The Ringer NFL Show - CBA Update, Combine Analysis, and Dream Destinations Live From Indy | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: February 27, 2020

On Tuesday night, NFL owners and the NFLPA met for hours to try to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. We discuss what this new deal could mean for the 2020 NFL season (1:15). Then, Danny Kelly highlights some exciting players who have risen in his NFL Draft Guide and lists the top players at each major position he’s most interested in watching at the combine (9:20). Finally, we offer up our dream landing spots for the top prospects in the draft (32:20). Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. For the next eight weeks, the rewatchables will be covering eight films that are incredibly rewatchable despite having one major flaw. So far, we've covered the movie Higher Learning, and this Wednesday, Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan and Ryan Rusillo are talking about the 1985 wrestling classic Vision Quest. So make sure and check out the flawed rewatchables on the rewatchables feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network.

I'm Kevin Clark, joining me in a hallway in snowy Indianapolis in Indiana. The heartbeat of the NFL universe this week. It's Danny. It's draft season, baby. Yeah, I love this time of year, man. I'm super excited about it. Do you like Indianapolis as a combine host? I do.

Me too. It's not bad. I mean, it's not necessarily like a tropical destination that we can go to in these cold winter months. But the good thing is, like, a lot of, you can get around in these gigantic buildings and the walkways between the buildings. things is it was well designed to like get people around. So that's kind of nice. Yes, it is a convenient place and I would not be opposed to it remaining here for a long time. So the news, speaking of Indianapolis, is that last night NFL owners and the NFL PA met in a hotel in

downtown Indianapolis. I was at the hotel and I did what you do during labor negotiations, which is you just sit around and wait for nothing. I was there for a few hours. Some reporters were there for even longer. The players and the ownership were there for, you know, basically until about 10 p.m. trying to hammer through a negotiation. This is a very strange negotiation. This is not like it was in a decade ago at the beginning of the CBA because there is no lockout. We're a year out from any potential deadline as far as a season not starting on time or training camp not starting on time. But yet there seems to be a sense of urgency. NFL owners want to get a deal done by the start of the league year. This is really affecting a ton of competitive things that we're

not thinking enough about as far as, you know, are there going to be two tags this year? Is free agency going to have more money? Is there going to be a $100,000 bump in the minimum pay this year? Or is that going to happen next year? If a CBA is hammered out this time next year, I mean, there are a ton of little things that this affects. And obviously, it has gotten to be a very strong. strange situation. So essentially, the NFLPA has forwarded the proposal to its players. They will vote in the next couple of weeks. But on the other hand, Russell Wilson, Richard Sherman, and now Aaron Rogers have come out and been huge critics of this proposed deal. So you have some of the most influential players in football coming out against it. The NFLPA is taking it to a vote.

Whether or not, you know, Mike Tanenbaum this morning made the point that the $100,000 bump in the minimum pay is going to be huge for the rank and file, the bulk of players going forward. I don't know how this plays out because I don't think anybody does. When I stop people in the hallway, be it on the player side or the ownership side or the league office side, I get a different answer every single time. It is a strange situation and it's going to affect a lot of little things. Danny, what do you think about this negotiation so far? I mean, my basic sort of impression is that it's just happened extremely, extremely quickly.

Right. You referenced the last time this happened. It dragged on and on and on, and there was this threat of a strike and all this stuff. And this one is just moving extremely quickly. It kind of just snuck up on us. And some of these changes that they're proposing in this new CBA are pretty, pretty massive. I mean, you're talking about 17-game season, which is unheard of, unprecedented. It's going to change kind of everything about the sport.

It's going to change strategies. It's going to change a whole bunch of stuff. They're going to expand rosters potentially. They're going to expand game day rosters, change the off-season. So one of the proposals is that they're going to have fewer padded practices, meaning less wear and tear on players during the off season, during preseason and training camp and all that. So you could potentially have a different looking product in the beginning of the season

because the football could actually be a little bit sloppier, things like that. And we saw that a lot at the beginning of the last CBA. Yeah. Because I don't think teams really figured out how to run practice when there wasn't practice, essentially. This was not, you couldn't do two a days, you couldn't do unlimited padded practice, and I think it took a while for the average NFL coach to reckon with that fact.

Yeah, I mean, this is going to be something that takes effect. If it goes through, and I was just reading a piece on NFL.com that it's, I think Tom Pellasaro said it's like on the one yard line and it's pretty much surely going to pass. We'll see if that happens. But this could have just momentous impact for the next like three years. Like you're saying, it's going to have, it's going to make teams completely have to try to adapt

to these new. rules and the new style and trying to get players all the way through the season, whether that means they try and like, you know, do more wear and tear management, things like that. It's just going to be very interesting, kind of see how that all goes. So this is potentially massive, massive So essentially what is left to be done and what some of the players have been cautious about, some of the star players, is that they don't think that the owners have given up enough for that 17th game. And I think that, you know, Alan Robinson, who's one of the best receivers when you factor in who he's played with his quarterback in the NFL. He said, get the franchise tag out of there.

That's something that I've talked to a lot of players about. The franchise tag does so much as far as keeping prices down for superstars, players like Aaron Rogers, quite frankly. It depresses value. And they're not getting anything close to that. They're not getting any healthcare gains. They're not getting really anything except a couple of what are called quality of life concessions. And that means, you know, less padded practice or less times to show up in April or May. Right. And then, you know, some training camp stuff give back. And then the big thing is that it's been resolved that there will not be a cap on the 17th game salaries, which was initially proposed last week.

And so I think that that is where a lot of the star players are coming from. That package is currently presented is not enough to add 17 games, which is another week of practice, another, I mean. Still a huge chance to get hurt. Yeah. There's a lot of collisions in week 17. And so I think that that's the thing to watch. But again, I think that the vote here is going to be very fascinating. All of the votes, whether that was from the executive committee or the player reps, they've all been very close.

And you only need 51% here. This is legitimately, even though it seems very inside baseball and there's a year out. So I think the interest has not been all that. I think the interest is not nearly as high as it would be. if this was happening this time next year because I don't think people think that games are being threatened or anything like that. But I think that from a competitive standpoint, this is one of the most interesting

things in the last couple of years. How this all plays out, when it plays out. Jenny Varentis reported, they're kind of looking at when maybe they push the league year start back. You know, it's March 18th now. The franchise tag window, does that change because there's CBA

uncertainty? You know, like, if you're the Cowboys right now, and Calvin Watkins reported, they won't even talk to DAC or Amari Cooper in any serious way until there's clarity on the situation. You don't know anything. You don't know if you're going to have two tags, which totally changes how you approach

the Byron Jones situation and the Mari Cooper situation. Obviously, the Dak Prescott situation, I mean, they're going to tag him regardless or try to sign him to a big deal. But if you're Patrick Mahomes, do you wait until next year, you know, when there's more money? I mean, I don't, there are so many angles to this.

and I think that, again, because no games are being threatened, there's not a lot of attention on it, but this is a huge, huge deal for how the next decade of football is going to shape up, and I'm interested to see what happens. Yeah, and even in the short term, you know, if this does go through, say it goes through today or in the next few days, there's going to be, I think there's been a backlog of activity that's, like you, without a doubt.

Just kind of like slowed everything down. This has been a huge, huge bottleneck to, like, deals getting done, all that stuff. So if this goes through, we could eventually see, we could pretty much quickly see like an avalanche of movement from all these things, all these stories that we've been kind of waiting on. So it's definitely kind of an exciting time. It's going to be very, very interesting to see how this all plays out.

Okay. We've got that. We've got the draft. Tom Brady might be a free agent. Yeah. There's a million things happening in Indianapolis, Indiana this week. Basically, the entire sport is here. Yeah.

Bill Belichick standing in the rain at Middle Tennessee State. University watching a draft prospect. That's all you need to know about Bill Belichick right now. I didn't actually see that. What a legend. Oh, absolutely. Middle Tennessee tweeted it out. Oh, my God. Everybody. He's a true. He's a true scout. There's a couple of teams didn't send coordinators this year or whatever. But every head coach, there's probably 31 head coaches within about 500 feet of us right now. And one of them is just grinding at Middle Tennessee State. But let's get to the draft. Because Danny Kelly, you're the author of the finest draft guide on the internet. Thank you. And there's there's it is now we're at two point out. Is that correct?

Yeah. So we we've updated the we've gone from 32 the top 32 to the top 50. We're going to continue to expand that full scouting reports on each of these players on my top 50 list and you can kind of go through you can skim, you can peruse, you can go like a deep dive into everything. It's very, very cool. Very very pretty I guess interesting looking UI. So it's just a very, very cool thing to kind of peruse. Anybody, now that you've gone to 50, anybody you've fallen in love with that you hadn't when 1.0 came out? Yeah, I would say the one guy that I think

jumped up the most in this was a linebacker from LSU Patrick Queen. He's just very, very... He was a late declare. So he's a junior, and so they weren't sure necessarily if he was going to declare or not. Just very, very rangy, speedy, kind of the definition of a

modern linebacker, like a guy who can blitz, who can cover, who can do it all. He's a little bit undersized, but he has just the build of a linebacker like very very long arm so he can tackle you know explosive so he can kind of cut like go through creases in the line and blitz and all that so he's a very very exciting player um i didn't have him on my top 32 but now he's at 27 so he rose up quite a bit i like him a lot he's just he's just a fun guy to watch okay so we're going to do a couple things with the combine here we're going to look for we're going to go by

position for some of the the more interesting positions this year and then we're going to do some destinations and then some questions you want answered during testing. Testing, by the way, is it night this year? It's in primetime. Totally different. That's like the big question too for me is how is this whole primetime thing going to work? Because the combine has been the same for as long as I've been here, mostly, like the schedule of it. Also, for NFL people, the combine is a booze fest.

And now they actually have to watch things. People are going to have to write about all this stuff at like 11 p.m. Eastern time? it's going to be like deadline writing. And yeah, I wonder if the bars are pissed off about this right now. Life finds away is what I would say to that as far as the combine and who's in. So let's start with the quarterbacks because Joe Burrow talked this week. He will play for Cincinnati, I suppose. That's the narrative that he wouldn't kind of got really far out there in the last week or so.

He put that to bed for now until further notice. But it looks like until, until, until, something else comes out and might, I do believe Joe Burrow will be a Cincinnati Bengal. He will not throw on Thursday. When you look at who will throw, what do you want to see and who are you watching at the combat? So there's two main guys that I'm very interested in watching. The first guy, Jordan Love, who is, he's definitely a very controversial, I think, prospect because in his last season he threw 20 touchdowns to 17 picks. He had a bunch of just really bad decisions.

However, and if you go back a year prior, he had a very good season, had generated a lot of hype kind of like as a top first round type of guy. He's still probably going to be a top 20, top 15 pick potentially, even though his last season was so shaky because there's some extenuating circumstances around his season. He lost his coach. He lost, I think I saw nine out of his 11 starters on the team changed. So he was basically going in, trying to restart that whole offense. He just did not do well, made some bad decisions in terms of where to go with the football and things like that.

Got a little bit too aggressive in trying to carry the team. I think I called him Yolo Marcus Mariota. You did. Which I want to expand in that for a second. So Yolo Marcus Mariota was your description of him. Yeah. But you have a lot of great descriptions here. You have Henry Ruggs, you have mini Martavis Bryant. You have a lot of players as the slim versions of other people. Joe Burroughs, Slim Andrew Lach. C.D. Lamb is slim D. Andre Hopkins.

Yeah. So I go through and when I'm making the comps, a lot of it is like athleticism, how they move, the style in which they're used, things like that. And sometimes the comps aren't, they don't really work. one to one because they have a different body type or whatever. Like Burrow, to me, just the way that he can manipulate the pocket, keep plays alive, and move around, throw outside the pocket. And just the way he moved, honestly, just like the way his, like, shoulders look when he's throwing the football just reminded me a lot of Andrew Luck. And so that was kind of why I went with that.

But he's just not as beefy as Andrew Luck. So it's kind of like how I go about doing those. For Yolo Marcus Mariotta, I kind of, same deal with Jordan Love. He's the type of guy who is, you know, he has a good arm, very good arm. You know, he can move around in the pocket. He can avoid pressure. And the difference being is Marioato over throughout his career for the most part was very efficient and mistake averse, not necessarily late in the last couple seasons.

But that's not the story with Jordan Love. He's definitely like very, very aggressive. It almost has some like James Winston in him. So whoever takes him, whichever team, you know, falls in love with him. and wants to take him, is going to have to kind of figure out how to, you know, massage those decisions out of his game a little bit. Obviously, if he has a better supporting cast,

I think where he's not required to, like, completely carry the team, I think that would be important for him. But, yeah, he's kind of guy who, very toolsy, great arm, like I said, you know, he can move around. But there's just, he probably needs, like, a season to be the backup and kind of, like, develop a lot of those things and develop as a decision maker and things like that. So I'm very interested to see how he does.

There was some rumors that coming out of high school, he ran like a 5-1, so he's not necessarily like a super speedy guy. And I couldn't confirm whether that's actually what he ran. But the reason, so like that's one reason I'm kind of like hoping that he'll run the 40 and kind of tell us exactly how fast he is. Because in the NFL these days, I think teams are starting to see that you have to be able to move around. You see like some of these quarterbacks in last couple of drafts,

Daniel Jones and Josh Allen are two guys that I kind of remind me a little bit of love in the sense that they both had substandard stat lines in the season prior to being drafted in the top 10. You know, you look at their stat lines from college, you're like, that's not a top 10 pick. And that's the same deal with Jordan Love. But teams are just, they become infatuated with like the skill set and the tools. Is there a team you'd want him to be on or a type of team? That's a good question. I mean, obviously, the top team for me would be the Colts. And if they sign a veteran like Philip Rivers.

Especially if they sign Rivers, because then they could have like this two-year plan where Rivers is the starter at least this year. And then they develop Jordan Love behind him. You know, obviously they've done a good job of, you know, figuring out their offense after Andrew Luck sort of abruptly retired prior to last season. But I think, you know, they just have, they're just very good at designing an offense around their quarterback's strengths. And so I think that is, that to me is the team.

Frank Reich, he's just really shown an ability to modify his offense and tailor it to his quarterback's needs. So that team, I think, would be the top one for me. Any of the quarterbacks that you're watching this week? Jalen Hertz is another very, very interesting one to me because, you know, he's one of those guys who I watched him at the Senior Bowl. His ability, his like throwing ability just didn't really stand out. Okay.

But at the same time, I mean, he did show accuracy a lot this year at Oklahoma. And he was absolutely prolific as a passer and a runner. I think he scored 20 times on the ground in addition to, you know, his prolific passing stats. And so to me, he's a guy who I think some team is going to see his skill set and think that they can design an offense around his skill set. You know, he's not going to be, I don't think, for everybody. And that goes, that's the same deal with like Herbert, that's the same deal with love. Like, he's just not going to be for everybody, but his skill set to me is very, very intriguing.

And we've seen teams that are willing to, you know, kind of design their offenses. Same deal with what I was just saying about the colds. Like design their offenses around their quarterback skill set. And to me, those are the smart teams because that's absolutely what you should do. Not trying to fit a, you know, a round peg into a square hole or whatever. And so he's another guy that I'm very interested to watch. He reportedly ran like a 4-4-8 in 2017. So he's got some wheels.

I'm guessing he'll probably run a little bit slower here. But if he can run in that 4-5, 4-6 range, I think that could boost his stock a little bit. Are you alarmed when you walk around Indy and there's prospects running in the hallways? It's definitely funny. I've seen them over here. Yeah, and also sometimes they throw in the hallways.

Oh, yeah. And it's like, you cannot. You head on a swivel. If you're looking down in texting, I've actually never had a problem. But I've thought about it. It's like, wow, man, if I turn the corner and I was texting, I get hit by a Jordan Love pass.

I get a concussion. That's going to take me out for a couple weeks. Yeah, I hear that. So if we're, and you are the draft guru, I defer to you on this, when you're watching the throws on Thursday evening with the quarterbacks, give me one thing to watch for. That's, you know, that's stuff because there's so many caveats to throw in when you're talking about the combine throwing drills.

You know, you're playing with guys that they don't know, they don't, like, they have no practice with, essentially. So it's definitely, I would not put much stuff. dock into that, but I think just the overall accuracy is the big thing, your ability to hit a guy on the run. Is there a guy that you're looking for with that? I think Love is one for sure, and I think Herbert

too. Herbert, to me, was a little bit scattershot, Justin Herbert of Oregon. A little bit scattershot with his accuracy. He's got all the tools, and again, it's like none of these quarterbacks are perfect prospects. Even Burrow and Tua have their hiccups that I think teams are going

to have to deal with, but like Herbert, love, hurts, all these guys are definitely sort of a a rung below

those two and I think I'd love to see Herbert, you know, just kind of sling it, but have a lot

of accuracy because he was, his aggressiveness sort of waxed and waned a bit in college and his accuracy was very hit or miss.

And so I think, you know, he could definitely kind of, I think, prove a lot of people that, I don't if you remember

a couple years ago, Josh Allen, like put on a show at the, at the, Mine like through like an E.R. How can you forget? So I don't necessarily need him to do that, but maybe just like cut it loose a little bit. I think that could that could maybe bump him up in my mind a little bit if he gets like aggressive and kind of lets it loose. Okay. Pass rush. Chase Young not working out. No. Which is I think we, I like to see testing numbers and he'll presumably do something later in the spring. Yeah. We'll get to see those. But I love kind of knowing what you get. I remember a couple of years ago, everyone knew Miles Garrett was. going to be the first, certainly the first pass rush off the board and probably the first

player off the board. Then he comes here, he puts up huge testing numbers and we just kind of put it to bed. And I remember that vividly. And I would have liked the same for Chase Young. It is obviously until he feels right if he doesn't have to do anything. But I'm looking forward to getting some numbers from him whenever he wants to do it. Without that, Danny, what are you watching for with testing with the past rushers and just their general week here? Number one, I would say, this has already happened. The weigh-in thing is important for some guys because... What did you weigh in at?

What did I weigh in it? I asked them to not disclose that. Okay. It was above 200 pounds. This is where I needed to be for my skill set. Okay. Bulk season. No, so...

Did you see, by the way, that Baker Mayfield wants to be quicker and slimmer? I did see that, yeah. Yeah. Wow. You got that freshman 15 or whatever, and... He tried to get bulky last year. He didn't work. He lost some speeds, and now he's quick and slim.

Yeah, okay. So what I was going, where I was going with that is, I don't know if you remember last year, Brian Burns was a big question mark because he was really, he played really light in college and people wanted to see if he could bulk up and still be explosive. This year, the same type of guy is Kalevon Chason from LSU. And he measured in 6354. And so that's a very good, like, baseline foundation size room. He's not actually going to do the testing, which is pretty disappointing because he's the second highest rated edge player at my. board. So he'll,

we'll probably have to wait for his pro day or whatever to see how he tests. But I think just coming in at 254 is a solid number for him. Because he's very explosive player, you know, very bendy. He's definitely a traits type player. Like he didn't have very good production in college. And he's a guy that you're going to have to sort of project to the NFL. As a guy who can get better when he learns more moves, when he gets more time in the way room and all that stuff.

And so he was a guy that I was looking forward to watch. but he's actually not going to test. The other guy I was going to mention is Zach Bonn from Wisconsin, who is he's a sort of a late riser, I think, in this whole process. He's sort of a hybrid linebacker defensive end type of guy. He's a very interesting prospect going into the draft because he can kind of do a lot of different things for a defense. He's a former, like he's just like a multi-sport high school star.

He's a very, very good athlete. I'm excited to see what he runs. he's the type of guy who teams can have, you know, dropping back on base downs as like a real regular kind of off-bought linebacker. But then he also can, you know, get on the line and rush from the line of scrimmage where he's putting his hand in the dirt and getting outfield. Sort of in the same way. I accompanied him to Kyle Van Nuoy.

He's also kind of like a Clay Matthews type of guy. So he's going to be very interesting. He's a former high school sprinter basketball guy, dual threat quarterback, and he's just a very, very good athlete. So I'm excited to see what he does this week too. All right. What about defense outside of past rushing? There are a couple guys where you're saying, okay, I need to see these guys this week.

For me, well, number one, all corners need to be fast. And so. Thank you, Danny. Well, I mean, you know, they can be 6'3. They can be like, didn't even learn anything from Richard Sherman. he's sort of a unicorn though I know I would say like yeah

you don't it's not necessarily a death now I'm mostly joking there's a rich gentleman's once in a generation right right so yeah I was going to say basically you know the combine is a little bit overrated you know receivers how dare you well the testing oh my god

now you're trying to make me angry yeah no the combine in some cases can be a little bit overrated are you saying for corners or for everybody for everybody Okay. I sort of disagree with that. Okay. I mean, I think that there's, I think that there's, especially when you get into mid-round picks, I think that if you are athletic enough, I think you're always worth a flyer. Always. I agree with that. I don't think that a guy like Byron Jones who set the world on fire four or five years ago and jumped broader, as they say, than anybody else in history, listen, he developed into a good cornerback because he worked hard and, and, you know, there's a million other things. But the athleticism helps you.

And you're starting with the baseline. And one of the things I think that a team like the chiefs understands, a team like the Ravens, the Seahawks certainly understand it the Packers have, is that when in doubt, just take the athlete. And I think a lot of that can come from the combine. Yeah. I definitely don't disagree with you on that. I think for some guys, and this is what I've heard from multiple,

both general managers and scouts and things like that, is the combine serves as a way to cross-check what you have on tape, like what you're showing on tape. Like if a guy comes in and runs way slower, that's a big deal because then they go back and like, say, did we miss his lack of speed on tape or whatever? But for the most part, it's just a cross-check thing. And then I do think what you're saying is true, where if guys are freakishly, like, if they're the outlier athletes, extreme, extreme athletes, these teams are going to think, we can take

this guy. We can coach them up. We can teach them better techniques, and we can turn them into a good player because you do have to have a certain level of athleticism to be in the NFL. And if these guys are elite among those types of athletes, I think it definitely matters.

But so, yeah, I think that might sound like I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth, but I think overall for like, I was just thinking of receivers. Receivers speed is not necessarily the most important thing. There's plenty of the top receivers in the NFL run four-fives, and that's fine. having a 4-4 guy or 4-3 guy is really important for the offense,

but it's not, it's not going to take me, I'm not going to take a guy off the board if he runs 4-5 at receiver. But what I was going to say is at corner, that can be very, very important. Yes. You have to be able to run at cornerback. I mean, it's like the most important position to have that pure blazing speed.

And so I'm excited to just kind of see how these cornerbacks do, honestly. I think, you know, most of them are so, supposed to run really fast, like the top ranked guys. But if you see a guy running like a three, like in a four or five range, that can be very bad for their draft stock, honestly. So a lot of these guys, I think, need to pass that test. And a lot of these guys are just really, really fast.

So it's going to be kind of fun to see how fast. Can you name some of the, can you? Yeah, obviously we know the big names, but it's there anybody who say these guys are going to be blazing fast. Yeah. So this guy is sort of a big name. Jeff Gladdy from TCU. He's a guy that I really, really like.

I think he'll run really fast. And then I have a couple guys. in the secondary that are supposed to be potentially like four two runners. Troy Pride Jr. He was actually a big standout of the Senior Bowl. I thought he played really, really well, put his name on the map,

probably bumped himself up like a round or two, I think, just by how he played at the Senior Bowl, but he could even, I think he could solidify himself even more with a good, good 40. And he's supposed to run in the 4-3 range. And he actually said he has his eyes set on,

running in the 4-2. So he could be like one of the fastest guys at the combine, period. So that's going to be really interesting to watch Troy Pride Jr. from Notre Dame. So keep an eye out for him when he tests. And then Javelin Guidry is another name that I think people are kind of buzzing about today or this week. He's a Utah corner. He's tiny, five foot 990 pounds, but he's a former high school state champion.

When we all say someone's buzzing at the combine, it means two people have mentioned him. Yeah. In this case, Adam Schaefter, actually tweeted about it. So that was like... So is it just one? I heard his name, I believe, from Lance Zierling, too. Okay. So we're two people. Yeah. So exactly what I just said. Yes. That's a buzz right there. It's a harmony.

Buzzy prospects. Tulsie quarterbacks, buzzy prospects. We've got it all here. All right. So those are two guys to keep in mind. Okay. Wide receivers, lastly, before we get to the dream destinations. Yeah. So the receiver group is what... I would say this class is, defined if not by the quarterbacks than the receivers. It's one of the deepest receiver classes in the decade

really. And so, you know, this potential to have, I think Mel Khyber Jr. said that 25 receivers could go within the first three rounds, which will not happen. I'm pretty sure. I mean, it would be very unheard of for that to happen. Get them. Go after them. Look, I'm

just saying, I mean, that's a, I love the bold, I love the bold guess there. It's probably not going to happen because there's other positions that teams need. But at the same time, it does tell you exactly how deep this group is. I think I saw Daniel Jeremiah from the NFL network has, he said he had 27 guys graded as top three. Yeah, I saw that. Top three round guys. So that means, that doesn't mean they're all going to be picked in the top three rounds, but it means this is a deep, deep class of receivers. When you look at this class, a couple questions that I think would be very interesting to get

answered is how fast are C.D. Lamb and T. Higgins, Like those two guys, they're not going to run 4-4. Right. Well, they're not going to run 4-3, 4-2s. But Higgins, I think I saw this week that he said he wanted to run the 4-4s, which would be a really, really good number for him. Because he's kind of, there's a big question mark kind of on his overall speed. Same goes for Lamb.

Lamb is my overall number one receiver just ahead of Jerry Judy. But on tape, he doesn't look like a super sudden, super fast guy. He's just very physical. He can run after the catch. he's got great jumpball skills. He's a good route runner, all those things, but he's not super fast looking, at least on tape. I think if he runs just in the four-fives,

I think people will be very, very comfortable with him being, if not the one, the wide receiver two. And then if he ends up running faster than that, I mean, that could really, really boost his second. If he ends up running slower, that could create some question marks for him, I think. So those two guys, Higgins and Lamb, I think if Higgins runs in the four-fours,

he's going to skyrocket after the draft, because, or sorry, after the combine, because he's just, he's just a jumpball monster. He's just so, so good at the catch point, after the catch, you know, huge, huge production. I comped him to Kenny Golidage. He's just, he's just a really exciting player. I know a lot of people have been comping him to A.J. Green,

so that's another very, very interesting comparison. So Higgins, to me, is a guy that could rise up quite a bit after this week. And then on the other side of the, on the other side of the ball, Ruggs, Rager, Leviska-Chanalt, KJ Hamler, these are guys that could potentially run in the 4-3s and 4-2s. And they're, you know, it's not the most important thing to have 4-3-4-2 speed, but I know teams definitely want that speed. And when we saw Mikul Hardin kind of come out of nowhere

and, you know, rise up in the drafts because he had a 4-3 time. And the Chiefs really, really value that kind of stuff. Yeah. It was funny because... Speed, man. I talked to Brett Veach about this, and I mentioned this in the pod before, but Veach basically said that there are quarterbacks

where a guy like Hardman wouldn't actually make that much of a difference. Yeah, if he's like on the Raiders with Derek Carr or something like that. Yeah, those are your words, not his. Hypothetically, if he was with Derrick Carr, there are things you could scheme him up to do, but he's not...

Derrick Carr is not going to hit him 45 yards down the field on the fly. Right, exactly. Probably not going to happen. Outlook not good. Yeah. So that's what's interesting to me. All right, let's let's create some dream matchups here. Sure.

I think that one of the things that we like talking about is where these guys might fit best, not from a value standpoint or, you know, what, you know, I don't think anybody. We don't want anybody on the Redskins right now. I mean, poor Chase Young has to go into that. But before we get out of fear, give me one dream matchup where you just salivate over the marriage between the player and the franchise. So my number one dream, and honestly, like, I would love to see this guy on any team because he's one of my favorite players in this draft. Isaiah Simmons from Clemson. Yes.

Who is listed as, I believe he's listed as a linebacker, but he's really just a linebacker slash safety slash nickelback slash at times rusher. Like, he does a little bit of everything. He is what Bruce Ariens named the Moneybacker, the Ambeacon a couple years ago. Yes. Was an idea ahead of its time, quite frankly. Yeah. And he, so he would fit to me and honestly in any defense just because he can do. anything and everything.

But I would just love to see him with the Chargers, man, because I think he's very much, he's a mega Derwin James. I just would love to see that because what they could do with those two guys on the field together, I mean, just the options I think would be limitless in terms of how they could use them as both coverage guys, as run defenders, as situational blitzers. It just would be a lot of fun. And seeing those guys on the same team, I think, would just be super exciting to study and to watch.

And so that's like my dream match-up. and actually is somewhat possible because the Chargers have, I believe, the sixth pick. And so I don't think Simmons is getting out of the top ten. And if the Chargers decide not to take a quarterback at that spot, Simmons could be a pretty good choice for them. And so I really like that pairing. The second one I was going to mention is C.D. Lamb, which we just talked about,

going to the Cardinals. The Cardinals, I don't know what they're going to do in the first round. That's going to be a very interesting team for me because they have a lot of needs on the defense, obviously. But I think their whole identity. and direction is centered around their offense, centered around Kyler Murray, Cliff Kingsbury, what they can do on offense,

building a, you know, they're not the chiefs, but building a chief style juggernaut offense, I think it's going to be the goal there, not just to be, like, completely balanced. I think, I feel like they would be able to hit the ground running really quickly because not only has CD Lamb played with Kyler Murray from their time together at Oklahoma,

but he played in sort of a similar spread offense type of thing where, you know, he's utilizing space over the middle of field. They're creating such a, where he can get run after the catchability. I mean, that's like a huge, huge part of his skill set is his ability to break tackles in the open field. I mean, there's times, honestly, where he looked like Kyler, or he looked like Alvin Camara after the catch, where he's just bouncing off tackle attempts.

So I just think he'd be a great fit in that offense, number one. And number two, there's already that built-in familiarity with Kyler Murray and kind of get them running, you know, hit the ground running, essentially. and so I think, yeah, I mean, that would give them the foundation and a nice boost to what could be a really good receiver core. If they get a better performance for Andy Isabella next season, who was the second round pick last season, he didn't really play much in the first season. Christian Kirk is still an ascending player in the NFL. And then obviously, like we said, you know, get Larry Fitz in there running routes out of the slot in the red zone, things like that. They could definitely kind of, I think, surprise people next season.

So that would be another one that I would just like to see a lot. Okay. We are all much smarter on the draft. Danny Kelly, thank you for coming on the show. And happy Combine. Thanks, man. I love it. I love this week.

So I'm just really looking forward to seeing all this testing. It's going to be in prime time this week, which is a big, big change. So I'm excited to see how that all goes.