March 10, 2022 • 33 mins
In this episode of the Tape Heads: Draft Season podcast, hosts Bob Wischusen and Greg Cosell discuss the ups and downs of the NFL Combine. Greg explains how a player's :40 time can add or subtract to a player's evaluation and is always over-valued when projecting future performance. Greg would like to see a few different analytics added to the QB evaluations including footballs throws that should or shouldn't have been thrown. Bob asks if Kyle Hamilton could be a unicorn in the draft and what teams are discussing when his name comes up. We finally have answers when it comes to Kenny Pickett's hand size and Greg takes us into the discussions teams are having over the QB. After attending so many Combines, Greg tells us the things that even surprised him over the last week.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to another edition of tape Head's Draft Season. Bobo
shusan longtime radio voice of the New York Jets in
a longtime college football play by play man for ESPN,
joined as always by Greg co Selho for over forty years,
has been breaking down the all twenty two and diving
deeper behind the xs and ohs than anyone in NFL films,
and this is his wheelhouse. It is trying to bring
(00:26):
you kind of a behind the scenes, through the weeds
look at the NFL Draft in a different way than
other podcasts or anything else you're gonna hear about the
draft anywhere else brings you. We're not doing mock drafts,
were not doing trade scenarios. We are trying to bring
you a more realistic look at the way teams approached
the draft and also a much deeper dive into these
(00:48):
prospects on a week by week basis. And Greg, let's
start coming out of the combine with that as a
kind of a general scope, and we're going to get
to a guy coming up in the next segment that
I think might be the most fascinating prospect in the
entire NFL draft. Uh And a guy that's going to
be debated back and forth. You know, it's gonna go
probably in the top five to seven picks where he goes,
(01:10):
who picks him. We're gonna get to that all a
very interesting discussion, and up you could probably figure out
who I'm talking about, because he is a polarizing conversation
right now, certainly in New York. But how polarizing are
the conversations coming out of the combine When guys run
a tick of a forty time less than you expected
(01:31):
them to, a tick of a shuttle run less than
you expected them to. I mean, were there were there
guys that you know, surprised people positively or negatively at
the combine that you think just the combine might overrate
one way or the other. Well, I think what always
happens is, as you know, Bob, the forty yard dash
time is sort of you know, it's like in the
(01:51):
old Miss America, you know, the swimsuit competition. Everybody judges
everything by that, you know, so when a guy runs
a really fast forty, that's what gets talked about. So
if a guy doesn't run a fast forty, and we're
gonna get to a particular player here in a position momentarily,
but when a guy doesn't run a fast forty all
(02:12):
of a sudden, there's this collective sense, maybe not by teams,
but just in the way it's presented, you know, whether
it's on social media, just the way it's talked about
on you know, sports talk radio, that oh my god,
what's the problem. And I think that's the forty time
is the thing that seems to you know, move the
needle one way or the other, and it it gets
(02:35):
so removed from the football part of the equation, the
actual player on tape, that it seems as if it's
just a separate entity and you know, with a life
of its own. And you have to be really careful
about forty times impacting what you've seen on tape with players.
And how about the quarterbacks and the top of the
draft quarterbacks don't even throw anymore or performally at the combine.
(02:58):
They go there, they'll you measure the hands and feet
in height and weight, and then they leave um or
they do some interviews with teams, but you know, they
have kind of their doctored, manufactured pro days that acts
as their combine. How about the evolution of that How
hard it is to take anything out of what we
either see from the measurables of the combine or these
(03:19):
pro days that these guys have on their own campuses.
You know, it's funny you mentioned that. It just reminded
me immediately of last year's pro day with Zach Wilson,
your guy, you know, and and remember when he had
the pro day and he ended up by running to
his left and throwing the ball, you know, fifty yards
in the air. You know, that was you know, it's funny, said,
it's funny you bring this example up. Scott p Oli
during the season on our regular old tape Peds podcast
(03:42):
basically said exactly what you are saying, that, like, maybe
the worst thing that ever happened to Zach Wilson was
that throw on his pro dat. Well, what I was
gonna say, and I don't know what Scott said about it,
but when I saw that and then it made the
rounds on social media, was I said to myself, you know,
there's a hundred quarterbacks that could have done that, and
they made it seem like Zack Wilson was the only
(04:03):
quarterback that could have done that. There's a hundred quarterbacks
that could have done that. Uh, and you know, we
get so caught up in the moment, not you know,
just as an aside. You know, we've seen Patrick Mahomes
the last what three years, I guess he's been a
starter now four years, but you know we've seen him
with those trick shot throws and everybody goes crazy. You know,
(04:23):
Matthew Stafford was doing trick shot throws ten years ago
with the Detroit Lions, but because he was playing with
the Detroit Lions, a bob, no one said a word
about it. You know, So we get caught up in
the moment. But when Wilson made that throw, and your
point is probably very valid that people got so excited
about Wilson, but there's a hundred quarterbacks that could have
done that. Yea, and not only I think that The
(04:44):
point that Scott made um during the season when there
were times where Zach Wilson was trying a lot of
the off platform crazy yes you know, hero ball throws,
was maybe he was trying to live up to all
of the hype that that crazy Pro Day throw create
(05:05):
rather than just go play simple, just find your check down.
It's okay, it's okay to throw the ball in a
traditional way over the shoulder to a guy that's five
yards away, let him pick up five or six more
yards for you and make it second down and four.
That's a good way to play quarterback in the NFL sometimes.
And uh, and you're right. I mean I think he
(05:25):
wasn't away a victim of his own pro day because,
as you said, all of the hype gets into and
he sees those headlines, he hears it. He knows he's
expected now to go to New York and put on
a show, and now he's trying to do that in
the NFL. And boy, as a rookie that that can
backfire on you. You know, it's pretty amazing. And you
kind of hit on something that I've talked about for
years and years is the idea that the job of
(05:48):
the quarterback is to execute the offense as it's coached
and taught. You know, we may have said this before,
but no coach rolls out the ball in practice and says,
let's run around and see if we can make a
play today. That's not the way the position is taught.
But because of highlights social media, we get all excited
(06:09):
on on these improvisational plays, and I think so many
people get caught up into thinking that's the way to
play quarterback now that you have to be able to
run around and make plays. Now, no one would say
that if you have mobility, that's a bad thing. But
mobility must be secondary to the ability to efficiently execute
(06:30):
the structure of the offense snap after snap. And I
don't know Zack Wilson. You obviously do. I never met
him individually, but one of the big concerns I remember
when he came out a year ago. Everybody saw the live,
loose arm, everybody saw the light feet, but there was
a concern that he was too much of a trick
shot artist and he needed to play within the structure
(06:52):
of an offense. As you know, Bob, coaches work sixteen
seventeen hours a day doing this. They want the quarterback
to execute what is taught and coach not run around improvisationally. Well,
it's funny because first part of the season last year
he was that guy, right, and they had a game
against Tennessee where he threw like a fifty yard side
arm touchdown. Remember a place went crazy, but most of
(07:14):
the time, most of the time they were losing. Um.
Then he got hurt and then he actually had a
three or four week period where he watched and he
watched other way, the Mike White era, and he watched
other quarterbacks just execute the offense. If you look at
the last five or six weeks of the season, no turnovers,
not as many flashy attempted plays, but as you said,
(07:36):
much more executing the offense the way that it's coached,
and all of a sudden won a couple of games
down the stretch, much more competitive, even in games that
they lost down the stretch. And look, Tom Brady probably
has more Lombardi trophies then he has off platform crazy
you know, uh, improvisational throws in his career. Right, maybe
(08:00):
Tom Brady has run around in the offensive backfield and
sidearmed the ball like five times in his entire career,
and he's got more Lombardi trophies than that on his mantelpiece.
So like that, you're a right, And I guess to
shift the conversation then to the current class. We talked
about Kenny Pickett last week and how he probably is
the most pro ready, you know, stereotypical size measurables quarterback.
(08:27):
But I mean Malik Willis came out and said, hey, look,
I should be the number one quarterback taken in this draft,
and he's a guy that's thought of a little bit
more as the improvisational guy. What do you think a
guy like that needs to show in his pro day
to maybe tell NFL teams, Look, I'm not just the
runaround back there and side on the ball forty five
yards down the field. I Am going to play quarterback
(08:50):
the way that you need to be able to be
coached to play quarterback in the NFL. It's a great question.
I don't think his pro day can show that because
one of the things that all the analytics and metrics
don't show, and I know they're showing more and more
with each year, Bob, but one of the things they
don't yet show are balls that should be thrown that aren't.
(09:11):
And when I watch tape, that is the biggest thing
that I see with quarterbacks, even at the NFL level,
because I've been doing this a long time, so I
know the route concepts, I know the defense. I know
that where the ball should go based on the route
concept versus a specific defense, and the biggest issue for
a lot of quarterbacks, young quarterbacks in particular quarterbacks that
(09:32):
are mobile in particular is that they leave throws on
the field that should be thrown, and Malik Willis won't
be able to get beyond that at his pro day
because pro day will probably be phenomenal. But when you
watch his tape, you see a Traits quarterback. He's got
a big arm. The ball just flies out of his hand.
(09:53):
A term I once heard from someone was he has
a hand cannon. I mean, it just comes out of
his hand beautifully. And he is incredibly athletic and mobile.
So he'll be able to show all that at his
pro day. What he won't be able to show is
will he stay in the pocket, Let the offense work,
deliver the ball to the right receiver at the right
(10:15):
time with the right kind of throw. See the field,
see it work, see the offense work against the defense.
Those things you can't show at a pro day. So
my guess is his pro day will be phenomenal and
we'll be raving about it, and and probably deservedly so.
But that won't say a lot to me anyway about
(10:35):
his transition to the NFL. You know, it's amazing everything
that you just said can be almost retroactively looked at
through the lens of Zach Wilson correct right, like he's
got all a hand cannon, incredible athleticism, makes all of
those improvisational throws on his throw day, on his pro day,
(10:55):
and looks like this magnificent athlete that can go do
anything on a football fee oild and yet deliver the
ball to the receiver that you should deliver the ball
to based on the routes suncept against a certain defense.
And I think we've got all of those questions still
remaining in our head about Zach Wilson even after his
rookie year. And there are a lot of times when
(11:16):
you go back and watch the jet tape where what
we still don't know if he's going to be able to,
you know, to do that. And just one quick point,
field vision. Field vision is something that different coaches feel
you can teach, others you can't. Some guys just see
it clearly, Bob, as you know you've been doing this
a long time. And other guys, no matter how much
(11:36):
you go over to practice on the iPad on the blackboard,
they might be great in the meeting room, but then
when they get on the field and it all has
to happen in one point five, two point one two
point six seconds. They just don't see it the right way.
So that is that's why a pro day doesn't it
will not tell you that, right yep. Pro day combine
(11:57):
analyzing these prospects, it's all fascinating, and there is a
specific prospect that has already been talked about up and down,
and the conversation got even more interesting about this guy
coming out of the combine. He might be the most interesting,
most debated, most polarizing prospect in the first round of
(12:18):
the NFL Draft. And we're gonna talk about that guy
when we come back on TAPEDS draft season. Bobo shooes
at Greg Cosel. We are back on TAPEDS draft season,
taking you right up to the NFL Draft at the
end of April. And Greg, there is a guy we've
been talking about him for and everyone in draft world
(12:40):
has been talking about him since the end of the
college football season that will maybe be as debated a
guy as there is in this draft heading up to
the end of April. And he's gonna be picked in
the top five to top seven picks. And that's Kyle
Hamilton's right. He plays the quote unquote non premium position
(13:00):
of safety is not a pass rusher. He's not a quarterback.
He's not a cover corner, he's not a left tackle.
He doesn't he doesn't have any of those you know,
position values on him. But in the Jets world, I
know Robert Sala has referred to him multiple times as
the quote unquote unicorn, which makes you think of him
through a different prism. So let's let's talk about Kyle
(13:22):
Hamilton's as a player first, and then we'll get to
the debate about what happened to the combine or about
you know, how teams maybe should view the value of
his position. What when you see Kyle Hamilton's and you
hear someone like Robert Sala call him a unicorn, do
you agree? Is he that unique a player at that position?
I do? And I'm going to tell you a very
(13:42):
quick story. The year that Steve Spagnolo was not coaching,
after he was gone from the Giants and before Andy
Reid hired him, he uh, he had a place in
Philadelphia because his wife from Philadelphia. And he called me
and said, Hey, can I come in and watch tape
on Mondays? And I said absolutely, And we would get
into these great kind of stations and I learned so
much from Spags, but we would talk about certain positions
(14:04):
on defense, Bob, and I said to him, you know, coach,
I said, for years and years, safety was a position
just as you said, that was not viewed as a
premium position, as you know, teams would say or people
would say, oh, you can get a safety in the
fifth round. And SPACs said to me, well, that's great.
But the problem is is there's so many things I
can't do in my playbook if I don't have good safeties.
(14:27):
So if I don't have good safeties, it limits what
I can do defensively. And I never forgot that, and
people don't think of it like that about how you
coach in the NFL. So your safeties have become increasingly
important in the NFL. I actually asked when Dan Quinn
years ago when he was with the Legion of Boom
uh and and they were great. I said, who's the
(14:49):
most important player on your defense? And without missing a beat,
he said, Earl Thomas. You know, and that might not
be the first name that come up and came up
in people's minds, but anyway, Hamilton's Hamilton's is a unicorn.
First of all, he measured over six four about two twenty.
He is long, he's athletic, he's a glider um. He's
a very easy mover. I know he ran a four
(15:13):
or five nine, and that's why there's this debate now,
and I don't know if it's truly a debate, but
he ran a four or five nine. But he plays fast,
He plays with his eyes, he has no hesitation in
his reaction time and his play speed. His range is
really good. So to me, that's an example, Bob, I
would throw the four or five nine out the window.
(15:35):
I don't think it means anything. And we can keep
talking about him. But I feel like I've been going
on here. But but I think Hamilton's is a really,
really good prospect. Does he go on the top five?
I mean, is he one of the five best football
players in this draft? Do you think? I think so
based on my tape study, and again without getting into teams,
it would not surprise me, I believe it or not
at number two if the Detroit Lions would see Kyle
(15:57):
Hamilton's um as a really, you know, important piece to
their defense. They were obviously not very good on defense.
Their defensive coordinators, Aaron Glenn as you know, who's a
former corner, so I'm sure he has an affinity for
the defensive backfield. Um, it would it would not surprise
me at all. You know, Hamilton's is a He's really
a multidimensional, multi positional safety. UM. Great play recognition, great
(16:21):
play speeding range. As I said, he's naturally athletic. UM
put that in a body like that six he was
I think six four and an eight to twenty at
the combine. Um, you don't see that very often. And
I thought he played with his eyes and saw things.
It's funny we were talking about that with quarterbacks, but
safeties are very much the quarterback of the defense in
(16:44):
that regard because they they see everything unless they're playing
in the box, but if they're playing a little deeper,
they see everything. And I thought he played really fast
with his eyes and that resulted in quick reactions and
that maximized his play speed and range. Yeah, I think
it brings it to the larger conversation, as you said,
of the importance of the safety and what Spags told you,
(17:05):
Because I've worked a lot of college football games with
a lot of quarterbacks. Right when we are watching tape,
all they're looking out of the safeties right, Where are
the safeties? What are they? How are they lined up?
Are they on the hash? Are they off the hash?
Is a safety down in the box? Is a safety
playing deep? Middle? Is at middlefield? Open? Is it middlefield closed?
Based purely on the positioning of those safeties. Now, having
(17:26):
said that, the best way you can disguise what you're
doing is if you've got a safety that has the athleticism,
got the mental capacity, the brains, the football knowledge, um,
you know, the savvy nous, the ability to completely change
the pre snap post snap picture because he can do
all of those things and then can go make the
(17:47):
crazy play. And Kyle Hamilton's he can do all of
that right like he checks every single box. So the
now living in the New York market, of course, looking
at it through the Jets lens, there's this you know,
recency by s of it was a disaster ultimately with
you know the Jamal Adams Marcus Maitre draft. They just
don't want a safety, well, they want they want an
(18:09):
edge rusher, they want another tackle, they want a big
wide receiver. Because the last time that they draft that
the Jets drafted safeties at the top of the draft.
It didn't work out. Is Kyle Hamilton's different you know?
I mean, is he just a different breed at that
position than even the other top safeties that we've seen
go in the top ten or fifteen picks in recent years.
(18:31):
Might be Well, it's the length, the movement, and the eyes.
I mean, Kyle Hamilton's is a far better prospect than
Jamal Adams. And they Jets draft to Jamal Adams with
the sixth pick. Correct, I believe there was the sixth
picks in the draft. And Jamal Adams is ultimately more
of a will linebacker than he is a true safety.
Kyle Hamilton's is a safety and safeties. You made a
(18:53):
great point about the way offense is taught, and that's
why for people who say the safety position isn't that important.
If you talked a coach, an offensive coach, the way
they start with quarterbacks, and this is the just the basics,
but they start with middle open, middle closed. That's the
first thing they start with. And by that we mean
are you playing with a single high safety in the
(19:15):
middle of the field or are you playing with two
deep safety who are split. So if it's a single
high safety, the middle is closed. If it's too split safeties,
the middles open. That's how they start with quarterbacks. So
safeties are really the defining feature of how offenses start
with their quarterbacks. So safeties are really important. Then the
(19:35):
other factor is with the influx of really athletic tight ends.
And this even gets down to the college game. Now
when we will deal tight ends in a in a
future podcast, is now you have more and more tight ends, Bob,
as you know doing college football who are essentially split receivers.
You know you don't see as many tight ends coming
into the NFL game who are simply attached tight ends
(19:59):
next to the tackle, because that's not the way college
football is played. So what do safeties now have to do?
Safeties now have to be able to match up man
to man on quality athletic tight ends. If you can't
match up to the Darren Wallers, the Travis Kelsey's, the
Kyle Pits of the world, then you can't play in
today's NFL. Then that limits what a coach can do.
(20:21):
A defensive coordinator can do with his defensive playbook. It
forces him to do things that he probably doesn't want
to do, minimizes what he can do. Offenses know that
and offenses have an easier, relatively speaking, easier way of
attacking that defense. Yeah, we're gonna talk about the side
ends you said the future episode. But like Pitts as
(20:43):
a freak obviously. Yeah, but another guy that leaps to
mind called his college games like Mike Kasicki. I mean,
the only thing that makes a Pitts or a Gasicki
a tight end as opposed to a slot receiver is
there like three or four inches taller and about twenty
years five or thirty pounds heavier than a wide receiver
normally measures right, I mean, they play wide receiver, they
(21:06):
play slot. They sometimes they flex out there many times
in many of these formations just to try and create
a matchup. The tight end is the furthest flex stile
player on the field. He's like the X receiver and
your normal lex receiver is the guy on the slot.
That's right, And you know this because you do the Jets.
So you played Miami twice, but the Miami played almost
(21:28):
every snap with two tight ends, and Gasecki was essentially
a wide receiver in that twelve personnel package. He he
was the split receiver. It was the other tight end,
Smith who was essentially the attached tight end. But Gasecki
was essentially a big wide receiver. And that's what that's
what the college game is putting out. I mean, unless
you're talking about and there's always a few teams. I
(21:49):
can think of some in the Big Ten, you know,
the Wisconsins, the Iowa's. I'm sure there's others that don't
immediately come to my mind, but most college teams now
are more spread off. Is the player who's listed as
the tight end is rarely an attached player right next
to a tackle. He's a split player, detached from the formation.
(22:10):
So that's the way he comes into the NFL. You've
got to match up to those players on defense, and
you're not gonna do it really with linebackers. Some can obviously,
but you need safeties who can match up man to
man to tight ends. Every coach would like a safety
that's interchangeable, meaning they can play down in the box,
they can bump out over a slot, they can play
(22:33):
outside over a tight end, and they can play post safety.
That's what coaches really want with their safeties now. And
so you're saying, and I think, if you know, kind
of encapsulate the conversation specifically about Kyle Hamilton's that the
position of safety, considering how the you know, the evolution,
and again we've returned to this incredible importance of the
(22:56):
tight end. Like when I was growing up, it was
Kellen Winslow who like acted like a wide receiver and
basically everybody else was like a big, hulking body that
blocked on a lot of scrimmage and occasionally would catch
a ball out in the flat. But you didn't have
these strun the seams stretched the field act as a
wide receiver tight end that if you take Kyle Hamilton's
in the top three or four picks of this draft,
(23:17):
you're getting an incredibly important football player at a position
that maybe should be given more respect. I couldn't agree more.
And by the way, you were not doing the Jets
at this time, but Kyle Brady was a top fifteen
pick in the draft and he was basically another offensive tackle. Today,
Kyle Brady would probably be a sixth round pick. Because
of the nature of the tight end position and the
(23:38):
game is cyclical. As we've discussed numerous times, safeties are
incredibly important in today's defense. You had to go there,
does that really where you like you know, we were
getting along so well and you had to go there,
you had to go to Kyle. That hurts, actually, Like
that's what I'm not sorry about that, but I was
just trying to I was just trying to make your
(23:59):
point taking Maybe we can have a fullback conversation at
some point. You can bring up Roger Vick too, to
make me even happier. Alright, one of the biggest discussions
at the NFL Combine. We're gonna get Greg's thoughts about
a discussion at the combine that it should it or
should it not be important? That's gonna come up when
we wrap up this episode of TAPEDS Draft Season. We
(24:24):
are back wrapping up this week's editions of TAPEDS Draft
Season Bobo Schusan, Greg Coseell coming off the NFL Combine,
and we're gonna take you all the way up until
Draft Day and try and crawl beneath the draft and
behind the XS and oh is like no other podcast
out there. And Greg, I think to that point, overrated, underrated,
(24:44):
extremely important, not that important things that come out of
the combine. And one that we talked about just going
to break was Kenny Pickett right that his hand size
how important or unimportant that is, and just generally speaking
through the lens of picket, but with quarterbacks in general,
and how much does it sway a team in their
(25:05):
draft room when all of a sudden the guy's hand
size is, you know, an inch caffid inch shorter than
you expected, it would be well need to us to say, Bob.
I asked people about that at the combine because, as
we've discussed and in a previous podcast, I very much
liked Kenny Pickett's tape and I think he's the number
one quarterback prospect in this draft. So I wanted to
get a feel from people smarter than myself who do
(25:27):
this for a living and have to, you know, evaluate
these guys and maybe pick a player. And the feeling
was was basically this that if you really like Kenny
Pickett's tape. And one of the things that really stood
out when I asked coaches about Kenny Pickett, and obviously
we're doing a podcast where you can't see me, but
the first thing they did was they pointed to their
head and you know, obviously you can't see that on
(25:49):
a podcast, and they said, this guy is wired exactly right.
He's incredibly smart, he gets everything. So they said, if
you really like everything about Kenny Picket, the hand size
is irrelevant. They said, if you don't like something about
Picket and you're struggling with him, you might bring the
hand size in is something that you're going to have
(26:10):
a conversation about, but it would never be a deal
breaker if you really like everything else. Well, this of
course is a podcast where again you're not going to
get the this is the greatest thing I've ever seen
or this is the best. I mean, were like, if
we say something really struck you it, it will take
it seriously. Because you've been going to the combine for
(26:32):
a long time, and you said this past weekend there
was something specific to when the big boys on the
defensive line went out there and tested that that strong
It seemed to strike a lot of people, but it
really made an imprint on you. You have been going
to the combine I believe since Bob and obviously we
all missed last year. But um, you know, being in
the Dome on Saturday night when the d lineman and
(26:55):
linebackers worked out, I mean I was blown away just
by sheer athleticism of these players. Now, obviously they work
on this. The advances in training and technology have been
so great over the last number of years. But still,
I mean, obviously I'm not the first one saying this,
but when Davis from Georgia at six six plus three
(27:18):
forty pounds that's was his official height and weight, he
ran a four seven to forty. Think about that for
a second, Bob. You know, I remember when I was
in college, which of course was in the Stone Age.
You know, I think they just got indoor plumbing at
that point. But I ran I had to run a
forty for playing baseball in college, and I ran a
four eight, and I thought that was pretty good, you know.
(27:39):
And here's a guy three hundred and forty pounds and
he ran a four seven too. But overall, just watching
these athletes move, I mean, and again you can get
into that same debate about what does that mean as
far as playing football, but there's no question you'd much
prefer big, fast athletes than smaller, slower athletes. So I was,
(28:01):
I was truly blown away and enjoyed watching it so much.
For those you know, seven hours or whatever it was
in the Dome on Saturday, late afternoon into evening, I'm
gonna just flat out steal this from someone off of Twitter.
I don't remember. I can't give credit. I don't remember
who put it out there, but it was through the
lens of Jordan Davis running a four seven two. I
(28:23):
think somebody posted the Jerry Rice ran four seven one
and Jordan Davis at six six three forty ran four
seven two. Now that's a really slow time for Jerry
Rice at the same but if you think about that,
like your six six three forty, you basically ran the
same forty times. Jerry Rice, well, you know ran a
four seven two when I was in the dome when
he did it, and Kuan Bolden ran a four seven
(28:44):
to and I remember my I remember there was a
collective sigh in the dome with people whispering that, oh,
this guy will never make it in the NFL. And
I know we spoke about receivers earlier this week in
our in our podcast, but you know, it just all
that it almost makes the point, taking nothing away from Davis,
but it makes the point when you just returning to
(29:06):
receivers for a moment. You know, Cooper cup ran a
four six to. You know about what the receiver position is,
and that while we had all these guys. I think
there were fifteen receivers who ran under four four, and
everybody gets excited about that. And like I said, is
it better to have a guy run of four or
three eight? Maybe that a four six maybe, but that
(29:27):
automatically does not make someone a great receiver. And you know,
he here's Bolden who ran a four seven to arguably
a Hall of Fame type player. Cooper Cup four six too,
had a pretty good year this past year, as I recall, um,
so yeah, yeah, not bad. Yeah, So I mean I
think that, you know, it gets into this the details,
the nuances, the subtleties of every position and why players
(29:50):
can be good. You know, we we talked with receivers
about stride lanes, something probably not a lot of people
think about. You talk about receivers with their ability to
set up corners and move them off their spot, probably
something not a lot of people talk about. These are
the details, the nuances, the disciplines of that position. There's
all of that at every position. And while I was
(30:11):
blown away by the athleticism, truly blown away. Not every
one of those guys, as we know, is going to
be an All Pro player in the NFL. And and
you know what, not every guy is gonna make it
to the NFL. But it also does speak in wrapping
up this edition of tape Ed Draft Season that the
game has changed and you have to change with it
(30:32):
when you're analyzing players, right like, I'm old enough to
remember as you are, when Jimmy Johnson had like the
first three hundred pounders in NFL history on his offensive line,
and I remember think, oh my god, there's three guys
on Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys offensive line. They're over three hundred pounds.
How how are you ever going to get to the quarterback?
(30:54):
And now we see the evolution of the athleticism to
go along with a size. So now when you're looking
at offensive lineman right like you, and we're gonna get
into the offensive lineman as we get deeper and deeper
into future editions of this podcast as well, where you
better combine size and athleticism and you know, and and
(31:16):
foot agility with that position as well, because look who
they have to block. You have to now block a
guy that's three forty pounds and ran the forty time
of a good tight end or like a lower level
wide receiver, and that is the evolution of this game
where they are just bigger, faster, stronger, more athletic. Combining
(31:36):
that with size, it must change the whole prism with
which you look at, especially guys along the line of scrimmage,
like the athleticism that they have to combine with that
size in order to move them up your draft board. Yeah,
and I think that's one reason why I think a
lot of coaches would say that the biggest mismatch in
the NFL is probably an offensive lineman. And they're getting
(31:58):
more athletic too at offensive line versus defensive lineman and
defensive schemes because now, as you know, Bob, when you blitz,
when you blitz, let's say you're playing your dying personnel
six defensive backs, you're bringing in an extra safety, an
extra corner, maybe, you know whatever, you're and you're bringing
in a specific linebacker who's more athletic. And now these
(32:19):
offensive linemen have to deal with that kind of speed
coming from distance, and that is a really tough deal. So, no,
the game is cyclical, the game changes. You know, it's hard,
it's hard to pass protect in this league, and it's
really hard to pass protect with five offensive linemen. So
the game. Will see where the game goes, but it's
(32:42):
there's so much speed on defense now. Well, hopefully we
were able to at least this week put a little
bit more in perspective the importance of the combine, the
importance of the measurables, and how coaches and teams and
general managers look at those forty times and the measurables.
At the com Vine, you can hit us up on
social media, download and subscribe. We will be back next
(33:04):
week with more evaluations and what the tape says about
the top players for Greg Cosel, I'm Babwa Schoosi. Thanks
for being a tape ed
Welcome to another edition of tape Head's Draft Season. Bobo
shusan longtime radio voice of the New York Jets in
a longtime college football play by play man for ESPN,
joined as always by Greg co Selho for over forty years,
has been breaking down the all twenty two and diving
deeper behind the xs and ohs than anyone in NFL films,
and this is his wheelhouse. It is trying to bring
(00:26):
you kind of a behind the scenes, through the weeds
look at the NFL Draft in a different way than
other podcasts or anything else you're gonna hear about the
draft anywhere else brings you. We're not doing mock drafts,
were not doing trade scenarios. We are trying to bring
you a more realistic look at the way teams approached
the draft and also a much deeper dive into these
(00:48):
prospects on a week by week basis. And Greg, let's
start coming out of the combine with that as a
kind of a general scope, and we're going to get
to a guy coming up in the next segment that
I think might be the most fascinating prospect in the
entire NFL draft. Uh And a guy that's going to
be debated back and forth. You know, it's gonna go
probably in the top five to seven picks where he goes,
(01:10):
who picks him. We're gonna get to that all a
very interesting discussion, and up you could probably figure out
who I'm talking about, because he is a polarizing conversation
right now, certainly in New York. But how polarizing are
the conversations coming out of the combine When guys run
a tick of a forty time less than you expected
(01:31):
them to, a tick of a shuttle run less than
you expected them to. I mean, were there were there
guys that you know, surprised people positively or negatively at
the combine that you think just the combine might overrate
one way or the other. Well, I think what always
happens is, as you know, Bob, the forty yard dash
time is sort of you know, it's like in the
(01:51):
old Miss America, you know, the swimsuit competition. Everybody judges
everything by that, you know, so when a guy runs
a really fast forty, that's what gets talked about. So
if a guy doesn't run a fast forty, and we're
gonna get to a particular player here in a position momentarily,
but when a guy doesn't run a fast forty all
(02:12):
of a sudden, there's this collective sense, maybe not by teams,
but just in the way it's presented, you know, whether
it's on social media, just the way it's talked about
on you know, sports talk radio, that oh my god,
what's the problem. And I think that's the forty time
is the thing that seems to you know, move the
needle one way or the other, and it it gets
(02:35):
so removed from the football part of the equation, the
actual player on tape, that it seems as if it's
just a separate entity and you know, with a life
of its own. And you have to be really careful
about forty times impacting what you've seen on tape with players.
And how about the quarterbacks and the top of the
draft quarterbacks don't even throw anymore or performally at the combine.
(02:58):
They go there, they'll you measure the hands and feet
in height and weight, and then they leave um or
they do some interviews with teams, but you know, they
have kind of their doctored, manufactured pro days that acts
as their combine. How about the evolution of that How
hard it is to take anything out of what we
either see from the measurables of the combine or these
(03:19):
pro days that these guys have on their own campuses.
You know, it's funny you mentioned that. It just reminded
me immediately of last year's pro day with Zach Wilson,
your guy, you know, and and remember when he had
the pro day and he ended up by running to
his left and throwing the ball, you know, fifty yards
in the air. You know, that was you know, it's funny, said,
it's funny you bring this example up. Scott p Oli
during the season on our regular old tape Peds podcast
(03:42):
basically said exactly what you are saying, that, like, maybe
the worst thing that ever happened to Zach Wilson was
that throw on his pro dat. Well, what I was
gonna say, and I don't know what Scott said about it,
but when I saw that and then it made the
rounds on social media, was I said to myself, you know,
there's a hundred quarterbacks that could have done that, and
they made it seem like Zack Wilson was the only
(04:03):
quarterback that could have done that. There's a hundred quarterbacks
that could have done that. Uh, and you know, we
get so caught up in the moment, not you know,
just as an aside. You know, we've seen Patrick Mahomes
the last what three years, I guess he's been a
starter now four years, but you know we've seen him
with those trick shot throws and everybody goes crazy. You know,
(04:23):
Matthew Stafford was doing trick shot throws ten years ago
with the Detroit Lions, but because he was playing with
the Detroit Lions, a bob, no one said a word
about it. You know, So we get caught up in
the moment. But when Wilson made that throw, and your
point is probably very valid that people got so excited
about Wilson, but there's a hundred quarterbacks that could have
done that. Yea, and not only I think that The
(04:44):
point that Scott made um during the season when there
were times where Zach Wilson was trying a lot of
the off platform crazy yes you know, hero ball throws,
was maybe he was trying to live up to all
of the hype that that crazy Pro Day throw create
(05:05):
rather than just go play simple, just find your check down.
It's okay, it's okay to throw the ball in a
traditional way over the shoulder to a guy that's five
yards away, let him pick up five or six more
yards for you and make it second down and four.
That's a good way to play quarterback in the NFL sometimes.
And uh, and you're right. I mean I think he
(05:25):
wasn't away a victim of his own pro day because,
as you said, all of the hype gets into and
he sees those headlines, he hears it. He knows he's
expected now to go to New York and put on
a show, and now he's trying to do that in
the NFL. And boy, as a rookie that that can
backfire on you. You know, it's pretty amazing. And you
kind of hit on something that I've talked about for
years and years is the idea that the job of
(05:48):
the quarterback is to execute the offense as it's coached
and taught. You know, we may have said this before,
but no coach rolls out the ball in practice and says,
let's run around and see if we can make a
play today. That's not the way the position is taught.
But because of highlights social media, we get all excited
(06:09):
on on these improvisational plays, and I think so many
people get caught up into thinking that's the way to
play quarterback now that you have to be able to
run around and make plays. Now, no one would say
that if you have mobility, that's a bad thing. But
mobility must be secondary to the ability to efficiently execute
(06:30):
the structure of the offense snap after snap. And I
don't know Zack Wilson. You obviously do. I never met
him individually, but one of the big concerns I remember
when he came out a year ago. Everybody saw the live,
loose arm, everybody saw the light feet, but there was
a concern that he was too much of a trick
shot artist and he needed to play within the structure
(06:52):
of an offense. As you know, Bob, coaches work sixteen
seventeen hours a day doing this. They want the quarterback
to execute what is taught and coach not run around improvisationally. Well,
it's funny because first part of the season last year
he was that guy, right, and they had a game
against Tennessee where he threw like a fifty yard side
arm touchdown. Remember a place went crazy, but most of
(07:14):
the time, most of the time they were losing. Um.
Then he got hurt and then he actually had a
three or four week period where he watched and he
watched other way, the Mike White era, and he watched
other quarterbacks just execute the offense. If you look at
the last five or six weeks of the season, no turnovers,
not as many flashy attempted plays, but as you said,
(07:36):
much more executing the offense the way that it's coached,
and all of a sudden won a couple of games
down the stretch, much more competitive, even in games that
they lost down the stretch. And look, Tom Brady probably
has more Lombardi trophies then he has off platform crazy
you know, uh, improvisational throws in his career. Right, maybe
(08:00):
Tom Brady has run around in the offensive backfield and
sidearmed the ball like five times in his entire career,
and he's got more Lombardi trophies than that on his mantelpiece.
So like that, you're a right, And I guess to
shift the conversation then to the current class. We talked
about Kenny Pickett last week and how he probably is
the most pro ready, you know, stereotypical size measurables quarterback.
(08:27):
But I mean Malik Willis came out and said, hey, look,
I should be the number one quarterback taken in this draft,
and he's a guy that's thought of a little bit
more as the improvisational guy. What do you think a
guy like that needs to show in his pro day
to maybe tell NFL teams, Look, I'm not just the
runaround back there and side on the ball forty five
yards down the field. I Am going to play quarterback
(08:50):
the way that you need to be able to be
coached to play quarterback in the NFL. It's a great question.
I don't think his pro day can show that because
one of the things that all the analytics and metrics
don't show, and I know they're showing more and more
with each year, Bob, but one of the things they
don't yet show are balls that should be thrown that aren't.
(09:11):
And when I watch tape, that is the biggest thing
that I see with quarterbacks, even at the NFL level,
because I've been doing this a long time, so I
know the route concepts, I know the defense. I know
that where the ball should go based on the route
concept versus a specific defense, and the biggest issue for
a lot of quarterbacks, young quarterbacks in particular quarterbacks that
(09:32):
are mobile in particular is that they leave throws on
the field that should be thrown, and Malik Willis won't
be able to get beyond that at his pro day
because pro day will probably be phenomenal. But when you
watch his tape, you see a Traits quarterback. He's got
a big arm. The ball just flies out of his hand.
(09:53):
A term I once heard from someone was he has
a hand cannon. I mean, it just comes out of
his hand beautifully. And he is incredibly athletic and mobile.
So he'll be able to show all that at his
pro day. What he won't be able to show is
will he stay in the pocket, Let the offense work,
deliver the ball to the right receiver at the right
(10:15):
time with the right kind of throw. See the field,
see it work, see the offense work against the defense.
Those things you can't show at a pro day. So
my guess is his pro day will be phenomenal and
we'll be raving about it, and and probably deservedly so.
But that won't say a lot to me anyway about
(10:35):
his transition to the NFL. You know, it's amazing everything
that you just said can be almost retroactively looked at
through the lens of Zach Wilson correct right, like he's
got all a hand cannon, incredible athleticism, makes all of
those improvisational throws on his throw day, on his pro day,
(10:55):
and looks like this magnificent athlete that can go do
anything on a football fee oild and yet deliver the
ball to the receiver that you should deliver the ball
to based on the routes suncept against a certain defense.
And I think we've got all of those questions still
remaining in our head about Zach Wilson even after his
rookie year. And there are a lot of times when
(11:16):
you go back and watch the jet tape where what
we still don't know if he's going to be able to,
you know, to do that. And just one quick point,
field vision. Field vision is something that different coaches feel
you can teach, others you can't. Some guys just see
it clearly, Bob, as you know you've been doing this
a long time. And other guys, no matter how much
(11:36):
you go over to practice on the iPad on the blackboard,
they might be great in the meeting room, but then
when they get on the field and it all has
to happen in one point five, two point one two
point six seconds. They just don't see it the right way.
So that is that's why a pro day doesn't it
will not tell you that, right yep. Pro day combine
(11:57):
analyzing these prospects, it's all fascinating, and there is a
specific prospect that has already been talked about up and down,
and the conversation got even more interesting about this guy
coming out of the combine. He might be the most interesting,
most debated, most polarizing prospect in the first round of
(12:18):
the NFL Draft. And we're gonna talk about that guy
when we come back on TAPEDS draft season. Bobo shooes
at Greg Cosel. We are back on TAPEDS draft season,
taking you right up to the NFL Draft at the
end of April. And Greg, there is a guy we've
been talking about him for and everyone in draft world
(12:40):
has been talking about him since the end of the
college football season that will maybe be as debated a
guy as there is in this draft heading up to
the end of April. And he's gonna be picked in
the top five to top seven picks. And that's Kyle
Hamilton's right. He plays the quote unquote non premium position
(13:00):
of safety is not a pass rusher. He's not a quarterback.
He's not a cover corner, he's not a left tackle.
He doesn't he doesn't have any of those you know,
position values on him. But in the Jets world, I
know Robert Sala has referred to him multiple times as
the quote unquote unicorn, which makes you think of him
through a different prism. So let's let's talk about Kyle
(13:22):
Hamilton's as a player first, and then we'll get to
the debate about what happened to the combine or about
you know, how teams maybe should view the value of
his position. What when you see Kyle Hamilton's and you
hear someone like Robert Sala call him a unicorn, do
you agree? Is he that unique a player at that position?
I do? And I'm going to tell you a very
(13:42):
quick story. The year that Steve Spagnolo was not coaching,
after he was gone from the Giants and before Andy
Reid hired him, he uh, he had a place in
Philadelphia because his wife from Philadelphia. And he called me
and said, Hey, can I come in and watch tape
on Mondays? And I said absolutely, And we would get
into these great kind of stations and I learned so
much from Spags, but we would talk about certain positions
(14:04):
on defense, Bob, and I said to him, you know, coach,
I said, for years and years, safety was a position
just as you said, that was not viewed as a
premium position, as you know, teams would say or people
would say, oh, you can get a safety in the
fifth round. And SPACs said to me, well, that's great.
But the problem is is there's so many things I
can't do in my playbook if I don't have good safeties.
(14:27):
So if I don't have good safeties, it limits what
I can do defensively. And I never forgot that, and
people don't think of it like that about how you
coach in the NFL. So your safeties have become increasingly
important in the NFL. I actually asked when Dan Quinn
years ago when he was with the Legion of Boom
uh and and they were great. I said, who's the
(14:49):
most important player on your defense? And without missing a beat,
he said, Earl Thomas. You know, and that might not
be the first name that come up and came up
in people's minds, but anyway, Hamilton's Hamilton's is a unicorn.
First of all, he measured over six four about two twenty.
He is long, he's athletic, he's a glider um. He's
a very easy mover. I know he ran a four
(15:13):
or five nine, and that's why there's this debate now,
and I don't know if it's truly a debate, but
he ran a four or five nine. But he plays fast,
He plays with his eyes, he has no hesitation in
his reaction time and his play speed. His range is
really good. So to me, that's an example, Bob, I
would throw the four or five nine out the window.
(15:35):
I don't think it means anything. And we can keep
talking about him. But I feel like I've been going
on here. But but I think Hamilton's is a really,
really good prospect. Does he go on the top five?
I mean, is he one of the five best football
players in this draft? Do you think? I think so
based on my tape study, and again without getting into teams,
it would not surprise me, I believe it or not
at number two if the Detroit Lions would see Kyle
(15:57):
Hamilton's um as a really, you know, important piece to
their defense. They were obviously not very good on defense.
Their defensive coordinators, Aaron Glenn as you know, who's a
former corner, so I'm sure he has an affinity for
the defensive backfield. Um, it would it would not surprise
me at all. You know, Hamilton's is a He's really
a multidimensional, multi positional safety. UM. Great play recognition, great
(16:21):
play speeding range. As I said, he's naturally athletic. UM
put that in a body like that six he was
I think six four and an eight to twenty at
the combine. Um, you don't see that very often. And
I thought he played with his eyes and saw things.
It's funny we were talking about that with quarterbacks, but
safeties are very much the quarterback of the defense in
(16:44):
that regard because they they see everything unless they're playing
in the box, but if they're playing a little deeper,
they see everything. And I thought he played really fast
with his eyes and that resulted in quick reactions and
that maximized his play speed and range. Yeah, I think
it brings it to the larger conversation, as you said,
of the importance of the safety and what Spags told you,
(17:05):
Because I've worked a lot of college football games with
a lot of quarterbacks. Right when we are watching tape,
all they're looking out of the safeties right, Where are
the safeties? What are they? How are they lined up?
Are they on the hash? Are they off the hash?
Is a safety down in the box? Is a safety
playing deep? Middle? Is at middlefield? Open? Is it middlefield closed?
Based purely on the positioning of those safeties. Now, having
(17:26):
said that, the best way you can disguise what you're
doing is if you've got a safety that has the athleticism,
got the mental capacity, the brains, the football knowledge, um,
you know, the savvy nous, the ability to completely change
the pre snap post snap picture because he can do
all of those things and then can go make the
(17:47):
crazy play. And Kyle Hamilton's he can do all of
that right like he checks every single box. So the
now living in the New York market, of course, looking
at it through the Jets lens, there's this you know,
recency by s of it was a disaster ultimately with
you know the Jamal Adams Marcus Maitre draft. They just
don't want a safety, well, they want they want an
(18:09):
edge rusher, they want another tackle, they want a big
wide receiver. Because the last time that they draft that
the Jets drafted safeties at the top of the draft.
It didn't work out. Is Kyle Hamilton's different you know?
I mean, is he just a different breed at that
position than even the other top safeties that we've seen
go in the top ten or fifteen picks in recent years.
(18:31):
Might be Well, it's the length, the movement, and the eyes.
I mean, Kyle Hamilton's is a far better prospect than
Jamal Adams. And they Jets draft to Jamal Adams with
the sixth pick. Correct, I believe there was the sixth
picks in the draft. And Jamal Adams is ultimately more
of a will linebacker than he is a true safety.
Kyle Hamilton's is a safety and safeties. You made a
(18:53):
great point about the way offense is taught, and that's
why for people who say the safety position isn't that important.
If you talked a coach, an offensive coach, the way
they start with quarterbacks, and this is the just the basics,
but they start with middle open, middle closed. That's the
first thing they start with. And by that we mean
are you playing with a single high safety in the
(19:15):
middle of the field or are you playing with two
deep safety who are split. So if it's a single
high safety, the middle is closed. If it's too split safeties,
the middles open. That's how they start with quarterbacks. So
safeties are really the defining feature of how offenses start
with their quarterbacks. So safeties are really important. Then the
(19:35):
other factor is with the influx of really athletic tight ends.
And this even gets down to the college game. Now
when we will deal tight ends in a in a
future podcast, is now you have more and more tight ends, Bob,
as you know doing college football who are essentially split receivers.
You know you don't see as many tight ends coming
into the NFL game who are simply attached tight ends
(19:59):
next to the tackle, because that's not the way college
football is played. So what do safeties now have to do?
Safeties now have to be able to match up man
to man on quality athletic tight ends. If you can't
match up to the Darren Wallers, the Travis Kelsey's, the
Kyle Pits of the world, then you can't play in
today's NFL. Then that limits what a coach can do.
(20:21):
A defensive coordinator can do with his defensive playbook. It
forces him to do things that he probably doesn't want
to do, minimizes what he can do. Offenses know that
and offenses have an easier, relatively speaking, easier way of
attacking that defense. Yeah, we're gonna talk about the side
ends you said the future episode. But like Pitts as
(20:43):
a freak obviously. Yeah, but another guy that leaps to
mind called his college games like Mike Kasicki. I mean,
the only thing that makes a Pitts or a Gasicki
a tight end as opposed to a slot receiver is
there like three or four inches taller and about twenty
years five or thirty pounds heavier than a wide receiver
normally measures right, I mean, they play wide receiver, they
(21:06):
play slot. They sometimes they flex out there many times
in many of these formations just to try and create
a matchup. The tight end is the furthest flex stile
player on the field. He's like the X receiver and
your normal lex receiver is the guy on the slot.
That's right, And you know this because you do the Jets.
So you played Miami twice, but the Miami played almost
(21:28):
every snap with two tight ends, and Gasecki was essentially
a wide receiver in that twelve personnel package. He he
was the split receiver. It was the other tight end,
Smith who was essentially the attached tight end. But Gasecki
was essentially a big wide receiver. And that's what that's
what the college game is putting out. I mean, unless
you're talking about and there's always a few teams. I
(21:49):
can think of some in the Big Ten, you know,
the Wisconsins, the Iowa's. I'm sure there's others that don't
immediately come to my mind, but most college teams now
are more spread off. Is the player who's listed as
the tight end is rarely an attached player right next
to a tackle. He's a split player, detached from the formation.
(22:10):
So that's the way he comes into the NFL. You've
got to match up to those players on defense, and
you're not gonna do it really with linebackers. Some can obviously,
but you need safeties who can match up man to
man to tight ends. Every coach would like a safety
that's interchangeable, meaning they can play down in the box,
they can bump out over a slot, they can play
(22:33):
outside over a tight end, and they can play post safety.
That's what coaches really want with their safeties now. And
so you're saying, and I think, if you know, kind
of encapsulate the conversation specifically about Kyle Hamilton's that the
position of safety, considering how the you know, the evolution,
and again we've returned to this incredible importance of the
(22:56):
tight end. Like when I was growing up, it was
Kellen Winslow who like acted like a wide receiver and
basically everybody else was like a big, hulking body that
blocked on a lot of scrimmage and occasionally would catch
a ball out in the flat. But you didn't have
these strun the seams stretched the field act as a
wide receiver tight end that if you take Kyle Hamilton's
in the top three or four picks of this draft,
(23:17):
you're getting an incredibly important football player at a position
that maybe should be given more respect. I couldn't agree more.
And by the way, you were not doing the Jets
at this time, but Kyle Brady was a top fifteen
pick in the draft and he was basically another offensive tackle. Today,
Kyle Brady would probably be a sixth round pick. Because
of the nature of the tight end position and the
(23:38):
game is cyclical. As we've discussed numerous times, safeties are
incredibly important in today's defense. You had to go there,
does that really where you like you know, we were
getting along so well and you had to go there,
you had to go to Kyle. That hurts, actually, Like
that's what I'm not sorry about that, but I was
just trying to I was just trying to make your
(23:59):
point taking Maybe we can have a fullback conversation at
some point. You can bring up Roger Vick too, to
make me even happier. Alright, one of the biggest discussions
at the NFL Combine. We're gonna get Greg's thoughts about
a discussion at the combine that it should it or
should it not be important? That's gonna come up when
we wrap up this episode of TAPEDS Draft Season. We
(24:24):
are back wrapping up this week's editions of TAPEDS Draft
Season Bobo Schusan, Greg Coseell coming off the NFL Combine,
and we're gonna take you all the way up until
Draft Day and try and crawl beneath the draft and
behind the XS and oh is like no other podcast
out there. And Greg, I think to that point, overrated, underrated,
(24:44):
extremely important, not that important things that come out of
the combine. And one that we talked about just going
to break was Kenny Pickett right that his hand size
how important or unimportant that is, and just generally speaking
through the lens of picket, but with quarterbacks in general,
and how much does it sway a team in their
(25:05):
draft room when all of a sudden the guy's hand
size is, you know, an inch caffid inch shorter than
you expected, it would be well need to us to say, Bob.
I asked people about that at the combine because, as
we've discussed and in a previous podcast, I very much
liked Kenny Pickett's tape and I think he's the number
one quarterback prospect in this draft. So I wanted to
get a feel from people smarter than myself who do
(25:27):
this for a living and have to, you know, evaluate
these guys and maybe pick a player. And the feeling
was was basically this that if you really like Kenny
Pickett's tape. And one of the things that really stood
out when I asked coaches about Kenny Pickett, and obviously
we're doing a podcast where you can't see me, but
the first thing they did was they pointed to their
head and you know, obviously you can't see that on
(25:49):
a podcast, and they said, this guy is wired exactly right.
He's incredibly smart, he gets everything. So they said, if
you really like everything about Kenny Picket, the hand size
is irrelevant. They said, if you don't like something about
Picket and you're struggling with him, you might bring the
hand size in is something that you're going to have
(26:10):
a conversation about, but it would never be a deal
breaker if you really like everything else. Well, this of
course is a podcast where again you're not going to
get the this is the greatest thing I've ever seen
or this is the best. I mean, were like, if
we say something really struck you it, it will take
it seriously. Because you've been going to the combine for
(26:32):
a long time, and you said this past weekend there
was something specific to when the big boys on the
defensive line went out there and tested that that strong
It seemed to strike a lot of people, but it
really made an imprint on you. You have been going
to the combine I believe since Bob and obviously we
all missed last year. But um, you know, being in
the Dome on Saturday night when the d lineman and
(26:55):
linebackers worked out, I mean I was blown away just
by sheer athleticism of these players. Now, obviously they work
on this. The advances in training and technology have been
so great over the last number of years. But still,
I mean, obviously I'm not the first one saying this,
but when Davis from Georgia at six six plus three
(27:18):
forty pounds that's was his official height and weight, he
ran a four seven to forty. Think about that for
a second, Bob. You know, I remember when I was
in college, which of course was in the Stone Age.
You know, I think they just got indoor plumbing at
that point. But I ran I had to run a
forty for playing baseball in college, and I ran a
four eight, and I thought that was pretty good, you know.
(27:39):
And here's a guy three hundred and forty pounds and
he ran a four seven too. But overall, just watching
these athletes move, I mean, and again you can get
into that same debate about what does that mean as
far as playing football, but there's no question you'd much
prefer big, fast athletes than smaller, slower athletes. So I was,
(28:01):
I was truly blown away and enjoyed watching it so much.
For those you know, seven hours or whatever it was
in the Dome on Saturday, late afternoon into evening, I'm
gonna just flat out steal this from someone off of Twitter.
I don't remember. I can't give credit. I don't remember
who put it out there, but it was through the
lens of Jordan Davis running a four seven two. I
(28:23):
think somebody posted the Jerry Rice ran four seven one
and Jordan Davis at six six three forty ran four
seven two. Now that's a really slow time for Jerry
Rice at the same but if you think about that,
like your six six three forty, you basically ran the
same forty times. Jerry Rice, well, you know ran a
four seven two when I was in the dome when
he did it, and Kuan Bolden ran a four seven
(28:44):
to and I remember my I remember there was a
collective sigh in the dome with people whispering that, oh,
this guy will never make it in the NFL. And
I know we spoke about receivers earlier this week in
our in our podcast, but you know, it just all
that it almost makes the point, taking nothing away from Davis,
but it makes the point when you just returning to
(29:06):
receivers for a moment. You know, Cooper cup ran a
four six to. You know about what the receiver position is,
and that while we had all these guys. I think
there were fifteen receivers who ran under four four, and
everybody gets excited about that. And like I said, is
it better to have a guy run of four or
three eight? Maybe that a four six maybe, but that
(29:27):
automatically does not make someone a great receiver. And you know,
he here's Bolden who ran a four seven to arguably
a Hall of Fame type player. Cooper Cup four six too,
had a pretty good year this past year, as I recall, um,
so yeah, yeah, not bad. Yeah, So I mean I
think that, you know, it gets into this the details,
the nuances, the subtleties of every position and why players
(29:50):
can be good. You know, we we talked with receivers
about stride lanes, something probably not a lot of people
think about. You talk about receivers with their ability to
set up corners and move them off their spot, probably
something not a lot of people talk about. These are
the details, the nuances, the disciplines of that position. There's
all of that at every position. And while I was
(30:11):
blown away by the athleticism, truly blown away. Not every
one of those guys, as we know, is going to
be an All Pro player in the NFL. And and
you know what, not every guy is gonna make it
to the NFL. But it also does speak in wrapping
up this edition of tape Ed Draft Season that the
game has changed and you have to change with it
(30:32):
when you're analyzing players, right like, I'm old enough to
remember as you are, when Jimmy Johnson had like the
first three hundred pounders in NFL history on his offensive line,
and I remember think, oh my god, there's three guys
on Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys offensive line. They're over three hundred pounds.
How how are you ever going to get to the quarterback?
(30:54):
And now we see the evolution of the athleticism to
go along with a size. So now when you're looking
at offensive lineman right like you, and we're gonna get
into the offensive lineman as we get deeper and deeper
into future editions of this podcast as well, where you
better combine size and athleticism and you know, and and
(31:16):
foot agility with that position as well, because look who
they have to block. You have to now block a
guy that's three forty pounds and ran the forty time
of a good tight end or like a lower level
wide receiver, and that is the evolution of this game
where they are just bigger, faster, stronger, more athletic. Combining
(31:36):
that with size, it must change the whole prism with
which you look at, especially guys along the line of scrimmage,
like the athleticism that they have to combine with that
size in order to move them up your draft board. Yeah,
and I think that's one reason why I think a
lot of coaches would say that the biggest mismatch in
the NFL is probably an offensive lineman. And they're getting
(31:58):
more athletic too at offensive line versus defensive lineman and
defensive schemes because now, as you know, Bob, when you blitz,
when you blitz, let's say you're playing your dying personnel
six defensive backs, you're bringing in an extra safety, an
extra corner, maybe, you know whatever, you're and you're bringing
in a specific linebacker who's more athletic. And now these
(32:19):
offensive linemen have to deal with that kind of speed
coming from distance, and that is a really tough deal. So, no,
the game is cyclical, the game changes. You know, it's hard,
it's hard to pass protect in this league, and it's
really hard to pass protect with five offensive linemen. So
the game. Will see where the game goes, but it's
(32:42):
there's so much speed on defense now. Well, hopefully we
were able to at least this week put a little
bit more in perspective the importance of the combine, the
importance of the measurables, and how coaches and teams and
general managers look at those forty times and the measurables.
At the com Vine, you can hit us up on
social media, download and subscribe. We will be back next
(33:04):
week with more evaluations and what the tape says about
the top players for Greg Cosel, I'm Babwa Schoosi. Thanks
for being a tape ed
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