The Ringer NFL Show - How the 2023 NFL Draft Class Stacks Up to Years Past

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Welcome back to another episode of ‘The Ringer NFL Draft Show!’ Today, the guys report live from the 2023 NFL combine with their thoughts and reactions to this year’s class and where it ranks in comparison to previous years (3:23). Next, they discuss the most recent updates to DK’s big board and the highest risers on The Ringer’s NFL Draft Guide (11:12). Finally, they close with America’s favorite segment: Two Jargons, One Lie (39:02). Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, Ben Solak, Craig Horlbeck Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Kai Grady Check out our 2023 Ringer NFL Draft Guide here! Email us! [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Kevin O'Connor. I've got some big news for you. The mismatch is hosting its first ever live show in Los Angeles at the L.Rae Theater on March 6th. Me and Chris Vernon are going to be there. I'm fired up about it. At the L.R.R. There's been performers like Bob Dylan and Kendrick Lamar and Rage Against the Machine in Licky Lee.

I'm fired up. Get to be on that stage with my guy, Chris Vernon. We've been together since 2016 doing NBA podcasts. And now we're going to get to meet a lot of you who have listened. to our show for so many years. We'll do a Q&A at the end. We might have some special guests, but we're definitely going to be talking basketball.

It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm excited about it. Tickets are going fast, though, so be sure to head to the LRAE.com to get your tickets now. Doors are going to open at 7 p.m. And the show is going to be starting right at 8 o'clock. Let's go, baby. Welcome to the Ringer NFL Draft show.

My name is Danny Hyfitz. I am joined by Danny Kelly and Ben Slok. We were here in person in Indianapolis. What was that hello? That was good. I always. in there. I always, every time you do the intro, I always do a little, I always just make a sound. And this time it was hello.

That's a word. That's not a sound. Right. Last episode was, hey, usually you just keep rolling. It's his thing. Yes. Just go. All right. Anyway, all right. So we're here at the Combine. Coming to the NFL draft show, tilt the draft, obviously. It's at the end of April. We're in indie for the Combine, which is like a giant job fair, except if it's like Soviet Russia, it's like, in Soviet Russia, we force you to work for us. That was bad. I don't know. That's no word. You get it. Just a quick comment on socialism. I don't know.

I'm always just amazed that it's like a job interview, but if they like you, you have to work for them. That's all. No, I agree. We largely have gotten rid of drafts as a society, but this one we're still pretty stoked about. It's just the army and this, anyway.

We're really getting into it, right? I know. We're really on in this. Like, so our daymakers. So, yeah, I think of it. So we're going to just go through everything that we've kind of been hearing about these prospects and Dekin,

and so lacking all the absolute nerdiness and all the wingspans and all the weird stuff. The workouts start today. It's Thursday afternoon. again, once again, before we get into the weird silly stuff, we do have something about saying serious. The Jalen Carter situation is Georgia defensive tackle. We went into the whole deal kind of yesterday,

right at the beginning of yesterday's show. So if you want the whole deal, you can go through that. But there was a warrant out for his arrest for reckless driving. And he left to Indianapolis and went to Georgia and turned himself in, was booked, and came back in like less than 24 hours, I think. And now he's just there on the field, like as we speak. Yeah, we are right now the on-field workouts are starting for the defensive lineman. He is down there.

I don't know if he's going to be testing at all, but... I think he was never planning on testing. But yeah, he was booked on reckless driving and racing charges. He paid a $4,000 bond. It was released at 11.50 p.m. Eastern time last night. That's from Ian Rappaport and Tom Pelliserro. So, and as opposed to midnight yesterday, Wednesday, he was in Georgia this morning. He is here.

And now he's in indeed finishing the process. And again, we don't really know what the implications are yet. So we're just going to wait to let this kind of play out before we really comment on anything. So yeah. Yeah, this is weird. It is weird. Cool. So we'll talk about the other stuff.

Other than the massive elephant in the room, everything else going on with the draft. Yes. I feel like the vibe that we've been getting here. D.K. Solac. Yep. He has to talk to a lot of people. Smart. Talk to other smart people.

Just draft class suck. Nah, it's too far. Too strong. But yeah. The big vibe here, right? So, like, what are you been hearing? Yeah, the sense that I get from everybody is that it's not a very good class. We like those excitement of the quarterback class.

The top four guys are going to go early, and it's great to have four quarterbacks who go early. Like, I was going back and I was looking at grades. And assuming all four of these quarterbacks grade out as a round one grades for me, which I think is, I would expect, I haven't finished grading them. And it'd be the first class that that's happened for since a couple years ago when it was just Fields, Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance. You don't usually see that many for strong grades. So quarterback is strong at the top.

That's nice. That's good news. after those dudes and like Carter Anderson, nobody like, it's a great draft to have a top five, six, seven, eight pick. And then once you're outside of that range, there's really not a lot of enthusiasm for this class because where it's strong in that like end of the first area, right?

That like everything from pick eight to pick 32, where it's strong in terms of quality of talent is non-premium positions, tied end and running back, right? The one exception is corner, where I think the corner class is really, really strong. there's some excitement for the edge class, depending on who you talk to, but everybody's got a different guy that they like.

And so it's more so like a mess than it is like, oh, we got a bunch of real dudes, you know what I'm saying? There's, like, every year, somebody says, this is a great draft to have a pick between like 25 and 65. That happens literally every year. Every single year that's said. This is, they'll say that this year, but I don't think that's the case this year.

I think that's how the NFL really feels. I think this is not a strong class at the top. The other thing that everyone says every single year is, next year's class is better. Yep. And so I think there is a little bit of, I don't know what the, you know,

psychological expression is, but it's like grass is always greener. Like next year's going to be better. I'll do it tomorrow. Yeah. I do think that that tends to happen every year. The main thing, as select laid out,

there's just not a lot of blue chip players in this class. Like there is not surefire, like no doubt, superstar type players in this class. And even guys are even starting to like doubt, you know, like Will Anderson. And now Jalen Carter has,

you know, this arrest and these, issues going on. And so I think that's the reason this, the perception is this class isn't that good. I will say, I kind of like am not really on board completely with that sentiment. I actually like this class. And when you look at it from the NFL revolves around the passing game, the class, the positions I think are pretty good or deep are quarterback, corner, edge, and tight end, all in the passing game. These are all passing game. Talk to me about edge. I don't think Edge is necessarily elite,

because there's only, I think there's two guys, or there's one guy certainly in the top ten. I think you could probably count Terry Wilson as a top ten guy too. Texas Tech, massive person, terra-dactyl. 86-inch wingspan. Would be like one of the biggest defensive ends in the entire league if he goes. Yeah, which 86-inch wingsman, by the way, so I know you get mad at me when I just say wingspans.

No one knows how long they're supposed to be. It's like seven. How tall is that normal? Your wingspan is roughly on average your height, right? Your wingspan is usually about as big as your height is, give or take, right? 86-inched-wing span. 7-foot-two-inch wingspan.

Big fella. That's all, that's, I mean, like, 86, right, 7 feet. Everyone knows that's top of the right, yeah. Seven times 12 is 84, then you add two. He's a math guy. He's a physics major. So, 86 inches, which is 7 foot 2,

which is a more regular thing to say than 86 inches, that's his wingspan. That plus being 6,6, plus being true 270, like, that's a big fella. So, yeah. But Tyree is old and is coming off of a foot injury. Like, for me, like, I can't get fully there with my chest. I understand.

I understand that. And I think you could probably make, you can nitpick about all these guys Miles Murphy, maybe the production, and Clemson. Miles Murphy's from Clemson, thank you Hyvitz. You see Miles Murphy's hand size today? What is it? How's my job's reminding you guys that nobody has any

idea of these people are? Eight and a half inches. Boy's got Kenny Pickett boys got Kenny Pickett hands at defensive end. Wait, wait, really? A and a half in hands. Is that what Pickett had? Pickett was straight eight. Picket was like eight, right? He was like eight, eight flat, eight and four? I can't remember. My hands are bigger than he's six foot five?

Yes. That's interesting. Yes. Is this like body shaving? Yes. Kind of. No, it's like emphatically. She's emphatically like, yeah, that's really mean. Right.

This is also a draft. Remember, we were like, we don't do these anymore. Yeah, we also don't do body shaming anymore. That's what goes on in the draft. Right. So, okay, you have Miles Murphy's hands are too small. You have Will McDonald's who's sub 240 pounds.

He's too small overall. Yeah, exactly. He's out of Iowa State. Ha ha, ha, I beat you. So he's like, he's like, but he's too thin. You have, um. Keone White from Georgia Tech.

Yeah, okay, he's big, but he's old. Louis Van Ness was enormous. 11 inch hands. Think about a piece of paper. Think about the long, think about the long side of piece of paper.

Pinky to thumb, that's what Lucas Vines can do. They call him Hercules, all right? This guy's unbelievable build. You watch his film, it just doesn't know how to play the position yet.

So everybody, Nolan... There's caveats for every... Nolan Smith is too small out of Georgia, right? BJ Ojo Lari is an incomplete poor production out of LSU. How often are their perfect players,

I guess, is the question. I'm just saying there's a lot of names at EdgeRusher. Who are you setting your watch to? Right. Like, here's a, here's the name. We were just watching him two seconds ago, Tuli Tui Polo too out of USA.

I love him. He's got a great film. It's solid. Nobody brings them up because we all these, all these, like, theories. We have all these, like, half-baked ideas at Edge right now.

I don't think that constitutes a strong class and because constitutes a class with individuals in it. There's just a lot of guys that graduated playing Pass Rush. I don't know. Like three years from now, we're going to remember BJ O'Dari?

We're going to remember Lucas Van Ness? I'm not sure we will. I don't know. Well, I think actually talking through it now, And I think this is the reason that there's perception here that it's not a very good class is because I'm guessing everyone that talks, like anybody that's talking to anybody this week has a different opinion on like how to stack all these guys at the crucial, you know,

premium positions, whether it's receiver, um, quarterback, edge rusher, offensive tackle. You know, there's probably just really widely disparate rankings of all these guys which says there's, you know, there's no consensus. So therefore people don't like this class. But I think that is the overall vibe. The one exciting part. Can we talk about the Ted ends?

because I got to tell you, I feel like it's just been so long since there was actually excitement about tight ends. I know. Great tight end class. We're feeling it. There was the year

the Noah fan came out of Iowa and then T.J. Hawkinson was like the combo meal. And honestly, fans been super disappointing and Hawkinson's like finally fine. But like... Who was the other tight end of that class?

There was one other one is really good. There was that class. Then there was the O.J. Howard, David and Joku Evan Ingram class. Yeah. And Joku actually is like panning out, I thought.

And how many years later? It takes tight ends like four years. Anyway, give me the elevator pitch on a few of these good tight ends. What is the last time there was a draft class with the tight ends as good as the top three or four in this year? How long do you have to go back? I don't know, that's a good question.

I've heard this is the best class in 10 years. I haven't actually researched the level of it. Was it DJ who said that there's going to be Daniel Jeremiah. 15. Yeah, 15 tight ends. As opposed to the DJ.

I think this is just the Solac and Kelly translator. I feel like DJ. He's the happy translator, not the angry The other tight end in the Noah Fantitia Hawkinson class father was Irv Smith. That's who it was. Oh, yeah. That hasn't worked out so much. So that was three tight ends taken top 50.

When Ingram and Joku and Oce Howard came out, which if memory serves was 2017, that would make sense, right? Because Ingram's the fifth year option, right? That class was three tight ends in the first round. I would be at this point, I would expect we get three titans in the first round. I'd probably set the over under at two and a half, but I would juice it pretty heavily to the over. Michael Mayer out of Notre Dame Dalton Kincaid out of Utah Darnell Washington out of Georgia

So this is the perfect time You mentioned those three guys Because DK has updated his NFL draft guide The Ringer's NFL draft guide Who's scattering reports by none of them Danny Kelly It's an update, whoa! Norway, you're here, are you good at now sounds Will you do an air horn?

Wow, that was good. That was good. That was good. That was sick. Wow, look at you. Talents. I can't believe you got on a scooter today with a bird.

With a cup of coffee. With the bird. With those air horn. Anyway. Anyway. All right. DKE has NFLdraft. Dot the rearinger.com.

Yeah. It's the best draft guide that there is. And you added a bunch of players. It's true. It's the greatest draft guide that there is. It's true, though. And so the tight ends are the best part of this guide because you have, you have Michael Mayor, who's the Notre Dame tight end.

And you have his comparisons. You have shades of. That's your comparisons for players. your comparisons. You have Michael Mayor is like Heath Miller, the Steelers' Ted End,

or that berserker from Helms Deep in Lord of the Rings who carries the torch to blow up the castle and keeps fighting with him. He keeps getting shot with arrows and he's like,

that's him in the red zone. That's Michael Mayor. Yeah, that's what he does in the red zone, pretty much. He's just, you know, he's strong as hell.

He's incredible, like, he's maybe like the best contested catch player ever. Like, what? Potentially. He's just,

I just really like that. He's going to be, essentially like a quarterback's best friend. I'm not necessarily calling him the most athletic or twitchy guy, but he's big, strong. I think he's relatively smooth as a route runner and he's just dominant at the catch point. He just absolutely box the guys out.

He's the best contested catch player ever. He has vice grip hands. He is incredibly strong. I originally was going to say he turns into Mike Alstah after the catch, but then I went with a berserker from Helms deep. He just absolutely, he just looks to like absolutely run people over in the open field.

And he's just big and huge. and he's just a big, meaty, tight end. He's also really handsome. He looks, like, straight out of, like, central casting, like a football player. Like, Google. Will, let us post another video this morning of him eating a banana with the peel on. And he's shirtless and a hot tub, and I'm like, Will loves to go in one overall.

You know what we need to do every, you know, next year's guide. One of the reasons you really should go to NFLDraft.org.com is, like, there are all these badges on and they're incredible. And, like, it's just, it's a very great visual guide with all, like, the actual traits. Next year, we need to add Blue Mountain State. Like, because Will Levin's, and Michael Mayor could just be characters in Blue Mountain State.

Like, it's true, you're right, like central casting. Yeah, he looks exactly like a football player. So, yeah, there's that guy. I think he's my number one. I think this is another class where it depends on the type of tight end that you want. Like, Michael Mayer is a classic Y tight end.

He can block, he can line up in line. What does that mean? He can block, he can line up in line, he can use on all three downs. High Fins is, he's just defaulting to the, making me translate. And I appreciate that. It's a very football term.

There are different kinds of tight ends in football English. What does white tennis mean? He was saying. It means he's in line. He can block. And then once you said, well, what's a wide tenant?

He went, well, he's in line and he can block. There are different kinds of tight ends within that they draft. So the Y is a designation from like playbooks. But essentially it just means he's big strong. He's essentially a hybrid between a tackle and a pass catcher. And he is just the classic big huge guy who can block. Dalton Kincaid is my second ranked tight end.

And he's a huge rise. I need a huge. I need help on. this one. I really, really like him. I just think he's the classic, quote unquote, F, tight end, which is a move guy. He's not going to be lining up a line of scrimmage. He actually gets rocked

when he tries to block. Like, he genuinely is not a good blocker. Hold on. In your guide, were you going to ask the same question? Exactly. I want to ask the question, and then I want to make a prediction. Because for the comparison, you have shades of, I don't even want to say it, but I'm thinking it.

I think the thing you don't even want to say what you're thinking is Travis Kelsey? I just think you to say that. You don't even want to just plant the seed. I'm not saying he's Travis Kelsey. This is the problem with making comps as everyone gets mad. But that's what does the elite. Let's cop it to the best player, the best tight end of all time. You said right there, you're like,

I'm not saying he's Travis Kelsey and that's correct, because you don't even have Travis Kelsey and that's right. If you're a comparison, you have literally quote, I don't even want to say it, but I'm thinking it. Which is such a good way to do it. That's so meta where it's like, I refuse to say it. I'm not even going to tell you. It's like, wow, now I really want to know. I'm really thinking it. I just, my

my comp for him is that, because I actually think he just moves a lot like Kelsey, just the weight, like, very smooth. I've always said that Kelsey looks like he's pretending he's surfing when he's running around. Oh my God, that's amazing. And it's just his body control, his ability to cut on a time,

run after the catch. He also is very intuitive and instinctive in terms of, like, finding the open area in zones and things like that. He, in the country, he trailed only Brock Bowers in receiving and receiving touchdowns. Among 10s? Yeah. Among 10s.

Sorry. My question when you say that. Why did Travis Kelsey go in the third round? And like, why did... Different era. Yeah. You couldn't draft 245-pound tight ends back in 20... 16? 15?

Kelsey? 14? 14? He's like 30. Yeah, yeah. He's like 13-something. Yeah. To be fair, he's the first pick of the third round, I think.

Yeah. But, like... He was 6.5-256, which Dalton Kincaid is listed true 240. He's much smaller. We haven't gotten an official measurement for Dalton Kincaid yet. But I... If there are first round tight ends who have been selected who are sub 240, there are very few of them and they were very long time ago. You do not see guys this light go this early.

But if there's an era in which it's going to happen, if there's a direction we're trending, it's in this direction where like Kincaid will be taken on the concept, not that he's playing tight end, but on the concept that he will be the primary pass catcher for a team that needs size. Like I think about like the giants right now, right? the Giants would love to get an X receiver. Just like a real, like, Isaiah Hodgson's a solid, like a real like dominant receiver, three levels, can run everything,

can do everything. That guy doesn't exist in this class. Wide receiver class, Jackson Smith and Jigba, Jordan Addison, Quinn Johnson. They all got holes in their, in their repertoire,

a lot of smalls in this class. So if I'm like, I've got 110 targets to give out this year, and I don't know who to give them to. And I go on, look at this trap class. I watch Dalton Kincaid who was running

skinny posts out of the slot for Utah. I start going, I can take a 240 tight end. Exactly. I'm never going to put him in line. And that's not what he's good at. That's not what he's good at at at all. Now we're really getting somewhere because we're really getting somewhere now.

We are. But the whole thing with the receivers in this year's class is like there's Quentin Johnson who's like a big traditional outside receiver and all the other guys are like, cool, you're good slots. And in reality, what you're saying is like forget the words, receiver, tight end. He's a past catcher. It's like of the past captors, they can look at the tight end class as like here's the size. And a big part about it, I think that's important to clarify. We talk about big receivers versus small receivers.

A lot of times people hear big receivers and think, okay, like down the field, catching balls above the rim, elevating, right, jumping up and catching balls that are high in the air, small receivers in the slot, catching stuff that's underneath because they don't have to elevate. But one of the things that's also really valuable in this Shanahan-Eyes NFL is catching over the middle of the field. And you can catch over the middle field and be small, right? You can be like a Tyler Locket and do it. But think about how Tyler Locket gets the ball and immediately goes down, right? You know, those class of Locket.

He's in career preservation mode at this point. If you're going to be a middle of the field target, you have to be willing to live with the idea of being hit. You're going to take on a lot of contact. And so a guy like Jackson Smith and Jigba, for example, the receiver out of Ohio State, played over the middle of the field a lot, not super big. He's willing to take on contact, though.

He's a tough son of a gun. It's like, that's encouraging. But if you're worried about his size holding up with all those hits over the middle of the field on the NFL level, and then you watch Dalton Kincaid, who's just a huge target, who takes body shot after body shot,

what was the game he had like 14 catches in? I think it was USC. Yeah. He's just getting hammered up. He's going to the sideline. He's coming back in. You go, all right, if you want to live in the middle of the field

and we're worried about these smaller receivers, I think he'll get us a doll in Kincaid. And we're going to feel really good about his physicality working over the middle of the field. We're going to feel good about that big target taking those hits. I think this guy has a paradoxical, like, the connotation now is weird, but Kyle Pitts is 245 pounds for the record.

Like, he went forth overall and had 1,000 yards as a rookie. I'm not saying that Kincaid is on the level of Kyle Pitts. And I know some people are, like, disappointed in Cow Pitts because last year wasn't great. I'll tell you who the Cow Pits is in this class. Yeah, that's a good segue. It's Luke Musgrave. Yes. I watched Musgrave last week, Oregon State.

You saw my expression and you were like, it's like. Luke Musgrave out of context sounds like a country singer. I'm going to Luke Musgrave. He's opening for Luke Bryan. The other reason I was excited to say it was from Oregon State because I love the beavers, go beefs. And Luke Musgrave, go beefs. just cringed at that one. Go beefs, baby.

We might have to bleep that out. That's what they say. That's legitimately what they say. Musgrave played two games this past season. He's been banged up progressive over the course of his career. He's got massive injury red flags.

Not my job to figure that out. I'm on a podcast. Thank you. 6-6-250-plus and the athleticism is so evident. And it's also, they, like, he was at the Senior Bowl. They chart him on, like, the MPH and, like, the Zebra Sports tracking,

and he was moving faster and accelerating more than all the receivers were. He was, didn't he, he went over 20 miles per hour, which has, I don't know if it's happened from a tight end. As a straight line athlete, there's a chance that Musgraves run in the low four, fives, while carrying 250 plus. And he's got length to him. He's got catchphrase to him. He's got wiggled to him.

He can drop his hips. He can move. He can make a guy miss. Like, he can run legitimate routes. Like, if we're talking about, like, North is not in the head. Hell yes. I think Michael Mayer is like, Okay, good solid athlete,

great, good athlete for playing the Y, playing the inline. Nice. Dalton Kincaid, built to play F, solid athlete to play F. Both these guys are athletically, but we need them to be cool. Then you watch Musgrave and you go, this guy can run away from dudes. Like, this guy up the seam is like the safety won't catch him. On crossers and seams, he's like, they can't keep up.

Yeah, yeah. And they run some of that like outside zone play action sort of stuff that you see in the NFL and you see proof of concept. Like, oh, you get this guy the ball while he's on the move. Think like George Kittle in that Niners offense. He breaks one tackle. And then he can like open. Like he can open his.

stride and go. And he's like if there's going to be a guy who I don't want to say test like Pitts, because Pitts tested like a unicorn, but there's a guy who tests like Pitts, Luke Musgraves. And I wouldn't be surprised if we get three tight ends. I think Kincaid and Mayor for sure. I brought up there on Washington earlier out of Georgia, but if I had to guess who the third first round round end is, right now I'd guess Musgraves. So to continue our groundbreaking Lord of the Rings comparison with these guys, if Michael Mayor is the guy who like carried the torch to the bomb and like get through the arrows, Luke Musgrave is the guy that they send up the ladder and just starts like wrecking all the guys because like the kid

old he hasn't seen movies. Luke Musgrave is a guy who runs fast in a straight line. I've seen the Lord of the Rings movies. I'm a nerd. He's a guy, you know, and he kills a Lego's brother or something, you know? He kills what? Like a Lola's his brother? Whatever? Spoiler. He like, kills the other elf, archer. Luke Musgrave is the guy in the Lord of the Rings movies

who runs fast in a straight line. Whoever that is for you, that's what guy he is. Yeah, he's the horse. These shadow facts. Nora said it. Norah nailed it that time. Shut up. The other thing, so this Musgrave is the poster boy, and this is something that's come up actually a couple of times

during GM and coach interviews of multi-sport athletes, and coaches love guys that have experience in different sports. Do we want to play the sports Luke Musgrave played game? Because it's hilarious. So he played four total sports in high school. He is from, I want to say, Western Oregon. He's from some of the Pacific Northwest. Just for context of what he could possibly play.

Go ahead and guess what Luke Musgrave is playing. The books aren't even taking bets on basketball. Okay. He obviously played basketball. Okay. Where's he from? No, I don't know if he did it. I was going to let him keep going, Danny.

Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. He's from Bend, by the way. Okay. This is what I want. I literally want this. I no longer want to be notified when tight ends play basketball. I want you to tell me when they didn't. This is exactly...

So he did not play basketball. Why? Because he was too busy being a... He's too busy dominating other sports. National Alpine skier. What? Logels? Yeah, like the Slalom and Alpine.

I don't know what it means. We really need nor on this. Moguls, maybe? I think it was... Really good hips. Really good hips. Which you can tell when he runs routes, he knows how drop his hips.

He's got fluidity, baby. Those are ductress fire. Do you know what moguls are? Yes, the bumps. No, it is the bumps. So that's why the hips have to be fluid because you're going zoop, zip, zip, you're going in between them.

I've heard that he was an alpine skier. I've heard that he was an alpine skier. I know D.K. is in the drive that he was a slalom skier. I don't really know the difference too much. All I know is very, very successful skier. lacrosse player all right and then track star

and then long jump and triple jump that track star is going to show up the jumps are extremely valuable in terms of generating explosive momentum generating

explosive movement like again like Nora brought up hips and like I talk about hips sometimes can you guys make fun of me he really understands how to unlock power

from his core from his trunk he knows how to use his hips he knows that a foot bent through his hips Musgraves the sort of guy where like I don't know the medicals in front of me

I don't know if I'd you know risk it for the biscuit with his medicals with that said Probably why he drops a little. Yes. Did he get hurt in college? He only played two games last year because he had a knee injury.

If you made me guess right now of the three tight ends, you say, hey, one of these guys is a Hall of Fame career, I'd be very tempted to take Musgrave. Right. Just in terms of how high the ceiling is with the way the guy moves. He's really, really special to watch. Also, like, he's not a great blocker, but he can block. And I think he's...

He's got functional mass and lengths. He can get a guy's way. And so that means he could probably be, like I said earlier, why tight-in a guy that plays on all three downs. He's not going to give away, you know, schematic tendencies or anything like that. So teams are going to really like this guy. And I know that they already do.

Like there's a lot of buzz about him. I'm glad this became a tight end pod. Great class. We didn't even get to our guy darn old Washington. I know. I was going to say there's a little LeBron James Terminator.

Yes. And we've talked about him on previous pods. He's just a huge, huge guy. Some teams might even seem as a tackle. What? Yeah. Like they might see him as a developmental tackle. Like put on some weight.

Jason Peters. Yeah. What? So. Jason Peters was going to be a tight end? Yeah. He's great. He played, did he play 18 years or whatever?

Yeah, I mean like a decade and a half, easy. He was a Hall Famer. He was a titan out of Arkansas, and then they transferred him to being a tackle in the NFL. I feel like the, though, you get a tackle going to move to guard. Tid end to tackle. Well, he was just such an enormous body, right? Again, like.

So he can't catch. Well, but no, but just think about like, if a guy's frame, every dude's frame has a natural, reasonable amount of mass that it should sustain. It has, like, an optimal point of like how it should be done. Right? think about it. I'm like 5.7, a buck 70, a buck 60,

excuse me, whoa. You can have another guy here is 570, a buck 60, and we just carry our mass in different places, broader shoulders, narrower hips. I think that you and I would carry our mass in different places. So, that's fair to say. You look at a guy like a darned Washington or Jason Peters, and just in watching a move and evaluating how he moves, you might look and say like, this guy's body just makes more sense holding 20 more pounds, holding 30 more pounds, and being a tackle, right?

Lane Johnson was a high school quarterback who then went to tight, tight end of them went to tackle. As you're finishing growing and you're entering your early 20s, your body recomposes. And a lot of times that doesn't necessitate a position switch, but it becomes intuitive for a position switch. So it's been talked about with Donald Washington. I think the least you're trying to try him at tight end first, but it's something that's been discussed. It would be more fun if he was a tight end, I put it that way. Is this happened in the same time that when my body, like, recomposed in my early 20s, it was like, okay, no more cheese. Yes. You know, it's like you can't drink anymore. No, but legitimately, yes. Like the

freshman 15 for college, right? Where people go and like they're metta, as they get older, the metabolism slows, like, you know, your bodies are changing. When you're in that age, your body is still changing. That's why these guys are still like, like, you know, Donald Parham, the tight end for the Chargers. He's 6'8, right? He was at Stetson University. Why?

Because when he went into college, he was 6'1, right? Carson Wentz, why did he end up in North Dakota State? He said he was growing randomly super late. How much did Wentz grow in college? I think it was like end of high school. He started growing a lot, but he was like small, small. He was like sub six foot. Then he ended up being 6'5.

Like, we got to remember that these are young, dudes who are still like becoming what they are. All right. Well, perfect segue. What about the quarterbacks. Again, NFLDraft.thranger.com. DK.'s draft guide. DK., right now, you got Bryce Young, your top quarterback, and you've got C.J. Stroud,

Ohio State, Anthony Richardson at Florida. We'll love us out of Kentucky. And we've talked about these guys, but I want to really just give some context. So we're Thursday afternoon. When's Bryce Young getting measured? Tomorrow? Friday morning. First of all, my only actual goal for this whole week is I just want Bryce Young to stand next to Ben Solax.

we can actually see like for our own eyes. We've been like running around trying to find him. Yeah. But I'll start wandering the halls with the camera crew. I kind of wanted to give like a real comparison. Craig always is really good at this. Just like, okay, but where are these guys in terms of the last few quarterback classes? Yeah.

So you throw these names around it, but what does it mean? And I was wondering if D.K., could you start and just kind of be like, all right, how good Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Richardson, Will, Will, in the context of like the last five draft classes. All these quarterbacks were for whatever reason as prospects, not who they are now, as prospects. In this draft, where would they rank? I'm going to assume Trevor Lawrence is like the first quarterback. And I'm just like, where do these guys come in?

I would put it into tears. Like the tiers for me in terms of how I had these guys ranked and graded or whatever at the time and trying not to do too much like, you know, hindsight. I'd say, Trevor Lawrence. Josh Allen was like extremely devices. Right, right, right. I would say Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow, I thought were really, really good prospects. The next tier would be like...

Just tier one. Yeah. And then like I'd have like, Kyler Murray, Justin Fields, Bryce Young, to C.J. Stroud and Justin Herbert kind of like in that next tier. I don't know. What do you think, Ben? Like, is that like in the ballpark? Yeah. So for me, the blue chip grades that I've given out over the last four years. So guys have actually finished grading. Blue Chip is the best possible grade I can give out. Okay. Well, I was good because you said blue chips earlier. I was wondering just in terms of bad class with that men off the top. Is that no superstar ceiling or just like, I can't point at the guy, be like, he's a starter.

The phrase comes from when they used to just make draft boards, like in draft war rooms, like, where they had, like, digital boards and they'd build any type things. And they would have little blue stickers. And when a guy was, this is a dude we'd take it one, one. This is a guy we would take up the top of the class, right?

This is as good as it's going to get. But is that in terms of he can be great and might be bad or just like he won't be bad. He'll be average and maybe great. No. That's a separate conversation. Okay. That's like that's one bus.

This is, when we sit down on April 24th, to get ready for the first day of the draft on April 26th or whatever. Who are the guys that we, like, this is the elite group, this is the top group. These are the rarefied areas, right? This is the guys that will be talked about. They'll be perennial probos, whatever. Like, whether it's like, because they're safer, because they have high ceilance,

whatever it is. Those guys got blue stickers. They were blue chip players. Cool. Right. And so blue chip grades for me that I've given out, which is like the top tier migrating are Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, and Joe Burrow. Those are the three that I've given out over the last four years.

I had an early round one grade on just Tua. And then I had mid first round grades. on Justin Herbert, Trey Lance, and Zach Wilson. Those are that seven total players I've given out. Where was Tyler? Oh, Kyler was a late one. Kyle was a late one with Zach Wilson. So those are the eight players for whom I've given out first round grades.

I haven't finished grading this class. I won't for a bit in terms of the quarterback position. I would guess I end up with four first round grades. I would say very confidently, I'll have no blue chip grades. So I would say that no blue chip grades. Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's too many questions. So remind you, read that list again of the blue chip grades,

that you're like definitively better than these four days. I've given blue chips out to Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, and Joe Burrow as prospects. The next closest guy to me, the next tier is Tua, who I gave an early first round grade to. If anybody's going to get an early first, maybe Bryce, but that's really, like, that's on film. I don't know how, like, that would even remotely look in terms of the height and the weight. What about Bryce Young versus Kyler? Like, who is better? Bryce is a better player.

But Kyler is bigger. Kyler came in at, oh, this guy's really small. Bryce is coming in at, oh, this guy might be debilitatingly, unacceptably. This is not functionally small. Bryce is a better prospect than Kyle was. I think Bryce is a better prospect than I saw from Kyler, then I saw it from Trey Lance, then I saw it from Tray Lance, then I saw from Justin Herbert,

then I saw from Zach Wilson. I think that Levis is probably in that Wilson tier. I think that like Stroud. I really, really like Stroud's film. Stroud will grade out higher than me, I would imagine, than Zach Wilson did Tray Lance said and Justin Herbert did. And then Richardson, I imagine, will be in that Herbert, Zach Wilson, Tray Lance area.

That makes a lot of sense for him in terms of the project that he is. So I'm guessing I have, if I have four first round grades, which right now I guess I do. They're all in the back half. None of them are going to be blue-chip prospects. Like can't miss. The way that Lawrence was, Burrow was, Justin Fields was, for me personally.

And that jives with what I've been saying about this class previously. I like them all. I don't love anybody, but I like them all. Just to put it in like a stylistic category, like I would say Anthony Richardson and Levis are in the boom-buss category that like Zach Wilson and Trey Lance were in, like where the traits are really enticing and exciting, but there's a lot of variance in terms of. of like whether they could like completely bust or they could be elite you know what I mean like

there's a really high bus factor there and so boomer bus so I would I put that one in the same type of category I see you're saying because Anthony Richardson and Zach Wilson I mean just as they don't have much in common like Anthony Richardson is huge right fast and Zach Wilson's like very small but they have the same like Richardson and Wilson are both I look at like where would Jack Wilson have been drafted if Patrick Mahomes didn't exist are we just trying to find Mahomes again and force it Where is Richardson going to be drafts? If Josh Allen never existed?

Are we over correcting? Well, Josh Allen, we missed that. Are we going to do Richardson? And then also Richardson has the Trey Lance thing. How many passes did this guy throw in college? Exactly. At the time at which they got him, this staff, like that got him for this year, he had like 40 career completions or something like that.

Like, you know what I'm saying? Like he had just barely played. So he's a little bit further along than Trey Lance was, a little bit further along than Josh Allen was, in my opinion. Not as far as long as like a Justin Fields was, like a Kyle Murray was. was. You talk about high athlete players. In terms of like preparedness, he's between those tiers for me.

I was talking with somebody about him yesterday. And like the, I get the same thing. So I talk about Anthony Richardson. I get the same thing from everybody I talk to. He's further along the people think. He's not there, but he's further along people think. So when you say that you're basically saying, because I feel

like, for lack of a better example, the ability that he has to not, like move the pocket subtly, like Brady. or Breeze where he can just side step a guy. Yeah, sidestep a guy, not leave and bail. Like, love Julian Hertz, but even he kind of bail's pocket a lot.

Keep your eyes downfield. Yeah, like Mark Sanchez could never do it. Like sidestep the pocket, like defender, and like still keep guys. That's like kind of one of the number one things you look for in a quarterback who like isn't developed. But he is. I think I saw, and this is a good example of it, I'm pretty sure I saw that he had one of the lowest pressure to sack ratios, which means that the pressures turn into sacks less often than most of the other

quarterbacks in this class. In other words, he can slide around, move around, evade pressure, and make something happen and not take a sack. And oftentimes,

when he was pressured, it was his fault because he was screwing around back there. He was holding the ball for too long, because they had a solid offensive line.

And so that's the sort of stuff where you're scrambling quarterbacks are always going to invite pressure, but also because of the ones inviting it, they're going to be really good at avoiding it because they know

it's coming, as opposed to like a pocket passer who like his tackle gets beat, he's not ready for it. And he gets CJ shrouded. You know what I'm saying? And that's the concern to it with CJ. We're recording this Thursday afternoon.

Quarterbacks are going over the weekend. What are you guys most looking for? Like, of all the quarterbacks, what's the most important thing? Other than Bryce Young being 200 pounds in a completely meaningless way in, where he's just bulking and where he will not do any athletic thing, and then go back down to his weight to be a quarterback, other than Bryce Young being sole exercise. What is the one thing this weekend that you're most paying attention to the quarterback?

Stroud better be perfect, throwing the ball. That's his thing. Yeah, exactly. That's his thing. He's a really good thrower. Yeah, he has to look better, more accurate than Levis. He has to look more accurate than Richardson, especially because, like, you know,

some throws are going to demand high velocity. They're going to demand fast balls, right? Balls that have a low arc. You have to throw them with a lot of speed. And Richardson and Levis are both pretty good at that. Some of these throws demand touch. They demand placement. And that's where both Levis and especially Richardson are deficient.

Richard is a one-speed pitcher right now. Stroud's got four pitches. Yeah, exactly. Richardson is a high school prospect who throws 95, but he has no idea of it. change up. No slider, no curves. He's just throwing gas.

And so Stroud has a much, you know, we're going to get fancy. Much more developed palate. Oh, that's past as much of a developed thrower. He's got to look that way. That's important to him. Levis is, I think, like, you know, Levis, it's beat Richardson.

Look more accurate than Richardson, right? You can kind of balance that line between being a project and also having some development to you. If Richardson can show that he can throw off speed, right, that he can throw, stuff with touch, take a little bit off there. Because if he's just throwing as fast as he's typically has to receivers who aren't used to him.

It's going to be like the Josh Allen combat. Do you remember? Josh Allen at the senior. It throws it real far. Josh on at the senior ball. When Josh Allen came out, it was so annoying, Danny. Allen's out, right?

And this class says, like, Baker, who's at the senior bowl, right? It's got Lamar. It's got Sam Donald. It's got so many good players in it, yeah? And Alan comes out the first day and looks like terrible in the senior bowl, right? And the second practice, it looks a little bit better. But the receivers keep dropping his passes, right? And it's a large part because they're not super accurate.

He's throwing them in a weird place. They hit their hands, but they drop them. And then I think it was DJ General Germia, but it was a lot of like the NFL, like the guys who are connected who were like, the reason why Josh Allen's receivers are dropping his passes because he throws the ball so hard that they're not used to it

and it's hurting their hands. And this was at like the peak of Josh Allen myth-making stage and it was like, oh, brother, come on. But there is some veracity to that. We're like, if Richardson is just throwing like smoke all day, it's going to hit his receiver's hands and they're going to drop it because I'm not used to it. You have to throw,

catchable balls when you're out here of the combat. Maybe Gen Z's just soft. His receivers. Back when John Elway was throwing. I think it was Bill Walsh who said like it's one of the most important things is just throw a catchable ball. It doesn't matter how it gets there.

As long as it is catchable, that's important. We've all had a catch with someone who just was trying to flex their arm strength and just threw it too hard. You're like, deep, like chill. It's going to be so fun. Yeah. Just see Richard's in throw though.

Because he's just a special arm talent, man. I can't wait. D.K., what are you most looking for among the other books? The first thing that came in my mind was exactly what he said. Basically, Richardson and Levis, their accuracy in the short and intermediate. I know that's not why we're so excited.

We want to see him, like, you know, really, like open up and throw deep. But, like, his ability to, like, hit guys in stride and take something off of it, layer it. Richardson or Levis? Both guys. They both have similar issues in terms of, like, accuracy. They don't take enough off the pitch or whatever. I love the pitching thing.

That's so clarifying. I think Richardson is more dramatic. Like, the difference between, like, his deep. ball and in like his short like passes he'll just like gun a throw to the side like on a swing pass and he needs to show that he can like have a little bit more accuracy a little more touch feather it that way I think that's going to be the important thing for teams otherwise it's just going to be really fun to watch him throw like that to me is you know and run around and he's just an amazing athlete like there's a whispers that he's going to yeah the other thing for

richardson is that yeah I heard somewhere that he's going to jump like 44 inches we'll see about that but like he's just a fringish athlete weighs to 45 plus which I think he will and then jump, vert's over 40 inches. Which I think you... Like Cam Newton. Yeah. When he runs his little, you know,

his little 4-5-1 or whatever he's going to run, and they do the simulcast with him just out sprinting Cam Newton, people are going to freak out. That would be a good clip for Twitter. That'll be a good one. All right. Let's get to two jargons and a lie. America's favorite segment.

Wow. Shit. I missed it up. Wow, that was really good. Yesterday, when you said it... Oh, no, we keep everything on the show. Yesterday, when you said it, because you say it every time, I was like, oh, it'll be funny if tomorrow I'd

do that and I've been thinking about it for 24 hours and then you messed it. I've been ruined my moment. I messed it up. That's wild. I got one for you this week. Hey, him. Since you guys are very busy earlier today, so I scrolled through some of our options here. All right. So I really enjoyed the two Canadian towns and a lie that we had like a week or two ago. So Tom. Tom brought us two Belgian towns in a lie. I don't know how many experts we have on Belgium here. Here's what we're sitting here with Nora. Nora, are you a Belgian expert? I would not call myself an expert on Belgium.

You speak French? Well, it's a different country. But they speak, isn't French? They speak some French there. They speak some French. They share a border. They share some history. Yeah, I'm down with Belgium.

If it's just let her live, man. You just need to know everything on Belgium. D-K, let's go. If not one of them is Brussels, I'm in trouble. Here we go. All right, here's the three. In no particular order. Ass.

Good. What? A-S-S. Ham Ham And silly Silly S-I-L-L-Y

But it would be like Silly Probably yeah Because you speak French So you know how the Belgian towns are pronounced What about ass Ass My immediate

My immediate instinct is like Obviously ham is yes Because Hamburg exists So ham's going to exist That much could not be more clear Is it Hamburg? What is that French

Or is it German German Yeah once again Belgium has shared some heritage It's generally in the area. Yeah, exactly. Europe, you know, whatever.

Okay, so I'm, my first initial thought is ham for sure and then after that I'm in trouble. I think C-Lee is definitely a town in Belgium. Yeah, you figure about that one? I kind of think ham might be fake. All right. Wait, we're missing the key point here, which is Nora, the meta of this, the game within the game is

do our listeners respect us? Yeah. And do they think we're stupid? Putting ass in the fake is boring. I'm going to put ass as a fake place. Ass has to be real. No, the problem is that they're like, I'm going to put it and they won't guess it because they're dumb.

That's the thing. If Ham and Selly were the real ones, we never think this. The third one would have been like chicken. You know what I'm saying? Like ass is out of nowhere. I say ass is real. Ham is real. I'm saying silly is fake.

Final answer for me. Okay. I think ham is fake. Wow. Hi Fitz. Dude, ass is fake. Okay. The fake town is ass.

Oh my God. Let's go. He says they don't respect you. They do not. shocking. They do have a town called Assay, which I don't know how to pronounce it, ASSE, which is basically means

ashes. Ase. Yeah, but he says, but I'm pretty sure a town called ass would have changed his name years ago. Ace? Ace? Ase? Ase?

Ase. There was a dude, wait, that is... I don't say what ass? It was Austin Powers. It's like, bonging to plits. So, yeah, there you go. There's no town in Belgium called

ass. Ham has got to be closer to the German border than the French border. Yeah, I feel, I'm okay with that. I knew Ham was good. And then it was 50-50. I don't know his interest

on the geography of Belgium. Dude, it all said Fowers and he's like, there's only two kinds of people I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.

A classic. It's not Belgium, but I just realized that at the end. How are we going to connect this? Ham is very close to the Netherlands. Oh, there we go. Okay.

Could you pull, could you, could you put a pin in Belgium right now if I give you a map of Europe? I think so. Oh, I could not. Not even close. Not a chance. Not a chance. I have been there technically. You just, you just go to Lili-A's France.

Could I put a pin in France? Yes, you could. I sure hope so. I could get Portugal in Spain? Could you get to, could you, could you do England? Yeah. Could you identify where the channel is? He did not sound super confident.

England's a big idea. You had Benjamin Sol. who can do multiplication tables in record speed in your head. 86 inch. Do you not identify the location of the United Kingdom on a map? I can find Russia.

It's bad. Just points out of the world. Okay, I think that's going to be the end of the show. Thank you, everyone. Holy cow. Thank you, Danny Kelly. Thank you, Soak. Thank you, Nora.

Thank you, Austin. Gail here for being the man. Thank you, I don't know, he's just here. Thank you, Kai, for producing this episode. Thank you, Craig, for being here in spirit. I can't even imagine how ashamed Craig is if he's listening to this and he got ass wrong too. He's going to be very mad.

Thank you for listening. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Taylor Swift. Wait, oh, yo for Nora. Thank you. Jay-J. I know I have said Taylor Swift probably about five times now, but we just had to with Nora on the show.

I'm honored. All right. Thank you for listening. It's a fantasy football. Ring your NFL draft show. It's confusing. That's a lot of, yeah. I'm sorry.

I planned it at sea room. All right, goodbye, everyone.