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Speaker 1: He's the Drive with Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson. When

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Speaker 1: your twenty four seventh home of the Black and Gold

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Speaker 1: Steelers Nation Radio, Welcome back. I am Dale Lollly, he

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Speaker 1: is Matt Williamson and this is the Drive on Steelers

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Speaker 1: Nation Radio and Matt we touched on it in the

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Speaker 1: previous segment. I did want to dig more into this.

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Speaker 1: Uh what the signings, particularly of Nate Herbig that tells

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Speaker 1: us about the Steelers and what they plan to do

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Speaker 1: U in twenty twenty three. I think with when you

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Speaker 1: sign a big malling, uh, you know, offensive guard like this,

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Speaker 1: you're telling people you're sending out you might as well

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Speaker 1: put it on neon signs. Hey guys, we're gonna run

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Speaker 1: the football this year. We want to be a bully.

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Speaker 1: We want to be big and physical. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think that's the writings on the wall. Um. It was

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Speaker 1: a formula in the second half of last season. I

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Speaker 1: often say that was the foundation and you can, you know,

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Speaker 1: expand on that, but that's a great foundation to go

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Speaker 1: off of. Keep a strength of strength be travels no

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Speaker 1: matter what A strong running game like that travels in.

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Speaker 1: Any young quarterback will appreciate it. To no end. So

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Speaker 1: I think that's going to be the foundation of the

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Speaker 1: offense without question. They told us that last year. They

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Speaker 1: reinforced it with this move put money where their mouth

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Speaker 1: is type of thing. Teams tell you things without ever

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Speaker 1: saying it. But eventually they're going to have to hand

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Speaker 1: things to pick it. But it's a it's a given.

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Speaker 1: It's a cesaw. I mean it's you know, as as

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Speaker 1: we hand you more, you know, you get more and

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Speaker 1: more important, and he'll take it and go with it.

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Speaker 1: But as if you give them this foundation of this

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Speaker 1: running game and hopefully more one on one matchups for

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Speaker 1: your receivers and play action and things of that nature,

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Speaker 1: it travels and it's something you can lean on in

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Speaker 1: a big way. Yeah, I think you know, they signaled, um,

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Speaker 1: you know in twenty ten when they when they brought

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Speaker 1: in Marquise Pouncing in in twenty twelve, you know, you

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Speaker 1: added David DeCastro, two guys who were premium athletes at

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Speaker 1: the position right right, first round picks, first round picks,

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Speaker 1: guys that can get out and move and run. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think this is this is showing that, hey, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna we've got a big two hundred forty pound running

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Speaker 1: back and we're gonna run the ball straight downhill. We're

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Speaker 1: not worried about getting out on the edge and doing

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Speaker 1: those things. Yeah you can do those things, but we're

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Speaker 1: gonna come straight down hill at you. You gotta stop it.

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Speaker 1: So it leads me to the next question, like, what

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Speaker 1: do you see personnel wise as the next step offensively?

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Speaker 1: Like to me, yeah, if there's a free agent out there,

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Speaker 1: maybe even Matt Feiler, who knows, you know, that's a

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Speaker 1: nice bargain. You can throw them in the mix. But

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Speaker 1: I'm kind of betting old line wise, they're probably done

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Speaker 1: until the draft. And you mentioned this off the air

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Speaker 1: that you can still take John Michael Schmidt if he

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Speaker 1: fall follower than you think. I mean, if a center

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Speaker 1: is just ridiculously good value, grab him. They probably still

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Speaker 1: draft to tackle either way somewhere in the first three rounds,

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Speaker 1: and that might be about it on the old line. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think if the value falls,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the offensive line coach Pat Meyer

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Speaker 1: was at the Northwestern Pro day on Tuesday. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: so he's there. You don't send your offensive line coach

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Speaker 1: to Northwestern to look at their at a bare. Of

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Speaker 1: course you're there looking at John at at Peter Skronsky.

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Speaker 1: That's who he's there looking at. Just in case that

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Speaker 1: guy happens to fall to you. You want to have

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Speaker 1: you want to you know, done your homework on him. Um,

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Speaker 1: so you know if something like that falls into your

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Speaker 1: lap and it's too good to be you know, you

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Speaker 1: think Pete Scronsky's one of the top ten players in

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Speaker 1: this draft. You take him. You know you're not gonna

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Speaker 1: You're not gonna turn that down. But I don't know

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Speaker 1: that you go out of your way. You know you're

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Speaker 1: not gonna trade up to take an offensive tackle. No,

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Speaker 1: I think it's a Day two thing. Yeah. I think

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Speaker 1: you just let that happen and then developed that guy.

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Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean to your point. And you know

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Speaker 1: we texted back and forth about this when it happened

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday night. Um, you know, I got like Matt

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Speaker 1: Filer would make a lot of sense. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's familiar, he's coming off a rough season, but he

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Speaker 1: can play right tackle, he could play either guard for you,

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Speaker 1: he can play center, you know. I mean, he'd be

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Speaker 1: active on game day. I don't know if he'd be

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Speaker 1: a starter. I mean off his film last year, but

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Speaker 1: you could get him at a discount. I don't think

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Speaker 1: you're drafting a guard though, you know, I don't know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a pure guard is no longer on the you know,

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Speaker 1: you don't need to do that. You've got you've got

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Speaker 1: three young guards on your roster. Yeah, yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: guard is off the table you have. I know, James

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Speaker 1: Daniels is entrenched at right guard, but he has a

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Speaker 1: history of playing center. If Cole were to get hurt,

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Speaker 1: maybe your best five would be Daniels at center. But

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Speaker 1: I don't know when you mess with that. He's a

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Speaker 1: really good right guard. Um, but I think drafting a

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Speaker 1: center is possible, probably improbable though, yeah, I mean it

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Speaker 1: would have to be the right guy. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: just take a guy like Joe Tipman off their off

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Speaker 1: their board. I don't know, um round, I mean sometimes

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Speaker 1: centers fall. But yeah, again, he's he's he can play center,

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Speaker 1: but he can play guard. I think he could play

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Speaker 1: right tackle if you really wanted them to, because he

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Speaker 1: has that kind of But again, that's one of those

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Speaker 1: things that you don't have to go out of your

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Speaker 1: way to do it. You know. It's the beauty of

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Speaker 1: what they've done, right, So the only thing that they

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Speaker 1: haven't you know, they probably still need and we haven't

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Speaker 1: told yet. So they bring back Larry Ogan Jobi on

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Speaker 1: a three year deal. They bring back as you mentioned

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Speaker 1: before in the previous segment, de Monte Kazum again. They're

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Speaker 1: they're they're checking off a lot of the boxes here

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Speaker 1: right now in free agency, right so, I mean, you're

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Speaker 1: starting eleven right now. Call it a starting twelve. Because defense,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna rotate people is pretty set, you know. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you don't have a big nickel package that you loved

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Speaker 1: quite yet. But there's a lot of safety is still

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Speaker 1: out there, including the draft. I mean, I think they

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Speaker 1: will add another safety. I think they'll add a corner

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Speaker 1: in the draft. W're probably done at corner in free agency.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what to think about the linebacker situation.

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Speaker 1: I assume it'll be Holcomb, Jack Robinson if you still

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Speaker 1: need to add there and one more guy, yeah, agency

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Speaker 1: or not. I guess Jack isn't guaranteed to be back.

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Speaker 1: But you know, could you turn Jack into David or

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Speaker 1: Wagner or something like that. I guess you could. That

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Speaker 1: seems improbable to me as well. I think you want

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Speaker 1: to get a third edge guy. That's not that's kind

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Speaker 1: of small potatoes though, and Ogan Job's great. But if

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Speaker 1: bre says they're thirty two, I think you run the

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Speaker 1: card up and maybe if seventeen, you know, again, you

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Speaker 1: can definitely draft another Yeah, so you know, I think

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Speaker 1: they've left all their options open while also filling the

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Speaker 1: roster spots. Right, but you can always you can always

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Speaker 1: outdraft those guys. You can always outdraft those guys and

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Speaker 1: they still would play, especially on defense. You're gonna rotate

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Speaker 1: dudes in anyway. You know, Like what if you did

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Speaker 1: draft the defensive tackle high and he turns out to

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Speaker 1: be better than Ogan job Immediately, Wow, we really hit

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Speaker 1: on this guy. Great. I mean, Ogan Jobey instead of

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Speaker 1: playing sixty snaps plays forty. You know it's more importantly,

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Speaker 1: Cam instead of you know, Cam Hayward instead of playing

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Speaker 1: seventy snaps a game, plays fifty five snaps a game. Right,

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Speaker 1: and in week seventeen he's as tough as ever, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean, right, Yeah, I mean they have

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Speaker 1: really set themselves up on both sides of the ball.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to see him get a tight end at

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Speaker 1: some point, maybe one more pass catcher in general, but

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Speaker 1: the offense besides, I think a tackle was close to

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Speaker 1: being done. Defense needs some more work, but there's more

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Speaker 1: resources to do it. But they could line up and

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Speaker 1: play right now on both sides of the ball, for sure,

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Speaker 1: And I don't think there's They probably need to draft

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Speaker 1: a corner, but I don't know if there's a position

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Speaker 1: where if they don't get one in the first three picks,

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Speaker 1: they screwed up. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can go a lot of different ways

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Speaker 1: based on what you've done now in free agency, just

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Speaker 1: in the first wave, there's still gonna be bargains available

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Speaker 1: out there that you're gonna be like, oh yeah, sign

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Speaker 1: that guy, and you and I haven't done one of

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Speaker 1: iron mocks, you know, since then. But because of these moves,

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Speaker 1: I think you're a lot more apt to listen to

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Speaker 1: trade down offers. You know, you're less apt to move

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Speaker 1: up for a guy, you know, like, Okay, yeah, we'd

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Speaker 1: really like to take this player at thirty two, but

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Speaker 1: there's five others we really like as well, And the

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Speaker 1: Rams are calling and they're offering us a deal we

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Speaker 1: can't refuse. Where if you had to take a corner there,

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Speaker 1: a tackle or a linebacker. You know what I mean

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Speaker 1: that you couldn't say yes to that deal? Yeah, asolutely?

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Speaker 1: I mean I think you can. You can open your

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Speaker 1: board up a little bit. There's no screaming need now, right,

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Speaker 1: other than you could you could look at maybe slot

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Speaker 1: as a need because that's just that guy's on the

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Speaker 1: field seventy percent of the time, right, So simply drafting

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Speaker 1: another corner who simply plays outside, you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: know that you're you're gonna necessarily, you know, do that

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Speaker 1: if he's just an outside corner, he better be able

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Speaker 1: to play at at least be able to line up

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Speaker 1: and play inside. And that's the beauty, you know, looking

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Speaker 1: into the backgrounds Matt of of of a lot of

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Speaker 1: these top cornerbacks in this year's draft. Outside of Joey Porter,

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Speaker 1: I think the other four guys have all lined up

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Speaker 1: at least some in the slot. Some Yeah. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm I don't say I'm down on Porter, but I

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Speaker 1: don't know that he'd be a slam dunk for me

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Speaker 1: at seventeen like I did a couple of weeks ago.

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Speaker 1: Good player, don't get me wrong. The one thing I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna fight you on a little bit. Is Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: seems like this class as a whole has some nickel

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Speaker 1: capable dudes, but it does seem like the strength there's

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Speaker 1: still the six foot long armed outside the numbers dudes.

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Speaker 1: And I think you never turn your back on one

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Speaker 1: of those, because my long's Peterson going to be around.

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Speaker 1: Is Wallace or Weatherspoon a difference maker, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you could easily draft over their heads. And I think

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Speaker 1: you can find a slot. And frankly, if you resigned Edmonds,

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Speaker 1: you might already have your slot, and his might and

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Speaker 1: his name might be makeup. It's Patrick true, And I

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Speaker 1: may have misspoken when I when I said what I

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Speaker 1: said before, I still think that, yeah, you're not going

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Speaker 1: to turn your nose up because looking at the contract situations,

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Speaker 1: for you know, Wallace and Witherspoon are both have one

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Speaker 1: year left on their deal, good point. James Pierre's has

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Speaker 1: one year left on his deal, you know, So yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have to continue to add the deposition. But

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Speaker 1: I think to me, like a nickel, he's either a

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Speaker 1: nickel shafety or a nickel corner. Right is a spot

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Speaker 1: I wonder because the league's going this way so heavily.

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Speaker 1: Now's a great opportunity to make your nickel a safety

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Speaker 1: as opposed to a Hilton, a Sutton, a milette. I

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Speaker 1: wonder if that's what they would like to do, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean? And I would think so because

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, teams are running the ball more

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Speaker 1: than they did five years ago, because because so many

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Speaker 1: teams have gotten light. Yeah, front, So I want my

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Speaker 1: nickel better be able to tackle somebody, but also better

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Speaker 1: be able to cover as well as blitz and you know,

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Speaker 1: handle tight ends and all those type of things. Um,

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Speaker 1: I think I know your answer, but I've never presented

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Speaker 1: this question this way. So you're sitting there at seventeen

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Speaker 1: and Porter, who to me is just an outside guy

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Speaker 1: and does some things really well. He's a bully at

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Speaker 1: the line of scrimmage. He gets his hands on you,

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Speaker 1: but he's not a great pedal guy. He's not a

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Speaker 1: great zone dude. He hasn't taken the ball away greatly.

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Speaker 1: But there's all kinds of upside there. And boy, his

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Speaker 1: play demeanor would fit in here. And you're torn between

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Speaker 1: him or your guy Brian Branch Like now with Peterson

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Speaker 1: in the mix and all these things we said about slot,

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Speaker 1: I think I'm taking Branch over Porter, where two weeks

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Speaker 1: ago I would have been the opposite. I think in

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Speaker 1: this draft in particular, I'm with you because there are

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Speaker 1: so many other there's so many corners available. So it's

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Speaker 1: you know, so I wait until the second round where

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Speaker 1: the third round, and I go get you know, I

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Speaker 1: get Blue Kelly in the in the in the third round. Okay,

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Speaker 1: why addressed a position with a with a pretty good athlete,

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Speaker 1: a pretty good prospect. I didn't ignore it, and he

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Speaker 1: doesn't have to play today, right, But in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: I've got a guy who's going to be my slot

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Speaker 1: and possibly my starting you know, one of my starting

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Speaker 1: safeties for the next five years, right right right, And

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Speaker 1: him and Minka and Kyz are all interchangeable. They could

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Speaker 1: all be deep middle, they could all be do they

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Speaker 1: could all be slot. You know. I mean that's that

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Speaker 1: to me? Is h really really intriguing? Yeah, and at

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Speaker 1: this point you might be able to trade down five

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Speaker 1: spots and get Branch after its combine, who knows, you know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: It's it's all very interesting. And you know, again, we're

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Speaker 1: two days into this, basically two and a half days

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Speaker 1: into this, right, stuff hadn't even become official yet until

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Speaker 1: four o'clock today, so you know, until they get their name,

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Speaker 1: you know, they still got to pass physicals and all

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Speaker 1: that stuff. So there's still things that could happen here. Um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I think there's everything that they've done thus

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Speaker 1: far completely opens up the draft to the point where

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Speaker 1: they don't you know, people who are pigeon holing them

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Speaker 1: in or they gotta do this, or they got to

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Speaker 1: do that. They're missing the boat. They're missing the boat.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're not seeing the whole puzzle. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're looking at individual pieces and yeah, as opposed to

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Speaker 1: what it all looks like when you put it together.

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Speaker 1: And I harp on this too much, but boy, I'd

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Speaker 1: love to get one of these tight ends. And I

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Speaker 1: think again, now you could do that. That's what I mean.

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Speaker 1: You could get that if it presented itself at le

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Speaker 1: extra Yeah, if it presented itself, you could do it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all of this red paint, I'm gonna I'm gonna slap

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Speaker 1: that on the barn, man. I mean, this draft is

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Speaker 1: giving you a lot of tight end paint. I want

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Speaker 1: to get one. Yeah. Um, you know, even if and

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Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but even if a wide

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Speaker 1: receiver presented itself, right, you could do it. It's smith

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Speaker 1: na jig Buzzer at seventeen, Yeah, you could. You could

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Speaker 1: make that. Now you now you get the best slot

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Speaker 1: in the in the draft, right, you think pick it

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Speaker 1: would like that? You know, you think here for the

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Speaker 1: next five years, you know what I mean. Like, that's

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Speaker 1: kind of what you're setting yourself up to do. You

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Speaker 1: can make one of those luxury picks. Yeah, and it

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Speaker 1: could be in the first round, it could be in

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Speaker 1: the second to third. It doesn't matter, right, because you've

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Speaker 1: set yourself up to do that. And the other I

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Speaker 1: mean like even like when the third round rolls around

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Speaker 1: and you're torn between two players at the same position,

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Speaker 1: and one of them looks like a single or a

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Speaker 1: double and the other one looks like Dave Kingman. You

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Speaker 1: might take Kingman now because oh, well, we missed on

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Speaker 1: this guy. He didn't he struck out. But what if

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Speaker 1: he hits you know, like we already got two people

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Speaker 1: in place there a linebacker, for example, we got Jack

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Speaker 1: and Holcomb. We have some hopes for Robinson. It's the

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Speaker 1: third round. We're torn between these two linebackers. One of

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Speaker 1: them's pretty plug and play a lot of snaps in college.

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Speaker 1: The other one's a superb athlete. We don't know what

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Speaker 1: he's going to become. He's a wild card maybe roll

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Speaker 1: of dice, where you wouldn't know if Holcomb was in

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Speaker 1: the mix. Well, for a perfect example of that is

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Speaker 1: let's let's say Simpson from Clemson falls to forty nine. Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: he's a superior athlete. His upside is tremendous. Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: just needs time to learn the game a little bit

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Speaker 1: better and get a little more nuanced. But if he

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Speaker 1: hits oh my god, right, a franchise changer, you know, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So you have that ability to do that because of

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Speaker 1: what you've done in free agency, just by a couple

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Speaker 1: of little moves and how they all fit in. And

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Speaker 1: you know the value of like an Ogan jobie is big.

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Speaker 1: I mean getting paid immense amount of money the last

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Speaker 1: couple of days, Well I heard people complaining about that,

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Speaker 1: Oh it's too too much money for for Larry Ogan.

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Speaker 1: JOEBI have you have you have you looked at what

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Speaker 1: some of these other guys are getting right that position?

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Speaker 1: Cleveland paid Lake and Tomlinson or Dalvin Tomlinson, I should say, yeah, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, fifteen sixteen million dollars a year, he's never

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Speaker 1: had more than two and a half sacks in a season.

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Speaker 1: Four years fifty seven million, Zach Allen three years, forty

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Speaker 1: five million. I mean getting fifteen fifteen plus? Who are

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Speaker 1: are you know? Three quarters of Cam Hayward? If at right?

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Speaker 1: Tomlinson's contracts almost the same as Haywards, which is nuts,

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Speaker 1: Which is nuts? And kay, I'm signed it a couple

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Speaker 1: years ago, but I mean, come on now, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's just crazy that that's just the Browns. The Browns

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Speaker 1: is the Browns, Matt, So there's no doubt they they

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Speaker 1: like to spend money, you know, good money after bad

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Speaker 1: money and just throw it around and try to excite

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Speaker 1: the fan base. I get it, But doesn't mean it

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Speaker 1: was a good move. Um. Yeah, So I'm intrigued by

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Speaker 1: what they've done. I'm intrigued to see what they're going

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Speaker 1: to continue to do as this thing continues forward. So

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Speaker 1: it's all very interesting, and it's obviously it's going to

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Speaker 1: affect what they do in the draft, and we've talked

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Speaker 1: a lot about how that could affect what they're going

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Speaker 1: to do in the draft. Guess what, Matt in the

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Speaker 1: next segment, what let's do a mock draft and see

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Speaker 1: how this thing falls. Now that we know they've got

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Speaker 1: these five guys signed. So last nugget before we sign

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Speaker 1: off the here and I just wanted to extend what

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Speaker 1: I was saying across the league. I was a little

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Speaker 1: shocked at wide receivers and corners didn't get paid, didn't

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Speaker 1: get overpaid, for sure, get paid like I thought they would,

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Speaker 1: but that money went to d tackles, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that was the position that spoke. It might speak to

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Speaker 1: how teams feel a little bit about this draft and

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Speaker 1: what they've in, what they've drafted the last couple of years.

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Speaker 1: We've seen a ton of receivers get drafted the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years. This draft is really deep at cornerback,

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Speaker 1: so you know, all things being equal, but it's not

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Speaker 1: deep at defensive tackle, especially the first day or two. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're not going to get a plug and play guy

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Speaker 1: at defensive tackle, but you might get a plug and

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Speaker 1: play cornerback. So you know, are you gonna take that

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Speaker 1: chance and say, oh, well, we'll roll with a rookie

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Speaker 1: here instead of spending a bunch of money on a

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Speaker 1: veteran corner, and the league right now has has a

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Speaker 1: wealth of young stud defensive tackles you know that are

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Speaker 1: coming up in the world too, you know, the quinnin

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Speaker 1: Williams and Wilkins and Lawrence and all these dudes. So

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Speaker 1: it's a really interesting position that's gaining more and more importance. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for sure. Hey, you can subscribe to The Drive on

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Speaker 1: Steelers Nation Radio. Every episode we do is available for

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Speaker 1: you to download. Subscribe today through the Steelers Mobile app,

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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, and wherever you find our podcasts or

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Speaker 1: your podcasts. He is Matt Williamson. I am Dale, Lala.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to The Drive here on Steelers Nation Radio.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back to finish off the show right after

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Speaker 1: this