March 29, 2022 • 39 mins
In this episode of the Tape Heads: Draft Season podcast, hosts Bob Wischusen and Greg Cosell discuss the amount of time and effort that goes into a full evaluation of a player. Before the NFL Draft, Greg explains how each position is evaluated differently and how DB's are the most difficult player to fully analyze. The NFL has become all about creating explosive plays on offense and trying to stop them on defense. Onto the players, we look at Daxton Hill, Quay Walker, Tyquan Thorton, Chad Muma, Jermaine Johnson, Neil Farrell, Arnold Ebiketi, and Kyle Phillips. We also discuss the evaluation process of a good player that's not on a great team.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Tape Heeds. It's a production of I Heart Media and
the NFL. Welcome to another edition and another week as
we get you ready for the NFL Draft. This is
Tape Heads Draft Season, a brand new podcast that we're
doing this season. Bobo schusan longtime radio voice of the
Jets to college football as well for ESPN, And no
(00:25):
one has spent more time at NFL films and maybe
anywhere in the world of breaking down tape than Greg
co Sell. He of course has been at NFL films
for over four decades looking at the all twenty two
and he continues to do that not only for games
in season and players in season, but also for the
NFL Draft. Because we look at football players, we kind
(00:45):
of try to crawl behind the xs and ohs inside
the game and tell you what the tape says. And Greg,
in this whole process, since you and I started doing this,
feels like we snapped our fingers were halfway the draft. Basically,
we're only a month out from the actual choosing of players,
but we wanted to start with this week and we're
gonna talk about some individual guys coming up a little
(01:07):
bit later on some maybe off the radar prospects some
guys that have jumped out to you that we haven't
talked about yet at varying positions. But I think what
people need to understand is what this process is, right Like,
That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to
explain to you what the actual draft processes for teams,
not the different mock drafts that pop up on your phone,
(01:29):
on Twitter or on the Internet every five minutes, but
how teams actually arrive at putting together the board that
they will use on draft day and what an evolutionary
process that is. And right we're about three weeks out
from the combine. We have done a bunch of pro days.
Now you're gonna get like visits to the team campuses
(01:54):
for prospects, things like that. There's still meetings to go on.
You've been watching tape on these guys for a long time.
Where would you say your process at this point parallels
you think how teams approach the draft and where you
are kind of pie chart was or you know, timeline
was moving towards putting together an actual board that might
(02:16):
mirror what the teams the NFL are doing to this point, Well, Bob,
the way I do it, and because I don't work
for a team, I don't necessarily get obviously to speak
with players, to do a lot of the due diligence
that teams do. I don't have access to all that.
So what I do is I sit in my office
at NFL Films, and because I work for Films, I
have access to all the coaching tape and I just
(02:37):
basically can watch any player, any game, and I can
watch it in its entirety. And the way it works
for me is is what the coaching tape shows you
is first of a play, it shows you the all
twenty two from the sidelines, so you can see all
twenty two players, and then the same play, it's followed
by an end zone shot of it a little tighter,
(02:58):
but that's where you see the offensive line, the defensive line,
the linebackers, the quarterback. If you're looking at the quarterback,
you can see him in a little more detail. So
I watch full games of players, and there's certain positions
where you have to sit and you have to go
through a full game to get a true feel for
what a player is. You can't watch just a highlight
(03:20):
of an offensive lineman making ten great blocks you can't
watch a highlight of a linebacker making his sixty tackles.
You have to watch games and you have to see,
one how they're deployed, because that tells you an awful lot.
And I'll just give you a very quick example. I
have no idea what this means for the draft, and
we haven't spoken about this player in our previous four
(03:41):
segments yet, but Jordan Davis from Georgia, who obviously blew
up the combine given his size and his movement, he
did not play on third down for Georgia. So as
you project and transition a player like that, you have
to decide what is its role in the NFL, simply
because he's a big man and a great athlete, and
you don't know that he doesn't play on third down
(04:02):
if you're just watching highlights of him making tackles. So
you've got to go through games. You've got to see
how players are deployed. You have to see how often
they play. A lot of players are rotational players. You
have to see what happens when they get beat. You
have to see, for instance, a linebacker how we reacts
to run plays. Is he's seeing what he's supposed to
(04:23):
be seeing all This takes time, and you know, as
I joke with people, I'm a one man scouting service,
so it takes me a long time to watch as
many players as I can watch. And I wish I
could watch five players, but unfortunately I can't. Well, I think,
but I think the parallel here. You are doing this solo. Obviously,
(04:44):
teams have departments that are doing but teams also are
sending scouts to campuses to meet with coaches and to
watch tape in facilities all during the season. Teams are
interviewing these players, They are bringing prospects to their facilities,
they are going to the Combine, they are making visits
(05:04):
to pro days. Adding all of that up. I mean,
I don't know if people truly remember talking to Terry
Bradway one time when he was the general manager of
the Jets about this, and I said to him, you know,
you guys in this draft or the average draft, are
gonna pick seven players, all right, sometimes more, sometimes less,
but on seven rounds you get one pick per round.
You're gonna pick seven players in the average draft. Do
(05:25):
people really understand the number of man hours that you
put in to get ready for that process? And He's like,
we fill out about five thousand reports like that in
their file by the time the draft. Actually, the whole
process is done, and we are setting the board and
we are ready for our meetings. We're gonna sit in
the room and everybody's gonna have their say about who
(05:48):
they think are the under the radar guys, who they
think are our highest priority. We're gonna set our board
in our needs, about five thousand reports will be written.
Now if we need a quarterback. You know, when the
Jets ad Zack Wilson as the second pick in the draft,
they might have had twenty five reports on Zach Wilson.
They probably sent everybody to go see Zach Wilson, right,
(06:09):
everybody had a chance to go either watches tape, go
to games, visit the campus, talk to the coaches, all
of that. They might have one report on a defensive
tackle at Montana that caught someone's eye when they were
at the you know whatever, the the one Double A playoffs.
But add it all up, you're talking about five thousand
(06:29):
written reports to draft seven guys. It takes a long
time to accumulate all that information. And that's why I
think people need to realize that no matter how many
mock drafts you see right now, don't overreact to those
mock drafts or what you think people are hearing. The
teams themselves are still in the process, very much in
(06:50):
the process, very much dealing with the unknown. Still I
think of how their board probably will shake out come
draft Day, and and just to show you, Bob how
crazy I am, what I often do is, you know,
I get four or five weeks vacation here, films, and
a lot of times I don't really go anywhere. So
what I do is I come in the office for
those four or five weeks and I start watching players
(07:12):
who will be in the following year's draft. So, for instance,
a lot of the guys who are in this draft
coming up in a month. UM, I watched a lot
of their tape from their twenty twenty season last summer,
so now when I watch their tape from this year,
I have a foundation of what they are because most guys,
you know, a high high percentage their physical and athletic
(07:34):
trades don't dramatically change. Um. Obviously, can they become better
in certain details and nuances and subtleties of a position
as they get coached. Absolutely, but you're not gonna see
a guy who's, you know, an average athlete in his
junior tape become a high level, phenomenal athlete in his
(07:54):
senior tape. That's not likely to happen. But I try
to stay, you know, in the summer. I can't watch
two fifty guys. I don't have that kind of time.
But if I can get sixty two ninety guys looked
at in the summer, then when I start after the
NFL season, because obviously that's my total focus on the
NFL matchup show, when I start um right after the
(08:16):
NFL season looking at at the draft of ball players
for that draft coming up in a couple of months,
I have a pretty good foundation of a lot of
the big names, and I'm not starting from scratch. That's
the way teams do it too. I mean, teams are
already putting a lot of information in the hopper for
next year's draft while they're getting ready for this year's draft.
Like the process never really stops the minute that the
(08:38):
players are picked at the end of this April. Consider
next year's draft process starting in every scouting COMBA or
every you know, every scouting department, every pro personnel department
in the NFL, they immediately just flip the switch, turn
the calendar, and start getting ready for next year. And
and I wonder during this process something that I mean,
you say you have to watch full games, right, you
(08:59):
really have to watch the entire game to get the
true nature of how the game has played for every position.
But are there some positions like how much times it
takes you, for instance, to evaluate a wide receiver as
opposed to how much time it might take you to
evaluate a safety. Right, a wide receiver has a specific
(09:21):
route that he is designed to run on every single
play it is and you could probably see based on
formation and rout tree and whatnot, whether he did it right,
whether he did it wrong. Having said that, though, like
safety is a read and react position, oftentimes I got
the snap, change the picture and then look at what
the offense is doing, and then what are my responsibilities?
And you know it's probably takes I would think more
(09:43):
time and more film and more reps and more, you know,
just examples to take a look at a read and
react defensive players. Then maybe an offensive player like a
wide receiver that has a set responsibility on every play,
You're that's a great point, and I'll give you an
example wide receivers. What I tend to do because obviously
I try to maximize my time. Why receivers, what I'll
(10:04):
do is I'll watch all their targets, Okay, and then
I'll watch a couple of games against really good opponents.
But you can get a really good feel for receiver
catches seventy five balls, Bob, he probably has a hundred
and forty targets. You watch a hundred and forty targets,
you get a really good feel for what that receiver
is because you know what the reality. In the NFL,
(10:24):
receivers are not drafted because of the way they stalk block.
So yes, it's nice to see a guy who's physical
and who cares about blocking, But the bottom line is,
if he's a great receiver, it's not going to impact
where he's drafted. And the other point you made, that's
a hundred percent right. Defensive back, safeties and corners, you
have to watch full games. If you look at a
(10:46):
corner stats are particularly a good corner, you could see
that he's got six past defense the whole season and
maybe three interceptions. You can't just watch those plays. You
have to see how he plays in particular coverage. Does
he play press man, how does he play as man?
Does he play press man physically jamming receivers. Does he
(11:07):
play what we call mirror match press man where he
lets the receiver declare his route and then tries to
get into his hip pocket. How does he play off coverage?
You know, there's so many factors. Safeties are the same,
so you have to watch games to see that, and
there's a lot of plays. If it's a post safety,
there's a lot of plays where he might do nothing,
but you have to see those two. So defensive backs
(11:29):
really take a lot of time and it's just it's
a grind, but you have to do it. Do you
think dbs are the hardest position to analyze or or
what would be as if not? Yes, I would say
they're among the hardest positions to analyze. Sometimes receiver can
be too because of what they're asked to do and
what they're not asked to do relative to what they
(11:51):
will be asked to do in the NFL. But I
think corner and safety are really difficult positions to evaluate
when you watch college tape. Also, keeping in mind that
the hash marks change the total symmetry of the game,
and you have to be aware of that as you
try to project and transition corners and safeties to the
next level. Yeah, I would have thought also offensive lineman
(12:13):
because of how college football has changed. I remember talking
to Bill Polian a few years ago. I think we
talked about this in an earlier episode. Um, you know,
he came to ESPN and we spent some time. He
did some games out on the road, and had a
chance to catch up with him on campus, and I
remember just having one of those really cool philosophical football
questions with a guy who's you know, I mean, if
there was a MENSI meating for football, like Bill Polian
(12:35):
would be at the head of the room leading the
MENSI meeting and asking him the most difficult changes in
the sport in terms of player analysis. And one thing
he brought up was there is a crisis of offensive
lineman from the college game to the National Football League
based on a lot of the air raid offense. You know,
(12:57):
sometimes yard yard and a half splits between offensive linemen
where they are literally just lining up to pass block.
Even in some of the more kind of quote unquote
conservative college offenses that old school I'm gonna mash your
face in drive blocking, run blocking offensive lineman attitude that
(13:17):
we need to see in the NFL. It's just not
that prevalent that much anymore in college football, and it's
really hard to project. There are obviously some guys that
can do it. It's their job to sift through the tape,
find examples and identify a play and a player that
can do it. But that has to be hard because
college football has changed in a big way in the
trenches as well, without question, and an offensive line is
(13:40):
one of those positions. And we can talk further about this,
but it is one of those positions that can be
very difficult because many, many, many offensive lineman college football
never even put their hand in the ground right, no doubt.
And look, when we come back, I want to talk
also about how the game has changed right in other
ways and why some positions are probably harder to analyze
(14:03):
us now than they used to be. And also we're
gonna do what we do every week, and that is
talk about some players. You know who they are, what
they're good at, the guys that jumped out to you
on tape this week that we haven't talked about yet
at varying positions. So if you're a football nerd like us,
you're at the bar with your buddy and you want
to kind of wink at your buddy and say, hey,
I got a guy for you. Watch if you see
this guy go in the fourth round. Our team got
(14:24):
a gem. There are some guys that Greg will be
able to give you an insight about that whose names
you might not have heard of in the process to
this point, we're gonna talk about where they fit in
the NFL as well. All of that is coming up
next on Tape Heeds Draft Season. Welcome back to Taped's
Draft Season, Baba shoose up Gregg co Sell our latest
(14:46):
episode not only talking about where Greg is at in
his draft process, where we think teams are at this
point in their draft prep process, but also Greg, we
were just talking a little bit about how the game
has changed and how back when we were growing up,
the running back, the big powerful running back, was as
(15:07):
much a part of your team's success or failure as
maybe any position. Right in the eighties, you can make
an argument that of the top ten or twenty stars
in the NFL, half of them were the running backs,
and running backs that carried the ball times a game,
and that was the game plan. That's not the way
the NFL has played anymore, nor can it be. I mean,
(15:29):
the football that has played in college has certainly leaked
into the NFL. The process has evolved, and now it
seems like the NFL is much more about creating the
chunk and explosive plays through the passing game than three
yards and a cloud of dust. How much has that
changed the draft process for teams tremendously? And the bottom
(15:50):
line is, I mean, I was at the combine, you know,
for five days a number of weeks ago, and all
you hear on both sides offense create explosive plays. Defense
we cannot allow explosive plays, and the percentage wise, as
we all know, explosive plays come out of the past
game far more than the run game. So the goal
is to create those explosive plays. Now, every team will
(16:12):
tell you that there are times you do need to
run the ball, and certainly there are teams like the
San Francisco forty Niners, uh, the Tennessee Titans. They start
their offense with the run game. But if you cannot
create explosive plays throwing the football, and there are multiple
ways to do that, Bob. Obviously, Kyle Shanahan might do
it differently than a team that lines up with the
(16:33):
quarterback and the shotgun or an empty sets and tries
to create them that way. But the bottom line is,
if you can't create explosive plays in the past game,
somewhere along the line, you're going to struggle. And just
one other point, I think that you never know how
any given game is going to play out in the NFL,
so your passing game has to be able to operate
(16:54):
independently of your run game. It can be dependent on
your ability to run the ball. And then to get
to your point about how the college game has changed
how the NFL goes about it. Probably over of Division
one college football teams play in a spread formation, So
now you're getting players who grew up playing that way
(17:17):
from the time they started playing football. That's what they know.
So when you draft a guy, uh, it starts with quarterback,
of course, but it's true with many other positions on
both sides of the ball. You have to try to
play to what they know and what they are because
if you draft a guy high and expect him to
play right away, you can't teach him a brand new
(17:38):
language in three months, so you have to teach him
the language he knows and refine that. So therefore, the
NFL game has taken more and more from the college game,
even though the hash marks still make the game somewhat
different in a meaningful way. The fact is you need
these players to play right away and to limit the
(17:58):
explosive plays defensively. There it probably has changed how different
positions are valued right like pass, rusher, cover, corner. Those
have always been big time important positions to draft high.
But one guy, as we promised we would to get
to some of your or maybe under the radar guys,
guys we haven't talked about yet, Guys that aren't the
(18:19):
stars being talked about at the top of the first round.
But if you're in the bar with your buddies and
you want to give them a diamond and the rough
to keep your eyes on and look like a genius,
when this guy gets picked, we've got a few to
talk about. And safety is a position that takes on
an added level of importance. That's why we're talking about
Kyle Hamilton's maybe being a unicorn, but being drafted potentially
(18:42):
higher than any safety has ever been drafted in NFL history.
I know a guy from Michigan that caught your eye
is Dax Hill. Yes, and I don't know if you
did a Michigan game, but this kid, this kid is
is really to me. Um. I mean, Hamilton's is is
probably special because of that size, the length, the movement,
and who knows, he could be a top three pick.
(19:03):
But Daxton Hill, I thought it was one of the
most intriguing players that I watched. He played field safety,
meaning he played safety to the wide side of the
field in Michigan's base defense, and then he played slot
corner in their sub defenses. Okay, so he's six ft,
he's a hundred pounds, he ran under four or four
(19:24):
UM and he's long, he's rangy, he's twitchy, he's explosive.
It would be very interesting to me to see whoever
drafts him, and it would not surprise me. And you know,
I'm I'm I'm big mock guy, as you know, Bob,
But it would not surprise me if he goes in
the first round, even if it's let's say, after pick twenty,
just because he can play two positions and he's an
(19:46):
explosive athlete. And you talk about safety being increasingly important
today's NFL because he can match up to tight ends,
no question as a safety, because he matches up to
slot wide receivers, so he has that experience. So to me,
someone like Daxton Hill absolutely fits the profile of today's
(20:07):
NFL because he's a two position player and he can
play man to man against slot wide receivers and against
tight ends. So he's a player I would really look
carefully at, and I'm sure teams are. And of course
his testing was off the charts. Yep. The Georgia defense,
of course, was historically good and there will be plenty
(20:29):
of Georgia defensive players taken in this draft. You mentioned
Jordan Davis basically breaking the combine and breaking the Internet
when you know he basically ran what was the equivalent
for a player of his size of like a three
eight in the forty right, and it was just ridiculous. Uh,
the athleticism that he showed for his size. But no
defense puts up those kind of numbers without some more
(20:51):
under the radar guys that blend in and play their
game and take care of their job and show that
they can be an NFL player. But maybe not the
star NFL player and Quay Walker linebacker where where is
human He's more of a maybe a complimentary player than
a star player. For that Georgia defense, we're still an
NFL player. Well, if you know Bob, they get you know,
(21:14):
twenty five star recruits on defense. So so not everybody
plays every snap, and you can't hold that against these
particular players because they don't play every snap. And Klay
Walker did not play every snap. But he has great size.
He's six four, he's two forty one. You talk about
forty time, whatever it means. He ran a four or
(21:34):
five two, Okay, that's really good for a linebacker at
his size. So his size, his length, his movement profile
is exactly what NFL teams are looking for. I mean,
he's got outstanding size, he's got play speed, he's got
range what he was really good at. And this is
again goes back to what we said why you have
to watch all the plays. When you combine all that
(21:58):
with his ability to read and recognize what he's seeing,
the term we like to use is he and diagnose.
He's very very good at that. So you have a
stacked linebacker with a full complement of traits needed to
become a quality starting linebacker in the NFL, and perhaps
much more. It would not surprise me if Kway Walker
(22:18):
as he develops with more coaching, with more experience, depending
on where he goes, we don't know that if he
becomes I don't want to say a star at top
three linebacker in the league, but a really, really good
player now. He has very similar size and athletic trades
to Jimin Davis, who Washington drafted in the first round
a year ago and played a good amount for the
(22:41):
now Commanders. And Davis had some issues with his key
and diagnosed this year, and I think Walker plays with
much better eyes than Davis did. So Kuay Walker is
a fascinating prospect in this draft class. There are always
coming out of college these days, big time wide receivers.
Um Baylor's a program to get to Kwon Thornton next.
(23:03):
I know he's on your list. That you know, sometimes
it's hard to diagnose a bailor wide receiver right with
the system that they've run in the past. I know
new coaching staff and you know you brought an SEC
big ten DNA and Dave Randa to Baylor, but you
know in the Big Twelve. It takes a while for
the entire evolutionary process of a conference to maybe change
(23:25):
to look more like the SEC. They're certainly not playing
against SEC level defensive backs all the time in the
Big twelve as well. So, having said all of that,
you know, the ability to get off the line of scrimmage,
the ability to run the complete route tree, like all
of those things you need to see in an NFL prospect.
Is a guy like Tae Kwon Thornton from Baylor, someone
(23:46):
that you are confident can do all of that, Like,
what are the question marks with him? As the NFL
looks at his game? Well, I think they'll look at
his thin, linear build. He's six two and three one.
He's a track guy. Um, he was a track athlete
in high school. Um, he was a hundred meter guy
at two hundred. Your guy, he ran a four to
eight at the combine. Uh, that's pretty good from what
(24:08):
I'm told. Um, he obviously has all the measurables. Uh.
But Uh, the thing that stood out to me was
that he was a receiver as well. I thought there
were many snaps in which he showed physicality through his
route stem when it was demanded, he competed, he played
tougher than his thin frame might suggest. We know he
(24:28):
can run. I mean he ran away from people. And
you know, I always wonder if he played in the
SEC and he put up similar numbers to what he
did at Baylor, would we be talking about him as
a top forty pick. But because as you said, Bob,
and you're a hun percent correct, he played at Baylor
lesser conference defensively, not the SEC. People probably think, oh,
(24:48):
he's a track guy who runs fast. Um, he'll be
an outside receiver in the NFL. But you know, he's
from South Florida, and South Florida receivers tend to have
a lot of grit to them just from where they
grew up, the high school football that's played in South Florida.
So he's he's got some competitive toughness and grit to him.
And he can run. I mean he can freaking run.
(25:09):
This kid. And I was really impressed with his tape.
And to be honest with you, I knew nothing about
him other than he ran afoord to weight at the Combine.
And then I put his tape on and I was
really impressed with what I saw. Yeah, there's a really
good chance if you're a South Florida wide receiver that
at some point in the NFL you're gonna line up
across from a defensive back that you lined up from
across from in high school, right like one of the
(25:30):
guys when you were like, what Miami Northwestern. Then there's
a guy from Christopher Columbus to standard across this field
from you. You know, it's because that is the depth
of talent certainly in South Florida as far as football
is concerned. We've got other guys to talk about that
are under the radar players and some prospects that have
certainly jumped out. As you've taken a look at the tape,
We're going to get to even more players that are
(25:52):
gonna make you look like the smartest guy in the
room if you bring these names up and cheat and
use Gregg Costell's information. When we come back here on
Taped's Draft Season. We are back here on Taped's Draft Season,
Bobo Shusan and Greg co Seal as we take you
all the way up to the NFL Draft on this podcast,
and we're digging into some of the prospects we haven't
(26:13):
gotten a chance to talk about yet, regardless of position,
but just players that have caught Greg co sells I
that you know, at varying positions, he think could be
a big factor on draft day. And let's get to
Wyoming's chat Muma and how many how many guys are
obviously coming out of Wyoming that are going to get
drafted much less at a linebacker position and have an
NFL build, But he certainly does. Yeah. And by the way,
(26:37):
you know he played with for a couple of years.
He played with Logan Wilson of the Bengals. He came
in Wyoming a few years ago, and I believe he
was a second round pick. And you always get the
level of competition label lobby at you when you play
at a smaller school, and and for some that's really important.
I can tell you right now. I've talked to many
teams who feel that, hey, I don't want to take
(26:58):
a guy at a smaller level of competition. They just
don't believe in that. But I think he's a really
intriguing prospect, really meaningful production, and he was a fun
player to watch. First of all, he plays with a
high level of intensity and competitiveness, and his high he's
a high velocity player. I mean he made a lot
of plays outside the box. He's got really good play
(27:20):
speed and range. Another guy that I thought was very
good with key and diagnosability. His reactions were consistently quick
inside the box, and when he got to the ball carrier,
he brought it. He brought the wood. He tackled guys,
And you know it's funny. We we probably think that
all linebackers do that, Bob, but you and I both
know that's not always the case. Um. And when he
(27:43):
got there, he hits you. So he's going to be
a fascinating UM guy to to see where he goes
in the draft. UM, I would say that he played fast.
I don't think anybody would say, though, that he's sudden
or explosive. He's a little bit high cut. For some
teams that might be an issue. They may see his
transition and change direction not being exactly what they want.
(28:06):
But I think that he can overcome that because he
saw it so fast and he reacted so quickly, and
he got to velocity really fast. So he was a
fascinating guy to watch. Another fascinating guy, how about Jermaine
Johnson from Florida State. Um, you know if your team
doesn't have the Hutchinson Thibodeau level pass rushing pick and
(28:28):
you're upset that maybe, like even if you're the Jets
and you don't take one of those guys at four,
but all of a sudden, you get to ten and
Jermaine Johnson's name pops up as an edge guy. Is
he worthy of being drafted that high in the first
round or is he a maybe a lower in the
first round, maybe even in the second round type guy?
Knowing how much teams want to get guys that can
(28:51):
bend the edge and go hit the quarterback. And by
the way, he may end up being a better pass
rusher than either of the two guys you mentioned. You
never know. This kid is long, he's athletic, he can
bend um. He played stronger than his lean, wiry frame
might suggest. There was a power element to his game
(29:12):
both as a run defender and pass rusher. He's naturally quick,
he's agile. Um. I thought there was so much to
unlock in his game as a pass rusher when it
comes to technique encounters, and I believe he's only scratching
the surface of his ability to rush the quarterback and
the note that I made when I finished watching him
(29:32):
was it would not surprise me if Johnson within two,
three or four years becomes a strong edge pass rusher
with the versatility to line up inside as well. I
think this kid really has a lot to work with.
And like I said, you never know, but it would
not surprise me if we're talking about him in in
three years as arguably the best pass rusher in this
(29:53):
draft class. You know. And to that point, another question
that pops up in my head from an evaluation process,
how hard is it to find a guy like that
on a team team that quite frankly the last few
years has been bad, like normally Florida State's real good,
like competing for national championships, competing for a CEC championships.
They were right there, you know, kind of going punch
(30:14):
for punch for a long time when Dabbo Sweeney was
establishing Clemson as the dominant power of the a c C.
And now they're going through head coaches every two or
three years, and it is a program that has been
in turmoil since Jimbo went to Texas A and M.
So when you want to get a guy that you
think might be worthy of a top ten, top fifteen pick,
(30:35):
if not higher. How hard is it to evaluate that
level talent on a bad team, because Florida State has
been a bad team certainly by their standards, the whole
time he's been there. And it's a great question because
to me, it doesn't matter. To me, you're looking at
the player and you're looking at his traits and his attributes. Now, look,
he's a Georgia transfer bob, as you may know. So
(30:57):
he played two seasons at Georgia, so he played in
the SEC. And by the way, his year priory Georgia,
he played very very well as a rotational player, so
he had success in the SEC. So you saw Jermaine
Johnson play against the highest level of college competition. So ultimately,
when you look at a player like that, you obviously
(31:18):
start with the traits, the attributes, the characteristics. Does the
level of competition matter? Sure it does, But then you
have to try to interpret what you see uh as
best as you can. And I think Jermaine Johnson has
high level trades that would play anywhere. So I'm gonna
be very interested to see where he gets drafted. You know,
(31:39):
we sit and talk about all this about Thibodeaux Hutchinson
obviously both very good prospects as well. We'll get to
them in future podcasts. But Jermaine Johnson is really an
intriguing player with the multiplicity of traits he brings to
the table. Let's run through a few more guys. Another
guy that can rush the pass or Arnold Ebaketty from
Penn State. Yeah, Ebic Ketty was was another really interesting
(32:02):
guy to watch. And and he's a transfer from Temple,
and you know, Temple's obviously, uh, I forget what conference
they're in, but it's obviously not considered big big time
A uh maybe, yeah, but he played four years of
Temple before he went to Penn State. And uh he
looks and plays longer than his height, which is just
(32:24):
over six too. In fact, I knew what his height
was before I started watching him, and then I put
the tape on and I thought, Wow, this guy looks
longer than that. But he was only six two and
three eight. But he's got kind of a sinewy, sleek frame.
He kind of snakes and slips into gaps in the
run game. He wins now, he wins as a pass
rusher on what we call the high side of the
(32:46):
offensive tackle, meaning the outside, and he needs to develop
more counters. There's no question about that. He must develop
a wider array of pass rush moves and counters. He
must learn to work the low side or the inside
of the offensive tackle. But he's got great natural athleticism.
He's got flexibility and bend. That's one thing you know.
(33:07):
You talk about level of competition, Bob, as we just
did with Jermaine Johnson. One thing you really like to
see with the pass rusher is the ability to bend
and be flexible because there's a lot of guys that
can challenge the high side the outside of offensive tackles,
but when they get there, they're stuck. So they might
win to the high side, but they can't kind of bend,
(33:30):
so they get pushed past the quarterback. So it's very
important to be able to flatten and bend, and Ebiketty
can do that. Um and I thought that he was
kind of a complete player. He showed some power and
quickness as a run defender. Um I think that he
would start his career in the NFL as a sub
defense edge pass rusher and then likely develop into a
(33:53):
full time player. More than likely is an outside linebacker
and in probably what we call a five two, which
more and more teams were playing in the NFL. Now, yeah,
you make a good point to if you're a one
trick pony in the NFL, it'll take an offensive tackle
in the NFL, like one half of one game of
watching you to get ready to realize, like, I've got
one move that this guy has to you know, he's
(34:15):
got one move that I have to defeat and other
than that, he can't beat me otherwise. And you like,
that's it. Your career is over. You have to have
a full arsenal of inside outside moves or against the
tackles as big, as strong, as athletic and as good
as they are. You can't get to the quarterback. You
don't get hired. So what about an interior defensive lineman
and Neil Neil Farrell from l s U. You know,
(34:37):
it's funny, there's a there's a guy I knew nothing about.
And obviously L s U gets five stars as well.
They did not have a great year this year. Obviously
the last couple of years since they won the national
championship has not been quite the same. But he was
a guy because I was watching Stingley. I'm watching other
players there, you know. I watched him Moan Clark, who
unfortunately will not play this year. But Farrell's tape I
thought was consistently impressive, and I thought he presents a
(35:00):
really strong projection as kind of an interior what we
call a zero technique lining up head up on the
offensive center, where a one technique where he's shaded off
the offensive center. UM six four pounds, and he did
play in the SEC. He's a gap penetrator. He's got
disruption trades both with his feet and his hands. UM.
(35:23):
He controlled the term we like to use Bob as
he controlled and displaced interior offensive lineman. And that's really
important for those big guys who are essentially going to
be rundown players to start. But he's got a trades
profile that will be in demand. He's got sized, he's
got length, he's got play strength, he's got heavy hands,
(35:44):
and he moves pretty well. And you know, the guy
that I kept thinking about, he's built differently than this guy.
But the guy that I kept thinking about who was
on the Super Bowl championship team this year and ended
up playing in their sub defense, and no one would
have thought that when he came out of college was
Greg Gaines of the Ramps. You know, Greg Gaines litter
really played almost every snap for the Rams as the
(36:06):
year progressed, and he started out just being a run defender.
That's what he kind of was in college. And I
wonder if Neil Farrell, as time goes on, can develop
into that kind of player, squeezing one more an interesting
wide receiver prospect. And Kyle Phillips from u C l A, Yeah,
he I loved watching this guy's tape. I mean, he's
(36:26):
he's probably pretty purely a slot guy. I mean, I
think guys move around now, but he's pretty purely a
slot guy. Fifty four of his fifty nine receptions came
out of the slot um and you know, it's funny.
While his time speed does not suggest that he can
be a vertical dimension, he did run by people in college. Now,
(36:47):
the Pact twelve did not have the best corners you know,
in the country, but he had a great savvy about him.
He understood how to run routes, he understood how to
set up corners. He attacked the leverage and positioning of
off coverage corners. He used a combination of body fakes,
head faints he created space. Um, I'm gonna go a
(37:08):
little crazy here, Bob and say that when this receiver
came out of college and no one thought he'd become
what he just did this past year. But I remember
Cooper Cup coming out of Eastern Washington, obviously even a
smaller level of competition the U c l A, which
is a power of five school, and Cooper Cups a
much bigger man, and that does mean quite a bit.
(37:28):
But I thought Cooper Cup could roll out of bed
and play in the slot coming out of Eastern Washington.
And I said that at the time. And obviously Cooper
Cup did not catch a hundred balls as a rookie.
Kyle Phillips is a smaller version to me of what
I thought Cup was coming out of Eastern Washington. Now,
I don't want people to listening to, you know, drive
off the road. Let's say I'm not suggesting in four
(37:50):
years or five years, Phillips is gonna catch in a
hundred and thirty balls in a given season. But he
kind of reminded me of Cup coming out of college
and that I think Kyle Phillips could roll out of
bed and be a quality slot receiver. Tomorrow, great information
on all of those guys, and coming up on our
next episode of tapeds Draft Season when it drops on Thursday,
(38:11):
as we've done each week, we will welcome in some
of the voices from around college football in the NFL
that we know and trust. We will be talking to coordinators,
former gms, and we will welcome our first head coach.
And this is the guy we should started off with
as a BC guy because I went to Boston College.
That's right. We went right to the well for Jeff Halfley,
the head coach of BC football, spent some time obviously
(38:32):
not only in college right now, but also in the NFL.
So it's always interesting to pick the brains of the
guys that have lived in both worlds about finding the
best players, how you evaluate talent, what they're looking for
in the NFL, and what the guys that are college
coaches no you need to get to the NFL. Jeff
Halfley is gonna check every one of those boxes for us.
(38:54):
Coming up on Thursday. Wepe you have a terrific rest
of your week and we hope that you will join
us for the next episode of tapeds Draft Season.
Tape Heeds. It's a production of I Heart Media and
the NFL. Welcome to another edition and another week as
we get you ready for the NFL Draft. This is
Tape Heads Draft Season, a brand new podcast that we're
doing this season. Bobo schusan longtime radio voice of the
Jets to college football as well for ESPN, And no
(00:25):
one has spent more time at NFL films and maybe
anywhere in the world of breaking down tape than Greg
co Sell. He of course has been at NFL films
for over four decades looking at the all twenty two
and he continues to do that not only for games
in season and players in season, but also for the
NFL Draft. Because we look at football players, we kind
(00:45):
of try to crawl behind the xs and ohs inside
the game and tell you what the tape says. And Greg,
in this whole process, since you and I started doing this,
feels like we snapped our fingers were halfway the draft. Basically,
we're only a month out from the actual choosing of players,
but we wanted to start with this week and we're
gonna talk about some individual guys coming up a little
(01:07):
bit later on some maybe off the radar prospects some
guys that have jumped out to you that we haven't
talked about yet at varying positions. But I think what
people need to understand is what this process is, right Like,
That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to
explain to you what the actual draft processes for teams,
not the different mock drafts that pop up on your phone,
(01:29):
on Twitter or on the Internet every five minutes, but
how teams actually arrive at putting together the board that
they will use on draft day and what an evolutionary
process that is. And right we're about three weeks out
from the combine. We have done a bunch of pro days.
Now you're gonna get like visits to the team campuses
(01:54):
for prospects, things like that. There's still meetings to go on.
You've been watching tape on these guys for a long time.
Where would you say your process at this point parallels
you think how teams approach the draft and where you
are kind of pie chart was or you know, timeline
was moving towards putting together an actual board that might
(02:16):
mirror what the teams the NFL are doing to this point, Well, Bob,
the way I do it, and because I don't work
for a team, I don't necessarily get obviously to speak
with players, to do a lot of the due diligence
that teams do. I don't have access to all that.
So what I do is I sit in my office
at NFL Films, and because I work for Films, I
have access to all the coaching tape and I just
(02:37):
basically can watch any player, any game, and I can
watch it in its entirety. And the way it works
for me is is what the coaching tape shows you
is first of a play, it shows you the all
twenty two from the sidelines, so you can see all
twenty two players, and then the same play, it's followed
by an end zone shot of it a little tighter,
(02:58):
but that's where you see the offensive line, the defensive line,
the linebackers, the quarterback. If you're looking at the quarterback,
you can see him in a little more detail. So
I watch full games of players, and there's certain positions
where you have to sit and you have to go
through a full game to get a true feel for
what a player is. You can't watch just a highlight
(03:20):
of an offensive lineman making ten great blocks you can't
watch a highlight of a linebacker making his sixty tackles.
You have to watch games and you have to see,
one how they're deployed, because that tells you an awful lot.
And I'll just give you a very quick example. I
have no idea what this means for the draft, and
we haven't spoken about this player in our previous four
(03:41):
segments yet, but Jordan Davis from Georgia, who obviously blew
up the combine given his size and his movement, he
did not play on third down for Georgia. So as
you project and transition a player like that, you have
to decide what is its role in the NFL, simply
because he's a big man and a great athlete, and
you don't know that he doesn't play on third down
(04:02):
if you're just watching highlights of him making tackles. So
you've got to go through games. You've got to see
how players are deployed. You have to see how often
they play. A lot of players are rotational players. You
have to see what happens when they get beat. You
have to see, for instance, a linebacker how we reacts
to run plays. Is he's seeing what he's supposed to
(04:23):
be seeing all This takes time, and you know, as
I joke with people, I'm a one man scouting service,
so it takes me a long time to watch as
many players as I can watch. And I wish I
could watch five players, but unfortunately I can't. Well, I think,
but I think the parallel here. You are doing this solo. Obviously,
(04:44):
teams have departments that are doing but teams also are
sending scouts to campuses to meet with coaches and to
watch tape in facilities all during the season. Teams are
interviewing these players, They are bringing prospects to their facilities,
they are going to the Combine, they are making visits
(05:04):
to pro days. Adding all of that up. I mean,
I don't know if people truly remember talking to Terry
Bradway one time when he was the general manager of
the Jets about this, and I said to him, you know,
you guys in this draft or the average draft, are
gonna pick seven players, all right, sometimes more, sometimes less,
but on seven rounds you get one pick per round.
You're gonna pick seven players in the average draft. Do
(05:25):
people really understand the number of man hours that you
put in to get ready for that process? And He's like,
we fill out about five thousand reports like that in
their file by the time the draft. Actually, the whole
process is done, and we are setting the board and
we are ready for our meetings. We're gonna sit in
the room and everybody's gonna have their say about who
(05:48):
they think are the under the radar guys, who they
think are our highest priority. We're gonna set our board
in our needs, about five thousand reports will be written.
Now if we need a quarterback. You know, when the
Jets ad Zack Wilson as the second pick in the draft,
they might have had twenty five reports on Zach Wilson.
They probably sent everybody to go see Zach Wilson, right,
(06:09):
everybody had a chance to go either watches tape, go
to games, visit the campus, talk to the coaches, all
of that. They might have one report on a defensive
tackle at Montana that caught someone's eye when they were
at the you know whatever, the the one Double A playoffs.
But add it all up, you're talking about five thousand
(06:29):
written reports to draft seven guys. It takes a long
time to accumulate all that information. And that's why I
think people need to realize that no matter how many
mock drafts you see right now, don't overreact to those
mock drafts or what you think people are hearing. The
teams themselves are still in the process, very much in
(06:50):
the process, very much dealing with the unknown. Still I
think of how their board probably will shake out come
draft Day, and and just to show you, Bob how
crazy I am, what I often do is, you know,
I get four or five weeks vacation here, films, and
a lot of times I don't really go anywhere. So
what I do is I come in the office for
those four or five weeks and I start watching players
(07:12):
who will be in the following year's draft. So, for instance,
a lot of the guys who are in this draft
coming up in a month. UM, I watched a lot
of their tape from their twenty twenty season last summer,
so now when I watch their tape from this year,
I have a foundation of what they are because most guys,
you know, a high high percentage their physical and athletic
(07:34):
trades don't dramatically change. Um. Obviously, can they become better
in certain details and nuances and subtleties of a position
as they get coached. Absolutely, but you're not gonna see
a guy who's, you know, an average athlete in his
junior tape become a high level, phenomenal athlete in his
(07:54):
senior tape. That's not likely to happen. But I try
to stay, you know, in the summer. I can't watch
two fifty guys. I don't have that kind of time.
But if I can get sixty two ninety guys looked
at in the summer, then when I start after the
NFL season, because obviously that's my total focus on the
NFL matchup show, when I start um right after the
(08:16):
NFL season looking at at the draft of ball players
for that draft coming up in a couple of months,
I have a pretty good foundation of a lot of
the big names, and I'm not starting from scratch. That's
the way teams do it too. I mean, teams are
already putting a lot of information in the hopper for
next year's draft while they're getting ready for this year's draft.
Like the process never really stops the minute that the
(08:38):
players are picked at the end of this April. Consider
next year's draft process starting in every scouting COMBA or
every you know, every scouting department, every pro personnel department
in the NFL, they immediately just flip the switch, turn
the calendar, and start getting ready for next year. And
and I wonder during this process something that I mean,
you say you have to watch full games, right, you
(08:59):
really have to watch the entire game to get the
true nature of how the game has played for every position.
But are there some positions like how much times it
takes you, for instance, to evaluate a wide receiver as
opposed to how much time it might take you to
evaluate a safety. Right, a wide receiver has a specific
(09:21):
route that he is designed to run on every single
play it is and you could probably see based on
formation and rout tree and whatnot, whether he did it right,
whether he did it wrong. Having said that, though, like
safety is a read and react position, oftentimes I got
the snap, change the picture and then look at what
the offense is doing, and then what are my responsibilities?
And you know it's probably takes I would think more
(09:43):
time and more film and more reps and more, you know,
just examples to take a look at a read and
react defensive players. Then maybe an offensive player like a
wide receiver that has a set responsibility on every play,
You're that's a great point, and I'll give you an
example wide receivers. What I tend to do because obviously
I try to maximize my time. Why receivers, what I'll
(10:04):
do is I'll watch all their targets, Okay, and then
I'll watch a couple of games against really good opponents.
But you can get a really good feel for receiver
catches seventy five balls, Bob, he probably has a hundred
and forty targets. You watch a hundred and forty targets,
you get a really good feel for what that receiver
is because you know what the reality. In the NFL,
(10:24):
receivers are not drafted because of the way they stalk block.
So yes, it's nice to see a guy who's physical
and who cares about blocking, But the bottom line is,
if he's a great receiver, it's not going to impact
where he's drafted. And the other point you made, that's
a hundred percent right. Defensive back, safeties and corners, you
have to watch full games. If you look at a
(10:46):
corner stats are particularly a good corner, you could see
that he's got six past defense the whole season and
maybe three interceptions. You can't just watch those plays. You
have to see how he plays in particular coverage. Does
he play press man, how does he play as man?
Does he play press man physically jamming receivers. Does he
(11:07):
play what we call mirror match press man where he
lets the receiver declare his route and then tries to
get into his hip pocket. How does he play off coverage?
You know, there's so many factors. Safeties are the same,
so you have to watch games to see that, and
there's a lot of plays. If it's a post safety,
there's a lot of plays where he might do nothing,
but you have to see those two. So defensive backs
(11:29):
really take a lot of time and it's just it's
a grind, but you have to do it. Do you
think dbs are the hardest position to analyze or or
what would be as if not? Yes, I would say
they're among the hardest positions to analyze. Sometimes receiver can
be too because of what they're asked to do and
what they're not asked to do relative to what they
(11:51):
will be asked to do in the NFL. But I
think corner and safety are really difficult positions to evaluate
when you watch college tape. Also, keeping in mind that
the hash marks change the total symmetry of the game,
and you have to be aware of that as you
try to project and transition corners and safeties to the
next level. Yeah, I would have thought also offensive lineman
(12:13):
because of how college football has changed. I remember talking
to Bill Polian a few years ago. I think we
talked about this in an earlier episode. Um, you know,
he came to ESPN and we spent some time. He
did some games out on the road, and had a
chance to catch up with him on campus, and I
remember just having one of those really cool philosophical football
questions with a guy who's you know, I mean, if
there was a MENSI meating for football, like Bill Polian
(12:35):
would be at the head of the room leading the
MENSI meeting and asking him the most difficult changes in
the sport in terms of player analysis. And one thing
he brought up was there is a crisis of offensive
lineman from the college game to the National Football League
based on a lot of the air raid offense. You know,
(12:57):
sometimes yard yard and a half splits between offensive linemen
where they are literally just lining up to pass block.
Even in some of the more kind of quote unquote
conservative college offenses that old school I'm gonna mash your
face in drive blocking, run blocking offensive lineman attitude that
(13:17):
we need to see in the NFL. It's just not
that prevalent that much anymore in college football, and it's
really hard to project. There are obviously some guys that
can do it. It's their job to sift through the tape,
find examples and identify a play and a player that
can do it. But that has to be hard because
college football has changed in a big way in the
trenches as well, without question, and an offensive line is
(13:40):
one of those positions. And we can talk further about this,
but it is one of those positions that can be
very difficult because many, many, many offensive lineman college football
never even put their hand in the ground right, no doubt.
And look, when we come back, I want to talk
also about how the game has changed right in other
ways and why some positions are probably harder to analyze
(14:03):
us now than they used to be. And also we're
gonna do what we do every week, and that is
talk about some players. You know who they are, what
they're good at, the guys that jumped out to you
on tape this week that we haven't talked about yet
at varying positions. So if you're a football nerd like us,
you're at the bar with your buddy and you want
to kind of wink at your buddy and say, hey,
I got a guy for you. Watch if you see
this guy go in the fourth round. Our team got
(14:24):
a gem. There are some guys that Greg will be
able to give you an insight about that whose names
you might not have heard of in the process to
this point, we're gonna talk about where they fit in
the NFL as well. All of that is coming up
next on Tape Heeds Draft Season. Welcome back to Taped's
Draft Season, Baba shoose up Gregg co Sell our latest
(14:46):
episode not only talking about where Greg is at in
his draft process, where we think teams are at this
point in their draft prep process, but also Greg, we
were just talking a little bit about how the game
has changed and how back when we were growing up,
the running back, the big powerful running back, was as
(15:07):
much a part of your team's success or failure as
maybe any position. Right in the eighties, you can make
an argument that of the top ten or twenty stars
in the NFL, half of them were the running backs,
and running backs that carried the ball times a game,
and that was the game plan. That's not the way
the NFL has played anymore, nor can it be. I mean,
(15:29):
the football that has played in college has certainly leaked
into the NFL. The process has evolved, and now it
seems like the NFL is much more about creating the
chunk and explosive plays through the passing game than three
yards and a cloud of dust. How much has that
changed the draft process for teams tremendously? And the bottom
(15:50):
line is, I mean, I was at the combine, you know,
for five days a number of weeks ago, and all
you hear on both sides offense create explosive plays. Defense
we cannot allow explosive plays, and the percentage wise, as
we all know, explosive plays come out of the past
game far more than the run game. So the goal
is to create those explosive plays. Now, every team will
(16:12):
tell you that there are times you do need to
run the ball, and certainly there are teams like the
San Francisco forty Niners, uh, the Tennessee Titans. They start
their offense with the run game. But if you cannot
create explosive plays throwing the football, and there are multiple
ways to do that, Bob. Obviously, Kyle Shanahan might do
it differently than a team that lines up with the
(16:33):
quarterback and the shotgun or an empty sets and tries
to create them that way. But the bottom line is,
if you can't create explosive plays in the past game,
somewhere along the line, you're going to struggle. And just
one other point, I think that you never know how
any given game is going to play out in the NFL,
so your passing game has to be able to operate
(16:54):
independently of your run game. It can be dependent on
your ability to run the ball. And then to get
to your point about how the college game has changed
how the NFL goes about it. Probably over of Division
one college football teams play in a spread formation, So
now you're getting players who grew up playing that way
(17:17):
from the time they started playing football. That's what they know.
So when you draft a guy, uh, it starts with quarterback,
of course, but it's true with many other positions on
both sides of the ball. You have to try to
play to what they know and what they are because
if you draft a guy high and expect him to
play right away, you can't teach him a brand new
(17:38):
language in three months, so you have to teach him
the language he knows and refine that. So therefore, the
NFL game has taken more and more from the college game,
even though the hash marks still make the game somewhat
different in a meaningful way. The fact is you need
these players to play right away and to limit the
(17:58):
explosive plays defensively. There it probably has changed how different
positions are valued right like pass, rusher, cover, corner. Those
have always been big time important positions to draft high.
But one guy, as we promised we would to get
to some of your or maybe under the radar guys,
guys we haven't talked about yet, Guys that aren't the
(18:19):
stars being talked about at the top of the first round.
But if you're in the bar with your buddies and
you want to give them a diamond and the rough
to keep your eyes on and look like a genius,
when this guy gets picked, we've got a few to
talk about. And safety is a position that takes on
an added level of importance. That's why we're talking about
Kyle Hamilton's maybe being a unicorn, but being drafted potentially
(18:42):
higher than any safety has ever been drafted in NFL history.
I know a guy from Michigan that caught your eye
is Dax Hill. Yes, and I don't know if you
did a Michigan game, but this kid, this kid is
is really to me. Um. I mean, Hamilton's is is
probably special because of that size, the length, the movement,
and who knows, he could be a top three pick.
(19:03):
But Daxton Hill, I thought it was one of the
most intriguing players that I watched. He played field safety,
meaning he played safety to the wide side of the
field in Michigan's base defense, and then he played slot
corner in their sub defenses. Okay, so he's six ft,
he's a hundred pounds, he ran under four or four
(19:24):
UM and he's long, he's rangy, he's twitchy, he's explosive.
It would be very interesting to me to see whoever
drafts him, and it would not surprise me. And you know,
I'm I'm I'm big mock guy, as you know, Bob,
But it would not surprise me if he goes in
the first round, even if it's let's say, after pick twenty,
just because he can play two positions and he's an
(19:46):
explosive athlete. And you talk about safety being increasingly important
today's NFL because he can match up to tight ends,
no question as a safety, because he matches up to
slot wide receivers, so he has that experience. So to me,
someone like Daxton Hill absolutely fits the profile of today's
(20:07):
NFL because he's a two position player and he can
play man to man against slot wide receivers and against
tight ends. So he's a player I would really look
carefully at, and I'm sure teams are. And of course
his testing was off the charts. Yep. The Georgia defense,
of course, was historically good and there will be plenty
(20:29):
of Georgia defensive players taken in this draft. You mentioned
Jordan Davis basically breaking the combine and breaking the Internet
when you know he basically ran what was the equivalent
for a player of his size of like a three
eight in the forty right, and it was just ridiculous. Uh,
the athleticism that he showed for his size. But no
defense puts up those kind of numbers without some more
(20:51):
under the radar guys that blend in and play their
game and take care of their job and show that
they can be an NFL player. But maybe not the
star NFL player and Quay Walker linebacker where where is
human He's more of a maybe a complimentary player than
a star player. For that Georgia defense, we're still an
NFL player. Well, if you know Bob, they get you know,
(21:14):
twenty five star recruits on defense. So so not everybody
plays every snap, and you can't hold that against these
particular players because they don't play every snap. And Klay
Walker did not play every snap. But he has great size.
He's six four, he's two forty one. You talk about
forty time, whatever it means. He ran a four or
(21:34):
five two, Okay, that's really good for a linebacker at
his size. So his size, his length, his movement profile
is exactly what NFL teams are looking for. I mean,
he's got outstanding size, he's got play speed, he's got
range what he was really good at. And this is
again goes back to what we said why you have
to watch all the plays. When you combine all that
(21:58):
with his ability to read and recognize what he's seeing,
the term we like to use is he and diagnose.
He's very very good at that. So you have a
stacked linebacker with a full complement of traits needed to
become a quality starting linebacker in the NFL, and perhaps
much more. It would not surprise me if Kway Walker
(22:18):
as he develops with more coaching, with more experience, depending
on where he goes, we don't know that if he
becomes I don't want to say a star at top
three linebacker in the league, but a really, really good
player now. He has very similar size and athletic trades
to Jimin Davis, who Washington drafted in the first round
a year ago and played a good amount for the
(22:41):
now Commanders. And Davis had some issues with his key
and diagnosed this year, and I think Walker plays with
much better eyes than Davis did. So Kuay Walker is
a fascinating prospect in this draft class. There are always
coming out of college these days, big time wide receivers.
Um Baylor's a program to get to Kwon Thornton next.
(23:03):
I know he's on your list. That you know, sometimes
it's hard to diagnose a bailor wide receiver right with
the system that they've run in the past. I know
new coaching staff and you know you brought an SEC
big ten DNA and Dave Randa to Baylor, but you
know in the Big Twelve. It takes a while for
the entire evolutionary process of a conference to maybe change
(23:25):
to look more like the SEC. They're certainly not playing
against SEC level defensive backs all the time in the
Big twelve as well. So, having said all of that,
you know, the ability to get off the line of scrimmage,
the ability to run the complete route tree, like all
of those things you need to see in an NFL prospect.
Is a guy like Tae Kwon Thornton from Baylor, someone
(23:46):
that you are confident can do all of that, Like,
what are the question marks with him? As the NFL
looks at his game? Well, I think they'll look at
his thin, linear build. He's six two and three one.
He's a track guy. Um, he was a track athlete
in high school. Um, he was a hundred meter guy
at two hundred. Your guy, he ran a four to
eight at the combine. Uh, that's pretty good from what
(24:08):
I'm told. Um, he obviously has all the measurables. Uh.
But Uh, the thing that stood out to me was
that he was a receiver as well. I thought there
were many snaps in which he showed physicality through his
route stem when it was demanded, he competed, he played
tougher than his thin frame might suggest. We know he
(24:28):
can run. I mean he ran away from people. And
you know, I always wonder if he played in the
SEC and he put up similar numbers to what he
did at Baylor, would we be talking about him as
a top forty pick. But because as you said, Bob,
and you're a hun percent correct, he played at Baylor
lesser conference defensively, not the SEC. People probably think, oh,
(24:48):
he's a track guy who runs fast. Um, he'll be
an outside receiver in the NFL. But you know, he's
from South Florida, and South Florida receivers tend to have
a lot of grit to them just from where they
grew up, the high school football that's played in South Florida.
So he's he's got some competitive toughness and grit to him.
And he can run. I mean he can freaking run.
(25:09):
This kid. And I was really impressed with his tape.
And to be honest with you, I knew nothing about
him other than he ran afoord to weight at the Combine.
And then I put his tape on and I was
really impressed with what I saw. Yeah, there's a really
good chance if you're a South Florida wide receiver that
at some point in the NFL you're gonna line up
across from a defensive back that you lined up from
across from in high school, right like one of the
(25:30):
guys when you were like, what Miami Northwestern. Then there's
a guy from Christopher Columbus to standard across this field
from you. You know, it's because that is the depth
of talent certainly in South Florida as far as football
is concerned. We've got other guys to talk about that
are under the radar players and some prospects that have
certainly jumped out. As you've taken a look at the tape,
We're going to get to even more players that are
(25:52):
gonna make you look like the smartest guy in the
room if you bring these names up and cheat and
use Gregg Costell's information. When we come back here on
Taped's Draft Season. We are back here on Taped's Draft Season,
Bobo Shusan and Greg co Seal as we take you
all the way up to the NFL Draft on this podcast,
and we're digging into some of the prospects we haven't
(26:13):
gotten a chance to talk about yet, regardless of position,
but just players that have caught Greg co sells I
that you know, at varying positions, he think could be
a big factor on draft day. And let's get to
Wyoming's chat Muma and how many how many guys are
obviously coming out of Wyoming that are going to get
drafted much less at a linebacker position and have an
NFL build, But he certainly does. Yeah. And by the way,
(26:37):
you know he played with for a couple of years.
He played with Logan Wilson of the Bengals. He came
in Wyoming a few years ago, and I believe he
was a second round pick. And you always get the
level of competition label lobby at you when you play
at a smaller school, and and for some that's really important.
I can tell you right now. I've talked to many
teams who feel that, hey, I don't want to take
(26:58):
a guy at a smaller level of competition. They just
don't believe in that. But I think he's a really
intriguing prospect, really meaningful production, and he was a fun
player to watch. First of all, he plays with a
high level of intensity and competitiveness, and his high he's
a high velocity player. I mean he made a lot
of plays outside the box. He's got really good play
(27:20):
speed and range. Another guy that I thought was very
good with key and diagnosability. His reactions were consistently quick
inside the box, and when he got to the ball carrier,
he brought it. He brought the wood. He tackled guys,
And you know it's funny. We we probably think that
all linebackers do that, Bob, but you and I both
know that's not always the case. Um. And when he
(27:43):
got there, he hits you. So he's going to be
a fascinating UM guy to to see where he goes
in the draft. UM, I would say that he played fast.
I don't think anybody would say, though, that he's sudden
or explosive. He's a little bit high cut. For some
teams that might be an issue. They may see his
transition and change direction not being exactly what they want.
(28:06):
But I think that he can overcome that because he
saw it so fast and he reacted so quickly, and
he got to velocity really fast. So he was a
fascinating guy to watch. Another fascinating guy, how about Jermaine
Johnson from Florida State. Um, you know if your team
doesn't have the Hutchinson Thibodeau level pass rushing pick and
(28:28):
you're upset that maybe, like even if you're the Jets
and you don't take one of those guys at four,
but all of a sudden, you get to ten and
Jermaine Johnson's name pops up as an edge guy. Is
he worthy of being drafted that high in the first
round or is he a maybe a lower in the
first round, maybe even in the second round type guy?
Knowing how much teams want to get guys that can
(28:51):
bend the edge and go hit the quarterback. And by
the way, he may end up being a better pass
rusher than either of the two guys you mentioned. You
never know. This kid is long, he's athletic, he can
bend um. He played stronger than his lean, wiry frame
might suggest. There was a power element to his game
(29:12):
both as a run defender and pass rusher. He's naturally quick,
he's agile. Um. I thought there was so much to
unlock in his game as a pass rusher when it
comes to technique encounters, and I believe he's only scratching
the surface of his ability to rush the quarterback and
the note that I made when I finished watching him
(29:32):
was it would not surprise me if Johnson within two,
three or four years becomes a strong edge pass rusher
with the versatility to line up inside as well. I
think this kid really has a lot to work with.
And like I said, you never know, but it would
not surprise me if we're talking about him in in
three years as arguably the best pass rusher in this
(29:53):
draft class. You know. And to that point, another question
that pops up in my head from an evaluation process,
how hard is it to find a guy like that
on a team team that quite frankly the last few
years has been bad, like normally Florida State's real good,
like competing for national championships, competing for a CEC championships.
They were right there, you know, kind of going punch
(30:14):
for punch for a long time when Dabbo Sweeney was
establishing Clemson as the dominant power of the a c C.
And now they're going through head coaches every two or
three years, and it is a program that has been
in turmoil since Jimbo went to Texas A and M.
So when you want to get a guy that you
think might be worthy of a top ten, top fifteen pick,
(30:35):
if not higher. How hard is it to evaluate that
level talent on a bad team, because Florida State has
been a bad team certainly by their standards, the whole
time he's been there. And it's a great question because
to me, it doesn't matter. To me, you're looking at
the player and you're looking at his traits and his attributes. Now, look,
he's a Georgia transfer bob, as you may know. So
(30:57):
he played two seasons at Georgia, so he played in
the SEC. And by the way, his year priory Georgia,
he played very very well as a rotational player, so
he had success in the SEC. So you saw Jermaine
Johnson play against the highest level of college competition. So ultimately,
when you look at a player like that, you obviously
(31:18):
start with the traits, the attributes, the characteristics. Does the
level of competition matter? Sure it does, But then you
have to try to interpret what you see uh as
best as you can. And I think Jermaine Johnson has
high level trades that would play anywhere. So I'm gonna
be very interested to see where he gets drafted. You know,
(31:39):
we sit and talk about all this about Thibodeaux Hutchinson
obviously both very good prospects as well. We'll get to
them in future podcasts. But Jermaine Johnson is really an
intriguing player with the multiplicity of traits he brings to
the table. Let's run through a few more guys. Another
guy that can rush the pass or Arnold Ebaketty from
Penn State. Yeah, Ebic Ketty was was another really interesting
(32:02):
guy to watch. And and he's a transfer from Temple,
and you know, Temple's obviously, uh, I forget what conference
they're in, but it's obviously not considered big big time
A uh maybe, yeah, but he played four years of
Temple before he went to Penn State. And uh he
looks and plays longer than his height, which is just
(32:24):
over six too. In fact, I knew what his height
was before I started watching him, and then I put
the tape on and I thought, Wow, this guy looks
longer than that. But he was only six two and
three eight. But he's got kind of a sinewy, sleek frame.
He kind of snakes and slips into gaps in the
run game. He wins now, he wins as a pass
rusher on what we call the high side of the
(32:46):
offensive tackle, meaning the outside, and he needs to develop
more counters. There's no question about that. He must develop
a wider array of pass rush moves and counters. He
must learn to work the low side or the inside
of the offensive tackle. But he's got great natural athleticism.
He's got flexibility and bend. That's one thing you know.
(33:07):
You talk about level of competition, Bob, as we just
did with Jermaine Johnson. One thing you really like to
see with the pass rusher is the ability to bend
and be flexible because there's a lot of guys that
can challenge the high side the outside of offensive tackles,
but when they get there, they're stuck. So they might
win to the high side, but they can't kind of bend,
(33:30):
so they get pushed past the quarterback. So it's very
important to be able to flatten and bend, and Ebiketty
can do that. Um and I thought that he was
kind of a complete player. He showed some power and
quickness as a run defender. Um I think that he
would start his career in the NFL as a sub
defense edge pass rusher and then likely develop into a
(33:53):
full time player. More than likely is an outside linebacker
and in probably what we call a five two, which
more and more teams were playing in the NFL. Now, yeah,
you make a good point to if you're a one
trick pony in the NFL, it'll take an offensive tackle
in the NFL, like one half of one game of
watching you to get ready to realize, like, I've got
one move that this guy has to you know, he's
(34:15):
got one move that I have to defeat and other
than that, he can't beat me otherwise. And you like,
that's it. Your career is over. You have to have
a full arsenal of inside outside moves or against the
tackles as big, as strong, as athletic and as good
as they are. You can't get to the quarterback. You
don't get hired. So what about an interior defensive lineman
and Neil Neil Farrell from l s U. You know,
(34:37):
it's funny, there's a there's a guy I knew nothing about.
And obviously L s U gets five stars as well.
They did not have a great year this year. Obviously
the last couple of years since they won the national
championship has not been quite the same. But he was
a guy because I was watching Stingley. I'm watching other
players there, you know. I watched him Moan Clark, who
unfortunately will not play this year. But Farrell's tape I
thought was consistently impressive, and I thought he presents a
(35:00):
really strong projection as kind of an interior what we
call a zero technique lining up head up on the
offensive center, where a one technique where he's shaded off
the offensive center. UM six four pounds, and he did
play in the SEC. He's a gap penetrator. He's got
disruption trades both with his feet and his hands. UM.
(35:23):
He controlled the term we like to use Bob as
he controlled and displaced interior offensive lineman. And that's really
important for those big guys who are essentially going to
be rundown players to start. But he's got a trades
profile that will be in demand. He's got sized, he's
got length, he's got play strength, he's got heavy hands,
(35:44):
and he moves pretty well. And you know, the guy
that I kept thinking about, he's built differently than this guy.
But the guy that I kept thinking about who was
on the Super Bowl championship team this year and ended
up playing in their sub defense, and no one would
have thought that when he came out of college was
Greg Gaines of the Ramps. You know, Greg Gaines litter
really played almost every snap for the Rams as the
(36:06):
year progressed, and he started out just being a run defender.
That's what he kind of was in college. And I
wonder if Neil Farrell, as time goes on, can develop
into that kind of player, squeezing one more an interesting
wide receiver prospect. And Kyle Phillips from u C l A, Yeah,
he I loved watching this guy's tape. I mean, he's
(36:26):
he's probably pretty purely a slot guy. I mean, I
think guys move around now, but he's pretty purely a
slot guy. Fifty four of his fifty nine receptions came
out of the slot um and you know, it's funny.
While his time speed does not suggest that he can
be a vertical dimension, he did run by people in college. Now,
(36:47):
the Pact twelve did not have the best corners you know,
in the country, but he had a great savvy about him.
He understood how to run routes, he understood how to
set up corners. He attacked the leverage and positioning of
off coverage corners. He used a combination of body fakes,
head faints he created space. Um, I'm gonna go a
(37:08):
little crazy here, Bob and say that when this receiver
came out of college and no one thought he'd become
what he just did this past year. But I remember
Cooper Cup coming out of Eastern Washington, obviously even a
smaller level of competition the U c l A, which
is a power of five school, and Cooper Cups a
much bigger man, and that does mean quite a bit.
(37:28):
But I thought Cooper Cup could roll out of bed
and play in the slot coming out of Eastern Washington.
And I said that at the time. And obviously Cooper
Cup did not catch a hundred balls as a rookie.
Kyle Phillips is a smaller version to me of what
I thought Cup was coming out of Eastern Washington. Now,
I don't want people to listening to, you know, drive
off the road. Let's say I'm not suggesting in four
(37:50):
years or five years, Phillips is gonna catch in a
hundred and thirty balls in a given season. But he
kind of reminded me of Cup coming out of college
and that I think Kyle Phillips could roll out of
bed and be a quality slot receiver. Tomorrow, great information
on all of those guys, and coming up on our
next episode of tapeds Draft Season when it drops on Thursday,
(38:11):
as we've done each week, we will welcome in some
of the voices from around college football in the NFL
that we know and trust. We will be talking to coordinators,
former gms, and we will welcome our first head coach.
And this is the guy we should started off with
as a BC guy because I went to Boston College.
That's right. We went right to the well for Jeff Halfley,
the head coach of BC football, spent some time obviously
(38:32):
not only in college right now, but also in the NFL.
So it's always interesting to pick the brains of the
guys that have lived in both worlds about finding the
best players, how you evaluate talent, what they're looking for
in the NFL, and what the guys that are college
coaches no you need to get to the NFL. Jeff
Halfley is gonna check every one of those boxes for us.
(38:54):
Coming up on Thursday. Wepe you have a terrific rest
of your week and we hope that you will join
us for the next episode of tapeds Draft Season.
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