The Ringer NFL Show - NFC Draft Confidence Meter

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante employ a multi-tiered system to analyze, debate, and speculate on which teams and GMs in the NFC are most likely to excel and improve in the upcoming NFL draft. Cowboys, Saints, Seahawks (4:27) Rams, Eagles, Bucs (25:18) 49ers, Packers, Lions (47:02) Falcons, Giants, Vikings (1:07:54) Bears, Cardinals, Commanders, Panthers (1:23:31) The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producer: Chris Sutton Social: Kiera Givens Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, my birdie buddies, my car saving pals. My eagle enthusiast, it's Joe House here. Major season is finally upon us. The Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and Fairway Rowan is here to break down all of the storylines. Offer a little help on those betting cards for every single major this golf season. Join me and our Incom. Comparable accomplice, our tour boots on the ground.

Nathan Hubbard, as we guide you from Augusta all the way to Northern Ireland, Royal Port Rush. Away we go. To the Ringer NFL show, Shield Capadia here with Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. We're doing a little confidence skill today. You know, this time of year, you hear this person's a good drafter. This person's a bad drafter. How have they actually performed?

How much confidence should you have in each of these teams going into the 20, 25 NFL draft? So we looked at track record, use of resources, vibes, whatever we want to go by. We're going to put them in one of, I think, four tiers, four tiers that we have here. We're going to start with the NFC today. We're going to do the AFC next week. Ruiz, how did you find the prep for this exercise? It was enlightening to me. Like, you realize how fickle the draft performance can be year to year.

Like, especially with, like, take a guy and we'll get into him, I think we'll spend a fair amount of time on Howie Roseman. But you look at his past drafts. Last couple years, out the park, 100%, like, all the way through almost. But like the four years before that little stretch, it was like, it was bad. Some bad first round picks. But yeah, and then like even some guys, like you're going through and you're like, oh, that was an ugly draft.

But you also think back to what you were thinking about those players before the draft. and he were like kind of doing like the Russell Westbrook and the crowd eating the food meme. And like, I thought that guy was a good player, but that's a bad pick. Yeah. Deontes, how was it for you? Because I had some of the similar experiences that Ruiz just laid out. Very similar. I think it's one of those things where if you go into it looking for reasons to hate how a guy is drafted,

you will find plenty of material that works for you. And if you're looking for reasons to like a guy, you're going to pick that one or two draft classes that stick out, you know, in the midst of a bunch of otherwise mediocre ones and say, that was the one. You know, just like how people would say, this is when this guy became president. That's when that guy became my GM. You can definitely find that in every year. Yeah, it's amazing how one or two, one great draft can set you up.

Like, if you have one of these all times, two great drafts can really set you up for a five-year span. And it's kind of similar vice versa. And yeah, I left this exercise being like, no one's a good drafter. no one's a bad drafter. How do they use their resources? Because to Ruiz's point, I did try to not do the thing of they took player X instead of player Y, they're dummies. And I tried to take myself back to that moment.

Well, what did I think of player X at that time? You know, it's easy to anyone can go back three years later and look at it. So yeah, we'll try to keep each other in check with some of those critiques here. But the tears we have are, one, take my money. I trust you implicitly. Two, benefit of the doubt. Nobody's perfect, but you have our confidence. Three, let me scroll down.

Wild cards need more information. And four, oh, sorry, we have five. We have five different tiers here. Four is short-termism. Are you picking to save your job or building for the future? And then five, lock them out of the draft room. So take the keys. Don't let them call the picture.

And so, yeah, this was a difficult exercise. I'm curious to see where you guys landed on some of these decision makers. So we're going to start with the most experienced. So the GMs or owners or decision makers, we have the biggest sample on and then kind of work our way down. And who has more experience than Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys? Thanks to Ruiz for kind of counting all of these drafts for these different teams. 36 drafts for Jerry Jones here. They go into this season with Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach.

They move on from Mike McCarthy. They've still got a lot of the same pieces in place here with their roster. Ruiz, what tier did you have Jerry Jones? And I guess we should say Will McLeigh also, who's kind of their draft guy that Jerry Jones may or may not be leaning on depending on what year we're in. Yeah, I went with Will McLeigh here, and I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, just because I feel like even the trades, I feel like there's been a good process. Jerry Jones has this reputation for being the Wheeler dealer who wants to be in the spotlight and wants to draft to get in the spotlight. I know that was at least a talking point a couple of years ago. But really, they draft a draft ahead of need.

I feel like they draft positions that aren't the sexiest positions. For the most part, they trade down when given the opportunity. They're not trading up to make, you know, blockbuster moves that get them the headlines on SportsCenter. So I feel like their draft strategy kind of differs from like the perception of what this team is and how they build their roster. So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I don't think they've made enough, or they've added enough talent in recent years to give them the take my money. I trust you implicitly tier. But they were in that tier for me at least like five years ago.

Now I think they've taken a step back. Deontay, where'd you have them? benefit of the doubt. I really kind of waffle between that and wildcard. And I think that to Steven's point, a lot of that has to just do with like the reputation of the character that Jerry Jones is. But if you think about Will McClay as the lead man in the house, you probably, at least in the draft context, you would probably say benefit of the doubt. Not only do they pick ahead of need, not only do I do a good job of identifying players in mid rounds that can be contributors for them. The guys that, the guys they pick typically stick for a little while, right? Like those are guys that get to second contracts.

They're usually guys who are early contributors, guys that are worth. keeping around for a little bit longer. And that's not just one or two hot drafts, right? Like you can kind of scroll through with the Cowboys history over the last half decade or so. And you find guys that have been longtime starters for them. If they've left Dallas, they've gone on to be contributors in the next spot that they go to. So they've done a really good job, I think, of at least identifying players that can contribute. If there is anything to nitpick at, it's just been the fact that they don't necessarily find star players early. But a lot of that, I think, comes back to the fact that they usually draft in the trenches

in the top 50 to 75 of the draft, and you're usually going to just find more good players, good contributors than star players outside of edge rusher, obviously with like Michael Parsons. Yeah, this was helpful because it was a reminder that the draft has not been the issue for the Dallas Cowboys. You know, it's the other stuff when you look at how they've managed their roster, and we've talked about that quite a bit.

But the draft is sort of the reason why they've had a high floor. I mean, they're 30 games over 500 when Dak Prescott is their starting quarterback. They have, you know, 2021 to 2023. The only team that won more games than the Cowboys was the Kansas City Chiefs. And it's not like they have top five picks every year. You know, they're getting Michael Parsons at 12. They're getting Dak Prescott in the fourth round. They're getting C.D. Lamb at 17.

They're getting Tyler Smith at 24. I mean, these are kind of the building blocks of their entire roster. And then to Deontes point, in the later rounds, they've done a pretty good job, supplementing those star pieces with other good players at well. as well. So they haven't been big players in free agency, but the last two drafts have not been great and we'll see how those pan out, you know, those players we can still see after three or four years. But I add him in the same tier as you guys. You know, I think Will McClay has done a good job. I think when Jerry Jones has kind of stayed out of it, you know, the Johnny Mansell year

comes to mind and some other ones where it's been like you can talk Jerry Jones out of what he might want to do and go in another direction. I know Connor Cook, I think. think was the quarterback, right? They wanted when they drafted Dak Prescott. And so there's luck involved in all of this. And Paxton Lynch. Don't forget about Paxton Lynch. You wanted two quarterbacks.

Okay. Yeah. So sometimes you get lucky. But that could be said for a lot of these guys. You know, that's how it happens sometimes. But I'm with you guys. You know, it's like, all right, they, you know, I'm looking at them compared to some of these other teams.

And they've done a pretty good job. Should they be hired? Should they be hard? Is this like recency slash Jerry Jones, anti-Jerry Jones bias here at work here? just the last two drafts haven't really given them much, but you only have to go back three years, four years to find Tyler Smith, Michael Parsons, C.D. Lamb was four years or five years ago at this point. True.

I mean, maybe we can revisit this after we've looked at the whole conference, but I think we take a step back, and I'm doing this myself, maybe we're underrating them a little bit just because of that cowboy's bias. Yeah, I think there's a case for it. For some of these guys, it was hard to block out the other stuff, And maybe that's what's happening here. And also, you know, I'm looking at the Mazi Smith pick from 2023, but it's like everyone misses, you know, it's not like everybody nails every first round pick. So you might be right that they belong, they could belong higher.

So there you go. All right. Next team on our list, the New Orleans Saints. Mickey Loomis, I could have believed this when Ruiz put it in our Slack, 23 years. Mickey Loomis has been there for the New Orleans. Saints. And I got to start this one off, guys, by a little exercise because I was, you know, researching Mickey Loomis a little bit and the Wikipedia page comes up. Can I just read you the last three graphs of Mickey Loomis's Wikipedia page? I don't know either. I love this. I love this so much.

Loomis was one of the, this is the last three paragraphs. Lumis was one of the Saints officials to be penalized in 2012 in the aftermath of the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal in which an NFL investigation found that players were paid bonuses from a pool for their on-field performance, including allegedly deliberately trying to knock opposing players out of games. A league investigation found that Saints team owner Tom Benson had ordered Loomis to shut the program down, but Loomis failed to do so. As a result, Loomis was suspended for the first eight games of the 2012 NFL season. So that's paragraph one.

Paragraph two. In April 2012, ESPN's outside the lines reported allegations, that Loomis had an illegal eavesdropping device that allowed him to listen to real-time play calls of opposed coaches during the 2002 to 2004 seasons. Loomis denied the allegation calling the report absolutely false. And in August 2012, the Louisiana state police announced that a four-month investigation had found no evidence to corroborate the allegations. You don't say.

And then the last paragraph in June 2012, Loomis was named the head of basketball operations for the Hornets. After Tom Benson bought the team, he served in that capacity from 2012 to 2019. Wow, what a life Mickey Loomis has lived, Deonté. I don't know how much of that I forgot in the past, but I'm looking at it going. I definitely do not remember all of these highlighted parts of Mickey Loomis' career. The thing that sticks out most right is the time you spend as a Hornet slash Pelicans. running personnel there. And I only remember that because I remember Pelicans where an NBA

reporters pointing out how bad their training staff was because they were just using Saints people. And it's like, what you do in the NFL doesn't apply to basketball players body maintenance at all. So I definitely remember that. And I remember that being a big part of how they were trying to build around Anthony Davis before he ultimately left for Los Angeles. So I do remember that. I did not remember the controversy with him listening in on play calls. And I would just love to get a visual of Mickey Loomis up in the front office with the laminated sheet over his mouth trying to whisper calls down to the coach so that way they can make adjustments and play calls based off of what he was hearing.

The guy just doesn't not remember that at all. I can't hate on him. The guy just loves ball. Ball of all shapes and size is too. Basketball football. The guy can do it all. But no, I gave him a lock him out of the draft room. I'm sorry.

You're locking him out of the draft room. Okay, why? Because 2017 was eight years ago. And you're talking about guys living off of one draft. Like Mickey Loomis is the guy. And honestly, it's the draft to live off of. It's like the equivalent of that Steelers draft from the 70s when they like drafted their whole Hall of Fame Corps.

Marshawn Latimore, Ryan Ramchick, Marcus Williams, Alvin Camara, Alex Anzoloni, Trey Hendrickson, in one draft, in the top three rounds of one draft. I mean, honestly, he should get the benefit of the doubt based off that one draft if all the other drafts and all the other decisions weren't so bad. So many trade-ups for players that didn't end up being anything, which I'm not holding against them. I think we all at the time were like, what was up with this trade-up?

There were a couple times where they caught our neck. They thought they were trading up for a quarterback and ended up trading for some like defensive end half the time. But yeah, the process is bad. The picks haven't been great of late over the last couple of years. And I think I'm kind of applying his approach to managing the salary cap to this. So yeah, he's locked out of the draft room for me. All right.

Locking him out, Deont Air. listen in with like a secret device. Yeah, watch out. He's locked out and it's, it's not just what we've been talking about from after the post-2017 draft. I was like, all right, you got a half decade of basically being able to keep this thing afloat because of those players. And a lot of those guys have left the building since then.

So there's that piece of it. And then I think more importantly, though, I just think about that space between 2009 when the Saints are Super Bowl-level contended, Super Bowl winning team. the 2017 draft. And that team was just mired of mediocrity in spite of the fact that they had a quarterback that was putting up insane numbers year in and year out. You had Sean Payton was one of the best offensive play callers during that time. I think you had Rob Ryan in, who was still at that point in time, a pretty good defensive coordinator. You've had Greg Williams over that time as well, who I think most people still consider, at least considered to be a good defensive coordinator

at that point in time. They got nothing accomplished during that period. Right. Like I think the best year there in between was probably what, 2016, 2017, not 2017, but 2017, where you get to go to the divisional realm and you lose to the Vikings, right? When you have that, the music seed a miracle or the Minneapolis miracle or whatever. And

after that, there's really not much else to speak on, right? And then you get 2017, which keeps them afloat. And now that you've seen what 2018, 19, and 20s done, what little it's accomplished in terms of backfilling that roster with depth. And now you're looking at a team that desperately needs to rebuild, but a GM who

won't do it and he trusts himself in the draft in a way that is not supported by evidence over the last few years. I think Stephen is right in saying that recent advice affects how we look at these guys. But if you just watch the trend lines, this is a spike and everything else has been pretty flat and it's been flat near the bottom of the chart, right? And I don't think that you can trust that he's going to turn this roster around with the draft. You guys talked me into it. I probably should have had him there. I just, you know, I thought I like to equal out the tears a little bit. And And so I went short termism. Are you picking to save your job or building for the future?

Now, he has job security. I was going to say, he's not saving his job. But just in terms of the short term thing, I'm like, who does that apply to better than the Saints? And it goes to what you guys are talking about, trading so confidence, feeling like, oh, we know, we've scouted these guys. We have an edge scouting these guys. And we're going to dump resources into some of these trades. They have not traded back, unless I'm wrong about this. I don't believe they've traded back in the first round.

since he became the GM, which is crazy. I mean, we're talking two decades. There's not one time where you traded back for additional picks there. So that's valid. You're right. The 2017 drafts, sometimes you'd need just one, man. And it can save you. It can make you look smart.

It can set your team up for the future. And I think that's what happened with Mickey Loomis. But yeah, we're all around the same ballpark there with him. All right. Next one, John Schneider of the Seattle Seahawks, who has 15 drafts under his belt, started with the Seahawks in 2010. They hire Pete Carroll first. Pete Carroll brings on John Schneider. They move on from Pete Carroll.

John Schneider keeps his job. You know, if there was ever some ambiguity about, does he have the keys? Does he not have the keys? Well, now there is no ambiguity. It's all him here. and he is facing a big, big draft, given how the Seahawks offseason has gone. Deontay, where do you put John Schneider in one of these tiers? Because I thought he was a pretty difficult one to place.

He's a really difficult one to place, especially when you start looking at who else you have in these tears, right? And you start thinking about, well, I don't know exactly know how to extricate his decision-making versus Pete Carroll's. We don't have enough information on the most recent draft class that he's had, right, and how those guys have panned out. yet we're not talking about second contracts with guys or anything like that yet. So it's just incomplete in terms of information. So right now I kind of have more on like that wild card-ish, you know, like I just, I need I need more time to really kind of suss out who he is as a decision maker, especially after making these trades of D.K. Metcalf and Gino Smith, right?

I want to see what this roster looks like in 2026, 2027 before I really make a judgment on them. But if you just look at what the draft history has been, at least over the last three, to four years. You're usually finding decent contributors, but to the point that we were making in the mock draft we did earlier this week, this is never a team that takes its vegetables. This is never a team that's willing to say, hey, that wide receiver, that DB, that linebacker, that safety that we really like in the top 50 to 75, we're going to have to let that guy go because we've really got to address X hole that has been a hole for us for however long, right? It always feels like

they're plugging those holes with unproven commodities in free agency or later round draft picks that are big time projections to pan out. And if we had landed on picks that would have worked out in that way, maybe I have them more in the short-termism or benefit of the doubt tier. But I just don't see trench talent, young trench talent, outside of Byron Murphy, so as a high ceiling that they picked last year, you don't see enough on the offensive line, certainly, on the interior. Maybe Christian Haynes is able to play more in the upcoming season, and we get to see a little bit more of him, and that helps change some of John Schneider's reputation with interior offensive line drafting.

But yeah, it's an incomplete draft card right now. But if I had to be honest, if I had to place him someplace, he would be much closer to short-termism or lock them out if I had to pick right now. I just don't have enough to do so. Ruiz? What do you think? Yeah, I kind of had the same problem where it's a not enough info situation just because of Pete Carroll's power in that front office for a decade plus, basically.

But I'm going to go with benefit of the doubt. Just because I do trust them with the trades, I don't think he's like a naive trader. Like he's going to trade back when he has to. He'll trade up on occasion, but not anything extreme. And then I think he has found good talent. If you want to give him some of the credit for finding that talent early on in the Legion of Boom area, which I think he deserves some of it.

He deserves credit for the Russell Wilson thing. I know it was a long time ago. But he has shown over the last couple of years that he can find, he still has an eye for talent. So I'll give him a check mark there. And then the trades, I'll give him a check mark. He's been a little reckless this off season, I would say. You know, he's got a little too much dip on his chip, but I'm not going to hold that against him too much

and discount everything they've done in that front office over the last decade plus. So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But he's fringe on short-termism for me just because of the nature of his job now. I can Pete Carroll left. Yeah, you know, I didn't even consider him for the short-termism. But that might, I think that might be where he belongs. I mean, who is... That's why I had him initially.

Yeah, I'm moving him there, you know, because I think he's got to be feeling the heat here. When you make the moves that he made this offseason and are that aggressive and saying, hey, Pete Carroll's gone, I'm doing it my way now, and you're going from Gino to Sam Darnold and you're trading D.K. Metcalfe, and you're saying, hey, Clint Kubiak's going to fix our offensive line problems.

That's a lot of what-ifs, a lot of uncertainty. So I think he belongs in the short-termism. Now, his draft history, 2010 to 2012, I mean, just these are legendary drafts that run. Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Cam Chancellor, Bobby Wagner, Golden Tate, Russell Wilson, KJ. Wright, that's a three-year span to get all those guys. And, you know, when I was covering the Seahawks, my understanding was always that he is running the draft. Now, Pete Carroll wanted, like, hey, I don't, if he, if he's, He said, we're not doing that.

Then they're not doing that. Pete Carroll had the final say, but I don't think Pete Carroll was someone who was coming in and changing everything around. I could be wrong about that, but I always still felt like it was John Schneider and his staff running the draft. Now, the blind spot, you know, I was looking at this going, is it just that he has the one blind spot that he can't figure out? And I think there's a case for that with the offensive line. So I remember making this case, again, when I covered the team that, no, no, no, he is investing. in the offensive line. They just can't hit.

They're getting it wrong over and over and over again. And so I just went back this morning and looked at the little pro football reference draft history. John Schneider has drafted 23 offensive linemen during his tenure with the Seahawks. And 11 of them are on day one or day two of the draft. So it's not like, all right, you're patting the stats with a bunch of seventh round. Just 11 on day one or day two of the draft. his first draft pick ever was Russell O'Coon at number six overall in 2010. Russell O'Cum made a couple of Pro Bowls.

The 22 offensive linemen that John Schneider has drafted since then have combined for zero Pro Bowls. And I know Pro Bowls is a dumb like thing to look at, but it's like if anything, you get the benefit of the doubt because seven guys don't want to go. And you're in there. And still, 22 offensive linemen over a 14-year-should. span and not one has made a Pro Bowl. And so, man, I just don't know. Like, I don't know how often they've looked at that and said, what are we doing wrong? How do we scout it better? What's going wrong? Is it draft and developing? But that has just been the biggest issue for them for a decade plus, because you can really make the case. I mentioned 2010 to 2012. Even their last four first round

picks, Byron Murphy, Devin Witherspoon, Jackson Smith and Jigba, Charles Cross. Like, that's pretty good. And I know one of them's an offensive lineman, and maybe he'll eventually make a pro bowl. But man, that offensive line thing, really his job could come down to whether he can actually draft an offensive lineman that can play. Yeah. I wonder, like, do you think what's the more rational explanation for that? He's terrible at drafting offensive linemen or the coaching staff is just bad at developing offensive lines. But they had multiple. They had that many offensive linemen bad because it wasn't like they were reaching on all these picks.

It's like, I think everyone agreed at the time that these were first, or day one, day two picks when they took them. Like, what are the chances that all of them were bad and that he's that bad of an evaluator of offense? Why, maybe he is. Well, I'm looking at these guys and none of them have like, you know, gone anywhere else and done anything. That's a good point. Yeah. It's like, well, then is it. And they've had so many, this is the thing with the Kubiak argument.

It's like, dude, you've had how many offensive coordinators have cycled through that place. And, you know, you went from Beville to shot. to Waldron to grub. It's like it's not like you've had one offensive coordinator for the whole decade. So why is it going to be different under this guy? You're right. I mean, there's some luck to it. There's some randomness to it.

There's no doubt about it. Some of the guys have at least gone on and been a little bit better in other places, but none of them have been that good. And so, you know, most of these GMs, we don't have a big sample on. But that's one that, man, I'm putting him in short termism. I'm got to find offensive line help. in this draft or who knows what that franchise is going to look like at this time next year. All right.

Let's take a break. We come back. We get to the other decision makers in the NFC. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. We stay in the NFC West. We go to Los Angeles. Previously, St. Louis.

He was in St. Louis, right? Les Need. Yeah, he was still their GM. Man, that tells you, he's been around 13 drafts under his watch. They're now like, hey, first round, Not bad. We can get some good players with these. Ruiz, we'll start with you. Where do you have less need for the Los Angeles Rams? I'm putting him in the take my money category. He's my first take my money and he's the I trust you way more than I trust myself. Guy, the first one on this list. Wow. We talked about his eye for talent over the last couple of years. They need it, you know, they've needed to find guys on the day two rounds, day three rounds just because their lack of first round picks. And they've been able to find starters consistently.

throughout, which I give them credit for. I don't want to give them too much credit for it because sometimes that's luck. Sometimes that's coaching. When you have Shaw McVeigh, it's easier to coach or draft players that end up being good. But like you look back at these trades and he'll make the right trades back, but he'll also make the right trades up. He traded up for Braden Fis last year with the Panthers. That was a smart trade.

He didn't give up too much to get him either. But you go back a couple years ago, 2023, he trades back and gets Pooka Nakua in the fifth round. He trades back and gets Kobe Turner in the third round. And there are a bunch of these examples of him on day two and day three making those moves trading up and down the draft board and really positioning himself to either pick up a decent player who turns into an actually like a great player in the case of Nakuwa or acquiring more draft capital for the next year. So they have more of those lottery tickets in the later rounds and they can hit on some of these guys. I'm looking like my eyes get drawn to the picks on day two and day three that hit,

but there are a lot of other picks that didn't hit, but that doesn't matter. Like, you get credit for that because when you acquire all these draft picks, after a certain amount of picks, you're going to end up with a good player. That's just the, you know, the law of averages. And he's taking advantage of that for a decade now. Deontay, do you also have him in that top tier? Not only is he take my money, if we were going ranking one through 16, in the conference, I would have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I felt about him versus how he rose. Like, he might be number one in the NFC to me.

Like, especially when you adjust for like degree of difficulty, given the fact that this is a team that has not been picking in the first round very often since picking Jared Gough, this dude has been lights out. I don't know how many GMs get to keep their job if they have to go this many drafts without a first round pick, or to have to find starters this often in day three of the draft. You can just look, fourth fifth and sixth round, right? They are finding several guys, offensive line, defensive line. They found DBs.

Now, in some ways, if we were taking a full picture, I would have plenty of critiques for less needed in the way the Rams operate because they don't often take big swings in free agency for veterans that can come and plug holes that I know that they need veteran leadership or star guys who know what to do at those positions. And that has been an issue for me with the Rams. It's feeling like, since they've won a Super Bowl, they've had holes that they don't address because they don't spend a lot of guaranteed money.

And that's what vets you're looking for, you know, if you're going to go to a place like L.A. But to me, if you're just looking at the draft specifically, like Stephen said, not only trading up but trading back, knowing how to accumulate picks. And the fact that they have found as many starters and active players on this roster since like the 2021-2020 draft and on day three, to me, that's the most impressive thing. I think looking at all these guys' resumes and then just thinking about where this team has been positioned. the fact that this is a playoff team this quickly after the disaster that was 2022 speaks very highly not only of Sean McVeigh as a play caller but of less need

in terms of backfilling this team with enough depth to be able to get themselves out of that hole. Do we give them credit for using those first round picks? Like in terms of like how much you trust them for a draft? Yeah, they use them like you get Jalen Ramsey, you get Matthew Stafford, you get Vaughn Miller. Like you've got players that won in a Super Bowl with those first round picks.

Yeah. Yeah. No, but I'm saying, do we give them credit in terms of draft confidence? Oh, like, they didn't use those picks on draft players, but they used them. And they didn't trade them during the draft, obviously. They traded them during the season. But I kind of do. I would say so, yeah.

And if you do give him that credit, then, like, I think he's number one in the NFC with a bullet. Like, I don't even think it. Like, obviously, Harry Roseman has two Super Bowls to show for it. But, I mean, Sneed, I feel like has done more of the heavy lifting in terms of team building. I don't know. It's kind of hard because the McVeigh factor. is there. It's kind of similar to the John Schneider, Pete Carroll thing, like, how much credit do you give to each guy? But like, how much credit are we giving to McVefer finding defensive guys? And that's

where they've really done their work in the draft the last couple of years. I know they've obviously drafted into Kua also, but I don't know. I'm inclined to give Sneed more of the credit for the draft record they have put together of the last couple of years. This is fun going third for me because I say, do they talk me into something or do I vehemently disagree? You talked me into it. I had him, for what you just mentioned, the McVeigh factor, I had him one tier down, just in benefit of the doubt. Nobody's perfect, but you have our confidence because in my head, I feel like McVeigh can do more with less and you give him, you know, some guys and he's going to make it look good. And you have more margin for error than if you're a GM with a coach who's not able to do that. However, I think you guys are right.

I mean, what he's done the last two years just with that defensive line is very, very rare. to the Roseman comparison, you just mentioned, like he got a lot of credit for rebuilding the secondary with one draft. The Rams rebuilt their defensive line while Aaron Donald retired, and it turned it to one of the better ones in the league, like the identity of their defense that keeps them aflo. Jared Verse, Braden Fiske, Byron Young, Kobe Turner, and then some of the late round hits, like these are big hits.

Cooper Cup in the third, Puka Nakua in the fifth. Like those are big, big hits. To get a player like Nakua in the fifth round, seeing what wide receiver salaries are being paid out. And I forgot that they traded back and did that. So even better, like Ruiz mentioned, and I think the thing that got lost during the F-D picks era was what you guys just alluded to, was that they were still making a lot of picks.

They knew that, hey, we don't have our first. We're trading our first for veterans. How can we accumulate picks to take more swings on day two and day three? And they were doing that consistently during that time. So like the plan actually made more sense than just F them picks. It knows F them first round picks. Right. But let's find a way to adjust for that on day two and day three.

And they're still doing that. I mean, they've had 24 draft picks over the last two seasons. Like the very basis of me, for me of draft analysis is like try to get a lot of picks because it's really hard and everybody makes mistakes and you're not going to hit on all of them. Can you draft more players and just get more bites at the apple? And they, you know, consistently have done that. specifically in recent rounds as well. So I think their resource allocation has been really good in recent years. They've had seven picks in the top 100, the last two seasons,

and five of those have been line of scrimmage players, either offensive line or pass rush. So I'm with you guys. Yeah, I'm glad we, this is why it's good to talk it out because I probably was not giving him enough credit. But yeah, I think he does belong in that top tier there. All right, good transition here. to the next guy, Howie Roseman, 11 drafts with the Eagles, had a bunch and didn't have any.

Chip Kelly comes in, he comes back. So I was looking mostly at since really 2016 when he got the team back. And so that would be- The Wynx draft on. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that would be with the last, what, eight or nine drafts here.

Howie Roseman, Deontay, what tier do you have him in? I haven't been taking my money because he's, because, of how he's able to maneuver his own draft capital to accumulate more when he needs it. He always seems to be on the cutting edge. He always seems to know exactly what moves to make, how to negotiate, to add draft value, and to address the needs that exist, right? This is not just the defensive backroom going from what it was two seasons ago to what we saw last year.

They've done a really good job at taking smart swings at offensive line. Now, all those don't work out, right? Like for all the credit that you get for finding a Milata, you have to deal with the fact that you try to go get Andre Dillard, right? And that doesn't work out for you. He was basically a waste of a pick. Even though that was a good process, right, you don't get any return for that. I think about the fact that he was basically able to manipulate the Saints and giving up way more draft capital than they ever should have to go get a good player in Chris Olivae. But now you're able to go use that to help add young talent to your defensive line, right?

You go get a Nolan Smith. You get a Jordan Davis. You're able to make a move for Jalen Carter when you see him sliding in the draft. In terms of just understanding exactly what to do with your draft picks, especially early, I don't know if there's anybody better outside of less need, at least on the NFC and knowing how to maneuver to be able to address all your needs and find these high ceiling, these high ceiling players. So yeah, I have them and take my money.

I think we joke a lot about like how we wanting people that think he's smart and wanting people to celebrate him as a team builder. being very impressed by his own work, but I think they take like a humble approach to the draft. They're one of these teams that take an approach where like, we're not going to outsmart you by like out scouting you and stuff. We were not, they stick to the consensus, big board for the most part. They're taking the players that we all expect to go in the spots that they're drafting. Yep.

And they trade down and they trade for more picks. They want to get more picks usually. And it always almost always works out for them. They're the kings of that like, oh, five years after the trade, let's see what all those picks turned into graphics. Like, they rule those things. I feel like how he lives for those. He said winning the Super Bowl is better than sex.

I would imagine that those graphics are even better than that. It's like having sex twice. But, yeah, he's a take-my-money guy. I don't even think we need to discuss him anymore. I think he's the most obvious take-my-money guy. I might put Sneed ahead of him just because of degree of difficulty, like Deonti said, but he was the one where right when I saw his name, I was like, take my money, I don't even have to look into it.

And then when you look into it, you're like, yes, 100% take my money. Yeah, I was looking at just the Super Bowl. They had 25 players play at least 20 snaps. 17 of those were draft picks. So yes, the Sequin Edition and Zach Baum, those have made a big difference. But for the most part, they built through the draft, not just through the draft, but they're a team that trades up more than the nerds would say you should in the first round. But typically it's a smaller trade up.

And then they get those picks back on day two or day three so that they're still. drafting for volume there. But I think Ruiz's point at the top was a good one, even for a guy who I think anyone would objectively say belongs in that top tier. In the last five years, Jalen Rager over Justin Jefferson, traded up for Jordan Davis,

who played 12 snaps in the Super Bowl over Kyle Hamilton. So that's not me ripping how it. It's an example of this is hard. And you have every GM, even ones who you think are doing an amazing job, are going to have those misses. But yeah, I do think in recent years what you said about the consensus board and sticking to guys and not overthinking it. That's really coming to focus, I think, for the Eagles in recent years.

I think that what's unique about him, too, is that for all the trading up he does, I would say that he very consistently keeps a long view. And I think that that's why his draft history is so friendly, right? You go take a Landon Dickerson, you get a Nolan Smith, you get a Devonce Smith. The way he attacks the draft is always for what can this player be by the end of his rookie deal. and less so what can he do for us right this moment, right? Like even taking Jordan Davis, who I don't know if he's going to have his fifth-year option picked up. I don't think that he's played enough or effectively enough when he's been on the field

to merit that. I don't know what Nolan Smith's health is going to be like, given his size and the way that he plays at his position. I don't know if Nacobi Dean's health is going to be okay at coming off of a Torin Patel tendon, right? But each of those picks, you look at those guys. You look at guys like, can he gain well and what he's been able to contribute as a day three pick, et cetera.

a lot of this is taking a guy who fit not only not only they high on the consensus board not only do they follow the wisdom of the crowds they're smart with if we're going to take a guy it's usually going to be athletic outliers guys who are on the right side of the age curve they like taking younger guys and they don't take guys that have to step in and be immediate contributors from day one right Milton Williams is a success story not just for what he was in 2024 but the fact that you took this guy in 2021 knowing you didn't need to play him because you still had a fletcher cox there. You still had other guys playing on the defensive interior and you could take the long view with his development. So that way when he's ready, he's ready to be a major contributor. Not a lot of

teams are even in position to do that. Not a lot of GMs have the job security to take the long view in the way the Howie Roseman is able to. But it is a credit that he has used it properly. And I would say Jalen Hertz might be the biggest example of that because they didn't have to take Hertz when they did. You do that because it's valuable. You take the long view on the guy. And now that you have a measure starter, you're a Super Bowl winning team. I also think he's like a guy who takes the wider view when he is making individual trades. It's like you can't really get a beat on how he approaches trades just based on a single move because like one move is going to trade in turn into like five separate moves for them.

So like even a trade up in the first round sometimes like I guess he technically traded up in the first round with the Saints trade. It's kind of hard because I think they swapped multiple first round picks. Yeah. But he picks up so much like day two capital along the way. And then he turns that day two capital into picks later down the road. So even like the nerds being able to nitpick, they nitpick at running the football. But they love play action.

Go figure. Jason Light next on the board has been with the Tampa Bay Bucks for 11 drafts. Ruiz. What tier did you have Jason Light in? He's the toughest. He was the toughest one for me. Yeah. Okay.

Because I think he could make the argument that he's like, his approach to the draft is bad. But like, because he traded up to draft a kicker. I don't know if you remember this. Yeah, I know. Some of these guys in my head, I'm like, all right, I got to get over things that happened. You know, less need had moments a long time ago and even Howie. So I was trying to figure like trying to focus on the more recent hit. That was a while ago, right?

It was a while ago. But it also feels like his. It's hard to forget. His reputation as a GM is built on the fact that Tom Brady decided to come here and bring his friends along with them and win a Super Bowl. Like that's what it feels like. But they have been good at acquiring talent. I'm looking at his past drafts. Like, which draft picks are you excited about going back?

Maybe Tristan Lorses is the last one where it's like, oh, we got value over where we were drafting at. And then you go back to his past and you think about him trading up for a kicker. And if I'm not mistaken, I think they drafted another kicker later. No, no, I'm thinking of a different team. No, he didn't. No, no, he did. Matt Gay. They drafted it Matt Gay in 2019.

They took Kyle Trask in the second round. They took Kyle Trask in the second round. They took Kyle Trask. Yeah, that's the big one that stands out. That's a really rough one. That's a bad pick. Yeah. So for me, it's just like a mixed bag.

And I think that the idea that he's a good GM is based on that 2020 bucks team. Because outside of that, he spent a lot of money in free agency and hasn't gotten a lot of bang for his buck. And I don't know how if he would still have a job if Tom Brady never came to Tampa Bay. And Tom Brady very much decided the bucks. It wasn't the other way around. Deonti, you agree with Ruiz on Jason Light. he is in a handful of guys that I was just kind of tortured trying to find a spot to place them. I think that with him maybe the reason why I have such a hard time with him is that he's almost

always drafting to type, right? Like I've said this in mock drafts for the last few years. You get to the bucks when you're trying to do a mock draft and you're like, okay, who's the edge rusher that's 6-4, 280 pounds, has 34 inch arms and was not very productive at the college level, but as a really good athlete, they're probably going to take that guy in the top 50, right? And it's not that that's a bad process. Because if you hit a high ceiling guy like that, that can change the course of not only that side of the ball, but your entire franchise. Same with the offensive line.

It's just that these things just have not worked out for them. I was setting the Aguio pick was so bad. You set it to the side. The Trask pick, based on what he was in college, the evaluation of him, that's so bad. I'm almost setting that to the side as like, those are significant negative outliers. We can address those individually. But if I'm just taking it on the whole, every one of the picks they make, you can look at it and say,

okay, that probably was the right pick based on how I felt about that player at that time. You think about the fact that they've been trying to address certain needs on this roster. They've always been pretty decent in terms of roster health year over year. So there's not a lot of like, they're not a lot of black marks on them in terms of, oh, they had to do X and they did Y instead. It's just that these guys haven't hit. I think that when we get to the Packers will have a similar conversation as well with how they draft. I put him in short-termism because it always just feels like he's making the same kinds of moves in the draft year over year, waiting to see if the results change.

It's not that the process is bad. It's just that I think maybe we're dealing with the guy who is the living embodiment of insanity, right, doing the same thing and expecting different results. I did ultimately give him benefit of the doubt, but now I'm regretting that. Just looking, again, looking back through the draft board, it's not just the kicker picks. Like, I think he has, he does not have a grasp on positional value in general. like they've drafted a tight end in the first round who failed. OJ Howard. They drafted the defensive tackle.

Vita Valle is one of their big hits and he's a defensive tackle. He's a run-stuffing defensive tackle. Devin White with a top five pick, a linebacker. He made a Pro Bowl, but he was not good even during the Pro Bowl year. Moving on, yeah, they're not, I don't think they have an eye for a contributor. They don't have an eye for positional value. They don't necessarily trade down. They trade up more often than they trade down.

So it's all contingent on being able to evaluate talent, which we have. have as we have established, that's the one thing that is least consistent with all of these guys, even the top guys. All right. I'll play devil's advocate. I don't feel that strongly about it. I think you guys, I mean, I wrote down a lot of the same things you guys did. I wrote down, not an unbelievable track record, but seems fine. So I don't know what tier to, you know, put that in. But I did ultimately put benefit of the, benefit of the doubt. You know, I do think their O line has been, they do a good job of pouring resource. into that. They've spent a day one or day two pick on the offensive line for five straight

years. Their last five first round picks have been line to scrimmage guys. So I think the positional value stuff in recent years has been fine where they're trying to build up front. I think Ruiz will push back, but they got Brady, but that at least they won a Super Bowl. You know, it's the Rams and Stafford, you go for it and you did do enough to win the Super Bowl there. And I know Tom Brady he gets most of the credit for that. But you know, you gave him a good offensive line. You had good wide receivers there in Godwin and Evan. So I think there's stuff there.

They've, you know, post Tom Brady, they're 19 and 15. They've won a crappy division twice in a row. So it's not like they've completely gone in the tank. So I just sort of feel like they're okay. And yeah, I wouldn't quibble if you said, hey, he should be lower than this. I don't think it's like a difference making GM in terms of the draft. But I think it's okay. I think he's probably better than.

and half the guys at least on this list. So I put him in that tier there. I'm fine. I think Stephen made the best point at the end of what he was saying, right? I think that if you look at the way they've drafted, what is clear to me is that the only thing that matters to them is their own internal evaluations of the players. I don't think that they're ever taking the wide view on.

Here's what the rest of the league is doing. Here's where consensus is, trying to identify their own blind spots. It seems very clear that whatever their internal process is, are with how they rank and evaluate players is the only thing they're going off of. And I think of Joe Try and Shoyanka in that vein very often. Because that was a guy, you watched at Washington. You're like, there's something there, but not first round something.

And you take that guy knowing that he needs to play. Again, and I kind of like having this conversation on the heels of speaking about Howie Roseman, because it's a total opposite effect to me when you look at these guys. The Bucks have picked a lot of young players that needed to play a, immediately. And now if I'm evaluating what they are right out the gate and looking at how you evaluated these guys based on where you drafted them, there are a lot of things that are incongruent, right?

And that can make you question the process. But, She'll, I do think it's fair to say, like, hey, if we're going to get edge-rushing talent, if you're going to get trench talent on the offensive side, it's probably smart to do so in the top 50 to 75 picks because that's usually where you find the good players in those spots. Yeah. If he drafts a kicker in this draft, you're allowed to reevaluate that. this kicker card. I couldn't forget that for years. That's all I could think about when I thought

about Jason Light. And he's been there for a long time. So he's had some other stuff since then. But yeah, that seems a little unforgivable. All right, let's take another break. When we come back, we're talking about a guy who I think during this exercise, this was maybe my biggest eye-opener where I was like, whoa. And we'll talk about him when we come back. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. The guy I'm talking about is just. John Lynch of the San Francisco 49ers who has had eight drafts under his belt. And before I tell you what was such a big eye-opener for me, let me get your guys' thoughts on where you had John Lynch and what you think of him.

Deontay, John Lynch are the Niners, eight drafts. How confident are you in him? I kind of wish you didn't start here because, oh, my God, 49ers fans are not going to be happy where I have them. I'm locking them out. I'm back in the mouth. You built a Super Bowl continued team with your first couple drafts. I'll give you credit

for that. You get Bosa, you get Iyuk, right? Even if you stretch it out to 2021 and you go a little bit later in the draft, you get Tanoa Hufunga, you get Diomador Lenore, right? Oh, I think it was like a day three pick as well. You still have to deal with the Tray Lance trade which they're paying the, they're still paying the

price for. We'll probably be paying the price for that for the next two seasons as well, right? Because now you've got to play Brock Purdy and you don't have a lot of depth because of all the picks that you've given. up. And outside of that like 2018 to 2021 stretch, there's really not a whole lot there. There hasn't been much there over the last half decade in terms of finding guys that you think have high ceilings that will be big time contributors. Outside of Fred Warner, like, that's probably like the last like, oh, they identified a star. Like nobody thought that that was going to be

the kind of player that you ended up getting out of them. And he does deserve a lot of credit for that. To me, though, if I'm taking the most pessimistic view, which is where I'm I'm at with this team and how they've drafted. What's the difference between John Lynch, John Lynch and Mickey Loomis? If we're talking about like the draft classes, the draft classes that have, that have separated you and made you a Super Bowl level contender

versus taking the long view on the rest of the roster. You use plural with John Lynch. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. Okay. I will give, I will say,

I thought you were going with Jason Licked. Because I think like, what's the difference between those? Jason, like, what's the difference between those two? I see, and I think those two has a ring. cluster together. Like, I would say that those three are much closer together than some of the other guys that I ultimately had in like the benefit of the doubt tier. Yeah.

What Lynch and Shanahan do well are bringing veterans in and maximizing what veterans have to give you. They're good at finding stars and maximizing stars. If you're going to ask them to do anything in day two or day three of the draft, outside of maybe finding defensive players, which maybe that's more of a John Lynch thing, you know, I think that he probably knows how to identify good defensive players. And I'll give Shanahan some credit to you. He usually knows how to be.

build a good defense. There's just not a lot there to me. There's not a lot of meat on the bone if I'm being on it. Yeah, he's probably the person whose perception dropped the most. Even over this, even over hearing you guys talk, I had him at benefit of the doubt, but if I'm not going to put light there, then I almost can't put him there. He drafted a kicker last year, and he was terrible. Jake Moody, almost did the Iguio thing. And they traded up for a running back last year. But that is more of a Shanahan thing. It's a situation. It's a situation. where you kind of have to separate the Shanahan of it all. Like, I don't know how much he,

how much input he had on the Trey Lansing from John Lynch and his ability to spot talent. But if I'm going to rip the bucks for being talent merchants, like, I don't agree with their process. I agree with, like, if you're evaluating the results, I think their benefit of the doubt. If you're evaluating the process, I think you almost have to put them.

You can also put them in short-termism just because of the pressure on those two right now to win and win big, they probably have more pressure to win, like get to the championship weekend more so than any other organization right now. So yeah, I guess I'm going to put them in short-termism because I am worried about what this draft is going to look like from a desperation standpoint. If you look at their past moves on draft day, they made some bad moves when they thought they had a guy that they wanted to draft. All right. I'm mocking him out.

Deonti talked me into it. I mean, you look at the, there is an argument that since he's been the GM, and I do think we have to mention Shanahan in here because there's a little gray. I don't think stuff's getting done without Shannon and seal of approval in San Francisco. You know, I do think he has the juice, even if it is a collaborative effort. Kyle's definitely locked out. Okay, he's definitely locked out of it. I'm sorry, you're not going to convince me on some running back to trade up for in the third round, Kyle.

You're out. Yeah, he's out. there's a case to be made that since John Lynch became the GM there, that they've had, no team has done less with more first round draft capital than the 49ers. I mean, this is crazy when you look at it. Solomon Thomas at three. Ruben Foster at 31. Mike McGlinchie at nine, all right, you know, like a starting player, but you would hope to do better

than him at nine. Not a building anymore. Right. Not the building anymore. Javon Kinlaw at 14. Trey Lance at three and has not just three because it's the other stuff you gave up to get him also. I mean, none of those guys I just mentioned are on the team right now. None of those guys.

These were all first round picks. You had a number three overall, number nine overall, number three overall, number 14 and 31. None of those guys are on the team. That Brock Purdy pick like kind of really saved them. I don't know where they would be if they did not get him in the seventh round. Now, I will give them credit. They have been able to find some big time players later in the draft. Like, you can really point to like four or five picks that have saved them from being definite,

lock them out of the draft room. You know, you get George Kittle in the fifth. You get Fred Warner in the third. You get Debo Samuel in the second. And they've got some other starters there too. So maybe it's a lock them out on day one. Say, hey, John, just show up on. Friday, you know, go play some golf, do whatever you need to do Thursday.

We'll let you know who we pick. But, man, I couldn't believe it going through and being like, wow, they really, they had a lot of nice draft capital where I'm not saying, I know no one hits on all of them, but if you hit on like two of those five that I mentioned, three of those five that I mentioned, this franchise is in such a different place right now than it is when you look at, you know, some of the holes on the roster. I still think they have a chance to maybe bounce back in, uh, in, in 2025, but I got to lock them out.

Again, this was an eye opener for me. We're in my head. I was like, all right, they've had hits and misses like everyone else. But then I looked at what they've actually had to work with. And I think I forgot about that. It's like, man, those are a lot of misses. And it's over an eight year span.

It's not like a 20 year span. Over an eight year span to have those many misses in the first round, that's a tough pill to swallow. I would think that most GMs would be able to do more with that draft capital than the Niners have been able to do. Do they even deserve credit for the Purdy? It was literally the last pick. Yeah, I don't know that he does or not, but yeah.

If they wanted him, right. That's a developmental success, right. Yeah, it's a developmental success. It's also a Carl Shanahan. Like, if he gets drafted to the Titans, I don't think we're going, oh, Rand Carth and he drafted Brock Purdy. That's the other thing. Yeah, he's got the coach who can do more with less.

And so that saves you a little bit too. Yeah, if he didn't have Shanahan and his coach, what does this thing look like for the 9th? And I think that really what paints it clearly is, for as successful as they are in developing Brock Purdy, the fact that you're asking the last pick of the draft to the fact that we have to play at an all pro level to cover what is going to be holes on this roster speaks to how poorly they've addressed the draft, right? If we get any value out of those top 50 picks, you can still pay Brock Pretty his 55, 60 million that they're eventually going to have to give them. But at least you know you have more built around them.

This team is pivoting right now and they're in a position where they have to nail their dozen or so draft picks in this class in order to, you know, kind of bring themselves back to where they want to be. And if they don't, we're ultimately going to be telling the story of, wow, Kyle Shanahan did something amazing by getting Brock Prady to this level, but it doesn't matter because this roster is too bad to compete. And they're very much kind of teetering on that edge going into this 2025 season. They did trade for Trent Williams on draft day, third round pick and a fifth round pick. That's a good trade. Pretty good value there. Yeah, there you go. Congrats for being in the team for being the team that didn't botch Trent Williams' tumor situation going into it and

had the guy so mad that he was willing to go anywhere else to go play. 30 other teams could have offered a second round kick and one team did. Yeah. I guess. Give them some credit for that. All right. Again, day two, you want to come in, you know, trade a pick for somebody or do what you want need to do.

Day one, no need to show up. What do you think Loomis and Lynch are talking about outside the draft room? They're locked out. Yeah. Stuff to catch up. They're talking about 2017. Well, Lynch isn't talking about 2017. Lynch is talking about the next year, I guess.

They might have some more company here coming up. All right. Brian Gutakunz is next. Green Bay Packers, seven drafts under Gutakuntz, which I was like, man, has he been around for that long?

That kind of surprised me. I had a really hard time with Gutakuntz. I was not sure where to put him here. And a lot of these, it comes down to the same kind of conversation in my head. All right. has had some success, how much of that is the coach and how much of that is to the GM and how they're building the team. Ruiz, where did you have Brian Gutekunds?

I ended up with benefit of the doubt, but I don't feel good about it. Me too. That's exactly where I had him and how I felt about it. And honestly, if it not for Jordan Love being the developmental success that he was, I wonder how I would feel about him as a whole, because that try to just even if you ignore the Jordan loved part of it. And you can quibble with like how much they got out of that considering what their window was at the time and what they ended up getting out of that window.

The picks after that, like DeGuara, I think was the pick, AJ Dylan, like those picks, I just, they were bad at the time. Like I don't understand them at the time. And like looking back on them, they look even worse. So maybe, I'm willing to change her right now. I think I might, I don't know if I'm going to go as far as locking them out of the draft room, but actually I will because I've disagreed with a lot of

fix at the time. I think he's been one of the, like Deonté mentioned it earlier, like, he's a guy that drafts for type. Yeah, I'm locking him out. I don't see any, I don't see how I'm going to live to regret locking him out, is what I'd say. I don't think he's a value add to the draft room. I think he's like a replacement level GM at this

point with the, he could slide in either direction, but I need to see more info. Deontay? This was exactly all I was thinking about what I was talking about Jason Light and guys that are kind of in a cluster that I don't how to place. I'm ultimately giving Goodenkin's

benefit of the doubt, the same way I could have been swaying to giving light benefit of the doubt off of process alone instead of result. I think that with them, the thing that makes it difficult with the Packers is that it's such a vanilla approach to the draft, right? Talk about drafting for type. They do a lot of the same things year over year in the

draft. There's really no big splashes. They have not necessarily hit on star players outside of just the development of Jordan Love. And you look at maybe John Runyon, Day 3 pick, that's a success. You look at what they're able to to get out of Jaya Alexander, that's a success on day one. Marquez Valdez Scanling, super day three success, right?

You're able to get a wide receiver as valuable as that even though he's not in the building any longer. Elton Jenkins being a day two pick, being able to have a guy that versatile has been able to play for a while. That's a big success too. I think they have just enough success stories for you to give him benefit of the doubt. I think that if there was one of those home run picks on day one, then maybe this would feel a lot more.

I feel like I'm making this pick on more solid ground. But yeah, they've done well and they got Jordan Love and Jordan Love looks like a guy who's going to be able to keep them in a contention window for a little while. And you hope that they're able to land an edge rusher at some point over the next year or two in the draft that can kind of give them a star punch that they are looking for on that side of the ball. But outside of that, the rest of those roster is really healthy and it's healthy because of how they've drafted. Yeah, I looked at it. He's had seven drafts. It's a good team. and if you look at their projected depth chart going into 2025,

17 of the 22 starters are draft pick. So I'm like, all right, you know, you did something there where you got playable players on a good team. Since Goudicuns took over, they have the fourth best record in the NFL. Now, again, is that a Goudicund stat or is that a Matla Flores stat? I would definitely lean towards it's a Matla floor stat, but what percentage of it is, hey,

there are some good players in here. So that's kind of where I struggled with this one. I do like that he drafts for volume. You look at it. They've had 72 picks in the seven drafts under Goudicund. So that goes with what I mentioned earlier, that at least you're taking a lot of bites at the apple. You're not taking kind of crazy trades up where you're giving up draft capital

and not ending up with a lot of picks. So there's been some hits and misses. There's no doubt about it. First round track record has been up and down. They've been able to find some starters in the mid to late round. So, yeah, I even wrote down if we had a okay category. I put good against in there, but I ended up giving him the benefit of the doubt and being sort of an easy grader when it comes to him. Yeah, I've been swayed back. I'm going back to benefit of the doubt.

They did have some, they've had some good trades in the last couple drafts. Like the Kool-Aid McKinth Street trade was a good one for them. They'd pick up Edron Cooper in that one. And then getting Jaden Reed and Dontavian Wicks basically in the same trade back with the bucks was another one. Always called Mickey Loomis, just to see. Is he interested in, you know, you got anyone you, I would be calling him every day of the draft. Just check it, Mickey, got anyone you want to move up for?

All right, this next one's interesting. Brad Holmes of the Detroit Lions. He made the, you know, Jamir Gibbs and Jack Campbell picks and got ripped by nerds like me. And then he's puffing out his chest the next year, saying, who's going to apologize? In this room, he's had four drafts under his belt. Ruiz, where are you with Bram?

at Holmes. I gave him the benefit of the doubt just because I haven't seen a bad draft yet. I don't agree with the process at all. I still think there's a chance that the 2023 draft in four years were like, well, it was they, it burned hot, but it didn't really set them up for long-term success. I think that's a possibility. But how do you look at these drafts and give them anything less than benefit of the doubt? I mean, even going back to his first draft in 2021, Penae Sue, Lee McNeil, Amunross, St. Brown. That's an incredible draft. Yeah, yeah, it's going past that. Aidan Hutchinson in the next draft, Kirby Joseph in the third round, Jemir Gibbs in the next draft, Jack Campbell, I think turned out to be a better player in his second year than he wasn't his first.

Brian Branch, I love that pick from the time. Sam LaPorter, I think a lot of people liked him as a tight end prospect. The question with him was positional value. And positional value isn't a result thing. It's a process thing. And from a process standpoint, I think I'm a little lower on him, but you can't argue with the results at this point. and he hasn't given us a bad draft that we could hold against him yet. Yeah, that's where I had him, too. Benefit of the Doubt, you made that, that first draft he had, that really laid the groundwork for this run when you're able to get to all, you know, an all pro Penae Soule, an all pro Amman-Ras, St. Brown,

and a very good defensive tackle in McNeil. The next draft, I mean, that's really, you're right, that 2023 draft. Now, I do think we make the mistakes that, like, we have to look at what resources a GM had available, you know, He had four top 50 picks there. Having said that, those four guys, Gibbs, Campbell, LaPorta, Brian Branch, you know, that's four starters. And normally you don't go four for four for four, even with four top 50 picks. So, you know, if you didn't tell me where they got drafted and just said, hey, here are the four guys they got with those top four top 50 picks.

I'd be like, great job. And he deserves credit for that. Even last year, I know Terry and Arnold didn't have a very good rookie season, but that's one of those to Ruiz's point at the beginning when they got Terry and Arnold at 24. I'm like, all right, that makes sense to me. That seems like a reasonable pick there. So I don't want to crush them for that. The roster is really good. They were 15 and two last year, which I will admit. I totally forgot that that was their final record until prepping for this. I mean, they're 17 and, you know, they've just been fantastic over the last two seasons here. So I'm with you. I question some of the process stuff with the

positional value. It could get harder now. You don't have as much draft capital. You don't have the same coordinators. So I could be singing a different tune a year from now. But for now, Deontay, I still say, hey, the core of this team has been built through the draft, and it's one of the best teams in the NFL. Hey, man, I was writing about the draft for the athletic at the time when the Jamir Gibbs and Jack Campbell picks came in.

And I remember talking to my buddy, Coden Pouncey, who still covers the Lions for the athletic. And I was like, the hell is this, man? What is this? And then you get to be, you get to the end of that season, right? and those guys are all contributing. And then Brad Holmes has that press conference and he's like pointing people out. Like, oh, you didn't believe and you didn't believe and you didn't believe and look at us now.

So I think that maybe what I'm trying to do is reset expectations because these guys have been contributors and stop looking for the opportunity to dunk on them, right? Like if it doesn't work out ultimately and it's like, oh, you know, San Leporta, fine player, could have done something different. James, fine player. And I don't want to slam them for that because Garrett Wilson and Chris Olive went ahead of where the lines were picking. So for all we know, those could have been their top two on the board. You just end up with the third best receiver out of that group. And Jameson Williams, when he's healthy,

and when he's available, has been a really good football player. So I don't want to take that away from them. And Jemir Gibbs looks like he can be an all pro level running back, right? So when that happens, you just have to shut up. You know, but Timaporta is having his best games, you just have to shut up. There's really nothing to say, right? I still don't love the process, but they have been able to land so many good players, so many contributing players. And then you go back to what his best draft was, like you guys said, getting Penae Soule, getting a Lee McNeil on day two, you get Amon-Ros St. Brown on day three.

You get Aidan Hutchinson, which was a controversial pick at the time. Like, it wasn't a certainty that that should have been the edge that they took of that group. And he's been the most productive guy. He was the most productive player in the NFL at the position up until the point of his injury, right? And you have to assume, at least when he comes back, based on what his first three years of his career had been, that he's going to continue to be a good football player, right?

if he's back at 100%. I have no notes really outside of like, oh, I might have done this. I might have traded down instead of taking Jameson Williams. I might not have taken Jack Campbell when they took Jack Campbell. But for the most part, the guys that he picked, they play and they usually play pretty well. I do think it has helped the perception of his draft at the high level picks

have gone to areas where they were built as a team to be good at. For example, like Jemir Gibbs, does the Jemir Gibbs pick look nearly as good if they don't have that offensive line and Ben Johnson. Probably not. But I will say maybe Brad Holmes doesn't make that pick if they don't have that offensive line, right? Like, yeah, that's a good point.

I want to play it on. I do want to play it even handedly. Even I still don't love the pick at where it was made, right? If I'm only talking about the position versus the value and the contract and all that, I still don't love it. But the guy's been an amazing running back. And he's ready to take over a lead role now, right? Like he's ready to be the guy in that building.

So you have to give them credit for what they've been able to accumulate over this time. I think you do have to give them credit, but when your whole thing is based on, we hit on these picks, like, how likely is that to continue? Then you're the 2017 Saints, and like it's 2019 and you're still talking about 2017. Like last year's draft so far, it's way too early to make any, draw any conclusions yet, but it doesn't look great right now. Right. And if they have another mediocre draft next year, and all of a sudden we realize, which we have been talking about throughout this, like these people have spotty track records and we can never say that someone is good at drafting. particular players. And that's the argument for him at this point.

There's no argument for process, because the process has been all over the place. And there's a reason why they only had two picks in the top 100 last year. Like, I don't know. He's the toughest one for me because you can't argue with the results. But everything, especially with the draft, can't be based on results. It has to be based on process. And the process is where it kind of gets a little blurry for him. But he's benefited the doubt for me.

Like I said, there hasn't been a bad draft yet, except for maybe 2024, and we can't even call that yet. It could turn out to be a good draft. Speaking of process, let's go to Atlanta, Terry Fontanow and the Atlanta Falcons. This should be an easy one. And the Atlanta Falcons, he has had four drafts. Now, in this draft, I don't know if people realize this, the Atlanta Falcons have a total of five picks in this draft. They have two picks in the top 100. they have three picks in the first six rounds of the draft.

This is a team coming off of seven straight losing seasons. Ruiz, big draft, I would say, for Terry Fontenow after the events of the last year. Where are you with Terry Fontenow? Here's a good news. They have $10 million in caps. Where is all the money in the draft picks going? This is like a Ponzi scheme. Someone's embezzling this money or something.

I don't know what's going on. I'm locking him out of the draft room. He's out. I'm locking him out. He's not. He's black. And over the keys, Terry. From the NFL, like, the picks are bad. The trade ups are terrible. Last year, I think there was at some point in the season until Michael Pennix got inserting to the starting lineup, but only because Kirk Cousins was so bad. Like, none of their top three picks were even playing snaps week to week. It was an all-time bad draft. They almost had to play them to save face from that draft. And then the results in the past years are not good. The trades are bad, like I said. The process.

is bad. They don't have a lot of picks this year, which shows you how bad the process has been in the past. Yeah, for him, he was the easiest call. I'm putting him 16 out of 16 with GMs. I really believe our friend, Charles McDonald, the big Falcons fan, says his running joke is that he was brought in from the Saints to sabotage the Falcons. And I believe it. Show me evidence to the contrary. You can't find it. I can find plenty of evidence supporting the theory. Viante He's locked out and he is 16 out of 16 for me

Like Like Stephen said If anybody feels any differently Lay out the argument It's not even like he was there in 2020 You can be like Oh I got AJ Terrell Who at his best was

Playing at like a high pro bowl level Right? He doesn't have that on his resume You've got Kyle Pitts And you know what And I don't even want We don't even need to go through all the drafts Because they've all been like high profile players

Because they're always picking early And these guys have just never turned out to be the kinds of players that they needed them to be, and they're consistently picking like they're that particular player away from being a Super Bowl winning team. And it's never like that. There are day three picks rarely return value. They make trades all over the place.

There's really no rhyme or reason to how they manage their draft capital, very much evidenced by what they did with their first round pick last year, after paying $90 million guaranteed to Kirk Cousins going in and getting Michael Finnix. Right? Like, I just, you can never look at any two drafts next to one another and be like, oh, okay, there's a little bit of alignment in, they like this kind of player at offensive line and they like this kind of player at wide receiver. It's just whatever is there, it feels like. It always feels like just some grab bag of prospects. And the way that they manage day two draft capital to me might be the most offensive because those are the guys that are supposed to be starters, guys who can quickly show up and compete, get playing time, and be high level role players.

they have not found that outside of maybe Matthew Berger on it. I don't know if he's good enough for you to talk about him being like this massive success to go find on day two of the draft. He's also a Mickey Loomis protege. Like that's the funniest thing to me is the Falcons looked at the Saints process and we're like, yeah, we need a piece of that. We want that. I said at the top, I don't like to do the hey, they took player X over player Y thing.

You can say that about anybody. But man, it's tough to look at that Kyle Pitts Pick and look at the star quality. behind that with Jamar Chase, Penae Soule, Micah Parsons, Patrick Sertan, oh my gosh, and that of all the drafts to take the tight end number four, that might be the hardest one to get over. And even like some of their offensive linemen, like Deontes said, they were there before he got there, their best player, Bison Robinson. I can't give you credit when you took like the generational running back prospect.

Right. Number eight, you know, you still spend a bit like, I love it. Bichon Robinson, but like, come on, anybody, if you wanted just a safe pick of a player was going to be good and forget everything else about roster building, anybody could have done that. So yeah, we're all Locke and Fontenow out of the draft room.

All right, will this guy join him? Joe Shane of the New York Giants. He's got three drafts under his belt. Ruiz, where do you have Joe Shane? I just got him in short termism. Yeah. The category was built for him

basically. I'm not going to hold the Sequin Barclay thing against his draft record. Like, I feel like I think of him as a bad GM. He would probably be 15th on my list, but it's all based on the perception of what he was in the offseason last year because of that show and because of that one particular move, which I like I kind of agreed with at the time. I think, Sheila, you probably agreed with it. I don't know about Deonté.

He might have been more inclined to like a running back, but I was, I can't hold that against him. You look at the drafts, they've been fine. They haven't been offensive at least. I don't think they've been good by any means. the trade-ups, some bad trade-ups, some good trade-downs, kind of a mixed bag there. For me, he's in the, I don't care. Like, honestly, it's not going to work out.

I know it's not going to work out. I'm never going to have to talk about you again after this season. I don't care. But short-termism, sure, fine. I mean, that hard knocks really should win some kind of award. I don't know what it is, but. Let's give it to it. Can we make an award?

Can we make a trophy and send it to them? You know how PFF will send, like, the players? Like, you are our number one tight end. I'm sure they care about that. We should do that. I mean, it was so compelling, and it has so much, like, shaped what I think of Joe Shane. And you're right. It's not just, like, there is a strong argument to be made.

If I were a more courageous man, I would be like, hey, I'm going to write an article for the ringer. Joe Shane was right about Sequin Barrier. That wasn't the issue. That one decision. It was everything around. It lent such insight into the operation where you left every episode going, these guys do not seem like they're buttoned up and know what they're doing. in this organization. So it wasn't just the Seekwan thing.

And I also think if I were Joe Shane's agent, you know, there is a case that they're what we're talking about where they've made fine decisions with some of these draft picks and they just haven't worked out. You know, Malik Neighbors hits. Deonti Banks was a, what, 24th overall pick? Like, I don't think most people looked at that. Like, what are you doing at the time? It did trade out for him, which makes it a little worse.

Okay, all right. That's fair. Okay. So they took a flyer on an athletic corner didn't work out. Kavon Tibido has been fine. Anyone would have picked him there. Evan Neil is probably his biggest his biggest first row failure.

And even that, I think at the time you looked at it and go Tibado and Neil, they're drafted on the lines to pass rush and protect the passer. These are guys who had good college careers. This makes sense. They haven't worked out. And so now you look at it and you go, the best players on the team other than neighbors were there from Dave,

Dave Gettlement, Dexter Lawrence, Andrew Thomas. And so, you know, I do think that he belongs in short-termism because I think there's a case where you could say, is Abdul Carter that great of a prospect where you have to stick there and take him? Or if you had more of a longer-term view and looked at the roster, would you say, hey, this picks up for grabs? Anybody really love Abdul-Carter? We want to get more picks. We have a lot of work to do on this roster. And I don't feel like the Giants and Joe Shane are position to make a move like that. I think they'll say we need to just get a player who people are excited about and who's really good.

And to do that, it makes sense here to stay with the pick we have. So, Deonti, I've got them in short-termism. Are you picking to save your job or building for the future? Before we move on to Deontay, where are we putting Dave Gettlement on this scale, retroactively? Oh, that's interesting. Still low. I mean, I would still lock them out, probably. Probably lock them out.

I don't know if I'm locking them out, but I am definitely closing the door. No, but I would probably lock him up for his Giants tenure, I would say. Like, if you take the longest view based on some of the guys he was able to find in Carolina, he was able to find some pretty good contributors in his Carolina tenure. I'd be entertaining, though. I would love to have him back in the league. I mean, he was an energy. We don't have a guy like that anymore, a GM who just every press conference,

you know you're getting some clip out of it. Yeah, it's hard for me to, I'm trying to remember his Panthers tenure, and it wasn't really that good. Like most of the Corps was already there. they were herny picks That's true He did have James Bradbury's

He got Andrew Thomas You know He did get Andrew Thomas And David McHenney Yeah Those are good picks For Dexter Lawrence Yeah

I'm trying to think of what he did With the Panthers All right That sounds like a June episode Review one hour Reviewing the tenure of Dave Gettlement It's better than you think I'll take him over

Terry Fontno And he's Terry Fondonneau doesn't get nearly Than John said Dave Gettleman Did Dave Gettlement Built a 15 and one team. He didn't draft any of the core players, but he still technically built the team. All right. Deontay, anything else on Joe Shane, or do we move on?

No, I mean, he's short-termism. Like, again, I think if we're ranking guys based on the entirety of the job, he's probably bottom three to five just because the roster health just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and it's not the Seekwan thing. It's more the handling of Daniel Jones. That was a bigger issue for me and building the roster around him or thinking that you can make something competitive in back-to-back years out of having Danny Jones as the leader of your franchise. But if you look at round one, all those picks make sense, right? Yonsei Banks, I'm not mad at even though we haven't seen enough to say like, oh, okay,

that looks like a high-level corner early in his career. Kvon Tibado was the third best, or at least the third pick of a top three edge group, right? It was pretty clear that all those guys were going to be top five picks. You had the fifth pick. You didn't trade up to get Trubon Walker, Aidan Hutchinson. So I'm not going to belabor the point of what you could have had that you don't in Tibbs. And he's been fine. He's played outside of like the first year or so of his career when he was kind of banged up with the ankle or hamstring.

He's been available to them and he's been a decent role-playing edge rusher. You might want more from him, but there's nothing there to hate specifically. Evan Neal, like you were saying, Shiel, I don't like the pick based on how it's played out. But if you're assessing pedigree coming into the draft, he was a pretty good athlete. He met all the size qualifiers. and they needed to find a starting tackle, right? I'm not mad at taking the swing there, and I'm not going to hold anything that happened on day three against them.

To me, all the day three picks can do is boost your resume. That's not something that you're going to ding guys for if they weren't able to find starting level players there. So, yeah, I'd say short-termism, and I'm just going to be watching very closely to see what they do in this draft to see if there's something they can do to change the trajectory of the franchise. Next up, Quessi Adofo Mensa of the Minnesota Vikings, this was another bit of an eye opener, I would say, a little bit different than how I remembered it in my head.

Deante, will go back to you. Where were you with the Dofamensa? I'm really struggling with the Defe Menza. He's another guy that's in the cluster. I just don't, I don't know what to make of this stuff because the hits have really been hits and the misses have been like, all these guys can't play at all. Paul, the trade, right? The trade history is kind of mixed for me. I don't really know what to make of what the thought processes were. I would like to be able to go back. I wish I could go back and kind of look at a catalog of how I felt about each of these

moves as they were happening. But I don't want to say lock them out. I don't want to say lock them out. So I'll say short-termism right now and I'll allow you guys to make the case for where you have them. And I'll see if that changes my mind. Okay. I could set you up here, Ruiz.

So I have him in wildcard, need more information. Every time I hear him speak to the media and hear about his thought process, I think this guy should be running circles around some of these other GMs in the NFL. And they've had really good teams. The darn old thing worked out. I like the roster. And so there's a lot I like about the Vikings and Adofo Mensa. At the same time, there absolutely is a case for locking him out specifically of the draft room.

When you look at their three drafts have kind of been a disaster. You know, now not totally because we have it incomplete on J.J. McCarthy. I think that was a fine use of resources, but they had seven picks last year, and it's unclear whether they landed even one above average starter. You know, we'll see how it'll be defined by McCarthy, but they traded up for Dallas Turner, moved up six spots, gave up an additional third and a fourth in this draft, which leaves them with just four picks in this draft.

draft and Dallas Turner will see what happens. I liked him as a prospect, but he played 28% of the snaps last year. So you've got that 2022. His first draft, Lewis C. Now that's bad luck, got the injury. Andrew Booth, Ed Ingram, three top 60 picks. None of them are still on the team anymore there. So I look at those things and just the draft in isolation, I don't know, I don't think there's any way to paint it other than it's been either an incomplete or a disaster. On the other hand, they're 34 and 17 in the last three seasons since he became the GM. Again, I like the roster. They've been aggressive in free agency, but it's really been free agency and trades and leaning on some guys who have already been there.

So like if I had a doful menta stock, I'm not selling it. I think there's something there. I want to see more. I think this is a big draft for him. How does he maneuver? Is he able to get additional picks? What does he do? But if we're just saying, hey, if you just looked at it blindly and said,

this is what you had from 2022 to 2024 and this is what you came out with, I think objectively it's been pretty disappointing. Yeah. Ed Ingram and Jordan Addison are basically the only guy that's really contributed anything. And Ingram's gone, right? Yeah. So it's Addison, basically. Yeah.

I think he's drafted. I think I saw that he's drafted three starters in his 23 picks. And I think Ingram was included in that. So it could be down to two now. I mean, I don't know how you don't lock him outside of the draft. unless you're falling for what he's saying in a press conference. And that seems to be the case here. Even the team success,

like a lot of these players were here before, like the young core players were already in place. Like Christian Derrissol was not a quezzi pick. Justin Jefferson was not a quezzy pick. And we've talked about what Brian Flores has done for that defense with spare parts. Like I'm not giving him credit for the defensive success. Even O'Connell, you could say, is doing more with last. Yeah, they have a coaching staff that is really, really good.

Yeah. So it's hard for me to argue for anything other than locking him out of the draft room. Even last year, like you could have said, if you look past before last year, that he has made some smart value trades, trading down, accruing more picks. But last year, they kind of lost it in a way. And he just was trading up all over the place. And I think that even that benefit of the doubt has left him at this point. So, yeah, I'm going to lock him out of the draft room.

He's going to be back there with who we have locked out, Terry Fondo and Mickey Loomis. He's the first non-Lumus protege to be locked out. John Lynch, he can hang out. He knows John Lynch, right, from their time. I'm giving him one more year. We'll see what this year looks like. But I do think it's fair if, you know, I was less forgiving. I would be like, yep, he absolutely needs to be locked out.

All right. Yeah, Steve assuade me. Yeah, we're locking them out. We got a lot. Ryan Poles, Chicago Bears has had three drafts, Ruiz. Where are you? Now we're getting to the guys with small samples here. But Ryan Poles, three drafts.

are you with Ryan Pulse? He was almost a not enough info for me, but I think he has made enough moves where he could start to form an opinion. He's a mixed bag for me, like the trades, there have been some good trades, there have been some bad trades, what you expect when you have like a former player, GM type, not like one of these analytics guys or not like a guy with a scouting background necessarily. I know he did have scouting background. Yeah, I'm going to go short-termism because I think he's a guy that needs to save his job

and it could affect how they draft this upcoming year. I'm more on the side of, if I had a pick like between locking them out of the draft room and benefit of the doubt, I'd probably lean towards locking them out of the draft room, but it's too early for me and not enough information. So short termism. Yeah, I had him as a wild card here, Deontay,

need more information. Where are you with polls? Wildcars slash need more information. A lot of this hinges on Caleb Williams and Romodemzae and what we see from them in year two, right? That's what a lot of this is going to hinge upon for me. But you look at the picks that they've made, usually on day one, day two of the draft, you're not really mad at them.

And then their biggest success on day three will be Braxton Jones. And if you can find a multi-year starter at tackle on day three of the draft, you've probably done a pretty decent job, right? That doesn't mean that Braxton Jones is a pro-ball all-pro level player, right? Eventually they're going to need to replace him based on the level he's at. But I think that the fact that you're able to get multiple years of competent play, decent play out of them, speaks well to his ability to draft on day three at that spot, at least.

you look at Darno, right, a really good right tackle early in his career, right? I like Tyreeks Stevenson. He's given them more than I expected early in his career outside of that awful Hail Mary situation, right? I don't think that that has to completely rewrite what he's been as a player. Jervon Dexter was a pretty good contributor this past year. You have Kyler Gordon. You hope that Jaquan Brisker gets healthy again and is able to play.

That's a big success for them as well. So I think for the most part, I'm happy with the guys that he's picked in the ways that they've contributed. And I think that we'll see based on year two of Caleb and Romo Dense and then what they do in this draft with Ben Johnson now as head coach. That will really kind of start to shape how I feel about Ryan Poles and him as a decision maker.

Yeah, the players have been good. The question is like, how do you evaluate the trade down with the Bryce Young pick? Right. Because... I ultimately get Caleb Williams and Roamed as a actor actor, yeah. It was obviously smart because you ended up with the top pick with a better draft prospect coming in. But I don't think they maximize

that deal. And obviously they could have drafted C.J. Shrout, who ended up, who was a guy that I think we all think is a franchise quarterback. So they kind of missed out on him. So that was almost a mis-evaluation in a way. And then also adding DJ Moore into the trade, that kind of takes it down a notch or two for me, because you had to pay him to. You didn't maximize draft capital. So it's a mixed bag with them. But they have found good players. They found useful players so far. And if Adunze hits and Caleb gets better, that I think we might look back at this as him being a benefit of the Dowkeye a year from now.

Yeah, I would say the DJ Moore piece is the part that really kind of hangs up that trade, right? Because you didn't get the level of wide receiver you were hoping to out of that deal. I'm fine with what they did with the draft capital. I think that if DJ Moore looked like a true number one, even if he was like a Devante Smith level, like number two wide receiver, you'd probably feel a lot happier with what you're paying them and what you draft traded away to be able to get him. But the fact that he's just kind of like a so-so tier two receiver so far in Chicago probably is what holds up the value. of that trade or how successful that trade has been for Chicago so far. And just because the Panthers drafted, Bryce Young does not mean the trade was,

they didn't trade by you trade it. C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson and the chance to take those guys to you. Correct. That's true. Yeah, I think the secondary pick stand out for me where I feel like, all right, Dennis Allen, I want to see what, because a year ago, I was probably on here going, man, I really like the Bears Young secondary. And those were all draft pick.

So let's see what it looks like with a new defensive coordinator. But yeah, I mean, it's very simple to assess. He needs to put Caleb Williams in position to succeed. And you got the coach who you think can do that. Now, can you do enough with your resources? You give Caleb Williams a real chance here. We're going to know a year from now. So I've got him in the need more information category.

All right. Last three. Monty, Asenfort, Arizona Cardinals, two drafts under his belt. Ruiz, where do you got, Austin Fort? I have him in like the wild card, not enough info, but I am a year away from putting him in benefit of the doubt. I feel like his first two drafts were the approach to him, the player,

I think they've found a couple of good players in it, a couple of starters in it, and just as the approach to trading down and agreeing more draft picks and not trading down too much to take yourself out of the position to draft talent, I think the first two draft, I can't ask for more from his approach to these first two drafts. So he's still not enough info,

but he's a hot prospect for me. So you're speaking specifically probably to the trade down in his first draft, right? He still ends up with Parrish Johnson. I think most people liked that move in Parrish Johnson. Looks like he should be a good offensive tackle for them. And then in year two, is it just Marvin Harrison, Jr? You like that pick or was there something else he did that you are a fan? No, he just had a couple of trade downs that I like.

They go down three spots and pick up a day three pick with the Colts. Like, that's good value for me. There's another trade down with the Falcons where, you know, he moves down like five, a handful of picks. It picks up another. There's a lot of those little trades. And if I'm evaluating these guys on process, then, yeah, I feel like he's the one that's checked the process box compared to all these other, like, younger GMs who haven't been

in charge of a couple, more than a couple of drafts. Okay. Deante, you went on Austin Fort? I'm in need more information, but I like what I've seen so far, right? I like what I've seen so far. Getting Parrish Johnson was a success. You wish a B.J.O. Jolaria given them more than, you know,

what they've ultimately gotten out of a top 50 pick in him, right? It just hasn't been much of a contributor. Marvin Harrison Jr., I think, will continue to grow as a player, and I thought that was the right pick to make at the time. And he's dealt with his draft capital pretty well, right? And again, same as I was saying with less needed. I'm not comparing Lantiaziazor to less need at all, but you have to just look at, like, the degree of difficulty,

where this roster was at when he took over the job. This team was pretty depth barren over the, you know, when he got this job. And I think that he's done a good job of identifying the fact that they need to backfill as much of this too deep as possible with young players and hope that if you continue to take swings on day two and day three, you'll find contributors. And I think that at least in the first two years, he has made some strides in that respect. This is going to be, same as I was saying for the last few guys who's talked about, this draft will be a big one for me, whether or not you can go find another two to three contributors who can help this team kind of get

over the hump. Yeah, with the Cardinals, I'm just like, when do, when do we actually need to see some results here? You know, I still look at the defensive depth chart and go, you know, I don't see a lot there. Now, I know you can't, you are right. It wasn't in great shape when he took over. So I like the process too. I like that they've addressed premium positions. I mean, you get Paris Johnson and Marvin Harrison Jr. and back-to-back drafts. That's nice. It's just, you know, I feel like we're going to be in like year six of Gannon and Nasson Fort, you know, and they haven't made the playoffs. And it's like, yeah, but still, I like some of these things that they're doing. So that's probably unfair, mate.

This is year three. I do feel like this is a fair year to say after this draft, you know, you've had three drafts. You've had three off seasons. You didn't have to go find a quarterback. You already had the quarterback on the roster. Let's see, like if you don't see results this year, if you finish seven and 10 or eight and nine, then what is the reason for that?

Does it just take another off season? What's the roster in such bad shape? So that's kind of where I'm at here with the. Arizona Cardinals. I do think the first draft, though, was used to kind of fill up their draft capital. Yeah. It was kind of like almost a half a draft of them, and they still ended up with like a first-round talent that I think a lot of people like going in at a premium position. Like you said, I don't, I think he deserves at least one more year of.

No doubt. Yeah. I think that's pretty fair. Even after next year, if they're like another, they win eight games or whatever, I don't think we can be like, oh, that's bad roster building. I think the approach either way is sound. Okay. You know, I'm not having this, we're not having this conversation now because we're already 90 minutes in. But I think that that's the benefit of having a quarterback that's just good enough to make everybody happy

while also never being expected to be a ceiling razor. They just got to get to hang out with Kyle or Murray. And it's all good, man. We can be 500 forever because we've got a quarterback that nobody hates. All right. Next up, we got two more left. Maybe we can just do them together. Like you mentioned, we're 90 minutes in.

Let's just close it out here. we have Adam Peters of the Washington commanders and Dan Morgan of the Carolina Panthers. The only two on this list that only have one draft under their belt. So I'm putting them in the wildcards need more information because they've only had one draft. But Deonti, we can start with you. Morgan and Peters, where are you with these two guys? I would say they both deserve to be in that tier. I'm really just not sure what to make of Dan Morgan yet. and I don't want to be unfair because, again, that's a roster that needs a lot of work,

a lot of draft specific work to be able to address some of their needs, especially on defense, on the defensive line, at the linebacker spot, they need to find a number one receiver eventually. You can find multiple offensive playmakers, if we're being honest. That team is two years away maybe from us really even being in position to evaluate what Dan Morgan is or was as a GM, assuming that he gets to keep that job for that long. and then on the other hand, right, what I'm thinking about Adam Peters,

I'm not giving you extra, extra credit for Jaden Daniels quite yet. Great job. You found a guy, you found a quarterback, you found a quarterback, but I need to see it for more than one year before I say that you have the benefit of the doubt

or anything like that, right? Like there's just not enough data here for us to make honest evaluations. Ruiz? Yeah, Dan Morgan, obviously not enough info. Very near and dear to my heart. I owned a Dan Morgan jersey when I was a kid.

I loved the guy. Oh, wow. But the first draft has been bad so far. I don't think Xavier Leggett has been what people expected him to be in that one year. The trades have been, some have been good, some have been bad. He made a couple trades on draft day last year. Not enough info, but I'm kind of discouraged by the early returns, but it's way too early to actually make a judgment on him.

And then I would put Washington and Peters on the other side of that. Not enough info, but encouraging results so far. Even beyond the Jaden Daniels pick, I think they found a couple of starters. in the class and the trade with Philly, I thought was a good one. It was a slight win for them in terms of trade value based on the charts. But yeah, it's only one trade, though. He only made one trade last year, so I can't really judge his trading either. Dan Morgan, the pride of Upper Darby High School, which is, I know you guys can see me,

or if you're watching the video on Spotify, just about 15 minutes that way. Same high school is Tina Fey. All right, so that's my Dan Morgan analysis because we only got one draft. And you have to, even with Morgan, it's like, all right, David, Tepper, you know, I'm not going to just say Dan Morgan's there doing whatever he wants. So yeah, let's see what it looks like here in this draft. Adam Peters is a real interesting one, though. You guys are right, added some useful players in addition to Jaden Daniels last year.

This has been a very boomer busty type off season for the Washington commanders. The moves they've made have left them with five picks tied for second fewest in the draft, second lowest draft capital. I thought had one of the most head scratching free agency signing. and Javan Kinlaw. And so I am, yeah, let's see what this looks like. Let's see what the team looks like next year. Because I still, even given their success last year,

it felt like the roster needed a lot of work. And Tunsell, Debo Samuel. I like the Tunsel trade. Debo Samuel will see. But I could really see it going either way where we could be having one or two conversations by the end of next year. It really does feel like an NBA approach.

Maybe I'm just saying that just because of where they came from. but like it feels like, oh, we got our superstar. Now let's fill around in with like competent vets and use all our draft capital to get those competent vets. And we're not going to build through the draft because like NBA teams don't really build through the draft unless they're landing a superstar player. But we locked John Lynch out of the draft room for drafting Javon Kin Law. This guy gives them years later after we know he stinks.

This guy gives him a monster contract and we're letting them in. I don't know. Yeah, that would be maybe next year we do. Who are you locking out on the first day of free? and say you're not allowed to talk to any agents. Nobody is allowed to sign. You know what? That would probably be a pretty good approach for, you know,

two thirds of the teams, at least maybe more than that in the NFL. You're not literally go on vacation, do the old Belichick, go to Cape Cod, while ever, you know, on the first couple days here during the negotiating period. That would save a lot of teams, I think. But it wouldn't be fun for us. It wouldn't be fun for content. All right, that was a fun exercise. That was good.

Forces us to kind of take a look at some of these decisions. decision makers. How do we feel about them going into the 2025 NFL draft? We will do the AFC next week. We've got a mock draft coming up, or we're going to do some trades in that one. We're going to get into some props. We're going to get into some, hey, there's rumors flying. What do we believe in terms of the draft? So all that coming up in a couple weeks ahead here before two weeks away as we record this from the first round of the NFL draft. All right. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to. Deontay Lee. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production

supervision by Connor and Arjuna Ramgopal. I'm Shield Capadia. We will talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show.