The Ringer NFL Show - NFL Draft Winners and Losers

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante get together after the third day of the NFL draft and they start their conversation by discussing the Browns taking Shedeur Sanders with the 144th pick and speculating on what this means for the mercurial college superstar and his new team going forward. They then survey the rest of the picks and talk about which individuals and organizations won big in this year’s draft, and which teams seemingly took a big step back heading into training camp. 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 LeeProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera GivensProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's happening? It's Todd McShea, host of the McShay show at the Ringer and Spotify. Listen, I love all aspects of football from the college to the professional game, but the draft is my grind. Listen and watch the McShay show for all of my draft analysis. And if you want more, subscribe to my newsletter, the McShay report, where you can find my mock drafts and big boards and all the buzz and intel I'm hearing from NFL decision makers.

Make sure to like, follow, subscribe to the McShay show on the ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. And subscribe to the McShay report today for a special introductory offer. Google the McShay report or find it on the ringer.com. Welcome to the ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz. The 2025 NFL draft is in the books. We are going to do some winners and losers.

But before we do that, we have to. Listen, we were hipsters on Thursday. we didn't talk Shador Sanders until like 40 minutes in, but he actually got picked on Saturday, fifth round, 144 overall to the Cleveland Browns. And so we got to revisit that conversation, talk about what we think about that pick. Why did he slide?

Why did the Browns do it after they drafted Dylan Gabriel? We'll get to all that, Deonté. I mean, just your impressions. We were joking before we started that it kind of felt like The draft ended when Chador Sanders got selected. The storyline everyone's been talking about for three days finally found a conclusion. 1,000 percent. And like I was saying before we hopped on the show, like great for ESPN to be able to milk this as a storyline for three straight days.

Right. And I think the milk hyper probably did a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard with all of his very righteous indignation over where Dionne's son ultimately was picked. I think there's just so many different angles that you can. take this, right? We talked about it a little bit in terms of the margin for error for a quarterback which your door's passing profile. And then I was also just thinking like how big of a perception versus reality difference there clearly was between what we were hearing from the media and you start thinking about the people involved. You think about Joel Clatt as a Colorado guy pumping them up. You think about the fact that Dion does have great relationships across the media and that he casts

a long shadow over college football and the NFL in terms of his. presence in the media. And for just so long, right, for two years, since he transferred to Colorado, there was just this almost like fate of company that he was going to be a top half of the first round type of quarterback. And clearly the NFL did not evaluate him that way as a talent. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been here throughout the weekend. And then the reported behavior in interviews.

And again, it's very hairy. It gets really tangled trying to work through that. So I don't know how much of it to make. But clearly, teams were at least. miffed, at the very least missed by the conduct in interviews, and I think I tweeted it out this morning, that what it felt like to me was if the evaluation wasn't the strongest, and he was putting people off in interviews, and when scouts get together with coaches and with their GMs, and you start combining all these things, I would not be surprised at all if coaches said,

this is a backup, and what you just detailed to me is not worth the headache as a backup. And if you're a GM and you hear that from your coach, I'm not picking me. that guy and putting him in a position where we know we have to roster him for multiple years if things don't work out or to set an expectation that the guy has to play early in his career because he's drafted high. So that's just kind of what I'm resigned to now. I think most of all I'm just glad that the saga is over. And we can talk about him as a pro to the extent that we do get to talk about him as a pro.

Yeah, I feel like the slide is complicated and it's also not complicated. I feel like it starts with the mis-evaluation. Well, the disconnect between where the league viewed Shador as a prospect and where Team Shador viewed Shador as a prospect. And that informed how they approached draft season, which I think ultimately is the reason why he slid. I don't think it's like some defect in his personality. I think if he approached the draft,

not thinking like, oh, he had this juice where, like, Dion said it, I think it was in September. He's like, we'll pull the N Eli if he's going to a team that I don't want. Like, you don't have the juice. Like, day two players can't do it. that. Day 2 players can't skip out on the combine. Day 2 players can't skip out on the Shrine Bowl game and practices. Day 2 players can, I guess, it's kind of hard because you don't know where those anonymous quotes are coming from. When you listen to Brian Callahan, who was on

the record, he was like, Shador is a good dude. If you listen to Andrew Barry, who ended up drafting him, he was like, Shador was a nice young man. Those are teams that were in the range to take Shador. And I think Shador probably felt like he was going to end up at one of those teams like the Browns, the Raiders and the Titans, maybe these anonymous quotes where they're like, oh yeah, he was a horrible interview. Our teams where he's like, I'm not going there. Like, I'm not getting taken 22nd. I don't care what like the Steelers have to say to me. And I think that that approach was ill-informed, obviously, because he wasn't a top 10 pick like Dion thought he was going to be, like Shador thought he was going to be. And he wasn't competing with Cam Ward.

He was competing with Tyler Shuck. He was competing with Jalen Milrow. He was competing with Jackson Dart. And those guys threw it. at the combine. Shador didn't. And I think that's ultimately what led to this slide. I don't think it led to the slide out of the first round. I think that was already destined to happen. I think the way that they approached draft season is the

reason that he slid all the way down to round five. Yeah, I think it's two different conversations. I think we had the conversation on Thursday night. Why did he slip out of the first round? And I think most people, especially now, would agree that just sort of the evaluation, no one wanted to take

a flyer on him, given the film given the tools, the lack, you know, doesn't have a bit, the traits, doesn't have a big arm, is not the greatest athlete, you know, there, there's some stuff to work with, but it's not necessarily a first round profile. Now that, I felt fine about that conversation on Thursday night. Once he doesn't get picked on day two, and once the Dylan Gabriel's of the world. The Dylan Gabriel picked. Yeah. That was a lot. That was a little bit too. That's a line. That's a lot. Where you're like, no, no, no, this isn't, this is not just about the film and the traits and all that. There is more to it than that. And I'm with Deante.

Like, it's hard to, we can't sit here and I always hate this just like, all right, the guy was a bad interview because I have met people in the NFL and I have interviewed and gotten to know people in the NFL who make these decisions. And I would not trust them to interview a 22 year old and tell me whether they think that's a good person or not or a bad person or whether that person rubbed them the wrong way or not. So I generally don't like those conversations. The NFL has a centuries long reputation of not being a great judge of character, if we're being honest.

Right. But we also have evidence that it wasn't just one, when a guy slips this far, there's sort of a league-wide consensus. I mean, you're talking about goes through 143 picks in a league that is starved for quarterbacks, whether it's immediate need,

whether it's, hey, maybe this guy will be good in two years, whether it's, hey, let's just take him because the value's better. than some safety we're going to take in the third or fourth round. And so whatever it was that Chador Sanders did, to Ruiz's point, it could just be the whole team Chador,

the, you know, whatever the attitude was going into this process. It could be part of the interview stuff. I know I think McShay had something about, you know, the Giants asked him to kind of look at an install and then talk to him about it and he hadn't done the work and they called him out about it. And they didn't like how that interaction went. So it could be a combination of all of the. these things. So I think it did start with the mis-evaluation of the player, the quarterback,

why he doesn't go in round one. And then to me, at least, it feels like all the other stuff then leads to a slide where he doesn't end up going until the 144th pick. The ironic thing, maybe it's an ironic, but that's kind of the problem with him on the field is that he has a little too much dip on his chip at time. So he thinks too highly of his own ability. He holds on to the ball too long and that leads to sacks. It leads to bad decisions. And that ultimately is what affected him during draft season. Like he thought more highly of himself than the league did, and it got him into trouble.

He took another hit. He took a metaphorical hit this time. On the field, though, he always got up from those hits. We're about to find out what his resilience is like now, because this is a tough situation. First of all, we don't often see teams take two quarterbacks in the same draft. And when we have seen it, it's usually we take a guy in the first round,

and then we take a guy on day three. And the guy on day three really isn't considered a threat to the guy on day one. Sometimes it happens. But this was, like unprecedented. It was only 50 picks apart. I tweeted out today,

like I tweet out the 11 times this has happened. The previous record was already three Kirk Cousins with only 100 picks separating them. This is half of that. So I'm interested to see how Cleveland kind of doles out reps in practice, how they dole out reps in preseason games.

Because there is not a clear path. Forget about him starting. There's not a clear path to him getting reps, to him getting live reps. He's fifth on the depth chart. take out Deshaun Watson, who's probably not going to play this year. He's fourth on the depth chart. Those guys usually don't get reps in preseason, so it's going to be tough.

And now, in Dylan Gabriel, he has a guy ahead of him who is the same age, and you can make the same argument, it has the same ceiling as him. Deonti, I know you were mentioned right before we came on where I said, no, wait, save that. Let's hit record before we have that conversation, the conversation about why did the Browns ultimately decide to take Shador Sanders at 144. This is a team with a need at quarterback with a lot of picks. They took two running backs in between. They took an offball linebacker who was a good prospect.

They took Dylan Gabriel, like we said. That was really the moment, I think, where everyone goes like, wait a minute. I was like, wait, is he going to go? Is Shadour going to go undrafted if Dylan Gabriel is going here? But ultimately, the Browns end up taking him to Ruiz's point after Dylan in the fifth round at 144. Now a lot of us were looking at those clips, you know, when they announced the pick, when the room's supposed to be excited.

I wouldn't say it was the most, you know, jubilant room I've ever seen. Is there anything to read into that? Do we believe Andrew Barry and Kevin Stefanski, who in their press conference, was like, you know, we don't know when that shot was taken and we're tired, it's day three? Or do you read more into that potentially about the process with maybe an owner? involved that led to them ultimately taking Shadur Sanders. To me, you don't take two quarterbacks that close to one another unless there was a split in opinion on who the pick needed to be.

And I would say that those two guys being picked so closely together speaks to the fact that there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen. I would say Cleveland and Chicago are like two of the organizations I think of. It's like you got a lot of people on this org chart who you say have power to influence decision making. I would say with Chicago, most of those people are kind of more on the quieter. side. We really hear from Ryan Poles and the football people. They just have a lot of business people on the other end that are names that we know and know that they've been around football for a while.

So we're not sure which direction they're cutting in in a lot of ways. With Cleveland, there's a demonstrated history that the front office can do whatever the hell they want throughout the year. But if the Hazam family steps in the door and says, we've decided that X is happening, it can be totally different, totally divergent from whatever the front office wanted to do. And that usually ends up being what it was. And that's kind of how I read the Dylan Gabriel pick before Shador Sanders was like, oh, okay, if they wanted to bring in a flyer, a guy that you're taking a flyer on as a bottom of the depth chart guy, this must have been the coaching staff plus GM's guy, right?

If we're going to take anybody, we're going to take him here. And I think they maybe reached on him to grab him, maybe to try to preclude this from happening. And maybe they all got into a meeting the next day and ownership told them, this is what we're doing. Shador Sanders, if we're going to draft a quarterback, that's the guy we want. I don't care that you've already done this with Dylan Gabriel. Let's give this guy a shot. I don't even hate, you know, doubling up on the quarterback position because neither of these guys are high-ceiling players. It's just when you look at the video, when you look at the decision-making, when you think about the history of this franchise going back to the Mansell pick and how they handle Brandon Wheatting and all the guys that they've drafted over the last decade, decade and a half, they have a very checkered history here of being able to land it.

And then I look at the decision makers, and we talked about it in the GM episode that we did on the AFC. There's not a lot here to suggest that any one person is holding the wheel for a long period of time. It looks like it's exchanging hands all the time in Cleveland. I mean, this is a team owner that is on record saying that a homeless man influenced him drafting Johnny Nenzel on the first round. Like, I don't think that's actually true, but the guy said it. So I have to take his word for it. But I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt they did trade up for him. I don't think Andrew Barry, I don't think they would have traded up for him if this was like a mandated thing for ownership.

And like as Barry said, he was like the price outweighed like where he was on our draft board. At a certain point, we felt like he was underpriced is basically what he said. And we had to take them. And I tend to buy that. I think they're an organization that will follow analytics. And analytics will tell you like take a bunch of shots at quarterback. So it kind of makes sense with what they typically do. So I really don't think this was like a Haslam.

move. But I'm willing to entertain it. I think it's funny. I'm willing to entertain the idea that the Trump tweet may have moved the needle a little bit. It would have been funny if Trump was out on the White House lawn with like the Tesla's store out there, Dion out there in the spot of Elon. I would have been pretty funny. Yeah, you're right. There is a case that, hey, if you don't have a quarterback, like take flyers on guys. If you had them graded in the same vicinity, take them both. Like that could be a smart sort of philosophy or reasoning. But yeah, it is hard to get that image out of my head when you looked at them,

when they drafted him and Kevin Stefanski is doing a little golf clap. And Andrew Barry looked like he was about to fall asleep. You know, he certainly didn't look too excited about it. And you look at how far your door Sanders fell and how many opportunities they had to draft it. Maybe you're right. Maybe the reasoning's right. And all right, at this specific price point in the fifth round, you say, hey, these guys aren't even guaranteed to make the team. now we can go ahead and take him here. But I don't know.

I don't know that the Browns are an organization that deserves any kind of benefit of the doubt. So if we hear something contrary to that, that certainly would not shock me. As Ruiz said, the Jimmy Haslam history there. Who knows? So yeah, now the quarterback room is Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Shador Sanders, and Dylan Gabriel. So I gave the funniest quarterback room to the Giants on our previous show with James, Russ, cutlets, and Jackson Dart.

This one's right there. You know, I don't know, Ruiz. I don't know if you're going to be asked to. Is it funny? Is it funny? I was going to say, I'm like, I'm like, funny as the adjective.

Yeah. That might not be a personal. Yeah. Messed up. How did this happen? How did we get here? And they traded. I mean, it was a trade for Kenny Pickett.

It was a trade for Deshaun Watson. It was a trade for Shadoors. If you look at it that way, they actually had to give up extra for each of those guys. So we will see what it looks like in Cleveland now with Chodor Sanders going to the Cleveland Browns. All right. We're done with Chador.

We're going to take a break. We come back. We are going to go through some winners. Then we're going to go through some losers from the 2025 NFL draft. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. Ruiz, you want to get us started. Who is one of your winners?

And we said, by the way, this could be anything. This could be a team, a GM, a coach, a fan base, a player, any direction you want to go in. Ruiz, who is your first winner from the draft? Well, we're just going to stay right on this topic because my first winner is the Cleveland Browns. Despite the Shador pick, this isn't really part of it, although I do think like that was a smart move. I do think they came away with a good hall of draft pick or a good hall of prospects. And then on top of that, the Travis Hunter trade, which I did like the trade, but I really loved it from Cleveland's perspective picking up an extra first round pick. But I like the

approach of taking two running backs. I think they took two running backs that compliment each other and Dylan Samson and Cushan Judkins. I think if you swap the Gabriel and Sanders picks, like those draft positions, I like those picks a lot more. I hate it the Gabriel pick when it happened, but as a fifth rounder that makes sense, and Shadur is a third rounder that makes

sense to me. Carson Swisinger, I like him as a linebacker, I think he's going to be able to walk into the starting lineup. And then Harold Faining is another one for me. I think he can potentially unlock something for that office if the fancy can figure out to use them. So like it's a good haul and they set themselves up for future drafts.

And if Shador does end up working out and being what we like kind of assumed he would be, which is like a day two prospect, they could flip him for value even if he doesn't become their starter someday. Right. I don't know. I don't know if I have them in my winner category. I'm curious to hear what Deonti has to say. I like the trade. Thursday night, they were in my winners category.

After that, I'm a little, I don't know. Like you have an entire offensive line that you kind of have to rebuild here in the next year. So, and you're spending valuable draft capital on not one, but two running backs. You know, you have a little, like, I understand what we just said about Dylan Gabriel and Chodor Sanders. I don't know. Like, is it, was there a process behind that that actually made sense? Or was there some of the chaos behind the scenes?

I tend to probably think there were some chaos behind the scenes there. So I don't have an issue with like any of the specific players. Again, this is a crapshoot evaluating draft prospects. I like Harold Fanon Jr. I like Schwessinger, the linebacker. But there was a point earlier today where I looked at that and go, this is the team that came into the draft with the most capital in the NFL. And I don't know that they necessarily spent that on resources

that I feel like would be great resources to rebuild what you need up front and then some of the things you need on the defensive side of the ball. Deante, where did you come out with this Browns Hall that they got? I'm kind of with Stephen. I don't know if I would call them a winner. I would say they are just in the top half, I think, of the drafts that happened so far that we've seen, especially if you're looking at them through the first four or so rounds outside of Dylan Gabriel. I think they address needs.

It just wasn't the most pressing, right? And I think that that's where, Shiel, I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me, right? Like, they do have a lot of needs left on the offensive line. And we've been kind of pointing this out all offseason. A lot of attrition at the tackle spot, your guard, your interior guys, which used to be the heart and soul of this offense, they're aging. guys have been hurt up front year over year. I think that on the defensive side,

if Mason Graham is absolutely able to max out every bit of his ability, I think you're happy with that. And I think the Carson Swethinger, like Stephen said, can walk right in. And I think be the kind of linebacker that they thought they were going to be able to develop in Jeremiah Lusacuamoa,

like a great athlete, guys who can kind of close space, range from sideline to sideline, and they thought they were going to be able to develop, I think, the processing ability a little bit more in Coramo. I think the Slushinger walks into the league ahead of them in that regard or should be able to more quickly learn the pro game in that regard. I just think that you're going to have to kind of take the long view on Cleveland.

I don't know if they were going to be able to accomplish enough for us to say, for you, Sheel, I would say to say that they had done what they needed to do in the draft. I think it would have taken multiple trades back, maybe taking a pick in the 20s or so when having a lot of day two draft capital. I think with what they had and what was available, I'm not as mad at. it. I just think that it's not going to be no part of this draft, I don't think, outside of maybe the pair of running backs, if they're at their absolute best, we're going to look up in 2025 and be like,

oh, okay, that's where the foundation was set for whatever this era is going to be after the Deshaun Watson contract is off their books. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think this is not like a foundation building draft, but I also like, I think it's kind of harsh to evaluate their draft based on niche just because they're

so far away. Like I agree with the Ravens or the Chiefs or the bangles, then yeah, sure, you need to fill in some holes, the Browns. I don't think you should reach for offensive line just because you have an offensive line hole. I don't think that's the way you should approach the draft. And I think we're discounting that they picked up the extra first round pick of the Jaguar Street. No, that's you.

Right. Right. Exactly. We can evaluate this whole thing in 2020. No doubt. I would say. That's the biggest thing. If they didn't do anything else, they put themselves in a better spot to get out of this

QB situation that they're in and land someone next year. or if one of these, you know, it seems unlikely now, but if one of these quarterbacks were to be like, oh, wow, all right, Shador Sanders is just the, you know, he's the story of the NFL in week eight. Now you're still in a situation with two first-round picks next year. So, yeah, that's the biggest thing is that they've given themselves, some optionality, some resources to get out from under the Deshawn Watson disaster

and figure out a path forward next year. But I was remembering when we did the AFC GMs, you know, we were looking at some of these Brown and Straffs being like, man, you know, I want to give Andrew Barry the benefit of the doubt, but we might have to lock him out of the draft room. So, yeah, so that might still be in my head when I look at some of these going, how are we going to look at this draft a couple of years? Where did we land on him?

I think we did lock him out of the draft room. He got his way. He found his way back in. God damn it. Yeah. I think I was trying to be nice and be like one more, but then after your argument, I think guys had him locked out. I'm like, get a lock him out.

Get him out. I think I got. I also like that both me and Deonté in like trying to hype up this draft class. We both made a point. point to say, but not the Gabriel pick. Don't put it in the paper that we like the Dylan Gabriel. That was shocking. That might have been the most shocking pick of the entire draft, certainly of day three,

where you're just like what is, or day two, like what exactly is happening here? All right. Deonti, who is your first winner? What do you got? My first winner, I'm going to say, is my biggest winner, would be Chicago. I'm really happy with what they've built, what they've prepared for year one, of Ben Johnson, year two of Caleb Williams. I think, and if you zoom out and take in the entire scope of this offseason,

trading for interior offensive linemen, even if Jonah Jackson isn't healthy enough to be on the field at all times, I still think that that's a worthwhile swing to take because it allowed them to get to the draft, not needing to spend early draft capital on interior offensive linemen or needing to find an instant answer at left tackle. If you were looking to replace Braxton Jones after 2025, I think Loveland is going to be a very San Laporta-esque type of fit in this, offense. I don't know if that's worth the 10th overall pick, but again, you start looking at round two, round three, you start seeing some of the names that go off. Maybe you can't wait if that was a position you were looking to attack in the draft. So I can excuse that if they're absolutely able to get the most out of them. I think that Luther Burden and the value you get

from him as the 39th pick helps kind of forgive, I think, the overpay to bring in a tight-in. In the top 10, if you get the best version of Luther Burden and him playing in that Keenan role, I'm now not going to be coming in every week yelling about Caleb Williams being forced to throw the ball to an old receiver who can't separate or can't create after the catch. So I'm really happy from that respect. And I like taking chances on guys like Ozzie Tripilo, Shamar Turner, right?

I think that these are guys that in the trenches can turn into something if not in year one in years to come. So yeah, I think that the full view of the offseason was really positive. And I think that specifically to the draft, they did what they were supposed to do, was to address a couple of big skill positions, some of those versatile pieces that they're going to need if they want to quickly get in the picture in the NFC North.

Yeah, I had Caleb Williams as my first one, you know, specifically, not just the Bears, but Caleb Williams. And I wanted to be clear that I don't know if it's going to work, you know, like we, again, I kind of fell into the trap last summer where I'm like, well, it looks like a good situation for Caleb Williams. It was not a good situation for Caleb Williams. But if you're a Bears fan who at the end of the season played out the way it did and you're having conversations, whether in person or on the group chats, like we need.

need to find a way to position Caleb Williams for success going forward. And now you take a step back. This does feel like just about as good as you could have hoped for. And to your point, Deonti, started with Ben Johnson. Who knows how it will be as a head coach, but he has coordinated top level offenses before. Personnel-wise, they kind of took this aggressive, unorthodox approach of like, let's trade for veteran interior offensive linemen, Joe Tune, Jonah Jackson. them. They're signing Drew Dalman. So they were really like, by any means necessary, we are

upgrading this unit, which I think is fine when you have a young quarterback going into his second season. So they've got three new starters on the interior of the offensive line. And then to your point, the draft four top 75 picks, and they use three of them on offense with three of the players you mentioned. So again, it might not work out. We might be having a conversation, again, week seven where we go, all right, you know, Jonah Jackson, now we know, why McBay gave up on him. Luther Burden, you know, you got to be careful with rookie wide receivers and Colston Loveland with rookie tight ends.

Not everyone's going to be Brock Bowers. That outcome exists, but at this point in time, given what we know, given the situation they were in Ruiz, I feel like you have to feel good about it if you're Caleb Williams or a Bears fan who wants to see Caleb Williams succeed. You definitely feel good about it. I think that is the one concern is not only did they draft these guys, and maybe they don't work out in how we envision them working out. But I also think, like, you're kind of,

I wouldn't be surprised at Ben Johnson heavily influenced these picks. And I think they're, even though I'm very optimistic about Ben Johnson, what he's going to be as Chicago's head coach and obviously lead play caller, I think when you tailor your draft and your personnel decisions specifically to one scheme, I think that's when you can air, especially if these guys don't work out. Like, Holson Loveland, for him to work out, he has to be like a perfect fit in Ben Johnson's scheme.

For him to work out as a top 10 pitch as a tight end. Like if they drafted him in the second round, I would have these expectations from. I think Luther Burden is a very specific type of wide receiver. So I think you're getting pieces that Ben Johnson clearly wants for his offense, but what if they don't work out? And the reason that you drafted them is because they fit the offense. And what if Ben Johnson doesn't work out?

In two years, he's gone. And we drafted these guys and used this draft capital for a, coach, they didn't even work out. That's the one reason I would be concerned, but no, I'm with Yonté. I think the Bears are a winner, and I think they've been a winner all offseason. Yeah. I think when you hire Ben Johnson, you make that decision that we're going to draft the guys that he, you know, you really can't give him a player where he's like, wait a minute, you know,

I told you and you told me to watch this guy that I got no use for him. And especially if you're Ryan Poles and you survived one head coach and you're still there. You basically, like your job now is to make Ben Johnson success. or do whatever you can to help Ben Johnson succeed because if he fails, you're probably going to be gone anyway. But you are right. Exactly. That does come with risk. I mean, Ben Johnson is not a personnel guy.

He's never been a head coach. We don't know. Sometimes guys are great coordinators and it doesn't work out the same when they're head coaches. So you're right. There certainly is some uncertainty there. All right. I did, you know, I had another player here. I had a team.

We kind of talked about the team on the side. You know what? Let's go with the team. I don't think we've talked about. And I think I would put Drake May not in the same category as Caleb Williams, but I do think he comes out of this draft as a winner. Because when you look at the Patriots and what they probably wanted to do in free agency and earlier in the offseason, I think they wanted to upgrade the talent around Drake May. And they just weren't able to do so. You know, you're taking Stefan Diggs in his 30s coming off of an injury.

You're signing Matt Collins. You're signing Garrett Bradbury and Morgan Moses. two offensive linemen in their 30s who you're trying to set a floor. But going into the draft, you weren't like, this is great. Drake May is set up for success in his second season. I think we all liked what we saw from Drake May in year one. But now you have the draft. You take Will Campbell at 4.

You go Travion Henderson at 38, which we can debate whether that was a great use of resources or not. But I do think it at least helps them become more explosive. You take Kyle Williams, the wide receiver out of Washington State, who's a really fun player. Yeah, you take him also. And then you get another offensive lineman. So that's four picks in the top 100, all used on the offensive side of the ball.

Now, it doesn't mean they're all going to work out. Doesn't mean that any of them are going to work out. But we have to evaluate it based on what we know at this point in time. And I think Drake May now has at least more of a chance to take that second year leap with some of these pieces around him. And you hope that those young players can grow. and you can continue to supplement them in the future here. So I think Drake May, Deonte, comes out of this a winner as well.

Yeah, and I think that they went and got some sure bets. Each of them are sure bets for different reasons, but each of their offensive picks, I would say are sure bets. Jared Wilson, good athlete as an interior lineman. I think that he's going to help addressing need they have on the interior. Immediately Will Campbell, another good athlete playing tackle. And a guy, you can bump inside if you need him to play guard or if he can't hack it as a rookie as a tackle,

you can move him around and not feel like that. That was a waste of a pick. And you didn't have to move up to go get them. You didn't have to move around. And you can walk away saying you got the best overall offensive linemen in this class. Tramion Henderson, who knows what his workload is going to be in the league, right? And this is something that we've talked about. I know that a bunch of other people who cover the draft have pointed this out.

Never really been a bell cow, right? They struggled with injuries throughout his career at Ohio State, a guy who came in highly touted to college. And has obviously been explosive. We just have not gotten to see. We didn't get to see him. become a Bijon Robinson. We didn't get to see him become a Sequin Barkley, right, because of injuries and because of the fact that he needed to share a workload.

But at the very least, you know that there's legitimate explosive play potential. And if he can stay healthy, you know that he gives you third down value as a receiver and as a blocker. And he's going to open up a lot of doors, I think, for this offense in terms of finding a higher ceiling. And then Kyle Williams, one of the best separators in this draft class, I think that that's something that they've needed. The young receivers that they've been taking chances on have all struggled with separation,

not the best in terms of details and route running, don't always win at the catch point. I think that just having Williams is a guy that has inside, outside flex, that you can rely upon as a quarterback is going to go a long way as well. So like you said, Shield, these are all got, none of these guys are like outside of maybe Will Campbell or like a potential blue chip, they can be pro bowl, all pro players before the end of their rookie deals.

But I think that at worst, each of these guys can be very useful pros in this offense and exactly what I think they needed to do in the first 100. 50 picks of the draft. Yeah. They needed starters, Ruiz, the Patriots after, you know, what we watch. I mean, it really is. Drake May really did uplift kind of a, you know, one of the worst supporting cast in the NFL last year. So it's not going from a terrible supporting cast to one of the best in the NFL.

It's going from like it terrible to hopefully competent, I think, for the supporting cast around Drake May. And when you, when you like look back through big turnarounds for an office, from one year to the next, and whether like a rookie influences or not. Usually when it's a rookie kind of influence it, it's because they drafted someone to the offensive line and the offensive line was instantly enhanced. That's the best way to make Drake May's job easier. I know it would have been sexier to trade up for Travis Hunter,

and we would have got the graphics, like, who's stopping this offense, Travis Hunter, you know, getting balls from Drake May. And I could have quote tweeted it with Josh McDaniels. As his resident hater, you know? You want me to send out a tweet for you to make fun of Josh McDaniels. But no, I think, was just a smart approach to the draft. And like, that's all you can really ask for from this team.

A team that with a lot of holes, they weren't going to win the AFC East with one draft. Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. All right. Another winner, Ruiz. Who do you got? I'm going to go with C.J.

Stroud. And really, I had him on the just didn't make the cut list. But yeah, I had them written down. Yeah. I felt like them doubling up at wide receiver, the Iowa State wide receivers with Jaden Higgins and Jalen O. Like, I think, first of all, I, I, like those two skill sets in combination.

I think it was smart to bring both in. I don't think it's smart because they played for the same team. I just think they have complimentary skill sets, especially Jalenola. I feel like that was a C.J. Stroud pick. I feel like Straub was like, I need a guy on third and six. And we talked about this all season last year. They couldn't beat man coverage on third and medium to third and long. And now he has one of those players.

And then I like what they did later. Obviously, they traded out of the first round. I think drafting Arionte Irseye, like I think that was a smart move. I think he might end up at guard, given what they did in the offseason. I know they traded Laramie Tunsel, but they signed veterans in Cam Robinson and Trent Brown. So I think now you can move him to guard. And then I'm not sure how I feel about the two USC guys. I would ask Deontay about that as a USC fan.

But I really like the Jalen Reed pick, the safety out of Penn State, just because I think he fits into that defensive culture as just like a downhill will hit you in the mouth type of safety. I really like that. I think DeMico Ryan is going to get some good mileage out of that six-round pick. Yeah, him with Jalen Petrae, Chauncey Johnson, who they have a very distinct type about the type of defense they want to be. And I know we've mentioned it before, but it's worth repeating.

The defense did not let them down last year. The defense kept them afloat against big time quarterbacks, and there's reasons to believe that that unit can be even better. I'm with you. You look at it. Now, I still don't know if the, again, we could be having a conversation in week six about them that they still didn't fix the offensive line. and we don't know much about the new play caller.

How good is he going to be? But yes, on paper, now you have Nico Collins. They got Christian Kirk and sort of that sneaky move, which it's like Christian Kirk is a capable, you know, starting receiver in the NFL. So they have him. Now they drafted these two guys, Chaden Higgins, Jalen, Noel.

I'm with you on Arionte Ursary. I thought he was an pretty interesting prospect where it might not happen for him, but he has the tools, I think, to be a quality starting tackle in the NFL if he gets developed if he's pretty good. So yeah, those were the three picks that I looked at. All right, you took these guys early on. Let's see what it looks like. You know what you're getting with the defense.

I'm with Ruiz Deonté that I think C.J. Stroud does come out of this weekend looking like one of the winners. Yeah, I think that Stephen pointed out what was most important to me, right? I think that Jaden Higgins and Jalen O'L, not just because they went to the same school, but you think about how their skill sets are going to translate to the pro game. I think that each of their skill sets kind of covered for weaknesses in the other, right? Higgins can be a take the top off guy from the slot. You can move him around.

He's a bigger body. I think that people kind of invoke the name of Nico Collins. I think I heard that on the ESPN broadcast. And I think that that's lofty when you consider what Nico Collins is turned into coming from what he was at Michigan to what he's been in Houston. That's a very lofty type of trajectory to put on a player. But you look at the big body guy who can run like that, who can track the ball deep downfield. And I can understand why you can see the outlines of that kind of player. like you said, Stephen with Jalen Knoll, a guy that can separate very detailed as a route runner sure-handed.

I think that that's going to be a big help in this offense when they're in the dropback game. Ersery was a guy as an Eagles fan that I was looking at saying like, hey, you know, Philadelphia is poking around looking for a project that you can move inside or out, got the right kind of athleticism, the right kind of traits as a pass protector where you can turn into something. And then for the USC guys, like Woody Marks is kind of a do-it-all-back. I think that that's somebody that kind of helps you maybe delete. need Damien Pierce a whole lot less, right? Because what he marks is another tough runner, even though he's a little bit smaller.

I like how, you know, I like how he works in between the tackles. It can be useful for them in that regard. And then Jalen Smith to me is really kind of more of a backup at a priority spot for them, right? Like obviously they couldn't really run the defense away that they liked to after Jamlin Petrie got hurt. And I thought they were able to make do. They just played a bunch of cover one. But you saw less of the quarters, less of the detailed stuff.

They weren't, they were aggressive, but they weren't. the exact version of the defense that we know that Brian Burke and D'emico Ryan wants to have. I think that having Jalen Smith as a backup slot kind of backstops him against that in case Petrie does get hurt again. And knowing Petrie's play style is very violent, very physical, there's always a chance that he gets banged up throughout the course of the season. So yeah, I would say on both sides of the ball, I did have them as a winner as well. But I was looking at it from a Texan perspective and the thing that I pointed out for them

when we were doing GM rankings, they're better as good as anybody. as we're going to get the names you know. All right? If you're sitting in the bar and you're a Texans fan, it's somebody that you've watched on a Saturday. It's somebody that you've heard about on the NFL network between the combine

and the pro day circuit. They are not doing deep digging on FCS players to find some guy that's a little rough around the edges but can be a player. They got sure commodities. And I think that that's probably what this team needs considering they consider themselves a contender in the NFL. Yeah, and it was also at like the positions of need.

The positions that we would have said they needed to help out T. Strowd. It was like a common sense approach to the draft. And it was like you said, with guys that we've heard of, that's a recipe for becoming a draft weekend winner every season. Yeah. I mean, you're going to get the good grades.

You're going to get a little pop on social media. That's all you got to do. Premium positions and guys at schools that people have heard of. You know, that's who I'm going to be given my winners to here. All right, Deonté, who is your second winner here? I'll save my last one for the end. It's going to be pretty predictable.

I'll go with the chargers here. I thought that I really liked what they did on offense, helping out Justin Herbert. I think that Amari in Hampton, even though it's a little tricky doing that in the first round, after you brought in Najee Harris, I don't think that Najee Harris as a player should reclude you from getting a running back that you love. Right. I do think Hampton's a tough guy, do it all back, another guy with three-down value, and that's going to be a good fit for a Greg Roman offense. I was a little concerned at first one.

It was Tray Harris as their next pick. I was like, this feels like a Tom Telesco move. big tall, fast, jumps high, you know, don't really know if he is going to turn into a high-level NFL player, but you're able to double up at the wide receiver position with Harris, which is kind of a ball winner type with Candry Lambert Smith, who's more of your speed guy. I think that to the extent that they get anything out of these players,

I think that they all just fit the kind of archetype that we know that Harbaal wants in an offense, and maybe I'm more warm on these selections because I just trust this coaching staff to maximize these guys. And the same thing I think exists with like Kyle Kinnar and Jamari Caldwell. These are like try hard defenders. We saw what Jesse Mentor did, you know, basically with the try hard all-stars on the back end of this defense, starting to add players like that to the front seven.

You know, I think that that's going to be, they'll probably be able to maximize this. And even if the Chargers stationed in the AFC has not necessarily changed, I think they're still more plucky than true contender, I think that they got the right kind of guys to be able to maintain where they are right now. I'm on the fence with them, Ruiz. Where are you? I looked at them and I'm like,

all right, I could kind of see it. They certainly, I didn't consider them for a winner. I didn't have them in my loser category. I came away going like, okay, we'll see. These aren't, you know, use of resources, specific players. I can't say they were guys I necessarily loved or moved the needle for me. I understood some of them. How do you feel about Justin Herbert and the pieces added here as he enters the 2025 season?

If you're on the fence, I'm on the other side of the fence. I actually had them as one of my losers potentially. They weren't on the list. But I think it's because of something that Deonti mentioned, that this just feels like Tom Telesco draft. And like especially, like the running back in the first round, I mean, that's a value question for me, especially. And I think it's like a mis-evaluation of what the issue was with the run game.

I think the interior office of line was a much bigger issue. And that's something that they didn't really address, which is why I'm a must. a little disappointing this. And then the Trey Harris, it's the Tom Telesco of it all. It's the, like, we've seen this wide receiver archetype with Justin Herbert. And like it works. He makes it work, but it doesn't help him.

It doesn't make them better. I don't think he gives him a margin for error. It's another guy who's not going to create a load of separation. And you have to trust him to not only run the routes precisely, but to win at the catch point if he's not creating separation. So like, that's why I'm a little turned off by this draft, but it is completely because of it has nothing to do with these guys as individual prospects. It's the team that drafted them.

If another team drafted them, maybe I would have liked this draft a little bit more. But because it's the charges, because it's Justin Herbert. I'm a little, I'm a little salty about it. All right. There you go. My next winner is a team that I've been pretty critical of for most of the offseason, but I kind of like their draft. And that's the Seattle Seahawks.

They come into this draft, obviously needing offensive line help. I just said, you know, I give good grades to the teams who pick prospects from big schools. Well, they didn't do that. but it seems like a good prospect. It doesn't seem like a reach Gray Zabel in the first round, interior offensive lineman from North Dakota State. I thought that made sense. On defense, you know, some coaches,

you kind of give the benefit of the doubt where you're like, all right, if I trust this guy as a defensive coach, I'm going to trust that he's going to know what to do with this specific player. Now, that could be a mistake. We just talked about it with Ben Johnson. But if Mike McDonald looks at the South Carolina safety, Nick Eamonwary, who is one of the best, athletes in this entire draft.

It's like, I want him. I'm going to have a good plan for him. I would be pretty excited about that if I were a Seahawks fan, given what we saw from McDonald, not only with the Ravens, but last year with the Seahawks. So I like that pick. Elijah Arroyo, I think is an interesting tight end prospect who, their offense kind of needs some juice, need some vertical juice.

And I think that's what Arroyo can potentially give you a tight end, not a surefire going to be good player, but the idea of him, I understand. And then, you know, you take a flyer on a quarterback, Jalen Milrow at 92, who if nothing else is a really, really fun runner. And I feel like if you're a team like the Seahawks, you do the darnal deal. You're only committed to him for one year. You should be taking flyers on quarterback so you feel like have some potential in the draft. And I thought they did that.

So this is one where three years from now we could look at it and go, that wasn't a good draft, you know? They got like one okay offensive linemen and nothing else. but at the time these picks are made. These picks made a lot of sense to me. They drafted for volume. They took, I think, 11 players in this draft. And I feel like that's the type of draft that they needed.

And it's been weird in Seattle. When we did our GM things, it's like some of these drafts have been awesome with Schneider. Some of them have been zeros. The offensive line has been kind of a blind spot. But I feel like if you're a Seahawks fan, you should be pretty happy with the selections they made here. Deontae, what do you think?

Am I nuts? Or are you on the same page? I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say you're nuts. I didn't have them as a winner. I think that similar to what you were saying with the Chargers on, right? Like, this one kind of hangs on the fence for me. And maybe a lot of this is hinging on what comes of Nick and Worry as a safety, especially early in his career.

If that's, like, something that they've instantly landed and he's an impact player, or he just looks like he's going to be ahead of what I think is going to be a pretty long trajectory in terms of just, like, smoothing out his game, technically, becoming a better tackler, you know, pursuing the ball a little bit better. he does need better angles. I think that he's got good ball skills. I don't know if his feel and coverage is always the greatest. To me, and I think I've said this in past episodes,

I think he does a better job at punishing bad decisions from quarterbacks than goading them by having good feel for routes as they're distributing down the field. So I do want to see him growing that regard. And like you said, Shield, if there's any defensive coach who says, I can take that skill set and turn it into something, it's Mike McDonald, right? Like, we've seen him be able to take, you know, varying skill sets and maximize them. Devin Witherspoon as a nickel, you know, I think he's been playing a really good ball. And a lot of that I think is thanks to how Mike McDonald is able to use him in this defense.

And I think that Eminmore, not needing to play slot and strong safety is going to bode well for him, allowing him an opportunity to grow in that regard in one spot, I think will help. And like you said, I mean, Jalen Milroy was a smart pick to make, given where he was at, where you're drafting him at. If it doesn't work out, that's fine. It's a third round pig spent on a quarterback. Nobody's going to cry home about it. And if you're able to get anything out of him and he is able to maybe bridge you between the end of the San Donald era and whatever you find as a franchise quarterback in the future, that's even better.

Right. So I think that that was a smart move. They ended up checking a lot of boxes that I think will be ultimately a net positive. I just didn't walk away from the draft feeling like, okay, Seattle is going to be week one, a team that I'm thinking about winning the NFC West. And maybe that just has a lot to do with how I feel about the quarterback and their offseason as a whole. Yeah, I have a little harsh review of the draft. I think, like, Eminwari, I think, yeah, he's very athletic, but is he good at football. I think he is good at football.

I thought he was good at football when I watched him, but I could be wrong. If you're good at football and you put up those testing numbers, you don't go in the second round. That's the only thing I'm saying. That's fair. Yeah, like, to me, he's like, he went 35. Safeties don't go to that. Imagine if Isaiah Simmons didn't, wasn't as productive in college. Like, that to me is the worst case scenario for him.

And for me, Isaiah Simmons goes top 10 because he was a free. athlete and the guy had a bunch of picks and a bunch of sacks so it looked like you could see a player that could do a bunch of everything. I mean warrior, I think you're kind of selling yourself on he could do X, Y, or Z. And he has not necessarily demonstrated that that's the player he is yet. But with Jalen Mill, I think it is up for debate with him. But with Jalen Milrow, I can confidently say the guy's not good at playing quarterback at the moment. And I understand like, hey, it could work out. And if it doesn't like, but it's a top 100 pick. You don't just throw away top 100 picks. If a team traded this pick for like a nonsense quarterback, we would kill the team.

So I feel that happens all the time in the draft. Like who did the lines give up like something? You know, who was the wide receiver? So like during the draft, I feel like teams have a different view. You're right. It is kind of crazy. Like in the off season, I think Greg Rosenthal made this point. It's like, oh, I'm not giving up a fourth for that veteran who can help me right away.

And then the draft rolls around and they're just like, oh, yeah, what do you want? You want next year's second? And so, yeah, no, you are right. It is still a valuable resource. And the most likely scenario is that he's not good just when you look at the history of the NFL and guys that get drafted at this place. But I don't know. If Sam Darnal is my quarterback, I do subscribe to the take a bunch of bites at the apple,

throw a bunch of darts and hope that one of them at some point hits. That's a strange bite to take to me just because Shador was, like I think Shador is a better prospect and quarterback than him. And he got taken like 50 picks later. So like that's what I'm not, I'm not high on either list. the rest of the picks I like. Like I don't really have a problem with that. But I think those two guys, those are the picks where I'm like,

eh, I don't, they don't really move me much. Yeah, I got you. All right. Any other winners before we take a break here and get to the losers? Any other winners that you wanted to get to? Yeah, we can make this quick. I'm going to make Aaron Rod is a winner. The guy still has the juice.

I'm sorry, the Steelers, they're just waiting for them. They don't kid it. Like, yeah, whenever you want, Rod, whenever you want, Aaron, show up, whenever you want. We're not even going to draft a quarterback. They drafted Will Howard in the sixth round, but that's a six round pick. that's not threatening Aaron Roger's spot.

The guy, it doesn't even have to sign with the team and he already has a place on the team. He might as well be on the R-Lads depth turn already. So, yeah, Aaron Roder still has. I hate how right you are about that. Oh, that just disgusts me. Deonté, let's move on. Who else do you have?

Ruiz is right, but let's move on. I'm going to play to type here. I'm going to say that my winner is Vic Fangio for what looks like controlling the draft board for Philadelphia for the first five rounds of this draft. You're able to walk out of the first round with Jehad Campbell. We talked about it. The night that it happened, we'll see what his recovery timeline looks like

when he's going to be ready, what they have planned for him as a player. I think that Andrew McCuba, our buddy, Ben Solac, I think is Compton to Chauncey Gardner Johnson. You see a lot of the Chauncey Gardner Johnson in his game, and I would say he moves backwards in coverage better than Gardner Johnson did. By the time to Philadelphia got him, he can play deep zones really well. He can match up with tight ends and slots from time to time in zone coverage. I think he's going to be a nice addition. and somebody I think that keeps them from doing what big fan Joe clearly didn't want to do,

which is play Sidney Brown a whole bunch at safety. I think that this is more of his type of guy as a player or somebody who has more coverage versatility. And then Ty Robinson and mid-round, that's the guy I really like. Great athlete as defensive tackle. I think that Philadelphia has shown a history now, whether it's Milton Williams or whether it's Mora Ujima, these guys who are sub-300-pound defensive tackles, better as pass rushers than they are run defenders, and allowing them to be backups, go wreak havoc on passing downs,

and then we will slowly build you up to becoming closer to an every down player and working on your details and your body so that way you can handle the load of being an interior defensive lineman as a guy who's kind of on the fringe is a 290 to 295 pounds. I trust him with that player.

And then Mac McWilliams, not a high pick, not somebody they really have to play, maybe more for special teams than anything, but another guy at cornerback where you can take a chance and see if he can do it. you anything, right, if he can give you anything. And I would say the same is true of

Smile Mundin as a linebacker, right? I think that that might have been a pick that says, hey, if there's any setbacks for Jahad Campbell, if we know that Nacobie Dean might end up having to be on IR for the entire season, if the Teletter attendant is really in a bad spot, then we have a guy that can be like Oren Berks for us throughout 2025. So I think that that was a really smart way to handle the first five rounds. And Sheila, I know you've talked about it on Philly Special. I know our buddies, Bo Wolf and Zach Brous. Herman have mentioned this. This is a team that now because their roster is so expensive,

the defense has to be a bunch of young guys at play, and I think that they got a lot of young guys in this draft who can go out and play and give them something. Go ahead. I was going to say this was just a Howie Masterclass. Like the typical Howie draft, like they even checked off the Georgia Front Seven player on day three. Names you heard of.

I think the Andrew McCuva pick, I really like this pick a lot. But it is a very Howie pick. and it's the pick where you're like, how did they get away with it again? But no, this is like the perfect draft for them, where they are, where they're at with their roster, the luxury of being able to pick these guys and pick for depth

and just to fill out the back of the roster. I feel like they always take the right approach based on where they are at as a franchise, and I don't think you could say that about other teams. The other big thing with them is the luxury of when you have like certain coaches on your staff, like Jeff Stoutland, their offensive line coach, where you can probably just give him the list of prospects and say,

watch these guys, who do you like? And go off of it because he has a track record of developing guys. You can go to Vic Fangio and show him here. Here's a list of safeties. Watch them, rank them for me. That's a luxury that we probably don't talk about enough when you just have a veteran coach who is not going to get plucked for a head coaching job a year from now where you go, shoot, we drafted these guys for this guy and he's not there anymore.

I mean, they really with those two guys, I feel like have a huge luxury specifically. where they can say we know what schemes we're running we know what traits they look for we know their track record of developing players let's draft to that and i think that's helped them in a big way for sure we didn't mention it but i like the column mccord pick too like i think that's a good flyer to take on okay day three it's a very smart backup flyer i agree yeah and it kind of fits with their like they have a decent uh rotation at quarterback now like even if jeline hurts gets hurt i feel they have two guys that they could go to. I want to see how McCord develops. I want to put the cart before the horse.

But I think eventually McCord could be a guy that could step in and start for a couple games in a row. My last one is another GM who we gave love to during our GM episode. And that's the Los Angeles Rams. Now, I don't need to spend too much time on it. It's not that I love their draft. I'm not going to go through the list of players. But I just feel like this is another example of when the GM has job security that you're

able to make certain moves and take advantage of other teams. And they're trying to do what is kind of one of the hardest things in the NFL to do, which is compete for a championship right now, but have a plan for if that dream ends a year, you know, this year where you're in a different spot at this time next year, have a plan to move to kind of the next phase without a bunch of years of pain in between. I mean, if you look at it right now, they're third in the NFC and odds to make the Super Bowl next year

behind only the Eagles and the Lions. And after last season ended, we had that, it seems like four years ago, the Stafford situation where we weren't sure if Matthew Stafford was going to be back on the team was only a couple months ago. They navigate that situation. They bring in Devante Adams.

You've got the young pass rushers on defense. You take a great shot at it here in 2025. You have a legit chance to come out of the NFC. And guess what? If Stafford falls off the hill this year and all of a sudden he looks old and he doesn't have it anymore, now you have two first round picks going into next year, your own and the Atlanta Falcons first round pick going into next year. So I just feel like regardless of how the players they actually drafted panned out, they are in such an unusual spot for an NFL franchise to kind of be able to straddle this line between we want to win right now, but we also want to have a plan where if this thing goes sideways in a hurry, we can still come back and compete in kind of the next phase. So I really liked what the Rams did. as well there. All right.

Take a break. We come back and we rip some teams. We get to some losers. Who did we not like? Will one of my losers relate to that? Ramp's point I just made? Who knows? That's a little foreshadowing. All right. We'll be back in a minute on the Ringer NFL show.

All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Let's get to a couple losers each maybe here. More if you have more here. If you're in the mood to hate on some more teams, Ruiz. Start us off. Who is one of your losers after the draft? I'm going to make Christian Watson one of my losers.

I feel like, yeah, the Packers fire receiver. I feel like this is a bad draft for him. I mean, maybe it could be a bad sign for the entire Packers' draft room that they doubled up, not only taking Golden in the first round, but they double up and get Sabion Williams. I think it was in the third, fourth round. But I think I'm looking at Christian Watson specifically, just because I feel like those two guys in combination

replace the two things that he's brought to that offense. You have the vertical thread in Matthew Golden, which was always Christian Watson's thing. And then you have St. Brown Williams, he's more of like a jackaball trades, maybe a jet suite type guy in that offense, which is what Christian Watson, that's how he initially got into the lineup when he was a rookie was being that jet sweep guy. So I think that I don't know if his role is going to be there when he returns from injury. And then also his dad, I feel like making him a winner, actually. His dad, I think he called the Packers idiots on draft. Oh, really?

Yeah, he was live stream. And his dad is very vocal, by the way. and he called the Packers idiots and said they don't want to win, which I think it's just going to make Kristen Watson's job even harder. It's going to make his uphill climb even more steep. Well, Deonti, how are they navigating this? You know, because while I like, on paper, I'm like, oh, Matthew Golden makes sense, fun addition to the Packers offense for Jordan Love.

And then I remember that last year, remember the story where Romeo Dobbs got like suspended for a game? So you had that. He was powering about touches. Right. And it was like the free end. It was October. Yeah. It was like early in the season. Yeah.

It was crazy. Not only was early in the season. I want to say, yes, they were winning with Malik Willis. And I think Jordan Love had just come back. It was like a game after Jordan Love came back and he was complaining about touches. It's like, sorry, buddy, we were running the single wing for a couple weeks because we didn't have our quarterback with us. Sorry.

Right. So you got that. You got Christian Watson's dad to Ruiz's point. And now you spend a first round pick and a third round pick on. wide receivers. You've still got Jade and Reed. You've still got Don Tavian Wicks. Are you, I don't know, how should Packers fans feel about this? Mataflo's a very

good coach. Are they going to be able to navigate this situation? Are there is there another shoot-a-drop maybe between now and week one where one of these guys gets moved? Are you just thinking, hey, it's good, they need more firepower. How do you view this if you're a Packers fan? How do you view

this as anything other than one of these guys gets traded? By the dead money. there's really no other way to read this. When it was just Matthew Golden, I was like, okay, like Christian Watson, often injured, going to probably start the year hurt. You'd need some time, right?

You need to have a guy in that spot, and we've seen it. We definitely saw it last year in the games that they played against the Lions when Christian Watson wasn't there. They don't have that vertical stretch. The field gets so condensed for them so quickly. Jordan Love needs a guy who can push the ball

downfield to and Golden tracks the ball really well, even if he's not the same kind of big body that Watson is. stylistically as that kind of take the top off type of route runner. I do think that that fits a bunch. And then they get Savian Williams. And it's like, okay, that's odd. Another guy who's like athletic, you know, ball in hand, maybe see if he can do something for you.

Maybe he ends up being more of a special team guy. But you look at those two guys, you look at the fact that they brought in me called Hardman. I'm like, this is an addition of a lot of like straight line linear types of players. That to me says that they either don't think that Christian Watson can be healthy enough to make it through a season, or they don't like the archetypes of receivers that they have outside of Christian Watson. And if it's the latter, then if you're Romeo Dobbs, if you're Jaden Reed, if you're, if you're Don Tavian Wicks, you probably now are looking at your target

chair, practice by practice, like, okay, if I'm not touching the ball, they must be telling me, if they're not calling the plays where I usually touch the ball, they've got to be telling me that they're thinking about me not being here long term. So I can't imagine that this doesn't get resolved by the start of the season. And if it isn't resolved by the the start of the season. Certainly at least one of these guys, I think, will be moved by the trade deadline. Yeah, it's also an interesting use of resources for a team

that was, I think, the second most run-heavy team on early downs in the NFL last year behind only the Eagles. Now, I think they're, you know, maybe they're just thinking we're going to lean more on our passing game here going forward. But yeah, it feels like there's maybe another shoot to drop with that wide receiver debt chart

between now and when next season starts. All right, Deontae, who do you have? Who's one of your losers? I'm going to double back to a team that we've ripped on the night one of the draft and it's the Falcons. I got them too. How could you not? You can't do this segment without mentioning the Falcons in the first five to ten minutes.

You know, I wanted to give them some, I wanted to give them a chance in the middle rounds to kind of, you know, give me something that would have looked a little bit better, you know, and get to the full picture. And I like Xavier Watts. I think that Billy Bowman Jr. too is an interesting athlete as safety, somebody who can maybe give them something.

on the back end and in special teams. But you look at the whole picture. You've traded away a future first round pick for, and what you walked away with is what seems to be a certain start and safety into Xavier Watts, a Billy Bowman who's kind of like tweeter skill set. They're going to have to figure out what they want to do with him. James Pierce Jr., who's kind of like a designated pass rush type,

at least entering the league, not a guy that's going to be flashing for his run defense. And Jalen Walker, who's another tweener skill set. And I'm like, what do you do with this? Like, honestly, if you're, if you're Rahim Morris and you're looking at your defensive depth chart, why do you feel any differently about this defense today than you did coming into the season outside of saying, we actually have bodies we can play on the edge? And we don't even know if those guys can play on the edge right now. Yeah, on first down, can they play on the edge?

I don't know about that. Right. No, he didn't play a lot of snaps. I mean, I did, yeah, I'm with you. I was like, do I really want to go in on them again? You know, I already did it on the last show. But it's like if we're doing winners and losers, I'm sorry. This has to be at the top of my list.

And so I'm like, all right, well, it's there. I just thought, is there no one in the room being like, let's take a step back and look who we are? You know, we have missed the playoffs and finished under 500 for seven straight seasons. We guaranteed Kurt Cousins $90 million weeks before we drafted Michael Pennix Jr. Last year. We used the top 10 pick on a running back when we had holes all over the round. We used the top five pick on a tight end where go look at the rest of that top 10.

It's like Hall of Famers everywhere in that draft. All these things in recent years and Terry Fontenow got there in 2021. And we just have to start discussing them as one of the worst run franchises in the NFL, in my opinion. I mean, they made five picks in this draft. On what planet should they be one of the teams making the fewest picks in this draft? Not only did they make five picks, they gave up a first round pick. next year. I think they also gave up like a fifth, which who cares really, but they also gave up a fifth round pick next year. So they give up multiple next picks next year, including a first

rounder. Their over under for wins is seven and a half. Like this is not a team that's going to be competing for a Super Bowl this year. Now, maybe Michael Pennix Jr. will be really good this year. Maybe Raheem Morris will coach up the defense. It's a bad division. Could they win 10 games and win the NFC South? Yeah, that's within the realm. of possibilities. But if we're just looking at kind of the process, the decisions they make, this to me, they're just continuing to stand out as a team that has no direction, doesn't know where they want to go, what they want to do. There's no one in the room saying, maybe we shouldn't do that. It just is reckless. It's like it's malpractice when you look at some

of these decisions that they made. I mean, there's a chance that, like, if they win, you know, they're over under seven and a half wins. If they win six games next year, it's like a top 10 pick. You just gave up for James Pierce, Jr. to get him in this draft after you already drafted a pass fresher earlier in the draft. So Ruiz, I don't mean to make the same points I made the other night. But yeah, I did feel like it was worth revisiting when I took a step back here. No, it is a point worth revisiting. What I don't understand is the fact that they hired Terry Fondo in the first place away from the Saints front office in 2021. Who was looking at the Saints roster and their approach to roster building in 2021 and be like, you know what?

We need to emulate that. And the results have been exactly what you would have expected if you did hire someone from that Saints front office. Their cap situation, not good. Their draft capital situation is you laid out now, not good. Their roster, meh, at best, I don't know if it even qualifies as that. It's not a, it's, the vibes aren't good in Atlanta. But here's the beauty of shitting on the Falcons on draft day because their fans probably hate

them more than you than we even hate the draft. And I don't even think they expect them to do anything with this draft class. It looks like another season where maybe you get to eight or nine wins and that's considered a success. But what is, like, that's nothing. That's not progress.

It almost feels like there's no chance at progress with this team after this offseason. And that's not a position you want to be in. Like usually in the NFL, it's very easy to drum up optimism about your offseason. But I feel like the Falcons, it's like impossible to do. Yeah. I feel like Stephen, you being a Panthers fan,

you've got to be looking at this, especially after the draft the Panthers had, and I had them as a fringe winner and feeling like, if Bryce Young can give you much of anything, why shouldn't you feel like you can be the second best team in the division? No,

I definitely think that's a attainable goal after. Yeah, and I like the Panthers draft. That's the nicest thing you've said about the Panthers since I've been podcasting with you. I said nice things about them on Thursday night. I said nice things when they benched Bryce Young. You did.

That's true. Okay. There you go. I should keep a list. That's one of the many things. I'm not getting as often. I feel like people are doing enough of the hype peddling with the Panthers after Bryce Young was,

he was no longer the worst quarterback. He was now just a bottom five quarterback. And everyone seems to think that that's going to vote well for the future. See? That's what I'm talking about. All right. I had the Falcons also as my first loser, as maybe you could tell. So I'll get to my second loser here.

And it's the Baltimore Ravens and really just for kind of one, know, maybe not the reasons you were to Malachi Stark's first round. That's fine. Their overall draft fine. But I think we just got to talk about the way they handled this Mike Green situation. They take Marshall Edge Rusher, Mike Green with their second round pick, 59 overall. And the background on Mike Green is that this is from the athletic. In high school, he faced a sexual assault allegation. No formal charges were filed. But as a result, Virginia asked him to sign a zero tolerance policy before he went to school there. Then while at Virginia, he suspended his second year following another sexual assault allegation. He was not charged.

The case was suspended. He denied any wrongdoing, but he left the program. And Charlottesville police suspended their investigation into the alleged incident. So he doesn't go in the first round. In the second round, the Ravens take him. And then according to the athletic, you know, Ravens GM, Eric DeCosta says, We investigated the situation thoroughly. We felt comfortable taking green.

We did our due diligence. But so often in these situations, the team kind of just bullies the media and doesn't offer any details into, well, what due diligence did you actually do? What did you find out during your investigation? And I don't, you know, I'm maybe bullying is too strong. In this case, I can't say I watch the entire thing. But this happens again and again in the NFL where. the team feels like we have to get through one press conference.

And then after that, as long as the player's good, everyone's going to kind of forget about everything that it has to do with it. And that is true a lot of the time. But in this case, I mean, NFL networks, he and Rapaport said that Green was off several teams draft boards because they found his explanations regarding the sexual assault allegations to be unsatisfactory. And then, by the way, the Ravens decided that they were not going to make Mike Green available to reporters on Friday night.

So you sell us, you know, you sell everyone one thing. Oh, we're comfortable. We did our due diligence, misunderstanding, whatever. But then you don't make him available to speak for himself and answer reporters when he's drafted. Like every other draft pick generally has to do in the NFL. So I'm not naive to this. I understand teams will overlook all kinds of things for talented football players. But I also think we shouldn't just have to take the team's word for it, you know,

when they say, hey, we did the work. and we feel good about it. And specifically with the Ravens, you know, Eric DeCosta talks all the time about, hey, the draft is filled with uncertainty, and you got to get a lot of bites at the Apple. Like, I don't understand how you can have that view, and then you're spending a top 60 pick on a player like this,

a very valuable resource where you feel like, hey, you know, the value's just too good to pass up. So there's that side of it. And then the last thing I'll say about the Ravens here is on day three, they take a kicker, Tyler Loop, in the sixth round. Now, why would they take a kicker? Well, that's because Justin Tucker, according to the Baltimore banner, is facing 16 allegations of improper sexual conduct at eight different spas around the Baltimore area. And all this comes on the heels of a couple of years ago

when John Harbaugh is asked about Deshaun Watson, and he references the Ray Rice situation and says, quote, we have kind of a zero tolerance policy when it comes to mistreating women. And this is on the Ravens website. You can go back and read it. You know, he says Steve Bishadhi, the owner, he kind of put into place this policy about mistreating women. And so he phrased it as kind of zero tolerance. Now, since then, they've backed off it a little bit and been like, there's nothing in writing that we have a zero tolerance policy. He did say kind of. He did say kind of. You're right. He did say kind of. So it just, I don't even know like what, you know, the, my main point is, but it just leaves kind of a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like if you're a Ravens fan,

not all of them, but I'm sure there are many Ravens fans who are like, you know, you don't need to bring this guy into our building. You know, you have such exciting, feel-good players that are so easy to root for in Lamar Jackson in Kyle Hamilton. And now, like, if you're a Ravens fan, you're going to be watching this guy on Sundays next year and you're going to face this sort of moral dilemma. Like, do I cheer when he gets a sack? Am I mad that he's on my team?

That type of thing. So again, I know this happens all the time in the NFL. the chiefs do it all the time. A bunch of organizations, if they had the opportunity, would do it. So I'm not saying it's just the Ravens, but I also feel like when a team does make a decision like this and handles it the way they're handling it, that you also should call them out a little bit and say,

I understand what's happening, but we're not just going to sweep it under the rug and not talk about it. So I'm putting them down as one of my losers. What's up with these AFC North teams? I feel like all four of them have a history of just ignoring this stuff when you think about it. Yeah. Browns for sure.

Steelers. They had a certain quarterback. Yeah. You're right. You're right. That was, yeah. And the Bengals like, What about the quarterback, Ben Rathesburgh?

What about, yeah. They have, James Harrison got accused of domestic violence too. And the ownership at the time was like, oh, it's just his religion. It's, he's Catholic. Like, that's just what happens. So, like, I think, like,

like you said, there are plenty of teams that are guilty of them. but the Ravens are a team that had the Rayvry situation, claimed to have learned from the Raver Rice situation, claimed to have put in policies because of it in reaction to it. And then in the last year, they've just made a mockery of those statements. So I think they're a team that deserves all the ridicule

that they're going to get over the next couple weeks and next couple months. To me, to me, and I want to wrap this up to Shilkela, I think that you kind of pointed out a lot of the points that I wanted to make. I want to make sure that my point is simple here. I am only using the words that John Harbaugh offered up a couple of years ago when he was talking about the zero tolerance policy. He said that the biggest three things were you needed to get to the truth of the situation.

You needed to understand the circumstances that were involved. And you need to try to keep yourself away from being a part of acquiring players to the draft or bringing in free agents that had these kinds of things swirling around them. That does not mean that you don't take a guy who has allegations, right? but the point of, and I was thinking a lot about this and talking with some of our editors about it as a pick came in, the point of a zero tolerance policy is not that at first sight of trouble you had for the hills. It means that you're thorough and it means that you're proactive. And to me, what Baltimore has done with Justin Tucker and now with their comments about Mike Green in lieu of taking him, they have not demonstrated that they know what the truth is because they could have said that at the press conference after they picked them. They gave us no additional details about the circumstances that came up with these allegations, either the one in high school, which I can understand because he was a minor at the time.

Maxwell Hirsten is another player who was drafted, who had a sexual assault allegation when he was a minor. Those case size are sealed for a lot of good reasons. So we don't even have to litigate why when things happen with minors, while we don't get that stuff released publicly. But at the University of Virginia, the university has not spoken on their findings in the investigation. They haven't put out any statements. there's no acknowledgement of the victim in any of the statements from Mike Green at the Combine,

from the Ravens at their press conference. Nobody in the broadcast can give you any details at the time of the pick. And the last piece of it, and this is the most important thing to me, is that if you have a kind of zero tolerance policy, then the last part of what John Harbaugh said is most effective, which is that you try to keep yourself clear if you're not certain of what the truth is and what the circumstances were. and with Justin Tucker, they have kind of hid behind the NFL conducting its own investigation, like these allegations aren't happening right in your own backyard. So what you're telling me is you drafted a kicker just in case the NFL corroborates what's reported by the Baltimore Banner.

And now you can say the lead decided for you instead of this quasi zero tolerance policy. And then the fact to me, in this is speculation, because it's not like I'm reporting on it, to me it's the Virginia situation is quiet because he left and there's no way to know what happened when he was in minor, and that's good enough for you because he kept his nose clean while he was at Marshall. And if that's the case, you can say that. Hey, we know he's going through whatever he's gone through. But in his time at Marshall, we found out that he was taking care of his business. He went to class.

He didn't get himself in any trouble with women. It seems like he's contrite when we spoke with him. What we got from Eric Dacost instead was, we did what we thought was fair. We were comfortable with taking him. We have good scouts to look into these situations. Who's a shit about any of those is quotes. I mean, your scouts, like, bro, I'm sorry. I don't trust NFL scouts.

You can just tell me he's an excellent football player. And the last thing I'll say before I sign off on this is, and it was funny to me, I don't know who asked it in the press conference, but what they asked of him was, hey, Malachi Stark was probably going to be about in the range that you drafted him no matter what. But Mike Green had been talked about as potentially a top 15 pick. When he started sliding, were they closest players? Would you have considered taking him with the first round pick? And I think the Eric DeKosa gave a dodgy answer that to me I read as, yeah, we considered him a first round prospect, but we knew with the stuff that is coming in with him.

We were not comfortable with having to answer for that on day one. If he got to us in round two, then we were willing to take a chance. And to me, for Baltimore, a team that considers itself on a prestige organization in this league, if not all of American pro sports, I would just expect them to be a little bit more forthcoming with their process. So that way the public can know and their fans can know, especially the women who are. are very passionate about football and live in Baltimore are passionate about the Ravens. They deserve to know that you're thorough with their process and what zero tolerance actually means for you. Yeah.

Well said. Very well said. All right. That was my second loser. I'm sure we'll get back to some actual draft talk here. But I thought that that was worth addressing as I was going through some of these teams. All right, Ruiz. Who else do you have here as a loser from the draft?

This is not me bashing the team. It's not me bashing the player. I'm going to make Cam Ward a loser because it's almost like he got no attention and he was the first pick in the draft. And for me, dude, I was thinking after our last five, after our podcast Thursday, I'm like,

I did a bad job. We should read it, talk enough about Cam Ward. So yeah, you can, I can be a loser on this one because I contributed to it. I grew, I wrote losers after the first round and I didn't even,

I don't think I mentioned him once. I might have mentioned him in passing. But like the reason why I feel this strongly about it is like, I honestly, and I think I handed at this on Thursday. Like, I honestly don't get why he wasn't more hyped. When I watch his tape,

I'm like, this is, it's not like, oh, Caleb Williams or, oh, Trevor Lawrence or Andrew Luck, that type of level of prospect. But I feel like he is a viable QB1 candidate in most drafts that you put him in. And I think he's everything that NFL team should be looking for in a quarterback. It's not just like I've seen the Patrick Mahomes comps, which I don't understand at all. Those two guys don't play at all. Like, if you look at Patrick Mahomes tape, I think Patrick Mahomes in college would call Cam Ward like a dork for how often he throws checkdowns. But Camp Ward has that ability to throw sidearm. He has that ability to create.

But the thing that's more impressive to me is his feel for football and feel for angles and finding passing windows and accessing them with sidearm throws. And he could do it in a variety of ways. And he has the arm talent to make every throw. He can obviously run after the play breaks down. We saw that at Miami. And he kind of has that. He does have the Patrick Mahomes thing where he doesn't look super fast, but he looks like 0.1 faster than everyone else on the field. Like whatever, whenever he needs an extra.

here he gets it. So yeah, I think we're all losers for not celebrating Cam Ward for the last three months. I'm kind of surprised that there wasn't more of a celebration. I think part of it was because we in the media, we love the debate, and there was no debate over he QB1 was. So he was kind of an afterthought. Yeah, he's exciting. I'm excited to watch him play for the Titans next year. I'm excited to see his career. It's a fun story. You know, really, this is nothing was handed to him from high school to college. I mean, he had to earn it. He had to go everywhere, incarnate word to Wazoo and then to Miami. And he's a unique player. I mean, he really has a unique style to him where it's hard to nail down. Who exactly does he look like? I think there's a

little like Jordan Lovish in there. I totally agree with your scrambling point. It's just like, wait a minute, he doesn't look that fast, but these guys are not catching him. When he scrambles, he is getting to where he wants to go. So I'm with you. I will put myself down. as a loser because, yeah, we definitely should have talked about him more on Thursday. Can I throw out a comment? I don't think I've heard. I doubt anyone's thrown out there. Like, I think eventually he could become and turn into like a Dak Prescott slash Philip Rivers style of quarterback. Like, that's what I see on film. I go back and watch Philip Rivers in early 2000 when he was at NC State. He did not look like

Philip Rivers in 2010 where like by that point in the second act of his career, he looked like a guy that was playing a video game that he had already mastered, just like not even looking at the screen just going through the motions. But the creativity and getting to checkdowns and moving in the pocket and like sidearm throws, like that's all Philip Rivers to me. Obviously, he's a little, he has more juice than Philip Rivers ever did. But I could see him developing into that style of quarterback down the line. He's really refreshing to watch.

I like that you brought up Rivers. I thought about Ben Rothesberger. And this is definitely from like an era prior. Like to me, Cam Ward is so refreshing to watch because you never get the feel of a hyper-trained quarterback. And I talked about that with Shador's. Anders when we recorded after night one. And I think about that with just quarterback evaluation in general, right?

Like we see so many guys that you can tell every, every summer, every spring, they're on the cones. They've got the agility bags. They're throwing in the nets. And they've hyper-trained themselves to be as prepared as possible for these opportunities. And what that's done is raise the baseline of play, which is why I think we have so many quality starters in the league. But when you get to watch Cam Ward and it's like, oh, this is a guy who you can tell

was not hyper-trained. He did come into college as a zero star recruit, quote, unquote, because he played in a wingtie offense in Texas coming out of high school, and that he's just kind of been learning as he's been going, right? So he's always testing the limits of what can I get away with in the pocket? What can I get away with as a passer? How do I want to escape? Right.

I'm not thinking about the most efficient way to move around, which is why I understand the Mahomes come, right? Because Mahomes, for as talented as he is, a lot of this has kind of been learned. I would say over the last decade or so of his life. He didn't walk into Texas Tech as some hyper-specific kind of quarterback. He's obviously not as talented as in Mahomes, but I think stylistically, I understand the idea of this is not a guy who is rigidly married to backfoot hits, you know, the backstep on my drop.

The ball has got to be out by the time our front foot lands, right? Like, he's not that kind of player, and I enjoy the fact that he's not that kind of player. And I think that Tennessee will be happy with that style of. quarterback, right? I think that he's going to fit well in the offense that I think Brian Callahan wants to run because he's not going to be a guy that's afraid of, okay, if this is not perfectly manicured for me, I don't know how to operate. I think he can be a problem solver in that regard. I don't know if it'll be a franchise quarterback, but I do think that his play style will be effective for Tennessee. This is, this is like one of those things that I would ordinarily

like laugh at a GM if they're like, this is the reason why we draft him. Like, I'm kind of reminded of like, Bo Nix's backpack. when he added his back back watcher. Yeah, the football backpack. But the clip of him, like, I think it was from this past, like, offseason the draft cycle, him training with Shador Sanders. It's like after the practice and Cam Ward's basically accusing of Shador, he's like, you didn't get better today, you didn't even try.

You were placing the ball. You were throwing it soft in placing. You weren't throwing the ball. But I love hearing that from him. And I feel like he's a quarterback that understands you have to be able to change speeds. Sometimes it does make sense to place a ball. But sometimes you've got to fire the ball in there. and he's someone that is practicing that actively.

And when he sees other quarterbacks not practicing, it legitimately pisses him off and makes him mad about it. So, yeah, I totally felt for him, like, not only from his tape, but also like all the other intangible stuff. Yeah, I agree. Glad to have him in our lives. You know, it would be fun to watch him next to your new character in our lives as we follow and consume the NFL.

Deonté, anybody else do you have on your losers list? Last one, and this will be short because I really didn't even do anything notable. I've got Tampa Bay as a loser. Really? Okay. Why? I don't love, I didn't really love the Emeka-Buka pick when it came in. I don't dislike him as a player. I just think that right now, for where

this franchise is, if Emeka-A-Buka was the best wide receiver on your board where you were drafting, and that's what you wanted to do in the first round, I would have liked them to trade back and accumulate draft capital. And I think that that would have made sense, given where this roster is because they are pretty chock-full with starters. And if you're just kind of back-filling with

depth, guys who can fill in case others get hurt. I would have been okay with that. So I didn't love Emeka Buka in the first round. Benjamin Morrison in the second round, even though I like his healthy tape, we're talking about two hip surgeries, right? In his career coming into the league, you've got to be a little concerned about just like what the long-term career prospects are for a player like that. And you think about other guys like Will Johnson, who were still kind of unclear about what the status of his knee is. I think it's just been hinted that he's got some knee problems. I think about Shabon Ravel, who was just like a torn ACL.

if I remember right, took a big slide. This is not a guy that's had multiple, you know, season-ending long-term surgeries, at least not to my knowledge. So that was a little uncomfortable for me, picking them right on the edge of the top 50. And then after their first two picks, I don't really see anything that's going to move the needle for me. Jacob Parrish is fast,

but he's undersized, slot only, and Tyke Smith, I think won that job outright by being a really good nickel in 2024. I don't know if that was the best use of that pick. I don't know if David Walker does a lot for it. me because he's not really it. He's an impressive production guy. If you look at what he was at the level he played at, I don't know if he's going to translate immediately to the NFL,

and that is a one spot where they could use some instant impact. Chris Ballard's so jealous. He didn't make that pick, by the way. That's like a Chris Ballard. 1,000. And then it's Tess Johnson, who's like super small wide receiver. It's a seventh round, so he doesn't necessarily have to give you anything. But again, I just look at the whole of this, and I'm like,

I don't think that the bucks really went anywhere. I think I agree with that assessment. Okay. I mean, Benjamin Morrison had the best, the most moving team calls player. One thousand percent. I'm room for that guy the rest of my life. Let's go, Benjamin Morrison. So, yes, that was.

And to your point, you know, you probably know why there were some of those emotions, multiple hip surgeries, where am I going to get picked, those kinds of things. I don't know if there's more to that in his background that had to do with kind of the, the emotions he was feeling as the Bucks called him. I thought it was okay. I didn't have a huge issue. Morrison was a very unpredictable player about where he was going to go because of what you said. You know, you don't know what the medicals are these.

I read it on paper and I'm with you. I go, oh, multiple hip issues for a cornerback doesn't sound great. Multiple hip surgeries for somebody walking down the street is really concerning. That's true. That's true. No, that's true. I, Bucca was a surprise pick on day one. I liked the player, but that one surprised me a little bit.

So I kind of just had them in the middle ground for wouldn't put them in either category, but you made the case for why maybe they belong with the losers. All right. That's all I got. I had the Ravens and the Falcons as my losers. Ruiz. You want to rip anybody before we sign off here? Are you good?

The Bengals, I didn't like their draft. Like, I didn't like the Shamar Stewart. Like, I understand the Shamar Stewart pick. Your drafting traits, but like the lack of production should be a concern. Like the Dylan Fairchild pick, I don't know. think he has shaky tape. But I didn't hate it so much. It's kind of hard to pick out losers on draft tape

because you're going to end up looking like an idiot most of the time. Right. I do have one unsurious loser. I'm going to go with S2 testing. I didn't hear about S2 one time during draft season. Did you? CJ Stroud killed S2. Right?

It was C.J. Stroud. He killed S2 testing. Frankly, it's their own fault. It's their own fault for the CJ Stroud thing, breaking contain the way that it did. No, I didn't hear one thing. about it. Literally, when you mentioned that, I was like, why is he mentioning

this? Did I miss something? Because I haven't heard that since it got ripped for the C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young stuff. So good loser, I think. Yeah, I don't want, I don't want any of this like intelligent. I know it's not like intelligence. It's like athletic intelligence, but any type of

this testing just makes me uneasy. I don't like it. There you go. What a podcast. S2 testing as the final loser. Sorry, S2 testing. You know, if you do want to sponsored the ringer NFL show, then we can reconsider our position. But as of now, you are a loser on this episode. All right. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Deontay Lee. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Kira Givens on social. Don't worry. If we didn't get to your team,

we got time. We got nothing but time in the weeks and months ahead. We will be back later this week to talk more draft fallout. There's always like the Monday pieces about this team thought about trading for this player. This is why this team landed on this player. And who knows, maybe some trades and stuff after the draft. Now the team see who they landed. So we'll begin to all of that later this week. I'm Sheila Kapati. Appreciate everyone listening. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem called 1-800 gambler or visit r g dash help.com. Call 1-88-78-98-9-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit

MD gambling help.combinghelp.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline m. or call 800-2-7-50-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778. Hope N.N.Y or text Hope N.Y in New York.