The Ringer NFL Show - NFL Draft Listener Mailbag With Warren Sharp

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by Warren Sharp to answer listeners' draft-related questions. Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guest: Warren Sharp Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From in-depth analysis of basketball and football to life advice, Ryan Rusillo has got you covered on the Ryan Rusillo podcast. Join him as he talks to some of the best names in sports while providing sharp analysis and wit you won't find elsewhere. Check out the Ryan Rusillo podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringer NFL show. Part of the Ringar Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark.

Join today by the Dream Team, Norprinciotti and Warren Sharp. Warren, you're wearing a trucker hat. Yeah, that's just because I haven't had a chance to get my hair organized for a little while. I've been too busy betting draft props, but we'll get there. By Thursday night, I feel like I'll be even worse condition than I am now, but really it won't matter because I'll be so excited and elated about watching this thing kick off finally. Just throwing this out there, self-care, Warren.

I know it's a tough week for all of us. We're all grinding, just a little bit of self-care. Nora, what's going on? Not much. Warren, though, sometimes actually, most Americans wash their hair way too much. It's actually good for your scalp and for your hair. what you're doing. So, you know, there's self-care in the lack of Americans? We can't, we can't. I'm not, I'm not suggesting I'm not actually showering. I'm just suggesting I haven't done anything

with my hair. I did shower yesterday and I plan on showering later today. So it'll be over 24 hours, but it's not like I'm going like out to the woods for a week. Do you have to make a choice in mustache maintenance and hair maintenance? Um, no. I mean, I think if I, if I, if I, if I, Well, yeah, I do them both the same time. Okay. I'm pretty quick with it, too. I also give myself my own fades. Like, I'm good at that too.

So, whoa. I'm like a one-stop shop. Wow. You and George Clooney. Both taking care of your business on your own. All right. I don't know what that means, but he gives himself, he gives his own haircuts. Oh, okay.

All right. He has a little. I didn't know that either. Yeah, he has a little machine that he bought in like the 90s. Look it out. Hey, this NFL podcast is awesome. Warren? I,

I, I, I just use clippers. I use my own clippers. What? Wow. This is why we booked you, Warren.

We wanted to find this out. This whole, this whole one year, 10 years. I mean, it's not perfect. It's not perfect. It's a podcast.

It's a podcast. It's a podcast. So the listener doesn't know what you're showing us. Warren took the hat off. Yeah, Warren took the hat off and I was showing it. All right.

It's fresh. It's clean. Yeah. Let's pull ourselves out of this tailspin and start a podcast. about the draft. So it's Thursday. It is currently Tuesday, but the draft is going to be Thursday. Hopefully you're listening to this on Wednesday or Thursday, and you don't know every single pick. We're doing a mailbag. This is going to be amazing. Warren, are you excited the draft is here? Do you want to get it over with? How are you feeling right now?

I'm definitely excited. It's been a long time coming, it seems. For whatever reason, I think more people are way more into it. I could just tell you from like a betting perspective that a few years ago, there was not nearly this many options of places to bet and options of what to bet on the NFL draft. And, you know, they started to increase last year, but last year we were right in the midst of the pandemic. And so I think there was a little bit less interest on, you know, betting a bunch of money on draft props when all the other stuff was happening. Now we're at a point where people still are at home a lot, still have a lot of time on their hands. And there's a lot of betting options. and it's like anything, you know, the more that betting increases, the more that people's interest

increases. And so there's just so many people talking about it. We've been doing it for a while now that I think it leads to more intrigue. I think there's a lot of excitement, entertainment value going into this year's draft. And I can't wait for Thursday night to get here fast enough, but I still feel like I've got a lot to do before then. Is there a genre of prophet that you are focusing on? Like, are you like, okay, there's actually an edge, because people don't understand blank at this point? Oh, yeah. I mean, some books are trying to line, like, guys up into the sixth and seventh round of,

like, individual players. And so there's a lot of opportunities to capitalize there. And the books, see, the books are reluctant to take action. But when they do, they move their lines pretty significantly, like, by a whole round. So some of the props that we hit, like on a particular offensive lineman, let's say, who's projected to go in the fifth round, they move his lines. number like 30 places up into the, you know, the round above it. So they know that they don't have as much good information as we do on some of these players. So those have the most value. The other thing

that I found, of course, everybody who's betting on these things realizes is that some books have just ridiculously low limits and it makes it not worth your time. And they, they put numbers out there so that you get people on podcasts or radio shows or on the internet talking about, oh, well, I got this bet here and they name the book. This book has these types of lines and they name the book. When in reality, those lines are just set so that people give them free publicity and naming those specific books. And so we found out the hard way a couple of times. We do spend a bunch of time handicapping something, go to bed it. And it's like, it's like $25 limits. And so it's like, we're not even bothering. We like left. Like we're not even wasting our time doing this.

So we're looking to bet the ones that have, you know, dime plus limits. And, and I mean, there's a lot to take advantage of. The ones that you want to be careful of, though, I will just say, if you're saying, what should you steer clear of are the ones where you can't bet over or under? You can't bet like yes or no. It's like, will this player and that player go in the first round? And there's odds for yes. And it's like a long shot, but there's no odds for no.

So you can't bet the other side. you really have no idea if you're getting a fair price. You just want to be careful that you're not betting lines that are just completely not favorable. Wow. Nor are you placing any bets? No, I'm like full just sort of a beautiful mind style, just what is going on listening to Warren Talk. This is very impressive. I was the same way on our pre-show, Nora, when you were talking about bougie, so.

Yeah. We were talking about NFL players' dogs before we started recording. and I'm not sure if we should have been rolling or not. That's, I'll leave it at that. There's very little that I can speak in, speak about in the type of detail that Warren just achieved. NFL players' dogs is one of those areas. True. Interesting.

We'll have to loop around back on that. All right. Mailbag questions, we got a bunch of great ones. Really excited for this one. We will start with at DMUs 13. The Patriots, Broncos, and Bears are often mentioned as teams that could trade up for a quarterfell. What about the Saints? Could they be a surprise team to trade up for a quarterback if a quarterback begins to slide?

Casey did it in a similar draft slot with Mahomes. I think it's a little different for Casey, obviously. We will start with you Warren. Question obviously is if the Saints are going to trade up. But then I guess how would you characterize kind of the trade up market for those guys? And who was the likely candidate? I guess the media reports are saying fields might slide. That might be the likely candidate to be.

the target for, you know, the bottom of the top 10, something like that, middle of the first round, whatever. Where do you go with this question, Warren? Well, the hard part is, unlike some years, you know, we know so many of these quarterbacks are going early that when you're trading up into the middle of the first round to get a quarterback, you're not getting like the third best quarterback. You're getting like the fifth potentially best quarterback at that point in time, at least based up with what the prior teams thought of these guys and how they drafted them. So there's a little bit of value loss there. But if you think your guy could be, the second or third best of this draft class, then maybe it's worth something.

What I have heard, and I can only share what I've heard, I have not, I don't have any intel on what the Saints may or may not do there. But what I can say is that I've heard them linked to and having interest in Kyle Trask. And that could be a potential quarterback that they would go after in the later, you know, not day one, but we're talking about his over under prop was set at 74 and a half. And we bet that under. meaning we think there's a chance he goes before pick 75 is what that prop means. But right now, the Saints to take a quarterback, okay, they are plus 1100,

where as the odds for them to take a corner back are plus 260, then it comes defensive linemen at plus 300, then wide receiver at plus 300, then linebacker at plus 550 and O lineman at plus 1,000. So you're talking about the sixth most likeliest position group that they would address. in the first round would be a quarterback based upon the odds. So I don't really have any other intel. Nora, Kevin, what do you guys think? Yeah, Nora, I was going to go with you here.

As far as the Saints go, it's an interesting question, but also the Patriots, because I've heard and read a completely different buzz. There was an ESPN report today that they don't think that the Patriots are going to trade up, and then you've heard that maybe with the right value they could. So the Saints and the Patriots, where do you go with either of those? All right. So let's let's do the Saints first. And one just big picture, the Saints doing something a little spicy, a little crazy can't ever rule it out. Can't ever rule it out. I don't think that they will do this. I think as Warren alluded to, you know, all the buzz is that they're looking really closely at the corners. I can see them in, where are they, 28, I think, being in a position to pull the trigger on someone like Caleb Farley who would fall because of the medical. shoes and the medical concerns with him, I can see New Orleans saying, okay, you know what, this portion of the first round, it's not the sweet spot where everybody wants to be because

most teams seem to think that there's a talent drop off that starts to happen 18, 20-ish. But if they're there, you know, they're a good team so that they're at the end of the first round, I can see them taking a type of swing like that. It's a position of need, you know, low floor, high ceiling type of player. just because Farley is really talented but has really serious medical concerns. Otherwise, there's guys like Greg Newsom that they could be interested in there. I think that's far more likely than them doing something wacky and trying to go up for a quarterback. But again, it's New Orleans.

So never rule it out. They also, by the way, I think they have eight picks, but they also have players, you know, Latimore, Ramchick. They could move one of those guys as part of a trade package, which I think is something to look out for. So they have ammunition to go up that doesn't just come from all of their trade, their draft picks, but also from guys on their roster who they like, but we've, you know, talked back and forth about their financial issues. That could be another way that they could end up doing that. But again, I don't think that that's really likely at all.

New England is a different situation. First of all, they just don't have to move up anywhere near as far as New Orleans would. Right. So it's a little bit less of a tall task. Also, let's just put this. out there. Bill Belichick lies. Guys, like, love the guy. I don't mean it in a bad way.

It's smart. But they are a subterfuge organization. They plant false stories. You can say that again. They try to do this. And everybody's like shaking their heads and marveling at the fact that there are conflicting reports about what they might be interested in.

And I am just as susceptible to that as anybody else and probably far more than some people who are super, super tapped in there. But, I don't think that just the fact that they have told some people that they're making more calls about trading back than trading forward really rules it out. What I think you can piece together is that their perspective on the quarterback position right now is that it's not something that they want to extend themselves in a crazy way financially for. And one of the ways to do that

is to have a quarterback on a rookie contract. So if they like someone who is falling, I can And by falling, I mean, you know, available six to 15 somewhere in there. I can absolutely see them doing it. I don't think that they will go up to four because I just, I have trouble putting together the package. But, you know, Miami's tough because it's in division, obviously. But something that's a little bit lower down, I can see them making a move for. It just wouldn't surprise me.

I'm not saying they'll do it, but it wouldn't surprise me. I wonder if Miami is just so consumed by getting draft capital that they would just trade with anybody. They're just, they're just open for business. I don't think that's going to happen. I'm just saying, I just wonder if, you know, that was the old Billy Bean thing. Here's the problem with that. I agree that it is. I mean, the Patriots trade have started, you know, they'll trade with the Jets and they do stuff like that.

And that's becoming more and more common. I actually think that, and I don't know if, I think teams have started to change their philosophy. on this a little bit. The chiefs and the ravens just did it. Well, right. And there's also a little bit of sort of holdover effect or delayed effect of, I guess, like, punditry accepting that as more normal. The way that I think the framework needs to shift is it's not don't trade within your division. It's just that there's a list of teams that are really smart where, you know, and I think Baltimore is one of them. Obviously, Kansas City is also a super smart organization. So if we're talking about the Orlando Broad Trade, you can kind of play that. both ways. But for instance, if the Ravens want to make a trade with me, I'm a little freaked out, right? I told, I think that what the Ravens do, like 20 hours out of their day is just calling up teams and offering fourth round picks for really good players. And then every once in a while, it's a fifth round comp, and then the team is like, yeah, okay, that sounds fine. Please send a fifth round pick. Right. I just think it's like there needs to be a little bit of a shift where it's not,

don't make a trade in your division. It's don't make a trade with one of the teams. that seems to win trades all the time. Like, that should be a little bit more scary. The thing that, one thing that I've heard a couple times over the last week about Miami, and this is just, you know, league rumors scuttlebutt stuff, is just that the reason that, one of the reasons they thought about going back up to six was, because that was so long ago at this point that they were still trying to leapfrog Carolina in the sense of if we need, a trade package for a player or whatever it is, we want to have the Trump card in that.

So I can definitely see them. I think we, I'm spoiling stuff because I think we got another question about this, but I can definitely see them moving out of it. I just don't. It's really hard for me to say that they would do it with New England and do it with Belichick. My take on Miami, though, is they, I think they wanted to get out of their prior slot, number three, to get the, get the value from that.

But they didn't want to move too far down because they're in a quarterback window right now. And they've got Tua and they want to try to give Tua as much weaponry as possible to try to figure out, is Tua going to be our guy? And if he's not their guy after this year, this is the year to figure it out and then to move along from him because if they, if he's not your guy, you're not going to win as many games. And you're going to be in position with all the capital they have next year already to be in position to get a quarterback in some in some manner. perform. I think Miami is going to be very reluctant to trade down from six. I think they're going to be looking to grab a guy. If they do end up trading down, it probably is only a couple of spots. It might be a team like Denver who jumps up and they go six and nine and they trade those picks. But I just feel like Miami wants to get an impact player on offense for Tua. And this is their

opportunity. This is why they're in this draft that number six overall. One of those guys is going to be that they're interested in, I think, and I would expect them to pull the trigger. So six just gives you more options because the best case scenario is you get a Pitts or a Jamar Chase or you have that in your back pocket, the ability to get more draft capital. So I want to go out of order here and because there's a question that relates to this. It's from Jackson 918. If Atlanta takes pits and since he takes Chase, are the dolphins likely to trade back? If not, who the heck do they take at six?

Warren, I'll start with you. I personally think that the news that we've heard this morning and the trade that we saw Eric Flowers being shipped off to the Washington football team, I don't think that that necessarily means that they're in the market for Penae Soule at that point because he would be on the board at six. I still believe that they are going weapon for Tua and my gut is it's Waddle, not Smith. And I think that Waddle goes at number six. if that's the scenario. I think that they obviously are in the position to go Sewell on the offensive line.

But I think that they want to really see what Tua is going to give them this year. And if they go Waddle, they got enough weapons there at the receiving core to figure out what Tua is going to give you. You can come back and there are going to be some other linemen that you will be able to get. Also, the move of Eric Flowers, I believe, saved them about $8 million in cap. And I think that they were over the cap when you looked at their entire roster. How are you going to sign this rookie class? You get rid of that cap. Now you can sign your rookie class and you potentially have another million or two where you can go out and get a right tackle.

Old vet right tackle, bring them in, doesn't hurt your comp pick system. And you can put them on a minimum deal like a million, two million dollars and still fit him under the cap. So there's a lot of Miami reporters now that are suggesting, oh, well, we shipped Eric Flowers. we definitely want Sewell. It's possible. It is absolutely possible. But I think that they go Waddle at 6. Nora, same question. Completely. So right there with Warren, I think they would be looking at one of the two Alabama receivers between Waddle or Smith. But I think just the field stretching ability would be really enticing to them. And I also, you know, I think, I always think that one, rule and it's a rule with tons of exceptions, but the body type concern guys tend to fall. And I think that's something where, you know, teams sometimes have a slightly different view than media there. And I would not be surprised at all to see Waddle go before Smith.

And I think in particular, if it was Miami, that's what I would guess. But I think absolutely they would be in the receiver market there if they stayed at six. Yeah, it'll be, it'll be fascinating. You know, I think that the Tyree Kill comparisons, first of all, in any draft are, I don't know, I hear more and more Tyree Kill comparisons. And you hear about Waddle in particular in this draft, but over the past couple of years, like anybody who's fast, oh, yeah, it's going to be Tyree Kill. And I kind of feel like that obscures, you know, I've talked to Brad Veach about this, about how much Mahomes and Tyree Kill are in tune and how much one helps the other and how there's certain types of receivers that fit well. with Mahomes and Terry Kill is one of those just because, you know, it is, and I want to get the quote right, but, you know, there's only certain quarterbacks who can actually really take advantage

of a guy who runs a four-two, right? Like, I mean, there's certain quarterbacks who can't. And so it'll be interesting to see with Waddle, um, the offense he's in and, and just sort of how that, that, that the whole constellation and all that. There's just a lot there. Well, and, and obviously in, in either case, you're talking about a guy that, you know, knows your quarterback already. Yes. Yes. And so was Waddle one of the guys who said Mac Jones was better? Showing that out there. Let's move on. All right. This is from Willie Lutz, and it's for Warren Sharp. Here's one for Warren Sharp. What occasions are reasonable spots to move up for a non-quarterback in the first round, if any? Well, I'm not sure who did the study. You guys can fill me in there, but I believe somebody recently, within the last week, published a study that showed of the last 25 tradeups for non-first-round quarterback,

the team that made the trade up lost the trade in terms of value every single time. They were 0 of 25. The team that traded down and acquired additional draft capital was far better off. And at the end of the day, what we know about draft picks are there's so many question marks and so many various different reasons why these guys don't end up working out. And so the value in moving down a few spots and the likelihood that maybe your guy that you are interested is still there. maybe the likelihood that you end up going with a different guy who ends up being better than the guy

that you would have taken earlier is so large that it makes it so valuable to just go ahead and trade down and take that extra capital. So conversely, the team that's trading up thinking, oh, well, there's this wide receiver that we got to get. He's going to be the man of this first rounder. Or there's this offensive lineman, this guard who's really going to work out well. Like generally speaking, that is bad process. It typically does not work. You give up too much from a value perspective, a draft capital perspective to make that move, not being even guaranteed that you're going to get a better player at the end of the day. Nora, before I get to you on this, I do want to say that it was Mac John, excuse me,

Devonta Smith, it was the initial guy who said Mac Jones is better than Tua and then Waddle kind of backed it up in an interview. So just to, I'm, this is a pro dolphins podcast, but I'm just throwing that particular bit of information out there. I was trying so hard to get out of talking about this. I have no comment. Well, here we are. All right. Nora, trading up in the first round for a non-quarterback. Ever a good idea unless it's Patrick Mahomes?

I'm, Warren is absolutely right here. It is ultimately bad process. If you wanted to come up with some reasons to do it that are at least logical, one, going from high, second round to low first round, you do get the fifth-year option, which is. If you're not talking about a quarterback, financially, that's less valuable, but, you know, at other expensive positions, there is some benefit to team control there. Beyond that, though, the only thing where, and even this, I think you always kind of got

to identify, like, it's really ultimately bad process because it's usually just something that happens out of arrogance. And sometimes that's rewarded because people are right and they just happen to be right. but that doesn't mean that the process was sound, which is what we're inscribing. The only thing, I guess, is if you're playing the board and you identify basically like, here's a guy we really want.

And also, you're not moving up very far and there's sort of a drop-off in the talent curve. But I'm searching here. Like, ultimately, it's just, it's not a thing that works out. I tend to agree. All right. Next one at the Damon 41.

Who do you think? think is good enough being the best non-quarterback player in this draft, Nora. Penaiseul. Hmm. Warm? Ah, it's tough. It's tough for me. I think a couple of the corners could be really good.

I think Sewell is also going to, if you're talking about like a long career, who could go to the most pro bowls, who could be like the eldest statesman when the league is, you know, 10 years down the road. and he's still playing at a decent level. Like, I wouldn't doubt that it could be, could be Sewell. I think some of these top wide receivers could splash early. And I, I like Waddle. I mean, I really do like Waddle. I think he's special.

But, you know, some of these corners are going to give teams really good value at the 1011 spot, I think. 1011. Caleb Farley, who is probably the busiest corner over the past couple of months, obviously he didn't play last year, but now there seems to be some real medical concerns. Warner, what are you, what, what's the read on Farley at this point? Yeah, I mean, there's like, does he have feeling in all of his toes? There's just so many things that are being reported. And I think teams have a lot more questions this year than they typically do because of the

lack of their ability to get their hands on these players, to get their docs hands on these players to work these guys out individually that we've already heard multiple GMs come in and say if a guy didn't play last year, we're less likely to draft him all things being equal. Well, if a guy's injured, that's going to move him down the board potentially further than typical. And I think there's a chance that, you know, a guy like Farley could be the guy that you're talking about with the Saints. I think you mentioned earlier at 28 or I've heard there's potential buzz that he slips out of the first round entirely. The team, bottom line, end of the day, the team that's going to take a guy like him

is just going to be rolling dice, hoping that he's going to be better, but there's no way to actually know what he is, what state he's in until you get him into your facility. I think the medical thing is probably the thing that teams are talking about the most that the media is not overlooking because it's been reported, but it is a big, big deal that some of these guys still have outstanding. And it's not even just the guys who are injured. I mean, it's just certain guys just they don't have the complete information. And some people didn't do the full medical checks that were requested, all that stuff.

And there's a lot of scouts or whomever who are trying to track that information this week. It's a big, big deal. All right. Next question. It is from at Tama Johnson. When should the first running back be drafted and who do you think it will be, Warren? Oh. You're going to me here because, you know,

that I'm going to hate the idea of drafting a first round running back. I think the- And then Nora and I will soften the stance. Yeah. So the bottom line is that teams that have fans that think that their offense is going to be solved just by drafting a running back obviously have not been looking at the data that shows that a running back's ceiling on most runs is going to be what is line blocks for him as well as how many defenders are in the box.

And these are things that aren't solved by drafting a new running back. So yes, you could get some various different upside by having a particular player and maybe one guy's better at catching the ball than the guys that are currently on your roster, even though you probably are only going to target him a few times a game because none of these guys are Avon Kamara in this draft class. I don't think that there's ever a good time where you could say, hey, let's go out and draft the running back. That being said, it seems like the team that's most likely to buck up and do it would be the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, I would love to see a first round running back, probably Najee Harris, run behind that line. because that first round back is probably going to look like a fourth round running back at best, running behind what the Pittsburgh Steelers now have blocking along the offensive line and how much they've fallen off over the last several years at their ability to run block.

I heard Mike Tomlin and his press conference talking about all the other things that they need to do to help make their run game be more, have more upside and have more benefit. And those are the things that are actually going to matter more. He's talking about, well, we need to figure out some of our play calling and when we're choosing to run the football. and all these different things. Yeah, that's right. That's what is going to make your run game better, not drafting a first round running back.

So if there is a, when should the first guy go? I hope that no team makes the mistake of going first round running back. The other thing that fans need to know is this, this misinformation about, well, we could hit on a guy. And then if we do, we got five years of cost control because we can franchise, you know, we could use a 50-year option. It's going to be great. most of these guys do not end up, I would look to the last 20 running backs drafted in the first

round. Only five of them produced above their competitors, their other running backs on the roster, better yards per carry. So five of 25. Most of them are basically equivalent to the other running backs that are thrown on to the roster. And the guys that do overperform teams lock them up after the third year. You look at all the Todd Gurley, Ezekiel Elliott, Christian McCaffrey. These guys got massive paydays. It wasn't after year four. It wasn't. It wasn't after, it was, it was right there after year three. So that is not true. The other question that I have for you guys before I toss it back is, we've heard Brandon Bean, we've heard Kevin Colbert talk about the value of having an additional player like a running back who can do a lot

more things and bring some upside to quickly solving the problem. What sense does it make for a GM to publicly talk about, there's only like three decent running backs in this entire class. So there's a scarcity argument to be made here that yeah because overall the class is not very good but that actually makes it more likely that these guys are going to go a little bit higher because the drop up is so severe but why would a guy like brandon bean at 30 talk about drafting a running back if there's only a couple good running backs in the entire class and you know one of them might be going to pittsburgh before you so that could be a smokescreen but what do you guys think about like GMs and or owners, sorry I'm going

off track here, that talk about their needs and their desires in press conferences right before the draft. So there's a couple of things here. Number one, the three running backs, I think you're referring to, Anaja Harris, Travis Etienne and Javanta Williams from North Carolina. And I

think that, and maybe this is too meta here, and Nora, feel free to disagree. I think that post, pre-draft press conferences do not matter because, and Bruce Ariens, is the guidepost for this because I think he said it five years ago. He said the best smokescreen in the world would be to get up on a podium five days

before the draft and just say everything you're going to do because nobody would ever believe it. And I kind of feel like when Brandon Bean gets up there and says, oh yeah, we might go with a person I'm running back or makes it appear like they might be leaning that way or whatever. I love Brandon Bean. I don't think that has much to do. I don't think that teams are scouring and saying, you know, and maybe he wants them to scour.

I don't know. I'm just saying that I think that pre-draft press conferences or anything that a team says publicly is kind of a trick of mirror in the last month of the draft. And I don't really know. Nora, how do you kind of view when teams talk about their desires publicly? Sometimes it's true. Sometimes it's not, right? Right. Sometimes people just say stuff.

And that's the thing is that, and I do think, like, Brandon Bean is an eminently reasonable person. and one of the things that I like about him so much is that he doesn't treat people like their idiots, right? Like one factor in this is that it is possible to look at rosters and figure out where the needs are, needs obviously influence drafts. So to a degree, sometimes these guys, like, are just not being jerks and are just like, yeah, I know you guys can see how we might think that a running back or a player at, you know, position X, whatever it is,

could kind of get us over the hump. like we're a roster that doesn't have a ton of very obvious crying out for help at whatever needed it might be. So people just say stuff, man. But like if someone, if a team is trying to keep something close to the vest, they will either do it or they will say things that aren't true. And there is so much information flying around that it's the thing that ends up being funny to me is that really anybody tries in the first place, right? Because it's just this like ridiculous information ecosystem where it is so flooded with both truth and BS that sorting through it is nearly impossible. And sometimes I think it's just easier and more sound to look at the big

picture, look at where the needs are, look at some of the draft history for specific teams, you know, you know what they like, you know how they tend to operate. And occasionally, especially with people who, you know, are nice guys like Brandon Bean certainly is, they will just acknowledge a reality. It doesn't mean that it's going to become their draft reality. But like, I think just sometimes it's like, you can see the logic in why they might do that. So it's easy for him to talk about. In terms of the running back thing, I'm a Harris fan in terms of who I think the best one in the class is, but just to circle back on something Warren said,

it's a really, really, really bad class at that position. And that probably does mean that some team is going to overdraft one of these guys because they want one and they don't think that they can get a good one later. I think that would be a mistake. I think in particular it would be a brutal mistake for the Steelers who had no running game last year, but how much you want to bet that if they improved the blocking,

they might be able to find someone to run behind it and do pretty well. Someone's going to do it just because of positional scarcity, I bet, but it is a tough, tough, tough class, particularly when you're talking about just sort of athletic ability. It's not really a, it's not a traits running back class. Warren, I want to do a thought exercise with you. If you ran an NFL team and you guys needed a running back, at what point, let's say Najah Harris just keeps,

Nagea Harris just keeps slipping. At what point do you pick it? Ever? Oh, in the draft? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm definitely picking Nagee Harris in the draft. Wait, wait.

What round does it become acceptable for you? Okay. Am I the Steelers where I have no offensive line whatsoever? You've just replaced Kevin Colbert. Okay. So if all the Steelers and I have zero offensive line, I'm definitely going offensive line, the first round. Second round, I don't know exactly where they pick, but I'm contemplating going offensive line again in the second round to fix a major area of need

for me. And then I might be looking to go running back. So they have 24 and then 55. And the next pick is 87. There is no doubt that Najee Harris is going to go like, okay, each GM will like something a little bit different about these running backs. There's actually, you know, I've, I've had some discussions with some teams that have Giovante Williams as their running back won. Like they think he's the best, he's the best guy for their team. And that's who they would take if there were zero running backs off the board yet. And they wanted to go running back.

They would take him. So it's like, what does, what does Najee Harris do so much better than you could get Aetian or then you could get Giovante Williams. But there's no doubt he's going late first, early second, in my opinion, is Nadja Harris. I think there's a lot of teams that are interested in grabbing one of these running backs at the top of the second round. I am curious to see how many go in the first round, if any, but I think that there's going to be a team that's desperate and makes the mistake of going there. But I think we're going to see a couple of these guys go at the beginning of the second round. So to answer your question, if I'm specifically the Pittsburgh Steelers, I'm a

doing O-line, I'm doing O-line, and I'm using the running backs that I already have, potentially to play the 2021 season. If I'm another team where my O-Line's in a little bit better shape, second round could be a possibility if those, you know, but I'm not going first round for this running backs. Yeah, no, I'm in agreement on the first round part. I could see a case for the second round if it's a special talent. I'm pretty much with you there. All right, this is from Jacob King. And I guess it's a question about variance. And I kind of like it because it's a good jumping off point for just the discussion of how volatile the top 10 can be.

Top five, excuse me. With the top five pick, would you rather have a guaranteed 12-year starter that will not make the Hall of Fame? But you'll never worry about the position as long as he's there. Or take a chance on a guy who has the variance level between Patrick Mahomes and Nathan Peterson. This is an interesting question because it gets to what you're looking for from a top five talent. It's almost a little bit of a, it's like taking a Sewell or one of the, one of the not top two quarterbacks or even anybody but Trevor Lawrence really because I didn't do the huge gap between Lawrence and Wilson. Nora, I'll start with you. When you're picking in the top five, what do you after?

I'm taking the guaranteed 12 year starter 10 times out of 10. I know that's not fun. But like my entire philosophy is kind of do not take risks early. take a lot of risks late, but do not take risks early. Because just accept that the draft is high variance from the start and take the swings when you can take a lot of them. Because so I did a show with the Danny's a while back where we ranked the number one overall picks from the last, since 2000, I think we did. And the highest value guys were like Eli Manning. and Carson Palmer and Cam Newton and Andrew Luck.

And there's sort of variability there in terms of what you're talking about, you know, what the talent versus accomplishment versus like weird stuff in Andrew Luck's case. But what you come away realizing is it's not the dream scenario that you tend to game out in your mind about what a number one overall pick of a quarterback in the NFL is going to be. realistically the high watermark for those picks is a really good long-term starter. And it's not fun, but the reality is that if you get one of those guys, like, from when, when I read this question, I thought of Matt Ryan, you know? And Matt Ryan would be awesome to have. Why is Matt Ryan always the line? I don't know.

Matt Ryan is becoming to the ringer NFL show what, like, LeBron is to first take. It's just like, oh, we don't have anything. Time to go to Matt Ryan somehow. What does that mean for us? Oh, no. Okay, well, fine. I thought of Matt Ryan. I've been insipted.

But probably not going to make the Hall of Fame. That describes a lot of really good quarterbacks. I will take it. Warren Sharp, when you're picking for the top five, would you go for the sure thing or the upset? Well, at first I was going to ask you the question of the variance levels. Are we talking about throughout the guys, career he can vary between these or he's either Patrick Mahomes or he's Nathan

Peterman. Then I realized that I think I probably align more like Nora because I started to look through the top five picks in draft history. And there is so much garbage that is on that list that if you can actually get a guy who is for 12 years going to be playing at a level that would make him a Hall of Famer, that is the guy that you would go after. and you would happily take it and try to figure out what else your roster needs. Now, if you're talking about you can have a guy who from season to season could vary and we could go down that path about like what the rest of your roster looks like and where you're at and, you know, like could you go roll the dice on a QB?

And if that QB doesn't work out year one, you can just roll the dice on another QB the next year like and hope that you can land the difference maker that Patrick Mahomes, that's like a little bit of an argument that I could potentially entertain, but I'll just tell you, like the draft history of one to five, draft history of number two in general, number two, is disgusting. So, you know, you should be thrilled if you are a GM that picks a guy that is a hall of famer and is going to play 12 years in your city. Yeah, it's interesting. All right. Next from Nathan Pallatsky, in your opinion, was there ever a chance for someone to make a massive Russell Wilson level offer for number one? Or was Jacksonville dead set since the end of the season?

So Trent Balky said that they took calls and they just kind of basically said thanks but no thanks on this. But I'll spin this a different way. If you were Jacksonville, is there an offer you would accept for number one if someone called and said, here's a package? Or do you just not even take the call? I'll start with you, Nora. first of all, you definitely take the call. All right. So realistically, I think everybody kind of just was looking for a fresh start.

Lawrence is the type of prospect that doesn't come along super often. And obviously, you know, there's tons of variability in the draft and we will see. But that's a special circumstance that I think it was going to take a ton for them to even consider moving off of. I don't think they ever really got there at all. but if San Francisco's comp for three was three first round picks and a third, I mean, it's got to be what, five,

five first round picks. And then you start to get into the territory where it's like, we've talked about this. There aren't that many players. Right. Who that doesn't peak your interest for. So I think if somebody starts getting like five, six,

you know, you start being like, at what point does it just get a little bit ridiculous to not at least have a conversation about it. But, and we should acknowledge, San Francisco paid so much for that number three pick that it is kind of frozen in the market so far. Yeah.

Like somebody is going to need to do something, make some trade to loosen it up because I think right now that's defining worth for a lot of the picks, you know, from four to ten, let's call it, is based off of, okay, well, if three was that, and what's a little bit less than that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's just an imbalance between what people might be willing to give up. It seems like, and, you know, we'll see.

Obviously, draft day is when a lot of these deals go down and people change their tune and whatever. But the market kind of needs a shakeup because right now it's defined as so expensive that I think it's, it's injecting some inertia in here. But for number one, it would be crazy. So to push back a little bit on the value thing. if you got five first round picks for the number one in the Trevor Lawrence draft, your best case and your hope and your prayer would be that you get the top overall pick in a year with a prospect like Trevor Lawrence, right? Like if the Jaguars, so that's my problem.

That's why I kind of think that I know that everything has a price and all that, but I do kind of think that the first overall pick in a year like this one, just in theory is a little bit priceless. Well, and also when you're talking about new code, franchise that really, you know, they got a win at some point. Otherwise, we're, you know, have a Cleveland South situation going on. And yeah. In that context, yeah, I think it was going to be borderline impossible to get them to

move off of that. But just if we're doing this as an intellectual exercise. Yes. At a certain point, like, okay, 10 first round picks? Like, the line is somewhere. Warren. Help us out. What's what, what is the, what is the line? Yeah, I don't, I don't know what the line is, but I'll just say as approaching this, not from the intellectual exercise and just in this

particular situation, that Urban Meyer was not going to come to a team that didn't have the number one quarterback of this class and, and that he could just take over and build this team around this guy within, in his vision. If, if they had, you know, oh yeah, well, we're going to trade this down and we'll get like some other picks later and we're going to have some really good classes in the future. Like I just don't know that Urban Meyer were to signed off on that. And so I think that that was one of the reasons why he came to be the coach. So for them in particular this year, I don't think they would have done that specifically for

Jacksonville. I also think that a higher power allowed the jets to beat the Rams in December so that all of this could come to fruition. And it probably would be bad. cosmically, carmically, to not accept the, the bounty that was delivered

unto Jacksonville, in part because of that, that situation. So I'm with you in reality. I'm just saying there has to be a line somewhere. Warren, what are your expectations

for the Trevor Lawrence Jaguars in your one? I mean, they've got a lot of holes. So it's going to be difficult. They obviously are not projected to do really well this season. But there's some benefits for their roster, for their coaching staff because of where they play, who they play. I mean, this division is not very good. I think the Titans are going to take a nice step back without their coach

there calling plays offensively. I think it's going to be difficult for them to figure out their run past balance and all the other things that they're going to try to incorporate right there and their defense was not very good last year. So that was the team that won the division, right? So then you get a look at the Indianapolis Colts and hopefully Carson Wentz works out for them. I know that they're very confident in acquiring him and they believe that that is going to be the case, but there are still a question marks there. I just think that they're lucky to be in the division that they're in playing the schedule

that they're going to play. And they're not going to be worse than last year. I'd be excited if I'm a Jaguars fan, right? I'd be excited about the 2021 season if I'm a Jaguars fan because that's a, the big thing for me is, what is Urban Meyer going to do as a coach, his exes knows, how's he going to work with his players, how are they going to kind of rally around him? Are they going to take to his style of coaching? Like, there's a lot of question marks that I haven't really studied Urban specifically enough

to get a sense as to how that's going to play out from college to the NFL. But I think a lot of their season ultimately is going to come down to, how he interacts with those players. I'm going to reveal something I'd never revealed publicly before. And when I was in high school, when I was in high school, I attempted to become a Jaguars fan. How'd it go? It didn't stick.

It didn't stick. We went to a couple games with some friends. Didn't stick. Were you the guy in that in the one meme who was just like holding his hand out there, like laughing at the play call? The one thing I did see at a Jaguars game was actually when I was in college. This is far past the MI Jaguars fan experiment. I was just going because we happened to be in St. Augustine.

And I went and there was the Bills versus the Jaguars and the Bills were terrible. I think there was it was like, it was the interim coach for the Bills. They were really bad. T.O. on the Bills scored a 99-year touchdown or 98-year touchdown in that game. But the one thing I did see was there were a bunch of Bills fans and like 10 right to the right of us and they got in a huge brawl with a bunch of Jaguars fans. and I swear to you, 80% of an entire section got thrown out

because they all threw in at least like a shove or a punch. Like I've never seen a group brawl like that than between Jaguars fans and Bill's fans in 2008 or whatever it was. It was quite a time. My favorite recurring segment on this show is Kevin breaks down Florida shoving matches. Like truly nothing brings me more joy.

You learn a sense of, calm in those situations is what I'll say. Everyone just doing their own thing. Well, but apparently it was not, so Kevin right now on our Zoom, I can see behind him there's a magic hat and then there's a University of Miami visor. Viser. There's no, no Jaguars hat. No Jaguars hat.

As I said, it was just, it didn't, you know, it just, it didn't jive with me. That's all. All right. This is a great question because it's a big one. it's from a PB 6633 and I know he's kind of joking but it's actually a great question why is it so hard to watch someone play football

and then work out if they'll be good at playing football so you're kind of getting to the heart of the draft which is you're watching these guys play in college and it seems obvious and it's just not Warren let's take a big picture what are the mistakes or what are the obstacles you're making when teams are are projecting from college to pro.

A lot of it has to do with overconfidence. I think of the team that's doing the evaluation, thinking that we can fit this guy into our system, we can coach him up, his injuries aren't going to be a factor. Like everything that is a question mark on that guy's sheet, you think that you've got the answer for. You think that you can fix. You think that you're going to solve.

You think that you're going to build this guy into being something more. while he lacks some desire. Well, that's okay because we can, we can, he'll grow, he'll mature. There's a lot of different things that go on that different teams think that they're going to be able to solve or fix due to, uh, a little bit of overconfidence. And I think that's one of the biggest reasons why, uh, players at all levels or players that come to the NFL struggle. But the other thing too is I forget what GM.

He said he made a great point the other day. He's like, Sometimes it's not the player's fault. You know, like sometimes, sometimes like the fact that this particular guy didn't end up becoming a great pro isn't necessarily the player's fault. Like we asked them to do something different. We,

we didn't have great coaches involved. Like there's a lot of reasons why guys end up failing. And the hard part, you know, you guys all know from when you're drafted, like how you're viewed in that first contract, you know, this first four years or so,

like defines what your pro career is going to be. And if you're with a coaching staff that doesn't know what to do with you, it doesn't like you, prefer somebody else. Maybe you got drafted and there's competition at your position. And for whatever reason, the other guy wins out and then you don't even get enough time. Like there's a lot of things that if you were on a different team, maybe it's a different story. But with that particular team and with those particular coaches, it just doesn't work out. So it times can be the team's fault, certainly for why players don't end up working out as best that they could.

Nora? It's just impossible to isolate variables when you're looking at football, right? Like that's what we work so hard to try to do. But it's ultimately pretty much impossible because the game of football in general is defined by the number of variables that there are at play. And so things will go wrong. And as Warren was saying, you won't really be able to figure out exactly what the variable is. Is it the player? Is it the scheme?

Is it the coaching? Is it something, you know, mental? is it something about just the environment and then you don't really know but you take a guess and sometimes you say fire the offensive coordinator and then a year later it's like oh that guy actually was pretty good maybe that's not it

or people rag on a player a bunch and he gets cut and it's like this guy's a bust this guy's a bum he's no good and then it's like oh actually team X looked at the guy who was really good at playing a certain position in college and just decided that he could change and do something else in the NFL

and they didn't turn out to be right. So it's in the projection and it's in the choosing what the origin of success or failure is where it's just, there are so many variables at play that it makes it really hard. But it also makes it really interesting.

So, yeah. And that's, there's a handful of reasons the players fail. As you said, sometimes it's not the player's fault. In fact, many times it's not. sometimes the team asked them to do stuff that they either haven't done or just simply aren't good at. That's one of the reasons that the Patriots have succeeded, especially not only in taking kind of mid-career guys and guys who have failed elsewhere.

Kyle Van Nuys is a good example who didn't play very well in Detroit. They took him. They basically just did what he's good at and he succeeded, right? And aside from obviously the speed of the game, the NFL being much faster, there's also just, you know, sometimes players, are not, they, sometimes players are put in perfect situations or, um, are put in schemes, you know, I was just reading a purple ball focus thing about Zach Wilson actually, about, uh, how rarely he threw into spots on the field where there was any danger because of the way the offense, um, was, was orchestrated.

It was really interesting piece about that. And some offenses in college, you're going to be throwing into danger areas a lot. Some of you're not. Um, sometimes you're going to be moving on the run and throwing on the run because your offensive line is bad. Sometimes you're throwing from a clean pocket all the time. I mean, every situation is so different, and that's kind of where the breakdown is. It's interesting, you know, obviously, I think it took a decade for NFL teams to figure out the spread offense

and just kind of how that went. I remember Andy Reid saying this a couple of years ago, but he said, you know, for years, all NFL teams wanted was quarterbacks to throw a ton at the college level so they could see those reps. And then they got it with the spread offense, and they were like, oh, well, we don't like this. Not like this.

Wait, we didn't know. like it the other way. We liked when they were, they were throwing it, you know, 14 times a game in the pro post-style offense rather than 50 times a game in the in the spread offense. But anyway, yeah, it's a big question. It's the heart of the matter with the NFL. All right, which Taylor song, Taylor Swift's song represents each top five quarterback. We'll start with Warren Sharp. Love to hear that. Warren, what's what's your, what's your favorite Taylor Swift song? I don't even, I'm not Sure, but I listened to the last, well, I don't know, I think based upon Nora's Twitter feed, like, she's coming out with a lot of different albums. But the one that I think she put out before Christmas or something, I was listened to a little bit of that.

Because I like the, I liked it because, I mean, this is so stupid, like, because I don't know anything about music or Taylor Swift. But I like the fact that, like, all the songs kind of sounded a little bit like a mood, like a single, singular mood to me. I could just put it on and then work in the background and it was always like great music and everything about it was nice but it wasn't like going from a really hard song to a slow song to loud like anyways that you know what Warren that's actually very insightful if you don't if you don't like music that much what was the last concert you went to um two two totally different uh styles but uh one one was either a Dave Matthews or it was Outcast.

That is, I did not see either of those coming. I will say that the Carolina Panthers recently out of themselves as huge Dave Matthews band fans. I don't know if you saw their pre-Jap press conference, but they, they got kind of granular on how much they loved Dave. Anyway, I did, I did not see that now. That's great. That's great. Do you mean, did you mean to say Matt Rule? What did I say?

The Carolina Panthers. You made them a sentient entity that loves the Dave Matthews band. No, no, no. Like Scott, Scott, Scott Fitterer also loves. Yeah. And Matt Rule, they both got them. Oh, I did see that. I know, but I think you assigned personhood to a football organization and made them a Dave

Matthews fan, which I love. How do you know that Sam Darnold's not a huge DMB guy? One of those guys with a DMB sticker on his car. I don't know that. I, that's totally plausible, but that's not what I'm saying. Maybe he's referring to pause the mascot in general. Thank you, Warren. Thank you. Okay, hold. I'm sorry.

I hate to be injecting negativity and controversy into this podcast. It's Sirpur. Sirpur. Okay, there you go. That's on negativity. You're just correcting somebody who didn't know what the mascot was. I appreciate that. We were spot on on your Evermore take, Warren. But come on. Evermore. There you go. There you go. Evermore. All right. I want to hear Nora's answer that to this question.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, we got sidetracked. All right. Trevor Lawrence is enchanted. great song two people meeting each other for the first time and embarking on a beautiful future. Zach Wilson, blank space. So you're kind of,

you know, you're meeting a person and it's very exciting and there's a ton of potential, but a little edgier. Mack Jones is lover. I thought about being snarky with this, but I'm just going with a sort of throwbacky song that's maybe not like an all-timer,

but is still very good. Justin Fields is you belong with me because right now he's sitting in his room being unloved and it's not nice, but we're hoping for a happy ending. And then Trey Lance is Gold Rush, which is a song about being a little bit nervous about tantalizing potential.

Wow. That was deep on. Very good. Wow. Should we get Matt Rul on here to do the same with Dave? You know, my Taylor co-host, Nathan Hubbard. used to work for the Dave Matthews band.

We can all, we can do like a crossover event. Wow. I didn't know that. What would be fun as if, if Fitterer and Rule just argued on a podcast about different Dave takes for an hour, that would be... Every single album, Dave Matthews band with Scott Fitterer and Matt Ruhl and Sir Perr

and Sam Darnold. Honestly, electric. Greenlit. All right. We'll get that in the hopper. Guys, this is great. It's been the Renfell Show on the Ringer Podcast Network. We have coming up this week. I will be on with the dandies following round one and thursday.

Nora will be joined by Kalin and Roger on Friday talking about rounds two and three. Saturday, the two Danies will be back giving their draft awards. We'll be back on Monday, Nora and I. And Warren at some point is going to do his hair. Is that correct? Well, I'll just take off my hat. There, my hair is done. There you go.

My hair is done. All right. All right. It's been the ringer NFL show on the ringer podcast network.