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Speaker 1: Life and adventure and it's waiting. Hi. This is Merril

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Speaker 1: Hodge at S ANDT Bank. They know lives for the living.

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Speaker 1: f D I C. S and D Bank was ranked

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Speaker 1: number one in customer satisfaction with retail banking and Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: by j D Power for JD Power two Award Information

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Speaker 1: Visit JD power dot com Slash Awards. He's the Drive

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Speaker 1: with Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson on your home of

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Speaker 1: the Black and Gold s Steelers Nation Radio. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: the Drive. I'm Dale Allity here with Matt Williamson. Matt.

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Speaker 1: It's a lovely Monday here in Pittsburgh and it's also

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Speaker 1: today was well pre draft press conference day in Pittsburgh

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Speaker 1: and the first the Monday before the uh the draft

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Speaker 1: itself happens. UH. It's been this way for years. The

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Speaker 1: Steelers hold a press conference where they make both Kevin

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Speaker 1: Colbert and Mike Tomlin or whoever the GM and head

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Speaker 1: coach happened to be. Yeah, available, and they talk or

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Speaker 1: don't talk about the draft. That's they're asked about the draft.

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Speaker 1: They're asked many questions that they then can uh continually

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Speaker 1: dodge like they're playing uh uh, you know, a good

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Speaker 1: game of dodgeball. Yeah, you know, they don't come out

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Speaker 1: and tell you exactly their planning every step of the way.

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Speaker 1: And all the guys with character concerns and aren't smart

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Speaker 1: enough for the guys that they absolutely adore and are

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Speaker 1: going to trade up for. That's not exactly how it

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Speaker 1: goes down. They yeah, they amazingly enough. They don't do that.

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Speaker 1: Hard to believe. That's probably a good business decision by them. So, um,

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Speaker 1: there is fresh on your noga though. So what did

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Speaker 1: you gather from this little gathering. Well, as you can imagine,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the conversations centered on the quarterback position,

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Speaker 1: and they're um extensive look at the quarterback position. And

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Speaker 1: Kevin Kevin Colbert said that that really dated back to

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Speaker 1: the season itself. Uh, that they had seen each of

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Speaker 1: the top guys in this quarterback draft class, uh in person,

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Speaker 1: multiple times, whether it would be him or some of

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Speaker 1: their scouts. Uh. In some cases he said, you know

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Speaker 1: it was two, three, four or five six, seven times. Now,

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Speaker 1: I think we could probably assume that, you know, they

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Speaker 1: probably had somebody see for example, Kenny pick At seven

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Speaker 1: times he plays. He plays right in their stadium. They

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Speaker 1: share a stadium together, so you know, you go to

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Speaker 1: him in the parking lot doesn't count, No, that doesn't count.

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Speaker 1: But they've seen these guys play a lot um. And

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Speaker 1: then you know, you carried debt through the pre draft process,

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Speaker 1: the Senior Bowl and then the Combine and then having

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Speaker 1: them in you know they're they're going to their pro days,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, having them in for for private visits. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know again doing the leg work on this and

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Speaker 1: and Mike tom was asked about it and he said, look,

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Speaker 1: I I you know, this is what we planned to

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Speaker 1: do all along. Um, you know, we wanted to take

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Speaker 1: a good hard look at the quarterback position. And my

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Speaker 1: feeling about this is, Matt if they don't draft a

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Speaker 1: quarterback early this year, they'll do the same thing next

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Speaker 1: year too, and the year after and until they because

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Speaker 1: as as as Colbert said, we haven't had to do

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Speaker 1: this in so long because we had an eighteen years

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Speaker 1: starting quarterback, right, you know, you were in Ben Roethlisberger

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Speaker 1: year ten for Ben Roethlisberger, they weren't going out and

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Speaker 1: scouting the scouring the the quarterback draft class. They would

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Speaker 1: look at it. They did their due diligence like any

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Speaker 1: other position. But this is a different position than the others.

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Speaker 1: I mean, let's not kid around, and it takes extra work.

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Speaker 1: I'm still in the camp and I think you are too.

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Speaker 1: It would be a bigger story to me if they

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Speaker 1: didn't go out of their way. Yeah right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if they weren't at the top of the league in

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Speaker 1: terms of attention paid to this quarterback class, that would

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Speaker 1: be a red flag to me. So even if you're

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Speaker 1: not gonna take one, it would be crazy not to

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Speaker 1: make the league think you are absolutely and people are

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Speaker 1: looking at this and go world. What does this say

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Speaker 1: about Miss Robinsky? Nothing, not a thing to me. Again,

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Speaker 1: as Tom One noted, they started this process saying we're

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Speaker 1: gonna take a good, strong look at the quarterback position

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Speaker 1: this year because we know Ben's retiring. Yeah exactly. You

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Speaker 1: didn't know you were gonna get Miss You didn't know

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Speaker 1: you're gonna get Mr Robinsky, right. That's a good point too.

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Speaker 1: Is this whole scouting process, as you opened the podcast with,

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Speaker 1: started a long time ago, before you ever made your

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Speaker 1: free agency plans or knew what was gonna be on

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Speaker 1: the free Asian market, let alone targeting Trabinsky. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you gotta think of the timeline of the whole scouting apartment.

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Speaker 1: They knew Ben Roethlisberger was going to retire after this season.

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Speaker 1: Certainly we're operating that he was, Yeah, going on that

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Speaker 1: assumption that this was gonna be it for Ben. So

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Speaker 1: when you when you start sitting down with your college scouts,

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Speaker 1: if you're Kevin Colbert, Okay, guys, here's where we're gonna go.

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Speaker 1: We want to see this quarterback. We want to see that,

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Speaker 1: you know, because you can't just go into and say, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know that the scouting doesn't start in February, when

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Speaker 1: the when the Combine or the Senior Bowl happens. The

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Speaker 1: scouting process starts, you know, the right after the draft,

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Speaker 1: the last year's draft. Okay, here the here're the guys

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Speaker 1: we need to look at for next year with the

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Speaker 1: intent of guys quarterbacks the priority this year. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's all it needs to be said, or probably didn't

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Speaker 1: need to be said. You know that you tell the scouts, hey,

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Speaker 1: quarterbacks gonna be a priority this year, you know, and realistically, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it should probably be that way for half of teams

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Speaker 1: in the league. Yeah, They're not unique in the slightest.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I know again I've gotten that question. Well,

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Speaker 1: what does this say about Mr Robisky how they feel

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Speaker 1: about him? Not a word, not not a damn thing.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it means one thing. The thing went

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Speaker 1: after him early and aggressively says more about Mr Whisky

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Speaker 1: to me than you know what we were talking about now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think you know Colbert said, uh he quote is

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Speaker 1: is could we add somebody at quarterback? Yes? Could we

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Speaker 1: start the season without adding adding somebody? Yes, We'll see

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Speaker 1: where it goes. I I don't know that they're locked

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Speaker 1: in on quarterback like some people. Again, I think people

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Speaker 1: are jumping making that assumption. Like I keep saying every

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Speaker 1: every mock draft that I see as a Steelers taking

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Speaker 1: a quarterback, well, not necessarily, not unless the right guy

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Speaker 1: is there. I think that's the main thing. And I've

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Speaker 1: come out of this whole process with They're not just

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Speaker 1: going to take a quarterback. To take a quarterback, I've

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Speaker 1: said of a thousand times. I mean, I think that

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Speaker 1: the signing of Edmonds maybe makes the percentage go up

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Speaker 1: a little, you know, there's one less thing that is

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Speaker 1: on the door. Whatever. You know. Maybe, but this isn't like, boy,

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Speaker 1: maybe we'll sign Edmonds and now we're to go to

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Speaker 1: quarterback and this is a long thought out process. Is

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Speaker 1: My point is, you know, the Edmonds factor has been

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Speaker 1: there every step of the way that that was an

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Speaker 1: option you could deal with or or not, you know,

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Speaker 1: or address. So I don't know. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: there's a really good chance that they draft a quarterback

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Speaker 1: with their first pick at twenty earlier, trained down whatever.

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Speaker 1: But that's what I've kind of thought all along. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is this isn't the situation like last year, though,

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Speaker 1: where I think the entire world knew they wanted the

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Speaker 1: best kept secret out. Yeah, and the reason that everybody

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Speaker 1: knew that they didn't have a starting running back on

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Speaker 1: their roster, right, I mean they went in with a

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Speaker 1: massive hole and not even a stop gap guy. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, at that point, going into the draft,

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Speaker 1: their number on running back was Benny Snell. This isn't

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Speaker 1: that situation. The world knew they were drafting one no

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Speaker 1: matter what. Yeah, um, so yeah, I think this is

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Speaker 1: a little different than that. Um, you know, and I

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Speaker 1: think that you know, when you when you look at

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Speaker 1: at the way this draft it's up again, we've we've

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Speaker 1: talked about quarterbacks at nauseum of course, of course like

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Speaker 1: crazy and and and again. We could be back in

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Speaker 1: the same boat next year. Uh we're not. You know,

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Speaker 1: it just depends. But I think when you when you

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Speaker 1: look at the needs on this team and they look

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Speaker 1: at the My my bottom line is this, they'll start

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Speaker 1: looking at their needs for draft within weeks of this

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Speaker 1: draft like the dust that yeah, yeah, you know, the dust.

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Speaker 1: The dust will settle on this draft class and they'll

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Speaker 1: start planning. Okay, here's what we need to here's here

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Speaker 1: are the positions we to focus on next year. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they know who's going to be a free agent? Who

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Speaker 1: isn't you know what, maybe another likely retirement or somebody

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Speaker 1: you're moving on from. It's less pronounced, of course than

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Speaker 1: this past year. You know, I mean there's not an

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Speaker 1: eighteen year old haldor eighteen career season Hall of Fame

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Speaker 1: er hanging it up. You know, Cam Hayward has at

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Speaker 1: come out and said this is my last year, or

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Speaker 1: t J. Watts contracts up and you know he's leaving,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean it's different. Last year. In the

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Speaker 1: past offseason was of course very unique. But you're right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're your off season plan starts in a week, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you gotta start making Okay, you look at the college schedule.

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Speaker 1: Here's where we want to go, Here's what we want

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Speaker 1: to hit. These are the guys we want to see.

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Speaker 1: I thought, you know, Colbert said, when you have a

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Speaker 1: quarterbike quarterback like Ben for that many years, you didn't

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Speaker 1: spend as much time with the position because you weren't

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Speaker 1: going to entertain it, right right, right, We did spend

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Speaker 1: more time in that position, and it was necessary. We

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Speaker 1: have to get that, right he called he called the

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Speaker 1: quarterback position the most critical position in our sport. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, and maybe in all sports, not that they

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Speaker 1: care about hockey or anything, right, you know, right, right, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it absolutely is. I mean, you either have you know,

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Speaker 1: if you if you if you're bad at quarterback, you're

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Speaker 1: usually a bad football team. It's a hard thing. To overcome,

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Speaker 1: of course, you know, I mean our listeners don't need

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Speaker 1: us to tell us that, but yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: it's a critical, critical juncture. It's a critical offseason for

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Speaker 1: the franchise as a whole. Yeah, and that's not a

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Speaker 1: surprised anybody, you know. Mike Tomlin was asked what his

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Speaker 1: number one life and adventure and it's waiting. Hi. This

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Speaker 1: is Merril Hodge at S ANDT Bank. They know lives

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Speaker 1: at the position and after kind of hedge in a

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Speaker 1: little basically, you know, there's a bunch of things that

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Speaker 1: you look for. The thing that he talked about, he said,

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Speaker 1: that the thing that you need the most at that position,

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Speaker 1: he said, it's the ultimate competitors to position like you

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Speaker 1: need to see that logic, you know more so. And

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Speaker 1: that's and even Ben at the end always had that

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Speaker 1: was it hell of it? You know? Yeah, that's why

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Speaker 1: they had the all those you know, comebacks and things

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Speaker 1: of that nature. As a former scout man, how do

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Speaker 1: you measure something like that? It's brutal. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: really difficult. I mean I think one thing that you know,

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Speaker 1: people might not think about is and this goes back

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Speaker 1: to what we were saying about. You know, Kevin went

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Speaker 1: to North Carolina early in the process. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think that seeing these people in person and not on

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Speaker 1: a screen or an iPad or whatever on tape, how

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Speaker 1: they were interacting on the side of that right, I

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Speaker 1: want to see him at practice. I want to see

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Speaker 1: him on the sideline. I would see him in free

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Speaker 1: game warm ups. I mean they are they keeping to themselves?

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Speaker 1: Are they? You know? How do their teammates respond to them?

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Speaker 1: Certainly when you don't want to watch a highlight tape,

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Speaker 1: that's for sure. Not that NFL teams do, but boy,

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Speaker 1: that team that they got walloped by Florida State. Let's

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Speaker 1: go watch that one. And I was reacting to that.

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Speaker 1: Was he you know, was he sulking at the end

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Speaker 1: of the bench. Was he was he trying to rally

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Speaker 1: the troops that kind of stuff. That was he's still

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Speaker 1: getting taking his cracks. I mean, um, without a doubt,

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Speaker 1: you want to be a private investigator and talk to

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Speaker 1: every human being that that person has ever known, you know,

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Speaker 1: like not that we joked about it, but like we

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Speaker 1: bring it up, like mentioned in the prospect to the

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Speaker 1: lunch lady, if you bump into or or the janitors

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Speaker 1: or you know, the people it the young man doesn't

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Speaker 1: have to be nice to, you know, because he to

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Speaker 1: treat them with respect and things like that. Now, that

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Speaker 1: doesn't help you beat the ravens necessarily at one o'clock

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Speaker 1: at Hines Field in November, but it is certainly an

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Speaker 1: indication of what human being you're tying yourself to care

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Speaker 1: for the ball downe that matter. Yeah, you know, but

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Speaker 1: that's important to to to your point, because that guy's

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Speaker 1: gonna be a leader. He's gonna he's the immediately, especially

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Speaker 1: you take a guy like that in the first round.

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Speaker 1: I can again, I'll go back to the Roethlisberger's rookie here.

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Speaker 1: He's number three on the depth chart at that point.

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Speaker 1: And I can remember he got he got nicked up

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Speaker 1: early in training camp. Something happened and he went down,

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Speaker 1: and nobody was sure what happened, Maybe he was in need. Nobody,

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Speaker 1: you know, don't remember, and all the local TV stations

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Speaker 1: broke into the afternoon soap operas baking breaking news. Like

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Speaker 1: that's a lot of pressure on a year old kid

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Speaker 1: like you. You're the guy, and it's different than being

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Speaker 1: the guy on a college campus. Yes, And which brings

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Speaker 1: me to another thing, which we could kind of talk

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Speaker 1: about this group that's coming out as well as some

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Speaker 1: Steeler ties to Like I thought a huge thing that

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Speaker 1: hurt Mitch, Trobinsky and Haskins when they came to the

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Speaker 1: league was they didn't have many starts under their belt.

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Speaker 1: You know, like you start twelve games, particularly to Ohio

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Speaker 1: statement as well as North Carolina, and you've only game

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Speaker 1: planned for twelve different teams. Three of them are teams

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Speaker 1: you know you're gonna beat, no matter why. The defensive

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Speaker 1: coordinators don't have a ton of tape on you to

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Speaker 1: know what you're coming after you. They don't have years

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Speaker 1: worth of tape. You haven't been the face of the

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Speaker 1: franchise in terms of media, big hard losses, plane rides

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Speaker 1: home for an extended stretch. You haven't had two offseason

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Speaker 1: as the team's leader. You know, Like like when I

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Speaker 1: got to Akron, Charlie Fry was a really good Mac quarterback,

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Speaker 1: and it was pretty obvious it was his team. You know,

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Speaker 1: we had to gain his trust as a new staff,

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Speaker 1: you know, because all the players flocked to him, and

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Speaker 1: they looked at us like, Okay, we got new coaches

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Speaker 1: and what but we don't know anything about you dude,

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Speaker 1: you know, like, you know, we knew we weren't great

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Speaker 1: last year. We don't mind to change, but we trust Charlie,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, I mean that's the

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Speaker 1: guy that you've you've battled with. So that's that's such

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Speaker 1: a big part of this whole process, And that's the

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Speaker 1: one thing that you that you kind of have to discern,

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Speaker 1: you know, sitting down with these guys, And that's why

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Speaker 1: they wanted as many cracks at that as possible, right, right, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, again, there's a lot of good liars out there.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of dudes that, you know, give it

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Speaker 1: all they got, and by the third meeting with them,

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Speaker 1: you realize, yeah, he's not for me or boy. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, a fifteen minute interview, it's a combine. To me,

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Speaker 1: I don't know that you gained a lot out of

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Speaker 1: that unless it's just negative, you know. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure all these quarterbacks were impressive for fifteen minutes. They're

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Speaker 1: coached up to do that stuff. Now they're coached up

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Speaker 1: to do it. It's a short amount of time. The

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Speaker 1: first a minute or two you're shaking hands or cracking

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Speaker 1: a joke or you know. I mean, so um no.

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Speaker 1: And the other one that is a must is I

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Speaker 1: definitely want to talk to the strength coach. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of time where the position coaches, the

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Speaker 1: head coaches aren't in that weight room. They're all laughing

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Speaker 1: and joking. It's a more informal scene. There's music on,

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Speaker 1: or sometimes it's early in the morning and they were

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Speaker 1: running sprints or whatever. There's a lot to be said,

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Speaker 1: and some strength coaches aren't gonna tell you anything. I mean,

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Speaker 1: some director of personal director of football operations aren't gonna

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Speaker 1: tell you anything. But if you can get information about

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Speaker 1: how hard do they work. That doesn't mean they have

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Speaker 1: to lift eight thousand pounds or you know, have great numbers.

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Speaker 1: But are they they'll put the effort in? Yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: is it important to them or they just they're going

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Speaker 1: through the motions, right, and so much of that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that's hugely important here. So you know that. That's

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Speaker 1: why you do your your diligence on this again. Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you take one, if you don't take one, you

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Speaker 1: know it's got all the information, right you at least

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Speaker 1: set yourself up in a position where you feel like

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Speaker 1: you you have a pretty good working knowledge of these

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Speaker 1: guys to know whether you want to take one. I

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Speaker 1: mean what as an analyst, what I hope doesn't happen

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Speaker 1: is no quarterbacks get taken or whatever, and then someone

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Speaker 1: gets plucked at nineteen and the Steelers then take somebody

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Speaker 1: at twenty, Like you'll never know then who they really wanted.

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Speaker 1: Like if my chance, they have their chance, their their choices,

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Speaker 1: the pick of literate twenty you're gonna know kind of

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Speaker 1: like Trabisky versus free agent pool obviously, see that's the

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Speaker 1: guy they targeted, right, Yeah, I mean they you know,

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Speaker 1: they'll they'll take that up to the you know, it'll

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Speaker 1: it'll be at the counter or at the commissioners in

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Speaker 1: the hands immediately so and the uninformed media. If Willis

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Speaker 1: goes at six and somehow pick it goes at thirteen

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Speaker 1: and the Steels take ridder at twenty, the big narrative

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Speaker 1: is like, oh, they settled for a quarterback. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure they didn't, you know what I mean. I mean

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Speaker 1: that's the thing that they're gonna sit down and they're gonna,

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Speaker 1: as we've talked about a hundred times, they're gonna come

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Speaker 1: up with their twenty guys. Right, for all we know,

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Speaker 1: the top three guys could be quarterbacks. We don't know

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Speaker 1: it might be right, yeah, um, you know that. That's

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Speaker 1: just the reality of the situation because it's it's the

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Speaker 1: twenty guys. This is what they do, And Colberg explained

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Speaker 1: this again today. They don't do a mock draft where

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Speaker 1: they pick who every other team would pick. They go

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Speaker 1: through each spot. Okay, if we had the first overall pick,

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Speaker 1: who will we take? We had the second overall pick,

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Speaker 1: who we take? The third over was so on, so

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Speaker 1: forth till they get down to twenty, not like, wow,

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Speaker 1: what if happens if somebody trades into thirteen and we

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Speaker 1: didn't see that coming. What doesn't matter if your top

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Speaker 1: twenties in line, right, you're either you're just scratching names

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Speaker 1: off the list. Yeah, so it's that they'll take care

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Speaker 1: of that process. They're also Colburton said, you know, they'll

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Speaker 1: they'll reach out to all the other teams in the

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Speaker 1: league here um tomorrow, starting tomorrow and see you know

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Speaker 1: about trading up, trading down, all that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: That kind of legwork gets done. Doesn't happen the day

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Speaker 1: of the draft. No, And I'm not certain how they

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Speaker 1: do it or how any team specifically does it, but

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Speaker 1: I think that only two or three people in the

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Speaker 1: organization are making those calls typically. Yeah, there it will

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Speaker 1: be their proposes, So Brandon Hunt will be it would

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Speaker 1: be doing a lot of that kind of stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's what you know. I spoke with Doug Whaley

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Speaker 1: last week, and you know he did that when when

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Speaker 1: when he was with the Steelers, that was his job

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Speaker 1: was to reach out to all the other personnel guys,

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Speaker 1: the pro personnel guy. That's when they talk and yeah,

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Speaker 1: you guys interested moving up or down? Okay, yeah, so

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Speaker 1: are we and they have, you have that conversation. He Okay,

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Speaker 1: you check off the list, interested in moving up, interested

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Speaker 1: in moving down? And then you know when as you yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you pick a thirty and we don't want to

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Speaker 1: go that far right, And that's there's that too, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's some of that. So there's you know, you get

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Speaker 1: that's the the the initial conversations out of the way,

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Speaker 1: and then you know and then you decide, Okay, is

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Speaker 1: it worth that to go up? Is it worth that

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Speaker 1: to move down? Um? It's all part of the process.

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Speaker 1: But you like, I might even bother calling this team

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Speaker 1: on draft day because they're not interested in coming up. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: So that's the that's the situation. That's what Mike Tomlin

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Speaker 1: and Kevin Corbord had to say today. We're gonna take

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Speaker 1: a break, and they did talk also about the resigning

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Speaker 1: of Tarrell Evans. We haven't really spoken a lot about that.

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Speaker 1: We'll do that in the next segment. He is Matt Williamson.

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Speaker 1: I am Dale Ally you're listening to the drive. You're

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Speaker 1: on Steelers Nation Radio Likes and Adventure and it's waiting Hi.

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