Speaker 1: This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan
Speaker 1: Lazar and Alex Barth and Lazarre.
Speaker 2: Hell everybody nailed it, joined us always by our Bara.
Speaker 3: Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars I.
Speaker 1: I know Ben Jonson's a nerd and they don't like
Speaker 1: running guys the way they operated in Detroit. I think
Speaker 1: he may be one of these nerds that is a
Speaker 1: little softer on the running back thing than everybody else.
Speaker 1: But you will disown that guy so fast from the
Speaker 1: nerd community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you take a running this is what you
Speaker 2: you you if you want until they you dumb nerd
Speaker 2: stuff and then you just own them and you.
Speaker 1: Say, because it's not like a nerd, but all do,
Speaker 1: but this isn't.
Speaker 2: That's not nerd. Of they didn't do it, neither team
Speaker 2: they Yeah, you're right, Jaguars not exactly full nerd. Trading
Speaker 2: up and giving up capital is not usual. No, No,
Speaker 2: that's a RAMS thing. A lot of value in the
Speaker 2: picks is actually more of a nerd thing. But that's okay.
Speaker 2: Travis Hunter not a running back last time I checked.
Speaker 2: Colston Lovelin not a running back last time they're.
Speaker 1: Coting to play Travis Hunter both ways full time is
Speaker 1: a pretty big nerd thing because you're not accounting the
Speaker 1: human element of stamina. You're just looking at what the
Speaker 1: data tells you he can do.
Speaker 2: Because Travis Hunter has had no success at a high
Speaker 2: level of football, doing.
Speaker 1: Is the NFL is a little different than the Big twelve.
Speaker 2: Anyways, Travis Hunter, Jaguars Catch, excited to do it. This
Speaker 2: is not Jaguars Catch. So hello everybody. On that note, Hi, Hello,
Speaker 2: Evan Lazar, Alex Barth with you for the next couple
Speaker 2: hours here a very special exciting show today, post draft show,
Speaker 2: big show for us, and I just want to lay
Speaker 2: out the agenda here today. Alex and I are going
Speaker 2: to do our normal show for the first like hour
Speaker 2: forty hour, forty five minutes here today, and then at
Speaker 2: the end of the show you're going to want to
Speaker 2: stay all the way to the end because yesterday we
Speaker 2: were able to sit down with Dan Brugler from The
Speaker 2: Athletic the Beast himself and discuss the Patriots draft class
Speaker 2: and why Dane ranked the Patriots as the best draft
Speaker 2: in the entire NFL. So we're jam packed today, so
Speaker 2: that means calls and emails I'm not sure we're going
Speaker 2: to get to those today because we want to go
Speaker 2: pick by pick through all eleven picks, and then obviously
Speaker 2: you guys all want to hear what Dane has to
Speaker 2: say at the end of the show as well, So
Speaker 2: we got a lot to get to. On that note,
Speaker 2: I do want to start with just our big picture
Speaker 2: thoughts on the draft, and I would just start by saying,
Speaker 2: we're all very excited about what the Patriots have done
Speaker 2: this offseason. We're all very optimistic about this ero with
Speaker 2: Mike Rabel and Elliott Wolf and Ryan Cowden and Stretch
Speaker 2: and the whole gang and draft they put together was fantastic.
Speaker 2: And I'm not that's not Sunshine dot com Like, I
Speaker 2: really thought it was a great draft. Yeah, I thought
Speaker 2: it was a great draft that they had. That said,
Speaker 2: I do want to keep expectations a little bit in check.
Speaker 2: I hear a lot of playoffs conversations right now about
Speaker 2: this team. Yeah, we're let's see what the team looks
Speaker 2: like in training camp in the preseason before we start
Speaker 2: talking about playoffs. All right, It's we got a ways
Speaker 2: to go until that's, you know, back to back four
Speaker 2: win seasons to playoffs. But they're headed in the right direction.
Speaker 2: The most encouraging thing I thought from a big picture
Speaker 2: standpoint with this draft, Alex was the feel for the board,
Speaker 2: and the feel for the board married with UH getting
Speaker 2: their needs checked, but also doing it with the board
Speaker 2: in mind right and not reaching for need or missing
Speaker 2: runs on positions of need or anything like that that
Speaker 2: maybe we saw a little bit of in the twenty
Speaker 2: four draft. The twenty five draft, it seemed a lot more.
Speaker 2: To use Elliott what Wells word organized, Like, they felt
Speaker 2: more organized. The draft made more sense. It felt more
Speaker 2: routine for them. So when he came out and said
Speaker 2: this was more organized this process, it showed you could
Speaker 2: feel it. It was tangible. There was evidence of it
Speaker 2: being more organized. So that's all very exciting. Like I said,
Speaker 2: we'll get to the individual picks as we go here today,
Speaker 2: But what were your big picture thoughts on the draft?
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of the same thing. I thought. The biggest
Speaker 1: thing that stood out to me was the big debate
Speaker 1: beyond the players themselves, Like the big philosophical debate for
Speaker 1: me for the Patriots in this draft was drafting for
Speaker 1: need versus best player available, and then how much should
Speaker 1: you value premium position. How much ald premium position factor
Speaker 1: into that? And I thought they walked the line between
Speaker 1: those two things incredibly well. You know, you look at
Speaker 1: their first pick and Will Campbell. That was not to
Speaker 1: say he wasn't arguably the best player available, you know,
Speaker 1: for what they had, but you know, ash Gent, he
Speaker 1: would have been the pure best player available pick. Right,
Speaker 1: We've talked about that. But they go out, they address
Speaker 1: their biggest need at a premium position right off the top,
Speaker 1: and then what do they do. They come back at
Speaker 1: pick thirty eight, and that was a pure best player
Speaker 1: available pick if Luther Burden wasn't on their board. And
Speaker 1: you could debate whether or not that's right, but I
Speaker 1: think we all kind of assumed they weren't going to
Speaker 1: draft Luthor Burden. So if Luther Burn's not on their board,
Speaker 1: there's a real argument they're right there at Trevion Henderson's
Speaker 1: just best player available, so you know, and they kind
Speaker 1: of went back and forth on that. And I thought
Speaker 1: the other thing is they did a really good job
Speaker 1: of supporting Drake may I thought this draft helped out
Speaker 1: Drake May a ton and I said this a lot
Speaker 1: into the lead up, and I'll say it again, what's
Speaker 1: best for the football team is what's best for Drake
Speaker 1: May and vice versa. At this point, Drake May is
Speaker 1: their best asset. They need to maximize him. They last
Speaker 1: time they draft a quarterback. Now there were other issues there,
Speaker 1: but last time the draft a quarterback, they did not
Speaker 1: do that. This felt like them doing that, especially after
Speaker 1: free agencies and people were nervous, and I get why,
Speaker 1: Like they signed all these defensive players and didn't at
Speaker 1: Morgan Moses. I think the ones true starter they added
Speaker 1: in free agency on offense, which is fun, step on
Speaker 1: to roll, like the initial Waight Yeah, Stefan Diggs just
Speaker 1: a good point. But like I think a lot of
Speaker 1: these picks. You know, you go out, you get a
Speaker 1: really good yards after catch receiver, you get a three
Speaker 1: down running back who's a home run threat. You get
Speaker 1: obviously starting left tackle, right, starting later, starting center. So
Speaker 1: I think that they did a lot to invest in
Speaker 1: Drake May. Now May has to prove that those investments
Speaker 1: are worthwhile, right, which we all think he can do.
Speaker 1: But they invested in Drake May, which I love.
Speaker 2: All Right, let's get to it. Let's get to the
Speaker 2: nitty gritty. Yeah, you it's not waste any time here
Speaker 2: today deliberating big picture thoughts. But I think the we've
Speaker 2: talked so much about Will Campbell over the last five months. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't have a ton to add on Will Campbell,
Speaker 2: So I don't want to spend a ton of time
Speaker 2: on Will Campbell. I do feel like though, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm writing our future series that we'll have on every pick,
Speaker 2: all eleven picks. We're gonna start rolling those out soon
Speaker 2: on the website. And I have talked to his offensive
Speaker 2: line coach at LSU, Duke Mannyweather, some other people that
Speaker 2: have worked with Will Campbell have been around Will Campbell.
Speaker 2: I got to spend ten minutes with him even on
Speaker 2: Patriots Unfiltered last week. So I've now that I've gotten
Speaker 2: to know him a little bit just from talking to
Speaker 2: people in his life. I understand the intangible even more.
Speaker 2: And we talked a ton about the intangible stuff. We
Speaker 2: talked a ton about the tangible the football on this show,
Speaker 2: and we have deliberated and debated all the different pros
Speaker 2: and cons and poked every single hole in Will Campbell's
Speaker 2: game that we possibly could. But what I think I
Speaker 2: keep coming back to his offensive line coach Brad Davis
Speaker 2: at LSU told me that he re established the culture
Speaker 2: of the LSU offensive line room, you know, in terms
Speaker 2: of work ethic and competitiveness and putting in those extra
Speaker 2: you know a couple minutes you know, after practice and
Speaker 2: in the weight room and in the film room and
Speaker 2: in the cold tub and in the you know, with
Speaker 2: the doctors and the nutritionists and like all these different things.
Speaker 2: And when you start to think about it, and his
Speaker 2: offensive line coach even pointed out to me that he
Speaker 2: actually spent a lot of his own money, his NIO money,
Speaker 2: on working with specialists, you know, physical therapists, trainers, you know,
Speaker 2: things like that. This guy, as he as Dave has
Speaker 2: put it to me, has been a pro for like
Speaker 2: two or three years already at LSU because he's been
Speaker 2: conducting himself that way and completely re established or built
Speaker 2: the culture back up from twenty nineteen when they won
Speaker 2: the Joe Moore Award, you know, Joe Burrow and Jefferson
Speaker 2: and had a great offensive line in twenty nineteen, they
Speaker 2: took a little bit of a step back for a
Speaker 2: couple of years. Will Campbell arrives on campus and then
Speaker 2: they are, you know, one of the better offensive lines
Speaker 2: in the country from that point on. So as much
Speaker 2: as I feel like fans here, let's talk about all
Speaker 2: this leadership and and tangible stuff, And they say, well,
Speaker 2: if that's the first thing you're saying about the player,
Speaker 2: then he might maybe is he not really that good
Speaker 2: of a football player?
Speaker 1: Three months talking about how good of a football player.
Speaker 2: This is on top of the fact that he is
Speaker 2: a really good football player, And that's what gets you
Speaker 2: as an offensive lineman or as last year, I heard
Speaker 2: a lot of the same things when I did the
Speaker 2: feature on Drake May It's that's how you get to
Speaker 2: be the number four overall pick. You don't go number
Speaker 2: four overall most of the time simply just because you're
Speaker 2: an overwhelming talent. A lot of the time you go
Speaker 2: for overall because of the entire package that you bring to.
Speaker 1: The table a program player. Yeah, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what they're getting in Will Campbell. And you're, like you said,
Speaker 1: we've covered him extensively for last four months. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much more there is to really add at
Speaker 1: this point, but I'm with you in the sense that
Speaker 1: you know he's going to be good for the program.
Speaker 1: I don't expect there to be much of a learning
Speaker 1: curve with him in terms of, you know, being a rookie,
Speaker 1: being a kid and figuring things out. I think he
Speaker 1: kind of has it all, you know, outwardly, it seems
Speaker 1: like he has a lot figured out at this point,
Speaker 1: which is very impressed at twenty one years old. That's
Speaker 1: the other thing I'll remind people because I think you
Speaker 1: hear so much about his leadership and his experience and
Speaker 1: this and that, but you know, people talk about I
Speaker 1: think people don't realize he just turned twenty one in January.
Speaker 1: So this is a young guy. And from a football standpoint, like, wow,
Speaker 1: you could have yeah, breaking thing, no idea, what do
Speaker 1: we do it? From a football standpoint, he has a
Speaker 1: lot of room to get better physically because he's only
Speaker 1: twenty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point and something that I've gravitated towards.
Speaker 2: And this is not just because they've done it a
Speaker 2: lot recently, but you know, I've gravitated towards the young breakout,
Speaker 2: the true junior declare is like those types of guys.
Speaker 2: And now the Patriots have had three in a row.
Speaker 2: Christian Gonzales, Drake may, Will Campbell, and those are the
Speaker 2: guys that have that upper echelon, blue chip level talent
Speaker 2: and they break out early, and then they're able to
Speaker 2: come out early and then go to the NFL at
Speaker 2: a young age, and that that's where Will Campbell's at.
Speaker 2: You have something else to say, Oh, all right, let's
Speaker 2: move on. I don't want to talk too much.
Speaker 1: About you spend because we've got a lot of players
Speaker 1: to get to him. We've talked about it.
Speaker 2: We've spent five months talking about Will Campbell. All right,
Speaker 2: next pick here, Travon Henderson from Ohio State, running back,
Speaker 2: thirty eighth overall. A couple of things that stand out
Speaker 2: to me about Trevon Henderson when I watched him pre draft.
Speaker 2: First of all, you mentioned it off the top home
Speaker 2: run hitter. Right, This is a guy that can take
Speaker 2: a pass behind the line of scrimmage from sixty five
Speaker 2: yards out and house it and put it in the
Speaker 2: end zone. Did it against Oregon, did it against Texas
Speaker 2: and the college football Playoff. So we're not talking about
Speaker 2: him doing it against you know, Long Beach Polytech, right,
Speaker 2: We're talking about him doing it against a big time
Speaker 2: competition with other fell players on the field. The other
Speaker 2: things that stood out to me. I think he's a
Speaker 2: really loose or fluid mover in space. I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: that he's a jump card jump cut artist.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's overly elusive necessarily, but what he
Speaker 2: is is very you know, dynamic in his movements, and
Speaker 2: he can create separation as a receiver. He can get
Speaker 2: out in space and he can either eliminate pursuit angles
Speaker 2: or run through tackles or things of that nature. I
Speaker 2: think that he's one of those players that's in a
Speaker 2: similar mold, you know, if you want to, we always
Speaker 2: talk about like ceiling, realistic comps, floor comps. Right for
Speaker 2: these types of players. The ceiling of this archetype is
Speaker 2: Jamier Gibbs. I think he's the right now, at least
Speaker 2: in the NFL. He's the top guy in this mold
Speaker 2: in what Trayvon Henderson is hopefully going to bring to
Speaker 2: the Patriots, the realistic comp that I made for him.
Speaker 2: And again this is all, this is not all. The
Speaker 2: Patriots drafted this guy, so now I'm gonna gast him up.
Speaker 2: Was Breese Hall with the Jets, right, A guy that
Speaker 2: can do both, that can run the football, catch the ball,
Speaker 2: out of the backfield, big play threat whenever he touches
Speaker 2: the football. So I look at those two backfields David
Speaker 2: Montgomery and Jamier Gibbs and Braylan Allen and Breese Hall
Speaker 2: in New York, and I say, Ramondroe, Stevenson Traveon Henderson.
Speaker 2: So I know a lot of people have talked about
Speaker 2: his pass protection. He is a very good pass protector,
Speaker 2: highlight the underselling, high level bits, pick up guy, no
Speaker 2: doubt about it. I love that element of his game.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really big part of getting him
Speaker 2: on the field on third down early on in his career.
Speaker 2: So I'm not underrating it or trying to make little
Speaker 2: of it, but almost like with receivers, you're not drafting
Speaker 2: him to block, Okay, you're drafting him to house the
Speaker 2: ball from seventy five yards out like that. That's what
Speaker 2: you're hoping to get with the player. And when you
Speaker 2: take him thirty eight overall, that's what you're hoping to
Speaker 2: get out of t On Henderson. So I'm very excited
Speaker 2: that one they looked at it and said, we need
Speaker 2: big plays on offense, we need explosiveness on offense, and
Speaker 2: this certainly did it. As did Kyle Williams. But I'm
Speaker 2: also really excited about the pairing with Remandre. I think
Speaker 2: the two of those guys together are thunder and lightning.
Speaker 2: Like they have a power downhill back with Remandre and
Speaker 2: now they have a real explosive back with Traveon.
Speaker 1: Henders, and they can kind of get back to that
Speaker 1: early down passing down back thing too. Certainly, both guys
Speaker 1: are relatively rounded. I think Henderson's incredibly well rounded. But
Speaker 1: that's the interesting thing. Like people are gonna compare him
Speaker 1: to James White. That was a lot of it after
Speaker 1: the draft, and I think he can play that James
Speaker 1: White role, but he can do it differently because he's
Speaker 1: a better traditional run player than the players the Patriots
Speaker 1: have usually had in that role. James White wasn't somebody
Speaker 1: you were getting under center and handing it off to
Speaker 1: in the a gap, right, There wasn't a ton of that.
Speaker 1: And look, it was because they won the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: But like if you remember in twenty eighteen, one of
Speaker 1: the big storylines that year was based on the running
Speaker 1: back usage the offense becoming too predictable. I think they
Speaker 1: were running the ball like sixty something percent of the
Speaker 1: time when Sony Michelle was on the field, which again
Speaker 1: they won the Super Bowl ultimately whatever, but they don't
Speaker 1: exactly have the offensive line now that they had then.
Speaker 1: So what Tradeon Henderson does is he removes some of
Speaker 1: that predictability and Ramonder Stevenson to an extent as well,
Speaker 1: because he's gonna handle himself in the pass game. He's
Speaker 1: not quite the receiver Henderson is, but he's not somebody
Speaker 1: all right, well, Henderson's in the game, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're seeing in the huddle, you're not seeing it as
Speaker 1: a defense. When they break to the formation. You know,
Speaker 1: James White goes in the huddle, all right, let's go light,
Speaker 1: you're gonna pass. Let's get ready to match up. Henderson
Speaker 1: could be in the huddle and you're thinking, all right,
Speaker 1: they're going pass, let's go nickel, let's go dime, whatever.
Speaker 1: And now they come out under center and they motioned
Speaker 1: the tight end in and suddenly they're ready to run
Speaker 1: power or something like that. So you weren't necessarily doing
Speaker 1: that with guys like James White, or guys like Danny
Speaker 1: Woodhead or guys like Shane Vereen. So as long as
Speaker 1: they've kind of done this dichotomy of early down passing down.
Speaker 1: The early down back is usually the lead back, and
Speaker 1: he's the guy that's gonna be on the field more.
Speaker 1: So this might look a little different where I think
Speaker 1: it'll still be early down passing down, but the passing
Speaker 1: down back is going to be the lead back. He's
Speaker 1: the guy who's gonna play more. I don't think Henderson's
Speaker 1: a feature back. That was the big concern at High
Speaker 1: or one of the big concerns Ohio State. He had
Speaker 1: some durability issues early in his career. That's what part
Speaker 1: of the reason they went out and got Quinn Shawn
Speaker 1: Judkins in the transfer portal. But I don't think Henderson
Speaker 1: needs to be a feature back. He's not somebody that
Speaker 1: needs to carry the ball three hundred times in a
Speaker 1: season to justify that pick. So, but lead back means
Speaker 1: he's gonna get the majority. He's gonna be the starting
Speaker 1: running back, if you want to call it that, even
Speaker 1: though you know he is not necessarily gonna start every game.
Speaker 1: But I think he can be the lead back wherez
Speaker 1: Stevenson will still play a significant role, but it might
Speaker 1: not be as big. He might be the second running
Speaker 1: back on the roster.
Speaker 2: So It's interesting because I agree with you, and I've
Speaker 2: heard a lot about him as receiving ups and yeah,
Speaker 2: that's certainly a big part of it. He averaged over
Speaker 2: eleven yards per catch at at Ohio State for his career.
Speaker 2: Like I said, awesome, pass protector, awesome and blitz pick up.
Speaker 2: But I don't think it's correct or fair, I guess
Speaker 2: is the better word. I don't think it's fair to
Speaker 2: call Henderson a receiving back. I think Henderson is a
Speaker 2: true change of paceback, like he's a true speedback, change
Speaker 2: of pace back. And one of the things that I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about with this pick is that we have
Speaker 2: seen especially last year, and maybe it changes with Josh
Speaker 2: McDaniels and as they get this thing up and running
Speaker 2: and they have better players around him. But there's no
Speaker 2: doubt about it in my mind that Drake may is
Speaker 2: more comfortable in the shotgun than he is under center.
Speaker 2: And that's just the nature of the beast. With these
Speaker 2: young quarterbacks these days, they're all in these spread offenses,
Speaker 2: these air raids, these RPOs, things like that, Like they're
Speaker 2: all doing the same stuff in college football for the
Speaker 2: most part. So that's the beast, right now you have
Speaker 2: to be able to cater your offense to that type
Speaker 2: of team. And if the Patriots are going to be
Speaker 2: a gun run team, if they're going to be heavy
Speaker 2: in that respect in terms of shotgun versus under center split,
Speaker 2: then I love Ramandre Stevenson as a player. I think
Speaker 2: last year was a blip. I think he's a better
Speaker 2: player than what he showed on tape in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: But he's not necessarily a gun run back. Gun run
Speaker 2: backs are water bugs. Gun run backs have great speed
Speaker 2: instance stop start acceleration because they don't get a run
Speaker 2: up to the line of scrimmage. Like if you're under
Speaker 2: center and you're in a power eye or whatever and
Speaker 2: the back is all the way, you know, eight yards
Speaker 2: in the backfield, then they have that run up to
Speaker 2: the line of scrimmage to come up and hit the
Speaker 2: line of scrimmage harder. When you're in the gun, you're
Speaker 2: at a standstill, you're sitting offset to the quarterback, and
Speaker 2: you don't have that run up. So you need to
Speaker 2: have guys that have really good explosiveness and really good
Speaker 2: ten yard splits. You also want guys that can dance,
Speaker 2: you know, out of early penetration and things like that.
Speaker 2: So when I start to look at the way they
Speaker 2: might build this offense under Josh McDaniels with Drake May
Speaker 2: and think about the Travon Henderson pick, Travon Henderson is
Speaker 2: a classic gun back, like, he's a classic gun run
Speaker 2: RPO read option that type of running back. So if
Speaker 2: they're going to lean into that sort of way of
Speaker 2: doing things offensively, then they needed somebody in this mold
Speaker 2: like they needed somebody that could do that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: I am sure. I just we've both had Josh McDaniels
Speaker 2: in our football worlds for a very long time. I
Speaker 2: am sure there will be a time and place where
Speaker 2: it's gonna be Remondra Stevenson in the power eye with
Speaker 2: a full back in front of Yeah, there will be
Speaker 2: a time and place for all of that. But my
Speaker 2: guess is that we are going to see a lot
Speaker 2: more shotgun than maybe they did with McDaniels in the past.
Speaker 2: And you know, if that's the case, then this is
Speaker 2: the type of running back that fits that type of mold.
Speaker 1: My guess is, when I was just kind of looking
Speaker 1: up some usage how McDaniel's split running backs in the past,
Speaker 1: my guess is, once they get it going, and maybe
Speaker 1: they east Henderson into it, we'll see, depending on where
Speaker 1: he's at a camp. But like, if they get it
Speaker 1: where they want to get it, my guess is it's
Speaker 1: going to be like sixty forty Henderson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd call it.
Speaker 1: Fifty five thirty five with the other ten percent going
Speaker 1: to Gibson or Lean laris In or somebody.
Speaker 2: And that's basically what it is in Detroit at this point,
Speaker 2: is that Jamir Gibbs is the featured back, but it's
Speaker 2: not necessarily the volume that you might see it for.
Speaker 2: You know, true Bell.
Speaker 1: Caek So feature to me is bell cow I used
Speaker 1: this terminology earlier. I don't know if this is like
Speaker 1: how everybody does it. This was his mine. So feature
Speaker 1: back is remember that they asked Bill about they Corey
Speaker 1: Dillon in two thousand and four. Feature back is Derrick Henry.
Speaker 1: Feature back is right. Lead back just means the majority,
Speaker 1: but he's not, okay, like a heavy usage.
Speaker 2: That's but I.
Speaker 1: Would That's That's where I'm at with Henderson. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's a feature back, but I think he'll end
Speaker 1: up being the lead back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you, I really again, it's a
Speaker 2: stylistic thing to me more than anything that if they're
Speaker 2: going to play that kind of authensic cater to Drake May,
Speaker 2: then he's their guy.
Speaker 1: He's the type of guy we're going to go under center.
Speaker 1: More like, they still needed speed even from under center.
Speaker 1: They needed more speed, especially at that position, and they
Speaker 1: got more speed and breakaway ability.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, speaking to speed, this
Speaker 2: is a good pace. We're not we're not getting bogged
Speaker 2: down too much yet we will.
Speaker 1: We're twenty minutes in two picks. Okay, we're doing ten
Speaker 1: minutes a pick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not bad Like normally this would be like us
Speaker 2: deliberating a pick for like twenty and.
Speaker 1: It'll also get a little shorter as we go. But
Speaker 1: I do want to get to the udfas. Don't want
Speaker 1: to make sure we have time.
Speaker 2: For me too. All Right, the next pick, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do a golf clap. I want you to take a
Speaker 2: victory lap. I want you to go ahead. I'm going
Speaker 2: to clear the decks for you right now. Kyle Williams
Speaker 2: six ninth. Overall, nice, nice to the Patriots from Washington State,
Speaker 2: and I'm doing the golf clap. Yeah for Alex here
Speaker 2: because you told me about Kyle Williams before the Senior Bowl.
Speaker 2: This was your guy. You were on it, and he
Speaker 2: just quickly crept up the board or not so quickly, honestly.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of all of a sudden, like
Speaker 1: two weeks ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like steadily is a better word. Yeah, crept up
Speaker 2: the board. Great Senior Bowl week that I slept on.
Speaker 2: Feel bad about that.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you next year, just remember this. The last
Speaker 1: guy up in the reps. Yeah you don't, because you're
Speaker 1: like onto the next thing, right, Yeah, the last guy
Speaker 1: up in there, because I'm guilty of this a training camp.
Speaker 1: The last guy up in the reps. You gotta pay
Speaker 1: attention to. So because he just lapped.
Speaker 2: Up like every sneaky sneaky good Senior Bowl when ESPN
Speaker 2: was going commercial and everybody comes out of the Senior
Speaker 2: Bowl week asking of Jalen Nole for rightfully, so he
Speaker 2: had a great week. He's a good player. I still
Speaker 2: like Jalen Nole a lot, and nobody you know, he
Speaker 2: was kind of still gotten a little bit. There he
Speaker 2: goes to the combine, he puts down the four to four.
Speaker 2: Then people started to rewatch the film maybe or even
Speaker 2: just get to the film in general. Like me that
Speaker 2: was late to it. I will give it kills me.
Speaker 2: It pains me to do this, like one percent of
Speaker 2: the credit to Chris Simms, because Chris Simms came out
Speaker 2: and ran ranked him as like the second best receiver
Speaker 2: in the class, and everybody said, whoa, Kyle Williams second
Speaker 2: best receiver in the class? What am I missing here?
Speaker 2: But nobody, nobody was earlier to Kyle Williams than this man.
Speaker 1: The Washington State coaching staff was we got to get
Speaker 1: that credit. But from a draft point of view, yeah,
Speaker 1: I And again we'll have that interview with Dane later
Speaker 1: and I actually kind of asked him about why maybe
Speaker 1: that was. And there's a couple different reasons, but the
Speaker 1: big thing for me to get to Kyle Williams's pick.
Speaker 1: I won't go back and read through the text I
Speaker 1: sent you on.
Speaker 2: January enough stroking your ego twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: When I said, why is this guy eight hundred on
Speaker 1: the consensus board? What am I missing? Eight hundred on
Speaker 1: the cons his sport. But the big thing for me,
Speaker 1: so I think part of the reason he went later
Speaker 1: he's a late breakout player He's at UNLV for three years,
Speaker 1: transferred to Washington State in twenty twenty three. He had
Speaker 1: a solid year, he had eight hundred yards, like he
Speaker 1: wasn't bad, but last year goes off top ten in
Speaker 1: the nation and receiving all of that. And I actually,
Speaker 1: and I wrote about this on ninety eight five the
Speaker 1: sports sub dot com if people want to check it out.
Speaker 1: I actually I asked him after the pick, like, what
Speaker 1: changed for you? Right? Did he focus on something or
Speaker 1: emphasize something in his game to allow that breakout season happen?
Speaker 1: And he mentioned after the catch specifically, he said he
Speaker 1: wants to extend plays. He specifically said being able to
Speaker 1: turn a five yard hitch into a sixty yard touchdown,
Speaker 1: a three yard screen into a sixty yard touchdown, which he.
Speaker 2: Literally did at Washington State. Right, one was against Syracuse.
Speaker 2: In the other one, I'm blanking on the team he
Speaker 2: was playing against, but he.
Speaker 1: Literally Syracuse one was a slat. But I know you're
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Yeah, So he went from averaging
Speaker 1: five point five yards per carry in or five point
Speaker 1: five yards after the catch for his career. That number
Speaker 1: jumped to eight point four in twenty twenty four. The
Speaker 1: Patriots meanwhile ranked twenty fifth as a whole in yards
Speaker 1: after the catch in the NFL last year the wide
Speaker 1: receivers alone, so as a team they averaged five flat
Speaker 1: after the catch. The wide receivers alone averaged four, So
Speaker 1: Kyle Williams last year Washington State was more than double that.
Speaker 1: That's why I love this pick. He's going to be
Speaker 1: able to play all three spots X Z slot he
Speaker 1: gets open, he has separation metrics improved a lot last
Speaker 1: year as well, and then because he gets so open,
Speaker 1: he can run after the catch. Now it's one year
Speaker 1: of production, so he's a little less proven and I
Speaker 1: don't think the drop issues are as big as some
Speaker 1: people are making them. But he's not exactly the most
Speaker 1: short handed guy, so that's why he fell. But if
Speaker 1: they can get that figured out, and by the way,
Speaker 1: I think him working with Stefan Diggs is going to
Speaker 1: be amazing because there are some similarities there. Certainly, at
Speaker 1: least to me. I think he's a guy that can
Speaker 1: be maybe a low end number one, certainly a high
Speaker 1: end number two. I you know, doesn't quite have the
Speaker 1: size to be that true like number one X guy,
Speaker 1: but just his ability to create after the catch, which
Speaker 1: he clearly worked on a lot last year. They desperately
Speaker 1: needed that. I don't know the last time. The reason, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm so nervous to say I like, I feel like
Speaker 1: they're in a position to maximize Kyle Williams. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm nervous to say that because we've seen how it's
Speaker 1: gone for wide receivers the last few years. But I
Speaker 1: don't know the last time they had a wide receiver
Speaker 1: with this makeup. Like, he's not the big slot, He's
Speaker 1: not Jalen Polk, he's not a contested catch X. He's
Speaker 1: not Jaevon Baker, Nikhil Harry. He probably profiles closest to Pop,
Speaker 1: But Pop's not going to be outside playing the X.
Speaker 1: Pop's not running you know, some of the deeper rats
Speaker 1: that he's running. So this is the kind of wide
Speaker 1: receiver we've wanted them to invest in for a long
Speaker 1: time that they just haven't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's a great fit for Josh McDaniels, who
Speaker 2: I agree that. You know, one of the things with
Speaker 2: the draft is there's always these coin flip decisions, right,
Speaker 2: Like they pick Kyle Williams. I had Jalen Nole in
Speaker 2: full disclosure, I as with a higher grade than with
Speaker 2: Kyle Williams, you know, higher up my rankings, I should say,
Speaker 2: uh than Kyle Williams. So the honest question for people
Speaker 2: that followed us pre draft and you know, looked at
Speaker 2: my spreadsheet and my rankings and stuff, is well, why
Speaker 2: all of a sudden are you now you know, big
Speaker 2: Kyle Williams guy right, like you know what, shouldn't you
Speaker 2: be saying that they should have drafted Jalen Nole? But
Speaker 2: I think one of the coin flips and one of
Speaker 2: the decisions here is about why did they draft the
Speaker 2: player in Kyle Williams over Nol? And I think the
Speaker 2: biggest reason is something that you hit on, is that
Speaker 2: Kyle Williams has a little bit more ability to project
Speaker 2: as an outside receiver.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's a little bit more there in terms
Speaker 2: of him playing on the outside, whether it's as a
Speaker 2: true X or whatever you want to call it. Then
Speaker 2: with Noel Noll, I think profiled for pretty much ever
Speaker 2: everybody as a true speed slot like he was an
Speaker 2: inside receiver. That was what he was going to be
Speaker 2: in the NFL. Level. With Kyle Williams, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of really encouraging release work as an outside receiver. That
Speaker 2: gives you hope that he maybe can play closer to
Speaker 2: like a fifty to fifty split ideally, especially in this offense,
Speaker 2: he is a chess piece that Josh McDaniels is moving
Speaker 2: all around the formation to get him free release off
Speaker 2: the line of scrimmage. Whether it's in motion, it's a stack,
Speaker 2: it's a bunch, it's a slot rep, you know, whatever
Speaker 2: the case may be, just hunting re releases all over
Speaker 2: the field because when he gets those free releases, like
Speaker 2: the play against Syracuse. Yeah, the Patriots have historically called
Speaker 2: that too lane. It's they have that concept in their
Speaker 2: offense where the receiver on the line of scrimmage kind
Speaker 2: of runs a vertical, but he's really running a pick
Speaker 2: like he's kind of running a rub right, and that's
Speaker 2: going to create that pocket of space underneath the defense.
Speaker 2: And Kyle Williams actually has an option on that route.
Speaker 2: He can break in, or he can break out, or
Speaker 2: he can settle against zone coverage, and he's just going
Speaker 2: to rede leverage of the defender. So when the defender
Speaker 2: sets up outside of him and he just breaks into
Speaker 2: the middle of the field and then he's then he's
Speaker 2: on the runway right, he's just shot out of a
Speaker 2: cannon and houses it against against Syracuse in the Bowl
Speaker 2: game last year. Those types of routes are typically run
Speaker 2: by the Z receiver in this offense. But that's allus like,
Speaker 2: it's kind of not here North there. It doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: The point is is that you can see Kyle Williams
Speaker 2: doing things that easily translate right into Josh mcdaniels's scheme,
Speaker 2: whereas I don't know if you could necessarily do that
Speaker 2: with their past picks at receiver. What was Nikhil Harry's
Speaker 2: fit in Josh mcdaniels's.
Speaker 1: Office, It never made sense, right.
Speaker 2: What was Taekwon Thornton's fit? A sacrificial But he drafted
Speaker 2: a sacrificial X with the fiftieth.
Speaker 1: And he kept part of that too, is his injuries
Speaker 1: kept getting hurt.
Speaker 2: Right, But it just didn't feel like he wasn't a technician.
Speaker 2: He he was in a great yards after catch guy.
Speaker 2: He wasn't a quick hitter guy. He wasn't an early separator.
Speaker 2: He wasn't a quick separator off the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 2: They drafted a vertical X receiver to play in an
Speaker 2: offense that doesn't feature vertical X receivers. With Jalen Polk,
Speaker 2: I think there was a little bit more translation of
Speaker 2: what they used to do in the past, but probably
Speaker 2: not as much translation in an Alex Van Pelt offense,
Speaker 2: which is what they were drafting for at the time.
Speaker 2: So it just seems like this player has a great
Speaker 2: marriage between what he does well, what McDaniels wants to feature,
Speaker 2: and what the team needed, and all three of those
Speaker 2: things kind of came together with Kyle Williams in a
Speaker 2: really nice way. So the rep that I keep going
Speaker 2: back to other than the Syracuse one just because it's
Speaker 2: a concept that I've seen the Patriots run a million
Speaker 2: times is twenty twenty three when he runs right by
Speaker 2: Travis Hunter. Like that ability on the outside to just
Speaker 2: stack and separate on a go route outside the numbers
Speaker 2: on the best cornerback in the name like that, you
Speaker 2: hope is going to translate a little bit more then
Speaker 2: let's say, like a Jail and Nole would have done.
Speaker 2: Whereas you know, Nole is probably a little bit more
Speaker 2: polished as a route runner right now in terms of
Speaker 2: the technique and the top of the route and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. So I wanted to try to
Speaker 2: do comps for most of these guys. I think it
Speaker 2: helps people understand. I think the archetype the ceiling of
Speaker 2: this mold is Garrett Wilson. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: he's Garrett Wilson, like I've heard that comp with him.
Speaker 2: Garrett Wilson was I believe the eleventh or twelfth overall
Speaker 2: pick in his draft, absolute stud offensive, Rookie of the Year,
Speaker 2: perennial Pro bowler. That is a very high bar for
Speaker 2: the sixty ninth overall pick in the draft. I don't
Speaker 2: know if Kyle Williams is going to get to Garrett
Speaker 2: wilson territory.
Speaker 1: Williams also had much more runways just you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: he broke out younger.
Speaker 2: So I would say the guy that I've gravitated towards,
Speaker 2: and just because from a measurable standpoint and a play
Speaker 2: style standpoint, is you shot Bateman in Baltimore, And I know,
Speaker 2: Rashat Bateman sounds like a bust when you say the
Speaker 2: name ra Shod Bateman. He had a really nice year
Speaker 2: last year for Baltimore when he was finally healthy. He's
Speaker 2: battled injuries in Baltimore. There's no doubt about that. But
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about turning on the film and watching
Speaker 2: the player, like not necessarily slistically, right, taking on all
Speaker 2: the injury baggage and stuff like that. If you watch
Speaker 2: Rashat Bateman last year with the Baltimore Ravens, he was
Speaker 2: like a top twenty, top twenty five receiver in the league.
Speaker 2: Let's not forget not only was has he been heard
Speaker 2: They don't throw the ball a ton in Baltimore, right,
Speaker 2: so you have to adjust a lot of their numbers
Speaker 2: for the fact that they are a run heavy offense.
Speaker 2: So I like Rashaw Baby maybe a little bit more
Speaker 2: than other people, but I think that Kyle Williams is
Speaker 2: a similar kind of player. Really, just a lot to
Speaker 2: like about the pick in terms of the schematic fit
Speaker 2: and all those different things. The last thing I wanted
Speaker 2: to say about Kyle Williams, where do we see this going?
Speaker 2: Because right now I think they have like eleven or
Speaker 2: twelve depending on the UDFA signings wide receivers on the roster.
Speaker 2: This is going to be probably the number one question.
Speaker 1: Would you remember a couple of years ago, was it
Speaker 1: last year? Two years ago? They literally didn't have enough
Speaker 1: receivers in like the spring because some guys were hurt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they have twelve. I have them with twelve
Speaker 2: receivers right now, and this is including udfhase, which are
Speaker 2: not official. I should put that out there.
Speaker 1: This is they signed what reportedly signed with three.
Speaker 2: Three So yeah, I'll just rd them off quickly. Diggs, mccollins,
Speaker 2: Pop Douglas, Kyle Williams. I think those four guys I
Speaker 2: had them at the top of the list because they're
Speaker 2: going to be on the roster in some way, shape
Speaker 2: or form. Digs might be on pup, but he's going
Speaker 2: to be on the team. We know that. Kendrick Bourne,
Speaker 2: Kashawan Boody, the picks last year, Polkin Baker, John Giles
Speaker 2: is still kicking around, e FT and Chisholm. Who I
Speaker 2: want to get to when we get to the udfas
Speaker 2: demere blankh Moosy blank of Moosey.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah wait, hang on, I got I know I
Speaker 1: can pronounce it if I'm reading it.
Speaker 2: Very sorry. I think it's Blank Music, Blank Museum and
Speaker 2: Jeremiah Webb. Those are their twelve receivers right now, including
Speaker 2: the udfas. How do we see on April thirtieth, with
Speaker 2: absolutely zero practices that we've watched or witnessed at this point,
Speaker 2: how do you see this room shaking out? Or I
Speaker 2: think a better question is for right now, you know,
Speaker 2: who's the one guy that you really feel like is
Speaker 2: going to be an odd man out. I think it's
Speaker 2: hard right now just to sit here and say without
Speaker 2: seeing even any OTA's exactly how they look at the room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so those four off the top right,
Speaker 1: I still think people are gonna criticize me for this
Speaker 1: because he's been my guy for I still think Kendrick
Speaker 1: Horne is a good shot to make the team because
Speaker 1: it went so well with him and Josh McDaniels last time.
Speaker 1: And I just think McDaniels likes him. So that's five, right,
Speaker 1: And then it comes down to Kashawan, Boody and the
Speaker 1: two rookies for that last spot or the two rookies
Speaker 1: from last year for that last spot. They've shown it
Speaker 1: they're not afraid of significant roster turnover. That was another
Speaker 1: takeaway for me from this draft and just the way
Speaker 1: they kind of went about and really the off seas
Speaker 1: as a whole. People were, you know, talking back in
Speaker 1: January about you know, you got a clean house. How
Speaker 1: much the roster can they change people? Kind of facetiously
Speaker 1: saying keep Drake, keep Christian Zalez, move on from the rest.
Speaker 1: And I was there saying, like, realistically, like forty to
Speaker 1: forty five percent is a pretty significant roster turnover from
Speaker 1: one year to another in the NFL generally, that's the case.
Speaker 1: I think that they're going beyond the typical here. I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be well in this is I'm talking
Speaker 1: forty to forty five percent. That's fifty three man roster
Speaker 1: week eighteen to fifty three men roster week one. We
Speaker 1: still got a ways to go before we get to
Speaker 1: the initial fifty three man roster, but it might be
Speaker 1: over fifty percent. So you know, Born Booty, Pulk Baker.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of those guys are safe, especially
Speaker 1: you know, just one of the udfases, Eft and Chisel
Speaker 1: make a push. So it's those four are gonna make it.
Speaker 1: Pop Hollins Digs if he's not on pup, and then
Speaker 1: Kyle Williams, right, those four will make it. After that,
Speaker 1: I think it's wide open for one, maybe maybe two spots.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be some guys that get cut that I
Speaker 1: don't know surprise is the right word, but.
Speaker 2: Have some NFL talent NFL ability. I've come around to
Speaker 2: Kayshawan Boody a little bit, just because stylistically, again, if
Speaker 2: you need that sacrificial X, like that true sacrificial X
Speaker 2: that we've seen here in the past with Josh McDaniels,
Speaker 2: Nelson Aguilar, right, like, someone like that, that's kind of
Speaker 2: Kaysehan Boody to me is a guy that can run
Speaker 2: verticals on the outside, do a pretty good job with it,
Speaker 2: maybe occasionally catch a slant or something underneath off of
Speaker 2: the vertical stem, and every once in a while he's
Speaker 2: gonna sneak behind Derek Stingley for a bomb, right And
Speaker 2: if that's all that role is in this offense moving forward,
Speaker 2: then he showed last year that he has the ability
Speaker 2: to do that at an NFL level. So has Javon
Speaker 2: Baker proven that. No has Jalen Polk, even though I
Speaker 2: think he'll get a really really strong chance as a
Speaker 2: second round pick in his second year. Neither one of
Speaker 2: those guys have shown yet that they can do anything
Speaker 2: NFL caliber like Keayshawn Booty has. So it seems odd
Speaker 2: to me. And this it's a trade, and because he
Speaker 2: has the most value in a trade, that could maybe
Speaker 2: make some sense that they deal Booty to get some
Speaker 2: something better.
Speaker 1: Unless they just think Mac Collins is gonna do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I feel like Booty gets down the field
Speaker 2: a little bit better than Mac Collins. But I could
Speaker 2: see that. I just out of all these guys, I
Speaker 2: feel like Booty I've come around the most two uh
Speaker 2: being on the team.
Speaker 1: Javon Baker blank demere blank emcy blank emcy.
Speaker 2: Okay, Uh, Javon Baker is squarely on the bubble like that.
Speaker 2: He's gonna need a really really good camp. I would
Speaker 2: say he's probably gonna need a really good offseason, like
Speaker 2: it's gonna OTAs included mini camp, training camp all the
Speaker 2: way through. He's gonna have to be consistent and he's
Speaker 2: gonna to be good.
Speaker 1: It's even on the bubble or is he on the
Speaker 1: outside looking at.
Speaker 2: Probably on the outside looking yeah, to be more fair
Speaker 2: about it, all right, anything else on Kyle Williams.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's other than your victory kind of
Speaker 1: killed their pace there, No.
Speaker 2: That's okay, that was worth it. That was a good pick.
Speaker 2: All right, next one here, Jared Wilson, ninety fifth overall
Speaker 2: center from Georgia.
Speaker 1: Let me point out first real quick. They traded down
Speaker 1: twice to get him. Yeah, so I was harping future picks,
Speaker 1: future picks, future picks.
Speaker 2: Got one they got on twenty twenty six, fourth.
Speaker 1: Right, So nice pick, and some people think the Bears
Speaker 1: might be really bad. I was kind of surprised how
Speaker 1: many people were, like, that could be a top hundred
Speaker 1: ten pick, but like you take that, they also a
Speaker 1: future sixth and seventh. Yeah, if the Bears are bad
Speaker 1: enough that fourth plus that sixth, maybe you're back in
Speaker 1: the top one hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's a it's it's not a bad a
Speaker 2: bad asset to have. Yeah, in the old tool belt, Okay,
Speaker 2: Jared Wilson. I I feel a little bit like, because
Speaker 2: he's a center, people are not talking enough of about
Speaker 2: Jared Wilson as a part of this foursome of offensive
Speaker 2: players that they drafted out the top. It's not the
Speaker 2: fourth overall pick, it's not too flashy skill players. So
Speaker 2: I get it. I get that it's a center, But
Speaker 2: besides Campbell, I feel like there's a really nice floor
Speaker 2: to Jared Wilson where I feel pretty comfortable projecting Jared
Speaker 2: Wilson as a starter at some point. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it will be right out of the gate. It
Speaker 2: might be midway through his rookie year, his second year,
Speaker 2: even maybe he's the sixth man on the offensive line
Speaker 2: next year as like a three interior three interior spot player.
Speaker 2: But everything that I've watched of him and everything I've
Speaker 2: heard of about Jared Wilson is that this is a
Speaker 2: center that is really dynamic. And when you talk about centers,
Speaker 2: just like a Mike linebacker on defense, the center kind
Speaker 2: of sets the pace for the offensive line in the
Speaker 2: run game. So if you want to be dynamic downhill
Speaker 2: run scheme that can get to the second level, and
Speaker 2: you want to get out up to the second level
Speaker 2: and get those interior guys into combinations and get them
Speaker 2: up to the second level, or you want to run
Speaker 2: stretch or outside zone to get to the numbers, the
Speaker 2: center is the one that's setting the pace of that.
Speaker 2: So if you want to do those types of things,
Speaker 2: which I think the Patriots want to do more the
Speaker 2: former than the latter, an athletics center really helps. And
Speaker 2: when you look across the league at guys that have
Speaker 2: his level of athleticism, whether you know it's Eric McCoy
Speaker 2: and New Orleans or you know, Jason Kelsey's kind of
Speaker 2: the apex of that, right, you know, he's the top
Speaker 2: tier of this. When you look at those types of guys,
Speaker 2: it just opens a lot of what you are able
Speaker 2: to do schematically, whether it's run game, screen game, moving pockets,
Speaker 2: things like that. So that's why I would say that
Speaker 2: I'm really excited or high on the pick with Jared
Speaker 2: Wilson is because of his athleticism. Center position, you're not
Speaker 2: normally covered these days, like maybe there's a shade over
Speaker 2: your outside shoulder that you have to in a slide
Speaker 2: you'd have to get to, or on a reach or
Speaker 2: something like that. On the line of scrimmage double team
Speaker 2: obviously you're getting to. But you're not a lot of
Speaker 2: hit up rushers anymore these days over the center, especially
Speaker 2: on early downs, and teams don't play with a ton
Speaker 2: of zero technique nose tackles. So he's more of an
Speaker 2: athletic center. Wide body, like his frame, like the way
Speaker 2: he carries the weight as well. I just think that
Speaker 2: this guy has a really nice floor to him as
Speaker 2: the ninety fifth pick. When you pick ninety five, he's
Speaker 2: kind of two ways to go about it. You can
Speaker 2: either pick a guy that has first round traits but
Speaker 2: doesn't have a first round pedigree, or you can pick
Speaker 2: a guy that's getting on base right. You can go
Speaker 2: both ways. Jared Wilson kind of splits the atom to
Speaker 2: me because he's got the athleticism to have a high upside,
Speaker 2: and he's young and he only had that one year
Speaker 2: of starting at Georgia. But he's all also a guy
Speaker 2: that I feel like could probably start at center, Like
Speaker 2: if they had an honest competition between him and Garrett
Speaker 2: Bradbury in camp, I think Jared Wilson might win the competition.
Speaker 1: And I think they might have that competition. Yeah, to me,
Speaker 1: that's what this is all about. How long can get?
Speaker 1: So we talk sometimes about you know, day one starter,
Speaker 1: Year one starter, right, where a day one starter is
Speaker 1: a guy Will Campbell. How many's gonna be the left
Speaker 1: tack was no question about it. Year one starter is
Speaker 1: a guy that, okay, like he might not be ready
Speaker 1: to go week one of his rookie year, but by
Speaker 1: the end of his rookie year he should be the starter.
Speaker 1: I think Jared Wilson is in that category. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: a year one starter. It's just about how long Bradbury
Speaker 1: can hold him off. And maybe who knows, maybe it
Speaker 1: is week one. But like I think Jared Wilson is
Speaker 1: going to be the starting center by the end of
Speaker 1: the year. I know Elliott Wolf said that they think
Speaker 1: he can play some guard. To me, that's probably more
Speaker 1: an emergency thing. Yeah, and you know, if they really
Speaker 1: need somebody. I don't think he's going to be fully
Speaker 1: in there competing for that left guard role. I think
Speaker 1: it's more if they need him there, fine, but they
Speaker 1: want to develop as a center because he has the
Speaker 1: ability to be a long term center in the NFL.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the athleticism. The other thing is he's an
Speaker 1: incredibly smart football player. Yeah, and the commands going back
Speaker 1: to the quarterback. We think with Josh McDaniels were last
Speaker 1: year it was the center setting all those protections. But
Speaker 1: the center is still going to help in that and
Speaker 1: the center's still gonna help communicate along the offensive line.
Speaker 1: Guy that's really smart, really athletic. If he was a
Speaker 1: two year starter, I think he probably goes top fifty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he was the first center off the board.
Speaker 1: I just think what was tough for him is in
Speaker 1: this draft there is a lot of experience lineman. Two
Speaker 1: three four year starters on the offensive line, his one
Speaker 1: year starter and he really didn't play a ton before
Speaker 1: that at all at Georgia. Like, he's really raw. So
Speaker 1: if you you know, read the scouting reports that are
Speaker 1: on there, they talk about hand placement, they talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, his footwork and things like that. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that those knocks are wrong, but it's he looks
Speaker 1: like a guy that hasn't played a lot of football
Speaker 1: because he hasn't a lot of that stuff is very fixable.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna come with reps. The preseason is gonna
Speaker 1: be huge for him. He will be one of the
Speaker 1: most important players to watch this preseason and we'll see
Speaker 1: if he can kind of learn quickly and grow quickly.
Speaker 1: I think he can push Bradberry sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the biggest thing with him, like you said,
Speaker 2: you know, I just looked it up real quick. Drew
Speaker 2: Kendall from Boston College. You went to the Eagles. He
Speaker 2: had thirty seven career starts at Boston College. At center.
Speaker 2: Wilson only had twelve at Georgia. So especially when you
Speaker 2: talk about centers and you talk about the responsibility mentally
Speaker 2: on centers. Normally, when you get guys in the draft
Speaker 2: that play center, unless they're like Zabel, who's like a
Speaker 2: tackle or a guard that's moving to center. Guys that
Speaker 2: were career centers that are getting drafted as centers, those
Speaker 2: guys are like three, four, sometimes even five year starters,
Speaker 2: like they might have upwards of forty to fifty starts
Speaker 2: in college. So you're talking about guys that have a
Speaker 2: ton of experience. That's not Jared Wilson. He's a guy
Speaker 2: that has a ton of upside and a ton of ability,
Speaker 2: but doesn't have the experience. Now, the one thing that
Speaker 2: did make me feel a little bit better when I
Speaker 2: was talking to some of his coaches at Georgia, they
Speaker 2: pointed out in practice over the last couple of years
Speaker 2: he's been running scout team until this most recent year,
Speaker 2: think about the Georgia interior defensive lineman that he's been
Speaker 2: facing on scout team for his freshman and sophomore year.
Speaker 2: They the way they put it to me was that
Speaker 2: practice might have been harder than some of the games
Speaker 2: that he was going to be playing in. Now it's
Speaker 2: a different energy, right, it's a different moment, it's a
Speaker 2: different environment. But in terms of the skill and the
Speaker 2: talent he was going up against in practice at Georgia,
Speaker 2: they obviously have a ton of just ridiculous players there
Speaker 2: that have come through there on the interior defensive line.
Speaker 2: So in some ways, like he's almost battle tested, but
Speaker 2: just behind the scenes in a weird way, so that
Speaker 2: that would be interesting. You mentioned Guard. I agree with
Speaker 2: you well that long term, there's no doubt about it,
Speaker 2: that centers his best position and having like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: having a dynamic center that can do different things on
Speaker 2: the move, and I can also really quickly side note,
Speaker 2: we're watching Good Morning Football on this side screen and
Speaker 2: Trags was just on Good Morning. Oh yeah, saw the
Speaker 2: Let's Go track, the Clinton is Mike flag and everything. Anyway, sorry,
Speaker 2: that was just distracting, uh our guy track shout out Trags. Uh.
Speaker 2: Like I said earlier, you know, just letting him just
Speaker 2: unlocking him at the center position to climb to get
Speaker 2: out in front of blocks in the screen game. I
Speaker 2: go watch him against Tennessee, just like you know, clipping
Speaker 2: guys in space right, Like, that's what he does at
Speaker 2: his best, and I think that he gets the most.
Speaker 2: You get the most out of that if he plays center.
Speaker 2: So I would assume he's going to play center long term.
Speaker 2: But is there a world where their best five includes
Speaker 2: him and Bradbury?
Speaker 1: Because I think there is, there could be. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe he.
Speaker 2: Plays a little bit of left guard as aokie.
Speaker 1: I would just say, like they got I get wanting
Speaker 1: guys to be able to play multiple positions. I'm not
Speaker 1: against that philosophically, but there is a tipping point where
Speaker 1: the guy's got to learn the position he's gonna play.
Speaker 1: And last year's coaching staff was way too In across
Speaker 1: training we talked about this. There was you know, you're
Speaker 1: trying to get Kate Wallace to move from right to left.
Speaker 1: You're playing right left, you're playing MC guard. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: he has learn he has to play the position you're
Speaker 1: trying to teach him. And so with Jared Wilson, he's
Speaker 1: best long term at center. So if they think that's
Speaker 1: what's best for him to play center long term, fine,
Speaker 1: But if it's not that much of a gap between
Speaker 1: him and whoever the next best left guard is I
Speaker 1: would almost just let him keep working at center, just
Speaker 1: because that's really where you need him to develop and learn. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe that is playing left guard. Maybe they think the
Speaker 1: best way to do that is by playing left guard.
Speaker 1: But I would make all my decisions regarding him about
Speaker 1: getting him ready to be Drake may center for the
Speaker 1: next ten years.
Speaker 2: Fair Enough. The only reason why I brought up the
Speaker 2: left guard thing, because I mostly agree with what you
Speaker 2: just said, is because he might be the best blocker
Speaker 2: to play that position. And if he's really ready, but
Speaker 2: you don't feel like he's mentally ready to be the center,
Speaker 2: then he can play left guard where he has none
Speaker 2: of the mental you're you're still getting him on the
Speaker 2: field and he's still playing.
Speaker 1: I'm not rolling out entirely. I just I think that
Speaker 1: there's tremendous value in him playing center, and I want
Speaker 1: that to be where he hands up long term.
Speaker 2: All right, let's move on to day three. We're we're
Speaker 2: cruising a little bit. We've got a little bit bogged
Speaker 2: down there, but we're all right. Uh. Craig Woodson in
Speaker 2: the fourth round, one of six overall from cal Now,
Speaker 2: to be perfectly honest, if I had to grade the
Speaker 2: Patriots draft, Yeah, I would give them an A minus.
Speaker 2: And the reason why I wouldn't give them an A
Speaker 2: is because I didn't love this pick. This was not
Speaker 2: the pick I would have personally made. Now that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean anything. In two to three years, they could Craig
Speaker 2: Woodson could end up being really good exactly.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: But with that being said, this was the only pick
Speaker 2: in the entire draft that they broke off consensus. So
Speaker 2: this is the only pick that they kind of went
Speaker 2: out on a limb on a little bit, both you
Speaker 2: and I and I want to speak for you, but
Speaker 2: I feel like this is the case. Saw Billy Bowman
Speaker 2: and Malchai Moore as better players than Craig woods Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they went right after Craig Woodson in the fourth round.
Speaker 2: There was a little run on safeties, so they read
Speaker 2: the run correctly. They I believed that maybe there was
Speaker 2: some interest in Kevin Winston, the Penn State safety that
Speaker 2: went at the end of Day two, So they read
Speaker 2: the run correctly. They jumped on Woodson before the kid
Speaker 2: from Ohio State went. Was it Latham Lately, Ransom, Malchi Moore,
Speaker 2: Billy Bowman, all those guys Williams dinner. They all went
Speaker 2: in like the span of like thirty two picks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they read the run and they got their guy
Speaker 2: in Woodson, unless it was Winston in the third round,
Speaker 2: but they ended up getting one of their guys in Woodson.
Speaker 2: To start on the positives with Woodson and then I
Speaker 2: want to talk about kind of unpack why they might
Speaker 2: have went with Woodson instead of more or Billy Bowman,
Speaker 2: who we liked better Woodson when I watched him on tape,
Speaker 2: what I liked the most about him was his reactions
Speaker 2: in space or his instincts in space. I think he's
Speaker 2: got a really good motor, athleticism, physical nature to his game.
Speaker 2: Could play demeanor, can strike the football, can separate the
Speaker 2: ball from receivers coming over the middle of the field,
Speaker 2: really good at rotating into the box or starting down
Speaker 2: low and run support, screen support, perimeter support, all those
Speaker 2: different types of things that you do. He's got some
Speaker 2: experience at Nickel. I'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 2: I think there are is and you got a lot
Speaker 2: of this question. I'm sure you did too. You know,
Speaker 2: could he be Deron Harmon right?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Can he play free safety over the top? I do
Speaker 2: think he can do that. I don't think it's he's
Speaker 2: not going to be Devin mccorty. He's probably gonna be
Speaker 2: closer to de Ron Harmon, But I do think he
Speaker 2: has the ability to do that. They played a lot
Speaker 2: of split safety coverage in cal but they rotated their safeties.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that we've heard a lot
Speaker 2: about from the Patriots coaching staff and a couple times
Speaker 2: we've gotten to speak with the position coaches is that
Speaker 2: they want to be interchangeable at the safety position. They
Speaker 2: don't want this guy's free safety, that guy's strong safety,
Speaker 2: this guy's playing post, that guy's playing robber, and to
Speaker 2: have teams be able to predict which ones which on
Speaker 2: a down to down basis. So when it comes to
Speaker 2: why they took Whitston over Bowman, why they took him
Speaker 2: over more, I think the main reason is his size.
Speaker 2: Like he's got a little bit more size. He's over
Speaker 2: six feet two hundred and five pounds. Bowman and Moore
Speaker 2: were like five ten five eleven one ninety ish. So
Speaker 2: if they're going to be interchangeable at safety, and they're
Speaker 2: going to want him to rotate down and fly down
Speaker 2: into the box, and put his hat his hat in
Speaker 2: the run game. He's got a little bit more size
Speaker 2: and a little bit more kirk to him and you know,
Speaker 2: mass to his frame to be able to handle the
Speaker 2: run responsibilities of doing that. So, if I had to guess,
Speaker 2: it's probably like a size profile that they just preferred
Speaker 2: with Woodson over the guys we like.
Speaker 1: They didn't. Yeah, we wanted a true free safety. They
Speaker 1: wanted somebody like you said, he can do both a phil.
Speaker 1: Phil Perry pointed out some similarities to guys like Kevin
Speaker 1: Byerd and Kenny Vacaro, who Mike Rabel obviously had in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: So I don't think we're gonna maybe it's Marcus EPs
Speaker 1: like situationally, but I don't think we're gonna see that
Speaker 1: true dedicated free safety this year. I think it's still
Speaker 1: gonna be rotating with Dougar and Peppers and Woodson and
Speaker 1: moving guys around there.
Speaker 2: Now, the other thing that he had to done a
Speaker 2: little bit Woodson is play the nickel, and Elliott Wolf
Speaker 2: alluded to it after the draft or one of his
Speaker 2: don't know, I'll kind of bund it together one of
Speaker 2: his pre draft press conferences or post draft press conferences
Speaker 2: excuse me. Over the weekend, he alluded to the big
Speaker 2: nickel being in this defense and having a guy that
Speaker 2: isn't Marcus Jones body type, but is more of like
Speaker 2: a Craig Woodson body type frankly right, like a guy
Speaker 2: that's maybe pushing over two hundred pounds that can cover.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: The one thing that I hesitated with with with Woodson
Speaker 2: UH and that role is I thought his man coverage
Speaker 2: tape was a little bit inconsistent, UH watching him against Syracuse, UH,
Speaker 2: he faced Gats in their tight end a handful of times,
Speaker 2: and I thought Gatson got the better of the matchup.
Speaker 2: I thought he struggled in man coverage against him. So
Speaker 2: that's a that's a receiving tight end, Like, that's what
Speaker 2: Gatson's really like, a big slot receiver.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that that's his specialty. But I don't know
Speaker 2: if I saw the transitions or the smoothness and his
Speaker 2: hips uh and his in his transitions to be able
Speaker 2: to stick in man to man coverage against dynamic tight ends.
Speaker 2: We'll see maybe maybe they cleaned that up. Maybe that
Speaker 2: was just one game and he cleans that up moving forward.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't necessarily say I thought he was a
Speaker 2: high end man coverage player. I thought he was a
Speaker 2: little bit on the lower end in that vein. But
Speaker 2: what I did like about him a lot, like I said,
Speaker 2: was his ability to track the football in terms of
Speaker 2: like having eyes in the backfield on the quarterback and
Speaker 2: the backfield action and then making place.
Speaker 1: He also talked about Woodson himself set some long lines
Speaker 1: like I love contact, I'd love to hit people, whatever
Speaker 1: that means. Like his athletic profile, that demeanor. He's going
Speaker 1: to be a stud on special teams.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So I think that's probably part of it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's a great point. Fourth round pick probably
Speaker 2: projects as like a third safety.
Speaker 1: Third safety, key special teamer. You know, they'll see when
Speaker 1: those Duggers and Pepper's contracts start to run up, you know,
Speaker 1: steps into a bigger role in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: But I see what they're going for with to pick,
Speaker 1: Like I understand why they made it. I personally would
Speaker 1: have gone in a different direction, but like you said,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what we would have done.
Speaker 2: Yep. Fair enough. And just last thing on Woodson and
Speaker 2: that that point, I the consensus. The consensus. I think
Speaker 2: it's it's it's fair to share that information. Like I said,
Speaker 2: this was the first pick that really broke from consensus. Well,
Speaker 2: but he was in like the one eighties on most
Speaker 2: consensus board.
Speaker 1: No, but didn't a lot of like like Brugler had
Speaker 1: him fourth round, right, Dane had a sixth round.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 1: I thought I saw some of the national guys.
Speaker 2: So the one, the one national guy that had him
Speaker 2: higher was Daniel Jeremiah. Daniel Jeremiah was really big on Woodson.
Speaker 2: He had really nice things to say on the broadcast
Speaker 2: about how he didn't see what everybody else was missing
Speaker 2: with you know, he thought he was crazy thinking that
Speaker 2: this guy was better than everybody else did. And he
Speaker 2: was really high on the pick. So hopefully DJ ends
Speaker 2: up being right. You know that tends to Yeah, So
Speaker 2: that that's Craig Woodson. Oh yeah, this was the other
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to say about him before we move on.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's a lot of conversations out there
Speaker 2: about safety not being in need, and I feel like
Speaker 2: we were all over safety as a potential need not
Speaker 2: to like toot our own horns. But Kyle Duggart did
Speaker 2: not have the or that they wanted him to have
Speaker 2: last year, he was hurt, he didn't play well when
Speaker 2: he was out there. We all know what happened with
Speaker 2: Jabrill Peppers off the field. Like, there's not a whole
Speaker 2: lot of security right now in terms of those two
Speaker 2: guys like being what they thought they were going to
Speaker 2: be when they signed those extensions. So as much as
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily see Woodson pushing either one as like
Speaker 2: a starting safety to begin with, I don't think that
Speaker 2: it's that crazy that they targeted a good.
Speaker 1: Spots have depth. I thought, well, I was saying safety
Speaker 1: in the need of the you know, free safety kind
Speaker 1: of thing, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. Joshua Farmer one of my favorite picks
Speaker 2: of the draft. Both these guys, I thought, just the
Speaker 2: value that they got out of Farmer and Swinson picking
Speaker 2: them where they did, probably at least in Farmer's case,
Speaker 2: maybe more like a half around later than people expected. Swinston,
Speaker 2: I would say, a round or two later than a
Speaker 2: lot of people expected. So really good value with both
Speaker 2: these players. And what I like about both of them
Speaker 2: together is that one sort of like a hybrid tweeer
Speaker 2: defensive end defensive tackle. One's like a true edge rusher,
Speaker 2: you know, it's off the outside the tackle. So like
Speaker 2: together they make a nice kind of situational player.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where if they're gonna they're gonna be high five
Speaker 1: and a lot coming on and off the field.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Farmer can play on inside, you know, defensive end,
Speaker 2: like I said, hand the dirt end or handing the
Speaker 2: dirt defensive tackle on early downs. Swinson can be a
Speaker 2: pass for a specialist on third down. And you have
Speaker 2: this nice little like you said, high fiving each other
Speaker 2: kind of reminds me different positions, but like similar to
Speaker 2: like Anthony Jennings and Joshua uch right, or like together
Speaker 2: they're a complete player. Like they aren't good complete players individually,
Speaker 2: but together they're a complete player. With Farmers specifically, a
Speaker 2: couple of things that stand out. On the positive end,
Speaker 2: his upper body twitch and power and length are just
Speaker 2: very noticeable. The second debt you turn on the tape,
Speaker 2: he has thirty five in charms. So this is a
Speaker 2: long armed, powerful, well built human being that really didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily play to his trades all the time. But I
Speaker 2: love the chance that they're taking here with Ray Bowl
Speaker 2: with Terrell Williams. Like, give Terrell Williams right the raw
Speaker 2: tools the guy, and let's see if Terrell Williams can
Speaker 2: seizon him up and can round about his game farmer,
Speaker 2: very strong at the point of attack, very good length,
Speaker 2: very good pressing, shed ability, Like there's a ton of
Speaker 2: evidence of him just rocking an offensive lineman back and
Speaker 2: just throwing him to the side, right and just discarding
Speaker 2: guys in the run game. In the pass rush, there's
Speaker 2: speed to power there. There's obviously bowl with the longer arms.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of a swim move that he
Speaker 2: can go to and a swipe. But when he was
Speaker 2: rushing off the edge, he likes to swipe. So I
Speaker 2: think he can play a little bit of four three end.
Speaker 2: I think you can play a little bit of three technique.
Speaker 2: I like the versatility and I love the tools. Now
Speaker 2: there's some work to be done here in terms of
Speaker 2: the tech which we can get to. But on the
Speaker 2: positive end, that that's what I see with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a guy that I think you kind of
Speaker 1: allude to. It can play multiple positions along the defensive line,
Speaker 1: and it is very athletic. Was better as a run
Speaker 1: stopper at Florida State, but just because of his athleticism,
Speaker 1: probably has some pass rush upside. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: idea is you put him bar more Milton Williams keyon
Speaker 1: white and that's your front. Right. Those are four guys
Speaker 1: that are athletic. Those are four guys that can move around.
Speaker 1: We know they're not going to blitz a ton. Mike
Speaker 1: Rabel kind of alluded to that. I think it was
Speaker 1: in his introductory press conference early on. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: he was kind of asked his philosophies on the blitz
Speaker 1: and said, it's more about when you do it than
Speaker 1: how often you do it. So you got to generate pressure.
Speaker 1: Those are guys you can run a ton of games with.
Speaker 1: You can move them around, you're gonna keep offensive lines
Speaker 1: on their toes. So he's just another piece that fits
Speaker 1: that mold. They're a little small up front now, which
Speaker 1: I do worry about. I thought they might add another
Speaker 1: nose tackle. But because Farmers a better run stopper than
Speaker 1: his size would suggest, which makes me like, like, like
Speaker 1: this pick a little more than just getting the average
Speaker 1: toolsy rusher, because they do need guys who can play
Speaker 1: the run.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So he's six three three oh five with the
Speaker 2: thirty five inch arms. Yeah, so even though he's only
Speaker 2: three oh five and thirty five inch arms helped create
Speaker 2: that separation for blocks and create the distance so that
Speaker 2: they can't get up underneath him and drive him off
Speaker 2: the ball, which helps him kind of make up for
Speaker 2: the fact that he's only three oh five, right, So
Speaker 2: that helps. Now with that being said, you know, on
Speaker 2: the other side of the coin, because we're when you
Speaker 2: talk about a player like this and you're speaking so highly, well,
Speaker 2: he went in the fourth round, so there has to
Speaker 2: be a reason he wasn't a higher pick. I thought
Speaker 2: some of the things you know that I wrote down
Speaker 2: in my notes, just you know, he will get washed
Speaker 2: out by double teams. I don't think this is a
Speaker 2: guy that you really want him to get vertical into
Speaker 2: the block and really attack the base block, right. You
Speaker 2: don't want him trying to hold the point of attack
Speaker 2: and posting.
Speaker 1: Up and so the opposite of the defensive tackles that
Speaker 1: they've had, like they would have never drafted this guy
Speaker 1: under built. And that doesn't mean he's bad players. Stylistically,
Speaker 1: he's very different than what Patriots fans are used to
Speaker 1: seeing at the defensive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so as much as he's got a powerful upper
Speaker 2: body and good twitch off the ball, and he's got
Speaker 2: good snap quickness to really get into the line of
Speaker 2: scrimmage and fire his hands. But if you're asking him
Speaker 2: to eat blocks, like that's not his game. He's not
Speaker 2: a block eater. He's more of like a reset the
Speaker 2: line of scrimmage kind of guy and then use his
Speaker 2: upper body power to shed the block. I would also say,
Speaker 2: you know, just in the pass rush, his pads will
Speaker 2: get up and then that will sap his power. So
Speaker 2: like when he goes to bull rush guys, he gets
Speaker 2: a little high with his pads and then then he
Speaker 2: doesn't have the bull rushing power that you would probably
Speaker 2: like to see out of him as like a foundational
Speaker 2: rush in his pass rush. So there's some technique stuff
Speaker 2: in general, block anticipation technique stuff that they will need
Speaker 2: to you know, round out or improve as his career progresses.
Speaker 2: But like I said earlier, I just I love the
Speaker 2: idea of giving a guy like this to Terrell Williams.
Speaker 2: Like I think Terrell Williams will fix a lot of
Speaker 2: those types of things or work to mitigate them, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of like Bill style, where you just hide them
Speaker 2: instead of maybe you can't get it out of him.
Speaker 2: So you just kind of hide him. But the one
Speaker 2: thing I will say, I didn't think that he consistently
Speaker 2: played to his physical ceiling, Like he has a much
Speaker 2: higher physical ceiling than what he showed at at Florida
Speaker 2: State at times. But I think that he can get
Speaker 2: there with the right type of coaching. So I'm excited
Speaker 2: about seeing Terrell Williams work with a player like this
Speaker 2: all right in the fifth round bright In Swinson from
Speaker 2: lsu A, is it fair to call him a media darling?
Speaker 2: He's kind of a media darling, Like I feel like
Speaker 2: the draft media was very high.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I'm very because of how much he fell. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: a guy that was. I don't even think Consts's top
Speaker 1: one hundred. I think in sins Hiss top seventy five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had him in the top one hundred for short.
Speaker 1: And to get him at one forty six, I think
Speaker 1: that was a big part of it. Was just like
Speaker 1: there's always those players here and there in the draft. Evan,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've experienced it, especially once you get into
Speaker 1: Day three, the picks or something coming so quick, and
Speaker 1: you're following what your team's doing, and you know you'll
Speaker 1: see a guy get drafted. He hadn't gotten yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I think CJ. Dupree is a UGFA with somebody
Speaker 1: like that for me. But I think Swinson a lot
Speaker 1: of people probably you know, you're doing what you're doing
Speaker 1: on day three and you're not necessarily tracking each individual pick,
Speaker 1: trying to catch up every you know, five ten minutes
Speaker 1: and suddenly it's wait, he hadn't gone yet, And I
Speaker 1: think he was one of those guys.
Speaker 2: So I had him eighty seventh in my top one hundred.
Speaker 2: Him and Jordan Birch from Oregon were really close for me.
Speaker 2: Like there Birch go, I think he went a little
Speaker 2: bit earlier, but similar players, you know, similar type.
Speaker 1: Jordan Birch went. Well know you have them similar some
Speaker 1: curiosies for the point of the value. Birch went seventy eight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's not a little bit sooner.
Speaker 2: I'll let I'll let Dane talk about some of the
Speaker 2: reasons why he might have fallen.
Speaker 1: Swinston was seventy one on the consensus.
Speaker 2: We asked Dan about Swinson, who was his favorite Day
Speaker 2: three pick out of the Patriots Hall, and he had
Speaker 2: some good intel on why he might have fallen. So
Speaker 2: you guys will hear that at the end of the show.
Speaker 2: But in terms of Swinson's skill set, I describe him
Speaker 2: as a speed to power rusher, Like that's sort of
Speaker 2: how I see him. Other people see him as more
Speaker 2: of a pure speed guy with a great bend. I
Speaker 2: think he's got a little bit of both his game. Look,
Speaker 2: he had sixty pressures last year at LSU, So sixty
Speaker 2: pressures in the SEC is not something to it's.
Speaker 1: Not light work.
Speaker 2: That's not light work.
Speaker 1: And he didn't have to face the short arm tackle.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, he only did in practice, So sixty.
Speaker 1: Se LSU put out a picture of the two of
Speaker 1: them in practice, like going at each other. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: always cool.
Speaker 2: Sixty pressures and thirty one stops too in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four at LSU. That's really good production. And what I
Speaker 2: like so much about Swinson and players of this mold,
Speaker 2: I think when you look at the players that succeed
Speaker 2: in the past rushing in the NFL, most of them
Speaker 2: win with speed and win with bent. It's not a
Speaker 2: lot and sometimes it happens like like hand up, I
Speaker 2: kind of not miss, but like was lower than I
Speaker 2: should have been on Jared Verse because Jared versus a
Speaker 2: straight through you to the quarterback kind of guy, right,
Speaker 2: Like he is a power rusher and a lot of
Speaker 2: the times you get burned by those guys Tyree Wilson, Right,
Speaker 2: that's the guy in Vegas that they drafted like eight
Speaker 2: to oh level a couple of years ago. That would
Speaker 2: just ragged all people. Well, you can do that at
Speaker 2: the college level, you can't necessarily do that at the
Speaker 2: NFL level. Well, I like so much about Swinton is
Speaker 2: that he does have speed off the line, and he
Speaker 2: has bent so he can win with pure speed on
Speaker 2: the edge. I think he can also generate or create
Speaker 2: or convert speed to power. He has a really good
Speaker 2: first step. He has decent length on the edge about
Speaker 2: you know, average to above average length. So I think
Speaker 2: that he's a guy that, even though there's some knocks
Speaker 2: on him in the run defense in terms of setting
Speaker 2: the edge and posting up and being thirty out there
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff, when you see him,
Speaker 2: you know, off the weak side, being able to get
Speaker 2: downhill at the line of scrimmage, he can run through
Speaker 2: blockers and he can make plays in the run game
Speaker 2: that way. Short term, his best path to getting on
Speaker 2: the field or making an impact on the team is
Speaker 2: rushing the passer. There's no doubt about that. He's definitely
Speaker 2: a situational third down rusher on in his career. But
Speaker 2: similar to what we do with Uch over the years,
Speaker 2: like can he get good enough against the run to
Speaker 2: be a three down player? That's gonna be the question
Speaker 2: with him. I have no doubt in my mind he's
Speaker 2: going to stick in the league as a pass rusher. Yeah,
Speaker 2: He's going to be a third down situational pass rusher
Speaker 2: in the NFL. The question is is he going to
Speaker 2: be able to be more than that? That's I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fair question. But for where they took
Speaker 1: him to get a situational pass rusher there and they
Speaker 1: needed more pass rush depth, So it makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: I think he's another guy too that if the coach
Speaker 1: is like, this is a coaching staff that's kind of
Speaker 1: coached up guys with these row trades and got in
Speaker 1: a high level. So he mentioned he was excited to
Speaker 1: work with the Patriots coaching staff when when we talked
Speaker 1: to him after the pick. Yeah, so we'll see, but
Speaker 1: I think there is untap potential there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's over two hundred and fifty pounds, So he's
Speaker 2: not tiny. It's not like he's six three, two fifty five.
Speaker 2: So he's a well built guy.
Speaker 1: He's not built like if you think like speed rusher, like,
Speaker 1: he's not built like any of those guys just flying
Speaker 1: around the edge, right, And.
Speaker 2: He's not built like a guy that couldn't be better
Speaker 2: against the run right right, Like, he's not a two
Speaker 2: ordred He's not Jasiah Stewart, where he's six and forty
Speaker 2: pounds soaking wet. I just thought some of the things
Speaker 2: that he struggled with in the run game. He's a
Speaker 2: he's a he's a head ducker into contact. So like
Speaker 2: when he comes off the ball and he sees the block,
Speaker 2: he's gonna duck his head into contact, and that's to
Speaker 2: generate power and force right into the block, right. But
Speaker 2: the problem when you do that is is that you
Speaker 2: lose sight of the football. So what happened to him
Speaker 2: is he would duck his head into contact, he would
Speaker 2: create movement, but then the guy would bounce out of
Speaker 2: his edge and he wouldn't see it coming, right, He
Speaker 2: wouldn't have eyes in the backfield, or it would be
Speaker 2: like a zone read and he wouldn't see the quarterback
Speaker 2: keep it, so he'd lose the edge that way. Those
Speaker 2: were the things that you saw with some of the
Speaker 2: head ducking with him on tape, a couple of the
Speaker 2: other things just I discipline, you know, misdirection, you know,
Speaker 2: those are the things that I thought were you know,
Speaker 2: kind of had him. Anchor was a little hit or
Speaker 2: miss in the run game as well. So even though
Speaker 2: the anchor, I don't know if that's gonna asking brew.
Speaker 2: Maybe it does. Maybe he adds more mass in play
Speaker 2: strength in the NFL NFL strength and conditioning program, as
Speaker 2: Paul Pirella likes to say. But in my mind that
Speaker 2: if he can just be more eyes in the backfield
Speaker 2: and head up in eyes in the backfield, and more
Speaker 2: focused on the ball in the backfield, I actually don't
Speaker 2: think he necessarily needs to be super strong on the edge,
Speaker 2: especially in a scheme like this. It's going to allow
Speaker 2: him to get up the field. So I think Swinson's
Speaker 2: going to be a solid gift for them in the
Speaker 2: fifth rounding. Most people do all right, it's your time
Speaker 2: to shine again. The kicker. Yeah, how excited are you
Speaker 2: that the Patriots drafted the kicker Alex So.
Speaker 1: I like the way they did this. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are nervous. We're talking Andy Boorgallis from Miami Automatic
Speaker 1: Andy as they called him. I like that, which is
Speaker 1: is is fair because he Jeremy Springer when we talked
Speaker 1: to him last month, said consistency. That was like the
Speaker 1: big thing he kept talking out when he's asked about kickers, consistency, consistency, consistency.
Speaker 1: Borgallis the most consistent kicker in the draft. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have necessarily the highest highs compared to some other guys,
Speaker 1: but he never like Ben Saals, was my guy for
Speaker 1: a while, right. Ben Saals did have a pretty bad
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Like he was not good in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, rebounded in a big way in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Borgallis was just steady Eddy, steady Andy, like he his
Speaker 1: numbers took a jump in twenty twenty four was his
Speaker 1: best season. But he never really had You don't really
Speaker 1: look at him having a bad year. He just kind
Speaker 1: of got progressively better every year. So that's why I
Speaker 1: think they took him. And I get people might be
Speaker 1: nervous after what happened with Chad Ryland a couple years ago,
Speaker 1: so where it's a little different. They took Chad Rylands
Speaker 1: in the fourth round. He was there I think fifth pick,
Speaker 1: fourth or fifth pick.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They took Andy Borgallis in the sixth round as their
Speaker 1: eighth pick I believe seventh or eighth, So it's a
Speaker 1: lot lot less risk for a guy that I think
Speaker 1: is a better kicker. The other thing is Borgoalis is
Speaker 1: the first kicker off the board. The Patriots actually kicked
Speaker 1: off the kicker and Tyler Lup went to the Ravens
Speaker 1: a few picks later. The reason the Patriots took Ryland
Speaker 1: as high as they did in that draft was the
Speaker 1: forty nine ers reached on Jake Moody, who also hasn't
Speaker 1: been great. They took Jake Moody in the top one hundred,
Speaker 1: so that was more reactionary pick than anything else. The Patriots.
Speaker 1: They this was not like, shoot, we got to get
Speaker 1: a kicker, and you know, drafting somebody higher because you're afraid. No,
Speaker 1: they took the kicker when they wanted to take the kicker.
Speaker 1: So you know he should beat out John Parker Romo
Speaker 1: for the job. He's a guy that doesn't have the
Speaker 1: biggest leg, but has a big leg. I think you
Speaker 1: feel comfortable fifty to fifty one fifty two. I don't
Speaker 1: know that he's somebody you're going to in the like
Speaker 1: fifty seven fifty eight range, but you know, I know
Speaker 1: you feel strongly about this. You and the past have
Speaker 1: been okay with that because you want them going for
Speaker 1: it in that range. You don't want some kicking field goals.
Speaker 2: So come on, stretch, do it for me.
Speaker 1: His career on stretch, his career long is fifty six.
Speaker 1: He's been pretty good from fifty when he's tried it,
Speaker 1: but it's mostly low fifties. So it's not like Nick Folk,
Speaker 1: all right, forty and in he's automatic, anything like forty
Speaker 1: nine plus, you're just not going to try he'll step
Speaker 1: into that fifty range. But he's consistent, he's experienced, and
Speaker 1: he also one of his coaches talked about an interview
Speaker 1: like he has a linebacker mentality. Jeremy Springer talked about
Speaker 1: it's going to be important that kickers can cover kickoffs
Speaker 1: now in this new rules, and this is the thing
Speaker 1: he's willing to do that. Yeah, the one question, obviously,
Speaker 1: can he kick in the colt? And that's not something
Speaker 1: we can answer during training. Cam right, We're not gonna
Speaker 1: get answer that till we get an answer, I will say.
Speaker 1: When he was asked about it, I loved his answer
Speaker 1: because a lot of kickers get asked about that and say, well,
Speaker 1: kicking is kicking, Like I'm not really worried about it,
Speaker 1: he said, I understand it's a question, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to prove people wrong because it's not the same.
Speaker 1: Kicking today when it's seventy degrees in Sonny is not
Speaker 1: the same as kicking the snowstorm is not the same
Speaker 1: as kicking when it's driving rain and forty degrees with
Speaker 1: twenty mile an hour winds. It's not And he's going
Speaker 1: to have to learn how to do it. It's going
Speaker 1: to be an adjustment. But and this isn't me saying
Speaker 1: he can do it again. This is the kind of
Speaker 1: thing where you don't know till you know. But I
Speaker 1: do like that he's taking the approach of not saying, well,
Speaker 1: I don't really care about it, like he clearly cares.
Speaker 1: He clearly understands it's different. Said, He's looked up to
Speaker 1: Adam and Terry, so he has some understanding of that.
Speaker 1: We'll just have to see if he can do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think can they put him in like the
Speaker 2: Rocky ice box maybe, Like I've always thought that that
Speaker 2: was something that Bill would do eventually, is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: just turn the act and like you do is practice
Speaker 2: in the in the meeting. Well, the Saints did that
Speaker 2: with their quarterbacks last year before game in Green Bay.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that they put it. They cleared out
Speaker 1: they cleared out the big walk in fridge in the cafeteria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they had like a walk through in the in
Speaker 1: the freezer. Yeah, so well you need more room to
Speaker 1: kick the ball. But maybe they're building this new facility.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe they are real like climate control.
Speaker 1: Right, and then they get it down to ten degrees,
Speaker 1: get the fans blown and I'm just on a simulator.
Speaker 2: It's it seems like something that Bill would do, and
Speaker 2: it kind of seems like something very able would do
Speaker 2: because he's kind of cut from the same cloth that
Speaker 2: they would figure out a way to get bork Oz,
Speaker 2: Like maybe they'd send him to like someplace else, you know,
Speaker 2: to to like get experience, like where is it winter
Speaker 2: all the time? I don't know, Antarctic North Pole?
Speaker 1: Well, so something Springer talked about when I asked him
Speaker 1: about this, was like for him, it's about how well
Speaker 1: the guy strikes the ball. And think about this with quarterbacks, right,
Speaker 1: When a lot of people think about arm strength, they
Speaker 1: think about how far you can throw the ball. And
Speaker 1: that's one interpretation of arm strength, or that's one function
Speaker 1: of it. Another is, you know, five yard slant. Your
Speaker 1: arm strength still matters because are you throwing the ball,
Speaker 1: you know, sixty miles now or fifty miles now? Like
Speaker 1: how long is it going to take to get there?
Speaker 1: And so what Springer had said was when he looks
Speaker 1: at these guys, he kind of looks at how does
Speaker 1: their foot hit the ball? Yeah, what kind of contact
Speaker 1: do they make? So a guy who was big leg strength,
Speaker 1: you know, leg strength can be a function of maybe
Speaker 1: he's not hitting sixty yardfield goals, but when he hits
Speaker 1: the ball, he makes really solid contact. It has good rotation,
Speaker 1: It is good velocity because that's going to cut through
Speaker 1: the wind and the rain and the snow.
Speaker 2: So you can kind of scout it without being in
Speaker 2: the right It's.
Speaker 1: Not perfect, but it's something that will help you tell
Speaker 1: It translates and one of the reporters down in Miami
Speaker 1: put out a tweet after Borgallis was drafted that basically,
Speaker 1: I want to see if I can find the exact tweet,
Speaker 1: but he basically said, like Borgallis was the second most
Speaker 1: impressive player at Miami's pro day, obviously behind cam Ward
Speaker 1: because it sounded like a gunshot, that that was the
Speaker 1: cannon fire guy, yeah, or cannon fire whatever cannon fired.
Speaker 2: I saw that as well. I like that line.
Speaker 1: I'm okay. So that's something where you look at and
Speaker 1: we talked about this with with Bryce Barrier. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: they drafted him was when the ball hits it, and
Speaker 1: if you go way back to Quinn Nordina, Quinn Nordean
Speaker 1: wasn't nearly as accurate. Yeah, but this is a guy
Speaker 1: that the ball comes off as foo's strong, so there's
Speaker 1: not gonna be as much room for the wind to
Speaker 1: knock it around.
Speaker 2: So that's Brgalis And I don't think you're gonna get
Speaker 2: any more thorough of a kicker breakdown than that. So
Speaker 2: you're welcome for that. One seventh round to twenty overall.
Speaker 2: Marcus Bryant, left tackle from Missouri, started his career at SMU,
Speaker 2: was at Missouri last year and they were so confident,
Speaker 2: I guess is the word or so comfortable. I think
Speaker 2: it's a better word. And Marcus Bryant that they didn't
Speaker 2: flip Membo, and they had talks at Missouri about potentially
Speaker 2: flipping Membo, Memb who played left tackle in high school.
Speaker 2: They were thinking that maybe they were going to flip him.
Speaker 2: Then they end up getting Brian in the portal from
Speaker 2: SMU and they're like, all right, well, we have this
Speaker 2: experience left tackle coming from a decent level of football
Speaker 2: at SMU and good program, so we feel pretty good
Speaker 2: and we're gonna not mess around with Membo and we're
Speaker 2: going to keep him on the right side. So Marcus
Speaker 2: Bryant ends up playing left tackle for Missouri last year,
Speaker 2: last couple of years, right, I think.
Speaker 1: It was just last last year. I think it was
Speaker 1: just last year. But he Javon Foster two years ago.
Speaker 2: What I like about the Bryant pick is that this
Speaker 2: is again a bet on tools, like this is a
Speaker 2: trade s based prospect. Is a guy that's got good measurables,
Speaker 2: you know, six seven three three twenty uh requisite arm.
Speaker 1: Length beyond requisite thirty five ines.
Speaker 2: I think it's all. I think it's thirty four plus.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, and a really good testing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: good tester as Wester. So you put on Would you
Speaker 2: tell me about his RAS score? It was high, right,
Speaker 2: was it? I can't remember text as too many numbers.
Speaker 2: It was good. I remember it being good like elite,
Speaker 2: like in their elite range.
Speaker 1: Marcus Bryant's taught this was from you. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you were being facetious or not. Marcus Bryant's top
Speaker 1: RAS comparisons are Oh I remember this now, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was Joe Thomas and Jonathan Ogden and then you throw
Speaker 1: any Andrew Whitworth.
Speaker 2: It was the three. And I'm dead serious. And this
Speaker 2: obviously is cut his tongue in cheek, but I'm dead serious.
Speaker 2: I pulled up his RAS card. RIS is Relative athletics score.
Speaker 2: It's the best thing going right now to put combine
Speaker 2: numbers into context. And when I like so much about
Speaker 2: RIS is. First of all, it's it's weight adjusted. So
Speaker 2: if you're a three hundred and fifty pounds tackle, it
Speaker 2: adjusts for the fact that your three hundred fifty pounds
Speaker 2: and somebody else might be three hundred pounds, right, which matters.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I like about it is. It's
Speaker 2: not just gauging the forty like it takes into account
Speaker 2: the jumps, the agilities the forty and to get an
Speaker 2: all encompassing number, because let's face it, it's not just about
Speaker 2: how fast you run forty yards, right, Like, that's not
Speaker 2: the only gauge of athleticism. So Bryan tested really well.
Speaker 2: He measured really well, and his best comps for the
Speaker 2: names you just named. Now, he's not going to be those.
Speaker 1: Guys like a it was a joke, ribbing fun.
Speaker 2: Uh, he's not gonna be those guys. Uh, but he
Speaker 2: if you're gonna take a flyer on the seventh round
Speaker 2: and if they were gonna double dip a tackle, I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is truly a double dip when
Speaker 2: you pick somebody in the seventh round, but it's two tackles.
Speaker 2: If you're gonna technically, if you're gonna take a second tackle,
Speaker 2: this wasn't this the type of tackle you wanted to take,
Speaker 2: Like you took the the Will Campbell pick is the
Speaker 2: the safe, uh well rounded, great kid, high in tangible,
Speaker 2: high high football character uh SEC. Powerhouse tape, you know,
Speaker 2: great tape against great players all the all the boxes
Speaker 2: checked with Will Campbell, if you're gonna double dip that tackle.
Speaker 2: We were talking about Charles Grant, Anthony Belton, you know
Speaker 2: those types of guys pre draft. They waited a little
Speaker 2: bit longer, but they got a guy with a lot
Speaker 2: of raw talent that they can hopefully develop maybe into
Speaker 2: a backup or a swing tackle at some point.
Speaker 1: So that's the big thing for me with Marcus Bryant
Speaker 1: is is he's athletic. He's got experience on the right
Speaker 1: and left side. We talked about this, they needed backups
Speaker 1: and Darian Lowe maybe he can be your backup left tackle,
Speaker 1: but he can't play on the right side. Kayden Wallace
Speaker 1: can be your backup right tackle, but he can't play
Speaker 1: on the left side. So if Marcus Bryant can prove
Speaker 1: he can be a backup caliber player, it saves you
Speaker 1: having to keep a tackle. I think ideally long term,
Speaker 1: Like my ideal projection for him, this ideal ideal. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a big, powerful guy. He can be proves he
Speaker 1: can be a starting right tackle in the Patriots system
Speaker 1: if he's gonna play long term, like that's where he's
Speaker 1: gonna stick. Because he does have experience on both sides.
Speaker 1: But I think, like, what would be great if he
Speaker 1: can just be your backup tackle, and maybe they still
Speaker 1: keep Kyden Wallace because they want to develop a long
Speaker 1: term right tacklet with a much higher ceiling. They want
Speaker 1: to develop a long term right tackle behind Morgan Moses,
Speaker 1: but like if they just want to, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of basic depth, Marcus Bryant's the only guy on
Speaker 1: the roster that can play both tackle spots. So if
Speaker 1: he can prove he can be a backup caliber player,
Speaker 1: it saves you a roster spot because now you don't
Speaker 1: have to carry and they still might you don't have
Speaker 1: to carry a backup right tackle and a backup left tackle.
Speaker 1: He's gonna fill both spots.
Speaker 2: It was definitely something I was considering. I put together
Speaker 2: my roster, you know, re configured the ninety man roster,
Speaker 2: and I like to do it too deep on the
Speaker 2: depth chart. And when I was doing the too deep
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, I was thinking about tackle. So
Speaker 2: right now, Campbell and Moses obviously are your starters left
Speaker 2: and right. Uh Vederian Lowe is a left tackle. Only
Speaker 2: we know that, you know, like you said, Cayden Wallace,
Speaker 2: who we I agree I think Caden Wallace is worth
Speaker 2: keeping around to develop as a long term right tackle option.
Speaker 2: Maybe he can't start down the road. Demadri Jacobs has
Speaker 2: played a little bit of both. But I say this
Speaker 2: with all due respect, I don't know if Demantre Jacobs
Speaker 2: an NFL.
Speaker 1: Player right, well, you just have more upside with Brian.
Speaker 2: You know, he's kind of a practice squad guy to me,
Speaker 2: and then you have Bryant, right, So really, when you
Speaker 2: think about it, they're going to keep Campbell, They're gonna
Speaker 2: keep Moses. Yeah, we think they're probably gonna keep Wallace,
Speaker 2: the third round pick in his second year, didn't really
Speaker 2: play as a rookie. He probably is gonna stay.
Speaker 1: Well. Wallace could also move inside of guard too, like
Speaker 1: they had kind of talked about that a little bit
Speaker 1: last year, maybe being something that never happened because they
Speaker 1: just need to tackle so bad and he got hurt.
Speaker 2: So you don't have to keep four, right, If they
Speaker 2: do keep four, would it make more sense. Let's let's
Speaker 2: say Will Campbell comes out of the gate and training
Speaker 2: campus is an absolute stud and you're you never think
Speaker 2: twice about it about setting and forgetting him.
Speaker 1: It would be nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then do they really need to keep ve Darian Lowe,
Speaker 2: who is kind of is who he is and is
Speaker 2: only a one position backup right over a guy like
Speaker 2: Marcus Bryant who has some upside, has some tools and
Speaker 2: might be a multi position.
Speaker 1: Back as long as Bryant can can prove he can
Speaker 1: be that player.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, And go back to his RIS scores eight
Speaker 2: point nine to six out of ten, which is an
Speaker 2: the elite range for Bryan. Great explosiveness, vertical jump of
Speaker 2: thirty one and a half at six seven and three
Speaker 2: twenty which is a good number, and a four nine
Speaker 2: seven forty yard dashub five forty yard it's insane at
Speaker 2: six seven, So that's moving. That's moving. So when you
Speaker 2: look at Campbell, when you look at Brian, and you
Speaker 2: look at Jared Wilson, they got some athletes on the
Speaker 2: offensive line, like those guys are not just you know,
Speaker 2: it's not just the film with those guys, Like those
Speaker 2: guys have great measurables in athletics traits as well. All right,
Speaker 2: moving on back to you and Julian Ashby the long snapper.
Speaker 2: I'm glad this kind of happened before the show. Joe
Speaker 2: Cardona released yesterday. Yeah, we should mention that ten year patriot,
Speaker 2: two times super Bowl champ, the last two or three.
Speaker 1: Three times super got here in fifteen, right, so two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, two time super Bowl champ, longest tenured Patriot, the
Speaker 2: last Patriot on the roster to have won a Super
Speaker 2: Bowl in New England.
Speaker 1: Last one to beat teammates with Tom Brady in New England.
Speaker 2: Last one to be the teammates with Tom Brady in
Speaker 2: New England.
Speaker 1: But they do have somebody who won a Super Bowl
Speaker 1: with Tom Brady on the roster in Tampa. In Tampa,
Speaker 1: Carlton Davis.
Speaker 2: Should mention Ron Burton Award winner for Community service. Just
Speaker 2: a really I know he's a long snapper. I know
Speaker 2: it's not the most valuable position or anything like that,
Speaker 2: but just a really well rounded guy, like a really
Speaker 2: well rounded patriot. Obviously a patriot as well, you know,
Speaker 2: with military stuff, but in general, great in the community,
Speaker 2: great on the team, team captain last year. Just a
Speaker 2: good dude. I wish Cardona the best. I hope that
Speaker 2: he sticked someplace else. But the reason why they cut
Speaker 2: Joe Cardona was because they drafted a long snapper. If
Speaker 2: you're going to draft and use a draft pick on
Speaker 2: a long snapper, he's going to be the long snapper
Speaker 2: most likely. So what can you tell me about Julian Ashby?
Speaker 1: So he's really athletic, he had an elite another elite
Speaker 1: RAS guy. He had a faster ten yard split in
Speaker 1: the forty than I know.
Speaker 2: That's the fun one.
Speaker 1: We were talking about this a little bit yesterday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he is a little undersized, which people but this
Speaker 1: is the way teams are using the long snapper now.
Speaker 1: And Joe Cardona talked about this last year. If you
Speaker 1: remember when he goes down he forces the fumble in
Speaker 1: the opener against Cincinnati, he was talking about and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I'm actually going down the field now because under
Speaker 1: Bill that's not how they used the long snapper. The
Speaker 1: long snapper stayed back and blocked, and it was one
Speaker 1: of the last guys down the field. Didn't really make tackles,
Speaker 1: didn't make plays on the football. It was more of
Speaker 1: a protector. But there's this other philosophy where because the
Speaker 1: long snapper, you can't line up directly over him, and
Speaker 1: he's the one snapping the ball and getting the play started,
Speaker 1: he kind of has a head start getting down the field,
Speaker 1: so with some teams do now instead of finding more
Speaker 1: blocking prototype long snappers, they find these quicker guys who
Speaker 1: can go down the field and be the first down
Speaker 1: there and make a play. And if you watch Julian Ashby,
Speaker 1: he does a lot of that. Brian Hins from Pats
Speaker 1: Polpit has some clips of this, including two against Alabama.
Speaker 1: So this is more the kind of player that I
Speaker 1: think Jeremy Springer wants is the guy who's going to
Speaker 1: be an athlete snapped the ball. He's beating the gunners
Speaker 1: down the field. At Vanderbilt, he's beating the gunners usually
Speaker 1: like the fastest guy on the team. He's beating those
Speaker 1: down the field to make plays on the ball. He's
Speaker 1: a solid tackler. So I think it's it's a stylistic change.
Speaker 1: They want a guy that can go and be a
Speaker 1: factor in coverage and not just the guy who's gonna
Speaker 1: snap and protect. And that's what Ashby's gonna do.
Speaker 2: So when you talk about being the first down the field,
Speaker 2: the fastest way is a straight line, right, So the
Speaker 2: guys on the outside obviously have to come in and
Speaker 2: they also have to be blocks on the outside. So
Speaker 2: the long snapper is uncovered and he's right up the gut.
Speaker 2: So if you kick the ball right into the middle
Speaker 2: of the field, which usually you don't want to do,
Speaker 2: But if you kick it right up the middle, then
Speaker 2: the long snapper and stands the reason would be the
Speaker 2: first one down there.
Speaker 1: So the thing about that, and different people will tell
Speaker 1: you different things on this, but yes, usually don't want
Speaker 1: to kick it down the middle of the field if
Speaker 1: you're trying to pin a team, right, if you're punting
Speaker 1: from around the fifty, you're trying to pin a team.
Speaker 1: The sideline can be a friend or a foe. It
Speaker 1: gives you another place where the ball can go out.
Speaker 1: But it also is like if you kick it too short,
Speaker 1: you might not get the bounce because it's going to
Speaker 1: roll out. So get us some more opportunities to down balls,
Speaker 1: maybe in the middle of the field instead of cough
Speaker 1: and cornering, which is unfortunately becoming a lost art in
Speaker 1: the NFL.
Speaker 2: So this guy's a pretty good athlete for a long stow,
Speaker 2: really good athlete. Yeah, he's eight point five to three
Speaker 2: RAS score out of ten uh four nine?
Speaker 1: What's his so the RAS breaks some things down. What's
Speaker 1: his size grade within that?
Speaker 2: So he's uh, he's small. He's okay, size six one
Speaker 2: two thirty one, and the two thirty one is below thresh.
Speaker 1: So he's a elite I think in all the other categories, right.
Speaker 2: Great, great, an elite lead speed great.
Speaker 1: So he's probably closer to a nine RS when you
Speaker 1: don't factor in his size.
Speaker 2: So the big number is the one point five to
Speaker 2: six ten yard split, Yeah, which is moving like that's
Speaker 2: moving out of the he gets out of the the
Speaker 2: blocks and goes Yeah, that's a really good number. That
Speaker 2: would be a good number for like receivers, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: So that's a really good number. One point five six,
Speaker 2: that's a individually, that's a perfect ten out of ten score.
Speaker 1: Maybe he'll actually have a decent rating in Maden since
Speaker 1: they don't recognize long snappers and make them tight ends.
Speaker 2: They still don't do that.
Speaker 1: They still don't do that. That's crazy, I know, and
Speaker 1: doing the college game either. So I finally got to
Speaker 1: do I've been waiting ten years tweet out all the
Speaker 1: overall ratings for all the Patriots draft picks, poor Julian
Speaker 1: ash Everybody I think was eighty five or higher except
Speaker 1: poor Julian Ashby. I have to do a fifty six
Speaker 1: with an asterisk because it's still tight ends. They don't
Speaker 1: recognize them as long.
Speaker 2: A sam Well. Is that just because they don't want
Speaker 2: to put in the work to actually evaluate the long snappers.
Speaker 1: Probably, but like you could we just broke it down,
Speaker 1: like there's things you could put in to make it
Speaker 1: a thing that's true.
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: They three ninety overall guys from NCA.
Speaker 2: By the way, it was a good draft.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Last one mister irrelevant himself, Kobe Minor, Yeah, from Memphis.
Speaker 2: Kind of cool, mister irrelevant thing. Yeah, fun, Kobe Minor
Speaker 2: from Memphis. I think the the thing that stands out
Speaker 2: to me about this pick, oh, you know, besides him
Speaker 2: being mister irrelevant, which is notable, right, is uh, we've
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about slock Corn and maybe you know,
Speaker 2: what's Marcus Jones's role in this defense is what's his fit?
Speaker 2: What's his future with the Patriots? They could probably use
Speaker 2: a little bit of depth in the slot. I mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier that I was trying to put together my depth
Speaker 2: chart the other day on Monday, and I didn't really
Speaker 2: feel great about who to put behind Marcus Jones in
Speaker 2: the slot. It's probably Isaiah Bolden is the guy I
Speaker 2: feel the best about is like a bigger slot corner.
Speaker 2: He's practiced a little bit some in the slot with
Speaker 2: the Patriots the last couple of years. Kobe Minor doesn't
Speaker 2: have great top end speed, but he's got coverage ability.
Speaker 2: He's got zone coverage ability. He can handle those responsibilities,
Speaker 2: and I think that a lot of people project him
Speaker 2: to play be better off inside because of the lack
Speaker 2: of long speed. So I do wonder if they're going
Speaker 2: to have him come in and compete as a slot corner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that certainly seems like yet also a guy that's
Speaker 1: a good athlete. I think in somebody that they probably
Speaker 1: have ear marked for a special team's role primarily, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they need did slot corner depth. He's going to compete.
Speaker 1: Jordan Paul, a guy, undrafted guy from Texas State, has
Speaker 1: been listed a lot of places of safety, yeah, but
Speaker 1: primarily played slot corner for the Bobcats last year. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be an interesting competition there.
Speaker 2: You see a lot of you know, scrappy physical I'm
Speaker 2: not afraid to stick his hat in in the run game,
Speaker 2: and when you hear those types of things, you know
Speaker 2: nowadays Nicole leven personnel. You know, new strong sidelinebacker. Like
Speaker 2: you think about the slot and guys like that playing
Speaker 2: a spot a slot, especially if they don't have the
Speaker 2: top end speed to hang as outside corners. You can
Speaker 2: move him back inside and maybe get something out of
Speaker 2: him a flyer. You know, we'll see what happens with him. Obviously,
Speaker 2: last pick in the draft. You're not expecting a ton
Speaker 2: So that's the draft class. That was good. Look at
Speaker 2: that Look at that pace.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: That was one of our best ever. Like normally this
Speaker 2: show takes we saw the UDF phase, but that was
Speaker 2: a good pace. I'm proud of us. I really am
Speaker 2: so about those u DFAs. Yeah, so the Patriots have
Speaker 2: signed an unbelievable quite a few ud fas. Uh, what
Speaker 2: are we up to now? Like like almost seventeen seventeen,
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, right, we're getting to a high
Speaker 2: number here. So I have a couple that I'm higher on.
Speaker 2: I know you have a couple as well. I think
Speaker 2: the ones that are the most notable, uh to me
Speaker 2: are Efton Chishom's got to be on the list. Land
Speaker 2: Larrison's got to be on the list. I think those
Speaker 2: two guys are on everybody's list. Jack Connonlly from Boston
Speaker 2: College I find interesting. And then of course the full
Speaker 2: back Brock Lamb also c J Deprie. Oh, I can't
Speaker 2: I'm probably the highest on CV and I just forgot
Speaker 2: ce Ja Prie. So I would say those five are
Speaker 2: probably the guys that I look at. Oh and uh
Speaker 2: Elijah Ponder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so six, we'll throw the one in on defense.
Speaker 1: It's mostly an offensive class.
Speaker 2: So those six guys I look at and say probably
Speaker 2: have the best chance to push for roster spots. Who
Speaker 2: is your favorite? You know, we have a couple of minutes,
Speaker 2: so you can, we can go on all six, But
Speaker 2: who is your favorite?
Speaker 1: My personal favorite is probably Larison. I think the guy
Speaker 1: like this feels like a lazy take. Evan, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You tell me. Brock Lampi's the most likely to make
Speaker 1: the team because he's on the top of the depth chart,
Speaker 1: so like he's gonna make it because they need a
Speaker 1: full back and he's a fullback. Beyond him, Larison's super
Speaker 1: fun reminds me a ton of Brandon Bolden. I think
Speaker 1: he's a physical ballcarrier. He can run between the tackles,
Speaker 1: he can catch the football. I think he's gonna be
Speaker 1: a stud on special teams. I think he ends up
Speaker 1: making the team. There could be like three or four
Speaker 1: of these guys who make the team. CJ. Dupree. We
Speaker 1: talked about this guy a lot during the pre draft process.
Speaker 1: Turned out they got him as a UDFA primarily blocking
Speaker 1: tight end, but has some receiving upside you can tap into.
Speaker 1: Really was like the late Day three Mitchell Evans who
Speaker 1: we liked but then obviously end up going undrafted. I
Speaker 1: think to a lot of people's surprise. So I think
Speaker 1: he has a good chance. Chisholm, I mean just cut
Speaker 1: and dry, Josh McDaniel, slicker receiver. I don't know how
Speaker 1: much more we need to say there and then I
Speaker 1: also like Connolly can play four spots. We'll give you
Speaker 1: some depth. We talked about the importance there. Wilfrid Pinay
Speaker 1: will be an interesting one. I also like, I kind
Speaker 1: of just mentioned him. Is Jordan Polk from Texas State.
Speaker 1: A ton of slot experience, some of it's at the
Speaker 1: FCS level, but has a ton of slot experience. Plays physically.
Speaker 1: I think he forces three or four fumbles last year.
Speaker 1: So they need a backup slot corner, and I think
Speaker 1: he's gonna be right there in the mix of the competition.
Speaker 1: Can play some safety as well, and should be a
Speaker 1: good player on special teams. So there's a little g
Speaker 1: Scott too, Like if they want a more of receiving
Speaker 1: tight end, I think he's certainly got'd like to keep
Speaker 1: on the practice squad and developed for a year. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that you look at. So I'll
Speaker 1: have my list out tomorrow on ninety eight five the
Speaker 1: Sports of dot Com. Of like udfa's with the most
Speaker 1: realistic path to the roster. I had ten guys that
Speaker 1: I can see like having a realistic path to making
Speaker 1: the team. It doesn't mean they all will. They won't.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna have ten udfas, But like, there's ten
Speaker 1: guys that I would not be surprised if they made
Speaker 1: the team.
Speaker 2: So I'll go in order of guys that basically I
Speaker 2: thought were drafted to not you know, guys that are
Speaker 2: lower on my list. But suj Dupre, I'm shocked he
Speaker 2: didn't get drafted. And yeah, this happens deep tight end class.
Speaker 2: Someone's gonna fall through the CACS crack. Someone's not going
Speaker 2: to get drafted. That's just the way it works in
Speaker 2: deep classes. Duprie was one of those guys. For my money,
Speaker 2: I thought dupri was one of the best inline blockers
Speaker 2: on day three in the class. Put him right up
Speaker 2: there with you know, Jackson Hawes and Latchie from Iowa
Speaker 2: and like those guys. I thought he blocked really really well.
Speaker 2: I know there's some questions about finish and sort of
Speaker 2: power to sustain and things like that. I didn't see
Speaker 2: that in a couple of games of his that I watched,
Speaker 2: I thought that he finished really well. I put a
Speaker 2: clip up on Twitter of him just kind of throwing
Speaker 2: a guy out of the club, you know, on the sideline.
Speaker 2: I put another one up of him comboing up on
Speaker 2: an inline block of and him just burying the dude
Speaker 2: into the ground and flexing on him, Like this is
Speaker 2: the guy that can really block. If you're gonna make
Speaker 2: the team as a third tight end, blocking and special
Speaker 2: teams is your path, right, Like, that's the way to
Speaker 2: do it. And I think du pre can do both
Speaker 2: of those things. You know, play on the wing on
Speaker 2: special teams, on the protection units and things like that,
Speaker 2: and then also block in line on as a third
Speaker 2: tight end. He has a little bit of juice, like
Speaker 2: he's a four to six ish guy. In the forty
Speaker 2: yard dash, it wasn't a terrible time, above average speed
Speaker 2: at straight line speed. He was an afterthought in Alabama's
Speaker 2: passing game, as you would expect with all the six nine,
Speaker 2: all the talent they have at that school. But he
Speaker 2: you know, they would dump them off, you know, tight
Speaker 2: end screens, little you know, slipouts into the flats, things
Speaker 2: like that, and let him run with the ball. And
Speaker 2: he was pretty good with the ball in his hands.
Speaker 2: And he's got a little bit of straight line speed
Speaker 2: to get down the field. So you split was, yeah,
Speaker 2: they'll have races. I thought that Dupre was going to
Speaker 2: get drafted because of his blocking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, And he's.
Speaker 2: A really good blocker. Efton Chisholm. I just it makes
Speaker 2: me feel whole again that we're doing eft and Chisholm,
Speaker 2: because this is the Riley McCarron's of Austin cars. This
Speaker 2: is the Brax and Barrioses of Gunner O Chefsky's. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is uh, give me another one.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're out of him unless you want to
Speaker 1: go to Julian Edelman.
Speaker 2: No, I don't want to go to Julian Edelman, but.
Speaker 1: Austin Carr, Braxton Barrios, Riley McCarran, Gunner, Gunner, Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think Gunner was more like Gunner was a converted corner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gunner was a little different. But there's more back
Speaker 2: in the day. Like I was mentioning Riley McCarron and
Speaker 2: Austin Carr and Paul yesterday on PU laughed and said,
Speaker 2: I was thinking of different guys because there's so many guys.
Speaker 2: But anyways, uh, not true slot, not like the Truton
Speaker 2: Chisholm is your classic quick, not fast Patriots slot receiver.
Speaker 2: He ran a four to seven. He has got no juice, right, like,
Speaker 2: no straight line juice down the field, and it's not
Speaker 2: a lot after the catch. I will give him this
Speaker 2: after the catch though. He is really good at making
Speaker 2: the first guy miss in a phone booth. Then he
Speaker 2: gets caught from behind every single time. But like he'll
Speaker 2: give you those extra like two or three yards by
Speaker 2: just eluding that first hill.
Speaker 1: Also like, and I mean this is at the FCS level,
Speaker 1: but he'll drag guys like he doesn't just go down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he wants the contacts there because he gets caught,
Speaker 1: but like he'll he'll make him work to bring him down.
Speaker 2: Really where he shines those his route running and he's
Speaker 2: a jitterbug like he's got he's an absolute jitterbug quickness.
Speaker 2: He's got that ability to separate at the top of
Speaker 2: the routes. If he's gonna there's gonna be a preseason game.
Speaker 2: I can tell you right now where they're gonna run
Speaker 2: hass and he's gonna be number three and he's gonna
Speaker 2: run the juke and he's gonna win over the middle
Speaker 2: on a linebacker and we're all gonna just be like
Speaker 2: there he is there, it is right, Like it's gonna
Speaker 2: be like pop the corks right like that. That's chisholm uh.
Speaker 2: He's he was fun. I liked watching watching him at
Speaker 2: Eastern Washington. I posted this on Twitter, like red on
Speaker 2: red red jerseys on a red field, Like come on
Speaker 2: Eastern Washington, Like, no, that's the red field, okay, but
Speaker 2: you can't wear red jerseys on a redkin.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen the thing with Boise State where
Speaker 1: the guy lies down on the on the kick that
Speaker 1: should be it's a whole field advantage.
Speaker 2: If this organization did that, I.
Speaker 1: Don't want to see colored fields in the NFL.
Speaker 2: This organization did that back in the day, there would
Speaker 2: be a Supreme Court hearing.
Speaker 1: Of the pack the Jets can do it. There's not
Speaker 1: smart enough to actually, I think a guy in the
Speaker 1: NFL did do that. Lie down in an enzign.
Speaker 2: I know he did. He did, Yeah, he did. So
Speaker 2: that's Efton Chishlm. Classic Josh McDaniel slot receiver, the red field.
Speaker 2: It's so classic Josh McDaniel slot that you just know
Speaker 2: that McDaniels was somewhere in this building when they do
Speaker 2: UDF a is or flying and he was like, can
Speaker 2: you just give me Chisholm Like.
Speaker 1: And you just just you said he started asking for
Speaker 1: that for the UDFA. He's probably one f seven. They
Speaker 1: probably to rip the phone away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was probably like, I'm telling you, this Eastern
Speaker 2: Washington kid is exactly what I need. Just give me
Speaker 2: this kid.
Speaker 1: When does he release the first workout video with Edelman?
Speaker 1: You know Edelman is going to start going and working
Speaker 1: out with him.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about him. I'm not gonna lie. He's going
Speaker 2: to be a training camp guy we all know that,
Speaker 2: Land Larison. I can see it with him a little
Speaker 2: bit too. Again, another guy that just fits that mold
Speaker 2: for the Patriots. Really good quickness, like he can really
Speaker 2: elude and jump out of cuts. I wouldn't say he's
Speaker 2: the fastest either in a straight line, like he's not
Speaker 2: going to run through defenses or take out pursued angles
Speaker 2: like Trevon Henderson, but he's going to be able to
Speaker 2: jump cut out of tackles. He's gonna be able to
Speaker 2: catch the ball a little bit out of the battlefield,
Speaker 2: you said, Brandon Bolden. He told me I was lazy
Speaker 2: by comping him to Rex Burkhead. I'm gonna do it anyways, right,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: He gets bigger than I forgot. I looked at that.
Speaker 1: I said, Larius is like a big guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yesterday on PU I I
Speaker 2: screwed up and I called him Danny Woodhead. He's much
Speaker 2: bigger than Danny wood He's like six foot two fifteen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Rex Burkhead, Rex Perkin. Yeah, there's a there's comps of
Speaker 2: there's a comps. There's clips of him like running angle
Speaker 2: routes and stuff like that. Out of the backfield and
Speaker 2: paying some separation on linebackers. He's he's Rex burt Head.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Conley, Jack Conley from Boston College. You knew
Speaker 2: they were going to get one BC guy in here.
Speaker 2: Jack Conley's the guy. What I like about Jack Conley
Speaker 2: And I talked to to the guys at New England
Speaker 2: Football Journal, you know, Kevin and yeah, Den, I was
Speaker 2: trying to I wasn't gonna be able to pronounce his
Speaker 2: last name, sorry. John. John's a big offensive line guy,
Speaker 2: coaches offensive line, so he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: And we were at PC's pro day and he was like,
Speaker 2: I think Conley, you know, is a is an interesting
Speaker 2: like seventh round UDF A flyer. He is on it.
Speaker 2: And the big reason why John told me that is
Speaker 2: because of his versatility. Like if you if you're going
Speaker 2: to back up in the NFL, you better be able
Speaker 2: to back up multiple spots, right, Like you have to
Speaker 2: be a four position backup like Conley. Conley played every
Speaker 2: position at Boston College beside center. Yeah, he played in
Speaker 2: a college game at He also played a little bit
Speaker 2: of muscle tight end, like jumbo tight end, you know,
Speaker 2: tackle eligible type of stuff. As the sixth offensive lineman.
Speaker 2: So this is a guy that projects as a backup,
Speaker 2: that can back up multiple positions. I think he's got
Speaker 2: good power, good play strength to him. You know, he's
Speaker 2: got a rock solid kind of anchor and thud into
Speaker 2: contact and all that kind of stuff. He's got to
Speaker 2: work on. He's a wastebender and he like leans over
Speaker 2: his skis and gets off balance. I have to work
Speaker 2: on that, but I think he can be a backup
Speaker 2: in the league. So to prea chisholm uh Lampy With Lampy,
Speaker 2: it's more of a of an offense stylistic thing, right,
Speaker 2: Like that's all it is. If they're gonna go with
Speaker 2: the full back, you know, that's the type of thing
Speaker 2: that they're going to Uh, they're gonna want, you know,
Speaker 2: in Lampy. You know I turned on his tape against
Speaker 2: Notre Dame last year at Northern Iowa and they ran
Speaker 2: lead iso right full back right through the the A
Speaker 2: gap or the B gap up on the linebacker you know,
Speaker 2: thwack right behind him, right. You know that play. Everybody
Speaker 2: knows it. If you play pee wee football, it's like
Speaker 2: a day one install from like the fifth grade on
Speaker 2: right is lead ISO. Then right after a couple of
Speaker 2: plays later they play actioned off of it and I
Speaker 2: was like, I was pants off. I was like, hell yeah,
Speaker 2: full back's back, baby. He did do a little bit
Speaker 2: of things on the wing like you do, some wing
Speaker 2: blocking and some inline blocking as well. So there's some
Speaker 2: of that versatility or like H back versatility to him
Speaker 2: as well. But if they want that traditional full back,
Speaker 2: that's just him. The one thing I would say about
Speaker 2: him as a receiver, I thought his ball skills were decent.
Speaker 2: Like he made a low catch against Notre Dame where
Speaker 2: he got yeah, where he went to the ground and
Speaker 2: made a catch. I thought that he Know he's not
Speaker 2: a dynamic receiver. It's not Kyle used check right, You're
Speaker 2: not going to get that level out of him. But
Speaker 2: I do think he can catch the ball. You know,
Speaker 2: if he elits into the flat and he's you know,
Speaker 2: the fifth read on the backside, and there's just nobody
Speaker 2: covering him over here, like they'll he'll be able to
Speaker 2: be serviceable. He'll catch the ball, he'll get upfield, he'll
Speaker 2: get the yards he can get.
Speaker 1: He's not a true h back, but he is somebody
Speaker 1: who can trust with ball in his hands in the
Speaker 1: right situation. So I think it's that perfect mold between
Speaker 1: what McDaniels wants, which is a guy that can just
Speaker 1: get into the A gap and meet a linebacker, but
Speaker 1: not somebody like he's all somebody the defense is going
Speaker 1: to have to account for.
Speaker 2: Last one I wanted to bring up was Elijah Ponder
Speaker 2: from cal Poly. I thought that Elijah Ponder had draftable talent,
Speaker 2: draftable trade, certainly a really good tester. Again, hammer in
Speaker 2: the testing here, nine point seven rass Orris really elite
Speaker 2: in all categories, you know, elite speed, elite explosiveness, elite agility.
Speaker 2: This is a guy that ran a six point nine
Speaker 2: to nine second three cone at six two two fifty.
Speaker 2: That's really good. Yeah, sub seven three cone at that
Speaker 2: size is really impressive. Defensive end prospect handing the dirt
Speaker 2: four to three end, good power, good explosiveness off the line,
Speaker 2: can really gain ground early in his pass rush. I
Speaker 2: think that there obviously is going to be some level
Speaker 2: of competition, question marks and jumping competition and technique stuff,
Speaker 2: But a guy that can really rush the passer and
Speaker 2: really has some speed to power and some athleticism to
Speaker 2: his game so I think he's got a chance just
Speaker 2: on raw tools to potentially make the roster. So if
Speaker 2: I had to guess, besides Lampy, like you said, that's
Speaker 2: its own thing. Besides Lampy, if I had to guess,
Speaker 2: I would say Dupree's probably got the best chance to
Speaker 2: make the team as a third tight end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Larison and Chisholm are right there too. I
Speaker 1: think that's the big that's the and Conley that's like
Speaker 1: the group you're looking at, and then some other guys
Speaker 1: more just for depth.
Speaker 2: If I had to put a guess on it, I
Speaker 2: would say Dupre third tight end, blocking tight end behind
Speaker 2: Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper. You can he beat out
Speaker 2: Jahem Bell as more of a tradition inline blocker, whereas
Speaker 2: Jackeen Bell is kind of this you know flex h
Speaker 2: back moved right.
Speaker 1: But I guess it becomes tough. Are you gonna So
Speaker 1: it comes down to me like, if they're going to
Speaker 1: carry a move tight end and h back, you probably
Speaker 1: aren't going to keep Lampy. Yeah, So it's Dupre or
Speaker 1: Lampy depending on if Bell fills the full back rolling right.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of a trickle down effect of like
Speaker 2: Belle Lampy dupre those three guys. Do they want the
Speaker 2: traditional full back? Do they want an extra inline blocker? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Those would be the conversations that we're gonna have all
Speaker 2: summer long, all summer long about this team in this
Speaker 2: fifty three man roster. Really exciting group all around. And
Speaker 2: we have one more special treat for you, so don't
Speaker 2: sign off just yet. Dame Broker from the Athletic is
Speaker 2: up next. He's gonna break down. What's that? Oh? I
Speaker 2: need to do the read. I need to do the
Speaker 2: read first before we throw it to day. Support the
Speaker 2: home team. Join New England's events staff here at led Stadium.
Speaker 2: Season open visions available in food, beverage, parking and security.
Speaker 2: Visit www dot thecraftgroup dot com, slash careers and apply today.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, here's Dan Brugler. We are joined now
Speaker 2: by Dame Bruger of the Athletic, the Beast himself. Dane,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining us, and you're we got
Speaker 2: a lot of fans of you here right now because
Speaker 2: you ranked the Patriots as the number one draft class
Speaker 2: in the NFL, so we had to have you y'all
Speaker 2: to talk about that, but thanks so much for doing this.
Speaker 3: No, Hey, pleasures online.
Speaker 5: It was a fun draft season, fun three days. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm really lated what the Patriots did. So excited to
Speaker 5: talk about that class with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's start with that right off the top. So
Speaker 2: you published a ranking of all thirty two teams draft
Speaker 2: classes and you had those New England Patriots up there
Speaker 2: at number one. Why did you think the Patriots had
Speaker 2: the best draft in the NFL.
Speaker 5: First of all, they just drafted a lot of the
Speaker 5: players that I had ranked in my top one hundred.
Speaker 5: I think six we're in my top one hundred. And
Speaker 5: I think they just matched up really well with the
Speaker 5: needs and what's going to make this team better, you know,
Speaker 5: And like what I do, because I don't do draft grades,
Speaker 5: I just do it one through thirty two.
Speaker 3: Here are my favorite draft classes.
Speaker 5: And really it just comes down to who do I
Speaker 5: think made the biggest jump based off of what they.
Speaker 3: Did on draft weekend?
Speaker 5: And I think you look at the Patriots. You get
Speaker 5: your love tackle with Will Campbell, you come back, you
Speaker 5: get a couple of playmakers in on Day two with
Speaker 5: Travon Henderson Kyle Williams, and then to get Jared Well
Speaker 5: trade back and then get Jared Wilson. I just tremendous
Speaker 5: value in my opinion. Wilson, He's going to be a
Speaker 5: starter in this league for a long time. I compared
Speaker 5: to him a Rodney Hudson, you know, a guy that
Speaker 5: maybe won't make a Pro Bowl, but he's going to
Speaker 5: be a solid starter for a lot of years. And
Speaker 5: that's he's going to bring competition from day one. And
Speaker 5: so that's what if you're the Patriots, that's exactly what
Speaker 5: you want. You want to an offensive line that is
Speaker 5: really get the five best out there based off of competition.
Speaker 5: And so I think they did a really nice job
Speaker 5: first two three rounds and then into Day three just
Speaker 5: adding really good football players and at positions where they're
Speaker 5: going to directly impact this team in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: And Dan kind of along those lines. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if you factor this into your grade, just how
Speaker 1: teams maneuver the board and work the board. But five trades.
Speaker 1: That was a big part of the talking point coming
Speaker 1: out of the draft. It was I believe Elliott Wolf
Speaker 1: after the draft talked about they wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: they were picking in spots where the players lined up
Speaker 1: for them. Did you factor that into your evaluation, if not,
Speaker 1: just your thoughts on how they were able to manipulate
Speaker 1: the board to get the class that they wanted to get.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's that's certainly part of it.
Speaker 5: Like I said, to trade back and get Wilson the
Speaker 5: way they did was awesome. It's it's always tough because
Speaker 5: if you like a player.
Speaker 3: Enough, just take them.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, if they are teams calling
Speaker 5: about possibly moving up, then you know, it's it's a
Speaker 5: conversation about, hey, well we can pick up an extra
Speaker 5: fourth or an extra fifth and move back ten twelve
Speaker 5: spots and we still feel like we'll get the same guy.
Speaker 5: Now there's risk involved obviously that the player will still
Speaker 5: be there.
Speaker 3: But I think the Patriots and what.
Speaker 5: They did over the weekend was a good example of
Speaker 5: it working out to their advantage and letting the board
Speaker 5: fall to them, not forcing things, not being you know,
Speaker 5: like was it member last year in the second round
Speaker 5: when you know they traded back, you know, wait from
Speaker 5: lad McConkey, and they know all the you know, noise
Speaker 5: about that decision. Well, that didn't carry over to this
Speaker 5: year where they were scared to move back if they
Speaker 5: felt like that was the right move. And you know
Speaker 5: that that's something to be said about just not manipulating
Speaker 5: the board, but not drafting scared. You know, you are
Speaker 5: going to trust your grades, trust all the work that
Speaker 5: your scouts did, and you know the rest of your
Speaker 5: front office, your coaches, and build the team with players
Speaker 5: that you had high on your board. And they were
Speaker 5: able to do that, and I think they were the
Speaker 5: value because the draft's all about value. The value they
Speaker 5: got at every level the draft was really impressive.
Speaker 2: So, Daniel, you listed out your favorite pick of the
Speaker 2: draft for each team and then your favorite kind of
Speaker 2: Day three sleeper pick, and your favorite pick of the
Speaker 2: draft for the Pats was Kyle Williams, who I think
Speaker 2: we're all pretty excited about here. Not the type of
Speaker 2: receiver that they've had here in a while, you know,
Speaker 2: speed separation ability. But what was it about Kyle Williams
Speaker 2: that you thought he was the best pick of the
Speaker 2: draft for them?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just summed it up, speed separation. Just going
Speaker 5: back to the Senior Bowl and watching Kyle in person,
Speaker 5: the releases off the line, his ability to separate early,
Speaker 5: mid and late was.
Speaker 3: Just really impressive.
Speaker 5: And I go back to North Carolina when Drake May
Speaker 5: not the twenty twenty three season, but the twenty twenty
Speaker 5: two season, his top target was Josh Downs, and Downs
Speaker 5: was kind of a similar guy where he just got
Speaker 5: open consistently, a little bit of a smaller target, just
Speaker 5: like Kyle Williams, but Downs was able to get open
Speaker 5: and May trusted that implicitly, and that was a big
Speaker 5: part of that North Carolina offense he was missing that
Speaker 5: last year. And that's what I think Kyle Williams can
Speaker 5: be for Drake May, helping him take that next step
Speaker 5: in his development, be a high volume pass catcher, receive
Speaker 5: a lot of targets, even as early as his rookie season.
Speaker 5: So you know, Kyle Williams was an interesting player throughout
Speaker 5: the process because he blew He had a great senior year,
Speaker 5: blew up the Senior Bowl, and then had a really
Speaker 5: good forty time four to four to zero at the combine,
Speaker 5: but then he got hurt the hamstring, so cut the
Speaker 5: combine short, couldn't work out of the Pro Day. But
Speaker 5: you know, he was a really popular guy with thirty
Speaker 5: visits and workouts as teams tried to figure him out,
Speaker 5: and so for the Patriots to get him in the
Speaker 5: third really liked the value there.
Speaker 1: Just along those lines, why do you think, you know,
Speaker 1: you're so dug in this from the beginning, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people they start looking maybe around the Senior
Speaker 1: Bowl and I remember looking at and the consensusport is
Speaker 1: what it is. It's a tool, it's not everything. But
Speaker 1: he was like eight hundredth on the consensus sport going
Speaker 1: into the Senior Bowl, and even coming out of that,
Speaker 1: you know, was not getting that same kind of attention.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until two three weeks ago that people really
Speaker 1: start talking about this guy. Is it just you know,
Speaker 1: Pack two conference playing out on the West coast late
Speaker 1: games or why do you think this guy didn't have
Speaker 1: as much external buzz during the process as he clearly
Speaker 1: did with teams going as high as he went.
Speaker 5: I think that's a big part of it, just people
Speaker 5: not paying attention to Washington State football because of you know,
Speaker 5: just the conference realignment in Washington State Oregon State kind
Speaker 5: of being left out in the cold. But yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean Williams he started at UNLV three years there, transferred
Speaker 5: to Washington State, had an okay year in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 5: but wasn't really looked at as a draftable player. So
Speaker 5: going back to the summer watching him, it was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: solid player, but looks like a camp body. You know,
Speaker 5: it looks like he has some speed, but you know,
Speaker 5: production is just okay. And then this year as a senior,
Speaker 5: it's like, really things started to click for him, and
Speaker 5: so it was a little bit of a see. I mean,
Speaker 5: I liked him going into the Senior Bowl, but the
Speaker 5: Senior Bowl is really where it was like, Okay, this
Speaker 5: guy's a little bit different. Jalen Nole to me, was
Speaker 5: the best receiver I saw on mobile. Kyle Williams was
Speaker 5: a close second. Those two. Both of them were really
Speaker 5: dynamic the entire week and then you know, just kind
Speaker 5: of getting better and better throughout the process. But it
Speaker 5: was kind of out of sight, out of mind, not
Speaker 5: seeing him during the season for most fans. And then,
Speaker 5: like I said, he got hurt at the combine, so
Speaker 5: we didn't see him go through a lot of those drills,
Speaker 5: position drills, testing drills, and then he didn't have a
Speaker 5: Pro Day, so you know, he was kind of a
Speaker 5: little bit out of sight, out of mind, but yeah,
Speaker 5: he was a team and then for teams too.
Speaker 3: Like it was.
Speaker 5: It was not like love at first sight. It was
Speaker 5: something that you know, kind of grew on teams as
Speaker 5: the process played out.
Speaker 2: So your your favorite to move down the board here
Speaker 2: a little bit. Your favorite Day three pick was Brandon
Speaker 2: Swinson from LSU, and I think all of us were
Speaker 2: collectively pretty surprised that he made it all the way
Speaker 2: to the fifth round. So to part question here, why
Speaker 2: did you like Swinson? And why do you think he
Speaker 2: fell a little bit in the draft?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And really, I mean there were a couple Joshua Farmer
Speaker 5: in the fourth I thought was you know, terrific value.
Speaker 5: I think Craig Woodson will hear from as a rookie.
Speaker 5: So a couple of Day three picks should play a
Speaker 5: factor in the twenty twenty five season for the Patriots.
Speaker 5: You know, Swinston was tough because you know, he had
Speaker 5: he had plenty of love. I think in the media side,
Speaker 5: teams weren't quite as high on Swinson compared to some
Speaker 5: of the media, and I'm part of it. You know,
Speaker 5: he was a good player at LSU, but you know,
Speaker 5: was he going to be a full time player in
Speaker 5: the NFL? Is he more of a sub package guy,
Speaker 5: you know, six three and a half two hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty five pounds. What hurt him a little bit was
Speaker 5: choosing not to work out at the Pro Day. He'd
Speaker 5: even weigh in, and so I've heard from several teams
Speaker 5: that were just like not happy just that because he
Speaker 5: didn't he did I think the short shuttle in the
Speaker 5: three cone at the combine. Then it goes to the
Speaker 5: Pro day and ops to just do nothing, and that
Speaker 5: rubbed some scouts the wrong way. Now, is that the
Speaker 5: reason he fell? I you know, I don't, I don't,
Speaker 5: I don't know. I think he was viewed as more
Speaker 5: of a fourth round guy for teams, so you know,
Speaker 5: to get him in the fifth, you know, I thought
Speaker 5: it was trific value there. But it's just I go
Speaker 5: back to what this team needed and you look at
Speaker 5: just adding some more pass rush jees. So even if
Speaker 5: you know Swinston's not a full time player, He's going
Speaker 5: to come in and be part of the rotation and
Speaker 5: give you some of that quickness off the edge. He's
Speaker 5: not just a super physical player in the run game,
Speaker 5: but he gives effort, so you know, he he is
Speaker 5: a player that you know has to mature both, you know,
Speaker 5: on the field. Off the field, he his past year,
Speaker 5: he butted heads with coaches a few times. You know,
Speaker 5: he was suspended for the first quarter of the Florida
Speaker 5: game for you know, just not eating the with the
Speaker 5: team expected of him. So there's growing up to do
Speaker 5: with this player. But talent is there for him to
Speaker 5: come in and make an impact getting after the quarterback.
Speaker 1: Late in the draft, the Patriots make the two special
Speaker 1: teams editions kicker Andres Borgalis and then Ashby the long snapper.
Speaker 1: Anytime the Patriots take a special teamer, especially after the
Speaker 1: way went Chad Rownd a couple of years ago, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: did they need to invest draft capital here? What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on those two guys in Are they players
Speaker 1: that you think if the Patriots wanted they had to
Speaker 1: take them where they did?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 5: You know, I think when you were talking, especially with
Speaker 5: Ashby in the seventh round, it's okay, do we really
Speaker 5: want to get into a bidding war to make sure
Speaker 5: we get him a free agency or you know, a
Speaker 5: team like the Patriots that had so many picks, we
Speaker 5: can just use a seventh rounder on him.
Speaker 3: And you know, Ashby is one.
Speaker 5: Of what five guys long snappers that you know were
Speaker 5: part of that combine that they had with the specialists.
Speaker 5: A little undersize and thirty one pounds, but I think
Speaker 5: that you know, you're thinking about adding weight and you
Speaker 5: look at the athlete and just the consistency that he
Speaker 5: brought that those were kind of the athleticism, consistency, those
Speaker 5: are two words that came up when you know, just
Speaker 5: talking about Ashby. And then you know with the kicker,
Speaker 5: you know, bory Gollis was my rate, my top ranked
Speaker 5: kicker this year. Thought he could go anywhere between the
Speaker 5: fifth and seventh rounds.
Speaker 3: So where the Patriots got him?
Speaker 5: You know, it's always you know, some some teams look
Speaker 5: at it and say, we'll never draft a kicker. Other
Speaker 5: teams look at it and say, you know, if we
Speaker 5: like the player.
Speaker 3: Enough, we'll go that route.
Speaker 5: And I think with bor Gollis, he did enough during
Speaker 5: his college career, he did enough during the pro day
Speaker 5: during the workouts that said, hey, I'm a starter at
Speaker 5: the next level. And so you know, I I'm not
Speaker 5: going to push back and say like they made the
Speaker 5: wrong move or anything. Time will play out, but I
Speaker 5: certainly understand why they went that direction, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Dan, last one for you. The Patriots have got
Speaker 2: a pretty good history of undrafted rookies making the roster
Speaker 2: making an impact. What are some of the guys that
Speaker 2: stood out to you out of their class there?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: CJ. Duprieze one guy that I had actually watched before
Speaker 2: the draft and thought maybe he'd get drafted at tight end.
Speaker 2: But is there anyone out of that group that you like?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, Chisholm was my top ranked non combine
Speaker 5: receiver this year.
Speaker 3: Him running in.
Speaker 5: The four sevens at the Pro Day really kind of
Speaker 5: probably eliminated any chances of getting drafted. But he's not
Speaker 5: a long speed guy. He is a short area quickness
Speaker 5: type of player. He I mean, the production he put
Speaker 5: up at Eastern Washington was outstanding, and then he goes
Speaker 5: to the East West Shrine game and was fantastic. That
Speaker 5: short area quickness out of the slot helps him get open,
Speaker 5: give his quarterback a target. And so I'm eager to
Speaker 5: see what he can do in training camp and see
Speaker 5: if he can possibly earn a role with you on CG.
Speaker 3: Dupree He to me he was.
Speaker 5: The better of the two Alabama tight ends oots actually
Speaker 5: got drafted by the Seahawks in the fifth round. I
Speaker 5: believe Dupre I thought was the better of the two.
Speaker 5: He's the better pass catcher.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: He's a really well built kid, six y five, two
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty six pounds.
Speaker 3: He was one of the best.
Speaker 5: His dad's really big into weightlifting, and so so was
Speaker 5: he and so he I think it was like thirty
Speaker 5: two reps on the bench that really stood out. He
Speaker 5: wasn't a high volume target in that Alabama offense. He
Speaker 5: only had twenty one catches this past year, but I
Speaker 5: think you have a good size, speed athlete. When he
Speaker 5: was targeted, he caught the ball, and I think he
Speaker 5: was good enough as a blocker that you thought, all right,
Speaker 5: if I want a true wide tight end, prototypical hand
Speaker 5: in the ground, inline guy, this guy could potentially be that.
Speaker 5: So a little surprised he didn't get drafted, because I
Speaker 5: think he has the what a lot of teams are
Speaker 5: looking for as a blocker and receiver to earn a
Speaker 5: roster spot.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I was surprised too. So that's why we
Speaker 2: had you on Dan, because we went a whole interview
Speaker 2: did not mention Will Campbell's name once because we wanted
Speaker 2: to talk to you about the deep the deep cuts,
Speaker 2: as we do on this show. You had all two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty six guys in the Beast again this year,
Speaker 2: right fifty seven, Yeah, to fifty seven. I short turned
Speaker 2: to you one guy there, but it must.
Speaker 5: Have gotten It was close there that final pick by
Speaker 5: the Patriots. I was, you know, you never know, it
Speaker 5: could be someone that I overlooked, but it was my
Speaker 5: one hundred and twenty seventh corner with Kobe Minors, so
Speaker 5: it wasn't someone that I had ranked highly. But you know,
Speaker 5: I hope he ends up making the roster and has
Speaker 5: a good career.
Speaker 3: But I'm just happy you was in the Beast.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So you can read Dan at the Athletic of course,
Speaker 2: and the Beast. The Athletic subscription is worth it just
Speaker 2: for the Beast alone every single year, So make sure
Speaker 2: to give Dan a follow and give him a subscription
Speaker 2: as well. That's going to do it for today's episode
Speaker 2: of Patriots Catch twenty two, and I will be back
Speaker 2: next week. Very special thank you to our very special
Speaker 2: guest Dame Brugler, and we'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 2: Thanks for watching.
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Fred thanks for tuning into the show.
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Speaker 2: Thanks a lot,