Speaker 1: And now move the sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody? Welcome to move the sticks? DJ, Buck
Speaker 2: with you?
Speaker 1: Buck? Did you take in Opening Day Baseball? Did you
Speaker 1: watch it? Or are you going to kind of ease
Speaker 1: and ease into it? I didn't notice that the Dodgers one,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. I can't say that I watched it
Speaker 1: from beginning. It just kind of checked in. So Shoneo
Speaker 1: Tani do what he does. One or three guys they
Speaker 1: hit a homer. So yeah, excited about it? Now you
Speaker 1: The bigger thing is are you gonna speak too soon?
Speaker 1: You always get super excited the month of April May,
Speaker 1: you're really into it. Then you begin to kind of
Speaker 1: fade and fizzle for a little bit in June. You
Speaker 1: pick it back up a little bit in July, and
Speaker 1: then depending on how the pods are doing. I don't
Speaker 1: know who's DJ I'm gonna get come on against in
Speaker 1: sip Jim. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I got a text message from our buddy Chris Rose.
Speaker 1: It was like, hey, what do you expect this year?
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know, I'm gonna set my
Speaker 2: expectations just five hundred.
Speaker 1: Keep our excitations this year, just.
Speaker 2: Five bundred because but Bucky always, Bucky always tells me
Speaker 2: that I get too excited. So I said, not this year.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna just go. And and last year we had
Speaker 2: a great year. I think we're the second best team
Speaker 2: in baseball. But we you know, so we had we
Speaker 2: have a really good team. But I'm gonna get let's
Speaker 2: lower expectations, not get ahead of myself.
Speaker 1: So what happened.
Speaker 2: We faced Chris Sale, the raining Cy Young Award winner yesterday,
Speaker 2: knock him around the yard and win. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: we're gonna We're gonna wine hundred games.
Speaker 1: Like, let's go.
Speaker 2: It just took one day.
Speaker 1: It just took one day. I'm in, I'm all in
Speaker 1: one day, and you're you're automatic all the way back
Speaker 1: in again. It's a disease, Buck, it's a disease. It
Speaker 1: can't help, but it's just a disease. It's so hard,
Speaker 1: Like I feel so bad. I feel so bad for
Speaker 1: you because you this is what you do all the time.
Speaker 1: And then ultimately, like your little heart is broken at
Speaker 1: the end, and it's sad, it's not it's not fun
Speaker 1: seeing you like this.
Speaker 2: Yep, no it's it's it's, it is what it is.
Speaker 2: But I'm I'm I'm all in on the pods right now.
Speaker 2: I am excited about the calendar getting ready to flip though,
Speaker 2: because we're almost to April, and that means, man, the
Speaker 2: draft is really really creeping up on us. I got
Speaker 2: a couple of things I want to hit on today
Speaker 2: with you, Buck, including I want to get into your
Speaker 2: top vibes a little bit. And I want to know
Speaker 2: because I feel like I've kind of told you some
Speaker 2: of the ones that I'm struggling with. I'd love to
Speaker 2: know like maybe two or three different two or three
Speaker 2: different struggles that you got on your list. So we'll
Speaker 2: get to that in a minute. But before we do that,
Speaker 2: I had this conversation the other day talking to a coach.
Speaker 2: Brought up a great point, and I don't know what
Speaker 2: the numbers are. It's like, I don't know close to
Speaker 2: half of the top pass rushers, the top twelve to
Speaker 2: fifteen pass rushers are not going to record forties. They
Speaker 2: did not run at the Combine and they're not running
Speaker 2: at Pro days, so there's no forties.
Speaker 1: And when we were.
Speaker 2: Talking about and he said, look like some for some
Speaker 2: positions like GPS you can take those those numbers.
Speaker 1: And you can find value in that.
Speaker 2: And he was like, I can't, like, for an edge rusher,
Speaker 2: the numbers that they have going off of NFL players,
Speaker 2: He's all are so wonky because you might like, like
Speaker 2: Jared Verse had one of the one of the best
Speaker 2: GPS numbers of any defensive end. Well he's chasing Sakuon
Speaker 2: Barkley forty yards down the field. Yeah, like that's where
Speaker 2: that number comes from. So whereas some of the other
Speaker 2: guys who you know are real explosive for eighteen miles
Speaker 2: per hour. So he's like, for evaluating these guys using
Speaker 2: GPS numbers doesn't really help them. And he was he
Speaker 2: was saying that there's you know, they do some force
Speaker 2: plate jumps at the combine, so they've used those more.
Speaker 2: Now even just you have the vertical number that you get,
Speaker 2: but the force plate to really see how explosive these
Speaker 2: guys are. You're trying to find creative ways to, you know,
Speaker 2: to be able to put these guys on a level
Speaker 2: playing field and see what the what the numbers tell you.
Speaker 1: So now this is hard, and this is hard because
Speaker 1: depending on you school board, depending on how you're reared
Speaker 1: in the business. You're now going to have to test
Speaker 1: some of the philosophies and ideologies that many of us
Speaker 1: have talked about for years, and you really trust the
Speaker 1: tape without the workouts or the measurements or the things
Speaker 1: kind of backing you up or validating some of your opinions.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about players, particularly past rushers, we
Speaker 1: can talk about first step quickness, elite burst in those things,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times we can validate that by
Speaker 1: looking at their ten time or looking at some of
Speaker 1: the agility shuttles or three cone or any of those
Speaker 1: other measurements that we like to use to kind of say, oh,
Speaker 1: I can rubber stamp it because what I saw on
Speaker 1: tape has been matched on what they did in the workout.
Speaker 1: Where it gets tricky is depending on the level of competition.
Speaker 1: Guys blowing past people on the snap and those things.
Speaker 1: Are we having true apples to apples discussions When we
Speaker 1: may look at a Mike Green play in one conference
Speaker 1: versus somebody else who is playing in the SEC against
Speaker 1: presumably presumably better tackles and blockers in those things, that's
Speaker 1: where it comes into play, because is there gonna be
Speaker 1: a natural bias when we're trying to factor a set
Speaker 1: of players from one area versus a set of players
Speaker 1: from another area who may not have as many matchups
Speaker 1: against premier players.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that helps, you know, when you have
Speaker 2: these guys that go to the Senior Bowl. Because you
Speaker 2: mentioned Mike Green, like, okay, well I got to watch
Speaker 2: Mike Green go one on one, you know, a couple
Speaker 2: of days at the Senior Bowl against some of the
Speaker 2: better tackle prospects in the draft, including the famous rep
Speaker 2: against Connery that you know made the rounds.
Speaker 1: Or you got a chance to see how explosive he was.
Speaker 2: So you've got that Ezaku from from Boston College was
Speaker 2: another one that was there. Alanna Jackson was there from Arkansas,
Speaker 2: had a big game. Like you got a chance to
Speaker 2: at least see those guys in person and uh and
Speaker 2: see them move around. I know Alane Jackson ended up
Speaker 2: burning a forty, but you uh, you know, at least
Speaker 2: you got a chance to see it. Feel like the
Speaker 2: Ohio State guys, I almost wonder, you know, like that
Speaker 2: that Ohio State Pro Day was very heavily attended and
Speaker 2: even though I don't think either one of them ran
Speaker 2: forties jtt or Jack Sawyer, So that they're two that
Speaker 2: aren't going to have a forty time out there, but
Speaker 2: to get a chance to work them out and at
Speaker 2: least feel them, you know, kind of feel their their
Speaker 2: their bursts and their and their juice.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's old school scoutings what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so what I think the trick will be is
Speaker 1: when you started having the positional workouts, if you can
Speaker 1: bake some things into the workout that'll allow you to
Speaker 1: assess how fast guys are. I think ultimately what you
Speaker 1: have is a meeting of the minds between coaches and
Speaker 1: the scouts to figure out what can we put them through.
Speaker 1: What is the one drill that we can put everybody
Speaker 1: that we work out through. Then maybe we can have
Speaker 1: a scout time on the side that allows us to
Speaker 1: have comparables when we go to talk talk about these guys. Okay,
Speaker 1: jack So did this and this drill. Lenn and Jackson
Speaker 1: did this in the same drill. So now we can
Speaker 1: have some subtle things that we can line up. But
Speaker 1: we knew it was a matter of time when these
Speaker 1: guys started opting out of workouts and forties and those
Speaker 1: things that we as evaluators, we were going to be
Speaker 1: tested where we really have to hang on what we
Speaker 1: always say, did we do trust the tape, Trust the tape,
Speaker 1: Trust the tape? Well, now you gotta trust a tape. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's one hundred percent true.
Speaker 2: And it's become literally it's become a buffet of I
Speaker 2: want to do Okay, I'll do the three cone, but
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna do the jumps. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to run, I'll do the positional drills.
Speaker 2: Like it's just kind of become a buffet in the spring.
Speaker 2: Whereas it used to be you could almost I think
Speaker 2: scouts could almost kind of bully guys and be like, hey,
Speaker 2: you're the only one in this group that's not doing
Speaker 2: something like we're not taking you. You told you always
Speaker 2: tell a story about Lindell White on you like those
Speaker 2: those days are over, man Like it is like in
Speaker 2: terms of like player empowerment, like that's that's one area
Speaker 2: from a scouting side of things that we've seen massive change,
Speaker 2: you know, a one not having their guys take the
Speaker 2: cognitive tests after you know, the CJ. Stroud stuff, so
Speaker 2: like you know you're you're You're get to the point
Speaker 2: now where it's like, man, you better get out and
Speaker 2: do your homework in the fall. Get out and see
Speaker 2: these guys, go to some live games and see them
Speaker 2: move around and see them do things, and give yourself
Speaker 2: a little bit a better opportunity there, because if you're
Speaker 2: banking on getting all this information in the spring, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know that those days are ever
Speaker 2: coming back.
Speaker 1: DJ is. Look, it's gonna make it. It's gonna make it
Speaker 1: really really hard to get your work done. So you're
Speaker 1: really gonna have to get out there. You have to
Speaker 1: trust Grand Coach, Like relationships are gonna matter more now
Speaker 1: than ever. Like one of the things that you and
Speaker 1: I have always done are a good friend who's Felman
Speaker 1: puts out the Freaks List. So what it does It
Speaker 1: gives you like a little preview of the super explosive
Speaker 1: athletes that you need to pay attention to in the fall.
Speaker 1: And then when they put together great years, you can
Speaker 1: always go back and reference the Freaks List because you
Speaker 1: have the numbers that they've compiled high they going to
Speaker 1: jump and do those things. It is it's gonna become trickier. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I was just having a conversation with a
Speaker 1: colleague about gam Scatterboo from Arizona State. Well, I love
Speaker 1: as a player, right, just absolutely love how he gets
Speaker 1: down to whatever his pro day comes. Hey, I give
Speaker 1: you a vertical thirty nine and a half. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a broad gymp in three. Hey we need that
Speaker 1: forty seven. Yeah, I'm a pat. And so now you
Speaker 1: have to make the assessment, Well, how fast do we
Speaker 1: think he is? You know, like, what how much does
Speaker 1: it matter? I'm looking at him in comparison to the
Speaker 1: other guys on the list, Like where do I stack
Speaker 1: him based on the information that I have. I love
Speaker 1: the player on but I don't have all the other things.
Speaker 1: So where I have a junkins run this, and I
Speaker 1: have other guys run that. Where that factor is And
Speaker 1: so for the prospect it's a bit of the roll
Speaker 1: of the dice saying to hey, everyone can't be mad
Speaker 1: at me for not putting up a forty. I just
Speaker 1: need to have one team that love me and hopefully
Speaker 1: it doesn't impact my round value. But it makes it
Speaker 1: a very difficult thing. And we say we don't want
Speaker 1: to hold it against players, but man, you just remember
Speaker 1: where how it is spring with me. We tried to
Speaker 1: complete the profile. Hey, Buck, you don't have Hey, you
Speaker 1: don't have a forty input it in the computer. We
Speaker 1: need you to get out there and run. Hey he said,
Speaker 1: he's not running. Yeah, but we can't put a final
Speaker 1: grade on it if we don't have the forty. Those
Speaker 1: days are done. I mean, you're really testing those old
Speaker 1: theories that we talk about, like really grading off the
Speaker 1: tape in those things. And you have some guys that
Speaker 1: disappoint you when you see him show up for that
Speaker 1: first mini camp and they run nothing like you expect
Speaker 1: them to run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting discussion, man, it's and I think people think,
Speaker 2: I think it's very easy to say, you just watch
Speaker 2: the tape, and who cares the tapes? All that matters,
Speaker 2: Like the tape is by far the most important thing,
Speaker 2: but that other stuff when you're trying to level out
Speaker 2: an account for competition, who you're playing against and things,
Speaker 2: and that doesn't necessarily have to be a big school
Speaker 2: small thing, small school thing. You could be in a
Speaker 2: power for conference and you might only play against you know,
Speaker 2: you might be a corner who's only playing against two
Speaker 2: or three receivers the whole year that can really run
Speaker 2: and guess what those games you might be playing off,
Speaker 2: So I don't I've never really seen you get tested,
Speaker 2: like can I line you up? Nose knows no one
Speaker 2: you can carry a vertical route like, I don't know
Speaker 2: if you can run like that. So it does matter,
Speaker 2: It does matter. So that's why it becomes very, very challenging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it becomes a challenge. And all these things only
Speaker 1: become more challenging. And so the one thing that I
Speaker 1: do know about scouts and evaluator is like, look, we're adaptable,
Speaker 1: will adjust, but it makes it hard, particularly in doing
Speaker 1: some of the things that we love to do. Right,
Speaker 1: So we all everyone keeps a log in a history, right,
Speaker 1: I've seen you reference your sequence list when we talk
Speaker 1: about one player and trying to compare him to another
Speaker 1: player two three years ago, to be like, hey, you
Speaker 1: know this player three or four years ago, he did this,
Speaker 1: ran this time, and look at the success that he's
Speaker 1: having at a pro now. It makes it harder when
Speaker 1: we're kind of like building the case to support our
Speaker 1: player in a meeting, It makes it harder because I
Speaker 1: can't do that. I can say, oh, he ran for
Speaker 1: two thousand yards, but yeah, but we's is forty time
Speaker 1: E coach, I don't have that. Well, well, how do
Speaker 1: we know if he's going to survive? What are the
Speaker 1: superpowers that he brings to the table that's going to
Speaker 1: enable him to replicate that success as a pro. It
Speaker 1: just makes it more difficult to be able to make
Speaker 1: some of these arguments when you have Prospect A and
Speaker 1: Prospect B with similar grades. But I have an incomplete
Speaker 1: prospect incomplete profile on Prospect B.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the other thing that we'll see. But we'll
Speaker 2: see how this all transpires. A couple guys out there,
Speaker 2: there's definitely theories around the league too, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: this is how you get to the process without running,
Speaker 2: you don't work out, not healthy, got a little nagging injury.
Speaker 2: So we're going to reschedule a pro day for middle
Speaker 2: to you know, middle to the early part of the
Speaker 2: twenties of you know, a week before the draft, right,
Speaker 2: So you're gonna say the fourteenth, fifteen, somewhere in there.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna have a late pro day and guess
Speaker 2: what magically happens at that late pro day? A little
Speaker 2: bit tight. I'm gonna do the position drills, but not
Speaker 2: gonna I'm not gonna run a forty like that is
Speaker 2: the that is like right out of the playbook of
Speaker 2: how you get away with not running a forty these days.
Speaker 1: Oh so that may sound like a guy that I'm
Speaker 1: writing about today, Will Johnson or Michigan who may not
Speaker 1: ever record anything of significance when it comes to his
Speaker 1: athletics stuff. And now we're led to just focus solely
Speaker 1: on what he has done. And it's funny because what
Speaker 1: complicates the Will Johnson and evaluation because he's someone who
Speaker 1: hasn't worked at and run DJ. He's had injuries and
Speaker 1: two of the last three seasons that it's kept him
Speaker 1: out of games. And so now I not only I
Speaker 1: don't have testing, but I have a durability concern based
Speaker 1: on what we know to be true. He has missed
Speaker 1: games in each of the past two seasons. It just
Speaker 1: makes it hard some of the guys that you love
Speaker 1: on tape you can't fully take a stand on because
Speaker 1: you're like, man, am I missing something? Is there something
Speaker 1: that's gonna come back to bite me? When we bring
Speaker 1: him in the building and he works out for the
Speaker 1: first time and you're like, oh, yeah, that doesn't that
Speaker 1: doesn't look good because you can't have I don't have
Speaker 1: a time.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm going through this list and I'm like
Speaker 2: just just going through a mock draft, right, so from
Speaker 2: like my last mock draft, I'm trying to find the
Speaker 2: first player who had a full process, right that we
Speaker 2: actually saw in an All Star game as well, So you.
Speaker 1: Know who, you know who it is. It's Grey's Able.
Speaker 2: Wow, Gray's Abel was my I had him going sixteen
Speaker 2: in this in this mock craft, Mike Green is is
Speaker 2: right there with him. But I don't think Mike Green,
Speaker 2: I don't think he ran a forty.
Speaker 1: Did he?
Speaker 2: I don't think he ran a forty. He just did
Speaker 2: the I think he just did the cone drills. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, there are not many guys that had a
Speaker 2: full process that you got all the way through. He
Speaker 2: saw him in the fall, maybe saw in an All
Speaker 2: Star game and you saw him do a full workout
Speaker 2: where you saw everything. So I don't know, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: It just and that used to.
Speaker 1: Not be the case.
Speaker 2: It used to be you'd have half the first round
Speaker 2: were full process guys where you saw go kind of
Speaker 2: through the whole thing. So it's just different. It's different
Speaker 2: time you got to just there's nothing to complain about.
Speaker 2: It is what it is, all right, Buck, let's say
Speaker 2: quick break, we come back. I want to get into
Speaker 2: some of these debates here after this all right sign
Speaker 2: for Hot or Not, brought to you by Wasabi Hot
Speaker 2: Cloud Storage. Buck top fives that you got out there.
Speaker 2: I've had my struggles with some of these battles here.
Speaker 2: Give me give me your top three battles that you've
Speaker 2: had of of difficulty. They're trying to stack guys a
Speaker 2: different pace.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say, DJ, let's go to the pass
Speaker 1: catcher thing, right, the wide receivers. And the reason the
Speaker 1: struggle for me has has has kept me up at
Speaker 1: night is really trying to figure out like, not only
Speaker 1: how do we set the pecking order, but which guys
Speaker 1: are truly wide receiver ones and which guys do we
Speaker 1: need to project as wide receiver twos. So at the
Speaker 1: top of my board, and we've had the conversation about
Speaker 1: t mac McMillan, Matthew Golden, Amika Abuka, Luther Burden, and
Speaker 1: right now I still have Isaiah Bond hanging at five.
Speaker 1: But DJ, when I look at all of these guys,
Speaker 1: right I can't say that any of them project in
Speaker 1: terms of like their overall skill set as a true
Speaker 1: number one. Maybe team matt or no one does that
Speaker 1: like Matthew Golden. If you ask me in an ideal world,
Speaker 1: what's his position? And as we talked about the basketball
Speaker 1: team analogie, he's the number two. He's the stretch to field.
Speaker 1: He's the other guy opposite the dominant pass catcher or
Speaker 1: whatever I mean. Kay Buka plays in the slot. Luther
Speaker 1: Burden is more like the Deebo Samuel kind of do
Speaker 1: everything run option routes. Give it to them on fly
Speaker 1: sweeps and those things like DJ. If I am a
Speaker 1: team in need of a true classic number one to
Speaker 1: anchor the passing game, I can't confidently say that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get one in this draft. And this is the
Speaker 1: first time in how many years, five, six, seven years
Speaker 1: that there hasn't been that established guy or two that
Speaker 1: we can say, Hey, if I need a wide receiver,
Speaker 1: that's the guy that I'm gonna go get that. To me,
Speaker 1: that's problematic and it's one of the reasons why in
Speaker 1: my draft we may only see two guys on the board. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I got a text from Kurt Warner who's going through
Speaker 2: watching all these guys right now. And he was asking
Speaker 2: me about Golden and he was like, and I infer
Speaker 2: because I had Golden as my top receiver. And he said,
Speaker 2: do you think really think Golden is a number one?
Speaker 2: And I wrote back and I said, there are no
Speaker 2: number ones in this draft. Like to me, they're all
Speaker 2: twos and there are different flavors they're twos, but there
Speaker 2: the draft is full of twos and threes. Like, that's
Speaker 2: not what this that's not what you're getting here, you know.
Speaker 2: You know, Marvin Harrison coming out last year was viewed
Speaker 2: as a one. Neighbors viewed as a one, a dooonese.
Speaker 2: For me definitely was viewed as a one. Like there
Speaker 2: was there were guys and even like Ady Mitchell, like
Speaker 2: if he were to hit his ceiling, would would be
Speaker 2: a one. Obviously you saw in Jacksonville. That's a number
Speaker 2: one all day long. So I mean, that's not this draft.
Speaker 2: It's not this draft, man. It's you're trying to get
Speaker 2: guys that are going to be solid players that you're
Speaker 2: not going to have to replace, that are going to
Speaker 2: be key guys for you, but they're not going to
Speaker 2: be the We always talk about it from this standpoint
Speaker 2: of like the game plan guys defensively where you're like,
Speaker 2: oh crap, you better circle this dude. We got to
Speaker 2: stop him. Like that's not this draft man, not at
Speaker 2: the receiver position.
Speaker 1: It's not. And you know it's funny because, like Kurt
Speaker 1: Warner would have a strong take on that, particularly this year,
Speaker 1: because there isn't the one guy that can do everything
Speaker 1: that is expected of the number one receiver. And let's
Speaker 1: be clear when we talk about the number one receiver,
Speaker 1: and by my definition, I would say the number one
Speaker 1: receiver is a guy that anchors the passing game. He
Speaker 1: commands a double team and consistently beats the double team
Speaker 1: because everyone in the building knows that the ball is
Speaker 1: going to him on those critical doubts. He's a guy
Speaker 1: that I would say, most of the ones that we've
Speaker 1: seen that are number ones, they aren't the fastest. He's
Speaker 1: the one that typically runs in the range of five
Speaker 1: or four, five to four to five to five, but
Speaker 1: he gets open and he's a consistent chain mover on
Speaker 1: the offense. And when you look at the guys who
Speaker 1: have the complete skill set, they are terrific route runners.
Speaker 1: They have the patience and time and to get away,
Speaker 1: they can get off of pressed. They can do all
Speaker 1: those things. Stylistically, they can do it a few different ways,
Speaker 1: whether it says a true route runner or a jump
Speaker 1: on specialists. But they're the ones that when you show
Speaker 1: up on Sundays, everyone knows they're getting the ball and
Speaker 1: they continue to get the ball. And so I don't
Speaker 1: see any of those unstoppable forces in this draft class.
Speaker 1: And that is why DJ, if I'm a team in
Speaker 1: need a one, I would probably pass in the first
Speaker 1: round on a wide receiver and probably settle in the
Speaker 1: second or third round, because honestly, I might get the
Speaker 1: same thing that I would get in the first round
Speaker 1: in the second and third round based on the lack
Speaker 1: of dominant pass catchers in this draft class.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you say the argument of Okay, I could
Speaker 2: take Matthew Golden in the first, or I could take
Speaker 2: Noel from Iowa State in the second.
Speaker 1: You know, now I could.
Speaker 2: Take Royals in the third.
Speaker 1: You know, Like, however you want to do it? How
Speaker 1: big is the difference? Like how big is the difference
Speaker 1: on the grades? Dad? Like they're like, this is no
Speaker 1: one day's grade out at a seven h or higher
Speaker 1: where you're like, boom, I know for sure exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm getting. So if I'm not getting that supplying the man, well,
Speaker 1: let me look elsewhere at another position where the value matches,
Speaker 1: where we're adding the round and I'm gonna get what
Speaker 1: the verbier says I should get with a first round player. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm getting a day one starter. I'm getting an impact player.
Speaker 1: I'm getting someone that's gonna change the game for the
Speaker 1: next four or five years. And we feel good about Like,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to say that I can put
Speaker 1: Dick on the verbiage oh a need of the wide receivers,
Speaker 1: and I look, I'm wondered, and I'm probably jaded because
Speaker 1: having watched t Mac from the time he's in high school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't confidently say that he's gonna come in and
Speaker 1: change the game as a big wide receiver already outside.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yeah, well that's the that's the hottest one there.
Speaker 2: By the way, we'll get to some more here in
Speaker 2: just a second. But that was this week's Hot or
Speaker 2: Not segment, brought to you by with Sabi Hot Cloud Storage,
Speaker 2: store more and do more with your data. Try them
Speaker 2: for free at Withsabi dot com. So if the wide
Speaker 2: receiver group is your number one struggle there, buck, what's
Speaker 2: what's number two?
Speaker 1: Okay, so number two when I'm gonna say this, and
Speaker 1: I probably could have said this number one, i'mna be
Speaker 1: honest with you, man, I'm really stuck with all these quarterbacks, right,
Speaker 1: I'm stuck because the conversation and it always does this
Speaker 1: around draft time, the escalation and the elevation of guys
Speaker 1: like a Tyler Scheff, like the conversation like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna get a guy like hey, let's move him up,
Speaker 1: like we can pass early and get somebody late in
Speaker 1: the second round. That's gonna help us that we can
Speaker 1: find a way to do it. Well, here's the reality
Speaker 1: that hasn't worked. Like it has. It hasn't worked. It
Speaker 1: has Like Jalen Hurts is the only one of the
Speaker 1: final eight. It was like a second round there was
Speaker 1: a second round player that was in the tournament. Like
Speaker 1: it rarely works. And we're talking about the hit rate
Speaker 1: in the first round is being forty four percent, Well,
Speaker 1: then what is it gonna be when we get out
Speaker 1: of the first round When it comes to the hit rate,
Speaker 1: So I'm having a tough time where and I know
Speaker 1: some of this is influenced because on TV we always
Speaker 1: want to talk about the quarterbacks, but like DJ, we
Speaker 1: talk about the tears and what's really gonna pop. Look, man,
Speaker 1: to me, I think there's a significant drop up. Like,
Speaker 1: and I know people like we saw Jackson Dart. You
Speaker 1: saw Jackson Jackson Dart at the Senior Ball And I'm
Speaker 1: actually a believer that Jackson Dart can be a starter.
Speaker 1: But after that, man, I can't sit here and rubber
Speaker 1: stamp anybody. But all the grays are bunched together, and
Speaker 1: so I'm like, if you're gonna take one, you gotta
Speaker 1: take one in the first round, just because that's those
Speaker 1: are the ones that POP of these dudes can be like, well,
Speaker 1: we're chasing. Because I think it's really important that everyone
Speaker 1: views the standard at quarterback based on what's really playing.
Speaker 1: And if we use the AFC as an example, And
Speaker 1: the reason I say this is because both of us
Speaker 1: also have side gigs with AFC teams. Well, when I
Speaker 1: look at the AFC and the gauntlet that we have
Speaker 1: to run to really win in the AFC, Pat Mahomes,
Speaker 1: Josh Allen Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert. I mean
Speaker 1: that's just the start, Like, that's just to give yourself
Speaker 1: a chance to get into tournament. Bo Nix is now
Speaker 1: in the mix. DJ. If you're not taking a quarterback
Speaker 1: with superpowers, you're wasting your time. And it's easy for
Speaker 1: me and you to talk about that because we're not
Speaker 1: affiliated with a team. We don't have the desperation. But
Speaker 1: that's the reality of the situation. If your quarterback can
Speaker 1: not engage and win a shootout with the aforementioned names,
Speaker 1: what are we doing.
Speaker 2: I was having this conversation the other day with someone
Speaker 2: about this exact topic, and my point was, you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, there's not that much
Speaker 2: difference between missing on greatness and hitting on average. You
Speaker 2: know what, in three years, you're still looking for somebody new. Like,
Speaker 2: so my whole thing is, like, I think I would
Speaker 2: rather gamble on greatness. If I hit it, we're set, well,
Speaker 2: I don't have to worry about this. We're going for
Speaker 2: the next decade, like we're we're cooking with gas. And
Speaker 2: guess what if I miss, I'm coming right back and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try and swing swing for a big, big
Speaker 2: one again the next time. If I, if I correctly evaluate,
Speaker 2: this guy is gonna be okay, like middle tier and
Speaker 2: I hit on him, what's my reward for hitting on him? Well,
Speaker 2: three years from now, we're gonna all sit in our
Speaker 2: draft meetings and go guys like we can't get through
Speaker 2: that gauntlet of quarterbacks you just talked about, Like our
Speaker 2: team has to be perfect everywhere else to get through
Speaker 2: the gauntlet of quarterbacks with an average, you know, B
Speaker 2: level player like you. It's it's interesting convers it's a.
Speaker 1: Interesting conversation, and it brings you to the thing. Right,
Speaker 1: So then we talk about, all right, the tools and
Speaker 1: the tools at succeed. So what are the superpowers that
Speaker 1: the player brings to the table, because, like what we're
Speaker 1: gambling on are the super powers? Because okay, let's talk
Speaker 1: about all of those guys that we mentioned, with the
Speaker 1: exception of Joe Burrow, Joe Burrow is super proud. I
Speaker 1: would say it was his processing the processing ability. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about everybody else just in the AFC, mahomes
Speaker 1: superpower like just ridiculous arm talent, improvisational skills through the root. Okay,
Speaker 1: But even then, Dj he was in a slam dump.
Speaker 1: When we were talking about him in the draft class,
Speaker 1: we weren't saying, oh man, this is the number one
Speaker 1: over a guy. We got to put him up there,
Speaker 1: take him away. Josh Allen MVP this year. Josh Allen
Speaker 1: at Woman. I went and saw him twice. I saw
Speaker 1: him at a potato ball and I thought he was talented,
Speaker 1: but his accuracy was all over the place. He couldn't
Speaker 1: pay the strikes on And I would say this, He
Speaker 1: ran around at Wyoming, but he didn't display that he
Speaker 1: could be this kind of runner at the NFL level.
Speaker 1: So what you're talking about is elite talent, elite movement
Speaker 1: skills or whatever. Lamar Jackson ridiculous runner at Louisville Co.
Speaker 1: Can move around and make all those things. But what
Speaker 1: did we say, Hey man, he wasn't an accurate thrower
Speaker 1: outside the numbers. The ball fell off the table when
Speaker 1: he had to throw outside, breaking routes that landed outside
Speaker 1: the numbers. Two time MVP. All the trades wide receiver
Speaker 1: likes and those things. I mean, DJ, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the best of the best were the ones that we
Speaker 1: physically looked at and said, you know what, we're gonna do. Guys,
Speaker 1: I'm a fool dark and I'll say that, Hey, it's
Speaker 1: talent and tools are gonna give us a chance to
Speaker 1: build an offense around what he can do really, really well.
Speaker 2: And I think the teams that are, you know, considering
Speaker 2: the second wave of quarterbacks, I think you know it's
Speaker 2: been a minute now, but you know what you're hoping,
Speaker 2: you're holding on hope is that it's your Derek Carr,
Speaker 2: your Andy Dalton, you know, Russ, You've got cousins like that.
Speaker 2: That's been a minute since teams were hitting the Jose
Speaker 2: guys and that portion of the draft.
Speaker 1: Everybody that you're talking about, Russell's in his thirteenth year.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody is everybody that we're talking about, that's
Speaker 1: a decade plus ago since.
Speaker 2: Then, Hurts is probably like in terms of like the
Speaker 2: day two guys, he's like the.
Speaker 1: Last will it Hurts and it's Brock Purdy. They're the last,
Speaker 1: the last of them that we can talk about being that.
Speaker 1: And so when you think about let's just I mean,
Speaker 1: let's just talk about a couple of years ago, we
Speaker 1: got excited about hey man, Desmond Ritter Man, Maybe Desmond
Speaker 1: Ritter can be the day to guy that man, Desmond
Speaker 1: rid has been on this he's on his third team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he can't stick because when you put him out there,
Speaker 1: you now, really and this is no disrespect or slight
Speaker 1: to Desmond Ritter, like look, respect anyone who's been in
Speaker 1: the league or whatever. But there have been teams and
Speaker 1: coaches who've had him on the field and they quickly decided,
Speaker 1: I can't compete with the best of the best with
Speaker 1: him as my starting quarterback. H can he pick it
Speaker 1: on his third team? He was a first round pick
Speaker 1: in that draft. Same thing. There are teams that decided,
Speaker 1: man like, if he's on the field, like he's good,
Speaker 1: but he ain't good enough to help us close the
Speaker 1: gap on the competitors. That's what we're talking about. And
Speaker 1: so the interesting thing that we'll see in this draft,
Speaker 1: how many decision makers and stand firm on those ideals
Speaker 1: that we talk about. This is one thing for you
Speaker 1: and I to say, non, be patient, you better get
Speaker 1: the right one. It's another thing when the owner and
Speaker 1: the fan base is clamoring for a franchise quarterback.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a huge challenge. It is a huge challenge.
Speaker 2: But I mean I get it. You got to take
Speaker 2: your swings. My whole thing is, though, if you're just
Speaker 2: gonna swing like man, go for it like there's no
Speaker 2: you go up to the high dive. You don't just
Speaker 2: jump in the pool like you gotta go up and
Speaker 2: take your swing. Man, go for somebody that if they hit,
Speaker 2: you hit big.
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about that. So here's the funny thing.
Speaker 1: So when you do that, though, nobody remembers why you
Speaker 1: took the swing. Anthony Richardson, Right, So the ind and
Speaker 1: fis goes fourth over a pick. They take a swing
Speaker 1: on Anthony Richardson. Everyone loves it at the time, But
Speaker 1: oh man, the tools are the talent in this and that,
Speaker 1: and then he plays. And then when he plays, you
Speaker 1: don't have the patience to live through the icky stuff
Speaker 1: that you have to live through to hope that he
Speaker 1: gets to the other side. So that's the conundrum that
Speaker 1: decision makers find because when I do gamble on the
Speaker 1: tools and the traits, man, I need to support of
Speaker 1: everybody inside the building and outside the building to understand
Speaker 1: what we're going through.
Speaker 2: I mean, all those a lot of those guys you
Speaker 2: mentioned like they were a little bit patient with Josh
Speaker 2: and then he got it. You know, he figured it
Speaker 2: out pretty quickly, but there was some some downtime early
Speaker 2: on there. Mahomes didn't play right away. Love, who had
Speaker 2: a ton of tools, didn't play right away. So it's
Speaker 2: interesting how and Lamar they crafted the whole thing around,
Speaker 2: starting with his legs and then the arm. You know,
Speaker 2: he just he's getting better and better and better every
Speaker 2: single year as a pastor. So I mean, it's you
Speaker 2: gotta have a plan in place for those guys, and
Speaker 2: you got to be able to live with some of the.
Speaker 1: I think, I think the biggest thing that you're talking
Speaker 1: about is everyone has to live with the struggles that
Speaker 1: come along with it. And so like the guy, So
Speaker 1: we talked about office wide receiver, quarterback, they're ones, and
Speaker 1: in DJ, I say the final thing I'm rafting with,
Speaker 1: I would say the cornerbacks. And normally with cornerbacks, it's
Speaker 1: pretty easy for me to categorize them and where do
Speaker 1: you put them and where do you pluck them? To me,
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of guys that kind
Speaker 1: of deserve the same grade. They all are kind of
Speaker 1: in that that second round category. So the Kentucky the
Speaker 1: Kentucky kid Harston. You know, people are really excited about him.
Speaker 1: So now after the comment, people are talking about him
Speaker 1: as a first rounder. But then I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: tape and I'm like, Okay, I mean is he I
Speaker 1: mean he could, but is he really a first rounder?
Speaker 1: Then I think about all the other guys, like Revel
Speaker 1: has been hurt, so we're dealing with the East Carolina
Speaker 1: got coming off the A cl you got Thomas from
Speaker 1: Florida State who's talented. But they all are still in
Speaker 1: that Yeah, so like, yeah, they're in the thing, even Morrison,
Speaker 1: Like they all in the same thing. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm all right, like, yeah, I can get excited about
Speaker 1: these guys in the second round, but I don't think
Speaker 1: they're game changes.
Speaker 2: That's why Amos, That's why Amos Amos ended up being
Speaker 2: kind of a winner through this whole thing, you know,
Speaker 2: because he's one hundred and ninety five pounds. First of all,
Speaker 2: he ran four four three, which is a great time
Speaker 2: for him, which that was kind of the question. The
Speaker 2: knock on him was the speed. So he's my forty
Speaker 2: first player, but I do my next update. He'll probably
Speaker 2: move up a few spots, but like Harrison's thirty nine,
Speaker 2: Amos forty one, Thomas forty two, Morrison forty four. Like
Speaker 2: I kind of have all those guys personally as all
Speaker 2: second round players, you know, but there's teams with needs
Speaker 2: at that position, screaming needs, and I in terms of
Speaker 2: like the grades, there's guys I have in the twenties
Speaker 2: grades not much different from the from those four corners
Speaker 2: that I just mentioned.
Speaker 1: They're in the forties. So if you need one, I
Speaker 1: guess you just hate one. I guess that's and that's
Speaker 1: where we're at. And you know, it's funny because then
Speaker 1: we end up talking about the draft class overall what
Speaker 1: it sounds like in the conversation. I'm listening to my stuff.
Speaker 1: When I'm listening to you, Yeah, good at that. Great.
Speaker 1: And so if I'm a decision maker, hey man, I'm
Speaker 1: butting I'm gonna take a few picks early and I
Speaker 1: would trade some of my back end stuff to make
Speaker 1: sure I get a handful of guys, three or four
Speaker 1: guys that I feel great about it. And then I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good on the rest. And we've seen that.
Speaker 2: Because that's that's how you got to look at it.
Speaker 2: You got to look at it. It's a doubles It's
Speaker 2: a doubles draft.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: Like you know, we talked about the quarterback position. If
Speaker 2: you're gonna swing, swing for the fences. Yeah, But outside
Speaker 2: of the quarterback position, the rest of these guys, I
Speaker 2: like guys that come in clear packaging. I know, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get starters and uh and fill some holes and
Speaker 2: then move on. But in terms of like high high
Speaker 2: end impact, there's not a ton of that. It just isn't.
Speaker 1: It isn't, and it's gonna continue to be one of
Speaker 1: those things where we we have to. You know, it's
Speaker 1: funny like cant get caught up into bright lights and
Speaker 1: go on TV and say something like, oh, I mean
Speaker 1: I feel great about this, and then you're like, you
Speaker 1: got a quotable that's out there existing in the either
Speaker 1: on a player that you don't feel as strong me
Speaker 1: is about because as we're sitting here talking about Amanda,
Speaker 1: class is good, not great. There's some great players, but
Speaker 1: they're more good players than great players in this class.
Speaker 1: And I think, look, it'd be interesting when we get
Speaker 1: down to it because we always kind of talk about
Speaker 1: the number of first round grades that you have on
Speaker 1: people normally we talk about eighteen to twenty two first
Speaker 1: round grades. I wonder, after we do all of it,
Speaker 1: if we come away with like fifteen guys that really
Speaker 1: care first round grades. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: One thing that's interesting is it's the non premier positions.
Speaker 2: I gave you two running backs, so I think I
Speaker 2: feel really really strongly about. I give you two tight
Speaker 2: ends I feel really strongly about, and I'll give you
Speaker 2: two safeties I feel really strongly about. And at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, if you come away with one
Speaker 2: of those six guys in the first round, thank you.
Speaker 1: I think that is I think that is a really
Speaker 1: good approach. I think those guys that you talk about
Speaker 1: gent Hampton and running back, you talk about Warren and
Speaker 1: Loveland at tied end and starts and even worry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sign me up. And it's funny because those physicians are
Speaker 1: non premium positions, and so so much of the value
Speaker 1: that we talked about in the first round excluded those.
Speaker 1: But now that we're talking to a coach not this year,
Speaker 1: guys that we talked about red stars or can't miss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can sign up for any of those six guys,
Speaker 1: and I'm good with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's where we are different draft. Anything else
Speaker 2: you want to add before we get out of here, Buck.
Speaker 1: No, that's it, man, because we're able to touch on
Speaker 1: some of the things today. I'm talking about like seven
Speaker 1: of the guys that a trust to them, don't worry
Speaker 1: about the workouts, and we happen to it on now
Speaker 1: like that starts. It's on that list, and so that's
Speaker 1: what it is. DJ. I think this is one where, man,
Speaker 1: the scouts have to be really convicted and you have
Speaker 1: to avoid think tank because as the noise escalates as
Speaker 1: we get close to the production of the draft, man,
Speaker 1: you got to trust your instincts on which players are
Speaker 1: really the players and kind of ignore all the other
Speaker 1: stuff that's going to be banded.
Speaker 2: About, no doubt. Well, this has been a fun one.
Speaker 2: Hope you guys have enjoyed it. We'll be back next
Speaker 2: week and we've got shoot ours pro day at the
Speaker 2: end up next week, I believe, right, So we'll have Yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll have that on NFL Networks, being a look out
Speaker 2: for that, and lots of draft stuff coming your way
Speaker 2: throughout podcast that we have here as well as the shows.
Speaker 2: We've got an NFL network, So keep an eye out
Speaker 2: for that. We'll see you next time, right here on
Speaker 2: movie sticks.