The Ringer NFL Show - Ep. 81: Day 3 of the NFL Combine

Episode Date: March 4, 2017

The Ringer's Robert Mays and Kevin Clark cozy up in an Indianapolis hotel room to discuss the star-studded tie-breaking coin flip (1:00), Davis Webb's confidence (4:30), Leonard Fournette's performance (07:00), Christian McCaffrey (09:00), drafting a running back in the first round (11:00), and the Tony Romo-Kirk Cousins trade rumor (19:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode is brought to you by The Ringer NBA show. Each week, Chris Vernon talks to players, coaches, and basketball experts, but everything happening in the NBA. You can subscribe to The Ringer MBA show by going to iTunes.com slash The Ringer or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the Ringer NFL show. My name is Robert Mays. I'm a writer at The Ringer.

And sitting, again, very close to me in an Indianapolis hotel room. Not that close. It's Kevin Clark. Yeah, Danny was on the couch with me yesterday. Kevin is sitting in the desk chair. Arms length. With reasonable tips on the ottoman. Yeah, it's far enough.

I'm not upset about it. I saw a coin toss today. Is that what you want to talk about first? The coin toss is the most important thing to you. The best coin toss since no country for old men. 14th pick versus 15th pick. And now here's what they said about. The NFL make like $13 billion a year or whatever.

And the reason they do it is because there was a coin flip and they made a production out of it. It was candidly the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life. So here's what they did. They put a stage. Let's set this up, though. So the coin flip has to happen. because it determines what order teams pick in in certain situations. When the tie breakers are done, yes.

So it was the 14th pick of the 15th pick, and it was either going to be Minnesota or Indianapolis getting the 14th pick. However, Minneapolis had shipped that pick to the Eagles. So they put a stage in the middle of the Indianapolis Convention Center. They had Andrew Siciliano host. They invited fans. And they put all three GMs. Rick Spielman was there despite having no interest in this pick.

So it was Ballard from the Colts, Rosemann, Rosen from the Eagles, and Speilman from the Vikings. And Spilin was there. He has no interest. Okay. So they stand there and Cecilana is hamming it up. Roseman's into it.

Ballard is so new that he's uncomfortable with the whole thing. Rick Spielman, just aggressively against this entire idea, twice says, I just want to flip the coin because we need to go see the prospects. In front of the fans, in front of the microphones. I presumably laven on the NFL network. it was the greatest act of defiance in NFL history from the GM. He just kept saying, like, I really, I really want to leave. Like, it was awesome.

And so they had Will Shields, flip the coin. Why? Because this was the greatest production in the history of sports. And then, and then they- I'm so glad I wasn't there for this. Chris Ballard also said he wanted to leave. Everyone said they wanted to leave except Haller-Rosman, who was, he,

Halle Rosen presumably liked this whole thing because he got to stand on stage, remind everyone he got the 14th pick that's exactly why he liked it yeah yeah yeah so the quote to us goes roseman wins and roseman does like a very great mock fist pump it was awesome Doug peterson was there he was in attendance she reminds me the friday night light scene where they tell coach taylor's like we we want you to say heads yeah yeah yeah yeah they're kidding but they're not really kidding yeah oh it was awesome oh great phenomenal the NFL combat and now my idea is that Instead of tiebreakers, like, you know, strength and schedule,

strength of victory, strength of loss, whatever it is, they should just do this for every team with a similar record, the same record. So if two teams are two and 14, I need a coin toss at the combo. Oh, so there's no other tiebreakers. Strength of schedule, none of that stuff should matter. No, throw it out. Siciliano, the GMs, an unrelated Hall of Famer. Will Shields had totally.

Never played for either of these teams. He doesn't even work for the NFL network. Why in any way is Will Shields involved in this? Well, they should just have other sports hall famers. Like, bring in Craig Beggio or something. Rick Berry, he's his flipping the coin. Yeah, Mario Lemieux, brought in Lemieux for this. Oh, man.

Just like a Texans, Titans tiebreaker. The weird pageantry of it all this year is so bizarre. I'm sitting there trying to listen to, I don't remember who it was. I was like Jiu Schuster Smith or something. He's at the podium. And I can't hear what he's saying because the crowd is cheering so loud on the other side of the convention center hall at the best. judge press. It's so weird. It's just so different from any other year. I can't even get my mind

around it yet. And the fact that all the guys are talking at the podiums at the same time is just annoying. I don't know. Speaking of pageantry, I saw Davis Webb throw in the ball in a convention center hallway about 30 minutes ago. He was my favorite moment of the day. I heard about Davis Webb. Tell us why. One year Cal quarterback previously at Texas Tech. He was at the podium. They were talking a lot of questions about his path and everything else. And a reporter asked, Did you think there was ever a moment where you wouldn't be in this situation because it was kind of roundabout? And Davis Webb's response, and he was a little too, like, I don't give a shit about any of this the whole time, but he really kept it off at the end with that answer. Sounds like us.

Answering that question saying, welcome to the rear of Davis Webb. Did you, you think you ever have a problem getting here? His response, I've always been six five, two hundred thirty pounds and I can throw it better than anybody. So no, he was not worried that he would get here. First of all, I think that some people when that gets a little bit of traction, which I assume it will, are going to over it like, oh man, I can't believe

I loved it. I was like, fuck yeah, you do you, man, I love this. Wow. It was great. I've always been 6'5, 230 pounds. Is that true though? I don't think he always has been. Benjamin Button situation.

He's getting shorter. Five years he's going to be Russell Wilson's height. I mean, may take longer than that. Wilson's pretty short. All right. Well, it was interesting because I watched the top quarterbacks, Deshawn Watson, Mitch Trubisky. Mitchell.

Mitchell, Trubisky. Get that shit right. He's off my board now. Mitchell Trubisky. Also, just found out that there's no N in Trubisky. I was putting Trubinsky there. I typed it that way twice today. I also have never spelled Garapolo correctly.

Never in my life. I have to look it up every time. It's one of those names. Garapolo Schwarzenegger. There's some names I just cannot spell. And I guess Mitchell Trebinski is another one of them Beautiful thing I thought that the quarterbacks were all extremely boring

Deshaun Watson had to clarify that he would in fact play for the Browns Which is I found funny He made some joke last month about wanting to play for the Cowboys At a dinner in Dallas I was there when he told that story It's just so ridiculous So this is a thing

Yeah Well I mean I guess it's the Browns You have to clarify that you would play there That's fair Miles Garrett has pretty much said he would not like to So yeah well I don't know Maybe at 12 Who's your top quarterback right now?

I don't know, man. I'm not even going to pretend like I've watched enough or even if I did watch enough that I could parse the differences between them like this guy's going to be better. I'm done playing that game. I am not a talent evaluator.

I know things I like. I know that I may have preferences, but there's just no sense I'm going to break down quarterback mechanics. The NFL team's fucking up 40% of the time. 40%? I mean, they get it right 40% of the time, probably less.

I mean, yeah. So I don't. I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me to pretend. Like, in the 10 minutes of YouTube clips I've watched with these people, be like, oh, yeah. No, I know. I'm locked into this guy. Let's talk about the running backs.

They worked out today. That was the day. I mean, that was the news of the day in terms of the actual on-field stuff. And I feel like it started with Fernette's vertical leap. Like, that was the first kind of thing that trickled out in the day. Like 28 and a half. If you could call it a leap. Yeah, it was a hop.

It was a vertical hop. Yeah. So that was the first question. It was like, oh, he's way too, way too 40. and then he jumps this, and then he runs a 4-5-1-40, none of it matters. I think it does matter.

I think there's a debate, obviously, in the NFL, but what combine drills matter. And there's the old-school sort of 40-yard dash, you know, 20-yard. There's this idea of the running, they're running 40, whatever it is. For me, I'm still really into explosion.

Now, Alvin Kamara won the vertical and broad jump today. four net not only had a 28 inch vertical he declined to do the broad jump McCaffrey had a pretty good broad jump had an incredible three cone second best one's three right second best among running backs since 03 yeah if I were to follow my explosion theory to its logical conclusion I would rather have McCaffrey or Kamara on my roster at the Leonard four net especially when you consider how high four net's going to go maybe he's going to go to Carolina at 10.

I would not want to take the 10th pick. To me, it's about what you're doing. I mean, having a nice three cones, I mean, if you're doing certain types of stuff in the sport, like it's a corner, I would like you to do that. If you were going to be running a lot of routes, change of direction is important. Leonardford, that's just a big guy who runs fast.

We didn't do the three cone yet, did he? Well, it doesn't, either way. I'm just saying that I, it's not, I think it depends on your scheme. I think it depends on what you want from them. Christian McCaffrey is ever going to be a guy you're going to give the ball to 20 times a game. Well, I think you can move him around.

He's going to play slot. He'll touch the ball a lot, but he's not going to get 20 carries. I mean, you know, we had this debate a little earlier in the media room. Danny Kelly and I were talking about it. And I think we fundamentally disagree. He said he would start thinking of McCaffrey at 25. I would go a little earlier. I'd go at maybe 16 or 17.

Watching him catch the ball today was really impressive. And again, I'm not a college football. I don't watch a ton of college football. I know of him. I know that he has a diverse skill set. Watching him catch the ball and how effort it is is pretty fun. Yeah, no, I think so. I mean, the four net thing, I just think that it's a little worrying.

That's all. It's a little worrying. He also, by the way, has not shown much in the way of passing a passing game. He does not catch the ball very easily. He does not catch the ball. I mean, I think Dalvin Cook is a much better option. Dalvin Cook tested out well today. This guy, T.J. Logan, ran the fastest 40.

I saw him right. He's from North Carolina. why did North Carolina go 8 and 5 last year? Trubinsky said today they had seven guys here. I was like, what? How did they go in every game? 2001 Miami or something. I was like seven guys?

That's amazing. How is this team not better? They have seven NFL players. It was really funny. I was doing a story on Jarvis Landry in December. And one of the things I saw was, you know, the dolphins and the Giants played each other a couple years ago. and Odell and Jarvis were just going back and forth with great plays.

Yeah. And they were obviously college teammates at LSU. And Matt Moore went up to Jarvis Landry like in the middle of all this and said, how the fuck did you guys lose a game? That's one of my favorite things. Yeah. That team. And it's not when you just look at those two.

They had Jeremy Hill, Alfred Blue, Trey Turner, Lyle Collins. The answer is not that complicated. It's Les Miles? It's Cam Cameron and Zach Metenberger. I mean, that's your answer. It's not that complicated. Yeah. No, it's, it's really interesting to me

when you reverse engineer and you see all of these different, these teams, and you really start to wonder who the hell is coaching these guys. And you look at the defense too. They had, they were young on the front four. Actually, talk to their defensive line coach

because I was considering writing about this. Yeah. So I talked to one of those guys, we were young on the front four, but everywhere else, Jayon Collins was on that team. They had, Juan Alexander was on that team. They had so many NFL players.

It was absolutely insane. What do you think about four-knit? First of all, I don't know your philosophy on this yet. Would you, where do you draw the line as far as taking a running back in the first round? Would you, if you were the Carolina Panthers, take him with your top pick? Take any running back, Cook or Four-Net? Yes. I think if I'm Carolina, I would, based on just the offense that they have.

Yeah. I think that is, because that's how they're built, I would. would. It depends on, to me, it's situational. It's about scheme. It's about who else you have. Taking Zeke, when you're Dallas, I understood the argument against it. I still think the argument against it is why it's hard to evaluate as a choice. He did very well, but he was always going to do very well. So it's tough to kind of personal, is this, was it the right move? Did they get value for it? I don't even know if you know the answer to that yet. He's a good player, but he wouldn't be. He's interesting to me. Of course he would. Right. It's interesting to me.

Obviously, Ezekiel-L-A, it was great. And, you know, he was always going to be. Around draft time, we talked about this. And I said, as a short-term solution, Ezekiel-L-Aid is a phenomenal pick, I would have picked Jalen Ramsey. Sure.

Now I have people coming in my mentions and even some Cowboys fans were actually supportive of this idea that they should have taken Ramsey and then taken a Jordan Howard somewhere, second, third round. He went the fifth round. Right.

That's just, you could find a guy. Don't take the guy with the fourth overall pick. And now, I don't want anyone to frame this as I think, Ezekiel O was a bad pick. He was obviously a phenomenal pick. From a team-building perspective,

I think there were a bunch of different paths you could go to that would all work. I said it last year when it happened. I don't know if it's the right move value-wise, but it's going to be fun as hell. And it was. In my mind, there was no doubt that that was going to be the eventual outcome,

again, in the short term, like you said. But when it comes to those other guys, I don't know. I think that there are teams for which I would do that. It's hard for me. It depends on who else is available. You know, there are, it's apparently a deep draft.

There's apparently a lot of defensive line guys, stuff like that. I still feel like with a top 10 pick, it's easier to draft a pass rusher or this or that than it is to draft a running back because it's the same kind of deal we see in free agency. I mean, Levy on Bell got the franchise tag. That is, I wouldn't give it to many other running backs. You know what I'm saying?

I think that he's rare. I think he's a special talent that transcends the position in a weird way in a way that guys like even Leonard Furnett can't. It doesn't matter how good of a running back, Leonard Fernetta's, he's not going to be as valuable as Levy on Bell for like six reasons. The way Bell runs, how good of a receiver he is. It's very hard to be that sort of foundational piece as a running back. The path to get there is really difficult.

And I just don't know how many guys are actually that good. Yeah, I agree with you. And I also think, you know, the shelf life is an interesting thing to me because we've talked about this before, but you even look at the Cowboys last year with Elliot. They didn't know Dak Prescott was going to be the starting quarterback. They thought it was going to be Tony Romo, so they thought they had to maximize their offense now. And that's part of the reason they did it is we have a short shelf life. So if Zeke Elliott's only at his pinnacle for three or four years, that's fine.

I think if they knew, if someone had tapped him on the shoulder and said, by the way, Romo is going to get hurt, and you're going to find another franchise guy in what, the fourth round, and you're going to be able to build with him for the next decade. And maybe you do take a Jalen Ramsey. So here's the thing, though. I don't know if Dak Prescott is Dak Prescott without Azico Elliott. Oh, my God. This is unbelievable. What?

It's like, no, no, no. I'm just saying, like, we're in a wormhole here. It's like that. That's how it always is, though. I mean, when I wrote about that on Thanksgiving, when Dak had that game on Thanksgiving, that was exactly what I wrote about. You can't extricate yourself, these things. You cannot separate them.

There's no way to isolate them individually because they don't exist individually. Every single piece is interconnected in a way that the entire thing falls apart if you take out one block. I mean, it's a big game of Djanga. and that's the problem with doing this. It's hard to say in a vacuum, here is the value of a running back because running backs have different values for different offenses and different guys

give you different sorts of value. You can't play this game with Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fernette because they're two completely different players. That's the issue here and it's one we're going to talk about all the way through this draft because of the running backs.

Because of how many there are, because of how much perceived value there is, this conversation is going to dominate the next month more than probably anything except the quarterbacks. Jordan Howard didn't even work out at the combine last year. He was hurt, I believe. Looking for some of his numbers. Yeah, he did not run.

And I have no idea how fast he is now. I bet he would run a 4-5-8-40 right at this moment. And I don't care. He's really good. He's really freaking good. I knew that from the, I loved him so much in college. I was thrilled when they got him. When he started slipping, I was like, absolutely take that dude.

I watched him all the time in Indiana. I watched a weird amount of Indiana football. Moving on. One of my best high school friends was the backup quarterback there. So I watched it with him. So I don't watch much college football. I watched a lot of Indiana games in recent years. Very bizarre.

Offensive linemen worked out today. Any truth of the rumor that you just broke in and you were arrested? I worked out. Yeah, yeah. Under a pseudonym. Yeah. You just get out of jail from illegally breaking in. My name is Taco Charlton.

Watching from the field. I know he's not on offensive line. How much would you have paid to go see the offensive line and work out? Because media, by the way, none. No, I think you would have. No, I don't care about that stuff. I don't care about that stuff.

I would enjoy going and watching the individual drills in the senior bowl. Like that kind of stuff, one-on-ones, that kind of thing. Watching them jump around. I do like the mirror drill. I think it's fun. When the guy just like dances back and forth, I enjoy that part. That's really the only one I like, though. I don't know what you're talking about because I've never actually viewed an offensive line workout.

One guy is staying, they stand on either side of one. one line. It's about five, probably with about five, six yards. The defender just runs back and forth and, like, jukes, and the offense line has to stay in front of him. This is called the mayoral. It's all it is. It's exciting. It's actually kind of hypnotizing. I was watching it on TV and I was like, this is not bad. It was the second coolest and most hypnotizing again, because I don't have any other words, thing that I saw on the internet today, aside from Bill Belichick eating that potato chip. That was number one. Belichick really swooped in here late. He was at the Celtics game two nights ago.

Why would he care? He's fine. He's here for the three cone. He loves the three cone. He's here for the three cone. The only person in America who loves the three cone more than Bill Belichick is you. Well, I love, I know, I love all explosive drills. He just likes the three cone.

That's not explosive drill. It's a change direction drill. No, that measures explosion. That's in the formula. That's in the formula. Sources say. All right. Sources close to good teams who value the same drill as I value.

It's overall athleticism. Yeah. Yeah. Get the 40 out of here. Get Leonard 4-9 out of here. He's off my board. He and Mitchell Trubisky. I do like the 40 for running backs.

I think that it's good. To me, it's not that I like it. I don't think it's necessarily an indicator of success. I think that that is a drill that there is a bar. If you don't get over this thing, no thank you. The 40 eliminates people. That's exactly. Yes.

That, I mean, that's in my mind watching him run a 4-5-1. It's like, okay. He's fine. Like when you watch him play football and then you watch him do that, that's fine. Like, I'm good. I would feel okay with that guy. Zeke ran,

I think a 4-4-5 last year. Yeah, good. You know, like that's very good for a big man. And Ziceli is not a small man. No. He's 225 at the Combine last year. Yeah, and then,

so Barnwell used to do this thing in football outsiders called speed score. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where it's just essentially you have all these factors and it's just a height weight speed measurement that because 40,

letter from that's 240 pounds. You know, the guy that's 220 is going to be faster. So it's kind of taking out the size element of it and factoring it in. And Leonard Fernette had the best speed score in this class by far. So that's the thing. He ran a 451, but his 451, but his 451 is better than everyone else's 4.5.1.

So the last thing I think, or the next thing I want to touch on here, did you see the Ian Rappaport report? About Romo? About Romo? I did. What if it happened? So just laying this out here. So lay this out. Ian Rappaport of the NFL Network, Intrepid Reporter, has reported that there's,

there's some talk of a Redskins and 49ers deal for Kirk Cousins, and that that talk is including additional talk, that those two teams may include the Cowboys in this three-way deal in which the 49ers get Romo, excuse me, the 49ers get cousins, the Redskins get Romo, and the Cowboys get draft picks. First of all, this is going to lead to the creation of a trade machine in the NFL. It'd be so incredible. This right here is the trade machine.

I don't think it's going to happen only because it's so complicated. And all it takes is one, and this is the reason all three team deals, you know, two team deals fall apart all the time because there are many, there are more trades in the NFL now than there used to be. There still aren't very many. but also so many of them fall apart at the last second between two teams and even more fall apart over three teams, especially in the NBA or baseball. Oh, we don't want to trade this guy.

Oh, this guy's having cold feet. And so I just can't imagine that all three teams, this is such a career defining thing. If you're John Lynch, it's going to ruin your career, man. If you're Jason Garrett, this could ruin your career.

If you're whoever runs the Redskins, We have no idea. It's me. You've done an all right job, man. I don't hate the work. Whoever runs the Redskins? Is it possible that the Redskins, just because no one's running them right now

that these teams are just calling their Redskins and they're not returning their calls? Yeah. And then they're just making up trades. Totally. That's maybe just like a person in the office. Maybe like some executive assistant is answering the phone. Her cousins is pretending to be the GM

and just like offering himself to teams. Just screaming you like that at John Lynch when he offers him. He's like, I would, you know, oh, you're talking about Kirk, like, I'm going to second around pick. You like that? Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, I just think it's funny.

I mean, we have no idea if you read the reports out of Washington right now, who is running the Redskins. And that's what's fascinating, but a potential three-way deal. I have two questions about that trade. One, if you're Dallas, why in God's name would you trade Romoto Washington? If you get some really, really good picks?

I don't even know if that's enough. You're going to automatically give, A better quarterback than the one you currently have to a TV division? There was a over the hill NFC East quarterback who made his way to Washington just a few years ago by the name of Donovan McNabb. Tony Romo was going to be better in five years than Donovan McNabb was. I'm talking from a Washington perspective. I don't know, man.

I've seen it. God, that'd be horrible. My other question is, if you're San Francisco, what would you give up for cousins? second round pick. You would not trade the second overall pick for him. No. I wouldn't either probably. No.

He's also going to be available next year. Yeah, and San Francisco is not in a hurry. John Lish is a 17-year contract. Six-year contract. Yeah, there's no reason for them to be antsy about it. But if you're, I was actually going to ask Shannon in this and I kind of got frustrated and walked away. But she got frustrated over it. Oh, just like every few other people asking questions.

I didn't want to like butt in. I'm not. This is merely a curiosity. you think. I understand that they can be patient, right? Six years, whatever. If you're Cal Shanahan, you're an offensive coach, you're the head coach and you're part of the decision making evaluation processes, that's fine.

But you're also at your core, an offensive coordinator or a quarterback guy. Do you have some urgency about like, I need my guy? Like, I need the guy. I assume that's in his mind just as the way he coaches football and what he's interested in. If you're being prudent,

kind of push that down. But I can imagine that that voice is in his head. It's interesting. Josh McDaniel tried a trade for Matt Castle when he took over in Denver. Yeah. And that led to... It led to my team getting Jay Culler.

It led to Robert's life being significantly worse than it was before. Yeah, fuck you, Josh McDaniels. It led to a conference call. I want to get this right. It led to a conference call between like Pat Bowlin, Cutler and McDaniel to try to clear the air and the conference call just made things way worse.

after a castle went to Kansas City. And so everyone knew that Denver was trying to trade for him. Cutler was already there. It doesn't take much for Cutler to get bemused in the first place. You don't say. And so it led to that. So, and then the reaction to that was they drafted Tim Tebow. And that was sort of an ego thing as well.

That was not just, okay, I built this guy in Castle. Now I'm going to take him. It was also, I'm going to build this fucking Tebow guy who can't throw. And I'm going to make him an NFL player. And I think there's, an element with Shanahan that either would satisfy him. He would either take a Kirk Cousins and say, I help this guy get where he is, now he's my guy.

But those guys also want to create. They want to take a Davis Webb in the third round and say, all right, let's see what we can do with this guy. He's got the tools. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I think they do want to create. It's just a matter of, do you genuinely think Davis guy is Davis guy?

Davis Webb is your guy. Who's Davis guy? I'm not sure. He's probably a golfer. Yeah. Davis guy, the third. It's, yes. I think it's a type of thing

when you just take the guys who have the earmarks of success. That's arm strength. That's some accuracy. Sure. I mean, I just think you can take. Kurt Cousins was third round pick, fourth round pick?

Third round pick. And so I just think you can, I think you can find a guy in the draft who you think, has the raw tools that you can build into. Sure. Here's my, they want to lose next year.

Yes, so here's my question. The Brown is what they did last year with signing Griffin and drafting Cody Cessler and Kevin Hogan. Great tank job. Under no circumstances do I think Hugh Jackson looked at Cody Cessler. I was like, this is my dude. Like this is the guy I'm going to hitch my wagon to the next five years. And my question is, are,

is San Francisco going to do the same thing? Are they going to get a couple options and free agency late in the draft where we'll play with this for now because we're not in a hurry, but these aren't our guys. That's my question. That's what they're going to do. And then you take a flyer on a guy in the fourth round and you say, I can build this guy. And you know, and you just see what happens.

It's a low risk, high reward thing. That makes sense. I could see that. All right, buddy, we're out of time. This was fun. We will be back next week. You know, this is our last one of these for the week from Indie. We're not going to do them on the weekend.

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