April 17, 2023 • 19 mins
It's episode seven of NFL Draft Preview Presented by Verizon. Host Ethan Greenberg and The Athletic’s Dane Brugler begin by talking if and when it makes sense for the Jets to select a tight end in the draft (3:27), Notre Dame TE Michael Mayer (9:07) and player comparisons (12:19). They wrap up by discussing Day 3 tight end prospects (16:14).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to another episode.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Of NFL Draft three you Ethan Greenberg, Dane Brugler. Back
at it, Dane, we had a week off. That's all
right because you needed to get healthy. Because this is
what happens. I feel like every year you run yourself
into a wall making the Beast, and then you're like,
you know what, We're done here. Then I'll just I'm
gonna take a quick little hiatus and then we'll be.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Back for the draft.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, my defenses were down. My body was upset with
me and said, you know what, get sick. We don't care.
Uh So, but you know it was it was good
just get the draft guide out. I was happy it
happened when it did, compared to a week earlier, when
you know the final stretch to get the draft guide out.
But no, it's out there, it's out into the wild.
(00:46):
People were enjoying it hopefully, and yeah, the feedback so
far has been tremendous.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I'm definitely one of those people who have been
enjoying it. And I feel like it's not a coincidence
though that you said, it's like the I feel like
the run up for the Beast is what led you
to being sick, isn't it. I mean it feels like
it kind of goes hand in hand.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It doesn't. I mean, I because it's a lot of
long nights. It's a lot of you know, if I
can get two hours of sleep in great, you know.
And that's on top of you know, obviously the four
kids and everything else going around here at home, and
so you know, it's, uh, we have a deadline and
you try to meet that deadline, and there's a lot
of things that go into it. The editing process is
(01:26):
I mean, as you can imagine, there's three hundred and
fifty thousand words, so the editing process takes time. But
you know what, we got it done. And if you
find a typo, I don't want to know about it.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, I was gonna ask you that off air,
like if somebody finds a typo or or word that's
not meant to be there, like we're just we're it's
out into the wild and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Just going to stay there, right because it's a good
product regardless.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Sometimes it happens, you know, if I put like a
you know, a hand size where the arm length should be,
or like that's happened before. It's easy to do, and
it's easy to overlook because you're just looking for numbers
that don't look right, and they look right, they're just
a different column. So it happens. I'm human. I think
people get that. But still, yeah, when you work on
something for a year round, yeah, you hate to see it.
(02:12):
It's a gut punch. But at the same time, I've
done this for enough years that I know it's about
to happen.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Okay, So what Dana is saying is blame the editors.
I got you. We're reading between the lines here.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, so okay, So we're gonna talk about the tight
ends in this episode because one we haven't really done
it yet.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Too.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It feels like all the draft experts, including yourself, really
feel like.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
This is a very good tight end class.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
And I think really from a Jets perspective, you look
at the Jets room and you're like, this is a
deep room. And we've talked about that before, but with
the draft, you're really betting on the future. And two
of the Jets tight ends in their room right now
are free agents they acquired last year, Tyler Conklin and
cj Uzama, and they also have Jeremy Ruckert and Kenny Eboa. Now,
(02:58):
when we talked about the tight ends, we talked about it,
is there anyone really worth the thirteenth overall pick? And
I want to table that for now because I think
when I looked at Mel Kuiper's mock draft, it was
very interesting. Luke Muskgrave in the second round to the Jets,
that's what he had.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
About that marriage not necessarily Muskgrave to the Jets in
the second round, but the Jets going tight end in
round two, generally speaking, knowing that they also have a
deep room on the team as it stands.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, it'd be pretty surprising, right, I mean, I think
we still have pretty decent hopes for Jeremy Ruckert, who
we talked about at length last year about you know,
what he could bring to this team, and it turns
out that's what happened, and we have yet to see
all the positive things that he can offer this team. So,
(03:48):
you know, I would be surprised that they used And
this is a team that obviously, you know right now
has two second round picks, but we think maybe that
could change, and if it does, you only have so
many picks to use in that the first two days
of the draft. I think you're looking more towards adding
guys that are going to help you or have more
of an impact on your roster with a team that's
(04:10):
ready to win right now, So you want to kind
of cross both lines. Right where you're drafting for the future.
You're thinking about your roster in twenty twenty four, twenty
twenty five, and you're forecasting out what it should be.
But at the same time, I think it'd still be
a pretty big surprise if they went tight end that early,
(04:31):
unless they just had to say they have a first
round grade on Luke Musgrave. And that becomes a philosophical question.
And if we have that high a grade on a player,
even though he's maybe isn't an immediate need, do we
pull the trigger at that point and take him in
the second round. That's where it might get a little dicey.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Luke Musgrave very interesting player. You mentioned Jeremy ruckerd and
the Jets last year. I'm not comparing them as players,
but it feels like they had similar college stigmas where
it's like they don't really get the ball a whole
lot receivers, but they both have some receiving ability, Maybe
musk Grave more than record based on your right up
in the beast. So diving into him as a player,
(05:08):
meaning musk Grave, what what are his strengths? What are
his weaknesses? You have a first second round great on him?
Why is he worthy of that kind of grave? Even
though over four seasons he only has six hundred and
thirty three receiving yards total.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, I mean his his career receiving totals looks like
an average season for one year for a lot of
tight ends, and obviously that's not ideal. You would love
for a player to be more productive. But he played
in two games this year with a knee injury, and
that if not for that, we would have seen him become,
in my opinion, a real riser throughout this season because
(05:45):
of all the talent that he has, and he was
ready to break out this year and emerge as one
of the best tight ends in college football, and unfortunately,
because that knee injury, we didn't get a chance to
see that. But we're talking about a guy at six six,
two hundred and fifty five pounds ran in the low
four sixes, a big time athlete. He's got a really
diverse athletic background as a skier growing up, comes from
(06:08):
a big ski family. But not only that, he was
a big time track athlete in high school, sprints, relays, throws,
did all of that, did lacrosse in high school. Speaking
about Jeremy Ruckert and the connection there lacrosse guys, Luke
Musgrave has a lot of athletic ability. Plus he gives
you something as a blocker. So I think it's if
(06:31):
you look at the production, you're not gonna get excited.
When you look at the traits and just as testing
and what he could be, I think that's where you
start to buy in and say, Okay, Luke Musgrave, this
is why teams are considering him in the back half
a round one.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
The skiing background, is that a first for you? Like
in terms of research on a player.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Not a first, But you don't see it very often, right,
I mean, and that's usually if I told you a
guy lettered in four sports in high school and I
asked you to guess the four sports, you know you're
saying football obviously, and then most would say basketball, maybe
throwing or wrestling, throwing a baseball maybe you know, you
try to get creative. No one's guessing, football, track, lacrosse,
(07:16):
and skiing. As for those are the four sports that
Luke Musgrave started in high school. But you know, it's
each one of these, and that's what the fascinating part of,
you know, diving into these backgrounds, understanding, Okay, this guy
was a champion skier at fourteen years old one a
couple of major races at that age group. Like you
(07:39):
find out his mother was on the US development ski
team in the eighties, and it's like, okay, like this
is a guy that was kind of groomed for this
at an early age, and so you and I it
sounds kind of weird, but I think you can see
it in some of his routes, you know, with the
hip action and the way his knees are moving and
the way he's maneuvering in and out of his brakes.
(07:59):
I think you can see some of that ski background
in there.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
That is crazy, but that's also so cool, I think.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I think as a draft fan, I think that's also
what's so interesting about the Beast is because you can
one easily see stats measurable's heightweight, hand size, all that stuff,
But to get into a player's background is I think
that's the coolest part as well, and so Luke Muskgrave
(08:28):
that for the Jets again is mel Kiper's projection right
now in the second round when you now, I wanted
to talk about some of the first round guys. The
two guys that come to mind, Michael mayor Dalton Kincaid.
We talked about Kiincaid briefly, but with Michael Mayer, why
is he your tight end one? And is this like
a seamless looking transition, because I feel like when talking
(08:51):
about Michael Mayer, a lot of people will just say
this is a rock solid pick.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
He does a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Everything well or a lot of everything well, and he
transitioned from Notre Dame tight end to future NFL player
might be easy for Michael Meyer.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I wouldn't say easy, but you can see a path
where he's going to make an impact pretty quickly in
the NFL. And you think about Notre Dame and how
many tight ends they've produced the last twenty years. None
of them had better production profile than Michael Mayer. He
set all the tight end records there at Notre Dame
in only three years. So the moment he showed up
(09:28):
in South Bend, he was the guy and played at
a high level. He's been doing it the last three years.
Is he an elite athlete.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
No.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Is he the elite walker. No, But he's above average
in both those areas. And what I love about him
is you can see the basketball background with the way
he plays. He grew up wanting to play for Kentucky basketball.
That's what he thought he was going to do. At
some point during high school kind of became clear, all right,
I don't have the size of a post player. It's
going to go play for the Wildcats there and the
(09:59):
top a high level college basketball. But you know what,
my skill set will look pretty good in the football field.
And he is one of the better contested catch tight
ends I've evaluated the last five seven years. It doesn't
matter where the defender is, the traffic, the defenders hanging
on his back like a backpack, it doesn't matter. He's
going to make the catch. He's going to make the play,
(10:22):
and he can run the scene. He can work in
the middle of the field. He's fearless. He can make
guys miss because he has that power, has a very
athletic of that body control. He understands those athletic instincts
to make the first guy miss sidestep them. So there's
a lot to work with Michael Mayer as a plug
and play combination tight end. You want them to play
(10:44):
the y with his hand on the ground, he can
do that. You want to play him as more of
a joker, stand up, put him in the slot, he
can do that as well. So I don't think this
is a player that has a super high ceiling where
we're ever talking about Michael Mayer as a Travis Kelce type.
I don't think that's that's not what his future holds.
But he's going to be a starter in this league
for a long time and helped the offense move the sticks.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
You know, we've talked about this before.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
The said you mentioned Travis Kelce, and I just realized that, like,
you're not a huge pro comp guy because it throws
people's minds off the wouldn't you say, like, just because
you start to think of Michael Mayer wears eighty seven,
he's a big dude, he does you know a little
bit of everything well, and you're like, oh, Travis Kelsey,
(11:30):
I think a lot. I think there are people who
think that. So taking a step back from tight ends.
Is there any pro comp or player comp that you
think works in this year's draft.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Across the board for any position.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Any position?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And I remember listening to your podcast on the Athletic
I think it was a couple of years ago. I
don't remember who it was about, but it was either
you or lan Zerline of NFL Network and NFL dot
Com compared to prospect to Steph Curry. And I don't
remember what the comp was, who the prospect was, but
I remember that as a comparison, and so that got
my mind thinking, now, is there any comparison that you
(12:09):
like because Lance, if I remember correctly, I don't know
if it's Lance himself, but the NFL Draft dot Com
profiles most of them have a pro.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Comp right, And I think that unless it's it comes naturally.
If it comes naturally, I'll include it in the report.
But if not, then it feels kind of force in
it and requires so much context because rarely are comps
apples to apples. You have to, you know, really talk
about it and provide context. And I mean, actually I
(12:37):
threw this out on Twitter a couple months ago and
people did not like it. But I comped Bryce Young
to Steph Curry, and it was because you see the
way Bryce Young plays like a point guard. That's how
he plays the position. He creates space for himself. His
vision is tremendous. See everything going on around him, anticipate
(12:58):
where those open passing windows are going to be. Where
if he computes in his mind, Okay, if I make
this slight step to my right, I'm going to create
an extra half second from myself, that route's gonna come open.
Like he for his ability to process all of that
in real time, it's like a point guard. And you
see that with Steph Curry. With Steph Curry is not,
(13:20):
you know, a five five ten and you know, but
he is undersized by NFL standards. He is not the
prototypical point guard, at least when he was drafted. And
so I think that there are some comparisons there. It's
we've never seen a quarterback quite like Bryce Young. So
it's not there's not a natural I mean, you want
(13:40):
to compare him to Doug Flutie, fine, go for it,
you know, but like, uh, there's not. We don't have
a ton of natural comps for a guy like Bryce Young.
So I think you have to think outside the box
a little bit, and so you know, I'm I put
that out on Twitter, and you know, the responses were mixed.
Some people loved it, some people just despised it. And meanwhile,
I'm thinking myself, gosh, just just wait till they find
(14:02):
out my comp for Lucas van Ness is Cocaine Bear,
and they're gonna lose their minds. But I mean, look,
sometimes you gotta have fun with these comps, because I said,
it's rarely apples to apples, and you know, you have
to have fun with it a little bit too, because
the whole point of a comp is to create in
your mind an idea of who the player is and
what he's going to be. So you know, it's makes
(14:25):
sense to get creative with these comparisons.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
And for the record, the comparison that I was thinking of,
what the Steph Curry one, wasn't your tweet about Bryce
Young it was?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
It might have been Triple Lawrence.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I don't I.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Thought it was like a skinnier player and it was
a receiver potentially, but I.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Don't know, Oh, Davante Smith probably.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Maybe maybe it might have been Davante.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, I remember, I remember going for a walk listening
to the podcast. I remember exactly where I was when
I heard, and I was like, oh, that's an interesting COMPU.
But I didn't remember that you said that about Bryce Young.
But I do think that I like that comparison for.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
What it's worth.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
If you're listening and you're wondering what the NFL comparison
is for Michael Mayer on the NFL draft dot Com profile, Dane,
you want to guess it is not Travis kelcey n.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I'm not who does he have?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
He has Jason Witten?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, Okay, see that makes sense. I I could see that,
And I mean Jason went was a third round pick
for a reason. You know, it was not a guy
that's elite in anyone area. You don't really get excited
about Witt and per se, but he's just a rock
solid player, and you know, you blink and the guys,
you know, one of the best tight ends in the league,
(15:42):
so for a lot of years, and you know, probably
a future Hall of Famer, And so I can understand
why make that call.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Okay, there you go.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Before we move on here, the tight ends group is
very deep. As we've heard Darnell Washington another first second
round guy, A huge mammoth guy. Is there anybody that
makes sense in your eyes for the Jets on day
three if they decided to, let's say, go in a
direction where it's like, we want to add a tight
end because this is a great class, but we don't
(16:11):
necessarily want to do it with the capital of day
one or day two.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Absolutely, I mean this is like you said, it's a
deep tight end group. We'll see how many end up
going on the first two days. You know, people get
into too many debates about how these tight ends should
be ranked. I think they all offer something different. You know,
it depends on what you want out of your tight end.
You know, Michael Mayer, what he offers compared to Dalton
Kincaid very different, compared to Darnell Washington very different. So
(16:38):
it's it all depends on what your offense is that
type of tight end you're looking for, And I mean
that's that should be more of the conversation than strictly one, two, three, four,
how should they be ranked? But you know, Tucker Craft
from South Dakota State one of my favorite non first
round picks this year, big Tucker Craft fan. I think
he's gonna be a good value. On day two. Sam
(16:59):
Laporte is say thing, Luke Schoonmaker from Michigan's gonna go
in that Day two range Brenton Strange from Penn State
as well, And so we'll see how many end up
going on day two. But then on day three, there's
gonna be plenty of good talents left, whether it's a
Davis Allen from Clemson, Josh Wiley Cincinnati, Cameron Lattu from Alabama, Paynton, Durham, Purdue.
(17:21):
So if the Jets want to go in that direction,
add a fourth, fifth, sixth round pick at the position.
A guy that can play special teams can give you
depth at the position. A lot of these guys, it
makes sense. Braden Willis from Oklahoma, Blake Whiteheart, Wake Forest,
So a lot of names to keep on the radar.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
All right.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So I'm looking at the list of your tight ends,
and the last three out of the last four of
the twenty eight you have just fantastic names. Jalil Billingsley,
great name, yeah, Johnny Lumpkin is it just sounds like
a cartoon character. And then we're wrapping it up with
(18:02):
a Tennessee volunteer Princeton fant Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
That's pretty good, all right. That's uh, you can see
why they made my list, right, It's like, got to
get these guys in there, because I mean with names
like that, I personally I really like Noah Gindorf. I
mean it sounds like a Lord of the Rings character
or something. Yeah, and of course he's North Dakota State, right,
you know, he's just a big blocking tight end who
would be going a lot higher if not for his
(18:28):
ankle injury. He's a draftable NFL player, So yeah, knowing Gendorf,
don't forget about him.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
No. And a couple after that is Griffin. Is it
Hebert or Hebert?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Hey Bear? I think, wow? Yeah, right, well it's the
Louisiana you know, cajun way to say, hey Bear, Right,
It's not not exactly Hebert, it's.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Hey Bear, hey Bear. Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So there are a lot of good tight ends on
the field. There are a lot of good tight ends
in terms of their names. And again, the Jets in
a good spot at the tight end room right now.
If they were to line up tomorrow, they'd probably be
in a very good spot, I would say. And you
never know what the draft though, right, because like that,
you just never know, so something to keep in mind again.
(19:16):
Dane as Michael Mayer as his top overall tight end prospect,
the twenty eighth Princeton fan. Those are the bookends right
there in the beast, which if you have not checked out,
you should check out asap. All right, that's how we're
gonna close Episode seven of NFL Draft Preview.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Dane, thanks a lot. We're talking next week.
Welcome to another episode.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Of NFL Draft three you Ethan Greenberg, Dane Brugler. Back
at it, Dane, we had a week off. That's all
right because you needed to get healthy. Because this is
what happens. I feel like every year you run yourself
into a wall making the Beast, and then you're like,
you know what, We're done here. Then I'll just I'm
gonna take a quick little hiatus and then we'll be.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Back for the draft.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, my defenses were down. My body was upset with
me and said, you know what, get sick. We don't care.
Uh So, but you know it was it was good
just get the draft guide out. I was happy it
happened when it did, compared to a week earlier, when
you know the final stretch to get the draft guide out.
But no, it's out there, it's out into the wild.
(00:46):
People were enjoying it hopefully, and yeah, the feedback so
far has been tremendous.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I'm definitely one of those people who have been
enjoying it. And I feel like it's not a coincidence
though that you said, it's like the I feel like
the run up for the Beast is what led you
to being sick, isn't it. I mean it feels like
it kind of goes hand in hand.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It doesn't. I mean, I because it's a lot of
long nights. It's a lot of you know, if I
can get two hours of sleep in great, you know.
And that's on top of you know, obviously the four
kids and everything else going around here at home, and
so you know, it's, uh, we have a deadline and
you try to meet that deadline, and there's a lot
of things that go into it. The editing process is
(01:26):
I mean, as you can imagine, there's three hundred and
fifty thousand words, so the editing process takes time. But
you know what, we got it done. And if you
find a typo, I don't want to know about it.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, I was gonna ask you that off air,
like if somebody finds a typo or or word that's
not meant to be there, like we're just we're it's
out into the wild and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Just going to stay there, right because it's a good
product regardless.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Sometimes it happens, you know, if I put like a
you know, a hand size where the arm length should be,
or like that's happened before. It's easy to do, and
it's easy to overlook because you're just looking for numbers
that don't look right, and they look right, they're just
a different column. So it happens. I'm human. I think
people get that. But still, yeah, when you work on
something for a year round, yeah, you hate to see it.
(02:12):
It's a gut punch. But at the same time, I've
done this for enough years that I know it's about
to happen.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Okay, So what Dana is saying is blame the editors.
I got you. We're reading between the lines here.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, so okay, So we're gonna talk about the tight
ends in this episode because one we haven't really done
it yet.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Too.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It feels like all the draft experts, including yourself, really
feel like.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
This is a very good tight end class.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
And I think really from a Jets perspective, you look
at the Jets room and you're like, this is a
deep room. And we've talked about that before, but with
the draft, you're really betting on the future. And two
of the Jets tight ends in their room right now
are free agents they acquired last year, Tyler Conklin and
cj Uzama, and they also have Jeremy Ruckert and Kenny Eboa. Now,
(02:58):
when we talked about the tight ends, we talked about it,
is there anyone really worth the thirteenth overall pick? And
I want to table that for now because I think
when I looked at Mel Kuiper's mock draft, it was
very interesting. Luke Muskgrave in the second round to the Jets,
that's what he had.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
About that marriage not necessarily Muskgrave to the Jets in
the second round, but the Jets going tight end in
round two, generally speaking, knowing that they also have a
deep room on the team as it stands.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, it'd be pretty surprising, right, I mean, I think
we still have pretty decent hopes for Jeremy Ruckert, who
we talked about at length last year about you know,
what he could bring to this team, and it turns
out that's what happened, and we have yet to see
all the positive things that he can offer this team. So,
(03:48):
you know, I would be surprised that they used And
this is a team that obviously, you know right now
has two second round picks, but we think maybe that
could change, and if it does, you only have so
many picks to use in that the first two days
of the draft. I think you're looking more towards adding
guys that are going to help you or have more
of an impact on your roster with a team that's
(04:10):
ready to win right now, So you want to kind
of cross both lines. Right where you're drafting for the future.
You're thinking about your roster in twenty twenty four, twenty
twenty five, and you're forecasting out what it should be.
But at the same time, I think it'd still be
a pretty big surprise if they went tight end that early,
(04:31):
unless they just had to say they have a first
round grade on Luke Musgrave. And that becomes a philosophical question.
And if we have that high a grade on a player,
even though he's maybe isn't an immediate need, do we
pull the trigger at that point and take him in
the second round. That's where it might get a little dicey.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Luke Musgrave very interesting player. You mentioned Jeremy ruckerd and
the Jets last year. I'm not comparing them as players,
but it feels like they had similar college stigmas where
it's like they don't really get the ball a whole
lot receivers, but they both have some receiving ability, Maybe
musk Grave more than record based on your right up
in the beast. So diving into him as a player,
(05:08):
meaning musk Grave, what what are his strengths? What are
his weaknesses? You have a first second round great on him?
Why is he worthy of that kind of grave? Even
though over four seasons he only has six hundred and
thirty three receiving yards total.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Yeah, I mean his his career receiving totals looks like
an average season for one year for a lot of
tight ends, and obviously that's not ideal. You would love
for a player to be more productive. But he played
in two games this year with a knee injury, and
that if not for that, we would have seen him become,
in my opinion, a real riser throughout this season because
(05:45):
of all the talent that he has, and he was
ready to break out this year and emerge as one
of the best tight ends in college football, and unfortunately,
because that knee injury, we didn't get a chance to
see that. But we're talking about a guy at six six,
two hundred and fifty five pounds ran in the low
four sixes, a big time athlete. He's got a really
diverse athletic background as a skier growing up, comes from
(06:08):
a big ski family. But not only that, he was
a big time track athlete in high school, sprints, relays, throws,
did all of that, did lacrosse in high school. Speaking
about Jeremy Ruckert and the connection there lacrosse guys, Luke
Musgrave has a lot of athletic ability. Plus he gives
you something as a blocker. So I think it's if
(06:31):
you look at the production, you're not gonna get excited.
When you look at the traits and just as testing
and what he could be, I think that's where you
start to buy in and say, Okay, Luke Musgrave, this
is why teams are considering him in the back half
a round one.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
The skiing background, is that a first for you? Like
in terms of research on a player.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Not a first, But you don't see it very often, right,
I mean, and that's usually if I told you a
guy lettered in four sports in high school and I
asked you to guess the four sports, you know you're
saying football obviously, and then most would say basketball, maybe
throwing or wrestling, throwing a baseball maybe you know, you
try to get creative. No one's guessing, football, track, lacrosse,
(07:16):
and skiing. As for those are the four sports that
Luke Musgrave started in high school. But you know, it's
each one of these, and that's what the fascinating part of,
you know, diving into these backgrounds, understanding, Okay, this guy
was a champion skier at fourteen years old one a
couple of major races at that age group. Like you
(07:39):
find out his mother was on the US development ski
team in the eighties, and it's like, okay, like this
is a guy that was kind of groomed for this
at an early age, and so you and I it
sounds kind of weird, but I think you can see
it in some of his routes, you know, with the
hip action and the way his knees are moving and
the way he's maneuvering in and out of his brakes.
(07:59):
I think you can see some of that ski background
in there.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
That is crazy, but that's also so cool, I think.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I think as a draft fan, I think that's also
what's so interesting about the Beast is because you can
one easily see stats measurable's heightweight, hand size, all that stuff,
But to get into a player's background is I think
that's the coolest part as well, and so Luke Muskgrave
(08:28):
that for the Jets again is mel Kiper's projection right
now in the second round when you now, I wanted
to talk about some of the first round guys. The
two guys that come to mind, Michael mayor Dalton Kincaid.
We talked about Kiincaid briefly, but with Michael Mayer, why
is he your tight end one? And is this like
a seamless looking transition, because I feel like when talking
(08:51):
about Michael Mayer, a lot of people will just say
this is a rock solid pick.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
He does a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Everything well or a lot of everything well, and he
transitioned from Notre Dame tight end to future NFL player
might be easy for Michael Meyer.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I wouldn't say easy, but you can see a path
where he's going to make an impact pretty quickly in
the NFL. And you think about Notre Dame and how
many tight ends they've produced the last twenty years. None
of them had better production profile than Michael Mayer. He
set all the tight end records there at Notre Dame
in only three years. So the moment he showed up
(09:28):
in South Bend, he was the guy and played at
a high level. He's been doing it the last three years.
Is he an elite athlete.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
No.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Is he the elite walker. No, But he's above average
in both those areas. And what I love about him
is you can see the basketball background with the way
he plays. He grew up wanting to play for Kentucky basketball.
That's what he thought he was going to do. At
some point during high school kind of became clear, all right,
I don't have the size of a post player. It's
going to go play for the Wildcats there and the
(09:59):
top a high level college basketball. But you know what,
my skill set will look pretty good in the football field.
And he is one of the better contested catch tight
ends I've evaluated the last five seven years. It doesn't
matter where the defender is, the traffic, the defenders hanging
on his back like a backpack, it doesn't matter. He's
going to make the catch. He's going to make the play,
(10:22):
and he can run the scene. He can work in
the middle of the field. He's fearless. He can make
guys miss because he has that power, has a very
athletic of that body control. He understands those athletic instincts
to make the first guy miss sidestep them. So there's
a lot to work with Michael Mayer as a plug
and play combination tight end. You want them to play
(10:44):
the y with his hand on the ground, he can
do that. You want to play him as more of
a joker, stand up, put him in the slot, he
can do that as well. So I don't think this
is a player that has a super high ceiling where
we're ever talking about Michael Mayer as a Travis Kelce type.
I don't think that's that's not what his future holds.
But he's going to be a starter in this league
for a long time and helped the offense move the sticks.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
You know, we've talked about this before.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
The said you mentioned Travis Kelce, and I just realized that, like,
you're not a huge pro comp guy because it throws
people's minds off the wouldn't you say, like, just because
you start to think of Michael Mayer wears eighty seven,
he's a big dude, he does you know a little
bit of everything well, and you're like, oh, Travis Kelsey,
(11:30):
I think a lot. I think there are people who
think that. So taking a step back from tight ends.
Is there any pro comp or player comp that you
think works in this year's draft.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Across the board for any position.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Any position?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And I remember listening to your podcast on the Athletic
I think it was a couple of years ago. I
don't remember who it was about, but it was either
you or lan Zerline of NFL Network and NFL dot
Com compared to prospect to Steph Curry. And I don't
remember what the comp was, who the prospect was, but
I remember that as a comparison, and so that got
my mind thinking, now, is there any comparison that you
(12:09):
like because Lance, if I remember correctly, I don't know
if it's Lance himself, but the NFL Draft dot Com
profiles most of them have a pro.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Comp right, And I think that unless it's it comes naturally.
If it comes naturally, I'll include it in the report.
But if not, then it feels kind of force in
it and requires so much context because rarely are comps
apples to apples. You have to, you know, really talk
about it and provide context. And I mean, actually I
(12:37):
threw this out on Twitter a couple months ago and
people did not like it. But I comped Bryce Young
to Steph Curry, and it was because you see the
way Bryce Young plays like a point guard. That's how
he plays the position. He creates space for himself. His
vision is tremendous. See everything going on around him, anticipate
(12:58):
where those open passing windows are going to be. Where
if he computes in his mind, Okay, if I make
this slight step to my right, I'm going to create
an extra half second from myself, that route's gonna come open.
Like he for his ability to process all of that
in real time, it's like a point guard. And you
see that with Steph Curry. With Steph Curry is not,
(13:20):
you know, a five five ten and you know, but
he is undersized by NFL standards. He is not the
prototypical point guard, at least when he was drafted. And
so I think that there are some comparisons there. It's
we've never seen a quarterback quite like Bryce Young. So
it's not there's not a natural I mean, you want
(13:40):
to compare him to Doug Flutie, fine, go for it,
you know, but like, uh, there's not. We don't have
a ton of natural comps for a guy like Bryce Young.
So I think you have to think outside the box
a little bit, and so you know, I'm I put
that out on Twitter, and you know, the responses were mixed.
Some people loved it, some people just despised it. And meanwhile,
I'm thinking myself, gosh, just just wait till they find
(14:02):
out my comp for Lucas van Ness is Cocaine Bear,
and they're gonna lose their minds. But I mean, look,
sometimes you gotta have fun with these comps, because I said,
it's rarely apples to apples, and you know, you have
to have fun with it a little bit too, because
the whole point of a comp is to create in
your mind an idea of who the player is and
what he's going to be. So you know, it's makes
(14:25):
sense to get creative with these comparisons.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
And for the record, the comparison that I was thinking of,
what the Steph Curry one, wasn't your tweet about Bryce
Young it was?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
It might have been Triple Lawrence.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I don't I.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Thought it was like a skinnier player and it was
a receiver potentially, but I.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Don't know, Oh, Davante Smith probably.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Maybe maybe it might have been Davante.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, I remember, I remember going for a walk listening
to the podcast. I remember exactly where I was when
I heard, and I was like, oh, that's an interesting COMPU.
But I didn't remember that you said that about Bryce Young.
But I do think that I like that comparison for.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
What it's worth.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
If you're listening and you're wondering what the NFL comparison
is for Michael Mayer on the NFL draft dot Com profile, Dane,
you want to guess it is not Travis kelcey n.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I'm not who does he have?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
He has Jason Witten?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, Okay, see that makes sense. I I could see that,
And I mean Jason went was a third round pick
for a reason. You know, it was not a guy
that's elite in anyone area. You don't really get excited
about Witt and per se, but he's just a rock
solid player, and you know, you blink and the guys,
you know, one of the best tight ends in the league,
(15:42):
so for a lot of years, and you know, probably
a future Hall of Famer, And so I can understand
why make that call.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Okay, there you go.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Before we move on here, the tight ends group is
very deep. As we've heard Darnell Washington another first second
round guy, A huge mammoth guy. Is there anybody that
makes sense in your eyes for the Jets on day
three if they decided to, let's say, go in a
direction where it's like, we want to add a tight
end because this is a great class, but we don't
(16:11):
necessarily want to do it with the capital of day
one or day two.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Absolutely, I mean this is like you said, it's a
deep tight end group. We'll see how many end up
going on the first two days. You know, people get
into too many debates about how these tight ends should
be ranked. I think they all offer something different. You know,
it depends on what you want out of your tight end.
You know, Michael Mayer, what he offers compared to Dalton
Kincaid very different, compared to Darnell Washington very different. So
(16:38):
it's it all depends on what your offense is that
type of tight end you're looking for, And I mean
that's that should be more of the conversation than strictly one, two, three, four,
how should they be ranked? But you know, Tucker Craft
from South Dakota State one of my favorite non first
round picks this year, big Tucker Craft fan. I think
he's gonna be a good value. On day two. Sam
(16:59):
Laporte is say thing, Luke Schoonmaker from Michigan's gonna go
in that Day two range Brenton Strange from Penn State
as well, And so we'll see how many end up
going on day two. But then on day three, there's
gonna be plenty of good talents left, whether it's a
Davis Allen from Clemson, Josh Wiley Cincinnati, Cameron Lattu from Alabama, Paynton, Durham, Purdue.
(17:21):
So if the Jets want to go in that direction,
add a fourth, fifth, sixth round pick at the position.
A guy that can play special teams can give you
depth at the position. A lot of these guys, it
makes sense. Braden Willis from Oklahoma, Blake Whiteheart, Wake Forest,
So a lot of names to keep on the radar.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
All right.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So I'm looking at the list of your tight ends,
and the last three out of the last four of
the twenty eight you have just fantastic names. Jalil Billingsley,
great name, yeah, Johnny Lumpkin is it just sounds like
a cartoon character. And then we're wrapping it up with
(18:02):
a Tennessee volunteer Princeton fant Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
That's pretty good, all right. That's uh, you can see
why they made my list, right, It's like, got to
get these guys in there, because I mean with names
like that, I personally I really like Noah Gindorf. I
mean it sounds like a Lord of the Rings character
or something. Yeah, and of course he's North Dakota State, right,
you know, he's just a big blocking tight end who
would be going a lot higher if not for his
(18:28):
ankle injury. He's a draftable NFL player, So yeah, knowing Gendorf,
don't forget about him.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
No. And a couple after that is Griffin. Is it
Hebert or Hebert?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Hey Bear? I think, wow? Yeah, right, well it's the
Louisiana you know, cajun way to say, hey Bear, Right,
It's not not exactly Hebert, it's.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Hey Bear, hey Bear. Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So there are a lot of good tight ends on
the field. There are a lot of good tight ends
in terms of their names. And again, the Jets in
a good spot at the tight end room right now.
If they were to line up tomorrow, they'd probably be
in a very good spot, I would say. And you
never know what the draft though, right, because like that,
you just never know, so something to keep in mind again.
(19:16):
Dane as Michael Mayer as his top overall tight end prospect,
the twenty eighth Princeton fan. Those are the bookends right
there in the beast, which if you have not checked out,
you should check out asap. All right, that's how we're
gonna close Episode seven of NFL Draft Preview.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Dane, thanks a lot. We're talking next week.
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