The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The No. 1 QB for the Class of 2021—and It’s Not Lawrence or Fields. Plus: Could NBA Players Start Their Own League?

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on some of the players' concerns about resuming the NBA season, recalls the 1998 NBA lockout, and wonders whether NBA players could successfully start a league of their own (1:15). Then Ryen is joined by NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah to discuss his top prospects for the 2021 NFL draft, as well as some stories from his time as an NFL scout (15:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's amazing episode i'm excited about this one with ryan rossolo podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like sports the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. The unexpected was I thought we were all good to go for Orlando, and then we weren't. I think we're good, but that's where this week's Open is going to land on. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. We will also, in a few minutes, check in with Daniel Jeremiah, former NFL front office member, has been in the media now for a while,

NFL Network, Move the Sticks. And he has a different grade on this quarterback class for 2021. I just want to do some of that stuff, man. I want to talk NFL Draft 2021 and do like 35 minutes with him. And he has a name for you that maybe some of you don't know about that he has graded ahead of Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence. He actually has another quarterback. And again, it's a name that you may not know unless you're hardcore into it.

But this week's Open is about everything that is changing. Things are changing now faster than ever before that I can remember in my lifetime. We can apply the idea of change to everything in our lives, but I'm going to keep it to sports here. Now, we thought we had basketball coming back July 31st, now it's July 30th, and I still think that's going to happen. Adam Silver's been, I think, terrific with his tone and the way that he has addressed all of the things that are going on with still having an emphasis and wanting basketball to come back. But last week, the Kyrie Irving story started up where it's like, wait a minute, where is his head at and what are his motives and

what's going on? Now, Kyrie organized a call with a bunch of different players and like, hey, we're not sure if we want to come back right now. And again, the reasons are many. And I would say, despite my differences with Kyrie in the past, I've been the biggest Kyrie fan, but even though I haven't loved all of it, I could still respect him for in the LeBron breakup where initially I thought it was Kyrie's fault. I was wrong. I got more educated. I talked to more sources and they said, you know, look, Kyrie just got sick of this year to year thing with LeBron. So can you really blame him? And I go, you know what? That's fine. So in this case with Kyrie, he also was giving a voice to the voiceless, all of these other players that even though we thought all the player reps voted to bring back basketball, a lot of these players,

hundreds of these players felt like they were left out and had no voice. And Kyrie stepped up for those people. And of course, with everything that's going on in this country, Kyrie wanted to make sure the focus was not shifted too quickly away from fighting social injustice and getting right back to basketball. And I believe Kyrie in his sincerity on that. I do. There's no debate on that whatsoever. But Kyrie is different. Okay. That is not breaking news either. We know that he looks at the world differently. Anyone that's interacted with him, people that like him, don't like him. And they're like, look, Kyrie's just a different guy. And I know, and this isn't reporting. So I don't want to get this to the point where it gets aggregated in May, but I think Kyrie is so different.

And one of the stories that I heard about him was him talking to his teammates being like, hey, we should just start our own league. We should just do our own thing. And if you look at the Nets team, even Spencer Dinwiddie has looked at this differently, right? Where he tried to get the GoFundMe thing going there. It was like, I'll just sign somewhere, but just go ahead and let's do the GoFund me, which I don't think would ever pass or ever be legal against the salary cap. But he's just thinking differently. And when people think differently and you're the initial thinker that's on a different level, people are just going to rip you and go, what are you doing? You know, just get in line with everybody else, right? Because that's just the way it works. If you're

the free thinker at work, you know, you may be right, but there's just going to be a lot of people that don't necessarily want to hear from you. But then it gets me to thinking with all of the stuff that's happening in sports, whether it's baseball's uncertainty, we still don't know what's going to happen with college sports, the NFL, like, yes, it's okay. But that's really because their decisions are further down the road. Hockey coming back. I mean, the WNBA even has this season now that's been announced recently because there was no way they were going to have the NBA come back and not have the WNBA come back. But is there ever a world where we could have players get together and say, you know what? Enough of this. Because there's more pushback to the employer than ever

before. And I'm not just even talking about sports, but that's happening in sports too. And I would say college, except it's not really employer employee, but I think you would allow me the loose definition of it. So the reason I bring up the Kyrie thing is not because I think it's realistic. I just think it's fascinating. And I think this is more of a conversation where somebody said, Hey, do you think we'll ever live on the moon one day versus somebody saying, Hey, do you hear Dan is moving to the moon? Right. I think that there's a big difference between those two topics. And I don't think any of these guys are actually going to start their own league, but what if they try? And it reminds me of the 98 lockout leading up to the 99 shortened season, because one of the storylines there was

what if the players, and this was for leverage purposes, because they slowly were losing all their leverage. So many players were commenting publicly about wanting to get paid again. Jason Williams, the St. John's Jason Williams apparently did like 90 interviews during that time. Like, thanks, man. Awesome. And then he said, look, I just wanted to get paid. So he was incredibly selfish throughout the entire process. The players had a hard time all getting the same message out when the owners would have been fined $5 million for saying anything publicly because Stern was in charge of the owners, even though the 29 owners were his boss. But one of the things that was talked about was the players, the stars starting their own league. And they did this thing that actually exists on YouTube today.

And I was watching it was called the game on Showtime. Red team coached by Charles Barkley, the white team coached by Oscar Robertson, who may have said all those players sucked during timeouts. During one timeout, though, Tim Hardaway sweating like crazy, totally out of breath. Guys are totally out of shape. And somebody said to Hardaway, like, hey, we'll run that again. And he goes, I'm about to slow this shit down, actually. And he was just people started laughing because you could hear the swear. And the announcers were laughing the whole time, too.

Now, the funny thing, too, is the way when they announced they were going to do this game and put it on Showtime, I think the paid attendance was like 5000. They announced it at 9000. It wasn't a very good very good game. It was guys that hadn't worked out. It was this charity thing. It was presented as, could we do this as some kind of leverage down the road, as I've told you here. But the players even said, we're going to do it for charity and for players that need to pay their bills. And they got crushed for not making it all about charity. So they ended up apparently donating all of it to charity, which is kind of funny because I think that would have played out differently today

because the media and people are more pro player. You can just look at the baseball debate right now that I think we ever possibly could have imagined because our parents, people older than us, the kind of people that would make a sign saying I'd play for free. So they tried this game. They threw out this idea that maybe they could start their own thing. One-on-one deals, go to Atlantic city, all of these different deals.

And it never really happened. But what if you actually did it? What if you had 20 of the 30 top players, all signed contracts where it lined up, where they all became free agents the exact same year. And as absurd as that would sound, because players used to fight for longevity. And now that they have shorter contracts, they actually sign shorter contracts than the owners who get the shorter contracts that they always wanted. Now complain that the players move around too much. But if everyone that mattered and you wouldn't get everybody, but most of the players that mattered said, okay, you know what? I want to do something that promotes change. I want to do something that changes the entire landscape of the way pro sports operate. And we are going to start our own thing.

And again, you'd have to work on lining up the arenas, which wouldn't be too hard. Somebody would want to put it on television. I don't know what would happen to, say, an ESPN or TNT that has this established relationship with the NBA, then getting into bed with another product. So that's always something that's a little dangerous. And all you have to do is look back at the USFL history to understand that that's a real thing that leagues would punish TV partners for doing this kind of stuff. And then you'd have to look at sponsorships where you'd wonder, would people do this? Now, I think if players wanted to make that kind of sacrifice,

I think they could probably pull it off. Now there's a couple of problems there because do you really want to make that kind of sacrifice? I talked to Paul Rabel, who has been on the podcast before. He's the man behind the Premier Lacrosse League. And I was talking with him about this. I'm like, what I really admire about what you've done is you played for another league where all of you guys, top players in the country, didn't want to do this anymore. You didn't like the way it was done. And you started your own league where the players become the owners, where players are given equity, almost like it's a startup company. And they continue to give shares that are set aside ahead of time. And I think the

language on it would be, there'd be multiple seasons that they'll be able to do this, where the original people that buy in are able to start this thing that is a completely different product. It's a single entity that you don't have in a league like the NFL or in the NBA. And the reason they're able to do it is because nobody was making any money in the other league. Okay. And the other reason they're able to do it is they were all on one year contracts the entire time. But I just love the concept of how everything is changing because Because when you look at college, right? We used to have people that argued against sitting out a year for transferring. Nobody does that anymore.

And if you look at college going into the NBA draft, you'd have one guy that maybe did it differently. But everybody said, well, that's not going to happen. We're going to have two lottery picks that just went from high school that played in the Australian Basketball League. That's not going to stop happening. When a guy goes to the G League, it's not a one and done thing here anymore. It's going to happen more and more. People are questioning authority in ways we've never seen

before. You have college football players that are calling out their coaches in a way that we never would have thought. And the coaches don't know what to do because they're thinking, wait a minute, aren't you supposed to not be a free thinker and just tackle all of the time? Look at what's happening with baseball. You have hundreds and hundreds of baseball players that are actually getting supported in a way they were never supported before fighting against these owners where we're learning that maybe a third of the actual baseball owners don't even want to have a season because they're revenue sharing teams to begin with. And in the NFL, you have guys retiring in ways that we never, ever would have predicted. You're like, oh, that's a one-off. Wait a minute.

That's what, wait a minute. So now we've had all of these players retire at much earlier ages because they said, you know what? I just don't want to do this anymore. So I would just remind you that things are being challenged in ways they've never... What do you know about something right now that you believe will be in play in five years? I don't know what it is with television. I don't know if all of a sudden podcasts get replaced. Would it be shocking if in five years they're like, actually, everybody does it this way. They still listen to audio, but they do it in this way now. Things are changing so fast, and the employees, employees I think are driving this more than the employers. And I'm not saying what's right or wrong, but if you own a company, a small one or a big company, I'd guess that people are

asking you for things that they've never asked for before. And maybe these are things they should have asked for, but if you're the employer, you're probably thinking, all right, this has just become this massive hassle and I don't want to deal with this anymore. But in sports, we're seeing it all the time. I don't think the NBA necessarily could disband and they could start their own league because it's just tough. There's every two week guy and that means your paycheck. And there's a guy that goes, well, I could project my own self-worth in five or 10 years. I'll tell you which list is longer. It's the every two week guy. And I don't blame the every two week guy when he's going to mortgage and a wife and a couple of kids going, I like looking at my bank account every two weeks instead of wondering what's

going to look like in five or 10 years. That five to 10 year guy, that's not a very long list. So it'd be really hard to tell a player, Hey, you know what? To make things right, to fight back at ownership, we need all of you to make a monumental sacrifice. The lacrosse players didn't have to make that sacrifice because none of them were making 30 or $40 million a year. NBA players are doing that. If you're a top NBA player at 32 or 33 years old and somebody wants to give you a four or five year max deal, would you give that up to do a one year deal to start your own thing that may be a complete uncertainty and kind of rough the first couple of years just to change history? but it always would get back to what inevitably happens in the cycle that can't be avoided. And that is, even if you start your own thing, eventually somebody has to be in charge.

And even though right now players could be fighting against owners who never shut up and could never dribble, it's more likely that even if you had your own league, you would have a lot of the same problems the leagues have today. We got Daniel Jeremiah on deck. During this time of social distancing, though, connecting with friends over a beer today looks pretty different. As the original Light Beer, Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together in real life through Miller Time. Miller Time is a moment for people to come together in real life to connect over a few beers. But having Miller Time is tough when you can't be with your people i'm excited because i got my miller light kit

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Enter RASILLO at checkout to save 15%, sleep better, recover faster, and train smarter with Whoop. I want to talk some draft, even though it's a ways away. And these guys do it year-round anyway, so why not? From the NFL Network and Move the Sticks podcast with Bucky Brooks, which is a great listen. Just listen to the most recent one on the quarterbacks. It's Daniel Jeremiah, who we've had on the podcast a bunch of times. So yeah, it's early. And I imagine you've done, you know, not even close to all the evaluations that you're going to do. But in this downtime, we can start with the quarterbacks because their names names that everybody knows except for maybe the third name who I dug into a little bit, but let's just start. Do you have an order right now between Fields and Lawrence? Yeah. I mean, between Fields and Lawrence, it would be Lawrence for me. You know, that's, you know, Justin Fields is a tremendous talent, but it isn't all there yet. I know the numbers will say what they are and they jump off the page, but just some of the vision stuff, he's going to get better.

He just needs to play more and that'll come with it. But in terms of the athleticism and make every throw, create plays, he wasn't the same guy after the knee late in the year. But I think he's got more room ahead of him to grow. So right now I think Trevor Lawrence has advanced beyond him at this point in time. But Justin Fields has got a tremendous amount of ability, man.

It's just, it's not there yet. So let's stay with Lawrence because, you know, as you point out, and this is just worth remembering every single time is there's no perfect evaluation here. Give me the things that get everybody excited, teams that you talk to,

and then give me kind of a combination of not only your own evaluation, but stuff you hear from NFL teams, guys that you've worked with about maybe as we have more tape, more concern. Yeah. I mean, when you talk about the things that you like, you start, he's got some rare qualities. So in scouting, sometimes we'll say those are blue qualities, just those elite level qualities, size, you know, people can argue about it not being as important in the game today as it used to be, which is true, but that's still an advantage. And you're 6'6". He can move around.

He's a tremendous athlete. You can use him in the design quarterback run game as well as just kind of organically making plays with his athleticism. And he's got a big arm to be able to squeeze balls in. So those are the things that you really like about him. And there's got a big arm, you know, to be able to squeeze balls in. So those are the things that you really like about him. And there's wild throws. Like when you're doing other guys and you watch Trevor, like those moments pop because you're like, oh, look at that. You know, but when you really dig in and study him, he's not –

I was anticipating seeing kind of like a polished Andrew Luck type of a player. He's not at that level right now. Like he's got, um, he's got some accuracy stuff where he's just not pinpoint accurate and completes balls sometimes, but they're not, the placement's not great. And he's got these big rangy receivers, um, that can bail them out on some of this stuff. So that to me, just kind of the pinpoint accuracy. And then another thing, it's kind of nitpicking from a scouting standpoint, his eyes work really quick. Um, but sometimes his feet aren't catching up with his eyes.

So that leads to some of the inaccuracy. I go here, I go here, I go here, but my feet are still in the second position, not in the third position, and then the ball can take off on him. So he's tremendously talented, but he is not the pristine, clean prospect that maybe I thought I was going to get when I went into the process. Wow. Okay. Another thing that you pointed out too, which I think is really smart, the 50, 50 balls, because you make the comp that Burrow, Burrow lived on those, the 50, 50 balls that he won. I mean, it was like a 90, 10 for Burrow, but it gives me some concern because it's basically like five NFL guys that get the football in that LSU offense. You go,

is that actually going to be a problem and aggressiveness that he doesn't have the same kind of talent domination that LSU had most times in football? Trevor has a lot of that in him. So how do you separate the OK? I like that he's not safe all the time where, you know, I think systems have hidden quarterbacks in the past. Now, I don't think that's the same way. I think sometimes offensive lines can can get us off the scent of what a QB is really all about, but what do you see in trying to figure out whether it's too aggressive with tall receivers versus, you know, the right decision? Well, I would much rather rein that in than trying to ingrain some aggressiveness

in somebody. So that's, that's the first thing. The second thing I think it's interesting. If you look at backup from kind of the 10,000 foot view here, Ryan, we would always say that, you know, being at a bigger school is going to make you more prepared to play at the next level of the quarterback position. You're playing at a higher level of opponents, but the other side of it is when you're always playing with superior players, it's almost more of adjustment to them,

especially if you're a high pick because your offensive line, not going to be nearly as good as the one you played behind in college in terms of giving you time to throw. You don't have the same advantage on the outside you had in college. When I think of some other guys that have come from situations where maybe they didn't have quite all those pieces around them, I think almost makes it an easier transition that these guys have been hit. They've had to play under pressure.

Josh Allen being in the playoffs early in his career, Josh Allen, he was, he was thankful to get to the national football league. Cause it's like, no matter who I play behind, I'm going to get better protection. I'm going to have more players to throw the football to. And I think that's with guys like Trevor and you're going to see it with Tua, you know, there's going to be an adjustment burrow to just having superior talent around you. That's, that's going to take some time, but, but to answer the

first part of the question, I'd much rather have an aggressive guy that I'm having to dial back than to try and be like, hey, dude, we got to try and push the ball down the field a little bit. So where is Trevor then historically with modern guys? You have him below the luck evaluation? Yeah, I'd have him below luck. Luck was just so much cleaner. you know, decision making accuracy. I thought Andrew was on a different level. Who else is he behind? Well, I mean, at this point in time, gosh. I know I'm putting you on Carson Wentz. So he's, you know, he's, he's probably at this point in time when Carson came out, I'd have Carson as a better prospect than Lawrence is right now. But I think

Lawrence has, again, he has some ground he can cover here in this next year, clean up some of those things. Okay. So let's look at fields at Ohio state because the stats, I mean, you can't, their stats are so on God, you don't even know what to do with it. Um, dominant, dominant performance. But I think there's a real sense of anybody that's watched the Buckeyes the last couple of years that I get the Haskins questions even while they were putting up the numbers. I feel like Fields just looks like a more complete guy already. And I'm not just talking about the running game because, you know, that's obviously not what Haskins' strong suit was. Yeah, I mean, I think that Fields is just a playmaker.

So he can create plays. He's outstanding in the RPO game. And he's outstanding as a zone read runner, too. So in the quarterback design run game, he's a good decision maker. And then he can make people miss and break tackles and has some of that physicality to him. Some people always freak out when you use comps because they're either going to be, they think it's not close. He's way better.

He's way worse. But just strength like strength wise he reminded me of Dak you know just how Dak is a runner guys kind of bounce off him he's just real sturdy um and that's kind of what I saw from from Fields I thought Dak um had his progress he made from his his junior year to his senior you really saw him take off as a passer um So I think Fields has some more ahead of him as well, even though the numbers are what they are. I mean, there's a lot of people who would have been pretty successful with that group that they have there at Ohio State. So that's part of it.

But his issues, when I look through my notes here, and I've got them in front of me, the vision thing, which I think will come with more experience, you know, just some blitz. He has opportunities versus the blitz to attack. And sometimes he freezes a little bit. So that's going to be something that you can work on and then just holding the ball. Um, he, he takes some, some sacks, just holding the ball too long. But, um, to me, I look at this kid from the, from being really your first year. Uh, it's ridiculous. I saw him at the opening. We were up there at the opening when him and Lawrence were up there together

at the high school all-star game. And he was better than Lawrence in high school seven-on-seven tournament. He's the one who popped, and he was the guy. So I think you're going to see, as good as he was last year, he's going to go to a whole other level. What are some of the other – I mean, is it as simple as just the RPO danger that he brings that you like better than Lawrence? I mean, Lawrence is obviously a good runner.

He's actually really good, I think, once he gets going. Yeah, absolutely. Are there things from the pocket, decision, delivery of the football that you like better from Fields than Lawrence? Because maybe that would surprise people. Yeah, let me see. I'm going back through my notes here. You know what I think about Justin Fields that stood out to me, and it's hard for young quarterbacks, is red zone. When you get down in the red zone, he has a really good feel. And

that's another area where you can't have any fear. The windows shrink. And when you're evaluating these guys, to try and mimic what you'd see at the NFL level, you have to look at third downs, and you have to look down in the red zone because everybody in the stadium knows you're going to throw the ball on third down. And so those are good reps. And then when you condense the space, you don't have guys free and clear. And he does no fear. He has no hesitation. He can fit balls in.

He's very decisive down there. So I would actually give him an edge versus Lawrence down there in the red zone. Okay. Talk to me about your clear. This is as of right now. Yeah. This is your clear number three quarterback in this draft class, correct? Well, technically no, because if you're just going off of grades, he'd be my clear number one quarterback in this draft class.

And that's Trey Lance from North Dakota State. So again, this is the way I like to tell people during this time of year. I watched three games over the summer. So I'm going to watch three games from last year. And then we're going to have a full season ahead. I'll watch all those games. And then you put the evaluation together. But off of a snapshot of three games, and I watched Fields, I watched Lawrence and Trey

Lance. And trust me, I came in with the idea that it was going to be lawrence a big gap then fields and then a huge gap and then trey lance and then i watched it and i'm like off these three games if you just didn't have decals on helmets i came away saying trey lance was the most impressive of the three guys that i watched so he has the highest grade of the three over the summer i have a higher grade on trey lance and i have on trevor all right so so talk impressive of the three guys that I watched. So he has the highest grade of the three. Over the summer, I have a higher grade on Trey Lance than I have on Trevor Lawrence. All right. So talk to me about this guy because the measurables are good. We're talking about a red shirt sophomore. So he has one year, but the stats are-

He was a red shirt freshman last year. Yeah. So he's going to be a red shirt sophomore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 28 touchdowns, no picks, 6'3 220 plus you know the completion percentage you know who knows what what do we see when you watch trey lance well i think you also had like 1100 rushing yards and like you know 15 touchdowns on the ground oh by the way he didn't lose a game and won a national championship so if if like on your checklist of important things you like guys that don't turn the ball over throw touchdown touchdowns, run for touchdowns, and never lose football games, like you might like this guy.

And he's, again, you mentioned he's 6'3", he's 220 pounds, he's strong, he's sturdy. He operates in that North Dakota State offense, which is, there's so many things that they do that translate. And I know the Saturday- What are those? What are those?

Give me a deeper nerd answer here. Sure. You'll see him work the full field. So in other words, a lot of times when you're talking about these spread offenses based off pre-snap, if it's single high safety or two high safety determines which side of the formation you're going to work. And then it is literally one to two. So you're just going to work on the right side or the left side, depending on what you get from the safety look in the middle of the field. And by the way, on that split field read, which is predetermined, and that's also why some of the stuff, why everybody's, it's not just the signals, but it's also like confirmation of the sideline too, of the coverage, because everything's based off of that read. Are we talking like how

many people are in the route tree to that side? I route trees wrong word, but in the route combination. Yeah. Are we talking like two, maybe three, and then maybe there's a safety valve. Like how many times are you make, like how many guys are you making a decision on there as opposed to looking at the whole field? Nine times out of 10, the pre-snap looks going to determine which side you're working. And then once you know which side you're working, forget about the guys you have. Your eyes are then

trained on one defender. So you're reading either a linebacker, you're reading a corner, and depending on what he does, you have one of two options for the most part. You get a third guy in the route over there at times, but that's how simplified it is. So you get your pre-snap read and then post-snap, your eyes are on one guy. Boom. So when you're watching the tape, you will rarely see those guys with their head ever work from one side of the field and go all the way over to the other side, cut the field in half, which is smart, right? It's smart. It makes it working by the way. So no one can really knock it when people are putting up 40 and 50 every week.

Absolutely. But then you watch this kid Trey Lance and you'll see him full field progression, work from the left side of the field to the right side of the field. He doesn't like it. Check it down to the back. You know, it's just, there's a maturity to the way that he plays. He takes the layups that are there. He's selectively aggressive.

You know, we're talking about being too aggressive. When he gets his shots, he takes them. You know, when I saw the no turnovers, you know, I thought, okay, maybe this guy has just checked down Charlie and he's, you know, he's not. No, he fits balls in tight windows. He can do all that stuff. He can drive the football. They use him on the design quarterback run game like they did with Carson Wentz

when he was playing there. They'll run QB power and do different things with him. They boot him so he's accurate to both sides. But I wrote down on my notes and I started several times, uh, several times, which was this kid has so much confidence and trust his eyes. Like when he sees it, boom, the ball's gone and it's right where it needs to be. Um, so vision wise, I thought he was better than the other two guys, decision-making wise, he was better than the other two guys. You know, all three of them are really good athletes in their own way.

So I don't feel like I'm sacrificing the athleticism and I'm getting somebody that's that's making all the plays without any of the, without any of the hangups. So again, maybe, and maybe UC Davis, Nichols and Delaware are the three best games this kid's ever played in his life. But those are the three that I watched. And I was like, man, I can't, I don't know what's wrong with this kid this is the yannis thing where if you ever watch any yannis video of him playing overseas it was like okay cool but i mean look at these people he's playing guys this i mean it literally looked like a bad junior high team sometimes and that's my limited access to

everything i had so i i don't, I'm not trying to pretend I saw everything, but you just go, okay, I don't know. And then he also went from like six, eight, six, nine to seven, one, or, you know, maybe seven feet now, but how do you, you've been doing this a long time. I know it's hard. So how do you handle the drop off in competition when you're evaluating guys playing the same position on Sundays? Well, first of all, God willing, we have a football season. I think they're week one. You have to double-check me on this.

I think North Dakota State's at Oregon week one. So games like that, they have a lot of impact. It's going to be more than one game worth of an evaluation tool on that one. So to see him step up in competition, to see how he does in that environment, um, is going to be big. And then you're kind of basing it off of just getting to know the kid and feel comfortable with the kid, the skills you can see, you know, like the arm strength, the athletic ability, that stuff doesn't matter who you're playing against. You can tell that he checks all those boxes. So then it's getting comfortable with the kid. And then you still got to have a little bit of faith there ryan because he's just you know he's playing where he's playing that's right but

uh he will be hopefully at oregon upping eugene on september 5th by the way why in the world would they schedule them why would oregon schedule that game i know i mean look oregon's playing in the playoff last year if they don't play Auburn. And people laugh. Like, what are you talking about Auburn? Like, I get that. You're talking about North. No, you don't want to play North Dakota State, man. They don't know how to lose. Like for 10 years, these guys don't lose. No, I mean, I love it. And I also love it too. And I'd have to go back and look at all the depth charts again. It's just not sort of my mental season for that yet. But that Oregon team team was about defense last year i think yeah more than yeah and i think they have a bunch of those kids back yeah i think they do freshman edge rusher tibideau yeah they got a

safety jameer holland who's a really good player so that's going to be a great test for this kid i just hope they get the game off so who's your favorite non-quarterback, it's a Russo. Uh, the, the, the pass rusher from Miami. Uh, he's, he's another one where I guess,

you know, there's God bless the people that do it. But I think McShay, I think our buddy McShay has one out. Like he puts out the mock draft, like the draft. Yeah. It's the work.

So I don't, I don't, and I, I usually keep up with everybody. I don't ever read those because I'm like, it's, it's silly to try and have to do this right now. So apparently.

No one hates it. By the way, everybody that gets mad about it, I'm just telling you no one hates it more than him, but it's the most red thing he does every year. Yeah. People freak out. They lose their minds. So I, I did not.

I mean, I guess I think Todd might've had him up there, had Rousseau up there, like in the top 10. I didn't know who this kid was. Like I didn't, I went in with no idea of who he was, Greg Rousseau. I just know he was listed at six, seven, 253 pounds. He had 15 and a half sacks. So I watch him and he was the most dominant player on the field. And in every game that I watched, it couldn't block him. And it wasn't just speed. It wasn't just power. He actually had some polish. He's got a push-pull move. He's got a nice rip move. He's somebody that looks like he's been rushing the passer for a long time, not just one year,

which is basically what he's had there after getting hurt his first year at Miami. So he's long. He looks like Daniil Hunter. What Daniil Hunter is in the NFL, not what we remember Daniil Hunter at LSU, where we were kind of dreaming on what he could become. He's long. He looks like the Neil Hunter, what the Neil Hunter is in the NFL. Not what we remember to Neil Hunter LSU, where we were kind of dreaming on what he could become. He's like NFL level, the Neil Hunter right now at LSU or at Miami. So this kid, I put a huge grade on him. I mean, he's, he's got a chance to be really special. Yeah, he has right now.'s got lawrence jamar chase the receiver at lsu sewell

oregon and for whatever reason my account has locked me out let's see if we can do this live on the podcast this is like a reveal yeah i know he has trey lance going fifth that's high that's high um yeah i know he was so devastated not being able to do the draft because, uh, I felt so terrible for Todd and I was selfishly bummed because we're, I mean, we're never going to get a chance to have this crossover thing that we had this year. And so I was looking forward, we've known each other, been friends for years. I was looking forward to get a chance to work with him on the Saturday, uh, on three of the draft so but it sounds like he's doing better so i'm stoked that he's in a good spot now yeah you know what we should do we should just do it

here on this podcast you know at some point maybe we do it during the season we can do it after the season um he has him he has him going third well these are these aren't even a mock this is just kind of his rankings right now. Okay. But he has him in there. He has him in the top 25. No, he hasn't. Yeah, he has him 13th. He has him 13th. Okay, so he's a freak.

So that's your number one defensive guy. He's a freak show. Your number one non. So you think he's actually, because Jamar Chase, it's weird though how the receiver thing played out, right? Because, you know, CD went later than we thought.

Judy at one point was thought to maybe be a top five guy. I mean, across the board, like Ruggs ends up going, you know, in the order of it, it felt like, how does Judy last this long? And that was definitely a surprise in a draft that didn't have a lot of surprises. There weren't a lot of names. There weren't a lot of trades. You know, everybody kept telling us, oh, it's going to be so unpredictable. It was actually, I think, one of the more predictable first rounds that we've seen in

a long time. But then Jamar Chase chase who i had always thought was the best of all the lsu uh options and that's that's saying something with that class like do you still do you look at him as that kind of guy that sort of top five position player because we didn't we thought we had that with last year's class that ended up not being the case yeah you know it was interesting i remember we talked about this last year because i know i sent you a dm and i you know i felt felt like you're like, you really don't think Jerry Judy's going to go in the top 10. Like, cause I said, I don't think he'll go in the top

10. I'm not saying he's not gonna be a great pro. I'm just saying, historically, you look at the guys that go into the top 10, they usually have an elite, elite size or elite speed. Ideally both. That's when you get like, you know, Mike Williams of the world who just, there's, there's something that's rare about him from a size speed standpoint. And, and Jerry just wasn't the biggest guy in the world, even though he ran plenty fast enough. So that doesn't mean he's not gonna be a great pro. It just means that those guys don't traditionally go up there. Um, this kid, I think, I think just because the play strength combined with the, uh, combined with the speed that he's going to have and the tape is so good.

I don't see how this kid gets out of the top 10. I think it's a different deal. I mean, what is his weight out here? I've got it in mind. 200. He's bigger. He's bigger than you think. He plays bigger than that.

And, you know, where we were talking about Jerry Judy in the spring before his final year at Alabama, I mean, you were here, he was 182, 183. Like this is a bigger frame guy who's just, you know, bigger and stronger. More on the rest of the 2021 class from Daniel here and some scouting stories as well. But we both know, all of us, because it's not just Kyle and I here listening to this podcast, all of us, the best chicken finger meals made from fresh ingredients. That's what they're serving up hot in their kitchens at Raising Cane's. Raising Cane's uses premium chicken breast tenderloins to make the most tender chicken fingers possible.

And since the best chicken finger meals are hand-battered and cooked to order, that's what you'll find at Raising Cane's. It makes a difference. I love to top my chicken fingers with the cane sauce. Speaking of cane sauce, I saw a video, Kyle, you're going to lose your freaking mind. All right, just make sure you're sitting down here. All the Raising Cane's videos that I see on Instagram, something about chicken finger videos, man. And somebody took an entire tenderloin, the entire thing, and then just dipped it in the side ramekin, those plastic ramekins. They took maybe a medium fountain soda cup

full of the sauce, full of cane sauce, and they went full submission. Like, submersive? I don't really know the right way to say that, but the whole chicken finger almost disappeared in the sauce.

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seen guys put the chicken finger in the toast with the sauce, which is probably my favorite side. At Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, quality isn't complicated, and their menu is proof. They focus on only doing one thing really well, making hot, fresh, and fast chicken finger meals just for you. Stop by today. Are you on – well, see, I don't know all of your evaluations here,

so give me another name because I don't want to sit here and ask you because I know you could probably answer anything about any of these guys but i also know how i am when i don't like hey man i told you i hadn't done the work on that uh no you're good i'll tell you who's who's no defensive player who's outstanding it's michael parsons from penn state um he is really gifted and they can play him they play him as he's a linebacker he plays on the edge he also plays inside stacked inside um he's a great blitzer. He can cover tight ends. Just super, super athletic. I mean, he made a play against Dobbins in the Ohio State game.

He had a forced fumble in that game. He just gets his hands on balls and coverage. Special athlete who can do a lot of different things. So I compared him to Jalen Smith. We all know about the injury in the Fiesta Bowl when Jalen was coming out. But at Notre Dame, before that injury, he was like, this guy's a top five type player, even as an off-the-ball linebacker. Micah Parsons, 6'3", 244 pounds.

He's got that type of size and that type of playmaking ability. He's a stud. I guess the other name that everybody at least has, if you know, if there's, there's tiers here, he would, he would at least be in the first tier and that's Sewell, the tackle from Oregon. How clean of a tackle prospect is he? He's really good. Uh, you know, I saw him for the first time at the Oregon pro day physically. It was the first time I'd really like looked at him up close and man, I was like, thought gosh this guy's hiding 330 pounds he does not he does not look like he's that big um so he's not like this you know i was around

jonathan ogden um you know even joe thomas had a little bit broader i would say it's just a different it's a different build for pene sewell it's kind of a narrow build um but dude he looks like a huge tight end sometimes i mean yeah you're right he carries 330 about as well as you can possibly carry i'm not saying he's kyle long you know kyle long's got abs at 300 pounds but uh yeah by the way by the way kyle long um is he is he gonna uh is he gonna go replace brandon brooks there You got any inside scoop for me? I, uh,

I don't, I don't right now. No, no, no, no, Kyle and I are not close enough that he would, he would be like, Hey,

I need to tell you what I'm doing. But I w I would just say like a lot of, a lot of guys, you start getting closer to camp and they don't miss, they don't, you know, this, they don't miss anything except for Sunday. And it's, it's really hard. And Kyle's pretty young guy. So I don't miss. You know this. They don't miss anything except for Sunday,

and it's really hard. Kyle's a pretty young guy, so I don't know. Golf swing's pretty nice, by the way. He's big. Well, he's a sick athlete. He's one of the more insane athletes ever. I mean, look, it went from golf, I think, a couple months ago. It was MMA.

He pushed a truck the other day, so whenever you're pushing trucks in videos, it feels like a comeback right around the corner. That's serious. Well, you can run this back once it gets announced that they've signed him. So just, just mark this tape. Uh, but the, uh, no, dude, I mean, Pena Sewell is, he's an easy, he's an easy evaluator. He's just going to be a really solid, really good player. I mean, he makes everything look easy. There was a play. This is what I love. My favorite play from him, uh, was the SC game. So they,

he's got a guy over his nose, right? So he's a left tackle. He's got a defender over his nose. He drops out. It's his own pressure. He sees the blitz coming. I want to say he is the cleats, the blitzer, right? Wipes him out. Herbert throws a pick. He, so interception SC, I think it was a safety. It might've been uh paula mao or uh who it was it gets picks off the ball and he's coming back you see you see sewell take a good angle come to balance like totally balance up and then form tackle him like through through the thighs like rapid roll like the pete carroll seahawk tackling video uh textbook and i'm like dude i love that

and we always talk in scouting you find out about your athleticism and your competitiveness after turnovers. Like those guys, like Steve Smith, I guarantee you made every tackle after every Jake DeLome interception ever. Like he just, he's going to make the tackle. Like that actually kind of, when you look historically,

it kind of shows something. Oh, I love that. I mean, I absolutely love that when remember andrew luck well the andrew luck he would go crazy when he had a turnover um the andrew luck for me he's right bro do you remember sharice right from usc it's like the best hit of the college football season there was that one i think there's the run against cal where he bounces us bounces us everybody and I was lucky enough to be on the sideline in the Coliseum that night where he threw the pick and it looked like USC was going to come back. And then he just went right back down the field.

And I was, it was one of the greatest games I've ever been to. I'm standing next to Stanford, Steve. That's why, well, look, we had sideline back then for everything,

but we were like, it wasn't like we were gonna sit on the USC sideline when we were with Stanford, Steve, and he's the producer of your show. And Steve, you know, Steve's like two seconds away from calling in his own play.

And luck throws that pick. And he came back to the sideline and I was never more sure about a guy after seeing what he did. He just was like, okay. Like he was pissed. So it was competitiveness, but then he was also like,

so this is different than what you're talking about, but just being around and watching all that, it was so valuable to kind of figure out where he's at. And, you know, to him, I hate that he doesn't play. Cause I still think there was a second part of his career that was going to be really special. Do you think he's ever going to come back? No, I think if you look at the circumstance, I can wrap my mind around saying, okay, gets away, um, gets physically healthy, like, like mentally and emotionally recharged, like a normal human being in that situation. I would say for sure they'll come back. Cause there's just so much left. He's different. Like he's, he is his own dude. And I just get the sense, like he's like he's yeah no he's probably done i was told

i don't know if you'd back me up on this one or if you've heard it but i was told the colts just paid him no matter what for the year because they wanted to always be on good terms with him with the idea that he would come back and then with the way the rivers thing works out it's like woody but as much as i love him as the prospect and i still think in a weird way you know he's not giving enough credit for for how well he played I have a hard time with a guy that young going you know what I'm good walking away because then I would go what am I what am I getting when I get you back it's almost like when there's a coach that's been on tv for 20 years and then he comes up in the coaching carousel like and I go wait this guy hasn't coached in over a decade and I'm supposed to be super fired

up he's going to be the coach of this team. Like if you wanted it that bad, how could you have not done it for this long? So that does scare me a little bit. Yeah. The crazy thing is like he was entering into that sweet spot to like where. And the team got better finally. That's what I'm saying. But like in any profession, right, there's that sweet spot of where you have the knowledge and you still have your ability like there you know eventually the ability goes away and it takes a

while to acquire the knowledge but there's that window where you have both lined up and it's like dude you you know the answers to the test and now you've got still got the body and the ability to do it and he's like i'm good yeah i don't how much does he weigh right now by the way because i've never seen him deflate like he does like he you know for a skill for like a non-offensive lineman like his neck can be huge in one picture i know he had injuries that were a factor in there obviously yeah but then like it looked like his whole body just like shrunk like his his shoulders narrowed and like he's looking different human being i don't know i i don't haven. I mean, he's not like a guy who's going to be out on Instagram posting from Tulum.

So we don't know what his situation is right now in those sloped shoulders. But I'll see if we can't get to the bottom of it. You got anything else you want to add to this? Because is it like right now you're sizing up deep, weak? Yeah. Look, I'm so early on in the process. So to talk about the whole class is kind of silly, but I just know like Jamar Chase is better than any wide receiver in last year's draft that I've seen so far. Travis Etienne is better than any running back in last year's draft class from Clemson. So that's encouraging. I love Rousseau. I think he's a legit, legit player.

And you've got three intriguing quarterbacks. So there's going to be other quarterbacks that pop up that kind of jump in to the mix here. I'm anxious to see who those guys end up being. I haven't done much work on the rest of those guys. So it's funny. You talk to different people and you hear kind of different guys. But apparently Duke has a quarterback that some teams are really interested in. So I don't know anything about the kid check out his podcast move the sticks and all of his stuff

on nfl network and of course on twitter at move the sticks it's daniel jeremiah thanks man can't wait to talk to you again soon no i'm not i'm not done yet i'm not done yet ryan because you always asked me for a story so you always ask me for a story. So you always ask me for a story. So a scouting story. Are you kidding? Go ahead. Take as long as you want. You like scouting stories.

So this is a dumb one, but I was reminded of this by a buddy the other day. You get young scouts, right? And you go to all-star games. So an all-star game environment, you are there at the place for an entire week. Usually they have like weigh-ins on Monday. You have good practices like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The scouts will all leave. Nobody, maybe a handful stay for the actual game on Saturday,

but those are like the evaluation tools. So a couple of these scouts are, and these all-star games, you have the senior bowl every year. You have the East West. Those are always in the same places, but it used to be, we had like Florida versus the nation game,

the Las Vegas bowl game. There's a hula ball. There's a million of these all-star games. So a couple of these, a couple of my buddies, they're at an all-star game. And it was like, like Wednesday, right? Like everybody's, you know, they're there for practice and they got to try and navigate their way to get to practice. This might've been like pre GPS, you know, everybody had it on your phone so you pull out of the hotel if you see somebody else in the vehicle that you know with a team like it's like oh good i'll just follow them i don't need to pull out the directions like we're good so they get in the car these two guys they see uh jerry jones is at the all-star game with a couple of the cowboys brass so they they're like, Oh, they're the Cowboys just follow them, you know,

like a Wednesday practice. So they're just following these guys around. She'd take about 10, 15 minutes to get to the practice field. It's like, they're like on 25 minutes. Like, man, I do not remember going this way. Like this does not look right. Took him right to the private airfield where their jet was waiting for them to get out of town. These guys totally missed the practice because they followed Jerry Jones to a private airstrip

so he could get on his jet and fly home. So they missed the whole thing. Missed the whole thing, yeah. You know what? This is actually a good follow-up, so I'm going to give myself credit. What's it like when you get in trouble at work and you're a scout for an NFL team?

Because I imagine that's handled a little differently than just, you know, hey, we did an informal, a formal warning here with HR for you being late or doing something on the road. How's that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, usually it's fortunately really happened to me, but I've seen it with other guys where it's like, Hey, you know, we're finding out from other scouts, like they tell them, you're telling each other. Right. So it's like, I've heard from a couple other teams, scouts, like, dude, you're showing up, you're showing up at 10 o'clock. Like you're making, it's embarrassing. You're making us look bad. You need to, you know, you need to be there on time. And we have kind of a standard for our

organization. Some were sticklers back in the day about making sure you had team issued gear on like team, like a Raven's polo or whatever, uh, when you showed up. So you usually kind of, they tell on each other inside the community. I've, I know guys are like, you know, like this, this, uh, you know, scout left before practice, you get, you get a reputation though. Like those guys kind of get weeded out of the, out of the group. It's, it's more so a fraternity of, of scouts. It's not just like your team and their team and their own entities. Like they all kind of share that information. But I can remember the one thing I remember like getting in trouble for was I was with the Eagles. We had we had to turn in our reports like every

Sunday night. And so, you know, they want your reports on Sunday night. Well, I had been like in Boise or something and I just wanted to get home. So I drove like straight, it was like 15 hours, like straight all the way back to Southern California to get home. And I was just gonna, you know, I'm like, dude, I'm just going to get these Idaho players. I don't know how you guys can get drafted, but I'll get these reports in Monday morning. It's like October. Um, and, uh, I won't tell you who the guy was. It was, it was ahead of me, but I got like the email, like kind of like the all caps email. Like you do not have your, I'm like, dude, I'm, I'm turning it at 8am instead

of at midnight. It's October. This is like, I'm talking about Idaho, Idaho state, Eastern Washington reports, like just drove for 15 hours. Like I'm not making that much money here to be like getting the all caps email about how my reports. I mean, I didn't say any of that stuff. Yeah. Right.

Very millennial of you. But I thought, but I did think it, I, I remember thinking like it was one of those, what are you doing with your life moments? That's for sure. So he was still upset that you didn't.

I apologize. I'm like, yeah, I'll have them in. They'll be in within an hour. Like I'm just finishing up and I'm like typing in the background on these guys. You know, it's a, it's very monotonous on those. It's not just like, people think you write a report. They think you write a report. It's like, yeah, you know, tell me about him as you know, his skillset. I'm like, dude,

I got to go in there and look up where this guy went to high school, what sports he played, what were his high school stats? How many games has he missed? Then I got to type in the notes from the trainer, the strength coach, the academic advisor. It's massive amounts. Are those guys all lying to you too, for the most part? You find out who the good ones are. There's the pro liaison that every school has that's assigned to deal with the scouts. And if you are just getting your information from that person, you're not going to get the best information. You've got to have relationships with other people in the building, which once you've been doing it a while, you kind of, you know,

you scratch each other's back and they end up telling you the good stuff, but it's different by the school. I remember Arizona had like a film guy, like their assistant video guy who I just befriended and he would give me all the good stuff. You go into pro liaison would say, this quarterback just he lives and breathes it you know he just can't get enough football and i go all right thanks like good meeting leave like go find the assistant video guy i'm like hey dude is this what do you think about this quarterback's like oh i log all their taste i had checked out a tape and you know two

years like it's gotta watch any tape at home so i'm like okay well that was all it's all bullcrap so you got to get your sources at every different school. It's not college, it's pro, but that's what I always loved about Cadell, that his second year, I think he was with the Giants. He had done something in preseason that was like, he was, I forget if it was his, I think it was his second year.

And he goes, it was like a preseason game. No one cared. They played the same coverage the exact time. So like he goes, I called a pre-season game no one cared they played the same coverage the exact time so like he goes i called like we called all four go and i went right down the field and they never adjusted to like this seam route where he goes there's the same freaking throw it was like shooting free throws and we scored a touchdown and he's like and then everybody in the media especially because there's new york was like oh canel is really coming into his own and they were like he's he spent fifteen thousand dollars installing a film room in his basement he's just he's just living breathing and the whole deal and he goes the team put all of

this projection equipment in my basement he goes the first night i watched it he's like the second night i fell asleep and he's like i never used it again but he goes because of that drive that couldn't have been more predictable and because somebody on the team was like, this guy's really stepped up. We put this massive, massive film room in his basement. And he was like, none of it was true. Wow. That's insane. That's the, that's the stories people don't know, man. That's what we're here to provide. We're trying. I, at least I am. Hey man, thank you. And, uh, I'm going to make sure I never let you go without getting a good story from you in the future. I always, and make sure I have one story for you. That's my promise to you every time we can join. The Kyle Bowler's the all-time. I mean, for you to sit there and go.

Yeah. He kept going for your up fakes and you're like, you know what? I don't think this guy's going to make it. It's not going to end well. Thanks, man. Thanks, buddy. Okay. That was fun. I hope you enjoyed the podcast and I really hope you enjoyed the Trey Lance stuff. Get to work, folks, on your boy from North Dakota State. I did not expect Jeremiah to have him graded higher than the other two quarterbacks.

So we'll be back Thursday. I imagine maybe the release will be Thursday. I have a bunch of guests already pre-booked for some upcoming stuff, so it's going to be a lot of fun. Really excited about that. So please rate, review, subscribe to the pod, and everybody, you know, talk to you later this week. Thank you.