The Ringer NFL Show - Could the Bad QB Draft Class Actually Be Good?

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

It’s ‘The Ringer NFL Draft Show’! The newest show on our feed. Each week, Danny Kelly and Ben Solak will guide Heifetz and Craig through the world of the NFL draft, beginning with a conversation about the top six quarterback prospects in the draft. DK and Ben tell us how to feel about each QB prospect heading into the offseason through the lens of ‘50 Shades of Grey.’  You read that right. Kenny Pickett, Pittsburgh (11:20) Desmond Ridder, Cincinnati (24:42) Malik Willis, Liberty (34:35) Matt Corral, Ole Miss (43:32) Sam Howell, UNC (50:30) Carson Strong, Nevada (55:53) If you have any fantasy football or NFL-draft-related questions, please email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, Ben Solak, Craig Horlbeck, Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, the host of the podcast, Plain English. We tackle technology, politics, culture, history, everything that's happening in the world, and why it matters. New episodes of Plain English drop every Tuesday and Friday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL Draft Show. Yes, the Ringer NFL Draft Show. My name is Dan Hifitz, and I am joined by Danny Kelly, Ben Solac and Craig Worldbeck. What's going on? Wow. The crossover event in the century.

D.K. and Solock are going to school Craig and I on the draft for the next few months. And Craig and I are going to make fun of Dek and Soak for all the weird draft terms they use, like throughout the next few months. Why do you have to say oily hips? It's such a weird term. All the draft people stop. It's evocative. It's very descriptive. It gets the people going.

Just stop doing that. Anyway, we will be coming to you on this feed Tuesdays until the Super Bowl ends. And then after the Super Bowl ends, every Tuesday and Thursday until the NFL draft, which is on April 30th. Again, D. DK, Soak, me, Craig, every Tuesday and Thursday on this feed through the offseason, we're talking NFL draft. They're going to teach us about the draft. And again, we're going to make fun of them for all the weird terms draft people use.

DK., Craig and I, we're still going to be making. We're still going to be giving you our worst bets for the Super Bowl. We're going to give you awards for Super Bowl night. But we are getting our draft coverage going now. Also, we have the ringer NFL draft guide on the website coming this week soon. DK has been working on it. It's awesome. Keep an eye out for that.

that's going to be at nfldraft. the ringer.com. So check that out when it comes out this week. And of course, if you've been listening to this pod, you know, be sure to email your questions. We're still doing the same email address. Ringer Fantasy Football at Gmail.com. We love to hear from you guys.

Please keep emailing us. We know not everyone has like a public Twitter account or whatever. So we love to go through email. Emails at ringerfinacy football at Gmail.com. Okay. Enough plugs. Draft time. In this episode, we're going to go through all the quarterbacks you need to know for

this year. We're going to go by one by one. Deakin Solac are going to explain. us who the hell these people are. And we're going to do two jargons, one lie. We're very excited for that. A lot of bits come in your way, folks. A lot of bits.

A lot of bits. We had to figure out how to make Derek Stingley Jr. interesting. But first, already with the heresy. I don't love that. Yeah. Derek Stingley Jr. is very interesting.

No, he's not. I'm sorry. He is. No one cares about corners except for us, Soak, I think. I think cornerbacks are interesting. Anyway, before we get in all that, forget cornerbacks.

We're going to talk quarterbacks. and we're going to go through them all one by one. But first, we're going to just talk whether any of these guys are good. Like, are they good or what? Big picture. All you've heard, if you've heard anything about this draft this year, it's just like, well, it's a bad quarterback class. Like, no one elaborates on that.

It's just like, well, you know, Team X needs a quarterback, but it's a bad quarterback class and they just move on. And no one, like, explains or anything. So we're going to start right there. And we're going to go to Solek first because you're the new blood, and this is hazing. So lack. Get up in front of the class.

Yeah, exactly. Stand up. Where are you from? All that you. Fun fact. Is this really a bad quarterback class? Because you had Mac Jones, Solac, you had Mac Jones as your fifth quarterback out of the five that went in the first round last year. Would Mac Jones be the top rated quarterback for you in this year's class? Comfortably. Yeah. That's that and that's not even back to like, oh, now that we've seen Mac for a year to do X, Y, and Z. When Mac came out, Mac was a good quarterback prospect. It was just he was in a class of four really. physically gifted quarterbacks and he had physical limitations. And it goes back to the conversation we have when the Niners traded up to three. It's like, all right, if they're taking Mac Jones here, sure? Like, I don't hate it. Like, it's kind of early for him, but whatever. It's just in this class with a guy like Justin Fields, a guy like Trey Lance available, and the ceilings described by their physical ability, we shouldn't be taken Mac that high.

So Mac was fifth in that class as a product of the other quarterbacks in that class. He was legitimate first round grade for how well he played, for how he processed, for his deep accuracy, for his pocket management, all of the way. which translated into New England. Nobody in this class has played as well as Mac did in Alabama and also shown as clear of answers to their limitations as Mac did in Alabama. And some of that is Mac getting to play in Bama and getting those receivers and getting that help, but that's just the way the cookie crumble sometimes.

Instead, you're trying to develop in Pitt and in Cincinnati and in Liberty, and that's not as easy. And so Mac absolutely is quarterback one with a bullet in this class. It's not a good class, Danny. Oh, well, that's it. That's it. That's how I'm going to. Appreciate it, the show.

So let comes in. Wow. We just cut our podcast by like a lot of time. saves us a lot of work. Yeah. Deke, do you agree? Do you actually agree? Does this class, is this class not as good as last year or is it bad?

Because there's a difference. That's a great, great question. I think I would say it's, to your first question, it's not as good. I agree with Solek on that. I think I would have it in the same order. In fact, Solac and I think we're going to kind of line up in a lot of ways with this class we've talked about our top fives and kind of how they're shaking out. Obviously, nothing is set in stone right now.

But we were more excited about last year. There's just so much more production, consistency, and then, of course, physical gifts that a lot of these guys had together last year. So this is what you're comparing these guys, too. So I think the natural inclination is to say it's a bad draft class. I do think there's a gray area, which gets into the thing, the bit we're going to do later, which is 50 shades of gray with these quarterbacks. It's not a bit.

It's a very serious technical analysis. There's a gray area that I want to live in here, which is each of these guys has some very intriguing traits, I think, that could, like, give them the ceiling to develop into a good quarterbacks. Are any of them there right now? My opinion would be no. Like, a lot of these guys are going to basically need to develop the very good things about their, like, skill set. And then obviously eliminate some of the things that are going to hold them back. And you can say that about any class, but I think especially. these guys, there's some ceiling potential, but also very low floors with each one of these guys.

I got a question for you, Draft Boys. So this is a bad quarterback class, as you say. But, you know, we don't want to speak in absolutes. It doesn't mean it's going to be all these quarterbacks are not going to work out. When was the last time there was a bad QB class? Or in all of the instances where there has been a bad QB class in the past 10, 15 years, how many of those guys actually turned out to be good? Does it happen? So your worst quarterback class was the 2013 group, I want to say. Was that the E.J. Manuel was the first quarterback to come off the board at 16, which never happens. Right. And Gino fell in that draft, right? Gino fell all the way to 39, right? So you had one quarterback drafted in the first round. He was barely a top half of the first round pick. And then the second quarterback was in round two. So exclusively looking at the quarterbacks in that class, then you have Manuel, you have Gino. then you have Mike Glennon, Matt Barkley, Ryan Nassib, Tyler Wilson, Landry Jones, Brad Sorenson, Zach Deister, B.J. Daniels, and Sean Renfrey. Those are the drafts.

You made up half those names. So to answer your question, Craig, within the last 10 years, yes. There has been a class in which really just nobody panned out. Now, you can win a game with Gino. You know what I mean? Many have tried to win a game or two with Glennon. Looking at you there, hi-201. The Giants did very recently. So you're, even like if you get the guy. like Danny said, like they have tools. And then they get their draft slot and they all bust. Like they all just like don't work in their first spots.

A couple of them will stick. They'll cycle around his backups. And they'll probably win a game or two after they have like six years under their belt and they have that veteran position and teams on a build around them. Well, you don't have to worry about six years because it's 2022 and that you and climate report said we're all dead by 2027. So like we're going to be all right. A five year winner we're thinking on.

That that 2013 class, I don't think is a great model just because our understanding of how to work around quarterbacks has changed so much. in the last eight years, but in general, like this class could land in the 2013 area, where we get, like, a couple of career backups, and that's it. I'm looking at the 2016 class.

So, like, look, if you go down the list, Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, and both of those guys were sort of, I think, in the same range where there's a lot of really interesting traits here, some concerns. And they went one, too, but then you had Paxton Lynch, Christian Hakenberg, Jacoby Percent, Cody Kessler,

and then Dak Prescott shows up in the fourth round, and all of a sudden he's like one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. I'm looking at that class and it kind of reminds me of this class where you have there's going to be a couple of first rounders. There's probably going to be a few second rounders that stick around. And maybe one of these guys ends up turning into a Dak Prescott, like a surprise good starter. You got to hold the phone there, D.K. You just compared him.

I mean, Gawfman once weren't first rounders, those guys were first and second. And those teams traded up quite a bit to go get them first and second. Are you saying these guys are like that or not really? I'm not saying that they're, I don't think anyone's on the level in terms of how people viewed these guys prospects. But if I'm going back to 2016, it's like people were nervous about Goff too. You know what I mean? Like there and when still are coming from, you know, the lower level or whatever. And there was certainly concerns that he was just really raw and all that stuff. Again, it's hard to, it's hard to compare it. It's apples and oranges. And I think the point that Ben

said, which was teams now know how to manage the quarterback position different. So you can only look back a few years, honestly. Otherwise, it's like apples to oranges. So I think it's important to state though that like there as last year nobody was worried about the number one overall picker quarterback trevor lawrence like everybody was like yes he's just been the guy for years that's very rare and we should not become accustomed to that right like when you say like goff and wens were questioned as one and two that's every year right like keiler had a fake height wasn't real nobody ever saw at the combine i live on this this this this theory by the way yes he had a fake height measurement and maybe he wanted to go play baseball and the only reason he was

getting drafted is because they got clif kingsbury out there as the head coach right like usually the top quarterback. It's picked number one overall has a lot of concerns around him. So when we talk about the concerns with Kenny Pickett and the concerns with Desmond Ritter and Malik Willis, yeah, that's something that gets done with every single top quarterback. But usually those ceilings

are high enough and the college production was high enough that you talk yourself into it. I don't think that's the case this year. I don't think there's enough. Find any one of these guys to say with your chest, number one overall pick, let's go get them. Totally agree. Okay, so here's the deal. As D.K. mentioned, scouting, it's like shades of gray, right?

and it's very tempting to, like, do the first take, like, oh, like, this guy will be X, but it's like, in reality, it's actually the shades of gray. So we're like, screw it. Let's just rank these guys in the 50 shades of gray, make it a little spicy of you guys. And, like, basically, Craig and I asked Deacon Solac, give us these guys' career outcomes in a zero, like the worst possible career outcome for these guys, like a zero out of 50, and then give us their, like, best possible career outcome as a 50 out of 50, and then sprinkle in some mile markers in the middle,

which honestly is more likely what they're actually turned out. So with that said, DK, shameless plug, you got your big board coming out at NFLdraft. orgon.com at some point this week. Yep. Who is your number one rated quarterback in this class? And can you give us their 50 shades of gray? Starting with like their best outcome. Okay.

So I've got Kenny Pickett from Pitt as my number one guy. And it's for me, Pickett is the highest floor. He to me seems like the safest in terms of this guy I'll stick around in the league. He's going to be useful. Like he's going to be a starter. think. And maybe he doesn't have quite as high of a ceiling as some of these other guys in terms of his physical gifts. And the thing that is always, it's going to be a huge talking point during this whole draft process. He has small hands. Apparently, it's got to be said. So last, so a couple

years ago, if you guys remember, like obviously, we just got done watching Joe Burrow, like the legend. He's writing his own legend right now. He had nine inch hands coming in. And that was sort of like a big deal. He even sent a tweet that people were retweeting today, uh, that he's like, oh, I decided to retire because I've got these little baby hands. And why were they retweeting it today, Danny? Because Kenny Pickett at the senior bowl today refused to have his hands measured. Reportedly, they're eight and a quarter, which is like really small, like way smaller than even the low, the low end. Can I just say, can I just say that my hands I measured them before this pot are nine inches? Wait, how big? I cut. How big? I imagine.

your pink way i have a i have a you go full as far spread as you can as far spread as you can you go thumb to pinky i am i am you can go find it i am correct correct yeah you guys yeah you guys i am eight and a quarter and for those who are like listen to danny and danny and are like who's this ben guy i am a child all right i am 24 on the small person i ran cross country in high school because it was the only sport that would let me in because i couldn't do anything else like if i have the same hand size as canny picket This is massively concerning for no other reason that he just shouldn't be a professional football player with that hand size.

Well, Ben, maybe you're gifted. Eight in a quarter is pretty big for you then. How tall are you? I'm five, seven. I have big hands, I have big feet. I wear like size 10. So that's great. But like, you know, wingspan or like muscle mass,

any of those would have been like substantially more helpful. So that's great. We got to get Ben to a combine. We got to start doing a ring or combine this year at the Super Bowl. It's going to happen. Oh, God. Yeah. So for perspective, just, just,

just, you know, mock draftable has all of the historical hand measures, whatever. There is no quarterback since the 90s has come in with hands less than eight and a quarter. Going as far back as they have, Kevin Davidson in 2020 was eight and eight and a quarter. This is the smallest hand of any quarterback. Zero-eth percentile. Yes. So I'm back. I think I'm at nine inches.

I grabbed this giant measuring stick. I thought it was a measuring stick. It's not actually a measuring stick. I thought it was going to measure snow with it. You're at nine? Really? I think so. We'll see.

Craig is bummed. Craig is like, I don't know if you're at nine. I don't know if you're at nine. We'll see. The measuring, it's in a different room. I forgot to,

I forgot to grab a measuring thing. I'll do it later. On one hand, if you've ever, like, met a quarterback in person, like, if you've ever met Trey Kman or like a Brett Farre?

Just a, you ever, enormous hands. Their hands are huge. Grabbing a bunch of bananas. And so I am not trying to like, what did you just say? It's like grabbing a bunch of bananas.

That's actually a quote. It's a quote from shallow howl. He shakes the hand of, who's that? Who's that motivational speaker guy that really famous? Tony Robbins. Yes, he grabs.

Tony Robbins and he's like, holy crap, he got some big hands. It's like grabbing a bunch of bananas. So I'm not trying to dismiss this. On the other hand, this is the most ridiculous shit every year with the quarterback hands.

Does this matter or not that he has tiny baby hands? Shades of gray. Shades of gray. Right. Like, it does in the sense that it generally correlates

to being able to grip the ball and cold weather. It doesn't, in that what much more strongly correlates to being able to grip the ball in cold weather is the fact that Kenny Pickett played at the University of Pittsburgh for five years and never had a problem gripping the ball in cold weather. Right. So it's like this, yeah, it's like this matters for like Davis Webb when he came out of cow and everybody was like, has he ever seen snow? Does he know what a cloud is? Does he have a coat? Picket. Yeah, in the case of picket, like we've seen it. So it doesn't matter. But also it's kind of funny. Tom Pelliserro's out here tweeting about how he's double jointed and that like changes the way the measurement

works. The fact that all of this is happening is ludicrous. By the way. So first of all, I have so many questions. If Kyler Murray can fake his height, why can't he fake the hand? He's going through stretching exercises. They have like doctors who help quarterbacks learn how to stretch their hands as far as possible to get higher measurements. Baker Mayfield stretched his spine to get to six feet.

That was fake. This is real. Yeah, it's the same thing with the Kyler issue where you kind of fake it. I can't remember who they were talking about. There was a guy, a quarterback from Oklahoma, I believe, that had like really small hands. And he got him with Seuss.

And apparently in your hands, you got all these muscles. And he was like, the muscles in my hand were tight. So they massaged my hand for like a month. And he measured like a quarter inch or a half inch, like bigger hands going from the senior bowl to the combine, which is like a month apart or whatever. And so this is what I love and hate about the draft all in one conversation. And I actually couldn't be more thrilled we started here. This is a, the NFL makes $17 billion in revenue every year.

that's 500 million per team. All of these teams, their most important employees to quarterback. And as every team goes through this process trying to find quarterbacks, they're like,

well, are his, how big are his hands? Can we stretch his tendons? And it's like, what, like, it's absolutely nuts. So I guess we're saying it matters in theory.

It doesn't matter for Kenny Pick. Is that where, Kenny Pickett, that's where we're landing on this? That's kind of where I am. Like, he doesn't have remarkably high, like,

you know, fumble numbers. Like, you know, that's kind of a golf thing is how often he fumbles gets hit. He doesn't really show up in his game,

and he's played for a really long time. So I'm not super worried about it. It is funny, and I will blame every fumbling and complete has on it, though. Like, that's, that's perfect. So, DK, what else about, like, give us more of his 50 shades of gray? Wait, who is this even number one comp at first?

Did you even give us one? So it was my 50, like, the number one platonic ideal, this is the ultimate, ultimate ceiling. And keep that in mind when we're doing this. This is, like, what he maybe could turn into. I put Tony Romo. When I was watching Kenny Pickett play, there was some shades of,

Tony Romo in there, especially in the way that he evades pressure in the pocket. He's very, like, sneaky and he juks fast, he spin moves. Like, if you remember Tony Romo, the reverse pivot spin move that he had that would just, like... Yeah. He did it against JJ Watt, famously one game

where he, like, JJ Watt had just like a wide open lane to him. You reverse pivoted, booted out, and threw a touchdown pass, and I lost my shit. This was like the greatest play I've ever seen a quarterback, dude. This was Tony Romo. I see some of that. Kenny Pickett. He's a little bit mobile, but he's not like a super athletic guy. He's kind of heady.

Just a gamer, I guess, is like the cliche way to put it. We need a swear jar. Except for instead of swear, it's every time there's like just the biggest cliches. If I say the word moxie, does that count? Deuce jar? Dogear? Who is first team all gamer? Is it like Baker Mayfield

type? Hunter Renfro. It's Burrow. Menzell? Oh, Burrow. Which is why I love the Romo as the 50 comp, because when Burrow was coming out, that was his 50 comp. was Roan though. Oh, really? And he made the Pickett-Burrow connection, yeah.

Pickett and Burrow both kind of like one-year wonders, came on strong, really, really strong. Their final year in college had incredible stats. Like, Pickett had incredible stats this year, 40-something touchdowns. It was really impressive, and his previous high was like 13 in a season. So he came on really strong. He's a super senior. Burrow was a little bit older when he came out. I think Pickett's can be like a 24-year-old rookie.

And I believe Burrow is 23 or 24 when he was a rookie. So there's some similar. there in terms of like as a prospect these guys have some concerns they're older they have one year where they kind of like were sort of a mid round prospect and they turned into a top 15 top 10 top number one guy and so um i think there's some similarities there but i won't throw in one just because of the escapeability blah blah blah um my number 40 is Kurt cousins i think because i see this guy pick it potentially he's going to have a pretty long career put up some good stats but everybody's still just thinks he's fine.

You know what I mean? I already get why this is a bad draft because your number one quarterback prospect if he doesn't reach 100% of the weight of his potential, you're saying that he's going to 40 out of 50s of Kirk Cousins. And Kirk Cousins is a good quarterback. Don't say that. Don't say things you don't mean.

He is. What do you mean he is? He's not a bad quarterback. Danny has been EPA-pilled. I hate to see it. We don't have to have that talk right now, but that's kind of, so yeah, like a 4 out of 5.

Like if he's like a 40 out of 50s like the Kirk cousins like the Kirk cousins who like randomly is like incredible in the fourth quarter like that Kirk cozons. Yeah that's what I'm talking about like Pete Kirk when he's like feeding the ball Justin Jefferson. I'm feeling. All right. So my number 30 for Kenny Pickett. So this is like right down the middle. I wrote down Ryan Fitzpatrick hired gun type guy later in his career. But he can go in.

He can be a starter and he can put up some good stats. Maybe just not a guy you want to build your franchise around. My 20 is Mason Rudolph. I'm out. Oh, my. Yep. Yep. So you agree with this.

You agree with this analysis so like. You guys are acting Ben is like, yeah. Everybody is talking themselves into somebody who realistically could become Mason Rudolph. That's where we are at in the NFL draft complex right now in 2022. The fact that this is not his worst case scenario or even second to worst case scenario is alarming to me. My number 10, Brandon Whedon on the account he's very old.

Brandon Whedon. on account of him being very old and then number zero like the worst case scenario is Dunis Maharel which is Kristen Wig's character with the tiny hands you know the dances

on SNL that's him and I'm Judy that girl yeah just tiny hands just disturbing like creepy I think I'd rather have

the Christian Wigg character instead of Brandon Wheatting and Mason Rudolph Braden's the zero dude Mason Rudolph might be your starter next year right so actually wait first DK

out of the zero to 50, I guess the scale of the Kristen Wood character and or Braden Whedon, all the way to Tony Romo. What is your confidence level on Pickett? Like a 37? Like, where are you? Yeah, I was thinking 35. Like, somewhere in between Fitzpatrick and Cousins, I think he could end up being. What about you, So lack?

Where are you? And what do you think of all these comps? Yeah, I, the thing with the, like, the Cousins sort of construction is that what Cousins is able to do in terms of, like, consistency and, like, being the same guy every single week, kind of worries me with Pickett in the sense that Pickett has a little bit more gamer in him, right? I like that Ryan Fitzpatrick sort of conception a lot more. I think the

peak Pickett games, right, if you're able to get those, the peak picket stretch will be better, we'll be more playmaking, more dynamic downfield ability than we really usually see from a guy like cousins. But with that said, there's going to be a tradeoff in terms of Pickett adjusting and stepping into NFL speed.

I'm very, very concerned by a player who was fringe NFL. And then when all of a sudden he was three years older than everybody else on the field, was much better than everybody else in the field. That, to me, feels very much like fools gold. And it's even easier to talk yourself into that fool's gold because the last guy to whom that applied just beat the Chiefs and made the Super Bowl.

And I think that we've got to be very careful of falling into that trap. It's like the Josh Allen thing. Oh, he's got tools. Therefore, he's going to be the next Josh Allen. You know, Burrow is one of one. Well, we're talking about Desmond Redder in a second here. Wait, so, but that's a really good note because you're basically saying, Kenny Pitt, Pickett was a remarkably unspecial player for a few years at Pitt and then has a

great senior season, changes everything about him. And we're like, all right. But it's, are you allowed to say remarkably unspecials? The copy desk, okay, that feels like it's not how that remarkable works. Well, I just remarked on how unspecial it was. So, yeah, I guess. You did remark on it. I don't know. I'm not a scientist. But I guess is it dangerous to what you're saying? Like, is it ridiculous to expect a guy to get who had needed four years to be good in college to be good and less than four years in the NFL since quarterback's got four years now? It's not ridiculous just because development isn't linear. It's not clean, right? If it were to be a lot easier to evaluate players. He had an ankle injury last year too. Yeah, right. There's a chance

like the light switch just clicked on for pig and he's going to be good now and better than he ever would have been if he decided to come out as a junior. That's always there. You know what I mean? We have to evaluate with what we've got. It's just like this is much more so a common conversation using the scouting of like receivers and running backs. Like when guys come in his freshman and they dominate, they have like breakout rating in the dynasty community, which kind of shows how good you are when you're young is really indicative of how you're good you're going to be when you're older.

That's how they actually decided to hire you so lack. They're like, oh my God, this is his breakout rating. He's like 19 years old. Holy crap. But yeah, no, that the inverse is true with Pickett, where the if he were doing this at 22, you would feel more confident about it than him doing it at 24. And it also changes how valuable it is

because it changes what his age is by the time he finishes a rookie contract and goes on to his second and his third. Okay, let's go through number two. Solek, take this one away. Yeah, so I'm excited. I have Desmond Ritter, the quarterback out of Cincinnati, who to me is a fun player to watch. It's been a fun player to root for for a long time

in Cincinnati. Had that national spotlight in that game against Alabama, got straight Molly Wap, just like the whole Cincinnati team did. I think that has his ranking, his opinion, his public perspective, kind of a lot lower than it belongs to be. I like the fact that Danny has him here at two.

My shades from 50 to zero. Go. 50. Lanky Prescott. 40. Ryan Tanna Thrill. 30. Daniel Jones, but only the good parts and not the bad parts. I didn't have a good pun for that one. That's actually D.K.'s comp for him and I love it. I think it's really, really, really, really on the nose.

20 is Patriots-era Cam Newton. 10 is Deshaun Kaiser. Zero is Christian Hakenberg. The bad comps. The bad cops don't get puns because those are sad. With Ritter, the bads are very clear and they're very evident, right? That Prescott comp is really, really, I think, a good one and a fun one because when Prescott missed in college, and this is a big part of the reason why he was such a late pick, it's because his feet were horrible and the ball was nowhere.

And when Ritter misses, he misses, right? He will sail a throw. He will dirt a throw. And we have a tendency, just as football watchers, to grade inaccuracy on a sliding scale. to think like, oh, like, it was, you know, at a guy's knees is somehow better than being, like, two feet in front of him, as if it's easier to correct, like, a slightly inaccurate throw versus a wildly inaccurate throw, which isn't the case, right? Inaccuracy is inaccuracy and needs to be understood to be a little bit more binary,

especially in the case of Ritter where he'll come out with this, like, horrible, like, he'll try to throw a cross over the middle of the field. It'll be absolutely nowhere near a guy. I've heard people talk about this idea that he's really jumpy early in games because he's got a lot of juice. And so he kind of just quick triggers and it has a bad mistake. He'll come out in the next drive and it'll be perfect. Right. So the peaks are quite high and the values are quite low in accuracy. And that does scare you. But it does put him nicely in that kind of Prescott, Ryan Tannihill, Daniel Jones grouping where like Daniel Jones will have that occasional

deep ball, Darious Slayton, big post. We're like, just do that all the time, dude. Like why, where is this been? The other thing that I really like putting him in that family is the running ability. Ritter is, like I said, lanky Prescott. He's a little bit taller. He's. a little bit leaner. But like Tannhill and like Jones, he gets outside of the pocket and you're like, he's big and long, but like he can't run that fast. And then he takes off. Redder's a legitimate athlete.

Redder should be involved in the quarterback running game. He should be a dual threat player in that regard. However, when you look at a lot of quarterbacks who have busted as first round pick, second round picks, and that's your Deshaun Kaiser's and your Christian Hackenberg's of this comparison, it's because they're big armed. They have nice flashes of deep accuracy and they have running ability. And then they get to the league and they just can. can't process. They can't play at that speed. And Ritter was a good processor in college. Ritter

would set protections. Witter would get to the right reads. He would throw middle of the field, all that stuff. But he was doing it against Tulane. He was doing it against Miami of Ohio. And that's the difficult part of this projection is how well can we take limited games against Georgia and the Peach Bowl in 2019, Notre Dame this year, Alabama this year, see how he did with his skill groups against that type of speed and say he can do this in the NFL. It is a projection. It might take time. That's what makes it a little bit tough. Wait, I have a question. Hit me.

So footwork is like the window into a quarterback's mind because your feet are supposed to be aligned with where you're going and what you know what you're going on. So if you're saying his footworks, like his footworks all over the place and he's a, but you're not sure if he's going to be able to process. Like you don't know if he can process it an NFL speed and his footwork.

So like, do you think that it's a sloppiness in his footwork and he isn't nowhere to place his feet or he's not actually seeing the game. at his speed that he needs to be able to see it at. I would, you know, like, you know, what's like, Kobe Oshamaru, is that what, it is right? This question just give a completely different answer. The more athletic a quarterback has become and the more offense have been built around that, the less footwork matters in terms of that vision into the way the quarterback plays, right?

That was a very common sentiment in the 2010s, right? A quarterback's feet will tell you what his eyes are doing, they'll tell you what his mind is doing, the feet will tell you where he is. With guys being able to throw from different arm angles, guys being able to throw from different platforms, guys being able to throw in different rhythms. Footwork just, it just doesn't matter to me as much. Is Ritter one of those guys? Is Ritter one of those guys?

Right. Absolutely, right. So if you're consistently over striding, right? Think about Baker Mayfield. Think about Wyoming era Josh Allen, where it's like, all right, time to throw. Oh, big giant step forward. We're going to throw this thing really freaking hard. That's bad.

Like, that freaks me out. If you have a terrifying, terrifying happy feet in the pocket, again, think Baker Mayfield. You are noticing a theme here where the second, we're outside of our, our progression. It's like we feel pressure. We started to dance. We started bop back and forth. That's worrisome. Other than that, like, if you're working from like the overroute to the shallow route to the checkdown, you're not like moving your feet, Tom Brady robot one to two to three. I really don't care so long as the ball is getting there. And for Ritter, generally it is. When Ritter misses, I think it's because he's too, like, quick in his process and you can slow that

down. But I see enough good footwork that I don't think the bad footwork is clinical. I don't think it's part of his DNA the way it is with other quarterbacks. DK, where do you fall on the skill? So Solex skill here is Hackenberg it is zero, Deshaun Kaiser, Patriots Eric Cam, Daniel Jones, but good parts. Oh, I should say, I don't mean, I didn't mention Patriots era Cam, that's there

exclusively because Cam's a great trash talker and Ritter is an amazing trash talker as well. I want to make sure I got that involved. Oh, the rumors on Ritter, and here's of what he tells defenders during games are unbelievable. Oh, doesn't he like Google, like the way, like, it's high school,

he Googles like stuff about the lineback. or girlfriend or something. Oh, that's good. Yeah, he finds some social media stuff. And like I said, he's a tough runner. He's a hard-nosed dude. And so he'll, like, die for that third and seven marker, get it. And then he will inform the entire opposing sideline what just happened.

He is, uh, I got to watch him live in South Bend beat Notre Dame. And he had a lot of fun the last eight minutes of that game on the sideline. He was good against Notre Dame. It's like we talk about the Alabama game where he struggled. But he was pretty good against Notre Dame. They've got some NFL players for sure on that defense. And so either way, hi, hi, it's my apologies. I cut you off.

I just wanted to shout out, Ritter's big mouth. Nice. You'll get used to it here. The Ritter thing, I think, is going to be really interesting because I came into the evaluation process, sort of unaware of the narratives around a lot of these guys. And I did that on purpose because I wanted to kind of try and form my own opinions. Right now, the narrative on Desmond Ritter is that he's not very good. Like, a lot of people, I think, are going to have him as a QB-5.

That's the narrative. Ritter equals bad. I would say in the draft Twitter, people don't love him, generally speaking. And I think this is the whole story of the entire draft class. this quarterback class is you could ask 10 different draft analysts to rank their five. It's going to be something different every time. I don't even know if that's possible, but I'm sure it is. But like, there's so much variation when people like, when I watched Ritter the first time,

I was like, he's good. Like, he's really good. What's the deal here? Like, you know what I mean? Like, why don't people hire on this guy? Like, like, Solek laid out. Like, he's got a good arm. He's athletic.

He was on Bruce Feldman's freaks list. one of the top athletes in college football. He is, like so like said, like hyper-competitive, sociopathically competitive guy, which is exactly what you want your quarterback to be, by the way. He's a father. So he's, you know, he's got some maturity. It just forces it to you. I know that from experience.

Like, it just forces it in view. D.K. has one kid. And now just like puts all the fathers. Has one kid. Yeah, yeah. Bring me only fathers in my war room. I want my board to be exclusively dads. As opposed to some idiot who just, just wants to like, you know, whatever, have the fun part of being a rich guy in the NFL,

and, you know, that could be worrisome to some people to some teams. I don't know how Craig feels, but I'm not going to lie, this guy sounds like he's better than Kenny Pickett from what you guys have said. I totally agree. Like, when you talk about, like, the Moxie standpoint, like him, like, looking up facts about, like, the guy who sacked him's mother and talking shit is so awesome. And, like, these shades of gray here,

I see, like, Romo, Kirk Cousins, and Fitzpatrick for Pickett, and I see Lenkee, Prescott, Ryan Tanilla, and good Daniel Jones. And I add in all the intangibles here about Desmond Ritter, and he doesn't have like four inch hands. I like Ritter right now. I love it.

Ritter has more upside. I think that's sort of objective. Like his physical traits are better. Ben, can you, I don't know, did Ben pick a number yet? Yeah, so like out of zero to 50, what is Siri? Siri, what do you think of Desmond Ritter?

You said sorry and it's... Oh, she's Australian. Is that Australian? He really did change it. I like that. Because of the blue stuff. Jones, though. Oh, I have people know. So, like, we had a whole thing with Australian accents and people wanted us. It's a huge part of the show. Siri accent on Australian. I did it. It's great. Anyway, I don't think

Siri cares. So, like, can you do an Australian accent? Nope. No, no warning like this. I'm getting trouble with some people. Oh, my God. Siri, Siri was listening to all of that. All right, you need to stop now. It's actually getting disruptive. Okay, so like zero to 50 Desmond Ritter, what is your confidence? Where do you think it comes in on the zero to 50 scale? I like him right at that 30.

Like I said, I stole Danny Kelly's comparison to him in terms of Daniel Jones, but like make it good. And I think that, yeah, if you took Desmond Ritter and you put him in an offense that's constantly asking him to throw like four-yard stick routes to Evan Ingram, it's not going to look pretty.

Like, that's not maximizing the player, the same way it's not maximizing Jones. Get Ritter into an offense that's going to incorporate him in the quarterback. running game. It's going to go heavy personnel and then take deep shots. Think that that Ryan Tannahill offense. And yeah, with a couple years, we could get ourselves the Tannihill style player. Not perfect. Going to take a lot of sacks, but can make stuff without his legs and can hurt you down the field. Okay. All right. Dekha, give us number three on your board. Who's number three

and give us the 50 shades of gray? All right. So I'm going with Malik Willis, the quarterback from Liberty. And he is, again, just ceiling wise, he is by far the highest ceiling. His physical traits are outstanding. He has an incredible, really strong arm. In fact, I saw Quincy Avery, he's a quarterback coach. He said in an athletic article that he has the strongest arm he's ever seen of any quarterback. Like he can throw the ball. I swear, that happens every year. Every year I hear about, oh, he's got the strongest arm I've ever seen.

He has a really strong arm. Just put it down. Herbert, we had Josh Allen. I feel it's always happening. That's fair. That is fair. Just suffice to say he has a very strong arm. Like he has a very good arm.

And, by the way, he's supposed to run like a four three. He's 220 pounds. He is an elite, elite athlete. he is the most toolsy guy in this quarterback class by far. He's the most drafty. Yeah, it's correct. He is crazy. Like, he's got six highlights that every single Twitter account with 2,000 followers is going to put out.

And I know this because I was that account a few years ago. And then the rest of the film, which is like cannot be published. We'll never see the light of day. Not suitable for work. Yes. Yeah, but he's inconsistent is the thing. And he had a bunch of turnovers this last year, takes a ton of sex. The Sacks is a big concern.

And yeah, he's just a little bit inconsistent, like a lot inconsistent. That's the big deal. I'm just thinking about like if he had a dating profile, like his six photos, like he looks fantastic and you go on a date with him and you're like, ooh, wait, you don't look like this at all. Yep, great. He's a hinge quarterback through and through. All right, so here's my 50.

50 is Lamar Jackson after bulking. Like bulking season, Lamar Jackson. Because he's six foot, he's short on the shorter side, but he's 220 pounds. He's built like a running back. if you build an offense around his legs, get him in a Greg Roman offense or whatever, and he's going to be really exciting.

He's going to put up a ton of fantasy points, which is going to obviously get him a lot of fans. But he's going to have a lot of inconsistencies throwing the football, probably a good amount of turnovers. We saw that from Lamar Jackson this year. And I think you see some of the same similarities in Malik Willis's game.

So I think the top tier thing, and he has the chance to be one of the, immediately probably the second best running quarterback in the NFL when he gets in. He makes guys miss in a phone booth. He's very, very twitched-up, explosive runner. Wait, is that a drafty thing to say he makes guys miss in a phone booth?

Is that something drafty people said? Or is that a D-K. JAR. That's a, what is it, an aphorism jar? Clech-Jure jar, that's put it in a day. That's cliche-d-d-r. Okay. So we're at two.

So that's my top tier. You could turn into Lamar Jackson and be a superstar in the league. My 40 is RG-3. I could see him doing a lot of read option stuff, play action, throwing it deep, having a lot of success that way. So he's sort of like another guy in that area. But then to me, and I'll just sort of give this way, he really reminds me of Jalen Hertz a lot. Like Jalen Hertz is my number 30 right down the middle.

Well, on that note, on that note, D.K., I want to ask you because the things you've described, I like the Lamar Jackson company. That sounds really cool. But I think my question is, and I guess this is for both of you, is really this reminds me of Lamar Jackson because you're talking about a guy at Liberty and you're saying that he didn't have a good of talent around him and like that was basically the problem that Josh Allen was he had a completion percentage of like you know he's hitting 50% of his throws and he's doing all this wild stuff these crazy completions and it turns out well the bills took the chance on him because they're

like well he had nobody there that was good and he felt the need to do too much and it's a three years to drill that out of his head and now he's like actually a good quarterback in addition to like actually just learn to throw better does is there going to be? be some kind of that requirement for Malik Willis to like have the patience, the bills gave him the same coordinator, same coach, like dedication to like building him out. Is that kind of the same deal with Malik Willis? I would assume so, yes. I think so for sure. In fact, I had Josh Allen as my 50 originally, and I even put it in my art and in my scattering report, which will be up on the website this week, that he's going to get comps to Josh Allen for exactly all the reasons you just laid out. The only

reason I changed it is because he's six foot. Like Josh Allen is six five to 40 or whatever. So It's like Josh Allen and Lamar's body. It's instead of Lamar Jackson after Bull King, let's just say Josh Allen's shorter half brother. Josh Allen trash compactor 0.1 second. It's like a narrative comp instead of like a play style or build comp. But also it works because the Josh Allen narrative is going to be the driving narrative of the 2022 quarterback class.

McShay had in his ESPN senior bowl preview that he thinks Willis will end up quarterback one. And this was right about the time of year where all that was coming out with Josh Allen three years ago. and we were all going absolutely nuts. Like, what are you people talking about? It's because of the tools. But has Josh Allen poisoned all of your brains into thinking that this can be repeated over and over? Maybe is this an over correction? Like, is the league going in the direction of like, you know what, you bet on tools,

you bet on a Justin Herbert, you bet on a Josh Allen, you bet on those guys. And maybe the hit rate goes from 50% to 25%, but you need those guys to compete. And like, that's the way the league's going. Or is this always what happens? And some guy gets really good. and every team is like, we want one of them, and then you try to shoehorn these guys in that narrative. Like, is it like, which way do you guys lean on that?

Would it be a mistake to just say Malik Willis will just get better and there's bad talent around him? Or do you think that's actually probably the correct way to look at it? I think, period, when you're playing at Liberty and then you go to the NFL, you're going to get better talent around you, you're going to get better coaching around you, and that's going to help you. Like, there's no two ways about that. I think that's true for kind of every quarterback who plays at that level,

you know what I mean? And so, like, the degree to which it matters, to Willis is prescribed by the tools that he has, just how rare is this physical ability? And when Josh Allen threw the first big touchdown to Gabriel Davis against the Chiefs, right? It was, like, to me it was like an eye-opening play. It was tangled, the fog is lifted, whatever, freaking song.

Like, that play right there, the Chiefs were taking that play away, and Allen still made that exact throw. And I tweeted that, I said, like, this is a single play argument for drafting the alien quarterback and then just figuring, everything else out afterwards. Building around him. So I said that. And I think it's a one-play argument,

you should go for it. And then I watch Malik Willis, and I go, maybe I'll take Kenny Pickett. Maybe I'll just take it. I'll keep my job and I'll win eight games. It's very hard. Because Willis has plays that Allen didn't have in terms of staring directly at a defender

and throwing it to him anyway. He has moments of blindness that I cannot recall in a highly drafted quarterback, even like Hurd's, I think is a great comment. in terms of like Hertz would throw at a guy, but what are you looking at? Willis, like that old Miss game,

holy Moses, they dropped eight dudes into coverage and Willis just had no idea what way was north. And so you've got like, you've got so much building to, you have so much foundation to build with such limited practice time,

2011 CBA, cutting down on how much you can work with the quarterbacks and whatnot. It's like, I don't know what the time horizon is to get competitive with Willis. There is no way, like for as good as the Lamar conversation is

because of how unique of runners they are, they're different. but they both run in such unique styles. Like, as good of a comp as that is, there is no way Willis goes sophomore year MVP. It just can't. He just doesn't have the foundation of building blocks that Lamar had coming out. He is like ground zero right now. You just broke ground sort of a project.

And I just don't know how you're certain as a coach that you have that much time without losing your job to draft this guy as your franchise quarterback. Okay, so that's a pretty bad floor. Dickey, who are your final comps for like the bad end of Blake Will's career? outcome. Tyler Huntley, I think, is a good example of what he could be in terms of a good backup, who people are going to want to be a starter, but teams may not be willing to put him in there and be a starter. And for whatever reason, the NFL wasn't really that into Tyler Huntley coming out. He didn't get invited to the combine. He went undrafted or late round pick, at least.

And this was after he had good stats in the Pack 12 and was like a good college quarterback with good tools. It just didn't all add up. And maybe that never will. And that could be what happens with Willis my 10. And maybe this is underselling what Locker was, but Jake Locker. And then finally my last guy is Tassam Hill. Incredibly incredibly athletic. You just can't teach the accuracy and decision making.

And then you end up. Well, there's still time. He's only 31. He's still young. Who knows? Who knows? Okay, so zero to 50. How confident are you, Malik Willis?

Again, I'm right in the middle there. And I think this is going to be a theme. I know that we're sort of sitting on the fence, but I'd say like a 32. Like, he's right around Jalen Hertz for me. I think he can be a starter in the NFL. and I think you will be a starter in the NFL, but I think people are going to be like...

Well, I'm tired than I thought you were going to say. Three years into his career, three years into his career, it wouldn't surprise me if he's a starter, but everyone's like, he makes too many turnovers. He can't start in the league. Okay. So, Lack, give us the next quarterback. All right, so yeah, we're not going to fence it where we end up ranking this guy.

This is Danny's number four, which is Matt Corral, the quarterback out of Ole Miss. I want to start this conversation by reading a blurb from Seth Gleana of PS. his piece on Matt Crowell. It's one of their PFF edge pieces. It's titled, Why Top 22 NFL draft process? Matt Carrell's production is not what it seems.

And as he says, Matt Corral handled just 131 dropbacks this season without RPO's play action and screens. So he had 131 true dropbacks where he dropped back to pass without a play action fake, without an RPO fake, or he's throwing a screen. That's more than it felt like, honestly. That ranked 120th in the FBS, which is less than quarter. who started halfway through the season. Like, Oklahoma's,

you mean 120 out of like 130 teams? Yes. And there's several quarterbacks who started for those teams. Like Oklahoma's Caleb Williams and USC's Jackson Dart, both whom were part season starters, had more true dropbacks. And then passing grade, you know, for, you know, what it is.

That's like a one-number catch-all, was on those straight dropbacks, 76.2. For comparison, Kenny Pickett had 440 straight dropbacks with a passing grade of 93. Bryce Young, who in the Heisman, had 392 straight drop-bats. with a passing grade of 92.9. So, Matt Corral

is a zippy little son of a gun. He can scoot around a little bit. He's small. He's quick. He can dart around. He can throw from a variety of arm angles. A little shortstop build, shortstop movement ability. He's a zippy guy with a zippy arm. He's got the ability to hammer some quick windows. You can throw

a slant. You can throw a mean, freaking slant during getting it in. You know, a safety's coming down to close. The linebackers hit in the window. We're going to get that ball in there. We're going to fit it in there quick. And then when he decides to throw deep, he's got arm to him. He has above average arm talent in terms of his ability to throw down the field with velocity, be able to hit windows in the intermediate

the field with velocity, throw with touch on deep balls as well. With all of that set, he is a small, thin guy who has not been asked to deal with a lot of pressure because that ball comes out super quick, who has not been asked to deal with a lot of reads, because that ball comes out super quick, who has not been

asked to process a lot, because usually he's reading one to two players on any given down. He is extremely difficult to project to the next level, unless you are taking the lane kiff in offense with you, which unless the Raiders are trying to hire lane again, you are not. That makes it very,

very tough to believe in a guy like Corral. So when we go and look at comps, my 50 for him is 2020-Stafansky Baker Mayfield, right? That good, nice, Stefansky, actually, 2021. I have that, no, yeah, 2020. I know what year it is. The 2020-Stofansky Mayfield, where Mayfield looked good and the numbers looked nice,

but once you took play action out of this and once you took the screen passes out of this and you start to take the scrambles out of this and kind of take away the ancillary stuff and look at the bones of like third down passing dropbacks when the defense knows what you're doing, it didn't look as pretty. And all of a sudden this year,

they lost their screen game a little bit, they lost their play action game a little bit, Mayfield didn't scrambling as much this year because of the shoulder injury and that's what it looks like, extremely laborious dropback passing offense. So Baker to me is that 50, that good Baker we saw.

My 40 is Zach Wilson between the numbers. Zach Wilson's a common Matt Corral. It's a common Matt Corral comp, and I get it. But Wilson, all in BYU and then even in New York, is throwing aggressively 15 yards into the sideline, 20 yards into the sideline back shoulder. Coral is not doing that nonsense.

30, I have Jimmy Garoppelow re-hansomeness. Matt Corral's a good-looking guy. I've hung out with him. He's an attractive young man. He's buried that. You've hung out with him. You've scouted him or you've hung out with him. You've gotten beers or what?

I was at a quarterback camp where he was one of the coaches. which is I also saw Willis there. Willis just rocked the heck up, dude. Willis is so scary. It's awesome. Anyway, so 30 is Jimmy. 20 is Will Greer on a scooter. He just move around a little better.

Greer also is thicker as well. Like, like corrals at 205. 10 is Mitchell Tribusky, like early 2020 era when all they were doing was running play action. RPAOs, yeah. Zero is Trace McSorley with actual juice. Trace McSorley. What a name.

Wait, okay. That's actually a good one. Yeah. So on the scale of zero to 50, where do you come in, Solek? I put him at like a 25. I think he is below Jimmy in terms of your ability to get a starter out of him. Jimmy, like, I made the handsman's joke. But the thing about Jimmy is, like, he throws middle of the field with this blind confidence,

with this reckless abandon that he'll always be able to get it. And that's honestly to his benefit. Occasionally he throws like the worst pick you've ever seen. But he needs to have that trigger to make that Shaneahan offense work. Again, off of play action, off of RBOs. Corral has that. Carral, every window in the middle of field, Corral's like, ha, ha, I can throw this,

and he's right a lot. Because he has a quick arm, a very quick release, and believing in it means you trigger on it quickly, and you do hit that very rapidly closing window. And he moves a little better than Gropolo, so, okay, that's nice. But still, the accuracy isn't the same, the vision isn't the same.

The Gropolo can still do, like, something on his second read. I have no faith right now. Maybe Corral can, but there's nothing you see on Ole Miss film that tells you have any faith in that moving forward. I worry about that handsome confidence We've been talking about that with Jimmy I don't like the handsome confidence

He's never had adversity I'm looking at Craig Holbroke's A million dollar smile Well he talks to me about handsome confidence Sorry let's relax over there He's got the hair Flowing yeah And look at me

I'm the guy who doesn't know shit about this podcast That we're doing right now So like I want to ask you My comp for Corral I put Marcus Mariotta I had a hard time figuring out a good comp for him And I know Marioata is bigger

A little bit bigger but he's like slender. Is he handsome? Mario's been looking. Yeah, he's get the mustache. So I would say right, the height is a really big deal. Mario is 6-4-2-23. That size matters a lot because it means you can take contact a lot better and throw

through contact. Also means you can see a little bit better over the line, which again is another like hackneyed draft trope, but still does matter to a degree. Corral being as thin as he has really worries me because his whole game right now is making like the 330 pound defensive tackle from Missouri miss. And it's like, yay. I'm not sure that flies. when every dude on the defensive line he's facing is a freak,

which is the case in the NFL. And you saw that with Wilson this year. Wilson was another, like, it's a good comp to Crowell for that reason. He's another skinny guy who got away with being like a little bit quicker than college players. Then he hits NFL players and all of a sudden you get to week nine and this dude just doesn't want to do it anymore. Right? Like that frailty, that fitness for quarterback matters to me a lot.

I really wish Corral had another inch and another 10, 15 pounds on him. See, that's, I'm going to give Deke, So lack, a bonus point for right there because he used frailty. And that's the word I wish was used more in the draft process. I actually noticed that too. Thank you for that. That's fantastic. Okay. So you saw I can give him a 25.

DK. Just the number. Higher or lower on that for MacRale. Higher or lower than the 25. 27. Next guy, DK. Hit us the next quarterback in your list. All right.

The next one is another very polarizing guy. Sam Howell from UNC Chapel Hill. So he coming into the year, most people I think, thought he was going to be the top quarterback. And some people may still have him as the top quarterback going into this NFL draft. I think there's such a wide range of opinions on him. I was not super enthused watching his tape, to be totally honest. There was problems I thought with his feet not really matching up with where he was throwing the football and then he would lose a lot of juice on the ball when he tried to do that. He's very average size. He's six foot 220, but he doesn't have the explosiveness

as like a Malik Willis who's almost the same size. It's a different style of player. Granted, Howell did run for a whole bunch of yards this year. He basically turned into like a read option slash quarterback draw type quarterback. He was running all over the place. He lost a whole bunch of talent. He lost Javonte Williams, Diami Brown, Daz Newsom,

he lost all of his top offensive playmakers. He's six foot, 220? Yeah, he just measured in at the... That's pretty thick and short. Is there any other... Who else has been like that in the past? Baker. Yeah, Baker is the best example.

Is he 220? Really? Yeah, yeah. Oh, Baker, Oklahoma Baker? Partying after a wind baker? No. Hot take, the whole thing with Baker grabbing his crotch kind of ignored Baker's gut. I watched Sam Howell and I was like,

this is a Baker-Mayfield clone. He's maybe a little bit more elusive as a runner, more tough and physical as a runner. My top guy would be Dak Prescott. When I was watching the tape, number one, they're both like thick-billed type guys, like tough runners. You can add in the run game a little bit.

You're not going to necessarily design the run game around him, but he could do stuff in the red zone, quarterback draws. He's elusive and creative as a runner. Prescott, when he was coming out, as Solac mentioned earlier, actually, it's like his accuracy was really weird. It just didn't really add up. Then he got into the NFL, it was much more accurate.

I think how if he can rein in some of his accuracy issues that I saw, he just sailing passes over the middle, over the seams. If he can rain that in, I think he has a chance to be a starter in the NFL and be a good one. But that's like the upside I see being sort of like in that mold of Dak Prescott where you get better accuracy in the NFL and you can add to the run game but not necessarily be like a read option type runner. Number 40 for me is Baker Mayfield.

Again, this is the cliche. So the tip jar here, moxie, aggressive, tons of call up production, good arm, but limited physically. He's short. You can't see over the middle necessarily quite as well. Accuracy comes and goes. I didn't really see a lot of it.

And so like you can answer this. Like, did he throw off platform much? When I felt like when he wasn't stepping into throws, it was just all over the place. You just really couldn't trust where it was going. I try. It's something you see with Baker. Like, if he's trying to throw off, like, if he steps into a throw

and can deliver it on platform, like, it goes far, it gets to where it wants to be. But anytime you sort of like pressure him or trying to do other things. They got to, yeah, they got to be able to get both cheeks into every throw, otherwise that was dying. Both cheeks. Yeah, two cheek quarterback. He's another guy.

That does not feel like draft jargon. That's not, that's me. That's just me. That's just this whole actism. That is a good one. I've never heard, yes. Both cheeks. Don't the draft,

don't the teams put the little stickers or like the labels on each player? Like, can we get like the little two cheeks as like a logo or like he needs to get both? Like Patrick Mahomes is a zero cheeks quarterback. Yeah. Patrick Mahomes is anywhere. Yeah. Patrick Wilms could be a zero cheek.

He could be cheeks up to the sky quarterback like he was against the box with that throw with like the, when he was like parallel to the ground. Yeah. And Tateham Hill is like a three-cheeks quarterback. Correct. Yes. We need to run with this.

The cheek-s-scale. Yeah, the cheek scale. The cheek scale. Okay. The 50 shades of gray, and what we get? We got cheeks out of it. That's pretty good. Finally, a sexual joke.

Fantastic. From there, I go to 30, which is like a Gardner-Minchu type. Number 20, Drew Locke. Number 10, Mitchell Tribesky. I can't believe we already mentioned Will Gurr on this podcast because I put Will Greer as number zero as a guy the team takes on day two, and then you never hear from him. again. You literally never hear his fucking... What happened to

Will Greer? Is he still in the NFL? I don't know. Don't answer it. Don't look it up. I'm just going to assume he's not. Why is Will Greer on every single list here? I don't know. Is he also a Two Cheeks quarterback? Is that why? Will Greer? Yes. Very much Two Sheeks quarterback. I think Soak had Will Greer above... I had Will Greer as by 10, and then on the next

lowest quarterback, Danny had him as a zero. Well, you all like Will Greer above Trubisky's best stretch of his career, which kind of blew my mind. What is that? Yeah, that's true. That's probably, I really just wanted to get, I really wanted to get Will Greer with a scooter in there. I think I just overranked how much I liked that line.

He liked the idea of Will Greer with a scooter, like too much. That made me laugh. Will Greer with the scooter would be better than Trubisky ever was if he was allowed to have it on the field. So are you guys giving you Sam Howell Pass for sucking what's all his teammates left, or is that actually just an indication of whether he's going to be good? I'm like putting him at like that 27, 28 range. I think he's like Gardner-Minshoe type of guy.

Oh, my, below guard. Wow. He's going to be so interesting because some people I think really do see him as like a top of the first round type guy. And other people who are very smart are going to see him as a third rounder. This is the, this is the draft class that we're going into. Eye and the Beholder. Okay, Sol I finish us out here. Yeah, so Howell is an air raid quarterback.

We're doing those again. It's always a good time. He plays in the Philolongo offense. The sixth quarterback is Carson Strong out of Nevada. I played in the Jane Roevel offense as air radio. as air raid gets. You'll find more snaps of this guy with five wide receivers and you'll fly with him with like running back in the backfield.

He took almost all of his snaps from the gun. So it's all of those typical constructs. If I could get his arm and put it on Malik Willis, just a little quick like, you know, bio winter soldier, we'd be great, man, we'd be cooking with gas. He's got a very impressive arm in terms of touch. He's got every throw in the quiver,

which that's another solecism. That's not a thing. I like the quiver. Wow. Look at that. The arrows. You talk about right. You talk about like, right, where like whatever you need for a situation, touch over a layered throw to the middle of the field. Legolas.

That looping throw, right? That deep nine ball where it just drops right into the bucket. He doesn't throw with great velocity, but when he needs to throw his zip, he places it well. Like, he has a really nice right arm. Everything else is a little bit lacking. Carson Strong doesn't move ever.

Just doesn't manage a pocket. Doesn't escape a pocket. There was a great play against Cal where he like had to break the pocket. There was nothing else you could do. And he went to start running. And you were like, all right, go. You're just like waiting for him to accelerate. And it just like never happens.

Like that mean poking him with the stick. And it's like, do something. That's like how it feels when you ever have a dream where you're like, I need to run away from this person, but I can't move. Right. Yes. That's Carson's. No, I remember like one time we were like late.

Like I was like in my teens and we were like late for a plane. And like it was the first time I ever saw my mom try to run in her life. And I was like, what? Like, what is that? Like how you're not? Your arms are moving faster than your legs. Adults running is bizarre in general. It's so weird.

It's because you haven't done it in like 20 years. Exactly. You just don't remember the mechanics. And so in a league... Use it or lose it, Craig. I want to have a mom combine. Can we do that? That'd be sweet.

Mom? Who's the fastest mom? I really love to know that. In a league in which your quarterback must be able to create something for himself, strong just really lacks in that regard. He's a good, can't go broke without taking a profit,

air raid quarterback, but those have kind of been a dime a dozen over the last five or six years, and we really don't typically see those guys pan out. So, on the 50 Shades of Gray, the 50 is Jemis, just a pocket passer with a flame thrower arm. Like, James is a much better mover.

It's slow, James is like what it is. It's pre-Lasic after a couple of lobsters, James. Like, it's just not... Pre-lacic. Yeah, you just can't... Just a flame throw with your arm. You're going to be high pitch and be high touchdowns. A lot of passes is going to be fun.

40 is Joe Flacco on the 2012 Super Bowl run. 30 is actually... Joe Flacco. Let's remember that the 2012 Super Bowl run, 11 touchdowns and no interceptions, 8.7 yards per attempt, Joe Flacco, incredible performance.

Anyway, that's never happening. Joe Flacco at 30. 20 is Gardner Big Shoe, because he's Gardner just larger. 10 is current Ben Rothesberger. And then zero, zero is the picture of Ben Rothensberger with ice packs.

And that's because the biggest part of Strong's evaluation is that his right knee was shredded in high school. He had to get eight biodegradable nails put into it. He had surgery on it again, this past off season where part of his hip bone is in his knee. There is a chance that Strong is a good NFL projection and can be a backup and he can work in these past heavy offenses. And then we get his combine medical checks in March and it's just done. Like there's a chance that this knee is just, you cannot trust him to be healthy when you need him.

And so that's really unfortunate for Strong, but it's a part of his evaluation. there's a big medical flag for him right now. Deke, I have a question for you, because you know, you're the draft expert. How many biodegradable nails is too many for you? Yeah. Because my limit's four,

and he's doubled that. Anything over five, it's tough. I don't know if he still has eight, though, because it was in high school and they are biodegradable. They have degraded.

Degraded into his knee. What's the half life of these things? They're gone. I like that Ben has, so Ben, you have James Winston over 2012 Flacco? I feel like 2012 Flacco would be number one. I'm missing.

Right? I like, I wrote the quarterbacks and then I wrote the puns. And I didn't think about how the puns would affect the quarterbacks. But yeah, 20-co flacco, James. Okay. Actual flacco. And then like the 20 is like Jets arrow flacco and the 10 is Broncos arrow flacco. And then the zero is Eagles arrow-facko.

Second, second time around flaco with the jets. Carson- Strong's going to suck. He's somewhere between Broncos flacco and Jets flacco. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, I would expect him right, yeah, to be a, he is a dying breed of quarterback in terms of the pocket stuff, right? He's like, Flacco, Rothusberger, sort of a guy. Flacco and Rothesberger are also dying breeds. Yeah, if he, if he is lights out accurate, then yeah, like, maybe we're getting Minchu who can stretch the field, which like, sure is a starter, but even then it's, he's not doing anything for you in terms of outside of the pocket stuff.

He's not like, you know, the arm isn't enough that you're like really threatened as a defense. It's just, not a scary projection at all. How big is he? He's tall. He's six, four, two, twenty something. Let's see, he was at the senior bowl, so he just got his measurements out. Carson Strong, six three and three quarters, two, twenty six, nine and a quarter inch hand. So we're good there.

So kind of button all this up, because the draft is nothing if not just talking ourselves into the quarterbacks as everything gets going. Which of these guys, if they go to the perfect situation, would you be most excited about. I'm not talking about like right now is prospects in theory. I'm talking about like in reality, like if Trevor Lawrence goes to the Jaguars and Mac Jones goes to the Patriots as a world, Mac Jones maybe has a better career. If these guys went to the perfect landing spot, who would you be most excited about? It's Willis for me. It's redder for me. Yeah. I like both of those. Okay. Yeah. That's really exciting. But not quite as exciting as what we're going to do next,

which is two jargons and one lie. This is the world premiere of the best draft segment that we have. Explain the game, yeah. We're going to have Ben Solac. Hello. Give us two real drafts like cliches. And then one fake one that he has just made up. And he's going to have Craig. D.K. knows them all. He's going to have Craig and I guess which one is that he made up. Yeah, I mean, we've heard so many terms over the years. And I'm just like, who is coming up with these? Is there a dictionary that only draft people get to read from and use these? So I'm very curious what Ben's. Here's what it is. Femboats aren't even happening anymore. Yeah. It's when there's like some.

28 year old scouting intern in the room and you as a 60 year old been in the NFL for forever old head want to intimidate him, you just speak in code and then you force them to learn the code and that way the circle remains closed in the NFL. Oh, is that like how people in Wall Street

call it finance, but they don't talk about it because you can't call it finance until you're like later in your career. Corporate finance. I didn't know that, so there you go. It's a perfect point. Okay, how much combine? How much combine of you and Craig watched

of you too? Do you watch a lot of combine live? It's my job. I think it's the only thing? All right. So here are my three to start. Easy one. We'll get harder as here goes on. I have quicker than fast, rock feet, and burp the baby.

You said burp the baby? Burp the baby. I got quicker than fast, rock feet, and burp the baby. I love this game. Faces are stunned. I think I know. I actually don't 100% know this. I think I know what it is.

You said this was like the Monday crossword puzzle, but it feels like Thursday. Jesus. What is, Hyvitz? What do you think burp the baby even mean? Well, quicker than fast is definitely. a term. I agree. I think Rock Feet, Ben might have, like, that seems like an easy something to conjure

up. Like, oh, Rock Feet, that's an easy thing. Because he would have used that for Carson Strong if that were a real thing. But I don't know, and Burp the Baby's too out of left field for him to make that up, I think. Burp the baby, I'm trying to think, is that like a football, like a quarterback

patting the football? He needs to be handheld, like, you know, in his job. No, I think that's either like a lineman hits the guy in the chest and it's like burp the baby but it's the left tackle how aggressive are you out here burping babies Danny we got lineman I don't have a kid

yet I don't get burp the babies you patting the baby on the back so like what is that I think it's a metaphor for like no it's not a metaphor I have no idea I think it's a physical I think he made up rock feet and I'm gonna lock it in final I agree I agree we play the the million dollar

the who wants to be a millionaire sound can we have that sound can we play it after we like final answer probably not right that's just like stealing That's a sound. That's just taking. It's borrowing. It's not stealing.

It's not stealing if they also have their copy. High Fitz learns copyright rules, 22. I'll look into it. I'll look into it. It is Rock Feet. So, Ding, Dink. There we go. Can I guess what Burt the Baby is?

Yeah, go ahead. Because I actually haven't heard that one. I think it's when they pat the ball too long. Yeah. So when you have a quarterback in the pocket who's just kind of like looking around and he's getting ready to throw, getting ready to throw. And he's holding the ball in his right hand. And he's like separating, but then bringing it back, separate and bring it back.

He'll just perp the baby. Oh my God, that's good. So indecisive quarterback's birth the baby. Quicker than fast are your players who are really, really quick in a phone booth. Think Jakeem Grant. And then you get him in the open field and you're like, oh, you're short. I forgot about that. And so they don't really like open their stride and fly.

They're quicker than fast. Rock feet, as Craig very aptly figured out is a thing that sounds like it's a thing. But because it sounds like it's a thing. It's obviously not a thing. It's too easy. But most importantly, what is now a thing is the two-cheek quarterback. Two-cheek quarterback. Yes.

Got to add that on. I think that's mostly what we got today again emails at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com we're going to do mailbags for the rest of the series so please email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com if you have fake scouting terms you want to make up if you want real scouting terms that are weird explained to you and like to explain

why they say these weird things also actual thoughts on prospects or teams yeah or if you just have weird questions like the draft is confusing and esoteric if you have things that have always confused you that you want to be explained by ben and dK let us know and also just like you know if you burp your baby too hard and like, I don't know, stuff like that. Let us know whatever we got going on.

I don't know. D.K., you got burp your, you got baby burping takes? There's definitely some like, you have to give it some oomph on the burping, but you don't want to hit up too hard. How often do you actually have to burp a baby? I don't know.

I will pass that stage. It's when they're drinking milk. Obviously, you want to burp them so like they throw up if they need to, so they don't do it when they're on their back. That was not obvious, obviously. Super unprepared to be a father.

Yeah, you put them like over your shoulder and then they're a little bit of pressure. Saturday night. Yeah, why don't you just throw a backpack on them with all the beer kids? You don't want them to be throwing up when they're on their back. I hear you.

Wow, so having a... So what all those times where you took care of like really drunk people in college, like it was like you actually have... Yeah, you got to have them sleep on their side. Why don't babies just sleep on their side then? You're good.

Babies can't flip over until they're like a certain amount a month's old. I can't remember exactly what. I'm hearing right now is that babies suck that, man. I mean, babies can't figure it out. They're doing what they're doing.

So babies are just like little drunk kids. They're like little potato bugs that can't flip over when they get on their back. They're like arms. They're flailing and stuff. Well, all right. Well, we're going to have, maybe we'll do a two, two baby truths and one lie from D.K. That's actually good. Like two truths about having a kid and one he made up.

Right now our show's like three percent, two truths one lie. But by the end of March, it's going to be like 90 percent. Two truths one lie. It's a different categories of it. By the way, Desmond Redder drafted first overall. but did you know. Okay. I think that's what we got.

Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Ben Solak. We're excited. Again, coming to Tuesdays and Thursdays. Through the off season, we're going to be going up through the NFL draft in late April.

We're really excited. I hope you guys like this. And again, anything you want for the show, emails at ringer fantasy football at Gmail.com, questions, things you want us to read, thoughts on the show, whatever you want. Check out the ringer draft guide. It's coming soon.

Dek has put a lot of hard work into it. Please check that out. And again, of course, as always, Thank you, Lorne. Lorne. Thank you, the clash. Oh, so I just no idea what's going on. Go birds?

No. The birds are a band, though. Yeah. Oh, is this a band thing? Who's Kygo? Go Kygo. Go Kygo. I learned who he was.

Thank you, Kygo. So neither of you know who Kygo is? It's Craig and your generation specifically only knows who Kygo is. Well, Ben is in our generation. He's the youngest person here. I'm not. I lived in a box, so I was like 12. I've never seen an episode of SpongeBob.

Like, I got nothing for people. This is going to be great. So is Soak a SpongeBob millennial if he's never seen SpongeBob? Wow, that's a tricky one. Ben, do you know who Lorne Michaels is? No? Wow.

I don't know who anybody is. The reason we say, I don't even know if you notice, we say thank you, Lauren at the end of the episode because Saturday Night Live, Lauren Michaels created Saturday Night Live and at the end of every show,

the host thanks Lauren. And there's always a band on SNL. So we make D.K. name a band. It's really funny. when you explain it. Well, I had to let him know. This is going to answer a lot of people's questions

because we still think we have a lot of people who ask us why we're thanking Lauren. Yeah, a lot of people. Lauren. L-O-R-N-E. Yeah. Everybody always thanks Lauren. Yeah. Okay, well, thanks, Lauren.

I think Lauren. Thanks Lauren. The clash, nice though. Okay, all right. Thank you, Kyko. Okay. Goodbye, everyone. Train in vain.