. So you can talk about, you know, he didn't throw enough intermediate balls, so maybe they were concerned about his intermediate throws.

No, it's because I think part of it would be, because they didn't have enough third downs. They were getting first downs on first and second down more than anybody in the country. and so you didn't have as many opportunities to throw the intermediate ball on third and six or third and five versus pressure versus a blitz perhaps. And I would also look at because in just going through some of the play-by-play of Jaden Daniels, there were a lot of 20 and 21-yard throws. Those are almost intermediate throws.

So those two numbers that are right now in the analytics committee, Darren pointed them out, are negative hits on Daniels. I think there's context around those. I think there's some context around those numbers for Drake May. I would also just suggest that overall, LSU faced much better competition than USC or North Carolina did. They just did defensively, you know, Bama, A&M, Missouri. FSU in the opener. Again, my biggest concern with Daniels, and I've said this since I started pushing him for high, high in the draft and a possibility for Washington, is I just wonder with his frame if he can hold up both in the pocket and when he's on the move. You know, and the only other

thing that I would mention about him is that you did see a lot of one, two, and good. And go create. There wasn't necessarily it's not that it was completely excluded, but they didn't ask him consistently to progress beyond a few reeds. He did it occasionally, but that may also be a function of or a result of not having a lot of third downs. His deep ball is so good. Strength, touch. His accuracy is really really strong. He anticipates and throws

with good process, I think, well. And his mobility in playmaking is off the charts. He's not Anthony Richardson. He's got a completely different build than Richardson, and he's a much more advanced passer than he is. I think he fits into a lot of NFL offenses. I don't think he has to come out and have a dual threat offensive component put in. for him. I think his

scramble yards will end up being a lot of the rush yards for him. You can put in some design stuff, you can put in some option stuff for him, and it'll be lethal, especially, you know, third and short and red zone stuff. He's my number two for sure and really close to my number one. But of course, I understand that there's

just as good a chance, if not, you know, the odds on favorite, that I'll be wrong. Like, by the way, a lot of teams are far from perfect. This is an inexact science for sure. But good stuff. Appreciate the emails from both Jared and Darren. All right.

When we come back, I'm going to play some of this Merrill Hodge interview from my radio show the other day. It was just really good and really insightful on the quarterbacks and on what you should be looking for and thinking about with the quarterbacks. So I took like four cuts, and I'm going to play them for you right after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show brought you by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.orgie. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. They'll give you a cash bonus on your initial deposit.

March is here. March Madness is right around the corner. They'll have everything you need for not only the men's tournament, but the women's tournament as well. Every game, every prop bet that you'll want on all of these games, plenty of contests as well that they have every March. MyBooky.ag promo code Kevin, DC. Merrill Hodge was on radio with me the other day,

so I took four cuts from the interview. Merrill got on a roll on some of these and talked for a while. And I edited some of them, but they didn't really need to be edited in spots. I thought he was incredibly insightful. Merrill has been really keen in his evaluation of quarterbacks in particular. He had C.J. Stroud is the only first round grade last year. And in the last five years, the only quarterbacks he's had first round grades on, Stroud and Burrow. Long-time analyst, obviously, after his playing career.

in the 80s and 90s with the Steelers. You know, always a big part of that NFL matchup show with Sal Powell and Greg Kosell and some of the others, I'm forgetting. He made headlines earlier this week when he went on with the junkies early in the week and said that he doesn't think Drake May is a first round quarterback, something he said about Will Levis last year. And that made some headlines. So I had them on.

and I want you to hear kind of the beginning first, where I say to him, look, I don't want to hear about Drake May right now. Let's save that because that was the headline from earlier this week. Let's start with the two quarterbacks that are perceived to be in the top three with Drake May and get your thoughts on them. And I asked him to start with Caleb Williams, but let me just give you a heads up, that these are not just sound clips that last a minute or two. he gets on a roll on some of these. These are several minutes in length. I just didn't want to cut him up too much because I thought the information was really good. So he starts with kind of Caleb Williams, but he gives you kind of an overview you'll hear of what's important to him in terms of college traits that are translatable to the NFL. Let me put a scope out there first.

I think that this kind of helps with how I go about evaluating. If you look at the last five years, there's been two guys, five or six years, have been really special and had a special skill set to transition to the National Football League. And I'll explain what I mean about special, what the keys are to transitioning to the National Football League. Because the National Football League is a completely different game than the college game. The field changes, the defenses change, the offenses change, the offenses change, everything changes. And I think most fans don't really understand that. And that's why, you know, so many kids struggle. It doesn't matter what the position is, but especially at quarterback. So you got Joe Burrow and C.J. Stroud.

Now last year, like, C.J. Stroud was the only guy that I gave a first round grade to because he was truly special. And now I'll define what is special. I'm looking at transitioning a kid from college to the NFL. at the end of the day, how you play from the pocket is pivotal. They make you play quarterback in the national football league. That's exactly what happened in the FC championship game. They made Lamar Jackson play quarterback. They made him read things. They made him decide converges.

They may throw the football. And Lamar has never really played that position from that perspective very well. He's been very good at that run action, the simplicity of a passing game and that dynamic of him running. and they've been able to always, and because they run the football so well, they keep him in an element that works for him. But they made him play quarterback, and on a second and 10, he makes a throw that he should never have made,

and instead of getting the first down, he throws an interception. Okay, things I have to really look at, or I look at for a guy, one is after C, you've got to have that. And then the next thing, so I'm going to talk about, the blend has to be together. They can't have one without the other, because one of them will run you out, I believe. Accuracy is one.

Processing. The ability to process, throw off anticipation, and function within the pocket. They have a pocket awareness. If you don't have a sampling of that or if you're struggling in that area, it's only going to be magnified in the NFL,

and you're going to be a road and a road fast. So as I look at this group, there's nobody that stands out that's like a C.J. Strout or Joe Burrell. So I don't see anybody. Now, I haven't gone through everybody. You know, I've been through, you know, Caleb Williams, who is from an accuracy aspect is elite. I mean, watching him throw the ball of accuracy, he's like, wow. But he doesn't function well from the pocket because he has this gift of elucidness that he uses.

Like so in college, you have three, four seconds, sometimes five seconds. Guys are wide open. And that's unrealistic, you know, going out. But you have to look at that. And I look at that, you know, for what it is really worth. You know, you look for accuracy. did you make the right decisions. Now, in the NFL, about 70% of the throws that you're going to make are in a dirty pocket.

You mean, you've got traffic around you, there's congestion, and you've got to function in that area. So I have a system that I can take all of, and you don't get a lot of this in college. So you have to group it all together and create an area that looks similar to the national football league. The pockets dirty. This is similar to the NFL. How do they function in that arena? So there's nobody. Actually, the guy who stands out the best from that process,

is Jaden Daniels from LSU. And then they run a post-style system so you can see him processing and throwing the football. He actually functions the best. He's the guy that I think is the smoothest, is pretty dynamic from an athletic perspective. He's accurate, pretty good processor, and throws the ball well from a dirty pocket. But he's still not the level of C.J. Strave. There's a lot of areas that I'm not going to get into that are concerning from understanding stuff, pressure, or so forth.

But where Caleb Williams' biggest struggle will be is managing that gift he has. I mean, he won a Heisman trophy doing it. He's been rewarded by doing that by running around and being exciting and making all these plays. And keep in mind, when he does avoid things and he does move, he makes a lot of mistakes, too. It makes a lot of bad throws. This is where I talk about TV lies and highlights really lie. Everybody shows the dynamic plays. They don't show all of the plays.

and I'll show the other plays that he made. And that's why you have to play in structure at the end of the day. So getting him to the point where he manages himself well, which is this relies on coaching and player. At some point, and I'm not saying it's early, because I think of the guy's ability to move, I love that having them have that ability because I think it helps them survive early in their career.

What they eventually have to do, though, is take whatever they're doing with their legs and put it in their arm. and those legs are a weapon in their progressive as they progress and it's the last thing they do, not one of the first things they do. And if you never break that, it can be the thing that just, I mean,

it erode you. I mean, it doesn't allow you to really develop to where you're going to be successful and consistently in the NFL, because running around is not going to do it. You're never going to run around and win a championship and win consistently. It can be exciting and you can win some games,

but you're never going to be. be consistent. The other day, you've got to play with in structure, and you've got to function and structure. So there's nobody that really stands out to me that is extraordinarily special. Now, K.I. Williams, like that accuracy, now, that is elite. Now, but that's one phase of it, that learning curve for him. You go into a team. Everybody's talked to Patrick Mahomes. I'm like, time out. Patrick Mahomes went to a playoff team, sat a year, had Alex Smith as a mentor, and has some of the greatest coaching in history of the national football league. Well, that, Williams goes to Chicago, he's got none of that.

And that matters. And those are going to be factors. And I always say, and this is true. It's true with all players, but especially quarterbacks. They get ruined mentally way before they get ruined physically. So the kid's mental toughness is going to have to be tested. And I'm going to have to find out, is he tough enough to handle this? Because if we don't go to the playoffs and win Super Bowl our first year, you know what they're going to say. How he's a boss? He's a failure. And, you know, how will he handle that? How can we handle that? And there's so many other things, the variables that you have to know and be alert and be aware of. That if the kid is soft and he doesn't have that, I don't care what his skill set is.

They'll eat you alive in the National Football League. They'll pound on you. Shoot, watch Zach Wilson. I've known Zach Williams. Wilson, he backed up my son at BYU. And I've watched him just mentally erode under the pressure. And keep in mind, one of the areas of his problems when he came out of college, he did not function well in a dirty pocket.

If you've got traffic around him, if you got pressure on him, he didn't function well. Every game that could do that, both Utah games, Hawaii games, Washington game, Toledo game, and Coast Carolina game, all the games that they lost could do that. They could create some element like that, and he could not function in that. So it was his biggest hurdle in the NFL. So what did they do? One of the best games they ever watched, or the games that walked to the Patriots, because the Patriots, I think, is one of the best Bill Belichick understands the weakness of

players and he attacks that. And they did that to him ever since. I don't think the Jets beat the Patriots, to be honest with you, and other times Zach Wilson played. So it's just a different environment. I don't watch a kid on tape. I don't watch where he's playing. I don't really care that they're playing against Washington or UCLA or USC.

I watch where he's going to play. And all of those things that you've got to see, if you don't see them, then you've got to put a certain measurement. Can it be fixed? Okay, so accuracy. I've never seen a guy that is erratic become like a bull's-eye thrower, a spot-on thrower. I've never seen a guy who's struggled reading and processing things, all of a sudden become really dynamic. I've seen it get a little better, but I've never seen become really special.

Like I say, Joel and C.J. Strave were special. You see it in college. I mean, the processing was incredible. Their accuracy, incredible. Their anticipation incredible. And when you don't see that, then you've got to go, okay, there's. is a certain level of growth of learning. Can they overcome that? And getting to know the player is a vital component of doing that. Sometimes I can do that. Sometimes I don't get that opportunity.

Knowing they're smart is not about taking a test. When I heard C.J. Stroud didn't do well on his test. I'm like, you're relevant. And I was doing some scouting with Steve as a two. They're like, well, he didn't finish rolling a test. I go, are we testing on Sunday? Or are we playing football? When I watch him play football, he's smart. That's all I can tell you. I'll give you the kid that they said was really smart. Blue Way of the test, but did not play particularly smart. It was a big concern of mine. It was a kid out of Kentucky that the Titan lettuce.

He did not, I mean, he did some things. He's just like shaking your head all the time, not a couple times. Everybody does some things a couple times, but all the time. His accuracy all over the place. He did not function in those two elements, accuracy processing, pocket presence, even remotely close to how you have to play eventually in our league. He's a runner. He likes to run over people.

He didn't even play like a quarterback. And that's honestly, by one of the reasons he dropped it, they go, well, he's really smart. I go, he doesn't play like that. And C.J. Stratt, I'll tell you, it was like, he was my number one player. And even, you know, within the scouting organization with the steer,

they're like, why? And I wouldn't, and by Sean, I had him as a second rounder. for a bunch of reasons. He has limitations you're never going to overcome. In the environment he's going into, he's not Alabama anymore. He's not playing. He's not better than everybody else. Everybody's better than everybody's guys.

Was the number one limitation height? One of them, yes. You're never going to change 5-9 and 5-9. And even like, okay, Kelly Williams is 6-1. I'm telling you, 6-1 and lower, it is hard. You miss windows. There's different, and defense is played different in the National Football League. they take advantage of that hike and the way they push the pocket and the way they rush you.

And it does eliminate some of 6-1 less than 5-9. 5-9. Think about this. Every week I got to deal with that. You have to function in the pocket. If you do not function in the pocket, you can't do that consistently. You're just not going to win in the national football league consistently. You'll have moments, but you will never be a guy that you.

you could anchor your entire career on and not get fired by thinking, oh, I'll fix that. I'll fix his accuracy. Oh, you can't fix stupid. You can't fix accuracy. There's a whole lot of things you can't fix because there's so many people. And they're more personnel, I mean, more people that are, I call them measurables. Okay, there's measurable evaluators. And this is how you know them.

They're not going to say anything about, they're going to start telling how many yards they threw, how tall they are, how fast they're. They're not going to say anything about how they play. they just give you all these numbers and I'm like what do those numbers have to do with anything if the guy can't play you know like what his completion percentage

irrelevant to accuracy irrelevant to accuracy okay I remember the Richardson kid Florida coming out and everybody was talking about the one game I hadn't watched and I already knew I mean you're better off having him as a running back

because he's not a quarterback I mean he is erratic I mean I go all the Utah game he completed X amount of whatever yeah completion percent Then I go to that Utah game.

I'm like, oh, he did complete. He had one big run. I'm like, well, you know what? He might do that in the NFL, but that ain't how he going to win a championship how he ran. And all his completions, I don't think there was one run after catch. There might have been a couple. I just, there were so like guys are leaning back to catch football going up, down in the dirt. They're catching it.

But the problem is that is not an accurate throw. It's a completion, but it's not an accurate throw. In our league, the NFL, shoot, somebody's going to be draped. on him and you've got to put it where he could catch it and run. C.J. Stroud. Oh, my gosh. You watch him do that. Joe Burrow. They don't, they don't, they just don't come around that. Now, there's, the one kid that does have accuracy like that, though, is Caleb Williams. And he does have that way. But his pocket, there's a lot of growth there that he's going to have to work through and get through.

The six one will be a factor. And, and harnessing that and managing that gift he does have, a loosenness is going to be, that'll be the linchpin for him. If you can get over that type of coaching you get, can you weather the storm when you're not good for a couple of years and a division that's getting better and you're not going through a playoff team? Can you withstand, get your, get your way through that portion, those couple of years? And those are big hurdles, big hurdles. You said about Jaden Daniels that he may be, you know, from a dirty pocket and

processing standpoint, the number one in this class. So what worries you about him where you're not ready to say that he's C.J. Stroud or Burrow? Well, he's not as precise with his precision and his accuracy. You know, that's the national one now we're fine-tuning things. He's not like, you know, I'll watch him and he'll get stuck on things. Some of the pressures he doesn't see, he doesn't, and you could tell he, either doesn't see him or doesn't understand him.

and defenses are lining up and move in, so a quarterback should be aware right away. You've got nobody to protect this guy. You know, you've got to know. And he won't see it. C.J. Stroud would see it. He's just a shade off of how good they were of the quick processing and the accuracy with it. And his willingness of anticipation is different than a C.J. Stroud or Joe Burl. And CJ Stroud, Joe Burrell, their anticipation, process, and action, if a guy is blanketed, they're going to throw it to him, where he will not, he won't trust it.

And he try to go elsewhere. And then he shouldn't probably win elsewhere. He shouldn't made that throw. Okay, in the NFL, you're going to have to make that throw because you don't have. And now in college, you get away at it, about 60% of the time. The NFL are going to get away at like 20% of the time until you, all of a sudden you're behind the change and now you're in trouble. so he's just not quite at that that polished but he shows great signs of it and she knows and like I really like you know he's he's very um I like how he's compact in his in his throwing

and he's quick with it when he wants to throw with it but you can just tell his now he's really evolved I watch him in Florida State or shoot Arizona State and where he's come is incredible which is that's a plus that I mean he's got he grows And he learns. And that's an awesome thing. And where he is, I like that. Just from a comfortable aspect, if I have to put my, because these guys are putting their jobs on the line.

You know, you're picking a guy, your job is on the line. You know, that's why people refuse to make a mistake. Like, we didn't make a mistake. We're going to stay with him. And you already know after two years, sometimes a quarterback takes three to know what you have. And, you know, sometimes these guys get you fired if you make the wrong call. So I know that was a long cut, but I really thought it was insightful.

Not that it's brand new to us, but I thought he did a really good job of explaining it and then using certain players as examples. You know, I know I've mentioned this in the past, but for a few of us in town who developed a pretty good relationship with Mike Shanahan when he was here and have stayed in touch with him, you know, Mike loves to talk ball. And sometimes you can get him on the phone and you look up. and it's like an hour later. But there are things that have stuck out to me

over the years in my conversations with him. And this one I know I've mentioned in the past, but it mirrors what Merrill Hodge just said. And that is this idea that if you don't throw accurately and you don't throw with anticipation or process well, it's hard to coach it up at the NFL level if you don't come into the league with those two things naturally. Mike always said those are two things you've got to see, you know, at the college level, because if they don't have that naturally, you can only coach it up to a point. You'll never coach it up to where it's elite or really at a high level.

So earlier in the week, Hodge had gotten, you know, a lot of attention for what he said about Drake May on the junkies radio show, saying that Drake May was not a first race. round pick in his mind's eye. I followed up on that with him. This is what he said. What I've seen as the biggest criticism of your observation and critique of Drake May is when you said you don't see him being athletic. Why don't you see him as an athletic quarterback? He looks athletic to most fans watching him. Yeah. Well, you see him in college. I mean, I'm looking And, okay, he's stiff. Now, I doesn't mean he's not athletic, okay? He's not dynamic, is what I'm saying.

He's not going to, nobody's going to go, oh, my gosh, we got to, this guy could kill us with these legs. Actually, he's not a real distinctive runner. He's pretty stiff. You don't, I mean, he can move enough, too, that you have, that you like that. You can't keep a play alive. And he throws okay off of mobility, nothing scary. you would want him to get down as much as possible if he does start moving for fear that somebody will

wreck him and you might not have seen him for a week or two. But there's nothing that, like you watches him and Jaden Daniels, watch Jaden Daniels move and how smooth he is and loose as he is and quick he is. And see, Jane's much quicker than Drake's. Drake is very slow. And his overall delivery. There's a lot of, there's a lot of loop and time to that.

And there's a lot of things that come from that. You start, remember Byer Leftwich? That was a wind-up. Yep. Now, it's not that. I'm not saying that. But even to these micro half seconds, you can get extra hits on a guy with, you know, there's a little loopier delivery.

Don't think of these defensive backs. Don't dial in on that and they see that and stuff. There's some throws. I'm like, oh, my gosh, it was almost picked. And the NFL, that's a pick six. And NFL, that is a pick. And he is just, I could say this, I would never give him a first round grade. I would never put my name on that because that got in the first round,

especially the second overall pick. That's how you do get fired, but not making proper evaluations of guys like this and saying, oh, I'm going to fix all the stuff I just talked about. I just, listen. Is that the key between first round and the investment made? especially early in the first round. You're not saying that he's not a draftable player and that there isn't a chance with time and the right coaching staff

that a lot of what you perceive to be his flaws could be corrected. You just wouldn't use a first round pick on a guy that needs that much work. Very correct. That second overall pick is like, okay, you are special. You have an elite skill set. The key does not have now. Okay. And listen, I don't know if he'll ever have it because

The accuracy stuff is a big concern. I mean, he is erratic everywhere. I mean, he just absolutely misses throws that you're just like, oh, my gosh, and dirty pocket and clean pocket now. Did you think that about Josh Allen? Okay, Josh Allen, he's always brought up. He was brought up in my meeting when I was talking about, well, why do I keep forgetting the kid's name from Kentucky?

Will Levis. Will Levis. Okay, Will Levis. Okay, he kind of like Will Levis a little bit from his accuracy aspect, because it was like, okay, Will Levis was, I mean, there was even receivers on a hitchh route, six-yard hitchh route. The ball would go like in the dirt or up in the stands. I mean, it was all over the place.

Even the receiver looked back and like, what the heck? You could choose body language. I was like, they say, well, you know, Josh Allen. Like, oh, Josh Allen was not a ratty anywhere but vertically. Josh Allen couldn't, I mean, yes, he could fill the ball 90 yards and it might miss by 10. It might be out of bounds. my complete one. Okay.

And I know Josh Allen's forever. I mean, he played when my son played at BYU. And I was talking to Josh about it. Jim Kelly, he's a good friend of mine. And Jim Kelly mentioned two before I haven't talked to Josh Allen about it. And this is true of college,

which to your point, and we always have to consider this. You've got 20 hours to work with them. It's limited work. They got all kinds of different receivers. Okay, Josh Allen came to the NFL and he was like, that was a real weakness I had. And I didn't ever work on it in college.

Okay, so there's a, He didn't work on it. Didn't have time to work on it. Well, in the NFL, I got one guy, and we work on it all the time. And I harness that and made that better. But he was already accurate everywhere else. He was just that vertical one, and everybody saw that. He was all over the place.

He was like, once I started to work on that, and I could spend time on that, I could spend 20 hours a day if I wanted to versus 20 hours a week. And that did change him. Now, what I'm talking about Will Levinson and the Drake May stuff, it is everywhere. I mean, just everywhere. You've eliminated Drake May as a possibility for them at number two. So would you on Caleb or Jaden Daniels at number two?

See, this is, you know, this is the argument that I get when I was with the teams and teams. I was like, okay, if none of them qualified the first round or why would we do that? And everybody was, well, this is who we have dealing with this year. I go, so we don't have next year. So are you saying that not? one of those two guys have a first round grade either? Well, on the first and second, I will not say... Caleb Williams, do you have a first round grade on him?

No, I would have a first round grade on Caleb Williams with all of these things that we've just talked about that are real concerns and they're going to be challenges. No, nothing sure. What about Daniels, first round grade on Daniels or not? I, and I do. And I, and he is one guy, okay, from a polished perspective, I had the best feel that has a chance to really transition in this league with not as many issues that we got to break.

Daniels you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think that, I guess the reason I'm going on, I mean, I'm waffling on Katie because I'm just assuming Chicago's going to take him. That's why. But everybody's talked about. May and Daniels being the two sitting there. Okay, if that is our scenario, this is simple. I rush up with Daniel's card.

Not even a question. Not even a question. I would not, I wouldn't blink at doing that. I'd get him up there ASAP over May. Merrill Hodge from the radio show the other day. You can listen to the whole thing at the Team 980.com or by downloading the Odyssey app. Obviously, he likes Jane Daniels a lot more than Drake May, but, you know, we've talked about this.

I mean, the varying opinions out there, they're just all over the place. Tim Hasselback thinks Drake May is the number one quarterback in this class. Orlovsky for a while thought that Drake May was the number one quarterback in the class, although he now has shifted towards Daniels being the number one quarterback in the class. There are lots of thoughts about Caleb Williams, including some of those thoughts about what kind of person the team will be getting with Caleb Williams. Look, we here in Washington, we've got this experience of RG3 and Dwayne Haskins in particular that I understand if your spider senses are tingling a bit when it comes to Caleb Williams. There's no doubt that, you know, the dad is significantly involved in a lot of the decision-making. He doesn't have an agent.

You know, there's a lot of brand emphasis. We'll see. I got a chance to spend some time with him last spring at the event that he had for his charity down at Gonzaga. And he and I did 15 minutes of a Q&A on a stage at Gonzaga. And I spent like 15 minutes before the show. And I thought he had a lot of. charisma and was bright and, you know, I didn't sense this aloofness at all. But, you know, that was a very, very small sample size. But interesting stuff from Merrill Hodge. I'm going to play a little bit

more from Merrill Hodge in the next segment on what he thought about Sam Hale before the draft. And then in 2022, and then what he thought of Sam Hale's season, will also get to some of the roster moves that Washington made yesterday. We'll do that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Real quick, you guys traded up for a quarterback in San Francisco a couple years ago with Tray Lance. You're at the number two pick. Is there a scenario where you guys would be willing to trade up to the number one spot and try to get in that number one seat?

I think we'd do anything to make our team better. So you trade up, trade down, had a lot of really good conversations with a lot of GMs this week, really productive. So we're going to look through every avenue to make our team better. Peter Schrager from Fox Sports with Adam Peters yesterday at the combine. I saw that tweeted out this morning with, oh my God, we're trading up, we're trading back, we're not standing pat at number two. He said nothing in that clip.

From my perspective, he's done a really good job of not tipping his hand on anything in terms of how they're going to handle number two. That was not a tell from my standpoint at all. The biggest tell we've gotten was from Dan Quinn when he said about Jaden Daniels game changer. I'm not even sure we got that much from him on that because I think they're so far from nailing down a decision on this, but it may have, may have reflected just where his thoughts are right now on the quarterbacks. but Adam Peters doesn't tell you anything. Meantime, Adam Peters yesterday while the combine was going on, he was busy making some cuts, making his first roster moves as a general manager.

I'll get to those in a moment. This segment of the show is brought to you by Window Nation. March is a critical time to check your home's windows. If yours are cracked leaking, won't open or stay open. Now's the time to call Window Nation. Buy two, get two free, no money down, no interest, no payments for two full years. It's March, the weather's changing, it's really the time to figure it out. Do you need new windows or not?

If you need them, call Windonation at 86690 Nation or head towindonation.com. Mention my name. There's no risk. You'll get a free in-home estimate, and then you can figure out how you want to handle it from there. They're not going to pressure you. Right now, buy two get two free, no payments, no interest for 24 months with no money down, 86690 Nation or windownation.com. All right, so Adam Peters made his first significant roster decisions yesterday,

releasing three players. He cut Charles Leno Jr. Leno Jr. is scheduled for hip surgery this upcoming week. Remember he missed some games at the end of the year. There was a $15.3 million salary cap hit on Leno Jr. for next year. 32 years old. I always thought Leno Jr. was solid, not spectacular, but solid and available for the most part until the end of this year. They released Nick Gates, the center.

He didn't play well at all after they signed him last year, coming off some injuries in recent years out of New York. and they cut Logan Thomas. I liked Logan Thomas. Look, I think his time had run its course. He was limited as a run-blocking tight end, as we know. But I thought when he was healthy, he was a pretty good player, and he was a very high IQ player. A big-time mentor is a former quarterback himself to Taylor Heineke in particular. I don't know if the same went for Sam Howell this year. He had Jacoby Brissette in the room. But I always thought Thomas was a guy that could get open and could make some big-time catches. Look, they have not had good quarterback play. So for any of the past catchers, tight ends or receivers, they have had limited quarterback play to deal with since they have been here.

But I do think Wiley is going to stay. Now, you know, this may come out and he may be cut, you know, in the next day or two. But I think Wiley is a guy, Andrew Wiley, who they paid some money to last year. I think he had moments that were viewed as more analytically positive than perhaps our eyes saw. Look, I did not think the offensive line was a very good offensive line last year. I'd be fine with them getting rid of everybody except for Cosme.

But I think that some of the advanced numbers probably shed different light on some of the other linemen. So I would expect Wiley and Cosme to be here, and maybe even Cornelius Lucas is sort of a versatile swing tackle to be on the roster. But we'll see what they want to do. Ben tweeted out that essentially it puts their effective cap number at number two in the league overall. They don't have to make big cuts in salary gap because they have so much available space. But I do think that they're going to spend more than maybe they have indicated. They've got to spend the minimum that is required. So there's going to be some free agent moves here starting in two weeks. Looking forward to that. So I wanted to finish up with just a little bit more

of Merrill Hodge. I asked Merrill Hodge about Sam Howe, about what he thought of Sam Howe as sort of an overall prospect moving forward. Here's what he said. I'm glad you brought him up because I'm trying to get to my quarter because I have my notes on him. I'll get to him if I can when I'm talking to. So, but he's a great example of a kid who had, you know, if he had some real problem, okay, he talked about, I got the tape where, okay, when they had to, and when they were in a situation where, you know, you thought they would call a pass or they could call a pass, you would do that. And they were always calling runs.

It was with him. Right. I remember, the dude didn't matter of Notre Dame. It doesn't matter what game I watch. I'm like, wow, why do they? And that kid from my, I forget where he got drafted. Fifth round. Fifth round.

And that's exactly where I would have put him. And you know what? Here is. Sound hour right here. And I mean, I got all these things. Wait, Forrest, no, I mean, all these plays. You know, I'm just, I don't want to read on that. It's okay.

Take your time. This is on all the stuff. You just, I don't want to make him, like, his pocket awareness was bad, you know. He panics a lot. He was throwing. I mean, he was erratic. I mean, all last thing. There was one thing he'd be like, you know, this kid has a shot.

So he gets drafted right where he probably, he should have gotten drafted based on the skill set he showed. But now to the level of accountability for the player, I always give a player credit, man. When you have time to work, some players don't work on that. You know, they got time. They just sit there and they're like, you know, they don't get better. They don't work at the things their wings. And then coaching matters. You know, the coaching he got there, the work that he put into it.

When he did come out and play, man, he was a complete, I was like, that's not the same kid I watched. Carolina, that's not the same kid. he's still you know but when you get now enough work on him there's those inconsistencies that you saw like if you cleaned up all the things that he need to clean up what he did there's still those inconsistencies okay he's i think he's about a six one kid okay you see a lot of those problems the kids around that a i mean that size you know that height's where it does become a disadvantage you know so many interceptions are because they didn't see a certain thing you know they never

miss certain things. And those are, those can be, you know, Drew Brees would be the, the only guy that I could think of that, you know, played at such a high, high level without really that being a factor. And he even mentioned times to where it was a factor. So that being said, his overall work and improvement and the coaching that he got, you could really see the difference there. But all of the things from the interceptions that you saw, the inconsistencies, you could tell He's more of a backup guy.

He is not going to be the guy to get you over the hump. You know, and there's a lot of guys that you see that are just not going to get you over the hump. They lack that, you know, that precision of the accuracy, that presence in the pocket, the processing, and the anticipation that you need to have talked about the other two guys had. I mean, had Joe Burrow and C.D. Stroud. So there you go. Complementary about the progress that Sam made from what he saw on his college tape,

but still thinks he is, you know, a quarterback that is more suited to be a backup. The size, I think, really was an issue for Sam Howell this year. I really do. I know that he's listed at 6-1, but I said all year long to me, and watching him, he played smaller than 6-1, and he just couldn't see a lot of what was going on in the pocket. And that impacted a lot and was one of the reasons he was sack. as much as he was in my view.

All right, that's it for the show today. I'll be back on Monday.