NFL Draft Triple Take (EDGE), April 10, 2022

NFL Draft Triple Take (EDGE), April 10, 2022

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the NFL
Draft Triple Take, presented by U P m C. Mike Pursued, A,
Dale Lolly and Matt Williamson. We've still got the pedal down.
We are still plowing through the prospects to get you
as ready as possible for the NFL Draft. Only the
Steelers scouts guys are gonna be more prepared than the
people who have been with us since day one. And

(00:22):
that's only if they've been among the people who have
been with us. They have to watch them all, not
just the first take, but the second take as well.
And the second take. UH, as you may or may
not know by now. If you don't, this will be
news to you that the second take is not a
top five at the position. It's a riser, faller and sleeper. UH.

(00:42):
Just trying to get the conversation, UH a little more
nuanced and UH maybe throw some more names out there
for discussion than you would get in a standard top five. UH.
I noticed that uh, Dale and Matt, who conspire the
drive on s n R and have conspired to be

(01:04):
in complete agreement more often than not on these programs,
both of you guys are agreement on your riser. Who
would like to take the floor first to discuss the
great Trayvon Walker. Go ahead, Matt Sin we apparently share
a brain. Yeah, I'm gonna call kind of an audible
here too. I mean, I think this one's just so
obvious with Trayvon Walker, and I'll let they'll talk about

(01:27):
him mostly, but since we're talking edges and linebackers, I'm
gonna include the other Walker from Georgia as well as
an off the ball linebacker, Quay Walker. Travon is almost
like a combination athletically not production. And this goes to
their combine numbers of J. J. Watt and Von Miller.
And I know that sounds remarkable, but that's exactly the

(01:49):
kind of numbers he posted. But Quay the linebacker, I
think he's rocketing up boards as well, because you can
do so much with him. He has extreme length, he
can cover tight ends out of the slot, he can blitz,
he can play off the ball. His numbers were tremendous too,
So two Walkers from Georgia. Yeah, you know, I think

(02:09):
Walker Trayvon Walker. Um, I know everybody raved about some
of the big guys running. This guy came in a
six five to seventy two and ran a four five
to forty at two hundred and seventy two pounds. It's
his three coundrel was six point eight nine. Uh. It
just really easy change of direction for him. And he's
got thirty five inch arms long there. I mean, he's

(02:33):
just a physical freak. Uh. And so I think you're
seeing a lot of of of movement for him up
the draft boards here. You know, I know he was considered,
you know, an easy first round draft pick, but now
I think you're talking top five with him. And that's
why I had to put him as my riser at
that position. There's even some talk that he could be
the top overall pick in this draft, and I don't

(02:53):
think anybody would blink an eye if that happened. So
really freakish athlete and to Matt's point, kind of a
combination you could. You could have him put on ten
pounds and playment defensive end and not you know, it
wouldn't be a problem. You could have him stay at
two seventy two and and play outside linebacker in a
three or four defense and it wouldn't be a problem.
There's just so much that you can do with a

(03:13):
guy like that. Some talk about him being first overall
on this very program, well not this specific one, but
our last mock draft mocks three point Oh, you guys
probably recalled that I mocked him number one to the
Jacksonville Jaguar. So I couldn't include him as my riser

(03:33):
because there's nowhere to go. He's he's at the top
of the list. You can't go higher than the first overall.
But I do want to mention all the points you
guys made about his physicals and how he played and
where he played. There was a play in the National
Championship game and nobody on the broadcast noticed this because
it was just after Jamison Williams got hurt for Alabama,
and the freshman kid came in number eighty four, and

(03:55):
he made a catch a crossing route and then he
stopped and made the Obie Dean miss and wound up
getting a twenty four yard gain out of it. Guess
who made the tackle. Traymond Walker, lining up at defensive tackle,
started to pass rush, didn't get there, saw the ball, release,
looked around, located it. Chase down a wide receiver from

(04:16):
well behind the play. Now the guy was running sideways
a little bit to start, but the kind of football
instincts and football i Q and the effort and the motor. Uh,
he checks every box. And Uh, if I was Jacksonville,
I'd take him number one this year. Uh, particularly if
I had the roster that is currently comprised in Jacksonville.

(04:37):
That said, I couldn't make him my riser, So I
went with Arnold Ebakte of Penn State. Uh. He's been
rising for a while now. Uh, good move transferring to
Penn State. He went from second team All American Athletic
Conference to first team All Big Ten, going from Temple
to Penn State. And another one of these guys who's
really got a physical skill set. Uh he was. Uh

(04:59):
he's not an a Native American. He was born in Cameroon.
Family got here when he was twelve, picked up the
game in high school. He's still figuring all this stuff out,
but really an intriguing guy, uh, coming off the edge,
at least initially as a past rusher, and then as
he figured some more stuff out, maybe he could do
a whole lot more. He was one of the guys
dale at the combine that they had to do the

(05:21):
conversion drills. Uh, some of the past rushers asked to
drop in coverage and uh, not a chess piece yet,
but a vers little guy for sure. Yeah, he definitely
has a skill set to do those kind of things.
And this draft, I mean, there's there's a lot of
those guys that that you look at and say, boy,
you could do some things with this guy, if you know,
I remind people all the time that you know, t J.

(05:43):
Watt was the ninth edge rusher taken in his draft night.
There were nine. There were eight other guys edge rushers
taking at him. Some of them have worked out, some
of them have not, but he was the best one.
So I mean you you had a similar kind of
depth in this one in this draft as well with
some of his edge guys. Matt Dale and I are
the ones who agree on the fall or you're the

(06:04):
outlier with my J Sanders of Cincincinnati. Yeah, I mean,
to his credit, he's helped the Bearcats get where they
are over the last couple of years. And it was
a good college player. But you know, we're not giving
credit for what they did in college. You gotta project
these guys to the pros. And at six five, he
looks like Mike Evans to me not an edge defender,

(06:25):
and he's just really, really lean, and I don't think
he's really adept and playing in space or playing you know,
back and back, you going in reverse. So I just
don't think he's got enough you know, sand in his
pants to play on the line of scrimmage. And then
another thing I've noticed about him the more I've studied him,
is he has a terrible habit of jumping off sides.

(06:47):
And in itself, that's definitely bad behind him blowing him
into the line right right, right, But but it also
indicates to me that he gets a lot of his
production by guessing the snap count and winning with speed,
and that's not gonna fly at the next level. Yeah,
it's funny you mentioned the off side thing. Interesting littlantic though. Here.
Back when I was in college a hundred years ago,

(07:09):
I took a class called Football Coaching one oh one,
and the way they did it was each week a
different position coach would give the lecture, and then there
would be a quiz the next week on last week's stuff,
and then you'd learned the new stuff. And Steve Ferness,
the old defensive lineman from the Steel Curtain was head
coach George Peerless defensive line coach at Michigan State at

(07:30):
the time, so he gave the lecture on defensive lineman
and and this stuck with me low these many years later.
He said, when you play defensive line, it's important if
it's starting for not to jump off side. That's good advice,
but you know you gotta take it. I guess it's
is the point that Matt, did you ever figure out

(07:52):
why uh Sanders lost so much weight between the combine
and the Pro Day? I heard some rumblings about an illness,
but I mean, even just watching his tape at Cincinnati,
he's very lean and doesn't have a real thick to
find heavy lower body, and you just get pushed around
and the least is too physical Dale. You and I
agree that the faller is David a job, although I

(08:14):
don't think he's gonna fall as much as you expect
a guy that tours Achilles on the Pro day to fought.
This guy is fascinating to me. I think I think
he is underrated. I know Hutchinson is a great player,
but I think he I think Hutchinson has been anointed
to a certain extent for whatever reason. I think a
job has got miles and miles of upside. He's just

(08:36):
getting started. I'm curious to see how far he does fall.
I think he will a little bit, but I'm not
ready to say he doesn't get out of the first round.
In fact, in mark three point oh, Matt and I
had him going to Detroit at thirty two. Yeah, you know,
he's gonna be interesting. I had him as number three
on my original triple take at at the edge rusher position.

(08:57):
He's not gonna go there. Um, you know, I think
he ends up being the six or seventh ad dresser taken.
And so the difference there is that, you know, being
a potential top ten pick to being somewhere in the
twenties probably. So that's a pretty big fall, and it's
gonna cost him a lot of money through no fault
of his own. He tories Achilles tendon at his his
pro day workout, So you know, it's kind of a

(09:20):
cautionary tale. I know some guys since then haven't worked
out at their pro days because of that what happened
to him, because they saw it's probably gonna end up
costing him a couple of million dollars and is unfortunate,
but it is part of the process here. There's always somebody.
We've seen this in the past, where guys have gotten
hurt and fallen out of the first round. I think
he's too freaky, and I think we know more about

(09:43):
achilles injuries than we used to, and I think they're
much more treatable. It used to be a well, if
you tore your achilles, it was gonna be two years
before you were back. Now we're seeing guys come back
the same season. He should play at some point this season. Um,
but he was a raw prospect to begin with. So
I do think there's some value to using that fift
year option with a guy like a job. I as

(10:03):
opposed to taking him in the second round and then
you've only got him for four years and the first
year is kind of gonna be a wash to a
certain degree. So if you get that fifth year option
with him, I think it makes a big difference. Again,
I think the upside for this kid is almost Uh.
He's a one year player at Michigan, really, and so
there's a lot there's a lot of untapped potential there.

(10:25):
I'm gonna stay in a Big ten conference for my
sleeper bully ma Fe of Minnesota who's making a lot
of noise, and a guy who kind of started figuring
it out, uh in the latter stages of season that
he had a great senior ball and then he had
a really good combine. Matt, we're talking to a previous
episode and Dale mentioned this as well, about how some

(10:47):
of these guys are afterthoughts where in any other quote
unquote normal year, they'd be stars. But they were just great.
They weren't freaky. But Uh, this kid seems to have
a knack to me, He's figured out how not to
run ten yards behind the quarterback and take yourself too deep.
He's figured out how to attack with his hands when

(11:08):
he gets there. Uh six floor to sixty one. I
don't know if he's gonna sneak into the first round
or not. Probably not, but somebody's gonna be great, great value.
I think he has a chance. I mean, I think
they're again bringing up t. J. Watt was a ninth
edge rusher taking in two thousand seventeen. It wouldn't surprise

(11:30):
me if we see that many edge rushers go again
this year, eight or nine. So there's a shot that
a guy like a boy could could find his way
into the first round, UM, and he typically you know,
if if those guys are going in that later part
of that, they're they're going to a team that made
the playoffs last year, and so it ends up being
a pretty good situation for them. Yeah, situational, maybe not

(11:51):
as much pressure. You don't have to get thrown right in.
There's gonna be all kinds of pressure on Aidan Hutchinson
Thibodeaux to come out and be stars right away, where
a guy like my fae or even a lot a
Jobo at this point they can take their time. They
let's stick with you and get your sleeper. Uh. Has
this pick made in honor of Ben Roethlisborger. You know,

(12:12):
it's the same school Dominique Robinson of Miami of Ohio.
But he was again one of the guy that I
didn't know much about going to the the uh the
Senior Bowl and really had a good week of practices
down there. Uh six five to fifty three at the combine.
He weighed in a little heavier than that at his
pro day UM, but he had a four seven to

(12:34):
forty forty one inch vertical at six five to fifty
three I mean I get out of here with that. Uh,
it is pro day. He had a four one nine
short shuttle, which was what was up vertical. Again, does
Kellipari know this? Uh? Somebody on the Miami of Ohio
basketball team should have known that. Uh. He was a
wide receiver when he first got there. So his first

(12:55):
two years on campus he played wide receiver and cut
twenty seven passes. So there's a little bit of Joey
Porter going on here. Joey Porter was a wide receiver
at Colorado State when he got there and converted to
UH to to outside linebacker, defensive end, and then outside
linebacker for the Steelers. I see some of that with Dominque.
Robinson didn't have great production in college. Um, so there

(13:16):
there is a little bit of questions there. But again,
that's short shuttle four point one nine. That's ninety second
percentile for somebody that size. I mean, he can move
and jump, and he's an athlete very again, very raw
to position. But you could do some stuff with him
if you get him into the right program. Yeah. I
like that pick a lot, man. I got a little
ahead of myself. I was looking at your selection. Uh.

(13:38):
Josh Pascal of Kentucky and Dale. That's why I Calipery
Toll Perry has been known to some guys from other
schools too. I fall started, I didn't snap out, but uh,
some intriguing guys matt on both sides of the trenches
of Kentucky in recent seasons. Yeah, and Pascal is a
real easy guy to root for too. He's a guy

(13:59):
you want on your upball team. He's the only three
time captain in Kentucky's history. Uh. He came back from
a malignant melanoma on his foot back in two thousand eighteen.
Has been really productive since he's almost like a shorter
version of Bud Dupre in terms of body type. He's
really really thick. He plays extremely hard, really difficult to

(14:21):
move off the edge. I mean, he's just really easy
to like. Yeah, that's a good stuff as well. And uh,
that's one of those positions Dale. How many Uh Well,
t J. Watt was the ninth guy, the ninth I
wonder how the tenth one will fare this year. Five
years now, it seems like there's a lot of them again.

(14:43):
And uh, it's gonna be really interesting to see not
only where these guys go, but if they go to
a good situation if you know, if it's the right fit.
Presumably that's a team's draft for but sometimes they get
a little caught up in uh, I think chasing the
name or the for the recognition as opposed to, well,

(15:05):
this guy really does what we want to do. But
a lot of athletes out there, a lot of big
guys that can run and jump. Good luck quarterbacks moving forward,
that's gonna do it. For this edition of the Triple
Taking on her mind everyone that you can get these
and all other like programs on all the Steelers social
media platforms. You can catch Matt and Dale conspiring how

(15:28):
to agree on subsequent Take two reviews of the positions.
You can catch that on the drive on s n R.
Thanks to everyone for joining us today, however, and uh
wherever you found us, thanks for making that happen. Until
next time for Matt Williamson and Dale Wally, I'm Mike.
Pursuit of This has been the NFL Draft Triple Take,

(15:48):
presented by U P m C