The Ringer NFL Show - 10 Big Questions About the 2026 NFL Draft

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

The Ringer’s own Diante Lee stops by the pod to analyze and discuss Sheil’s biggest questions heading into the 2026 NFL draft. (00:00) 10 Big Questions About the 2026 NFL Draft (02:31) Which GM is under the most pressure? (09:16) Which team will most likely change its public perception after this draft? (18:56) Which prospect will go later than expected? (29:39) Will Maxx Crosby or Dexter Lawrence get traded during the draft?  (37:24) When will Jeremiyah Love get taken in the draft? (42:59) Which prospect has the best chance to be in the HOF? (48:09) Which prospects are in the “let them find out” category? (55:26) How will we view Fernando Mendoza in 15 years? (01:01:10) Who will be taken higher than projected? (01:07:20) Ranking three big media draft takes The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available.Host: Sheil KapadiaGuest: Diante LeeProducer: Chris SuttonVideo Editor: Stefano SanchezProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Sheel Capadia. Today we are hitting on a bunch of draft-related topics. I had all these things bouncing around in my head from Fernando Mendoza and the comps to him to pass quarterbacks in the NFL to the edge class, to veterans who could be traded on draft weekend. So I came up with a little game here.

We're going to bring on Deante Lee from the rigor. I'm going to explain the game to him. We're going to hit on a bunch of topics. It was a lot of fun. I think you're going to enjoy. this show a lot. All right, let's take a break. We come back with Deontay Lee. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. And I got a little pep in my step today because sometimes it's good to change it up. And we're changing it up a little bit today playing a game. Now, I don't

know what the official title of this game is, Deontes. The Capadia 10. Some people call it the shield of fortune. If I do that, as the kids would say, that's very cringe. So I'm not going to call it that. Is that like giving yourself a nickname? Yeah, third person. I can't be doing that. but it's very simple. It's not complicated. I have 10 prompts, questions, whatever, that I felt like these are 10 big draft-related things that I want to know Deonti's thoughts on.

And so I've numbered them 1 through 10, and it's very simple. Deonté picks a number. I go to that prompt. I ask him the question. I haven't sent him a single thing before the pod. So this is going to be, all right, what does his gut say?

What do his instinct say? And we're going to get to so many juicy draft-related topics. Deonti. I've been looking forward to this one for a while. Same here. I think I texted you when you first do the idea at me. Like, hey, man, I don't get to enjoy the Philly Special Bump as often, you know. So I like the fact that we get to kind of borrow some things that have existed on that podcast

and bring it over to the ringer NFL show. So I'm looking forward to it for sure. There we go. All right, get us started, Deontay, pick a number, any number from 1 through 10. Let's start with 6. We'll start with 6 here. And listen, when you pick the numbers, if you have any reason for it, I always like hearing that, whether it was a favorite athlete, the number you wore, anything like that.

But we are starting with six. You know, this was when I thought, do I send Deonté a message and just have him think about this beforehand? I decided not to, but here's what it is. Which GM Deonté is under the most pressure in the 2026 draft? Now, I wrote some names down. You don't have to pick any of these, but I'm just going to give you a second here. Buy some time. I wrote down Brett Veach of the Chiefs.

I wrote down Mike Borganzi of the Titans, Adam Peters of the commanders, and then I had kind of a second tier after that. But when I was thinking about it, and I'll give my thoughts on a lot of these questions as well, those were three of the names that came to mind. What do you think? Who has the most pressure going into this draft?

I don't think it's changed. My answer hasn't changed from, if you would have asked me, who has the most pressure entering this offseason, as would have been mid-February. It's still Brandon Bean. in Buffalo to me. I don't think that the job's not complete here.

I think the DJ Moore Trade was inspired, right? I think that they made the right move there, especially not having to give up a first round pick to be able to acquire them. So I do think you address something that is definitely a need within this offense, but you just brought in a new DC and Jim Leonard. You're going to have to change over.

I would think at least a little bit of the personnel. We've seen that with some of the names going out. Toron Johnson is gone. They're remaking their safety room, right? So I do think that there is at least a little bit of acknowledge that they have to play a little bit differently on the back end. And I would say that it's defensive backfield outside of Christian Benford has been a problem. And that's really what I'm looking at for this draft, especially early in this draft.

I think that their first round pick, not necessarily that it has to be a home run, but you absolutely need to leave the first round feeling like we can go into the season and go play a Kansas City, a Baltimore, Philadelphia, if we saw them into Super Bowl, Seattle or L.A. at least all that been to Super Bowl, Denver in the AFC championship. And our back seven is going to be prepared to be able to handle that task.

So I would still say Buffalo is number one on my list in terms of pressure. I love that one because as I was thinking about this, I was thinking more in terms of like, oh, owner might fire them. But I feel like in the court of public opinion, I mean, that has shifted on Brandon Bean in a hurry over the last year.

I think if we had a Brandon Bean conversation a year ago, I don't think we had that. intense feelings. You know, we would have been like, all right, he's done some good things, he's done some bad things. They've been a really good team. They haven't gotten over the hump. We understand some of the moves. We don't like some of the other moves. But the way that whole thing went down with whatever politicking was going on behind the scenes. And for Sean McDermott, just the look of Sean McDermott getting fired, Brandon Vien getting promoted, and then the owner answering the question the way he did with Keon Coleman. I know that's

one little thing, but all those things combined now, I just, feel like people are looking at Brandon being a little bit differently, being like, uh-oh, is this one of those GMs that just has the owner's ear? And whether they're making good moves or not making good moves, they're going to be entrenched in that job for a while because the owner's comfortable with them. The owner likes that they have a voice with this GM, that type of GM. And so I like that one with Brandon being a lot. And you're right with the defensive thing with them, because they've had the same defensive leader for so long. And we all could think in our heads, all right, Sean McDermott, four down, a lot of quarters coverage, you know, depending on the personnel.

He wants that great pass rush. If he doesn't have it, maybe he dials up the blitz. Like, we can picture that in our heads going back to Carolina and even his roots in Philadelphia. But now it's a totally different defensive coordinator there. And we don't necessarily know what a Jim Leonard defense is going to look like. So I like that one a lot. I went with Brett Veach, Deont. So we're both going with kind of AFC powerhouses with probably the other two best quarterbacks in the,

NFL, but I was looking at this for the Chiefs. They've got picks 9 and 29. They've got three picks in the top 40. You could easily make the case. They will never have this type of draft capital again with Patrick Mahomes in his prime. This is really a rarity. They were really intentional with some of the things they did this offseason trading Trent McDuffie, letting Jalen Watson walk, letting Brian Cookwalk saying we've got the coaching

staff defensively where we're going to be able to figure it out on the back end, signing Kenneth Walker, which we talked about, which was not something I love. But Patrick Mahomes turns 31 in September. You have a chance to really add blue chip players with maybe one of these picks, maybe really good starters with another pick. We know the hits rate vary. Hit rates vary. But this is one that's similar to Bean because I don't think like Brett Feach is getting fired if he doesn't nail this draft. But I do think if the picks aren't inspired and if the team doesn't look great next year, then maybe the conversation we just had about Bean, we're having a similar conversation about Beach at this time next year.

Absolutely. And to your point, you're not going, I mean, they're just flatly not going to have an opportunity like this very often, as long as Patrick Mahomes is healthy. You should never be drafting in the top 10 if Patrick Mahomes finishes the season healthy. So this is, I think, a rare opportunity in that. You also recoup some extra draft capital in the trip McDuffie trade. So there's an opportunity for you to take two big swings. And I have a mock draft that's coming out by the time that, you know, our listeners are hearing this tomorrow. We should have one out. And in that mock draft, I kind of acknowledged that as well, right? Like I had them making a move early in the first round to really ensure the fact that they can get an impact edge rusher.

That was my thought. I think that, you know, when we did our own exercise last week, we were filling out the mock draft, we were talking about wide receiver options. You're talking about what you might be able to do at right tackle if you feel like you have to make a move, not for, you know, to replace Juan Taylor if you don't trust Jalen Moore. And all those things are on the table. But I think ultimately they have to leave this draft with the. blue chip player because it's just been draft after draft as you continue to compete for championships

where you're not bringing in blue chip guys. You're just plugging small holes here and there with young players and it really hasn't panned out I think the way that they would have imagined. So I think that yes, in day one of this draft having two picks, we need to either see a big inspired trade for them to lock in a blue chip prospect or there are two picks that they do make here. Have us feeling like, okay, as long as rational as Mahomes' knee is good, we expect to see this team playing in late January again. It's fun having some of these teams, the Rams, the Chiefs, the Ravens, all picking

in the top 15 where you feel like these are Super Bowl contenders and they've got top 15 picks this year. How do they use those resources that they wouldn't typically have? All right, what a start here to the Capote 10. All right, that was number six. Deiote, what do you have? What's your next number? Let's go with seven.

All right? This is obviously, I think anybody who's a young millennial like me has obvious picks of why they have number seven, right? I watched a lot of Michael Vick in Atlanta, watched him in Philadelphia, loved him when he got there. So seven for me is definitely a charm number. And listen,

we're trying to cater to the younger audience. You're going six, seven to start it. I know my kids at least will appreciate that from Deonti. All right. Which team Deonti could swing how you feel about them in this year, 2026, depending on the results of the draft? So maybe it's a team where you say, all right, I'm not really sure.

I don't view them as a contender. But man, if they nail the draft, all of a sudden I think this team could get to the Super Bowl or it could go the other way where you feel good but you need them to nail the draft. You're going to say, nope, I'm not taking them seriously, that kind of thing. What team do you feel could swing how you feel about them

depending on the results here? That's really an interesting question. The first two teams that came to mind are both in the same division. I'll start with the Bears. That to me is a team that they've got a couple of second round picks. You've got a late first. They do have some needs where I think they do need to add

some obvious impact players on defense, right? You can't rely on the turnovers that they forced throughout the year to be sticky season over season. They didn't get pressure with four, I think, as often as they would like to. And you have an opportunity maybe to package those picks up or maybe an edge rush or falls late enough in the draft where you feel like, okay, we can drop this guy in to play opposite Montess sweat. And we know for certain that we're going to be better in terms of our pass rush. And like I said, with those two second round picks early, you know, in day two,

you might be able to take multiple bites at the apple on defense, right? Or you're able to address, you know, your left tackle. You know, if you don't feel like Ozzie Tripilo is going to be available for you. And I don't know they brought in Jedrick Wills. That's another guy who's been dealing with injury. So there's no telling whether or not he's going to be ready to go and what the expectation should be for a player like him coming off of, you know, the leg issues that he's had throughout his career.

So whether it's addressing left tackle, getting a defensive tackle, getting a pass rusher, something in the trenches, I think to really solidify the fact that, We're not going to have to ask Caleb Williams to be a superhero, which has been the mission, right, since Ben Johnson has stepped in, to acknowledge that, hey, Caleb can do some special things, but we need to build an infrastructure that does not necessarily ask him to play like, you know, Patrick Mahomes are at an MVP level just for us to have a shot to win.

So that's a team that I think could definitely have me swung more towards, okay, this is a team that's not going to be a flash in the pan, and they're going to be drafting in the top 15 next year, but something that could be a little bit more sustainable. I love that one because they're going to be a team that I think a lot of the analytics people once we get to August and everyone's doing their predictions, there's going to be a lot of comparisons to the 2024 Washington commanders, where you say, all right, they had a great season, but look at a lot of this.

It's not sustainable, whether it's like you said, turnovers, one score games. There's a bunch of stuff like that in there. How many times they came back and won games where their win probability was a certain number. And I get all that. I also think there's a chance that Caleb Williams is a sleeper MVP next year. I also think there's a chance that Ben Johnson's going to be in that Sean McVeatier where you're like, as long as he's running the offense, it's going to work. And it's probably going to be a top 10 offense.

And I like their personnel. So I like the bears in my head, but I'm going to be having that battle, you know, like others in August where I go, I don't know. Like let me take a closer look at this. So depending on what they do here, I think you nailed it. They've told us from the minute Ben Johnson got their offensive line, offensive line, offensive line. And I think this sets up really well for them where there's so much.

tackles in the first round here that they kind of don't have to be aggressive. They can sit back and be like, all right, let's take one of these tackles. Let's just sit tight. Take a tackle. And then like you mentioned, address our pass rush with our other picks. And let's go from there because Ben Johnson's going to make it work offensive. I like what he said about sort of Caleb Williams and what he was asked to do. Because Ben Johnson, I think, at the owner's meetings, he was very candid.

He was like, we didn't get our first read open enough for Caleb Williams last year. Like I told our coaches, we need to do a better job at that. love when like a coach is just willing to say something like that publicly. I probably overstated, but it just speaks to. And he said that like there were stuff during the season where he would say stuff like that where I'm like, all right, this guy's confident in his abilities where he's not, he can just say actually what he thinks and take the accountability and it's not full accountability. Like I actually believe he's going to look at that this offseason and be like, that was a problem. We didn't do a good enough job. How do we do a better job? So yeah, I'm still

very high on Ben Johnson. I love that because it is, it is holding up the mirror to himself and a way that he was doing for Caleb coming in the door, right? Coming in the door was very much, hey, Caleb's got to learn how we operate this offense. There's going to be a high expectation for him to learn our terminology, how we want to take the field, how we expect to operate on early downs in the passing game, the timing you have to do, the timing that you need to execute the play action passing game. And all of those things were the lens in which we were evaluating the Bears all year last season, right?

Which is why I think for the first six to eight weeks, it was very up and down. And then as Caleb kind of started to catch a rhythm, and then the run game was there to support and we were able to, I think, feel a lot more positively about the bears going into the playoffs. To start off this offseason by sending the message that, hey, we weren't doing enough on our end as a coaching staff to give him, you know, the options that he needed to be the quarterback we were asking him to be. That gives us a new lens to view this offense through, right? And I think that it's only fair for a head coach, especially for a young head coach, to come in and say, hey, we feel like our quarterback did, you know, what we asked him to do and kind of rose above

in some scenarios and overcame coaching in some scenarios. I think that, It's a great sign ultimately that you have a coach that is willing to kind of look inward and say, hey, there's more that we can do to improve our process. So with that in mind, adding more talent up front, if that's what they're able to do late in the first round, like you said, this is a team that we could say, hey, they're not going to make the mistake that Washington did last year where they just sat pat. You know, they stood pat. Well, most of their offensive playmakers, they didn't add to their trenches the way that they

could have or should have. And now this team is not really ready to compete or to protect their quarterback. I think that Chicago is really well positioned to be able to do so. All right. The other team I had down here, Deonte, and I get to cheat. I come up with the question, so I get to think about it and come up with answers. So keep that in mind, you know, when Deante's answering these on the fly. I had the Dallas Cowboys here, and I'm really trying to not fall in the trap of just,

all right, we're talking about the Cowboys because people like talking about the Cowboys. I'm looking at this team. They have 12 and 20. I think their offense is going to be really good. and I think if they can find two quality starters at 12 and 20 specifically on defense, whether that's one pass rusher, one secondary player, whether it's two pass rushers, whether it's two secondary players, whatever it is, if they can hit on those two picks and they get two guys who I look at and am like, these are two guys who should be able to

contribute right away. They made the defensive coordinator change. I think they're a really interesting team. I'm not going to pick them to make the Super Bowl. You have to be pretty gutsy to do that after what the last 30 years or whatever have looked at, but pick them to win the NFCEs, pick them to compete for the NFCEs, pick them to be a playoff team, pick them to be, you know, whatever, an 11-11-ish win team. I think all those things are in play based on what they do with those two picks there at 12 and 20. I love where they're

position, honestly. Like, and like you said, this doesn't mean that I'm saying, hey, at end of the day one of the draft, if they say players I like, I'm putting them in the NFC championship game. I'm not necessarily there, but you look at what they've done in free agency. This is one of the first times, I think it may be like the last half decade or so, where I look at the moves they made in free agency and I said, hey, I think that they actually spent their money pretty wisely, right? You added in some veterans who can come in and compete both up front

on defense and on the back end. So I'm happy with that. You've got this pair of first round picks, which really allows you a lot of flexibility, especially having them when they do, right? Pick 12, there's almost a guarantee that an impact defensive player is going to fall to them because we have a glut of tackles. You know, we do have, you know, a lot of offensive playmakers that are kind of hanging around that 8 to 15 range.

There's an entire, like there is a possibility where someone like a Caleb Downs or Mansour Delane, right? You know, or, you know, you think about Jermott McCoy, who is fresh off of, you know, this great pro day showing that his knee is totally healthy. Maybe they go get there, Quinnion Mitchell, so to speak, to go play out in the perimeter. And you've still got to pick at 20 where you can double dip on defense. You might be able to go find another edge rusher to add to your rotation. you might go find a slot receiver in that spot to say, hey, maybe we want to supercharge a strength of ours already and really make ourselves as close to unstoppable offensively as we can.

There are a lot of ways in which the draft can work out for them early where you genuinely feel like, okay, this is a team that might be at the top of the NFC East to start the year. And if that's the case, then we do almost by definition have to consider whether or not they're going to be in that Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco range, where we do expect them to be competing to make the NFC title. Yeah, they're in a nice spot. It feels weird to say sometimes about the Cowboys, but I'm with you. I think they are in a nice spot here going into this draft with that draft capital. And of course, everything goes back to the Parsons trade. And it's like, all right, you got to make use. We know how you made use of some of that with the Quinn and Williams trade. But now with the other resources you have, what are you going to do with that? All right. Six and seven are off the board for Deonté. What do we got? What's the next number?

So we're going with nine. This is a couple of San Diego luminaries for me. One is Drew Reeves, right, who was obviously playing quarterback for the Chargers as I was growing up. And then there's a powway zone, Ted Williams, right? That's also a good knot to our boss Bill Simmons, right, play for the Red Sox. One of the best hitters of all time. And it's a North County, San Diego, a native. Got a whole highway named after him up here.

I love the reasoning behind these pictures. You know what else I love here? This is taking the listeners behind the scenes. You know, I've got the document here. And sometimes people will go 10 and then one. And now I'm scrolling and I'm looking and I can't find it because I'm an old man. I like six, seven and not very easy for me. Right, right in there.

I like it. All right, Deonte. Give me one prospect who is going to get drafted later than people are projecting right now. So I don't expect you to have the consensus board in front of you, but I know you've got thoughts on all these guys who are, you know, going to be potential first round picks or whatever. early second round picks. And I'm sure there are at least one or two where you say,

I think people are getting a little ahead of themselves with this prospect. So a prospect who is going to get drafted later than people are projecting right now. I think the first one who comes to mind is Avion Terrell. And I don't know if it's necessarily fair to him, right? Because I think that that's a guy. You watch the tape and he checks all the boxes of being, you know, kind of a mid first round corner because he's got that inside, outside flex.

He shows very smooth coverage ability, playing tight coverage and playing in zone. He's got ball skills, right? He checks a lot of the boxes. I think for him, A, the issue is, one, the aforementioned, Jamal McCoy, having a great pro day, right? Almost instantly, you look at the reporting out of that,

and all the people who do the draft at a national level are saying, hey, this might actually bought him back into cornerback one conversations, into top 15, top 12 conversations as a corner. You think about DeAngelo Ponds who put up a great pro day. running a South 4-440. And now Yvonne-Turrell's not the only smaller corner

that's caught the eye, right, of NFL teams. So it's entirely possible by no faults of his own, not that there's anything wrong with him or that his ceiling as a player is worse at all, where you look up and we get to like pick 28, pick 29, and he's still on the board. And people are saying, hey, leaving the college football season,

we felt like this was a consensus, you know, top 15, top 18 type of player. So that defensively is the first guy I thought of. And then on the offensive end, it is really hard for me to get a feel for these two tackles. One Monroe Freeling, who I'm very warm on, and the other is Maxi Hanacher, right, who is a very raw prospect. These are two guys who don't have as many starts as some of their peers that are consensus first rounders. I think that they're going to be varying levels of comfort in, hey, how early do we want to play this guy? Are they actually going to be book-in tackles all pro-level players the way that we typically think of a first-round tackle?

and what are their ceilings going to be as past protectors? Because we just don't have a lot of tape of them and a lot of pure pass situations to show that they're ready to take on that kind of load. So Munrohn Fruly on the left, Maxi Hanachau on the right, those are two guys that I'm thinking about that might be slipping, you know, outside of the top half of the first round, even though I do think that will ultimately be first rounders. I don't remember a tackle draft like this,

or it's just like, there's this many guys who you could really project to be quality starters if they hit a certain level, But they're, you know, now we know, Fano, Blake Miller. You mentioned Freeling. Caden Proctor. Caleb Lomu, Ihanichore, you mentioned like that is. I don't know how many I just mentioned. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

I was going to say, you make an argument that there's like eight or nine fringe first round tackles. It's wild. It's wild. So it's just, you know, which ones do teams like more than others? What are their preferences? Is it right? Well, he's the right tackle. Because he's on a left tackle.

Is it, well, he's got the upside? Is it, no, we need someone to play right away. and you kind of go through the teams. And like there aren't seven teams where you would say, oh, they should definitely be taking a tackle now. So, yeah, I am curious to see which of those guys end up maybe being available in the second round, which usually it's harder to find those tackles in the second round. That this might be kind of an outlier type season there.

And then Terrell, I think, is a good pick there. Add cornerback. Cornerback's another weird one. You know, it feels like this draft is just like every player has a little bit of a question. And it's kind of like, what are you willing to live with? Like you mentioned McCoy, and for those who aren't familiar, you know, he terraces ACL end of 2024, doesn't play at all in 2025, doesn't work out at the combine. But you might look at his 2024 tape and be like, that's the best corner in this draft.

And he is healthy, and I'm going to go ahead and take him. And then, you know, Terrell 511, 186, as he fit every team's protocol in terms of size. I don't know. But, you know, he looks like a very good football player like you mentioned. If you just watch college football and are like, who's a great corner, you would probably say, Avionte Rell fits what I'm looking for there as well. So I think those are good choices. I'm going to go, I don't know if this is the layup or not.

Ty Simpson. We've talked about him before, Deonte. And I was thinking more about this. And I really don't have an issue if someone, especially with quarterback, if someone wants to just go out on a limb and say, this is the best quarterback in the draft. Because I was thinking about it, it's like quarterback evaluation is impossible. No one's figured it out.

And so you're almost, you could throw anything out there. and fine, you know, you might be right, you might be wrong, but it's like the consensus certainly has not always been what's actually played out once these guys get in the NFL. But then I was thinking about it even some more. And I thought, we talk about GMs and job survival mode. And I look at a player like Ty Simpson with his physical profile, which is an outlier, would be an outlier.

Isn't the traitsy quarterback where you say he's got all the tools, man, if his upside is huge, if he just, no, he's not that type of quarterback. And I just, and he's, and the other thing is, he's only had the 15 starts. Like, pretty much the only thing we've learned about quarterback evaluation is, like, you are taking a huge risk if you're drafting a quarterback early who hasn't played a lot of football. Everything else, we can debate, traits, smarts, size, like there are all the other things we can kind of debate and you can probably find exceptions to all of them. This is kind of the one thing where you are really,

making a huge gamble if you are taking a quarterback who's only played 15 games in college. And so these GMs that are in position to maybe take Ty Simpson in the first round, you're probably only going to get one shot at drafting first round quarterback if you're a GM. And if he doesn't work out, you're probably not going to have your job that long. And you're probably not going to get a second job as a GM. And I just don't think that Ty Simpson has the profile of a guy that a GM would be willing to. to take that type of gamble on. So I don't think Ty Simpson's going in the first round.

All these conversations we've had and he's maybe been one of the most talked about players here in recent weeks. I actually think when we sit there on draft night for the first round, he's still going to be on the board when we enter Friday. So I've got Ty Simpson is my pick for this category. It makes all the sense in the world

and I'm right there with you, right? Like to me, this, I'm not saying that this is how his career will play out, but this rise as we get closer, to the draft feels very Kenny Pickettish to me. Like, this just feels very reminiscent of the Kenny Pickett draft, right? Where you're probably going to have some teams that's got a couple second round picks or a team that's, you know, maybe the first or second pick in the second round, right? You know, the Jets are going to be right there.

And maybe you start getting a little antsy and you feel like, hey, you know, we know the Steelers might need, you know, some kind of succession plan. There are these other teams, right? Arizona might be looking to see if they can make a move to go get their hands on this guy. Okay, well, let's just jump up to like pick 28 and just be sure that we can go get our hands on that guy. And now we're talking about him like a first round quarterback, even though, you know, the profile coming into the league

doesn't necessarily suggest that he's a surefire first round quarterback, right? You're talking about a guy that's over 23 years old and has less than 20 starts in his career. To me, just on that alone, I'm going to be concerned, right? You can take whatever you want to say, hey, he wants to say at Alabama because he felt a lot of pride and being there and he wanted to know that he had the Alabama starting quarterback job. All that's well and good.

Still 23 years old with less than 20 starts. That's a concern for me. You're talking about a smaller guy. I think he can move decently, right? Somebody that I brought up, you know, as an aspirational kind of outcome is Brock Purdy. You know, another guy who's sub-6-2, who's going to be kind of in that 195 to 205 range,

can be mobile, but is not necessarily a burner outside of the pocket. Doesn't have the most special arm. Again, we are just laying out the, case for this has got to be a one in one thousand type of outcome where you're more than pleased, right, where you feel like you genuinely have a franchise quarterback. And then you just look at how he played once he started to be affected physically by his injuries. And I don't know that some of that is out of his control because he's taking medication that's making his stomach worse and that really seemed to kind of hamper him as a season went on. But man, I just look at some of the

misses that he has, some of his reaction to pressure at times. The arm strength to me really kind comes and goes. The consistency of ball placement outside the numbers really comes and goes. And this might be a thing for me where I've been scarred by the Ryan Grub and Kailen DeBore offense with Michael Pinnick's. I just look at like these extremely deep pockets where he's just sitting patting the ball, patting the ball, throwing the ball deep over the middle. And like, yes, are those NFL throws? Yes. Is that an NFL pocket? No. I really struggle to square that circle at times, especially for a guy that doesn't have the most dynamic, can throw from every arm slot, can be accurate to all three levels of the field at all times and has this

prototypical arm talent. I really struggle to try to figure out exactly how to place that guy, which is why I don't necessarily have him as a first round quarterback, but I think that he may ultimately end up being pushed up into that range of teams get desperate enough. It's a sliding scale. He could be the best quarterback, like, he could be the best quarterback in this class. It's just a matter of if you're a G. when are you willing to take that gamble with the uncertainty? The draft is all about uncertainty. What are you willing to live with?

What can you project? What can a guy get better at? I feel like the uncertainty is going to keep them out of the first round. So we'll see. We'll see what happens there with Ty Simpson. All right, let's take our first break. We come back and we have seven more questions to get to. All right, we are back on the ringer NFL show.

All right, Deont, how's this exercise going for you so far? Is it everything you dreamed? I was a little nervous. Okay. I was a little nervous you were going to throw just a wild, wild curveball and dirt at me. I had no idea what I'm looking at. But so far, I think that most of the questions have come up are things that I've been thinking about throughout this draft process anyways. All right.

Let's see if that continues. You know, sometimes I do throw in a wild curveball in these. And I think I got some curve balls. But this Deontes, you know, first time we're bringing this exercise at the Ring or NFL show. I don't want to go too crazy. But this could evolve over the weeks and months ahead. So let's say, all right, Deonté, what's the next number? he got. In honor of Michigan

winning a national title on Monday, we're going to shout out number four, Chris Weber. I go with number four here. I see. I thought he was going Fab Five, but he tricked me by going four. Okay. Four. Here we go. This is draft adjacent, Deonti. So look into your crystal ball

and choose one of the following three options. These are about veterans who could be traded on draft weekend. So by the end of draft weekend, one, both Dexter Lawrence and Max Crosby will have been traded. Number two, neither Dexter Lawrence nor Max Crosby will have been traded. Or number three, one of them, either Dexter Lawrence or Max Crosby

have been traded. And so just to give the listener some background here, because we haven't talked about this yet on the podcast, Dexter Lawrence has requested a trade per Adam Schaefter. This is financial. He wants a new contract. He's been unable to reach a new deal. He's been unable to reach a new deal with the team. He's entering his age 29 season. Statistically, last year was not good for Dexter Lawrence. Yeah. Half a sack in 17 games. Yeah. Eight quarterback hits. Even I was just looking at pressures from a defensive tackle alignment, which you can look at with next gen stats. He ranked 28th there. Now, again, he's only entering his age 29 season. And this is a guy who I think going into last season. I remember doing like my top five at each position. I was like,

Dexter Lawrence or Chris Jones is the best defensive tackle in the NFL. So he's not far removed from being a legit all pro there. And we can have, you know, was it injuries? Was he being double teamed? Was it something else last year? Did his play actually slip? And what do you expect it to be here going forward? But suddenly, that's a new player as a potential trade chip here, Deontes. So Dexter Lawrence, Max Crosby, what do you think? think both traded, neither traded, or one of them traded on draft weekend? I think I'll go one of the two being traded. If you were asking me to put some lettuce on it to steal a shielderism,

I would probably put it on Max Crosby instead of Dexter Lawrence to me, but I could definitely see one of the two being dealt. To me, the Dexter Lawrence thing should be a pretty easy one to work out, right? Like the franchise tag numbers right at $27 million, just guarantee me $27 million for the next year, tear up the 2027 number on my contract and tack three years on at the end. Now, you can do whatever funny money accounting

that you need to do as a Giants to feel like you're protected cap-wise. But this is still an all-pro-level player at his best if we're going to assume that the injuries that he's been dealing with for the last year, year and a half, two years really aren't going to preclude him from getting back to being both a great run defender

and somebody who produces as a pass-rusher, right? And if the answer is no for the Giants, and this is an easy trade. He's got no guaranteed money left on the deal. You should be able to deal a guy like this for, you know, you say a day two pick, I would think day two pick, maybe a third rounder, something in that neighborhood. I don't know if he goes for a first because he is 29. So you would be inheriting probably the last deal that you would be paying him if you're the team that would be acquiring him.

But yeah, I think this should be an easy thing to work out if you're the Giants. You can't afford to be losing good players in year one of John Harbaugh's regime. I'm with you. I think maybe he couldn't come to an increase. agreement with Joe Shane. I think John Harbaugh probably locks Joe Shane and the janer's something. Yeah. And it's like, all right, Dex, come over here, yeah. We're going to make a deal. I mean, if you're John Harba, this is not like the kind of player you want to lose when you're trying to go in and turn around a franchise and make them, you know, pretty quick turnaround. I don't think

he's going in there with a five-year plan. I think he's going in there saying we're going to be competitive right away here. And that compensation, you mentioned, if that's the compensation, what's the point of trading Dexter Dexter Lawrence? Now, exactly. I think the compensation is tricky. You know, you look at it with Quinn and Williams got a first and a second last year that felt like a pretty heavy, you know. That was pretty hefty to me. At the time, so I don't think that's what you're getting with Dexter Lawrence.

But at the same time, if you would have asked me before last season, Dexter Lawrence's trade value versus Quinn and Williams, I would have put them in the same tier. And if you asked me who's going to get more, I probably would have said Dexter Lawrence is going to get more. Now I know we've had another year of data since then. And so I think it's higher than a third. I think it's lower than a first and a second. I think if you're the Giants, like I'm not even having a conversation if I don't at least get a first. Like a late, you know, maybe it's a late first or whatever.

But it's just like what is the point of trading game without that? Now, if you're the acquiring team, what else makes this tricky is that now you're giving up compensation. Right. I'm paying him his next deal. You're probably paying him as the highest paid defensive tackle. If you're the trading team and like you're trying to make him, you know, get, what he wants financially. I know what you said with the Giants with the franchise tag.

But if you're the acquiring team, his agent's going to be like, all right, we want him to be the highest paid defense. Chris and money. Yeah, exactly. $32 million. In the NFL. And so now are you going to pay that and give up a first? So it is kind of tricky there what the market would be for Dexter Lawrence.

I think this smells to me like a classic player makes a trade. We wake up one day. Dexter Lawrence has a new deal with the Giants. I mean, I would be surprised at this point if he got traded. So I'm with you. I like number three there. I think Crosby is more like a big trade. If you're the giants,

you absolutely need to get this deal done before Howie Roseman and Chu Rosenhouse work out what they want to pay Jalen Carter in the future. Please do this now while the market's at what it's at now, right? Because if you wait and then you have a $35 million defensive tackle out on the market, which I'm sure Drew Rosenhouse is looking for, is for his client to be making edge rush for money,

that is going to complicate the negotiations, right? And there's no telling, you know, if you wait to try to, you know, play out the string on this contract, what that number is ultimately going to be when his deal is up. And the closer you get to the end of the contract, the less you're going to be able to recoup in terms of draft capital. So whether it is a late one or a pair of twos or a two and a three, which is kind of where I think, if I were the team that was offering to get Dexter Lawrence, I would put a two and a three on the board for it to see if we can kind of, you know, grease the skids to make that deal happen. Yeah, I think I would do that if I were an acquiring team. And if I'm New York, and we're basically talking about the equivalent of a late first round pick in draft compensation, I want to keep the player.

There might actually be an opportunity for you to sneak into the wildcard here, right? If everything goes right with John Harbaugh and all the additions you've made in terms of the veteran guys, if you genuinely believe that those guys plus a healthy Malik neighbors is going to get you to the playoffs, I'm not giving away what's been at worst, the third best defensive tackle in the NFL over the last like four to five seasons on the whole. You know, you take, you know, last season and kind of the stunted production in terms of pass rush out of the picture, you're still talking about one of the top defensive tackles in the NFL. I'm not letting that walk out my door. Yeah, if it's a non-first and I'm a team that thinks I can contend for a Super Bowl in the next three years and I have the cap space, now all of a sudden, now all of a sudden, now all of a sudden, now all of a sudden, now all of a sudden, now all of a sudden, these types of players don't. So it's kind of like a fine line there where a first, I don't know, but once you get, it's like,

it's not going to be a first. We actually are going to trade him. Now all of a sudden it's like, huh, these types of players don't often, I say don't often become available, but it's been a crazy year where these players have become available with Michael Parsons and Quinn and Williams and some other guys. But before that, it was kind of hard to acquire some of these players. And Crosby, we've talked about a bunch. Let's see.

I don't know. Maybe neither of them get traded, but I still tend to think he's going to be traded before the start of next season. and there are teams we've discussed the bears and the lions. Maybe they would make a move for him during the draft. All right. What do you got, Deonté? What's the next number?

All right. Let's go with one for no particular reason. I don't have a number that really speaks to me with one. Not all of them, you know? All right. At what point, Deonté, in the first round, would you not be critical of a team spending a pick on Notre Dame running back, Jeremiah Love?

So the background here, Deonté, and I spoke during our mock draft, we're both like, Jeremiah I love, great player, fun player. I hope he has a Hall of Fame career. I made the case. I'm not taking them in the top 10. Just the economics of football. I know it's a boring topic.

It feels like an icky topic at times. But if you're talking about roster building, to me, it just doesn't make sense to do that. And I think Deonté, for the most part, was on board with me there. But at some point, like I said, draft is a sliding scale. At some point, you say, all right, if that team does it at that spot in the first round,

then I'm not going to come on here in one of our post draft podcasts and say, what were they thinking? So I'm trying to identify Deonti what that number is. What do you think? I think it's fascinating. I think anything, my first thought is anything after the Jets at, maybe I said the Lions at 17 because they have Demir Gibbs, right? I think anything after the Lions at 17, fair game, you're going to get no complaints

for me. If it's in the top half, he's such an awesome player. I don't think I'm going to come in and slam a team at risk of sounding like I'm being negative about what Jeremiah Love can be, right? It's very similar to Bejohn Robinson going in the top 10. I'm not, I didn't say much, you know, in critique at that time because Bejad Robinson is awesome. It is more now that he's been, you know, maybe the best running back in the NFL last season and will probably be, you know, a top three running back for the duration of his rookie deal and probably going into his second contract. But ultimately, if you're asking me in terms of value proposition, would I rather have one of these tackles, one of these wide receivers,

one of these defensive ends, then getting a Jeremiah love for the teams that are drafting in the top 17 or so, yeah, I think I'd rather have those options and going to get a running back. But yeah, once you get to Minnesota, if you want to run the pickup, go ahead. If you're Carolina and you're saying, hey, we've got to figure out whether or not we want to extend Bryce Young, let's try to overload this strength of ours and go add a dynamic running back, then go ahead. You know, I don't think that I would protest it all that much. But I do think in the top half of the first round, not that it would be the worst thing in the world,

but I will certainly have questions about whether or not your draft capital was used properly. Yeah, it's about resource allocation. The two questions you always have to ask is how likely is it that this player hits? And then what does it mean if this player hits? And that's where it gets tricky with the running backs, because even if you do hit on the player, you know, you're doing it at the cost of not addressing a premium. position where those guys are going to get paid or, you know, a lot more or it's harder to find those players and they're not relying on things like the offensive line being good, the scheme being

good, maybe the quarterback being a run threat to maximize what that running back's going to be. So I'm with you. It's just it always is hard to talk about because we love watching running backs there. You know, one of the, it's so fun to watch these elite running backs in the NFL. There's nothing like it. And the player seems great. The prospect seems great. Again, hope he has a great career.

it's just a matter of would you use your resources in that way. And I don't know if you're going to be surprised or not. I had the exact same spot. Minnesota at 18. If Minnesota at 18 comes out and says, we got Brian Flores on defense, yeah, we could use some more players. But you know what?

What's the point of Brian Flores? We can't just, you know, we can get some players and he's going to make it work anyway. We've seen that over an extended period of time here. We've got Kyler Murray on offense. now maybe we're running some quarterback run stuff and we got Murray and we have Jeremiah Love and guess what? That's going to lead to advantageous looks for Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and Kevin O'Connell's going to cement himself as one of the best play callers in the NFL in our offensive line is pretty good. That's the one where I looked at it and said, if they do that, I'll be like, okay, I understand it.

I don't know that I'll be like, oh, they definitely should have done this and I'm 100% on board, but I'll be like I get it. a lot of the teams ahead of them, I have a lot of questions about, certainly the teams in the top 10. Although I was thinking, Deonti, if the Bengals really could build a fantasy team here at 10, if they're just like, forget about defense. Right.

Love, Chase, Higgins, and offensive line, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out, man. You're trapped in fantasy in August, and you're just taking all the Cincinnati Bengals. That was a moment when I was like, huh, I wonder, you know, I wonder what the reaction would be.

As a thought experiment, I think I would, that would be so exciting to me just to try to envision what an offense that has all those guys together. Again, I don't know if I would slam at the day of. That's one of those three weeks after, right? We start getting closer to OTAs in training camp and you start, you know, evaluating rosters before a preview season. You're like, why again did this team do this? I think that would be the situation for me. I love it. All right.

We're on the same page with Jeremiah Luff. All right. What do we got now? Are you tracking Deontes what numbers you've chosen? Because this is always a test I have for guests. Some of them are just, you know, Lucy Goosey, and they think I'm going to do all the hard work and tell them what's available. It looks like you're pretty organized over there.

You know what numbers you have left. I'm trying to be. Okay. I'm trying to be, man. I definitely try to keep accounting. I don't know. with three here. I think this will be Iverson for you. This is the way and Wade for me. Okay. Yeah, we'll go with three. All right. I like this one. I was excited. You know,

some of these I write them down and I get excited about them. If you had to bet on one player from this class, one day being enshrined into the Hall of Fame, Deonti, putting on the gold jacket there in Kitton. So now we don't care about positions. We don't care about all. It's just who has the best chance to have a Hall of Fame career out of this draft class, Dei. Who are you going with? Let's see if we landed on the same player or not I wrote down. Let me see. One, two.

I wrote down like four names, but when I settled on one of them, I felt pretty good about it. This is really tricky for me because I think that the names that I'm thinking about are all in a pretty tight cluster. So this is not like a ranked order for me, but the first name I thought about, was Sunny Stiles. That's the name I had written down. Yeah. It's sunny styles.

And it's so wild to be talking about that coming into a draft that a non-premium position player is the one who would be most likely to have, you know, a multi-all-year and be wearing a gold jacket at the end. But you watch Sunny Stiles and I'm thinking about Fred Warner. I'm thinking about, you know, Thomas Davis. I'm thinking about Luke Keekley at times. I'm thinking about Navarro Bowman and Patrick Willis and that combination of linebackers.

You just don't come across athletes like this who play this position very often to the point where I think most people aren't flinching if you put together a mock draft and have them in the top eight or top ten, right? Like I had them as high as five in the first generation of the mock draft. Yeah, wouldn't be shocking.

You know, like I think that like when you just watch how he tracks the ball, how he tackles, what you can get out of him in coverage. I remember how much people were kind of like, you know, going googly-eyed over Jahad Campbell last year. And it's like,

if you would have told, of those people that a year from then, there's going to be a player that's even more athletic and has an even better track record as an off ball linebacker coming into the draft, it would have been hard to believe. And yet, you know, here we are with Sunny Stiles. So of all the guys

that we could consider, Jeremiah Love is on that list. I'm sure there are some other names we'll come across as well. But I watch Sonny Stiles and I'm like, man, I've played linebacker. I spent a lot of time watching this position and thinking about defense. Sunny Stiles is one of those. I don't know if I start a franchise with him, but he's not far down

the list of guys that I want to have if I'm building a fantasy defense. Yeah, just like when you're looking at all these players and profiles and you're like, I love this player, but, I love this player, but I don't really know what the butts are. Not many butts there. Yeah, it's like great college player. Said to have great intangibles like, you know, killed his combine interviews and all that. Elite athlete has all the measurables. Just turned 21, by the way. So you could say, you know, there's a higher ceiling that we haven't even seen and he's already been a tremendous college player. You could just kind of picture him racking up a bunch of all pros. Also, that position, you know, there are elite players, but there is room there to, you know, get up in there and

be an all pro early in your career. So yeah, I had the same player there, Sunny Stouts. I'm not going to go over all the other ones because I think these are names that way now. If Jeremiah Love, I thought we just talked about him. If you want to say, hey, he could have that type of career. I think he could. And then I think the other players we're going to get to in some future questions so we don't need to get to them right now. All right, let's take one more break. We come back. We finish up the exercise with the remaining questions. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show going over a number of juicy draft-related topics. I was looking at Deontes, you know, timeline on social media. And I'm like, oh, he's like me. He's getting, he's getting kind of annoyed,

getting kind of sick of some of the draft discourse. This happens to me every year. Deonté around early April, I'm like, oh my gosh, can you people just shut it? Typically late March for me is like, we can't get here fast enough. Honestly, everything after the owner's meetings is like, we can have the draft right now. And that would be totally fine. But you know what? That's why we're trying to bring you our takes on some of these topics.

So you don't get caught in some of that minutia out there. All right, Deontay. What do you got? What's the next number? I'm going with the number that I feel like has been worn by, a lot of greats over my lifetime. That's eight. So you've got Kobe. Oh, yeah. Right? You've got Steve Young.

You've got Lamar Jackson. You've got Dale Jr. Right. Like there have been a lot of great eights throughout the course of my life that I've had an opportunity to watch. By the way, Steve Young, you know, if you, I found throughout the course of my career when I'm doing like pro football reference searches where it's like, oh, Lamar just did this. And you do like, all right, how many players have ever done this? The amount of time Steve Young shows up on those lists. It's kind of wild. Like the George Gervin of the NFL.

I feel like he probably, yeah, doesn't get the type of, his name doesn't get brought up as often as it probably should. When you look at kind of some of the stuff he was doing before anyone was doing there. So there you go. Steve Young, if you're listening, you got a shout out. You got a love you. You know, you got somebody who loves you here. Nobody else loves you. We do on the ring your NFL show.

That's right. All right. Question number eight. Who is a prospect that would be in your let someone. else find out, bucket. So I brought this up to Deonti during the last time we pot it where I said, you know what, if I were in one of these rooms and one of these NFL draft rooms, there would be certain players where I would say, I'm not saying they're going to be bused, they're not going to be

good, I'm just going to be saying the profile of this player. Let's let someone else find out if this player's going to hit or not. We are actually not going to take them unless obviously they fall to a certain point there. So who is a player, Deonti, where you say, you know what? But maybe they will be great, but I would probably just let someone else find out. I've got three. Sadly, they all play on my favorite side of the ball on defense, right? I've got a defender too.

Let's see if he's on your list. Number one for me is Akeem Mesidor. Oh, my God, we're too aligned. That was my guy. Sorry, I like the tape. This is not me saying I don't like tape. I actually love a lot of the things that he does on tape. I think that there is a high probability that he is a,

useful edge rusher. You see guys like this coming to the league all the time. They're big, strong, powerful edge rushers. They can win with power. They've got good hands. They play with the good motor. You know you're going to be able to play them on all three downs because they play well against the run as well. Sorry, man. I try not to be an agist. I really am trying not to be in ages, but you are significantly older than the other edges that we're talking about in this class, right? Like, I think about a team, you think like Tampa Bay or some of these teams are going to be in the teens where a guy like Celtric Falk might be available. And so was a King Mesaedor.

And you want me to say if I'm the GM that I'm taking the 25-year-old and not the 20-year-old coming into the league. I'm not comfortable with that. I'm just not comfortable with that, all things being equal. So Mesaador is the first name on my list that I have as a, if he's a Hall of Famer, is going to have to be in another team's jersey. Yeah, that's who I have. And to be clear, the age thing is not about,

oh, you're only going to have him for a certain number of years. That, you know, it's what Deonté said, where this guy has had, he has built up reps. He's been in a college strength and conditioning program for six years, six full seasons compared to some of the other players. And so he had a great year last year, 12 and a half sacks, 17 and a half tackles for loss. But it's just, it's harder to project or, you know, you can predict.

And he's a late breakout. And he's a late breakout. And he's had foot injuries, by the way, which I know injuries are tricky. So I don't want to dig him too much for that. I don't know the details and whether they're going to be issues for him going forward. But it's just a matter of this is, you know, maybe he comes in right away and it's really good right away, but he's playing against guys who have not had that same library of reps and against strength and conditioning and just practices and game film and all that.

He has such an edge on those players that it just becomes a trickier evaluation where I would say maybe he'll be great, but I would rather not take the guy who's 25 years old, especially if we're talking to a first-round pick, that would just, I would probably just have a cut off and be like, under no circumstances, are we spending a first-round pick on a 25-year-old? You're going to miss sometime. There will be a 25-year-old who's awesome.

But again, that's why it's to let someone else find out category. All right, who were the other guys you at least considered there, Deontay? So Mesodores for me is an age issue, a size issue for me is DiAngelo Pons. I'm not out altogether on ponds, but as a first round pick, I would certainly say, like, if you're that much in love with them,

I would say really honestly in like the top 40, top 50. If you're that in love with them, then go ahead and take them. You'll just have to prove me wrong, right? Like, again, nothing wrong with the tape. I actually love the way he competes. He plays a ball well in the air.

I think he overcomes his size issues more often than not when you look at him playing against other top receivers in college football. My hang up is you're talking about, a guy who is 5 foot 9 and about 180 pounds soaking wet. And he's not a guy you want to play in the nickel in this iteration of football. Because guys who play nickel have to make tackles. I think about what's asked of Kyle Hamilton in the slot,

Marlon Humphrey in the slot, Cooper Dejean in the slot, Derwin James in the slot. These are all big, bulky guys that basically play like linebackers, Nickyman Worry and Devin Witherspoon. Those guys play like linebackers. Daniela Pons is willing to try to be physical. I just don't think you could ask that guy, hey, they're going to run the ball 25.

There's going to be outside zone 18 times in your direction, and you got to go show up and either take on a tight-in or go make a block here. I don't know if that's a fair ass for Ponds, and if you're telling me he's only going to be on the outside, there are too many other options at corner that are, you know, 5-11 plus, you know, 195 pounds plus that have all of the speed, length, and natural feel and coverage that I'm looking for in this class,

I would just have to see if somebody else could do it. And then the last one for me is an injury concern, and that's defensive tackle Caleb Banks out of Florida, multiple foot issues. I love him as an athlete. I think that he's one of the most disruptive forces in this draft class. But if you're telling me to trust a 320-plus pound guy's feet when they've already been broken and brittle

and he's had issues with them, nothing against him as a player and the tape that he's put out on the way into the league, I would just much rather take like a Caden McDonald's might not be as good of a pass rusher, but at least I feel like he'll be more available to me on a week-to-week basis. Yeah, Banks is such a bummer because as I was doing my draft prep, he was one of the guys I got really excited about.

And I'm going like, why isn't he being mentioned is someone who can go a lot higher? Again, defensive tackle from Florida, 6-6, 327, Monster of a Man, long arms, you know, good pass rush production, explosive traits. And then he unfortunately has this foot injury history where he suffered. an injury in 2024 and then had a setback in 2025. And then there was something in the combine that's going to come out until June. So it's like you add all that up. And you're saying, you know, maybe there will be a team end of the first round that says,

we're comfortable with the medicals here. Maybe you have a good relationship with his agent or whatever. And you're like, this isn't going to be a problem. We're getting actually a steal here. Second round maybe might be more likely for him. These are all, you know, these are players I like. You mentioned it. I love them.

With pawns as well. on that list for me too, where I'm kind of on the fence. I know. It's hard because you're just like, am I going to spend a first round pick on a five nine corner? It's kind of as simple as that. How many of those guys are starting on the outside in the NFL, even if you love the guy. It's weird. Day two, it becomes a lot easier because everybody kind of has a little thing like that. And you say, all right, who do we like the most? What are we willing to live with? That kind of thing. But I think you came up with a good list of names there. All right. I don't even know what we have left. Deontes is going to have to tell

me what we have left, Dear Tiante, what's the next one you got? We'll go with two. Again, no significance because I kind of hated Derek Jeter as a kid. So that's like the most noteworthy two that comes to mind right out the gate. And I was not a fan of his. But we'll go with two to get that out the way. I like that. The captain catching straight is pro Steve Young and anti-Derick Jeter on this podcast today.

All right. I can't wait actually to hear your answer to this question. When we look up in 15 years from, by the way, We haven't even mentioned Fernando Mendoza. With this exercise, it's not based on kind of the most. It's just what number are we getting to? So I had a Mendoza question in here, but you never know when you're going to get to it. So, Deonti, when we look up 15 years from now, will we view Fernando Mendoza's career as better or worse than each of the following three guys?

Matt Ryan. Okay, I like this. Matt Ryan, Jared Gough, and Kirk Cousins. So those really, I feel like those comps have been thrown out there a little bit for Fernando Mendoza. I'm going to give you some background here, Deonté, while you think about it, we all know who these players are. But Matt Ryan actually has a pretty interesting pro football reference page, 15-year starter. We all remember the 2016 season where he's MVP, All-Pro. Never made an All-Pro team outside of the 2016 season.

Never got an MVP vote. Not even, you know, like a top 10, one person going rogue there. other than the 2016 season, four total playoff wins in 15 years as a starter, got to the championship round twice and the Super Bowl one. So that's Ryan. Golf, obviously still going here, has never been an all pro, has finished top five MVP once, which I didn't remember or did it. You know, we were doing this podcast at the time of 2024.

Jared Goff was a top five MVP, has obviously been to one Super Bowl, has made it to the championship round twice for playoff wins for Jared Goff. And then Kurt Cousins, 14 years in the NFL, no all pros, no MVP votes, one playoff win for Kurt Cousins in 14 seasons, which I remember it now, but I definitely would have taken the over if you would have just asked me before I looked it up. I would have said he had to have more than one. 2019, the only time that a Kirk Cousins led team won a playoff game, but obviously has been a solid quarterback for a long time.

So better or worse than those three guys, 15 years from now, Deonté, Matt Ryan, Jared Gough, and Kirk Cousins. I would say, it's funny, and it works out this way. I would say better than Kirk on par with Jared Gough, not better than Matt Ryan. Okay. As kind of how I would lay it out. I think that, honestly, it's easy to kind of forget

what the three or so years of Kirk Cousness's career was when he finally was a full-time starter in Washington and playing on all those franchise tags. I don't think that he really played all that well. My remembrance of those Washington teams was that Kirk Cousins was a pretty proficient passer underneath, but he was scared to get hit and his accuracy would wane in closing moments

in the biggest moments of games. And I think that their record really kind of reflected it because they were basically a 500 team in Washington for those few years where Kurt Cousins was the guy as starter. I think even in Minnesota, it kind of took until like the last couple of years there for him to kind of let his hair down

and say, hey, I'm willing to take a hit if that means I can push the ball down the field. That version of Kirk Cousinsons, I think, certainly sticks out in people's minds. Once Kevin O'Connell got there and really kind of remade the offense and was really pushing him to be aggressive in the passing game, I think that that's

the version that we remember most of Cousins, but I don't know if that's the most accurate depiction of him. So I do think that Mendoza can be better than work Kirk Cousins has been over the last decade and a half. And Matt Ryan, even though he only had that one year where it seemed like everybody kind of understood that he was one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL, I think you go back and you just watch what it was to take over the Falcons when he got there. Yeah.

And the level of play he gave them for about seven or eight years right throughout his prime, it's going to be hard to me to envision Fernando Mendoza hitting the ground running as hot as Matt Ryan did. So that's kind of where I land on it. And I think ultimately if the median outcome is that he's about as good as Jared golf, who's played like a pro bowler and an all pro player at times under the right system and struggled at others,

I think that you're probably happy with that in terms of a career turnout. This is tough. This is my own question. And I wasn't sure how I would answer it. Like I do like Mendoza. I think so much about this sort of tier of quarterback is about surroundings and coach. Yeah, situation.

where it's like if he gets in the right one, I could see him having multiple old proofs where he's putting up monster numbers and they just, you know, they have a great run. And if he doesn't, then I could see him being worse than all three of these guys, you know?

If it's just like, oh, man, here we go again with the Raiders. I'm going to go better than cousins, but worse than both golf and Ryan. And I like Mendelso. Again, I don't feel that strongly about it. But yeah, That's kind of where my gut tells me I'm going right now with Mendoza. All right.

Do we have any numbers left, Deante? I'm looking at my doctor here. We have two. Okay, thank you. See, Deante is just taking over. The coach, he's organized. He's ready to go. He's picking up his teammate here as I scroll around going, wait, did we do that one yet?

All right. What are we got? Last two here. What are you going with? So penultimate, we'll go with 10. No significance. I'm just saving the last number. I think if people understand Southern California, I think they might know I-5.

That's a special level. level of significance for me, but we'll go with 10 first. And listen, to be honest, I didn't know what penultimate meant until I was like 35 years old. I swear no one used that for the first 30 plus years of my life or when they did. I'm like, wait, is that the last thing? What is Penn, what is Penn Alt? But now I know. Penultimate, second to last. All right. Give me one prospect who is going to get taken way higher than people are projecting right now. So way back, we did the prospect who's going to be good, go later than people are projecting. Now I want to know the prospect that's actually going to end up going to end up going higher than people are projecting him right now.

If you need a second to think about it, I can give you mine, Deante. Where are you with this one? I have a couple names of mine, but I want to hear what you're going out first. I think this one you might be on board with. I'm going to go with Monroe Freeling, the offensive tackle with big upside. This is the Deont. I don't know if it's the Deontalee Planet Theory, but I know Deontale likes the Planet Theory. where how many people on the planet just kind of look like this

and have these measurable 6, 7, 315. You just look at all the vertical jump, the broad jump, all those things, very long arms. One year starter, but has great traits where I feel like a team will look at this and say, you know what, let's take a flyer on a guy who could end up being the best offensive tackle in this class with elite.

Physical traits, we believe in our coaching. we believe in our culture that we're going to get the most out of this guy. Could he be a top 15 pick? Could he sneak into the top 10? Where I was like, what? Monroe Frilling is going to the top 10? This is crazy. I'm not going to be as so bold as to predict that that's going to happen.

But I also think when I looked at some of these guys where I said, I don't know, this could be somebody that a team falls in love with. He was the name that came to mind. So I'll answer my own question there and go with Monroe Freeling. I like Monroe Freeling as a pick. I mean, he is my favorite tackle in terms of projections in this class. Oh, interesting. I think that, and maybe this is spending so much time watching the Eagles and Jeff Stoutland University

and just like what these big, raw athletes can become in the right scenario. I look at Monroe Freeling and how he moves. I'm like, you just can't convince me that there's not an all pro in that body. I see it. I can see it in how he run blocks. I can see it in how powerful he is, even into pass protection. one of the things that I noted in watching him is like for college edge rushers that try to approach him with power,

if that was your game plan, you might as well have just thrown the game away. You might as well not have gotten off the bus because you weren't beating him with power, right? And it's not like people who work with speed or more finesse were whooping him often or anything like that, but I do think that if all, if your whole plan was get off speed to power

against someone like Monroe Freeling, you're not going to move very far. And what he can do with his power as a run blocker, as a puller, getting out in space. Those check all the boxes, whether you're a gap scheme or outside zone team. And I think that as he continues to add experience, you'll start to see a better base, you know, more balance in his past sets. The small little details that kind of separate you from being a really intriguing raw guy

and someone who can be like Rayshon Slater, right? When I think about Ray Sean Slater coming into the league, that was a big, powerful guy who just needed a couple of years to just add some experience and add some details to his game to become a superstar level tackle, I look at Freeling as another guy who can be exactly like that in this draft. So that's a good pick for you.

I think that for me, one on offense, one on defense. My defensive guy is Keljik Falk, who we talked about earlier. I just think about like what the league likes in an edge rusher. Trayvon Walker being a number one pick, getting to his second contract,

these big, long, young guys with this long trajectory to develop their game that's already good as a run defender, plays with the high motor, can win with power and length, and the versatility of being able to move inside and out, even in poor outcomes, we have not seen teams be dissuaded from making a pick on a guy like Falk, right? You think about Tyree Wilson getting drafted by the Raiders however many years ago, and that didn't work out the greatest, right? Some of that is

injury, some of that is kind of being a tweener and trying to find what his best usage is, do these different defensive systems. But I think that he was drafted that. high for a reason. Because you get these big powerful dudes who can play out on the edge, this does come right back to Planet Theory. There's really nothing missing physically from Kelgic Fox game. This is really just a matter of, do you believe you can bring a guy who's going to be 20 years old at the start of the season and teach him how to be the right kind of football player? That's a guy that I can see going as high as, you know, that the bottom end of the top 10. You know, I think that Miami would be a team where he could be in play at 11 as well.

And then offensively, it's Mackay Lemon, right? And I don't think he's going to be everybody's cup of tea because not everybody is looking for a guy who's going to be kind of slot only and has not already demonstrated that he's going to be like a Heinz Ward level blocker plus, you know, Amon Ross, St. Brown, level underneath Yacht guy chain mover type.

But I do think you look at McCoy Lemon and the steadiness in his production over the last season and a half to two seasons, you look at the fact that he doesn't drop passes, that he won in contested catch situations more often this year that we had seen in years prior for a guy who is sub six feet. You look at the strength of power that he plays with in spite of being a smaller guy. That is a kind of powerful slot, sub six foot, but powerful slot that I think you will be looking for. And at best case scenario, maybe you are able to flex him outside a little bit and be able to feed targets to him.

He might not be Jackson Smith and Jigba, but best case scenario is probably not too far off. I think if you're projecting as optimistically as possible, I could certainly see him going, you know, kind of in that 8 to 12 range as well if the right team falls in love with them. I like it. I think in our mock exercise, we had Lemon going to the Rams

and we had Falk going to the Cowboys, I believe, at 12 in that exercise. All right, this is, I mean, I don't know if you had access to my Google Doc here or whatever, Deontay, but you really led me into the last question very well because Keldrick Falk, the edge from Auburn is included in this question.

I was going to tell you to stop, but then I thought, you know what? We're talking about him right now. That's fine. We're going to get to him in the next question. So we finish with this one. Rank these, I mentioned earlier, Deante, you know, some of the draft discourse.

So this one really praise on that. Rank these three draft takes based on how much you actually buy into them. Deante, okay. Take number one, this is from. our friend, Fran Duffy, who does does a great job on the draft at All City. He has Keldrick Falk as his edge one. I love when I'm looking around at the draft analyst that I respect. And I say, who's going out on a limb with something here with their take?

And Fran has Keldrick Falk as edge one. So that's take the first take here. Keldrick Falk is actually the best edge in this class. Take number two. we talked about this one previously. Ty Simpson is quarterback one in this class ahead of Mendoza. Dan Orlovsky, obviously made some headlines with that. Take a couple weeks ago on ESPN.

Others have said maybe it's not that crazy that Ty Simpson is the best quarterback in this class. So that's number two. And then three, this one's floating around there as I consume some draft content. Arvel Reese is actually more of an offball linebacker, Deontay, than an edge rusher. And so maybe that fits into, maybe that impacts your evaluation when he should be taken, that kind of thing, how he fits in the NFL. So those three takes. Caldric Falk is actually edge number one.

Ty Simpson is actually quarterback number one. Arbel Reese is actually more of an offball linebacker than an edge rusher. rank those takes based on how much you buy into each one of them. Number one for me is Arbel Reese being an awful lineback grow up brand at Dresher. You're buying into that one. I have 100% buy into this. Tell me about it.

I still think if you're the Jets and you take them to, you have to try them at edge because you've got to try to maximize the value of the pick, right? Like I would not mind that there is a chance that there is some Michael Parsons level, you know, unlocking to his game that's going to come if he focuses all his time, and energy on being an edge rusher. But you look at him as an off-wall linebacker, and you can't convince me that that can't possibly be the best off-ball linebacker in the league

in five years' time, right? Like, that potential is definitely there. The feel is there, the tackling ability. Everything we talked about with Sunny Stiles, I think is present in Reese's tape. You know, you just have the mix of every once in a while. You get to see him as a pass-rrisher in a way that you don't see as often with Sunny Stiles.

So I would say I buy into that one the most, And I think I'd be comfortable with that being the truth if it worked out that way. A, part of that is because I'm not Darren Moogie. It's not my thing at number two. So I don't have to answer for this. I just get to enjoy the player as he is, right? But I also think that there just is a legitimate chance that he is more effective, more impactful on a down-and-down basis as an off-ball linebacker than he would be

trying to pigeonhole him as an edge rusher primarily or as only as an edge rusher. So I could definitely see a world where that's the case. Number two for me would be Falk being edge one. We kind of talked about it a little bit. The power is there. The motor is there. The length is there. The physicality is there.

You get to see small flashes of what a pass rush plan will look like for him as he gets more reps, becomes more season and adds more detail to his game. And you think about what he can be five years from now when he's 25, when he's Akeem Mesador's age today. When he is there at the end of his rookie deal, I think that it's entirely possible. You know, when you look at him and say like,

oh, this is a guy that gives us 8 to 10 sacks per year. He's going to be one of the 15 best run defenders. Maybe he's not number, maybe he's never number one in either of those categories, but he does just enough in both to make it worth paying this guy 35 plus million per season. That's something I can definitely see being an outcome. And if you're asking me to bet on something,

and this comes down to how you view prospects coming into the league, what you prioritize. I'm always going to be a ceiling first type of evaluator. And for telling me to judge his sealing against Ruben Baines, against David Bailey's, against Arbel Reese as a tweener, it's hard for me not to say that Kelchuk Falk has just as good a chance, if not better, than all of those guys, to be the best pure edge rusher in this class.

So I'd say I would like that one the most second, I'm bought into that second most. And then third is Ty Simpson. You know, I had a very adverse reaction. to the... It sounds like you took a bad medication. Right, exactly. Exactly.

You know, we were watching out of the, you know, the boutique medicine that I talk about the side effects. I definitely had, you know, one of the more significant ones that are listed there. But, you know, to me, I'm not saying that this is only draft season fodder, but, man, I just feel like, if this was really how people felt about Ty Simpson,

we wouldn't be drumming this, this thing wouldn't be getting drummed up in mid to late March, a month ahead of the draft. You would have heard during the combine, You would have heard during the Pro Day circuit. You would have heard during the invitational, you know, all the All-Star Games circuit that, hey, Tysonson might not be here throwing, but people can't wait to get in front of him.

Or, you know, he's here at the Senior Bowl or whatever. And every team is just telling, it's falling all over themselves and elbowing each other to be the first ones to get a chance to go talk to him. And this anonymous scout and this anonymous executive is saying, hey, I know that everybody's talking about it being a fade-a-complee that Mendoza is going number one overall. And that's a win for us because we can't, wait to maybe get our hands on a guy like Ty Simpson or the media doesn't know what they're talking

about. Simpson is clearly number one. You don't hear that heat to start with. And then just like the tape evaluation and looking at the traits and what the projections are, even if you believe that Ty Simpson's passing profile looks more like an NFL player's coming in the gate, when the hell has that ever been the determining factor between what makes for a good and not good quarterback? This is the league we're talking about. This is a traits business. This is a pocket presence position more than it is. What kind of throws have you shown to make coming into the league?

I don't think that anybody can, in good faith, say that the throws they've seen from Ty Simpson, you can't find in Mendoza's taper that you don't believe that he can make. I just don't buy that. And to me, I think it's much more likely that Garrett Nussmeyer has as good, if not better a career as Ty Simpson. And Ty Simpson being the number one quarterback in this class. That would probably be my hottest take with the quarterbacks. I just love the adverse.

Sorry, I can't get past it. I'm stealing the adverse reaction thing. You're going to hear me the next year. I had an adverse reaction to Kyle Shanahan punting. I was going to say, it's going to be a fourth down. It's definitely going to be a fourth down decision. I had an adverse reaction to how Nick Siriani managed the clock at the end of the first half there. That is so good.

Adverse reaction. Okay, Nessmeyer, over Ty Simpson. And I'm going to go Falk, Reese Simpson. So we flipped the first two. Okay. The Reese thing's very interesting to me. I mean, I understand it, but I am nervous if I'm a Jets fan. And it's like, wait a minute, we're taking an offball linebacker and Aaron Glenn saying we're going to be more multiple this year.

And we have the second overall pick. And we're looking at 2027. And as much as I like, Arvel Reese, if it's more offball linebacker, then, and I'm, questioning his ability as a pass rusher that would make me a little nervous, not to say it can't work out there. But I understand what you're saying? I mean, he played what, off ball over 60, 65% of the snaps, whatever it was last year. So it's not like he had this.

And he was excellent at it. Yeah. It's not like he's got the high volume of pass rush snaps. But if he's a great off ball linebacker, if he's an all pro level, off ball linebacker, you can justify it. It would just make me a little more nervous than if this were a year where he just said, man, I'm getting a great pass rusher at number two. So the curious thing for me, and I know we're close to signing off here,

but the curious thing for me is that if Arvall Reese held a press conference tomorrow and said he had absolutely no interest in being a pass rusher, that he wants to be drafted as an offball linebacker, what that would do to his draft stock in this draft specifically, right? Like how much of a ding would he take? I think the Jets would probably go take maybe a David Bailey or Ruben Bain number two because I do think that ultimately they want a guy who has a past rushing future at that spot.

But I think that Reese would probably be, wherever you have styles, Reese would have to be in range right there. So I guess that would mean that he drops to being in play from number three on instead of number two. But ultimately, I don't think it would hurt him in this draft in either direction, even if you were only evaluating him as an off-ball linebacker.

It's that kind of year. It's that kind of weird draft. And even those guys, Bailey, you're saying, all right, well, we have questions about him versus the run. Bain were saying, I mean, I love Bain, but it's like, you know, you could say. There's a length thing. Yeah, there's going to be someone in there saying, man, this is an outlier with the lack of length there, with his arm length for Bain. So it's not like if there were another guy that you could just say, well, this guy is that, you know, he's going to rush the passer.

It would be different, but maybe it's just not that kind of year. And he would go anyway. By the way, if I were his agent, I'd be like, do not say that. R. Vell Reese, we're not saying that. Never say this. Yeah, never say this again. You'll call off that Brett Scott. I'm going to act like you didn't even say those words to me.

What are you doing? Arvel, you're killing me. All right. Those were the 10 questions. That was fun. We get to hit on a lot of different topics. I just get to think about what's on my mind. What do I want to hear Deontes take on?

We got to a bunch of fun draft-related topics there. In that exercise, Deonti, I think we're bringing this one back at some point. I don't know when. I don't know how often. But I feel like that worked out pretty well. As long as I'm on the other end of it and it's me answering it, I'm good with it. I'm going to try to afford and get you to keep this thing.

There you go. All right. Thank you. To Deontalee, that was a lot of fun. Check out his mock draft like you mentioned by the time you listen to this. It's probably already going to be up on the ringer. com.

Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Stefano Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Raimgo. I'm Sheila Kapite. We'll talk to you next time on the ringer NFL show. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming, gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler or 1-800-May-Reset. Call 1-88-7-8-8-9-77-7-7.

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