The Ringer NFL Show - The 2025 NFL Draft Take Purge

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Welcome to the Take Purge. All NFL draft–related takes, including things you don’t actually believe, will be legal for 60 continuous minutes. All rational thought, logic, and professional credibility will be suspended. Check out our 2025 Ringer NFL Draft Guide here! Email us! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Kai Grady and Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe show. That's right. I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama, the playoffs are coming up. And now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe show on Spotify. or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast.

Let's go! This is not a test. This is your emergency podcast system announcing the commencement of the annual take purge. At the siren, all takes, including things you don't actually believe, will be legal for 60 continuous minutes. No players, coaches, or media members of any kind will be granted immunity.

All rational thought, logic, and professional credibility will be suspended. The Ringer Podcast Network thanks you for, your participation. May our take God, Chris Sims, be with you all. Welcome to the Ringer NFL Draft show and I am joined by two men who want to purge their souls. My name is Danny Hyfittson.

I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Krollback. D.K., are you thrilled to bask and bathe in the light of purity when she cleansed your soul? There's truly no sound that gets me going more than the intro to the Take Purge. It really like stirs up your soul. It frightens and titillates. and excites. I'm a little afraid right now.

You know, I wish I had, I feel a little exposed even just recording in my home office. I wish I had a take bunker I could be in to protect myself. You know, we need take bunkers. We need to record out of a darkness retreat. Like a black site. Somewhere where no one knows where we are. Yeah.

And again, if you're listening for the first time, this is your first purge. You have to purge. Oh my God. Wow. Wow. What that's further ado. So what that siren means, again, it's time, boys.

So, again, it has begun. It's like severance. We just went down the elevator. Whoa. And if it's your first time, we cover the draft for so long that, like, we just got to get these takes out. You know, it's like there's intrusive thoughts. We don't even believe. And we just have to say them.

And so now we have an hour to just say whatever we want. Consequence free. It's things we don't even think. And, like, we're just lighter and freer at the end. And so professional credibility is suspended. That line gets me. Yeah, exactly. All professional credibility is suspended.

So does anyone want to start? But if everyone really wants to start, anyone's bursting at the seams, by all means. But if not, I'll take the mantle here. I mean, I can go. Please, D.K. I'll start. I kind of want to just get this out of the way because it's going to be crushing to Hafeitz's soul. But Travis Hunter is probably just going to end up playing on one side of the ball.

I'm sorry. Grow up, Peter Pan. Count Chalkalo. This is the NFL. This is the NFL. He's 188 pounds. They play 17 games. he's not going to play both sides of the football,

or at least not full time. So what would you say to Travis Hunter this week who said, if I can't play both sides of the ball, I'm not going to play football? I would pat him on the head and say, okay, that's fine. We'll see you at training camp. Nor should he want to.

It's like, are they paying you twice? Hey, that's actually true. You want to take the opening and closing shift of the restaurant from one paycheck? Do I get overtime for this or what? That'll be cute for about a year and a half until you get hurt. You want to be the first bogo athlete?

No. And to be like a little bit more realistic about this take, like maybe he ends up playing both sides of ball for a while, but it's not going to be a long-term thing. I really just think the rigors of the NFL. A lot of players can't stay healthy playing one side of the football. He's 188 pounds. I reiterate.

He's 188 pounds. John Harbaugh was the voice of reason this week. He said, quote, it's going to be interesting to see how they do it wherever he goes. But to say that you're going to be completely immersed in everything that there is to know on offense and everything there is to know on defense. I don't know if there's enough hours in the day for a player to be able to do that

and have every detail locked down. He's, I think he's just the voice of reason right now. I mean, it's really fun to think about this guy being a unicorn and being able to play both sides of football. But I don't think it's going to happen. Can I, can I,

can I, like a slingshot in Talladega night? Shake and bake, baby. I think, yeah. I'm Cal Noton. I finally, I need to get a one win. But if you win,

How am I going to win? Yeah, that's good point. Good point, yeah. Yeah, I think taking Travis Hunter's second overall is absolutely insane. I think we're brainwashed by the two positions thing. Like, I think in reality, he is a B-plus player on both sides of the ball, and that convinced everybody that he's actually an A-plus player. But we're talking about a wide receiver as the number two overall pick

on a Brown's team with no quarterback. he's going to be basically the lightest player weight-wise that'll ever get drafted in the top three and the history of the top three. He'd be the lightest player. And we're doing that for a slot corner and a part-time wide receiver. The comps are out of control with him.

People are calling him like, Justin Jefferson, Odell Beckham. Hey, that was me. Sure. Trade him right. I would trade out of two and get a massive haul because his hype will never be higher

than it is right now. And when he gets hurt, now you have two holes to fill on your roster if he's playing both sides of the ball. I think it's the easiest tradeout and the hype is never going to be higher for a guy that is actually just a B plus on both sides of the ball.

Wow. We started out hot. Did he have the same tank? I'm glad he started that way because I have something I have to get off my chest as well about Travis Hunter. He's going to be the greatest player

in any sport that we've ever seen and he'll ascend to the heavens. Honestly, yeah, I actually think that. Honestly, honestly, Honestly, my actual, if you take... Is this a take perj? You've been saying this for two months. But take quarterback out of it.

Take quarterback out of it. I literally think Travis Hunter is going to be the best football player of all time. Literally the best football player ever. My God. I'm not kidding you. So you're saying Tom Brady. The homest, take quarterbacks out of it.

No Tom Brady. That's fair. But if you, right now, you can't really answer that question. Like, who's the best football player ever if you take quarterback out of it? It's like hard. Is Jim Brown or is Joe Greene? Like, you don't know who the interest. Jerry Rice.

Jerry Rice. You know, Reggie White. The answer is going to be Travis. Hunter. He's going to be the best football player of all time. He's not a quarterback. Or the best football player in 100 years since Jim Thorpe. Travis Hunter's not a generational player. He is a once in a century athlete. He is good enough to play on both sides of the ball and everyone is confusing. They haven't seen it with their own eyes with not possible. And I am, I honestly, the people who think, no offense, but like you two, that Travis

Hunter cannot play in both sides of the ball, I genuinely feel bad for you. Like, I literally pity that you guys don't have the vision and imagination to see that this is going to work. I didn't know we were doing personal attacks on the take. It's just how I feel. Like, I'm not saying I believe that, but I do feel like when you're like, well, I can't do it both ways. I feel sorry for you. I feel bad for you. I can't believe that.

Do I think he's physically capable of playing a snap on defense in excelling and then playing a snap on offense and excelling? Yeah. But first of all, he shouldn't. I don't know why you'd be playing 100 snaps for the price of 50. No thanks for me. Because he's better than the other people. Because it's not just, it's not about the money. It should be.

He's playing two times for the price of one. We'll figure that out later. That's also, well, he can make $50 million later. He can make like two positions later. It's honestly, I know he keeps saying the Otani thing. You know who else did that? Otani. Otani literally, the way that Japanese.

Yeah, but he pitches like every five days or whatever. But it's harder because cornerback, it's like you're guarding yourself. It's like equivalent to playing offensive, defense, basketball. It's like, I just play that position and then I guard that position. Pitching's a completely different thing. Yeah, you know what happened to show Hatoony? He got hurt. He had Tommy John. He had to get surgery. And then he went to 50, 50, 50 homers and 50 steals play one side of the ball. That's the downside is he'll, oh, no, we'll have to focus on one side later, be the best at it. It's like, also, you're fourth and Cy Young voting before he got hurt.

Also, we're talking about baseball versus football. There's no physical contact as a pitcher or a DH every single week. He's a quarterback. This is like a guard. This is, Look, maybe this happens, but it's so funny because it's like we'll, we'd never have a show Hey, Otani. And then right when we get him, we're like, oh, you know, who else could be one? Like, that's a once in a lifetime player in any sport. Why do we think all of a sudden there's going to be another one in football? Because he just did it at the college level. College is so fucking different than the NFL.

And then flopped in the NFL because it's a completely different sport. And Patrick Sertain, who's the defensive player of the year, says last month, maybe I could play receiver. that's ridiculous. You've never done it. I watch Travis Hunter play. Here's why. It's all the details. Travis Hunter, there's a receiver, there's cornerback, and then there's the conversation of whether he can do both.

It is worth saying the LSU receiver comparisons, whether it's Jefferson or O'Dell Beckham, or because Travis Hunter's catch radius is immediately top 10 in the NFL by just walking on the field. Like, D.K., you're our draft expert. Travis Hunter's, first of all, his wingspan is, well, one inch shorter than Ted McMillan. So, like, let's start right there. Like, the build is crazy. But then, like, his actual ability to catch balls,

like, he's immediately just fades or just comebacks to the goal line. But he's probably already going to be a top 10 receiver in the NFL as a goal line threat. Like, immediately. Defense. I've never made this comparison. You don't see it a lot. I think Travis Hunter's IQ on defense. The only comparison to me is Ed Reed.

I think he's probably the smartest defender. in the secondary in like 20 years. I think he's a genius. He's a football genius. And I think that instead of being like, oh, well, the- He is. This is exactly my point, D.K.

This is why the Browns should trade out and get three first-round picks because they should just... He's like a fucking... He should send hype and just pitch to every... 31 other teams and get three first-round picks for an undersized wide receiver cornerback combo. I agree.

I don't like him going to the Browns. I wish he was going to, like, literally any other city except Clever... even like, I don't know, New York. I wish he was going to like not accursed. I mean, I know the Giants are cursed, too. But I just, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Like, like, oh, he's on the goal.

He's creating like a mythology of this guy. You know, what's the football IQ? He's electric. Second to none. Only Ed Reed was better. Come on. It's true. Dude, like, even feet on the goal line with a running back barreling down.

I'm on like, it was like a fourth and one versus, I forget Utah something. I don't remember. And like, he clearly was not going to be able to stop the guy from going into the goal line. So he just puts. all his energy and just tries to force a fumble and just Superman punches the ball out and wins the game. Like it's like there's just, there's an IQ and like the application. It's not just the athleticism that he did at altitude. It's like he has the mental smarts that he's going to make it work. I don't know. I just, you know what else has always bothered me about the Travis Hunter hype?

Is that hype, which is like I watch the games. I watch the tape. He's so electric. I feel like during the season, this is admittedly anecdotal. So if you want to jump down my throat, that's fine. I feel like during the season, nobody was like Travis Hunter is the best wide receiver we've ever seen. Travis Hunter is Odell Beckham. Travis Hunter is Justin. It was only when the season ended

that this idea started to come around. Oh, he's this dual athlete. Actually, he's the best wide receiver we've ever seen. Nobody was saying that during the season. He was a sick cornerback. He was a sick quarterback who was playing wide receiver is I feel like what the consensus was. But nobody was like, this guy is a Jamar Chase level talent.

That conversation was not happening. Jamar Chase, I'm admitting he's not Jimar Chase and that Jamar Chase is to me like the best receiver prospect I've seen recently. I think Jamar Chase is the only guy. Like if you want to like Cooley-Jones. People are calling him Prime Odell Beckham, Justin Jefferson. Like, I'm sorry, that's in the same category as Jamar Chase to me. But nobody was saying that

in the middle of college football season. Nobody was like Colorado has the best wide receiver in the history of the game. I think Odell is a good comp. Odell is a good comp to me because Odell was not like the most disciplined route runner. Odell being like, oh, I'm going to hit like, this 14-yard landmark and then have a precision Devonte Adams Cooper Cup-esque route running. It's not Odell.

Odell's a freelancer who just has like these crazy huge hands with this like unimaginable catchability that also had the crazy speed. That to me is why the Odell comp works. It's going to go crazy shit and it's going to be like high IQ but like not really what the plan was, but it's going to fucking work. I think that's why the Odell thing. I understand Justin Jefferson sounding like hyperbole. Odell, I think makes sense.

I think Travis Hunter benefited. from, honestly, a pretty weak, wide receiver class and that if he was next to Malik Neighbors and Marvin Harrison, Jr. last year, people would not be calling him Odell Beckham and Justin Jefferson. That's honestly how I feel. All right. Well, I think that we've covered. I think everyone was represented with this conversation. We got off to a hot start.

Ooh. All right. I'm not scared. I'm looking at my window. I feel like there's going to be a sniper, a red dot on my forehead. I feel like starting off being anti-Treyfutter is the stupidest thing we could do, Craig. I'll probably get hurt. I'll have no memory of this in 52. minutes. The Giants will take Travis Hunter

and then he'll like pull a hamstring and the Giants like, fuck, we're down two people. Yeah. We're down a quarter and a fever off. Shit. Oh my God. It's like how they never let the vice president and the president fly in the same plane. Yeah, exactly.

All right, DK, you got another one here? Oh, I got to start two in a row. No, I'll do it again. I can go. Whoever, yeah. Go for it, Craig. Yeah, Craig. I think Ashton Gentie is the only good player in this draft and he should be the number one overall pick. We had an emailer from a Titans fan who was like,

I want to take Ashton Genty over Cam Ward. Dude, I'm like, the only good player. He's the only, the Cubies are bad. Travis Hunter is undersized, can't pick a position. Abdul Carter has a super risky, problematic foot injury. Can't wake up his mind. Will Campbell has the shortest wingspan of any tackle drafted in the last 10 years. Mason Graham's undersized and has short ours.

Jalen Walker's undersized tweener. Ted McMillan might not care about football. I'm like, you know who cares and is going to play every snap and we know is good? Ashton Gentie. Sam Ward is going to get drafted by the Titans and probably get Brian Callahan fired when he sucks. You know the last time the Titans were good? What did they have?

What was their team centered around? A generational running back and Derek Henry. They should just do that again. He'll be a fan favorite. Everybody will love him. He'll sell tickets. And then you build around him. Dude, we got to be shout out to the tight.

Wait, let me pull up the Titans fan. Oh, Rich. Richard emailed us like a very similar thing that was just like, I kind of just want to watch Derek Henry again. I don't want to watch a shitty quarterback. Cool. We're going to get Cam Ward who's like, Like a 17th best quarterback in the NFL, maybe, like, that's your upside.

Yeah. Or you could take, like, the best running back since Sequin Barclay and just have a good time and figure it out from there. Have a good time. Yeah. That's fun. I love that, Craig. I think that's really good. I have a similar sort of general take on this, and this is sort of stolen a little bit from a blue sky comment that I got, Blue Sky reply.

This was CMW 42 on Blue Sky. My take purge is that each franchise should have a Hyphitz's dad as part of their front office. The role would be to watch college football playoffs and come away with strong opinions, such as Joe Burrow is good. My actual take here, which I honestly kind of believe, is that every front office should have a designated alien, like quote unquote alien in the draft room. Basically, if an alien came down from space and turned on the tape, who would they decide was the best player in college football or whatever? This is kind of related to the actual. This is like a Bill Simmonsism a little bit. Yeah, it's like basically we over think.

overanalyze, we overthink everything, we start to talk ourselves out of the good players and talk ourselves into these guys that have potential, quote unquote, potential or whatever, you lose track of the forest for the trees or whatever the expression is. You miss the forest for the trees. I think having like a pallet cleanser guy whose literal job is just to watch highlights would help a franchise make better picks. You're describing me. I have, I have an idea. I have an idea. So like the alien comes down and he's like, so let me get the same. straight. You got 400 guys in this list. 399 play one way.

Oh, God. Save it. And then one guy plays both ways. Take him. I do think that, you know, you know my opinion. I think draft season is way too long. And I think if the draft were a week after the college football season ended, we'd be way better at predicting who's going to be good or not. And we'd just have a way more accurate first round.

You have no opportunity to beat or learn anything about. I'm just watch and be like, watch the games. Pick your players. There sort of is like a, I don't know if it's a maximum scouting, but it's like a thing that is a real thing in scouting that usually your first take, your first gut feel on a player ends up being right. Most like more often than not because like a lot of times you watch a guy

and you don't like him and then you hear other people talking about how great he is and then you're like, oh, maybe I'll go look at it again and starts to talk yourself into him. And then at the end of the day you're like, wait, I was right the first time. Yeah, you get, you're kind of beholden and trapped by group think and by pure pressure from the outside. Usually when it's just you alone watching something, your first feeling is generally, I feel like, the one you want to go with.

Trust your gut. Yeah. Trust the highlights. I'm going to zag. Just watch highlights on these guys. Just watch highlights. Just scout highlights and you're going to be right more often than night. This was like my fantasy football hot take.

I'm like, prepping for fantasy football is a waste of time. Everyone else is just like auto drafts. It'll tell you all the best players. That's a good point, Craig. We should shameless plug. after the draft, we go back to the ringer fantasy football show. So if you listen to the draft, stick with us because we do this ringer fantasy football show, three episodes a week in August, four episodes during the season.

And we go in depth on all these players and everything and tell you everything about how to draft. Total waste of time. Honestly, just auto draft. It would be fine. It would be fine. Fantasy's one on the waiver wire. Boom. I have not to like completely blow my load early in the show, but I have another one that's very related to this.

Mind if I go again one more time? Sure. So polite inside the thing. Take Purge chaos. Yeah, you know. We're in the dungeon here. Hifitz just comes out attacking us for our takes and then...

I don't attack here. I just feel bad for you. Which is worse. I pity you. That wasn't even a take purge out of Huyvens. He's been doing that for two and a half months. I know. Seriously.

I had this idea that the NFL should designate a control team. Basically, this is the control team where they just draft off of consensus draft boards. They let polls and things online

decide their moves in free agency. This is going to be like the Bodey McBokeface team, basically. Like they just go by what the most popular thing on Twitter or whatever it is. And just I would be genuinely interested to see if they could compete or do better than some of these GMs in the NFL. Just based on going off of the consensus, whatever, Big Board or whatever it is that you have. And we could just call this the control. And it would be a good way of seeing if GMs are actually any good at this.

The Saints should just auto draft, you say. Essentially, essentially this is the auto draft team. The plane can fly itself, honestly. The Boaty McBow faces, I feel like would be league average at worst. The Boaty McBow faces. That's honestly true because that's kind of how I feel about the whole, like, I still agree with what I said last year where I could be an NFL general manager. I could hire Bill Belichick.

Couldn't be. I would hire Bill Belichick. Would you still hire Bill Belichick knowing that his girlfriend is like running your front office? But yeah, she can help. Whatever. Okay. Just check. Every great businessman and CEO is quietly being influenced by his 30-year-old girlfriend.

It's the hell's oldest time. Belichick, the difference, he's just up front about it, you know? Yeah, yeah. All right, I got one right. I got one here. Okay. I've been waiting to get this off my chest. The best quarterback prospect in this draft is like very obviously Jalen Milrow.

Oh, yes. It's kind of unbelievable. You sick fuck. We are in lockstep. This is one of my takes, too. Yeah, it's 2025. In 2028, Jalen Milrow will be a top five or top six quarterback. He will be right there with like, like, he's going to be on the level of like Lamar or Josh Allen or like right near them.

Maybe it's here below. But like he will be in that conversation. He's going to be at the Justin Herbert level. And we are going to look back at this draft and wonder how the giants, the prounds, the jets, the saints, the Steelers did not take Jailen Milrow. And all those teams are going to feel so unbelievably stupid. Wow. I didn't go quite this. take.

This is awful. It makes me ill just to hear you say it. Why? I know we're in the take birds. Do you have any explanation or is this all just your a sick twisted gut feeling you know? You know why? It's because I think the running, we talked about a little in the quarterback episode, but we haven't talked enough.

The running from Jalen Milrow is actually a superpower. Like, Dane Brugler had this stat at the Beast. Jalen Milrow had in college 12, sorry, just last season, 12 rushing touchdowns of 10 or more yards last season, which is the most by any quarterback in college in the last 25 years, including more than Lamar Jackson had in 2016 and in 2017. So like literally, just in terms of explosive runs more than Lamar Jackson at Louisville. And he did this in Alabama and the SAC. So like better competition.

That's number one. I think the thing with Jila Milro is he actually can play from the pocket, which is somehow not being discussed and kind of lost. is I actually think Jeline Miller can play from the pocket. The problem is says mechanics are inconsistent, so throws are inconsistent, so the offense is inconsistent. You know who else had inconsistent mechanics? Josh fucking Allen, like, fix the goddamn mechanics. Like, we have learned that you can fix mechanics in the NFL.

Like, I know I keep bringing in baseball. Pitchers, like the offseason stuff with pitchers go to drive line and you have like these guys coming back with like new pitches, all this stuff. We have learned so much about quarterbacking in the last like five to six years. unbelievable. And like how these small tweaks, it's like the idea that Jellon Milrow was even this good before he had any mechanical tweaks, it's like, holy shit. When he gets two years of this, take him on it, I would take, I would draft him, and stick him on the bench for a year or two, not quite Jordan Love three years, but like at least the season, don't do the Anthony Richardson

to him. Let him relearn to like throw more consistently. And I think he's going to be a fucking monster. Yeah, so I see your Lamar Jackson and I raise you, Anthony Richardson, Malik Willis and Justin Fields. Malik Willis might be good, actually. Okay, but my point is that, like, Richardson's problem was he got thrown into the fire immediately. Like Chris Ballard, the Colts GM, even has said, my biggest regret is I can't believe he played him early.

Like, for example, if the Eagles drafted Jalen Milrow, everyone would like, oh, fuck. Yeah. Like, everyone would just clench. And I'm just saying a team with vision. And again, if Jalen Milo goes to the Browns, over, it's done. His career was nuked.

I kind of think if Sean McVeigh gets his hands on Jalen Milro, there is like multiple MVP's coming. I think it makes the most sense for Milro to be drafted. You're right, by a good team with an established quarterback and then basically he can be Taysam Hill for two, three years, and just like learn

how to be in the NFL, practice with a good quarterback, practice with a good coach. The mechanics are a mess, but everyone's underrated, but he can play from the pocket. He just needs to fix, the mechanics need to be He has a really strong arm. His arm is crazy. He has, it's, it's, it's It's because he's, I don't know if it's just because he's six foot two or what,

but I also think teams are more enamored with him than the media. I think that some of the media is behind. I know if you guys this year. He got invited to the freaking green room. He's going to the draft, which means they think he might go in the first fucking round too. And I swear to God, I kind of think the Steelers might take Jailin Millerow at 21.

I don't, I think Jailen Miller actually does go in the first. I can't follow my, I can't follow that up that impassioned take with a much more milk toast, like sort of bland one. But my take was. basically Jalen Milrow will have the best career with two giant asterisks on career of any of the quarterbacks in this class. I don't necessarily know if he's going to end up being a quarterback long term. I think the nice part about Milro is like Hyford said, he has a superpower. He is a

special, special athlete. And if it doesn't work out where, you know, you try for a few years and he doesn't work out at quarterback, I know this is like one of those takes that it's like the Bill Pollian thing from like a years ago where Lamar Jackson should turn into a wide receiver. I'm not trying to do that. But he has the. floor of being like a Taysome Hill Cordarrel Patterson type of player if the quarterback thing doesn't work out. But the difference between him and Taysam Hill is Taysamill's arm sucks.

Right. Jalen Milro's arms, awesome. I got to say, whenever somebody tells me, whenever we're talking about it like an objectively bad quarterback, there's always the like, yeah, but he's got a really strong arm. And I just hate that. It's like having, it's like the fake boobs of quarterback skills. It's like, I don't care if he has a really strong.

strong arm. He can't fucking throw to anybody, all right? He's not accurate. He's Anthony Richardson has the strongest arm in the league. He can't fucking hit an eight yard out. So I don't care how strong Jalen Milrose's arm is if he can't fucking throw it to anybody. I just want to go back to like September 10th of last year and show Craig Horlebeck from September of 2024. What Craig Horlebeck's saying about Anthony Richardson. No, different, different. Different. That's in the lens of fantasy football. You're saying he's going to be a Lamar Jackson level starter in the league. When he's, when Anthony Richardson slipped on the logo, we wanted through the

60-yard touchdown. I'll never forget it. Yeah. No, I just want to go back to that moment. It'd be like, in five months, you're going to use him every week as an example of why he's going to fail. But that's kind of like the exception that proves the rule is like, those guys can do that every once in a while. And that's what allures you.

That's what traps you into drafting somebody like that. It's like, yeah, broken clock is right twice a day. Every once in a while, Anthony Richardson is going to throw some rocket moonball to Alec Pierce. Send Anthony Richardson to the Giants for a third round pick. We'll do it happily and stick him on the bench. Anthony Richards is younger than all the quarterbacks We're talking about. His career's not over.

He's played like 14 games in the NFL. He hasn't even gotten to 17 games. The book isn't over. It's over. No, it's not, please. On that one of the, but relatedly to Milrow, fine. And here's my other argument for Milro.

And this is about other players. This is good. Take purge I've had. I think, 2020, come back to this around the 2020 NFL draft. And you're just like,

give me every player that comes from a military family. I want all the military family players and I kind of this is going to be part of my like my GM thing is all these kids are you know a lot of these kids snowflakes NIL transters me me me me me I want the military you know what the military family kids are

Ashton Genti and Mecca Buka and fucking Jalen Milrow give me that offense and I will give you the world that's a great take I have no notes with that one yeah I really enjoy that which actually dovetails nicely into my next take,

which is that Shador Sanders is just Brony James with better PR. I think he is one of the most obvious stayaways in recent draft memory. The red flags for Shador Sanders are glaring for any quarterback ever considered to be a top three guy. He basically has no elite physical tools. He's only coach since middle school has been his dad. His dad is also one of the greatest football players,

one of the most charismatic, confident people of all time. I can count on one hand. Prime time. I can count on one hand the number of kids who have lived up to their Hall of Fame parents' expectations. And then if you just look at the stats, I think there are so many glaring issues with Shador Sanders. 34% of his throws were at or behind the line of scrimmage last season,

and yet he held onto the ball the 110th shortest in college football. So basically... He took the most sacks of any quarterback. He held the ball for three seconds on every pass, and then when he did throw it, he was checking down to the line of scrimmage. And then he took the most sacks in college football. Explain to me how that's supposed to make any sense.

No wonder the guy's tough. No wonder he's willing to take a hit because he fucking has to because he holds onto the ball too goddamn long. 364 more days until next year's tryouts. Yeah, he's not mobile. He has no speed or athleticism. I don't want to hurt a little, but I'm okay. He had negative 50 rushing yards last year.

Kenny Pickett's senior year stats blow Shador Sanders out of the water, to be honest. And when you look at all the stats, when you look at all the analysis, The phrases that people use to try to make the case politely for Shador Sanders, it's like standard arm talent, decent command, average velocity. Standard is so funny. Like, he's Dion's son? Cool.

If his name was Kevin Wilson, he'd be a fifth round pick, is how I feel. Kevin Wilson. What am I missing? Part of my whole take on Jalen Milrow that, and even though I'm not going as far as high fits on it, is related to just like, I don't feel great about the rest of this quarterback class. I think guys like Tyler Shuck, Jackson Dart, Will Howard, Kyle McCord, Red Herrings. Why are we wasting our time with these guys? Like, you know what I mean?

It's just not going to work. It's not going to work out. And Shadur, I think, is on that list, though. I'm a little more confident in him than those other guys. I think, and when you look at Cam Ward, who's like the one guy I'm actually pretty confident in, what do you think the odds are that he turns around and ends up elevating the Titans? Like 20%, 30, maybe 30%, 30%, like?

And that's like being pretty generous. Generally speaking, these guys that get dropped into a really bad team that has a first overall pick, it's just too much for them to handle. So it's almost like by default that I'm going. I think Jaylen Monroe is going to end up the best quarterback in this class just because, like Hyatt said, again, he just says a, he has superpower athleticism. And it's something that I would be willing to bet on. I also have a take that's somewhat related to the military families thing, Hyphitz, that you brought up. I think a mech-agabuka ends up being the most. productive receiver in this class.

And that's just by the numbers, receptions at the next level. So this is kind of like a fantasy take, but I love me some Tebikmullen. But if Emika Agbuka ends up in the right system, I think he could catch 100 passes a year. Best hands in the draft, rock solid route runner,

gets open versus zone, gives me sort of like the power slot, Chris Godwin, Amunrah, Rishi Rice, that kind of like, those kind of vibes of just guys that get open, run after the catch. not super flashy, not making the craziest plays you've ever seen,

but just racking up 100 catches every year. The Mecca is kind of the picture, the quintessential, like guy everybody overlooks because he doesn't do anything at an elite level, but he's just going to step into the league and immediately be like Keenan Allen and be a productive player for 15 years in the NFL. I love him. I feel like all the other guys are so much more high variance. Sometimes you just want a guy that you know is going to be good.

If you could rank players, it's funny, like the way Big Board stack or whatever you end up giving player a grade or whatever, but if you actually ranked players on consensus floor, I don't think you could find, like I don't know if there's ever been a player in doing this draft where I think it would be harder to find teams say, like,

oh yeah, I don't think he'll make it in the NFL. Like I don't think in 32 teams, I don't know how many scouts you could even find that would be like, I don't think Abook is an NFL player. Which you can find someone to say that about fucking anyone in the NFL. And Abuka is probably as close to S-tier certified as like NFL player as you're going to find for someone that people don't think has like elite upside, which is just like a hard play. It's a, it's a strange profile.

You guys have any reaction to my Shador as Brani Sanders? I mean, is Brony James a better we are? I'm like profoundly jealous of that. We should just call him Brani Sanders to like does something. You know why? It's funny because you're right. because again, my conference for Sanders the whole time

is Brock Purdy, who was, in fact, the last pick in the NFL. And, yeah, it's, you know, maybe he shouldn't be the third pick to the Giants. Yeah,

who stepped into, like, the best roster with the best offensive mind calling plays for him. I think we should do, if his, I think we should do the same thing where I keep wondering,

like, if his name was Dion Sanders, Jr., he'd probably be the third pick. And if his dad was just not Dion Sanders, he'd probably be like the third. fifth pick in the draft. It's kind of like a...

Or later. It's a case study in how much can PR actually help your draft stock? Which, you know, it also... This is not a full-throated take purge. It's kind of a half-hearted take-perge. I kind of think this whole Shador thing has been a carefully orchestrated Trojan horse

to get Dion Sanders a head coaching job in the NFL. Like, he kind of built this program around his son, recruits the best player in the country, his honor, puts his son in a position to succeed, let him be good enough, prop him up, use the primetime machine to get Chador drafted in the first round. And then he goes to some team, they stink, he gets the head coach fired. Well, who should we hire? Who has proven success with who's the only person who's ever succeeded with Chador Sanders? His father, boom, Dionne Sanders is the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. It's like a little finger-esque like rise. I have a related

and take Birch. Dionne Sanders is an incredible father. Maybe like the best one ever. You mean the guy who actively ranks his children on the internet? Maybe more people who should rank their kids. Because I'm like, literally he publishes rankings of his children. He's just snow plowed every obstacle between Chedur and the NFL away so that, like, he built a D1. Like, he explicitly built a D1 program so his son could be an NFL quarterback.

And you know what? Every other dad is just jealous. Right. Bronny. What about LeBron? Do you feel the same way? Dude, didn't Rich Paul? My favorite story about the Brony thing is that the picks, wasn't it like the 20 picks in the second round before the Celtics?

He told people the Lakers. Yeah, that he would go play in Australia. Yeah, Rich Paul, the agent for LeBron, called every team and said, if you take him, he's going to Australia. Yeah. He's going to the Lakers. Like the six. That of the year's shit right there. Like LeBron's won, you know.

Yeah. No, great job. Deion. Okay. Shudor, not going to the draft. Do you think, I know, I know Dion just re-up with Colorado. Do you think Dion's ever going to be a head coach in the NFL? I think if Shadur, like if Travis Hunter goes to the Browns, if the Browns took Shadur,

and again, I've been saying this the whole time. The reason, other reason other than Shudor being whatever is that you don't want to take him, is not only is he, are you going to take Brock Purdy in the draft, is that literally, is Kevin's DeFancy's tenure as the Brown's coach? Do you really want to sort of Damocles, the sword of Dionne Cleese, taking over you every Monday morning on first take? It's like, how many games in a row could Shadur lose till Deon's like, I'll take the job? Because two games is not enough.

But like 20 games, Deon's going to fucking try to get the job. So it's like, how long it will lose the street can you take till Deon's like, I'll do it. Deion's playing the long game. He knows. He knows who's coming. This is the long con. Yeah. I got a couple more here.

And we got emails. You guys have others? You want me to go? I think we're probably just going to forget about Schmarre Stewart and Michael Williams within two years. Forget about. They're going to be like, you know, the guy, so like who I just was thinking of when I was thinking of, like,

we never talk about Kavon Tibado anymore. What was last time you thought of him other than when I brought him up? We thought we'd go first or second with Aidan Hutchinson in the NFL draft and then the Giants take Tibido fifth and then he's just been the most forgettable player. Like, I don't remember a play from Kavon Tibado. And I was like a fan of his in the draft. I thought he'd be better than this. I'm just like, when I picture these two guys, I'm like, they have somewhat high floors because I think they could be good run defenders at the very least.

So, little proler. Shemar Stewart's the most athletic defensive end at the combine in 40 years. And then Michael Williams is the Georgia defender with the arms that like demigori arms. And Shemar Stewart had one sack last year? One and a half sacks? Okay. Don't forget about the half. Can we call it sacks?

One and a half sack. He had one and a half sack. One and a half sack. I think you round up on that. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just thinking if like the odds are that the if these guys turn into like double digit tag artists like obviously we'll talk about them a ton.

But I bet in two or three years like we will will be like, oh yeah, that guy. Remember that guy? Yeah. That, that. I remember that super athletic guy. Whatever happened to him. I'm just like these guys give me. I don't know.

It's just like there's so many red flags kind of. or like, you know, warning sirens going off in my head about these two guys. So I don't know. Austin just texted us and said, I lost money on Kavon Tibido's crypto coin dream with a jay before he was drafted. I bought the coin. I had lost that money. I can't put you bought fucking Kvon Tibado's cryptocurrency.

My God. Austin lost a lot of money in the Hocktoa coin. He says $100 investment. Gone. That's how you know that that Shadur would really be a Ponzi scheme is if like the day before the draft, they released a coin. I mean, he's got his podcast ready to go to make the announcement. Oh, my God.

All right. That's good, D.K. That's a good one. You're probably right. I also think Shamar Stewart is going to the Colts. Okay. I got one here. Okay.

I got a Chiefs one and an emailer has an Eagles one. Which one do you guys want? I'm going to do both. Let's start with you. Yeah, yeah. The Chiefs one. The Chiefs are going to miss the playoffs. Oh, interesting.

Chiefs are missing the playoffs. Like literally, they got worse. and all the other teams in the division got better. High Fitz did call the decline of the 40, where's the 49ers? You were just saying like it's going to absolutely go to shit for them. Losing a Super Bowl destroys you. It destroys your,

you inside your soul. It destroys, I'm going to read the quote from Debo Samuel, who went on Amman Ross St. Brown's podcast. Yeah, we did this last year. Debo says, not going to lie, losing the Super Bowl,

it puts you in depression. You go months without talking to people, wanting to be seen. Losing the Super Bowl is one of the worst, feelings ever. Think about it from our position. We just went through all of camp. We went through the whole season. Got to the Super Bowl. You lose. Now you go back to work in three weeks and you're going to try to do it all over again. That is crazy. And I think that if you're the Chiefs, this is a three-year thing. And it was all for that game. And they lost and they all know it. And

they all know winning the Super Bowl this year won't actually make up for last year's Super Bowl. And they brought back all the slow players. So like, that's the emotional thing. They brought back Kelsey who was going to retire if they won. Kareem Hunt, who should have been out of the league three years ago just for the, just not hasn't been athletic enough to be in an NFL team for three years, and they brought back Juju. And then they lost all their defensive line depth and Justin Reed.

The team is worse and depressed. Counterpoint, they have Patrick Mahomes. Sure. They had Mahomes and the counterpoint. The counterpoint they went 15 and 1. But the real counterpoint, they are 17 and 0 in their last one score games. They pulled this whole season out of their ass. It's all going to come crashing.

down. They won six games last year. Didn't they pull the season before that out of their... Didn't they go 10 and 7 and then win the Super Bowl? Yes. And you know what? No one could just defy gravity like that forever. Like literally they won six games last year

on the last fucking play of the game. They want 10 and 0 in the regular season of one square games. I'm not even saying you dropped to 5 and 5. I'm saying that's a 12 win team that got lucky enough to go to 50. Let's say they should have gone 7 and 3 in the one score games. That's a 12 win team. I'm saying a 12 win team last year. That's the quality of them.

It's going to drop the nine wins. It's not even a crazy thing to say. I just think the 15 wins was outrageous. There were 12-1 team. That'll be a 9-1 team. They're going to miss the playoffs. Well, you know who the ASC team is that's going to replace the Chiefs in the Super Bowl? It's going to be the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Okay. If, if God willing, Aaron Rogers joins the Pittsburgh Steelers, I think. Jesus, God willing. I think. Satan willing. I think it's going to be a massive success. Do you really? This is truly an intrusive thought.

Like, I don't want, this is a sickness and I need help. I know, Craig, usually I think you have really good sort of just 30,000 view of everything. And I usually trust your gut. We're in the take bunker right now. Yeah, but it's like I was trusting everything you guys said before now. Now I'm just like, okay, he's off his rocker. Let's run through the Pittsburgh Steelers in the last five years. Last year, the win total this year, by the way, is eight and a half.

Last year they went 10 and 7 with Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, and no wide receivers. Year before that, they went 10 and 7 with Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, and Mitch Trubiske, and no wide receivers. The year before that, they went 9 and 8 with rookie Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky. The year before that, they went 9 and 7 with 39-year-old Ben-Rothisberger. The year before that, they went 12 and 4 with 38-year-old Big Ben. Year before that, 8 and 8 with Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph. Duck Hodges. You're telling me that this team can't win 11 games with Aaron Rogers and D.K. Metcalfe.

You can hate Rogers all you want, but like, is he worse than Mason Rudolph and Russell Wilson? Mason Rudolph is on the 2018 team? Is the O-line going to be better or worse in 2025 than it's been in the past? It's probably going to be better. Are the receivers better or worse in 2025 than they were in the past? I think everybody, like when you actually have to get down to clicking the over or the under on Fandle, when you look at eight and a half and Aaron Rogers is on the team, everyone's going to click the over. That's what I think.

It's so awesome to actually see an in real life. Has this ever worked for anyone? No, but it's like, but it could work for us. It's so fun to see one of these. Has it not worked every year for the Steelers? Duck Hodges, Mason, Rudolph, Kenny Pickett, Russell Wilson, and Justin Field. It's worked six straight years in a row. Wait, this happened while we were recording.

Did you see what Aaron Rogers said today? Aaron Rogers is on the table. He was like, retirement's still on the table. Everything's on the table. I've made no decision. He said that too, but then now the new quote going around. So this is from Zach Rosenblatt at the Athletic. And Aaron Rogers talked about his meeting with the Jets when they cut him.

and this is the new the new administration and this has just happened. Zach Rosenblatt tweets. So Aaron Rogers said, quote, listen, that was an interesting two years to say the least. I figured that when I flew across the country on my dime, there would be a conversation. The confusing thing to me is I went out there to New York to meet.

I meet with the coach. We start to Aaron Glenn, the head coach of the Jets. He says, we start talking. He runs out of the room. I'm like, that's strange. Then he comes back with the general manager. And I'm like, all right. So we sit down, and I think we're going to have this long conversation.

And 20 seconds in, Aaron Glenn goes, you sure you want to play football? And then I say yes. And he says, we're going to go in another direction. Wow. Aaron Glenn kind of sounds like a dick. God me, it sounds like he knows what he wants. And then Aaron Gray just says, why would you not want to pick my brain? I want to pick his brain.

It's probably a brain worm in there. Look, I have my take purge mask on. You know what I mean? Like, I'm running up and down streets causing havoc right now. But Aaron Rogers reminds me of like It is an intrusive thought This is my deepest darkest fear that I want to believe It's been rattling around my brain too

Because it goes back to ever since DK. My question is like Who's more likely to implode the Steelers Russell Wilson Aaron Rogers? It's like Aaron Rogers Who's more likely, which you could argue Russell Wilson if he started 0 and the way they ended O and 4.

But like if there's which one is more likely to make this like a cheeky crazy AFC championship game win? is obviously Aaron Rogers to me. There's no path to me that Russell Wilson can make the Super Bowl. But like Aaron Rogers do, like if Mike Tomlin can just rein in George Pickens

and D.K. McHaff, which, and Rogers, which as I said out loud, is a crazy thing to say. He's been doing it. That's his whole thing. The Jets are losers. The Steelers are winners. And like, you know what?

Sorry Rogers couldn't turn around the Jets who fucking suck. And their owner's an idiot. And the owner's son is out here just like, the fact that he even took the photo with the draft thing. It's like, that's the owner's son is preposterous.

The Steelers are winners. I see what you're saying, Craig. Aaron Rogers reminds me. I was watching clips from Mad Men the other night. Aaron Rogers reminds me of like a huge pain in the ass client that they have to like bend up. Teams have to like bend over backwards to like keep them happy. They're just because they're just desperate for the business. And so they're having to like take them out, like get full, you know, full court press.

Wine and dying. All men on deck or whatever all all hands on deck. Yeah. I don't know. I like it's good. No, yeah, it's good. That felt good. Just wants to feel the love.

Just wants to feel the love. Not a lot of clients out there. I don't know why he's, we are trying to show him the love. Like, I feel like it's like that scene in Jerry McGuire where Rod Tedwell is yelling, showing me the money. Tom Cruise yells, show me the money. The Steelers are trying. I feel like we are doing everything we need to get Aaron Rogers and he still.

Steelers are too proud to be groveling to the 42-year-old quarterback. 41, but yeah. But who's checking? Soon to be 42. He's 41 going on 42. All right. What else you guys got? D.K., you got one?

This is just a random, super nuanced one, but Jordan James will be a household name by December. They're running back out of Oregon. Running back out of Oregon. I purposely didn't talk about him a ton on our running back podcast the other day because I think he's flying out of the radar, but I think he's really good. Really twitchy in the short area. Runs, dudes over. Good vision. Good acceleration.

For whatever reason, I feel like no one's talking about him, but I think he's going to go on day two, and I think he's going to be good in the NFL. Can I throw another kind of lower down on the list player that I think is going to succeed? Yeah. I think if you got rid of age, name, and school and just showed me the highlights,

I think Tyler Shuck is the best quarterback in this draft. If Tyler Shuck's name was Shador Sanders and he was the son of Dionne Sanders, and he was on Colorado. Like, if you just put him on Colorado, he had the same year he had. He was the same build. His name was just Shador Sanders, and he was playing for the Colorado Boulder. I think he would be the second overall pick in the draft, maybe the first, and everybody would be talking about all of the great things he has, the size,

the mobility, the frame, the live arm. We'd be talking ourselves into all of it. He's 6.5. He ran a 4, 640. This guy has everything. I think that would be completely the narrative if his name was Shador Sanders. Would have been the narrative in the same high school class as Trevor Lawrence? Look, age is just a number, hyphids. People are doing anything now. People are having kids at 45, running companies at 75. Why can't they be playing quarterback at 25? It's actually pretty good.

It's pretty good, actually. Everyone's doing stuff later, you know? Sure. Brandon Whedon was before his time. The NFL just wasn't ready for Brandon Zey. We were ready for Brandon's head of the curve. I have, okay, I have a list of thoughts here too, including ones that I'm just going to reprise some previous take burgues

that I still believe. But one, we'll care. Campbell's arms are too short. He's running them back. Yeah. Sorry, say that again. Will Campbell's arms are too short.

You can't, that's a preposterous to just like be like, he'll be the only one that can do it. Although I'm also going to be honest. If people thought he couldn't do it, I would sit here and be like he can't do it. So that's just someone that, it's just a natural contrarian in you.

I just want to be, like my purge is like, my thoughts that Will Campbell are dictated by who I'm talking to. Yeah, my take purges, whatever all the draft analyst think, I think the opposite. Yeah,

that's honestly how I feel about Will Campbell. When people say the arms are short, I'm like, who cares? He was a freshman all SEC. Yeah. Who do you like? Now he's going to suck. Oh, my God.

Things from previous take purges that I still believe. I could be a GM. Any quarterback drafted by good teams, I think will be good. Like if Quinn Ewers goes to the Niners in the fifth round, I'm in. And if Quinn Ewers goes to the Browns in the third round, I am out. And I feel that way for the Rams, the Niners, Vikings, Eagles, anyone they take will be good. Dylan Gabriel to like the fucking Rams. I'm like that guy's going to have a 10-year NFL career.

All in. And literally anyone drafted by the Browns, Jets, Saints, Giant Steelers will not be good. No offense. Oh, Martha Smith. Your coordinator. I don't want to hear Dick. Steers. By the last year. All right.

Please. When's the last time Mike Tallman developed a quarterback? No offense, but it was actually we're coming up in 20 years. So just saying. Even winning seasons with Kenny Pickett, Duck Hodges, Mason Rudolph? Sure. You think they were developed? No.

He's making chicken. and salad out of chicken shit. I think he's making chicken shit out of chicken salad, to be honest. Really? Kenny Pickett was chicken salad? I still think of Kenny Pickett. I still in my head call him the sort. Because when you sort any stat,

he's always at the bottom. He's at the bottom. He's the decent. He's the stats. Yeah. I also just want to reiterate that the draft is an un-American process and fundamentally preposterous. Yeah.

And the idea that, and I know I keep saying this every year, but I'm going to keep saying it. Yeah. process that like if you took the best business school graduate in America, we get it, we get it. And sent him to the worst business. And then a year later, that business went bankrupt. And we're like, I guess that guy sucked the whole time. Right. The guy who graduates at the top of the Harvard law class goes to the worst law firm. And they're like the 1,000th best guy goes to Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs makes money. And everyone's like, man, he should have gone first.

Well, you know what the conversation is for that? A fuck ton of money. Do you want to know my take to that? Just say it. My counter take is that the salary cap and the draft are the, the only two reasons the NFL is good. The NFL needs parody in order to succeed. Yes. Who wants to watch a fucking sport

where you can buy a championship every year? That's baseball. This is the weird, well, this is the really weird thing. I know. But the weird dichotomy is that the NFL succeeds in large part because they're socialist because the Cincinnati Bengals can spend as much money as the Dallas Cowboys. And they share the revenue.

And that European soccer, ironically, is like way more. capitalist where the big teams just pay money to teams for the con they just they don't trade they just buy players and there's no free agency culture like until umbap a couple years ago like nope soccer players never run out their contract and do free agency where they see they never do that they just re-up on the contract it's like way let it's way more capitalist where like the teams are in control and what's funny is now college football resembles European soccer so you have college football is now the epitimate of capitalism where there's like no contracts there's no It's like a very capitalistic thing where Ohio State can just pay money and do everything.

And the NFL is like this extremely socialist thing. It's bizarre. Unlimited salary cap, no contracts in college sports. Yeah. Go woke. Go broke. Okay. The NFL is like the exact opposite of that.

The NFL is exploding. I have a couple of emails. I want to read. But if you guys have other purges, please. If not, then we'll get, we have some emails on the take purge that were incredible. I'm good. I'm encouraged. Okay.

And then I also have a couple non-football ones. I'll do the football emails and then I want to come back around to like our non-football ones. That sounds good? Sure. We got an email here. This is from Dane. This is my favorite one. D.

The subject line of Dane's email was take purge. Howie Roseman is a bad general manager. All right. A incredible take. I'm in. I'm sitting up in my seat. You know the meme where the guy sits up in his seat? Yeah, I just architect of the eagle.

Architect of the Eagles, bad general manager. Dane writes, let's ignore that Howie Roseman drafted Jalen Rager over Justin Jefferson. Oh. Disregard taking J.J.R. Segal White Side over D.K. Metcalf. Let's not even talk about how the Eagles master strategy is just taking the top player remaining on Mel Kuiper's Big Board. So I'm saying. Auto draft. Howie Roseman just auto drafts.

The boating big boat faces. Forget that the Eagles salary caps the House of Cards, ignore how lucky the Eagles were to get Vic Fangio a defense coordinator, Kellanmore at offensive coordinator to save their butts. And that Nick Siriani's a vibes manager. Forget all that. Howie Roseman's a bad general manager because he tried to trade his fortunate assets

for Russell Wilson, who bailed Howie Rosamette out by vetoing the trade. And the trade package he tried to give away would have included multiple first rounders and Jalen Hertz. So it means no A.J. Prown, no Jalen Carter.

Jalen Hertz goes away. to Seattle and then it's like how can we give Howie Roseman credit for all of these moves when he literally tried to give all these picks away credit for this Eagle Super Bowl literally should go to Russell Wilson.

Fucking amazing take. Fucking amazing take. And honestly I'm sold. I think my take on this, like my sort of like piggyback on this is that all GMs are bad. Like they're all, they all suck out of it.

They're all the same. I think to me it's like they're all. There's, you know what I mean? There's no different. I've always made this comparison, it's like basically all GMs are like hedge fund or whatever managers. It's like for a short amount of time, you can look like the best, fucking the biggest genius

in the world. But over the long time, the S&P 500 is going to beat all these guys. You know what I mean? Like just put your money in a fucking ETF and whatever. That's why I like this idea of having a control team that doesn't have a GM. It's just going on polls from fans or consensus draft boards. And I actually think, how he was, is obviously like a very good GM. But I think this story is illustrated though. Putting that together. He's lucky as fuck.

He's right because I think to me it's an example of like even if you're really good, like really good, it's like blackjack. It's like if you're winning 60% of the time, that's like incredible. And I think that this is a good example. Because this is true. Russell Wilson declined. He didn't want to go to the Eagles and he fucked. Literally the plan A was Russell Wilson and Alan Robinson.

And plan B was Jalen Hertz and A.J. Brown. That's plan B. And it reminds me of, um, damn. It reminds me of the head of SoftBank, which is one of the largest investment firms in the entire world in Japan. And they did an interview with like the 96-year-old founder of SoftBank.

And they were like, what's your favorite trade ever? And he was like, what? I don't remember the good ones. I just remember the ones I screwed up. And they're like, all right, what's your worst trade ever? And he's like, oh, yeah.

Well, Jeff Bezos offered me 40% of Amazon in 1999 for $1 billion. And I said no, because I thought it was too much. That is 40% of Amazon is not worth one trillion dollars. Damn. He turned it down. And I'm like, you can be the best person of the world in something.

But like you still have these Howie Roseman moments where it's like, Howie Roseman literally like, like, it's like a near death experience for him that he just avoided. I feel like. And you can co-stop your wins. You can co-stop your successes for a long time and put that on the billboard. And it'll buy you five years. Being a good GM is kind of, I feel like being a professional better where if you are getting

like 53% right, like you're. fucking kicking ass. And Russell Wilson was Theranos. Just get slightly more right than you get wrong and you're fine. Yeah. Don't put all your eggs in the Theranos basket. Russell Wilson. That's kind of what almost happened.

Theranos. I think it's fairanos? Fuck. It's a take bird. It's not even a real company. It's fine. So do wait. Someone,

it's a fake company. I can say it all. Someone emailed in about like lying to your wife and they're like, well, not about affairs, but it's something funny. And they were like in a town and his wife who's a person, like a fitness trainer, but it was like years ago.

And they're like, oh, she's like, fitness and he's like, oh no, it's la fitness. And then years later, she like became a personal trader. And then pronounced, have you heard of la fitness? Oh, God, that's good. That reminds me of the time I said Atleans.

And I was, and I immediately was like, fuck. Like in my soul, I knew I had really fucked it up. Yeah. You have five seconds to pull that back and double down. It's like you just like, grinned. when you say it. You're like, oh, fuck, that's definitely not right.

That one's really good. Right. Love fitness. Was Dane a Giants fan? Dane? Who was the guy? He didn't mention it. I'm just wondering who he roots.

I don't know. But I think that's a great, it's really under-discust. I agree. It goes to show that even, like, the best GMs are, their resume is littered with pretty much as, a few less misses than everyone else's.

That's a great way to put it. Literally, dude, someone who works for a smart team said to me the first rule of being smartest, don't do anything stupid. Yeah. And that's like why you see teams are very hesitant to, like, hitch their wagon to a quarterback because that can be the one big thing you fuck up, you know? Yeah, Harry Rosen's just taking George and DeLineman and most of the time it's working out. I think quarterbacks are like face cards.

It's like you got to be willing to like lose a cut. You got to be willing to lose those hands because it's, you know, you should be betting on. Also, let's not pretend that like most of this is luck. It's like if the quarterback hits, the rest of it gets fucking way easier. Ron Wolf, who is as respected as any general manager in NFL history, has a quote of like, he told Scott McLuhan this,

who's disrespected as any modern scout. Scott McLuhan was like, Ron Wolf told me once, if you can hit one out of every 10 quarterbacks, you will have this job forever. Yeah. One out of 10. One out of 10.

And that's like the most, that is the most respected general manager of all time, is Ron Wolf. And teams don't do that anymore. But anyway. Okay. This just makes me feel a tremendous amount of, like, nihilism about studying the draft. It's just like no one fucking knows anything, man.

This is what I'm saying. Everybody should just go on vacation, come back April 17th. And the draft should get an email. Just email me the list. Like, email me, just tell me the 257 players who would take. Imagine how much time everybody. All the other front offices guys could have saved. They're on vacation.

Do whatever you want. Show up with your families this all time. My God. Uh, okay. We have, we have one more email. Now,

honestly it's so good. It's not even a purge. These guys just write. Great email from Alex. I'm just saying it's a good take. I don't know. It's just retiring numbers is dumb. Like,

one, because you're going to run out numbers one day, but his point is like, it's so much cooler when you just make the number in honor. Like the Cowboys with 88 going from Irvin to Des to C.D. Lamb is sick. And like,

he has all these examples, but I'm like, like the Penn State thing where it's like, Michael Parsons gets 11. Levar Arrington at 11. Like, It's passed on, and then Abdul Carter's 11. And I'm like, he's right.

And I didn't realize LSU does this, where Patrick Peterson was seven. And then he gave it to Tyron Matthew and then Letter Fernette and then Jamar Chase and Stingley and Will Campbell. Will Campbell got the seven to tackle. And I'm like, yeah, you team should not retire the number. It should become an honor. I think that's a totally great call. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, he's right also that eventually there will be too many numbers taken to give out to your current roster.

They should just retire jerseys or something and you can still use the number again. Okay. Coming up on the end of our purge here. So do you guys have any non-football things you want to get off your chest before we get out of the professional credibility is restored? I've got one. I can't remember if I've ever said this publicly or not. So I'm just going to throw this out there.

Chase scenes and movies are boring, predictable filler. And I fast-forward them until the end. It's a waste of my time. Both. I prefer for it. foot chases because if you put like an element of parkour into it I'm like okay this is kind of fun like I remember the one

in James Bond movie. Oh like Casino Royale beginning of this Yeah there's actually like human stunts being performed Right you can at least appreciate that I think I think this is one of your best takes ever I mean it's like every fucking car chase scene I'm just like oh god Here we go again

They just fast forward they're gonna drive the car down some stairs They're gonna fucking you know drift across traffic yeah They're gonna go straight through like a intersection. Oh, cool. Haven't seen this a fucking million times. Let me guess.

The villain's not going to catch the good guy at the end of his chase because we're 40 minutes into the movie. Yeah. That's good. Everything you can do with a car in a movie has been done. Like even Fast and the Furious event,

she was like, we'll send it to space. So, D.K., the phrase cut to the chase. You really, that is not something that you believe in. Cut to the end of the chase. Yeah.

Cut to the dialogue. Yeah. Cut to the dialogue. That makes me sound so much worse. That's a take purge Cut to the intimate dramatic scene Cut to the denouement Oh man

I have a good one But I don't really want to go after Craig And anything that involves a tick perch I kind of like Craig's No I don't have any like Outeristic cannibalism type stuff Yeah I was gonna say you kind of already gotten Nothing at that level

Yeah I do think that music was better when musicians were ugly and I think music is stale now because we only let hot people get famous and it's a huge problem. We should not let hot people sing. No.

Go back to the 70s, dude. Crosby Stills and Nash. Bob Dylan, the who. Elton John was bald at like 28. These dudes were fives. What's the problem with me bald? These guys were ugly. Simon and Garfunkel.

They had perspective. They had shit to say. They had to be good at instruments. What the fuck does take? McRae have to say, what struggles has she gone through? Now we have Zane Malick and Sean Mendez making music. Thank God we have Ed Shearhan and Noah

Khan holding it down for all the mids out there. Now we got Katie Perry going to space to sell a shitty album. God. Fucking did it again, Craig. Let the ugly people speak. It's the best take I've ever heard.

Good take. Damn. Trying to think if there's any like outliers. If there's any holes in Craig's theory here. No, we need ugly people to make music again. You're 100% right. We need ugly people to make music again.

The ugly people had stuff to say. That's stuff to say. Oh, man. That's a perfect. That's how you do it. Everyone just studied. That's the teach tape right there. That's how you do it take.

Sucks, man. Looks are a prerequisite now. They didn't used to be. What struggles does Tate McCray gone through? Can't wait for all the 40-year-olds doing this? who don't know Tate McCray is to Google Tate McCray and go on that little journey. Well, dude, they did this

a wild Google experience. They did this in my generation too. It was like Hillary Duff all of a sudden became like a pop star. Lindsay Lohan had some albums. Dude, video literally did kill the radio star. Addison Ray is on the Zane Lowe show now talking about her new album. What's happened?

What happened? That's, that's great. You're correct. All right. Well, mine's not as good as that. Something I've been wanting to get off my chest for like a long time. I think that saying,

God bless you, after someone sneezes, is ridiculous. I completely agree and a love his take. Ridiculous. Like, I just sneezed in public in a room with people

and everyone should make me feel better. No, you should fucking apologize. Like, you say, excuse me? Because you cough. But if you sneeze, everyone's a, oh, oh, dear, honey. Oh, my. my God, are you okay? Please, spare me.

They should feel shame. I'm the bad guy. I feel like Larry David. Yeah, I'm the bad guy. This happened with Jackie once. I was at the first time I met her family, someone sneezed. I didn't say God bless you. And her brother told me later, I really judged you for that. I didn't really like you for six months because you didn't say that. I'm like just what a ridiculous standard. He judged you for six months because you didn't say bless you. Yeah. Is God bless you? Is that based on Christian tradition? Yes. I believe. Is it because you came. up in a Jewish family that you don't say God bless you.

I do think it's probably related to because there's a whole thing with reform Judaism where a lot of reform Jews end up just in America just end up just not believing in God at all. And so that's probably part of it. But like more, it's more just like it can't. The origin of it is from the bubonic plague. When if you sneeze, they thought you were going to fucking die. Oh, fuck. They literally had to bless you.

They thought like your soul was leaving your body. Yeah. They blessed you to bring it back. They literally were just like, they didn't know what the fuck was going on. So anyway. Can we just stop the charade? You know the scene in Austin Powers where all of a sudden she goes, Bring out the fat pot!

It's like my favorite scene of any movie. And then Dr. Evil just goes, that's like me every time someone sneezes. I'm just like, oh, God. I know. The only counter is when you sneeze, let's say, I don't know, you're at a coffee shop and you sneeze. And a stranger politely says, bless you. kind of nice.

It is nice. It's cool. But we could say something else. But it's become, if you don't say it, it's like, oh. That's right. It's become a social standard where if you don't live up to it, you're like for some reason seen as a bad person. Imagine if someone coughed.

This is such a Larry David take. Holy shit. Yeah. Imagine if you coughed in line. Did he do this? Honestly, maybe this is an episode. It has to be one of his shows. Maybe, like, imagine coughing in line at Starbucks.

And someone's like, bless you. Yeah. Or a burp. Or a burp. Or burp. Yeah. I just, what else are you going to bless people for? That's all.

I'm like, okay, sure. I don't want to be judged. That's really good. I feel, how do we feel? I feel drained. I feel drained. I feel lighter. Yeah.

I'm going to float out of here. I just got done running a marathon. God, those sirens just hit. What happened? Where am I? What happened? God, dude, all I know is that Aaron Rogers thing's going to be a disaster.

I know that. Steelers definitely won't be good with him. I don't know what. He definitely is not just going to get everyone fired. No, the whole Shador thing, he's going to work out, I think. Yep. Yeah. I'm really curious to see if Travis Sunter can plan both sides of the ball.

Yeah. Oh, he'll be electric. Yeah, he'll be able to, I think. It's going to be electric. Yeah. I mean, he's a one of one, you know, generational. Unicorn. I wonder where team's going to swing on Jalen and Milrow and miss.

I don't think teams should reach for Gentie. Yeah. Fuck off. Bless you. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I got you. Thank you. Yeah.

All right. Well, that was the Take Burge. Check out the Tate McCray new album. It's great. Craig, you stole my thunder. Yeah. And I love it for the lyrics as well. Thank you to everybody who emailed us their takes.

Thank you to, was it Dane with the Howie Roseman, an incredible take? Oh, Dane. That's how you do it. Yeah. Thank you to everyone. Thank you to Alec, who had a good take. Yeah, thank you to keep emailing your take Burgess too. Now that if you've been inspired, listen this, email your take Burgess,

ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. We recorded this on Thursday, which I probably should have said that earlier because if crazy shit's happened between that and now, we recorded this Thursday, April 17. So if anything's crazy, it's happened, that's why we'll get to it this week. And the draft is this week, baby.

So we're excited. Yeah, thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Austin. Thank you, Kai. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you to everyone who purged with us. Thank you to her, take God, Chris Sims.

And of course, thank you, Lord. Lauren. Thank you, Hillary Duff. The singer, to be clear. Not the actress? Yeah. It's the same person. She had albums, I think.

Craig, go look it up. Yeah, I mean, she was a Disney Channel star. Lizzie McGuire movie, she sings in the movie. That's like the whole climax is her on stage. That's a great Cinderella story where it's like her and, I don't know, like, her mom's like, I won't give you a scene. I'll give you a whole Broadway play. Is the plot of the Lizzie McGuire movie movie?

movie that she happens to look like a pop star who then gets like kidnapped or sick or something and then Lizzie McGuire steps in for her. Is that the plot? I don't remember this. I remember Cinderella story better than I remember Lizzie McGuire movie. Yeah. I have no idea. Was it your generation that watched Lucy McGuire. That's our generation. I think yeah. Maybe a tick older, but I think Lizzie McGuire is right there. I say it was like I was before that. Yeah. She's older than us, but I think when she was famous was more when like I was in middle school. Yeah, she's 37. And so I think that's old enough that she was like on Disney when we were children.

Yes, we were like eight and she was 15 or whatever. Singing what this is what dreams are made of. That's the this is what dreams. Yeah. Hey now. Hey now. Yeah. And it was just because, yeah, she had something to say.

No, she's too hot. She needs to be uglier. She doesn't know what dreams are made of Her dreams were granted immediately Because of her love- I'm now gonna think every time we hear Tate McRae song She's like, what has she gone through?

Her dreams were granted What has she gone through? What struggle has she endured? Sorry, this like nine and a half out of ten Just became rich and famous immediately. God, this is easy. It's so easy. Yeah, dude.

It's very adjacent to when you're like There's no hot billionaires Right. It's very similar. It's like anyone who's hot stops at like, you know, 10 million, 100 million max, you know? Absolutely. If you're, if you look like Chris Hemsworth, but you have the brain of Bill Gates, you're not working that hard. You don't have to. You have a great life. It stopped way ahead of time.

It stopped way ahead of time. You got like a sick job in sales and like party in New York City. That's what you did. 100%. You work for Salesforce. All right. No, oh, God, I keep doing that now. I keep doing, thinking

I have to do the thank you, but it's like, no, you already did it. We're already in Chicago when people are listening. We're doing our live show tomorrow night, Tuesday night. Yeah. Shout out, thank you. We'll see everybody there. Yeah.

All right, goodbye, everyone.