The Ringer NFL Show - 2024 NFL Draft Awards and Superlatives

Episode Date: April 28, 2024

Shiel, Steven, and Austin get together at the end of Day 3 of the NFL draft to share their expertise and analysis on which GMs and teams around the league drafted bright futures for their individual rosters this week, and the organizations that maybe should be looking into a front office upgrade before next offseason. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Austin Gayle Producer: Chris Sutton Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Social: Eduardo Ocampo and Kiera Givens Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Sheila Capote here, joined by Austin Gale and Stephen Ruiz. I think it's our first three-man pod. And what a time for it. The NFL draft is over. So we are going to hand out some awards, some superlatives based on what we saw this weekend. Really could be anything, guys. We were like, no rules.

Pick out an award you want to hand it out. Hand it out. And we'll talk about it. So Austin, hopefully, you know, this goes pretty well. it'll be unpredictable. Yeah, I'm hoping it goes well. I mean, I think the NFL draft, it's a content machine. It's a content machine.

I think you can only make good content out of the draft. There's some good stuff. There's some of the bad stuff. Some of the best moments in content over the offseason are just talking about the draft. I was going for a bad pod. I was going to try to ruin the pod and sabotage. I'm a contrarian here.

Austin, when you said some of the most memorable moments, I just went right to Laramie Tensel, Laramie Tunsel in the Bond group. I don't know, that's where my head went when you said like memorable draft moments. So we didn't get that this year. but we got some good stuff. We got the big surprise at number eight in round one. We got different things throughout the course of the weekend.

I think the Pennix thing will be what everyone will remember. But Stephen, why don't you start us off? What is the first award or superlative that you are handing out for this draft? We're going to do three each. We'll just go around the horn. Stephen, what do you got? Let's start with the Leaning Into the Bid Award. And I gave this one to Mickey Loomis and the Saints because, oh, man, you talk about content,

a content machine. Mickey Loomis, just chefs kiss to you. Trading up for Kool-Aid McKinstree, like the Saints are in no position to be wasting draft picks on luxury picks on day two. Like, they should not be doing that. But I think they give up three picks, and I have the numbers.

They gave up the equivalent of like the 94th pick or something like that. Like, that's not a big deal. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you don't have cap space and you don't have, I don't like a core that you could be, optimistic about something that you could look forward to in the future.

I don't think you're in position to be trading away those picks. So I thought that was just like a luxury move by Mickey Loomis. But he did save the draft with his fifth round pick and getting Spencer Rattler. I mean, I just think like that's the best pick of day three. I don't know about you guys, but I'm high on Spencer Rattler. I understand why he dropped. I understand why there are questions about his character going back to the high school. But I do think that's the proper place to take a swing on a quarterback that I think could be a starter in three years.

I think he can overtake Derek Carr, maybe as soon as next year. Spencer Rattler, the best pick of day three Ruiz, planning his flag on Spencer Rattler. Austin, what do you think? You were looking at all these quarterbacks before the draft. Do you agree with Ruiz that there's some upside there, and you like a Spencer Rattler? There's absolutely upside to Spencer Rattler,

especially at Pick 150. I think Ben Solax tweet about the difference in style between Spencer Rattler and Derek Carr is a salient one. They're like completely different players. I don't know if Rattler is going to make Carr more aggressive. I doubt it or if Carr is going to make Rattler less aggressive. I also doubt that as well.

I think the funniest piece of content that came out of this Rattler pick was Rappaport essentially coming out. I think it was Rappaport who tweeted out that every conversation that he's had with Spencer Rattler brought up a documentary series on Netflix where Spencer Rattler was like 16 years old. And they're like, yeah, can't get that taste out of my mouth. And if you watch the series, like he was kind of a shithead kid, he made fun of a lot of his teammates. And he had this thing where he lied about like all this stuff. But like, he was a kid.

He was a child, a literal child. We're literally bringing up child behavior on day three of the NFL draft. I don't really understand it. I think Spencer Rattler, if he went to a different school, went to a school with a better offensive line, not South Carolina. I think he'd be a top 100 pick in this class. Like people did not turn on the South Carolina tape clearly. They're just rewatching this. Netflix documentary about him as a kid instead of actually watching the film.

Because when you watch this film, like, guy had no chance. Like, legitimately no chance behind the South Carolina offensive line. I do think he's going to have, obviously, better protection in the NFL. I'm excited to see him as an upside player. And pick 150, that kind of dart on day three, I think it definitely makes a lot of sense for the Saints. Can we say that LeBron James ruined Spencer Rattler's career, or at least sabotage it to begin? He's the producer of that QB1 series.

So I'm putting it on LeBron James. Yeah, I haven't watched this, Ruiz. Have you seen this? like what it, would it just follow around high school quarterbacks? Yeah, it was about like the recruiting process, basically, I think is what it was about. I've never seen it, but like I've seen the clips and he has been a kind of a shithead, but it's like to his buddies and the guys on the team, oh my God, a 16 year old was a shithead was a shithead to his friends.

We can't draft this guy. There's a key piece in the doc. I went back and rewatch it when Spencer Rattler was like projected to be a number one overall pick in an upcoming class and went back and rewatched it. He's a shithead to the backup quarterback on the team, like a total bully in some ways. And then also, I mean, and he's a bully. because he's this like five-star recruit, about to go to Oklahoma,

like has all these aspirations of being the biggest thing ever, like high on this pedestal. And then there's this other part in the series where he like clearly lies to the team about like a key misconduct and all this kind of stuff that like, he's a child.

I don't really like bringing it up. Like he's legitimately a kid. Like everyone's made those same mistakes like a hundred times over. It's like frustrating that that's like some of the first things that come out on Spencer Rattler after he's picked. And like Rappaport not even talking about that before he's picked thinking bringing it up again

is going to drive him further downboards. Like that's just lazy. Like the NFL could, to be just so freaking lazy. It's like so lazy that Spencer Rattler, like the common thread and the conversations among like reporters and all this stuff is that, have you seen QB1?

He was 17 years old and kind of a dick. It's like, Jesus Christ, can we do something else? Can we just turn on the All-22 and grind tape? Yeah, yeah. But I do like this class overall. I like the first round pick. I like that they didn't trade back or trade up or do something crazy in the first round.

I do, I thought the second round pick, obviously, the move-up was a little too rich for that. Like, they can't afford to do that. But this has a chance of not being like a foundational class, I don't think. But if like Rattler does become a player that can play, I'm high on him, but I don't think he's going to be a star by any means. I think he's just going to be maybe a starter one day. If that happens, this could be a class that kind of not, it doesn't set them up for success

in the future, but it just helps them out, helps this rebuild, accelerates it a little bit. And it's going to take a long time to fix this mess. They're so irrelevant. They might be the most irrelevant team in the NFL. fell right now. Like I can't, when I'm doing any project offseason, like, all right, Leslie, you know, who's my sleeper? Like, who do I think had a good, who had a bad off season? Who could make the Super Bowl? Who's going to stick next year? I just go past them. Like, I literally zoom past them because I'm like, I don't care about this team. They're irrelevant.

They're not going to be that good. They're not going to be that bad. They're going to be stuck. They're going to make these moves to just get. All right. Yeah, okay. That's a nice player. Like, even the biggest Spencer Rattler fan, like the odds of him. him being the 20th best quarterback starter in the NFL, just historically from where he's drafted, are so, so low just when you look at guys that get drafted on day three, where they end up. So, yeah, he could be like the exception. Honestly, if he's a backup, that's like a big win for the 150th pick in the draft. So you're right.

I mean, there weren't a bunch of storylines on day three. So it was like, all right, well, when Spencer Rattler going to get taken? So I think it's relevant to talk about him to. lead the show since we're recording after day three. But man, this Saints team, like, this will be the last time I talk about the Saints team on this podcast until we have to like make predictions the week before the season. And I have to say what I think their record is. I just don't find them interesting at all. Am I crazy? Shield said I made a bad move by leading with the Saints. That was a shot. He said, I don't know podcast. No, I like the Rattler. Ratler was good, but I'm not going to get there

with the other stuff. A foundational. All right. Yeah, we'll say. I don't know that, you know, We're going to just be talking about this team much until they just have a total change of direction and decide they don't want to operate the way they've been operating so far. All right, Austin, what do you got? What's your first award or superlative? My first award is the Jesse Pinkman classic from Breaking Bad meme. He can't keep getting away with this. Just like crying and all that stuff.

I was going to give it to the Philadelphia Eagles, but I know we're going to talk maybe about the Eagles a little bit later. And I know you're talking Eagles all day long on Philly Special. So I'm going to go to the Detroit Lions for all of the good reasons. and I'll give it to the Jacksonville Jaguars for all the bad reasons. For the Detroit Lions, like Brad Holmes, the general manager for the Detroit Lions, I don't think could be on a bigger heater. Like, he is in a can't miss, like doesn't think he can miss situation,

just like shooting from half court. I mean, he ended up drafting in this class, a player that legitimately like no one knew at the top, like out of British Columbia, who's like this like six eight monster behemoth, not even on anybody's boards. He also drafted Sione Vaki, the Utah safety. turn running back, maybe slot receiver.

No one knows what to do with them, but Detroit Lions are going to find a way out. And then when you look at the top of their draft, I didn't mind the trade-up for Teryon Arnold. It obviously fills a need. They've been trying to attack the secondary. And then at 41 overall, or no, excuse me, 61 overall.

They take the Missouri corner, Ennis Raykistraw. Lions continue to do really good things. And I know a lot of people didn't like the Jack Campbell pick and it hasn't really panned out so far. And obviously the Jemir Gibbs pick from a positional value standpoint was great. But he continues to bring good players in the building. And he has enough, in my opinion,

like enough weight in that room. to where he can take these heat checks, like bringing in this guy at British Columbia and obviously taking a player that no one knows where to play in Cione Vaki. Are you worried at all? Like there's, like, maybe two years from now, we're going to look back on these two drafts in a row

and be like, do they get the most out of those picks that they had? Because there is still that question. I know their draft class last year was hotly debated after. Like, a lot of people in media, including myself, wrote about how it was a little short-sighted. They weren't really picking for the future. They weren't picking premium picks at premium positions. And obviously they had a lot of success,

and the draft class had success this year, Gibbs and Leporta especially. But there is a chance, like, down the road that, like, you don't necessarily want to give Gibbs a second contract because he's a running back. Leporta's a tight end, and that's always dicey, like paying tight ends. And then Jack Campbell, a linebacker in the first round, an off-the-ball linebacker who wasn't very good during his rickie year.

Like, that's another question. And then you have these, like, these half-court pools, like you said, where you're taking a guy who doesn't really know how to play football. you have a running back who played safety in college. We might look back at this in a couple of years and be like, what was Brad Holmes thinking? What was he cooking? I do feel like the first two picks were values where they were. If you look at the consensus board or even Danny Kelly's board,

they were values where they were selected. And I think they attacked key positions of need. They obviously looked at really upgrading in the secondary. They were involved in the legurious knee conversations in terms of trading for him. They end up settling for, I think, a low trade for Carlton Davis to come in. Then they bring in Terry and Arnold. Then they bring in Ennis Raykest Raekstra, upgrading a key part of that defense

if they're going to be successful and go further than they went last year. I like what they did there. And I think he's proven, Brad Holmes specifically. Like Brad Holmes has proven specifically that I'm going to get good players in the building. The vibes couldn't be better. If you saw on day three,

everyone's wearing Dan Campbell, midnight black jerseys in the room. The culture is eating strategy for breakfast. You can go draft a 6-foot-eight 300-pounder who has barely played football because you can because you've just earned so much weight in that. room. And the same thing with Sione Vaki, a guy that, like, no one knows where to play him.

He's only got two years of legitimate playing experience at college level. Like, he's just bringing in good football players and maintaining a culture that Dan Campbell obviously started and continued to like, I don't know. I just feel that it's a heat check, obviously, with any time you're bringing in a player from up north in Canada and obviously bring in Sony Vaki. But when you look at their first two picks and including the trade up for a non-quarterback, which usually analytics, like, stray away from that, don't do it. I didn't mind the trade-up actually at all. Terry on Arnold, in my opinion, was falling. And he's arguably the best cornerback in this class.

I really do like what Brad Holmes has done. I think the lines continue to, maybe it's not at the best positional value, maybe in some spots they're forcing need, maybe in some spots they're shooting from the logo. I think they continue to bring in good players. And that culture is just going to continue to develop those guys too. Yeah, I definitely like the top of their draft.

Like, I do think addressing the secondary was a huge need, especially, like, if you're going to have an Aaron Glenn defense, who likes to play a lot of man coverage, you have to have corners and that's been a problem for them. Like, even going back to Matt Patricia. So I do like that aspect of it. I think it's a little more risky than I feel like you think it is with Brad Holmes. Like there's a chance that this like turns bad in a hurry.

And I really like that pick for the Lions, like taking an offensive tackle and giving him to Dan Campbell and that staff, I think more likely than not might work. Like we'll work out for them because that's the coaching staff that's going to get the most out of that type of player. I understand the question. The question is are they feeling themselves a little bit too much? I mean, you know, like not just with the picks, but with the, you know, calling people, which is fine. Like, I think that's fun. That's good for content.

Like, you know, it's like if you're going to call out the GM or the coach, they have the right to call you out. Absolutely. Jamir Gibbs was awesome last year. I'm with you, Ruiz. I was ripping them last year at this time after the draft going, you came out of the first round with two picks and you're giving me a running back and an off ball linebacker. Like, are you serious?

This isn't going to work. And it remains to be seen whether it will work or not. I mean, Gibbs was fantastic as a rookie. So I think it's, you know, and then during. in the NFL network broadcast. Like Brad Holmes was texting, you know, Charles Davis like, oh, wow, you guys have film of this guy we drafted. You know, we didn't even think you'd have film of him.

That's how well, it's like, all right. All right. Just be careful here. You know, things happen very quickly in the NFL from one year to the next. So I don't think you're like, I like the Lions. You know, I don't think either of you is wrong. Like, I like the Lions a lot. I'm considering picking the Lions to go to the Super Bowl from the NFC.

I think they've had a good offseason. I like what they did at cornerback, not only in the draft here. I mean, Terry and Arnold, great fit. I loved his, you know, just like when he was talking to the crowd in Detroit, like you said, Stephen. I think the cornerbacks in this class were interesting because it really depended on scheme and how you want to use them, who you're going to have stacked one, two, and three. Eagles went in a different direction, but the Lions want to play man. And then Rake Straw, you know, watching his film before the draft, like, very entertaining in that this guy was walking a line between feistyness and like an unsportsmanlike on every pass breakout.

Like every time he was involved in a play, I'm like, I was just cracking up at his play personality. But that fits the lions really well. So I like what they did early. You know, when you stray from consensus, it can go one or two ways. You can say, you know, you think you're smarter than everyone else. Or you can say that, hey, yeah, you knew something. You know your staff well. You know your culture well. You know what you're looking for well. And it ends up working out. So we'll see. It's interesting. Like it's kind of like last year when if you looked at their first, whatever, picks and you rearranged them, then you would say, oh, yeah, like, I understand that, you know, they got Brian Branch like in the second. It was like if they would have taken him, uh, in the first

and then taking these guys in the second, like they got Mahogany, the guard from Boston College, who I think a lot of people thought was like a top 100 player and they got him in the sixth round. So I didn't see the reporting on that, whether there was a medical issue, uh, or something else there. But, um, yeah, they're definitely, uh, they love that, as T.O would say, I love me some me. Yeah, they love them some me right now in Detroit. And rightfully so. They're doing a good job there. Sheal, your first question was, are they feeling themselves? They went to the NFC championship game with Jared Goff. They were like an all-time collapse away from going to the Super Bowl with Jared Goff within eight months of being laughed out the building by the media over their draft class last year.

Like, they are feeling themselves and have every right to. And when you mentioned straying from consensus, their first two picks, even with the trade-up, were more than 10 spots ahead of consensus. They bring in, obviously, Mahogany, you mentioned him, who's a consensus value. They bring in the LSU defensive tackle at some point later in the draft that's a value, 80 spots ahead of consensus.

Like, they know what they're doing. They heat check here and there. It's like Steph Curry's shooting deep. You know, right now, Brad Holmes knows what he's doing. Steph Curry is the greatest three-point shooter of all time and has multiple NBA rings. The Lions beat the baby Rams by one point, and they beat Baker Mayfield at home in the playoffs.

Are we hanging a banner for the? that? I will. I'll hang a banner. I'm ready to hang a banner. Good playoff draw merchants is what I'm calling. The Detroit Lions in terms of franchise turnaround in my lifetime, nearly 30 years of life, I don't think there's been a bigger franchise turnaround that I've seen in the league. Like, what they've done to go from dormant to legitimately like a bad, obviously awful comeback loss or obviously they were ahead so much over San Francisco from being in the Super Bowl. I think what they've done and what my favorite part is is drafting ahead of consensus. specifically with those early picks and drafting with a vision,

bringing in guys that do have feisty tape, that do love football, that fit right into this culture. And I mentioned at the top of this, my award being the Detroit Lions win this one for good reasons. The Jacksonville Jaguars win it for horrible reasons. When Trent Balke farted in a press conference and said, excuse me, I didn't know he was leaking his draft plans. And I know he's getting praise for trading back and still getting Brian Thomas Jr. A one-year wonder with the Heisman winner at Jane Daniels.

But every other pick, when you look versus consensus, outside of his Javon Foster pick, Missouri offensive tackle at pick 114, is more than 40 spots off of the consensus board. Guys calling heat checks and hasn't hit a pick. Hasn't hit a pick in years. Literally hasn't hit a pick in years. The only pick that he's even had that's been good is Trevor Lawrence, and that was put it in his lap.

I don't understand what the Jacksonville Jaguars are doing. I don't think Trent Bulky does either. The Jaguars continue to confound me. They are the opposite of what the lions are doing in terms of drafting with the vision and drafting according to their culture. He's calling heat checks and the dude's not Steph Curry. He's Steve Curry or whatever Stefan Curry's brother's name is. It's just not looking good over there in Jacksonville.

His brother's in the NBA and he's good. I forgot. I don't watch the NBA as closely as you do, Steve. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I barely watch it. I don't know what you're talking about. Wait, Austin, I need to clarify what you just said. Make sure I heard it right.

So they made nine picks in the draft. Brian Thomas Jr. in the first round. And then you said, I think Javon Foster, the offensive tackle for Missouri. Did you say every other pick was 40 spots? And for those who don't know what we're talking about when we say consensus, there are Aref Hassan,

other people put together, these big consensus boards where basically you take a bunch of analysts online and you put them together. It's kind of a wisdom of crowds approach. And it's been very interesting. I feel like it's really become popular in the last, what, three to five years

where you say, hey, how did this model kind of compare to what individual teams did? and in many cases, it outperforms the average NFL team. So that's just a clarification on what we're saying. So did you say seven of the nine picks were 40 spots below or above what the consensus was? So I only factor in with the consensus board because I do think it gets a little wild after the first 200 picks, right? Or first 220 picks. But if you look at, so throw out their last pick of the draft, 236, because when you get to that point,

I mean, you're taking any player with a pulse. I mean, the draft is arguably too long. I'm saving that take for later. But when you look at their picks, I'm going down the line here. You have Brian Thomas, who they traded back for four picks ahead of consensus. Arguably, their only good pick of this draft. Mason Smith, LSU defensive tackle, 38 picks below consensus. Jerry and Jones, Florida State cornerback, 49 picks below consensus.

Then you had the Javan Foster picks, still 18 picks below consensus. Then they go Jordan Jefferson. The other LSU defensive tackle, 217 picks below consensus. Then they go Deontay Prince, Ole Miss Corner, 89 picks below consensus. Kellen Robinson, Texas running back. Now the, what, fifth or six straight draft that Jacksonville has taken a running back, 164 picks below consensus. Cam Little, Fort Estate.

What is it? Like, over 100 picks off consensus. Like, they, in my opinion, don't pay attention to even the littlest of analytics. Like, it's literally the biggest, it's a pick I have later. But like, just look at the consensus board. I have the data on the consensus board. It's something that I do appreciate. Something that I do think,

Arifasan, big shout out to him who started this over, I think, the last four or five years. I do think it does a really good job of, like, gauging just how much, like, the media over consensus understands the draft, and the Jacksonville Jaguars just flat out ignore it.

And no shit, they have Trevor Lawrence, one of the best quarterbacks in the league and still can't find a way to win a playoff game. Yeah, that's very, well, those numbers are pretty eye-popping. I am looking, I hadn't looked closely at their hole, but yeah, it's like, I like the Brian Thomas Jr. pick more than you did there, Austin.

I think he can be really, really good. Sheal, I got one more, I got one more data point. I didn't know you're a consensus board fan. I got one more data point for you. Yeah. I added all the difference, the pick difference between where they ranked on the consensus board versus where they ranked or where they were actually picked, right? So you have teams like the Chiefs, the Ravens, really negative versus consensus board,

constantly chasing value, the better teams than the league. The Jacksonville Jaguars are dead last with 571 picks off of consensus. plus 571 off of consensus, literally digging through Netflix documentaries to find these players. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand it. I literally don't understand it.

That's wild. Yeah, it's like the number one mistake that we've learned. NFL teams like thinking you can just out scout and out evaluate the competition when you don't have any type of track record doing that, to your point. I mean, look at that roster.

It's not a good roster. They've had misses after misses after misses. And so then to continue to approach it that way rather than say, hey, should we, look at this a little bit differently. What are some of the teams that are really good? How are they approaching it? Man, yeah, that is very concerning if you're a Jaguars fan.

Where is this confidence coming from? That's like a great. He hasn't made a good pick since like Alden Smith? Those Niners teams, I guess. In like 2011, maybe? I think that, Sheel, your article where you write like the six traps to avoid going into the NFL draft, and one of your rules is to not be overconfident in your own evaluation. I remember three or four years ago on the PFF draft show when I was still working at PFF,

saying like just literally like when the consensus board was like first being a part of media and Areef was originally bringing in like 70, 80, 90 different draft boards going into the draft. I was like, the worst thing you can do is be overconfident in your valuation because you could always trade back. You can always gather more picks. If you're 100 picks above consensus confident this player is going to be good, trade back and pick them later like the Eagles did with all of their tradebacks. I don't know if we're going to talk about them today, but that's like an example of just like them figuring it out. That's rough. We'll see. It's having a big year in Jacksonville, lots of jobs.

I was actually surprised they made that first round trade because they got the draft capital for next year. I'm like, wow, Bulkke's, are you confident? You're making that pick next year? I don't know, so we'll see. Can I throw out a quick comp for this situation? What it's starting to feel like? It's starting to feel like Ryan Grixon and Andrew Luck territory here

with Trevor Lawrence and Trent Falky. I'll just leave the conversation at that point. Yeah, that one was so egregious where it was like, you know, the offensive line. but yeah, overall, I think that's a good one to revisit in the months ahead and probably during the 2024 season. All right, I'm not as creative as you guys. I don't have good names. I'm just, you know, I'm very basic in my take.

So my first one is just the overcoming ownership award goes to the Dallas Cowboys. Okay. So you have heard the phrase sometimes in the NFL that you have to overcome your coaching. It's kind of a joke like, all right, this player's good. You got to overcome the coaching. I'm looking at the Cowboys, and you look at their draft, I think the Cowboys had a good draft. They moved from 24 to 29.

They draft Tyler Guyton, the tackle from Oklahoma. Makes sense. Premium position. Maybe it allows them to keep Tyler Smith at guard. You pick up a third round pick. I like that. Nice move. Third round, they take Cooper Beebe, the guard.

Again, a guarder center, interior offensive lineman. Maybe he can come in and start for you right away. You lost your center in free agency. That's fine. Second round, they take Marshawn Neeland, the edge from Western Michigan. Again, reasonable pick. I think if we looked at the consensus board, that would be, you know, a good pick or at least right around the range where he was expected to go. So no issues with their draft. I think they're like have drafted really well. Last year, maybe not. But again, you zoom out and you look at the larger sample. I think they've drafted well. However, where I'm going with this. The image I will have of the Dallas Cowboys from this draft is of their press conference after day one in which Jerry Jones is up there talking about his interview. with Texas running back, Jonathan Brooks, saying, this is the most impressive interview I've had in 30 years in the NFL.

He said, we've got him high, high, high on our draft board. Stephen Jones, his son gives him a little nudge like, Dad, what's going on? You know, maybe your dad says something embarrassing. And, you know, you've all maybe had that same feeling if you're listening, and he gives him a little nudge. Will McLeigh, who has really run their draft for years and is like the architect, you know, of that roster.

He makes sure everyone knows, yeah, but we've got a lot of players high on our board. All right. So what happens? This is, again, this is after day one of the draft. Day two of the draft, the Panthers trade up. They take Jonathan Brooks at 46. To me, not a big deal. Whatever, it's a running back on the second day.

You didn't get him. But it just stood out to me because I'm looking at like Will McClay, who has gotten them, you know, Micah Parsons and Cedley Lam and Dak Prescott and Trayvon Diggs and like just very talented players where. they haven't been picking in the top five most of those years. And those drafts have saved the Dallas Cowboys. That has set them with this kind of high floor of talent where the teams are good, regardless of who the coaches are.

And then I'm looking at the owner. And it's not just the one comment by Jerry Jones. To me, this has been like a mess of an offseason for Jerry Jones. I think it's really coming to light how much in terms of ownership, this guy is not doing everything he can to put them in positions to win football games, to win championships. They rank 31st in cash spending in the NFL. The Dallas freaking Cowboys,

one of the most, I mean, one of the most, like, iconic, well-known, richest franchises in all of them, North American sports. They rank 31st in cash spending. What do they do with their star players? Micah Parsons,

Dak Prescott, Cideland. They're waiting till the last second. What was Jerry Jones's quote? He wants more leaves to fall off the branches or whatever he says. It wasn't, you know, what was his old thing about circumcise? a mosquito or say he didn't use that one.

Okay. But he used something about the leaves. And I'm just looking at it and it's like, if you're a Cowboys fan, you look around and you see a team like the Eagles and trust me, this isn't going to be just gassing up the Eagles. I'll probably rip them a little bit later or tell everyone to calm down. But they just sign A.J. Brown before the draft, they signed Devante Smith before they've got Jalen Hertz under contract. They signed sake. You can go up and down. And the Cowboys like to use the salary cap as a crutch for bad roster management.

And so that was one of my big takeaways, that image, Jerry Jones sitting next to Will McLeigh and how it's like the draft is kind of saving you guys. But the ownership, the way you manage the roster, the way this whole thing is run, is kind of putting a cap on where you can go. And if it wasn't for the good drafting, this would be potentially a laughing stock in the NFL even more so than it is right now. So, Stephen, what do you think? I know you're a big, Dak Prescott guy.

What do you think about the Cowboys and that take about Jerry Jones and the ownership? Well, first of all, the Panthers ended up with the player. So it's probably a good thing they missed out on that guy. It's not going to work out. Maybe Jerry is like positional value-pilled. And maybe he realized that was going to be the pick and he wanted to sabotage it before it happened. Maybe. He's playing chess.

The doodling. Because the doodling came up again. I don't know if you guys saw that, but Stephen Jones held up a picture of the doodling this time. We got to actually see what it was. I got to say, man, I know Austin was saying that's like the sign of an active mind. Kind of concerned about the doodling. I don't think Jerry's plugged in anymore. I don't think he's locked in.

I got to be honest. I know I was a pro Jerry after the doodling. Now, the more I hear him speak, the more I just think he needs a nice rub on the back. Be like, hey, hey, hey, it's all right. It's all right. And you just got to go back there. And he's just like, my opinion, why the draft, I think you bring up a great point shield, like these good drafts have kept them relevant is the draft doesn't require.

a checkbook. The draft doesn't require Jerry to pull the checkbook out and actually write all the zeros, not the doodles. And instead, they can be like, hey, Jerry, we think this guy's really good. You met him, right? You remember meeting him. It was good, right? And he's like, oh, yeah, I like him. Tyler Geithen, grew up a Cowboys fan. Done, sold. Literally done, sold. Grew up a Cowboys fan, check. We've got him through the door. Then you're literally going by, like, we really want to pick this guy. How do we swing him to Jerry? That's the entire freaking draft process. And they did a good job. I thought Cooper Beebebe, the Kansas State Interior Offensive Line. was the value where they drafted him. I also really like Kalyn Carson, the Wake Forest cornerback where they drafted him. He's got some, I'll say, inspiring tape versus Marvin Harrison Jr. He gets absolutely dominated. But the fact that he keeps showing up

and mirrors him in that game, I think it's pretty interesting, the Wake Forest Corner. So I do think they got some value there. I don't know how much if it's going to help as every other team gets out their checkbook to sign their star players. And CD Lam's price only goes up.

And Micah Parsons price only goes up. And Dak Prescott's future is completely, who knows? I don't know how much that's going to end up helping them, but it is a good draft by Dallas, and they are overcoming some pretty rough ownership. I really think the problem is, and maybe this is just too convenient of a narrative, it's just Jerry living in the past

and things that worked in the past that don't necessarily work now, like not paying players to the last second. This is a guy that made Emmett Smith hold out for the first two weeks of a season in a season that he ended up winning MVP. So I think Jerry saw, he's like, oh, that's motivated.

I just motivated him to win MVP. He got paid and he's getting better. So I think he's still using that approach. in 2024, like, it was one guy. It was one isolated incident. And I agree with you. I think Jerry is holding this franchise back at this point. And I really think Will McLeay has done like a yeoman's work over the last,

I would say decade. This team has been talented for, I would say, like 15 years maybe, like going back to the Wade Phillips era, where they were expected to win a Super Bowl or compete for a Super Bowl. But it is getting concerning that now we're getting to the part where they are leaning on Jerry's checkbook because they have to sign all these guys. And that's going to decide this team's future for the next couple of years. And I'm not optimistic about it.

Guys, I don't want to get political on this pod. I don't. I didn't come in here thinking I wanted to get political on this pod. Jerry Jones is a month older than Joe Biden. But I mean, what else is there to say? Is there anything else we can actually say? Should this person be making multi-million dollar decisions? It's hard to say.

It's hard to say at this point. I'll leave it at that. I like how Austin was like, I'm going to tiptoe around the ageism thing with like the patting him on the back thing. And then he's like, no, screw it. I'm just going to go for it. He's old. It's not ageism to say 81, 82 years old is time.

It's time to hang it up. It's okay. As I've said many times, this is a pro-ageism feed. So you don't have to explain yourself. Yeah, I think you're right, Ruiz, about like, he operates as if like this aura of, you know, hey, you should realize what the cowboys, what playing for the cowboys means. And it's like, there is something. to that, but not as much to it as he thinks there is. Like, if you're a player, you're still

like, yeah, that's cool, but still I want to be paid at the top of the market. Like, you know, all my buddies around the league or what I'm worth. And it's just like, they don't operate that way. And it's really, it's a hundred percent cost them. I mean, I think Will McClay recently re-signed there. But man, I'm with you. Like, if I were another team in need of a, like, I don't know. That would be a guy would be like, do we just make a godfather offer to him? Because there's going to be some price where Jerry's going to say, oh, he's not worth it either. you know we can do without him he's not he's not the key to this either and you can make a godfather offer now mcclay gets to go in like not only run the draft but do some other stuff maybe that he

has so uh i don't know maybe something to keep an eye on don't get me and austin started on the lore of the cowboys and and what that can do for your opportunities off the field we had a we had a shouting match about dac prescott's endorsement profile that's sleep number money you're not getting that sleep number money in in uh philadelphia i'll tell you that much there you go that's that you should you should work for Jerry Jones with that. That's probably coming directly from his mouth. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back.

We will get to our next round of superlatives. All right, we're back on the ringer. NFL show. All right, Ruiz. We're not doing snake draft. I don't want to go back to back here. I just want to go around the horn.

So go ahead. Give us your second one. I like it. I like it. I didn't know what to call this one. I have so many awards to give the charges. I can give them the eating your vegetables, the taking your medicine,

whatever metaphor you want there. I can give them the Justin Herbert Stan seal of approval for me. personally. I can give Jim Harbaugh the, you clearly drafted every player that you play, like all the players you drafted you drafted, you played against last year. And that's why you drafted them. You watch their tape when you were scouting them. They take, they took two Notre Dame players, a Georgia player, a Michigan player, obviously he coached, an Alabama player, a Maryland player, big 10 team. And then Troy, a player from Troy, which obviously didn't play them.

But the first six picks just happened to either be Michigan Wolverines or players that they played against last year. So that was interesting. But I really like this draft, and I like taking Joe Ald with the first pick. I know people wanted them to grab a receiver there, but I think this is the mature way of approaching the problem they've had on offense the last couple of years, which is we can't push the ball downfield. We have Justin Herbert, and we still can't push the ball downfield. Part of it was the slow receiving court, but the other part was their offensive line was just terrible. They couldn't run the football. They couldn't protect long enough for Justin Herbert to throw the ball downfield. And I think the way to unlock that part of his game again,

is to build a good running game. And I know, like, maybe we're, like, leaning into the Greg Roman bit a little bit too much with the Joe Allpick. But I do like it. And then you add, you do add speed at receiver in Ladd McCominy, which is, I like the pick. I think Justin Herbert's going to get a lot out of him. It's not the receiver that I think a lot of Chargers fan and a lot of people that want to see them draft. They wanted to see them draft like a blue chip prospect with legit physical chops. But I do think he's going to be a guy, a good role player in that receiving court.

And then Junior Colson, I don't really have linebacker takes. I wasn't grinding the linebacker film, but you have to assume that Harbaugh knows his game. And I do think this is a team that needed a tougher front seven. Like this front seven was so soft the last couple of years. You had a defensive tackle. You add a linebacker. You get two cornerbacks.

That's been a problem position for them for the last couple of years. They're bigger. They're tougher now. I like this draft. It's a good first step for them. Hold on, hold on, hold on, Austin. I got to go first year because I can't play. Stephen, it's going to be week six next year, and you're going to be ripping Greg Roman for

what this offense looks like. Okay, with a, okay, I just wanted to get that on the record. Because as you were saying that, I'm like, come on, I know exactly what's going to happen. The first week of November, when we're watching this going, you know, yeah, maybe we should have seen this coming when they hired Greg Roman, Arid Austin. Go ahead. You can respond. I just need to fit that in there. I really like the Chargers draft, too. I think if Jim Harbaugh is giving out Kool-Aid, I am sipping it. I am, I'm downing it.

I'm gulping it down. I really like the Joel pick there at five. I think some people, even Jim Harbaugh might have wanted to add J.C. Latham at that spot, but Joe Walt is just too good to pass up.

I think Ladd-McConkie where they got him was a value. I think Junior Colson, yes, he's singing the Victor song. I don't know if you saw the clip of Harbaugh singing the Michigan Victor's song where people are like, this guy's untimged. I'm like, this guy is true to himself, okay?

This guy, for once in our lives, like, just says what he means and does what he says. He's like, the entire pre-draft process, he's like, I care about the offensive line. Essentially said we're going to take an offensive line and not receiver at 5 and then he does that. I respect the commitment. He's got commitment to the bit energy as well.

And Cam Hart, the Notre Dame corner, he's one of those guys that I really liked as a day two, day three option. I thought he was a value where they got him. Never a bad shout to bring in Jerry Rice's son, even though I don't think he can play. It's always good to have a favor in the bank with one of the greatest receivers of all time. And then you didn't even mention this. He got another Michigan guy, Cornelius Johnson, who I think was a value at 253 late in the seventh round. bring in another guy. Go blue, dude. I wasn't still watching. I'm sorry. I turned off the draft by then. I wasn't watching two 50, pick 253, buddy. Yeah, didn't we start recording the pot at that point?

Austin, what are you talking about? How do you even know that way? You must have it online or something. The draft is by Super Bowl, man. I love the draft. I love every single pick of this damn thing. Oh, man. Give me some games to watch. Give me some games. I don't want to hear people reading all names. I'm going to take the other side here with art. I understand the Joel pick. I'm not going all in that terrible pick. What were they thinking? I would have been very interested in Malik neighbors and Ladd-McConkie as the first two picks. I know that's unorthodox. Have you seen their wide receiver depth chart?

Like, is this enough for, I just feel like what is their path to getting a Malik neighbors type talent at wide receiver going forward? Like, they're not going to be picking in the top five again. Those guys do not reach free agency. So now you're talking about a trade. And I just, like, love the idea. And maybe this is, you know, just like, this isn't like a fantasy football thing. This is a legit football. I actually think this might have been better for them to take Malik Neighbors,

you take Ladin McConkey, you've got two wide receivers who do different things. You give Justin Herbert this explosive dude who's a playmaker. I mean, Malik Neighbors was one of my favorite players in the draft, so I'm probably doing the thing I just made fun of GMs for being overconfident in my ability to evaluate talent. But that would have been so appealing to me. I'm not saying you ignore offensive line. They've poured a lot of resources into that offensive line.

And I know right tackle is still an issue, but it's like, can you just get me, you know, like average right tackle play for a year and then try to figure that out next on the season? So I was very attracted by the idea of getting, I think Malik neighbors is going to be harder to find

than, you know, a good right tackle in the future. Oh, man. Come on. This is like the opposite of the Sewell, Jamar Chase meme. Do you remember that?

The Joe Burrow, like, if they drafted offensive linemen, he'd be protected. But, Sheel, who, like, off the top of your head, who are the three best receivers in NFL right now? Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, and Tyree Kill, probably. I wasn't expecting the Jamar Chase answer.

That kind of ruined my bit here. But, like, Justin Jefferson, drafted in the 20th. Tyree Kill, drafted on day three. A.J. Brown, drafted on day two. Like, you don't need a top five pick to find a star receiver. You can find superstar receivers all over the draft. And, like, if you look at the top five, most of them weren't drafted in the top 10.

It's a good point. I can't argue with that. You're right. There's more volume. And it's a good point. Next year, they could, if this, you know, they could take another shot at it. And if you take enough shots at it, you can probably find it. Again, I'm probably, maybe it's good. You're calling me out on my biases. I love neighbors. I love the idea of Herbert throwing to neighbors for the next eight to 10 years and then making sweet music together. I get the Joe Alt pick. I just, I mean, now you get one injury at wide receiver and we're just going to be really, it's going to be very hard to watch next year. But that's only one year. I understand you don't draft for just one year. How dare you?

They've quitting Johnston. I know this is tough. And don't even, I don't even rank this. But I'm looking at this offensive line for the Chargers now. Rishon Slater at left tackle. You have Zion Johnson. They're at left guard, a former first round pick for them in 2022. Corey Lindley's still at center.

Jamari Salier can now kick into guard and stay at guard. And then you have Joe all at right tackle. J.K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards. They brought in Kamani Vidal. I think this team, and I know, like, you bring in great grown when everyone's like, what are they're going to drop. Justin Herbert are going to drop back like eight times a game.

honestly, I don't even care if I do think that this offensive line is going to be one of the best offensive lines in football. They're going to know how to run the football. And that's going to help Justin Herbert maybe not as much as if Malik Neighbors hits his high range of outcomes, but still, like, a lot. I think this Chargers team got a lot better with the Joe Walt pick. And I think I understand Jim Harbaugh's vision. Again, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid all the way. I mean, I obviously don't put it in the paper that I like Greg Roman or his offense. Do not put that in the paper.

But I do like kind of going the opposite direction of what they were going in with, the last offense, the last couple of offense, where it's very complicated. Like, you have very heavy volume with the saint style of offense under Joe Lombardi. Then you have the Kevin Moore offense, which is like an old pro-style offense, a lot of thinking there.

And now you give Justin Herbert, like, an offense where it's usually three receivers out in the route. We're keeping guys into block all the time. Like, he doesn't have to, like, make these complex reads. He's not going from one to two to three to four to five anymore. He's going to be going from one to two to three. And for a player like him, who I think can like overthink things too much.

He can process too quickly almost. That's going to help him. And I think it's going to unlock a better part of this game. And I think we're going to see more of the Justin Herbert we saw in his rookie year in terms of like aggressiveness. I can't wait to cut this clip and send it to you on November 3rd when you're watching film of this offense and your heads of Alton's squad. This is my Falcons. I hope I'm wrong. Austin, I'm with you with the Jim Harbaugh content real quick before we can move on here.

But yeah, I mean, the Jim Harbaugh content on draft weekend, fantastic. Him having Joe Alt go back to back with his dad, outstanding, him singing the Michigan fight song. I mean, I love having Jim Harbaugh in the NFL. It's fantastic. I think he's a great coach. I think it is going to work out. And I think they're going to be much better this year. I just couldn't get that vision of neighbors out of my head.

Art, Austin, what do you got? What's your next one? Before I get to my next one, you know Joe Alt's going to be a Hall of Famer when you snap to the picture of him. One, he's not at the draft. He's at home. Two, he's in a cabin. Three, he's the biggest freaking human in the entire shot. Four has no swag at all.

Guy hugs like he's never hugged before. The dude's going to play 15 years in the league, probably wearing a gold jacket. I just don't think you can get a better-looking offensive lineman than what we got from Joe All. My next award. I know, Shail, you said, you didn't get too creative, couldn't find the names.

I might have went too creative here. I might have went too far. I'm giving the criminally underrated cheat code award to lying. to the act of lying. And I'm going to bring up a handful. Sean Peyton, when he quote, the thing that got leaked to Schefter about,

Sean Peyton feels as strongly about Bo Nix as he did Patrick Mahomes, A-plus. Terry Fontno. It's a good problem to have. No, a great problem to have. If Michael Pennix doesn't play for four to five years, lying. Chris Ballard goes on there and says,

we need more people. You know, he drafts A.D. Mitchell, the Texas receiver. He was sliding. Everyone thought he was a first-round talent. He's like all this stuff about him being a bad interview. As soon as I quote tweeted that, and I said, yeah, we need more of this. This is cool. Multiple people texted me and we're like, dude, do you know this stuff about A.D. Mitchell?

And they sent me some pretty rough shit. I'm like, Billard, lying. Jerry Jones, for the opposite reason. Don't mention you like Jonathan Brooks. You need to lie. Xavier Legate said, I'm not getting past 33. I know Carolina is drafting me. Opposite reason.

Lie. Jim Harbaugh saying J.J. McCarthy is the best quarterback he's ever seen. Lying. Javon Baker in the hyperbole saying, I make people in wheelchair stand up. Well done. Ian Rappapaport. Any, Ian Rappaport coming out with that tweet after the thing about the Spencer Rattler, like all these conversations I'm having about Netflix and blah, blah, blah, like, don't say that.

Lie. Brandon Rice is at a funeral on day three. Shut up. Lie. You don't need to bring all this stuff up. We need to lie more in this league. The best GMs do it. The best coaches do it.

And the worst ones don't. Leaving me with this. Trent bulky, farting. You shouldn't have done that. Don't say excuse me after you fart in public on a press conference where it's picked up on the mic. He doesn't say excuse me there. Everyone says it's just a squeak on the chair.

Instead, we know he farted, and there we go. One of the worst draft classes in this year. Pro lied. Oh, my God. Ruiz, you can take it. I can't even respond. I'm digested. Oh, my gosh.

What just happened? I'm going to try it out real quick. You have a very normal brain, Austin, a very competent and normal brain there on you. That's my attempt at lying. No, but I agree. Like, lie more, especially from the draft. Like, that's the name of the game during the draft, right? It's lie. Ruiz, I came up with this because I listened back to your guys' pod on Thursday night,

and you mentioned multiple times about like Shanahan, like lying. Like him, Shanahan's saying, we're probably going to take a running back in the third. If it doesn't work out, maybe one in the six, it's like, what are you doing? Lie. Why are we being truthful here? This makes no sense. Sean Payton also had that quote where he's like, you know, I kind of baited the Minnesota of Vikings saying we're going to trade up. It's like, shut up, Sean Payton.

You look worse. You look worse saying this true as shit. I don't know, man. It's just so funny that like it's such a spin-easing. own time. It makes the content that much better. Everyone's like, even John Schneider, who drafted Byron Murphy, I think at 14th overall, he said he was the best defensive player in the draft for us. Even if that's not true, good shit. That's smart. You always say the best thing possible with all these guys. I do think lying is just one of the better things in the NFL draft cycle.

How do we feel about Terry Fondon saying that apparently, like, he didn't say this out loud, but there was a report. I think it was from Rappaport. It might have been Schaefter that the Falcons had Pennix QB2 behind Jane and Daniels which means they had penics ahead of Caleb Williams I can't get into it

Oh I didn't see that Li or no lie Good lie or bad lie Answer those two things I think no lie I mean they took the guy 8th for no reason I'm gonna say no lie

that they you know They very well So you're saying Caleb Williams is on the board at 8 and they take Pennicks still I mean they're giving me no reason to think that that's a lie given how much they showed

they like Michael Penix more than anybody else I think that's more about just like being overconfident in your own evaluation. Like if that is true, if the Atlanta Falcons had Jaden Daniels one, Michael Pennix 2, and Caleb Williams 3, when like you look historically how 100 plus media members rank Caleb Williams, he's arguably one of the best prospects over the last like five, 10 years. If you have him as quarterback 3, you need to wake up and look at other stuff and admit to yourself

that you're not, you're not him. You're not that guy. Like you are not that guy, pal. you're not that person who's going to like reinvent quarterback evaluation. And five weeks after you gave Kirk Cousins $100 million. I wasn't on the Thursday show, but like the whole Falcons process and all the quotes that have come out after it have just made them look so bad. For a GM that's what in his fourth year in Atlanta, he might not even see the Pennix years.

Like, we'll Fontnau be there when Michael Pennix makes his first start? I don't know. I honestly don't know. Can we talk about Sean Payton for a second, though? Do we trust him drafting quarterbacks? Can we go over his track record drafting quarterbacks? What is it? You got it? Oh, yeah, I got it in front of me. Okay, we have Sean Canfield in the seventh round in 2010.

I never heard of him. It's a seventh round pick. I'm not going to hold that against it. Never heard of them. All right, Garrett Grayson in round three, never really played. Colorado State, a round three pick, like, that player should play. Okay, and then we go to Tommy Stevens in 2020, and then we have Ian Book. And then also, I'm going to throw Taysam Hill out there because he tried to make Tassam Hill a quarterback, too. We're not going to revise history there. Sean Payton truly believe that that guy would become a good quarterback one day, and he never even came close to it.

So does this guy have an eye for quarterbacking talent? I feel like we've given him the benefit of the doubt because of Drew Brees. He is a great play caller, but that doesn't necessarily extend to quarterback evaluation. I don't know if he deserves it. I mean, all he's banking off of is this story where he's saying that he wanted to draft Pat Mahomes, but we can't even, like, confirm that story. The best analysis on Sean Payton and him taking Bo Nix came from your very, your shield Capadia on the Thursday night show.

He's like life short. I'm not wasting a year of my career on Jared Stidman, Zach Wilson. I don't give a hoot. I'm taking Bo Nix at 12. I'm taking one of the top six quarterbacks at 12. I don't care because I'm not going into next year with Stidham and Zach Wilson. My life's too short. My career is too short.

I'm not doing it. And like that gap between Bo Nix taken at 12 and Spencer Rattler taking at 150, like let's think about that for a second, right? Like, if the Broncos don't take Bo Knicks there at 12, like, how far does this dude fall? I'm stunned that he did it, but I'm also like, I'm stunned in that he valued him that highly. But when you think about it, he really was just going to take a quarterback there no matter what. I honestly feel that way. Yeah, I have a hard time with Peyton because I do believe that for all the arrogant coaches there are in the NFL, that he, his offensive mind is greater than like, you know, 95% of them probably. Like, I do believe in him.

He just has the track record and you talk to people around and they're like, yeah, everybody watches the saints. Like people are stealing from them and they do smart stuff. But I mean, you're right, Stephen. It is two different skillsets. I think we should acknowledge. One, being a great offensive designer and play caller and schemer and other being, like, I don't know, is anyone a great quarterback evaluator? Like, it's really freaking hard. The NFL showed us this year in and you're out.

Even with the, like, look at where Patrick Mahomes went. Now you don't even have to go back to Tom Brady. So it's really, really hard. And Peyton, like, I was sort of inclined to be like, I don't know, should I give him the benefit of the doubt that this guy knows what kind of quarterback he needs and he can make it work. But it's just, I mean, you reading off those names is a good reminder that no, you probably shouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt there. And by the way, you know, Austin, you mentioned the Lions deserve to be feeling themselves. I mean, Sean Payton is really feeling himself. I mean, I was just reading a story on the athletic where he's telling this story about like, you know, they went to the Bowknicks workout and then they got in the car and he was just.

just like, are you kidding me? Like with what, you know, with what we just saw. And like you said, he's bragging about, oh, we got, you know, the Vikings to trade up there. It's like, you have, like, your organization is in maybe like one of the worst shapes of any organization in the NFL right now. And you just spent the 12th overall pig on Bo Nix and the supporting cast is not very good. Like, and you're in Patrick Mahomes's division. And Jim Harbaugh just joined, like, this is a very uphill climb for you, Sean Fain. So yeah, I don't know what to expect from that Broncos team. But, yeah, I'm inclined to not give him the benefit of the doubt.

He needs to start punching down again. Like, go after Nate Hackett. You can win that. I agree. These other battles, you're not going to win. Nate Hackett, just catching him. I want it on the record while we're on the Broncos, and I didn't expect us to hit him. One, I was a Knicks fan.

I liked him over Michael Panx. I think he was overdrafted there at 12, and I don't think he entered was a good situation in Denver in terms of the sporting cast, but I did like Knicks as a round two player. But the rest of this draft for Denver, I actually really liked. I think Jonah Ellis out of Utah was a good value. I like Troy Franklin pairing him up with Nix. He was in a free fall. I don't really know why he fell all the way to the top of day three.

I think the Missouri corner they took out. Chris Abrams Drain was good. Adrick Estimated Notre Dame. I do think that they brought in some good players. They brought in some good players at good values after Nix. And it kind of reminds me of this is a deep cut. But Larry David's Kirby enthusiasm where his ex-wife, Cheryl's interviewing for this or casting for this job and he's trying to get back with her.

And he's like, yeah, yeah, she's got it. She's got it. And they're like, can we see the tape? Like, oh, I don't know. We might not be able to get you the tape. It's like, don't look at the tape. Don't look at the tape. Just trust me. I'm in the car. I just met him. He's going to be good. And I think John Payton got a chance to take that 12th pick and everything else. He just kind of took off value. Yeah. It's a good one. I mean, bulky, you know, I just can't look at him without thinking about that. You know, what Austin described the fart in the president. I like, that's just going to be my image of him the rest of my life. And taking it back to curb, Marty Funkhouse there. It all comes full so far. Yes. Yes. It's an improvement.

honestly over, like, the fart is better than like I gave Christian Kirk, whatever, he gave like $20 million and broke the receiver market with Christian Kirk. That's less embarrassing. Oh my gosh. All right. You should fart more. If we had drops, that would be a good drop. That would be useful. I feel like in future episodes. All right. My next one, the under the radar, weird draft weekend goes to the Los Angeles Rams. I was looking at the Rams here. Okay, first round, they take Jared Verst, Florida State, Oh, hum, not really that big of a deal. Now, it was a little bit weird because Peter Schrager, who is very tight with Sean McVeigh

was saying, like, this is first, first round pick. He's taking an offensive player. Then there's rumors that they're a trade-up team, maybe trying to get Brock Bowers. None of that happens, and they end up just taking an edge rusher at 19. But it's fine, you know, not far away from where people expected Jared Verst to go. Then in the second round, they made a wild trade, which I feel like went under the radar, moving from 52 to 39. 13 spots, they give up a 20-25 second round pick, along with a fifth this year for Braden Fisk,

who again, to hit on the ageism theme, turns 25 years old in January. He will end his rookie season and he will be 25 years old. He had six sacks and 13 games last year for Florida State. He might turn out to be a great player. I'm not saying the guy's going to stink. Like, again, that was around, I think, where he was supposed to go. but to give up what they get. I mean, you're giving up like two second round picks for a defensive tackle.

It's going to turn 25 the end of his rookie year. Like that's bad process, bad use of resources. And so you have that. And then, you know, Stephen, you surprised. I think it was you or Nora surprised me on Thursday when you brought up the Matthew Stafford thing that I hadn't even seen during the first round. And now looking back on it, so for those who missed it, Matthew Stafford wants more money. He wants more guaranteed money.

NFL network reported it. Sean McVeigh was asked about it. He's answering questions about it. Matthew Stafford is 36 years old. He played great last year. But at this time, last off season, we're all, you know, I know I was. I'll speak for myself. It's kind of like, you know, what does Matthew Stafford have left?

Is he going to make it through this next season? So now he is in this kind of contract squabble. I don't know if squabble is even the right word. The Rams said all the right things. Sean McVeigh, Lesney, they said the right thing. So maybe they'll get it worked out. And it's no big deal. but I'm zooming out, and I'm looking at this Rams offseason,

and it's like, you lose Rahim Morris as your defensive coordinator, Aaron Donald retires, you've got this Stafford contract thing, and while I still believe in McVeigh and kind of the offensive infrastructure there, I'm just kind of wondering, like, is this a team that's going to be able to build on what they did last year? Or are we going to be looking like, we could be having a conversation next season going, 2023 was really like their shot. They could have beat the lines in that game.

It was wide open. They could have gotten to the Super Bowl. it didn't happen. And now all the questions we had at this time last year about the Rams resurface very quickly despite what happened last year. So I don't know if any of that makes sense. It just feels like an unsettled team to me right now. Ruiz, what do you think?

First of all, Shield, don't feel bad about it. Speaking for personal experience, you were not the only Eagles fan underrating Matthew Stafford before last year. Just speaking from reaction to the quarterback rankings. I am team content, as I remind Solex. As long as the content is good, I do not care if the Eagles win, go ahead. The other thing is like, I agree. It was a weird draft. It was like

a Kyle Shanahan style of draft to me. Just like, like you said, we're going to trade up, we're going to get our guy on day two, and we're going to trade a bunch of picks, a bunch of future picks, and like, who cares about those, who cares about that? We'll worry about it later. I mean, even if he works out, like you said, you're not getting

tremendous value out of that pick, which I think when the nerds, when they do champion trading up, it's usually for a premium position and like getting a defensive tackle that's 25 years old. It's very hard to envision that working out where they do end up with a premium player. I know they have to replace Aaron Donald. We talked about that a couple weeks ago where they don't really have a plan to replace him,

which is kind of weird because he's kind of been hinting at retirement for two years. So you could have seen this coming. But I agree. I feel like it's easy to look back at 2023 and think, oh, this is a team on the rise. But expectations were low because they had middling talent on defense. I know it's young talent, but there's not a guarantee that they're going to, one, improve and build upon what they did last year. And two, even if they do, there's not a guarantee that that's enough.

We don't know if they have the ceiling to become a team where this is a championship level defense. I don't know if that's going to happen even if these guys hit. So I have the same question. And now on offense with the Matthew Stafford thing happening, like Cooper Cup obviously had injuries last year, even the offense could fall apart if the offensive line signings from free agency don't work out. So there are a lot of question marks about a team.

that you would assume is ascending, but I don't know if they are. I never thought I'd say this. I think that the Rams are too into content. They like content too much. With the draft house, I don't know if you saw the aerial shot of them putting a football field on the beach. Then I bring up the Braden Fisk video, which is phenomenal. Go watch it.

Guy 25 years old, living his dream, gets to go play with his teammate there at Florida State. Jared Verst. Jared Verst is there to make the call and having the conversation with him as he's getting drafted. It's awesome. I'm crying too. they traded up 11 spots from 52 to 39 or 12 spots from 52 to 39, whatever that math is. 13.

And to give a fifth rounder and next year's second to go get a 25-year-old defensive tackle all to time up this little Jared verse call. They're like, yeah, we were going to have him call you, but he's 10 minutes out. Give us a second. What are we doing here? Okay, the Twitter impressions aren't worth it. Sit there at 52 and hope he's there. And if he's not, oh no, you don't get to make your little TikTok video, Sean McVeigh. I don't understand it.

Like, I like Fisk as a player. I think he's a value where he was. I think trading a future second round pick to go up and get him just so him and verse could have a nice little cry session on Twitter doesn't make sense to me. Both of them will start. Both of them could be good. I don't think the value makes sense. The Rams are over-indexing on content.

And I never thought I'd say it. That take. It's easy for you to say, if you were in the same building as the Chargers social media team, you'd feel pressure to produce good content too. That's fair. Now we're cooking. Because Jim Harbaugh is just natural content, though. He doesn't need to make stupid trade-ups in the second round to get a million impressions on Twitter.

Meanwhile, we're chasing- And the charters are good at it. We're cutting deep into people's deepest moments for Twitter impressions. I can't do this anymore. I just can't. I'm so jealous. I mean, what a, unbelievable. What a take that they made the trade-up for content. It's so good.

I was like, wait, where's you going with this? And then, like, the light bulb went off. And I'm like, oh, God, I wish I would have just led with that. That's so much better than my dumb take about their quarterback being old. All right, we'll take one more break. We'll come back with our final awards and superlatives. All right, we are back on the Ringer NFL show. We will not besmirch content anymore.

Everything we do is in the name of content. Twitter impressions, whatever else you want to talk about. All right, Ruiz, what do you got? What's your last one? My last one is the Madden Franchise Executive of the Year Award, and I'm giving it to Harry Roseman, who I believe broke a record for trades in a draft over the weekend. So shout out to him.

But I will say this. I made the joke that the trades were performative. And like they kind of were. If you use the Jimmy Johnson chart, which admittedly is a bad chart, but I'm trying to do a bit here. Like they only picked up the equivalent of the 120th pick with all those traits. The difference was about 48 points in 10 trades or however many trades it was. I think it was definitely nine at one point, Shepter tweeted out nine trades the most of any team since 1990,

which, gee, I wonder, you know, was there somebody, you know? Nine trades, but they picked up 12 picks in the trip. That's why there's two numbers were in my mind. But only 48 points of difference on the Jimmy Johnson value chart. Now, if you look at the modern charts that are actually good and actually informative and useful now, like they picked up the equivalent of a second round pick. But like nine trades to do it. That's a lot of trades.

But I do like this draft. I like the strategy of doubling up on cornerbacks. I really like the Cooper DeGine pick. I think he's going to be a corner in this league. I think he has the athleticism to play. think the film checks out. Like, you just watch the film. And he's a good player.

And then Quentin Mitchell is like, to me, I thought he was the best corner in the league or in the draft. And I think he's a great corner for that system, for Vic Fangio. He's able to play zone. He can play man. He can move. He's a good mover. I think he's going to be able to play quickly. And I think the Eagles are going to need him to play quickly.

So I like doubling up on cornerback. I always think like doubling up on a position of need is always smart. And it always seems to work out in the draft. Maybe I'm just like not remembering the examples when it didn't. But I got to say, like, he's not beating. I only draft players that you've heard of, and that's why everyone thinks we have a good draft every year allegations.

He did it again. Jeremiah Trotter, we talk about content picks. I'm sorry, Jeremiah Trotter Jr. cannot play. He should not have been drafted where he was drafted. The only reason they drafted him was because of his dad.

If anything was performative, it was the Jeremiah Trotter Jr. pick, okay? And they even got him as a value versus consensus, but how much of that consensus board does people recognize his name? You know what I mean? Some of the consensus board stuff is also kind of that point in the draft.

Yeah, I think for the Eagles, my favorite part is like, yes, they're oftentimes drafting ahead of consensus. Mitchell, Quinnian Mitchell in the first round, the Toledo quarterback was a value according to the consensus board, as was Cooper to Gene where they got him, as was Jeremiah Trotter, even as was Johnny Wilson, the guy with the seven-foot wingspan, the Florida State receiver who could play tight end. But throw that out the window. Throw the players they drafted, because I do think that there's some fair critiques on,

like, they draft players you've heard of, and that's why everyone likes their drafts. They, obviously, you mentioned earlier, the nine trades. They turned pick 171 into Johnny Wilson and Dilip Man, the Office of Tackle at of NC State. They also turned picks 120, 123, and 132 into a 2025 third, a 2025 fourth, a 2025 fifth, and three other picks in this year's draft. They turned three this year picks into three future ones and three other ones later in this draft. Like, they are in my, when you look at the hit rates in the draft, as you get to day two and day three, it's about a 20% chance that they sign with your team.

it's about like a 20, 25% that they signed with the existing team on a new contract. Higher their drafts is about closer to 40%. It's a dart board, right? And you just need more darts. And I think that, even beyond just bringing in players that you know, you just need to take more swings. Like, there's a good chance that half the players they drafted in this class aren't going to pan out. But they have way more picks than everybody else.

And they got them by making plus EV trades. I do think that Howard Roseman knows what he's doing on that front. Whether all these players are good, I think it's oftentimes overrated. They're like, oh, my God, all the players that drafted are good. That's not what I'm saying. I'm happy with how many players they were able to draft. And when you look at next year, they added three future picks and still drafted as many picks as they had this year.

I don't know. I really do feel like Harry Roseman knows exactly what he's doing in these draft classes. And I think it's why he has more bites at the apple in terms of bringing in more guys. No, I do think it's a smart strategy. I think the Madden franchise executive, that's a compliment. I think Madden players are ahead of the curve on everything. They were going forward on four. They weren't punting ever in like 2005.

They were kicking onside kicks. They were doing all this stuff. They were going after quarterbacks who could run, mobile quarterbacks. They were trading for draftics. This is what you do in a Madden franchise. When you're rebuilding a team, you just trade for as many picks as possible when you have a draft where you have like 20 picks in it. And that's what the Eagles are doing.

And I think this is a team that needs to refresh its roster immediate. Like it's in need of a refreshment right now after the season they just had. And how the season ended, there's a bitter taste in their mouth coming. Like how this season ended, worst vibes in the league maybe. for a playoff team especially. How he uniquely understands, like, age developmental curves and, like, how quickly cornerbacks fall off, like after age 30, James Bradbury and Dariuslayer on the wrong side of 30

to be able to double dip it corner at value. Cooper to Gene, getting ahead of the Green Bay Packers with a trade-up and still finding ways to act. I do think that they navigate this game well. They play this game well. Do they always win? No. Is every player they pick good?

No. But they play the game well. And I think that, you know, you hit on, you know, say you hit on 11, you double down and you don't get 21. That's not how it works. It's still a good process. Okay, let me pour a little cold water on the Howie Roseman Love Fest, which he will enjoy and he will love being in all the headlines for all the trades that he pulled off. I think he did a fine job during the draft.

I will say he's one of the jams. We have a larger body of work to go off of. And, you know, like 2022, they drafted five players and they still got a lot of love. Four of the five previous years before this, they traded up in the first round, which, you know, we would say a lot of like GMs. Why are you doing that if it's not for a quarterback? Now, they were small tradeups, but still, they don't always, like, hit on that draft for volume. The aging curve stuff, you mentioned Austin. Like, he just gave Darius Slay and James Bradbury a lot of money when they were 30 and 33 years old.

Like, he is very good at solving the problems that he sometimes creates. Now, I'm not ripping how they've been to the Super Bowl twice in the last seven years. I understand. The roster is very good right now, specifically on the offensive side of the ball. I just think, like, you know, you have to look at all those things. Certainly, when you give him praise for all right, yeah, they got younger at corner. Well, yeah, the reason you had to get younger at corners, because last year, you just last offseason, you gave James Bradbury a three-year contract when he was over 30, and you thought that that was a good decision.

And by the end of the season, he was one of your biggest liabilities on defense. So he's very good at fixing problems. I think he's at his best when he's building the roster back up from scratch, like a rebuilder, like, shoot, this is terrible right now. How do we get it back up? And they've done that. And I think they have a chance, certainly, this year. I think they're a very boomer bust team this year when you look at some of the moves they made in the offseason, just kind of the state of the roster. I will also say this.

We talked about the Jerry Jones thing. Roseman is in a very unique situation where he can say, yeah, I'll take a next year's second, third and fourth, fifth round pick. I'm going to be here, you know, if things go badly, Siriani's gone, I'm here. I'll take your, you know, they trade a son Redick. I'll take your 2026, I think it was, third round pick. Because guess what? I'm going to be making that pick. Other GMs have to worry about job security,

and they can't necessarily do that. And then some of the stuff he can do with just in terms of building the roster is because the owner says, I'm going to give you all the cash you need up front. Let's sign these guys early. Let's give them big signing bonuses. We'll do void years, and we have flexibility with our salary cap. So he's done a good job.

It's also worth asking if Howie Roseman, we're on a different team with a different owner, how would he have to operate and how would it look different? And would he still be getting all the praise that he gets now, as the Eagles GF. So there you go. You know, that's just the Negedelfian in me has to bring it down a notch that it can't just all be positive about the Eagles GM. I have to ask you a question. Like, are you at least a little bit surprised, given how many picks they had that the quarterback factory didn't think about taking a quarterback on day three at least?

Well, I think the quarterback factory had, you know, made their move earlier this off season with Kenny Pickett was part of the quarterback factory. So you think that they think that's a long-term deal? I mean, well, he's like, I think they think he's their backup for the next. next two years. So, you know, I think usually if they're taking a guy on day three that they really like or day two that they really like, it's like, all right, he's going to be our backup now. And then if things go poorly, so I mean, if they were in a spot where one of these guys fell, you know, if it was like the early second round and Panics or Bo Nix was on the board or something, and they really liked one of those guys. Maybe they would have thought about taking them. But I think

historically, they haven't taken a lot of guys on day three. They took Tanner McKee. They took Clayton Thorson a while back. But yeah, I think Pickett was their quarterback factory guy this offseason. So rough. Look for the factories. I know. Yeah. Maybe we'll get some upgrades. All right. Austin, you're up next. What do you got? All right. This one, I might be standing tall on the soapbox here, but it's another, it's another creative one. It's the Revenge of the Nerds Award. And it's a two-way tie. First, it starts with the media consensus board, which we've talked about a handful of times here. It's a consensus board that factors in. Arefas Han started it. A lot of other people people have it now, factors in close to 100 media boards where everyone's ranking 100 players,

200 players, 300 players. Here's a stat for you, Sheel. 87% of the first round picks, so 27 of 32 on average, over the last three years, have been top 32 players on the consensus board. On average, only five players drafted in the first round. Over the last three years are outside the top 32 players on the consensus board. If you're not using it, you're losing. 82% of top 100 picks are top 100 players on the consensus board of the last three years. That's 17 picks, 17 to 18 picks that fall outside the top 100. If you're not using it to determine value on when you can take guys,

I don't know what you're doing. Only 22% of the picks made in the top 100 had a difference from the consensus rank larger than 30 in this year's class. To take a player more than 30 picks off of consensus is at this point. point malpractice. And that's just the data we have. Because oftentimes these players that fall out of the consensus, or like fall and like our high on the consensus is character concerns we don't have access to, injury stuff that we don't have access to. These teams can go say, here's the top 32 on the consensus board. We're going to take this guy a little bit lower because we know

about an injury that the media doesn't, Johnny Newton. We're going to take this guy a little bit lower because we have character concerns and interview stuff that other people don't have, 80 Mitchell, you get down to that point, you could probably exactly guess 30 of 32 first-round picks every single year. It makes picks that are so far outside of consensus baffling to me. And I still don't understand it. Like this data has been around now for five, six plus years. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the only team in the NFL that have drafted at or better than consensus each of the last three years with all but one pick. Do you know the only pick that they haven't done it? Can he pick it? Where's he now? Where's he now? You look at this year's

class for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Troy Fontonoo, three picks ahead of consensus. Zach Frazier, the center from West Virginia, 10 picks ahead of consensus. Roman Wilson, 31 picks ahead of consensus, the receiver out of Michigan. Peyton Wilson, who fell because of injuries, but still 54 picks ahead of consensus. And they're one of the best drafting teams in the league. Every single year, we're talking about the Steelers continuing adding players like Alex Highsmith, all these guys. That's another part of this award that I almost did where all of this pre-draft process

doesn't make any sense, just put together a board and average the consensus and just interview these guys and check their medicals. That's all that matters. when you're overthinking it, you're often balkying it or whatever you're going to do. Like, it doesn't work. The other and why it's tied, why there's a tie here, the first part of this is media consensus boards. The Steelers understand it.

Other teams understand it. Obviously, if you're not using it, you're losing it. It's all of us. Here's some data for you, too, Sheel. 12.1 million people on average over the course of night one of the NFL draft, watch the draft. Watch the broadcast. The ESPN of the NFL network broadcast. That's one million more people than,

Game 5 of the NBA finals last year. That's 3 million more people than Game 5 of the World Series last year. That's 500,000 more people. Wait, wait, wait, let me hold that set. Let me restart. Let me restart. That's just day one.

That's just day one. 12.1 million people. That's one million more than the NBA finals, three million more than the World Series. Let's go to day three where the sickos come to play, where all of us come to play, where I'm sitting here watching the entire draft. Not all of us.

Two million people. watch day three of the draft. On average, over the seven, over the seven-hour broadcast. You know how big, how big that is? 500,000 more people than the average for any baseball game ever. What do we do in here? The NFL continues to be the cream of the crop. It just continues to rake in all this viewership.

Everyone complains about, oh, the season's too long, and they're just making 24-7. Content always wins, and the NFL draft is just another piece of the puzzle, man. It's just another piece of the puzzle. Two million people on average over a seven-hour broadcast where guys are being drafted at British Columbia are watching the NFL draft. And yet you can't even get 2 million people to watch opening day, opening day of this baseball season. It's just insane how much the stranglehold the NFL has on sports. It just continues to baffle me.

Please spend time with your loved ones. That's all I'm asking, everyone. Everyone listening. You don't need to see where T.J. Tampa ended up, okay? You don't need to watch the third day of the draft. That's the thing is you do. That's the thing is you do. They have a list after the draft.

They put it on the internet and everything. Yet we're watching. yet we continue. I hate to even put this into the atmosphere. Ruiz, you're going to want to reach through the screen and strangle me. They're not maximizing what they could do with the... Oh, my God. Don't say, don't put this in...

Honestly, don't speak it into an existing... The easiest money-making move the NFL could have right now, all this other internet, all the others... If you make the draft one week and do around a night, I mean, are you kidding me? Think of the content. Okay, so you have the first round. Then the second day is the second round.

So now everyone's doing mock drafts. You're getting rumors. This team likes this guy. This team might trade up for this guy. Second round. Then the third round. Everybody's doing it the third. It's a prime time event for one week.

You own an entire week in April when it's what? You and the NBA playoffs. All right, there's other stuff going on. But like since when does the NFL care about any of those other things? People have two screens now. It's okay. You can watch multiple things. It easily could be a one-week event. Each night starts at prime time. Seven or eight o'clock, the content would be like the sixth round having its own night. Like right now, like we started this when in the middle of the seventh round round. We're like, all right, we can start the podcast. If the seventh round had its own night, we would be having conversations about who's the best seventh round value? It would be crazy. All this stuff. So I'm not saying I want that. You're a sick man. I have two kids, Ruiz. This is not for me. This is showing you how unselfish I am as a content creator.

And, you know, I'm putting, I want the players. I don't want the owners to make, I don't care if the owners make more money. Players, you get your piece of that pie. Come to the, come to the table with this idea. But say, you know what? We came up with this idea. We get a bigger piece of the pie. And there you go.

I didn't even mention the best stat either. 700,000 people went to D freaking Troite for the NFL draft. There was a guy in the first round dressed head to toe in Buccaneers uniform with the shoulder pads, painted red with his face in a mohawk and 40-degree weather watching his team take Grant Barton out of Duke and loving every second of it. 700,000 people went to Detroit for the draft over three days. Detroit. Next year it's in Green Bay. That's a heat check. You want to know a heat check?

They're putting the draft in Green Bay next year. And guess what? Another half a million people are going to go to that. The NFL, I mean, this is all coming off the news, too, where Roger Goodell's like, the goal is to move another week into the season. We're going to have Monday, you know, Presidents Day or whatever, whatever hell that day is to be the day after the Super Bowl. The NFL has a stranglehold on American lives that honestly is impressive. It's the best marketing stunt that we'll go down in history. It's the best marketing stunt of all time. A seven-day draft, man. Think about the coaches' families. The families of these people. The coaches don't think about their families. Why should I think about their families? Yeah, that's not my job. all four. I get to spend more time away from my family. Honestly, the funniest thing, and then I'll move on to my last thing, is the owner's meetings. For those who don't know, there's the owner's meetings every year in March. They go to either Florida or California or Arizona. They stay at a resort that,

you know, you and I and most people would never be, even think about going to with our families, could never afford it, would have to save all. They go to this thing. And by the end of this thing, Like, you would think they are in prison. They're, oh, my, I can't wait to get out of here. Hey, can we knock out these interviews now? We want to leave early. Like, they're disgusted by the idea of having to do something like this. Whenever I see that, it's just a reminder of like, okay, I'm very, these are not

well-adjusted people, as Bill Parcell said very accurately back in the day, and their lives are very different from our lives. So, yeah, Austin said it's impressive. It's a little bit disgusting. It's a little bit disturbing. but you know what, we're all part of the content machine so we can't complain about it. The contentious board is a good one. Yeah, I'm with you, Austin. I think if you're like a fan listening to this, go, I'm sure someone in your market or whatever, you can compare your team's picks to the

contensis board. It's a fun exercise to just think, man, if you just went by this board and didn't do any other, like you said, Austin, if you just did character evaluations, injury, and maybe scheme fit, because I think that's the other big one that, all right, this guy might be up there, but he's not going to, if you just did those three things and that was your scouting process and then you just said, all right, let me go find that board. We're going off this. We're not straying from it. Maybe you do some positional value stuff. It would be very interesting how you would come out because we've learned that over the last 30 years, NFL teams have not gotten better at drafting. It's just basically stayed the same. It's been very hard.

So it's interesting to kind of look at that. You can't admit that though as a GM. You can't say, yeah, we just go off this list. Because then they fire you and they just use the list. They make the list of GM. The problem with it is that you'd have to fire like half the staff. All this stuff just like goes moot and like you don't need the tape access anymore. All this stuff goes away. It's never going to happen. But I do think that if you are going to keep your entire staff, go ahead and put together your board.

Don't draft so against consensus. Use it to legitimately like measure where you think these guys are going to go. It's like it's a publicly available resource. I get access to it. You think that they add their wrinkles with injuries and character concerns and all that stuff. you could spend more time with your families. There's a lot you could do with this. There's a lot.

There's a lot you can do it. That's why they won't do it. Yeah, that's another reason why. Well, the other thing is, and last day, like, the consensus board, I think, takes 300, you know, different outlets. Like, you could even, you could create your own internally. Like, all right, well, who are the people who I think, no, what, now, the greater the number of people, that's better wisdom of crowds.

But if you're like, this guy, I don't care what he thinks, you know? Drafticheads.com. You are we, including them? Yeah. Maybe you whittle it down to 50 or 20, what? whatever, but it's still a very useful resources. And you're right, the smart teams use it. Like, I've noticed, I think the Eagles, that's been one of their biggest changes under Howie Roseman, probably in the last three years that I've noticed, is that their consensus, like, they used to be

willing to kind of go away from that. And I think that's really changed in recent years. All right, you mentioned the Steelers, Austin. That's my last one. The winner of the MTSRraft, and MTS is moves that make sense. I started using this with the Buffalo Bills like three years ago when they were making a lot of moves that made sense. I'm like, they lead the league in MTSA.MS. It's the Pittsburgh Steelers with their draft. I didn't even know Austin was going to come at me with the consensus stuff. I didn't know anything about that with the Steelers.

But I just looked at the Steelers draft. It's not the one that's probably going to steal the headlines, but it's like a smart draft. They took Troy Faltenu, the tackle or guard from Washington in the first round. Zach Frazier, center or guard in the second round. I think they've done a really nice job the last two years, rebuilding that offensive line. last off season, they signed Isaac Seymalu.

They drafted Broderick Jones in the first round. I mean, those are potentially four new starting offensive linemen, I think all under 30 that they've acquired. So some of these teams you look at, and it's like a six-year journey just to get a competent offensive line. I think they did a good job making that a priority. Third round, they take Roman Wilson, the wide receiver from Michigan, which I wasn't like his, you know, biggest fan, I would say.

But at that spot at 84, position of need, sure. Go ahead, see if you can get this speedy slot wide receiver and he can help you. And then at 98, one of the more interesting picks in the draft, honestly, Peyton Wilson, the linebacker from NC State who just, if you read his injury report, I mean, it's wild what the guy has dealt with in college at the same time. I think most people agree if you just go off film, like probably the best off ball linebacker in the entire class. And so, you know, some teams would just take him completely off their board.

Other teams would say, all right, at 98, compared to our other options, it might not, you know, we might not sign into a second contract. but it might be worth the risk here at this point in the draft. So I don't think it's anything too crazy, but I'm kind of looking at their offseason, and they didn't have like a very easy path to improve their roster. Quarterback was the big thing. What are they going to do?

And I don't think Russell Wilson's going to be good for them, but they made a bunch of low risk, low risk moves. Like Russell Wilson, if it doesn't work out, no big deal. Justin Fields, if it doesn't work out, no big deal. Now, they still might have to find a quarterback next offseason, but I just kind of like the way they approached it. It made sense to me. And you just go through their depth chart.

And like there's a lot of players. I'm like, I like that player. I like, that's a good, that's a good young player. That's like they have talented players at a lot of these spots where if at some point they're able to plug in that quarterback, I actually think, you know, that they have a chance to kind of go into a nice new era here. So Ruiz, what did you think? What did you think of what the Steelers did and kind of where they are overall here?

No, I agree with you. And I think it was last week. I was kind of doing some Steelers high. with their roster, because I agree with it. You look at this roster, and it's sneaky good for a quarterback to be dropped into, and I like the idea of building it first and then finding the quarterback later. I know that's not what they actually set out to do. They drafted Kenny Pickett a couple years ago.

But I wouldn't be surprised if you drop, if Justin Fields wins this job and, like, takes another step like he did last year. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a decent long-term option for them for like the next decade. Man, that'd be such a fun outcome. That would really be a fun outcome. Justin Fields in Pittsburgh with Mike Tomlin. Yeah, I could definitely get behind that. And I think he fits in the Arthur Smith offense really well.

So I could see that where he got good play out of Marcus Marriota for that one season. He was like nearly top 10 in EPA per play. So I think he can get something out of whether it's Wilson or Field, but obviously Fields has the higher upside there. But yeah, I like the draft. I like the idea of like sticking to the board. And one thing is like you're not going to get fired doing that. You're not going to get fired making the obvious pick.

And I like the take you had on Wilson. If he is just a one contract player, who cares? You can get a lot of value out of a linebacker for four years, four or five years, whatever it ends up being. So I really like their draft. I like the direction they're headed in. And I like their approach at quarterback this offseason. Austin, what do you think?

You guys know I love the Steelers draft. I think it's something that they've been doing for a while. George Pickens has been a value where they drafted them in the second round. I think Roman Wilson can start in the slot, third round pick. Troy Fontenue going to start probably at left tackle for them. They had obviously surplus value on the underactive free agent, Jalen Warren, Keanu Benton, second round, good player. Alex Highsmith, third round, good player,

Joey Porter, second round, good player. Like, they do this. They, over the last three years, like I said, no team in the league, no team in the league, has drafted ahead of consensus with every pick but one, except for the Steelers of the last three years. The only one they did it with was Kenny Pickett. And where is he?

It's very simple. And like, we remember that draft where Kenny Pickett went in round one, and we didn't see a quarterback for a while after that. It's because Kenny Pickett supposed to go there, and that was a force. And, like, the GM made a play. We all know the story behind that Pittsburgh Steelers pick. So the, obviously, Tomlin gets a lot of the love for the Steelers continually being competitive. We need to give more love to how they draft. We need to give more love to, like, how they construct this roster, because they continue to draft, identify, draft,

and develop legitimate talent, not even just in top top picks. Because that's the other thing, too. Everyone's like, they're eight, nine every year. They're nine and ten every year. He hasn't had a losing season, blah, blah, blah. That means you're not picking in the top ten ever. You're not picking even in the top 15 mostly. And you're still coming away with legitimate starters to the back end of the first, very, very, very consistently. And that's back into the first, back into the second, back into the third. Steelers know what the hell they're doing, man. And it just says something about how this league like evaluates the quarterback position that the one time they kind of strayed away from doing the common sense thing was with the quarterback. Like, yeah, they couldn't help themselves.

The league just can't help itself with this position. Yeah, as this draft was a indication. I think the stuff with Tomlin, it goes hand in hand with the picks because you can draft certain players and be like, well, we have a coach who can, you know, like George Pickens. He wasn't on some team's boards, but you're probably like, well, all right, under Mike Tomlin's direction. And Mike Tomlin understands that they're not finished products. I love the interviews he's had in the past where he's like, yeah, all right, don't bring me a scouting report that the guy has bad hand usage. Like, what do you think we're paying you for? Defensive line coach? So he understands that and he gets that message across to his coaches consistently, whereas other teams do not do that

as well. So yeah, I was looking at some of the Fandual odds and their, their fourth the AFC North in terms of odds to win the division there. And I don't know if it's going to happen for them this year. But yeah, I don't think they're a pushover team. Like, I don't think they're going to be a bad team this year. All right. That was a lot of fun. We hit on a lot of teams.

I don't know how many teams we hit on. We each had three takes, but we hit on a lot of these drafts, a lot of fun with Stephen Ruiz and Austin Gale. I will be back on Monday yelling at Sollack for extra point taken. So be sure to check that out. Ruiz. you, what do you got coming up? You're writing anything for the ringer.com coming up here?

I'm right on Monday. Hasn't been determined yet. There you go. To be determined. Probably quarterback related. There you go. There you go. All right.

Thank you to Ruiz. Thank you to Austin Gale. I'm Shiaupadia. We'll talk to everyone soon. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing on a Saturday night. And thank you to our man, Eduardo Ocampo for the video production and socials, additional production supervision by Connor and Evan and Arjuno Romical ball. All right.

Now I'm actually. saying bye. Thanks to everyone for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you soon on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus, 18 plus in D.C. and present in select states, Fanduel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, D.C., Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800 next step or text next step to 5.3.

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