The Ringer NFL Show - A.J. Brown to Philly, Pickett in Pitt, and Round 1 Chaos Reactions

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

We run through the most exciting picks and trades from the first round of the NFL draft, including the Eagles’ trade for A.J. Brown, the Giants landing Kayvon Thibodeaux, the Steelers drafting Kenny Pickett, the Ravens once again stealing a great player, optimism for the Jets, and more. Check out The Ringer’s 2022 NFL Draft Guide. Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, Ben Solak, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Sean Fennessey. We've got something special cooking on the Prestige TV podcast. I'll be recapping one of my favorite shows, HBO's Barry, every Sunday night with the writer-director star of the show, The Great Bill Hater. We'll talk about the show's wild twists and turns, its special brand of dark comedy, and how it all came together. So on Sunday nights, immediately after a new episode airs, you can hear Bill and I break it all down on the Prestige TV pod. Subscribe on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL Draft show. my name is Danny Hyphitz and I am joined by Danny Kelly, Ben Solek, and Craig Horlebeck.

We're all jacked up a Mountain Dew. We talked for four months about this being a bad draft. And it turns out that this was one of the most fun drafts I could ever remember. Suspense is great. It's drama. I thought this was awesome. I don't know if I'm biased or not just because the Giants did really good. But I thought this was incredible.

Yeah, you're like on Cloud 9 right now, aren't you? Cloud 10, Cloud 11. The Giants had two picks of clouds in the top seven clouds, and they crushed them. Yeah, I gave you guys good grades. So I'm just to be totally transparent with our listeners who are probably listening on Friday morning or Friday afternoon or whatever. I am still just like, I have no idea what happened. I feel like I blacked out. I do the NFL draft grades for round one.

So I had like my head down typing literally the entire time almost. I barely acknowledged what was happening. All these crazy trades were going through. I had to like write up each individual move and stuff. So obviously I know what happened. but like I still just trying to figure out like big picture stuff here. Like it's crazy. There was so much action tonight.

Trades? Multiple trades. D.K., I think we texted after the 10th pick and we were like, it's pretty boring. And then the 11th pick came and every, all hell broke loose. Well, that's the thing is we were texting, this is boring. And I was also complaining because people are, I'm like, people are going to hate me. I'm giving everybody A's.

Everybody in the top 10 did a good job. Like, you could argue that Jags had the worst pick. in the first 10 picks. They did. Because everybody else just knocked it out of the fucking park in the first like 10 picks. And so I'm like, I can't,

I just can't like make up reasons to give these teams bad grades. Could you have just rejumbled all 10 picks, maybe save Trayvon Walker? Like, could you have just plopped any of those top 10 guys anywhere and you would have given them a good grade? Yes.

And Trayvon Walker would have been an A anywhere but one. The only reason I didn't give him an A at one is because he's literally the number one pick and he has nine and a half career sacks. Like that's just weird. nine more than me. Yeah, he's going to be a good player, but career holder of a half sack, apparently. I was going to say he implied he had a half sack there.

I thought we, I thought we said we don't do decimals here on this show. Yeah, we don't do decimals. PFF doesn't do that round up. Okay, well, we're bearing the lead here too. We got Solex sitting here quietly waiting. Yes, ready to explode. We're going to go through. We're going to give awards for all these picks.

And we're starting with the only place to start, which is the Flipadelfia Award, which goes to the Philadelphia Eagles. So the Sixers. advance in the NBA playoffs. And then 10 minutes later, they take Ben Solick's favorite player in the entire draft, Jordan Davis. And then, as if that wasn't enough, like 30 minutes later, they make the, the trade of the draft. They flip a first rounder for A.J. Brown, which basically is kind of like flipping

Carson Wentz for A.J. Brown straight up. So we could read the, for those who want to do that, I'm shift a drinking game. Blockbuster trade, colon, Titans playing and trade, A.J. Brown of the Eagles, source tell ESPN. it was a true Schefterbomb, Solek. Could this night have gone any better for the Philadelphia Eagles? Genuinely answer that question.

Within the realm of like realistic outcomes, probably not. Wow. Like, oh, like if Aiden Hutchinson, like whatever. No, in terms of like things that legitimately could have happened, if you had asked me like best possible night, I would have been like, yeah, you know, get Jordan Davis and trade for

Devo Samuel. You know, this is get Jordan Davis trade for AJ Brown. who probably is going to be cheaper than Debo Samuel and is an unbelievable wide receiver. The Jordan Davis pick is enormous because it allows you to move off of Fletcher Cox who they did cut this year and then they signed back on a one-year deal.

Pretend. It gives you the ability to get that cap relief in future years. We don't have to keep extending Fletcher Cox. Jordan Davis is also a truly unique player. Like, oh, this guy's unique, this guy's special. No, no, no. He has a truly unique

player. You do not get to draft 341 pounds running 4-7 every year. He doesn't exist. It's not real. It's fictitious. He's a figment of your imagination. So when he is there, you get him. And what he allows you to do is everything else

that you want to do with the other 10 players on the field. When you want to live in too high, when you want to play the safeties at 18 yards of depth, which I'm not arguing that's like a great idea. Like John Gannon puts Ronnie McLeon on the freaking moon. That's not like the best thing in the world. but it's what they want to be defensively. So if you're going to evaluate the players, right,

if you're going to evaluate the players within the structure, and you're going to figure out who's good and who's not and figure out if the defense structure works or not, you need this player. He is a legitimate keystone in the bridge. You need the two-gapping defensive tackle, and they found Titan. They found Atlas with the world on his back.

Like, this is the guy to fill the role. So Davis, and being able to move just in front of the Ravens to go get him, delightful. And then you're sitting there at 18, like, wow, home run let's go solve the secondary maybe we draft trailing berks john dawson went kind of early that's crazy and then it was just an immediate send like the eagles got on the clock at 18 it was like oh trade with the titans a j brown like it was it was what the what the rumor was is that the eagles wanted to trade up to 13 for jameson williams got snipped by the lines and said well we're just do the trade up to 13 for jordan davis and then just

go casually trade the 18th overall pick for a j brown just as a nice friendly backup plan and and give him a hundred mill yes four years 100 mil for 24 years 100 mil for 24 years old. So he's only until he's 28, so it's really fine. He's still quite young. And it's only 57 million guaranteed, which on a four year, $100 million deal really is not that bad. So in the immortal words

of the prophet Moses, excuse me, the prophet Noah when he stood on the ark and released the doves to see if the land was dry and inhabitable again. Go birds. Oh my God, dude.

I thought he was going to say, And the words of Colonel Sanders, I'm too drunk to taste this chicken. I was a Giants fan who had a great night. I have to say, my joy, my pure unbridled joy was quickly tempered when I realized that the Eagles were going to have Jordan Davis and A.J. Brown. And like by the, I really think the best football advice, D.K. has ever and probably will ever dispense, which is just figure out what the opposing fans don't want you to do and do that. The Eagles, I mean, it's so.

Look, the Eagles have their best receivers since Terrell Owens. That's bad for everyone else. Are they going to throw it more? Can we get A.J. Brown on a team that likes to throw the football, though? You know what I mean? Seriously. Okay, but here's a thing. That's going to be my follow-up.

Sure. But that team is the 20-23 Philadelphia Eagles. Okay. I'm going to play Jalen Hertz this year. And like, AJ Brown, where does he dominate? Middle of the field. Where does Jalen Hertz not throw? Middle of the field.

So it's going to be a little bit awkward. It's going to be trying to figure it out. Oh, it turns out that maybe Hurlerts this. is a good running quarterback. This isn't perfect for him. And so the groundwork is so beautifully laid. Jordan Mila, long-term left tackle, Lennon Dickerson, Jason Kelsey, you know,

heir apparent, Lane Johnson, star right tackle, Devonte Smith on one side, AJ Brown and the other. The groundwork is also perfectly laid for 2023 Eagles starting quarterback, C.J. Stroud, slash, insert veteran here, slash whoever can throw the football.

This is such a nice, offensive framework. The Eagles are so well oriented for next year, in which they still have two first round picks because the Saints, oh, so desperately needed Trevor Penning. Suck it, Mickey Loomis. Oh, good feeling, fellas. Good feeling.

Is that also what Noah said? Suck it, Mickey Loomis. Yeah, yeah, that's somewhere in scripture, I think. It's incredible, but I agree with D.K. I was also one of my jail and Hertz, but I actually think the Giants of the Eagles are on the same plan of like, we're just going to build it and then hopefully they will come. I will say Giants, man, had a really, really good draft.

Kudos to the Giants, who I would have put a lot of my reputation down that the Giants did not like Kavon, Tibodeau. They played that very well. And then just took him at five, nice and clean, didn't even worry about the lions at two. That was really beautifully done. They were like eight, the Falcons, nine, Seahawks. They would have liked Kavon Tibado.

And if they knew about the Giants, they would have maybe tried to move around. The fact that they were able to keep that as booked as they did at five and get who I think is the best edge in the class, really, really big win for New York. So I wasn't sure when to talk about this because I'm so irrational that I just wanted to scream for the rooftops. But if you guys want to do the Giants right now,

I think this is the best, just like what you were saying with the Eagles, and this is like an incredible net for them. Do you guys remember where the Giants were in early January, like three months ago? like when they when they had like that crazy stat about scoring within two minutes and not just that Jake from they can't score touchdowns Jake from was quarterback sneaking on third nine at the four yard line because Joe judge was so worried that they would lose four yards on third down so they were

quarterback sneaking and in the next three months they fired Dave Gettleman they fired Joe judge they've declined Daniel Jones's fifth year option. They've acquired perhaps the single best pass rusher of this draft and perhaps the single best offensive tackle in this draft. The two players who, if you just go back to all the mock drafts in January, we're going first and second in every mock draft, and the Giants got both of them. And you left out that they hired Brian Dayball

who turned the bills into a juggernaut and Joe Shane. The best turnaround of a franchise, I mean, not winning a Super Bowl, like the bills being a juggernaut, like the best franchise turnaround in years, those guys are now running the team. I don't think you could chart a course from January to today that is more optimistic and more hopeful

than what has actually unfolded in reality for the New York Giants. I am over the moon. And there's an important thing here, which is that people like to say, wow, your team drafted a player, you like, every problem is solved now. They're going to be good forever. And it's like, okay, obviously some of these guys are going to suck.

But that's the thing for the Giants, is that in January, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. And now in April there is. And if you want to get to the end of the tunnel, the people who are going to get you there, your third string guard who's forced into playing time, has to believe there's a light, right? Your guys in the building,

from the GM and the head coach and the starting quarterback all the way down the depth chart, have to think we are moving in the correct direction. Because if they don't think that, you'll never get there. Even if right around the corner is home, right around the corner is the turnaround, right around the corner is competing.

If there's no belief, you're never going to take a step forward. You're just not going to want to want to get on a field and try to win a football game. Now in New York, there is that feeling. I very much agree with high fits in that sense. I do want to take your temperature, Danny. 36, pick for the Giants. Fourth thing of the second round. No Daniel Jones fifth year option.

Oh, no. You want to talk about, listen, only one quarterback went, and it was Kenneth Pickett. Craig, we will get to you in a second. there's a way this pig at 36 really dials the optimism and the light of the end of the tunnel up to 11 and those ways are Malik Willis and Desmond Ritter, brother. What if it's Desmond Ritter who I come to,

to Daniel Jones, but in a good way? That's so funny. It would be perfect. I politely decline. No, I think the Giants and the Eagles, honestly, that's so, I feel like I just got hit on at a bar. Like, hey, you want to do a quarterback? I'm like, oh my God, like, you could be bad.

Should we order fries? Should we be bad? Should we be bad? Should we be bad? I, wow, that's, I feel giddy. I have butterflies. This is incredible. No, I think that they're going to trade James Bradbury and they're going to take a cornerback,

which is going to be really cool. But, Tyler Gordon, 36. Good pick. Tyler Gordon of 36. Yes, sir. Kyle Gordon's there. Andrew Booth is there. I think the giant is still out there.

But anyway, this is just thrilling. I don't think so. D.K. Yo. What are your thoughts on Kavana? am I being too giddy as a Giants fan for Cave on Tobito? No, I mean, I really like him. He's my number two overall player in this class.

And frankly, I probably, it was really I just kind of chickened out, putting him number one. Because I had him number one to start with for a long time. And then finally I was like, I think just Aidan Hutchinson has a slightly higher floor. And there was so much smoke around teams, not liking Tibido. And I just basically chickened out. But like I really like him. I think he's a good player.

Explosive, explosive first step. I think he's got plenty of bend. maybe he's not the most bendy guy because I know that that was some concern with, you know, some analysts coming into this draft, but like I think he can dip and rip and, you know, dip his shoulder, get flat, get to the quarterback. He's a good run defender. He's super athletic. He's like you've been saying he played her all last year, show toughness.

This is my thing with attitude. Everyone's like problem with Kavon Tibito's attitude. My problem is the double standard of if Aiden Hutchinson played through an ankle injury and didn't miss time. People be like, oh, what grit from Aiden Hutchinson? And instead Tibito does it. They're like, does he have a motor? Yeah.

So I think it's a home run pick. I mean, I again, I gave, I think the Giants A pluses and both of them probably. And I just like Neil, like great pick with Neil. I was very bummed because I was hoping he would fall to the Seahawks at that point. So I don't know. It was just, yeah, a great pick. I think the overarching feel for the Giants is it is absolute 180. Like for the longest time, bad process, bad process.

Like GM that just like, you know, roles, people that are talking about, like, positional value, like, he does the little, like, typing on the keyboard thing. Like, I'm not a nerd, blah, blah, blah. Like, everything the Giants have done, like you said, in last, like, three, four months, it's, like, very good process. The coaching staff they brought in, got to be really excited about it. Like, the way, the two positions they pick, you know, these are the premier positions,

like, both of these, like you said, top players at one point in the draft process. So just you got to love the process. Like, obviously, the results got to come later. and we'll find out over the next few years whether this process worked. But I absolutely love everything about the process the Giants are doing. They didn't pick up Daniel Jones's 50-year option,

which is a good process because they don't need to. They can figure out what he does this year. They don't lock themselves into that contract going forward. If he plays well... Yeah, and if he plays well, guess what? You can extend him. Like, that's fine. So everything that they're doing is just intelligent and smart

and, like, this is the way that you're supposed to build team. So there's a lot of good reason. There's a lot of reasons to feel good. about this team and about the direction of the giants, finally, after years of just basically being like, these guys don't know what they're doing, you know, like, that's got to feel good. We made the joke about, we actually never did bar rescue, team rescued. We planned on doing it this off season. We never did it where somebody just comes in, Cleans' house and, like, re-does a restaurant.

This feels like what's happening with the Giants right now. And you're like, oh, adults are actually driving the car now. The Giants were rescued, and adults are driving. It's just, it feels weird. It's thrilling. It's incredible. I feel like I got out of a toxic relationship. So anyway, I do want to go back.

My hopes were quickly dimmed a little bit by the Eagles making this AJ Brown trade. I do want to go back to the Titans dealing away AJ Brown. Now, we're going to give the Titans an award here, and we came up with a special award. It's called, though, maybe we paid Derek Henry and Ryan Tannahill too much money award. Turns out Ryan Tanniel having the second largest cap of any player in the NFL was a bad idea, or maybe tough. So basically, it seems what they did here is the Titans traded away A.G. Brown, and they took Treyland Burks, the receiver from Arkansas. And basically, the ideas, instead of paying A.G. Brown, depending on the money, 20 million or so a year, they're going to pay Trailin Burks about $4 million or so a year. D.K., you compare Traylon Burks to A.J. Brown during this draft process. So do you think the Titans made a good decision? I think It's tough

I didn't I think I gave them like a C or something like that I didn't love this I don't like this is Mr. Never gives anyone a B gave them a C This is Trailer on Berks whom I love like I love Like I love Berks

But they're trading a established superstar player who's proven it in the NFL You know For a guy who has not done that yet And has some major question marks going in Like route running and things like that So I think there's a lot of risk there and they did it basically to escape the cap hits that AJ Brown was going to, you know, bring them.

I'm still like, I understand like from their point of view why they did that because, look, there's going to be, and we've talked about this with the Seahawks and some other teams that have done this lately. You know, there's going to be good receivers in every draft. And instead of paying a receiver top dollar, you know, you're going to go in and hopefully draft guys that can play somewhat of the role that they're playing. But, like, again, it's, you're trading a superstar and you're hoping that Traylon Burks can turn into, you know, something that's even remotely similar for that, which could take some time, by the way. So, I don't know. To me, it's just like, I didn't love the move. And that's coming from someone who really likes Traylon Burks. So I don't know.

I just, my instant gut was just like, you know, you're trading away one of your best players. That's, like, the bottom line. So, like, I feel like the league is splitting. Like, we talked for 10 years now about how quarterbacks and rookie contracts are important. and it feels like receivers in rookie contracts or the new quarterbacks in rookie contracts. And I feel like the league is splitting into two camps here about the league,

basically the teams who, whether they think it's worth it or they just want to, are paying receivers a ton of money and the teams who are being like, actually we'd rather just take a role, risk on a rookie. I'm curious which side of that you fall on. Right.

Both in this trade and writ large. So this is an extremely good example of, right, where we talk about things in theory and then we go to talk about things in practice. Yes. In theory, it is good to approach things by going cheap at receiver. There are always good receivers available.

It is easier to get production out of rookie receivers than it ever has been before. And there's such a variety of body types available at receiver, right? AJ Brown is always kind of like a unique guy, 6 foot 225, right? That sort of build typically got put at like box safety or linebacker. We didn't see a lot of receivers of this size. And low here comes Trailerblerk's 6-2-230, right? It's a linebacker bill, and he's here at receiver. And oh, he can step into that AJ Brown role.

So because the receiver position is just ballooning in terms of who's in it and how experience they are and how many reps they've got and you can just always find a receiver. So it's really good process, in my opinion, from a theory team building level, we start at ground zero on a team. Let's just draft the receiver in the second round every single year. Like, let's just take one, take one, take one, take one, and just cycle them through, right? And that's why people start talking about like, oh, this position can be kind of like running back, where you're just constantly bringing a new body, fresh body,

and trying to avoid dipping into a market where you have to pay a guy $20 to $25 million. That's the theory. The practice is, A.J. Brown is really good. Yeah. We have to, if this theory is sound, we should trade him in draft Traylor-Lenbergs. You know, maybe, kind of.

Like, it doesn't have to be one-to-one like that all the time, but it would be better for us not to pay this really good veteran, $25 million, so that we can just keep cycling through a rookie. And all of a sudden, that theory, which sounded so good on a podcast, was such a nice little two-and-a-half-minute blurb and a radio, he had a nice little article, right? I did a whole video on this thing.

Oh, none feels good anymore, does it? It starts to get a little scary. You really start to put names to it, and you realize this is a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to do for a person level, right? There's a video of Mike Rable reacting to the A.J. Brown trade. He gets a bad of his chair and kind of like takes a walk. And you can tell it's like, man, this is tough, because I've played with that guy.

I know that guy. I've, I've worked with that guy. And so I do fall in the camp that like, yeah, you should be trying to stay cheap receiver. You can make rookie receivers really productive. Trailing Berks might walk in to be good. That's my wide receiver one. That's an AJ Brown like player to me. I think that's a great landing spot for him.

With that said, I'm really happy the Eagles have AJ Brown right now because I know for a fact that AJ Brown is a good receiver. Mike Vrable said a week ago or something that said there's no chance we'll trade him, not as long as I'm the head coach. And I mean, I think we was, I don't remember, I've talked to you guys so much last week. I don't know if it was on a pot or not. But D.K., I think was the one who said, you never see the camera cut to the, the draft room and everyone's sad. Like, they're always happy after the pick.

The Titans' draft room was somber. I've never really seen a draft room like that after a pick. They were like, it was distraught, not distraught, but like it looked like they had gotten their pick skipped. And then they were really embarrassed. embarrassed. Like, it was very, very somber. And I, I completely agree with you, Soak, where it's so much easier in reality, in reality, like, you kind of go through the draft process to find an AJ Brown. And then the idea of, like, well, we, you know, the cap, who cares about the cap? But that's where it's at, right? Ryan Tannels' cap, this year's bigger than Patrick Mahomes. So they made that

decision, I think, is they're out on Tannels. I don't know. I think it's, the thing that you can lose track of really easily as a fan and as someone that, as people, you know, the cap gets talked about a lot and like people always talk about oh this team did such a great job of keeping the cap low blah blah blah they have this much space but like at the end of the day it's not actually bad in fact it's good to have to pay really good players to have really good players on your team let's be real they made the decision to pay derrick henry and they basically just decided they wouldn't pay a j brown would you and craig said this to me earlier tonight uh would you rather have drafted brees hall the running back and kept a j brown or would you rather do what they did

which is keep Derek Henry and have Traylon Burks. I feel like the answer is Breece Hall and AJ. And as cool as Derek Henry's been the last year and a half, you probably wanted to trade Derek Henry and keep AJ Brown. But that's not what, but that's what happened. Anyway, I want to keep rolling here. We have another award. It's the Am I Getting Punked Award?

What's going on here? And it's for the Green Bay Packers fans. We were joking the other day because the Packers, I mean, 20 years without a receiver in the first round. A.J. Aaron Rogers was talking about this two years ago that he wanted a first round receiver. The Packers trade Devante Adams, get two first rounders, and they take the fifth and sixth best defenders on Georgia's defense. Like, this is crazy. This was the joke we made was they would take a linebacker in defensive tackle. We joked about that two weeks ago. We did say that.

We said, ah, they'll just take a linebacker and a detackle. They actually did it. I think Aaron Rogers went on Pat McAfee's show during the draft and joked. Like, are we going to trade for Debo Samuel? Like, can we do something? And here's the thing. The list of teams, the Niners will not trade Debo Samuel to. The Green Bay Packers are very high, brother. So I just have Rock Moonus empathy for all the Packers fans out there.

It's pretty grim out there. Who else is on the wide receiver market? Who could they get it? What are they going to do? Go get David Bell from Purdue? Like, no shape of David. Will Fuller? No, I think he's going to go to Cleveland.

Jarvis Landry's still out there. It's not great. It's Sammy Watkins and Robert Tonian. It's tough. So anyway, the other one, we've got, Am I getting punked part two award? And that's going to the New England Patriots. Boy, boy, folks.

The New England Patriots to Col Strange in the first round. I was on the phone with Craig when this happened. What, Craig? What did you say so like? I said from? Cole Strait from? Chattanooga. You can't.

Chatton. Third team, he was on third team all FCS. So good job. That is awful with Craig when this happened. Oh, that is. That is the best fucking thing I've ever heard. Craig goes so good job. I had to look him up and he was 73rd on D.K.'s big.

I literally was like, I've heard that name, but is it from Marvel or D.K.'s Big Board? I couldn't remember. Col Strang. Captain Col Strange. And so, it's like a cousin. into the doctor? I don't know. So he's 73rd on DK's Big Board, which apparently is too high because there's a video that by the time

people listen to this will be mega viral. But so Sean McVeigh was on camera, I think at the Rams press conference when this pick happened on television. And Sean McVeigh literally says, wow, we wasted time watching the tape on Strange because we thought he'd be there at

104 when the Rams pick. Could you play the audio from this clip, Craig? Your brother, Sean McVeigh? Yeah. Really, really? just win. Oh, my UT Chattanooga to the first round. Hey, where is...

How about that? And we wasted our time watching him thinking he'd be at 104 maybe. With the built-in laugh track from the assembled video. So good. So, like, you just went on Bill Simmons' podcast. How did you talk about this without getting fired? Well, Bill's pretty sad. And so I was like, hey, I know some coaches.

is like Cole Strange. And the funny actual real story is that people who I bet with and who we talked about like draft bets with were trying to get a Cole Strange line up at one of these books. Like points bet would take, you know, recommendations for lines because we wanted to take the under

because he had some fans of coaching staffs and he was a very good athlete. And team center trust, D3 and FCS, Offensive Lyman. That's a position you see get drafted early when we talk about D3. Especially the third team FCS. Yeah, yeah, exactly. especially. But he was a senior bowler and he played well and he had proven versatility.

Like a lot of it was like very good profile to be like, hey, Cole Strange, you pick 60. And then the Patriots traded back from 21 to 29 and said, this is far enough. We can't risk Cole Strange going at 34. We can't move back anymore. Got to take him around one. God, this is such a Seahawks move. I love this. Yeah. It is, I think there's a good chance Cole Strange becomes a good player. I like his profile. I like what I saw from him at the Senior Bowl. And from the film I've seen,

because I don't watch a ton of Cole Strange, but I was watching some before I came on the Simmons pod. There's likable traits. This guy, I think, can play at center in the league and be a pretty good one. Likeable traits. This is the first round player. You didn't have to draft him at 29.

Very simply, you did not have to draft. What's going on here? Clearly, Ben, thanks for that. Last year, I likened Ben Rathesberger playing quarterback to, like, your grandfather who refuses to give up the car keys. because he still says that he can drive and you're like, Grandpa, it's over, all right?

It's not safe anymore. What's Bill Belichick doing? You're a danger to us and everyone else. Simmons made the exact same metaphor, Craig. Did he really? He was like, we got to, Bill Belichick can't drive the car anymore. Like, we got to hide the keys. That's the exact metaphor.

That's either of Craig and Bill spent too much time together. Delicate conversation right there. D.K., you've been getting old. Do you think Belichick's too old? How dare you? I don't know. Look, I actually agree with Ben. Like, I think he'll end up being a good player,

but like it is a question of opportunity costs. That's really the big thing for me. Like the Patriots left an awful lot of talent on the board to take Cole Strange. When I think, you know, of course, you never know what the other NFL teams are going to do. So me saying this is like sort of rings hollow. But like there's a very good chance you get this guy in the second round. Like you don't have to take him in the first round. And he's not a guy that you absolutely need to leave the draft with either.

It's always tough when you draft the guy you know isn't in Vegas. Like he is not there. I don't, so I couldn't keep track of all the trades. So the Vikings traded up to 32. Did they give up a second round pick? Because the Patriots clearly could have traded back. That's the other part of this. The Patriots already traded back too.

So they had moved back before taking it again. They should have done it again. And it's like, look, the other thing is he's almost 24 years old. So he's not only a small school guy who probably still needs to develop a little bit. He's already old. He hasn't faced top tier competition. Like these are, this is a, this is a 46. years younger than Bill Belichick. This is the trifecta of bad process that we typically see from

the Seahawks. Like old senior bowl small school guy and the Patriots did it. Thank God. Sorry, Bill. But like, I mean, again, maybe he's going to turn out to be a good player, but like to me, the opportunity cost is what really stands out here. You know what? I find out, you know what? I a little disagree with you, D.K. I think what stands out is that Sean McVeigh said he thought he'd be there at 104. That's what stands out. Well, that and then high fits, look, that's part of the process. That's part of what the draft is. Like GM's part of their job,

and they delegate to their team in a lot of cases. I don't know if every team does it, but like these teams are going out and like studying mock drafts, like trying to get intel on other teams. Like really, a big part of your job is figuring out where players

are going to go in the draft so you know where you should take them. And this feels like a massive miscalculation, to be honest. Chattanooga lost to Mercer six to ten. Is that like March Madness playing? We became or? I refuse to blame.

the left guard for the Mercer loss. All right. That to me is too far. Six points? Sounds like a March Maddish playing game. The guard is going to get a touchdown. I went on Bill's pod last week. I can't remember what all my predictions were.

One of them was that the quarterback class was going to just naturally settle. Like you're not going to see trade-ups. So I got that one right. And then one of my second guesses or like predictions or whatever was that some random-ass player that I didn't write up was going to be a first-round pick because that was the nature of this draft that there's just a whole bunch of guys that could be potential first-rounders.

Thank God I wrote Cole Strange Up or else I'd be working late tonight writing up his scouting report kind of like what's doing before? You just make it up. Yeah, solid trades. You know what? Wait, you know what we should put in the draft guide next year? DK. A fake player. And we should figure out

how long it takes like the other draft analyst to notice that that guy doesn't exist. That would be incredible. Think he makes up a prospect from Germany Two prospects one lie, man Yeah Two pro a hundred pro-nine prospects one lie Yeah

Who is it Bernard Ryman Raymond this year Right he's from Austria Central Michigan But yeah he's from Austria Via Austria Could you make up like someone For the like international pathway

Like a German guy And like he doesn't exist You find an FCS school That wants some pub And you have them put a You put a fake player bio Up on their site right Oh our you know

Three Year Start Or a defensive tackle wearing number 91. Some draft guys combing through the film. You're like, where's 91? Where does he rotate in? Yeah, he starts for the Citadel. No, no, no.

It's Mercer. It's Mercer. They beat Chanuga. They earned this. Where is Mercer? Pop quiz. Georgia. Illinois.

Alabama. I have no idea. Where is Mercer? I'm going to guess South Carolina. I don't know. Where is Georgia? Hell yeah. All right.

All right. Back to the NFL draft. Jesus, we're talking about Mercer. Didn't think there'd be a Mercer reference today. Anyway, this Pittsburgh Steelers drafted the replacement for Ben Rothesburg. Maybe we should talk about that. Oh, right. Yeah. Craig's already talked himself into this.

Let's be honest. We were all, how does it feel? You took Kenny Pickett. I talked myself into Kenny Pickett a week ago when I didn't, you know what's funny? It's like a little kernel inside me was like, they're going to pick Pickett. They're not going to pick Willis. I just knew they weren't going to pick Willis because they wanted somebody who could play quarterback this year. like run an offense. Not saying the leak won't be able to do that eventually, but perhaps not right now.

This is where I stand. I'm happy they didn't trade up for him. I'm happy they waited. I didn't want them to trade up to like nine or six or something and give up way too much. I'm honestly just happy that there is some hope this offseason. Like that we're going to get some anticipation, the workouts, the offseason buzz, the rumors. That's all great. If he ends up starting week one, that means he's better than Mitch Trubisky, which I know the bar sounds kind of low there. But to be honest, I'd be kind of happy with that. If I know that Kenny Pickett can beat out Mitch Trubisky in training camp,

I'll be very happy. I honestly will. I like that he wears two gloves. It helps his small hands. I watch the sports science on it. It increases your grip by 20% and you know what? Hand size doesn't actually matter that much with grip.

It's really forearm strength. Have you guys ever, by the way, have you ever worn football gloves? Yeah, it's incredible. It's actually insane how grippy they are. It's very helpful. It should be illegal.

Every time you're like, how they make that catch, it was the gloves. It's like sticky as hell. It's crazy. I got one more thing. People keep saying, oh,

Malik Willis is the highest upside. Highest ceiling, Malik Willis. It's like, okay, you know, winning the lottery has the most upside financially,

but you don't quit your job to just buy a lottery ticket every day. I like that analogy. That's good. So like that. He made money doing that. Kenny Pickett is like a legitimate football player who can like run an offense.

Also, I do think there's probably some, he's obviously went to Pittsburgh. It's a really good story. It's a perfect landing spot. share a building. They share a building. Pat Mill Downey, he used to work.

He still works for Spotify, but he works for Spotify Live. He used to work for the ringer. Sent something in our Slack Channel. We have a Steelers Slack channel. He was like, people from Pittsburgh love nothing more than other people from Pittsburgh. And I do think that kind of factored in with Kenny Pickett. Also, Mark Whipple was the offensive coordinator, was coaching Kenny Pickett in Pittsburgh when he was there. And Mark Whipple was also the guy who coached Ben Rothesberger when he was on the Steelers.

He was the QB coach during his first few seasons when he won a Super Bowl. So I'm sure that had to do with it as well. but I do like it. It's a story. It's like a feel-good story. My girlfriend's from Pittsburgh, and she said the same thing to me about people from Pittsburgh. Like, it's not about the school pit.

A lot of people in Pittsburgh go to Pitt, but it's not about Pitt. It's about like Pittsburgh people are so desperate for like one of their own to succeed. Like remember when James Connor made the Steelers and like he was from Pitt? And obviously he had a great story of being a cancer survivor. But like Steelers fans were so quick to embrace him, a quarterback being one of their own. Like it's genuinely a cool story.

And also, I just think that any quarterback going to a good team like the Steelers will just naturally be better. I thought of the quote from Inception when Leo and, oh, what's her name? Oh, the woman who plays mall, it's right in the tip of my tongue. It doesn't matter where it's like, it's that quote where it's like you're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't know for sure. Yet it doesn't matter. Do you know why? Because we'll be together.

I don't know where Kennedy Pickett's going to take me, but I'm happy right now because we're together. I'm okay with it. Dude, this is why the draft is, like, insanely popular. It sells hope. It sells, like, you're on that train. You don't know where you're going, but you're happy to be together. Like, we're all, actually, everyone in this podcast right now

is, like, actually extremely happy. We're all happy with our teams that happened. So, well, on that note, wait, so Pickett's the only quarterback who went in the first round. There's obviously now, like four, depending if you count Carson Strong, I do not. I want Ben to eviscerate me. Craig said, he's holding his tongue right now.

Yeah. Carry me. Kill the hope. Kill the hope. You know that clip of that European football manager who goes, I cannot speak. If I speak, I'm in big trouble. That's how I feel currently about Kenny Pickett. Do it.

Do it. Craig said two things when he was talking about Kenny Pickett. He said, one, if I know he can beat out Mr. Trubisky that makes me happy. And two, Kenny Pickett is a real quarterback. I am devastated to inform you, Craig. that neither one of those things is true. I firmly believe Mitch Trubisky would be the starting quarterback

for the Steelers in week one. And I also... That's fine. Yeah. I'm okay with that. All right. At what time would you like for Kenny Pickett to take over that job?

If Mitch Trubisky is okay and when the Steelers are like a wild card team, Kenny Pickett doesn't have to play this year. I'm fine with that. I agree that if the Steelers are a wildcard team, they should continue to play the quarterback they were previously playing. I'm just worried.

worried that they're not going to be that. This is having grown up with a Steelers fan dad, this is such a Steelers fan thing. It's like, yeah, it's bad, but like, we'll just go 11 and 5 and make the playoff. So I don't really understand, but that's just what the Steelers do. They guess it's not great, but like, I guess we'll just lose the division round this year instead.

It's like, man, this is Pittsburgh privilege right here. Whatever. Pickett might turn out to be on the upper end of his outcomes, right? he may turn out to be a good quarterback. I don't think that offensive line in Pittsburgh is going to help him get there. But if he does, even then, I think that the resultant ceiling with Pickett will have you see him finish his first contract. Maybe you are like the Bears under Trubisky and you do get to a playoff game a couple of times and just losing the wildcard round. And then all of a sudden, you want a different quarterback.

Whenever you draft round one quarterback, I'm not thinking about can he start your one. I'm thinking about can he start for 10 years. Is that the sort of guy I can get? And to me, that was never Pickett. So whatever team landed with Pickett, I didn't think it was going to be great. And obviously the Steelers have good receivers and a good history of development. That's a front office that generally you should trust. But for me, it's hard to see the outcomes here.

It's hard to see the long term mark. Tiny hands, big plans, baby. Full steamer head. Craig already has big yields, baby. Craig has multiple modos. Wait, we should tell people that Craig named our group text that. I did. Tiny hands, big yields.

Yep. Words to be buying. Big yields, We don't have to spend too much time and the quarterbacks remaining in the board because we're going to know where these guys are playing at like 12 hours. So, like, why don't we just wait for that?

Unless you don't think the Giants going to take one at 36, do you? Because if the Giants are, then we should spend 10 minutes. Otherwise. I think, I think the most important thing is this. Buccaneers at 33, Titans at 35, Giants at 36, Texans at 37,

Seahawks at 40, Seahawks at 41. We only saw one quarterback go, which to me was surprising. Betting markets had a two and a half with even juice on both sides. It was not expected that there was just one. I think we see multiple quarterbacks go

before, including him before that second Seahawks peck. So from 33 to 41, I would expect two quarterbacks to leave the board. I think you're right. We didn't mention how we all thought Kenny Pickett was going to go to the Steelers for two months and then we changed their minds that he did. And the same logic is like everyone's just in Finley

relating Matt Corral to the Seahawks because Pete Carroll knows Lane Kiffin. And now I'm like, maybe that'll happen too. DK, you've been suspiciously quiet during the Pickett conversation. Are you secretly part of the Tiny Hands clan? The two Glove Love? You back?

You with us? What's up? I think I don't love the pick. I don't think he's going to, like, to be honest with you, I don't love it. But I think he is, that is the ultimate, probably the best situation for any of the rookie quarterbacks. Like you're going into a system that they have extremely, extremely strong foundation from the coaching staff.

Like, you're not going to worry about, the biggest worry I always have with rookie quarterbacks is. Number one. I'm looking at your guide now. You gave him a C. Tell Craig to his face. You gave him a C. I told you.

I just said I didn't love the pick. Is this a scenario where Mac is like, fine. What? The C is passing grade. You know, George Bush got into Yale with C's. C is like, that's fine. It's okay.

Kenny Pickett's dad precedent. Yeah, one small caveat. But is there a chance that Kenny Pickett is the Mac Jones of 2022 because of the situation? Yeah, because we made fun of his hands for the last, like, five months. Yeah, sure. I think, I couldn't give less of the shit about the hands.

It was then being jittery in the pocket. So like did great quarterback turning his point. I couldn't give less of a shit about the hands, said the man who early in our planning of the podcast was like, we got to do an episode about the hands, man. We got to talk. Can you figure, tell me about these hands. It's good content then, but I've come around. It doesn't matter.

I wonder why. Let me get, let me get back to my, I think it's number one. I think it's a good landing spot for him. They already have established, several established good receivers. And again, the big thing that you always worry about with rookie quarterbacks is like a rookie quarterback can come in. It's going to be like a desperation pick from a lame duck coach who is like trying to save his job. You go one year, they try and figure it out. The coach that drafted him gets fired.

Then you bring in someone else. Maybe that new coach doesn't really like him. They put him in too early when you're like 0 and 3. Yeah. It's like this death spiral. Justin Fields is already in this, by the way, which like terrifies me. Yep. And so like this is a great situation because the thought.

fucking Steelers never fire their coach ever. They're one of the most stable franchises in the NFL. They're always going to have good receivers because for some reason, well, I guess now they're going to have a new GM. They literally only have two wide receivers right now, so they need to do some work. But I do think like it's a great, great situation for him. And so that gives him a much better chance of panning out than say if he went to Carolina or if he went to some other crappy team that needs a quarterback right now.

Atlanta, maybe. Like, I feel so much more bullish for Kenny Pickett going to Pittsburgh than I would for any of the other teams, basically. So I don't love Pickett. He was my third-ranked quarterback. But I do think that, like, the situation is good for him. And so I do think he could end up being, like, an average starter. I don't really think he's going to be star, but, you know, that's not really what you.

You don't have to have that to be successful. It helps a lot, though. I feed off the criticism. I'm dining on it. I think that this is going to be a really fun, like, Kenny Pickett, Fickett, hometown guy, Pittsburgh, not hometown. but it's going to be fun. Okay. I want to talk about the receiver run

because there were a lot. So the AJ Brown tray we talked about at the top kind of was the cap to this massive receiver run and it kind of started, the Falcons took USC receiver Drake London at number eight

and then a lot of people thought that the Jets might take, there you go, D.K. A lot of people thought the Jets might take Drake London at 10. And so when the Falcons

took Drake London at 8, there was kind of a, Jets had to make a decision at 10. They decided to take Ohio State receiver Garrett Wilson at 10. Then the Saints traded up, took Wilson's teammate Ohio State, Chris Olavay at 11, then the Lions traded up and

took James Williams, who used to be their team at Ohio State before he transferred to Alabama, whole thing. So, Solek and Dika, you two, I would say one of your biggest, maybe your biggest disagreement of the whole draft cycle was about Garrett Wilson. DK, was Garrett Wilson your number one receiver? Your number two receiver? He was my number one, I think. Number one. So like, you kind of felt Garrett Wilson was like outside the top five. Yeah, Wilson, Wilson was my fifth receiver of the six. I gave first round grades too. I had London at eight to the Falcons and Wilson at 10 to the Jets for a long time and then

I switched to him in my final mock. I don't you hate that shit? It's a night. What's interesting to me is that so when Garrett Wilson, Chris Olavi, Jameson Williams, and it occurred to me that I actually almost kind of think that that orders backwards. James and Williams, to me, is better than Olavi and Olavis and Alavis. is better than Garrett Wilson. So with all that said, D.K., I know a lot of Jets fans and very mixed reactions to this pick. Part of me thinks it's because they wanted Drake London and he's a completely

different kind of receiver than what they'd mentally prepared for. So can you talk to some Jets fans? Tell me, tell Jets fans what they should expect getting Garrett Wilson. Oh, I love Garrett Wilson. So I understand. So Like doesn't like him because he's a bit like frenetic as a route runner. It's not like a smooth, like Olava is the exact opposite. Like Olivae is smooth as silk as a route runner. He's a really good early separator. Wilson kind of does everything.

More frenetically, he kind of reminds me honestly of, of what's the guy from the Giants Hyphid? Sorry. Darius Tony. Yeah, he reminds me a little bit of Darius. He's like very sudden, very explosive,

very twitched up in the short area, but he's also kind of like a little bit out of control. However, I do think he has just the overall mix of skill set that makes him, I think, going to be successful. And, you know, that will help him be successful in the NFL. He's got good speed downfield. He has a big catch radius. I think he's a good route runner.

I think he can make yards after the catch. And so he kind of complements, I think, what the Jets have offensively. Like, he and Elijah Moore will pair together well. They have Corey Davis on the outside. He's kind of playing the X receiver spot. And then he can kind of line up at the Z or at the slot. He can do whatever and just help out that office. offense and get yards after the catch.

And also, like, he'll just be very helpful, I think, for a guy like Zach Wilson who just needs more playmakers. He needs more, you know, he go in there. He's going to have multiple options in the offense every time he snaps the football. So that's really helpful. So I'm really high on Garrett Wilson. I know that Solek isn't. I know a couple of guys, you know, in the tape world that aren't very high on him.

But I really love him. I know that he was a number of people's top receiver in this class. But this is like indictment or not indictment. This is an indication of how the class is. Like you could talk to like six or seven different draft analysts and they would have a different order for the receiver class. That's just kind of how it is. To me, it's like a vibes class more than anything. So I really like Wilson.

Like overall, his analytical profile is very strong. And just watching him on tape like his movement skills, I think are really, really intriguing. It's great body control, you know, very sudden in the short area. And he ran a 4-38 or something like that. So he's got the deep speed too. Sock, you think Garrett Wilson's just bad vibes? Like, it's not just straight bad vibes. You know what I mean?

I understand why they grabbed him. The vision is clear to me. Garrett Wilson has the ability to go downfield because he has the speed. He's a 4-4 player. And one of the traits about him that's really attractive is the body control and ball adjustment down the field. He's a really good field structure. He can make some acrobatic catches along the sideline.

So with Elijah Moore, who's already a good slot separator, with Corey Davis, who's going to be that big body on the outside, is going to be able to move to the inside and block for you. That receiver blocking role is really important to this offense. Wilson is the snug fit. James and Williams would have made sense. I would have got it with Drake London just because Zach Wilson likes those big skyscraper receivers so much. But Wilson fits in very nicely with the other prototypes they have at receiver here.

So this makes sense. It's also an investment in Wilson. We've got to know what we got here. So a first round receiver was an important thing for the Jets to get. And they entirely passed on tackle, a position that they could have been in. in on because of the McKay Beckettin uncertainty, in part because I think they really feel they need to shore up this receiver core for the sake of Wilson. I understand that and I respect that. Jets had made three first round picks, three really good players who I had first round grades on

in Soss Gardner, Garrett Wilson, who not my favorite receiver, wouldn't have been my pick there, but still first round grade for me. And then Jermaine Johnson, who they apparently loved and were able to get like 16, 20 picks after they would have otherwise drafted it. Yeah. The Jets beat was convinced Jermaine Johnson was to pick at four. Yeah. Think about that. And he was falling out of 26. Yeah.

Yeah. And they got a great draft for the Jets. Yeah. And Jets fans got pissed at me because I got asked in, I was just doing like a Twitter AMA earlier in the day. And I got to ask like what GM gets fired today? And I was like, well, like in terms of like fire today, like maybe bulky. I don't know.

Something blows up. But like fired because the results of today, Joe Douglas. And the reason I said that is because it's very much put up or shut up time for Joe Douglas's roster. He redid the entire offensive. line. These are all Douglas acquisitions. He got the quarterback, second overall pick. Elijah Moore, Corey Davis, those were his receivers. Like, this is his offense. He built this whole thing. And now he had two first round picks in the top 10. And he was obviously going to be maybe on a

Devo Samuel trade. This was a huge draft for Joe Douglas that he had to win. He got three players that, per the reports, are like top 10, top 12 players on the Jets grade. Joe Douglas had the exact night Joe Douglas needed, assuming Joe Douglas's board was good. and assuming sauce is that guy, Garrett Wilson's that guy, and Jermaine is that guy. If not, having four and ten

and then an early second round pick, this was one of the most top-heavy draft capital, like, war chests. We've seen a long time. The Jets had a really strong war chest and made three first-round picks. So this is the watershed draft for Joe Douglas. If he hit the home run that he thinks he did,

Jets are on the up. Jets are a team that is beating other AFC contenders by the end of the season. They're not necessarily like an A&SHA. a FC playoff team, but they're causing problems. They're beating playoff teams because these young guys have coalesced. But that is the expectation now for Joe Douglas and the Jets. So great draft.

Killed it on consensus boards. Like I, from my Garrett Wilson opinions aside, three first round picks, all of them. Great players on your board. Great play on the consensus board. Congratulations. This is the watershed draft. This one makes or breaks Joe Douglas's tenure in New York. I feel like the pressure also shifts a little bit to Zach Wilson.

I think that Joe Douglas has done really well shifting a lot of these picks. I think Zach Wilson, we're going to talk a lot about how Tua has a lot of pressure on I'm in the AFCs with Tyree Kill and like they put everything around him to succeed. I think Zach Wilson is a similar situation. Another team that always puts pressure on themselves to win is the Saints. The Saints once again just living for now, trade up. Take Chris Oliva. Speaking of this Ohio State receiver, crazy this is, one receiver room goes, you know,

back to back to back with Ohio State. Now Chris Olive is going to the Saints. Michael Thomas went to Ohio State. I think this is kind of awesome to have Thomas and Oliva together. No idea what to make of James Winston being the quarterback for this team. But this is kind of pretty fun for the same. to get Olave? Yeah, I very much agree.

Alave is the exact sort of receiver that would have been so fun with Drew Brees. It made a ton of sense in terms of the smoothness in terms of the separation and the timing. Now it's James Winston. He can be a vertical player. It's just not really where his strength was, but it was very clear that they loved him,

that they loved Charles Cross, the tackle who the Seahawks got at 9, and then there was also the belief that they liked Trevor Penning. So they got the players they liked. Once again, they drafted well to their board. Penning's going to be probably forced in a position where he has to start

right away because Toronto Armstead is now Miami Dolphin. So they have a hole there at left tackle and Penning's a bit rough around those edges. Little raw on the outside. And so Penning's learning curve is going to be important. But the Saints have generally done a good job developing these first round picks that they've had along the offensive line. And then Chris Alavi to me is a perfect example of a year one starter. So they should get immediate impact out of two top 20 picks.

That's a big deal. That's going to help out James because that's blindside protector and expected starting Z receiver. James is going to work, they gave him the tools necessary to do so. With that said, I don't think the Saints should be considered a non-quarterback team. They're sitting there right now with 49 in the second round. That's after those teams I listed earlier. But if there's a quarterback on the board, wouldn't be surprised because that to me is appropriate future hedging for the New Orleans Saints if they were to grab one of these quarterbacks on day two and see

if they can challenge James had starting job in 2023. I think the other surprise of that receiver one. So the lines took Aiden Hutchinson, too. I think that they turned the pick in. I think faster than I've ever seen a pick turned in. Oh yeah. That was true. It was like immediate. I'm not going to lie. I feel very duped about the thought that they would ever take Kavon Tibado after they turned in the pick on Hutchinson. It's high, if it's you don't have to feel duped, you don't have to feel duped. I actually do think they really liked him. You know, they put in a lot of work on him. And from everything that we heard, so like you can confirm whether you heard this or not. but like their GM,

Brad Holmes, really liked him and maybe even wanted to take him over Hutchinson. Yeah. But he got, I'm confident they liked Kavana,

I'm confident they felt comfortable drafting him at two. I'm confident that if Hutchinson were the picket one, that card would have been in in five seconds and it would have been for Tibido.

They just knew who the pink at one was and they knew what their response was. That's how the first few picks should go. Should be a 30 second clock if teams are reasonable. 10 minutes is too long.

Can we talk about that? It needs to be like five. It's for the drama. So they've signed to talk about. What if there's a trade offer, Craig? Yeah. Also, when the draft begins, we don't need to start another 10 minutes for Jacksonville. Like, we should begin with the Jacksonville pick.

You're aware that they actually tell, like, the NFL actually asks the first team to wait. Like, they know who they're taking. They actually ask the Jaguars, like, don't turn in the card. Build the suspense. So, like, at least five minutes. As if there's not already suspense, it's like, it took 25 minutes for us to find out the first pick. Just start with the pick. It's ridiculous.

By the way, just peek behind the curtain here. I was like hustling to finish eating because I was like, I'm going to be working for the next six hours, blah, blah, blah. Like, I need to eat my dinner. Crap. It's 435, you know, Pacific time. It starts at 5 o'clock. And I'm just like cramming fajitas down my boca. And then get upstairs.

I eat within like 10 minutes and I eat and I get upstairs. And the fucking draft. Like, first of all, they take their sweet-ass time like 20 minutes before they even start the clock. Those like nine songs they sing at the top now. It's insane. It was like six o'clock before the freaking. like, Jack's pig.

I need to eat that fast. It's a wretched event to draft. DK. Don't worry about it because I thought it started at seven. And I was telling mayor,

I was like, yo, like I was like, we got to like dinner, we got to eat, we got to go. And I got up it at seven. And they were like,

that's tomorrow. Yeah. And they were like, yeah, like Derek Stingley's pretty good, huh? Anyway, back to the commercial

more after this. And I was like, what? What's going on? Yeah. So I am also done. I love the idea that Ben has studied

like dozens, not hundreds. of players and put thousands of dollars on it and didn't know what time it started. Now, I, I studied the players. I'm like, this guy, team could trade for that guy, that team could trade for this guy. And then we'll get to pick 21.

I'm like, oh, the Patriots have picked 21? That's cool. I didn't know. I don't know. I knew there were somewhere in the 20s. Well, on that note, speaking of not knowing, I remember kept looking up at the board being like, this team's picking there.

I'm like, oh, there was a trade. So the Lions traded up to take James and Williams. Craig is the one who said to me, the Lions are, this is fun? Lions offense. Jameson Rass St. Brown, DJ Chark, you know, say what you will. DeAndre Swift, T.J. Hawkinson,

Panezoul last year. Yeah. Say the quarterback's name. Well, Jared, God. This doesn't... Not a bad core in Detroit. I will say. Yeah.

Yeah. To sit there with like, oh, our fourth round rookie receiver played out nicely. And like, oh, like our, you know, we got DJ Chark and free agents. And he was good there for a little bit before the injury. And then to be like, yeah, I'll trade up 32 and 34 to 12 to get Jameson Williams.

It's a lot of moxie there. That's a Dan Campbell move, baby. That's two giant espressoes wherever the heck it is he drinks, right? That is a aggressive move. We had everybody under the sun, Saints, Vikings, Eagles, Chiefs, I heard, with 29 and 30. They were trying to hard, yeah. All trading up to go get Jameson Williams. And out of nowhere comes your second overall pick, nearly the worst team in the league,

fourth place finisher in the NFC North Lions being like, yes, we will take the injured speedster that we assumed was going to push a contending team over the edge? No, no, no, no, we would like him. Also, we're burying the lead here, which is that Solek actually broke the news that the Lions would be taking James.

I did not break the news that the Lions were trading. The Lloyds. You, so Solek actually, I believe actually beat Schaefter. Like, Solac actually had this first, that Jameson Williams was the pick. Except instead of saying, let me you know what let's read the tweet if we were playing the Ben Solak

draft drinking game we would have had to shotgun a beer after that yeah that was fucking classic let's pull up the exact tweet that Solac had he tweets so much I'm gonna have to scroll and scroll and scroll it was draft night he tweets so much I don't dig there per source comma the loins

L-O-I-N-S the loins have traded up to 12 overall for Alabama wide receiver James you had one chance Solac you get to break news at draft night and you got the loins. This is arguably way better way of doing it. Ben, Adam Shepter has never made a mistake in a tweet.

How dare you? I spent so long over the last couple of days working with everybody I know adjacent to the Detroit lines. There's not that many people, but like I'm here in Michigan, so it's like a good team for me, trying to figure out Hodge versus Tibodeau. And then after the Hutch was picked, I texted everybody. I was like, thanks. Like, you know, like, talk to y'all 32, like stay in touch.

Let me know if anything's going on. And then low-model lines move to 12. And I just get a text that just says, Jameson. And I responded 100%. And I responded 100%. And I was like, wow, what an opportunity for me. I've never broken news before.

This is really cool. And then I typed it and my hands were shaking and I sent in a bunch of DMs. And I started to get retweets from like sizable accounts and I was like, I am the man. And then before anybody could point it out, I just looked at it and had that thought where I was like, something's wrong.

and it was the worst thing that could be wrong. That's the best. That's the best. The loins. It's a positive. It's best what a typo spells something different. And it's like literally your loins. And I just, but the thing is I busted out laughing because I know myself.

And I know who I am. I will never be a particularly professional individual and I'll never be an actual newsbreaker. I will forever and always be the guy who accidentally says loins instead of lions. And I am okay with that. That is my lot in life. And I am pleased that that is who I am. I like the loins. They've got a nice little lineup here.

A couple quote tweets. Ben had a great night. The Eagles did well. He, like, freaking killed it in the bed egg market. He broke news before Schaefter. What else? He made up a team? Yeah, not bad.

The loins. I just want to say, some people who quote tweeted Solex tweet about the loins said, this motherfucker said loins. this is elite tweeting you can't teach this Stephen nearly ratioed me with this motherfucker said loins in the responses

and I was like don't you dare Someone said active loins this evening Someone said please Elon Musk Never add an edit button Oh my god Okay fantastic So that was kind of the receiver run We also want to keep going

A couple awards here Which related I find it rude that you haven't asked me about my Seahawks. I talked about your guys' teams this whole time. They took a lineman. They can move on. They're not interesting. Ours are interesting.

All right. Yeah, we'll get to it at the end when we have, wouldn't know what cares anywhere. When we start talking about like some random bullshit? Yeah, okay. Yeah. So the, I want to give the Ravens the award of the friend

who always just says good things fall in their lap. I swear to God, man. The fucking Ravens, man. Just fine $20 bills in the ground. Unbelievable. Like, every. draft. Another thing we joked about, like the Packers taking a tackle and a linebacker happened, we just joked like, the Ravens just, just, they take good football players. That's it.

That's the whole strategy. Every year. Take good players. So Solac a month ago was like Kyle Hamilton take him like number two. He's like the best player in the entire draft. The Ravens just sit there at 14, get Kyle Hamilton. And I assume I want to hear what Solek says here. But I'm going to go to a limb. So like, this has to be. the best possible landing spot for Kyle Hamilton to go to the Ravens and defensive quarter to Mike McDonald's, right? It's an incredible landing spot.

And the thing was like a large part of the Kyle Hamilton argument was safeties are not a non-premium position. Safeties are not and avoid this in the top five, top 10. They historically have been, but in the NFL over the last few years, in terms of the growth of top contracts, it goes quarterback, tackle, edge, safety.

Those are the positions that are ballooning right now. figured out that they should be paying these guys. And you know who just paid a lot of money for a star safety? Is the Baltimore Ravens, right? They spent a $14 million per year, so it's $70 over five on Marcus Williams, the safety from the Saints, the Saints couldn't pay. And Marcus Williams is a delightful safety off the roof. He is a single high, ton of range safety.

And you would love to pair that player with a guy who can live in the box and just do everything else, right? If you want to go and be able to live in a lot of. middle of the field closed world, one deep safety, and then one problem solver, jack of all trades in the box. If you want to have that world, you need a Marcus Williams and you need a Kyle Hamilton, who lands their line comp to Cam Chancellor, right, who is the prototype box safety. So you have that and then Kyle can do a little bit dropping it into the middle of the field. He's done at Notre Name and Williams can do a little bit, drop him down low. He did it with the New Orleans Saints.

So you have the ability to become flexible and now go into this too high world. And so the Smart teams, in my opinion, are figuring out the safety is a premium position. And the Ravens tend to be those smart teams. They tend to be ahead of that curve. So you bring in McDonald, who's got college background, who used a player like Dax Hill, right, who went 31 to the Bengals as this versatile safety to nickel player, to overhang, to Blitz, to drop to deep half guy. And you give him Kyle Hamilton.

And you say, he already did all of it at Notre Dame. This is plug and chug. Hamilton is going to start this plug and chug. This plug and chug, baby. he's going to start week one, he's going to be impact year one. And if McDonald retains any level of the blitzing obsession that Don Wink Martindale did, and remember, McDonald used to be on Wink's staff, yeah, Hamilton's going to be even better for that too.

Because you know what makes the safety of really good blitzer? When he's 6'4, 220 pounds, baby, that's a whole ass edge rusher coming to you from depth. That's really, really delightful. This is, I agree, the ideal landing spot for Kyle Hamilton. I was trying not to laugh the entire time because Craig just, texted all of us a logo that someone in your mentions, I guess, worked up that says Detroit loins and it's just a picture of like a giant tenderloin. Oh, that's good. Sorry. Nice good to meet there. That was an excellent explanation though. And I apologize for being distracted during it.

No, my phone's off, D.K., so I don't actually check my texts. So it's on his computer. It came through on his computer. Don't shame him. D.K.'s really tapped in, all right? He's got to be online in. Listen, D.K.'s team drafted a good offensive lineman, and he is looking at text on his computer. All right? Shout out Daniel Kelly. I want to go as long as possible. That's on the Cokes. No, while we're on the Ravens, they also get Tyler Linderbaum, who was kind of, we all were like, you know, they got two players who were the best at their position in this track.

And then after that, they also trade Marquis Brown for a first rounder to the Cardinals. What? Yeah, yeah. So they trade Marquis Brown to the Cardinals for a first round pick. they basically got Marquis Brown they got the three of the four cheap years a Markees Brown's deal

then they trade him away for a pick higher than they picked they used originally to select Markees Brown in the first place and then they spin that pick into Tyler Linderbaum to be their center

this is an unbelievable draft for the Ravens I don't know if there's They traded back too by the way and they traded back again they picked up a couple extra like mid-rounders too Arizona traded the 23rd pick

and the 100th pick for Marquis Brown, and the Eagles gave away the 18th and the 101st for AJ Brown. It's pretty much the same price. It's unbelievable. So the Ravens are good. Just one receiver is a lot better than the other one. Dude, what the hell are the Cardinals doing?

Okay. Well, it's very easy. I like it for the Cardinals. It's very easy to explain. Here's how the Cardinals work. Is he fast? Yeah. He's on our team.

And that's why the Cardinals did it. And they were teammates and everybody loves to do that now. It's just fun to put quarterbacks and they were roommates. Can I give you my theory of the Arizona Cardinals? I just gave you theory.

Are they fast? Can I give something that works with that? All right, go for it. So, Steve Kime is the GM of the Cardinals and it's like the 2018 draft they take Josh Rosen. And then they go in that year and they have like the worst year ever.

And Steve Kime's like going to get fired. And it's like Ozark. Ozark's coming back. Remember the first like three, minutes of Ozark when it's like Jason Bateman's going to get killed for like screwing over this drug lord and he just sees a pamphlet says Ozark and he's like uh uh more coastline than the state of california he's like what he's like uh Ozarks I'll I'll make more money for you the Ozarks and he's like oh okay and he saves his life but now he saves his life but now Jason Bateman has to go to the

Ozarks and make that happen I feel like Steve Kym was going to get fired for taking Josh Rosen and they're like you're done and he's like I'll fix it and they're like how he's like uh uh uh uh uh uh Kyler Murray and they just take Kyler Murray and he's like well, how's that going to work? He's like, uh, Cliff Kingsbury. And they just bring these guys in. And then Kime just has to make this work. But there's no plan.

They're just throwing things at the wall. Like AJ Green, they're just living to see tomorrow. Guys, it's unbelievable. Yeah, that's really it. That's really, it's so bizarre to see this team make these moves. It's exactly what you just said, like the 23rd pick for Marquis Brown, 18th for AJ Brown.

Like, I don't know. It doesn't. Well, the, the one. main difference is Marquise Brown has an extra year on his contract, right? And AJ Brown Yeah, but you can pick up the fifth year option. I mean, I'm not saying, I'm not saying, look, I'm not telling you that I think the Cardinals had a better deal than the AJ Brown deal. But I think, like, if you look at them separately, I don't hate the, I don't hate the Markkees Brown deal. Well, I guess here's my question. Is Marquis Brown actually underrated because maybe Lamar is an even

worse passer than maybe his, like, is there a world where Lamar actually was holding Marquis Brown back in that a year from now, we're like, wow, Marquis Brown's actually. you really good. Not a great fit for him in Baltimore. Not Lamar. Maybe Greg Roman. I could be talking to that to a degree, right? The offensive coordinator for the Ravens just because I really don't like the way they get

into their passing game. But to me, and I've been this way with Marquis with Hollywood Brown since he came out since he was drafted, I just do not see a complete player. I love having a paramount trait. And it was used well, in my opinion, in Baltimore. It will be used well in Arizona, where they're also a really vertical passing offense. they're going to get him free releases off the line of scrimmage. But it's so funny to me that this team who in the first year of Cliff Kingsbury

spent a second round pick on Andy Isabella, a small, thin, short, fast from UMass who could only run down the field, never had him be successful. Then, three years later, I think, traded for Marquise Brown, and then immediately put Andy Isabella on the block and a little bit of like, wow, you really didn't learn your lesson here, did you? Oh, Swick, we got to make his job. Also, Rondale.

Let's put Isabella on the block. Yeah. You forget about Rondale. And now, Rondale's a little bit more dense. He's a little bit more like yards up for the catch guy. But Marquise Brown is a speedster. He is a field structure. They're going to use him to be vertical.

And that is a understandable and important role for this team. However, there are a lot of receivers who can run sub 4-4 and who can get off line of scrimmage. Like, again, receiver has just ballooned in terms of the volume of guys. Go ahead and draft. know, what, D.K., what's the name of the Baylor kid? Type 1, Thorneill, Type 1 Thorin. Yep. Yeah, Thorin, I think it is.

You know, go and get your speedster. Like, again, every year, round four, go just draft the 4-4-guy, drive the 4-4 guy. Eventually, you're going to get one who hits, and you don't need to go trading a first-round pick to then pay a guy, because that's the other thing. What does Marquise Brown do better than Christian Kirk,

besides fast? Well, what about Marquise Brown and Kyler played together in Oklahoma? We didn't even really, I mean, is there any credence to the fact that... It's nice. like it certainly helps Kyler, right? Like it helps Kyler feel better. They've kind of been on the rocks.

That's nice. But to me, you're getting one to one and a half cheaper years of Brown because the second year would be the fifth year option. And if you're going to give him an extension, it's probably at that time going to be

$20 million, which is what Christian Kirk got. So I don't understand why you don't just pay Kirk who's good and does multiple things well and could also stretch the field for you. It was a good vertical receiver last year. To me, this is just, just, I see a shiny, fast receiver that played with Kyla Murray, and like you very well put at high fits, let's just live for tomorrow, right? Go on the edge, go get him. And it is not a

long-term or responsible team-building approach. The Cardinals continue to feel like a house of cards to make, pun intended. Oh, good one. More Netflix TV references. I think I, so look, I actually agree with most of that. I do still think he's going to be super productive, though. For what it's worth. Yeah. A lot of argument to me is that he's just better and that the Ravens

haven't really like run an offense that is conducive for NFL receiver player. Jarvis Landry for like the last eight weeks last year. I mean he was putting up like eight catch 60 yard performances.

That was kind of weird, right? It's like the NFL version of, all right, we'll talk about the Cokes in his second, DK. It's like the NFL version of like

is Charles Cross a run defender as a run blocker? Well, I don't know because he had the most past block snaps. It's like, is Marquis Brown a great receiver? I don't know.

They pass less than any team. Like that's the only daylight I can see here, but that's being generous. But it's also great for Bateman, by the way. Rashad Bateman's season. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excited about that. Yeah.

DeKam, literally trying to talk about the Seahawks and you're pivoting away. Do you want to talk about Rashad Bateman instead? For Christ's sake, we can talk about the Seahawks now. All right, let's do, all right. The Seahawks took Charles Cross at number nine. How do you feel? Yeah. I feel great about it.

I was very scared, frankly, coming into the draft that they were going to just reach and take Trevor Penning, who I'd, just don't really see as a first round tackle. And so I was very excited. I basically had poo-poohed the idea because I'd seen Charles Cross connected to C-Ox in a lot of mock drafts with very well-plugged-in people. And I was always kind of like, I just don't think the C-Ox will take him because he had been playing, you know, in this Mike Leach offense for Mississippi State where they have like

a little bit wider splits. It's like not quite as dramatic as it used to be. But wider splits, he was pass blocking almost all the time. In fact, he had like, I don't know, 1,200-something pass-block snaps this last year. So he was, like, getting his reps in as a pass-block, which is great. And I think he's the best pass-blocking tackle in this class. And I almost put him above Evan Neal for that reason. But the reason I was a little bit hesitant to do that is because he just isn't as well-rounded of a profile.

He doesn't have as much experience run-blocking. I think the times that he was asked to run-block, he, like, flashed and he looked pretty good at it. but like bottom line, he wasn't like this mauling run blocker type guy. And that's why I thought the CX would kind of just be like, no, this isn't for us. We want to be a balanced team. So I'm very grateful they kind of,

at least in my opinion, went off brand with this pick. He's a former five-star guy. He has great length. He's a very good athlete, in my opinion. I really like him. And I know some people have him as the OT1. I think PFF had it as the first tackle.

I know Nate Tice had him as the first tackle. So I'm extremely excited about this. Like the CX got a left tackle. And, you know, that's really exciting. And they didn't do that thing what I was really afraid they were going to do, which is take an old, small school

senior ball guy. Cole Strange. Yeah, they didn't go full strange this year, which is great. He said Cole Strange, not full Strange. Oh, they didn't go full Strange. You never go full strange. You never go Cole Strange.

It's all one of the same. Okay. Once the Seahawks made a regular responsible thing at nine, I knew the teens were about to get really weird. Hey, that was Solex, one of Solex best takes is that in a year of chaos, the chaotic team will be normal.

And that ended up happening. And the Seahawks were like, wow, a good left tackle that we need, let us select him. And then the Saints were like, we're trading up to 11. We got to get this thing started. Seahawks are making good picks. Somebody's got to do something. Dude, and I was starting to sweat a little bit because like the board did not set up well for the Seahawks, like early on.

It was like all the tackles and all the good corners when, or sorry, all the edge rushers, all the good corners went off the board. So Cross was probably the last guy. in a, and then after him was like a massive, massive, like, cliff. So if they hadn't gotten crossed, I think they would have traded back for sure. Okay. We've talked about a lot. I want from each of you, age before beauty will go DK first.

Your favorite pick from this round, not including your own team. Like, who won this, who won this round, basically? That's an excellent question. Excellent question. Let me look through here real quick. I can go. Go ahead, yeah. Beauty before age.

Yeah. In terms of, like, so we've mentioned a lot of picks. I thought Kyle Hamilton was a tremendous pick. I loved the Jameson Williams trade-up, yeah, yeah, whatever. But in terms of ones we haven't talked about, Kyra Eilum to the bills at 23 is really important. For two, probably three drafts, the bills have needed to take a running mate for Tradavius White, their corner one. Their scheme does a good job hiding corners.

I respect that. Their safeties do a ton of work. Awesome. But eventually you just have to get a guy. so that way, if he hits on third and eight, you can say, you know what, we can play a man and survive. That's just something you need it for the playoffs. There are too many good receivers.

Finally, they bit the bullet, and they took Kyrie Elam off of the Tradavius White injury, which I think did matter to them a little bit and letting them know, like, hey, we got some fragility at corner we got to get ready for. Elon was a player I had a round one grade on. He was my corner three, loved him a lot. He can play press man, but he's long enough,

quick enough, smart enough to play base zone, which is what the bills want to do. And I think he can be a year one starter. I think there'll be lumps early, but I think by week nine, week 10, he'll be a guy you trust in the playoffs.

So the bills have long needed that corner too. They've long needed that big investment at corner. I've been looking forward to them making it for a long, long time, and they took one of my guys

in Kyrie. I'm at 23. Very excited about that pick. Yeah, I think that's a great one. That would have been near the top of my list. Not to be totally boring,

but Evan Neal to the Giants, like just makes so much freaking sense to me. Because, and if you look at it from, like, a team-building point of view, like, they need to do everything

that they can do to, surround Daniel Jones with good players, get him a little bit more protection. Massive, massive problem, by the way, for Daniel Jones has been fumbles. And a lot of that is because the pocket just crumbles. And guys are hitting him from the blind side and, like, forcing, like, hitting the ball out.

Like a lot of times, you know, not to like just make excuses for Daniel Jones, but like a lot of those cases is not really his fault. He's just getting like crushed in the pocket. So I think that's like a massive, massive deal. I think Evan Neal has a really high floor. He's multiple. He has the ability to play multiple positions if they need him

I don't know. Have you listened to their press or yet? Are they planning on playing him at left tackle? Do you know? I assume that he'll be outright tackles. I have not listened to the press conference. I would be surprised if he was. So I thought that was a great one.

And then I don't know why, but it was very satisfying when the Texans took Stingley. I thought like the Stingley narrative was pretty annoying the last like two months or something like that. Like, you know, oh, he's going to drop into the teens, blah, blah, blah. He's got, he wasn't very good the last two years. he's injury, like he doesn't love ball, like all this stuff. Like, this is similar to what we were hearing with like Kvon Tibido. And I mentioned this, I think, on our take purchase the other day, I was just like,

and at the end of the day, like, Tibido and Stingley are just going to be like the two best players in this class. So it was like cool. Yep. It felt good to see that, like, the NFL, it was more, it felt like it was much more just like a smokescreen and teams are hoping that he would fall to them. I think he's going to be an elite player. So Stingley to the Texans makes a lot of sense for what they're trying to do, what they're

trying to build. And I know Lovie Smith came out like a couple weeks ago last week or whatever and was like, we can't play without good corners. And so like it just was a, it was a natural fit for them. I think he's a really good player. And I don't know, for whatever reason, I just really, that one resonated with me. Do you want to know mine? I do. I like Strange out of Nuga. If you watch this tape against Virginia Military Institute, it was a close loss to VMI. Close lost to VMI. He really showed some good traits. He really knows how to get down in the mud.

What's the VMI mascot? It's something really ridiculous. Oh, my God. What's Chattanooga's? Richmond actually plays VMI. I don't even know. It's Moe the kangaroo. Yes, it's Moe the kangaroo.

Yes, it is, VMI Mo. What, for Virginia Military Institute? They have a kangaroo? For military school? Yeah. The Chattanooga mascot is like the... His name is a scrappy mock. Yeah, they're the mocks.

I don't know what a mock is, but I know of the mocks. All we do is mocks of this show. Well, I think, I believe it used to be, I believe it used to be the moccasins, and then they changed it to the mox to be more culturally sensitive. So, but what was the military institute one? Kangaroos, Mo. Australia. Wow, full circle.

There we go. Full circle. By the way, if you guys missed our green room, sorry, our Spotify alive from this morning, we had another fine gentleman from Australia. We made an Australian talk to us for 10 minutes. We just had them speak. The draft was in 45 minutes. Say this one now.

Like we're nine. Say Kavan Timito. You guys gave winners. I want to say a winner for me other than us having the Australian guy speak and it was just great. Shout out to that dude. I was going to give a loser. I know we joked about it at the top. The Packers.

Oh my God. This team, a front office with the pressure. Listen. Listen, I will say the board did not fall well for them getting. a receiver. I fully believe they tried to trade up to go get one. And I fully believe they would have taken one of the top six if they were there at 22.

It just did not come to them. And that sucks. All their good receivers have been in the second round. But it's just, I can't remember a team that had like this draft joke about them that leaned into it as much as the backers. That's all. Big picture.

I feel like we all were like these quarterbacks suck. No one's. should reach for them. No one did. And I think the overarching feeling today is like all these teams actually really seem to, I don't want to say stick to their board, but like made generally good decisions. Is that fair? Is that a fair takeaway from the day? I think that, yeah, that's like one of the overarching themes, the motif from round one, was for the most part, I honestly did feel like teams had good process in this draft. You know, because I'm like, I'm taking, I'm going from a point of view where I'm trying to like grade these teams on their process and like the picks most of the teams pick

guys that I had ranked in the top 32 so like am I going to give them bad like grade for taking a player I like why would I do that I really actually liked the process for most of these teams so I think that was like kind of the one of the main takeaways I was actually bitching about it to you guys early on I'm like we need teams to do stupid shit like come on bring it bring in the get go full strange if you will all right so like what's your motif and then we're going to get out of here I think that I think the the shift in why receiver management and valuation over the last four months is going to be tough to overstate. I think it's going to continue to matter for years to come. We saw more receivers

move in terms of significant players over this offseason than like any other position that I can remember, including quarterback over the last few years. And there's no way Jahan Doss not a Penn State who's a good player who I like is a top 16, top half of the first round pick without some of these veteran wide receiver moves. I think this wide receiver position is going to get really polarized between the top guys being tippy, tippy top, and then the draft guys all filling out the spots in between, and it's going to be a weird,

weird, weird world for like middle class receivers over the next three years in the free agent market and the trade market and what have you. And so wide receiver, that run in the top 18 to me. I knew it could come. Like DJ was talking about four in the top 11 leading up to this draft.

But man, when the commanders made Dahan Dotson the 16th pick, I was like, wow, we have reached a new level of wide receiver investment. in the NFL. I completely agree. Okay. I think that's a good note to end on. So we're going to be, well, not we.

I'm at a wedding this weekend, which as Craig made fun of me for the other day. So. No, I didn't make fun of you for having a wedding. I made fun of you for saying. I'm not getting there. You were the best man. Well, I said I'm the best man at the wedding to clarify that I'm not just at a fringe wedding.

Like, it's a, it's a core wedding. That's all. Perfectly reasonable. So I'm missing the next two episodes of this strap of this pod for a core wedding. so it will be the three of you guys so Craig why don't you freaking explain the schedule you guys explain I don't even know what's going on yeah it was just like we did tonight

we're coming at you after rounds two and three tomorrow to react to those and then we'll be coming to you Saturday after the draft concludes in the afternoon to kind of recap everything and then our final draft show will be late Monday early Tuesday and we will bid farewell to Ben sad day

oh no I haven't temporary it's temporary temporary yeah we'll be back We'll be back. We'll all get together. We'll go to Nuga's first game next year. Yeah. Bring me on.

Nuga, Mersher or Nuga VMI? What do you think homecoming will be? Chet Nuga bits on this pod have been absolutely delightful. Nuga absolutely laid the hammer on Sanford this year. Yeah, Sanford had a rough year. Yeah, bring me out a fantasy show at some point next year. And I'll just randomly give takes without a fancy background. We will.

We will for sure. Give the people what they want. All right. Thank you. Thank you, D.K. thank you Soak, thank you, Craig. Thank you, I mean, thank you, Chattanooga. What else can we say?

I can't stop laughing about Nuga. Nuga. Craig just died, what was it? What was it? What was it? What was it? Yeah, so good work?

Good job? Oh my God. I'm like punch drunk. Yeah, I'm so tired that it's just, remember that time of the pictures? It's like a guy. Craig just keeps naming Chet Nuka a ponen. What did Craig say earlier in the

episode. I can't remember what it was, but it was so funny. But taking the driver's license? No, it was, he said like, oh, this guy did that. So, good job. He just, congrats. Yeah. It was third team FCS. It was Cole Strange. It was third team FCS office of linemen, so good job. Oh, fuck.

That's tough sledding over there at Nuga. I'm actually correct. more than six against Mercer. He's not a winner. He doesn't compete. Okay. We didn't thank Lauren. Thank you, Lauren.

Oh yeah, I've got a shout out with Mariah Carey and Tom Tom Club. Apparently, both of the NFL network was used in both of them. Oh, my God. I don't know if it was Mariah Carey, but they were playing TomTom Club over and over. It's like their intro outro music. Bizarre. It's amazing. What are the odds of that?

Someone told me that Mariah Carey's fantasy came on and it was like the person was triggered because it was like, whoa. Yeah. I was quick talking about it for a second. What the fuck are the odds that both fantasy by Mariah Carey and top club could play during the draft? The only two songs we talk about all the time. So it turns out there is somebody who can negotiate with Mariah Carey's agent and it's the damn NFL. The NFL, Roger Goodell. Well, I think they pay her more than what we're willing to offer.

That's probably right. no good on stage moments besides Derek Carr's haircut plus facial hair situation no really good on stage moments ice cube like obliterated the microphone yeah how that would happen it was like introducing the pod yeah when Roger Goodell was like yo do you guys know ice cube like ice cube come up here he called him cube and I was like they really tried to make this scene like an impromptu thing and I was like there's no way gadell is spotting ice cube and going yo cube Hop on up here, big guy.

Do you all know Ice Cube? The entirety of Las Vegas was like, yeah, man. We've heard of him. Yeah, we know Ice Cube a little better than you, actually, yeah. I thought it was a metaphor that Derek Carr gets to step to the podium with the mic in Las Vegas and the mic doesn't work. I thought that was like, felt like an omen. Two on the nose, maybe. Also, Roger Goodell is the best dapper in his 60s in the world.

Oh, wow. No one in their 60. Yes. Yes. This is a great way of framing. Is Roger Goodell a particularly good dapper? No. Does he know what he is doing for a 60-year-old white man?

Yes. He's got a down. Passing grade. Yes. He gets a C. Who was it who picked him all the way up? Like a little, like a little, like a little, just baby. Just like a small child boy.

Somebody like fully lifted him. It was great. I will say, I thought the most enthusiastic that, I thought Jermaine Johnson, like, you always think those guys are, Zenful. The reality is when you sit in the green room so long, like, Germain Johnson came up and I'm just so happy. That was very pure. It was Devin Lloyd. It was. And

Roger Goodell's got his knees bent like he's asking to be swung around, man. He wants, he wants to do twisties. Goodell had a knee bend? What's that? I still think, we never investigated whether Goodell really pulled. I was thinking about this because Goodell's dapped people, these guys are squeezing

and they're like professional you know, guys who crush people. And Goodell's never gotten hurt. then the home draft is where we think he pulled a muscle. He threw his back out 100%. He threw his back out the year he didn't have to take hugs from 400-pound guys. He was sitting like you can't... He was sitting like only a person who's thrown their back out can sit.

Listen, I'm 27 and I can't stand for three hours. It's tough. I get it. It's not easy. I'm sure those loafers he had on had no padding, no support. He needs some hokas. You left hokas. You've been on the hoka thing.

The whole thing... I just got a pair to run in and they're great. Your parents got the Hokkas. I hate it. I do. Really? I looked up like best running shoes of 2022 and they were like the third option.

They're highly rated, but I have to go with minimal support because I have bad ankles that I'm working on. This is a total aside. But Hokas are very nice if you need them. Yeah, a lot of good cushion. The second I went back, I like tried on my old Nike running shoe and I was like, wow, I feel like I'm running in sandals. Yeah.

Anyway, get get out some Hokas. Get us the NFL's negotiators so we can play my, Mariah Carey music. I think that's the narrative. I don't really know the Mariah Carey bit. Or Spotify just needs to grant us a lot of money to offer Mariah Carey, perhaps. I just found out Jim McMahon follows me on Twitter. He did a big follow blitz, Jim McMahon. He was like, let's follow all the NFL riders.

That's incredible. I'm just going to end. I don't even know this is going in, but I was going to say goodbye. Oh, I'm not cutting any of this. It's late. Jim McMahon. It's a draft pod. It can go for two hours. Who cares? Jim McMahon goes Follows me on Twitter.

People in the Spotify live today were like, what are you guys ever just post all the banter that you do at the end? And I'm like, this is it. The hardest D.K. ever made me laugh.

So, like, the hardest Dekays ever made me laugh was the Take Purge last year. He's like, he just starts the Take Purge like minute two. And he's like,

Zach Wilson, his kid's bob, Jim McMahon. Yeah. That's not my text. That's Derek Klassen. Yeah, that was classic. Um,

but yeah, what was it going to say? Yeah, who knows? Oh, I remember. Yeah, big draft fans are going to see this pod and their feeds back, yo, an hour 30 on the first round sick and they're going to get to like hour and 10 and we're like, all, bye everybody. And I'm like, what's the next 20 minutes?

You're going to pick to minute 25. And they're just hoping that me or D.K's like, you know, it was a good pick. Like, Dax Hill to the Bengals at 31. I think that's high impact. Jesse Bateskas to play the roof. There, that's your nugget for all the real draft fans who stuck long enough.

There's a little Dax Hill analysis for you. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. It's good stuff, guys. You're talking about Lewis C. to the Vikings? Good back. It makes sense. Yeah.

Wait. Oh, you know what? We've come this far. Let's just go through. Let's actually do some football here. No, we're not going back. What are we talking about? On part two.

We're going to do good football player, yes or no. For the guys who to talk, Kenyon Green, good football player? Texas took him. No? No. Okay. Zion Johnson, the Chargers, good football player? Yes.

Yes. Trevor Petting to the Saints. Good football player? Kenny Pickett and the Steelers, good football player? No. Trent McDuffney, the Chiefs, good football player? No. Quaywalk into the backers, good football player? Yes.

Yes. Kier, under the Bills. Good football player? Yes. Totally. Tyler Smith of the Cowboys, good football player? Yes. Yes.

Devin Lloyd of the Jaguars, good football player? No. Oh, really? He's such a good guy. Okay. Cold Street, Colstreet. Yeah. buddy our boy

full strain the ironic thing is yes he's a good football player yeah I'm gonna follow him for his career he actually is good tough loss to Austin PA last year

it's just Austin P Pee P it's not P P yeah it's not Pee yeah it's not P oh my God tough 30 to 20 lost

there. Oh, boy. Okay. I think we got to go. All right. That's all we got. Thank you. Honestly,

for the bottom of my heart, if anyone has made it to this far in the pod and listen to it, I hope you have enjoyed listening. This is your first episode or you've been with this

in the beginning. I hope you have enjoyed this as much as we have. These three are going to get you for the next couple of days of the draft. We'll do a fun thing next week, but this has been so much fun. And then, yeah, we got more.

Solek, it's been awesome having you. I know we're going to do that. I've said, but just want to say it. Thank you everyone for making it this far. I'm so proud of Solek. Solek had the best day ever. He had the best day of his life, maybe. Well, that's the second best day.

I'm loving. He got married. Honestly, oh, this is just me talking to Solek, though. Like, just actual question. Do you think that the Giants now kind of have to take a cornerback now that A.J. Brown is on the Eagles. it hasn't really hit me yet, but they kind of have to take a cornerback

because they don't have anyone to guard AJ Brown. I mean, trade James Bradbury. Yeah. Yes and no. There's always the whole like, we don't trade James Radbury thing, which like James Radbury is quite good.

Like I'd be comfortable paying him the money you're paying him now to play. I mean, it's just obviously that's not the direction that Bradbury or the team really wants to go. We'll see. Kyler Gordon is to me a really good option. Booth is one contract player, but also really talented.

So I'm fine with the corner pick at 36. That makes a lot of sense to me. Ben, I have a question. Do the Steelers have to take Desmond Redder now because they're only quarterbacks or Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubiske? Yes. I think so, too.

I'm going to bed whether or not the podcast keeps going. Goodbye.