The Ringer NFL Show - Player Comps for the Best RBs in the Draft, the Jalen Hurts ESPN Story, the Annual NFL Coaches Photo, and ABS vs. Waymo

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

The guys break down the running backs in the 2026 NFL draft, from a thin top tier to the handful of sleepers who might actually matter. They debate whether this class is being undersold, highlight the few names worth caring about, and lean into the weird uncertainty that defines draft season. (00:00) Intro (02:01) Jalen Hurts (15:45) Jermod McCoy (17:45) 50 Shades of Player Comps: Running back edition (01:01:06) The coaches photo (01:08:13) Kyle Shanahan (01:18:22) Is baseball better with ABS? (01:30:40) Emails Discord link: https://discord.gg/Ge8bbYHrau Check out The Ringer’s 2026 NFL Draft Guide: https://theringer.com/nfl-draft/2026/big-board#content Email us! [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Austin Gayle, Abou Kamara, Carlos Chiriboga, and Cameron Dinwiddie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the NFL draft show. Oh my God, it's the Ringer NFL Draft show. I almost forgot Ringer. That specific mistake has never happened. Let's just keep it. Ringer NFL draft show, Ringer Fantasy Football Show, whatever's going on here. My name is Danny Hyford. Today I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck.

And we're going to go over the running backs in the 2026 NFL draft or most of them because a lot of them aren't that good. So we're going to go over the like half dozen that we like, right, D. That's right. It's kind of a down year for running back. There's two main guys and they played for the same team. All right. there's our show. We'll get into that. But we'll get into the other guys. I think there are

a handful of players that could be sleepers here in this draft, late third, maybe early fourth rounders that end up being contributors on their team. So there are, there are a few guys I'm excited about, I will say that. Craig, you have a better pitch for people to listen to this episode that we have some guys who could be contributors on their team. We're not going to lie to people here, all right? Maybe we should. We're not in the business of lying. No, we are. This will be the most important podcast you've ever listened to. We're going to go through that. We're going to have to talk about a little baseball and all the umpiring and the disappearance of players is height and a bunch of things. Kyle Shanhan's pissed about playing in Australia versus the Rams. Sean McVeigh's

pissed about the two-point conversion. He can't get over from the Shaq Sharbonate. A lot of stuff move on, man. And a lot of people emailed in about the Jets, D.K's vibes ranking with the Jets. I cannot wait to read you some of the emails Jets fans sent about DK's ranks. I already admitted I was wrong. All right. You have to rub it in. I were going to double down. Yes, you should. It's what you would have done, Craig. we're going to go through these running backs and we're going to try to preview the running backs here with the draft and again we continue

to cover the league after the season ends. We're still doing fantasy if you like us a draft coverage, stick with us for the season and everything too. But first, I want to go through this Jalen Hertz story that ESPN had today with Tim McManus and ESPN wrote this large story about Jalen Hertz that was I don't know, just like

just a great page six gossip session of just the Eagles back, just all this backstabbing. I don't even know what to make of it. Craig. What was your favorite line in this story? There was like a bunch of things, but it was fun. Oh, what was my favorite line? I don't know. There's just a lot of anonymous quotes about, I did, I enjoyed McManus having to hedge a little bit where it was kind of like, it's very clear that Jalen Hurts' personality annoys a lot of people and his stoicism, you know, can be viewed as leadership in some ways and being steadfast and not,

not wavering and also just being kind of annoying and pompous and feeling above everyone else. So it was fun to kind of read through the line, read between the lines of how many people, basically it's a classic story of like, when you're not winning, this stuff's kind of annoying. And, D.K., I want you to read it and I wish you had read it because there are a lot of Russell Wilson comparisons to what is going on right now with Philly and Jalen Hertz. Yeah, I mean, I have, I've read bits and pieces of the article. I'm excited to kind of dig into it more. but basically, yeah, the parallels to the Russell Wilson sort of demise in Seattle are so similar. It's basically, it's the same stuff.

I think a lot of his teammates started to resent Russell Wilson. I think you're seeing that with Jalen Hertz. Like towards the end, Russell Wilson was taking like all the credit for everything, or at least it was the appearance that he was taking a lot of the credit. He was kind of a separate entity on the team, which I think is kind of happening here a little bit with Hertz, where like a half coach, half player, he was kind of aloof. You know what I mean? And as time went on, I think a lot of players started to resent him for that.

And then also just the parallels of they play a very similar style football where they can't throw over the middle of field. It's very limited. And every time you bring in a new OC, they're like, I got all these new ideas. And then it's like, oh, actually, we're just going to run the exact same off. And there have been a lot of OCs. I think one of the things that jumped out to me that I was not super aware of is how much Hertz is calling his own shots on the field, where there was a whole piece in the article about

how Hertz is just checking out of place, and him and him and receivers and him and AJ Brown are just like calling plays that Jalen Hertz likes to throw, which are just like deep shots because he doesn't like throwing over the middle of the field. And that basically when he didn't have an offensive coordinator who was a hard ass, Hertz would kind of take over the offense and do what he wanted with it, which ended up hurting the team. And Kellan Moore and Shane Steichen, the two coordinators that he had the most success with were more hard asses and were more strict. Even going back to college,

it seems like Hertz is better when he has a coach that is a little bit on him more. And when he has the freedom to do what he wants, he kind of gets into bad habits. Yeah. And I think that's kind of similar to Russell Wilson. Yeah. It's funny.

There's so many similarities between these two stories. There are, and obviously, maybe it sounds strange to compare Jillyn Hurts and Russell Wilson. What Russell Wilson doesn't seem like the tush-push level, can squat six. hundred pounds, but again, they're not throwing over the middle of the field, maybe because Hertz isn't quite able to see over there either or whatever it is. But they both prefer this, the hard road of, well, we'll just throw outside deep shots, which is like, we'll just really

execute really well a very, very difficult play. And then when that doesn't work, it's kind of like, oh, well, and so, hey, don't you want to do the easier path of go under center and take a snap from under center and then do replay action, which is going to make Seekwon Barkley, it's easier for him to run from under center, which Sequin says in the story. And then you could play action off of that, and then that's going to pull the defense, and then turn around, and Jalen Hertz doesn't want to do that

because he doesn't want to turn us back to the defense. That's a huge theme of the story. And I get it, because in one hand, Jailen Hertz won a Super Bowl pretty decisively doing that, almost won two Super Bowls, just everything from shotgun, basically. But I don't know.

The theme that jumps out here, there's a lot of quotes that, I don't know if it's Kevin Petulow, the offensive coordinator, but one of them was, you never know what play is coming out of the huddle when Hertz is leading it, which was a quote that really

jumped out at me. Another one was there were very few public, this is all from the Tim McMahon, Jeremy Fellow story, but there were very few public interactions between AJ Brown and J. Brown and Jalen Hertz early in the 2025 season. There were even times when they would connect for a touchdown and then not seek each other out after the touchdown. I love this. I wish I didn't, but I do love that. I, yeah, but yeah, I overall just, I think the point was that Sean, Sean, I'm going to get this wrong 100 times this year. Sean Mannion. Manion, no, it's Mannion, the offense a quarter of the year. Manayan?

Manion. It's Manion, right? Manian. Did you say Manian? Why did you potentially suggest it was Mani? I thought I was going to get it wrong. Manion would be great. You thought there's a chance it was Manian?

Well, I was going to say Sean Manion. And then I don't, look, at this point of PTSD. That's fair. That's fair. The thing that comes to my mind when I'm reading some of these quotes is like the you'll never know what play is coming out of the huddle. It is, I think, very funny because a lot of coaches, they spend so much time game planning all week, figuring out plays.

figuring out the weaknesses of a defense, like staying up all night, watching tape, doing all this stuff, putting in the game plan, putting in all the, like, doing everything. And then fucking the quarterback just changes the play at the line's courage. Got to be infuriating, especially when it's not working. Well, it's funny because like,

this isn't always how it used to be, you know? It wasn't until pretty much the 90s that coaches started calling the plays, which feels insane. But like Terry... Just drawn it up on their hand. When Terry Bradshaw won the Super Bowl's for the Steelers, like he called every play himself,

which is pretty right. remarkable. That's weird. And that happened all the way up until basically the 90s and stuff like that. But I always find it fascinating. High Fitz, do you think it was always a thing that there were some quarterbacks that just didn't like turning their back to the defense? Or is that a newer development because of the development track that quarterbacks are on in college and how they are trained a little bit differently now? It's the development track from high school. It's that I think quarterbacks used to be under center and it used to be all but under center, play action, everything. And then you go to, it's the common. It's the common. It's the common. of spread offense going out through high school football everywhere. So this elimination of running game and the specialization of the same way you had AAU and basketball changing

the way basketball players learn. In Texas, don't forget a quarter, the quarterbacks in the NFL are coming from Texas and all these places. They're doing like seven-on-seven camps over the summer so you're learning seven-on-seven ball. A lot of receivers learning to play seven-on-seven where there's a lot of footwork,

Instagram, TikTok videos, but maybe not so much blocking and stuff. But then quarterback's same thing where you're learning a lot of like spacing stuff. I mean, Arch Manning, there was a whole thing on Arch, the young one, talking to Archie Manning his grandfather. And Archie Manning had this quote where he was like, I told my grandson, like Archmanning asking Archie about quarterback.

And Archie's number one thing was you have to have command of the huddle. That's my number one advice for his quarterback. And Archie's like, Grandpa, we don't huddle. And Archie was like, damn, that's crazy. And it's like, the game is completely different. And the spacing's part of it because think about it, as stupid. but as it sounds, if you're in shotgun your entire career from when you're 13 to 22 or 25 or 27 like Hertz's,

and they're like, okay, now go under center and turn your back for half of the time you used to staring and you turn around, he already doesn't like throw over the middle of field when he can see it the whole time. Imagine throw over the middle of the field when he can see it for like half a second. Yeah, and like, you know, I think the Eagle's success running the ball in their great offensive line, you know, filled in a lot of the gaps

that Jalen Hertz had, right? Like they were able to succeed when everything else was cooking. And when it's not, he's a little bit exposed. Eagles fans also are going to go crazy over this because on one hand, it's hard when your quarterbacks want a Super Bowl and gets criticized a lot. I think that and they're going to be like, oh, but it's like, this is people in the Eagles organization are very unhappy. AJ Brown's unhappy because Jalen Hertz won't get him the ball,

but really won't push it into zones. Devante Smith is talking about how he's upset that there aren't like easy layups, which is true. Like, why does Devante Smith? Who won a highman in Alabama? If you had AJ Brown in fantasy last year, there were no layups. No. Banked in threes were the only way you could score.

Winning solves everything. And that is also the similarity between the Seahawks and the Eagles, where it's, for the Seahawks from a decade ago and the Eagles now, where it's when the Eagles are winning, nobody cares. But then it's all these problems leak out because there's a lot of frustration because they obviously have the talent to win. But it's everything. You lose the coaching. The coaches leave.

Like Kellan Moore leaves for the Saints head coaching job last year. So the coaching's a little worse. the offensive line's not as good. Again, Landon Dickerson and Lane Johnson, they got hurt on like the same play in the Cowboys in week one. The line wasn't as good. And then Lane Johnson's older. He's coming back this year,

but he considered retiring. Everyone's a little older. And so when it's not an elite offensive line, it's just good or above average, then Saquan can't run. The Sequin can't get to 2,000 yards anymore. It all makes everything a little, you have less margin for error.

And then Jalen Hertz is trying really, really hard plays. on offense, and you need margin of error. So when the margin of error goes down, then everything's a little harder, and then you suddenly have a three-and-out rate. That's like the Titans. But the really, really hard plays are not just because they have huge upside.

It's because it's what he's comfortable doing the most. And I would love to ask a coach or a player around the league, like, how many quarterbacks are calling plays and audiblying to plays because of their own, like, anxieties or limitations mentally? Like, just the fear of, like, not one, wanted to do something and that being why you call a certain play.

I wonder how common that is. It's probably a bigger issue than you think. I mean, Joe Burrow, I think the Bengals. Aaron Rogers. Aaron Rogers has been a career of it. Yeah, I think there's more of it than you think. But it's everything. It's motion.

It's all these things that they all have to be together. AJ Brown was literally of every receiver that I think ran 100 routes last year. Agent Brown was in the slot the least of any receiver. But that's a function of not having emotion, not having all these things. But that's up to Jalen Hertz. I'm going to defend my quarterback for a second. What do you mean to Aaron and Rogers? What are you talking about?

It's been a story for a very long time. By the way, this this Jalen Hurts storyline has kind of been a known secret for a very long time. This is something that people have known for a while. Every like three months. There's not really bombshell in here. Yeah. Right. It's just fun that people have said it.

It reminds me of the Seth Wickersham article back in the day about the Seahawks when it was like it came out that Russell Wilson was like, sorry. Richard Sherman was screaming you fucking suck at Russell Wilson in practice and stuff like that. That's bad. So that was like, it sort of it was like, okay, this is actually real all the rumors and kind of innuendo we'd heard about the defense. Yeah, like the people inside the building knew that Rush was not as good as everybody outside the building thought he was. Right. So anyways, that, so with the Rogers thing, like it's been a known secret for a long time, or maybe it's not even a secret. It's just he checks to, he checks to whatever play he wants every fucking play. And it's like, that's why you can't run a normal run game with him.

Yeah, but the difference is is that Rogers can make every throw in the fucking book. I'm not saying he's the same as Jalen Hertz. I'm just saying it kind of pisses off offensive coordinators when Aaron Rogers is just running. Aaron Rogers are doing it when they can make every single play and they're making the smartest decision. I agree. I agree. However, the Aaron Rogers thing, Aaron Rogers now when he does it, it's a very limited offense. He does limit.

He likes what he likes. I'm just saying, what are you talking about? This is kind of a similar thing. No, I don't think it's true. He doesn't want to get hit so he just checks to a freaking smoke route so he can get rid of the ball at half a second. But that's different than being in your prime and you can't throw over the middle of the field as a borderline MVP quarterback.

Aaron Rogers is a better quarterback than J-Wilertz, right? When Rogers was 28 years old, Rogers was not checking out of plays that he felt uncomfortable with because he felt physically limited to where he couldn't make that play. He would be like, sure, I'm going to throw a back shoulder to Jordy

because it's a fucking... I don't think Hertz is saying he's physically limited. I think Hurts at his head is like, I want to do it this way. And again, I think Eagles fans are probably screaming right now. Like, they won a Super Bowl.

they should have won, they almost really won two Super Bowls versus the Chief. Which if they did, by the way, if they won two Super Bowls, do you think this article is written? If that holding call or whatever that was, was not called, is this article written? Even if it's the exact same situation, no way. Well, Philly, also, they can be, they can pretend,

but they love being winning, they love being champions and angry. That's the ultimate to the circle. I want to do a poll. Because, like, if you're just in the, if you're just in the comments, it's like a lot of people being like, Jalen Hertz is a fullback, masquerading as a quarterback.

So I would be curious to see what Eagles fans think. I want to do a vote. Let's do a vote. I think the poll should just be Eagles fan. Do you believe in Jalen Hertz? Eagles fan do not believe in Jalen Hertz, not Eagles, I believe. Like, you know, I want to know the difference between. Sure, sure.

We can figure it out. Honor system, I guess, yeah. Okay, so we'll good that. I'm sure that's the last time we'll talk about the. It's one of those that it doesn't matter if they win the NFC East and make the championship game. But if they missed the playoffs, we're going to be like, that was bad. That people wanted to talk for that. Okay.

It's good stuff. It's good fodder. And again, if Jalen Hertz does crash out, they could get out of that contract at the end of the season. And I know Eagles fans can be pissed about that. Guess what? Eagles fans getting out of Hertz's contract now, it's not as crazy as getting out of Carson Wentz's contract would have sounded in 2019. Very little. They've done this. And all Eagles fans pissed of us talking about this for?

They did this like seven years ago to Carson Wentz. That's why Hertz is the job. He fucking took Carson Wentz out. And I know he didn't win the Super Bowl, but like that was more shocking than this. Very little guaranteed money left for Jalen Hertz. and I don't think they're going to extend him any time soon. The other thing, Eagles Finns, email us about that if you're angry. My gut is Eagles fans like Gillette Hertz and are angry at age.

My gut is they're annoyed with him. The only thing I want to mention is German Bacoy, the cornerback from Tennessee, who had Torres Aecel in December, 24, didn't play all of 2025, didn't work at the combine, did have the pro day at Tennessee, did run, ran a 438 40-yard dash, so a 4-4, basically, 38-inch vertical jump. He ran fast and jumped high, but we hadn't seen him play in 14 months. So this was like important. DK, do you think McCoy might now be like the number one cornerback drafted in the draft? Do you think he's a top 10 pick maybe?

Yeah, he could be. It's going to be between him and Mansour Delane, probably. And top 15 pick is is in range now. I know that I know that we have always kind of cautioned against the importance of pro days and of the importance of the combine and everything. But to me, this was just like, okay, he's alive. This is proof of life. Like, we haven't seen him in over a year.

We didn't seen him run in over a year. So, like, the fact that he is running and running, running very fast and showing explosiveness and things like that, it's dramatic in terms of how much better I feel about him going into this draft. So, yes, I think this does matter. And it puts it back on the map in the first round, top, probably top half of the first round. It's funny. I think German Bacoy, sorry, it's Jermad Bacquay is perfect for Dallas at number 12. But the irony is Dallas's other two quarterbacks are also hurt. They drafted Chavon Ravell, who had a knee reconstruction in college.

and probably would have been a borderline first-run pick for the knee. And then they also have Duran Bland who had two foot surgeries in two years. So part of me wants to give him a coy, and part of me is like, that's, three is too many quarterbacks recovering from. Right. What qualifies as a knee reconstruction?

Like an ACL tear is not a knee reconstruction. You know what? I said that. And as I said, and I was like, I don't think that's right. It was, it was a... Chavon Ravale is ACL. When you hear reconstruction, I feel like you need multiple ligaments. They're putting stuff back together.

Well, they're always doing that. In theory, now that you say it, I don't know what the word. They are all restrictions. They're all reconstructions, sure. But that term feels weighted to me. Like when I hear knee reconstruction, I'm like, oh my God, they tore three ligaments in there.

Right. Okay. I don't know. That just jumped out to me. Thank you. I think I agree with that. Yeah. Probably right.

Okay. Let's get to running back deep dive position this year. So we're going to do, I think we're going to do this. Are we doing 50 shades of gray here, Craig? Are we doing high and low end? I wanted to honor my favorite movie. series, so we are going to be doing it 50 Shades of Grey Style. Your favorite movie franchise?

Yeah, I actually have seen all of these films. I think the books are, I don't know if the, I didn't read the books. But I did go to college with a girl named Anastasia Steele. Are you kidding? Yeah. Isn't that insane? What was her life like? Well, I didn't really know her.

I remember I was just in class with my buddy and we like her, we were like, wait, what? And then we like confirmed that that was her name. And then I don't know why my roommate, Jared and I were just like, just watch all the 50 Shades of Great movies in like three days. Yeah, you don't know why. Well, to be honest, it's like... Who could think? Who knows?

Yeah, you sicko. To be honest with you, like, when you actually watch those movies, like, they're not... Maybe we're all desensitized, but like, they're not that salacious. I think it's supposed... I think the book, I think the point, I think the book is... The movie, it should be a different kind of movie. It should be a different kind of movie. Okay, so are we doing 50 Shades of Gray for Running Backs?

I think the point we want to do with these... I think we love the comparisons. right, like the player comparisons, but the problem is DK sometimes compares a player to Doug Baldwin and then we freak out because that's boring. So in reality, what we've done here is we've just basically, Deakin I have tried to have the best possible-ish

version of a player's career. Shades of guys, yes. Yeah, like of all the universes, like this guy's career could go like this or bat and you look back, you're like, wow, this was the best version of it or the worst version or close to it. We're going to give it that way, like kind of Goldilocks style. Really good, really bad

and then the most likely out. Because we're honest, if we only give the most likely outcome, it's pretty boring. Yeah, I think it's way more interesting. I want to hear high-end, low-end, and what's probably in between and most likely. So we'll start with Jeremiah I love from Notre Dame, who is by far the best running back in his class. And up there with like the Bijan Sequans of the last five or seven years or so, wouldn't you say, D.K.? Yeah, I think he's in that tier of, I'm not going to call him a generational prospect, but I think he's one of the more high-end prospects we've seen in the last 10 years, 10, 15 years at running back. So,

Give me the elevator pitch on him and who your high-end comp would be for him. Do high-end and lower. The elevator pitch is that he's an extremely explosive home run hitting back, who is awesome in the past game. What's his size? He's big. He's not that big. He's like 210, I think. He has his number, his size, his actual size right around.

It's six foot two-tenth. Yeah, he's six feet tall too, which a lot of these guys are big. Yeah, I mean, six foot two-12 is what you have in the drive guy. I mean, that's larger, I would say, for your running back. So to me, the time. The top end, the high end comp for him and style, this is more stylistic, not necessarily like his exact dimensions, but it's a Jamir Gibbs type player where extremely explosive, given the ball, he can score from anywhere, basically, makes guys miss. And he's very good in the past game and can be like a receipt, essentially a de facto slot receiver at times, depending on how you utilize them. So in terms of the type of player you're getting, I think you're getting a Jamir Gibbs-esque type player.

That's a high end comp for me. And an elite hurdler. He's also, he loves a spin move. He spins away from dudes like four, four times on a run. He was built on Madden. You know, he's playing Madden football in real life. So, okay, who is the low, highfitz? Do you agree with that for the high end, Jemir Gibbs?

Yeah, high in Jimere Gibbs. I think the highest-end version of me to Jamar, Jeremy I love is like a career comp is Christian McCaffrey. I think the style, everything about it. And I think the same question Christian McCaffrey had coming out, which is, well, is he going to be to play in between the tackles? Is that the question three down back? Same with Gibbs.

Jimier Gibbs. the same question. I think Jeremiah Love like, yes. Like I think there's a few tackled like a few plays versus I mean, I think one was versus Iowa, one versus Penn State. There's a few times and like important God I have at moments where you just see his feet keep churning and I'm like he's going to be able to be in inside the tackle runner and now you look back at McAfrican. You're like, of course he was. I think the lower end comp where if we look back in Jamir Gibbs is sorry, if Jeremiah loves disappointing, I think the lowest end version of his career is Reggie Bush in the NFL, which he was fine. He just didn't live up to expectations.

Yeah. An incredible. pass catching back. Reggie Bush ran for 1,000 yards twice, and he was always in a committee. And that's not probably what we thought Reggie Bush would be when he was drafted really high by the Saints in 2006. But I think that's like the worst version

for Jeremy Love is he's always in a committee and he's an incredible receiver, but he's not for actually the guy. But I think he'll probably just more settle into like, you know, behind McCaffrey and Gibbs and Bijjan as a top five running back. DK., you have any qualms with him going in the top 10

in the draft? I do, but that's more just a team-based thing. I think talent-wise in this class, he's in the top ten, for sure. Some people have him as number one in the draft. Right. Just straight talent. Right. And I understand that. To me, the mid-range,

if we're just looking at sort of like a you know, maybe not, you don't hit the high end. He never turns into like a big-time superstar, but a good, good productive player, Travis E.TN came to mind. Melvin Gordon came to mind where there was high-end expectations with these guys. I mean, if you look at their stats, though, they... That's not what I want

Melvin Gordon is the is a bad, it's a boring play style and a boring name. Melvin Gordon and Travis E.T.N. Which is, he's now A-chan. Travis A-chan. Right, right, right. Travis E-TN. We should say the T-N now A-chan. A-chan.

How about Kenneth Walker? We should say the running back formerly known as Travis E-TN. We should. The running back formally known as Travis E-TN. The symbol. Because the past, my brain doesn't have anything for Travis E-C-N. Would you say the most likely outcome is that he becomes Melvin-Gordon? You're just saying that is the average.

That's like a mid-range. I'm not saying this is the most. most likely. I'm saying, you know, a guy basically, here's, here's why I think of those guys. Travis, T.N. Over, over a thousand yards and three out of the four seasons. Would you say he's been a failure? No, but he definitely didn't live up to expectations in terms of the hype that he had coming into the league. I don't think he hasn't been quite as dynamic and explosive as people thought he would be in terms of like creating big plays. He was really good in the passing game in college and didn't, hasn't done that quite as much in the pros. I think Melvin Gordon, same

deal. Like he was running for like 500 yards a game. I mean, his college career was insane. And then he came into the league and he did battle a few injuries, but he was pretty productive and he was in the league for a long time. So was he a failure? No, but he was, you know, definitely did not live up to expectation. So that's how I was looking at this. The low end comp would be like a complete failure like Trent Richardson. That was like how that's the spectrum I was going on. I think based on where he gets drafted, if he becomes Melvin Gordon, that is a failure. Yeah. I understand that.

I understand that. I understand that. And you're Melvin Gordon. That's a failure. I just thought of this because it's along the line of guys that were disappointing, but actually a top 10 pick. And I'm just thinking of this live, so maybe this is a bad comparison. But remember CJ Spiller?

Yeah. And how amazing it was and how exciting it was and he was the ninth pick. And then he was he was up 200 pounds though. Dude, he was smaller. He was smaller. The, I don't want to like like draft nerd, like die hard fantasy guy. Like everybody was obsessed with C.J. Spiller.

and would bet on him every year until he was basically out of the league that this was gonna be the year he popped and he never really did. C.J. Spiller was the reason the Seahawks got Marshawn Lynch. So I'm glad that the bills drafted C.J. Spiller. They made Lynch a little bit redundant and expendable, traded to the Seahawks,

the rest of his history. So I was happy about that. D.K., Melvin Gordon had a thousand yards once in his NFL career. Yeah. Maybe you put him as a low at. How long was he in the crew? He was in the league for like eight years. I think it's the lowest. He was 30.

Yeah. If he's, if, if Jeremy I love is Melvin Gordon, I would say everyone would be pissed. Well, born, yes, of course. I'm not saying, no, this is not, this is, to me, this isn't the exercise. How about this? How does it make you feel if I said the mid-range outcome is a guy like Kenneth Walker? Is that still like make you upset? Well, talent-wise, I think that's good, but it's hard because he's not that far into his career and he's at injury. I think by definition, a mid-range Goldilocks outcome is going to be disappointing because

you're taking him in the top 10. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I kind of, I guess I'm asking, like, who's the worst player you think he could be where everyone would be satisfied? That's an interesting question. Jonathan Taylor before he had his resurgence last year. Like how Colts fans feels about Jonathan Taylor entering last year. Sure.

Sure. Yeah. That makes. No one's like upset with him. Yeah, yeah. But everyone had kind of forgotten about him. Like he, I think Jeremiah Love probably needs to be considered a top five

running back in the NFL for many years in the, in the, of his. Yeah. If you take a guy top to absolutely. Like Leonard Furnet was a was not a good pick. Zeke Elliott was probably not the right pick for the Cowboys but at least they got a lot of out of Zeke Elliott. He was awesome for a long time. Yeah, they took him over Jalen Ramsey,

which is probably a mistake, but. I mean, I think Jeremiah Love in particular, this is turning into an interesting discussion actually because of how disappointing Craig is, disappointed Craig is. Melvin is going to tell you a lot. Melvin is going to go fifth to the Giants maybe? I don't want Melvin Gordon. If you're like, yeah, on average, he's Melvin Gordon.

I'm like, that's horrible. I know, but I'm telling you, if you look at the hype that these guys had coming out of college, Do you remember what it was like when these guys were coming out of college? Like if you go go look at Travis Eton's college staff. I think Leonard Ford. He scored 78 touchdowns in college. Yeah, but ETN,

ETN. I'm not saying, I'm not saying love is, ETN is definitely not getting, or he didn't get as much hype as well. He was the 25th pick. I think Leonard Fournette's a good comp because Leonard Furnet was a crazy high school recruit.

He was supposed to be like Bo Jackson. Yeah. Yeah, I was very wrong about Fortinette. I thought he was going to be fucking amazing in the NFL. And I think Four Nets is a good example of like how recently running back drafted really high. and then was fine. I think Jeremiah Love, I mean, at some point I want to go to Jeremiah

love's background a little bit. I'm not worried about this man. All this man cares about his football and anime. I agree. He doesn't have much else going on. He's very focused individual. I think he's going to be awesome. To be clear, I'm not saying he's going to turn into Melvin Gord. Unlike this way I like him. D.K. says Jeremiah loves Melvin's Christ. I thought this, I thought the whole out, I thought the whole exercise was like, this is the top tier elite way he could be. There's only a handful of guys he could be. This is why we didn't do the whole episode is mid-range. We need the spectrum of the...

Exactly. Okay. Should we move on to his teammate here? Judarian Price, the other running back on Notre Dame, who D.K. is your second best running back in this draft. This is Jeremiah loves teammate. What's the elevator pitch on him?

He is just a smooth-moving, explosive early downback who is going to get you yards. He's really instinctive in terms of finding the lane and hitting the gas and getting downfield. I don't think in relative and in other draft classes, he'd probably be like my RV8 or something like that.

And that just gives you an idea of kind of what this class is like. But I do think he's interesting. I think he could end up being in a committee and being productive. I don't know if he's a three-down guy. He's not super involved in the passing game. But he is explosive, has good vision, and can get through the line and go. High fits, what are your high-in and low-coms for him?

my high-end comp for Judarian Price is actually Tony Pollard in Dallas when we were like, is this the best guy in the NFL? Sure. And he's like, probably not playing enough. And we're like, oh, should he play play all the time? And my low-end comp for Judarian Price is Miles Sanders in Carolina. Where you're like, this guy shouldn't be here. Miles Sanders is my low-en comp for reason.

Miles Sanders was mocked by Sequin Barclay at Penn State. Miles Sanders was a good prospect. And then Saquan was like the best prospect in a decade who came up at Penn State and just with Sequin at Penn State, Miles Sanders is there. And the guess where Miles Sanders ended up? Philadelphia and had like a meager 1,300 yards. And then guess who went to Philadelphia and had 2000 and at Super Bowl MVP?

Fucking Sequin. Or I guess he didn't win Super Bowl MVP. But like Sequin just mogged Miles Sanders' whole career. And I think that could be Judarian Price. However, I think the perception of Judarian Price is he's a two down back, a good two down back, a good two down back, stuck behind a great three down back. And Jeremy I love. I don't know, man.

It's like, I get it. Jeterian Price only had 15 catches in all of college. 15 catches in four years. I kind of think Janarian Price can catch and maybe as like a three-down skill set. And he just happened to be playing with like a Reggie Bush light-esque player. So why would you throw out a price and also the Penn State quarterback sucked? But I think if Janarian Price can catch, D.K., I don't know. If he turned out to be, if I told you I've come from the future,

Gendarine Price is an above average receiver as a running back. How would that change your perception of him? I mean, that definitely helps a lot. Yeah. And like you said, he had 15 catches in college. It's kind of hard to evaluate. Yeah. But there's definitely been guys in the past.

I mean, Kenneth Walker is a good example. Like he didn't catch hardly any passes in college. And he's been a good receiver in the NFL. But I think it's just a lack of experience, a lack of proof, I guess, that we've seen that. If he does end up being a pretty good pass catching back, then that's certainly going to raise his value. Because right now, I just view him more as like a early down, you know, create some explosive plays. Zach Charbonnet is the guy who comes to mind for me. He's like a downhill guy.

Get on your horse and fucking go. He does that a lot. But the interesting is Charbonnet is the kick return stuff. She was Gerardian Price was the best kick returner last year in college football. He had the highest average yards per kick return. He returned two touchdowns in like 12 tries. I think he had three touchdowns in his career. So like one out of every six or seven, fuck I did it again.

Uh-huh. Six-seven. But one out of every seven kick returns, Judarian Price returned for a touchdown. Yeah. But like, Zach Charbonnet's not doing that. And so I wonder, I'm like, okay. So if he has the, he also knows how to play running back. Like, I think he has vision.

and feel and the explosiveness. I don't know. He does have that spatial awareness, and that's why he's good in the open field. Once he gets through the line, he can kind of like weave and just navigate his way through traffic in a way that's really fun to watch. And I think that's what shows up when he's a kick returner, too.

So I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, he kind of reminds me of a little bit. Remember Marion Barber, who unfortunately has passed away, but Marian Barber was a guy who like, I feel like was really solid as a first and second down guy. They're very similarly sized. I think they ran like the exact same 40 time. And Mary and Barbara didn't catch passes in college at all.

And then actually got to the NFL and had like four seasons with 40 catches a year. And was just like a very dependable first and second round guy or first and second down guy. It's not a bad comp. Mary and Barbara ran really hard. Yeah. So that's not a bad comp. Yeah. So it's hard to know if guys are good receivers all the time coming into college.

So we'll see. So where do you think he's going to go, D.K.? Like Marion Barber was a fourth round pick. Where do you think Judarian Price is going to go? Probably late second, early third, would be my guess. Dick, do you want, would you, if Judarian Price is there and the Seahawks have the last pick of the second round, 64th overall, would you want the Seahoeuvre? That's a hat on a hat, though, right?

If you're comparing him to Charbonnet, you don't want too Charbonnet. Well, Charbonnet is coming off a torn ACL in the playoffs, so I don't think he's going to play until after Thanksgiving, and he's a free agent. So, I mean, in theory, at that sharpness. Yeah, at that spot, I'd be fine with that. Yeah. There's people talking about them taking him in the first, which I'm not very excited about. but the first I'm not going to put it past John Schneider because he's taken running backs in the past in the first round no one's taking Judarian price in the first actually unless John Snyder because other than John Schneider if you take a backup running back in college as the second running back in the first round and he sucks then you're going to get fired for that but I think I think he's good but I think the Seahawks yeah I think he's good and then Minnesota is also a team that I think would be interesting for Judarian price so let's go to another guy that that

that D.K., I'm wondering if you would, you would want the Seahawks to draft to pair next to Sack Charbonnet. Jonah Coleman out of Washington. Yeah. D.K., give me your rundown on this little bowling ball of a man. The rolling ball of butcher knives. He is a squat, low to the ground,

runs with a really low center of balance or whatever he'd call it. Center of gravity. Center of gravity. And he is just, he's really quick feet, a good pass catcher never fumbles never drops the ball good and pass bro he's just he's one of those running backs that kind of just does a little bit of everything well but nothing at an elite level he is slow that's the big problem with him if he was if he was like two tens of a second faster as a runner he probably would be like a second round pick leave alone he's big bone yeah he's he's a thick

boy he's he's you know five what is what is he lists at 58 220 or something like that that's Um, so he is, he's built low the ground. I kind of compare him to like a thick Bucky Irving or a thick Kairn Williams. Karen Williams, I think is actually an interesting conference because I remember when Kairn was coming out, everyone was excited about his skill set. He's really good at everything. He has good vision.

He can make guys miss. He can catch the football. He's good and pass pro. He plays really hard. He's a team captain, all this stuff, you know, you hear about him. And this is like what exactly what you're hearing about Jonah Coleman. Only problem is he's slow and that was exactly what made Karon Williams fall to the fifth round.

So it's how Puka fell to the fifth round, among other things. Yeah. High Fitz, what are your comps for him? Do you agree with that? I think Thick Carin Williams is perfect. And I think like thick Chiron Williams is perfect because my low-in-comp is like a Royce Freeman, where it's like I think Jonah Coleman's a three-down back and the question is will he play or not.

Sometimes you're three-down back, but you're not good enough than any down to get any down-work at all. And sometimes you're three-down work, you're three-down back and you're good and you get the field. I think Jonah Coleman is the exact kind of running back that falls in the draft because he isn't a special athlete and then plays a lot for like nine years because coaches love him. Because Jonah Coleman does, the simplest thing is coaches do not have to limit what plays are called or personnel's on the field that Jonah Coleman's there and they can trust him to do everything

all the coaches care about, which is he can run a gap skiing inside on short down distance. He can run an outside zone and probably get away with it at the NFL level. He can block. He's a good blocker. He cares and he knows assignments and he can catch. He can run around and he can catch. He's like no drops, no fun. fumbles, he's a captain.

It's all the little reasons. And then suddenly you look up and you're like, why is Kiron Williams playing 94% of the snaps for Sean McVe? Well, Sean McVey thinks everyone else is going to fuck it up or get Matt Stafford killed and have Matt Stafford's career ended because he got, Matt Stafford had a, one of his spinal discs got rearranged because Blake Corum didn't know his assignment. Like, you have to, the coaches have to trust that you can do your job. And Jonah Coleman's the kind of guy that he's competent everywhere and just those guys play a lot.

Yeah. I think somebody, I, uh, he had a quote go viral at the combine. Jonah Coleman did about pass pro. And he was basically talking about how quarterbacks make 50 million. I'm going to make like what, two million. You do the math. And he said, if you give up one sack of game, you're going to work at Amazon. Uh, I think this was attributed to him.

I'm not 100. I don't, I don't know the Amazon part, but he did say that the other part. You're not going to, sorry, you're not going to play if you can't pass pro. It's simple. I'm paying 100 million. If you're paying 100 million to a quarterback, you're getting paid two million. who's more important. So yeah, I think it's, he's one of those guys where there is a path to the field

because he does the little things well. But and again, this is, he might go on the fourth round. He might go on the fifth round because he doesn't have that explosive speed. He's not going to create explosives for your offense, probably. By the way, he's really good in the screen game as well. There's so many, there's so many similarities to Cairo Williams, I feel like him. And then my mid-range comp would be so like Blake Corum, who had very similar skill set, but then got stuck behind someone.

Kyron Williams. Kiron Williams. So the Rams will probably draft this guy. Guess what coach is loving? And then he'll be third on the depth chart. But yeah. Scott Barron had this post and that's fantasy points. And fantasy points is phenomenal.

And it's the percentiles. You're cheating a little because it's in the draft class, not the overall college. But in the draft class, Jonah Coleman's like 97th percentile and miss tackles force per touch. And this is like his best season. 99th percentile in yards after contact per attempt. So again, makes guys miss, gets yards after he makes. guys miss. He's 92nd percentile in yards after the catch per reception. So he makes guys, he's able to get yards after he catches. And he's also 93 percentile on receiving yards per

route run. So he's efficient. And he just go down the line. And it's just, he makes people miss. And he can make people miss in the hole. Like it's not, if you don't have the speed, he can make people miss with power like and still hit the hole, which I think is how like Bucking Irving gets missed is like he can make people, he has the wiggle inside, which is important. Yeah. I wonder if, um, the chiefs bringing in Kenneth Walker, who's obviously a guy that like, you maybe don't want to give 22 carries a game to and you want him to be well-rested and explosive and healthy. I wonder if the chiefs would be a guy to go get like a guy like this in the fourth round to pair with him. That's a, I like the chiefs because if we call,

we always call, we always call call a home run hitter and I think Jonah Coleman's like a, like, he's like a singles guy ironically. And if he's trusted to, you know, protect like a rookie that you can actually trust protecting Mahomes. Yeah. The other ones did we, we called him like the thinking man scataboo, right? I think for Jonah Coleman. The Titans, the Titans, the fourth, they have a very high pick in the fourth round. Brian Dable just drafted Camp Scadababoo. And the Titans is a fourth rounder. I mean, Tadjee Spears and Tony Pollard are free agents after the season. Titans, if they don't take Jeremiah love in the first round, I think Jonah Coleman makes a lot of sense for Tennessee. Do you think Daibol saw our clip on Instagram?

Maybe. You never know, Craig. I would love to know who's the most important person in the NFL who has seen one of our dumb Instagram clips. I would love to know that. And then made a decision based on that. If you work at Instagram and can somehow tell us that information, let us know. These guys might be on to something. I wouldn't know if Roger Goodell has seen us doing Coachella Band or Pokemon. Roger Goodell is scrolling. He's like, huh, there's a Candy Hall of Fame.

That's crazy. Interesting. How did the chicken choke on a kernel? How did it eat? It didn't have a head. So the next guy here in this tier, so basically, Jeremiah I Love is in a tier of his own. The next three guys, we have tier two is Judarian Price, also had another name. Jonah Coleman, who we just talked about.

And the final guy in this tier, before it kind of drops off again, is Mike Washington, Jr. out of Arkansas. DK., tell me a bit about this man. Explosive, explosive speed is the deal. He is a home run hitter. He's one of these guys where on toss plays, outside zone, things that get him out in space, and then he hits, you know, he sticks his foot in the ground, gets downhill, and then hits a home run.

He's running away from dudes. He ran a 4-3 of the combine. So he's really exciting. he's the polar opposite of Coleman stylistically because he's not, I don't think, a very good tackle breaker. There's a lot of plays on tape where he just gets tackled by his ankle. It's kind of frustrating because he's like this close to hitting a big play and then he just gets brought down for whatever reason. But he can hit those home runs. He's very, very explosive as an athlete 434, like I said. And he jumped really high too. So he's got that, you know, twitch to him. But

I don't think he's a complete prospect. He's more of a one-trick pony where he's just got a lot of speed and he's going to create big plays for you. And then the other stuff, I think he's a work of progress. He's terrible in pass pro. So I don't know. He's one of those like, I'll get in the way, but that's about all I'm going to do. Sure. So I'll throw my body at it.

Yeah, pretty much. The guy that came to mind as a low end comp, like you, we see a lot of fast guys. People get excited about these fast running backs as you're going into the NFL speed score. Mike Washington, by the way, the speed score is basically speed divided by weight. I don't know exactly what goes into it. That's, but. It's that more or less. It's physics.

It's like it's harder to move 220 pounds than 180. Correct. He has the top score of all time. Bill Barnwell, yes. And so Mike Washington, it gives you an idea. I think he's listed at 230 pounds or something like that ran at 4.3. So he has the number one speed score, I think, of any running back in Combine data. But like I said, there's kind of some limitations there.

He's a little stiff. Tackle breaking isn't quite there. His work in the passing game is still a question mark, I think. So yeah, he is the guy that kind of came to my mind as a low-end cop, a guy that everyone gets excited about, and then you forget about him. After a year is Isaac Garando, who ended up with the 49ers. So I was going to say, this archetype does feel very Shanahanian, like one cut runner zone scheme, like sees the gap, can hit it and get up field. You're like, wow, this guy's huge. This guy's fast, and then he doesn't play.

This is, it's such an interesting thing, too, because it is scheme will matter and finding the right blocking scheme for these guys. definitely matters and a coach that believes you know all this stuff there's a lot of variables that go into running backs but speed is not always the most important thing sometimes you just have to be elusive you have to be able to set up your blocks see a see one block ahead and then scoot away from it some guys like the ankle thing is the ankle tackle thing that annoys me some guys have really good feet where they get their feet up you know you see guys kind of start to high step a little bit to avoid those and just have a natural feel for when to do that and how to avoid those tackles is a real thing. So yeah, I mean, and the other knock against him, and not that I don't like him, but I've seen people talking about him as in second rounder and I think they're enamored with the speed. He's a fifth year senior who really didn't do a whole lot until this last year with Arkansas. So he schools too. Three, three seasons at Buffalo, one at New Mexico State and then one at Arkansas. And this is how often does that kind of profile end up being a star in the NFL, not that often? But it's not impossible. I mean, you.

There's certainly some really impressive parts about him. The high-end comp I had in mind is a guy like DeMarco Murray. Upright, upright kind of stiff runner, but explosive and gets downhill in an instant. He kind of took a minute to get going, but he was awesome for a couple of years. Yeah. I think, yeah, DeMarco Murray had a level of power that I think we kind of wish Mike Washington had. I think that the problem is I love smaller players that play big. DeAngelo Ponds for Indiana, Indiana, the pro today.

And we refused to talk about for Niddem and doesn't play a catch. but DeAngelo Pons rated a 4-3, and I love guys who are small, play big. Mike Washington doesn't really break as many tackles, you think, for a guy who's so big, he's 6-1, 2-20, he's not breaking a lot of tackles, like DeMarco,

but I think the size-wise and the speed, you're right, T-K, the guy, it's funny you mentioned Isaac Rendo, the guy that I thought the highest end of, like, if Mike Washington is, like, the steel of this draft, the best version of his career, I'm like, he reminds me a lot of Rahim Mostert

on the Niners before the leg injury, which he had a multiple. But, like, remember when Rahim Moster had four touchdowns and 200 yards against the Packers in the NFC championship game. That's a good one. Yeah. That's the,

like he's like a bigger Rehimooster Mike Washington is. And I could see him having the size to eventually be a goal lineback, but he doesn't know how to play in that kind of zone scheme right now for Shanahan or any of the Shanahan diaspora. But Rehomoster didn't either.

Like those guys have journeys and you have to learn how to do it. So I could see Mike Washington having that kind of like career later. But I think it might be a minute. But the talent is crazy. But I agree with DK. He didn't really own it back.

He didn't really control. control of backfield at any of the three schools he went to, which is kind of a red flag. You see him, DK has like an early day three, late day two? Where do you see him? Probably late day two. If any team took him in the third round, I'm fine with that. I think that's great. I just get a little bit nervous when you're talking about second round.

I guess that's splitting hairs a little bit, but I don't see him quite on that level. I think the speed is real, though. And you see it on the field. He has breakaway speed. Yeah. And it's something that every team wants. but I just think there's, you know, you're going to have to deal with some of the other things

that doesn't do quite as well if you take him there. I could see him succeeding a lot on his next team. The second team, the second contract. The second contract guy, like the second contract guy, like we all given up on him, and then he goes somewhere else and he's incredible. So let's go to Tier 3 then. So these are guys even a little bit of a step below.

I'm assuming, D.K., you're going to say these are all day three guys. We'll start with Emmett Johnson out of Nebraska. Yeah. DK. Why? I mean, if I'm watching the draft on day three, first of all, kudos to me. Kudos to anyone out there. Well done, sir. We're spending their weekend watching fifth rounders go.

So like a Craig who hasn't had a losing record in a long time. Whatever. Day three, you're going to watch day three? They're still going to pick the players. You know what I mean? That's all you got. You can't check in later after a picture made. You can still read about them the next day.

Giants taking Cam Scadaboo was. one of the best moments of the giant season. Well, I'm happy for you. Okay, Emmett Johnson, Nebraska, D.K., if it's, is there any chance that whoever, whatever fan-based drafts this guy, why should they be excited like Hyvitz was when they took Cam Scadaboo? I think he is an exciting player, actually. He could go late day two.

He could go on the third round. I wouldn't be surprised to see that. I think he is really good in the passing game, which is going to be one of his calling cards in the pros. He's not particularly powerful as a runner, and he doesn't make a ton of guys miss in terms of broken tackles. But he is really shifty and he can create big plays in the passing game. He had a ton of production in the passing game.

Good hands. The guy that I keep thinking of with him is Kenneth Gainwell because it wouldn't be surprising if in a couple of years, he's better than 50 shades of gray. I'm like doing the Leo, bite your knuckle. I know. Seriously. But it took a while for Gainwell to turn into what you now know him as. I remember when he was coming out, though, people were very excited about him.

He was so awesome in the passing game, you know, elusive, makes guys miss him. a phone booth and that's exactly what I see with Emma Johnson. So he's the type of guy who he'll get the ball. You'll have a guy that has him dead to right, squares him up and he just runs around. He just jukes around him. He's so quick and so elusive in that way. But he doesn't have the, I don't think he has quite an explosive breakaway speed to like a true high end speed. He's more of a shifty, quick guy than a really fast guy, which is probably honestly fine in the NFL for most players.

What are you going to say, Hyvitz? Well, he could be like a Kenneth Gainwell or, I don't know. It's hard to compare anyone to James White, where they're really, really, really good at one skill. But again, Emmett Johnson does a really, really, really good receiving ability. His downfield, I think he's like, he could be a great third down back kind of guy. But I think he's probably a better runner than those guys inside.

I think he's better at, like, what if those guys were actually better runners between the tackles? Can I list you, can I give you a random list of things I really like about Emmett Johnson? Yeah. First, where's number 21? That's the best number for running backs. Sure. I agree with that. Okay.

21, I will always like a running back that wears number 21. It means a lot to me. A classic running back. L.T. Right. Ladian Thomason, Tiki Barber did it. Number two. It looks the fastest.

It does look like when the Jersey, 21 is running. I'm like, that guy's got moves. He's fast. The receivers who wear number one are great. Running back to do it, they don't work out. To be honest. No. Like Travis, the artist formerly known as Travis E.D.

I will say, the other thing about Eminch Johnson, I love. And I realized doing the, draft work this year, what my favorite running back touchdowns celebration is. Okay. No matter how far a defender is from Emmett Johnson, when he crosses the goal line, he tucks the ball with two hands. Oh, we love that. I love it.

Oh, that's, coach's dream right there. I had no idea how much I loved it until I saw it. It doesn't matter how far the guys. That ups him like a whole point in my book. He's just ball security. He's a good, yeah, JJ Zachary mentioned he's like gets one point one three adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt, blah, blah, blah. The guy can catch.

Like he's downfield. he's making actual receiver ability. But the other one was I saw this was in high school. So Emmett Johnson, his senior of high school, I first heard this from Connor Rogers, who did great stuff with Trevor Sigma on their draft stock exchange pod, but then I looked it up because I couldn't believe it.

So senior year, Emmett Johnson had 2,500 rushing yards and 42 touchdowns, which is like a Derek Henry S. dat line. But he also had 85 tackles his senior year high school. Like he had 85 tackles and he had 42 touchdowns. What was he a safety or corner? I didn't even, I meant to watch it. I didn't, I didn't pull up the tape, but I just kind of was blown away. I like this guy.

Seems like this guy's a nice little pick here in the middle rounds. I think so too. He's, he's a guy if you get him in the third or fourth round. I'm pretty happy about that too. So what type of team would he make the most sense on? Like a team that already has an early down guy and he can kind of be your third down special team. Ironically, I think the Vikings. He's from Minnesota.

But I think, I think Emmett Johnson, the Vikings are good because Aaron, Jones and Jordan Mason are free agents at the end of the season. And then they have like Xavier Scott, but even he's like a restricted tender guy after this year. Like the Vikings, is Aaron Jones really going to be the Vikings in 2027? Like Emmett Johnson. I'm surprised he's on the Vikings this year. I know. And I think a lot of these guys, I think the realistic way to look at them is even if they're good, it takes a year. Like you do have to kind of do a red shirt year. Sometimes you're like a Bucking Irving. Sometimes you're like a Kyle Munnung guy where as a like you can, as a rookie, you step in. But a lot of times when these guys make an impact, you kind of redshirt one season,

like Blake Horm did and then you step in. I think Emmett Johnson I could see replacing Aaron Jones and the Vikings in 2027. That would make a lot of sense to me. All right, let's close out then two guys, Penn State guys. We have Catron Allen and Nicholas Singleton. Wasn't Nick Singleton supposed to be a bigger deal or am I crazy?

Yeah, no, you're right. He was a five-star prospect, one of the top prospects in the country. He's the number one running back recruit in America in 2022. He's the Zachariah Branch. Yeah. Right. And he was good early too. He was really good early on.

I think the big thing with him and the worry with him. And the reason he's probably going to be a late day two, early day three or maybe even a little bit later than that type pick is he's falling on. He's gotten worse as he's gone along, unfortunately. And so there's just question marks like, why didn't he continue to develop? Why didn't he build on what he did early on in his career? Because his stats in early in his career were huge. But I don't know, he's one of those guys where you can see the explosiveness. You can see the burst. You can see the top end speed to run away from. people, but his tempo on runs, his vision on runs, and just his overall feel, I think is just a

little off. There's just something missing there. And he's a good receiver. So he's, he's one of those guys where, again, as long as you're realistic about where are you going to take him, I'd be pretty excited if my team picked him because he, I do think has those, the speed and agility and pass catching chops that you're looking for in a mid round pick. But if you take him earlier than that, I think you're asking yourself a lot of questions. Like, why did he fall off as he went along in his career? So watching Nick Singleton run, and again, he was crazy hype, like number one running back recruit in America and he two hours away went to Penn State.

And I'm watching Nick Singleton at Penn State. I was reminded that you guys don't play video games really anymore, but in college football, the new video game, the way Madden and college football video games, is there's a sprint button. Like when we were kids, you actually just moved the joystick and you went full speed. But now there's a sprint button. And the way the video game works is if you get a handoff and you're the running back, you have to wait to get to the hole with the joy.

Like you have to move the joystick there. Then you hit the sprint button and you go. If you get the ball and you instantly hit the sprint button, the game basically won't let you get a good play. Like you really won't have a big explosive play if you hit the sprint button immediately. That's all Nick Singleton does. I was on mean as part yesterday and Nate Tice said the exact same thing. I think he used the exact same example.

It's just like hitting that. the power button or whatever. When I'm watching him and no, I'm watching the All-22, there's no sound, there's no like announcer, there's no crowd. I just kept thinking he runs to the tempo and beat of final countdown.

Like, the triplets, like the way he's running, I don't know why, but he's just like, he's just a hoss. He just goes, he's galloping? Yeah, he's like gallops. There's no trot, though. There's no There's no, like, I'm setting it up. There's no rhythm.

There's no tempo. It's like, it's not zero to 60. It's zero or 60. Yeah, like think about Sequin, the way he runs where he presses the line, finds. He's like a tone deaf runner. Yes. It's me singing. Except the, but it's like if I could sing.

The opposite of jazz. Yeah, I guess if I was really good at one note, yeah. But anyway, he, but I do think there, there's something there, obviously. He has an immense physical talent. And, but you just have to be kind of. of realistic about what that could be in the next level. And so the other guy, Catron Allen, is it Catron or Catron? It's actually Fat Man, believe it or not.

He literally goes by Fat Man. He goes by Fat Man. His mom called him Fat Man when he was a kid and he loves it. And his Twitter handle, I think is Fat Man. He goes by Fat Man. All right, all his friends call him Fat Man. All right. Well, Fat Man ate Nick Singleton's job at the second half of their stint in Penn State, right?

Your milkshake. Yeah, literally. Or milkshake. Because they were, they basically were both at Penn State for four. four years. And the first two years, Singleton was a starter. And then the second two years, basically, Allen started to take over, right? So tell me about Allen. Also, just for context, because it's crazy, Singleton has the most touchdowns in the history of Penn State, but Ketron Allen has the most yards in the history of Penn State. But like that's, is that a good

thing or a bad thing? Like, that just means you were there for four years. I don't know. Yeah. It's like, Seekwon doesn't have it. Why? Because he left to go to the NFL. But isn't it a bad sign that Nicholas Singleton was the number one running back recruit in America and then his teammates, the all-time leading Russia at Penn State? Yes. I would say yes. Hold on. I'm hearing.

Yeah, yes. I'll have to talk to my sources, but I believe that that is bad. Yes. Crazy. Honestly, it's a crazy thing. I would say if you're defending both of these guys stylistically, they're very different. Ketron Allen is very, he's the David Montgomery to the Jumeer Gibbs. If Singleton is the explosive pass catching guy.

Alan is more of a segment. He tempos his runs. He's patient. He waits for his blocks to set up. He juke's laterally. Singleton is like, I'm getting downhill immediately. You know what I mean? And so Alan is much more, I think, elusive in the short area and able to set his blocks

up and able to make guys at the second level miss. He just has a natural feel for running. But he's, I sort of got, it looks like he's running with one of those parachute things that you drag when you're training because he gets. gets caught from behind more than any running back I've ever seen. I swear God, it's crazy. I'm exaggerating, but he does, he just doesn't have the runaway speed. And that's keeping his stuff down.

He ran a 4-6-5. 4-6-5-40. He's just not very bad. That is quite slow, actually. But it's funny you say David Montgomery, I had the same thing. David Montgomery ran like a 4-6-5. Yeah. And I think that's the thing with K.

I love Montgomery. I think they have a lot of similarities. Montgomery's probably was a better in between the tackles running. He was probably better coming out of college than Ketron-Tron Allen was. but I think they have a lot in common. I like Ketron Allen a lot. I do too, yeah. The high end for Ketron Allen as a comp,

like the highest-end version of him, is David Montgomery and the Lions, where you're like, oh my God, this is a leader. This is like the tone setter for your team where he's not the most physically gifted guy, but he's never giving up yards easy. He never goes down easy.

He is like, again, making guys miss in the hole, even if he doesn't have the top in speed. I think the more realistic one is Ketron Allen will probably end up more like David Montgomery was on the Bears, where he was like a, he played. but he wasn't like as special as, you know,

obviously that David Montgomery tenure on the Lions completely changed the way we thought of him. Yeah. But I think that is, to take the video game analogy, it makes you feel better that Nate had the same thought. I think Nicholas Singleton learned to play football on the rookie mode in high school. It was so easy.

He never learned to play the game. And then Kachan Allen learned on hard mode. So now it's like the level goes up and he actually knows that to play, even if he's not as talented. And Singleton's kind of like, that's weird. I can't just run by everyone before.

What do I do now? Who's going to get drafted first, D.K., if you had to bet? That's a really good question. My instinct would say Singleton, because the NFL likes speed and the NFL is still enamored with the stars. Tantalize with it with the stars. He's the thirst trap. I can fix him.

A lot of teams still look at how many stars you had as a recruit coming in. And that I think right or wrong kind of affects the evaluation a little bit. I'm trying to think of a comp for him. of a guy who like, theoretically has it all on paper, but when you watch it, it's just not there, but you kept betting on him.

I'm trying to think of a running back comp like that. It's funny, because in theory, you could argue that Singleton should go first because it is the team's job to coach him. And it's, as Mike Toma would say, like their job is to coach,

draft and develop players and they should teach him to play. The interesting thing, DK, is we should go back and look. How many guys do get drafted for, how many high-level recruits get drafted who haven't actually done that?

Not that he didn't do well in college. He's the most touchdowns that history. But I'm curious how many players like this pan out. I think a lot of, Ketron Allen, you mean? No, I'm talking like the teams draft Nicholas Singleton, the number one recruit at the position and anything higher.

And they're like, hey, coaching staff, you figure it out. But then they get there and the coaching staff are like, this guy doesn't know to play. We don't have time to teach him. But then the coaches don't get to always pick the players. They're like, we want the Kachan Allen. And so they're like, oh, we'll draft and develop this guy. But then short term, they're like,

we don't have time to develop anyone. We got to play people. Yeah, I think so I was just trying to think of Craig was trying to figure out an example of like a big time recruit. Remember the guy Bryce Brown? I want to say he was a big recruit. He was like the number one recruit. Anyway, that's where my brain was going. But I think the other thing that I think is an interesting comp and these are not, this is not a one-to-one comp because I think these guys are going to go quite a bit later than last.

year where we had Quintan Juckins and Trayvion and Henderson two teammates, two very different styles coming out of Ohio State. And Judkins went before, before what's his face? Travian. Yeah, Trayvion. And that was, I think, kind of a surprise to some people, because in some similar ways, I don't think Judkins had sort of the breakaway, runaway speed, and that speed is what is so sexy and attractive. I think about some of these guys, but at the end of the days it just depends on what a team wants and and i think alan is much more of a his his game i think definitely translates to the NFL even though he doesn't have the breakaway speed it's like it's like i've said with jonah coleman he's going to get you singles he's not going to probably get you many

home runs or any but that's it just depends on what you need in your offense yeah his like his last name should be singleton then you know what i mean ha ha that's good one craig wow weird um it's good point Okay. Well, this was enlightening. Thank you. I feel prepped now on the running back position. And my favorites are... Outside of Jeremiah Love, I like Emma Johnson, Jonah Coleman.

I think that's fair. They know how to play football. Talking this through, I'm selling myself more on Ketron Allen, too. DK, isn't this draft a lot of, like, they're big guys more than they are small guys? Like, it's not like really talented but small. It's a lot of big guys. And some are not great athletes, but they know how to play running back,

for lack of a better term. They either know how to run with feel or catch or whatever, but they're not great athletes or big, great athletes that aren't like great at the whole running back thing. Right. And it's kind of like those. Yeah. That's in particular in this class.

That's every class, by the way, because if you have both, you're going in the first round. Yeah, but my love can do it all. Which is, just right me, get me one of the big ones.

Speaking of big guys, should we talk, about this this coaches photo. I would love to. The annual coaches photo. How did you feel about your guy Mike McCarthy in this photo, Craig? Yeah, look. Here's what I don't love about that situation.

The photographer, whoever organized this, I don't love them throwing him next to Canales, who looks like he cold plunges every day at 5 a.m. Not fair. It did him dirty. Canales is like a model. Yes, literally looks like a model. And then also Liam Cohen is on the other side of McCarthy,

who's got like glasses in a tucked in t-shirt and looks cool. And McCarthy looks like he just left a rodeo. But, you know. What's the shirt here? What's the shirt? Why is he wearing that shirt? He's also missing a button on that shirt. So, and not the one you think.

The second one down. No, the third one down. Third one down. Didn't quite make it home. But also, yeah, so this is all 32 coaches except it's not. Because Todd Munk, the new, but Coach of the Browns is not in this photo because it was reported that he was literally

getting a haircut for this photo and missed it because he was getting a haircut. Oh. You can't, you can't write something like that. That's just the most Brown's shit of all time. He didn't even make it in the photo. Brown's coach was getting a haircut for the photo that he missed during the photo.

The oldest first time head coach in NFL history missed the photo because he's getting hair. That's the part that, and the worst part is this report, So MaryKitt Cabot at Cleveland.com had that they actually had the time right, which is embarrassing. I can't believe they gave all this information away. I would have threw my body in front of this. Just say he had something else to do. Yeah, he's like, I have a family situation.

Make it up. And so, but I don't think they could lie because I think he ended up telling everyone when he realized. So here's what happened. They took the, the reason he missed it is they took the photo early. And they took the photo early is because there was a coach meeting for all 32 head coaches. And they were supposed to do at the end of the meeting. Todd Monkin skipped the meeting to get the haircut and then the meeting ended early.

So on top of it, he skipped the coach meeting to get a haircut and then shows up and it's like Wednesday picture. They're like, we took it 20 minutes ago. The meeting got out early. What's the coach meeting for? What do they mean about? Coaching stuff?

I love that, that like the world of fashion and fashion trends doesn't travel to the NFL. No. They're too busy, Craig. All culture ends the moment you come to coach in the NFL. Not all you guys have seen new movies. tight polos and really tight khakis. Well, it's better than they used to be.

But there's no culture. I will say, though, were you guys surprised? If you had to pick a coach, there's 10 first time coaches or 10 coaches that, or 10 new ones hired, I guess they're all new coaches. Yeah. I would never have guessed this would be an older coach, like to get a haircut. Like the idea that Todd Munkin is like 60 something and he's so worried about his haircut. That threw me off.

That's right. Yeah. Old, like the idea that older, like, I expect a, like, if you told me Clint Kubiak, that like it leaked out later. That was the reason. Or like Dave's analysis. Like getting a fade right before, you know? Sure.

Matt Lafleur is like my little, my older brother's a guy and I'm the youngest person in this photo. I got to look good. I'm like, Todd Munkin's like the second oldest person here. Why the fuck does he give a shit how he looks? What is this photo for? Where does it go?

Posterity. But like where does it go officially? I don't. On the internet, Craig. It's a tradition. Well, what's confusing to me is why are we looking at the non-professional photo? like this is clearly an iPhone shot. You can go to, go to,

Schaefter has the professional one, I believe. Well, the one that went like quote unquote viral that everyone talking about is just like clearly somebody who just took it on their iPhone, but this isn't the professionally taken photo. Right. Where's that one? No, Schifter posted it, Craig.

It's a little more professional. Because the one we're looking at that people are commenting on is from an angle. Like, Seriani got screwed. Mary Kay Cabo. Sirianney got screwed by the angle because he looks probably 40 pounds heavier than he actually.

is. I don't know, Craig. I'm looking at the official one from Schaeffert. He's got the broadest shoulders. I did not know he had that in him. Yeah, he was... Siriani looks good in that. I didn't think he was so ripped. The other one person who missed is Sean McVeigh, which, do we know why McVeigh missed the photo? Oh, McVeigh's not there.

He's not in it. He probably just didn't go. Oh, Hyvitz, I'm not looking at this one. The one that everyone was commenting on is a different photo. It was the one slightly from the right. Yeah, yeah. Did you guys have any idea that Joe Brady was an absolute unit? He's so big. I did not realize he looks like he's someone did like one of those

Photoshop things where they just make him like 1.5x he looks like buddy the elf yeah he looks like it like he looks like buddy the elf his pants look too small like he's busting out of this thing why is he so much bigger than everyone I didn't realize he was that big he's fucking I saw him at the combine he didn't look that big he's gotta go back to the North Bowl what the fuck who else stands out to you because I to me it was Siriani Joe Brady being a huge guy and then and Vrable just frame-mogging everyone. I have to give credit.

So Shefter actually put in his post, he said C-C-Bicat, because Big Cat always does a breakdown of this photo. I have to give Big Cat credit because he said that Jeff Halfley, the coach of the Miami Dolphins, looks like a 1950s mental patient about to be lobotomized. I can see it. And I will never look at this man the same way ever again. I can honestly see it. There's something going on.

Before and after moment for me. Yeah. He's got like a real old school military haircut. I see him now in a gown. He's plotting. He's plotting something. Yeah. Also, Jesus Christ, why are they all looking into the sun?

Like, who took this? Every year, Craig. Why are they doing that? They do this every year. They're like all squinting. You could have figured this out. You know, you don't have to have the most staring at the sun. One guy has sunglasses on, Craig.

Liam Cohen. This Jim Harbaugh. And Harbaugh. Liam Cohen looks. Oh, no, no, I see. I didn't, I didn't notice Harbaugh. You're right. Wow, Harbaugh, which one's the older one?

Jim or John. John is older. By like two years, right? It looks like about 15 in this picture. I'm sorry. I like to know who are the loafer guys. I always find that to be interesting. Who is like the Allbirds Athleteier type?

John's shoes are. Vrable would not have guessed loafer for Vrable. He's got like suede loafers. John Harbaugh would not have guessed loafer. You know what I mean? Yeah. surprising to me like to me canales would it gets lower can't see his feet to to our everlasting regret we can't see Shane Stike and I see why he wears a hat all the time yeah

Joe Brady is huge Joe Brady's yeah he's he does look like buddy the elf in the North Pole he's so big oh my god I had no idea who's that big he's big he's big so they're all wearing just like light blue every single one of them. No, but everyone looks like they're going to play golf. We got to go to this thing next time. Except for Andy Reid, who always wears a Hawaiian shirt. I love that.

Yeah, I know. The other thing I want to talk about from owners meeting, there's a few things. So, one, Kyle Shannon's just absolutely pissed about the Australian game. I would be too. He went on, his explanation was great. He went on Mike Florio and Chris Sims at Pro Football Talk. Chris Sims and Kyle Shannon are like best friends. They actually have matching tattoos of each other's initially. And they played college football all together?

Yeah, Texas. And they were, and so Shanhan goes in Chris, and he's pretty, it's about the loosest you'll see Shanahan because it's like literally his best friend. And he basically was like, don't get, they asked them about the Australia game because the Niners Rams will be the, the second, no, the kickoff game.

Or no, it's Wednesday night. The second game. The Seahawks are going to play Wednesday night now because the, the Australian game will be Thursday. So the, Shanhan is like, basically is like, don't get me started. And then they're like, start.

And he's like, okay, this is bullshund. shit, Sean McVeigh did this. The Rams requested. The Rams were like, we'll play on Australia. The NFL's like, great. We've been begging for someone to go halfway around the world. It's super good. Sean McMade. And they're like, we'll do whatever you want for the Rams to go. What do you want? And we'll play the Niners. And the Rams wanted the Niners because LA probably has more Niners fans than Rams fan. And when the Niners fans come, the Niners fans take over the whole LA stadium. And the Rams have to go silent count in their home stadium. Like the Chargers. And so the Rams are like, we can't have a divisional.

making us go silent count in home to lose it of like one of my best friends. So the Rams are going halfway around the world to Australia to avoid this, which is what Drake did during Kendrick Lamar's halftime show. Right. So really smart by McVeigh.

Also, but why the hell does McVe have say over who they play? Well, it's not McVeigh, the owner, this is where owners get involved. They're like, yeah, I'll go to Australia. I think the Rams, I don't think McVeigh did. I think McVeigh is like on board. I think it's the decision they're all.

Like McVe just picked it. I think McVe flagged that like that's who we want to play and everything, but the Rams probably wanted to do it. McVeigham, that game should not be home. I get it. Do teams get, I'm assuming they get more money for doing this? Okay, so the answer is a little weird, but I guess the Monroe Doctrine's back. So it's actually like spheres of influence, like that little cartoon of like everyone

carving up the world. The NFL gets, they kind of drafted countries that they get marketing rights in. So in America, the Cowboys like to have this giant radius that they can market. So believe it or not, like the Baltimore Ravens, can't advertise really in Dallas. It's like that's their sphere. Like they get domain over that area and they all of their areas.

They just copied that over to countries in the world. So like the chiefs are like, we get Germany. And they're like the chiefs, Taylor Swift, you're popular. There's a ton of Americans in Germany for military bases. So the chiefs just have Germany. The dolphins get Spain because they are like imperialism all over again. Yeah, they're like we have a Spanish language broadcast infrastructure.

Cowboys have Mexico. So they kind of just all drafted countries they want. And so I'll double check, but I think there's Rams of Australia. And but like that is the actual answer is they all have. And that's where you get to build your international fan base. But then like, do the Niners get a bonus for going and participating? Why would they do that? I think they have to, I think.

It's, I don't know the exact, I do not know the exact way the money changes hands. But it's a mix between ownership because the owners aren't, I don't know if it's a direct payment. As much as the owners are like, do you? you want millions of fans in Australia for the San Francisco 49ers. Like that's the money. It's about growing a customer. Like in NFL buildings,

fans are called customers. I hate to break it to everybody. But like they call, you're called the customers. It's like when the McDonald's CEO kept calling that burger as a product. Yes. Yes.

I'm really excited about this new product. And we're like, ah. And it's like, what do you think they call? Yeah. This new product has crispy onions. Yum. Jesus. Oh.

That guy's never hit a burger before. That guy's probably following Brian Johnson, the McDonald's CEO. I don't know, but they're probably not getting enough. Also, while we're talking about Muvay real quick, D-K, McVeigh, literally submitted to the competition committee a rule to clarify the two-point conversion in Zach Charbonnet. And then as he's explaining it, it was like, I think this is too complicated. It was like, never mind. And he's like, but I think most reasonable fans would agree that that play, it shouldn't have

gone down that way. I mean, that's right. Nope. It only confirmed my belief the Rams season hinged on that moment. The Rams were never mentally the same after that. It sounds like an awful lot of complaining. A awful lot of complaining and bitching and moaning from fellow NFC West coaches this week. So I agree.

I love to see that. The other other thing I want to ask you guys, so the NFL passed a rule or they're going to pass a rule at this point for to correct calls on the field. I'm not going to go to the whole rule. But basically it's ref, judge God, from where New York or wherever can just change a call. And I know we've kind of been doing that, but they could change a flag that had been on the field.

They couldn't throw a flag. Now they're like, you know what? The centralized league office in New York can throw a flag on the field. They can change anything in case. And they did it in case there's replacement referees this year. And I wanted to ask you guys, am I crazy? Maybe this is why I'm not a billionaire for many other reasons. But like I think it's an insane risk with all the gambling stuff,

with these TV deals, the NFL's negotiating, which they get to negotiate with Paramount now. And they're like, they're going to risk replacement refs. But the NFL's posturing like they will. Do you think there's a, DK, do you think the NFL would actually do replacement refs this year? Because they're acting like they will. No.

This is a leverage play, right? I don't think so. I mean, it's insane. They're not going to do replacing reps. I hope. Were you guys surprised to learn that refs make 375K? They got a raise. Yes and no.

It's because it's weird because they're part time, but a lot of them are lawyers. Yeah. I think they actually kind of needed I think the rest now with the gambling are making not enough that's actually a problem I think it's like

because they can be influenced yeah I kind of think it's not the worst thing in the world that the rest make enough money that like yeah I don't think the rest should be in financial trouble they need to be kept in just like solitary they need to be like a jury

during the season sequestered in a room for eight months I think the weird part is people learning the refs are lawyers of jobs like Ed Hockily has a whole law practice Like all these guys have law practices and Land Clark is a land clerk in Phoenix Arizona

or in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Just whole jobs. And they're like, all right, what do you do this weekend, land? He's like, I'm clerking. I'm going to tell Joe Burrow where to shove it. While we're doing rule changes, I wanted to revisit.

We did in December. We did a power hour of rules we wanted to change. We kind of nailed it. Yeah, did we? I wanted to revisit a few. D.K., you said that holding should be five yards. And then after a few, it's like NBA or basketball.

Oh, the bonus gets into the 10-yard penalty range. Right. It's pretty great. But the other one, and I think this is an all-time thing, and I think we need to claim this, and we need to make this possible and maybe over long enough time, it will happen. Craig said that kickers should come out of the tunnel

like closers in baseball. Yep. Oh, I love that. I think that's the best idea I've ever heard. Fire. Chris Boswell starts coming out. ACDC's playing. It's like, Darn, Dan, nah.

Chris Boswell's coming out. The lights are going flickering on and off. That would be amazing. How cool would that be? We could just call them closers now. Did they should. Did you see Mason Miller, the Padre's Closer coming out to Corn? Sure did.

I have Edwin Diaz and Mason Miller in our new fantasy baseball league. So I'm capped into the Southern California closer situation. Edwin Diaz coming in as the Dodgers closer and the first one, they had a live trumpet for, because this is the most famous. I thought that was, that was, I was like baseball is so back. I wanted to ask about that because I thought that was sick as well. Did the Mets? Was it not ever a lot? Was that the first time a live trumpeteer was playing?

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they did it every time for the Mets. I don't know. I didn't know if that was new or not because I was like, wow. LA is crushing it. That's cool. But he's always had a trumpet.

Edwin Diaz's. I knew that. I just didn't know if it was ever a live person playing it, which was awesome. I thought Yon-Daron, the Phillies closer last year. I thought. Yeah, they had a real trumpet. They did. According to the AI overview.

Oh, okay. The Gemini. The trumpet was incredible. But the twins closer, Duran had this incredible thing. I forget his name. It's like they call it like fire spider basically is the theme. And they made this like visual that went around the whole stadium. Then got traded the Phillies and the twins actually thought it was so sick.

They just sent the Phillies to file even though they didn't make it. They're like, he can keep it. Wow. Yeah, Mason Miller, the Padres closer came out to corn. And it was fucking hardcore. Dude. It's now we need to figure out what our walkout songs would be. It's important at time.

Maybe they, maybe they don't. don't do it every time. I'm actually saying this for Edwin Diaz. Well, I don't know, whatever. I think Mets fans weigh in. We're new to baseball, right? I mean, like, I just, I wasn't watching a lot of Mets games. I will say, though, I weren't tuning in. So I'm getting married this year. I'm getting married in May and I'm starting to time out. Congrats. I think what songs you want to get out, you know. You're thinking about doing corn? Yeah, yeah, maybe. Or live trumpeter. That'd be sweet. That would actually really, really cool. You should do that. Should think, I would. I always talk about walk-up songs, but closer songs are so much cooler. Yeah. Do you get,

you don't obviously don't have to say it, but do you have a specific, like Liz and I, after we got married, I don't know if you guys noticed this when you were there. After we, like, said I do, you may now kiss the bride and you walk back down the aisle. We had a song playing that was Althea by the Grateful Dead, guy on guitar ripping it. Do you have a song playing for that moment? I think we do. I'm not at liberty to say at the moment, but we are on the stages, yes. We're looking at those songs. That's awesome. I love that. I love the personal music customization stuff.

It is fun. If you have any wedding, any wedding advice, just email me, ringer fancy football at gmail.com. Email hyphets directly. Little tips. Drink your face off. Just keep drinking. Get wasted the morning. Show up drunk. Show up drunk. Just hammered drunk.

Show up hungover and then you need to drink to get through it. I'm in the front row. Leonard Skinner has got an angel band. Can we talk about You guys want to talk about ABS at all? I would love to. The challenges with umpires. Yeah. Are you guys, are you guys pro?

I am. I am. I am. I'm heavily pro. I don't know how you could be against it after seeing what's happened this weekend. Like, it's incredible. Baseball is the best changing rules. It's electric.

First of all, there are a couple things this week. The poor guy, I think, what is it, J.B. Buckner. Yeah, CB Buckner got challenged eight times. In a rough week. In a Reds game. he lost six of the eight and including two in a row. He had to leave a game today because he got hit in the face with a foul wall. The ump?

Yeah. He's having a really hard week. That's tough for him. But Randy or Razorana on the sea, also the mayors are playing the Yankees right now, DK. Right. I know. I hope so.

But Randy and Randy Rosen, Randy Rosen, Rayna had a full count and they called a strike. Yeah. And he just challenges it, flips the bat and starts walking a first for a walk during the challenge before it's even over. And I'm like, it's actually great.

When a call is overturned? The amount of disrespect that you can give the umpire in like two seconds is pretty incredible. It's, um, I will say, I was listening to Chuck Closeman on Bill, who Chuck is by far my favorite Bill guest. I, I, when I see a two-hour Chuck Closeman pod, best part of my week, the man is the goat of analogies. I don't even want to hear it.

It's Chuck and then of 10 feet of nobody else. And then number two. He is incredible. I love Chuck. Okay. And I'm reading his book, football, which is very good. Chuck,

closer being compared ABS, or sorry, he compared baseball pre-ABS to music from the 60s and 70s. Okay. And then of course, you're like, what? And then he's like,

let me get into it. And then he describes it, and it makes sense. And I feel the exact same way about ABS as Chuck does, which is like, is it better? Yes.

Is it more efficient? Yes. Is the game more accurate? Yes. Is it even fun in the moment? Yes. But do I like? it, I don't know.

Like, I don't, I don't know if I want it. I don't know if we need it. I don't know if baseball needs it. And his comparison was like, he was like, you know, I think about why music from the 60s and 70s hasn't seemed to have gone away. Like, it is still very relevant. And people like it. People like it, people still go back to it.

People are age younger than us still like music from the 60s and 70s. People still like the Beatles and the Beach Boys and Fleetwood Mac and all these people. The old baseball is yacht rock is what you're saying. Well, but the reason he said. And the new baseball has. His reasoning was that... Sexy people as singers. Music from this...

No, but that is... That is a take I have. Stop letting... Stop letting hot people make music. We need to let the ugly people sing again. But it's that music from the 60s and 70s was imperfect because, like, they didn't have... They just didn't have the means that we do now.

And now you can have, oh, the perfect guitar if we can just add that in. We can add in anything we want. Every vocal sounds exactly how you want it to sound. The 60s and 70s music was imperfect. And that's why you kind of like... It feels human and those imperfections become beloved. And I do think there is an element of baseball where I'm like,

I kind of like that sometimes the ump just gets it wrong. And I think that's just a part of the game. Look, I think it's a good analogy. I understand where he's coming from. But I don't really buy into like, I just don't buy the argument that baseball is better because that's what we did for forever. Look, I think there are plenty of ways that baseball's gotten way better. Like, I think the pitch clock is fantastic.

Like there are so many things that they've done that I'm like, the game is just better. And they're like understanding the modern world we live in, unlike the NBA. And I feel like baseball's evolving, which is great. But this specifically, I'm like, are we just 10 years away from just not having humanumps and it's just robots? And I don't want that.

No, because we, no, here's the deal, Craig. Here's the distinction. I don't want robo umps. I don't want them to, I want them to just keep doing this forever because it's funny to humiliate the umps with their terrible calls. Like this, it's like, finally some justice. It just, it's, it's truly like so satisfying. I was watching the Mariners game the other day and the opposing team kept challenging

pitches and I was having a ball because they were, I just thought it was fun. I don't know. I just thought it was hilarious that these umps are like so far off. There's like, I don't know. The players being able to challenge these, these umps who are just so like, uh, holier than bow on everything and like fucking tossing people for arguing with pitches and everything. Like, to me it's just, it's cathartic to be able to challenge these horrific plays.

I understand. But at what cost, you know? To me, it's a, I fucking loved it. It's a short-term dopamine hit. At what cost? Craig, baseball was dying. Baseball's back now. I don't think it's only because of that.

But, like, baseball's not back. ABS has been around for a week. That's not why baseball is back. But their innovations are helping baseball come back. I totally agree with that. I don't know. Maybe it's like maybe it should only be in the playoffs or only in the ninth inning. I don't know what it is.

but like I there's a part of me that is like this kind of sucks that we're not letting human beings participate in this part of the game anymore. Well, they are. They can challenge and then they can lose the challenge. No, I know. But I'm like. That's what I like about it. I look, I think it's and when I watch it happen, I like it. Like it stops the scroll.

I'm like, that's funny. I don't understand what you're talking about then. What I'm talking about. You said like, you're like, does it make the game better? But do I like it? No. but I just feel like I don't know it's like it's like

yeah eating candy's fun but do I want it all the time no like I'm like I don't I feel like we are headed towards towards robo umps and I hate that what if one of the times you're eating candy you were eating Snickers and then it was actually like oh that's a Reese's cup and you're like up yep wrong

happened sometimes with the rapper right you're almost saying you don't actually care about the call being right or not you just like umps being embarrassed that's not totally I'm exaggerating a little bit I like the idea that with these horrific calls and they're ringing guys up with bases load and all this shit. Yeah. Like that the players have some recourse. We see it in football.

You can challenge like whatever. And they can look at the replay and make sure it's the right call. I just want them to get it right. I like, I think it's fascinating. Well, then why wouldn't you be in support of just full-time robot hubs? Because there still is a strategy involved with when you challenge. And some of these guys are getting it wrong. You only have a certain amount of challenges, all that stuff.

I just think it makes the game better. I thought it was actually very fascinating how accurate the catchers are at knowing exactly what's a strike. Because I saw the stats, ESPN did the article about this. The catchers were by far the most accurate when they were challenging. The hitters were slightly, or they were quite a bit less accurate. Hitters were less than 50% accurate when they challenged pitches. So I thought it was just fascinating kind of to watch that play out. Maybe it'll get boring as the year goes on.

I'm sure it will be less exciting. It's a boomer take of mine. Like I said, in the moment, like when I'm watching, I'm like, this is good. This is entertaining. This makes baseball better. But there's like an old school thing that I feel like we're losing. I'm like, oh, we got to have a robot to help out. Hating the umps?

Hating the umps is what you're losing. I'm speaking to America right now. Hold on. I'm speaking to America. They throw you out of a game if you complain about balls of strikes. I don't like Joe West. I don't like Angel Hernandez. Those are emps in the MLB.

Yeah. It's like me, it's, there's a part of me that's like, fuck these authority figures. Yes. And they're finally getting their comeuppance. You're going to get what you want when they get rid of bumps entirely and it's fucking robots. Well, and you'll be arguing against no one. But that's the, well, isn't that what? I'm watching baseball, Craig.

I haven't been watching a lot of baseball in last 20 years, to be honest. Have you guys tried to call a help center for anything? Yeah, it's fucking terrible. You can't get a human on the phone. There's no people there anymore. There's no people there anymore. There's options now where you can push to be like, can I get a human. being. It's ridiculous. Yeah, and so they have never been harder to call somebody on the phone.

Fake keyboard sounds to make, to convince boomers that there's a person there typing. Oh God, I didn't know that. Jesus great. The idea that a 60 year old man's going to get them all right. It's crazy. For sure. I like it in a vacuum. It's more like what it represents and what it portends that worries me. I'm like, oh, I don't love mixing you. Why do you like Waymo? It's not the same thing. Why not? It's not the same. Why did you make me get in a Waymo? Why is Waymo not the same as the history of baseball umps calling balls and strikes? First of all, I'm not like, I'm not Mr. Waymo here. Okay?

I'm not like, I'm not the CEO of Waymo. I think driving is just unsafe and people die. And I feel like if Waymo can reduce deaths on the road and drunk driving and all that stuff, I feel like that's a no-brainer. To me, that's very, very different from like the tradition of baseball. But I see your point. I see what you're saying, too. I side with DK where it's like the idea, the idea,

The flip side is where baseball was was we actually can tell you that a ump got a call wrong instantly by like eight inches. There was a one this week that was dead center about as set bull's eye as you could be. The guy called it a ball. And that's baseball. That's baseball. The Buckner thing, he called the guy out at first base. He wasn't even looking at the play.

That's baseball. There's a picture. I'll send it to you. He's looking at home plate. I don't know. It's tough. We need to move on because I'm just repeating myself. Well, we can move on by saying, no, it's an interesting thing.

I'm curious what people think. It's weird. But to your point, we're going to move on by doing the exact same topic, which is to the chaser to this whole conversation, which is the way that, and this is part of it, is the strikes. It's not perfect because, one, the strike zone's three dimensional. I won't even get into that. But to do ABS, this new system, they had to take it. It's not based on your stance.

It's based on your height. how tall you are. Which means that majorly baseball measured everyone's height but for realzies this time. And there was an incredible, incredible story at the Athletic. And shout out to Sam Blum, who wrote this at the Atlantic, who wrote that collectively across Major League Baseball, everyone's heights went down by over 20 feet.

Which is three Aaron Judges, plus, just disappeared into the ether. Like, more than half of M.O.B players are shorter now than they were listed like a lot months ago. They don't have any official measurements of these guys coming into the pros? That's crazy. It's whatever. So I'm glad you asked.

So Connor Wong. Just look at their hinge profile. So Red Sox catcher Connor Wong was listed at 6-1. Turns out he's 5-10. And they asked him how that happened. And he said, this is a quote from Connor Wong. In college, I had a couple teammates that were shorter than me. And they were listed at 5-10, which is what I was.

So I said, I don't know. I was like, can I be listed at 6-1? and they said, yeah, sure, and then nobody ever changed it. It's like how on your license you can just be as tall as you want. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Which I didn't know. You can just say whatever you want.

They're not checking. No. Yeah, they're not measuring you. Should have done that. So, big dumpers shorter now. Mike Trout's shorter now. D.K., Vlad Guerrera, your entire fantasy baseball team. I have to shout out a couple guy.

Boehler, who's a catcher, I think, for the Guardians is six feet. He's now five nine. Oh. How did anyone think he was six feet? That's crazy. Brison stopped went from six three to six. six feet. Gavin Lux was six two, now he's five, eleven. And I wanted to see if you guys can guess, if you guys can guess, of every height, like, which height do you think on average suffered

the biggest drop? So like, all the players is six foot five. And then you have all the players to six four and all the players listed at six and three, which height on average lost the most height? Which player, which number were people lying about them? I feel like people want to be six foot. Yeah. I would guess six feet. That's what I thought too. The number is 511. Oh. Because 511's just people can't even pretend they're six feet tall.

Yeah. 511. I'm close to 6 feet. Yeah. If I said I was 6 feet, nobody would believe it. So I'll just say 511 and nobody will check. Because, yeah, everyone's like, yeah,

six feet everyone lies. I was probably telling the change of 5.11. But yeah. So 48 players are now two. Look, you know, this is the tail's oldest time. Who among us? When are we going to get this fucking jet shame thing done with?

Can we get this? Oh, yeah. Sorry. I forgot about that. Jesus. I got derailed during the giant ABS argument. All right, sorry, let's do that. And then I'll have good news.

Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Okay, Jets fans respond to Danny Kelly, who again, we were doing a vibes draft of how fans are feeling this offseason. Was Sean one of the people that emailed? No, I can't wait to do this. Even Sean couldn't defend you. So Ryan O'Hanlin, who was Jets,

another person who used to work here for the, it was a Jets fan. Ryan O'Hanlon texted me said, being hopeful about the Jets means you're allowing the whims of Brick Johnson to have a significant impact on your mental health. anyone who needs to seek help. Smart man. He's a smart man.

And again, DK thought the Jets had good vibes. So I want to read you now an email from Dan. Great. He thought they had great vibes. I didn't say that. I said the difference. The difference between what happened at the end of last year and now. Again, to be clear, it was the different.

Before I keep going to get, yeah, make your kiss. Explain why you took the case. I already fucking did. I'm not doing it again. No, do it on this show. Just to get mad. I don't want to do that again. I already admit I was wrong.

You were right. I'm ugly. You're attractive. See, if we could have just had a robot power rank, the vibes, this wouldn't have been a problem. This is why, well, you know what, D.K., I wish you had more faith today. Look, it all, it worked kind of like a robo thing where you guys called me on it. And then I was like, well, you know what? I was wrong.

I wish you had more faith. So this is from Dan. Danny. Dibone. I'm a Jets fan. I think D.K. is right. Oh, shit. Most importantly, I think D.K. actually understood what you were drafting.

Hyfitz did not. The question is the delton vibes. For when the season ended to now, if a team has no change in vibes, they should theoretically be in the middle, equitable with that. But yeah. So he says, when the jet season ended, vibes wise, we were basically Andy Dufraim and Shawshank redemption right after Boggs and the sisters gave him one last beat down. And now we're Andy Defraining Shawshank after Boggs got his legs broken by the guards

and love Shawshank. See? This is what I was trying to say. So one person got it. I'll take that. More than that. We got a lot of emails. He said, but Dan put it well.

Last year, absolutely pitiful. We won three games now, or over under, approximately five and a half wins. That's almost double. Not a playoff team, no shit. He says, we have eight picks. Keep going. But here's the thing.

This is from Alex. A bone. D.K's far closer to being correct than Craig and High Fitzhitz. The vibe around the Jets fandom is far higher than it was at the end of last year. Josh said vibes are high, my dudes. An average genius season puts him on track to be the best pastor in Jets history. Scott, second time. long time, D.K.'s right.

Yes. Wait. What's the, when's the other shoe going to drop here? I feel like I'm running into a trap. Well, my point was, what I was trying to do with all these is, there's a lot of disagreement. I literally, there are email, Jets email side by side that are just like Danny's, literally all these emails are just like Danny Kelly's right, Hyphus and Craig are idiots. And then the next email is like, high Fitz and Craigor right, Danny Kelly's an idiot. It is like pretty, I would say it's really like 60, 40 split toward optimism, though.

So what say you? Where do you land officially? Because you've already flip-flopped. Where are you? Do you stand by it or no? I'm standing by my argument that the Delta was different. I don't know if maybe six. I think sixth was probably too much.

Probably a bridge too far. My second overall pick. We have Brandon setting a subject line that said, D.K.'s Jets pick was cruel and unusual. The take was abhorrent. My father's a lifelong Jets fan. He wrote me into this garbage. Last week he told me he won't watch a minute

of the team and my great uncle canceled the season tickets instead a handwritten note to Woody Johnson. So sixth is probably wrong. But then the flip side. But overall. But more people emailed in though. And we're saying like this, Michael saying,

D.K. was right. Last season was such a mess. We couldn't even get an interception. We couldn't have felt lower about them. Then Dante Moore goes back to college, meaning the Jets won't even get a chance to screw up his career. But then solid free agent signings, unflashy, smart moves, blah, blah. All the Jets fans are pretty into it. I will say I texted Ryan during that show to ask him and he said,

he said, I don't feel anything and basically what he wrote to you. He goes, but it does seem like they've made some smart moves. So at least there's that. I just think like they were at rock bottom even for Jets fans. Jess fans like probably hate me at this point because I just constantly talk about how they can't score touchdowns. And even over the last 10 years, all I've talked about is the Jess can't score a touchdown. It's the it's the main thing in football scoring a touchdown.

And they're very, very bad at that. But I will say last year was like an all-time low, it felt like for the Jets. Like we had never seen a low that low. The Jets fans agree. And I think they're saying, look, it's not our old. I think that my main thing reading this, other than also, they definitely hate me more than they hate you was Jets fans are like, yeah, it's our all time low. It's over.

How great is that? Yeah. You're like, thank God that's over. You hit the trough. Now we're everything. It's all good from here from now. Yeah. I didn't realize.

I really, the funny thing about this whole thing is I really didn't. go into it trying to do like a hot take. I thought you guys would disagree with me. That's why I was so great. I thought you guys would be like a little surprised and then get it. And then you guys were like, I had them 30. Well, it's funny because I read 100 emails from Jets fans and they're like 65 of them. We're like, yeah, no, you're wrong.

Like the Jets do great. And 30 of them are like, I never want to watch football again. Yeah. Just I guess it depends on how old people are. How long have they been a Jets fan? Sure. Split even though. Do they even feel anything anymore?

All right, one last email here. It's from Emma. Emma. This morning's breakfast was an English muffin with avocado and chickpea hash, top of syracia. Do you recognize that breakfast? Sure. That's the breakfast that Tyler makes his wife every morning.

Tyler, the nurse throwing out the first pitch. What? His wife, it's a follow-up. Yes. Did he do it? Tyler won the contest. Yes. That's huge.

I don't know. Her husband is a nurse, and the Mariners were having a nurse throughout the first pitch. and then Tyler won the contest. So he's an emergency room nurse, Dyer Mariners fan, makes Emma his breakfast or her breakfast every day. He got first place and he's officially thrown out the first pitch

at the Seattle Mariners game for Nurse Appreciation Night on May 5th. Wow, that's great. Cinco de Mayo. Tyler is shocked. Tyler is shocked. He is offering to wear Ringer Fantasy football show merch, which is hook up. Piss Club?

Can we get him a piss club? Well, that is the only merch we have. Yeah. And also technically we don't have it. Somebody just made it. Emma said Tyler's shocked and excited Also slightly concerned He keeps bringing up how on your show

You guys said he'd have to do something crazy With the first pitch of he won's now he's spiraling a bit No I just want him to throw it as hard as he can That's all He's spiraling as hard as you fucking can It doesn't matter how hard it is I would focus the next month of your life Only on this

Should he like take a lesson Should he like get go to like a pitching Did he play baseball? Do we know I don't know he loves the Mariners Bailey's die hard so I feel like you probably played as a kid But should you go and be with a bunch of nine-year-olds practice and just actually practice your pitching motion? I don't know why you've got to be with nine-year-olds.

But yeah, I would go practice. Go get a buddy, start playing catch. Hell yeah. Yeah, I think you have. Get that velocity up two or three miles per hour. I would really like strengthen the elbow and the shoulder, put some work in. Don't go so hard you have to get Tommy John. We don't want that.

Right. Well, he could fix it because he's a nurse. Well, sure. I don't know if all nurses can fix. Tommy John can do Tommy John surgery, but I don't think they let nurses do surgery yet. No, that's, see, that's where maybe robots are good. I don't know. Should robots perform surgery?

I don't know. All right, Tyler, don't throw out your elbow. The Mariners signed one of their prospects who hasn't even played in the major leagues yet to like an eight-year contract and not related. I'm going to sign Calvin up for baseball in the next week. Dude, baseball gives out like 12-year deals. It's crazy. The contracts are insane.

They'll give out 12-year. for $140 million because they're just so concerned that you'll actually one day be able to get like $800 million. So they're just like, we don't even know if you're good. Right. Here's like, here's like two. Just get ahead of this. Did you see the Blue Jays traded for dub gleed? Yeah.

We got tagged so many times about. Dubbleed. I just booked my travel to San Francisco with Glead for the rewatchables live show. Dub. Which is happening if you want to see the rewatchables live, although I think it's almost sold out, but check. Do you know the movie? Are they telling? basic instinct

great San Francisco movie we've done it once before but it was over Zoom during the pandemic nice okay so I'm sure that'll be a very appropriate conversation yeah that's what could go wrong wild it's van and Mal and Chris and Bill

it should be fucking insane that's fucking crazy Craig's gonna be like one of those people on shows where you have the bleep no or the bleep button yeah And you start believing people all. You start cutting people's mics. I'm just going to have a giant water bottle.

The horny police. That's like we need like the horny SWAT team for that. Oh, that's funny. God. All right. Thank you, DK. Thank you, Craig. Thank you to Dubbleed.

Thank you. Thank you, Cam. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, Abu. Thank you, Austin. Thank you all the Jets fans who emailed us. And sorry to ones who hate me. And sorry to the ones who hate DK.

or you're welcome to the ones who hated me and you're welcome the ones who... Do they hate me? Or do they just think my take was insane? More than hated me. Oh, okay. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren.

Thank you, Phil Collins. Phil? Cool. Phil Collins? That works. Shouts out Phil Collins, shouts out Genesis. Shouts out Peter Gabriel, the whole gang.

Jackie's family saw Shaw Genesis a couple years ago for reunion tour. Ooh. Got back and I was like, wasn't and her mom was just like Phil Collins not looking good now come on that's what I said how could you Craig and I constantly talk about

how the 80s were the best decade of all time in human existence for sure we changed the music we so I've been doing so much 80s research that my Instagram algorithm is just like 80s shit now and I came across one that was Phil Collins

live in concert and he's just he's dressed like a casual Friday at the office. You know, there's like a pair of pleated slacks. It tucked in shirt and he's got like one of those mics. He's not even holding the mic. It's a mic that goes from your ear to your mouth. And it was that, you know, I can feel it coming.

In the air tonight, yeah. And then Mike Tyson. And then he's like walking around doing that. And then he gets back by the drums. He picks up his drum sticks all like very dramatically. And then, do, do, do, do. It's great.

The 80s fucking ruled. The 80s rocked. Let's go back. We're kind of going back. Let's be honest. Some of the styles and music is back. We're not going back to the 80s. Well,

you can't go backwards, but you can try and recreate it. You can't, you know, if you try, you'll fail. It has to be organic. And that's what's beautiful about that.

Now I actually, I'm putting it all together. Craig likes the 80s because he likes baseball in its purest form. That's right. And he doesn't like these robo-ooms. No. bullshit. I want to take my Waymo to the stadium with human refs.

The duality of man. Goodbye, everyone. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800-My reset. Call 1-8-8-8. 8-88-98-9-7-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling help line, ma.org or call 800-327-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. or call 18778, 8, Hope, N.Y, or text Hope, N.Y in New York.

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