The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The NFL Offseason QB Pod: A Look at Free Agency, the Draft, and Development

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Ryen begins by talking with The Athletic’s Mike Sando on the offseason QB carousel, the benefits of going all-in on quarterbacks, and fifth-year options (0:50). Then he is joined by The Ringer’s Danny Kelly to discuss his draft guide and analyze the top quarterbacks of this year’s draft (27:50). Ryen continues by speaking with QB Takeover’s Quincy Avery and QB Summit’s Jordan Palmer about quarterback mechanics, devolvement of draft prospects, and Deshaun Watson's return to the NFL (53:42). He then closes out the show with another edition of Life Advice (88:40). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mike Sando, Danny Kelly, Quincy Avery and Jordan Palmer  Producers: Steve Ceruti and Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is your QB offseason podcast. We're going to talk with Mike Sando about all the news and notes and rumors about the biggest names and who could make a move on one of these veteran quarterbacks. Danny Kelly, our draft guy at the ringer. We're going to go over all the prospects and some other first round stuff as well. And QB coaches in it, working with draft prospects, working with first rounders and working with pros. We have Quincy Avery from the QB Takeover and also from QB Summit, Jordan Palmer. Some good Deshaun stuff, good stuff on Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts. So it's not just draft on that one.

Some NFL stuff as well. Please enjoy. Mike Sandoz joined us throughout the season and maybe never more important to join us now as we try to get ready for this NFL offseason and all the different rumors, stuff that's going on. You can read his stuff on The Athletic. It is must read for any NFL fan. I enjoy it every single week.

Okay, I want to start with a premise here. We know that the NFL, the Wildcats, the best example of the NFL losing their minds about something that worked one week. And it's like, Hey, we need to do that. All right. And then it, then it stopped working. So we look at the Tampa Bay model, bringing in Brady, winning a Superbowl and maybe that's Brady, but then it happens with Stafford and LA. I think there are times where you can freak out about the models. Whereas now, because the Rams won a Superbowl, everybody's just supposed to think draft picks are stupid, which I think is a bit ridiculous. Maybe the most ridiculous story that I read on playing the results of something was that Cincinnati's front office is not cheap.

Now it is streamlined. Their first playoff win in 31 years. It's like, no, no, no, no. We've actually been doing this right by not having a lot of people on the staff. So having said all of those things, how much do you think, though, the last two Super Bowl winners bringing veteran guys maybe influences more activity in the offseason now, specifically to this one? There's no doubt there's more quarterback movement lately. We've seen it. I think there's no doubt there's more willingness to move boldly. It feels like to me, maybe the younger GM thing, whatever it is. it feels like to me, maybe the younger GM thing, whatever it is. I think the team's picking at the bottom of the first round. I've already been thinking this way a little bit in terms of, Hey,

Seattle, whether it was a good move or not, they would rather have Jamal Adams who they thought was a frontline player than two picks ostensibly at the end of the round, right. Or, or Detroit now doing, or, uh, the Rams now doing that in the trade with Detroit. So I think that part is here to stay trade to later around late first round picks. Try to get good players. It can make sense for both sides if you have a Jalen Ramsey who's, for whatever reason, going to not fit with his current team, which was Jacksonville, or a Stafford. The plan is just to line. It doesn't mean that there's going to be another

quarterback like Stafford who says, hey, could I leave? And then his team goes, yeah, sure. That just, these are all special, weird situations that aren't really replicable, right? There's not going to be another Brady situation. It happened once in his career that Tom Brady was. Now we'll see what happened with Rodgers. I think he's going to stay in Green Bay probably, but these are not things easily replicable other than keep an open mind, because if it does become available to you, do it. Green Bay, you know, they addressed the media the other day and I thought their leadership was smart about this. We're like, you know,

it hasn't gone our way with the number one seeds, but that still means that we're in the mix for this thing. And we have a really good team. I know they have some cap challenges, maybe a couple of vets that haven't played enough because of health reasons. They'll move on. They have the Devontae Adams situation, but they're likely going to make Rodgers or offer him to be the highest paid quarterback in the league. So how much do you think this thing has cooled from where we were last summer? I think it's totally different. I think all of us objectively could have looked at the situation even last year and said the most logical thing for all parties would be for Rogers to stay with Green Bay. However, when feelings are hurt in a negotiation or in any relationship, people don't make logical, rational decisions, right? I mean, if you're pissed at your boss or pissed at your friend or whatever, then you may do something that you wouldn't otherwise

do that wouldn't make sense from the outside. I think that's where Rogers was a year ago. I think he was ticked off at the organization, bad relationship with the GM, and he was ready to go. Now, clearly, he feels better about the situation. I think it's a much better set of circumstances to proceed logically. So unless, I think you have to now imagine something that isn't apparent, that there's not evidence for to think that he's leaving now. It just doesn't seem like it.

Yeah. And they had also said, we didn't promise him a trade. We didn't promise him anything, which I think has been, I wouldn't say it's a massive misunderstanding, but at least it was to hear from Kootenkoos that that specific, like, Hey, look, just so everybody knows no trade was promised. Okay. So let's then pivot to San Francisco because you've been touched on this before. I don't know if this is putting too much emphasis in the structure of a sentence from Tom Brady.

Now we've learned more that me and he and Arians weren't on the same page. He says he's retiring. He doesn't have to be the bad guy. Do you actually think this is, I don't like to ask you to put a percentage on it, but Brady actually does ending up with San Francisco. Your thoughts on that? I was trying to put a percentage on it. You know, I think it's enough to put, I was thinking, what would the percentages translate

to in betting odds? So don't hold me to this, but like in my mind, I feel like it's a 20% chance that there's something there. I feel like Brady has nothing really on his bucket list left other than maybe play for the 49ers. So the fact that his agent represents Garoppolo and him,

it allows for something to happen more seamlessly than it otherwise might. It could be a complicated thing as it is, but I think that has to be at least something in the back of his mind that he would consider over anything else. He won a championship without Belichick.

He's won seven. Eight doesn't matter. I think the only thing that would seem logical would be if that could work out, the childhood storybook team that he wanted to play for, which by the way, was probably Tom Brady away from winning at all this year, really, when you go back and look at the season. So it's enough. There's enough there for me to not call it ridiculous. I think it's interesting. Now, is this because of the Garoppolo certainty or uncertainty i mean is this like hey

no matter what they're moving on from garoppolo brady or not they invested in trey lance so now what's the garoppolo decision and what's the market yeah i think the decision has to be to move him now and you you sort of the season for them proved everything we sort of thought about jimmy garoppolo, a good quarterback. You can win with them. Ultimately, along the way in the playoffs, you'll probably come up short, which in fairness to him, so did Aaron Rodgers. So there's no guarantee, but you could see the quarterback limitation was there. So now you're in a mode where most likely you go on with Trey Lance and you're ready to make that move. But the only reason you wouldn't is if you could have Tom Brady for one year,

it wouldn't make you necessarily give up on Trey Lance or trade him or anything like that. But if you could have him for one year, you would do that. And if you're Trey Lance, you'd probably benefit from it. It's not like he's three years into his career already. So I think you move him. Now, what can you get for him? I would say not a lot. But we also often say none of these quarterbacks in the draft are worth a top 10 pick,

and then they all go in the top 10, right? So the demand part of this is interesting. I don't think they get a first-round pick for them. I could see them possibly getting something with a second-round pick in it. You would hope as an acquiring team you'd get them for less than that but shoot some of these teams are desperate i mean indy's a desperate football team right now right there's there's teams there's a mix of teams that are desperate probably about eight of them at the quarterback position yeah well let's go to that i mean i still have a bunch that i want to get to here uh i was looking at wentz i was looking at numbers again, and he's somebody that I don't necessarily want to have to go on social media and defend. I think that that 17 season was incredible. I mean, he was in line for an MVP prior to that injury. I've said this before. I think I started to realize with so many former players or so enamored with him or people that really study the position is that he does have some of those throws that just other guys don't have. But the way he is talked about, whether it's the primetime pick or it's the Jacksonville game at the end of the season,

those, I think, become too dominant in the way we talk about Wentz. He had seven picks and 516 attempts this season. 30 quarterbacks. 30 quarterbacks had more interceptions than Carson Wentz. I think that would shock people as they hear that because of the way that he is talked about. So I'm not saying he solves all of your problems. But if Indy wants to move on, fine. But I still think there's some kind of market for a team that, as you point,

those teams at the bottom are like, okay, at least we now know we have a guy there, which he certainly was for the Colts, despite how disappointing that last couple of weeks were. Shoot, if Wentz was on a different team, you'd have to say the Colts would have to be a team that would have to be interested in him, right? I agree. If you said before the year, hey, he's going to have 27 touchdowns, 7 interceptions.

He'll have a winning record as a starter and he'll play all the games. Shoot, you'd say, sign me up. That's successful. Let play all the games. Shoot. You'd say, sign me up. That's successful. Let's do an extension, right? You'd say that before the year, if, if those were the numbers and you knew he's going to play every game,

27 touchdowns, seven interceptions, winning record. If that's all you knew, you might've been a long-term deal with Wentz, right? Yeah. Cause those were all things,

but there's something missing with them. Yep. And that's not going to suddenly be there. And I think the Colts learned that about him. It wasn't just the thing at the end of the year where he missed practice time when he tested positive for COVID. You can see why Philadelphia wanted Jalen Hurts. Jalen Hurts has all the things that Wentz doesn't, right? I mean, just as far as leading your team.

So I think that's the big concern there. It doesn't mean it's a deal breaker for someone else. I think it may be for Indy at this point. As I look at teams, like if you look at Tampa, they're among those eight teams that needs a quarterback. Indy isn't going to have Wentz because I think they're done with them. They don't even have a first round pick.

The Bucs aren't picking until 27. So I think Bruce Arians is one of those guys who thinks he can win with a lot of people. That's why he's talking about Gabbert, right? Hey, this guy, I think he thinks he can plug in. Look at those quarterbacks he had behind Carson Palmer in Arizona. He thought he could win with all of them. So could he maybe see some of the traits with Wentz and think, uh, I could win with this guy?

Maybe. Yeah, I think that's the best way to say it. Because if the Colts have him in-house and go, all right, we're good. Because I feel that way about a lot of players. Maybe we don't quite understand. And then it's kind of my Garoppolo argument. I go, if they move three firsts to go bring in somebody

who played one college game last year, why are we debating Jimmy Garoppolo as much as we are and i think that's a lot of times you get those answers but i still think the way whence is talked about statistically like when he throws oh here we go again with him and you're like actually he he protected the football a lot more than you think yeah he does melt down though you do feel that about him and shoot jimmy garoppolo did at the end of the game too remember he threw that underhanded weird ball that was a whence play but i feel like at the end of the game too. Remember, he threw that underhanded weird ball. That was a Wentz play. But I feel like Wentz.

The Tennessee game with Wentz. Wentz is always going to have that in him to me. I think you can talk about visiting Tom House or whatever you want to do, but when you're really under pressure, that's probably for all of us. All of our traits come out, right? We may be able to control our temper, but under the gun of a pressure deadline, maybe you lose it.

And I feel like that's there for Wentz too. Like when it gets hot and tight, he's going to do things that bring New England back in the game in a game they should have rolled in or is going to lose them in the game. As we mentioned, the Aaron Rodgers stuff seems to have cooled from where we were before the

season started. Uh, I don't know that you'll know this better than anyone, because you've been covering this team closely for such a long time of the Seahawks is Russell Wilson, perhaps not built to be the guy personality wise to get his way, because this doesn't seem to be now look, we're,

we're not even close to starting all this, so we'll see what happens. Things can change. I don't even want to ask you a question. Give us the best, take us in the best direction on where the Russell Wilson thing's at now. I think he tiptoed up to the line of where these quarterbacks go, right? They don't want to be the bad guy.

They do care about their legacies and how they're perceived. And I think last offseason, with a little bit of a passive-aggressive Wilson, he has some grievances. Maybe he'd like to be somewhere else. Maybe he'd really like to have a little bit more say or power or have the offense more to his liking and be more perceived nationally as the guy. It's all running through Russ.

I think that's important to him. I think the MVP votes thing is important to him. But I think as he tipped up to that line last offseason, then what happened was, whether it's through injury or other reasons, he didn't play well, and I think he started to get some criticism. I think people started to roll their eyes a little bit every time there was a new Wilson story. And I think he sensed that.

And I think we've seen it go a little bit quiet. So I don't think it's over. I don't think there's anything necessarily brewing right now, but I'm kind of waiting for, okay, what is the next move strategically? Because everyone's a little bit onto the fact that he was behind some of that stuff, right? His agent even came out and said, oh, yeah, we're not asking for a trade but if you would trade maybe here's the four teams right that told everybody that this stuff's coming from him and his camp and so i think it's a little bit harder for him to be uh that way without taking some criticism for it maybe we're in a little bit of a holding pattern here and we'll see maybe he's got

to play really well i don't think it's, but it seems like it's quiet for now. The Kyler Murray thing, not quiet. This one a little bit unexpected. You've been touching on this where you even had an exec say, well, I always thought if it got rough for him, he'd go and play baseball. I thought that was a little dramatic considering two things. When he's healthy, he's been really, really good these last two years. That's part of it. And I think he would still at least want to get that NFL extension bonus

money first and then pocket that. And then if it doesn't work out, he's still young enough that he could pivot back to baseball. But this is kind of the report on Murray that it's not always easy. It's not always easy with his, I think the sense I get with him is that as talented as he is, he's still almost more of a solo artist. And I think the team at times is like, okay, he's younger, you know, he's talented. He's all these things. I think he needs to fix that a little bit because the

rest of the stuff seems to be in place. It's sad. It feels like a little bit of a maturity thing. And, you know, some of those things that like that comment comment you said that I ran in my piece, that comment was from 2019. And there's been a lot of things kind of said about Kyler Murray but not written. And kind of coming out of there but not coming out of there. It's coming through a

another angle. And it's nothing about like he's a horrible guy or he's problems off the field. Nothing like that. But it hits at some of those things we're talking about a little bit with Wentz too, just the leadership and taking responsibility. I think it was notable after, after the,

uh, uh, after the Colt season, Wentz didn't really stand up there and say, Hey, this is all on me guys. I need to be better. Right.

He didn't do that. And I don't think Murray really does that either. And I think that at a certain level, that's part of being the best leader at that position. And so when you don't do that, when in fact you did not play great, right, or you had issues or it was partly on you, I think people can be quicker to turn on you does that make sense makes a lot of sense so i think there's some of these things have been building up behind the scenes on wentz for example and on kyler murray now the difference is murray's generally played great you know a lot of the time but isn't it interesting like the it didn't take much for all of a sudden there would be a floodgate of stuff about how he doesn't work at it or whatever. Brock Heward said some of this last season. He was doing some of their games.

He said one of the things you hear about Kyler Murray is a great competitor on Sunday, but doesn't bring the same Monday through Saturday. I thought that was an interesting thing to be coming out then. That's consistent with the criticisms you hear behind the scenes, but haven't really come out until now. Let's do a couple other guys here. Vegas and Carr. Yeah. I think it's a great situation for Josh McDaniels to basically have a year of Carr at a decent price

without being committed to him for the long term. Because I would just go with him, McDaniels and him. And look, if Carr has this amazing season and you have to pay him a 15% premium, that's a great problem to have, isn't it? Or if nothing else, if you don't like him, you could probably sell high, get a lot for him. I just don't see a reason why if I'm McDaniels, I want to go with somebody else or get worse at the position. I'd love to have this first year to evaluate him, see him in the new system. If he does amazing, hey, that's the genius coaching, right? But it's possible. He could do amazing there. Kirk Cousins is a $45 million cap hit for 2022. There will be economics courses taught on how

Kirk Cousins turned one team doubting him into one of the great runs in salary history. And look, I mean, they guaranteed it. And because they guaranteed the first three years of Minnesota, I think at that time it was the most guaranteed money, the highest percentage of guaranteed money in a player's contract in the NFL. And then you had, well, we have to rework this. And so now reworking it and kicking the can down the street. They're left with, I mean, unless they want to get really aggressive, but I've never really got that sense of Minnesota that they just want to tear this thing down and start all over.

And Cousins was pretty good by Cousins standards this year. It sounds like he's probably going to cash in again here just to make this a little bit more manageable, right? I don't think he's going to be taking any discounts, though. You know, if you're them, would you really want to be at that level for the next three years? Maybe they do. I do know this. It's a little bit like the Matt Ryan situation. When the new coaches come in, especially when they're offensive coaches,

they don't want to get worse at that position. They don't want to suddenly be floundering and not have a guy. So I do think it points to him being there probably this year. i don't think he you know we know the other places san francisco that just doesn't seem like that would be the move you'd make if you were them not much to trade anyway so you'd probably just keep garoppolo if you're going to go that route um so i do see him being there this season i don't know what they do on the contract front because one thing he hasn't done is take discounts. And I think, why would you take one now? You know, there's money in the bank. I mean, you might as well just see, right? With that, there's going to be a market for him in a year.

Yeah. I mean, unless he feels like he clicks with Kevin O'Connell, new coach there, and he realizes, well, it's not like I'm taking a discount necessarily. I'm easing the cap hit, but now I'm getting more guaranteed. You're right. I mean, the number, if they think he's going to take a discount on the number to smooth the cap situation, he doesn't need to do that. And that's kind of what happens. You get yourself kind of stuck in some of these deals and you go, all right, now we're like, we were sort of screwed before. And now we're even more screwed unless we just want to go ahead and cut them, which that would be ridiculous from a football standpoint. I'm not Cousin's guy. Everybody knows it. But to just straight up cut him because of the cap hit

doesn't make any sense. He's a good starting quarterback who probably is in the top half of the starters in the league. Right? Yeah, I agree. You wouldn't want to just cut him loose, but you are in a little bit of a difficult situation for the long haul. Now the cap

will be going up in the future. Maybe there's a calculation you can do to justify it. But Kyle. Yeah. And again, I don't know if they bring in O'Connell who's worked with him in the past, unless there's some kind of understanding that they're going to go ahead and make this work out.

Speaking of cap hits, Matt Ryan, I think he's going to end up having the highest cap hit. At least right now he's scheduled to have the highest cap hit ever in NFL history. It doesn't, I'll, I'll give Atlanta this throughout the season. I'd be like, he's scheduled to have the highest cap hit ever in NFL history. I'll give Atlanta this. Throughout the season, I'd be like, what's their record?

Every time I'd expect it to be 2-8. They'd be like, it isn't. It isn't. It's a little bit better than you would think. But is it a market thing for him? Or is Atlanta still not quite sure if they want to tear the Band-Aid off this team? If I were them, I would try to move them right now. Because even with him, and he played decently some of the year,

they're picking eighth in the draft. So I think last season, their calculus, their evaluation was, hey, we think that Kyle Pitts is a generational talent, and we don't love one of the quarterbacks enough to just give up on Matt Ryan and take one of these guys and hitch our wagon to him. But here you are at eight again. Um, are you really going to, now maybe they see Matt Ryan's going to be a good quarterback for the next three years. I just think at that price, if you moved him now, you would take, he would count, I think

40 on the cap instead of 48. And you say, well, how can you count 40 million on the cap of dead money? Well, it's you save eight and you get them off the books now and maybe you get a really good asset in return. Uh, if you could, I would consider that based on where their teams have. I also should clean up something on the cousins thing that I just said,

because I knew as I said it out loud, it was a mistake that there would be no option to cut him because the guaranteed money is already there anyway. So it would be. Yeah. Right. So I just wanted, I just want to make sure

that i was full on my cousin's evaluation there because i said it out loud it was like i realized that he has guaranteed money and i just double checked it it's 35 million for cash but the hit is 45 all right uh who do you think is going to be the most desperate who do you think like right now if you had to place your money in a team say hey they're going to do something different this is going to be their starting court i don't know who it is necessarily but this team's going to have a guy of all the names that we're mentioning here and i'm not just saying like a rookie in a first round or you start in week one who do you think just tries their hardest to figure out who they're going to have behind center as far as the veteran carousel is

concerned i see two teams for different reasons i think indy's desperate because their owner standing outside his private jet recording videos of anger. So when that happens, I mean, can you imagine being the head of a company or something and you have the top guy doing that? I mean, Earth says hot. I think there's pressure there to win. And so to me, that's one. The other one where there's an obvious pressure situation is Carolina. I think Matt Rule. Now they do have Sam Darnold and they're in on that fifth year option, you know, whatever, 18, 20 million bucks. So they kind of have a guy and maybe they have to go that way. But I feel like he's somebody who could lose his job in week six next year if it goes bad. And so that can really make you do interesting things at that position. Yeah, speaking of the fifth-year option

that you mentioned with Darnold, so it was $18.9 million. They picked it up. This is like, well, if you're trading for him, you like him enough, and you feel like, hey, we're protecting ourselves against it if the guy blows up.

And then you end up, I think, benching him a couple different times a season. Daniel Jones, same situation with the Giants. He has a fifth-year option that comes in at 21.4 million uh there are some stats that are horrifying uh for the daniel jones side of things some would say you know i i feel like whenever i hear about the positive parts of daniel jones it's just the giants fan that's praying they're not totally wrong about this but yeah i i don't know i don't

know how you pick up that fifth year option with him after the first three years. I would take the risk of exposing him to the market. I agree, but the Giants are a place that hires people to fit into what they want. And to me, they don't want to give up on Daniel Jones. And they hired two people that have now publicly said that they like Daniel Jones. So can you then, how easy is it then to just say, oh, yeah, we love him, but we're not picking up the option?

I mean, where's that line? What do you mean? He's your guy? He's not your guy? So some of that is what does the owner want? What do they think of Daniel Jones? The owner said, we've done everything we could to screw this guy up. We like him.

screw this guy up. We like him. You know, and then the GM and the coach, the coach is known for fixing a talented athletic quarterback. Josh Allen is obviously different from Daniel Jones, but they were picked at about the same spot. And I think the Giants organization has expectations there. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they picked it up. I'm not sure what they're going to do,

but that's an interesting dynamic because whether you do or don't pick it up tells you what you really think about the guy. So how can you say we love the guy, but we're not willing to pay him on one year sub starting quarterback money? Yeah, I just don't know that I've ever heard anybody get the job and go, yeah, this guy's not very good but we'll see what we cook in here maybe year three or in the interview process that we don't have access to we can hear it second hand but does do you interview for that

job saying well the first thing we got to do is get the guy you picked fifth overall we got to get him out of here yeah don't you have don't you have to sell yourself and that you can fix the team's problem you have that position and that's how you get the job? Yeah, and then you go through the process. Hopefully they've had that discussion of what they're going to do and they know what they're going to do and they all feel good about it. It's not the end of the world if you do it for one year. You actually, like I said, you place a below starting market bet

on a quarterback that you at least like enough to have him this year, it seems like. I don't think we feel like they're not going to have him as their starter this year, right? like. I don't think we feel like they're not going to have them as their start of this year, right? No, I'm not saying that. But I would rather keep it flexible, too. Lamar, any holdup whatsoever with the extension that he's due? Well, certainly, because we don't know.

He doesn't have an agent. I think that if Tom Condon's representing him or David Dunn, I mean, those guys know what we sort of know to expect, right? There's a place you can slot in a player like that. When it's being handled by the player, then every move of the negotiation is personal, right? It's personal. It's hard to separate from personal. Can you imagine somebody who's 25 years old or whatever Lamar Jackson is being able to not have it be personal? I mean, it takes a lot

of seasoning to get to a point in your career where you can hold a negotiation yourself and not take personally what the first offer is or how to do it. So I think it's delicate. It's a little bit of a delicate situation. Okay. Deshaun, Deshaun Watson, does he play this year? I'll believe it when I see it. You know, I did, I did read, I don't know, somebody put it out. It was a pro football talk or somebody said there's teams now willing to take them without the resolution of the cases. I just believe it when I see it, because I think it's hard.

It's easy in fantasy football to say what you do with them. It's hard to sit up there to press conference with your general manager when these things are hanging over. These are serious allegations. When you look at what's going on, not just society, but in the league with Washington football team commanders, I think it's way harder than with Washington football team, commanders. I think it's way harder than it's being made out to be to make that type of an acquisition.

You can read Mike Sandoe's pick six column, The Athletic, every single week. And we're ramping up. It's going to be a fun offseason, man. So I always appreciate your help. Check in again soon.

Thank you. We're ramping up. It's going to be a fun offseason, man. So I always appreciate your help. Check in again soon. Thank you. If you check out The Ringer right now, all over the NFL draft,

and Danny Kelly does our Ringer NFL draft guide. Again, that's ringer.com. And also check out his NFL draft show podcast with Ben Solak, and they have others. That's coming out every Tuesday in February, then Tuesdays and Thursdays in March. So for the longest time, Danny, it was maybe Kayvon, number one, and then it felt like Aiden Hutchinson got all sorts of love after the Ohio State game.

And so I come at this from reading the mocks and also watching most of this stuff on Saturday, and it's like, okay. And then the tackle from NC State was in the mix. Now it feels like every mock that I look at is Evan Neal, the tackle from Alabama. How did it happen where just now all of a sudden everybody is on the same guy from Bama? I think the wins are just going in that direction. Number one, you look at what happened to Joe Burrow in the Super Bowl, like so many sacks all throughout the playoffs. I think

that the Jags are just going to want to go into next year, have that ability to protect their biggest asset trevor lawrence and kind of just go from there obviously they could go with defense and and get a big impact player but um i just evan neal just kind of has like the full package he's not necessarily he's not even my top rank tackle i just think the size the pedigree the versatility he can play multiple spots on the line if you need him to um you know the fact that he's coming from alabama it's always producing good offensive linemen in the league he just seems like a safe He can play multiple spots on the line if you need him to. The fact that he's coming from Alabama, it's always producing good offensive linemen in the league.

He just seems like a safe, good, overall number one pick. How many different players do you think are still in the mix for number one? That's a good question. I think you've got Kwanu, who I think is gaining some steam. Evan Neal, Hutchinson, Thibodeau are like the four main guys. I can't really see anyone else going there unless they trade out, and then it's maybe a quarterback or something like that. See, the quarterback part of this is very predictable.

Nobody liked any of them. I think that we're in February, and we're starting to guys see the top, whoever has, because I think so far from the mocks, there are many different orders. I think I've seen four different guys be the first quarterback off the board, which is kind of exciting that there's all this uncertainty around it, but they're already starting to creep up in that nine, 10 range, which, which is higher than people probably thought back in October. And I would argue that we're probably going to see somebody go even higher. So let's dig into yours because you have Willis 10th, Pickett 11th, Corrales 18th,

and you have Ritter out of Cincinnati going third. So you have four quarterbacks going in the first round. How much does your mock reflect how you grade them? Well, that's a good question. Right now I've got Pickett as my number one guy. I just think he's kind of like the safest, highest floor type guy. He could come in. He has a lot of experience starting. He could come in and be a starter in year one. But I'm coming around on Willis as my top guy in terms of just the overall potential, the talent. He's got a huge arm and

obviously incredible athleticism to be integrated into the run game. I think the things that you could do with him in year one is kind of like what we saw with Jalen Hurts and the Eagles. You can design a really good run game around Malik Willis and then develop him slowly as a passer because he's coming into the NFL very raw as a passer. He's going to have to learn how to go through progressions. You're going to have to learn how to play in non-RPO type situations. And so I think the floor question is an interesting one. I think it's going to be either Pickett or Willis, the first guy. Ultimately, I think those are the first guys that are going to be picked.

And I would say probably in my next update, those will be my top two guys. So I do think at the end of the day, it's going to be one of those two guys. They're my two highest ranked guys, or they will be on the next update. Um, and you know, I think, like you said, we're going to see these guys creep up into like the top. I've seen a couple of mocks that like have, you know, people trading into like the number three spot potentially. So, um, you know, it's going to be very interesting to see how quite how high they rise. I don't think we're going to see it number one overall, but top five is not out of the question. Give me a comp for Willis.

I'm not a huge fan of the comps when I have on the NBA side of it, but are we talking about a Hugh Freeze situation where you don't feel like he's asked to do as much, which has happened with the Baylor quarterbacks with Bryles. That was always my go-to example of it. And that the reason why they're not great pros is that there's just limitations on the way they have to see the field versus the way that other people do. You know, there's a lot of guys putting up massive numbers, but it always felt like, and look, I'm close to this QB coach Quincy, who we're having on this pod too. And, you know,

he talks them up to me and explains all these things. But from your standpoint, like where are the limitations as far as him compared to picket and how they had to run or see an offense at the college level? Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, it's like, he's just, he's coming into the NFL, not, he hasn't been running the type of offense you expect a lot of quarterbacks to run. He's not going to progressions. He's not, you know, moving one, two, three and going across the field. It's more like one or two and then taking off and running. And we see that with a lot of quarterbacks coming into the NFL. I think that's particularly true with Willis. The other things that are somewhat concerning about Willis is he's short, he's six foot. And I know that quarterbacks coming into the league are a little bit shorter than they used to be in terms of like

what the NFL is looking for. There's more willingness to work around that. But you still have issues with guys that size seeing over the middle of the field and throwing to the middle of the field. And I think that could be an issue with Willis. So I think those two things combined make him definitely risky. I think every quarterback in this draft is risky. I think Willis, anyone who takes him

is going to have to deal with the fact that he may end up just not never developing as a passer. And you can use him as a, you know, integrate him into your run game and you can get that floor like we're seeing with Jalen Hurts. But three years in now, two years in with Jalen Hurts, people are still questioning whether he can like run an NFL passing offense. Right. And I think we'll have the same issues with Willis two or three years from now that we're seeing with Hertz. So, you know, Hertz to me is like the best, I guess, comp in terms of style and skill sets. I think he's a much better athlete in terms of a runner than Hertz is. In fact, I think if he comes into the, when he comes into the NFL, Willis is going to be the second best runner at quarterback behind only Lamar Jackson. So, you know, that's kind of like the baseline I've been using, looking at like what Hertz does for the Eagles and the question marks around Hertz still going into year three.

So I think that's kind of what you're expecting with Willis. Pickett's going to be 24 in June. Yeah. I don't have a question. That is a statement. That is a statement. That is definitely true. He's like a super senior coming into the NFL. I think you have to question, obviously, why it took him four plus years to break out at Pitt. I mean, he had 42 passing touchdowns this last season.

His previous best was 13. So that's obviously a huge question in terms of how did he get to that level? How did he break out? Is it just because he's been playing so long in college football? He's playing against a bunch of 18 and 19-year-olds. And now as a 24-year-old, 23-year-old, you're finally starting to put it all together.

I think that's a big question mark. And that hasn't necessarily been a death knell for other guys coming into the league. Obviously, Joe Burrow was an older prospect and took a little bit longer to develop. And he's panned out. He looks like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL going forward. So is Pickett Burrow? I don't think so, personally.

I don't think he's naturally talented. But there are some parallels there. He's got a cool demeanor. Guys on his team rally around him. It sounds like he's a really good leader, all those things, but I don't think he's as physically talented. He's not as accurate as Joe Burrow.

And so, and obviously the hand size question mark is going to be like the biggest thing other than his age is like, how big are his hands? Like, can he throw the ball in the rain and the wind and, and all that stuff that like teams are going to be concerned about? Yeah, because his hand apparently measures at eight and a quarter inches.

Danny Cannell used to tell me there's ways you can get around it where you can have your hand massaged every other day or something leading up to the full measurement. I love that Narduzzi, his head coach, was like, it's not a big deal. As if any coach would be like, yeah, it's a real concern. We loved him. We were great. He's good in college. But yeah, that's a flag. It'd be a flag for me As if any coach would be like, yeah, it's a real concern. Like, we loved him. We were great. He's good in college. But, yeah, like, that's a flag. It would be a flag for me if I were on an NFL team.

And then the fact that he did throw with gloves on most of the time, correct? On his right hand, yeah. I don't – it's kind of like wingspan for me on the NBA stuff. Like, I don't want to try to find guys with bad wingspans to prove some point. Like, I would probably defer to, wait, what's going on there? Oh, his wingspan is the same as his height? That's not great. And then you have a Desmond Bain who doesn't matter.

He's a really nice player, has had a nice run with Memphis, and is going to play in the league a really long time and was a steal at the end of the first round for Memphis. But nobody wants to get in the habit of drafting players with even or negative wingspans, which rarely happens. And I just don't think there's a lot of NFL teams that go, well, cool, this is something we totally want to dismiss. So I wish I could put, well, I don't know. I guess I would say that if I had to put money on it right now, I could see with more scrutiny and the closer we get to the draft that Pickett will end up behind one of these other two guys. And maybe that's Corral or Willis. I think, yeah, I'm absolutely with you. I think Willis is going to be the top guy picked. I'm pretty sure at this point that Willis is going to be the top quarterback pick. It's just a matter of how high. I think

it's because of the physical attributes, the upside that he has and Pickett being a pretty good prospect and like a pretty high floor prospect, there are still massive question marks with him. You know what I mean? So I think that you're not going to see teams really, I guess, getting into like a, a race to go get this guy.

If he falls to them, great kind of deal. And I, and the first team I could see him taking a picket is, is Washington at 11. So I don't know if you're going to necessarily need to jump over another team to go get him. If he falls to you, that's great. But I don't know if teams are going to necessarily need to jump over another team to go get him.

If he falls to you, that's great. But I don't know if teams are going to be like, you know, having this panic and trying to trade up and grab a guy like Pickett. Whereas Willis, I'm more confident that teams are going to see him and see a guy that they can mold into an elite player like like a Josh Allen type player, even though he's not as tall, not as heavy. The physical talent, the arm strength, and the mobility are Josh Allen-esque. You, in your mock, have the Steelers moving up from 17 to 10 to take him. That is an aggressive trade so early in mock season. This was coming out of the Senior Bowl. And, you know, you even have Jim Nagy,

the director of the Senior Bowl, tweeting a picture of Tomlin next to Willis at the senior bowl. Like, you know, there's all these connections to the Steelers. Obviously, they have big question marks in the quarterback position with Roethlisberger retiring. You have potential bridge quarterback Mason Rudolph. No one wants to see that next year, of course, but it probably is going to happen. Mason Rudolph be the bridge. And then you have a guy like Willis who can be the future.

You just got to kind of like develop him over a year. And I think this is a very logical and like, there's a reason that it could happen. I don't think trading up however many spots this year is after it up at seven spots. I don't think it's going to be as expensive as people think I'm kind of going out on a limb. I guess I don't think it's going to be quite as expensive to trade up in

this year's draft. Maybe, maybe that won't pan out. maybe i'll be completely wrong on that and teams are just going to hold strong to like the draft value chart and all that but i see this class as not top heavy um it's at any position really there's so much depth there's so much disagreement over who the top guys are basically every position i don't think moving around in the first round is going to be quite as expensive as it typically is. Okay, that's interesting.

That's just by the way. We'll see. Yeah, no, I like it. We love theories on this podcast. I think Willis is the guy that wins the room two and five minutes. You spend any time with him. I went to the Elite 11 thing where he was a counselor and hung out with him a little bit. And you can see.

11 thing where he was a counselor and hung out with him a little bit and you can see uh and i try not to put a ton into like all right i spent time with a guy that only wants to make sure that i think he's cool after this encounter so that i'm not coming on a podcast going you know who's a dick is this guy uh but he felt very genuine and i could see him around football people front office a tomlin especially just his i hate to vibe, but for some guys it works. Like Joe Burrow has a thing about him. Now it's different than Malik Willis because he's quiet or whatever, but he has some absolute fuck you in him. And that's why whenever I hear a Burrow comp, I'm like, okay, but you're also asking him to have the same DNA, the same genetic makeup, the way he sees the world and Burrow just doesn't give a shit.

That's why I'm always going to probably push back on so many Burrow comps. I saw something the other day from Sando where they were ranking Herbert, Allen, and Burrow, but they did it with execs and coaches and all this stuff, and they were voting, and Burrow came in first, which I was a little

surprised about, and perhaps was the recency bias of making it to the Super Bowl because i still think body type i'd probably still go alan even though i love burrow's personality all right so let's do uh let's do the other couple guys a little quicker because i still have stuff i want to get to with you uh corral may have the most pop out of his arm from release the ball in the air when i watched him there were a moment i looked geez man and he's got the athleticism and all that stuff. A very good system there with Lane. You have him in the teens,

but I don't think he's out of the picture here of a team falling in love with him either. Yeah, that's a good point. Actually, I kind of forgot to include him just because he didn't go to the Senior Bowl. And a lot of people actually said he was the winner of the Senior Bowl just for not being there because he didn't, like, you know, disappoint quite as much as some of these other guys. think you know sam howell went in there was disappointing

um desmond ritter didn't separate himself so yeah i think corral is definitely in the mix um he he's a tough one for me because like you said he's got a he's got a live arm it's almost like um a zach wilson style thing like quick whip whip like release you know he can really throw it downfield he's aggressive all that that stuff is fun about him. However, I just do kind of worry the size is an issue. He's shorter. He's slighter.

And he's very aggressive as a runner. You kind of start to worry that he's going to be the type of player that goes in and just is continually hurt in the NFL. You know what I mean? He's just a little too aggressive. So in addition to that,

also there's like schematic things. Like he was a very RPO-heavy offense. Like a lot of the quarterbacks in addition to that, also there's like schematic things. Like he was a very RPO heavy offense. I like a lot of the quarterbacks in this draft class, honestly. And you wonder how quickly and how naturally that will change in the NFL and how quickly they can like

acclimate him to an NFL offense. I've actually started to think of him a little bit like Tua because I liked Tua a lot coming out. I think he would like, you know, the quick processing, the aggressiveness thrown down the field, but now you've got Tua in an offense that they were very dependent on RPOs. And you can only go so far, I think, in an RPO system in the NFL.

You have to be able to expand that offense and how quickly you can do it. So I've been looking at him a little bit like Tua. Now, maybe some people will see that as a positive. Some people will definitely see that as a negative. But that's kind of like how I'm picturing Corral going into the NFL is like you're going to have a lot of quick hit RPO stuff in your offense, and that's how you're going to have to design it early on. Yeah, I think Corral is somebody that relies on running way more than Tua did. You know, when you look at some Tua's-

Well, it's true. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Like Tua still wanted to stay in the pocket, go through his progressions. Granted, he was throwing the first-rounders all over the place, which may have been the mistake that I made along with you that I held out hope for Tua because I just thought his processing was so good. Exactly.

And I thought he was super accurate at different levels. And now maybe we realize it was Judy, it was Ruggs, it was Devontae Smith, it was Waddle, and then a tight end that got drafted on top of everything else too. All right, I want to end with Ritter because he's your last pick in the first round of 32 to finish off the quarterbacks. Incredible run at Cincinnati.

I don't put a ton in the Alabama game because I just thought it was a mess altogether. I don't know if you have different versions of that tape where you think, okay, this maybe exposed some things. I'd say of all the quarterbacks maybe, and I probably watch it more than pick it to be fair, I feel like Ritter had some more NFL-type throws like out of the pocket into rolling the play-action stuff.

I felt like his pocket presence and the decisions he would make and some of the stuff they set him up with certainly look more like nfl football than willis or definitely corral yeah yeah i agree i agree with you he's actually my qb3 right now in terms of ranks um and i liked him a lot more than i thought i would i kind of went in blind to some of the college narratives you know obviously college football people all have very strong opinions based on what they've seen. And I kind of tried to go in blind to that. And I was like, I like Ritter.

I don't really understand why people have him ranked a little bit lower in this draft class. He's got, like you said, he is, I would say, more polished and refined as a quarterback than some of these other guys in terms of what you're expecting in the pros. He's setting protections for his offensive line. He's got that cool confidence i think that you're looking for that we're talking about um where he goes in there he's very you know calm he gets his guys in the right place sets the play knows where he's going with it he's a father so he's got a little bit of that maturity

i think that you add into it he's he's very experienced he's like a four-year starter um he's got like 50 starts under his belt. Obviously, lower level Cincinnati, but still, it's important. And he's been productive. He's athletic. I think there's a lot of things to like about him. The problem is maybe, and this is, again, this is sort of like a vibes thing, but he just doesn't have one defining trait, one defining feature

that makes you go, ah, I really really like this guy you know what i mean like he doesn't have the um elusiveness that that like a willis has or the big big arm that willis has or whatever and so um i think maybe that's just like the one thing that's kind of like missing but otherwise i think his skill set is really solid i've seen people comp him to uh to dac prescott for that same reason it's just like he's he's smart um and he gets guys in position he's a cerebral quarterback but he's just not like he doesn't have like one defining trait necessarily all right you know what and I'm not doing this to you because you did it because I know how you're doing it but I may from now on any Ritter content will be followed by and he's a father so like you know like hey guys don't

don't forget I've been using that as a recent father myself. It changes your life. It makes you realize you have to be more mature. I do think it matters. Less risk. Less risk on throws.

Like, he's trying to fight it in. He's just thinking of his son or whatever, actually. I don't know if he has a son or daughter, but yeah. I don't know. I'm throwing that into every scouting report.

I love it. it okay i know this is the quarterback podcast but i have to get to a couple other things here sure and before i get to the receivers i'm just going to go with the what the fuck on your mock where i'm just going to say i think you're totally wrong how the fuck do you have nicobe dean 28th i don't care that he's smaller i saw enough he's a missile his instincts i realize the guys up front keep them clean and everything i just think you have them too low and i think that's my opinion i i think that's fair i think part of the reason i tried to read the tea leaves a little bit when i'm doing these mocks and and when i did this mock i think it was like a week or two ago i did this mock um there seemed to be

kind of a lot of of whispers that the the NFL isn't quite as high on Dean. You know, as like a Devin Lloyd, a guy who's a little bit longer, a little bit more built to like be more versatile at the NFL. Obviously Dean flies around like a heat seeking missile and that's what you love about him. But like, he doesn't have the length.

And I think that could be the issue. You're probably right. You're probably right. He goes a little bit higher than this. I don't, I don't actually have a strong argument against it other than i was trying to read the tea leaves a little bit based on what i was hearing and seeing on twitter um that the nfl might not be quite as high on this guy as as draft twitter is per se all right no i get it look just because somebody's

productive just because somebody's productive and all that kind of stuff but he was probably my single favorite defensive player to watch speaking Speaking of somebody who I loved watching, but I knew this was going to happen, DeMarvin Leal out of A&M, who is not just straight an edge guy. They lined him up all over the place. When he had his moments, you're like, Jesus, this guy's the number one pick in the draft. Totally.

And I don't love when, I mean, I remember reading about how Haloti Nada was inconsistent with his effort. He had a run there for about a decade of being one of the best interior guys in the entire NFL. So maybe it's true. I know he just got popped for marijuana. It wasn't like he had a Nate Newton deal going on here. It is illegal in Texas.

But he's not even in your first round? Or do you have him? No, I do have him there. I got him at 30 to the Chiefs. 30 to the Chiefs. I've seen other places where he's completely out, and this is somebody that was easily top 10 the entire time.

Why has, and it's not just in your mock, why is he falling off so hard? I think there is, there's a number of concerns with Leal. So he, he's one of those guys.

He actually reminds me of Rashawn Gary a lot. Okay. Coming out basically like the traits. Michigan guy. Yes, the traits are all there. Former five-star guy

like very highly like lauded impressive at like specimen athletically but maybe just the production isn't quite there that you want he's a bit of a tweener the nfl might not know if he's like an interior guy or an edge guy you kind of get stuck in between there so i think that's kind of what's going on i ultimately liked him a lot i lot. And I have him a little bit higher, I think, than a lot of people do across the industry. And so I'm just kind of looking at the traits, the get off, the overall physical skill set to play all up and down the line. And, you know, again, like the Rashawn Gary thing, it took him a year or two, but now he's like a really good player for the Packers. And I think I could see a similar track for Leal going forward. It just it might take him a minute to kind of like find his role in the NFL. All right. Final thought on the receivers, because when you step back and you go, wait, this draft class, this first round class, at least feels loaded. Whether Drake London's your guy, the big kid at SC who was terrific.

at least, feels loaded. Whether Drake London's your guy, the big kid at SC who was terrific. I think Wilson is generally thought to be the better prospect than his teammate at La Vie at Ohio State. Both of them were incredible as well. Jameson Williams at Obama with the ACL. Without it, who knows, he might be the first receiver. John Dodson, Penn State. And then, seriously, a guy who I actually wonder

if he might not be the best out of the group. I know he doesn't have maybe the burst. I'll be curious to see what he runs. But Traylon Burks out of Arkansas, every time they needed a play, especially from a quarterback in Jefferson who wasn't the most, like you weren't getting the steadiest balls thrown at you the entire game. Burks made big play after big play, man. And I love his physicality.

I love winning the 50-50 balls. I like this class because I've seen them all. But maybe I'm just rooting for him a little bit because he's not at the blue blood program that the other guys are out of. Right. I love Burks. He's my number one guy. He's my number one.

He is. Yes. Okay. So physically speaking, there's no one in this class like him like he is unbelievable yeah i comped him to devo samuel with a power-up mushroom he's just a big explosive very fast uh receiver he's kind of raw i think is the reason some people might have him a little bit lower and like you say he's not a blue but he's not coming from a blue blood program so maybe that's a knock on him, I guess.

But, you know, he's the type of guy in the modern NFL. We've seen teams like a DK Metcalf, AJ Brown, maybe not like the most refined receivers coming into the NFL, but you figure out a way to get their special, special physical traits

and use those in your offense. Like with DK Metcalf, it was for the Seahawks. Go run up the sideline and be a guy down the sideline. We'll have Russell Wilson, Chucky the ball. With Traylon Burks, his acceleration, his size, you can use him all over the field. I think, and they used him in Arkansas. They used him all over the field, like the backfield,

wingback, slot, outside. He has the explosive speed and acceleration to run away from defenses. I mean, there's a famous play, I believe is against Alabama where they threw a back shoulder thing to him. He caught the ball from a dead stop and then outrun outran all the corners. Like he's outrunning sec corners from a dead stop.

So I think this guy has special, special physical traits. And I think he probably will end up running really well at the combine. Assuming he does run. And so I'm really excited to see where he goes, how high he goes. Like I said, he's my number one receiver. I think he's going to be really good in the NFL. And like from an analytical point of view, really strong prospect, like great production in college from a young age. So I think all the signs are pointing to this guy being really good in the NFL. Yeah. And I'd looked up the 40 stuff before he had you on.

And I don't, I don't know. I mean, look, if you're 6'3", 225 and you're running a 4'5", and it looks even quicker on film, then it's not going to be an issue. 4'5 is fine. It's just that he is so physical at times. Maybe he doesn't get the credit of like a Jamison who just was breakaway. I think Wilson has some freakiness to him too. And then Drake is 6'5".

So you're like, all right. And even Dotson's kind of like a make you miss in a very short. Like I always felt like Trenlund gave you the full scope of all the stuff you could do. But you just go up and beat the shit out of you for football and then run away. But then there were some other places I saw where they were saying he was going to run in the high 4-3s. Well, if that happens, now we're talking about. I don't even know if that's true, man. I mean, 40 times.

And people are lying about this, like their height. So I don't, we'll see what happens, but I don't, I would think it's still going to be fine, especially at that size. Look, check out Danny Kelly's mock that is up on the ringer. We've got a new one coming soon too, correct? It should be after the combine, yeah. After the combine. And again, make sure you check out

their podcast, Ringer NFL Draft Show Podcast. That's again with Danny and Ben Solak, and they've got other guests, and it's going to go to Tuesdays and Thursdays starting in March here at the Ringer. Thanks, man. Thank you. Okay, we continue with our quarterback podcast here. Joining us, two guys I got to know through some of the camps.

Quincy Avery, who's been a guest on the podcast before, is the owner of the QB Takeover and has worked with a ton of guys and getting some of his guys ready for the draft as well. And also Jordan Palmer from QB Summit, who's got Desmond Ritter as well out of Cincinnati and a bunch of guys that we'll get to. So you two have known each other for a while. This is your, this is your, you know, niche. And I think people still have a hard time kind of understanding, all right, what is exactly these guys do? Is it just

coaching and drills? And then we see the videos and then, then what's up. But I mean, you, you've done this both now for years, you've worked together. Uh, I'll start with you Quincy. Like, how has this evolved this part of the business? Um, I really had a chance to see it grow from like the days where I'd look at Steve Clarkson training some kid in like a park and him like taking quarterback training to what it is and seeing guys like Jordan go through the elite 11 process and now kind of like where we're at today it's like a big big business um and we have the opportunity to not only work with these nfl guys but we're also working with nfl teams consulting with those guys and it's it's become um far more than ever could have really imagined

yeah and i think um you know the reality is is it's like anything, right? In, like, politics, what's happening in the world, you're always like the simple statement is always go follow the money, right? Follow the money back to the beginning. And what makes this league so successful and where it is right now is a lot of people, but the reality is it comes down to the quarterback. And so the development of that quarterback um in my opinion is not near has does not have nearly the amount of impetus and focus and investment into it as it does in other sports and so this quarterback makes these teams go these teams make these these organizations

go right the individual players on the team these organizations make this league go and this this league is is the biggest league in our country right now i mean it's making a lot of things go so you can really trace it back to the quarterback um and i think the casual fan um the guy that uh that bets on games and has a fantasy football league and all that stuff has no concept of what goes into the development of these players. And yet that whole community, media, fans, all that stuff, are very quick to have opinions on what guys should or should not have done when the ball is in their hands. You know, Jordan, I imagine, and Quincy, I want you guys to kind of jump in,

but whether it's your client, whether it's both of your backgrounds at the position where you watch stuff on Sunday, like the way you're explaining it to me and you've explained it to me before is that we're still like the resources are not even close to what they need to be for the toughest position in all of sports. So when you're watching things play out with a draft pick or you're watching a guy on Sunday, is it frustrating? I mean, how mad do you get about this at times when you feel like they're doing a quarterback a massive disservice and altering their career? Quincy used to have a full head of hair.'s crazy went all the way right here clean lines the whole thing no yeah it's super frustrating uh and quincy and i've known each

other a long time we've been buddies for probably 10 years now um and invent a lot about a lot about the same thing so so here's kind of my evolution the last few years uh it was about eight or nine years ago i was playing in the NFL. My high school buddy married an LPGA golfer named Natalie Golbis. And I spent two days playing golf with Natalie, really playing golf, but like on the practice range, like hitting balls and, you know, she's got Butch Harmon out there and all these swing coaches and all this

stuff. And I'm sitting here, I get through the first day and I'm going, Natalie Golbis knows so much more about her swing, the biomechanics and her body than any quarterback I know. And I'm, at this point in my career, I'm training in the off seasons with my brother and Drew Brees and kind of a who's who list. And I'm just saying her understanding of the body and how the kinematic sequence, how ground force becomes rotate all of those things. I'm like, I don't know any dudes who know this. And then kind of get, you know, a couple of my buddies end up playing in the majors and it's like, wait, the pitchers know this too. And the guy that's helping the pitchers knows this too. And I'm playing on my foot on seven teams. And I'm sitting here going, I've never had a

conversation about mechanics, not at the expert level. And so for me, I really set out on what is the industry missing? And when I say industry, I'm not talking about private opinions like Quincy and I. I'm talking about college, big level college and NFL quarterback coaches. And what's happened is there's just a disconnect between all the things that goes into playing the quarterback position well. All right. So most coaches are X's and O's guys. Right. Hey, go here. Get your eyes over here. Here's the coverage. It's awesome. Right. There's some great ones or some bad ones. It's like anything. Right. So most coaches are X's and O's guys, right? Hey, go here, get your eyes over here. Here's the coverage. All that. It's awesome. Right. There's some great ones. There's some bad ones. It's like anything. Right. But I really haven't met a coach in college or pro who has a

background in kinesiology who understands the human body. They didn't get that job. It wasn't even on the job description when they interviewed for the position. Right. And so my last few years, what I've done is I've just hired people that know more than me in all these spaces, which is physical therapy, biomechanics experts, and I've grown it. And so I think that the future of the position is teams, college and pro better utilizing the resources that they have. So right now in an NFL team, the strength coach, the physical therapist and the quarterback coach, like they don't talk. They don't like, they don't know each other. Right. So it's, that's like a business, right? Like sales, marketing and product development should probably work together. Those departments.

Right. So a focus for me is interdepartmental communications consulting. I'm going to colleges and pro teams and bringing those groups together and bringing the strength coach into the throwing conversation, the physical therapist away from just rehab into the, how do we use this time with this player to develop his body to support what the quarterback coach knows and bringing the quarterback coach into the body strength, human, like human body movement,

those conversations. So the resources are there. They're just not connected. And I think as they get more connected, even the level that these dudes are playing at right now, I think we're going to see it continue to climb. And Jordan said all that. I think that's pretty clear, like really clear on like what we need to do to get better.

But the thing that frustrates me about like where we're at in the position is coaches don't know how to teach somebody how to throw a football. And that's like the most fundamental level of it. Like they don't know what they're looking at. The way that we used to teach the position is so outdated. And Jordan was talking about like all the developments, like the best golf instructors are who I go to to learn how to throw a football, right? Because all that information is there. It's just like outdated. And the things that we have to do to get it up to speed is convincing the best coaches in the NFL that they've been teaching it wrong.

And it's really hard to teach like old crusties who've been doing things a certain way for a really long time. Like that shit doesn't work. Yeah. All right. And I think it's just like, but how'd you get your job? Right. And it's from being a great recruiter, a great teacher, X's and O's, knowing the game, being able to help that quarterback. Like I've had some amazing coaches it's just on the how to throw the football from a like scientific standpoint like how to actually create energy and and the movements that need to happen throughout that and i think the majority of the mechanical issues that quarterbacks have it's a movement that preceded

the throw they got themselves in a position in a bad position more so than just fixing the throw and so what i'm trying to do is hey if somebody overstrides a lot of coaches will tell them not to overstride well hold on what's causing the overstride what's leading to that and so i think that's where this you know quincy mentions these golf coaches i do too i work with tyler's performance institute the top swing coaches in golf, Q, cover your ears here, the players pay them a million a year. Golfers make 20. You know what I'm saying? Like other arenas here, they understand the importance of owning their stroke. And so I think that's what Quincy and I have always bonded on is I don't do the X's and O's.

I don't call guys on Monday and be like, hey, how come you didn't throw it to C? It looked like he was open versus quarter. That's not my role. I don't talk football X's and O's. I don't call guys on Sunday, on Monday and be like, Hey, how come you didn't throw it to see, look like he was open. That's not my role. I don't, I don't talk football with guys during the season. We just try and figure out what's inefficient and what's efficient. And then how do we build a plan around making that movement more efficient, whether it's a throwing motion movement or whether it's a movement proceeding

the throw. Okay. Do you guys both have, I'm putting you on the spot here a bit, but do you both have examples of quarterbacks either that you work with or maybe just you were fans of before you even got to this level of where you're at professionally where you were like they fucked this guy like this guy most of them it's not that it's let me let me like go this up like college coaches have 20 hours right they have to get these people to be on time they have

to teach them the offense they have so much they have to and then as soon as that 20 hours is up they spend every waking moment recruiting so it's not it's not a capability issue it's a bandwidth issue right and it's just where are you allocating your resources are we allocating resources to make sure that this problem gets solved or that problem gets solved? And when you're at Clemson or one of these big schools that's had a lot of success, it's a resource allocation. Some coaches understand that there's a void and they try and fill it. Some coaches don't notice that void. And by the way, we're talking about colleges right now. This is the exact same situation in the NFL. They have a fixed amount of time that they can spend with those players.

And so when they prioritize it, they go, got to run the offense, got to install all of these things. And you're going to throw that private guy in the offseason. Hopefully things get better. And so I think that's where that gap is. And honestly, I think we're starting to turn a corner and teams are starting to realize this and be more open to it. I'll talk about a guy who I think got fucked is Blake Barnett. I think that that was someone who was really freaking talented, like had all the tools to throw the piss out of the football and got coached

and just some really jacked up shit. Like, and he was all over the place and then he lost his confidence. And then he loses a job, Alabama to Jalen hurts. And he did not have a chance after that um but that's somebody who i thought could have been the man had all the talent in the world could have been a first round pick and some unfortunate stuff happened got coached poorly um and and now he's not a quarterback anymore and i think too um it's again this is this is like on the side of the school you got 100 dudes in that waiting room so the majority so one of the things that quincy and i do when

you do draft training it's very we have very unique perspectives okay we get everybody's finished product right clemson can't say if i would have just had a fourth year with trevor or with the shop they can't say you're three. And they showed up every day and they did everything that you asked. Right. So I understand guys transfer, but whatever, if you, if you're Joe Burrow,

that's two really good universities. You went to really good programs. I've had a lot of success in Ohio state and LSU. So we're getting people's finished products. Right. At that point in their career. And so guys don't go to the league after one year. Now you gotta be there for at least three okay and so what i see is the majority of the quarterbacks

and athletes are coming out of college quad dominant okay now that creates a lot of issues okay now part of that is they go to squat they lean forward there's a hundred people in the way right there's people everywhere there's a handful of coaches they can't train them the way that my trainer trains my guys right and so guys they work hard they get bigger all this quincy how many of your guys college players talk about knee tendonitis all of them over under half over way over half right i've got guys that are like held out of training right now in college because of knee tendonitis all they've been doing is working out. They haven't played football in like two months.

Well, it's, it's, so it's a systemic problem. And so like, I think one of the most important things you have to do to be an efficient mover in the NFL is you have to have glute stability. The backside of your body has to be developed to connect. Okay. So one of the things that happened with Joe Burrows, that's the only way you can throw. If you don't have like glutes, you don't have hands, you canutes, you don't have hams,

you can't create ground force, you can't create an injury here, you can't throw a football. And they don't know that. They don't train it. They don't lift it. They're weak. And then they end up throwing with their arm and their arms – Well, they get non-contact injuries. Yep.

I mean – Don't you turn ACLs? Two ACLs on Bama this year. Did that have an effect on the season? You know, and so I just think that, like, do the strength coaches not know that? No, of course they know that. They understand that.

They got 100 people there. And so that's where I think as teams get better at bringing expertise in, whether that's an outside resource or it's an internal resource that they hire against, bringing in and connecting the dots between the training room, what's happening in the weight room with the quarterbacks, and then with the quarterback coach, his understanding and connection to those things. I've worked with a couple of schools the last three years

in an official capacity. We've seen major results. We can go through and show data where we've seen improvements on certain things, but it was the coaches coaching that player. It wasn't me coaching that player, but it's curating the program. And I think that's – we're starting to see that kind of turn the corner. Back in the day, you just had your buddy be your caddy when you were on tour. Then it was a guy who knew the course.

Then it was a swing coach. And now every caddy on tour is TPI certified. All right, Quincy, let's get into your guys, at least at the top. And then I want to hear everybody you're working for with this class because, you know, I got to see Malik when you guys were out here. I tell everybody now to just, you know, in a very limited amount of time, you could see how when he's in a room with football people, he's just going to own it. You know, he was at Auburn. He's behind Stidham.

He goes to Liberty. He lights up. I mean, he ran for over like 1,800 yards these two seasons. I'm sure he's your guy and you think he's better than everybody else. You should go ahead of all the QBs. seasons. I'm sure he's your guy and you think he's better than everybody else. You should go ahead of all the QBs, but what is it about him right now that you see where

he's at as far as being ready for this draft and what he could do coming up? So I think that the things that everybody's going to talk about with Malik is just like you saw him, like you saw his legs. He has Cam Newton legs. He's probably... He looks like Devin White. He is ripped,

bro, but you're going to see him. It's going to be like, wow, you're going to watch him throw the ball and he's going to have the strongest arm. He'll be able to push it the furthest down the field. He'll be the fastest quarterback, like all the physical, like all those raw attributes, he's going to be like higher than everybody else. Right. And now it's like, we spent these last few months,

like trying to reform all the other things right trying to understand like the decisions he made decisions he made like all the little things that went on in a game which could have caused him to be not successful um and he was also an offense that didn't really lead to like working an nfl system where he could tie his feet to his eyes work through progressions all the things that we know are going to make you successful at the next level so they're drafting a bid on potential because when you look at it they're just going to do things that nobody else can do um and i i think that when we watch him at the combine uh on thursday night i think everybody's going to step away and be like wow he can throw the absolute piss out of a football.

Yeah. And he's, well, this is, this is an attribute too. I said this last year, Quincy worked with Trey Lance last year. This was one of those attributes. It just doesn't show up in the media. There's no stat for it being cool as shit. Like it's relevant. Like there's, we know the list of quarterbacks who are not cool as shit in the league and you better be really good to overcome it just like if you're short you better have some other things to overcome it if you're not that fast you better have some other things to overcome it if you have a deficiency in the category you better have something that offsets that displaces it right

and so i i just think like ty goes to the guy that's cool with shit and so that was my guy was trey and i you know the guys last year worked with trevor last year and all that but i'm just I just think Ty goes to the guy that's cool as shit. That was my guy, was Trey. The guys last year, we worked with Trevor last year and all that. I'm just saying that's a unique attribute from Trey. He's one of the coolest guys. He's like a light. I would say Malik's the same way. Malik's just cool as shit.

Fans who think I'm crazy, sorry, it matters. There's no room he's going to be able to go in and people aren't going to love him. When he gets to be himself he hung around with us a bunch of 40 year olds and he was cool yeah he was cool man i look i was i was after a couple minutes i was like all right i get it i get it and you know i think you guys are all like blamed for like oh you just talk about guys the whole time it's like that's part of it too being positive reinforcement I are legitimate fans of the guys that we watch. I don't know. Quincy and I both work with Deshaun Watson. I can't sit down when he's playing.

I'm a fan. I've been a fan of his since high school. Yeah, there's relationships and there's all these things, but I had more fun watching the Super Bowl and Joe Burrow play than anybody else on this list. Sorry. Who day? I was like, we are. All right. in the Super Bowl and Joe Burrow played than anybody else on this list. Sorry. Who day?

Like, I was like, we are. All right. So I remember when we were talking about this class, too, and it's just funny. I don't know how much I can't share it all because there was one guy you were like, you were like, nah, man, nah. I'm like, really? And so I'm not going to I'm not going to share it. But one guy that obviously is yours is yours is Ritter at a, at a Cincinnati,

uh, Jordan. So what are we looking at here with somebody who's got 48 starts under his belt, maybe looks a little bit more like the Sunday guys and say Malik would, um, give us your case for Desmond. Yeah.

So real quick, Ryan, I'm going to jump in on how you said it. This is one thing that Quincy and I's industry, we get a bad rap. So you said, my guy, Ritter. I know you just said it. I don't believe any of these guys are our guys. I don't believe they're my guys.

I have a great relationship with some of them. Some guys I'm involved in their entire career. Some guys it was for a phase. Some guys it was for a draft training, whatever. But a lot of people play roles in these guys' development. and so it varies from guy to guy how much role we play but i'll never forget um somebody claimed my brother like put him on his website or something like that i remember the story and my brother like turns and looks at me and he goes not anybody's guy right and i just remember that as a young guy and so that stuck out so i just want to make that

point right it's like i don't have any guys, right. Quincy and I operate in service to help these guys reset potential. And we have different philosophies and then a lot of the things are the same and different. We have different experience and different background that can help them in that journey. But with that being said, yeah, Desmond Ritter I've been watching him for a couple of years. Got a chance to spend a lot of time last offseason um work with the staff um and

uh i i just think i like data points when it comes to the draft i just don't one i literally have not read a board i literally i just literally haven't i'm not on twitter like that i don't know where these guys are ranked i haven't called people and asked I don't really talk to teams about draft guys really until April, right into March. It's because people don't know yet. They haven't, they haven't, there's not enough data points,

but I like data points. I like 45 and four or whatever his record is. I like 26 and oh, at home Trevor last year, I think was 86 and four high school college combined, right? Deshaun Watson was something like 76-6 or something, including basketball. You know what I mean?

I like data points. Does that mean you're going to be a star? Of course not. There's a lot of reasons you can win. We've had some guys win titles at Alabama and never do anything. But I like data points. So for Desmond, I know, okay, he's a freshman of the year, okay, solid sophomore year, back-to-back player of the year, played well enough to really beat Georgia. He should have beat Georgia his junior year. And I also, my eye always goes to two things when I evaluate quarterbacks. It goes to confidence and maturity. So I like data points. And then on the subjective opinion, I like to look at confidence and maturity. So confidence, I believe there's two types of confidence. There's self-generated confidence, which is independent of the

environment. I don't give a shit what anybody says, anybody good or bad, it has no effect on whatsoever. And then there's reactionary confidence, which is what a lot of young guys have. And that's dependent on the environment. So if everybody says I'm the man, I believe him. If everybody says I suck, I start to wonder if they're right. Okay. So that's confidence. And then on maturity, maturity for me is not tucking in your shirt and being on time and saying, yes, sir. Or manners maturity for me is, can you get thrown into a brand new situation you've never been in before and then continuously handle it like you've been there before right like it doesn't matter that this is new joe burrow it doesn't matter it doesn't matter

that lsu does not one person in the building who's won a title doesn't matter this is what we're doing right so i look at confidence and maturity um and so when i'm kind of like building a relationship with a college guy who might be a high pick in a couple of years right quincy and i you know he's working with cjoud right now. And he's like, so we build these relationships a lot of times early on. That's basically what I'm about. And so what I love about Desmond is I think he's one of the most mature and one of the most confident guys that I've been around in this phase, which is saying a lot, some big names on that list. And so that's the foundation of it. Then I looked at data points. I see him get better every

single year and he's 26 and O at home. That means something to me, whatever his record is 45 and five or he's the third winningest guy ever. Like that means something. That's a, that's a relevant data point here more so than yards, right? Yards can be misleading. Touchdowns can be misleading. And so that's the foundation of it and then the things that i've given him the tim taking ownership and making them his own for example there's a thing we do we have these sliders on the ground and um you know and it's we're working on glutes but we're working on different things with these sliders and somebody tells me that we played against desmond this year and what was this stuff he was doing he's out there for like 45 minutes way before the

game doing this protocol like doing this thing like he's was the stuff he was doing? He's out there for like 45 minutes way before the game doing this protocol, like doing this thing. Like he's doing his protocol using phase three. So the buy-in for a college guy at that level, not all of them have it and you can get it later in your career, but when you have it and you start to develop a proven track record of it,

in my opinion, that starts to become a pattern and that makes it an easy, easily, it's easy to invest in an asset that has proven to show a pattern over time. Cause now I can actually forecast in the future what that's going to look like. Um, and I think that's, doesn't mean. Hey, Quincy, who else are you working with then? Whether it's this class or kind of through, I just want to make sure we don't leave any of your younger guys out. Yeah. I'll talk about talk about i mean in this draft class we got derek king out of miami who's coming off some neat stuff and then anthony brown who we watch for his ohio state and you're like oh that that can be you and then we also saw some stuff when you're like damn what are we

gonna do there but i i think that talent wise he can show you some stuff and then we got a young guy named keon Howard, who's a smaller school guy. I want to take care of him. So those are the four guys we got down here. And then college guys, we got a long list. But the guy that we'll probably see the most the next year is C.J. Shroud. So C.J.'s somebody you're working with?

Yeah, C.J.'s someone who comes out a good bit. He's working with Justin Fields in Atlanta, too. because we're working with justin fields in atlanta too so we got some ohio state connections and i hear duane haskins is going to come back to atlanta and get some work in too so we'll see what that's talking about how about you jordan yeah i've got four as well so carson strong from nevada big arm dude gunslinger he's got plays on tape i haven't really seen in a long time um just he's got some on tape I haven't really seen in a long time. He's got some attempts that not many people attempt, just in terms of pushing the ball down the field.

He can rip it. One offer from a non-football town. So I love those stories. And then Jared Guarantano is a guy that Quincy and I know for a long time. He was the top recruit in the country, went to Tennessee, got really shit on there, had a really, really hard run there. He's got a lot of scars. Transferred to Washington State.

Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Named the starter and a captain, gets hurt, comes back, gets hurt, comes back, got a concussion, comes back, coaches get fired. So did not get – didn't get invited to the combine, none of that. But, hey, he's going to land in a good spot. And then Chase Garber from Cal is an Orange County guy where I live. Had a good run at Cal. He's played for Bill Musgrave the last few years.

He's been an NFL guy. He's ran a lot of sophisticated stuff. And so those are the four guys I'm working with right now. Same thing college-wise. I've spent a lot of time with college guys and that's this offseason. Before we finish up, then, I want to hit on a couple NFL guys for you. I know from Quincy's Twitter feed alone the Jalen Hurts season was

just a rollercoaster of emotions for you. They come out, they got them thrown a million times, and you're like, I don't know why we're doing this. To their to their credit, you know, they really turned themselves into efficient offense there. But I still felt like, and again, you may get mad at me or whatever, that there was still a ceiling. How do you feel about him going into another year? And I'm sure you're hoping your guy doesn't get messed with here and they bring in somebody else, but how are you feeling about him long-term as an NFL starter?

I think he has a real opportunity to sustain and be a top 10 quarterback in the NFL for a really long time. The reason I think that is because he is dynamic with his legs and all the things that he can do that stress the defense out. He has probably improved more than anybody

I've seen in a five, six year period. Jordan and I watched him throw in high school. It looks nothing like the guy we were watching. We were just like, you think he's going to play safety? It's nothing like who we're watching throw the football on Sunday. And that's because like you give him things to work on and he's going to work his ass off. Right.

And he's coming off of surgery for his foot, getting back healthy, but we're going to put together a list of things for, for him to work on ass off, right? And he's coming off of surgery for his foot, getting back healthy, but we're going to put together a list of things for him to work on this off season. And I know that he's going to work harder than anybody else in the country because he's like, I mean, we've all heard the Jalen Hurts stories. Like he's an anal dude and he's going to put the work in, in order to get better. So if you have somebody like that, who's that competitive, probably one of the most competitive guys in the NFL, willing to work that hard. And we've already seen that he can make strides towards improving. I think that he's going to only get better and he's going to do a better job of understanding what defenses are doing. And he

also limits the defenses that you can play against them because of how well he runs the football. So he has some of those advantages there. And I think that I think that Philadelphia would be foolish, unwise, a little goofy for them to start moving in a different direction in terms of the quarterback position. Got a bunch of first round picks. Let's get some stuff around him better. And I think that they can win a division. I love the Josh Allen story, uh jordan because you know i don't

look at completion percentage really that much anymore the way we kind of grew up with it where it was like you know if you couldn't get past 57 as an nfl quarterback if something was wrong with you and now i'll see a guy like 68 in college i'm like i don't care you know it doesn't because we know what they're doing and they're throwing it off the flat. But it was still so bad for Josh Allen at Wyoming that you were like, okay. And it was slow. It was like 54 or 56. For college guys, it was bad.

But looking back, I'll never forget because I just know where I was. I was still in Hartford and I go, all right, I'm watching. I don't want any other games on. They're going to distract me. I want to watch Josh Allen, Iowa. Here we go. What's this guy got and it was so ugly i think i liked him better despite how that was one of the most horrifying games i've ever seen a quarterback have to go through and yet it was held against him and i'll

admit too in the beginning of his buffalo run i'm like i don't know man i don't know and now i think he's like a superhero you know i really do think I don't like putting anybody at Mahomes level, but I don't think it's an insane thing to say, Hey, it's a little bit closer for him. And however, the top of this AFC group is give us your perspective of the Josh Allen story from a kid that was clearly not supported talent wise in a place like Wyoming to who he is now. Well, I think I've said this before. I got a lot of flack. I said this like two years ago, kind of in passing. I think it was a Sports Illustrated article.

And I said, I think he's the most physically talented player to ever play the position. I don't, I don't, I mean, there's people, if there's a thousand people listening to this, I bet more than half of them don't think I'm crazy now, right? He's a runner.

He's one of the best runners in the league. Like the only other guy his size that runs like him is Derrick Henryry and derrick henry's faster and he's got a stiff arm up but josh runs between the tackles he cuts back he spins hurdles jukes doesn't take big shots right so he's becoming a dynamic runner in this league um and then arm talent wise it's the best it's the strongest arm i've seen or whatever top three. I backed up my brother in his prime. I backed up Jay Cutler. I backed up Blaine Gabbert, who has a sneaky hose. And I've seen all the rest of them. So it's a top whatever arm.

But he's a dynamic runner, and he's like 250. So from the physical capability standpoint, which I had nothing to do with any of those things, it's there. Now, it was there in Wyoming. It it's there. Now it was there in, in Wyoming. It was just, that was the only thing that was there in Wyoming, right.

It was these flash plays. Right. I remember rolling to his right versus Boise state. He rips one like 40 yards back of the end zone. And I think he threw three, three picks that game. They were terrible. You know what I mean?

It was like, that was him. And so I think the part that people don't realize with Josh is the buy-in. Also how intelligent he is, right? A lot of times small school guys, Quincy and I do this a lot. Like, man, we got to teach them how to learn, not just like teach them an offense. We got to teach them how to learn an offense.

Josh is incredibly intelligent. Like tell him once and he's got, they run some sophisticated stuff in Buffalo. That's Brian Dable, right? That's a lot of new England stuff and Bama stuff. That's very sophisticated offense. He picks up really quickly, and he's in complete ownership of it. So the physical stuff's there, and everyone will compare.

I don't really compare guys. I just believe, like, the guys who won a Super Bowl, until you've won one, like, can't really get in the Super Bowl crew. You know what I mean? And I think Josh will win one here soon. But with Josh, I think the things that stick out to me the the whole coolest guy in the room thing he might be one of the coolest my favorite people i've ever met just funniest like doesn't matter who you are he comes from blue collar like he is buffalo i told buffalo that we're turning up the draft i

go you're not going to get a first round quarterback like this, who Buffalo is the biggest city he's ever lived in. He moved from Fireball to Reedling. You don't even know where Reedling is. Where is Fireball? Where are these places at, bro? What state? Central California. Then he went to Laramie, Wyoming, the smallest airport I've ever seen. And I've seen some airports. And then to Buffalo, it's the biggest city he've ever seen and i've seen some airports um and then to buffalo it's the biggest city he's ever lived in and so like this is not a guy who's like like this is a guy who he wants to play there he wants to like that's him right so i just think it's this perfect storm of this crazy athleticism off the charts intelligence he believes he's the best player in the world so

that type of unwavering self-generated confidence the independent of the environment doesn't matter what's happening right now this is what's what's what I'm about to do. And then somebody the other day on a podcast, one of his teammates, I remember I saw it on Instagram. They said, they said, man, Josh Allen had this, this speech, you know, we're all looked at him, he gets ready to say something and he just stood up and he said, today I choose violence. And he walked out and it's like, that's him too. Right? Like I wouldn't fight that guy. No shot. So I think what's really fun to watch is how much fun he has out and it's like, that's him too. Right. Like I wouldn't fight that guy. No shot. So I think what's really fun to watch is how much fun he has.

It's farvish the talent he has. It's up there with anybody. We don't get to see how intelligent he is because we just assume everyone's running the same place. They're not, he's deciphering and disseminating a lot of information. And then he's a guy who's like got a lot of joy in his life. He really, he's at a place where he wants to guy who's like got a lot of joy in his life he really he's he's at a place where he wants to be he's got stability he's got a new contract he's got coaching staff he loves players he loves so this is we talk about the super bowl window the super bowl window is

when you have a quarterback like that in that in that state of mind the last thing for quincy here because i i don't know if you're gonna send me a text later being like, you dick. Ask it. You already know what I'm going to ask. Way more likely to speak his mind than I am. You think Deshaun plays this year, man? Yep. We've started working out, and I will say this. Deshaun is throwing the ball better than I think I've ever seen him throw a football.

And it's not like I'm just saying this, but he's super healthy. He's super focused. He's super locked in. When it comes to putting on his cleats, walking on a field Sunday at 1 o'clock, the first time that he does that, I think that people are going to be reminded very, very quickly that Deshaun Watson is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. They might have forgot his last year

in Houston when he played, he was carrying three guys who could have been working at your local Walmart at the receiver position, and he went absolutely berserk. Yeah, he went berserk. If he gets on a team with any sort of talent around him,

somebody's going to have to really watch out. I'll one-up that. I think he played this year, and I don't even know what team he goes to. He's a top three MVP candidate this year, 100%. People forget, this is one of the best players in the league with a chance to be the best. Deshaun is not a solid quarterback not a guy who's had a good run this is a gangster the way he unites a room the way that he shows up the way

he prepares he's he's to this day has the best study habits i did his draft training he has the best study habits of anybody it's color coordinated it's detail he's got great penmanship people don't realize he started on honor roll in third grade and he graduated on dean's list never left but he graduated in basically less than three years his junior year that last semester of college he took yoga and meditation he had taken all of his hard classes and he had like a 3-8 they don't realize that this guy's study habits and his the prepared it. He's not a baller. He's not a guy who runs around and makes plays. He's, he is as sophisticated of a learner as I've been around. And I'm just, I don't, I don't even care what team he goes on.

He's a top three MVP. This was a great conversation. I really, I mean, big time. This was so much fun. Again, Jordan Palmer, QB summit, of course, Quincy Avery, the owner of the QB Takeover. Also, his flight school. You can sign up for that now. That camp's starting up in June. And let's do this again at some point, man.

This was terrific. And good luck to the clients who are in the draft, all right? I'll do it. Appreciate it. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet.

What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. Lifeadvicerr

at gmail.com. We're going to try to go a little quicker today because the podcast is so long. But it almost felt like it just, I guess we felt like we had to do it. By the way, we had some voicemail life advice follow-ups. I did not know this. So Rudy, if you can help me out. 99% of the time after you leave a voicemail, you can press the pound sign to either re-record or delete it before hanging up. Every human being should know this.

We'll save them at least once in their lives. Love the show. So what is that? After you're done or it's while it's still recording, you got to hit pound? I think the problem is I wonder if this guy reached his limit. Like there has to be a voicemail limit, right? So at that point, I don't know if you could redo it. I do know that is a thing.

Like you can hit pound to rerecord or whatever. right so at that point i don't know if you could redo it i do know that is a thing like you can you know hit pound to rerecord or whatever but he might have just not even noticed and it was so long that it was just like fuck it send that's it like yeah i don't know yeah that's what i'm wondering or or if he just hung it up first because at first you're freaking out because you just had sex and the phone is on and then it's like eight minutes in and then you don't think like okay let me be totally calm about this even though i don't know exactly what happened like your first instinct would almost always be to hang up um you know i love that john ham apple ad for all the apple people

yeah it's so he calls hanks he's like just saw finch so good uh this says by the way five minute max uh so maybe well maybe it cut off that's the thing is it could have well i don't know he's saying and we had another guy who was a mortgage broker saying and i never listened to anything beyond three seconds so that one mortgage broker who knows uh we appreciate that guy chiming in pretty good chance the guy wants to do the deal anyway we also that guy chiming in pretty good chance the guy wants to do the deal anyway we also had some people chime in about our construction advice there which was rather positive they liked where our heads were at with this thing and then we had one guy that brought in all sorts of photos and stuff he basically said if you don't know what a sill pan

is don't even bother and i think we touched on the threshold and how difficult that can be especially with other construction moisture in there and the entire thing this guy went super deep on it and basically he convinced me that maybe i should kick in 20 bucks for you whoever emailed in about replacing the slider in your master that you definitely shouldn't do it on your own especially if the other guy isn't as handy as he thinks he is no one ever wants to be go ahead there was a guy who was mad at me i think like not mad but he just like raised some concerns tweeted at both of us and, so it's up to the next person who owns the home to fix your mistakes. Do it right the first time. I think he's referencing, like, me and, like, not doing a perfect job on all the fixing stuff around the house.

I'm not saying, like, do a hack job, but, you know, I'd probably, I'd be more likely to hire somebody to do it perfectly in a place I was staying forever versus, like, you know, a little fix. Like, we all know everybody cuts corners when guys are flipping houses. Like don't act like this is some like new thing. Yeah. But not even flipping a house. Like my biggest thing in selling properties is then when they go through the inspection, like I had one recently where, uh, they didn't know how to use the windows. They weren't just straight up and down. You'd actually like pull them out and you could clean them better that way, but they didn't realize that. So they were like, oh, windows are broken. $1,100 to replace those. I was like, they're definitely not broken. The house is like three years old. And so that I went and I took videos of me showing how the windows open and then how you put them back. And so then

they went back and did another inspection. They tried to figure out how to do the windows. And instead of not knowing how to do it, they kept slamming it into the fucking trim work. And then they mashed up one whole side of like the middle part of the trim work on two windows to the outside. So then I get a notice being like, OK, the windows do work, but the trim work is damaged. So we're going to take that out of it. And I go, you're the ones who just fucking did it. And I took a video and clearly on my video, the trim work isn't destroyed. And the thing that I've known about California, at least on some of the property inspection stuff, like if a house is brand new, you'd expect everything to work. And then you should have some time because there's always going to be a couple of things after the fact. You're like, hey, what's going on here? What's up with this? I, for instance, I don't know who designed my master closet, but he didn't allow for clothes to hang and then the drawers to be opened. So it's pretty stupid that I can't open my drawers in the master closet because there's clothes that

are in the way, or I could try to figure it out on my own. So I'm going to have to do it at some point or whatever, but that's kind of a jammed up situation. But on older houses, when you're buying them, when I sold the place in Connecticut, it was, it's a place that's been around for like eight years, right? It was nice. was nice it was okay i mean it wasn't anything fancy remotely but um there were going to be a couple things that weren't going to be perfect with it the house has been there for eight years and then at the end they're like can we get a credit for one of the screens that's missing it's just like you know whatever california's way way worse they come after you they agree on a price and they come up with this hit list of

things that you know they're never going to actually do trying to get back like 10 grand from you so that's what exactly what it is ask for 20 grand get 10 yeah right but like the the connecticut one was so cheap at the end it's like is there any way we get 200 for this missing screen you know what what are we what come on i'm a single guy I don't know where my screens are. What are you asking? All right. Speaking of families, let's get to one here. 6'6", 230. You, 2'8", 28 years old. Haven't lived much since college.

Sounds like you don't need to, brother. But described by others as having grown man strength. My wife and I recently had a baby. Congrats. And we were ready to take our first family trip together, my brother's wedding. We were flying from California to Florida, then driving to a city where the wedding is at. Our son is going to be six months old. I'm estimating a 14-hour travel day with a one-hour layover and a two-hour car ride. It's going to suck. Yes, it is. There's 0% chance he will not cry and cause a scene at least once on this trip. I know everyone around us is going to be annoyed and frustrated,

and we're going to be the stereotypical family with a crying baby on a plane. We bought a third seat for him already so that no one has to sit next to us, but there's only so much we can do. I mean, he's six months old. He's a baby. He's going to cry. We are obviously going to do everything we can to stop his crying once it starts, but I'm sure you know that's a lot easier said than done. I actually do know that, despite not being a parent. My wife thinks we should apologize immediately and be sympathetic towards the position we put everyone in by bringing a crying baby on the plane. And she even wants to get gifts for the people around us as a sort of peace offering.

Like here's a Nordstrom card. No, I think what we're probably talking about here is like a bag of snacks to start handing snacks around in the immediate vicinity. I actually think that's an amazing idea. Amazing offering. You probably don't have to go that far. But the fact that you guys, I want everyone, I want, you know what I would do? Play this part of the podcast for everybody. Just walk by them on your phone, on speaker, and just play this out loud. So everybody knows that you at least are this concerned. You're pre-concerned here and that you are sympathetic to the plight of the people

who are going to be on this flight with your crying baby. He said, quote, I, on the other hand, have the mindset of I dare someone to say something to us. I'm bigger than 99% of the people I meet and have held my own on multiple occasions. If they don't want to deal with the chance of a crying baby in a plane, then they should have flown private. Wow. All right. Let's read that sentence back one more time.

That's aggressive. I, on the other hand, have the mindset of I dare someone to say something to us. I'm bigger than 99% of the people I of, I dare someone to say something to us. I'm bigger than 99% of the people I meet and I've held my own on multiple occasions. If they don't want to deal with the chance of crying baby on a plane, they should have flown private. All right. Flying private's very, very expensive. Um, I don't think that's this. I don't think you need to beat up everybody, even though I would agree that you are bigger than most people that are walking around. Uh, and yeah, if somebody says something to you, uh, I would side with you, with you. But you're going to this pretty aggressive already.

That being said, I'm not out there looking to get into a confrontation with strangers. I just want to enjoy our family vacation. Okay, so pivot. All right, zag. He zags back too. I don't want to beat up people on the plane. That's good.

Whenever you beat up people on the plane, people take videos of it and then you're the guy that beat up somebody on the plane and usually it doesn't go great. Usually those guys don't get promotions on Monday. I know there's a middle ground somewhere. As someone who's flown a lot, I'm sure you've encountered a crying baby or two. So my question is this, what should our attitude be toward our fellow passengers? I think you've already done the biggest thing you could do is you bought the

third seat. All right. I think people, it sucks. Like if a baby's going to cry the entire time, but like anybody that says something about it, it's a baby. Okay. It is a baby. And despite, again, not being a parent but it's the oldest of five i've taken care of kids for a good chunk of like the first half of my life that's what i was doing most of the time right weekends at night summer that deal i mean we all we actually like would the first few years me being the oldest i would babysit everybody and then once i could get the fuck out of the house my poor sister who was next up got stuck like for years having to take care of everybody else which sucks all right so when i had a friend come over one time and my

youngest was crying he was like dude can you just say something to him i'm like yeah let me just you know what let me just we're gonna dial up a zoom in 15 and see if he and i can't get to the core of what is that is crying issues we all understand with babies like we are tenants in their world that's the way it works so somebody's is big enough of an asshole. Like, yes, it's annoying. But when you see the person turn and look at the crying baby situation and go, Oh, you know, it's a long flight. You know, that guy's an asshole. That guy's an asshole.

So there's, you know, I think it's really up to everybody else that could be a lot cooler about it. Cause kids are inevitably going to cry and none of us want it to happen, but there's nothing you can do about it. So the person that gets super mad, that's really more about them than it is someone else. You bought the third seat. If your wife wants to throw some snacks and a couple of Ziploc bags and throw it to the immediate rows around you, that's incredible. It probably means, but like there's only so much, you actually don't have to do all of these things because the person that actually really gets mad is probably somebody you want to deal with in the first place. And it would probably be somebody

who was like, hey, I didn't get a snack pack. That'd be the same type of mentality of those people. You bought the third seat. You've done enough here. And it's a lot on like, hey, I'm sorry, my baby's crying. And most, I would think most people, although I've seen crazy shit like all of you on planes, I think most people get that. And I'm sick of worrying about the 5% of people that always seem to fuck up everything for the rest of us. Now, that's the perfect last line, because my wife and I, when we were coming back from our honeymoon in Hawaii, we did direct to New York. So it's like 11 hour flight and there was a baby in the front of the plane.

And I don't I'm not even joking. I tell you, like three straight out the last three straight hours were just this baby screaming bloody murder. And at no point and I don't have the I don't have the best patients in the world like things do annoy me. But I wasn't like mad at the baby or the parents. I honestly more felt bad for the parents. Like I was almost embarrassed for them. I wasn't I don't want to fight them. And so I think you're fine. I told my wife at that point, maybe I'm a dick for saying this, but like, I really don't like when, you know, when we eventually have a kid, I don't really want to fly with a kid. I don't know if that's like something I shouldn't say or whatever, but I just don't want to put myself in that position.

You obviously have to in this scenario because you're going to visit family. But I think more people like somebody is more likely to fight the guy that gets mad at the baby than he is to fight you for your baby crying. That makes sense. So I wouldn't worry about it. The snack thing's a nice gesture. Maybe like some five dollar Starbucks gift cards. That's cool. Everybody around you. But you've done everything you can. I don't know, man. It's

probably in your head more than there's going to be people on the plane. Yeah, right. Look, you're going to your brother's wedding. You got to fly with a baby. The people are like, oh, maybe you shouldn't fly with a baby. It's like, yeah, we could have walked. Right. Good call. Yep. It's just the closest person of my family to me that's getting married. Yeah, we're not going to go because you're bummed out there's there's really not much you're going to be able to do with the guy who's sitting there reading his gladwell that he just picked up he's like oh a tipping point i got at the airport like sorry sorry fucking tipping point is it going as smoothly because my kids cry me the entire time all right we got one more over 40 b-ball league age and liars oh 41 65 250'5", 250, huge pod today.

Big guys left and right. Played D2 ball over 20 years ago. Kind of a response to pick up ball, worse guys. So I was asked by a high school buddy to play on this 40 and over league team. 10-game league once a week, little background. Hadn't played in a year or so. It took about two or three weeks to get somewhat comfortable in my play. There's six teams, and two teams are clearly better than the rest of us.

Ours was not one of them. However, these two teams had their best players that were clearly under 40 by a good amount. I am the best player who's actually over 40 by far, but these dudes are around 30 to 34 and play D1. See, that sucks. Here's the deal. If you're good enough

to still play with these guys and you're over 40, that's incredible. Again, if I were younger and I just wanted to run i i would not give a shit but i also noticed when i was younger now it makes more sense because it's starting to happen to me a little bit when i was younger and you know just doing whatever i wanted to do with older guys they just look at you like you're a fucking asshole man like no no way you're way better than us at 28 and we're 45 and you just want to get shots up. Sweet.

Oh, Hey, you crossed it. You crossed up my grandfather, stared at him. Yeah. This guy's got two knee braces on. Yeah.

Right. It doesn't have any cartilage in the left one. Then you're like dunking over dudes, like settle down. All right. So he said, these guys are ranging from six foot to six, three,

very athletic, uh, and skilled, but my beef is not with their age or skill. It's their attitude. all right so he said these guys are ranging from six foot to six three very athletic uh and skill but my beef is not with their age or skill it's their attitude it's their attitude when playing these games uh they would destroy teams like 75 to 34 and only 34 because they also fucked around when it's 36 four when they let the guys who are actually older and over 40 organizers of the team um into the game to play it out think birdie from above the rim. So they had the organizers set these rosters up, which you're saying for this specific team.

And then the old guys would come in. I didn't, why would they even want that? I just have a 40 team that barely goes 500 or it gets there. I've never quite understood in these leagues where it's like, man, we fucking won. This is amazing.

You know, like we won the Glastonbury pickup men's d division you know people got to feel that rush dude you know all right uh and again i you know i play in some stuff where it's cool when you win it but i'll tell you right now it's never changed my life much winning men's rec league championships hang the banners in your believe it or believe it or not nothing I cannot point to any momentous change in my life good or bad that was ever revolving around the timeline of when we

won a softball league or a men's league basketball thing softball is actually the worst there were some guys at ESPN that took it way too seriously it ruined their day they would come full gear sliding hard into second,

and breaking up double plays. I'm like, dude, what are we doing? Everyone's just having a run. Everyone's just having fun. People are drinking beers. Like, relax. Now, the softball thing for ESPN was not. I played in a little bit.

But then, you know, people would ask because I know that Stanko, Adam Stanko, who works for 24-7 now, does a great job on the recruiting stuff. He posted a picture of Chris Mullen jumping in a run. And then some people were like, hey, Russillo, where were you? I was working, all right? So whenever there were the leagues, like if you got to a certain point with your job, unless you were doing nights, which isn't as much as people were going to. Like those leagues, like the pickup games that you would talk about. Those are when most of us were working.

So that lunch hoops that was going on, I could never plan that for the next, the first three years, maybe I could have, but I was still living in Boston. Um, I played in the softball thing sporadically when I'd be staying down in a hotel and I would grab it.

But I also had my serious softball phase when I was in Vermont prior to that. And actually as a Dick move, I did play in an older league and a younger guy. The difference was that the bar that I worked at was the sponsor for the team. So they were like, Hey, do you want this guy? And then they were like, wait, who the fuck is this guy? Like, like, wait, how old is he? And then they're like, no, he's a bartender. Nobody realized I just left school like recently. So I don't know if I looked older or whatever. Shout out to me. Okay. All right okay all right all right so back to this he's mad yeah we got scores at 36 to 4 he goes so my team played these guys who lost by 15

I had 30 points but didn't do mad uh with how close it was uh because it was minimal trash talk however the second go around these guys begin to talk trash to me up by 30 they would complain to refs about fouls when I would get mauled um but I'm so big I take it rather than give a ref shit who's a volunteer without missing fouls. So last game of the playoffs, we're losing by one. And one of these guys fouled me hard. And the ref called it. And then the guy complains and calls me a pussy.

So knowing I would not be playing in this league again, I punched the guy in the face. Blood everywhere. Bench is clear as I stand there with my hands up and smile on my face. Hands up. I didn't do anything. We're good. Hands up like what's up now or hands up? No, I think hands up like I'm not trying to fight, dude,

after you just punched this guy in the face. After you just cracked his skull open. Everything settles down. I'm sure it didn't settle down on their end. And our team is disqualified and I'm asked to leave. Obviously, I handled that situation wrong. However, many of the players. Yeah. Many of the players from other teams shook my hand and gave me high fives as i was leaving the gym just curious of any other direction y'all would have taken here given your experience

pickup ball uh i don't have a problem with it all right that's the end of the podcast life advice rr at gmail.com i I hope you enjoyed the QB stuff from today. We are back, Simmons and I, on Sunday's Sunday NBA pod. So, yes, Tuesday, Thursday is our solo podcast. We're going to have Dirk on next week. We've got some history books in the backlog. It's a lot of good stuff, as always. Thank you, as always, for listening to this podcast and listening for this long. Please subscribe.

Thanks to Saruti and Stefan as well for your work today. Talk to you guys next week. you