The Press Box - Ep. 103: 2016 NFL Draft Winners and Losers With Robert Mays and Kevin Clark

Episode Date: May 2, 2016

Mays and Kevin give their winners and losers from the 2016 NFL draft. Topics include: Jacksonville's big additions, Tomlin's talented defensive selections (11:00), RGIII's new crop of receivers (15:00), the Jets' QB conundrum (20:00), Mickey Loomis's press conference versatility (28:00), Roberto Aguayo vs. the internet (32:00), Myles Jack vs. Jaylon Smith (40:00), the Ravens’ revamped defense (48:00), and the significance of this group of draftees (50:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My name is Robert Mays. I'm a writer at The Ringer. Joining me again, this time from Los Angeles. It's Kevin Clark. How are you? I'm good. I am in Los Angeles, as you said. I'm extremely excited to be here. It's my first day.

I'm the least cool person in L.A., and I've established myself as such by my grocery bag ripped on the first day in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard. So I've established myself as a nerd. Yeah, that's well done by you. it'll take you at least five years to shake that title, but I have faith that in time, you'll get there. It was like, you know, the genre of 90s music videos

where people moved to L.A. and they have no idea what they're doing? There were like five of them. Tom Petty had one. That was me. I established myself as just being a complete, clueless idiot on the first day. It was great.

So you're like the girl getting off the bus in the Guns and Roses video. Yeah, exactly. That's not the 90s, but similar amount of confusion. Yeah, no, I think that kicked off the genre of, hey, you're moving out west, and you don't know what you're going to. you're doing.

All right. Well, we're going to talk about LA stuff, I'm sure, as this podcast rolls along. But the reason we're really here is to get to the NFL draft. And our overall thoughts about the weekend that we spent together in Chicago, not like our time together, but we'll be watched in the auditorium theater slash who teams picked. That's a little bit more important. It is.

Or we could do a bar review. It's fine. We'll get to that later. We'll do, you know, restaurant and bar reviews. That'll be a different type of podcast as the off-season. goes on. But we're going to break this down, similar to the way a lot of people break this down. It's hard to give draft grades right after the draft because it's kind of a stupid process. But I think there are judgments that you can make in the wake of this for a lot of different

reasons. So we're going to get some winners. We're going to get to some losers. We're going to get to some picks that surprised us in one way or the other. So to get things started, I guess that we should just lay out who we think did well this weekend and for what reason. If you had to pick a winner from this draft, who would it be? Mays, I don't want to bum you out. I know it's early in the week. The Green Bay Packers won the draft. Interesting.

Okay. I haven't heard anyone else say that, but I'd like to hear your reasoning. You know how I feel. You draft freak athletes and figure out the rest later. And it felt like I maybe took control of Ted Thompson's body and drafted for him. I feel like that may have happened. Like a, what was it, the Jersey situation, like a freaky Friday thing? Clark, Jason Spriggs, Kyler Fackerel out of Utah State, 245 pounds who can move.

Dean Lowry, 296 pounds on Northwestern. He can move. Trevor Davis is a freak. All of these guys, Blake Martinez, all of these guys have incredible measurables. A lot of them were productive. Spriggs, I know there's questions about whether or not he's just a workout guy, but I'm okay taking the workout guy, getting coached up. You know, I've spent a lot of time around the Packers, Robert,

And they're so good at being teachers and figuring out and manufacturing these athletes into actual players. And the way they are technicians and the way they can get guys to, okay, don't put your eyes here, put your eyes in the back field. You know, very minute things that I've heard coaches talk about there. They're really good. And they're unlike any staff in the NFL in that regard. They're going to develop these guys. And I think Ted Thompson knows that. So I think they had the perfect draft for the team they have.

I mean, through a lot of resources of positions that they really needed some help. And that mostly is a move linebacker. I mean, you think Fackerel's a pass rusher. That's fine. They may need a little pass rush help. It's not a deep group. Peppers is near the end of it. And then hopefully Blake Martinez can come in and compete to be that guy that lets Clay Matthews move back outside.

Sparks is interesting when they... Oh, go ahead. That's the big thing. I mean, you have to free Clay Matthews. Clay Matthews is clearly not happy in the role he's in. You have to get him back rush. the quarterback 50 times a game because that's what he does best. Yeah, and that's the strength of their team is when he's in that spot.

And you can use Peppers more in spot situations than having him play every down. The Spriggs pick was interesting to me just when you think about the bodies they have along the offensive line. But it's also, we talk about this a lot around this time of year, is that need is kind of a moving target and you don't really, you have to think about need more as a 12-month projection than in this moment situation. And a year from now, I'm pretty sure that four of their five offensive linemen have their contracts coming up. So they may need another body.

And Spriggs, like you said, he's really athletic. And if he can sit for a year while those guys are still in place, he gets to learn from a lot of very good players and a group that's developed guys, even in the later rounds, let alone a super athletic guy from the second round. Yeah. And by the way, Aaron Rogers was the best ever best player available pick. That was not a need pick. and they crushed it.

So the Packers know what they're doing as far as need versus best player available. You went a little off the beaten path. I'm going to go with the answer. Most people would have thrown out. And that's the Jacksonville Jaguars. And if it works out for the Jaguars, this is a draft we're going to talk about for a very, very long time. I mean, they get Jalen Ramsey in the first round, a guy you thought was the best player

in the draft, didn't you? I did, yes. And so that's your first move. and then their second move is grabbing Miles Jack in the second round. And in my opinion, he was the best player in the draft when you take out any sort of health concerns, just what he was on the field. So both of the guys we thought were the best overall player in the draft

went to the same team. Yeah, I get that. I just feel like top to bottom, the Packers probably got five or six guys, so I think we're going to be really good. And I think the Jaguar's draft was top-heavy. They got Sheldon Day, I think, who was pretty good. But overall, I think it's a very top heavy haul.

And those two guys could have a very, very, very high ceiling. But I don't know if that's going to get them to compete right away. Probably not. I mean, I think their defense becomes a lot more interesting with all the bodies they've added in the offseason. I think that you bring those two guys in. They signed a couple guys in free agency. If Tashon Gibson is more like the player he was two years ago than the guy he was last year, if Malik Jackson can be anything close to what he was in Denver,

near the end. I mean, there's a lot of intriguing pieces that they added. I still don't think they're a playoff team necessarily, but I think they could be sniffing around 500 next year, which it's better than it's been a little in a while there. Well, it's two wins against the Titans, so you're there already. Yep, there you go. One win when Osweiler implodes on the road, so you're three wins. And then, you know, I think is, are the cold so good that they're going to win twice? I don't think so. No, so you're going to pick up some division wins. It's not crazy that they go eight and eight. You're right. And that's pretty. And that's probably enough to keep Gustave's job and keep them figuring it out.

I mean, as long as they show some market signs of improvement on that side of the ball, I think you can make an argument for him. The problem in the last three or four years is that the improvement they've shown is on the other side of the ball where he's not really responsible for most of that. I understand the Bradley thing. He'll have a good impact on the defense, but on offense, Bortles is two years away from being able to compete as a top-level quarterback. I saw some signs of improvement, but I do think they're in the running for most improved team in the NFL, just to get to eight wins.

Yeah, I think so too. I'm not a Bordels guy. He's not my favorite. The steps he took, I think, are helped a lot by how good guys like Alan Robinson are and just that offense in general. Yeah, so I don't think that it's a Blake Bordell's as a solid quarterback option. Let's pencil that in for the next 10 years. I'm not of that opinion, but I think that he has gotten a little bit better.

The one thing I'm curious about, and we're talking a lot about the Jags here, I'm sorry about that, but they didn't take an offensive lineman at all. And that is, in my opinion, maybe the worst part of their entire team is that left tackle spot. And they signed Kelvin Beecham, but they always sign them to a one-year deal. And I guess there's some incentives to keep them after that. But if you think that this is the end for Luke Jokal, then they didn't even give themselves a contingency plan in the draft. They're kind of relying on everything they have on their current roster or whatever they pick up next offseason. I thought that was interesting.

Yeah, but look, they're a value-based team. We know them going back a couple years. They'll take the best player available. They don't care what it is. They took a lot of receivers a couple years ago. They just want to take the BPA, as they call it. Who else is on your list? Got teams, you liked what they did?

Love the Steelers, just because they needed defense, and then they went out and they got Artie Burns, who's six feet. He's really good. Sean Davis, who was an absolute combine warrior at safety. Look, Rathesberger is going to get them to 30 points a game. The issue is what the defense does. And to go out, get Geron Hargrave, an absolute, you know, monster at 309 who can jump 35 inches. I'm into that. So you look at it,

there's a lot of high-ceiling players on defense, and if a couple of them hit, all of a sudden, they're going to get into the top 10, top five defenses because they've got good coaching. Tomlin is obviously known for producing defensive defenses that are maybe above their talent level in the last couple of years. Last year was a huge step back. They still have huge. huge holes, linebacker, I think that they still need some better ones. But I think overall, you're going to see a big step forward with the defense because I think a lot of these guys are going to hit. The one thing that was really lacking with them, and the run defense got markedly better

last year. And I think that's with Shizier being a little healthier and everything else. So they really needed help on the back end, just in the secondary because guys are getting older, you know, guys they missed on so horribly. I mean, if you think about all the resources they've dedicated their recent years, it's been a decent amount. They signed Cortez Allen to that big contract extension. He's no longer on the team.

They traded for Boykin, and they drafted Senquez Golden in the second round last year, and he didn't really give them a ton. So they're trying to figure it out back there, and that's really the last thing they need to do with that defense. I like the other stuff they have, and I feel like they probably could have used a couple more bodies on the interior, and they added those. So it's a good group.

I think that they have a chance to be really special, and even without Martavis, Brian, I don't think you needed to do much with that offense. Yeah, I think they're one of the four or five teams that basically were a couple of players away from contending for a title game. And I think all you need is- I totally agree. All you need is one or two of these guys to hit in a big way, especially on the back end. Look, Sean Davis has some weird ball skills apparently. He gets confused a lot back there. But, look, NFL coaches can solve that if the guy's athletic enough and he is athletic enough.

He has, you know, all, everyone was saying he was a Belich guy. And what that means is he was great at three cone. He had the agility back there. The reason he's a quote-unquote Belichick guy is because Belichick loves taking these guys and making them into things, okay? And Mike Tomlin can do the same thing and Keith Butler can do the same thing. And I just feel like he'll be a guy who maybe in the second half of the season will produce for them.

I think Ardy Burns can play right away. I think he's got the athleticism. So, you know, look, you just get two of those guys in there, all of a sudden you're in the EFC championship game. The Artie Burns pick, some people have said that it was interesting to them because he was so good and impressed man at Miami and then he struggled a little bit in zone just in terms of awareness. And that's the thing you see with Steelers' corners and why the young guys can't always play early is that it's such a complicated zone-based system that they have trouble understanding

where to be. So how quickly he can adapt to that and start to understand it will be really important. But they needed to throw bodies at that part of their defense. And they did. So I think that if it works out, again, you're looking at a team that absolutely could compete for and win a Super Bowl. I think that you're going to see a sea change with the Steelers. Because for so many, many years, people were complaining they were cutting draft picks and even sort of high draft picks weren't getting on the field. And the reason was because they had such an old defense and it was so hard to break through. I think that with the influx of youth, you're going to see a very different team. I think they're going to take some chances as far as throwing guy like Burns out there,

even if he hasn't perfected the scheme. It used to be so hard to get into the too deep because of all the talent there. That talent on defense isn't there anymore. So I think you're going to see a little more experimentation in that regard. That's a really good point. You said the Steelers, I'm going to go with an actual player here and not a team. Robert Griffin, the third, was a winner this weekend. Finally, after four years of losing. The Browns picked a lot of players, including like 17 wide receivers. Five.

And they didn't draft a quarterback until the third round. He is going to be given every opportunity to be the quarterback there this year, and we will see what happens. I like the Browns draft overall. It's something I wrote for the today's ring our newsletter. I feel like the Browns had a plan coming in, and they stuck with that plan. Whatever you think of it, if you're not a fan of trading down, if you think that they're diminishing returns when you get to the third and fourth round, and there's only a certain number of those picks you can have before they start to not matter, that's fine.

But the Browns clearly just said, we want to take this approach to the draft and we're going to. They had 14 picks. They have two picks in each of the first three rounds next year. They're giving themselves chances. and when you have what is mostly an expansion team, you need some chances. I loved taking five wide receivers. I thought that was genius. Just do it.

You know, Corey Coleman with the first – I'm not sure if I would have taken a receiver with the first pick and then taken four more, but I just love the stacking of positions. Screw it. You'll hit on three, hit on two. Even if two of them are NFL players, that's a decent haul. They had so many picks. I love that sort of strategy. I think teams should do it more.

And they didn't do it quite to that extent with past rushers, but they picked two in their first three picks. I mean, you need guys who can catch the football and you need guys who can destroy quarterbacks. Past catchers and past rushers are two of the centerpieces of what you can do right now, and they're trying to do that. And I also, Scooby Wright in the seventh round, Scooby Wright can play football. I mean, if he's healthy, it's a dice roll that costs you essentially nothing. So you don't like taking guys that were extremely productive and fall maybe, a little bit further than they should for whatever reason. I don't hate that.

I love this kid, Richard Higgins, they took in the fifth round. He's a wide receiver. I think he could be almost, measurable-wise, he could be almost as good as Corey Coleman in the first year. Now, obviously, Coleman, we know, has really great route running skills and stuff like that. So I think over the career, Coleman will be probably more productive, but I love Higgins in the short term. Who else is on your list?

I tell you what, I like the Patriots. I know they didn't have a first round pick, but there's two things, I think, that helped them. Number one to get Cyrus Jones. By the way, Belichick loves a three cone. Cyrus Jones won the three cone among cornerbacks at the combine, of course. Vincent Valentine, a huge defensive tackle who's athletic. But you look at it, Christian Hackenberg goes to the Jets. The Jets are going to be terrible.

The Dolphins didn't immediately get that much better because they took Tunsell, who was at a position where they didn't really need anything. It's not going to make them appreciably better this year. and the bills are still the bills. They had a fine draft and then Shaq lost. It was a good pick. So you combine the two Patriots picks, I think, are going to hit, Valentine's and Jones, with the fact that none of their rivals got appreciably better.

It's going to be a very tense season in New England, assuming there's not some reversal of the Brady decision, okay? He's going to have 12 games to basically run the table if Garoppolo's no good. And I think the idea that nine or 10 wins can get you in the playoffs would be very soothing right now in New England. I think that might happen. You love Denzel. What's his name? Vincent. Vincent. Vincent. I try to call him Denzel Valentine.

Even though I called Denzel Valentine, Denzel Valentine, the entire college basketball season. Yeah. I just can't name anyone correctly that has a Denzel or a Valentine in their name. I guess that's my affliction. You want to make you a flow chart of who everybody is? That would be excellent. I would sincerely appreciate it. Thank you. I also, what do you think about the Jacoby Brissette pick? Oh, I thought that was interesting.

he's a big guy, he's six foot four. I just think that there's, there's going to be, there's going to be some questions because Belichick has now taken a handful of quarterbacks in the mid-rounds and none of them ever been particularly good. Hoyer was not very good. Garopola, there's still questions about him. Now you take Brissette. I wonder why Belichick does this because he doesn't get much value for it. The only person who's really ever hit was Castle and he was not a mid-round pick and obviously they turned to into some value. But I think that this is a slap in the face of Garoppolo, but I, I, that's what I was going to say. Poor Jimmy Garapolo. It seems like the writing's on the wall.

Well, I'm wondering if Brissette's going to be in the mix to start the first four games. I mean, if you take a guy that high, it means you hate your backup quarterback and your quote-unquote error parent, okay? So I think that it's not out of the realm of possibility to come August. We're going to see a little report from Breer or Rap report saying, oh, hey, Brissette's making waves. He was 19 of 20 and 7 on 7s today. I can see that report coming and all of a sudden Brissette's starting week one or week two. I totally agree.

It does not look good for Jimmy. If you take a quarterback in the third round, it's probably a bad sign for the guy you already have. Let's stick with some non-first-round quarterback choices. And with the one pick that I think among everyone associated with the draft was universally reviled. And that is the New York Jets. taking Christian Hakenberg in the second round. I can't, I've scoured the internet and all it has to offer for someone who thought this was a good idea. And I have not found that person yet.

Have you tried the Facebook pages of Mr. and Mrs. Hakenberg? I have not. And I also haven't asked Chan Galey. That might be the other guy that I should pick his brain about what he thinks about this. I don't really know what to say about this. I think this is a perfect example of how the draft process can totally lose its mind that a guy who was just objectively awful at playing quarterback in college for two and a half years is now a second round pick and a guy that will probably give in every chance to start in the next couple of years

for the Jets. Well, if you look at the other guys the Jets have in there, they clearly don't have a lot of skill evaluating quarterbacks over the last five years. I mean, even back to Mark Sanchez, it was fine for about two years. I think if you don't resign Ryan Fitzpatrick, you're looking at the worst quarterback competition of all time. Am I right? What would be worse? There were some awful It's pretty brutal. There were some awful Bengals ones in the late 90s. But Gino versus Christian Hackenberg is pretty miserable. And Bryce Petty, by the way. Bryce Petty's in there.

The 2012 Chiefs, I want to say, that was a pretty garbage collection of quarterback play. Is that Tyler Thickpin? It was a, that was a Matt Castle Brady Quinn situation. And there was some Tyler Thickpen moments that were bad in those years as well. I also don't think the Texans were breaking the quarterback bank last year with those two guys going at it. Well, I think that any time Brandon Whedon starts a game, you are automatically in the top 10 of worst quarterback competitions of all time. So the Cowboys would be in that post-Romo as well. But going into training camp, this is a pretty bad one. Yeah, it's really, really terrible.

The 2009 Chiefs was a Matt Castle Brody Croyal combination, which is pretty great. Wow. Oh, man. Yeah, that's not, that, yeah. Let's just not even talk about that anymore. Yeah. Slowly back away from that quarterback competition. They had five people attempt passes that year. One of them was wide receiver Mark Bradley. The other was Tim Castile, who is a running back, apparently. Okay. And the last one was Matt Gutierrez. Hey. Five guys. Yeah.

I don't have a computer in front of me, but I don't want to Google it because I'm afraid if I did that my computer would explode. Who else on your list for teams that you just left, you were left scratching your head for whatever reason? Oh, Atlanta. Look, I think that Atlanta has the capability to compete. Matt Ryan is okay. Devonta Freeman showed flashes. I just feel like they could have taken an impact player on defense. They spent their first two picks on sort of quote unquote defensive stopper. I don't know even know what you would call him. Keanu Neal was fine. But Dionne Jones, 220 pounds. He has a good 40-yard dash, but he's sort of one-dimensional.

I think if you look past the 40-yard dash, he doesn't have much going for him as far as athleticism goes. So I'm a little curious as to why you take a 220-pound linebacker who's not a complete freak in that regard. I do think it's funny, by the way. They lost a pick. I didn't even notice this. I knew it at the time, but they lost a pick for the crowd noise scandal. How many scandals ago was that? I completely forgot about that.

Was that their fifth round pick? That was their fifth round pick. I think that's so we've just completely moved on from the crowd piping scandal. But yeah, so anyway, in general, I just think the Falcons could have gotten better in this go around and they didn't. Yeah, if you look at, that's interesting that Dion Jones, his 40 is pretty good, right? It's really good. It's really good. For a guy that wins, but he weighs 220 pounds.

That's what I mean, it's not. Yeah. It's not as if he's ripping off a 4-4-5, or he's like 250 and run that 4-5-9. That's not that great when you consider that he's not that explosive in other ways. Right. He's not agile. I was scratching my head at that. I mean, 220-pound linebackers need to be as fast as hell.

And I'm not seeing that. They need to move like Darren Lee. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. I did not like that draft. I think Tom Dimitrov is a pretty good talent evaluator. I think I'm starting to worry that his coaches have a little too much say because Mike Smith had given in some instructions about pass rushers and stuff that I think. This is just obviously what was reported in the media.

Instructs about pass rushers that maybe were the reason that they haven't had a pass rush in the last couple of years about how to develop a pass rush and how to identify the guys they want. So I'm a little bit worried that Dimitraf isn't able to just pick the athletic freaks he'd like to. They also didn't really add many past rushers, which is interesting because it wasn't as if it was good last year simply because Vic Beasley was there. You'd hope that he gets a little bit better if he's a little healthier. But they really did need a linebacker. So if you don't like Dion Jones as a player, that's fine. But it's a spot they needed to address. I mean, inside linebacker is a problem area for them, and it still is.

Everything except Truffat is basically a problem area on the defense. That's true. And we're a year away from them adding Jaywin Collins in the second round. So they've thrown resources there. It just hasn't really worked out very well. I was not a really big fan of what the Saints did solely because if we're talking about adding picks as a good way to go about your draft, the Saints did the exact opposite. And we're not in an era where we were maybe three or four years ago where the Saints are up against the cap.

and you can understand why they wouldn't want a ton of picks, and they're a couple players away on either side of the ball from being seriously dangerous. The Saints are none of those things. They are not a couple players away. Their defense is devoid of talent, and they traded up twice for guys. I just did the math.

They're 52 players away. They have Breeze, and then they would be 502 players away. It just makes no sense to me whatsoever. I like Sheldon Rankins. I think Michael Thomas can be pretty good, and I don't mind Von Bell. but when you only add three players in the first three rounds and then have two picks the entire draft after that, I don't know, man. I just this team, they will always, they will continue to baffle me at all turns.

Like when they were just saying, sure, we'll sign Josh Norman and figure it out later as they were one of those teams getting in late. It makes no sense half the decisions they make. Their cap strategy is literally the strategy that caused the financial crisis in 2008. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Not a lot of prudency going on there. There's a lot of future Mickey Loomis will figure this out for me. Maybe Mickey Loomis is just going to, I always thought that Mickey Loomis and Sean Peyton were not long for this world. So I think that they've, as far as the Saints go, and I thought that maybe all of the decisions were based around riding Breeze out and then leaving when Breeze leaves. And I think if you look at it that way, their decisions make a little more sense.

The decisions make a little more sense when I consider that Mickey Loomis may have infinite job security because I can't imagine a world in which Tom Benson would fire him. He runs both of his sports franchises. I don't mean he's leaving the organization. I mean, maybe he just gets elevated to some sort of emperor of the sports, the events in sports industry, and then someone else picks the players. One of my favorite things from last, or maybe two weeks ago, is when at the draft press conference, Mickey Loomis had to tell reporters that he wasn't accepting questions about Dell Demps.

What? Which is just, it's unbelievable. That's a first in draft. I love that. I'm only here to say, usually when people say I'm only here to talk about football, it's like what Larry Metonsel was doing in order to avoid some sort of scandal. It's not because he also runs the other franchise. and doesn't want to talk about basketball.

In a weird way. I wish that would happen more often. I don't know if you saw the Tunsel Press conference. He would have been happy to talk about Dell Demps. Before we get to one of the more puzzling choices in the entire draft, let's hear from one of our sponsors. Wedding season is a great time of year, except when it comes to renting a cedar tucks.

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is Robert Aguayo, who no one is more upset. The Internet has never been more upset at a pick than they were at the Robert Aguio pick. And I don't necessarily blame them because I'm not sure in what world it's acceptable to give up two picks to go up and draft a kicker. Would the Internet have hated the Janikowski pick in the first round? Oh, yeah. They absolutely would have. If football Twitter existed. Yeah, I think though that that was not.

indefensible, you know, what, 15 years later, 16 years later? I think, I don't know. I think it's a bad pick, but I get it. I sort of get it. In the way that, like, you get, if you were in their shoes and you think that maybe you're not going to have an explosive offense this year, maybe try for a couple 55-yard fuel goals, I mean, Florida State, they're not complaining that they had iguio.

I mean, they won some big games based off of his leg. So it's not indefensible, but I probably would have rather taken a pass rusher. I can see the case that you could build for it, just in that kickers are more valuable now than they used to be with the extra point rules changing. They are a little bit less valuable in terms of kickoffs when you don't have a monster leg, which Aguayo apparently does not. So that decreases his value a tiny bit. But I just don't understand why you would plan for close games. games. We're not going to be very good this year. So let's just make sure that we have a kicker who can make kicks. Yeah. Also, when the books are not, when James develops, he's going to be throwing

the ball over the field and they're going to win every game 35 to 26. They don't need a kicker in that spot. It's a very short-term solution. Yes, and this is not a short-term team. I like the direction of these guys in a lot of ways. I think that they have some intriguing pieces. This is not a team that's going to be worried about winning the Super Bowl this year. So planning in your mind this situation where Robert Aguayo hits a game-winning kick in the Super Bowl against the Steelers in a very close game, I don't think we're necessarily on the brink of that. So planning for it may not be the most prudent choice.

Are we sure that the bucks don't think they can make the playoffs this year? Because... Oh, I guarantee you they do. Yeah, the Falcons and the Saints, tons of dead money, tons of holes on their defense. both of them, I see the bucks finishing second in the division. Then all of a sudden you're at eight wins, and then if you have a couple lucky breaks, or if Robert Aguayo had some 50-yard field goals, then you're in the playoffs. So I think that they are a little more optimistic on the future and this year than people think.

They almost made the playoffs last year. And you have reason to think they'd be better this year. I know you hate Noah Spence, but they added a cornerback and a pass rusher in their first two picks, which is those are the two spots they needed the most. So it would be reasonable to think that they would be better this season. It's possible. Yeah, look, I think James is going to be a really, really good quarterback. And once that happens, once he develops in a player he's going to be,

they're going to be really good. And it's just a matter of when that happens, when he becomes a top 10 quarterback. And it could happen this year. I think it absolutely could. I mean, keeping him a little cleaner, their offensive line has a long way to go. But it's also full of young guys.

so you would assume that they'll take at least a small step forward this year. I still don't know who's playing right tackle for them. That's a question that we will have an answer to later on, I guess. One thing I want to say about the bucks, they get to do whatever they want because, like, I'm from Florida. I understand this. There is no media pressure in Florida, okay? And so if any team, if the Jets took a kicker in the second round, the New York Post would put a special edition out. It would be like they would have like a, a, a.

Midnight Edition that had a kicker pun and it would be unbelievable. The Tampa Bay Times and those folks are not going to do that. So they're going to build a team the way they want. They're going to say, screw it, we'll take a kicker in the second round. I think it's underrated what a weak media, not weak, they have some good writers there, but what a non-pressurized media market does to a team and empowers them to make the decisions they want to make. I mean, you're also with light in a way, you have this covering fire that Ryan Grigsden had with luck,

where it's this choice anyone would have made, but you're going to get some credit for it either way. So it gives you a little bit of leeway in the years to come. So he's in that grace period of we have our quarterback, give me some time to figure the rest out, even though that grace period wasn't really earned because he had the number one pick. Right. And at least I think he's making defensible picks, which Grigsin in the past has not done. No, that's true. But, I mean, Jason Light started his tenure by signing maybe the worst free agent class in the history of the NFL.

Right. So, I mean, there's a little bit, there's some red in the ledger, is what I'm saying. We probably should not be so quick to just get that out of our minds. Anybody else that you were not happy with this weekend? Any team that passed on Andrew Billings? Yeah, that was, we were going to go over some of the head scratchers. of the draft and he's definitely one of them. I mean, a guy that a lot of teams, a lot of people thought could go in the first round,

goes in the fourth. And it seems like he's somebody that's just going to come in and be able to take over from D'Amata Peco from day one. What's interesting to me is that he went to the Bengals, which was very, which we're very happy to snatch up Gino Adkins a couple years ago in a very similar spot. Okay. You take a big guy who can just clog the middle. Gino's a little bit smaller, but, you know, just a big guy who's just going to

going to be able to cause havoc in there. They desperately need a little more umphun defense. We'll get to that in a second, but as far as some of the other picks. But I just think that just pick the guy. You know, don't overthink it. When there's a 311 pound guy who can be a force like that, just pick him. Don't look at his height. Don't look at his motor.

Just pick them. You know, the whole thing, I talk to coaches all the time who just say, if a guy's that big and it can move around, he's going to be good. And you just can't overthink these things. The Bengals, I think the Bengals operate in a more common sense way than any other team. Mike Brown

loves famous players from big schools who've played in big games and I think a lot of people sometimes say, oh, well that's a poor way to evaluate, but whatever, if you take the guy who's been to the upper echelon of the college game, he's probably pretty good. And sometimes you end up

with Ray Mauga or guys who are just okay, but But overall, they're going to be NFL players. And I think that's what they do with Billings here. It's what they don't with Gino Adkins. It's what they don't with Michael Johnson. I feel like it's a solid pick. It makes all the sense in the world.

I mean, Peco's 31. He's in the last year of his contract. And Billings can fill that role. I mean, he's not the past rushing force that Gino Atkins is, but you don't have to be in that defense. You're supposed to just eat people. And that's exactly what Andrew Billings does. Just stand up.

And when you think about the other guys they added. Just stand up and move forward. That's his job. Oh, don't even move forward. just stay where you're standing. That's fine too. And so they got Tyler Boyd in the second round, which I was wondering when that,

how that wide receiver was going to get there. That's how they did it. And then they added William Jackson. And, you know, they lost a couple of cornerbacks. They have, I guess they didn't lose anybody. But, you know, Jones is getting up there. I think Drake Kirkpatrick is somebody they're not necessarily thrilled with.

So if they can have a combination of Jones, Dernard, and Jackson next year after Kirkpatrick is done with his deal, that makes sense to me. You know, they've always shown they're not afraid to add more bodies in the secondary than people think they need. Can we do another head scratcher? Yeah, of course. I think that I was surprised how far, again, with staying on the Bengals team,

Nick Vigil went in the third round. Here's a linebacker who's really, I think, a really great athlete, and he's going to be able to take a Cincinnati defense that has slow linebackers and immediately upgrade them. And I think when you look at it, at their draft, I don't think anyone thinks about the Bengals is contending ever because of what they do in the playoffs. And when you look at what they were able to do with their draft, I feel like they're probably, to me, division favorites right now. I think you're looking at the Steelers and the

Bengals again as both 12 or 13 win teams. And I feel like they're both contenders for the AFC championship game. But, you know, look, even though the since 90 defense has been good the last couple of years, they desperately needed speed at linebacker, Vigil is going to give it to them. I just feel like it's a huge, huge addition for 2016 and beyond because they can win now. Maybe, I don't know, I don't know what you do about the, I don't even know what you'd call it, the disciplinary issues, the attitude the defense has that they cause the meltdown against Pittsburgh. But I just feel like that group is so talented that if they ever learned to calm down, they could definitely make a Super Bowl.

And I feel like their speed at linebacker now, their speed on the end. interior, it's going to make it be a huge help. You could absolutely make an argument that those are the two best teams in the AFC as things currently stand. I mean, the Patriots are always going to be looming there. But the Bengals had the number one offense by DVOA and football last season. They have a very good defense. If Andy Dalton doesn't get hurt, I know that's a really weird thing to say.

But I absolutely think that Bengals could have made a run. And he's going to be back this year. They have a lot of really good players on that team. And they were not far away. It wasn't a crazy injury that's going to have long-term ramifications. He'll be fine. Yeah, by the way, we talked so much about the Patriots tanking in Miami last year and not getting home field advantage or whatever.

Do you think the Patriots are going to have home field next year? No way. Without Brady for four games? No way. And so all of a sudden they're playing on the road. If they go into Pittsburgh, if they go into Cincinnati, that's dangerous. I'm a little bit worried about the Patriots. It's 2016 Outlook.

One of the other, not necessarily head scratchers, but guys we should definitely talk about before we get out of here. Obviously, I guess it is a head scratcher when we were sitting there watching it happen. Jalen Smith going before Miles Jack was, I mean, I know you were a little confused as that was going on. I mean, what do you think of Dallas going up and seeing and getting Jalen Smith? Right. So here's the argument from doctors or coaches or whatever. It's that Jalen Smith is going to get better.

where Miles Jack's going to get worse. On the flip side, and this is my side of the argument, Miles Jack is going to be good now. He's going to be good in 2017. He's going to be good in 2018. Jalen Smith may not be good for until 20, mid-2017. I don't know. You don't know.

But NFL contracts are not that long. He won't have the fifth-year option because he wasn't picked in the first round. So all of a sudden, what do you get? Two good years out of Jalen Smith? I just, I feel like it's not a good long-term plan. And, okay, what happens if he finally recovers, the nerve damage gets better? And he, you know, he plays essentially a year and a half of great ball. Do you sign him to a huge contract?

Does he hit the open market? I think there's more questions and answers with the Jalen Smith pick. The Cowboys were ready to win now. So just take Miles Jack, let it ride. You have three more years of Romo, probably. I just, I don't know. I feel like that was the pick for the next four years, as opposed to a longer-term pick when it's, you know, past Romo's window, basically.

That group needs to win now, and I think you just take the elite athlete who can help you in 2016. If you think he's going to be okay next year, if you think it's a one-year time to wait, and you think he's one of the three or four best players in the draft, I don't mind it. I don't think you can just count on rookies to be, intense contributors right away.

And if you really do think he is that good, I can see the argument for it. But I also see what you're saying. And if there is a team in this draft and just in the league right now that should be positioned to say, we need to do everything in our power to try to win every game we can this season, they're probably the team. Yeah, no, I get it.

But I just, I don't know. I think that red-shirting players, quote-unquote, has not worked. Yeah, you're right. And it's been what people think was an inefficiency. It's not. There's a reason these guys dropped in the draft. Nerve damage sometimes doesn't get better. I don't know. I mean, Jerry loves taking risks because he wanted to take Paxton Lynch.

But, you know, it's a very Cowboys pick. Let's say that. To have the highest ceiling pick, I don't know. You can never justify what the Cowboys do. They pick based on what's exciting and what's flashy, and sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Do you want to run through like five? guys that you liked where they landed and then we'll get out of here just like five picks that

you liked individually not necessarily the team overall yeah sure so i like my guy rico gathers okay sixth round pick never played college football he was a power forward at baler he's six foot okay he's six foot eight okay he can move 275 pounds how's that for a blocking tight end i think that that's a guy a developmental guy it go the cowboys took him and they have a history of taking basketball players, going back to the 70s, going back to the 60s, Gil Brant started it. They used to have a suite at the final four where they bring in the college coach and say, okay, who's 6, 7 and can, you know, jump high basically and has quick feet. I think that, you know, I did a story on Jimmy Graham a couple years ago, and Frank Hath, his coach at

Miami had said, if you just took the guys who were 6-8, 6-7 or taller, who could block shots and draw charges, because that's an indication of quick feet, you would have an NFL tight end every single time. I think that's very interesting. So Rico gathers the type of guy you can get into camp, maybe even put him on a practice squad if you think you can hide them, and all of a sudden maybe two years down the line, one year down the line for a sixth round pick,

you have a very, very good tight end. All of that sounds fine. If you ever mention Frey Kate's name on this podcast again, you're going to wake up with a dead horse head in your bed. Oh, wow. I forgot about that. I'm sorry about that. We've both been equally affected by Frank Hath.

I'm just saying there are very few things that will truly upset me, and you just did one of them. I'm sorry about that. Frank Hath sounds like a pretty good evaluator, though. What if we put him in maybe the Bears' front office? Moving on. The guy I wanted in Chicago, and I'm very happy where he landed, McKenzie Alexander, I feel like we're overthinking this. Him going in the second round, the guy didn't have any interceptions and

college. He also didn't let anyone catch footballs when they were thrown his way. That is the number one thing I'm looking for in a corner. And I think that him in that secondary with that coaching staff in Minnesota makes a ton of sense. If he wasn't going to land in Chicago, I'm very glad that he landed with Mike Zimmer. I'm okay with that. No, I agree. I do think they needed some safety help. I think they're pretty much settled at cornerback right now. But I get the pick. And I think Minnesota's going to be much improved on defense, even though they had a lot of talent last year and were pretty good. Mike Zimmer was basically ripping the defense at the owners meeting, said they weren't very good. I think that they're going to get to a place this year with the

draft picks that are pretty good. But I still, I'm a little bit worried about the safety position opposite Harrison Smith. I think Michael Griffin's stopgap at best. Sendejo's stopgap at best. I could have used a better safety there in that slot. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that's why they tried to go get Georgia Loca. They wanted an upgrade there. I love, I love Iyoka. I love him. He's one of my favorite players in the NFL. He's great. I went to a Bengals practice three years ago, I think, two years ago. And I didn't know who he was. He hadn't really burst on the scene yet. And he was just flying around in practice, hitting guys, an absolute maniac. And I asked that one of the Bengals was like, who is this? And he said, oh, it's Georgia Oka. And I'd never seen in the modern era someone, so into practice. I mean, he's the type of person. First of all, by the way, he's going to get somebody hurt at some point. We're going to get, oh, so easy. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure all his teammates hate him. I'm sure he's very unpopular in the locker room, but I, just as a football observer, I was very

excited seeing this guy take practice way too seriously. Anybody else on your list of picks you liked? Okay, this is going to be wildly unpopular, especially with our Florida Gators contingent. I like Jeff Driscoll to the 49ers. I feel like he's an athlete. he can be developed. He was a sixth round pick, 207 out of Louisiana Tech. I just feel like in those later rounds, you know, look,

the Browns took Cody Kessler in the third round, okay? He's not very good. I'd rather have Jeff Driscoll in the sixth round. He's able to run. He's able to throw. He's not the most accurate. He had a lot of problems in college. He once played against my Miami Hurricanes

and had one of the worst performances I've ever seen. But overall, I think he is the type of guy who can develop into a starter in three years with the right coaching staff. Chip Kelly is the right coaching staff. I have a guy that I feel like we're both agree on here. Dude landed in the third round, and it's just player plus team makes all the sense in the world. Bronson Cofusi going to the Ravens is, I just couldn't really imagine a better situation. Like that is going to work out.

I have no doubt that it's going to work out. I like the Ravens draft. I think they got pretty good. Me too. Pretty good and fast on defense. I think that, you know, look, I still have questions about, I don't want to be too PFT commenter here, but I still have questions over whether Joe Flacco is elite year in and year out.

But I feel like that that defense is going to get to a point where they can maybe carry the team and maybe get back into contention. Willie Henry just screams of a guy that is going to not play for them a lot as a rookie, come on slowly, in his third or fourth season, have a monster breakout year, get overpaid by another team in free Asia. and get the Ravens one of their 17 fourth round picks that they get every season. That's how it's going to be. How good are the Ravens going to be when they can trade comp picks next year?

Because they're going to get like 50 comp. That's a good point. They're going to get 50 comp picks or maybe 100 comp picks, and they're going to package them all together, and they're going to get somebody amazing. The Ravens had five fourth round picks this year. Five. Yeah, and they're going to be able to move up with those.

Ozzie Newsom. I know people always say they're number two, Eric DeCostas, you know, in line for the job at some point or whatever. Ozzie Newsom is going to want to be in the trading comp picks era for the next 30 years. He's never leaving. He's going to enjoy this very much. Anything else that you want to get to? Any other picks?

Any other thoughts that you want to throw out there before we wrap this up? No, I mean, I think that, you know, I think Elliot will be the defining pick of the draft in the next 12 months because I think people are going to immediately look at the top 10 of this draft and wonder what would have happened if they had picked Ramsey or taken DeForest Buckner and tried to figure it out scheme-wise. Or, of course, Elliot might shine and he might lead them to the Super Bowl, which is possible. And I think that's going to be the big litmus test for the success of this draft is what the number four pick looks like in hindsight. And, you know, again, my biggest point is there's a difference between running backs and running game. Last year, there were seven thousand-yard rushers in the NFL.

I think one of them made the playoffs. That would be Adrian Peterson. I'm not saying that running backs cause teams to win or lose, but I'm just saying that having a great running back is not an indication of a winning team. Meanwhile, look, total rushing, which is not a running back, but a running game, a manufactured running game, you had really good teams.

Carolina, Seattle, KC, Arizona. Obviously, some of that's running the ball in the fourth quarter, I don't want to do a causation correlation thing. But I do think that if you just look at yards per carry, guys like Thomas Rawls, who was undrafted, showed up. I just have a lot of questions with the running back position, and that ties directly into whether Ezekiel Elliott is a good pick. I think when a lot of the teams look back at the choices that they made,

that makes a lot of sense. I think that when we look at the draft, and I kind of wrote about this today, and what I said for the newsletter is that when we get out of the wake of every draft and we forget about what was important what we thought about that weekend. The draft eventually just turns into a Wikipedia page. That's what it is. It becomes a document.

And when that document exists five years from now, we will remember this draft for the two quarterbacks and what happened with that. And we don't now because it was already such a defy, we knew it was going to happen. We knew they were going to get picked so we stopped caring about it. But that eventually will be how the draft is defined. And it's going to be a while before we know. And there's a chance that we look at it. at those two trades and say they were two of the worst moves in the history of the draft.

But if either of those guys turns into a decent player, the team that made that move isn't going to care. I think there's about a 10% chance that Elliott's pick if since they passed on Ramsey, the Ramsey, what if, what if they picked Ramsey will become one of the great what ifs of the last 10 years. I honestly think Ramsey's that good where he's going to show up for the Jaguars, it's going to be all pro, and all of a sudden we're saying, wow, what would have Romo looked like in his last three years if they had that kind of defense and that kind leader. There's definitely a chance that happens. I mean, if he's as good as you and other people say he is, that would not surprise me. I've set myself up to when Ezekiel Elliott gets 120 yards in

week one to just be, I'll have to delete my Twitter account because I'm already sort of getting it from Cowboys fans. Oh, I'm looking forward to that. I really am. Me too. All right, guys, thank you very much for listening. Make sure to subscribe to our new podcast. We're in our own feed now. It's The Ringers NFL show. We have the Ringers NBA show as well. You can subscribe. to those on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play Music. And also, please make sure to check out after the Thrones, hosted by Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald. It's available after every episode of Game of Thrones on HBO Now, HBO Go, and even on HBO proper. Winter is here and Chris and Andy are ready to break it down. There's a lot to talk about from last night's episode. So please go check that out.

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