The Ringer NFL Show - QB and WR Combine Standouts

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

We recap an exciting day of testing at the QB and WR positions, breaking down the unique size and speed of the 2022 wide receivers, the QBs that stood out, the under-the-radar players that impressed, and how teams should handle such a deep WR class. Later we get into where Amari Cooper could end up if he parts ways with Dallas, the players who disappointed at the combine, and using context to judge the results of the combine. We finish the show by reading some listener emails. Check out The Ringer’s 2022 NFL Draft Guide. Email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Ben Solak Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, the host of the podcast, Plain English. We tackle technology, politics, culture, history, everything that's happening in the world and why it matters. New episodes of Plain English drop every Tuesday and Friday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL Draft Show. My name is Danny Heifitz. I am joined by Danny Kelly and Ben Solac. Craig is in L.A. still. So we're in indie, so RIPP.

We don't have the technology to do all four of us. We probably do. We just couldn't figure it out. We're not smart enough to figure it out. Exactly. So we're doing pods. It's D.K. Silicon here.

We're in Indy. It is Friday morning afternoon. I don't know. Depends. I'm still East Coast Pacific time. Who knows? So we've seen the quarterbacks and wide receivers work out last night. Yeah.

Honestly, I don't know. Like we're going to go through like what we learned prospects. What we're hearing here like in Indianapolis. But honestly, we're going to start with. It's a little crass. But like I don't know how to say it. The blue ballsness of like these scores that came in with that. That I was.

Yes. There was like a one hour period there. it felt like we'd seen literally the fastest class of all time in terms of there was like seven or eight guys that ran in the four twos and taekwon thornton actually briefly beat john ross's all-time record for the 40 he ran a four-two-one literally fastest 40-or dash ever on record at the combine we're in the restaurant we're freaking out we were at dinner last today at stakehouse and we're like what is going on hyfitz you got to tell the context of the story so we were sitting at a table near mike tomlin steeler's head coach yes high fitz saw tomlin's reaction to what who was it Alave. Chris Olaf. So for context, I think 14 guys have ever run under a 4-3

and then three guys did it like last night. And we're like, what is this like the fastest class ever? We don't know how to make of this. And then Mike Tomlin's face. All right.

So I'm not going to be like, oh, it's exactly what he said. I'm not going to pretend to read lips. None of that. But my interpretation. Your paraphrase.

My paraphrase of readlipping. But Chris Olave, the Ohio State receiver, runs a 4-26. And I see Mike Tomlin kind of look and say something guy next to look up. And he just goes,

I believe. he says, the fuck. So it's funny because when I watched Alavi get out of the blocks, and Alave ran like a really clean 40s, very smooth player, no waste of movement. Right. He had been talking about running four-threes, and it wrapped you out of the blocks. He said about the town, I went, ah, it's not four-threes. Yeah.

And then it was a four-two-six. And I was like, well, it is not four-threes. So I am correct. And then it turns out it was a four-three-nine. So it even still actually was four-threes. It was just barely under the bar. Yeah. So what happened with the timing thing?

So I guess all those times are unaffects. And then... Correct. So, like, to start out, so basically when they're doing the... It's all live. They're showing this on NFL Network or wherever you're watching it. NFL Network. And they just have like a guy doing a timer every year.

Typically, it's the same guy for a long time. And he will be the guy that starts the unofficial timer. So that's the thing that you see on the screen as he's running. And then that time, they put like a little you in front of it. It's unofficial to start with. And then usually like an hour, maybe like the next day the official times come in. typically they're not like that different. It's like by a few hundreds of a second sometimes or whatever.

In the case yesterday, they were like much, much faster. The unofficial times were much, much faster, sometimes over like a tenth of a second. So in Olavé's case, he ran a 426 originally, the unofficial, and then his official time was 439. So obviously that's a huge discrepancy. And we were doing some digging around because obviously people were freaking out.

People were losing their shit when these guys were all running in the 4-2s. It's like, this is rare. We've never seen this. What's going on? And there are Olympic track speeds, speedsters who've tried the NFL Combine and not caught that number. So we did a little digging around and the word on the street that what I found, what I heard from a reliable source is basically they have a new person doing the timing this year. And he was just basically just a little bit behind on like when you start the actual block. He didn't get reps in.

You got training. To be clear. New guy like on the TV stage like at NFL network. Whoever was in charge of, yeah, like the unofficial time for the NFL network was doing that. So like basically that's why these times. are so juices because he was, I guess, just starting the clock slightly late compared to the guy who had typically done it over the years. And so that was kind of what happened. It's not like a big deal. But like over there was like a hour period there where everyone was like losing their

minds because these guys are so fast. Can you imagine being that guy who's like in his first moment like doing the unofficial timer? It's a lot of pressure. And then like the first and you're like 10 minutes in and you're like the guy's at like the all time record. And like you're the only one who's like, oh, my God, I've messed up. And it's funny because his, you know, I'm sure the guy running the production was probably not stoked with that dude. And then the guys who probably run NFL social

who got to tweet all the crystal lobby, 426, Tyquan, 421, probably like, you're the greatest thing that's ever happened to us. I know. He got all this engagement just for two hours of just beautiful clips. It's the fastest ever. And then, yeah, it doesn't matter. I kind of think that it's a little genie out of the bottle because now they realize how easy it is,

it's the depth of a second. It's like, what are you going to do? it's kind of too easy to juice these things now. They can kind of do that for, anyway. The story that I heard today, and Taekwon Thornton from Baylor, who was expected to run very fast. His official time ended up being 4-2-8,

which is not an all-time record, but it's a very good number. He originally was unofficially 4-21. What I heard today was that he was like on the horn. His team was like on the horn with Adidas trying to like lock down like an endorsement deal like in that hour in between. It's a 4-21. He's like, come, give me the deal.

Let's get it locked in. I have two minds here. One, we can skip the whole debate about this. I just want to just note again how insane it is that we have the electronic timing. And yet we're sitting here like, I can't believe the hand timer guy got it wrong. Meanwhile, all the scouts for all these teams compare it with hand timing, which is just absurd. And that goes in, and so like mentioned this last time, they've, it's all about the reason we come to the common. The reason they do tests at the combine is because you're comparing these guys to the historical standards, right?

It's like the baseline benchmarks that you want to be in terms of speed, all that stuff. And since they haven't had laser timing forever, the reason a lot of these teams, they use the hand timer because that's what they've been doing forever. And that's like how that's what they have the records for. So I used to buy that, but I'm not a data scientist. But I feel like it's not like that's the only problem. Can't you just put all that data into, you know, can't you normalize that data and then figure out the margin of error and then just like normalize it to like the electronic timing? Yeah. You have 20 years of electronic and hand timing,

like figure out what the margin of error is and just apply it. But then that would make the data guys important. Oh, you're right. And I'm sure there are teams that are doing that. Right, exactly. And they're doing that especially like, you know, when they get like a laser timed 40 from some pro data they didn't attend across the country or whatever.

But in general, scouts want their roles to continue to be important. We know the role of the scout has changed tremendously over the last 15 years now, like pseudo-psychologist digging into guys' background instead of like doing traits. and so they're trying to hold on to the jobs that they still got. And one of the jobs they still got is Charlie Cashley looking down the line and point of finger on the button, baby.

And the truth is it's crazy because like you think of these teams as, you know, these like hyper-efficient, you know, billion-dollar businesses and reality, you know, their billion-dollar lemonade stands. And it's one of those things is, you know, it's just about power sometimes. And if the, kind of in baseball, the nerds are running the teams. And scouts don't really want the nerds to run the teams. They don't want, you know, that's, wow, that's good point. Well, there is a lot of people that look at what's happening in,

in football, like the analytical, there's no revolutionist, like a slow crawl. It's a glacial analytics change, shift. A lot of people will look at what's happening in the NFL and be like, the NFL is like 15 years behind what happened in baseball and other sports, you know? But in part, I think it's the power thing, so look, we're talking. I think you're dead on. Okay. So in terms of the times that actually happened last night, the real ones, they were still fast, right?

Like, what do you take away from that receiving group who actually, once we got the real numbers for everyone who impressed you, D.K. So I think obviously like the Thornton guy from Baylor who wasn't I mean we all knew he's going to run fast But he's not like on everybody's radar yet. He's kind of like known as like a mid rounder I think or whatever But he's gonna I think that's gonna force a lot of people to go back to tape I was I already was going back and watching him last night after he ran I think that's gonna be one of those things is like does it show up on tape I think it does show up on tape which is the kind of interesting part about him Calvin Austin from Memphis was he had a really good week he actually tested out of is mine. He ran a 4-3-2-40, jumped 39 inches in the vert, 11-3 broad jump, which, by the way,

I don't know what any of those numbers mean. So he's 5-7. The 11-3 broad is like more than twice height. Yeah. So imagine him laying down and then imagine him laying down again and then imagine him jumping from the feet to the head. Twice? Yeah. Okay, that's crazy. Yeah. Now it is worth noting, Danny. Calvin Austin did all of that at. How much? 170 pounds. Yeah. He's, He's light. So, you know, that obviously you have to take into account. And just, like, bottom line, there's not a ton of guys in the NFL that are 5-8 and, like, put up big numbers. Like, Tyreek is basically the only one?

I don't really actually know. Is he that short? He might be a little bit taller than that. Tyreek? Yeah. He's taller than that. Yeah, this is a 2-2-at-well redux, which, you know, like, 2-2 is a fun player to talk about. And then he went round two.

We were all like, wait a minute. That's too much, man. So we mentioned Olave earlier. He was another guy that was very impressive. His official time was 4-39. Garrett Wilson. his teammate ran a 438. I saw this from Field Yates.

Now, Alave and Wilson are now the second pair of receiver teammates since 2006 to run sub-4-4 at the same combine. The only other duo was Terry McLaren and Paris Campbell from a few years ago. So, I know, Ohio State knows how to recruit really fast guys, I think, is the bottom line. Right. And honestly, like, I haven't thought about Alave to Terry McLaurin until I saw that to me. And I was like, oh, Alave's got some Terry McLaren to him, baby. He's got a LF1 to him. And I like that a lot.

He's a little lighter, but same style, same smoothness. Yeah, for sure. I pulled out a couple different standouts from the positions that tested yesterday. Quarterback, I think, the one that was most impressive was Desmond Ritter from Cincinnati, who he put together legitimately one of the best, like, testing combines of any quarterback in history. Like, he's like in the 99th percentile. It's worth remember that most of the really, really good athletes, Malik Willis, Lamar Jackson, don't test. Sure.

Because they don't really need to. There's not much to be gained for them. Ritter was kind of like, oh, he could be a dual threat quarterback. And then he ran a 4-5 flat, 4-49, actually, jumped 36 in the vert, 10, 7 in the broad. Those are like 96, then up percentile numbers for a quarterback. And so it's a little bit of a soft market just because, like, the really, really good athletes mostly don't test. But Ritter proved, like, he's gotten some Marcus Mariotta comps before. This really added a lot of legs to like, oh, you could use Marioata as like an integral part of a zone read offense.

And it makes sense for Ritter. Yeah. All right. Mariota is like Oregon Mario is a fun comp but also kind of a depressed NFL comp. Everyone forgets you to get a nerve injury and is throwing out.

I was glad to say, yeah. If everyone, all right, is there a non-Mariota guy just because like a, Marioada, a good career comp for Desmond Ritter? I mean,

like I keep, so the two comps that I keep coming back to, I did the Daniel Jones, but in a good way comp because I thought it was kind of funny. But like you saw, Daniel Jones, but he's not falling down

in the wide open field, he can run pretty fast. Before you fell down, that long run against the Eagles. He was running. He was running. He was running. I love that run. I mean, it was, it crushed me. So the other guy that I compare him to, I compare Ritter to, I think, and has, they have some similar traits is Ryan Tannahill, who came out of college, you know, he switched in college from receiver to quarterback. So he's obviously a very good athlete, overall athlete. I would say that Ritter is similar in the sense that he's not like a sudden,

really explosive change of direction guy. He's not going to be in my mind like, um, Like a Lamar Jackson, for instance. Like, obviously, Lamar Jackson is the very tip-top example of a explosive running quarterback. To me, Ritter is more like he can utilize that speed as a scrambler. I don't think you're going to be designing run game stuff around him necessarily, but I think that he can use that speed.

I think you will a little bit. But I hear what you're saying. Just to, like, keep defenses honest, but not like, you know, he's not going to be rushing. Right. Usually your running quarterback just has a much denser build than this, right? That's the thing.

It's like, when you go and you look at tall runners, like Marriota, like Colin Kaepernick, right? Like Dante Colpepper, Karen 2.25, Karen 230. Ritter came in right around 210. He's thin, lanky, and he's a little bit upright. And so it is tricky, like, oh, like, you know, short-yard-ish stuff. Not really where he's going to make his hay, but if you can get him in a run where he gets outside of the pocket,

and it's a foot race, that's where he opens up the stride. So it's going to be weird where he's, like, not used as much in the quarterback short-yardage running game, like when Dallas runs a little third-and-one-one-speed option with Dak Prescott. Right. But if you can boot him, and then he can get upfield on that boot, he can go make an explosive, and that's really cool. Craig's not here, but I just keep thinking about the Steelers, as you guys talk about Desmond Ritter.

I mean, I just feel like this is a guy who's polished, and having that mobility in that offense and being able to run so much more than they were. Like, if the Steelers get Desmond Ritter, wouldn't they just be better this year than they were even last year? Oh, well, I mean, they could get anybody. They'd be better at quarterbacking on offense than they were last year. The tricky thing with that is that Matt Canada

is an undercenter play action guy. You mean the offensive coordinator for the team. Yeah, the office coordinator for the Steelers, which sounds great. But unlike the Shanahan tree, he doesn't really roll him out. He likes to keep him in the pocket. And Ritter moves in the pocket well. Does a good job of scathing the pocket. You can work in the pocket.

But if you really wanted to maximize the athleticism we just saw from Ritter, you would want it to be a boot action offense. So in the AFC North, if the Browns want to move off of a guy, now Ritter starts to make a little bit more sense. I don't think that the Browns will feel strongly enough about Ritter, they want to move off of Baker, though. That's just like, you know, a nice happy thing for me to think about for a nice couple of months.

Who in the Matt Canada thing for the Steelers? Like, what quarterback here makes sense for them? Jimmy. Picket makes sense for them for the pocket. Well, yeah, well, all right, baby hands at the side. I think a pick QB going to the Steelers would be really, really fun. Like, that would just be awesome. It would make sense.

So, look, do you have any other guys you want to hit who really impressed you or really just changed your mind in a positive way this week? Yeah, so Alec Pierce is a wider seat by Cincinnati. He plays for Ritter. Yeah. And he was a likable guy. he was a high caliber volleyball athlete in high school

and under recruited in football. Wait, volleyball like the server guy in the back or the big guy who hits spikes? I don't know. I don't even know. Phil Dowler or the Todd Rogers? He weren't scouting out his volleyball. Yeah, we got to figure it. I don't even know.

I don't even know what the positions are called. I bet he's a Todd Rogers. I just know one guy wears a different color jersey and I really don't even get why he does that. But anyway. Kerry Wall shout out. Alec Pierce, 441 in the 40 yard dash, 40.5 vertical jump,

10 foot 9 inch broad jumps. So these are sounding a little bit like Calvin Austin numbers, explosives, bigs. Alupier's 6, 3, 2, 11. Yes, sir. So you cannot jump twice his body? Can't jump twice his body, but he's putting out these explosives in this 40 at about 40 more pounds than Austin did. And that means a lot to me in terms of adjusting that speed score,

something we talk about, which is a weight adjusted 40-yard dash. On that note, real quick, can you explain the difference between 40 pounds to like someone like us and 40 pounds to an NFL caliber athlete? in terms of like how much more it matters to maintain that weight the difference 10 or 20 pounds can make at the NFL level I mean like it's difficult

like the difference that 15 pounds makes the NFL level is incredible in terms of the density that you're getting in your body right you're gonna be protecting from contact you're gonna have better quick twitch muscles right because presumably you're putting on muscle weight and not not sloppy weight

or talking about true fat so for Pierce obviously he's 638 Calvin Austin's 5758 right and so like there's just a bigger frame to put to put weight on. But when we look and we're like, oh, Austin is the 90th percentile jumper. That's great. Like Austin tests a while. I'm not like poop-pooing Danny's guy. I'm just saying when Pierce tests 90th percentile in his jumps and he's 40 pounds heavier, that shows a really impressive explosiveness in his body. And when you watch him in Cincinnati, he's an above the rim player. Talk about

that volleyball background. That ball goes up in the air. Alex Pierce elevates for it. That's where Elk Pierce is at home. He likes being up in the air. And so when you see that 40-inch vertical jump, see that 4-4, you understand that in a class where we don't have a lot of true ex-receivers. Talk about that guy who lines up outside the numbers on the line of scrimmage, gets off of press, gets downfield vertical. We don't have a lot of guys that do that in this class. Drake London out of USC and then after that, George Piggins out of Georgia coming off an Achilles tear, Justin Ross at a Clemson. Both of those guys are even a little bit skinnier. They're more like low BMI type guys.

Yeah. Pierce 6-3-2-10 with these numbers is awesome. So Pierce is a guy who demands more attention. And then the guy who I need to go back and watch more of because I thought, thought he was a good athlete and he really had a good day with Sky Moore, young man out of Western Michigan. His name is Sky with two Ys. Wait, that's incredible. Millennials got to know why. I don't know why. You can go ask him. I live. He went to Western Michigan. It's 40 minutes from where I live. So I got to swing by and say hello.

Skymore at 510, 195, 44140 yard dash, 34 and a half in the vert, 10, 5 and the broad, three cone of 713, critically also. Wait, those are good, right? I don't know any of, I don't know what good call on score is. Those are all above average. Those are all like 70th percentile. So it was a good day in the office. Ten inch hands. And so this guy plays in the slot.

He's an absolute vacuum of a catcher, right? It gets balls outside of his frame, gets balls that are quick on him, right? Like he turns balls right there. You can snag it's because he's got really strong myths. You're watching him run the gauntlet drill, right? Which is where they run down that line and the throws are coming out from both directions. Watching him run routes just looks a little different.

Loose guy, understands how to do it. He feels he plays wide receiver because he was meant to play wide receiver. And he's a tough worker. I was speaking to one of his coaches who said that he came in as a freshman run of four-eights. And he ran four-fow-one. Yeah. Wow. What?

That's added mass in the lower half, and that's a lot of working technique in terms of speed. So Sky Moore is a guy who impressed me throughout the week. I want to go back and watch this film. Same. I totally echo that. Actually, now I'm looking at the 2020 Western Michigan team, which had Dwayne Eskridge and Sky Moore on it. And I'm like, wow, they had a lot of speed on that team. Here's the thing about Western Michigan.

Something in the water. man. One receiver a year, right? He had Corey Davis. Even when Fleck left and then he went to Minnesota, Tyler Johnson, Rashad Bateman, right? And then he left some of that coaching staff, Stone Western Michigan. They get D. Eskridge, Sky Moore. They just, something about PJ Fleck and wide receivers,

man, he knows how to get them. Okay, so a guy like, other of these two guys to contextualize this, D.K., when your next mock draft comes out, are we talking about first round guys, second round guys? Where do these guys fit? I would say, like, if I had to guess, I would say, Sky Moore is probably a second rounder.

There's a chance. A very small chance he could sneak into the first, but I doubt it. It's probably more of a day two guy. And I think that Alec Pierce is another day two guy, most likely. Second third round. Where do you fall in this whole Christian Watson round one thing? I mean, look, there have been, he has like the measurables and he has good tape, but there's so many good receivers in this class.

I'm just curious, like, if teams are going to rate him higher than, you know, like the big six that we've talked about. That's my question. There can be like seven or eight receivers going on the first round. I don't think so. And so unless anybody really, really lost, like, their stock dropped this week, which I don't really think that happened with any of these guys. I don't know. I don't really see it.

I would see it more as the second rounder. Yeah. Well, so on that note, like, just big picture, if there's, so like you said the other day that there's just never going to be a bad wide receiver class again, right? Just receivers, receivers, receivers. Does that mean if your team, you know, when it's not last year at Chabar Chase is like so clearly this like 99th percentile receiver prospect, when the absence of that, but there's still a ton of good ones.

Does that make you more or less likely to take one in first or second round if you feel like there's just more good ones later? Scarcity becomes the thing. Don't you just reach for the other positions first? I am very strongly in this camp where I say, I'm going to like a bunch of guys, I'm going to stack a bunch of guys, then I'm going to sit and I'm going to wait.

I'm never going to feel like I have to go get a dude. And listen, like, I was about to say if that means I miss out on a Justin Jefferson, whatever. But that really does suck if you miss out on Justin Jefferson. Right. The reality, though, is that just a lot is that just a judge was the fifth receiver off the ball. Yes.

And that a team with which I'm intimately familiar had one pick before Justin Jefferson couldn't identify that Justin Jefferson was the guy over Jalen Rager, right? They did. They just changed their mind at the end. And so what you have is, is because there's such a spectrum of ways the guys can succeed, the spectrum of ways to get the guys the ball, I would rather be attacking different positions and filling out my wide receiver room with a round three pick every single year. And listen, the Steelers are always a classic example.

You're probably not going to be Pittsburgh, but they just constantly take a day two receiver and they feel confident that in the building they can develop that guy. And then if they get different body types, the different cardinal traits, they can build an offense around those guys. And they haven't been proven wrong in a very, very, very long time. So I like that approach a lot. I think that approach makes total logical sense. I think there's also this thing, though, where some teams will talk themselves into a guy

and fall in love with a guy because they think he's got like the intangibles. Obviously, you got the speed in the tape and all that stuff. I know, like, there is a chance that Christian Watson, who tested really, really well this week goes in the first round because some team just falls absolutely in love with them. You know what I mean? So that's always like the wild card, the X factor here. But generally speaking, I totally agree that when you have so many receivers in this class, they're going to be good.

It could push some of these guys down a little bit because teams will say there's just not as many edge rushers is a bad example because there's a lot of edge rushers in this class. Maybe like offensive tackles or whatever. You know, whatever the case may be, we'd rather take a guy here because we see a bigger tear drop going into the second round or whatever than at that position. The other thing where my mind just took me right now is we were talking the other day about how it's not just a bad quarterback class affecting the quarterbacks in the draft. It also affects the trade market and everything of what's available.

And so as you're talking about all these receivers available, I'm wondering about Amari Cooper, who Adam Schaeffer reported is probably going to get cut, maybe gets traded, probably going to get cut, just to really save $6 million. And I'm wondering, as you guys talk, do you think that? Not specifically that movie, I don't know, but generally speaking, you know, maybe is it possible. Some teams, maybe the Cowboys kind of look at this class and they're like, well, we could just get a third rounder to do Amory Cooper's job. I will say real quick, if it's the dead cap on Cooper when they release him is $6 million. They'll save $16 million.

Oh, are they really? Oh, I got that back one. Yeah, it's only $6 million. That's dead for them. Yeah. So they're saving 16 if they cut him before the new league year. Okay, I haven't got my coffee yet. Yeah, no.

So if you can hear from our voices, we're all zombies doing this podcast right now. Right. I was like whispering yesterday because we were. recording this in a hallway and I just so loud. Welcome to NFL Combine week. Exactly. But the thing about a more, real quick on the Cooper thing, did we, did you guys interpret that basically as Michael Gallup

might just be better and also the Cowboys might be better? Basically, they seem to have chosen. They had free agents, Dalton Schultz the tight end, and they all said Michael Gallup as a free agent. And they're like, we'd rather have Gallup and Schultz and we'd rather play with two receivers and two tight ends and put Blake Jarwin and Dalton Schultz's a tight end on the field.

And we want Michael Gallup and see. CD-Lam at receiver, and we're a better team, and that makes us more balance because we have two good receiving tight ends. Most teams don't have one. Yeah, so Dan Olavsky talked about this a lot when the Cooper News was just starting to break during the course of this week, and there's credence to that idea. It's worth noting CD-Land was the only receiver under contract. Mari Cooper was also under contract, obviously, and then C.D. Michael Gallup and C.D. Michael Gallup and C.D. or excuse me, Michael Gallup and C.

Their fourth receiver were both free agents. So if they wanted to go two tight-end set, they very easily could have let Gallup walk, let Wilson walk, and then just play Cooper and Lamb. Like that was, if the whole impetus was two tight-end sets, we want a base in 12, let Gallup go, let Wilson go, we're fine. There's, you know, something about paying a Mara Cooper 22 million that they're just not,

not super comfortable with. And even if it's maybe like, all right, we need to get out of the cap, $16 million is going to help us get there. That's it as well. But to me, this is a, they traded a first for Cooper. They probably wanted a tier one receiver when they did that.

They paid him like a tier one receiver. And Cooper's a very, solid tier two receiver, right? He just had to think he's been that like real prime guy who like, they feel warrants over 20 million on a single year or over the course of a couple years. It seems like there's just like a frustration between Cooper and the front office, Cooper and the coaching staff,

whatever it is. A lot of people frustrated with the Dallas Cowboys going around these days. I think Amari Cooper is going to hit the free agent market and get the exact same size deal that he had with Dallas from somebody else. Because he's a, he's a wicked good player, even if he's not that like tier one sort of a guy. Your teams don't count, not the Eagles, not the Seahawks. What is the team that if they signed him, if a team that signed him, Mark Cooper, you'd be like, oh my God. Gags. New England Patriots. Patriots, Patriots, have been trying to figure out wide receiver for a long time,

having been able to. Bam a guy. And what do we talk about? Oh, Patriots, they love route runners, right? Julian Edelman, you know, West Welker. You ever seen Amar Cooper run a goddamn route? I mean, holy smokes. Umari Cooper makes so much sense for what they want. And Mac, I'm sure Mac also probably knows Cooper as they're both Bambo Boys. You can play the outside for them. He can play the inside for them move around. They're going to use them in great ways. He's a perfect fit for that offense.

He should be a patriot in a minute. That's really good. DK, can you beat that or no? No, that's good. Just to like a sidebar as the fantasy show for a second here, C.D. Lam stock up. Yes. Probably Amari, if he does land with the Patriots, that could be good for him. Maybe just like a lateral move in fantasy, but still I like that idea a lot.

Wow. Okay. That's fantastic. Okay. Back to the Combine. here. We talked about guys who did well. Guys who, are there any guys that kind of were disappointed or at the very least, I don't know. Is there anyone that kind of, you know, didn't float your boat?

So I would say, Sol-O-Kinize guy, Trelon Burks. Or actually, I should say it's Traylon Burks. I think that's what you said. The Arkansas is your power up mushroom, Debo, Samuel. Exactly. So we were really excited about this guy coming into the combine. There had been some rumors he's going to run in the 4-4. Some people were maybe even saying, like, faster than that. He ended up running a 4-5, 455, I should say.

His through cone was kind of slow 7.28 seconds. His vert 33 inches wasn't all that great. Obviously, everybody wanted him to be, you know, D.K. Metcalfe numbers or whatever. Or Dibo. Yeah. Well, Debo is... Positionally Dbo, athletically, de Koe. Yeah, like, Debo, I think, number one, he's like 12 pounds lighter, and he's, like, shorter.

So it's a different type of athlete. I think people were expecting Bers or hoping that Bers would run, like, a 4-3. It looked like D.K. McHuff. Like, AJ Brown. Well, actually, his numbers are pretty similar to AJ Brown. Really? So, AJ Brown's 40 was slightly faster. AJ Brown, I believe, ran a 4-49.

Yep. Burks ran a 455. So, like, I guess you can say that's slightly, obviously it is slightly slower, but it's not that big of a difference. Their broad jumps were almost exactly the same. So I think, you know, in terms of at, like, comps, he's pretty close to the AJ Brown style. You have to remember, he's 6-2-225. He's not 179 pounds, like Calvin Ossin or whatever.

And so, and the story of like this class is really, it's a bunch of skinny guys. And they're all very fast. And so I think just like compared to that and like relate, like just putting those two guys together, those two types of players together. Berks, there was definitely a feeling of disappointment from what Burks did. At the end of the day, to me it doesn't really matter though because his numbers are pretty close to like an AJ Brown type number. Like that's fine. This comes back to what we talked about the other day where the combine becomes sort of a pass-fail

and I think he passed. It wasn't like one of those situations where it's like he's blowing our minds and he's going to go in the top five. It's not that situation. It's more just like those are fine. My disappointment with Birx was because I wanted him to be like 232 and run a 4-4 because that would have been like sick.

Right. Here's the thing. He ran, he was 225. He ran 4-55 official. It's the sixth best speed score of any receiver here. Right. Yeah. Speed score is weight adjusted 40 time, right? So I was talking about Calvin Austin versus Alec Pierce. How much mass are you carrying when you do these explosives?

So the best speed score was Alec Pierce. We ran a 4-4-1, 211 pounds. It's really impressive. Christian Watson. What I talked about with Danny is that as that potential round one guy, ran I think, 439 and he was 208, right? So you're, I don't know what the exact formula is. It's like weight to the fourth over half of whatever.

I mean, that's physics. Like the heavier thing is, the harder it is to make move fast. Right. So he goes, Ali Pierce. Christian Watson, Isaiah Weston, who's on the big receiver in Northern Iowa, ran in the 4-4s, Valis Jones, tall dude out of Tennessee, ran a 4-3-4, Tyquan Thornton, 4-2-8,

and then the next speed score is Trailing Berks. Right? And so, we got to contextualize here. Chris Alave ran a 4-39 carrying 187. Berks ran a 4-55 carry in 225. Okay, so that's the key point. So pound for pound, literally, Burks is faster than Alave. Yeah, in terms of that body movement at that speed.

And that's what we talk about. When we talked about Berks in that opening podcast, it was defenders look at him and go, I know how fast that guy is going to move because he's a big dude. And then he's moving faster than they thought he was. That's the surprise. And so the AJ Brown comparison makes sense there because, right, AJ picks up on people pretty quick. AJ ran a much better three cone. Berks's cornering has always not been a bit of a question.

That's where you get the D.K. Metcalfe conversation. And people brought him to Kiel Harry. And that's a good example of the floor for this, right? When Akiel was a guy who was great with the ball in his hands, right? Arizona State would run reverses to this like six foot two, 225 pound guy. Like, that's crazy. There's never could figure it out in New England because he couldn't get the details of the

routes right. He couldn't get the details of the playbook, right? That's the hurdle for Berks is that he can run a nine, you can run a slant, you can run a bubble? Can he, if he lands on a team where he's going to have to run a full route tree, can he do it with his,

you know, limitations in his, in his cornering, limitations in his change of direction. That's the question. So we have a nice understanding of the feeling for him. So that's a very polite way of sake, he's not a good route runner. Right now, now.

But it didn't have to be at Arkansas. It was as college of an offense as it gets. Can you learn that or not really? Yes, but it's a matter of how much is the juice worth to squeeze here, right? He gets put in, you know, he gets drafted by the Jets, right? San Francisco offense. It's an offense that has some complex routes, but in general they're going to ask him to run five routes. Ask him to run it really well.

Like you wouldn't call AJ Brown a bad route runner. He's a good rat runner. He runs very simple routes, but he's a good rat runner in those spots. So hopefully that's what you're going to give to Traylon Burks. If you're asking him to run some Hunter run for a choice routes, you don't mess up, not him. So it's kind of a little bit of where in the middle are we meeting with this guy. So I think AJ is a great description of the ceiling. McKeel's a great description of the floor.

I think, yeah, and I think all that, I agree with that completely. I think the main thing, though, was just the, you know, if we're being honest, like, it was a little bit of a bummer that he didn't run faster because we all had hoped he was going to be like this. Because it would have been so freaking sick. Yeah. And so, like, I guess I put him in like the. surprisingly slow category, I guess. But, like, really, the numbers aren't that bad.

Like, as you said, with the speed score, is actually really good. So I would put him in there. And then the other guy, actually, that we need to talk about a little bit, I think is David Bell from Purdue. No, we don't have to. Don't have to. Don't know. So he had a 4-6-5-40. Shout on our reader, who email listener.

Oh, wow. He emailed us the other day and was like, why is David Bell not going to be a second round or what the hell? And then now. Because, number one, you can see the lack of juice, the lack of suddenness on tape. He's another one of those guys that's just like he's a baller, but you can see the athletic limitations. And that showed up in the testing. What do you want to say? So like, you're-

I'm just sitting over your pouting. I like David Bell. He's good at football. Yeah. Please do not look at the testing. This is where I don't understand. If he's good at football, how badly did he test that, but if you watched him play football well, it's like the Billy Bean line, like in Moneyball, it's like we're not selling jeans.

It's like we're not doing cones. Can he get open or not? No. Oh. Right? Listen, I, as a man who was a big fan of JJ, Jeter, I had a second round pick coming out of Stanford a couple years ago, I tend to fall for these no-nonsense route runners who have good feet and they're physical, and they, you know, pry open windows, they win contested balls,

and they're tough dudes, and they can block, and then they don't test super great, and then they get to the NFL, and I'm like, but they'll just do their best, and then they just, they can't hang, right? But he couldn't get open, and he's like a contested cash receiver. Yeah, yeah, and David Bell, I would say got open a little bit more on Philadelphia White's I did at a Stanford but also

Yeah, he's got a Mac. It's big 10 corners too. So you got a little bit of a curve there as well. I think in terms of they're not as good as SEC or they're better than Penn. I'm not freaking out. I'm not freaking out. I still think that David Bell is going to be a good player.

I think the problem is he probably falls to the third round at this point because of those numbers. But I still think he's going to be a good player. I think he's going to be a good player. I don't know if he's going to be that alpha number one that maybe some people want him to be. But he'll be a,

I think he'll be a productive pro. The thing is, is that once you fall into this, he's going to be wide receiver three, he's going to be wide receiver four on your depth chart, we start to get into what do you do for me on special teams territory. And when we're drafting team guys, we like them to have big speed or big frame,

right? Because then they can be our punt gunners, they can fly down the field. Or they can be quick and small guys, be our punt returners. It's not David Bell. So he's got to be really, really lock, steady good as like wide receiver three slot,

you know, wider C, Cervor 4 can play all three positions can block on offense. Because if you can't do that, you start asking the question of, right, how do we keep you active on game day? We need special teams value. And I don't know to what degree David Bell has that. So it's always tricky when you get a guy who's a below average athlete. He's got to be able to find a role on offense because special teams, it's tough to find that for him. So I think the best case scenario, well, not best case, but like I think a realistic good, like the nice scenario that could be David Bell is a guy like Tyler Boy. who is a possession receiver,

just a good player, good hands, dependable, all that. What's that? Good example. Yeah, he didn't test very well either. He was very productive at Pitt. But the other comp that I've heard thrown around a lot over the last couple of days

is Tyler Johnson for David Bell, who's the Buccaneers receiver. Buckingers receiver. I think he was a fifth rounder. He was a guy that, like, the dynasty community to really like because he was really productive early on. Overall, in his career, he was really productive. He's size.

He has like incredible hands to make like a like highlight real catch. But the big thing was like he just didn't have the juice as a as a route runner. He wasn't like really sudden. And I think there's some similarities there with David Bell. So that's like the worry. I guess that's another like spectrum there. So maybe you know, the jury is not totally out on Tyler Johnson yet. He might have a chance this next year.

But so far, you know, he's been like like so like we're saying like a wide receiver four in his career. So he's I think just a very interesting one that we're going to have to like figure out. where he goes. I'm guessing the third round. I think that makes a ton of sense. I like the Tyler Boyd thing because Tyler Boyd, Tyler Boyd's not famous, so to speak. But Tyler Boyd is not like incredible of fantasy. We have, we're very popular. Sorry, people walk in. But Tyler Boyd is Joe Burroughs like safety route. Like Tyler,

Tyler Boyd is like the brains of the operation at receiver. Like he's the veteran in that Bengals receiving group. And like when Joe Burroughs like Hot Read, like Tyler Boyd's the guy. Tyler Boyd's the guy that when Burrow needs to know where to go at the ball because I'm getting sack, you know, I'm about to get. for the ninth time today. He goes to Tyler Boyd. But I don't know. I can see what you're saying where that's not super exciting for people. He doesn't get open and he's not that sudden. Like, yeah, okay, that's disappointing. Are there any other people who are disappointed you or any of just weird testing quirks that you want to talk about? I think it was a good segue that you're talking about

speed scores because this class in general, outside of, you know, the David Bells, outside of the trail in Berks is sort of a weird class from body types. It's like, like basically a bunch of tall, skinny guys. You've got Thornton, who ran really fast, obviously, from Baylor. George Pickens from Georgia, who is 6-3-195. He ran really fast. Watson from North Dakota. Yeah, North Dakota State, Christian Watson.

Olave and Wilson from Ohio State, both tall, skinny guys. And then Johan Dotson from Penn State, also skinny. So it's like, these guys were all very fast. It was like a very fast group of players, even though the timing was a little bit off for the first hour or so, whatever. But yeah, the speed score, the actual like weight adjusted, this is just like an average class in terms of the speed score. I saw that from my buddy Scott Barra, who basically like,

you adjust for the weight of everybody. And it was like this class basically falls just right average. Yeah, no, a lot of, a lot, generally if we're gonna do a little, quick jargon, a little quicker than fast class. We got a quick class, nifty little class, explosive class, not necessarily like, you know, the burners in this class, tend to be guys who are a little bit lighter, and that can be worrisome. So yeah, that's where I think when I was talking about with Danny, got like a Christian Watson, guy like

like Conallick Pierce right now, I'm guessing they're going to go higher than people think, just because big long fast is hard to come by in this class right now, and those two guys prove they have it. So quicker than fast, is like Hunter Renfro like quicker than fast? Yes, he's like, he's just quick. He's not, no one ever confused him for fast. But that's like, he's like the perfect example of quicker than fast, right? Where it's just like, you're just darting around, a little in and out guy. And then like, quick as a hiccup, as you'd quick as a hiccup, quick as a wink, babe. but once he gets the ball

on his hands he breaks that tacking. Yeah, once he gets the ball on his hands he breaks that tacker like, right, turn up field and go. Is that it? Like, that's quicker than fast. Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure. Because, you know, sometimes, like, you guys say shit

and I just like nod along and pretend I know. And sometimes I just need to know what the hell that means. It's a vodka. Like, I pretended to know it. Like, there are words, you know, everyone has them. I pretended to know what that means like my whole life. And eventually you're just like, yeah, what does what is rapacious being?

I have no idea. You're not alone. I don't know. Yeah. So the other thing that is, kind of weird about the testing that happened yesterday is like we were all freaking out and excited about the 40s and then

just the way it is covered right now, we didn't even really get to see the three cones or the short we never do. So that was all, I think that's a result of being in prime time, right? Like in the, when it was during the day, you'd see all the testing. You wouldn't necessarily see the three cones too much

just because they don't, like they don't think it's cool. Yeah, I don't think it's not compelling to the audience. I'm surprised about this because like why haven't they branded this better? You're telling me the three cone is the defensive end drill. And of all the drills they do here,

of everything done this weekend physically, the three cone is the by far most correlated to NFL success and DNs are the stars of the defense. And like you can kind of, if you sort by three cone scores, you're kind of getting like a list of like the most successful

defensive ends of the NFL. Why is this not like a thing? The thing is they'll show it for like Miles Garrett because they know he's going to be. the first round picking. They're like, wow, three going, that's a great time. But it's just a,

when you put a 40 on a TV for a dude, he's like, I generally understand how fast, how far 40 yards are and how fast that is. Three come and you're like, man, he ran a 6, 7, 9. How do you feel about that, Danny?

So, it's funny you ask that. It was funny you ask that. My long answer was no idea, but the fact that the Winter Olympics were two weeks ago shows me, I have a high propensity to learn nothing. And then suddenly I'm like, care a lot about the figure skating.

I'm like, oh, my God, are they going to hit the 208? And it's like, whoa, wow, wow. And it's like, I don't know what this is like, I get a grasp of it. I'm like, I don't know. It's almost more fun when you don't know anything. So along those lines, though, so they didn't really show it. And by the way, not very many receivers actually ran the three cone last night. Because now, because the prime time, like you were talking about, the three cone of the short shuttle are the last drills.

So you have run all the routes. You've run the 40. You've run the gauntlet. You're done all the work, all the like drills. It's 9 p.m. 9.30 p.m. It's like, hey, do you think you're running good three-cone time? And the majority of receivers are like, no.

Wait, I don't know how I've never thought of this, but is the 40-yard-dash-first of the events or last? Or what? Does everyone do it in the same order? It's certainly early. I can't remember. So the players are in groups, right? So all the inflated times were group three of the wide receiver groups, right? They were group three.

So most, some groups will get the 40-before anything else. Most groups will, like, jump before they get the 40. Wait, hold up, hold up, hold up. Are you telling me that these doos, these timing disparities, and again, I know I'm being granular, but we're talking about these things are measured to the one hundredth of a second. So like, let's say you've been running your practice time, like, oh, we can get in a 427, or I'm a 430. Let's just say you do 430.0. And then you do your test, and it's a 437.

Now, I know that sounds, but like, we're talking about the hundredths of a second. Maybe it's because you just did your broad jump and your long jump and all your other things. Like, could that be the difference? It matters a little bit, yep, and that's why, you know, we have the pro days. But yeah, like, you can't. Also, you have never even thought about this before. That's why a lot of guys waiting for the pro day. But the other thing, the other variable here that no one ever, I mean, it's kind of just one of those things that's like obvious.

Like some people just have a bad day. True on Berks, man. I mean, Burks had six false starts where he ran it's 40. Yeah. Right. By the way, this is interesting. Wait, six fall starts? Yeah, he was on the line for a few minutes.

They kept making him start over. There was one moment there when I think it was his first or second one, I can't remember which one it was, where he was getting ready to go. He was about ready to get into his stance and the guy that was timing it started yelling at someone in the crowd because they were in the way. Did you see this?

Yeah. And it was like, that would piss me off. I'd be so pissed if they like stopped. It absolutely looked like. Burks were like not having a good time with his life. Which like that's going to add time I would guess. I have a difficult time grasping

what a tenth of a second actually means. But like how much of, how much is a bad jump off the blocks? It's everything. Tremendous. Could that take a tenth of a second? Could that be the four four or old? He kind of had done a four.

So instead of a four-five-five, mind you, that the jump off the blocks doesn't happen in football. That is not a thing. Always. Yeah. So if he just did that better, he might have had a four-four-five. That's what you're saying? I don't know. Yeah, like, maybe not four-four-five, but basically, yeah, like, like, in Burses.

In terms of getting the 40-down was about as large ways they gets. He had multiple false starts. He would, after he had the multiple false starts, he was getting on the line and, like, standing there for, like, a while. And, like, getting in his stance and getting out of his stance. He had the guy yelling and, like, I've never run a competitive 40-yard dash in my life. I've absolutely no idea what goes into that and whatever, yada, yada, yada. But I can't imagine that felt great.

Why are you guys disappointed in him? I've never seen this. Literally, the guy that was running the drill is some NFL coach. I couldn't identify. The steoos guy. He does every year. And he was like, don't stand there. Don't go back there.

You need to sit down or something like. He was like yelling at someone in this dance. Wait, so why are you guys upset if there are all these extenuating circumstances with his timing? Six best speed score. You guys sounded. That's the context you have to run into it. I'm saying it would have been cool. You wanted to run a four-re.

Yeah. It would be cool. So that's context. That's important. And it's not just Bers. It's like for anybody, some of these guys can have a bad day. It's like you go out and you play a bad game.

You play board. Never done it. Right. We can't relate to that. Every one of our pods has been incredible. But you know what I mean? Like you just have a bad day. You're not a good mood.

You feel sick. You feel down. Lack of energy or whatever. And that's, again, another reason. And this gets to why not very many guys we're running the three cone anymore. They've moved the timing around. So it's at the very end of the day.

Everybody's all tired. It's not like high energy at the beginning of the day. You're good. You're feeling good. You're like drained. It's also why nobody's benching. It's because nobody else to do that at the beginning of the day. So that is,

I think just something that people were talking about at the combine here this week is basically just like, you know, what is the, what's the value in doing this? What's the point in doing this? Is it actually good for these guys to be doing these tests or should they wait into their pro day? It'll be interesting to see if the NFL changes things out. and goes back to the non-prime time. I doubt it because you're never going to like take.

You can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know. To move this weekend television product we've built. So we just thought that was kind of an interesting wrinkle is basically like the three cones where there was only a few guys around. Dane Brugler from the Athletic actually posted this. There were two receivers this year that ran a sub seven second three cone. We talked about that the other day.

Like if you're running like six five, six, six, seven, whatever. That's like really good numbers of three cone. and that's going to, like, bump you up. There was two guys that ran sub-7 this year. If you go back just to that, like, 2017, 23 receivers ran sub-7 seconds. But maybe the time was bad. Maybe it's like the unofficial guy from the comment,

but in reverse, he's just slow to draw. I mean, that's possible, but it was just also, number one, there were a lot more receivers running the three-cones, so the volume was more. And I think there's also the variable that goes into this is when you're 40 is in prime time, and it's the thing that we're all freaking out about. We're all getting super excited about. that's what they're spending the most time training for.

Yeah. So these guys are training for the 40 and basically just saying, we're going to punt the three cone. And mind you, I think an important point here that like really gets lost, he's like a really good athlete, like Traylin Berks. The agent can call the GM and say,

hey, I didn't train him for this. I trained him for the 40. Yeah. And they like they can just, oh, okay. That's why it's a lot slower. That's the other thing. That's the other thing, too. Like the three cone generally,

I mean, I think the 40, the form that you, you use and the technique that you use is very important. It's not like easy. But like the three cone is like a lot. Like you have to run out like there's a lot of things that go into it. I think guys are in a game within a game. Yeah, they're a little bit worried about getting hurt because you're turning really fast

and like ankles and all that. And so I just think that like more people are just punting that and just deciding not to do it. Are there other notes? I kind of wanted to ask you about Tyler Linderbaum, who's the center from Iowa. I am kind of, I have been in the camp that I don't know. I know he's not like a Quentin Nelson level offensive. line prospect, but I'm still in the, I know that there's like, as Solick was saying the other day, it's like, well, you take an offensive lineman that high, but eventually they're not as good

of value. I'm kind of like, if you get someone who's going to be like an eight-time pro bowl, I kind of want that. But he, Tyler Linderbaum had, I believe, second percentile in like two as a 98 percent of people have longer, of the linemen have longer arms than him. And he's in the third percentile for wingspan. So he's got little T-Rex arms. Right. So is that, does that matter or is that like why he's a center? Yeah, to me, not too concerned about it. If he was playing tackle, worried. Length matters.

Because he's on the eye. At center, right, I think he's going to be, he's going to be, you're in a phone booth the whole time anyway, right? So as long, like, and Linderbubb's hands on film were great. Didn't see a problem with him dealing with potential NFL players and he was playing against Ohio State. Because just to be clear, a tackle, the whole point is to extend your arm and keep Miles Garrett as far away from as possible.

And at center, it's like, get in there and like push someone out of the way. Right, exactly. And so honestly, like, if it, if a shorter arms help him navigate tight air, is a little bit better. I ain't got no problem with it. Film looks great. And then when he gets to the second level, if a linebacker's longer than him, that's not great, but also he's got 50 pounds on the linebacker. You should still move

them. So, do I love it? No. Is it going to make me double check my work? Yes. All together, Linderbombs real good player. I'm not too concerned. I think this actually makes, it's a similar discussion to the Kenny Pickett, Tiny Hands discussion, which is

yes, this is an outlier. Yes, this is something that you have to think about. However, he has so many other, like, elite, elite traits, like foot quickness, strength. Lindelbaum, not picket yourself. I'm talking about Linderbom. Sorry, yes. Linderbom has so many other elite traits. And he's so good.

And the tape is so good that I think a lot of teams are just basically going to be like, look, we understand he's an outlier, but we're willing to take that chance. Generally, teams don't want to bet on too many outliers because then you have a team of outliers. And it's just, you know, you could find yourself missing on way too many draft picks. But this is a guy. Here's a little background that, like, gives you. some context. Now, this is a guy. He pinned. Yeah, sorry, I did do that. I was there for it. Put it in the jar.

Collinsworth. Now here's a guy. He pinned Tristan Worf's in high school in wrestling. Yeah, buddy. That is, to me, like, that is the most impressive thing about this entire like scouting report on this guys. He pinned when they were in high school. Obviously, they, you know,

I think it was earlier on in his career. It wasn't like the only time he actually went up against Wurfs because Wurfs was like a state champion. I can't get it. of these stories of like now NFL players. And it's like, yeah, I played them in like three different sports every year in high school for four years in a row. Tyler Lindelbaum was a six-sport athlete in high school. What?

I don't know the six-ported that. Dane wrote it. Dane wrote it. And with Dane writes on the Daneburg of the Athletic, it's law. I think I saw, I think I saw, I saw, I saw, six points. So he's from Salon, or Salone, Iowa. Okay. And there's something called the Salon Days, which is like a competition where you, at least one of the competitions,

is see how far you can throw a hay bale. Excuse me? I'm in that. Which is like the most Iowa thing you can do. I don't think I could like grab a hay bale. Hey bales are heavy as hell. They are. All right. So I would guess the six.

He's strong. What are the six? Six sports have got to be. Football wrestling. Track and field. Basketball. Basketball. Baseball?

Oh, track, right. That's four, right? Baseball. And then what? Like, water bowl? Like, what's left? This is like, no, this is like when people in a podcast. Cross country.

When people on a podcast are, doing this. And then the people listening right now screaming the answer are like, it's the closest you'll ever feel to a ghost. Yeah. Where it's like you're like screaming the answer. We can't hear you. Boxing? They have high school boxing in Iowa? I don't think that. I definitely don't think that. Cattle wrangling in Iowa? Competitive cattle wrangling? Don't have said our Iowa listeners. Haybill. Heybill tossing. I don't know. Either way, six sports for Trout of Linderbubham. Yeah. I don't know. I have no idea. More sports than he's got percentiles of arm length, baby. Okay.

any other weird quirky notes actually no I have another one again I'm gonna go did you see that Ikemaquanu played the lead in a 101 Dalmatians in a play that's awesome did you and he said that that was his start Akemaquano 6 foot 4

with a 7 foot 2 wingspan baby yeah long arms that's the other thing that's the other side of coin yeah 310 pounds gonna run sub 5 it's a healthy young man Akemequano baby is a well put together

young man Would you guys take him number one over Neil? Forget what the Jaguars will do. Forget that. If you were, let's just say you were building a team from, like our expansion team from scratch, and you had the number one pick. I would take Ikem over, Neil.

More high school sports fun facts. Ike McQuonan ran the anchor leg of the four by four for his high school track team at 280 pounds. I think I, I think I misheard you. Did you say, wait, so Ikemaquan, what did you just, how big was he? He ran. He was 280 running track. He ran the-80.

How tall? He's 6-4 now. I'm assuming he was right about about that. 280. Not 218. 2-80. 2-80 pounds. Per Dane Brugler of the athletic.

And he's the anchor leg. I think it's the 4-by-4. Might be the 4-1. But I'm pretty sure it's the 4-by-4. Wait, what was his speed score? What is his-he's going to run? He's going to run today Friday. Oh, my God.

I can't. But I think he runs sub-5. If he runs sub-5, and he has an extra 10 inches an extra to eight inches. Wait, he's probably going to do great because he actually can do the track. He can do the off the blocks. He's going to have to learn it from scratch. Danny's starting to figure out the code.

I can't believe there's, I have to figure this stuff out. This is a good, like, to wrap it all up. This is a good example of why a lot of NFL coaches want guys to play multiple sports. Yep. Because you learn how to move in all the other sports and have different strength.

Your eyes get trained. Absolutely. Volleyball matters to Alec Pierce. Basketball matters to Drake London. These things are real. Wasn't Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a goalie? I don't know. You tell me, brother? Probably be really good at that, yeah.

Or no, it's Hukim Olajuan. I can't remember one of them. Okay, so any other weird quirky notes? Anything else in anything else? Anything else in any other 101 Dalmatian plays or anything? I mean, the only other thing that we have been talking about is just the idea of potentially the combine moving next year. So this is the last season that it's 100% officially in Indianapolis.

Next year, I don't think they've made the decision yet, but I think there's a chance that it could move. It's one of a few different places. Jerry Jones is either going to wrangle it to Dallas or they'll put it in Vegas or L.A. or something. Yeah. So we've just been talking about that. Like, it's number one, like I have a nostalgia for being here in Indianapolis.

I think there's a lot of, like, tradition here. And the important thing is, and I think it's, this is something that the NFL is really going to have to think about, is when you go into a different city, say it's like Dallas or Phoenix or whatever, and everything is really spread out, or L.A. Everything's really spread out. You got guys staying all over the city at different hotels, like team and media people.

It just makes the logistics, number one, way harder. Because in Indianapolis, everything is really walkable. Everything's within like eight-minute walk. And if you do it in a big city like that, then you have all these people going to different bars, different restaurants. You don't bump into people. Like, you're not sitting next to Mike Tom on last night at dinner.

We got to divide this into three parts. There's what the NFL cares about. there's the logistics of running the event and then that's what we care about. To be abundantly clear, you're talking about what we care about, which is the least important part of the equation. The NFL cares about making a TV product,

which is why they have guys run at 10 p.m. at night, and when you move it from city to city, it's another carrot. It's basically another revenue stream. You can throw it at Vegas. You can throw it at Dallas. You have people fight over it. It becomes a bigger event.

You move it around. It's commercials for the stadiums, everything, et cetera, et cetera. The logistical challenge is the reason Indianapolis is great. And if you don't, never been to Indianapolis, it's an incredible city

because it is, I think it's the most walkable city I've ever been to in the United States. You can walk around all inside too. Convention center is huge. You can basically, everything that happens for our purposes at the combine is really within a 20-minute radius.

You can get anywhere you need. 18 of those 20 minutes can should be walked within the convention center. Scooter. It's huge. But everything's done. The hospitals, these guys have to spend like two hours

in an MRI machine getting every one of their joints like MRI which is, I mean, for kids, you know, ADHD 20-year-olds. That's pretty torturous. But like, you have to get, again, it's a medical. event with a bunch of like hoopla around it.

The key thing logistically is you have to get all these kids to a hospital. You do this and like get all these things done. If you're in Los Angeles, you've got to get them to UCLA Medical Center. And now we're just talking about traffic. But it's true. It's going to just screw things up. Now,

I don't think the NFL cares because like they can put it on TV in LA and put it. Well, they don't care if the teams care though. Maybe we'll see. We'll see if the coaches convince the GMs to convince the owners that they care and they convince Cadet. I don't know. But the overall point is that within this 20 minutes

subculture. The reason the combine, I think, has become such a big thing in part is because there is a serendipity to everyone. It's an industry convention. Everyone who works in football is here. Everybody from every facet of the players, the agents, the team, everybody in the team, the media, everyone's here. And there's only really five bars or so and four coffee places that everyone congregates. And you walk in and in a room and you're like, oh, like, you know, it's like there's Ian Rappaport and like John Harbaugh. That didn't actually happen. But it's like mad lips.

Everything's mad lips. And if you want an example of it, at the athletic, Bo Wolf did a hilarious go-burne did an incredible thing. He just sat at the Starbucks at the J.W. Marriott Starbucks and just wrote about it. And it's incredible. But anyway, I don't know if anyone cares about this. We care.

I kind of think this is really no one gives us. Well, I think the bottom line, the point that I was kind of trying to make was that if they move it to another city, there's a chance like way fewer. media members are going to go because like the value of going for many media members is rubbing elbows with front office people with um you know scouts or whoever coaches and if you're like trying to like the example that gets thrown around is like you're like they do in phoenix wherever it's like i'm not going to like if i hear one of the coaches like you know whoever mike tomlin is at some bar in scotsdale i'm not driving to scotsdale to go like hopefully run into them there like

the idea is, it's so nice here because you can just, like, run into whoever. Like, last night we saw, like, so many different people. So I think, but that's just like... I don't really anyone cares about our personal problems, but I think we told us to Craig and Craig thought it was hilarious that we're like, oh, so you prefer, like the small cities. Yeah.

You prefer, like, the small boring places and he's like, where you're, like, NFL people are forced to, like, rub elbows with media. But my point is, like, maybe the media, maybe the combine will change completely if it moves to different city because, like, fewer media members will go. That's the bottom line. I'd like to make it very clear.

that the value of me going to the combine is hanging out with you guys. It was the friends we made a lot of. Really? There were friends we made. Email time, because I can't emphasize this enough. No one cares about our problems. Good life lesson.

Okay. We've got an email from Ethan. Ethan. Okay. Hello. Your lengthy discussion on how to pronounce the NFL combine touched on a fun linguistic quirk that I've always found interesting. It's a rule that you know intuitively,

but have probably never been taught. English has many words that are both nouns and verbs, like combine or address or contest or contest. To avoid confusion between these words, we basically always put the stress on the first syllable to show a word as a noun and on the second syllable to show it's a verb. So combine or combine.

Unlike pretty much every other rule in English, I don't think this has any exceptions where the stress pattern is reversed. Sometimes the words are just pronounced the same, but I can't think of any situations when it's reversed. For example, we can combine all the scouting events in one place creating the NFL Combine. I will address this email by writing down your email address.

Weirdly, it's called the State of the Union address, but not, I don't know. Yeah, English is more. And then Hafeus will contest your claim that you know more than he does with a trivia contest. Wow, that's really good. I love that. That's great. I did not know. I'm a little, the email had at the very beginning, it said,

your lengthy discussion. Yeah, yeah, I know. You guys spending a lot of time talking about it. We spent five minutes talking about our, oh no, we have to go to Vegas. Who gives this shit about our moms? Anyway, Cameron says, Hey, I feel like one of the overwhelming

overwhelming narratives about this draft is that it's, quote, bad. But I also think it's also clear from your combined pod that nobody really knows anything. So historically, how often have bad draft classes actually ended up bad.

So it's a little bit of like, I don't know, like two wrongs make a right in the sense that like, some years we think it's bad, some years we think it's good, but every year we don't know anything, right? And so then like the good classes end up good or not. And the back plan, the classes end up bad or not. And we have reasons to explain all of that. And then the next year we come back again and we're like, wow, we really don't know anything. But this year is really actually strong, a corner and a wide receiver. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, if we were to accept

how little we really understand about like prognostigating one player, let alone an entire class, we would have nothing to talk about. Right. I would just walk up to, like, you know, the people that we rub elbows with and go like, hey, football, man, tough, huh? Right? It would be very hard to have that conversation. So for as little, for as much as we don't know about the class,

and we really try to ignore that reality because it gives us podcasts to create and conversations to have, you know what I mean? It's also not binary. It's not bad or good. It's a spectrum. You know, shades of gray. Shades of gray. And also, I think it also underplays how, I mean, sometimes.

people are right. Like, Jamar Chase was like, yeah, he's a 99th percentile prospects. Like, actually,

you were wrong. He's the, he had the best rookie year ever. Right. And it's, you know, sometimes people are really good.

So I think it's an interesting question, though, I think, to me in terms of the quarterbacks, that's where I wonder, it's, what if the quarterbacks are so bad, quote unquote, as prospects,

they fall to the good teams. And then what happens if you put, like, if you have a good prospect to me, like Trevor Lawrence, and he goes to a shitty team like the Jaguars, what happens if a Kenny Pickett goes to the Steelers with a good team.

And that to me is what I'm, this to me is like what I'm looking at the whole draft about is like the nature and nurture of like good prospects, quote unquote, in bad landing spots versus what if the good prospects end up in, or sorry, the bad ones end up in good teams. Okay, that's all we got.

Thank you, D.K., thank you, Solek. Thank you, Craig, for producing this in spirit. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Santigold. Big fan of him. I'm here. I know.

I was going to say, he's actually doing the produce. He's doing the producing. well he's not he's he's hosting in spirit he's actually doing the yeah well I know hosting in spirit

producing in body didn't I say he's here he's here in spirit well he's here virtually in the video chat hosting and spirit put the mic to the attending in virtual

but Craig do you want to say anything from the Zoom your DK's holding the mic to the computer yes yes I'd love to know DK mentioned that they potentially hired a new guy

to use the stopwatch at the combine what do you think the vetting process for that's like could I apply and perhaps work, you know, can I get that job? I'd love to be the stopwatch guy at the conline.

You just know that that guy right now is sitting in his hotel room, practicing with 40s, making sure she doesn't mess up the office alignment and the running backs later today. No, you also know that his parents were like so excited for him and they're like,

good luck, honey, it's going to go great. It's not that big of it. We need a stopwatch combine to pick the stopwatch guy. We need to test the testers. Craig should be in charge. I actually do vote for Craig. Craig would be great at that.

I'll dedicate my life to that. I'll dedicate my next year and find this guy on Twitter and challenge him. I support you because if I don't support you, I think you'll just like edit me in a bad way and then I'll make you sound dumb. Okay. Thank you, everyone. We'll be back to you next week.