The Ringer NFL Show - Biggest Draft Mistakes With Warren Sharp, Plus Aqib Talib on Who the Best Cornerback in the NFL Draft Is | Big Board

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

‘The Ringer Fantasy Football Show’ hosts Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly are joined by Warren Sharp to go through some of the biggest mistakes teams make in the NFL draft. Then Danny Heifetz is joined by Super Bowl champion and host of B/R Gridiron Draft Night Aqib Talib to discuss some of the top wide receivers and cornerbacks in the draft, what his plan was after he snatched Michael Crabtree’s chain, and more. Check out 'The Ringer Fantasy Football Show.' Hosts: Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly Guests: Warren Sharp and Aqib Talib Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill Simmons hosts the most downloaded sports podcast of all time with a rotating crew of celebrities, athletes, media staples, and a slew of other friends and family members who always happen to be available. Check out the Bill Simmons podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Big Board on the Ringer NFL show. My name is Danny Hafeitz. I'm joined by my co-host, Danny Kelly. What is up, D.K.? What's happening, man? How you doing? I am fantastic. On today's episode, we're going to talk to Akeep Taleb later about the draft and what he thinks about receivers and cornerbacks.

And also he explains what he was going to do with Michael Crabtree's chain if he actually was able to bring it home. But first, we're going to talk about the biggest mistakes the teams make in the draft. And there's only one person we wanted to bring on for this. Warren Sharp, what is up, Warren? Hey, guys, I can't wait to hear, uh, where you listen to this to hear what a keep says about that. But, uh, no, happy to talk draft with you guys.

Um, it's, it's a blast. I can't get here fast enough. Um, looking forward to it actually tipping off whenever that does. but I'm really excited to chat with you. Warren, you're like the new Dr. Z. You're a figurative and sometimes a literal consigliary to NFL teams. And the NFL has like, what, $20 billion a year in revenue, just like countless resources committed to like going through the draft process.

Why do teams still screw this up? I think the biggest thing is overconfidence, just belief that they think that they know better. they know what they should be doing. And a lot of smart people not even related to the draft approach life, questioning everything, researching everything a little bit harder because they realize their own limitations and what they struggle with doing.

Now, one of the things we're going to talk about is actually a counterpoint to that, which is listening to too many people. So it's not always the right solution. but I do think that teams in general probably, they work hard. I'm not suggesting these guys don't work hard and don't try hard and approach this with bad intentions of messing up on purpose. But sometimes it's just more work needs to go into the process of everything and understand that there's going to be a shitload of variance as well that they can't control.

The one thing I'm super confident of, maybe overconfident of is that this is going to be really fun. what we're about to do. We're gonna, I'm just gonna toss out some mistakes, like some kind of common mistakes at both of you guys, and I'm just curious, we're gonna go through

how serious we think these mistakes are and how we might see some of these things play out in this year's draft. Let's just dive into like one of the first mistakes I think teams make, and it's on your point, Warren, it's hubris. Like, you know, it's not new.

It's the ancient Greeks we're talking about this. But you see it time and time again. The one that I think of the most is, honestly, is Dave Gettleman. who has never traded back as the general manager of the Giants or the general manager of the of the Panthers. He said this week, I've tried, I've tried to trade back, but it's got to be value.

I'm not getting fleeced is what he said. What do you make of that idea, Warren, just generally just overconfidence, but also just not trading back? Well, look, we have a lot of smarter analytics to measure value of draft picks than we once did. You know, I know that they still in the NFL utilized the Jimmy Johnson chart, but, There are things that some very intelligent people have developed looking at value delivered over the first four years or likelihood of getting signed to a new contract and created their

models to anticipate the draft value of every single pick in the draft. And by and large, this is not hard and fast, but by and large, trading down returns more value across both of those metrics, almost every time that you look at teams that are making trades in the draft, the guy that trades down gets more value in return than what he gave up for his pick, using some of the smarter ways to value these draft picks. And so, I mean, it must be really difficult to try multiple times to trade down and have no success. I guess you're looking at something totally different than the rest of the people are looking at. And you're certainly not looking at these types of values charts that we currently have

access to because I don't see how you make 55 picks as a GM in the NFL over an eight year span and do not trade down once. It's mind-boggling to me. So again, the basic premise of what you're talking about is that the draft is throwing darts and you want more darts. And sometimes you can get too attached to the darts you have. Yeah. For me, I, I definitely agree. So many teams in the NFL, I'll give a perfect example. Obviously, this guy gets talked about every time, but is Bill Belichick. And the NFL distributes draft picks based upon your record the prior year.

There should be no reason why a team like the Patriots that always have one of the best records in the NFL and always are picking at the end of the first round should have annual draft value that's in the late teens to early 20s. It should never be that way. But what they do is they trade back and they accumulate more picks. And it's like an archer with more arrows in his quiver. He's got a better odds of hitting that target than another guy who steps up next to him and just takes the exact number of arrows that are default given to him as opposed to trying to get more arrows and do his quiver.

You are going to miss. The best of the best are going to miss. You hope you don't miss at the top of the draft. You hope you miss more so in the seventh round, but it's still a crapshoot. And accumulating more draft picks typically is going to give you better odds to improve your roster. That's something that I, there's an interview from Eric Acosta, the GM of the Ravens that's kind of circulating. It's actually from, I think, 2014 or 2015. And he basically says the exact same thing.

And this is, this goes to, you know, like the Ron Wolf tree of scouting departments. you know, obviously, Ozzie Newsom. And this is a quote from Nacosta. We look at the draft as, in some respects, a luck-driven process. The more picks you have, the more chances you have to get a good player.

When we look at the teams that draft well, it's not necessarily they're drafting better than anybody else. It seems to be that they have more picks. There's definitely a correlation between the amount of picks and drafting good players. So the volume drafting thing, I think, makes a ton of sense. Having the awareness and the realization that,

odds are you're not going to be actually more skilled or talented at like or at least markedly so than the other teams who obviously are putting a ton of work in this as well and i think the the good teams recognize that like like i said the more darts you have um the better chance you're going to hit a few of those those targets so um i think it just yeah like over a long enough time you might have a a GM who becomes sort of like a darling for the media or whatever he's he's doing a really good job. He's hit on some players. But over a long enough period, I think you see that most GMs are in the same general region in terms of their success rate, their hit rate. And it goes to, you know, players, it's just very difficult to predict what a human being, an 18 year old human being is going to do over the next

like five or six years. And injuries are, are a count in that. There's so many variables that go into it, fit, coaching, injuries, you know, work ethic, all that stuff. It's like impossible to predict what that is going to, what players are going to do. And so really, you know, what scouting departments do and what they put so much work in is determining talent and then, you know, digging in and trying to talk to people, their coaches, their families, their friends, all that stuff about like the kind of work ethic they have. So it's, it's very like, it's just, there's so many variables. It's almost like an impossible thing to do. I think that the best GMs realize that and realize that, you know, they're not going to be markedly smarter than the rest of the league

get this stuff. And just want to add to your point, Danny, on these comp picks and what Eric said, if you look, like I did a study, went back the last five years and total value that was acquired on compics and the Patriots are number one, the Ravens are number four and your Seahawks are number five. But some of the smartest teams in the NFL are up there with these compics. And so what does that mean? They're getting extra picks. Well, okay, they're at the end of the rounds. They're not worth that much. Well, the reality is if you like amass all the value that Bill Belichick pulled together. You look at the value of those different picks. He's acquired 12 picks over those last five years. Those 12 picks, it created to 9.9 average draft picks. If you're looking at the

average pick in the draft being right dead smack in the middle of the 256, he's gotten 9.9 extra picks over the last five years of middle of the pack picks. And that allows your scouts to be wrong more often. It allows you to be wrong. wrong more often. And so it's a great strategy. When I was looking through this, and so one of the, one of the points that we're going to talk about, I think next is the idea that it trading up for anything but a quarterback, and you could even make the argument, I guess, like trading up for a quarterback is, is not going to pay off more times than not. But trading up for a non-quarterback is another big mistake that

teams make. And there was a famous study by Massey and Thaler, a couple economists that basically looked at the difference in value between the first so like say we're say the someone team trade up for receiver. The difference in value between the first receiver picked, the second receiver picked, and the third receiver picked in a draft based on total starts in their first five seasons. So basically like a approximate value or whatever. It's like a coin flip. It's basically like 55. So their, per their study, The chance that the first player taken will start more games and the second player taken out of position is 52%.

So flip a coin. Compared with the third player, it's 55%. Compared to the fourth, it's 56%. So it's not like, so the idea that like you have like conviction on a player, I get like it's good to have conviction. I think it's important to have conviction. But the odds that you're going to be right,

that this player is significantly better or going to start more games for you than like the second receiver taken, I think it is people have this overconfidence that they're going to find, you know, the next whoever, the next superstar and the rest of the guys in the draft are going to be terrible, whereas more likely than not you can wait, like Justin Jefferson last year, fifth receiver taken. And I mean, we saw what he did as a rookie. So I think that's just a really good example where don't over, don't overestimate your ability to pinpoint the guy that's going to fit for your offense. And trading up, generally speaking, is a bad value and not very high.

chances of hitting. I mean, the wide receiver is a perfect example. I mean, 2013, Kavanaugh-Austin goes ahead of DeAndre Hopkins, right? You've got, you've got Kevin White in 2015 goes ahead of Devante Parker. Now, Devante's had some issues, but you have Corey Coleman in 2016 goes ahead of Will Fuller. You got Corey Davis and John Ross go up at the top of the 2017 draft in the first, what is it, 10 picks. So, like, there are just a lot of examples.

across the league where that is absolutely true. And some of it comes to what do teams value most? And I mean, if we're talking wide receiver and specific, there's a lot of college wide receivers that are being produced right now because of the way that that game is being played that are kind of like the shorter, quicker guys that are getting shifted into the slot. And I actually wrote something on Twitter. I don't have the tweet handy.

But I looked at all of the first round wide receivers, like the best of the most productive first round. round wide receivers over the last, I think it was like five or ten years, something like that, versus the second round wide receivers, the best production there. And like, it's not even a close comparison. The best second round wide receivers are significantly better as a, as a tandem of like the best five to eight guys are much better than the best five to eight first round wide receivers. And so that's just an example of like some of the league looking at certain things that make a guy a first round prospect, like different measurables or different things that they're attracted to,

when in reality, there might be some other things that they should be looking at that are actually translating better in modern day football to delivering on field. Yeah. So to kind of put a bow on this first subject, this first point is practically speaking, realistically speaking, I think the advice that someone looking at these numbers and looking at the analytics of everything would give to teams, give to decision makers is do not trade up for a player, even if you think that player is going to be like a big game changer for you, like the odds of number one, that player hitting and number two, him being significantly

better than the other guys at that position in that draft are not strong enough. I think basically that's the idea, like don't trade up, especially for a non-quarterback. In fact, you're much better trading back, accumulating more picks and trying to find, you know, like a guy that's going to contribute that way versus, you know, identifying one guy you think it's going to be like the next you know the the the glue that fits everything together so you mentioned don't trade up for a non quarterback but we also have to talk about quarterbacks here we're talking draft mistakes the real draft mistake here is teams seem to pick the wrong quarterbacks all the time and at again jamess winston goes number one

in 2015 mariotta number two in 2015 both those guys are backups now 2016 goff and wence both those guys teams traded up for them those guys that both can show out on their second contracts. I mean, the list goes on and on. But like, you know, basically of, I think every quarterback drafted in the first round from 2009, 2016 is no longer on the team that drafted them. And really, of the last six, seven years, if you look at teams that drafted quarterbacks, it's flipping a coin if you're being generous.

But really, the guys that are quote unquote good draft picks, Patrick Mahomes, good draft pick. Well, the Chiefs went 12 and 4 the year before they drafted him. The Bills, Josh Allen, good draft pick. Well, the bills made the playoffs before they drafted him. Basically, Russell Wilson, good draft pick. Well, the Seahawks had one of the best defenses ever. Dak Prescott walked into maybe the best roster in football. All the quote-unquote good draft picks went to good teams.

And so I'm wondering, Warren, do we have this whole thing backward in terms of what quarterbacks are good? And we look back at whatever their career became and assume that's who they were always we're going to be. But do we kind of have this backward in terms of it's half about the player and also half about where they end up in the landing spot? I don't know that the 50% is, and I know you're just throwing it out there. I don't know if it's necessarily the 50%. I think it's the talent that drives it and it's difficult to measure that talent. But I 100% agree with your notion that if a guy lands in the wrong place, he is not going to blossom like he would in the right place. And

I'm a firm believer. We look back and we evaluate quarterbacks in their production and we look at history and we look at even the last few years of what guys have done. And there still is a large part of that quarterback and his production that is tethered to his play caller. And you can never untethered that. If you have a great play caller who can make things easy for his quarterback like Andy Reid does so well, you are going to elevate and bring up that quarterback. It doesn't really matter what his original talent is. He's going to have a higher ceiling where he now is. And there are some coaches that call the wrong plays, put quarterbacks in bad situations.

They're forced to pass too often on predictable passing third and long type situations because of early down play calls even. And that results in more difficulty. Now, they could put up higher stat, you know, bigger yardage because they're trailing in games and they have to throw more. But our view of them as quarterbacks. and their ability to lead teams is going to be in part defined by the coaching. So there's no doubt where a guy lands is a big factor in ultimately how he's going to perform.

But I think some of the guys that end up missing are guys that lack in certain areas that may not be evident when we're drafting them. And we'll talk later, I think, about sample size and things of that when you got like a guy like Mitch Trubisky. But you can even look at a guy like Carson Wentz in Philadelphia. You know, this was an MVP candidate. He has a couple of injuries for back to back years. The team goes ahead and gives him this long-term contract.

It looks like he's probably on trajectory as long as he can get his health in order, that he could be worthy of living up to that. And then he just completely unravels, right? And there's no like necessarily rhyme or reason why he could completely spiraled out of control from their perspective. So, you know, even guys that you have inside of your building that you are evaluating on a daily basis. I say this all the time when guys go out, I'm sorry, I'm getting off track, but sign free agents and overpay free agents a lot of money. It's like most teams struggle to evaluate guys on their own roster, let alone guys on

other teams playing in other systems with other teammates and different coaches that you're now going to have to try to think, oh, well, yeah, this guy translates perfectly to what I want him to do. Let's give him a ton of money. And it's the same to a different degree with drafting players. It's hard to figure out exactly which guy is going to work with what you want him to do until you actually get him in there. And even when you do, you may not know. I mean, I think you're dead on. I mean, just evaluating your own talent. I mean, Georgia had the college Georgia had Justin Fields, Jake Fromm and Jacob Eason on the same team. And they kept the worst quarterback. You know what I mean? Like it's like sometimes it's really difficult. I mean, now we have to do this

whole retrospective on the Eagles of why did the Eagles win the Super Bowl? Well, did they let Frank Wright go? And was that a huge mistake? Was the coaching staff secretly upholding that infrastructure there? It's difficult to understand success. And so with that, no, it's pivoting to this year's draft, you mentioned sample size Warren. I'm curious, D.K., what you think about Tray Lance and sample size for a quarter. Again, I know we've been talking about this for months since adenosium. However, I'm just going to ask the dumb question right now. How, how? can teams be confident to put their professional reputation on the line for a dude who played one game last year? Draft Trey Lance from North Dakota State. He has. And I think the other thing

that comes into that, it's not just that he played one game last year. He didn't play that well. It was against the lower level of competition. And if you look at the overall number of throws in his career, his college career, it's something in like the 300 and, you know, that's, I think, you know, a guy like Trevor Lawrence is the complete opposite of that. He has like over a thousand career attempts and a lot of starts.

A lot of experience, a lot of reps. You know what I mean? Like reps matter. And so I think it's definitely a leap of faith. And I think the reason teams might be really high on Trey Lance is because they've talked to him that he's a really smart guy.

This is what we're hearing. You can go up on a board and break down a defense. He's got the football IQ. All that stuff does matter a lot. And I think it, matters to coaches a ton because they want a guy who can learn and can pick up things and, you know, ultimately like apply it to the field. But at the same time, like, this is a huge leave of faith. And I think maybe this is a, not a direct result, but like a result from seeing what

Josh Allen has done in the pros, the way he's improved, the way he's taken his tools. And they've, they've coached him up on it. They've surrounded him with some good players, built up the talent around him, asked, you know, figured out like a plan to ask him to do the things that he's comfortable doing. And I think obviously confidence and all that stuff goes into it. So, but at the end of the day, like honestly, it's a leap of faith. And the lack of reps, the lack of starts and just overall, you know, throws that he's made in his college career is definitely a huge red flag. And so I think that's something teams are going to have to weigh. But it's kind of like that saying, like, you know, one great comedian spawns a 30,000 terrible comedians.

And it's like Josh Allen, it's easy to ignore that, one, he was pretty bad. early. And then also they built an entire infrastructure around him. The bill said the most continuity, I believe in the entire NFL coming into last season. Now they've retained almost all their important players, probably have the second most continuity out of any team other than the bucks entering this season. They went got, they got digs. They had Brian Daible, who has been attached with Josh Allen at the hip for the last couple of years. They built around him. And so again, to that point of who busts, who's a success. It's about landing spot war. I'm curious for this year's draft. I think we all know the 49ers are a great place to play. Like, I didn't

these guys, if you're going to a quarterback needy team and you gave them all true serum, it'd be really fun to play for Kyle Shanahan. But I'm curious, the confidence you have were in a rookie quarterback going to the Jets with a relative unknown like Mike LaFour or the Jaguars, you don't know what Urban Meyer is going to do. You know what I mean? Like, I'm curious what quarterback landing spots you might be a little nervous about for some of these rookie guys. Yeah, there's definitely several. Before I get into that, I just want to tack one point on to the Josh Allen discussion, which goes back to sample size a little bit. And that was I was a little skeptical of Josh Allen coming out of Wyoming in large part because, and this

could be an issue that I need to fix on my end, they did not trust him with the football in Wyoming. That was a run first team that hardly ever asked him to throw the football on early downs. They were always trying to just like, Josh, find get us out of a jam here. But I'm like, if you have a true top of the line once a generation type quarterback at Wyoming, right? How often are they getting that type of QB at Wyoming? wouldn't you let this guy uncork it a lot? Wouldn't you put your offense into his hands a little bit more often?

And we knew that there was all these issues with the accuracy and whatnot. And so I was a little bit more down on him. And it's a perfect example because I think when he came into the NFL in 2018, we all saw his rookie year. And I don't think anybody is thinking like, okay, this guy's going to lead the team to the AFC championship with a heavy passing offense, right? We all were like, okay, this is kind of what I expected. Like you have to build your offense around to support him.

Get a good run game. Get a good defense. Don't throw the ball much. Don't put the ball into his hand. And a big change happened in 2020. In that offseason between 2019 and 2020, Dayball says, look, we're going to try something different. We're going to get him to throw the football on first down.

We're going to put the ball on his hands and pass the ball when the defense is expecting us to run it. And that grew a lot of confidence. Plus, he did a lot of his own work during the pandemic and worked with some QB coaches and improve some things. So, you know, all of a sudden, his accuracy or his completion rate improves a lot. And that help is part of the reason why they got a lot better. And that was a large part due to some things he worked on his end, but also what Brian Dayball did. So you can craft a guy to improve based upon the offense. And some of the things that I was looking as a negative,

like, oh, yeah, this guy maybe won't be able to do it because his accuracy and they didn't seem to trust him at Wyoming. Maybe the coaches were just bad at Wyoming. And maybe the coaches were just bad at Wyoming, right? Maybe these were just like the old school dinosaur coaches who wanted to run the football a ton. In terms of, that was another getting off track here, but in terms of landing spots, what we notice more often than not is it's vital to bring a young quarterback in and try to figure out how to instill confidence in him and let him play with confidence. If you get a guy totally destroyed or rattled early in his career due to a lot of hits, due to a lot of turnovers, it's very unlikely that this guy like suddenly gets back on track and excels.

So where you're looking at pass protection, you're looking at the play calling that the coaches have, you're looking at the way that they coached their guys in the NFL and how, you know, what quarterback coach are they getting this guy to work with? And what are they going to ask him to do and how do they slowly open up the majority of a playbook and at what point in the season do they decide to start him, right? Is it out the gates? Is it after the first four games? Is it after a certain buy week? Like, how are they utilizing him? There's a lot of variables. So it's easy to look at some of the worst teams at the top and say, you know, oh, yeah, this offensive line stinks or I don't know what we're going to get out of this

coach. And all of those things could be factors here. And I mean, you nailed it for San Francisco with Kyle Shanahan. Definitely has, I think, one of the best support systems in the NFL for a guy to come in and see early success. But that doesn't mean that these other guys can't grow and develop and thrive eventually with their teams. But I don't think any of us believe that a team like the Jets or a team like the Jaguars is suddenly going to turn in a winning season this year, right? We know that there's going to be a little bit of growing pains as these guys get used to

the NFL and start accepting their coaching and start developing. So you mentioned those three teams. then the Falcons are sitting there at four, right? And like the question there is, are they going to take a quarterback and maybe someone to sit behind Matt Ryan for a little bit or they take a player? And this kind of gets to something I'm fascinated by,

which is do you draft for need or value? Do you draft for now or for later, short-term, long-term, D-K, you're the person doing all our mock drafts here at the ringer. I'm curious what you think of just that, of those two things, drafting for need versus value and then kind of short-term,

we can win a Super Bowl now versus like, this is what's best for the next 10 years. I think usually the best practices would be to draft for value and to draft for the long term. And I'm sure that there are reasons to do the opposite to draft for need or to draft for the short term. I think they're probably, those are kind of synonymous actually. And I don't know, I lean that it's almost always better to draft for value. Like take the best player, take the highest graded guy on your board. It'll work out.

Like you'll work out where to put them. It'll work out like the playing time. you already have a guy at that spot, that's fine. Like the example last year, and it's actually involves the Falcons too, is the discussion and the decision making around taking AJ Terrell, who was a who was a corner and they needed a corner, they ended up taking a corner, is a guy that generally speaking was regarded as a second. I think he came into the draft late for a second rounder probably as like a consensus

like stock versus a guy like C.D. Lamb, who everyone loves. supremely talented, awesome playmaker, but they already have Julio, they already have Calvin Ridley. Like, they don't need,

they don't need him. Need is like, the, in quotations. But I mean, to me, he's like clearly the best player there. And then you see the,

the cowboys come in, like, write the next pick or whatever and basically do the opposite, like, do what I would have done is just take the best player there. You're going to,

like, it's never bad to have awesome players on your team. So, I mean, and, you know, AJ Terrell has turned

out to be solid. Like he has he was not that was not a complete disaster. But I still think like process wise you take C.D. lamb in that situation, um, at least I would have and, and just kind of like figure it out from there. Now you have this discussion here with the, with the Falcons again where do you take a quarterback with that number four pick? Let's assume they have Trey Lance or Justin Fields ranked really highly on their board.

Um, do you do that or do or do you go the other direction where you're like, we want Kyle Pitts because we think we can win right away. We can throw them in this offense with Julio, with Ridley, with Matt Ryan. And that gives us the chance to be like really good right away. But we might be sacrificing some of the long term there because then we're going to have to figure out a quarterback in a couple of years. Matt Ryan's 36 years old. I think it's a very difficult decision.

I honestly don't have a good grasp on like what they're going to do. I go back and forth about it. It's like 51, 49 for me. I think right now if I had to like gun to my head and make a choice, I'd say they're going to take pits and just kind of try and win right now. But there's a lot of very smart people who think the opposite. So I really don't know what to do. What do you think, Warren?

I think Danny brings up a ton of great points there. If I was in that position, though, I am taking the tight end. I'm taking pits. And here's why, because Arthur Smith is going to make whatever quarterback is there better, in my opinion, than the coaching that has been there in the past. As a result, if you draft a rookie, the whole goal, I mean, I still fall back to this. it's hard to get away from it because it has seen so much success and that hasn't let up unless you're a freak like Tom Brady. And that is, it's easier to build a Super Bowl roster with a quarterback

on his rookie deal in those first four years before you give him a ton of money and take up a lot of your cap. And if you take a guy and you draft him this year, number one, you know, you're getting no better than the fourth best quarterback, right? You're not getting like, you're not picking four and maybe getting the second best quarterback. quarterback, you're getting what is perceived to be the fourth best quarterback. Who knows? Maybe they think Fields is, or sorry, Fields or Trey Lance is the best and that guy's going to be available. And so they're like, look, we got the best quarterback at number four. But I think you're going to have this situation where Matt Ryan comes out the gate week one. He's the starter. If you draft a quarterback,

he's the backup. All of a sudden, Matt Ryan starts looking really good in this offense with Arthur Smith. And you're like, what are we going to do? Trade Matt Ryan, bench him. What are we going to do after this year? Because we actually saw that this offense can be a top 10 offense with Matt Ryan here with this new coaching staff and maybe make some noise for us. So I think that's the weird situation that they find themselves in. I just want to also, from a selfish perspective, want Arthur Smith to work with Pitts. Arthur Smith brought so much like play action and pre-snap motion and so much tight end targets off of play action to the Tennessee Titans that I think would work really well for pits in this offense in Atlanta. I think that Matt Ryan can be utilized with a lot of things

that he wants to do with his quarterback. And so, you know, I'm thinking that you go pits and you just have a juggernaut type offense, not to say you're going to win this year or win long term, but you're going to have a higher offensive ceiling, certainly this year, and you're not going to run into this weird situation with what to do with this quarterback. And that assumes that the fourth best quarterback in this draft actually works out and plays well in the NFL. And a lot of times the fourth best quarterback in various different drafts does not. So it's a tough call though. Danny's right. It's a very difficult call. I, what I predict right now today is they'll take pits or they'll trade down for somebody else to move up. I would say getting the quarterback would be like the third

most likely scenario for them. So I mean, Kevin and Norr just had Thomas Demetrov on a couple days ago. He was the former Jam of the Falcons, and he basically said, I mean, he's not running the Falcons anymore, but he made a similar point that they still feel Matt Ryan is a Super Bowl caliber quarterback, and that Arthur Smith, I mean, my words now, but Arthur Smith, as you said, Warren, is elevating that offense in a way. And there's no better example of how a quarterback can be elevated than Matt Ryan, who Kyle Shannon comes in, and Matt Ryan becomes an MVP candidate, and Kyle Shannon leaves, and Matt Ryan hasn't been one since. And I think that that's a really good reason for what you're saying of, like, you want to be able to now maximize this offense.

So sticking with another mistake, though, that teams make, Warren, are you ready? Are you amped? I'm ready. How much espresso as you have? We're going to let you off the leash right now. Okay. Drafting a running back in the first round. Ooh, okay.

Now you're talking. I know where you were going to go here, but I'm Jacked. I'm ready. So, look, I'm a Giants fan. Like, you know, the Sequan pick, all that. We know what's happened. But again, even with these later picks, no running backs are probably going to go in the top ten here. but even for a team like the Steelers who might draft a running back in the first round,

whether it's Nasha Harris or someone else. How does that make you feel, Warren? Look, I am not the author of this. Everybody who is smart knows this. So let's just go into it anyways because I've got some takes on it. I wrote an article about the Steelers specifically, but just in general about drafting a running back. let's pretend we dabble in analytics and we know a little bit enough to be dangerous. And so by just doing some of our own numbers, we should be able to realize that passing

efficiency correlates more to winning games than does rushing efficiency. And similarly, investing in your passing game, putting more dollars into your passing game also leads to more wins than investing in your running game. That's another thing that you can just run some analysis on and uncover. We also know if you dig a little bit deeper that running, efficiency is driven primarily by the run blocking and when you're running the football based upon the number of defenders that are in the box. And how can an offensive play caller manipulate his personnel groupings and when he calls plays to dictate how many defenders are

going to be in that box? And so that's what's going to drive production in the ground game, more so than just an individual singular running back himself. So, We know enough about that. We also have seen with our eyes a little bit that, hey, some of these running backs are pretty replaceable. A guy goes down. You thought you couldn't survive without him. And all of a sudden, another guy comes up is, oh, my gosh, this guy is pretty good.

This guy can do the same types of things. That's because the line and the play caller are the same. And so the back, you know, yeah, if you, a guy might be more powerful to the whole. A guy might be more explosive in open field, more elusive. There are certain factors here that one guy will excel over the other. but most of the time that back is going to be very similar to another guy on his roster. But let's pretend you don't know that. You haven't done the research.

You can't figure that out. Well, I got another example that's super easy to do. All you got to do is look at the last 20 running backs that were drafted by teams in the first round. And that's the exact study I did, wrote an article up at NBC. And what you find is pretty surprising. So of the last 20, only. only five of 20 actually led their team in yards per carry as the primary starter. So most of these running backs are drafted in the first round, haven't even during their tenure

on the team, were not the primary starter and led their team in yards per carry. Half of those running backs have not even gained above average yards per carry. We're talking about 50% of these guys, not only don't they lead their team, they're below average in rushing yards per carry compared to the entirety of the NFL. Most of the guys, so then you say, okay, well, what do the teams think of that production? Well, most of those players don't get second contracts with their team. So that's another way to evaluate it. I looked at the last 20, which goes back to 2009, and only 15 have been eligible to get a new contract. 10 of 15 did not receive a second contract. So we're talking a pretty large percentage.

And of those not getting a second deal, most of those guys were cut before the first deal even ended. So these backs, they don't produce. The teams don't end up liking them. They get rid of them early. What is one of the main arguments that you hear about from various different teams that want to draft a first round running back? Well, we can run the sky into the ground. We've got four years of his rookie deal that are super cheap. Plus, we control that fifth year.

We pay him a little bit more. We can get five years of this guy. running the football for us, great production, on the cheap. Then we kick them to the curb because his wheels are going to fall off. All running backs end up getting to that point. And then we go for a new guy. The problem with that is no team has ever done that. There's only been three running backs that have like delivered on production that teams

have been satisfied with. Christian McCaffrey, Ezekiel Elliott and Todd Gurley since the CBA where they allow teams to get that fifth year option. And all three of those guys were signed after the third year. completely negating the argument that we can use this guy for five years and kick him to the curb. Though GM is so thrilled that he got a running back in the first round that actually worked that he cuts in line to pay this guy. And we're talking about massive contracts, massive guarantees to a running back, which we also

know we don't like in general. The last point here is what do these teams actually do? Okay, the running back hasn't been great. But maybe they delivered just enough so that the team could start going to of the playoffs more, winning more games, make a deeper runs. What we found during the course of this study is that the teams after drafting this running back lose more games on average than they lost the prior year before drafting them. They make fewer trips to the playoffs and they win fewer playoff games.

So it does not work out for the teams in general. It does not work out for the running backs themselves. There's a laundry list of guys. Some of the guys are good. Some of the guys you might say, well, this is not a miss. like, God, look at the talent of Sequin. Look at Christian McCaffrey. Zeke's such a special back.

Like, yeah, there are some of these guys that are very talented. That's why they are viewed as some of the best backs in the league. It still doesn't make it the smartest decision for those teams to do that. These guys still have not elevated those teams to winning Super Bowls, winning playoff games, making runs. And, you know, my fear is just that when you find that guy, you overpay them early and you negate all the benefits that, you know, the one primary argument that the pro running back crowd brings the table that goes out the door. So, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't love it in general. But like I said, I'm not the only one with this opinion. And, uh, and certainly a lot of people, um, have come to the same conclusion.

But year after year, you know, a team's going to do it. They're going to look at the draft board and say, well, we could go this way, but man, this guy can make a big difference for us right away. Let's go grab this first round running back. I'm glad we let you off the leash, man. yeah yeah i was gonna say i don't have a lot to add to i don't have a lot to add to that because that was that was like perfect so i was i was i just remember being radicalized when todd girlie was amazing and then he got hurt and they signed c j andersen who was told reporters he had man pregnancy weight because his wife was pregnant and he was eating with her in solidarity and so we had 15 pounds of man pregnancy weight and then break off 200 yard runs and you're like maybe they never needed

todd girlie wilder that works look i'm a fan of a team that drafted the running back in the first round And then the seventh rounder is the starter, and he's, like, better and more durable. So it's like great. Unbelievable. Yeah. I'm talking about Prashart, Penny, and Chris Carson for those who are unclear. So the running back thing, I think makes sense. And we're slowly, you know, I think it's becoming more widespread of a notion.

I think similarly that the rest of the run game stuff that's being devalued, offball linebackers and then, like, run-defendee defensive tackles also being devalued. There's not really any defensive tackles that are worth talking about in this draft. I'm kind of curious, Dika, when you think about Mike apart, I don't get it. I don't understand why a linebacker would be taken in the top 10. He seems to not excel in past coverage or at least didn't be asked to do a ton of it in Penn State. What am I missing here?

Warren just gave this whole rant about running backs. Obviously run game defenders are also devalued. Right, right. Why is Michael Parsons going to maybe be a really high pick? So, yeah, I think that's an interesting question. And, you know, maybe I think there's a chance. chance he falls a little bit related to some of the off-field stuff that is in his background. But overall, generally speaking, like, some teams are definitely devaluing, quote, off-ball linebackers

because, like, their primary role early downs, stopping the run. That's just not as valuable anymore as it used to be. It's not the same game anymore. You have to cover. You have to be able to rush the passer. And so you see a guy like Devin White for the Buccaneers, who top 10 pick or top five pick, I believe. And he had, I would say, an okay rookie season.

He definitely was an impact player for them. But like a lot of what he was doing, I thought that was interesting, is he's making plays in the backfield. He's like a delayed blitzer. Things like that where you're affecting the pass, I think is the way that you could talk yourself into a guy like Michael Parsons. He's a very good blitzer, super athletic, rangy.

You can line him up on sub-downs and rush the passer, literally from the edge, because he's an edge rushing. like he has the edge rushing background. So that would be the argument for doing that. I don't know if it's what I would do. But I think that's probably what some teams may talk themselves into or some teams are just not buying into the idea that an off ball linebacker is not valuable

because maybe they see their defense is really important. They still believe that stopping the run on early downs is like critical. Some coaches certainly still believe that. So I think that's the problem is some teams are not buying into this notion that you can not skimmy. at the position, but you can get those guys later. But isn't that a backhanded compliment in a way where it's like if the first line for an inside linebacker is going to start in the NFL and the like, oh, well, he's a great

blitzer. Well, what, what about when he's not blitzing? Right. Yeah. And if you're, if you're, if you're drafting a guy in the top 10 for like what he'll do on sub downs and stuff that doesn't probably make a lot of sense. And so, um, yeah, I mean, I think it's a, again, it's a, it's a good argument. I think I agree with you.

And I, I, I'm in your point of view, but I don't think. all coaches would agree with that. Okay. So, well, speaking of coaches, I'm curious. I want to, I want to, like, back up here for a second into, like, actual decision-making. Warren, you alluded to this earlier. And, like, it's kind of easy. I think teams are, like, this esoteric, it's kind of weird to think from it, like, outside the team perspective. It's like, oh, the team released a statement. It's like, well, the team didn't release a statement. Like, like, a PR guy who works for the team wrote something and released the statement. You know what I mean?

So we have the idea of like, oh, the team draft too. Well, in reality, 32 teams have all different processes of who's making these decisions. Some coaches are leaned on. Some are not. Sometimes the scouts are in the draft room. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes the owners involved. Sometimes they're in a different country.

And I'm curious, Warren, what you think sometimes mistakes get made with who is or who is not in the room or who is not or who is participating in the process of making these picks. It's difficult. I mean, there's obviously other layers to this. as you start peeling things back as to why certain players don't work out and certain voices may win in various different decisions that think that they're making these decisions

in the best interest, but the reality is they either weren't, not like unbeknownst to them, they thought they had the right intentions, but they weren't making the right decision, or they might have had the right process, but they landed on a poor play. that had injury problems or had, like, just didn't develop like we're talking about throwing a dart

at the board. Like, this guy just didn't work out. And it wasn't necessarily the bad, too many cooks in the kitchen type thing. It was just the guy that this one person who won the argument picked was wrong, but the thought process was right. It's hard. Every single team does it a little bit differently, right? Like, there's no two teams that do it exactly the same way. Um, you know, from my background and my perspective, I like to look at a lot of information and then make my own decision about it, right? I want to read what the smartest people have to say about a particular topic and then figure out for myself whether I want to dismiss this guy's perspective and focus on these two guys or, or I don't. There does come a point when you get, you know, 50 different reports

in the door that like, oh my God, I can't even process all of this and my mind's turning to mush. So what am I going to do? And, you know, you may have been better off trusting, you know, just five people to give you those opinions so that you could get questions back and forth and talk through the process with those guys. So sometimes having more is better. Sometimes having less is better. It's really different. And when is more become too much? You know, when does more become overwhelming?

I don't know that I have the answer to that. But definitely this is 100% something that team struggle with. Are you saying Goldilocks invented analytics? Yeah, I wrote an article about this a few years ago where basically exploring this idea that, you know, how does a team actually make the decision for whom to write on that piece of paper? You know what I mean? And intern in it. Well, this is like theoretical because I think they probably send emails or whatever now. But their call.

How do they even do at this time? I think they probably call or submit. Those guys in the aircraft carriers? They do the whole hand signals it in. Yeah, yeah. One if I see, one of by running back. Yeah. So I think like that's the difficult part for a lot of players, for a lot of teams in terms of like, so for instance, the scouting department spends an entire year essentially digging deep on these players.

And teams have different styles of draft board or like philosophies on how to use that draft board. Some teams will just be like, hey, this is the highest rated guy on our board. We're taking him. some teams might have a more, you know, like fluid situation where they have five or six guys rank the same. And then they have to talk it out. They have to have scouts come in, give their pitch on a player. You know, like, and this all happens within the course of like 15 minutes or whatever. So it's very frantic.

It's very, you know, stressful. But ultimately the GM ends up making the decision. And then you have situations where literally an owner comes in and is like, I want this. guy, even though he's maybe like 12th on their board. You know, this is just an example. And this is actually happening. I've heard stories of people working for teams where, you know, they've got their guy. They're like, okay, we're taking this guy that he didn't get taken.

We're really excited about him. He's the top rated guy on our board. We've been, we've done a year's worth of research on this player. And then we love him. And then an owner comes in is like, hey, we want this guy. We're taking this guy. And everyone in the room is just like, what the fuck? You know, this is like stuff that has.

That's been reported. I mean, we, I mean, we don't, it's been reported Dan Snyder, owner of Washington, came in and really kind of wanted Haskins and everyone else in the building kind of didn't. And it's been reported, I mean, Seth Wickersham at this great piece of ESPN, basically reporting that I think Ray Farmer was the GM in the Browns at the time. And the owner, Jimmy Haslam wanted Johnny Mansell. And so they took Johnny Mansell. And it just, it just happens. Like at the end of the day, they own the team. I mean, I think it's where they all call, you'll notice coaches all call the owner, Mr.

It's kind of strange, but like they all call them Mr. whatever, you know what I mean? Like there really is like the coaches, you don't always think of bowing to certain people. You know what I mean? The owner's in charge to their team. And so that can be another, that's like another huge wrinkle. And so the best teams, I think generally speaking to wrap this all up is the best teams have a clear hierarchy on who's making decisions. they have harmony between the coaching staff, the GM, and the ownership. And when I say harmony, I mean, like, there's like a clear decision-making process

and, like, the owner is not coming in and, like, changing things. It's like, you know what I mean? So, like, those are the best teams. Those are the teams that have generally success over time or the teams that have the relationships. And so that's why a lot of times you see now, well, I guess now, like, the question is, like, if you're building a team, do you hire? the GM first and then he hires a coach. Do you hire the coach and he hires a GM? And then does the coach have

like power over the GM? Like the CX, for instance, Pete Carroll is the ultimate decision maker. He hired John Schneider. I'd be curious to see how much Carol would like intercede and make the decisions for Schneider. I don't know if it happens a lot. What we've heard is they generally speaking are on the same page, but you just never really know. So I think these are the things that like I think don't get talked about as much as they should in the in when you're talking about, like a GM's track record. It's like there's so many, like it's the cooks in the kitchen thing.

There's so many variables that go into these decisions. I want to, I want to take this off the rails for a second and just mention the fact, just mentioned the fact that one of my biggest pet peeves. I mean, this is even, I don't know what is a word that's worse than a pet peeve.

I don't see how this could happen, how we could stand for this. The bane of your existence. The bane of my existence is when GMs or owners, which I heard this past week, to the media a week before the draft, talk about what positions they want to fill in the draft. Like some of it could be elementary.

We can do our digging and try to figure out what they could be looking for. It will just never process in my mind why these guys want, what do they gain from that? Unless it's complete, like, again, you can deliver smoke screens. I'm okay with that. You can deliver generalities.

I'm okay with that. When you start talking about we're looking to replace this guy in the draft, a particular player who's no longer on your team, and you're like the owner of the team saying this, and you've got a track record of spilling the beans before picks are made, like in other drafts, like everybody's going to kind of know what you're looking to do. And, you know, we see too often coaches do the same things ahead of games. Like, they talk about, well, you know, reporters are going to be inquisitive. They're going to ask the questions. What is you're thinking about doing with this player for this game? And then the guy just tells them what they think, what he thinks that

they're actually going to do. It's like, what does that benefit you whatsoever? So I hate that, like, I love it as a fan, you know, as a fan of just the process and of chaos to hear people, you know, loose lip syncing their ships ahead of time. But it just, if I was working with that team, it would frustrate me to no end. So that's not really the cook cooks in the kitchen discussion, but it's how owners get involved and state some things or GMs or coaches, publicly, like, as part of the process, that cannot be part of your process. To the media, I know you might want to say something and then look smart a few days later. And, you know, oh, yeah, you did what you said you were going to do. This guy knew what he was doing.

But, but I think you're going to get better value and do much better if you just smoke screen the hell out of all the pre-draft press conferences. Wren Sharp, anti-been spilling. 100%. So on the flip side there, and I'm very careful. curious to you guys here, you're talking about owners and sometimes coaches not having the short-term

interest, like, like, you know, just keep it yourself. The flip side is, talking about draft mistakes, a mistake that maybe not enough teams think about, the Eagles tanking for this pick

is kind of being glossed over. So the Eagles lost that week 17 game, everyone flipped out, ended up giving them a higher, pick in the draft. They basically netted a first rounder by trading back just because they lost that game. You talk about draft mistakes. Warren, I'm curious. Do you think that it's a mistake that more teams don't just throw their week 17 game? And do you think we will see more of that going forward?

Yes and unsure. The first answer is yes. I mean, look, we don't have to set up this whole debate that we had to live through in, what was it, early January of last year that I thought was pretty silly. It made sense because it's going to help the team. And I think that the best interest, the people that need to be the most aligned here are focusing on team, team, team. And what is guys like Bill Belichick always talk about is it's about the team, do things that are for the team, all these guys are like team, team, team, no I and team. So, yeah, taking a whole whole thing.

season is not going to work. Why would tanking a whole season not work like if the coach himself is just telling his guys to play terrible? That's not going to work because it's going to completely destroy what you're trying to build there, which is why like the dolphins were able to figure out how to lose a lot of games, but still build up that locker room belief in their coaching staff. It's just because the coach didn't have any ingredients to work with, right? Like the GM took away all the good stuff, left them with the basic things on the shelf and said, make something and it looked bland as hell and it got run over by the rest of the league, right? But he's still trying to build something up there.

The way that you tank is via the front office for a season. But tanking the week 17 game to like dramatically help yourself, I would, I mean, if that's my team, if I'm a fan or I know I'm going to be there next year, that's exactly what I want to have happened. If I know I'm not going to be there next year, why the hell would I really even care? If we aren't going to make the playoffs, why would I even care if we don't win this one particular game? Like, yeah, in the heat of it, my week ahead leading up to it, I went in the season on a high note.

Yeah, for a short term, I would care. But I mean, I could be different than everybody else. I didn't think that that was that big of a deal. I think it definitely is helping them make their team better. Now, you get the picks. You still have to execute. Still have to make those picks work. Just having picks or having draft capital is only half to.

the battle. You still have to execute on those picks, but I think more teams should investigate doing that in the future. So sticking with draft mistakes here, another mistake, getting back to the actual picks themselves, is I think that there's like this umbrella we can kind of throw things under of like teams trying to change who a player is. And there's a few forms of this, right? There's kind of like there's tweeners is kind of a form of that. right. Sometimes it's like taking its medical stuff sometimes falls under this umbrella

and then sometimes trying to like build a culture and so Dika I'm curious what you think of like sometimes teams grasping at one part of a player's profile without grappling with the whole like a holistic This is the upside discussion like how much is upside?

I think there's a fine line between we'll coach him up and turn him into a good player and he isn't good. You know what I mean? Like, I think the perfect example this year, and I don't know if it's the perfect example, but it's a strong example. Jason Oway from Penn State,

who literally zero sacks in 2020. That's like a huge red flag. I know it was a shortened season. He was productive from a precious point of view. But generally speaking, you don't see many first round pass rushers that haven't had a sack the prior year. It's just very rare.

It's generally speaking a bad sign. and generally speaking, it's a sign that they're not a very good pass rusher. But teams are going to look at his athletic profile, his size. He ran like a 4-3 at 450-something pounds. Absolutely ludicrous athleticism. And say, we're going to coach them up. We're going to get more out of them. And in some cases, they're going to be right.

Like some of these players do end up, whether it's because of scheme, like they fit into a scheme differently. they fit into a scheme better. The coaches in college weren't really using him to his best potential by lining him up at the wrong position or asking him to do the wrong things. Maybe they're asking him to two gap and he's just not getting very many sacks or whatever. This is just an example. So like teams will say, oh, we can definitely turn this guy into an elite player.

He's got all the traits. We just want to, you know, we're going to be able to coach him up on it. But so like walking that fine line between a guy who's just bad and a guy who has the skills to develop and to be coached up. I think there's really no way of knowing where a player falls on that line or where a team falls in terms of like their ability to actually coach up a guy and get him into his scheme that's going to make sense. But I think that's another big mistake that a lot of teams make is, and this goes back maybe to the overconfidence question is like we have the confidence that we can turn this guy into something that he hasn't proven to be yet at a at the college

level. And like all that being said like again, like these guys are 18 years old and it's not like they've reached the pinnacle of their development as human beings, as athletes. So what's the answer? I don't know. Like there's no answer, really. But this is a very frequent, common mistake that teams make, thinking that they can get more out of a player than they have in college. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work.

Yeah, there's a reason that car insurance for men under 25 is really high. It's because they're absolutely unpredictable and out of control. And no one knows what they're going to do next. Warren, I'm curious what you think about that about some, whether I'm really overlooking any part of a profile, whether it's, whether it's a medical thing or I'm curious what you think about the two, basically chasing upside. Danny was exactly right where he got to with, which was the first point that I was going to make here, this goes back to the thing we talked about at the very top. It's overconfidence. It's thinking that you have this coaches on your staff that are just so much better than what they had at college, even though they're playing against other college coaches and against, talent that's in college, like, this guy still couldn't excel potentially in one aspect and you're going to be able to fix him, right? Like the guy who goes for the girl who he thinks he can fix or what, like all these different things. Like maybe the person doesn't want you to fix them.

Maybe this player is not fixable. Like maybe you aren't going to be that you're not the missing piece in the puzzle of this person's life that's all of a sudden going to make it beautiful, like a mural. Like there are different aspects of this that I think teams get too confident, think they can do too much and it doesn't end up working out. Now, there are other things that I think could work out. And I'll give you an example. There's a player right now, Sean Wade.

He's a cornerback out of Ohio State, right? And Sean Wade, he was the Ohio State slot cornerback when their roster was loaded a couple of years ago. And then last year, those guys left for the NFL, and he got moved to cornerback number one. Now, he was terrible as cornerback number one last year, and he was great as a slot cornerback the year before. He tested out incredibly well. He's got super long arms, especially for how fast he is. He was a five-star recruit. Like, there's a lot to his DNA that makes him like a great player potentially in the NFL. And his draft prop, okay, there's a sports book that lists a variety of different players draft props. His draft prop was a pick number 168 and a half.

You could bet over or under that. So we hammered the under saying he'll go before that. They moved it down to 138 and a half. We hammered the under. It's now sitting. I just looked while we're on here. It's all the way down to 112 and a half. Okay. It was like substantial movement in draft pick from 168 and a half down to 112 and a half. Now, he still may not go above where we last bet him, which is 138 and a half. He has to go. To text me before you do these things, man. What are you doing? So, but the bottom line is like, this is a guy who has a lot of good attributes just had a terrible year last year in a role that his offense was looking to play. But there could be a coaching staff that says, look, I'm going to play him where he excels, which was at slot cornerback.

And I have a full year of production. And we've also heard guys like Bill Belichick and multiple other coaches talking about, I'm watching more tape from the prior year than I've ever watched before. So some of these guys are watching a lot of 2019 films saying like, yeah, 2020 wasn't nearly as representative. And they're going to see this guy as a great slot cornerback and think that, hey, we could utilize him in the NFL. But by and large, the bigger argument here to be made is that, like, it is there. It is, there. difficult to coach a guy up who lacked certain elements. And OA is a is a great example by Danny earlier on.

I think. And the other thing, like sort of the other side of the coin on this, and it's sort of related is like some teams would value a character and like a floor. So like, so if those players are the upside play, right? Like we're going to take a, we're going to take a bet on his upside. We think he can turn him into this great player. Some teams would value like the floor play. Like this guy's going to give us.

us a solid floor that we can work with. He'll be a starter for us. But he's not as talented or he's not, he doesn't have as much upside or the potential to develop into the star. So I think teams have to weigh, you know, the pluses and minuses, the risk factors involved each, like the guy that I'm thinking of, Cleland Farrell for, for the Raiders that couple of years back who went, I believe, fourth or fifth overall. Generally speaking, people didn't have them quite that high.

And, you know, the first thing that they're talking about, is like a culture like character he's a leader he's he's helping us like shape our locker room things like that that are very important obviously to teams and like you can't discount the importance of team building and culture and things like that in a building but at the same time like at some point you have to take a guy who has the talent to turn into like this elite player so I think that's another thing that teams grapple with when it comes to character and culture versus just overall like this guy's the best player on the field he's just a little bit of a loose cannon or whatever.

So I think that's another thing that like teams are like they'll whiff on every once a while and like it just kind of brings it full circle. Like there's just so many variables with all these players. Yeah, leadership derives from doing your job well. And so it's really nice to say how this guy's leadership qualities. But if he sucks, then well, it can be hard for him to be a leader. No one's going to listen to a player who's not very good. And ultimately like I've, you know, I'm not a coach.

I haven't been in NFL locker rooms during like for. for good teams and bad teams, but I feel like there's a pretty strong correlation between winning and a good culture in the locker room. So, you know what I mean? Like, winning is going to beget good feelings. And so, yeah, I think it's

one of those things you have to weigh. Winning fixes all ills. Hopefully this podcast fixed all ills. All right. So the good news is that now that we've got through all these mistakes, teams aren't going to screw up anymore. Yeah, perfect first round. We've got that going for us. We did it.

Well, the thing is everybody who makes a pick in the first round, every team is going to say, well, we did, we picked the best guy, right? Like, everybody's going to go home on late Friday night into Saturday morning and say, well, we picked the guy that we thought would work. And so they all think that they're making the right choice at the time, right? Some of them maybe it was like, man, I missed out. We should have traded down. Or I wish we could have gotten this guy that he wasn't there. But like some of that stuff's out of your control. The fact is these teams think that they're doing the best that they're doing the best that they

possibly can at the time that they are making these picks and none of them are going to say, yeah, that was terrible. I can't believe we did that like after the first round. The issue is that, you know, you're still at the end of the day trying to evaluate these, these, I don't, I'm not mean to say I'm kids, but like these young men that you think are going to transition professionally, personally, personally into superstars, which is what you want a first round pick to be. And it's just really difficult to project that well. So, I mean, good luck to all the teams. Like, they could try to adapt some of these things and it might work.

But I think in general, many of them are aware of the stuff we're talking about. But to what degrees they're incorporating it, it's difficult to know specifically. But even if you were incorporated it all the way, it's definitely not going to guarantee anything. And I think that's part of the fun of it, you know, at least for us as analysts, right? Like for the GMs, they're not having fun when their guy loses. But as analysts, it gives us more things to discuss and talk about. And so that adds to this whole thing. Yeah, we're having fun.

I hope everyone listening had fun. That's all we got right now. Thank you, Warren. Thank you, D.K. We're going to go right now to an interview I did earlier today with Akib Talib. And that's a lot of fun too, I promise. So thank you guys. I'm here as former Super Bowl champion and host of Leecher Report, Gridiron Draft Night,

Akeb to Lebe. What's up, Akeb? What's going on? I can't be no former Super Bowl champion. I'm saying, I'm still a Super Bowl champion, I'm saying? Current and forever. It's a term. It's an eternal title.

So, Akib, you're here plugging Bleach reports. Gridiron draft night. It's going to be live in the Bleach Report app. Gridiron Twitter on YouTube. It's on Thursday draft night, April 29th at 8 Eastern. You want to tell us a little bit about that? Yes, sir. Myself, Adam Lefco, Connor Rogers, man.

We're going to cover the draft live. And we got a couple of insiders. pro insiders at certain positions. So, you know, it should be a good time, man. We're going to have a lot of, you know, dress casual and, you know, laid back. Have a good time. It's always about having a good time.

It's always a good time when you're here, man. You were like the most fun announcer in the NFL last year. You were just having a great time all the time. That's what it was about, man. That's what, that's what my coach told me to do. Go out there and act like you watching the game with your buddy. So that's what I try to go out and do, man. I had a good time.

Well, speaking to which is watching the draft, I'm curious. Did you see this news? from this week that Devante Smith, receiver from Alabama, raining Heisman trophy winner, is 166 pounds? I did. I did.

And it's mind-boggling to me, honestly, bro. Because he don't play 166 pounds. When I look at him, I see 6-1-190. Like, you know what I'm saying? 185. That's what I see.

That's how he looked. That's how his frame looked to me on TV and everything. So it's weird to me. I would tell him my wife the other day, like, man, baby, how big you think he is? She's like, yeah, about six feet, like, 185. I'm like, see, he won 65. You know what I'm saying?

So as long as he played big, that's all that matter to me. Well, here's the thing. You were a physical quarterback in the NFL. I mean, you've pressed your share, your fair share of, like, Hall of Fame caliber receivers. What do you think if you were going to be going against 166-pound receiver? How does that change your mentality as the defender? I would watch the tape, and I would be like, yeah, he's 166.

that's why he quick as hell. That's why he's getting in and out them routes like that. So I wouldn't be like, oh, he's 166 pounds. I'm going to dog him out. Nah, I'm going to be like he 166 pounds. So how does that maximize? How does that make him good? Like you know what I'm saying?

How does he use that to his advantage? And when you turn on the tape, you see Devonte Smith, you see how he used that to his advantage, man. Guys can't do nothing with him. Because if it's like a big guy, you can, like, get in his way. And it's like maybe you get pushed around a little, but the timing's off. I play better against big. guy. So me, I'm fin to play whoever, you know what I'm saying, a big receiver,

Higgins or somebody, right, T. Higgins, I'm going to be like, all right, cool, I'm going to get my hands on him, it's going. I'm going to play Devonte Smith. I see it 166. I'm like, all right, he'll go one of these little quick motherfuckers, like, you know what I'm saying? That's how I look at it. So I think, man, he got, he got long arms, he got good heighty, six feet, right? He did measure in that six feet, right? A little bit over six feet, right? So I think he got good height. He my size height wise, you know what I'm saying? And then he just, he's just slim. So, man, as long as he's strong, he plays strong. He don't let guys throw him around. I think he's going to be just fine. Honestly, I think he's going to be like a Justin Jeffries type of season, man. He

going to go crazy. I mean, he went crazy last year. He had like more than 200 yards for half time at the championship game. So that's pretty wild. So speaking of cornerbacks, I'm curious. I mean, all the core, I mean, you know better than anyone. Like, cornerbacks don't get any love. I mean, the whole sport seems to revolve around people kind of want cornerbacks to fail. All the core turbacks are getting all the hype around this. So I'm curious. Patrick Sertain, one of the top cornerbacks in this year's class. J.C. Horn. I'm curious. Who do you think? I mean, the Cowboys drafted number 10. A lot of their fans want a cornerback. I'm curious who you think is the best cornerback in this year's class.

I think the best cornerback is, is Horn, right? I think he, he probably my favorite cornerback out of the guys, man. Body type. Just, you know, it's changing direction, confidence, I'm saying. Make some players on the ball. You see him make some players on the ball. You get to see them balls skills a little bit. But honestly, I think the Cowboys is going to go with Sartan, though, just because the style of defense. I think the style of defense,

Quinn, his style of defense, he won't a corner who can play some men, play that cover three, who won't give up deep balls, and that's kind of Sartan. You know what I'm saying? Sartan style to play, I think he fit Quinn defense.

But my favorite cornerback, I like J.C. Horn. I like both of them, but if I was going to pick one, and I'd pick J.C. Horn probably. Because Dan Quinn, that defensive coordinator, they're hired, they kind of sit back and play a lot of cover three, right? Do you think that's one of the biggest...

You think it's one of the biggest things maybe fans don't always understand is the way schemes kind of influence what players work where. It's like, just because your position's cornerback doesn't mean you'll work for all 32 teams, right? Exactly. I mean, you got man corners, you got left corners, you got right corner, you got nickel corners.

You got zone corners, right? You rarely find a guy like leave who going to play. zone, man, any D coordinator you give him, he going to have the same production, you know what I'm saying? It's, it's corners like that out there. It's not too many of them, though. So teams definitely going to drive for their scheme, you know what I'm saying? It's the best player for our scheme. So that definitely played a big part.

Well, speaking of scheme, you were one of the most versatile defenders there was. Yeah, I had so many D coordinators, man, three, six. I had six, three, six, I had like eight defensive coordinators in my life. Who's your favorite? Who's the one that made you the best? Wade Phillips, easy word. Do you remember meeting Wade? I do.

I do. The first meeting, I remember he came in, man, and, you know, it was a presence. You know what I'm saying? It was Wade Phillips. Like, you know, I remember the day he came in. He told his expectations, and I just felt like I was in the presence of greatness, man.

He knew what he wanted. He knew how to get his point across tools, and you could feel that greatness in coaches. when they're in the front of that room. Well, speaking of greatness, you also, so it's the summer 2020 last year, Patriots get all these opt-outs, right? And then Bill Belichick calls you

and says he wants you to come back, right? Can you tell that story? Man, he gave me a call and said he had a spot for me. Gave me a couple days to think about it. I thought about it. I looked at that schedule. He kind of wanted me to guard the tight ends running around the tight ends and stuff.

I looked at the schedule, man. We played every tight end. Patriots played every tight-in in the league. to Waler to kiddos. So it wasn't going to be a walk in the park, right? You know what I'm saying? I kind of watched the tape a little bit. I've seen Patrick Chung in that box

and how much tackling he had to do. So I politely, respectfully declined, man. I'm cool, Bill. I ain't the man for the job. You know what I'm saying? And then I had a chance. I came home the year before. So I had a chance to, you know,

getting routine with my kids and football season and taking them the volleyball practice, track practice, picking them up from school. I kind of got in that. team, I fell in love with the house, man. So both, both happened at the same time. So, man, I politely, respectfully decline and, you know, I'm here now. How weird was it to go from playing football for like the last 20 years of your life for however long

into just watching it on TV or announcing it on TV sometimes? I wouldn't even say weird. It wasn't weird. It was relaxing, man. I got to really turn back to a fan. And Sundays, I was like, all right, all right, I'll hollet y'all at you all the night. I'm in the theater room all day, you know what I'm saying, watching games, man. It was, it was relaxing to me, man.

I was a super football fan before I went to the NFL. So it kind of let me get back to a super football fan, watch the game with my son and stuff, teaching my little stuff. You know what I'm saying? So it was relaxing, man. I enjoy, I enjoy. I'm enjoying retirement. I'm sure.

One last thing for you, man. I'm curious. I got to ask. I saw this podcast you did last year. It was called to the booth. and you said that when the Michael Crabtree chain thing happened, that you had a plan for the chain. Can you walk me through that one?

I had a plan. I was, so see, I was going to be disrespectful. I was going to take the chain. I was new to Instagram, right? I'm like, I need to get my followers and shit up. So I was going to take the chain. I had a new dog to a new blue pit. So I was going to put the chain on my dog

and, you know, just let them make cameo here and there. chain. I was going to give it. I was going to gift it to my new blue pit, man. And you know what I'm saying? Let him make some cameoes and shit on my, on my IG. Just get my followers up. So you literally did it for the gram.

No, no. It was way more than the gram. But the end in the results, I was going, it was going to be, the ground was going to be involved. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Akeep, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

You can check out the Bleacher Report, gridiron draft night with Akib Talib. It's going to be on Twitter on Bleach Report app on YouTube. That's Thursday begins at 8. p.m. Eastern. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. I appreciate you, man. All right, that's all we got for you today. Next week, we're going to have five shows on this feed.

Deakin are going to do a mock on Monday. You'll have Kevin, Nora, and Warren Sharp on Wednesday. And then we're going to have an episode after each day of the NFL drafts. We're going to be coming to you after Thursday night, Friday, Saturday. Potapalooza here on the Ringer NFL show. And thank you again, everyone for listening. And thank you to D.K., thank you to Warren. Thank you to Akeep to Leave.

And thank you for producing to Isaiah Blasie. and Arjuna, Ramgapal. We will see you guys next week.