The Ringer NFL Show - Penix and McCarthy Draft Stock, Harbaugh’s NFL Dreams, and More Natty Risers and Fallers | The Ringer NFL Draft Show

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Welcome back to ‘The Ringer NFL Draft Show’! Every Wednesday on this feed, Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck will be joined by Ben Solak to break down everything you need to know for the 2024 NFL draft. This week, the guys recap Michigan’s dominant win over Washington in the national championship by sharing their risers and fallers following the title game (2:24). Michael Penix Jr., Washington QB (4:40) J.J. McCarthy, Michigan QB (19:47) Rome Odunze and Ja’Lynn Polk, Washington WRs (26:27) Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards, Michigan RBs (35:38) Jim Harbaugh, Michigan HC (39:36) Email us! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, Craig Horlbeck, and Ben Solak Social: Kiera Givens and Jack Sanders Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Galaxy Lights, Coachella, Lightning Bolt Necklaces. 20203 was the year of Scandival. On March 3rd, one cheating scandal launched a reality TV investigation that generated hundreds of conspiracy theories, thousands of podcast episodes, and millions of dollars in revenue. I'm Jody Walker, host of an American Scandival. One retrospective story told in three salacious parts. Listen, December 26th on the Ringer Reality Feast. feed.

My name is Danny Hyphen. I am joined by Danny Kelly, Benzluck, and Craig Horlebeck. The NFL season's over. The college football season's over. NFL draft show. Just beginning, baby. We're going to be coming to you here, fantasy football show. Feed.

The NFL draft show will be every Wednesday for the rest of the season, and then at some point we'll go to twice a week. We'll see how much the Super Bowl trains our life for us until we can recover. But at some point, but twice a week for now, Wednesday's NFL draft show. Today, we're going to be going through college football season, national championship, Michigan, Washington, everything, risers, followers, all that as Jim Harbaugh coaching, Mike Vrabel's gone from the Titans, a bunch of stuff to hit. However, got to start with, whose dog is that?

Was that your dog, D.K. or Solek? We're keeping this in. Solegs, nugget. Is there a mailman? I don't think, maybe it's a delivery person. Nope. It's, it's, there's a, there's a very nice man who owns two golden retrievers who walks on the other side of the street. And when another owner with our other dog walks by, Nuggett will be like, oh, right. And she won't care. This man, who's love? And just dogs have always been great. Nuggets decided he hates that she hates this dude and his golden retrievers.

She's become a little, we've been in this house now for like a year, year and a half. She's become a little butthole, man. She's the worst over there. Like she just sits at the window and just barks that dogs. It's terrible. What kind of dog is your dog so luck? She's a rescue mud. She's got like beagle and whip it and pointer and her.

She got a bunch of things. Beagle and whip it. Wow. Her mom was a beagle, which, and she doesn't look like a beagle. If I see the picture. So she'd go like, nope, she doesn't.

She just has big old coloration and that has big like pointer behaviors. So I feel like each dog on the street, much like the confetti falling from the sky, there's always a little story. Good segue. That was, Jim Lama really did love the confetti,

didn't he? We really did witness like a human man like experiencing pure euphoria in a moment there. It's like that's, he started rolling immediately upon winning this. It was like my ecstasy's like. That was so wild.

Like he was just, like, yeah, God, you know, every piece, look at it. Look at this confetti. Every piece of confetti really has a fun story. What are you talking about? Dude, the glasses too? I'm like, yeah, that's also what you do when you're on Molly. You just wears weird colored glasses and they're just like staring and you're like,

mom and dad, I love you guys. That was so good. Also, D.K., I feel like you're the Jack Harbaugh because you're the oldest guy here, but, you know, surprisingly spry. Like that, I couldn't, John, he picked up his dad, Jim Harbaugh picked up his dad and dropped him from like really high. And then Jack Carbaud was like screaming. And he's like, oh, he's got it better than us.

I'm like, that family has so much energy. Even the mom. Like they're a lively duo that old couple, man. What did Jack Harbaugh do? Was he like a pro athlete? Because he was a coach. Jim Harbaugh was in the NFL. Like he was obviously a good, I don't know about John.

Was John Harbaugh in the NFL? I don't think he was as good. John is which one? The Ravens one or the, I can never keep them straight. John is the Ravens one. So Cooper couldn't play football. because of the spy. No, that's the man.

Cooper Harba. John never played NFL ball. He went straight to coaching. Jim played NFL ball, obviously. So John is one year older than Jim, and I always think it's the other way around. To me, Jim looks way older than John. John looks great for 61.

Weathered. Probably it was like being, probably playing quarterback for the Bears really ages back a little bit, but I don't know. All right, so Michigan won the National Championship of college football last night. We were recording this Tuesday, so last night, but you'll listen this Wednesday or later,

but Michigan won really rocked, sorry, D.K. Washington, Michigan, 34 to 13. It both was closer than that and not closer than that. Right, right. This is just one game. Having said that, I feel like this, the game actually did change the draft stock of players. Sometimes we can overrate that.

But I really do think this game did have risers and fallers. So, I know, Craig, you want to take us a little tour of some of the risers and fallers in this championship game? Yeah, I want to pose the question to you, D.K. and Ben here, like Michael Panics, we should probably start with him. Yeah. had an incredible two-game stretch, an incredible season, really,

but especially against Oregon and Texas, his last two games. He was nearly perfect, and this game was a completely different story. So I kind of wanted to ask you guys, we can start with you, D.K., kind of what your takeaway was after this game,

looking at Michael Penix. So to me, this feels like, instead of him necessarily dropping, like, I don't think he's necessarily going to be, like, a huge faller. however he failed to rise if that makes any sense to you like I think if he would have bawled out in this game

and through like four touchdowns they completely dominated and like sliced up the Michigan defense I think even if he maybe doesn't deserve it and we'll get into that like he probably would have been pushed up into the top 10 discussion but he didn't so he's not going to and I think he's probably going to end up actually

being closer to where I think he started in terms of like maybe a first second round on the borderline there. Like some team, if they fall in love with them, we'll take him later in the first round. If they don't, it'll be like a Will Levin situation.

He'll be one of the first picks of the second round. I think that's probably what's going to happen. 24 hours ago, my dad wanted him to the Giants at six. Well, I was just going to say, so let's say Texas comes back and beats Washington in that game

and Michael Panics never touches the ball again, but Texas wins that game. Then where does Michael Panics go in the draft? I think in the late first. Wow. Yeah. That's just my guess. I don't know.

But like, that would be like, my guess is, you know, based on, I think, like, before his late season flourish, he was probably considered in NFL circles, like a second round pick, because, mainly because the injury situation and his history of having four major season-ending injuries, as mentioned the fact that he's going to be 24-year-old rookie, not to mention he plays in an offense that definitely, like, elevates his stats. He plays with three really good receivers. He plays with a really good offensive line, like, blah, blah, blah.

There's a million different reasons to me, when you look at those variables he was kind of in that first second round range. I think if he would have done like the Joe Burrow thing and like won a national title smoking cigars after the game,

the hype would have taken off and he would have been a top 10 pick or at least talked about as a top 10 pick. So I guess you could call him a faller because of that, but that was to me theoretical. You know what I mean? And so I think he's probably going to end up more

where I thought it was going to be which was on the first second round sort of like range. Ben, do you think he showed his true colors or is that game in his performance more product of like Michigan's defensive line overwhelming Washington. He was banged up the whole game. He injured his ankle. It was either late first half or early second half.

What do you think was more of the culprit? I think the thing that was very like anti-pennox, like out of character for penics, in my opinion, was that he was just a lot less accurate in that game than he's been in the games that I've watched. He was just missing open throws. And like there was the Roma Dunesay Seam ball. There was the there was the seven shot or the Honeyhole shot in the second half. There are throws that he typically makes accurately that he was just missing wildly. And so they left a lot of meat on the bone in the passing game.

It's going to look a lot better statistically and looked a lot better for penics, even with him, like, being highly pressured and checking down more than he usually does. Like, even in that context, this could have looked a lot better if he just wasn't missing. So he was missing. I don't know if he was missing because the lights were too bright or because, you know, Michigan's pressure was kind of getting to him mentally and they hit him early. Like, there's a lot of explanations for that. And you have to interrogate the tape and you also have to talk to him about it,

try to get a fuel for why he was missing so much. I would say that was the part that was out of character. Some of the other stuff where like when you pressure panics, like he'll start to short circuit and that clock will get way too fast. Some of the timing issues and throwing balls late and throwing balls into coverage. The fact that he kind of just works, you know, the flats, you know, deep outside of the flats and doesn't really work middle of the field. Like, all that's pretty prevalent on Pennix.

So I don't think any of that was particularly new. Michigan's got a lot better tools to expose that than like, you know, even the good, like Oregon State. And Wazoo and Oregon, like even the good teams that Washington played in the Pact 12, Michigan had better tools to expose that. But I think that's always been there on Pennix's film. I don't think the Texas performance erased to that. I don't think the Michigan performance conjured that. I think that's been there the whole time.

The accuracy thing was the thing to me where I was like, okay, if you're going to play this style of ball where he shoots a lot of nine balls, right? And then, you know, do a lot of like quick underneath checkdowns. So a question for my father. What's a nine ball? Nine ball is a vertical route, right? When we talk about. sideline. Yeah, when you, when you were playing, you know, third grade football and they were teaching you the routes and they gave you the little number tree on the route tree, that go route

was a nine route, right? So go route, vertical route, nine route. Those are all just straight down the field. If you're going to, if you're going to throw those, those passes, you got to be really accurate at the NFL level. You've got to be able to hit them on a spot. And going into that performance, I was really confident that Pennix was that dude. Coming out of it, I'm like, okay, like, I'm now worried that these star receivers are kind of maybe helping your accuracy look a little bit better than it actually is. I have a question about that, Ben, Ben, Because my impression is I was watching the game, I was like scrolling through Twitter. And that shot that he missed, that would have been a touchdown probably to Roma Dunes A.

Basically what happened was. And this was my interpretation of it. I saw immediately a whole bunch of people on Twitter were like, you know, that's not the kind of past like you can miss. That was a terrible, like terrible accuracy. I thought he was leading him away from the defender and he just ever shot it. Exactly. That was going to be my question is like, to me that looked more like a miscommunication, not like an accuracy issue. And so I think, like you said, you're going to have to interrogate, like, the tape and figure out what exactly happened there.

But to me, that play in particular, which was, I think, one of the biggest misses of the game was more like, what happened was in my mind. It was, Adunze was supposed to run the corner route towards the outside. Yeah. And then the defenders got mixed up and both of them left him wide open. So he took it vertical, except for panics, kind of panicked because I think there's pressure coming in and he threw it like it was going to be the corner. And so they just weren't on the same page. So, but that in particular play, it felt like a lot of people were sort of judging him for missed accuracy and all that. But I thought to me that was more just like a bang bang play that was just they were not on the same page exactly at that route.

So I think Michigan busts. I think that there's a, there's a nickel that bails. Just so you know, Ben, we have busts. We're kind of soft banning the word because D.K.'s ball as a verb. Draft bust as a draft. D.K.'s been like, oh, this player's going to bust as a, you know, brass of verb. Ben, I think that you should continue because I'll be honest. I'm pro-bust.

This is such common parlance. It's going to take me a while to break it out of my head. You're going to have to work with me a little bit. They have to meet me halfway. Welcome to my world, Benix. So we're going to say, we're going to say, penix busted. Yeah. That might come up in the show.

Michigan did bust last night, but it wasn't on the cover. High Fitz, we can't ban sexual talk from football jargon. It's like what in the same. It's inexorably linked. Just wait until we get to defensive ends. The title of this episode is going to be did penix bust in all. because we're mature employed adults, yes. Okay, so I think, man, Michigan messes up the coverage.

Rome sees that there's no safety on top of him, right? He's always single-a-safety. There's no cover-to safety. And he just throws up a hand. He's, like, hit me. Panics is looking at it the whole way, right? And so, like, I agree that that route is supposed to bend to the sideline. I also think that you've seen college quarterbacks and NFL quarterback

successfully adjust that route on the fly. And so I'd like for, like, Rome should run the route correctly, but Rome's also not wrong to side-adjust it. and panic should hit him. And kind of trust that your guys are just going to outrun the safety and go score for you. So there's a little bit 50-50 down the middle with that.

Well, it's like, I think I'm sure a lot of people just watched him for the first time this week or last week. I have questions for both you, Ben and DK. One, do you like his throwing motion? Is my first question. No. Okay.

I don't like it. Do you think, do you think him being a lefty is a negative? Even if it's not a real negative, just kind of a perceived negative from scouters. Scouters. I like that they're NFL scouts. I will say the first time you watch it, it's weird looking.

And I think, Craig, you're a lefty. So I'll just tell you to your face. Like left-handed, left-handed throws look weird when you're- I agree. I mean, the amount of quarterbacks that are lefties in the NFL does not reflect the amount of left-handed people in the world. It's Jean Parmesan from Arrested Development. Every time Tua or Pennix turn left on a bootleg and it's their natural hand, it doesn't matter. I know that, but I'm like, jean.

I'm like, lefty. I'm like, oh, it's so weird. Have you guys seen the video where they invert the camera and it looks like Pennix as a righty? He looks like three times better. Like I'm so in on right-handed Michael Penix. Yeah. Can we just AI 3D print him to just be a righty?

We have the technology. So what I will say is, is that firstly like NFL offenses are inherently right-handed. And so NFL defense are accustomed to the right-handedness, right? Like one of the big things that the golf McVeigh guys did that particular like 2017-2018 Rams, they booted golf out to the left a lot. And just teams were just not ready for a right-handed quarterback

to boot out to the left is off. And Baker-Mayfield in 2020, a ton of boots to his left, right? So by presenting the boot in the wrong direction, you kind of get an advantage of NFL defenses aren't prepared for that. So you can make them play a little bit sideways. Like there's that aspect of the right-hand-of-lithness.

The other thing, and I just tried to find, I couldn't find it, maybe a listener would recall. There's someone who has a great quote, something like old quarterback or old quarterback's coach, detailing the fact that the left-handed throw does actually spin and tail differently. than the right-handed throw. You have a receiver who's caught tens of thousands of passes

from right-handed quarterbacks. Their brain is just inherently fine-tuning, adjusting to the fact that the ball's going to tail a little bit to the right off of the spin of the hand, right? Like they're not consciously doing it. It's just happening subconsciously. You ask them to catch a left-handed pass. They're going to feel the difference, right?

It's just going to feel a little bit like, you know, you button the shirts on the wrong buttons, right? He's like, okay, something here is just like a little bit off. Or wipe with a different hand. Right. Obviously, you can get accustomed to that, like Tyreek Hill, right, to throw the most accurate, most catchable. football, like it's not inherently a problem, but there is a actual, like, aesthetic difference,

I suppose. Like, my new difference for a wide receiver catching a right-handed throne versus a left-handed thrown ball. There was also, like, a coaching aspect to it of, like, people don't like when you have to update windows in your computer or whatever. Like, Steve Young, when he was at BYU, was quarterback, recruited as a quarterback. Coach comes in, moves him to safety because he didn't want to have to move all his freaking plays that were, like, to let you don't have to teach it the other way.

He's like, you want me to reverse the plays? He's like, I'm not just. Flip him over on the projector guy. Coach moves into safety. Coach gets fired. New coach comes into BYU. And the new coach just sees one day Steve Young throwing a ball back in practice and sideline.

He's like, why is that safety have such an arm? And it's like, I was a quarterback. And he's like, what? And that's how Steve Young would have been a freaking safety if the coach hadn't seen him to do this. So there is an aspect of coaches are kind of like, oh, lefty, don't want to deal with this. But the question I was going to ask for you guys,

there are multiple aspects of Pennix could fall. And I, there's the injuries, right? six years in one, he's old, right? In college for 14 Marvel movies or whatever, six years, four season-ending injuries in college. I mean, and we're not like sad. Like both shoulders, same ACL in his right knee toward ACL twice in three years.

So like that, I want, that is a reason he obviously could fall. My question is if none of that were true, if he were a regular senior and not a COVID senior, if you were four years in college and had no injury history, I'll start with you, D.K., where would you take him in the draft with no, injury history and I want to go from there to see how far the injury history pulls him down. I think the injury history is the big thing that is pulling him down. I think

there's also what what Ben was saying about, you know, his inability or just unwillingness to attack the middle of the field is going to be like a pretty big impediment in the NFL. Like you've seen defenses are able to really take away like your bread and butter stuff. We saw that's what Michigan did essentially with the Huskies. It was like they kept trying to throw. They basically did a whole bunch of screens early in the game to try and set up some deep shots. The deep shots didn't land. And that was the extent of their offense, sort of. And so like there's ways to take away. I still think, like personally me, I'm excited about panics. I think I would take him in the late first round. If he didn't have any injury history, if he didn't have any age issues, I'd probably

push up to like middle of the first round. I don't know. I still think there's reasons to be like worried about him in the NFL. But at the same time, I think he has. an exciting. He has a really live arm. He's, he's an aggressive mindset. He's really accurate. He's really good at not taking sacks, which I think is a massive, massive deal. Maybe like the best part about him is his ability to negotiate the pocket and not take sacks. Like his numbers, the numbers bear that out in both quick passing and on throws that he held the ball for longer than two and a half seconds. Like I saw these stats online. And so that's like, you know, that's a huge deal. And I've sort of over the years become much more open-minded to quarterbacks. Like,

I'm like less willing to write guys off than I used to be, I think. Right. Because the problem is if you say a guy's bad, and he ends up with a Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. It's like, I shoot, he's good now. My bad.

I didn't see this coming. Exactly. And so like not to be a total fence sitter, but it depends. High Fitz. Like who takes him? I think like middle of the first round, I think,

you know, early middle is first round like after the top 10 or something like that would probably be where I'd push him up to. I wouldn't take Panx in round one with no injury history. I don't, I don't see it. in terms of a menu of throws. I'm pretty confident I can win with him.

Like, I think I can get him to a spot where, like, I got, I've got a couple ball winners on the outside. I know he'll point you shoot. You can grip and rip it, man. I mean, that ball sings. He's, he is fun to watch when he's,

when he's, when he's kind of in the zone and you can tell he's seeing it and he's feeling it. Like, he is an aggressive pastor. He attacks and he'll put the ball in a spot. So I'm pretty confident I can win with him. I just don't know if I'm going to like the world I get to when it comes time for a second contract, right? Think about,

like where the dolphins are kind of approaching with Tua, think about, you know, I don't even think the Steelers are there with Kenny Pickett. They've shadow benched him for Mason Rudolph. But think about some of the picket concerns that we talked about the first year we did the show. It's like, okay, like even if you get this to work, it probably takes so much schematic stuff and so much other personnel that when it comes time to pay the guy, it just feels tricky. He's not carrying $50 million worth of the offense. Obviously, that's like five years down the road for PennX, but these are the things you have to think about. So I don't think I would take him round one.

If you had no injury history, I'd be very happy to take him right in that, like Will Levis. right early two range we were like let's you know get a veteran in the building roll the dice on the guy and see if we hit you do your jalen hertz thing with the injury history considered yeah i think he starts falling down day too the same way like henn and hooker did right i think about hooker last year oh he's gonna sneak into the back of round one like oh he's gonna be an early second round pick line's got in the middle of the third and a lot of that had to do with with team saying we're just don't feel comfortable with him athletically we don't cook up with the health so i think a hand and hooker like arc for pennix where like there's always the senior bowl which

Hooker was there, but he obviously didn't throw, because he was hurt. He was at the Senior Bowl. He's doing great in the interviews. There are GMs who like him top 20, and then like, you know, the draft odds will come out, and he's like 50-50 to go round one,

and then he's kind of just sliding in round two. That's the arc I envisioned for Penix. So let's move on to the Michigan quarterback, JJ McCarthy, who I think is like three, four years younger than Michael Penix. He's 20 years old. I admittedly have not watched a lot of JJ McCarthy this year,

so I want to get your guys a take on this. From what I know, he's a Zen master. The guy likes to meditate. How did you, how did you find that out? How'd you source that? Craig, you do some reporting and figure that out? Nobody talked about it yesterday. It was so crazy during the broadcast.

They never mentioned once that he'd like to meditate. There was no shots of him sitting at the goalpost. Now, I will say this. I will say this. As someone who has been trying to meditate more in my life and has been enjoying benefits from it, if he is successfully meditating in that context, because it's so hard, dude. Either he's faking and he's not meditating at all. He just enjoying the camera shots.

Or if he is successful, which I hope he is, I believe he is. That guy's the goat meditator, okay? You believe he is. You believe he is. I've become a professional meditator. That's amazing. The story actually is that he was, I believe in high school, he was depressed. And he Googled how to meditate, which honestly, it's a very Zoomer story.

There's a lot of jokes about he's like the first man to ever like Google like mental self-help and actually like follow the practices. Yeah, it's all it is. It's just like, yeah, just meditate. There you go. It's a little Russell-wilsony to me, him sitting there on the field, cameras in his face. I don't know. So is there a question? Do you think Aaron Rogers is upset?

He did not think of this first. I just like, like, I don't know how much you guys have tried this. In order for me to successfully meditate for 10 minutes, I have to like get in the perfect room, in the perfect temperature with no sounds. It's so hard. He's just like, yeah, let me go underneath the end zoneposts. Are you nuts, dude? I get, if he's pulling it off, he's the goat.

Every time I think about meditating, I'm like, I could be taking a nap at that time. Like that feels way more productive. Even more. Okay, Joe Flacco. I'm like, I'm going to just take a nap instead. That feels one day. I have to tell you guys the story of how I learned to meditate from an Airbnb host I had when I was a ringer intern. I was living at a place at a shared Airbnb bedroom from a guy that had come back from a two-week silent retreat was my Airbnb host.

Hi, it's. And it's Rogers? Wow. Two week. I think Rogers was three days. But McCarthy, though, I am interested in McCarthy. I'm trying to withhold judgment. I know that all the time we see players who were, for whatever reason, held back in a college program and do better in the NFL, that Michael Parsons was better as a rookie, production-wise, better as a rookie than he was at Penn State in terms of sacks.

We just saw Sam Leporta have better production as a rookie in the NFL at tight end than he did in Iowa. So like I will, and quarterback's always more complicated than a position. So with that said, Solac, why should I trust that J.G. McCarthy might be a first-round quarterback when this Michigan. season seemed like at no point did Jim Harbaugh have any interest in putting the game in J.G. McCarthy's hands for any meaningful steps, like any meaningful third down, like, you shouldn't. The next player. He's this rhetorical. There you go.

And now on to Romadunes. All right. Awesome. Jay J.J. McCarthy, yeah, I mean, he's, he's, I don't, I don't see him as a round one player. I don't see him as a day two quarterback. He is an inaccurate quarterback who makes bad decisions. He doesn't have NFL size. I mean, he's lessed 6,3, 200.

I understand that. I think if he's 6-1-92, which is what it looks like to me, like, that's really thin. We're starting to get into the Zach Wilson conversation. I'll like, all right, cool, you do trick shots, but if I hit you once, like, I don't think you can see it on the field. I don't think you can trust your eyes. I don't think you can move any of my defenders. And even if you get an open receiver, I don't think you can reliably deliver an accurate football. Now, like, the first couple games of the season, I remember watching the first two games of McCarthy,

who would they play now? I want to say East Carolina or someone ridiculous. Their first few games, McCarthy looked really confident, and the arm talent was starting to manifest itself into like some tight window throws and a third down throws and downfield. And it was like,

this is a player who's improved a quarterback. But once the defense has got stiffer, once the composition got tougher, I mean, like I do not like the way he manages a game. And I think you see that once he throws an inaccurate pass, he really starts to snowball, which like, you know, like, we did the whole meditation thing, whatever.

Like, I don't know where his, like, his confidence is at and his, his approach to the game. And, like, you know, you got to interview a guy to understand that. But I don't watch McCarthy and see a quarterback that I'm scared of at the college level, right? I think that the teams that played Michigan the best tried to get the ball into that guy's hands. And so if you're talking to me about him as NFL quarterback, like, I just don't, there's, it's a non-starter for me. Now, people who are NFL plugged in, right? They got McCarthy QB3. They got him in the round one grade.

Randy Mueller for the athletic this week said he's like a smaller CJ Stroud. I think I cannot get there at all. I can't even figure out the hop, sleeps and jumps we said to get there. But I think it's pretty clear that the NFL likes him more than the public viewing consensus does. So we'll see how his process goes and interviews well, tons of armed talent, mobility.

It's going to get Zach Wilson. And then, you know, hopefully he develops a lot better than Zach Wilson did. Is he going to declare for sure? How are we feeling about that? Well, if he's being told, he's the third quarterback in the NFL. He completed 10 passes last night.

That's why I'm confused. I'm kind of like Craig wrote down in the ducks like it's he's just kind of there like to me that that is like such the it's such a funny and interesting and like profound honestly kind of like takeaway from it. It's like he was a cog in the wheel of a Michigan offense. They didn't ask much of him. Yeah, they mostly just like ran the crap out of the ball and the huskies couldn't stop that. Nobody this season really could stop that. And that was like why they made it such a huge part of their offense. There's there's the counter argument that because they're so good at running, they didn't really.

need to ask him to do anything. They also, but they also, they also take him off the field to put a different quarterback in to enhance their quarterback run game. When I have a quarterback as a future NFL guy, he doesn't come off the field in college. Like, that's like a very like, basic one sentence, like, it's just an oversimplification.

But simply like if that guy were an NFL threat, I would, there wouldn't be a snap. I would, like a justify removing him from the field. And also, it's not just this game. It's been like that the whole season. The Ohio State game. It's like they just, they just never trusted him at any point, including the big games, the big moments.

It was funny, honestly, to see Tom Brady retweeting that he was the best Michigan quarterback. If there's a Michigan fan, it's like, okay, well, they had such a good running game. It's how they didn't trust him. It's that they're so good running the football. Fine. I've watched him throw a lot of third and fourth downs. This is not an accurate passer, man.

I mean, like, I don't, I can't get their short intermediate level. They actually, like, I would say intermediate deep. Like, he has some really nice throws, but like overall all levels of the field, and particularly working short, like, this is not a placement thrower. And so you might say, oh, they just trusted their rushing game. Yeah, but in those opportunities where they needed it from him, they weren't getting it. I'm not there with McCarthy. What about the guys who we think are NFL players,

the Washington receivers? D.K. and I, Dek and I both did just, guttural, guttural approval of Roma Dunezay. I like Jalen Polk too a lot. Do you guys want to talk about O'Donzee? Yeah, I'm a McMillan guy.

Well, he's fun too. They're all good, which is, again, kind of going to be used as a negative against Michael Panix. But anyway, do you want to talk about O'Donzee first? Yeah. Yeah, who's the player most likely to go

the highest. Dick, how often do you think about Rome? There it is. Well, a good one. Good one. All the time, honestly, it's just, you know,

the aqueducts are so interesting to me, you know? Top five receiver name in the NFL immediately. If we're going off of like, does your name sound cool when it's called on a highlight play, that'll make you good logic.

Rome, Madoonsay's going to hit. No chance Romo Dundze is busting anywhere. Because this name is far too good for him not to hit. You're telling me it's me. Like, Sir, you're saying that it's me for thinking that that's a weird sentence. I'm torn.

I'm really torn. You know us and bringer fantasy football at gmail.com and tell me if I have a dirty mind or if Soak is being naive. I'm got another young person is with me on this one. That's all I can say. I mean, I don't think I necessarily qualify as a young person just overall in terms of like like days of behaviors. Soak owns a house in his 20s. What is he have in common with the booze? What are we talking about?

Roma Dunezai, who I have fallen in love with this season. D.K. Yeah. If Marvin Harrison Jr. is the best receiver in this class. Is he in the same tier as Marvin Harrison Jr? or like, I don't know. What do you, what do you think about Rome? Is the Roma Duns say like a top 10 pick? Yes, probably.

I would say like right now Marvin Harrison's the number one guy in the class in terms of the receiver class. But then it, I think Malik Neighbors is really, really close. He would probably be my number two guy. And then LSU, yeah. Yeah, LSU. And then Roma Dunezay is right there with them. I mean, Dunezai is, excuse me, he's like just, he's got size. He's really twitchy, explosive.

He's, you know, good at the catch point. He can run after the catch. He's the whole package. And so, yes, I think he looks like a top 10 pick to me. I think he's going to be really, really good. The overall, is it hyperbole? Because we always do the, like, you know, would Alabama have beaten like, you know, the, oh and 16 Browns or something, you know.

So I want to be careful. However, tell me if I'm being hyperbolic. This Washington overall group, right, Romadunzei, Jalen Polk, we can extend however you, whether you want to include tight ends, more receivers, but this overall group, would you rather have, like, next year in the 2024 NFL season, would you rather have this group as rookies next year or like the players who were on the Panthers this year? This group, no question. Not close.

Same. The Patriots. Would you rather have the Patriots players? Easily. Evonte, Juj, DiMario, DeMario. Cachian Booty? Yeah. Yeah, probably.

Oh, easily. What about like the Chargers, but like the Week 18 version, which did not have Keenan Allen or Mike Williams. Like, would you rather the charge? Well, yeah. Quentin, Johnston, Josh Palmer, Jaylen got in Alex Arison Chargers.

Yeah, I'll take this. So we're saying that the Washington wide receivers are actually would not be a basically a bottom, because I feel like the Titans too, maybe. Like they were saying it wouldn't even be a bottom five NFLU group. If all these guys end up in the draft, this is Roma Dunzee who's very much expected to declare is a top 10, top 10, top 15 pick.

Jalen McMillan, who is a, Junior, I think has a good shot to declare. I think is a clear day two guy. And then Jalen Polk, who is a redshirt sophomore DK, right? I'm pretty sure he is, he's eligible, but he's a young guy to be. Shout out to Dan Comer who clarified that he is a, technically a fourth year junior, but the team website actually lists him incorrectly. And he declared this morning anyway.

Oh, did Jailen Declare? Yeah. Oh, right. So I think both Jalen Polk and Jalen McMill and the non-Modunz of the group are clear day two guys. If we're talking about those three players, it's not at the caliber of the, when Jemar Chase,

Justin Jefferson, and Terrence Marshall came out from LSU, but it's the, it's the closest thing we've seen of that in terms of like one draft class in a while, right? And like, obviously Alabama cycled in like two guys every single year and whatever, but it's in terms of like all these dudes entering the class, having seen them all on the field at the same time and all play legitimate roles.

Yeah, I mean, this is, this is a very strong group. And like D.K. said, it's going to inherently take away from Pennix a little bit. And there's no two ways around that. But we don't see a lot of college quarterbacks part of three NFL receivers. And he got to do that for most of the season.

Did, D.K., were these guys all like four or five stars coming in, these three wide receivers? I think four stars. The Dunezay might have been a five star. Pogue was three stars. Jalen Poke. Shout out to Dancomer for research he puts together for us. Jailen Pogue actually went to the same high school,

I believe, as Des Bryant. And he was a three-star prospect. and then Texas, man. Well, like, it's like CJ Strau was throwing a three NFL wide receivers and was that a knock on CJ? I can't remember from last year.

Joe Burrow did too. Yes, I think that we, that was in the discussion for all those guys. But it's like all those guys, JSN, whoever else it was, was it Garrett Wilson, Chris Salave, it was like all those guys were all closer to like five star elite recruits. Like couldn't you argue that Pennix

throwing to three, four star wide receivers and elevating them is actually you know, a positive for Michael Pennix? could, yeah. I think you can. I think you can also make that case for like even the five stars, right?

Like there's a lot of five star receivers and other positions that don't hit at the college level. Like you kind of, you need infrastructure to develop guys. This goes back to Hypefitt's classic point, right? You go draft the quarterback, put him on the worst team ever.

He ain't going to get good, right? You need to have some infrastructure overall. Like Ryan Grub is the O.C. Here for Washington and this guy, this cat's nuts, first thing. Like he's doing, they're running 5-0 formations against Michigan. They got all five eligible for one side.

These guys, dude's crazy. But, that coordinator raises up Pennix and also raises up the receivers who then raise one another and so on and so forth and so forth. They kind of like iterates on top of each other. So there's a lot of credit to be doled out for Pennix who's very clearly an NFL quarterback and then these three receivers who are very clearly NFL guys. I do want to say like Rome's great. McMillan, man, like they put them in the backfield. They put them in the slot. They send them in motion. This is the sort of athlete that I watch the NFL and I see

how teams maximize some of these quicker players. I think about how the Packers have used Jaden and Reid and that motion guy and behind the line of scrimmage guy. Think about how the Giants have used Wondell Robinson when he's been healthy. McMillan's bigger than these cats, but just in terms of that role, McMillan was used in a very clear, like NFL inspired part that Grub brought down. Like, his offense looks like the Dolphins offense at times. You can see how McMillan's going to map onto some of those NFL offenses really nicely. And so that's Polk and Adunze, really nice down the field.

And McMillan's not too shabby there either, but McMillan, man, in the short areas, the quick areas. He impresses me quite a lot. He went over 1,000 yards, almost 1,100 yards and 9 touchdowns last year. He was the second leading receiver for the Huskies last year. And then Jalen Polk came in and kind of took over as the quote unquote number two. Jalen Polk reminded me a little bit of Jacoby Myers, I guess. Maybe it would be like a comp that I come to, like long, versatile, really strong hands.

You can do a little bit running after the catch, a good size, good competitiveness, like wins at the catch point. I really liked him. But I think when you look at a guy like Romo Dunezay, he's just so twitchy for his size that you get really excited. It's like, I'm trying to think of like a good comp for him. I was thinking about it all morning long. Ben, do you have a good comp for him? Like Cortland Sutton came to mind,

but that felt like it was like underselling it a little bit. For Rome? Yeah. Yeah, I've heard Sutton. And I think that the problem with Sutton is we saw Sutton healthy this year for the first time in a bit. So people's like collective idea of Sutton is not really up there. I think in terms of how he plays, right? There's the Venn diagram of receivers at this size who run routes this nice.

Like that overlap is pretty thin. And Coral and Suttons is in that spot. So to me, like, that's a good framework for how he plays. Another good framework for how he plays is Mike Evans. Now, Mike Evans is bigger and longer and stronger, right? And roams quicker and faster and better, whatever. But in terms of, again, like, Mike Evans has this guy of $8,000-year-old receivers in a row. It's because he's big but can run routes.

Like, in the NFL, if you can do that, ballgame, man. Like, it's just not a regular skill set to have. So that Rome lands on that spot. And that's why, like, the Malik neighbors with Roma-Dunzei conversation, we're going to be having that all year. Like, we're going to be on pods in February and March and April's at 7. They need a wide receiver. Neighbors are Adunze.

Neighbors are Adunzee. Neighbors, you watch neighbors. You can't help them make noises. I love. I love you. See something else. Yeah. If you made me put my life savings on one and only one to hit,

Odunzee, man. Like, it's very hard to find a guy with this skill set to not be somewhat valuable to do some valuable things just because the size and the route running. Sides are in the hands, I should say, as well, he catches the ball. That's the sort of thing that just like it's so rock steady at the NFL level. I always think this is probably wrong, but I was thinking of a dunesley as like Tyler Lockett stuck in Devonthe Parker's body. But while we're on the skill players here, I wanted to shout out Michigan, the Blake Corm and the obviously the Michigan offensive line is incredible. Their best linemen for the draft didn't even play this game. It's probably just Zach's inner.

He got injured earlier, so he's probably going to declare. But Blake Corum, he's the guy, you know, we thought he was going to come out last year. He came back and Corum was incredible in this game, 21 carries, 134 yards, two touchdowns. And then Donovan Edwards had six carries for 104 yards and two touchdowns. I mean, the overall, 200 rush yards at half, the lines, the holes were huge. Dekem, I'm curious what you think of Blake Corum, because I wanted to shout out this anecdote again for Dan Comer found. Blake Corum was raised on a farm in Marshall, Virginia.

Nehai, Fourth of July. Yep, Nehye, Fourth of July. And a literal one-stop, late town. And he woke up at 3.30 in the morning every day in high school to commute to high school two hours away in Maryland. And he'd come home and then go to work on the farm every day at 4 o'clock. And he hated shoes. And he just worked at the farm.

He wouldn't wear shoes on the farm. And he asked him about it. And he said, they asked him why. He's like, that's he'd grow tough feet. I realize that as I'm getting older, I think I would be the least. analytics driven GM on the planet. I would read that and be like, give me that guy.

I don't care about any other metric. Blake and I can have a nice, good conversation. I wonder if Blake wears barefoot shoes. I were barefoot shoes. Blake's not going on via ARC support, brother. Talk to me. I love Blake Corum. He's so fun.

I think it was weird because last year he was one of my favorite running backs coming in and then he ended up going back. It was like a big surprise, actually, that he stayed in school. It turned out great because they won a national title. So for him. Did they?

Yeah, so that's good. But, you know, I think he's a very probably a day two guy. I don't think there's any day one running backs in this class. But really quick, really balanced, you know, breaks tackles, good vision. He showed over the last couple of weeks some like past catching ability. So I think he's going to be, he's going to be like a really good pro. Our buddy Austin Gale, comp to him to Jalen Warren. And that really resonated with me.

Like a guy who's just kind of like, you know, gyroscope balance and just really good, like a really good football player. Maybe not the biggest guy, you know, whatever, not the most powerful guy, but he's just a really good football player. I'd like to get Blake Quorum's skill set into Donovan Edwards body. Right. Right. Like you watch Donovan Edwards on those touchdown runs, just run into offensive linemen and then like, shoot, where should I go? This way? Oh.

And then like the second he gets to the hole, right? It's just like, oh, this guy can fly. Holy smell. You know those giant beetles that are blind? and they just like fly into things. There's like giant black things. And they just like bounce off buildings. Donovan Edwards.

Right. So Donovan Evans, right. Six one, two, ten with wheels, man. Like, built to be a back and just hasn't had a great season for Michigan. Obviously, nice performance in the national championship game. But in general, just not reading things out great, not super trustworthy for them. And they've been relying more on Corum. Corum, just rock steady, top his nails, does everything you write, great vision,

bounces, footwork, everything is awesome. And then you saw him on his explosive run, get to the third level. You stood on Edwards on two touchdown runs. You're like, all, Blake, go. And then it was just like, wait. Now, go faster. Blake, go. He can't shift.

He's shifted as far as he could go. So we could just do a little fusion dance, Freaky Friday. We could just get Blake Quorum's mind and instincts and get him into Donovan Edwards' body. We're cooking with gas. Top 20 back. Here we go. As it is.

Yeah, I think Corum is a limited guy because of the long speed. Jalen Warren comp, I like, I hadn't heard that one before. He makes me, you reminds me of Doug Martin, right? Where he's like, Doug, low to the ground. thick, real quick, a handful to tackle. And I can certainly see him having a couple of seasons on his rookie career where he's rushing for legit yarders.

He's been about a good line. He will maximize that line in terms of the first and second level. She's not going to hit home runs for you. And when we talk about Russian at the NFL level, we like back to hit home runs. That's going to be the limiting factor for forum. All right, I feel like it's time to talk about Mr. Harbaugh, who finally won a national title for Michigan.

His father's finally proud of him. Congrats to Jim. Huge for him. Shout out to parents living out their dreams through their children. I know. Also, man, the genetics of the Harbaugh family, I have never seen a father and son

with a more striking resemblance than Jack and Jay Harbaugh. We're going to find out later that Jack Harbaugh came back in time and impersonated his son to win the national championship for Michigan. Like, he knew all... Like, that's how they were stealing signs

that Jack Harbaugh knew all the play calls from 30 years ago. Oh, he has the book. He has the best book. He came back in time. That, they look like a television version of like when the main character meets his older self.

man, it's something. It's so wild. Yeah. But anyway, so it's like, now the rumor begin, is he heading to the NFL? Is he not? He did a post-game interview with SVP right after the game,

and he was saying that he was pushing back spring practice a month to start in March instead of February. And a lot of people are like, did he just announce that he's coming back? But then later he said, you know, like, I don't know what the future holds. So I guess we'll start with A,

do you guys believe that Jim Harbaugh is going to go to the NFL or do you think he's going to stay at Michigan? NFL. You think he's going to go? I think he's coming back. Well, if they get punished, but if the program gets punished, why wouldn't he just Pete Carroll leave them with the record? Shout out to my grandmother who always had a beef with Pete Carroll for leaving USC. Why wouldn't he like, he just accomplished his dream. I would like how there's nowhere to go but up.

Leave you're a god there forever where you love so much. And then also just bounce on that. Don't stay there for the sanctions. I think it's stay because you're a god. Like, I would not leave. Nick Saban showed us. Just like, Nick Saban went to the NFL, didn't work, and he's like, you know what? I like being in Alabama.

I'm the most important person Alabama's ever had in its existence. I'm just going to stay here. We're too obsessed with, like, needing to move on. This is like a whole, like, societal Western issue, but I'm like, just be happy where you are. Jim Harbaugh is the West. Yeah, it's the West. Jim Harbaugh had more success.

The West. Sabin had like one win in the NFL or two and then he bounced mid-season. It's like Harbaugh. Colin Kaepernick was like six inches. They were at fourth and five in the end zone through a touchdown win the Super Bowl. Colin Kaepernick was like a six-inch throw away

from getting Jim Harbaugh's Super Bowl win over his brother. Jim Harbaugh said that when he dies, all he wants in his eulogy, he'd be happy if his eulogy only read he was a Michigan man. That's all he wants in his year. Craig, he just won the national championship with the University of Michigan.

He's not going to be like, I really hope I win a Super Bowl someday. Like, you just gas up the Michigan, man. That's what we'd all do it. I don't know why he wouldn't stay. It's like, you're really going to go take the Raiders job, and you're going to go 5 and 12, you're going to deal with all the media bullshit that the NFL brings.

Stay in Michigan, stay in Ann Arbor. What about Jim Harbaugh has led you to believe that this man is going to make like, you know, sober-minded, rational decisions, dude? This is not, what does he want? He wants to win a Super Bowl. Why does he want to do that? Because anybody who grew up in football wants to win the Super Bowl.

By the way, the list of the list of college, coaches that have won both a national title. Sorry, the list of coaches that have won a national title and a Super Bowl is a short list. And guess who's on it? His best friend, Pete Carroll. It's the disease of more. The next 10 years of his life as a six-year-old man will be so much happier if he

just stays at Michigan and enjoys his perfect life in Ann Arbor. If he just drinks some pop, some prebiotic, whatever it's called, poppy. There you go. Craig. He'll be so pleased. Along those lines, he could just retire. You think he doesn't have enough money at this?

No, but he's happy coaching Michigan. It was like what he was born to do. His parents are so thrilled. Like, it is there a Michigan family. It's in his bones. It's in his DNA. Like, you're really just going to go to some shitty NFL team and try to make that work? You know what I would love to hear is, um, I would stay.

I would love to hear. Enjoy your life. I want to do a poll with coaches of what, what's a worst lifestyle coaching in the NFL or coaching in college? Well, the recruiting, I'm sure it's a huge pain in the ass. I was going to lose for sure because they're recruiting. 100%. But, but there's absolutely. with a capital A job certainty for Harbaugh.

He will never get fired. He can be there like for 30 more years. Whereas the NFL is doing it right. If every coach's dream is doing the Super Bowl, why hasn't Saban gone back? Well, because he was terrible at it. Okay. That's the difference.

Harbaugh, the best coaching upgrade of the 21st century. Saban did it for two years, like 17 years ago. Why didn't he ever go back and try again? Because he was terrible and it was between two times. He never stopped. I don't know.

He never stopped winning. Because he's afraid to compete, Craig. Yeah. That's why Bill Simmons says he's a guy. That's what I'm saying it is. But we're dancing on two different things here. One, what should he do? But before we even get to that,

and like we have stuff we have to talk about, Rabel got fired, but we're dancing around whether we like Jim Harbaugh now because I think he was like nervous bird, chickens or nervous birds guy. And like, he was kind of weird. And we're like, uh, and I'm like, but now it seems softer.

Still super weird guy. But when he's like, who's got it better than us? Nobody. And I'm like, am I a sap for being charmed by this? No, but the confetti thing is easy to make fun of the movie. I'm oddly charmed by. by that.

But also, isn't being super fucking weird a prerequisite to being a good like coach of football? Yeah. You need to be an absolute

psycho. Which is why when NFL would football people say, man, Harbaugh's weird. That's how you know. Like,

grading on the curve, man. He's one of one. I will never, at my defining thing for Belichick, you know, Belichick RIP,

you know, whatever happens to him. But like my defining moment for Belichick with the Patriots. I think I might have put a hit out on Bill Belich. It's just like when Scott Hanson

at the end of the end of Red Zone and was like, Bill Belichick, he loved to laugh. He loves to cry. And you're like, dude, he might just get, like, fired. Like, it's okay. Yeah. All right, fine. Fair.

Point. But my thing for Belichick is the confetti falling in. I think it was after the Falcon Super Bowl. And they're like, greatest comeback to Super History of you happen. He's like, we're so behind on the draft. I don't know what we're going to do. And I'm like, that guy's miserable. Harbaugh, looking at the confetti being like, all of these are a different story.

I'm like, you know what? I like this guy. And I think that's part of this is like, I'm kind of back in. He's crazy. and I'm sure that like when you literally don't lose for an entire season that there's no resentment and poison sleeps into your bloodstream that like even two losses would have like made Urban Meyer

miserable. So maybe it's just like that's the ecstasy but I'm like I don't know I'm kind of in on this guy. I have latent hatred for him because like I said to you guys before I covered the Seahawks during the 49ers Seahawks rivalry and in those days the hatred was out of control strong like those teams hated each other so much.

Bring it back, dude. Bring it back. I know. It was a great rivalry. Two really great teams. Really great defenses. My take on the Atlanta, New Orleans end of touchdown,

game touchdown thing is just whatever pisses off most of the fan base. Like, whatever is going to make you guys more mad about that. Give me some good division rivalries again, man. But what I was going to say is I hated him. I will never buy in to like I like Jim Harbaugh. But the NFL is better with Jim Harbaugh in it. I will say that.

I want him to come back. I think it'll be fun. He's a weirdo. that's always fun for us to cover. If Pete Carroll retired, would you want the Seahawks to hire Jim Harbaugh? Yeah, actually, I think that would be fun. And then it would be kind of reverse Seattle, San Francisco

rivalry. Yeah. Yes, because this is, then it would be like, he's our weirdo. And I would probably start to like him at that point, you know? Do you guys remember when Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz had a little handshake argument? And when Harbaugh was with the Niners and Jim Schwartz was the head coach of Lions? Oh, yeah. I can't even remember. A little brouhaha.

I'm pretty sure they they met for the handshake and they did shake hands, but then like Schwartz said something and then like Harbaugh went to say something back and they were like still holding hands, but they were still like talking. And it's like, I'm going to start running away. I'm going to run after you, right? More to this. Get it back in my league, baby. Give me the drama.

Well, that was like that goes back to the Carol. When Carroll was at USC and Harbaugh was at Stanford, Harbaugh ran it up on Carroll. It was almost the exact situation with the Arthur Smith thing from. this last weekend. Late game, I can't even remember the score was out of hand, and Harbaugh ran it in for a touchdown. And Carol met him at the midfield or whatever and was like, what's your deal?

Like the famous handshake, what's your deal? And there's a longstanding, like, deep-seated rivalry there. I forgot about what happened. So they, like, when Harbaugh was, like, celebrating and he went to go, like, shake Schwartz's hand. He was still celebrating. So he shook and he- He slapped it real hard.

And he slapped him. And Schwartz turned to look down. like, dude, are you good? And then the players got shoving at one another, and it was great. But Harbaugh was like, right. He was just like, when you win the game, you like, oh, good work champ. He was like, woo, we're the best. Like, oh, dude, bring me the mess.

I need it. Now I remember that. So if we look at job openings of like where Harbaugh could go, we almost have to put a pit in this for a second because the number one is the Patriots, what would happen there. But the Titans fired Mike Rable today, which is wild. We can get to why they did that in a second. but I feel like do we all agree like speak now forever,

however your piece. Rable is the best possible candidate for the Patriots, right? This is a match man in heaven. He's the only successful accidental disciple of Belichick and like he actually has been a great coach. It's like that's, I can't imagine they hiring someone else honestly

if he wants the job. Here, let me play devil's advocate. Don't they want to get rid of the Patriot way a little bit? Is the Patriot Way run out of run? Like is the magic run out? 24 hours ago, DK, you were like people. are like, the Patriots should keep Bill Belichick.

No, no, 24 hours ago, I was saying Bill Belichick is a great coach. However, there's no new ideas in that building. And like, maybe they just need a fresh start. But I think Brable is the perfect person because he's not actually a Patriots coach. Like, he never worked for Belichick. He was a line. I think, for one, to me, it's not an accident at all that the only person that incorporated any Patriot stuff to success was a player or not a coach.

I think that speaks volumes about Belichick style. and then also the player knowledge on the field. But two, I think he's the perfect person to be like, yeah, this incredible 20-year dynasty is the greatest, longest thing in the history of the sport. Maybe we shouldn't press delete, but also we have to change things up. And so, like, him not formally being part of the staff is almost better because he can just do whatever he wants, but he gets it all anyway. And to me, it's like who, aside from like the on-field stuff, it's like, you have to go

through the whole organization and be like, what do you want to keep? What do you want to get rid of? And it's like, none of it's going to be strange. to him. You know what I mean? Like he's going to understand what to keep and what to get rid of and why. And like, I agree. Institutional memory that we talk about. It's also like you're going on after the Beatles. It's like the opener for the Beatles shows up and actually you have to go on after the Beatles.

And it's like who, what coach is going to go up and instill confidence? And like, you know, who's going to stay for this performance? And I'm like, that's a great, that's a great line. It's going on after the Beatles. Yeah. It's like, Vrable's the only person where everyone's like, yeah, okay, we're into this guy. It's like Bill Simmons is not going to be confident in anyone other than Mike Rabel taking this job. And not just Bill Simmons and Robert Kraft, right? Like, Kraft hasn't had to interface with a head coach. That's not Bill Belichick in two and a half decades, man. Like, if you bring a guy totally sight unseen, you got no association with the Patriots. And like,

after the first couple of years, he's not winning that many games because the roster is bad. Like, do you, are you going to know how to deal with that? Like, do you know how to, like, figure out if he's actually good and he's getting better or not? Like, are you prepared for any of this? You haven't had to live in this world for a long. It's like the thread when Del Curry divorced his wife. You don't want to be out here, man. You don't know what out here's like. With Vrable, it's more of a charcoal ice cream. Yeah.

Tulum! There's more of a soft landing with Vrabel. Like, there's some familiarity, some association he's going to know like Belichick used to do it. It makes it easier for the whole organization. 100%. I also just like, there's a confidence. And like, I don't care what anyone says.

At the core of it, the coat, Belichick is so revered among coaches that anyone replaces him is going to have a little like, oh man, I'm changing this. And I'm not him. And it's like, Vrable will have less of that than anybody because he was there for the freaking Super Bowls. You know what I mean? I don't know. I think it makes sense.

No, it does make sense. Let's say the Vrainble goes there. You guys are convinced me. Yeah. He's also younger than I thought. Mike Bray was only 48 years old. Yeah. Right.

Which like Jim or John Harbaugh, taking care of himself great. Mike, I feel like Mike needs like a state three nights a week and maybe needs to reassess that. I was at the first time went to the combine. He's a large human. Yeah.

The first time went to the combine in Indianapolis, which is funny because all the bars in Indianapolis are like a four block square block place. So it's like everyone ends up at like the same. four bars basically. And like I was at this place and I got knocked into like a guy kind of very drunkly barreled into me and I almost fell and I turn around. I'm like, hey, but. And I like do the thing where I look straight up and I'm like, it was Mike Vrable. And I was like, oh my God, this is like the largest person. The most hyphid story of all time. D.K., we were talking about this. I know. Seriously, once

again, Hyphitz ran into Mike Vrabel. Mike Vrable. Yeah, he ran into me. Well, you ran into it. Even better. That's so Hyphitz. I was not a stoplight. And I looked to the left and it was Joe Biden. And we're like, what? No, his window's done open. Does anybody, here's my question for you. This is unrelated to his coaching experience and aptitude. Is there anyone in the world that has a bigger barrel chest than Mike Vrable? Like his chest circumference has got to be up there among all-time grates.

Do you remember? What's his chest measurements? That's what I want to know. Can we get a tailor on Mike Brayble? This is the best thing we've ever come up with is that the combine should have, they should make him suits. You remember when Vrable was working out the Clemson defense alignment at their pro day

in the Christian Wilkins year at DK do you remember this? Shocked my memory. I don't remember it off hand. So Vrable I'm saying coaches like to get involved with the drills, right? Like, okay, like, you know,

I'm going to call your reps, right? I'm going to blow the whistle. Just like close or whatever. Vrable is known for like Rabel will put on a practice pad and like he wants to feel like when he's evaluating a guy's lapid off his line.

He wants to feel the guy's hands land like on him. I want to feel the power on. I cannot imagine not hiring this guy. And so there's a clip of Vrable working out Christian Wilkins at the Clemson Prod. It should have been three or four years ago now. And it's Vrable. He's got a pad strapped to his chest. And he's making Wilkins in a four-point stance.

Like he's going to step one side and Wilkins's got to pop to him and locate the hands, right? And you're watching, you're like, you know, this is sick. This is so cool is awesome. And then you realize, wait a minute, why does Braybel look like he's the same size as the first round defensive tackle? Why are they getting, why are they fighting to a stalemate in this drill? He should be deleting Brable from the face of the earth and Brable's just like, yeah, good hit. All right, again.

It's so sick, dude. Everybody needs to Google, Mike Brable, Christian Wilkins, go to videos, you'll find it. It's awesome. Who wins in a fight? Dan Campbell or Mike Grable. Dude, I would watch that in pay-per-view. The viewers.

That is literally like Godzilla versus comm. Yeah, that's a feature film, that's 12 rounds. Dude, that's incredible. Yeah, all right, they should hire them. So running through the teams that are left, If you're Harbaugh, I mean, the Titans are left, but like, I can't have to go to the Titans. The Panthers are a 10-foot pole job.

The Panthers are like, you have the worst owner and also the worst situation like separately. Like the owner throws drinks at people and fantasizes about firing waiters just to buy the restaurant because the waiter's mean to him. Also, it's the worst team with no players and no picks. So it's like, no. The Raiders, Harbaugh turned down the Raiders for Michigan like a decade ago. And I'm like, it makes sense for all the fake reasons. Like, Vegas need a big name, like history. And I'm like, I wouldn't want to pick that team personally.

I don't know. So the teams I think are good jobs. The Chargers, because they have Justin Herbert and they also have Rayshod Slater. Like, that's the only team available that has like an actual quarterback that can win you a Super Bowl like next year is to use the Chargers. Except for they're cursed. Yeah, the downside is there. The whole curse part. And they have injuries and playoff chokes that have spanned five different coaching staff.

They're like the Shining Hotel. Like you're just not. You're not standing there. The Falcons are the, to me, like a quarterback away from like actually being a legit contender, have the worst, the best like real estate location, location, location. Like if you go to the charge, you just to compete with Mahomes and Eddie Reed and you go to the Falcons, you're competing with the Saints who are a Ponzi scheme impending collapse. And then the Panthers who are the worst team in the NFL and then the freaking bucks.

And like a division were nine weeks. The box are going to be a division around playoff team this time next week, okay? So he puts some respect on the name. But the, I don't know. I think the Falcons are a really good situation. And then Washington, who it's like, you know, you can just rebuild what was, believe it or not, the most valuable sports franchise in America like 20 years ago

and just be like, you know, work for not Dan Snyder. I feel like the Falcons are the best situation, but Atlanta is so irrelevant that like Washington's pretty intriguing. But I don't know. Content-wise, Washington and Harbaugh is like clearly the right. But I think if you're going to win, I feel like the Falcons are the best spot. Yes.

Or depending how you feel about getting a quarterback versus. I think Washington makes the most sense vibes wise, just like for him to come in. clean slate and just like, like, instill his Harbaugh culture in the team. It just feels like I have no idea what Washington represents right now as a team, even like from a roster standpoint, but also just from like a cultural vibe standpoint. And Harbaugh can get in and just like bowl in a China shop, just like Harbaify, all of it. I agree.

Harbaify. It's weird because Washington's never been a good job because of Daniel Snyder, but like now there's no Daniel Snyder. It's a good job. Like I think there's a lot to like about it. You don't know who the GM is yet, but I feel like the ownership group. looks like it's solid. Like Josh Harris owns the Sixers and like I've got my issues with Josh Harris. But he's like an analytics forward, you know, forward thinking owner.

He'll spend money. That's what you want. Bob Myers is there now. Yeah. Yeah. Bob Myers is consulting to find the next. He'd be right next door to the GM of the Warriors. To his little, to his big bro.

Big bro or a little bro? He's the younger brother. He's younger. He seems older, but he's younger. Oh, he's younger. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyways, he'd be next door to Baltimore, basically. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the geography of the East Coast at all. They're close together, right? Yes, that was good. Well, don't ask Haifitz because that was a whole debacle the last time we did the... That was, please.

What's far as Atlanta? Yeah. Hyphid said that Atlanta to Miami was a longer drive than Atlanta to New York City. Is that right? I got it backward. It was not. Google Maps backward. I had it backward.

Alt facts. That's fine. Yeah. Florida is long. I agree. But, yeah, now. Or Jim Harbaugh could just stay in Michigan and enjoy his life. Just retire.

I can't think. No. Dude, the pregame, Rex Ryan is like a weird mix on the ESPN pregame of like sometimes being informative and mostly just being very loud, which I can relate to. And, um, thank you. I thought that was funny. Rex Ryan, uh, Rex Ryan had this incredible, like, rare moment of incredible insight. They were talking about Bill Belichick and he just interrupted. He's like, look, if I, can I just tell Bill one thing?

Retirement is so overrated, buddy. It was like, so cutting. I was like, I can't imagine what it's like. imagine what it's like to be the most beloved person in a city. Like he is, he will be the most beloved person in, in Ann Arbor, maybe the state of Michigan, until he dies. And it's like, why go try and capture that again somewhere else? You already have it.

You're 60. Enjoy it. Stay in Michigan. Craig, if you were, if you were Harbaugh, would you ever leave the state? No, never once. Yeah. Craig's just go on vacation to the UP. Just never seeing a beach of an ocean ever.

Let's live in Michigan. Michigan's got, just got lakes. So lack, come on. They've done studies on this. This is like, oh, you became a billionaire? Oh, well, now I need to be the richest person on Earth. The what next? Yes, you're always comparing yourself to somebody else.

I get it. But, man, I wish that we could change that mental paradigm and he could just enjoy where he is. Move to the south of France, man. Yeah. A song. Move to France. Raise your chickens. He has chickens now.

Oh, yeah. He's into chicken. What's the deal with it? So he had the nervous bird. Okay. What was, can we, can we back up? What was the context of this nervous bird thing? He didn't let his players eat chicken because he referred to them as a nervous bird.

And so they would get nervous meat in their system. He's a crazy person. Hold on. What? No, no, no. We're coming all the way full circle. Before the show, we're going to have to be record it. We're going to put it at the back of the show.

Before the show, we were talking about Craig doing prebiotics. Not probiotics, prebiotics. We're going to put this conversation at the end now. Craig was saying part of the reason you're probiotics, you have gut bacteria, right? Your bacteria. And like our generation is less varied gut bacteria than our parents' generation

maybe because of processed food stuff. That's what Harbaugh's talking about. That like chickens are, that he's basically saying what you're saying, Craig, that like chickens are part of this industry of like mass produced food that like they're nervous, but they're not what you're supposed to be eating.

That's the same reason you take your goddamn free biotic. Did he say that? You're making a really big logic jump here, I think. I don't know. I think he just thinks chickens are like, like, scaredy cats running around frantically on a farm, and he's like,

I don't like the look at that. My players aren't eating that. What's weird than that? That or your prebiotic thing. That's also weird. No, no. It's way less weird.

It's not remotely close. There's no science in the weird thing. The crank thing is just something you hadn't heard of until now. Harbaugh's arguing that white meat is ruining men, dude. Like, they're very different ideas. All right. Well, here's a way.

So, Craig, you said this for the show, and I couldn't believe this. Harbaugh, 10 years later, he's raising chickens now. Yeah. Look, I believe so. I just, I heard that anecdotally. No, I can't elaborate on it. All I know is that Jim Hrabah has his own birds. Craig, elaborate.

Well, no, I thought. He's rehabilitating himself or whatever. How do you say that word? Rehabilitating. Harba has said raising chickens has boosted his mental health. He became so enamored with his chickens. He's changed his opinion about the species writ large. Early in his tenure at Michigan, the famously quirky coach advisor played to avoid eating chicken for a big game because the poultry was a quote, nervous bird.

Then completely unprompted, during a press conference in November, he issued a Mayaculpa. I was dead wrong. Unprompted. These chickens are low maintenance and high production. What? Does it say what sort of breed of chicken he's got? No, I don't know. That's a shame.

I learned recently the different breeds of chickens lay different colored eggs. And you can get like full rainbow eggs, dude. You can get like blue eggs and red eggs and green eggs. Wow. Well, yeah, Hyvich. He's not talking about like he didn't want his players to eat chickens because they were like injected with hormones. Like he was not talking about the like that type of stuff. He was talking about the chicken's personality.

There are literally like beta meat. They're funny. Hey. Wide receiver Roman Wilson visited Harbaugh's house over Christmas and said, quote, I thought he would just be inside chilling on the couch. He was just outside working on the chicken coop. I love that he says they're low maintenance and high production. He's like, yeah, it's pretty easy to just have chickens. So I'm back in.

The chickens remind me of inside zone, right? It's simple as a fact if it works. It's a good, good process. Anyway, he needs to come back to the NFL. Ring your fantasy football at Gmail.com. If you want to talk about, Rainbow Eggs, Jim Harbaugh's chicken. What was the other thing we were talking about? If biotics.

Oh, dude, yeah. Email us if you think that I was saying that somebody is busting makes you uncomfortable. To be clear, yeah, I'm saying, oh, I think Michael Pennix will be a draft bust. Now, like, that's one thing. Michael Pennix is busting. Going to buzz. The noun verb issue is a problem. Michigan's, no. Like, they had a coverage bust. Michigan bust. Yeah. It's better if you

refer to it like, extremely widely used. If an entity buy. Among your small draft, NFL exit, no. Yes. It's absolutely, it's ubiquitously used in among our lands. To be honest, I don't really think I've ever heard somebody say like Michigan busted. I honestly don't think I hear that. In a specific industry is not ubiquitous. That's the definition of jargon.

No, we already went over the definition of jargon. We got it wrong for some reason. I can't remember why, but someone corrected us. When you hear NFL people talk and they'll be like, all right, so they drop back and they want to go for the, you know, the 7 route, but, you know, they bust the coverage or, you know, they bust their rules. So, you know, they bust their route. Like, that's a very common way to frame like someone made a mistake.

Yes, and those people are incredibly out of touch. Okay. Me and D.K. Baby. He's not talking to people about anything. We're gonna, let's trust the guy who thought Mbop. My Chemical Romance was bigger than Mbop. You thought Atlanta was closer to Miami, New York? It was specifically teenagers by My Chemical Romance was bigger than Mbop.

Not the entire band. Hello, fellow kids. I first, I recently listened to that for the first time ever, because I was not on that podcast. They had this conversation without me. And I was furious. I was irate. So like, do you even know what we're talking about? Nope.

Do you know the song? I came to it. Mbop by Hanson? Nope. Thank God. Isn't he like the worst possible person? You don't want to be on my side on any of these things, dude. It is not good to have me with you.

Dude, my friends always joke that every friend group has a friend that if they agree with you, you kind of know you're wrong about like a certain, like depending on the topic. Why not, baby. It's me. Yes. That's hilarious. All right. All right.

All right. We should get out of here. All right. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Soak. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Kai, for producing this episode. Thank you, Dan, for research help. Thank you, Jack, for help on that scenes.

Thank you to Tucker. Thank you, everyone for listening. Thank you, everyone, doubly, so for emailing. Thank you, Lord. Lord. Thank you, Hanson. Yeah. We've never thanked them.

Do they have a beer now? We should get that beer. Yeah, they've got a brewery. Apparently having a lot of California or something. Pay the bills anymore. Well, we don't know. Or it allows you to open a brewery. I mean, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's what Harbaugh should do. True, true. Really hard to start a restaurant, you know, and now they can, so I'm happy for them. So do you think Jack Harbaugh told Jim Harbaugh that it was a nervous bird and he got that from his dad? It feels like he got a lot from his dad. I feel something. Have you ever heard that before? I've never heard of anyone talking about that.

No, it feels specific. Like, he heard that somewhere. But I'm sure his father is equally as quirky as he is. So that wouldn't surprise me if it's kind of... He was a time traveler. John feels pretty normal to me. Is John weird? I think that like it's like on the Harbaugh scale

it's like John's pretty normal and then when you like maybe just like John in a vacuum like oh no head coach of NFL team definitely weird I feel like the gym played in the NFL and John didn't John Harbaugh didn't go to Michigan right? Jim Harbaugh. Miami Miami. Oh the you?

Oh no I think Miami of Ohio member service. I forgot about the existence of the you there for a moment. Yeah, Miami of Ohio. That was classic. That was the arrest of development doctor version It's going to be all right. Not to you, baby.

Went to Miami. I don't acknowledge the existence of Miami football unless it's to make fun of Kevin Clark for something that's going on with them. So in this purposes, Miami of Ohio is Miami. No, Kevin Clark did go to Miami of Ohio, right? That's where you want. Probably.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty sure. All right. Goodbye, everyone. It's like a prebiotic digestive soda. I'm in on poppies and allie pops. Never heard of anything more L.A. than that.

A probiotic, predigestive It's a prebiotic, DK, not a probiotic. What does prebiotic mean? So it's like a probiotic is the bacteria in your gut that you need to, like, digest food. But the prebiotic is what you need to feed the bacteria to like actually like thrive and chill eyes. So that's as if food was called prehuman. What, like they're farm animals? You're feeding the probiotics?

Yes, you need to feed your probiotics in order to. What do they eat? So they thrive. Yeah. What do you feed that thing? I can read you what... Craig, it's going to blow your mind.

But I feed my probiotics every day when I just consume regular food, dude. I get that's where it goes, man. That's very true. Like, you can get a lot of your prebiotics in healthy whole foods, but a lot of people, like, don't eat that. So some people... This is like the Michigan line is like corn fed dudes and then the prebiotics over there. It's like all the key law fed Washington linemen can't block. And it's like...

Also, there's nine grams of fiber. So that's good for you as well. This sounds like the cryptocurrency of food. You have probiotic. You got to buy the probiotics. Somehow I'm going to end up with a time share after this conversation. You know what? At the very least, it tastes like a soda and it has four grams of sugar.

All right. What else? Is that okay? That's the prebiotic, the sugar. What do the prebiotics eat? What? You got to start feeding the prebiotics. The prebiotics are the food you feed the probiotics.

Dude, this is why people hate California. Dude, that's as if I put. It doesn't if I put food in Nuggets bowl, and I was like, here, Nugget, this is some pre-dog. There's also a 30% chance. I'm just super wrong about all of this. Dude, this reminds me, it's always sunny when they're like, well, what global warming? It's, yeah, so you burn the trash and it goes up into the sky and it becomes stars. Stars.

That doesn't sound right, but I can't. You guys are going to laugh when my gut at 70 years old is as healthy as can be. I believe in gut health. I actually want you to talk to Jim Harba. about this because I have no idea if he would just be nodding vigorously or like what like I don't know if he would love or hate you but he wouldn't be like nonchalant

dude you you learn all about gut health when you have a kid when you have a baby because like the baby's gut health biome or whatever you call it is like super important to their development gut health is like one of the most like important new like discoveries in like diet and healthy

living is your gut health your gut biome is super important and like if there's holes in your gut biome you can't break down food as well. We evolved just with a bunch of shit. Nice. Well-put. Everything. Well put. You know? It's just shit everywhere.

We didn't have soap for the first like... We're all eating processed foods. We're losing all the good bacteria in our gut. That's true. Anyway, no... You know how I'm anti-nofriads? I'm actually, I'm all about free ads. Oli-pop and Poppy, great drinks. Where's it made? Can we see what were the companies? I think poppy's made in Texas.

I think that's where it's done. Holy Pop, Oakland, California. Didn't even know that. I knew it was California. I don't appreciate the California slainer. It's not slander. It's literally just 4.05. Just sank into their fashion.

What are you doing here? That SNL sketch ruined everyone's perception of California. But it's also hilarious because I didn't live in L.A. at the time, so I actually didn't get that lingo at all. Actually, the difference between, like, how you speak about freeways in Northern California, for Southern is very different. You don't say the in Northern California. I grew up not saying like the 805. So it's just SoCal or just L.A.

That's, yeah, it's just L.A. Yeah, it's more so just L.A. You do it. You see, like, get on the 10. In the Bay, I would say like I get on 580. Yeah, that's how it is everywhere. Everywhere I've lived except L.A. has been like that. There's one interstate where I live, so.

Tough. Not a lot of coordinating. It's I-5. It goes all the way down to L.A. For what it's worth. I feel attacked, but my gut feels great. Yeah, and you got a good gut feeling now, good healthy gut feeling. I got a gut feeling, yeah.

Dude, I'm at, hey, Olipop slash Poppy, sponsor idea. Gut Call of the Week, brought to you by Poppy? Come on. It's right there. Activate. I love it. That's good. Kai, write that down.

That's, that's, I'm not kidding. Right now. Kai, DM Poppy right now. That's a really good idea. Guy, get on it. Slide into Poppy's DMs. Must be 21 plus. and present in select states, Fandul is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement

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