April 28, 2021 • 39 mins
NFL Network reporter Tom Pelissero swings by to discuss why some NFL coaches are comparing Mac Jones' scouting tape to Joe Burrow's, why intangibles are what's really pushing Trey Lance up draft boards, the difference between processing and intelligence - and what it means for Jones and Justin Fields, how Josh Allen's NFL development could help boost someone's draft stock, why fit is in many ways more important than raw talent, why there's a lot of pressure on Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay heading into next season, why the back half of the first round could have more 'reaches' than what most fans are accustomed to, why he wouldn't be surprised at all if the New England Patriots traded up for a quarterback, and much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What's up, everybody,
It's me Jason McIntyre. Straight Fire for Wednesday, April otherwise
known as NFL Draft Eve. I know everybody's very excited.
We have a great guest to commemorate the eve of
(00:25):
the Draft. I'm so excited. I'm so pumped up the Draft.
We're doing a lot at Fox Sports. I'm sure you
guys saw the announcement on Tuesday morning that there is
going to be a draft show. It's me and a
bunch of other guys at Fox. Obviously, I'm very excited
for the gambling angle. I will be talking a lot
about my New York Jets on the Draft show. I
(00:46):
have made my point to the powers that be we
must talk Jets. So there will be a lot of Jets,
not a lot, you know, it's the Jets. They're kind
of irrelevant, but I'm fired up and passionate about them,
so we'll do a lot of Jets chatter on the
Fox show. That Draft show is Thursday night. And um,
before we get to the draft guest, who is phenomenal today?
(01:07):
Tom Pelisaro, NFL Network guy I work with actually at
USA Today, Really sharp, NFL mind talks to a lot
of people. Listen, the NFL reporting job is, you know,
literally an eleven month a year job. It's a grind.
And if I learned nothing from Adrian Wrgnarowski, who I
worked with back in the day at a newspaper, You've
(01:27):
got to continually update your contacts, reach out to him,
not just when there's news or when you think there's
gonna be news, just keeping that open relationship. And Tom
Pelisar does that as well as anyone. And he's plugged
in on the draft. Let's just say, Um, I really
grill him on these damn Alabama receivers who are so
fun to watch, but my gosh, taking him top ten,
(01:48):
it's gonna be a mistake for somebody. And we do
a little San Francisco at three and um mac Jones
will we'll get into it. I think you guys would
like that. Before I get to the interview, you just
want to remind everybody subscribe rate review podcast is popping,
always enjoy your comments on iTunes. We'll start giving out well.
I remember we were giving away money during football season
(02:10):
because the gambling was going so well, just not as
much to gamble on. Maybe we'll resurrect that for the
NBA playoffs and uh yeah, I think we'll do some
gambling on the NBA playoffs. We had some success last year.
Quick word on the NBA before we get to Draft night.
The Warriors got destroyed. And it's funny. When the Warriors win,
(02:30):
I'm always chirping and it's like, oh, Steph Curry, Oh
this is fun. Oh, look at the Warriors. It's great
for the league. And then as soon as the Warriors lose,
all I do is hear from you guys. Hey, you're
quiet on the Warriors. Tonight they were down fifty to
the MAVs at home. Yep, I was playing Madden. I'm
not Madden two K against my son and I shockingly
(02:51):
lost twice. So I'm sorry I missed Luca. And the
MAVs are ripping the Warriors to shreds um that happened. Also,
the Bucks winning again, keeping pressure on the Sixers, and yes,
the Sixers for two because Brooklyn's not giving it up.
Now that k D's back, KD and Kyrie comfortably the
number one seed, I will say the Celtics have lost
(03:11):
four or five. They played the Thunder last night and
it's funny because the Thunder I've had lost fourteen in
a row. They're awful, they're tanking, and the Celtics said, oh,
let's try to steal one with adjacent Tatum rest day,
no Kambra, no Tatum, and they lose the Thunder. So
the Celtics have now lost four or five the Celtics,
folks could end up in the plan. I thought it
(03:33):
would be the Hawks of the Knicks, but it's looking
like it might be the Celtics or Heat. And I
don't really think you wanna end up in the plane
because if you get the eight seed, Brooklyn's gonna be
extremely tough. I know I've said for the longest time
the Celtics will be a challenge for them, but man,
um this cratering. I thought second round the Celtics could
(03:53):
do some damage, but opening round, drawing the nets, that
could get ugly. Um. So that's the NBA for the night,
not like a great night in the NBA, but the
next basically two nights will be all consumed by the draft.
As we get the rumors Wednesday night, that's tonight, and
as we get the draft Thursday night that's tomorrow night.
(04:14):
And then second and third round Friday, and then of
course Saturday, more draft stuff. So big few days ahead.
For the time being, let's enjoy our guest, Tom Pellosaro
NFL dot Com and the NFL Network. Jason likes to
think he knows everything when it comes to sports. I
(04:34):
know what sports stands want, but for everything he doesn't.
He knows a guy who does. Let's just say I
know a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy.
All right, let's welcome into straight fire. A guy I
worked with a little bit briefly at USA. Today he's
now big time NFL Network on TV five six, seven
days a week. Tom Pello sorrow, Tom, How you doing? Man?
(04:58):
Doing good? Jason, good to see it. I yeah, it's
it's been a while, it has but I appreciate you,
appreciate you having me. And we're thirty seconds into this.
My phone hasn't run yet, so we're off to a
good start. That's great. That that is good. Now, UM,
before we start the podcast, Uh, you know I was
talking to Tom. He's in uh, Minnesota. UM, and obviously
(05:18):
Trey Lance is from Minnesota. And I don't know, Tom,
do we want to start with Trey Lance? I just
I can't get over what's happening at three. It sounds
like it's down to Lance and Mac Jones, and I'm
just still so perplexed by all of it. Can you
make any sense of this with the forty Niners? Is it?
Is it really Kyle Shanahan's arrogance. I mean, I certainly
wouldn't say it's Kyle Shanahan's arrogance. He knows though, what
(05:41):
he wants in his quarterback, and that's founded from you know,
twenty years in the league, plus growing up in it
with his dad, Mike, who's still very involved with the
with the forty Niners organization. You know, for Kyle, the
two things that you always hear that he and his
staff value in quarterbacks are quick processing and accuracy. If
(06:01):
Mac Jones has two talents, it's quick processing and accuracy.
And you see that on the Alabama tape. It's been
evident to everybody who has spent time with Jones in
the pre draft process he obviously with his shirt off,
does not look like Trey Lance or justin fields. He
doesn't have the athletic ability. Although his numbers weren't as
bad as everybody was expecting. The Pro day he wanted
(06:22):
to go all the other quarterbacks said I'm not gonna
run the forty or I'm not gonna do the drills
like he did them. He wanted to show that he
was willing to compete. Uh. And so you understand it
from that perspective. The way that Mac Jones profiles, I
mean a little bit like you know, Kirk Cousins and
Matt Shop and some of the other quarterbacks Coles had
success with. I've had coaches who have watched all Mac
Jones tape and say, you know, they're not going to
(06:44):
compare it to Joe Burrow, but there are some things
that are similar to Joe Burrow, just because Joe Burrow
didn't have a lead athletic ability, he did not have
an elite arm. He was a guy who was a
mid round graded prospect, probably a Day three prospect coming
off his eighteen tape at l s U. Joe Brady
gets there, Burrow takes off through fifty touchdown passes, clear
(07:05):
number one pick in the draft with Mac Jones also
one year producer seventeen career starts, the same number as
Trey Lance, albeit at a different against a different level
of competition. But Mac Jones really accurate makes up for
what he lacks. Had good players around him, so did Burrow.
You know, played from a lot of clean pockets. You
haven't seen him half this short step or no step,
(07:26):
a whole lot of throws. All those are fair questions
with Trey Lands again, same number of college starts. Trey
Lance did not lose. His team did not lose a
single game at North Dakota State that he started, although
they're also much more talented than everybody else on the
field and won like five of the last six FCS
titles or whatever it is with Lance, the biggest hole
(07:46):
that coaches poke in him in particular is accuracy. You know,
coaches don't watch college tape during the season a lot
of times. Normally it's before the Combine. This year was
more so going to the Pro Day, so March last month,
coach started digging into the tape. If they had any
exposure to Tray Lance, it was because they were TV
scouting the game against Central Arkansas last year, which was terrible.
(08:07):
Lance played badly. You know, he's fifteen thirty passing. He
just kind of used his legs in the second half,
but was not accurate, missed too many throws. I had
one quarterbacks coach to me say, they told me to
watch this guy, and I thought I was watching the
wrong guy. I said him, this is the guy we're
talking about, you know. But what everybody loves with Trey
Lance is the other stuff. Obviously the size, the athletic ability,
(08:30):
the arm, but it's also the intangibles. The football i Q,
the intelligence, the work ethic, the leadership. All that stuff
is so off the charts. I had one college scouting
director who was talking about you know, Central Effine, Arkansas, like,
are you kidding? This guy's that played email and anyone
better than James Masson. But he goes No matter who
you talked to about Trey Lance, they all say, the
(08:51):
intangibles really are that far off the charts. So whatever
his ceiling is, he's going to reach it and shout
out to James Madison where I graduated from, thank you
for that, and not come that. Let me back up
a little to processing, because this is a thing that
you know, I can't find the link. Somebody sent me
one where um I guess uh an NFL website, NFL
(09:12):
Draft Network or some some drafts website tried to break
down who passed the most to their second read, and
I guess Matt Jones passed less to his second read
than justin Fields. And this idea of processing, like you know, Tom,
when you are in that Bama offense behind two offensive
linemen who are all Americans, and you've got you know,
basically two two of the best receivers in the country,
(09:34):
and you've got Naja Harris, Like, I mean, Alabama was
stacked last year. Have we not seen this from Tua?
And then he gets to the league and it's like whoa,
uh what do we have here? And Miami was ready
to part with two to get to Shahn Watson. Uh
to it did not look great. You know, this Sarkasian
offense was dynamite. But are we overvaluing Matt Jones a
(09:56):
little bit? I mean this is there's a guy who
last year starting for UAH through well not last year
his first year starting um two pick sixes against Auburn
that we're awful interceptions. You could go look those up
on YouTube, Like I don't, I just I don't see it.
I'm sorry. What's interesting on the processing is, you know,
Kirk Cousins is a perfect example of this, and I
remember having a discussion years ago when Kyle Shanahan was
(10:19):
the Falcon's offensive coordinator and I went down to do
a story with him. We grabbed a couple of beers
near the facility. We were talking through it, and the
reason that he liked Cousins from day one, the reason
they draft him in the fourth round in the same
draft they took RG three, number two overall in was
because Kirk could see it and rip it. In the
early days for Kirk Cousins, that led to a lot
of interceptions because he's saying it, he's getting the ball
(10:41):
out and he's making the wrong decision. But he was
processing it correctly in terms of the way that he
was seeing the field. He just there were times where
the balls coming out so fast, he's looking at the
picture so quickly that he's missing something. That's what the
coaches are looking for, is just that ability to get
through both pre snap post step. I think sometimes processing
(11:02):
gets confused with intelligence. It's not always an intelligence things.
There are really smart guys who don't necessarily process quickly,
just like there are guys who may not be able
to you know, or guys who are not as smart
who do process really quickly. Some of that shows up
on tape, some of its evidence in you know when
(11:22):
you go through stuff on the board. Remember this was
a unique process where you could not as a team
go watch film with somebody. You couldn't have dinner with them,
you couldn't be in person with them drawing up stuff
on the board. All that had to take place on zoom.
And I had scouts months ago talking about how you know,
you were limited in terms of the board work you
could even do with some of these quarterbacks and other
(11:43):
players because it was solely dependent your ability to watch
tape was dependent on the WiFi connection of the player
who's at his parents house or wherever. So he got
like pixelated stuff and you can't really watch. I mean,
it was just it's a it's a clown show at times.
And so yeah, I mean this stuff was harder to evaluate,
There's no question about it. With Trey Lands, you don't
(12:04):
always see it on tape, but you see enough that
you think he can do it with justin fields. You
don't see the processing a lot on tape, But part
of that is the Ohio State offense and the way
that they trained the quarterbacks. There are things and I've
talked with John Beck about this, who's worked with a
lot of these quarterbacks, Justin Fields this year, he works
(12:25):
with Trey Lands, he works with Zach Wilson, And he said, yeah,
I watched Justin Fields tape. I had the same questions, like,
all right, you're looking for the deep shot, it's not there.
There's a you know, ten yard crosser right here. Why
aren't you throwing that? Why are you running out to
the right and take it off ferries Like, well, they
told me to read it here to hear, to hear,
Beck said, the more we talked about it, I could
see he knew what he was looking at. But he's
being coached differently, and so Ohio State vouches for Justin
(12:48):
Fields on that front, coaches who have spent time with
Justin Fields vouched for him to know he hasn't done
it because that offense does not ask him to do it,
but do they think based upon on their interactions with him.
The way that he talks about tape away, he talks
through place that he can do it, that he could
advance from that kind of rudimentary but very smart college
(13:08):
offensive Ohio State to everything You're gonna be asked to
do in the NFL. Yes, so can process and be overrated,
I think, but that is a core part of what
Kyle Shanahan looks for in quarterbacks, and so you can
understand wherever they stand today, and that may evolve before
this podcast gets posted. For whatever they began at, though,
you can understand why Mac Jones was somebody who was
(13:29):
really intriguing to Yeah, I think, you know, it would
be good if everybody would just come out and agree
with this time that nobody knows how to evaluate quarterbacks.
Is that a fair statement? I mean, Lamar Jackson goes
thirty second? What he was? He the fifth quarterback taken
in the first round. I think that year Josh Rosen
might have gone forth and he already has an MVP
award and three playoff trips. Josh Allen couldn't hit the
(13:50):
broadside of a barn at Wyoming, but looks the part,
and all of a sudden, in what is this year
three or four he pops with Brian day Bole and WHOA,
this guy looks like to be an MVP contender. I
went back. I went back because somebody brought up some
old my I write the you know, the Quarterback Breakdown
every year at NFL dot Com. It goes back to
the USA Today days and somebody yesterday was like ripping
(14:12):
one of the coaches who was quoted on Josh Allen
three years ago. But like, I hope this guy is
not even in the league anymore. And I went back
and read it. One of the knox on Allen was
processing that he had seemed at times there were things
that weren't moving quickly enough. And the other one was accuracy.
And just right before we came on the show, the
reason I was a little late recording this and thanks
for bearing with me. So I was on the phone
with an executive for a team who has been in
(14:32):
the league for a long time and we're talking about
Trey Lance and he goes, I've never seen a quarterback
get better with accuracy until Josh Allen. That was the
whole thing. The saying has always been, Guys don't become
more accurate. There's a lot of things you can coach,
but if you're inaccurate, you stay inaccurate. And to the
credit of UH, Josh Allen as well as the coaching
(14:54):
staff UH in Buffalo, like he really has progressed and
Brian Dable and company of on a really smart job
in terms of the way that they have been able
to bring him along, Brandon being given him a ton
of weapons. You know, it's not it's not rocket science,
but he has overcome some odds here, even with all
the drops, even with all the ancillary factors to you know,
having I think it was like a fifty seven percent
(15:14):
completion rate was at Wyoming. He really has gotten better
and that's just not something that teams used to see it.
It hurts me when I hear that, like nobody's gotten
more accurate because Sam Donald, that was a knock on him,
you know, like, oh he's not that accurate, and you're like, okay, fine,
first year not that accurate. Second was another guy. I mean,
it wasn't strictly processing, but it was. There was kind
of a lot of street ball to Sam Donald at
(15:37):
USC where he just kind of made things happen. He's
very athletic, got good arm talent, but you know, I
wasn't always playing within the within the scheme, and so
you thought he was twenty years old when he came
out in that draft. He ends up going number three
overall to the Jets, but it was like you were
gonna have a growth process. Well, he didn't have time.
And that's the other thing to remember. We can talk
all day about Terry Lance, perfect situation, go in, sit
(15:59):
for a year too, doesn't happen. You'd like it to happen.
You'd like everybody to be Jordan's love and have a
year or two years to sit and learn. But there's
so much pressure. If you're drafting a quarterback in the
top five, chances are you sucked last year, and chances
are you're gonna have to put the guy on the
field to try to save your job. You know, you
hate to say it, but it's it's the truth. And
there's a lot of pressure on these guys to play immediately.
(16:21):
Even as you look at this year's quarterbacks, and we
talked about five guys, Trevor Lawrence is gonna be starting
for Jacksonville week one, Zack Wilson, You would certainly expect
gon be starting week one to the New York Jets,
Mac Jones, Trey Lance, whoever it is in San Francisco.
And this may be determined by which one of those
guys it is. They well, whether they're starting a Week
one or Jimmy Garoppolo, who's had a lot of injuries.
(16:43):
To Kyle Shanahan talked about in that press conference yesterday.
You can be forced into action week four, week seven.
You better be able to do it otherwise. You know,
people ask all the time, and I hear questions in
every press conference, like why why is the failure rates
so high for quarterbacks? Why the half of all first
round quarterbacks not work out? You can say it, you know,
bad scouting, It's mis evaluation. No one knows what they're
looking at. Context is everything is a lot. What are
(17:06):
your offensive line weapons? You know? Could you really get
an evaluation on Sam Donald last year? You know, even
setting aside some of the things in the past, the
mono and the other stuff, It's like all his offensive
linemen were banged up last year. McKay beck didn't, you know,
missed a little bit of time before he came black.
He played pretty well. You look at the receivers. They
were down, like at one point they were down like
(17:26):
their top five receivers. I mean, don't remind me, Tom,
I know this is but I'm like, listen, um, Kyle
Shanahan's gonna be drafting three. I would suspect who ever
he gets, he's gonna end up doing pretty well because
Kyle Shanahan knows quarterbacks. Sam Donald is going to Joe Brady,
who's probably I would already say one of the best
(17:47):
ten offensive coordinators in the league. Um, I really like
what he's done already based on what he did at
LSU obviously, and there's a chance that Donald does really
well in Carolina. Whoever san Frame gets is pretty good.
We know Trevor Lawrence is going to be good, and
then Zach Wilson if he flops. And I mean the
first time offensive coordinator, right the kid la Fleur's brother,
(18:08):
Micha la Fleur, whose regards is really really sharp. You know,
he had a couple he had a couple of interviews
in this offseason with other teams and people watched away going, wow, man,
I had that conversation with another team, just like wow,
that guy is really really smart and he's trained under Kyle.
I mean, you look at the history of guys who
have come out of that system. You know it is
Matt Lafleur, who's you know now in Green Bay and
(18:30):
has an unbelievable record through his first couple of years. Uh,
you know, it is Sean McVeigh, who's still a really
bright offensive mind, and there's other guys within the league.
Arthur Smith is running the same system he learned it from.
Let me ask you about about McVeigh. So he had Golf,
who famously what didn't take a snap under center his
entire college career or some obscene number like that at
cal and Golf goes in, starts over seven with Jeff Fisher.
(18:53):
McVeigh comes there, boom, jump to light speed. All of
a sudden, Golf has them near the super Bowl, then
in the super Bowl, and then Golf has gone and
now he gets Matt Stafford, who kind of languished in
Detroit forever. And is there a chance that marriage works
so well that everybody all of a sudden says, oh,
maybe it was Detroit and they're coaching staff You know,
he kind of popped with Jim Bob Cooder and Stafford
(19:16):
had some moments. But there's a good chance that Stafford
really becomes all of a sudden elite and then it's like, oh,
this is the guy that everybody loved from high school
to college. This is Matt Stafford. I'd say, whatever shortcomings
Matthew Stafford has had had not been all on Matthew Stafford.
I mean, there's a reason the Lions have has a
lot of reasons. The Lions haven't won a championship since
nineteen fifty seven, you know, and I haven't want to
(19:37):
playoff games since or whatever that statistic is, uh, you know,
and they were just there. There were a lot of things.
There are a lot of changes. How many different coordinators
did he have, how many different head coaches? How many
total shifts in philosophy, which is why shortly after last
season ended, and this was I think there was a
misconception about this. It was right after the season and
last year, before Dan Campbell was in the picture, before
(19:58):
Brad Holmes was in the picture, Stafford had already gone
to ownership and said, listen, I can't do this again.
I can't go through another one. It's the right time
for all of us into the Lions credit. They understood that,
they worked through that, they set deadlines, they moved quickly,
and they ended up getting what could be a haul.
You know, whatever Matthew Stafford does. If Jared Goff is
(20:20):
halfway decent and you've got a couple of first round
picks on top of it. I mean that could be
one of the great trades um that a team has
made in terms of, you know, what they were able
to get in return, you know, to the Rams. Of course,
Jared Goff had become a negative asset. They were ready
to move on. They had two years of guaranteed money.
They couldn't trade for Matthew Stafford unless they offloaded Jared
Goff and that's certainly impacted the price. But could Stafford
(20:42):
go and have a new level of success under McVeigh. Absolutely.
There's never been pressure like this on Matthew Stafford before.
Remember he's been playing in Detroit, where if they go
nine and seven and get in the playoffs, everyone's saying,
how can you make changes off? Jim Caldo has nine
and seven two straight years. Jim called us a great guy.
He's a really good goa. But like there's this idea
that well nine and seven like he got he was
(21:03):
nine and seven, like that success in Detroit in l
A with the Rams, nine and seven is gonna be
a failure. So there's a lot of pressure on Matthew Stafford.
There's a lot of pressure on Sean McVeigh. Not that
I'm saying that, you know, if it doesn't work out,
he's gonna be washed out of there. But there's just
there's this different level now of expectations, and I'm sure
that Sean McVeigh is gonna have some things that he's
(21:25):
gonna want Matthew Stafford to adjust. Every coach who comes
out of that system has things they want to adjust.
You talk about Jared Goff never been under center. Sean
McVeigh totally overhauled his footwork. Uh, there's little things in
that offense, like the quarterback has to turn his back
to the line of scrimmage on play action that a
lot of quarterbacks don't do. Matt Ryan had never done that.
Prior to Kyle Shanahan getting to Atlanta, Matt Ryan had
(21:46):
never turned his back to the to the lave of
scrimmage on play action. I've talked about this with Kyle,
I talked about it with Matt All these things are
just like a little bit different, his right foot forward
instead of his left. Basics of the offense. Zack Wilson
with the Jets, I don't know exactly what their plan
is going to be, so I'm not gonna, you know,
speak on behalf of the Jets, but you would expect
Zack Wilson's got some pretty free William mechanics now, and
(22:07):
that's something that he has honed with John Beck. He's
honed it with the approval of the b y U
coaching staff. I mean, he's got that almost mahomes like
mechanics where it looks like he's turning too as second
base a lot of the time, flicking the ball across
his body, not getting his feet around. That's not really
how the quarterback traditionally is played in that that Shanahan
style offense. So it'll be fascinating to see, you know,
(22:29):
how they develop him in another place that you know,
let's face at Jason, you know this cheering for that team,
year old life. That is a pressure cooker type of
an environment in New York Wind Loser draw. It's gonna
be Zach Wilson's face next to Robert Sali is on
the back page of the post. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
(22:51):
within the I Heart Radio app search f s R
to listen live. Let me quickly on the Lions um
New head coach Dan Campbell new o C I believe
is Anthony Lynn Jared Goff the presume starter. But there
is chatter this week that the Lions are looking at
Justin Fields and listen, I don't want to wish any
(23:11):
ill on anyone, but they just lost Holiday. They just
lost I think their second best receiver. I mean, whoever
goes to Detroit is if they take a quarterback eight
I it's it's probably not gonna end. Well is that
a safe assumption. I know Anthony Lynn had been good previously,
but my goodness, um, you know this is a guy
who wanted to go with Tyrod Taylor and we all
saw Justin Herbert absolutely crush it the second he was
(23:33):
in the game. I'm super intrigued by the coaching staff
that they have put together in Detroit. I mean I
would intrigue. You mean, like your eyebrows raising? Like what? No? Like?
I mean, let's start with this. I've said this before,
but I would take the Lions coaching staff playing at
seven on seven football game over any other coaching staff
in the entire league. They've got all these former players,
(23:56):
from Dan Campbell to Mark Brunell to uh Anthony Lynn,
Antoine Randall l is on the staff. I mean, they
got some dudes on that team, and that's that's gonna
bring a little bit different energy. Remember, Dan Campbell also
was a player in Detroit, so he knows all the
things that have have ailed the Lion's organization. He knows
(24:18):
the general negativity in the media there and the fan
base there. They want to think everything is a failure. Immediately.
You know, Campbell's gotten crap about the biting off kneecaps thing.
It's like the default joke for everyone. But like everyone
thought this was like some kind of a you know,
tough guy act. Whatever. Know, that's Dan Campbell. That's the
guy that people loved in Miami. They loved him in
(24:38):
New Orleans. He had a big role presenting to the
team there, his assistant head coach. Players are gonna want
to play for this guy, and so I think that
you have to take this new regime on its own,
you know, between Dan Campbell, Brad Holmes, John Dorsey, who
was one of the best value wears in the league
is an executive with the Lions, so he's involved right
(24:58):
now in their draft process. They've got a lot of
smart people. I don't know that you know, sitting here
today and we're a little over forty eight hours out
from the draft. I don't know that I buy them
taking a quarterback and seven. What I can tell you
is they, along with the Panthers in some extent, the Broncos,
have got a lot of phone calls from teams moving up.
(25:19):
The big question for everybody asked themselves in this draft
is how far you want to go back? Because in
a normal draft, when you talk to teams, there's thirty
two picks in the first round. Most teams are gonna
have eighteen twenty maybe two twenty two players with first
round grades. This year, you talk to teams and there's
like fourteen, sixteen, maybe seventeen first round grades, meaning if
(25:43):
you're in the back half a round one, you are
choosing from a pool of second round players. So there's
gonna be great variability in the boards for different teams
from let's say pick seventeen to pick forty seven or
fifty seven, and so you're gonna get more surprise. Name
was guys do you go? That was in no mock draft.
I listed some of them, uh in a story today.
(26:05):
Javonte Williams, the running back from North Carolina's got some
real fans. Would not surprise me if he ends up
sneaking into round one. The two Georgia corners, Tyson Campbell
and Eric Stokes both ran really fast that their pro day. Uh.
You know, ball skills are kind of a question, but
Stokes had four picks last year. Campbell tied for the
team leading past breakups. There's not a lot of corners.
You got the top two guys we're gonna come off
(26:27):
in in Horn and cir Tan. Big questions on Caleb
Farley because of the twin back surgery since the last
played a game. But those could be the next couple
of corners who are coming off the board. Some receivers
gaining steam. Elijah More from Old miss I would expect
as of this as of right now, that he ends
up going uh in the first round. And then tackles.
I mean there's no real interior offensive lineman, there's no
(26:50):
defensive tackles. There's no safeties who are sure bets to
go in the first round. Normally those are the positions
from twenty to thirty two. When you run out of players,
you go safe. Pick inter the offensive lineman, interior defensive lignement,
you know, safety, they're not there. There could be some
guys who go the TCU safety. Trevor Morrigan is one
who potentially will go in the first but it's gonna
(27:10):
be wide open really through the you know, through the
second round and all the way into day three. When
you consider the fact that you've got decentralized medicals, they're
only a hundred fifty players less than a hundred fifty.
You went to the comedy get the full medical. Everybody
else was getting uh medical. All the other Combine guys
were getting medicals in their home cities. And if you
were in a Combine invite, you're under no obligation to
(27:32):
go get an m r I for anybody. So teams
are kind of patchworking this themselves. You don't have top
thirty visits. You can't bring people into your facility. I mean,
there are gonna be guys you take. The joke last
year was we're taking guys on day three, we haven't
shaken their hands. The joke this year is, we're taking
guys on day three. We haven't shaken their hand. We
don't know how tall they are, we don't know what
they weigh, we don't know what kind of forty they run.
(27:54):
We don't know what's in their medical file. Because if
a guy just says I can't make it for an
m R, I that end, and then you shouldn't. You
just shouldn't draft him. And that's exactly it. You may
see teams leaning on Power five players on Day three.
It may be leaning on guys who just have the
cleaner medicals, Guys who have character issues and otherwise would
be late day to Day three picks. They may not
(28:16):
go at all. They may be priority free agents, just
because you know, every team right now two is trying
to deal their six seventh round picks for future picks.
Nobody wants to make those picks here, but there's no
one to trade them to, and so everybody's gonna end
up kind of stuck here. It's a really unique dynamic.
But hell man, we've been in a unique dynamic for
four teen months here. We've done it once already. This
(28:37):
will just be the second time through. All Right, we'll
do a couple of rapid fire here's to wrap up. Um,
do either of the small Alabama receivers go in the
top ten your guests? I would say one, if not
two of them end up going into top ten, and
I would say, don't be surprised to feeling Waddle goes
before Davante Smith. My only issue is where I mean,
(28:59):
do you really you think Miami's taking one of those
smurfs that early? Uh, smurf will be your word, not mine, Jason, Yeah, yeah,
my word is smurf. Ike Smith weighs less than I do. Bro.
I would not be surprised at all the Miami wants
to put his many weapons around the quarterback. It's possible.
You never listen. I mean, but wait, Tom hold him.
You've seen the history of small receivers in the top
ten often, like you said, they're going to bad teams
(29:22):
to Miami was pretty good. They just missed the playoffs
last year. But but but you have to Yeah, I mean,
I know every team is gonna make those you know,
try to do those profiles and figure out what the
historical successes. That's absolutely part of the analytic approach the
team's take. You have to look on some level, they're like,
who were the players? John Ross came in with major questions. Uh,
(29:44):
he had injury history. I mean, there were teams that
didn't think he'd go in the first round at all
and the Bengals take him at number nine. You're like, okay,
and you know, obviously he's had a bunch of injuries
since he got in to leave. But that wasn't like
a shock that one's gonna be small. I mean, maybe
it was, but everybody knew that coming in. You know,
Tavon Austin are a really high drafted guy, and he
got a second contract, only a fifty eight million dollar
(30:05):
or something contracts Like he was a player, he just
wasn't a fully dimensional type of receiver, at least with
Waddle as well as Davante Smith. You know that they
can run a route tree. You know, there are receivers
in this draft who they're kind of those gadget toy
manufactured touches. Guys. Ka Darius Tony from Florida would be
an example of that. Teams don't look at these guys
that way. There is more love than you think for
(30:26):
Jalen Waddle. That's not to talk down at all in
Davonte Smith, but there are more people in the league
who think Jalen Waddle can be special than you might think. Yeah,
at this stage, I prefer Waddle to Smith. Um all right,
second does Justin Fields go in the top ten. I
definitely think Justin Fields goes in the top fifteen and
would not surprise me if he goes in the top ten.
(30:46):
There are teams they're they're calling about trades to potentially
move up. Will any of those happen remains to be seen,
but you would think teams like New England, if they're
calling around in the top ten, odds are and the
belief of everybody who's gotten those calls is the target
would be Justin Field. Um do uh do the Patriots
trade up? There's no way, right Bill Belichick trades back,
He doesn't trade up. No way. Bill Belichick spends a
(31:08):
hundred eighty three million dollars and guaranteed money and one
free agencycle either. They're breaking the mold there, they say.
Robert Craft has said publicly he wants to do things differently.
They've got some different voices in the scouting department now.
Matt Patricia, the former Lions coach, of course, has gone
back there. That's been documented that he's involved on the
scouting side. Now. They brought in Elliott Wolf, the longtime
Packers scout, former Brown's assistant GM. He's part of the
(31:30):
process there too. Dave Ziggler has taken on a larger
role with the departure of Nick Kissario, so a little
bit different dynamic than they've had in the past. Obviously,
Bill Belichick still has the hammer there. But based upon
what happened in free agency, would it really surprise you
that much if the Patriots break the mold instead of
trading down, they trade up in round one? I believe
anything right now? Anything? Wow? Okay, um, I guess that's
(31:53):
pretty blose. Are pretty much the juiciest angles. Is there
any player you here that's just rocketing up the boards
or tumbling down? I know that we want to try
to keep it positive, but any anybody maybe falling a
little bit. It sounds like Farley could end up with
the Jets at twenty three if he given the back
surgery issues. Yeah, there's are desperate at cornerback. Tom, you
know that they have nobody and you know in that
(32:14):
new defense, you know they got a bunch of edge rushers,
but they have no corners, right. I mean, the Jets
would certainly be a team the potentially is and play
for a corner. Arizona would be in play for a
corner there's a bunch of teams need cormers, bunch of
teams need tackles, which is part of why you're gonna
see probably runs on those positions toward the end of
round one and you know, also into in a day
(32:34):
two of the draft. In terms of followers, there's there's
really not There's not that guy who's just gonna absolutely
plummet Farley would be the one to watch in the
green room, just because people don't know. We did a
story in Wrap Fortnite NFL dot Com the posted early
this morning. There's a split among gm Some say they're
really comfortable with the medical. Uh. Everybody basically says Farley
(32:55):
will be back, you know, in time for training by
the season, if not in time for training camp. The
question just how does he hold up. He's had a
back issue for over two years. He hurt himself in
like February, went through the season, had sciatica, had to
get in February. The first dispect to me opted out
of the season was training, said he felt good, then
(33:17):
tweaked it again in January. So it's been over two
years since he started dealing with this. It's been seventeen
months since he played a game and back surgeries for
a guy who's also had an a C L tare
and plays a speed position is a short and long
term concern for some teams. They just don't know how
the back is gonna respond. But again, there are teams
that say he's gonna go in the first. It doesn't
(33:38):
matter he's a top ten player. He'd be in the
conversation with orangs Ertan's the first corner if you were healthy,
he's gonna go in the first. Then you talk to
other people, other gms who say no, like we wouldn't
do it. We're talking in our draft room about okay,
let's say he's there in the second, do we do it?
Those the conversations and the scenarios the team's game out
in these final days until the draft. Those are the
(34:00):
calls that I get at all hours of the day
and night from teams to just trying to figure out
exactly what's going on. Drew Rosenhaus, who's Farley's agent, says
that he believes and is confident in his discussions with
teams that Farley doesn't even last to pick number twenty.
So we've all got a front row seat to Drew
and Caleb Farley, because they'll be in the green room
in Cleveland on Thursday night and that will certainly be
(34:22):
one of the dramas when we follow. I don't want
to say it's similar to the linebacker from Notre Dame
who fell and Dallas just couldn't pass him up second round.
Uh Smith the difference, but right, and he had a
nerve issue that was a pretty significant thing. I remember
going to um where is he from four Wayne, Indiana
(34:42):
I believe it is before that draft, like a week before,
and sitting down with him. He was doing drills, he
was working out, uh, you know, and he told me like,
I'm feeling more every day, Like I can tell it's
regenerating and it has to a large degree, you know,
come back. But it took time, uh you know. And
I don't know that Jillen Smith has ever been the
same player, you know, the dynamic, top five type of
(35:03):
talent that he was at Notre Dame prior to a
really unfortunate injury that I think occurred in uh in
the Fiesta Bowl. But you know, he didn't slide out
of the second round of the draft. You know, he
did end up going He had an insurance policy that
he had taken out prior to play in his last year,
and notre dame, which is what all these guys do
in case you suffered some kind of a dramatic injury.
With Farley, from my understanding, there is some weakness still
(35:24):
in one of his big toes, but that's pretty normal
because he's less than a month and a half out
from his last micro diskect me, so that's normal. But
it's a leap of faith, there's no question about it,
because there's no way If the question the draft room
is have we seen this guy since the back injury started,
be fully healthy and as he played a game since
the first of two surgeries, the answer is no. So
(35:47):
you've got to either go we are willing to take
the gamble and get a bargain on a guy who
otherwise is long gone before our pick, or you're not.
And that's those are the decisions and the important thing
on medical to always remember thirty two teams, thirty two
medical staffs, thirty two different degrees of risk tolerance. Even
if twenty nine teams x a guy off the board,
(36:09):
there could be three teams in the first round that
are all trying to trade ahead of each other for
Caleb Farley or whoever it might be, and so he
could end up going far sooner than our teams would
be able to stomach. Take now before I get you
out of here. Um, So the Ravens made a trade
this is non draft with the Chiefs last Friday, and Tom,
I gotta say, I don't understand why a team like
(36:32):
the Ravens that's chasing the Chiefs would help the Chiefs
pick up an offensive lineman when the Chiefs clearly need
an offensive lineman. What am I missing here? Is this
simply that they didn't want to pay Orlando Brown? Is
it that you know they maybe he's a bit of
a problem in the locker room, unhappy that he wasn't
the left tackle because they have Stanley, Like, why would
(36:53):
you help the Chiefs of all teams with a tackle?
Orlando Brown is an awesome guy, one of my favorite
people in the NFL to talk to, but he wanted
to play left tackle. They have attacked left tackle Ronnie Stanley,
who's coming back from an injury. Uh that they just
paid I think three days before his injury, two or
three days before, which was some kind of timing on
(37:13):
Stanley's part uh, And yeah, they were not gonna you know,
they couldn't offer him the left tackle job, and they
certainly weren't gonna pay him like a left tackle. So
at times, when the best offer you have is going
to be a team that you are ostensibly competing with,
even if it's not within the division, within the conference,
you know you have to make those decisions. Erica cost
should shouldn't. The Ravens have done diligence and called every
(37:35):
team in the NFC said do you want a left tackle?
I'm sure they did, and I'm sure nobody else was
offering him an opportunity to move up into the first round.
I mean, the Chiefs have been bowled throughout this entire offseason.
Gave a massive deal to Joe Tuoney. You know, they
bring in Kyle Long out of retirement, They get back
Laurent duvern A Tardiff, they bring in Austin Blythe to
play center, and now you make a trade for Orlando Brown.
(37:57):
I think the one, you know, the one key thing
there as people have reported as if they're getting a
first round pick and they're getting the third and they're
getting fifth. No, really, the way the teams would look
at this is you're moving up twenty seven spots because
the Ravens gave up their second round pick, so they
moved from fifty five or whatever it was up to
thirty one. So you're jumping from the second to the first.
(38:19):
But it's not a straight first round pick in this deal.
So from the chief's perspective, they can still move down.
You know, they can still get a good player on
their view, and probably again because of the way this
board breaks, you might get a pretty similar player at
thirty one in the chief's minds to what you might
get at fifty six to penny what your position of
need ends up. Beam, Now the Ravens get, you know,
(38:40):
have that extra pick uh in the first round, and
you know, if they've got multiple needs receivers, certainly one
even after signing Sammy Watkins, I would think they'd be
trying to address. That's the spot right there where they
have those picks now seven and thirty one, where they
may have their pick of the receivers that they that
they like. All right, He's Tom Pellisoro, NFL Net, NFL
dot Com. Um, you do a lot of stuff, man,
(39:03):
You're on TV a lot, you do radio. What what
don't you do. Tom. I feel like I'm always asking
the same thing about you because I see you on
TV and you've got a radio show. Apparently you have
a podcast. I now need to start downloading podcast all
time on it. I gotta, I gotta dive into all
these things. And of course you're a legend for the
big leads. So yeah, man, I just try to I
just try to keep up, you know, the same way
(39:25):
that you do. I should have you on more to
get more nice compliments for the podcast. Right there, Feel free,
it's all your alright, man. Enjoy the draft, Tom, Thanks again,
Thanks Jason,
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What's up, everybody,
It's me Jason McIntyre. Straight Fire for Wednesday, April otherwise
known as NFL Draft Eve. I know everybody's very excited.
We have a great guest to commemorate the eve of
(00:25):
the Draft. I'm so excited. I'm so pumped up the Draft.
We're doing a lot at Fox Sports. I'm sure you
guys saw the announcement on Tuesday morning that there is
going to be a draft show. It's me and a
bunch of other guys at Fox. Obviously, I'm very excited
for the gambling angle. I will be talking a lot
about my New York Jets on the Draft show. I
(00:46):
have made my point to the powers that be we
must talk Jets. So there will be a lot of Jets,
not a lot, you know, it's the Jets. They're kind
of irrelevant, but I'm fired up and passionate about them,
so we'll do a lot of Jets chatter on the
Fox show. That Draft show is Thursday night. And um,
before we get to the draft guest, who is phenomenal today?
(01:07):
Tom Pelisaro, NFL Network guy I work with actually at
USA Today, Really sharp, NFL mind talks to a lot
of people. Listen, the NFL reporting job is, you know,
literally an eleven month a year job. It's a grind.
And if I learned nothing from Adrian Wrgnarowski, who I
worked with back in the day at a newspaper, You've
(01:27):
got to continually update your contacts, reach out to him,
not just when there's news or when you think there's
gonna be news, just keeping that open relationship. And Tom
Pelisar does that as well as anyone. And he's plugged
in on the draft. Let's just say, Um, I really
grill him on these damn Alabama receivers who are so
fun to watch, but my gosh, taking him top ten,
(01:48):
it's gonna be a mistake for somebody. And we do
a little San Francisco at three and um mac Jones
will we'll get into it. I think you guys would
like that. Before I get to the interview, you just
want to remind everybody subscribe rate review podcast is popping,
always enjoy your comments on iTunes. We'll start giving out well.
I remember we were giving away money during football season
(02:10):
because the gambling was going so well, just not as
much to gamble on. Maybe we'll resurrect that for the
NBA playoffs and uh yeah, I think we'll do some
gambling on the NBA playoffs. We had some success last year.
Quick word on the NBA before we get to Draft night.
The Warriors got destroyed. And it's funny. When the Warriors win,
(02:30):
I'm always chirping and it's like, oh, Steph Curry, Oh
this is fun. Oh, look at the Warriors. It's great
for the league. And then as soon as the Warriors lose,
all I do is hear from you guys. Hey, you're
quiet on the Warriors. Tonight they were down fifty to
the MAVs at home. Yep, I was playing Madden. I'm
not Madden two K against my son and I shockingly
(02:51):
lost twice. So I'm sorry I missed Luca. And the
MAVs are ripping the Warriors to shreds um that happened. Also,
the Bucks winning again, keeping pressure on the Sixers, and yes,
the Sixers for two because Brooklyn's not giving it up.
Now that k D's back, KD and Kyrie comfortably the
number one seed, I will say the Celtics have lost
(03:11):
four or five. They played the Thunder last night and
it's funny because the Thunder I've had lost fourteen in
a row. They're awful, they're tanking, and the Celtics said, oh,
let's try to steal one with adjacent Tatum rest day,
no Kambra, no Tatum, and they lose the Thunder. So
the Celtics have now lost four or five the Celtics,
folks could end up in the plan. I thought it
(03:33):
would be the Hawks of the Knicks, but it's looking
like it might be the Celtics or Heat. And I
don't really think you wanna end up in the plane
because if you get the eight seed, Brooklyn's gonna be
extremely tough. I know I've said for the longest time
the Celtics will be a challenge for them, but man,
um this cratering. I thought second round the Celtics could
(03:53):
do some damage, but opening round, drawing the nets, that
could get ugly. Um. So that's the NBA for the night,
not like a great night in the NBA, but the
next basically two nights will be all consumed by the draft.
As we get the rumors Wednesday night, that's tonight, and
as we get the draft Thursday night that's tomorrow night.
(04:14):
And then second and third round Friday, and then of
course Saturday, more draft stuff. So big few days ahead.
For the time being, let's enjoy our guest, Tom Pellosaro
NFL dot Com and the NFL Network. Jason likes to
think he knows everything when it comes to sports. I
(04:34):
know what sports stands want, but for everything he doesn't.
He knows a guy who does. Let's just say I
know a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy.
All right, let's welcome into straight fire. A guy I
worked with a little bit briefly at USA. Today he's
now big time NFL Network on TV five six, seven
days a week. Tom Pello sorrow, Tom, How you doing? Man?
(04:58):
Doing good? Jason, good to see it. I yeah, it's
it's been a while, it has but I appreciate you,
appreciate you having me. And we're thirty seconds into this.
My phone hasn't run yet, so we're off to a
good start. That's great. That that is good. Now, UM,
before we start the podcast, Uh, you know I was
talking to Tom. He's in uh, Minnesota. UM, and obviously
(05:18):
Trey Lance is from Minnesota. And I don't know, Tom,
do we want to start with Trey Lance? I just
I can't get over what's happening at three. It sounds
like it's down to Lance and Mac Jones, and I'm
just still so perplexed by all of it. Can you
make any sense of this with the forty Niners? Is it?
Is it really Kyle Shanahan's arrogance. I mean, I certainly
wouldn't say it's Kyle Shanahan's arrogance. He knows though, what
(05:41):
he wants in his quarterback, and that's founded from you know,
twenty years in the league, plus growing up in it
with his dad, Mike, who's still very involved with the
with the forty Niners organization. You know, for Kyle, the
two things that you always hear that he and his
staff value in quarterbacks are quick processing and accuracy. If
(06:01):
Mac Jones has two talents, it's quick processing and accuracy.
And you see that on the Alabama tape. It's been
evident to everybody who has spent time with Jones in
the pre draft process he obviously with his shirt off,
does not look like Trey Lance or justin fields. He
doesn't have the athletic ability. Although his numbers weren't as
bad as everybody was expecting. The Pro day he wanted
(06:22):
to go all the other quarterbacks said I'm not gonna
run the forty or I'm not gonna do the drills
like he did them. He wanted to show that he
was willing to compete. Uh. And so you understand it
from that perspective. The way that Mac Jones profiles, I
mean a little bit like you know, Kirk Cousins and
Matt Shop and some of the other quarterbacks Coles had
success with. I've had coaches who have watched all Mac
Jones tape and say, you know, they're not going to
(06:44):
compare it to Joe Burrow, but there are some things
that are similar to Joe Burrow, just because Joe Burrow
didn't have a lead athletic ability, he did not have
an elite arm. He was a guy who was a
mid round graded prospect, probably a Day three prospect coming
off his eighteen tape at l s U. Joe Brady
gets there, Burrow takes off through fifty touchdown passes, clear
(07:05):
number one pick in the draft with Mac Jones also
one year producer seventeen career starts, the same number as
Trey Lance, albeit at a different against a different level
of competition. But Mac Jones really accurate makes up for
what he lacks. Had good players around him, so did Burrow.
You know, played from a lot of clean pockets. You
haven't seen him half this short step or no step,
(07:26):
a whole lot of throws. All those are fair questions
with Trey Lands again, same number of college starts. Trey
Lance did not lose. His team did not lose a
single game at North Dakota State that he started, although
they're also much more talented than everybody else on the
field and won like five of the last six FCS
titles or whatever it is with Lance, the biggest hole
(07:46):
that coaches poke in him in particular is accuracy. You know,
coaches don't watch college tape during the season a lot
of times. Normally it's before the Combine. This year was
more so going to the Pro Day, so March last month,
coach started digging into the tape. If they had any
exposure to Tray Lance, it was because they were TV
scouting the game against Central Arkansas last year, which was terrible.
(08:07):
Lance played badly. You know, he's fifteen thirty passing. He
just kind of used his legs in the second half,
but was not accurate, missed too many throws. I had
one quarterbacks coach to me say, they told me to
watch this guy, and I thought I was watching the
wrong guy. I said him, this is the guy we're
talking about, you know. But what everybody loves with Trey
Lance is the other stuff. Obviously the size, the athletic ability,
(08:30):
the arm, but it's also the intangibles. The football i Q,
the intelligence, the work ethic, the leadership. All that stuff
is so off the charts. I had one college scouting
director who was talking about you know, Central Effine, Arkansas, like,
are you kidding? This guy's that played email and anyone
better than James Masson. But he goes No matter who
you talked to about Trey Lance, they all say, the
(08:51):
intangibles really are that far off the charts. So whatever
his ceiling is, he's going to reach it and shout
out to James Madison where I graduated from, thank you
for that, and not come that. Let me back up
a little to processing, because this is a thing that
you know, I can't find the link. Somebody sent me
one where um I guess uh an NFL website, NFL
(09:12):
Draft Network or some some drafts website tried to break
down who passed the most to their second read, and
I guess Matt Jones passed less to his second read
than justin Fields. And this idea of processing, like you know, Tom,
when you are in that Bama offense behind two offensive
linemen who are all Americans, and you've got you know,
basically two two of the best receivers in the country,
(09:34):
and you've got Naja Harris, Like, I mean, Alabama was
stacked last year. Have we not seen this from Tua?
And then he gets to the league and it's like whoa,
uh what do we have here? And Miami was ready
to part with two to get to Shahn Watson. Uh
to it did not look great. You know, this Sarkasian
offense was dynamite. But are we overvaluing Matt Jones a
(09:56):
little bit? I mean this is there's a guy who
last year starting for UAH through well not last year
his first year starting um two pick sixes against Auburn
that we're awful interceptions. You could go look those up
on YouTube, Like I don't, I just I don't see it.
I'm sorry. What's interesting on the processing is, you know,
Kirk Cousins is a perfect example of this, and I
remember having a discussion years ago when Kyle Shanahan was
(10:19):
the Falcon's offensive coordinator and I went down to do
a story with him. We grabbed a couple of beers
near the facility. We were talking through it, and the
reason that he liked Cousins from day one, the reason
they draft him in the fourth round in the same
draft they took RG three, number two overall in was
because Kirk could see it and rip it. In the
early days for Kirk Cousins, that led to a lot
of interceptions because he's saying it, he's getting the ball
(10:41):
out and he's making the wrong decision. But he was
processing it correctly in terms of the way that he
was seeing the field. He just there were times where
the balls coming out so fast, he's looking at the
picture so quickly that he's missing something. That's what the
coaches are looking for, is just that ability to get
through both pre snap post step. I think sometimes processing
(11:02):
gets confused with intelligence. It's not always an intelligence things.
There are really smart guys who don't necessarily process quickly,
just like there are guys who may not be able
to you know, or guys who are not as smart
who do process really quickly. Some of that shows up
on tape, some of its evidence in you know when
(11:22):
you go through stuff on the board. Remember this was
a unique process where you could not as a team
go watch film with somebody. You couldn't have dinner with them,
you couldn't be in person with them drawing up stuff
on the board. All that had to take place on zoom.
And I had scouts months ago talking about how you know,
you were limited in terms of the board work you
could even do with some of these quarterbacks and other
(11:43):
players because it was solely dependent your ability to watch
tape was dependent on the WiFi connection of the player
who's at his parents house or wherever. So he got
like pixelated stuff and you can't really watch. I mean,
it was just it's a it's a clown show at times.
And so yeah, I mean this stuff was harder to evaluate,
There's no question about it. With Trey Lands, you don't
(12:04):
always see it on tape, but you see enough that
you think he can do it with justin fields. You
don't see the processing a lot on tape, But part
of that is the Ohio State offense and the way
that they trained the quarterbacks. There are things and I've
talked with John Beck about this, who's worked with a
lot of these quarterbacks, Justin Fields this year, he works
(12:25):
with Trey Lands, he works with Zach Wilson, And he said, yeah,
I watched Justin Fields tape. I had the same questions, like,
all right, you're looking for the deep shot, it's not there.
There's a you know, ten yard crosser right here. Why
aren't you throwing that? Why are you running out to
the right and take it off ferries Like, well, they
told me to read it here to hear, to hear,
Beck said, the more we talked about it, I could
see he knew what he was looking at. But he's
being coached differently, and so Ohio State vouches for Justin
(12:48):
Fields on that front, coaches who have spent time with
Justin Fields vouched for him to know he hasn't done
it because that offense does not ask him to do it,
but do they think based upon on their interactions with him.
The way that he talks about tape away, he talks
through place that he can do it, that he could
advance from that kind of rudimentary but very smart college
(13:08):
offensive Ohio State to everything You're gonna be asked to
do in the NFL. Yes, so can process and be overrated,
I think, but that is a core part of what
Kyle Shanahan looks for in quarterbacks, and so you can
understand wherever they stand today, and that may evolve before
this podcast gets posted. For whatever they began at, though,
you can understand why Mac Jones was somebody who was
(13:29):
really intriguing to Yeah, I think, you know, it would
be good if everybody would just come out and agree
with this time that nobody knows how to evaluate quarterbacks.
Is that a fair statement? I mean, Lamar Jackson goes
thirty second? What he was? He the fifth quarterback taken
in the first round. I think that year Josh Rosen
might have gone forth and he already has an MVP
award and three playoff trips. Josh Allen couldn't hit the
(13:50):
broadside of a barn at Wyoming, but looks the part,
and all of a sudden, in what is this year
three or four he pops with Brian day Bole and WHOA,
this guy looks like to be an MVP contender. I
went back. I went back because somebody brought up some
old my I write the you know, the Quarterback Breakdown
every year at NFL dot Com. It goes back to
the USA Today days and somebody yesterday was like ripping
(14:12):
one of the coaches who was quoted on Josh Allen
three years ago. But like, I hope this guy is
not even in the league anymore. And I went back
and read it. One of the knox on Allen was
processing that he had seemed at times there were things
that weren't moving quickly enough. And the other one was accuracy.
And just right before we came on the show, the
reason I was a little late recording this and thanks
for bearing with me. So I was on the phone
with an executive for a team who has been in
(14:32):
the league for a long time and we're talking about
Trey Lance and he goes, I've never seen a quarterback
get better with accuracy until Josh Allen. That was the
whole thing. The saying has always been, Guys don't become
more accurate. There's a lot of things you can coach,
but if you're inaccurate, you stay inaccurate. And to the
credit of UH, Josh Allen as well as the coaching
(14:54):
staff UH in Buffalo, like he really has progressed and
Brian Dable and company of on a really smart job
in terms of the way that they have been able
to bring him along, Brandon being given him a ton
of weapons. You know, it's not it's not rocket science,
but he has overcome some odds here, even with all
the drops, even with all the ancillary factors to you know,
having I think it was like a fifty seven percent
(15:14):
completion rate was at Wyoming. He really has gotten better
and that's just not something that teams used to see it.
It hurts me when I hear that, like nobody's gotten
more accurate because Sam Donald, that was a knock on him,
you know, like, oh he's not that accurate, and you're like, okay, fine,
first year not that accurate. Second was another guy. I mean,
it wasn't strictly processing, but it was. There was kind
of a lot of street ball to Sam Donald at
(15:37):
USC where he just kind of made things happen. He's
very athletic, got good arm talent, but you know, I
wasn't always playing within the within the scheme, and so
you thought he was twenty years old when he came
out in that draft. He ends up going number three
overall to the Jets, but it was like you were
gonna have a growth process. Well, he didn't have time.
And that's the other thing to remember. We can talk
all day about Terry Lance, perfect situation, go in, sit
(15:59):
for a year too, doesn't happen. You'd like it to happen.
You'd like everybody to be Jordan's love and have a
year or two years to sit and learn. But there's
so much pressure. If you're drafting a quarterback in the
top five, chances are you sucked last year, and chances
are you're gonna have to put the guy on the
field to try to save your job. You know, you
hate to say it, but it's it's the truth. And
there's a lot of pressure on these guys to play immediately.
(16:21):
Even as you look at this year's quarterbacks, and we
talked about five guys, Trevor Lawrence is gonna be starting
for Jacksonville week one, Zack Wilson, You would certainly expect
gon be starting week one to the New York Jets,
Mac Jones, Trey Lance, whoever it is in San Francisco.
And this may be determined by which one of those
guys it is. They well, whether they're starting a Week
one or Jimmy Garoppolo, who's had a lot of injuries.
(16:43):
To Kyle Shanahan talked about in that press conference yesterday.
You can be forced into action week four, week seven.
You better be able to do it otherwise. You know,
people ask all the time, and I hear questions in
every press conference, like why why is the failure rates
so high for quarterbacks? Why the half of all first
round quarterbacks not work out? You can say it, you know,
bad scouting, It's mis evaluation. No one knows what they're
looking at. Context is everything is a lot. What are
(17:06):
your offensive line weapons? You know? Could you really get
an evaluation on Sam Donald last year? You know, even
setting aside some of the things in the past, the
mono and the other stuff, It's like all his offensive
linemen were banged up last year. McKay beck didn't, you know,
missed a little bit of time before he came black.
He played pretty well. You look at the receivers. They
were down, like at one point they were down like
(17:26):
their top five receivers. I mean, don't remind me, Tom,
I know this is but I'm like, listen, um, Kyle
Shanahan's gonna be drafting three. I would suspect who ever
he gets, he's gonna end up doing pretty well because
Kyle Shanahan knows quarterbacks. Sam Donald is going to Joe Brady,
who's probably I would already say one of the best
(17:47):
ten offensive coordinators in the league. Um, I really like
what he's done already based on what he did at
LSU obviously, and there's a chance that Donald does really
well in Carolina. Whoever san Frame gets is pretty good.
We know Trevor Lawrence is going to be good, and
then Zach Wilson if he flops. And I mean the
first time offensive coordinator, right the kid la Fleur's brother,
(18:08):
Micha la Fleur, whose regards is really really sharp. You know,
he had a couple he had a couple of interviews
in this offseason with other teams and people watched away going, wow, man,
I had that conversation with another team, just like wow,
that guy is really really smart and he's trained under Kyle.
I mean, you look at the history of guys who
have come out of that system. You know it is
Matt Lafleur, who's you know now in Green Bay and
(18:30):
has an unbelievable record through his first couple of years. Uh,
you know, it is Sean McVeigh, who's still a really
bright offensive mind, and there's other guys within the league.
Arthur Smith is running the same system he learned it from.
Let me ask you about about McVeigh. So he had Golf,
who famously what didn't take a snap under center his
entire college career or some obscene number like that at
cal and Golf goes in, starts over seven with Jeff Fisher.
(18:53):
McVeigh comes there, boom, jump to light speed. All of
a sudden, Golf has them near the super Bowl, then
in the super Bowl, and then Golf has gone and
now he gets Matt Stafford, who kind of languished in
Detroit forever. And is there a chance that marriage works
so well that everybody all of a sudden says, oh,
maybe it was Detroit and they're coaching staff You know,
he kind of popped with Jim Bob Cooder and Stafford
(19:16):
had some moments. But there's a good chance that Stafford
really becomes all of a sudden elite and then it's like, oh,
this is the guy that everybody loved from high school
to college. This is Matt Stafford. I'd say, whatever shortcomings
Matthew Stafford has had had not been all on Matthew Stafford.
I mean, there's a reason the Lions have has a
lot of reasons. The Lions haven't won a championship since
nineteen fifty seven, you know, and I haven't want to
(19:37):
playoff games since or whatever that statistic is, uh, you know,
and they were just there. There were a lot of things.
There are a lot of changes. How many different coordinators
did he have, how many different head coaches? How many
total shifts in philosophy, which is why shortly after last
season ended, and this was I think there was a
misconception about this. It was right after the season and
last year, before Dan Campbell was in the picture, before
(19:58):
Brad Holmes was in the picture, Stafford had already gone
to ownership and said, listen, I can't do this again.
I can't go through another one. It's the right time
for all of us into the Lions credit. They understood that,
they worked through that, they set deadlines, they moved quickly,
and they ended up getting what could be a haul.
You know, whatever Matthew Stafford does. If Jared Goff is
(20:20):
halfway decent and you've got a couple of first round
picks on top of it. I mean that could be
one of the great trades um that a team has
made in terms of, you know, what they were able
to get in return, you know, to the Rams. Of course,
Jared Goff had become a negative asset. They were ready
to move on. They had two years of guaranteed money.
They couldn't trade for Matthew Stafford unless they offloaded Jared
Goff and that's certainly impacted the price. But could Stafford
(20:42):
go and have a new level of success under McVeigh. Absolutely.
There's never been pressure like this on Matthew Stafford before.
Remember he's been playing in Detroit, where if they go
nine and seven and get in the playoffs, everyone's saying,
how can you make changes off? Jim Caldo has nine
and seven two straight years. Jim called us a great guy.
He's a really good goa. But like there's this idea
that well nine and seven like he got he was
(21:03):
nine and seven, like that success in Detroit in l
A with the Rams, nine and seven is gonna be
a failure. So there's a lot of pressure on Matthew Stafford.
There's a lot of pressure on Sean McVeigh. Not that
I'm saying that, you know, if it doesn't work out,
he's gonna be washed out of there. But there's just
there's this different level now of expectations, and I'm sure
that Sean McVeigh is gonna have some things that he's
(21:25):
gonna want Matthew Stafford to adjust. Every coach who comes
out of that system has things they want to adjust.
You talk about Jared Goff never been under center. Sean
McVeigh totally overhauled his footwork. Uh, there's little things in
that offense, like the quarterback has to turn his back
to the line of scrimmage on play action that a
lot of quarterbacks don't do. Matt Ryan had never done that.
Prior to Kyle Shanahan getting to Atlanta, Matt Ryan had
(21:46):
never turned his back to the to the lave of
scrimmage on play action. I've talked about this with Kyle,
I talked about it with Matt All these things are
just like a little bit different, his right foot forward
instead of his left. Basics of the offense. Zack Wilson
with the Jets, I don't know exactly what their plan
is going to be, so I'm not gonna, you know,
speak on behalf of the Jets, but you would expect
Zack Wilson's got some pretty free William mechanics now, and
(22:07):
that's something that he has honed with John Beck. He's
honed it with the approval of the b y U
coaching staff. I mean, he's got that almost mahomes like
mechanics where it looks like he's turning too as second
base a lot of the time, flicking the ball across
his body, not getting his feet around. That's not really
how the quarterback traditionally is played in that that Shanahan
style offense. So it'll be fascinating to see, you know,
(22:29):
how they develop him in another place that you know,
let's face at Jason, you know this cheering for that team,
year old life. That is a pressure cooker type of
an environment in New York Wind Loser draw. It's gonna
be Zach Wilson's face next to Robert Sali is on
the back page of the post. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
(22:51):
within the I Heart Radio app search f s R
to listen live. Let me quickly on the Lions um
New head coach Dan Campbell new o C I believe
is Anthony Lynn Jared Goff the presume starter. But there
is chatter this week that the Lions are looking at
Justin Fields and listen, I don't want to wish any
(23:11):
ill on anyone, but they just lost Holiday. They just
lost I think their second best receiver. I mean, whoever
goes to Detroit is if they take a quarterback eight
I it's it's probably not gonna end. Well is that
a safe assumption. I know Anthony Lynn had been good previously,
but my goodness, um, you know this is a guy
who wanted to go with Tyrod Taylor and we all
saw Justin Herbert absolutely crush it the second he was
(23:33):
in the game. I'm super intrigued by the coaching staff
that they have put together in Detroit. I mean I
would intrigue. You mean, like your eyebrows raising? Like what? No? Like?
I mean, let's start with this. I've said this before,
but I would take the Lions coaching staff playing at
seven on seven football game over any other coaching staff
in the entire league. They've got all these former players,
(23:56):
from Dan Campbell to Mark Brunell to uh Anthony Lynn,
Antoine Randall l is on the staff. I mean, they
got some dudes on that team, and that's that's gonna
bring a little bit different energy. Remember, Dan Campbell also
was a player in Detroit, so he knows all the
things that have have ailed the Lion's organization. He knows
(24:18):
the general negativity in the media there and the fan
base there. They want to think everything is a failure. Immediately.
You know, Campbell's gotten crap about the biting off kneecaps thing.
It's like the default joke for everyone. But like everyone
thought this was like some kind of a you know,
tough guy act. Whatever. Know, that's Dan Campbell. That's the
guy that people loved in Miami. They loved him in
(24:38):
New Orleans. He had a big role presenting to the
team there, his assistant head coach. Players are gonna want
to play for this guy, and so I think that
you have to take this new regime on its own,
you know, between Dan Campbell, Brad Holmes, John Dorsey, who
was one of the best value wears in the league
is an executive with the Lions, so he's involved right
(24:58):
now in their draft process. They've got a lot of
smart people. I don't know that you know, sitting here
today and we're a little over forty eight hours out
from the draft. I don't know that I buy them
taking a quarterback and seven. What I can tell you
is they, along with the Panthers in some extent, the Broncos,
have got a lot of phone calls from teams moving up.
(25:19):
The big question for everybody asked themselves in this draft
is how far you want to go back? Because in
a normal draft, when you talk to teams, there's thirty
two picks in the first round. Most teams are gonna
have eighteen twenty maybe two twenty two players with first
round grades. This year, you talk to teams and there's
like fourteen, sixteen, maybe seventeen first round grades, meaning if
(25:43):
you're in the back half a round one, you are
choosing from a pool of second round players. So there's
gonna be great variability in the boards for different teams
from let's say pick seventeen to pick forty seven or
fifty seven, and so you're gonna get more surprise. Name
was guys do you go? That was in no mock draft.
I listed some of them, uh in a story today.
(26:05):
Javonte Williams, the running back from North Carolina's got some
real fans. Would not surprise me if he ends up
sneaking into round one. The two Georgia corners, Tyson Campbell
and Eric Stokes both ran really fast that their pro day. Uh.
You know, ball skills are kind of a question, but
Stokes had four picks last year. Campbell tied for the
team leading past breakups. There's not a lot of corners.
You got the top two guys we're gonna come off
(26:27):
in in Horn and cir Tan. Big questions on Caleb
Farley because of the twin back surgery since the last
played a game. But those could be the next couple
of corners who are coming off the board. Some receivers
gaining steam. Elijah More from Old miss I would expect
as of this as of right now, that he ends
up going uh in the first round. And then tackles.
I mean there's no real interior offensive lineman, there's no
(26:50):
defensive tackles. There's no safeties who are sure bets to
go in the first round. Normally those are the positions
from twenty to thirty two. When you run out of players,
you go safe. Pick inter the offensive lineman, interior defensive lignement,
you know, safety, they're not there. There could be some
guys who go the TCU safety. Trevor Morrigan is one
who potentially will go in the first but it's gonna
(27:10):
be wide open really through the you know, through the
second round and all the way into day three. When
you consider the fact that you've got decentralized medicals, they're
only a hundred fifty players less than a hundred fifty.
You went to the comedy get the full medical. Everybody
else was getting uh medical. All the other Combine guys
were getting medicals in their home cities. And if you
were in a Combine invite, you're under no obligation to
(27:32):
go get an m r I for anybody. So teams
are kind of patchworking this themselves. You don't have top
thirty visits. You can't bring people into your facility. I mean,
there are gonna be guys you take. The joke last
year was we're taking guys on day three, we haven't
shaken their hands. The joke this year is, we're taking
guys on day three. We haven't shaken their hand. We
don't know how tall they are, we don't know what
they weigh, we don't know what kind of forty they run.
(27:54):
We don't know what's in their medical file. Because if
a guy just says I can't make it for an
m R, I that end, and then you shouldn't. You
just shouldn't draft him. And that's exactly it. You may
see teams leaning on Power five players on Day three.
It may be leaning on guys who just have the
cleaner medicals, Guys who have character issues and otherwise would
be late day to Day three picks. They may not
(28:16):
go at all. They may be priority free agents, just
because you know, every team right now two is trying
to deal their six seventh round picks for future picks.
Nobody wants to make those picks here, but there's no
one to trade them to, and so everybody's gonna end
up kind of stuck here. It's a really unique dynamic.
But hell man, we've been in a unique dynamic for
four teen months here. We've done it once already. This
(28:37):
will just be the second time through. All Right, we'll
do a couple of rapid fire here's to wrap up. Um,
do either of the small Alabama receivers go in the
top ten your guests? I would say one, if not
two of them end up going into top ten, and
I would say, don't be surprised to feeling Waddle goes
before Davante Smith. My only issue is where I mean,
(28:59):
do you really you think Miami's taking one of those
smurfs that early? Uh, smurf will be your word, not mine, Jason, Yeah, yeah,
my word is smurf. Ike Smith weighs less than I do. Bro.
I would not be surprised at all the Miami wants
to put his many weapons around the quarterback. It's possible.
You never listen. I mean, but wait, Tom hold him.
You've seen the history of small receivers in the top
ten often, like you said, they're going to bad teams
(29:22):
to Miami was pretty good. They just missed the playoffs
last year. But but but you have to Yeah, I mean,
I know every team is gonna make those you know,
try to do those profiles and figure out what the
historical successes. That's absolutely part of the analytic approach the
team's take. You have to look on some level, they're like,
who were the players? John Ross came in with major questions. Uh,
(29:44):
he had injury history. I mean, there were teams that
didn't think he'd go in the first round at all
and the Bengals take him at number nine. You're like, okay,
and you know, obviously he's had a bunch of injuries
since he got in to leave. But that wasn't like
a shock that one's gonna be small. I mean, maybe
it was, but everybody knew that coming in. You know,
Tavon Austin are a really high drafted guy, and he
got a second contract, only a fifty eight million dollar
(30:05):
or something contracts Like he was a player, he just
wasn't a fully dimensional type of receiver, at least with
Waddle as well as Davante Smith. You know that they
can run a route tree. You know, there are receivers
in this draft who they're kind of those gadget toy
manufactured touches. Guys. Ka Darius Tony from Florida would be
an example of that. Teams don't look at these guys
that way. There is more love than you think for
(30:26):
Jalen Waddle. That's not to talk down at all in
Davonte Smith, but there are more people in the league
who think Jalen Waddle can be special than you might think. Yeah,
at this stage, I prefer Waddle to Smith. Um all right,
second does Justin Fields go in the top ten. I
definitely think Justin Fields goes in the top fifteen and
would not surprise me if he goes in the top ten.
(30:46):
There are teams they're they're calling about trades to potentially
move up. Will any of those happen remains to be seen,
but you would think teams like New England, if they're
calling around in the top ten, odds are and the
belief of everybody who's gotten those calls is the target
would be Justin Field. Um do uh do the Patriots
trade up? There's no way, right Bill Belichick trades back,
He doesn't trade up. No way. Bill Belichick spends a
(31:08):
hundred eighty three million dollars and guaranteed money and one
free agencycle either. They're breaking the mold there, they say.
Robert Craft has said publicly he wants to do things differently.
They've got some different voices in the scouting department now.
Matt Patricia, the former Lions coach, of course, has gone
back there. That's been documented that he's involved on the
scouting side. Now. They brought in Elliott Wolf, the longtime
Packers scout, former Brown's assistant GM. He's part of the
(31:30):
process there too. Dave Ziggler has taken on a larger
role with the departure of Nick Kissario, so a little
bit different dynamic than they've had in the past. Obviously,
Bill Belichick still has the hammer there. But based upon
what happened in free agency, would it really surprise you
that much if the Patriots break the mold instead of
trading down, they trade up in round one? I believe
anything right now? Anything? Wow? Okay, um, I guess that's
(31:53):
pretty blose. Are pretty much the juiciest angles. Is there
any player you here that's just rocketing up the boards
or tumbling down? I know that we want to try
to keep it positive, but any anybody maybe falling a
little bit. It sounds like Farley could end up with
the Jets at twenty three if he given the back
surgery issues. Yeah, there's are desperate at cornerback. Tom, you
know that they have nobody and you know in that
(32:14):
new defense, you know they got a bunch of edge rushers,
but they have no corners, right. I mean, the Jets
would certainly be a team the potentially is and play
for a corner. Arizona would be in play for a
corner there's a bunch of teams need cormers, bunch of
teams need tackles, which is part of why you're gonna
see probably runs on those positions toward the end of
round one and you know, also into in a day
(32:34):
two of the draft. In terms of followers, there's there's
really not There's not that guy who's just gonna absolutely
plummet Farley would be the one to watch in the
green room, just because people don't know. We did a
story in Wrap Fortnite NFL dot Com the posted early
this morning. There's a split among gm Some say they're
really comfortable with the medical. Uh. Everybody basically says Farley
(32:55):
will be back, you know, in time for training by
the season, if not in time for training camp. The
question just how does he hold up. He's had a
back issue for over two years. He hurt himself in
like February, went through the season, had sciatica, had to
get in February. The first dispect to me opted out
of the season was training, said he felt good, then
(33:17):
tweaked it again in January. So it's been over two
years since he started dealing with this. It's been seventeen
months since he played a game and back surgeries for
a guy who's also had an a C L tare
and plays a speed position is a short and long
term concern for some teams. They just don't know how
the back is gonna respond. But again, there are teams
that say he's gonna go in the first. It doesn't
(33:38):
matter he's a top ten player. He'd be in the
conversation with orangs Ertan's the first corner if you were healthy,
he's gonna go in the first. Then you talk to
other people, other gms who say no, like we wouldn't
do it. We're talking in our draft room about okay,
let's say he's there in the second, do we do it?
Those the conversations and the scenarios the team's game out
in these final days until the draft. Those are the
(34:00):
calls that I get at all hours of the day
and night from teams to just trying to figure out
exactly what's going on. Drew Rosenhaus, who's Farley's agent, says
that he believes and is confident in his discussions with
teams that Farley doesn't even last to pick number twenty.
So we've all got a front row seat to Drew
and Caleb Farley, because they'll be in the green room
in Cleveland on Thursday night and that will certainly be
(34:22):
one of the dramas when we follow. I don't want
to say it's similar to the linebacker from Notre Dame
who fell and Dallas just couldn't pass him up second round.
Uh Smith the difference, but right, and he had a
nerve issue that was a pretty significant thing. I remember
going to um where is he from four Wayne, Indiana
(34:42):
I believe it is before that draft, like a week before,
and sitting down with him. He was doing drills, he
was working out, uh, you know, and he told me like,
I'm feeling more every day, Like I can tell it's
regenerating and it has to a large degree, you know,
come back. But it took time, uh you know. And
I don't know that Jillen Smith has ever been the
same player, you know, the dynamic, top five type of
(35:03):
talent that he was at Notre Dame prior to a
really unfortunate injury that I think occurred in uh in
the Fiesta Bowl. But you know, he didn't slide out
of the second round of the draft. You know, he
did end up going He had an insurance policy that
he had taken out prior to play in his last year,
and notre dame, which is what all these guys do
in case you suffered some kind of a dramatic injury.
With Farley, from my understanding, there is some weakness still
(35:24):
in one of his big toes, but that's pretty normal
because he's less than a month and a half out
from his last micro diskect me, so that's normal. But
it's a leap of faith, there's no question about it,
because there's no way If the question the draft room
is have we seen this guy since the back injury started,
be fully healthy and as he played a game since
the first of two surgeries, the answer is no. So
(35:47):
you've got to either go we are willing to take
the gamble and get a bargain on a guy who
otherwise is long gone before our pick, or you're not.
And that's those are the decisions and the important thing
on medical to always remember thirty two teams, thirty two
medical staffs, thirty two different degrees of risk tolerance. Even
if twenty nine teams x a guy off the board,
(36:09):
there could be three teams in the first round that
are all trying to trade ahead of each other for
Caleb Farley or whoever it might be, and so he
could end up going far sooner than our teams would
be able to stomach. Take now before I get you
out of here. Um, So the Ravens made a trade
this is non draft with the Chiefs last Friday, and Tom,
I gotta say, I don't understand why a team like
(36:32):
the Ravens that's chasing the Chiefs would help the Chiefs
pick up an offensive lineman when the Chiefs clearly need
an offensive lineman. What am I missing here? Is this
simply that they didn't want to pay Orlando Brown? Is
it that you know they maybe he's a bit of
a problem in the locker room, unhappy that he wasn't
the left tackle because they have Stanley, Like, why would
(36:53):
you help the Chiefs of all teams with a tackle?
Orlando Brown is an awesome guy, one of my favorite
people in the NFL to talk to, but he wanted
to play left tackle. They have attacked left tackle Ronnie Stanley,
who's coming back from an injury. Uh that they just
paid I think three days before his injury, two or
three days before, which was some kind of timing on
(37:13):
Stanley's part uh, And yeah, they were not gonna you know,
they couldn't offer him the left tackle job, and they
certainly weren't gonna pay him like a left tackle. So
at times, when the best offer you have is going
to be a team that you are ostensibly competing with,
even if it's not within the division, within the conference,
you know you have to make those decisions. Erica cost
should shouldn't. The Ravens have done diligence and called every
(37:35):
team in the NFC said do you want a left tackle?
I'm sure they did, and I'm sure nobody else was
offering him an opportunity to move up into the first round.
I mean, the Chiefs have been bowled throughout this entire offseason.
Gave a massive deal to Joe Tuoney. You know, they
bring in Kyle Long out of retirement, They get back
Laurent duvern A Tardiff, they bring in Austin Blythe to
play center, and now you make a trade for Orlando Brown.
(37:57):
I think the one, you know, the one key thing
there as people have reported as if they're getting a
first round pick and they're getting the third and they're
getting fifth. No, really, the way the teams would look
at this is you're moving up twenty seven spots because
the Ravens gave up their second round pick, so they
moved from fifty five or whatever it was up to
thirty one. So you're jumping from the second to the first.
(38:19):
But it's not a straight first round pick in this deal.
So from the chief's perspective, they can still move down.
You know, they can still get a good player on
their view, and probably again because of the way this
board breaks, you might get a pretty similar player at
thirty one in the chief's minds to what you might
get at fifty six to penny what your position of
need ends up. Beam, Now the Ravens get, you know,
(38:40):
have that extra pick uh in the first round, and
you know, if they've got multiple needs receivers, certainly one
even after signing Sammy Watkins, I would think they'd be
trying to address. That's the spot right there where they
have those picks now seven and thirty one, where they
may have their pick of the receivers that they that
they like. All right, He's Tom Pellisoro, NFL Net, NFL
dot Com. Um, you do a lot of stuff, man,
(39:03):
You're on TV a lot, you do radio. What what
don't you do. Tom. I feel like I'm always asking
the same thing about you because I see you on
TV and you've got a radio show. Apparently you have
a podcast. I now need to start downloading podcast all
time on it. I gotta, I gotta dive into all
these things. And of course you're a legend for the
big leads. So yeah, man, I just try to I
just try to keep up, you know, the same way
(39:25):
that you do. I should have you on more to
get more nice compliments for the podcast. Right there, Feel free,
it's all your alright, man. Enjoy the draft, Tom, Thanks again,
Thanks Jason,
Host
Jason McIntyre
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