April 29, 2024 • 53 mins
Eric Eager and Thomas Dimitroff discuss the #NFLDraft2024 as only they can.
1:42 The #Falcons select Michael Penix
20:50 The #Vikings trade up for J.J. McCarthy
28:30 The #Broncos take Bo Nix at 12
33:40 The #Patriots stay at 3 and take Drake Maye
43:50 No quarterbacks taken rounds 2-4
49:00 Favorite draft classes
1:42 The #Falcons select Michael Penix
20:50 The #Vikings trade up for J.J. McCarthy
28:30 The #Broncos take Bo Nix at 12
33:40 The #Patriots stay at 3 and take Drake Maye
43:50 No quarterbacks taken rounds 2-4
49:00 Favorite draft classes
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:34):
All right, welcome to the SummerSports Show. I'm Eric Eager. I
am joined by Thomas de Mittrov.Thomas, we are back. We are
here to review the twenty twenty fourNFL Draft. Thank you all, by
the way for coming to our draftshow on Thursday, all of the post
draft analysis stuff that we've been doing. Thanks you to everybody who's been following
(00:58):
us along on the series XM Showevery Friday. We are still going to
do a show this Friday as well. Thomas, just a few questions,
like this whirlwind that has been theNFL Draft. I know you were on
Kay Adams this morning your Jim Romelast hour. A little bit of a
(01:18):
whirlwind, especially considering your former team, the Falcons make a draft pick at
the quarterback position for the first timein the first round since you took Matt
Ryan. What's going on? Man, man, look Ay, it's great
to be back. I feel likewe're home a little bit. So I'm
glad we're doing the pod today foreveryone out there. I really appreciate all
(01:40):
your support on it. I thinkit's really cool regarding the draft, regarding
Atlanta and what's going on there.Obviously there's a lot there. I feel
like these national national media people thatare reaching out are trying to dig a
little bit deeper into it from aperspective having been around Atlanta. You're around
Atlanta now too, though. You'rehearing a lot and seeing a lot here
(02:02):
in your community right now, beinga tried and true Atlanta community person.
And every time I turn the corner, someone is saying something about this pic
polarizing. Is that the right word? I maybe it is. I don't
think that's negative. Picks are polarizing. Yeah, it's funny. My wife
texted me Stephanie's who's you know?She was substitute teaching on Friday, and
(02:24):
she's, you know, we gotback late on Thursday night, right,
so no one was up to talkto us about anything. And of course
my wife texted me like around noonthe next day and she's like, Eric,
what did the Falcons do? AndI was like, Uh, they
took a quarterback and no one expectedthem to take And she's like, yeah,
(02:45):
because like everybody at school is talkingabout Michael Pennix, and I think
that that's like a fair characterization.I was on this network called The Hammer,
the Hammer Betting Network, and theywere asking all of us to do
a little bit of a mock draft, and they did a mock to kind
of like what you would do versuswhat you think will happen. And I
(03:05):
had the Falcons at eight, andI took JJ McCarthy with the what I
would do situation because I and youand I have talked about this, and
I think you were ahead of this. Like I don't necessarily think Kirk Cousins
is the long term answer quarterback.I think that the big surprise is the
quarterback they took. Right if ifyou're coming into it in March with the
(03:29):
eveil that they had, and sothey had in you know, the reports
are coming out that they had theevil on Pennix as the second best quarterback
in the draft, and that's allwell and good. You're allowed to have
that eval of course, now Pennixis twenty four going on twenty five.
So I think that people are worriedabout, Okay, you go to Cousins
(03:50):
one hundred million, guaranteed two years, you're kind of locked into him.
By the time you get to MichaelPennix, he's twenty six. That's the
kind of question some people are having. I think quarterback is fine if McCarthy's
the pick and he's twenty three bythe time you get to him. So
that's like I think where people area little bit like kind of trying to
(04:12):
connect the dots like Pennix is agood prospect. I think, very good
accuracy numbers, very good usage numbers, great pressure to sack ratio, a
lot of good things going for thekid. Kirk Cousins is a very good
bridge quarterback at worst and a verygood starting caliber quarterback. They can get
you to the playoffs at best.And yet like the puzzle pieces here are
(04:36):
a little bit off I think fora lot of people. And so that's
I think where the question marks comein, and I think that they're real.
I think that they're realistic question marksand it's not that you know,
again, this could work out.And I think Terry's quotes at the end
I think puzzled people a little bitmore where he said if he sits for
(04:57):
five years, then weren't a goodplace because I mean, doing great at
the position. So I just thinkthat the whole thing was a little was
a little weird. But I don'tthink them wanting a quarterback was silly,
and I don't think them wanting KirkCousins was silly, and I don't think
that them liking Michael Pennix was silly. It's just the combination of it kind
of kind of jarred people a littlebit. I think, Yeah, I
(05:18):
think you hit the nail on thehead. There's it's it's jarring for certain
people. I was going to takea step back, and it's easy.
Let's call this way. It's easyto pile on, right all, we
all get in that mode when we'rewatching him. It's easy to pile on
what is going on. First ofall, as you mentioned, I think
it's important to know Michael Pennix isa very good football player and as long
(05:40):
as his injuries play out well,right, I know he's defended that.
You have a really good football playerto grow with, albeit a little bit
older, right I When now,let's jump back to the idea of taking
on Kirk Cousins as you're your heirapparent here and there wasn't a whole bunch
of air pairs to be done here, right, I mean, he's not
(06:01):
taking over for a situation that wasclose. I think this organization. I'm
not speaking for Arthur Blank, butknowing Arthur knowing how competitive he is.
They want to win and they wantto win now, right, that's a
big thing. And I think aswe're looking at this, they know how
important it is to bring a quarterbackin for Rahie Morris as a first time
(06:25):
head coach or a second time headcoach coming back in here, and Terry
Fott knowing his third year. Thisgroup knows that they need to win.
They need to win the fan baseback, and they want to win games.
And they don't only think Eric,that this is going to be a
three, four or five six winseason. Their plans on having Kirk Cousin
in here, I would imagine,not that anyone told me that out of
(06:46):
their building. Of course, Iwant to make that clear that this is
this is a lot of wins.This is deep into the playoffs and maybe
make it a run for the superBowl. You're not paying forty five million
plus for someone who's just a rando, right, He's not that he obviously,
So I think just for a lotof people to understand there is means
to their approach. It's not justlike they weren't thinking I know this that
(07:11):
building, even though it's polarizing outside, Eric, I don't believe it's polarizing
within the building. They all know, they all talk about scenario building.
Arthur Blank's very involved in the way, not picking the player, of course,
but they keep him updated on it, and that's a great thing for
that organization. When I saw allthose pictures out there Eric, where Terry
(07:31):
was trying to explain to him,my hunch is, at least as I
know it, I can't imagine that'snecessarily what they were doing. I think
they're probably talking about next plans goinginto the next rounds, whatever it may
be. Yeah, and you're thelast general manager to build a team that
has wanted a vision as a memberof the Atlanta Falcons. And right now
(07:54):
we're looking at the betting markets herecourtesy of FanDuel, the Falcons are the
favorite to win then at minus onetwenty. They're a favorite against the field.
So the the goal that they wantedto achieve when signing Kirk Cousins so
far Thomas has been achieved. They'rethe favorites and and and quite heavily so
(08:15):
right there. If you look Thomasat these other divisions, you know San
Francisco's a bigger favorite to win theirdivision than they are Detroit's not, Dallas
is not. Kansas City's a biggerfavorite to win their division, Baltimore's not,
Houston's not, Buffalo's not. Sothe you know, when you look
at the Atlanta Falcons, only threeteams are bigger favorites to win their own
(08:37):
division than they are. And sothe signing of Kirk Cousins has accomplished what
they've wanted, which is, you'vewon seven or fewer games every single year
since Thomas, Dibitchrov and Dan Quinnleft and that that's, you know,
so you're trying to get over youknow, the hump there and and you
(09:01):
know, a cash can be rightall he wants with the line being wrong.
And I think our simulation at SUMERSports would tend to say that they're
being a little heavy on the Falconshere. But they signed kirk Cousins to
get over the hump and win adivision that is winnable, which they weren't
able to do last year. Andthat's one of the reasons why Rahee Morris
the head coach and and not Arthur'sArthur Smith. Now the other part of
(09:24):
the equation, Thomas, and whythey you know, why they had to
sign Kirk Cousins in the first placeis because since you were there, they've
never and you would admit to this, they've never taken the young quarterback to
back up Matt Ryan, right,and and so they've never had that guy
in place to be this second company, to be the heir apparent. And
(09:46):
that goes back to again, whenTerry had a chance in twenty twenty one
to take Justin fields, they tookthe tight end instead. And it's kind
of perpetuated itself. So what they'retrying to do is kind of satisfy both
masters. This is a town wherethe Braves are really good, right.
The Atlanta Hawks are in the playoff, you know, they're in the least
in the playoff, in the playoffplaying game, and they want they want
(10:09):
to think that stadium is a stadiumwhere it's so nice and so spacious that
sometimes no one's watching the football game, and so they want to be They
want to they want somebody in thereto watch the football game. And then
they want to build a sustainable future. And Kirk Cousins is thirty five years
old off of torn achilles. It'sjust to me, I think people are
questioning the particular pick but I don'tknow, like Pennis very well could be
(10:33):
a better quarterback prospect than bo Nick'sor JJ McCarthy. Well, yeah,
so let's talk about this. Youand I listened to it this morning.
It was almost outrageous. Outrageous,meaning if you listen to Michael Lombardi's delivery
on this, it's I mean,he was just enthused, full of passion.
(10:54):
He obviously was is completely behind hisloyal friendship with Bill Belichick. Of
course, that was a strong twentyminutes of passion from him. But let's
just step back and dig through thepassion for a minute and talk about what
he was talking about, and thatwas this idea that's been discussed quite a
bit. Why, yes, theyneed to win games. They need to
(11:18):
win games now. Of course,there's always been that in the back of
their mind. What if a thirtysix year old pops his other achilles just
because your minds go there, right, Michael was talking a lot about how
they approached it. Why didn't theyalready know that this quarterback was available and
he was as good as he wasthat he might be available, and they're
(11:39):
going to be sitting at a sweetspot. What do you feel about that?
Approach the And this is not aboutMichael's his dig at Terry Fine though,
It's more about the idea. Let'slet's break through all of that for
a minute. The idea of thatwhen you're when you're going into free agency
and you know that this quarterback ispotentially available, do you still, from
(12:03):
your perspective, snap that free agenttag off the board and go after ninety
million dollar commitment? Well, what'sthe alternative? I mean, Desmond Ritter
was somewhat of a plot for them. I mean, you know, Sam
Howell was available, and I knowMichael had a take that he thought that
Sam Howell was a better alternative toWashington than Jaden Daniels was right. So
(12:24):
it shows the variability and quarterback opinionsamong even people who have sat in that
chair before. I think that youknow, it's it's a lot to put
on a rookie quarterback's shoulders, right, if you are Terry Fonto, you
are on year four of your generalmanager tenure? Are you going to put
(12:45):
that on? And and we've alreadyseen this and it's not quite the same,
but because Raheem is a second timehead coach, but let's assume because
there's been over ten years since hewas a head coach. Before we've done.
The number defensive head coaches who drafta quarterback with their first pick are
have about a one in three.It's a lower success rate than normal,
(13:09):
and I think part of that isbecause they know how to build a defense
and they're not using the tools,which are high picks on their craft.
Right. And you talk about thiswith Dan all the time, where he
didn't get to you guys drafted high, but it was always higher players on
offense, you know, the JakeMatthews of the world and stuff. And
(13:31):
so it's a weird situation where youdraft a high quarterback and he's going into
the hands in this case of ZachRobinson is the great football mind. But
Zach Robinson, let's say he goesin and he turns Michael Penis into Rookie
of the Year. Well, where'sZach Robinson going. He's going to be
the head coach of some other teamnext year. And so now Raheem and
(13:52):
Terry now have to scramble to getthis to get Michael Penix's next coordinator.
And so I think that like youdown, and it's just risky to put
you know a must win season.Frankly in the case of Fontana, less
so for the case of Morris intothe hands of a young quarterback as good
as I think Michael Pennix can be. And so I think that having Cousins
(14:15):
there, everybody knows Kirk Cousins isa shoe in to be eight to ten
wins every year. And if youget ten wins with this Falcons team,
everybody's gonna be happy here, right. Everybody wants this Falcons seem to be
relevant because it really has it beenfor the last three or four years.
And so that's I think the point. And and so they're trying to serve
two masters. And here's the otherthing. And no one wants to hear
(14:37):
this because and especially not like youknow, probably not you, because you
love, you know, the wholegame, you love scouting everything, and
I'm kind of more of the analyticsguy. But if Michael Penix hits or
if Kirk Cousins hits, none ofus, none of us matters. Right.
If Kirk Cousins throws for forty touchdownsthis year, the fact that they
didn't take Dallas Turner at eight doesn'tmatter, because there's gonna be so much
(15:00):
meat left on the bone for them, that you know, and if Kirk
Cousin sucks, and if Michael Pennicksucks, it's not gonna you know what
I'm saying. So like they're tryingto get the biggest problem out of the
way, which is quarterback. Andjust like you did in two thousand and
eight, right, if Matt Ryandidn't hit in two thousand and eight,
Like we're not talking about the storylike in certain ways, right, and
(15:20):
so you get the first problem outof the way. Again, I'm not
trying to play an apologist for them. I'm just more trying to see it
from their perspective, which is getthe first problem out of the way,
which is short term quarterback, longterm quarterback. And in the case of
Penix, like I tend to believethat he could be good short term.
(15:41):
But if I'm Terry Fonto, ifI'm putting my career on it, maybe
I'm less likely to believe that.Well. I think he also had to
think about Raheem Morris is coming ina second time head coach, first time
with the Falcons. Of course,highly energetic, highly positive. The organization
wants to be upbeat him. Positivein a good way kind of it harkens
(16:03):
back to times with dan Quinn Wright, a lot of positivity. Like you
said, this is not about apologizingbecause it is a complicated situation. We
know that academically. You know thatacademically, and the group that's listening does
trying to figure out why is whatwe're discussing here. And I think it's
important to have both of those sidesof the coin to talk about Eric versus
(16:26):
just bad polarizing pick why are theydoing it? They're not thoughtful on it.
This is not about that right now, It's about Okay again, Raheem
comes in. You want to turnthat fan base around, So how do
you do it? Arthur Blank?Back to my point earlier, he is
willing to give, right, ArthurBlank has always put his complete life into
(16:48):
providing for the Falcons. He nevercame up short with money for me as
a general manager, not not mepersonally, but for us to go out
and do things. This is anothercase of that, right. I mean,
he will pay to give this organizationthe best opportunity, and time will
tell if it was the best.Uh yeah, I would say, though,
and I do think like very difficulthis his he I mean, we
(17:11):
are rationalized in this decision. Thisis a decision that I don't think either
one of us necessarily would have made. And it's a decision that it's a
decision again that I think people areright to question, and it's okay to
question, and it's okay to MondayMorning quarterback these things because for one,
(17:32):
it's sports and it's supposed to befun and and you know that there's an
element of explaining something, explaining tryingto explain something. Maybe Again, I'm
not trying to say it's right.I'm just trying to explain maybe what's going
through that going through people's heads here. And you know, I'm one of
(17:52):
the biggest Kirk Cousins. I wouldn'tsay haters, but like I always thought
the Kirk Cousins contract in Minnesota heldthem back, and I do think think
that in Atlanta, the goals aredifferent. Right When when Kirk signed with
the Vikings in twenty eighteen, thatteam was thirteen and three, they were
in the NFC Championship Game. Hewas supposed to help them win a Super
Bowl. This Falcons team has wonseven games. Reviewer for four or five
(18:15):
years in a row. He's supposedto get them eight or nine wins,
which is what Kirk Cousin specializes in, and so I think that's that signing
makes more sense for them. ThisPenick sign this Penix draft pick, along
with the Cousins signing, is somethingthat makes kind of everybody's eyebrows go up
quite a bit, and so totry to explain it from their perspective as
(18:37):
if they're just planning for the future, and I think people are rightly questioning,
well, how the Penix's age andthat kind of thing. Now,
I will say this on Penix's front, he has not gotten hurt the last
two years enough to miss games.I do think he was injured a little
bit last year, which hurt hisperformance down the stretch, but people give
him the off injured label. Hehas been healthy for most of the last
(18:57):
few years, and so I dothink, especially considering how how little he
takes sacks, it's a I thinkit's an overblown narrative for him. But
again, this is a This isa puzzling pick when it happened, and
it'll be interesting to see what theFalcons end up with as a result of
this. Just to finish on this, and we understand that this this fan
(19:22):
base right has been talking about alegitimate pass rusher. So when your head's
around that, and they didn't geta chance to address necessarily the bona fide
pass rusher that they were looking foror that was rumored to happen, right,
So they go after their second pick. They move up, by the
way, which you know exactly howto pronounce his name. I don't,
(19:42):
so I'm going to let you attemptit. But before we move on,
that's where I think some of thethe agitation comes as well, who's going
to rush the passer this year?And yeah, for sure, yeah,
And I actually am not very goodat it announcing that the defensive lineman picks
(20:03):
Ruke o'caroru from Clemson, another Clemsonpass rusher. The last time a Clemson
pass rusher went in the first tworounds, he led the NFL and sacks,
which was your guy Vic Beasley,who actually right now is playing for
the Arlington Renegades of the UFL.But that's an interior rusher. They had
not gotten good. I mean,you you say it as much yourself.
(20:23):
It was like this team has struggledgetting edge pressure all the way back to
John Abraham right all the way backto you know, even Vic Beasley,
you know for his moments. Edgepressure doesn't grow on trees. And there
were Dallas Turner like to Latsu JaredVerse. Now those two, those three
men went fifteen or later, whichwould suggest that the Falcons could have gotten
(20:45):
them by trading back. But atthe same time, you know, who
knows what the market would have been. I do want to transition because that
does transition into this one. Also, because the Minnesota Vikings at ten,
with the trade up with the Jets, took J. J. McCarthy.
From what I can tell you,they like McCarthy quite a bit. It
(21:06):
sounds like from reports that they wantedDrake May. There was no appetite for
New England to trade back with them, even though the Vikings offered eleven twenty
three next year's first so three firstround picks to move up, as well
as some pick swaps that were advantageous. I also think that there was a
chance, now I have not heardthis reported, I had not heard this
(21:29):
off the record at all. Butthere's also probably a chance that they wanted
Pennix. That's another reason why theFalcons probably just took them at eight as
opposed to trading back. I'm justreading the kind of board here. The
Vikings stay and take JJ McCarthy nowquarterback five on the board again, a
younger guy, less usage, kindof the exact opposite player of who Michael
(21:52):
Pennix is now. From the Vikingsperspective, it's quite a bit different of
a situation. The thing about theVikings in this situation is it's kind of
the opposite, right, Like,the Vikings have had thirteen win seasons,
they've kind of pressed up against theNFC Championship game in the last five six
(22:15):
years, but they've also kind ofbottomed out here. They're the fourth best
team in this division per odds.They're looking up at the Bears, who
just got Caleb Williams and Roma Dunesin this draft. They're looking up at
the Packers who just had, youknow, Jordan Love emerged this year,
who just were in the Divisional round. And they're looking up at Detroit,
who was one bad half a footballaway from being in the Super Bowl.
(22:36):
They needed a swing for the fence, and it looked like they wanted to
with Drake May. Now they haveJJ McCarthy. It looks like McCarthy is
gonna sit in year one, andit looks like reports are it's due to
the fact that Quacy at Applamensa andKevin O'Connell have done extensive studies on the
benefits of sitting in year one.Now there is not a ton of evidence
(22:57):
for the benefits of sitting in yearone. And you know this as good
as anybody. You put Matt Ryanout there day one, three point underdogs
against the team in Detroit who wouldnot win a game all year, and
he went out and he won tengames for you right away. When you
think about JJ McCarthy and his justlack of data in college, don't you
(23:18):
just want to throw them out therein year one, and just especially considering
expectations are gonna be low from Minnesotathis year, do you just want to
throw them out there and play?Yeah, I'm a play now guy.
This has to do with what I'vetalked to you many times about Eric not
for long league. Even more sothan ever. It means making sure that
you're seeing what he's capable of soonerthan later. I know that some people
(23:41):
think that's premature. If you putthe right team together, your creative how
you do it. You take somepressure off of him by not expecting him
to do everything and be the world. I think making sure that you have
strong people around him and being creativeis a big big deal and getting them
out there. I'm I'm a fanof moving forward to try to get him
(24:03):
early reps, no question. Yeah, I just I just think about it
from because look like we have thePatrick Mahons SAT a year a year,
We have Jordan Love SAT three years. Both guys ended up being you know,
from all you know great, Butwe also have Paxson Lynch SAT.
We also have Trey Lance SAT,and we have you know, when you
look at the data, it's aboutequal guys who SAT end up being good
(24:26):
end up not being good. Ithink about it from Trey Lance's perspective.
Trey Lance has almost no data tohis name, goes to San Francisco,
doesn't really play much, gets hurt, doesn't really play much, and doesn't
develop. And so I I'm justthinking to myself, you have two great
tackles in Brian O'Neill and Christian Darasaw. You have Jordan Addison, Justin Jefferson
(24:49):
T. J. Hawkinson, whoyou spent premium capital and they're probably gonna
give Jefferson a contract extension soon.What bet way that what better way to
get reps and you play indoors,What better way to get reps in this
NFL and to figure out if you'regood or not then to just go out
there and play right away, especiallyconsidering they have running backs like ty Chandler
(25:12):
are pretty good. They brought inAaron Jones from Green Bay like, they're
going to be able to run,play action, They're gonna be able to
do these things that will make himcomfortable. I know, Sam darnalds are.
I know they spent ten million dollarson him, but to me,
I think it would be a blunderif they sat him. It's and your
futures instricably tied to him, andyou might as well find out as quickly
(25:36):
as possible. Yeah, And Ithink finance as quickly as possible means again,
making sure that you have the rightpeople around They have legitimate people around
him. To your point, right, However, when there's kind of this
new wave of people talking about maybethe the Green Bay Packers approach is a
way that everyone should approach it movingforward. But that's very different right behind
(26:00):
a guy like you know, playingbehind a guy like Aaron Rodgers. Right,
it's not the same. There aredifferent there's different elements to it.
Right, when you're around a guywho's one of the best quarterbacks to play
the game versus some of them thatare more mid line players in my mind,
So I love the competitiveness of thiskid. I know he's happy to
(26:22):
be there and everyone's happy for him. I wonder, truly if they did
want Michael Pennix. Very interesting tothink about that, but it is what
it is now. I think youroll forward on it. Like I said,
I think you get him playing rightaway as soon as possible. Yeah,
I just think that you're right.I mean, it is totally different
when the guy is even Alex Smith, who you know. Alex Smith led
(26:47):
the league in passing the year thatMahomes sat behind him. Alex Smith had
led the team to twelve wins theyear before they drafted Mahomes. Alex Smith
is kind of the starter that youhave that you you Alex Smith is like
the starter that you want to replacewhen you can't win a Super Bowl.
But he's good enough to play overa guy like Mahomes for one year,
(27:11):
even though as a Chiefs fan,I would have rather than played Mahomes and
see, you know, taking theirchances that year. It makes it makes
sense. Rogers again makes sense.Back in the day, the Bears drafted
Jim Harball while they still had JimMcMahon. They they, you know,
the the nine Years, drafted JimDrunckenviller while they still at Steve Young like
there are tons of these examples.The Broncos drafted Tommy Maddox while they still
(27:33):
had John Elway, like there areI think those are fine, especially when
your team is is good. Whenyou take the luxury pick on a quarterback
in the case when it's like SamDarnold or Chad Henny or you're just you're
just delaying the inevitable in my opinion, And and and in this situation where
the guy ends up being pretty good, Thomas, you waste games, right
(27:53):
because you can start at zero tothree and finish the year you know,
seven and whatever, and then youmissed the playoffs based upon games that the
first guy started that he should havebeen starting. It's a great point.
It's a great point. We'll beinteresting to see how they play it out
though, right, and they havesome veteran people there, as you know,
with guys like you know, there'rejust some guys on their staff of
(28:15):
course that are probably pressing for itin a certain way with Quasi to see
what's going to go on, andRyan, you know, Grigson, you
know, guys like that who aretried and true football people be interesting to
know what their play is on it. Yeah, let's let's talk because we
got a good question from difficult here. He said, if you need a
quarterback and don't trade up, howmuch of a reach does the player have
(28:37):
to be for it to actually bea bad pick? Asking for the Broncos,
there's a little bit of a leadingquestion because bo Nix was expected to
go at about thirty two. Wewent at twelve. We've seen that happen
a few times, Like Christian Pondercomes to mind as a guy who went
exactly twelve to the Vikings. DanteCulpepper was another one two, so you
get both sides of the point Callpepperended up being pretty good. Ponder didn't.
(29:00):
The Broncos didn't have a second roundpick, so that was gonna be
when they took their quarterback or ifthey traded back. But trading back didn't.
There weren't that many trades in thefirst round Thomas right, So I
think Nicks, you know, Nickswas certainly in the basin of quarterbacks where
I'm not going to skewer them fordoing it, but it did seem a
(29:22):
little bit rich for my blood totake him at twelve. He has some
good trades, He's a little older, but he does fit into what Sean
Payton wants to do. Where doyou see this one? I think the
Broncos are going to do the rightthing and just play him right away through
thick and thin. Where do yousee that one going? Because I see
some possible I see a possible successstory here. Even though the Broncos are
(29:45):
not a great place for young quarterbackto play right away because they're still reeling
off off of the Russell Wilson tradeand the dead money and having to trade
Judy and having to trade, youknow, let go of some of their
defense. They're going to struggle asa team. But I think Bo Nicks
individually might get some of the bestcoaching than any of these young guys get
from Sean Payton. I think theSean Peyton bow Knicks thing is quite positive.
(30:10):
In my mind. You know,I've talked about him from the beginning
of evaluating these guys. He isa guy that was on my mind as
of being an interesting guy. Yes, a little bit older, but he's
mature, he's tough. He's agood athlete. He's going to run the
ball when he needs to run it, and he'll jam it down people's throat
if he has to. He's atough, competitive person on as both the
(30:33):
runner of course when he has to, but also as a guy who's going
to throw the ball. He's asmart football player who's a system guy,
which I think is really good forSean. I like it. I also
think it's good even though some peoplethink you could have traded back two,
three, five picks. Look,when you're a general manager, I get
that. But also when you thinkthere might be a run on quarterbacks and
(30:56):
there's no one else out there,and you know how important quarterback is to
you, you're damn right you willfocus on three, four or five picks.
Is almost like nothing, as oddas that sounds, right, I
know there's a lot of talk aboutit, but in Lou missing on a
player like that, because I'm surehe would have gone by I don't know
the next two or three with theRaiders in the next pick right their divisions.
(31:19):
So jump up, take care ofbusiness and know that you have a
coach that can probably out there.He's one of the best coaches to teach
a guy like this to continue tolearn. Again, there's a veteran element
to this guy that is good.I think the team needs it. I
think George Peyton, who have talkedabout many times, that was a tough,
tough goal with him with Russell Wilson, but here he is now in
(31:41):
a good, solid sound spot herefor them to continue to grow and to
kind of right the quarterback situation thatwas a little, not a lot challenging
in the last couple of years.Yeah, I think the Broncos, you
know, not to not to betoo shameless here, but I think the
Broncos are really the type of teamthat would really benefit from some of the
some of the work we're doing hereat SUMER, of course, because they're
(32:04):
not working with the full deck ofcards as far as resources. Right the
draft picks, I mean, theyneeded to send draft picks over to New
Orleans just to get Peyton, ofcourse, and they've had to trade players
off to make sure that they haveyou know, they're under the cap and
cap complying over the next two yearsto deal with the dead money. I
mean, they can't spend any moneyright now because they had to post June
one, Russell Wilson when they letthem go in the first place, and
(32:25):
so forth. So you know,as far as building this team, they're
gonna have to get creative. They'regonna have to, you know, spot,
They're gonna have to do things thata lot of teams don't simply don't
need to do. And luckily forthem, they have the Waltons. You
know, they have ownership that willbe generous as as per the Sean Payton
(32:46):
acquisition, So that's a good thing. There are some teams, you know,
you know, you think about KansasCity, you think about Dallas,
you think about teams that aren't spendinga ton of money on a cash basis,
And then you talk about teams likelike you said, Atlanta with Arthur,
and Cleveland and Philadelphia and Minnesota andand now you know, Denver who
(33:07):
are willing to spend and pro ratehave an advantage in these cases. But
even then, like you still arehave to be cap compliant, and Denver
has to do some things I thinkthat are gonna be a little bit uh
sharper because of what they're dealing with. Now. If boon Nicks hits to
the point I made about Pennix,it's gonna be easier, right, Just
(33:29):
the same as when Patrick Mahomes hit. A lot of the Chief's mistakes were
papered over by by his brilliance,and so that that should be a good
thing. I want to go backto New England here because this your your
former place, Elliott Wolfe Girodmeo.You know, my narrative was, I
didn't think New England was good enoughto to take a quarterback at three.
(33:52):
I was, of course, Iwas disagreed with they took a quarterback at
three. They I thought they hada really good draft up and down.
They took players of value, kindof Jalen Paul. I thought that they
did a good job all draft,and so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they
were able to restock this roster withthis particular draft, and Drake may has
a chance. In addition, theyhave you know, Mayo and so forth.
(34:15):
The coaching staff can be It's hardfor me to believe that this coaching
staff can be better than Belichick's coachingstaff. But you know, I felt
like they needed to build the rosterup with picks. From having the third
pick. They got big offers.They got a big offer from the Giants,
they got a big offer from theVikings. They took May instead.
(34:37):
Everybody liked May. From what Ican tell, The Vikings like May,
the Giants like May, A bunchof teams like May. It. Now
that we've seen the die cast herestill the right move for them to take
a quarterback at three. I likethe move at three. I've said this
as well. I think Elliott Wolfcomes from stock his dad, who was
(34:58):
a Hall of Fame team builder inthe NFL. They know the importance of
bona fide, legitimate talent at thequarterback position. There hasn't been one there
in the last few years, ofcourse, one that they can hang their
hat on and grow with for yearsto come. Yes, there are elements
to Drake May that need some work. Like all of these quarterbacks, as
(35:20):
good as they are, I lovethis draft class because I think there's a
lot to come to the table andbuild on. Yes, he might need
a little bit of work on hison his footwork, et cetera, et
cetera. But this is about everything, right, This is about the full
full package here. As much aspeople say, oh, I should have
moved back and got a lot,I get that, respectfully to you all
(35:40):
on the data side where you seethe benefit of it, but the opportunity
to get someone like this, you'renot getting them next in next year's draft.
Of course, I'm saying you're notgetting the same talent group. And
so I think it is the rightthing for them to do. And I
wouldn't have I wouldn't have made themove myself. As attractive as it is.
(36:01):
You look at it, Eric,you consider it, but you also
consider there's no way to win inthis league without a quarterback. You can't
win, in my mind, andbe a legit team with a middling quarterback.
I think that that's so refreshing foryou to say, because you have
(36:22):
like I don't how many how manyfootball people like so I consider you're obviously
very progressive, and you know we'reobviously have this you know, working relationship,
this friendship, and so we wewe're back and forth on stuff.
But you are a die in thewool football person, right, and and
and yet you you you said somethingthat I think all analytics people would agree
(36:45):
with one hundred percent, which isthe quarterback is all that matters to a
certain extent. I mean, notall that matters, but it's the it's
the it's the it's the necessary condition, not a sufficient condition, but a
necessary condition. How many is sowe just saw a draft where six quarterbacks
weren't the first twelve picks. Isthat I started to wane on my opinion
(37:08):
that the NFL believed what you justsaid, which is that you can't win
without a premium quarterback. And yetin this draft we just got we got
rebutted on that, Like the NFLjust bellied up to the bar and said
no, like, we're going totry. We're going to try to get
our franchise quarterback. Because I feltlike over the last few years, and
(37:30):
this is one of the reasons whyI was skeptical that we get all six
guys in the first round, becauseI felt like, over the last few
years, we saw guys pass onMike you know, we pass on Will
Levis, We saw guys like passon Malik Willis and guys and maybe just
just they're better at evaluating quarterbacks inthe public and they're just like those guys
suck. But can you expound uponlike that does appear to be Elliott Wolfe's
(37:50):
opinion? Ron wolfsn right, thatyou cannot win without a great quarterback.
And do you think that the majorityof the league now has that opinion?
And not only that opinion, butthe one that you said, which I
think is a little stronger. Youcannot win without a quarterback who isn't a
blue chip type player, a toptwelve draft pick. Yes, and remember
(38:14):
you're talking about not only the skillsthat Drake May has on the field,
representing as a team member going intothis is great for the for the New
England Patriots, right. I mean, he's a smart guy. He's a
top notch leadership type individual guy.So when you're a general manager and a
neophyte general manager, and believe me, I've been a neophyte general manager,
(38:37):
there's a lot to that you don'tyou're learning you've known a lot because again,
Elliot's been around his father a longtime. They talked about this,
you better take a shot at it. Back to not for long. You
get usually one opportunity as a asa as a GM to pull a legit
big time pick at the quarterback position. You probably get too shots to run
(39:00):
the situation as a coach. Youknow, to hire your coach this quarterback
situation. If you're going to messup, you better mess up on trying
for a guy that you know hasa lot on the table. The probability
is what how many of this groupof six is it three or four that
(39:20):
are going to not work out?Three? Maybe four? Depending? I
think the expectation is probably four,right, that don't work and two guys
end up being bang up quarterbacks,right, just like the you know most
And it's interesting we had I hadBill Pollian on a different podcast and he
was saying that the difference between thenand now is we pushed so many quarterbacks
(39:42):
into Round one that you know,some of those guys would have been Round
two guys later because of the waythat they cost, and so the hit
rates are lower now. But yeah, I mean the hit rates are going
to be a little Yeah, fora six quarterback draft, it's going to
be probably two or three that aregoing to work. And I'll take that
because it's not just about one orzero like when Matt Ryan hit for you,
(40:07):
it was a thirteen year career.It's not just oh, I you
know, way to go. It'sa long term successful Falcons had never had
back to back winning seasons and nowall of a sudden they have three straight
winning seasons, you know what I'msaying, or four straight, five straight
and then and you're you're going throughthat and it ends up being the return
(40:29):
is so phenomenal when you hit ona guy New England. They hit on
Drew Bledsoe in nineteen ninety three,then they hit on Tom Brady in two
thousand and one, and you're talkingabout thirty years of the franchise almost moving
to Saint Louis and then now beinglike one of the best most profitable,
you know, franchises in sports history. Right, Like when you hit on
(40:49):
a quarterback, these all these thingsshall be added on to you and that
so it's totally worth it to gofor these guys. And remember all that
you're saying is so correct. Itis a lot easier, sorry, and
more beneficial of course, to havea quarterback who is a good quarterback or
a good to very good, verygood to excellent quarterback versus you know,
(41:10):
solid when you're picking players, right, it makes that pick for a tight
end that much better for you,or that pick for the receiver, or
that pick for the running back oryour O line. When you have a
package guy like this, that canchange the production and the skills and the
talent and the end all hit onthe other positions. I truly believe that
(41:31):
if you have some very good footballplayers coming in, when you have a
middling quarterback, it just makes everythingso complicated, and the players that you
think are going to thrive, theytend to take a step back because they
just don't have that quarterback talent aroundthem to shoot for the next level.
And it can be you want totalk about something that drives you nuts as
(41:54):
a team builder when you don't havea quarterback playing for you. Again,
this is obvious, but I'm justsaying, the stresses in that organization from
day to day, month to month, season to season, and year to
year, I can't even begin.And that also goes to the owner,
right, you have an owner inyour ear all the time. That's not
(42:15):
a fun place to be, ofcourse, Well, it just makes everything
so much harder. To your point, like I remember talking to one of
my friends in the league, andyou know, I had done this research
on weak links and how important itis to have your weakest player and like,
so, for example, the fivemen on your offensive line, the
most important one as far as itsstatistically is the fifth one, the fifth
(42:37):
best one is Your offense goes asthey go. But the fact is,
if your best lineman is next tothe fifth best lineman, it makes the
fifth best lineman better. And andto your point about quarterbacks is like,
if your quarterback can protect his offensiveline, he makes the whole offensive line,
including your fifth best offensive line better. So as a team builder,
(42:59):
you're better at picking You're all ofa sudden better at picking the worst offensive
lineman on your team because your quarterback'sbetter at covering him. Up to your
point about tight ends, the samething with tight ends, like that first
round tight end, like brock Baueris a great player, he goes to
Vegas, Who the hell is throwinghim the ball? Is a good question
as far as whether or not brockBauers is going to work out, same
thing with like all these tight endsthat have gone in the top ten you
(43:22):
know in the past that have failedwell of course, David and djok who
is going to struggle with Cleveland whenCody Kessler, Deshaun Kaiser and all these
other guys are throwing in the ball. You know, it's you know,
and so there's there's elements to that. I know you talked about on k
Adams Show about you know, tradingup and trading down, Like if you
trade up for a guy and yourteam's already good, he's gonna do better
(43:44):
than if you trade up for aguy and your team's not very good.
Like, there's there's elements to thisthat are that are apparent. The last
thing I want to talk about,and I know we've been pretty quarterback centric
on this is nineteen eighty three wasthe last time we had six quarterbacks in
round one. Interestingly, in thatdraft, there also was no quarterback taken
in rounds two, three, andfour. That same thing happened this year.
(44:08):
So no quarterbacks went in the nineteeneighty three draft in rounds two,
three, and four, and noquarterbacks went two, three and four in
this round either. So you know, Spencer Rattler went the fifth round and
Michael Pratt went the seventh round.We talked about Michael Pratt on the on
the Serious Show. We had afew other quarterbacks in the fifth sixth and
seventh round. How how do youinterpret that? Because there's no way that
(44:31):
there's that big of a gap betweenSpencer Ratler and Bonix from a talent standpoint,
So how how do you do yousee that? As teams are just
not willing to kind of do whatthe Eagles did with Jalen Hurtz what the
Commander back then they were called somethingdifferent, but the Commanders did with Kirk
(44:52):
Cousins in RG three? Are teamsjust not willing to put kind of a
young guy with some potential back there? Because I look at this league and
I watched kind of the pace ofplay last year. There was the average
game had less than forty four pointsin it, And I think, how
(45:12):
many starting quarterbacks did we have alot? And I'm looking at this draft
and I love the fact that sixquarterbacks going round one. I'm less crazy
about the fact that no quarterbacks wentrounds two, three, and four.
Do we have a quarterback development problem? Or is it just is it rational
to wait until round five to getyour kind of developmental player? I think
the latter. I think the peoplethat needed the quarterback were going and they
(45:37):
ostensibly could have been pushing their needas we've talked about, right in other
years, maybe they were second rounds, they realized, let's do it now,
let's just go for it. Let'slook at the trade charts and decide
we're going to make this move,and then the down the line guys that
are drafted. I do maybe disagreewith you a little bit. I do
think there's a difference between Bo Nixand Spencer Ratt. That's what I think.
(46:00):
I think there are a number ofdifferent things that I think, you
know, Bo is that much morepositive on. But as a team,
you're thinking, Okay, we havea lot of other areas here. There
are some really good running backs here, some really good receivers, there are
some good defenders in the second,third, fourth fit. Let's focus there
and then let's revisit. Let's revisitfor a lot of those teams that are
(46:22):
looking for the second, you know, the number two later on, and
the other teams are saying, we'llget there. If we get there,
if not, we'll figure it outanother time. It just it feels like
that's how I would look at it, probably like there's a lot of really
good players here that we could takecare of in these rounds and the ones
who really need them already picked themin the first round. So it's just
(46:45):
like a little bit of a deadspace right now, and it may start
going that way. I don't know. It depends from year to year,
of course. Yeah, I justwish because the NFL did change a rule
that was really subtle this offseason,by the way, where you can and
elevate a quarterback from the practice squadto be your third stringer. And maybe
(47:07):
I'm overreacting, I just don't thinkthat that's good for the league, right
because you know, the rules onpractice squad guys were like they can they're
kind of transient, right, Likeyou can sign a guy off of guy's
practice squad to be on the fiftythree anytime. And I can't get the
image shaken from my head of thetwenty fourteen playoffs where case Keenum started to
get or John Skelton started a playoffgame, Ryan Linley, They're all the
(47:30):
same. Ryan Linley started a playoffgame, and he started the year with
the Cardinals on the practice squad withsim of San Diego and then back on
the Cardinals. I'm like, hecannot be developing being transient on all these
teams. Same thing happened with caseKeenum and I'm just thinking to myself,
there isn't There aren't really mechanisms forthese teams to sign and stash quarterbacks and
(47:50):
develop them. And yet at thesame time, I look and I think,
well, first round quarterbacks are cheapanyway, so why not just continue
to recycle them? But it's Idon't know. I look back at a
league where the Jake Glomes and BradJohnson's and Mark Boulgers and those guys were
all playing in Super Bowls, andnow I and now when we get in
(48:12):
the dog days of December and there'ssome bad quarterbacks who are underdeveloped playing in
the NFL, and I and Ikind of get sad for kind of the
quality of play. That that's whereI worry about that gap between rounds two,
three, and four and teams,because if you draft a guy in
round five, there's no guarantee heeven makes your club, right, Whereas
if you take him in round three, he's you're investing at least some time
(48:36):
and effort into developing him. AndI think that that's holistically better for the
NFL. I agree, And thereYou're exactly right. The last thing you
want to do is lose a playerin the third or fourth round. It's
just not good. It's not goodfor your it's not good for the morale,
it's not good for their owner,it's not good for the GM.
That's a great point. So yeah, it's just interesting. So anyway,
(48:58):
Yeah, this was fun. Iokay, let's let's end with this.
What was your favorite? Which teamhad the favorite draft? For you?
Look, I keep coming back toHowie and his ability to trade around and
get what they wanted to get.I love the fact that they got at
corner as he did in Quinnon Mitchelland you know, because I think he
is a heck of a talent.And I love the fact that they came
(49:20):
back in the second round and theydidn't reach on Cooper Degene. Right,
it's that way. I always wonderif it's Cooper, is it Degen?
Yeah, it's Cooper Gene in thesecond round. Look, there are a
lot of teams out there, Arizona. I love what what Manty Austin Forth
did, of course, and Ilike what as you know, and you
can talk about him a little bit. I really like what Dan Quinn and
(49:40):
Adam Peters did up in Washington yeah, Dan Quinn, Adam Peters, you
know, Cardinals and Commanders, you'renot going to You're not going to ever
get a bad grade from me forhaving as many picks as they had.
That is, you know, reallya I think you know that that's just
restocking, right, And the Commandersneeded both the Commanders and Cardinals needed players.
(50:06):
I think Jerry Newton a great valuefor the Commanders in round two.
Obviously Daniels is the face of thefranchise. Now Cardinals get Harrison, which
is just a great player to pairwith Murray. Murray's always at his best
when he had DeAndre Hopkins there andand so forth. So I like both
of those drafts a lot. Myfavorite draft and I know, look I
(50:28):
three months ago I could barely pronouncehis name, but now I love his
draft. Joe Ortiz, Corey Kraiwickand the Los Angeles Chargers. I gotta
say, everybody was saying, oh, they're gonna take j C. Latham
at five, and YadA, YadA, YadA. They hung tight at five.
They took Joe alt joelt right likethe the you know John alt Chiefs
(50:52):
legend his son to play right toplay tackle for them. Now you think
about this team. They were barrenfrom a talent standpoint, terrible cap situation.
They come in, they clean thething up. They get a fourth
round pick for Keenan Allen. Theyhave a great quarterback, and in Justin
Herbert, they have alt They doa pick swap. They they somehow manage
(51:14):
to trade up in the second roundand lose no value. You look at
the charts. They figure out howto trade up without giving up a ton.
They get Lad McConkie, a guyboth of us like at wide receiver,
which is a great, great pick. Junior Colson, the linebacker from
Michigan, who you know obviously JimHarball likes a lot. And a running
back, by the way, whoI really like as well, Kamal Ddahl
(51:37):
from Troy, who I know I'vetalked about in here, big bowling ball,
kind of running back, a toughnessguy that that they Chargers have gotten
kind of a reputation for being softin recent years. I really like him
both speed wise but also ability.And then they get Jerry Rice's kid in
the in the late later rounds,Brendan Rice from from USC. I like
that draft a lot. I thinkthe Chargers obviously up pill Battle looking up
(52:00):
at the Chiefs. They had notwon that division since two thousand and nine.
Ortiz, I think it's gone inthere and and and done a good
job in building that team. It'sthe long haul for them, right Like,
They're not gonna go and win thatdivision right away. It's not gonna
be like the Niners when Harbaugh tookover in twenty eleven. That team's not.
(52:20):
That team was ready made an underachievingteam. This Charger team is gonna
take a little bit. But Ithought that their draft lasses really I thought
they did a really good job.I think Joe coming in there, Ortiz,
you know, with Jim Harbaugh,there's just a good synchronicity there between
them both. They have the personalitiesthat need to roll together. They you
know, look, you know aswell I do. Joe coming from the
(52:44):
from from Baltimore, with all ofthat background, with Ozzie Newsom in that
group, he's going to be areally good addition for that franchise. Along
with a head coach that we allknow can coach. It's gonna be fun
to watch those two operate coming years. Yeah, for sure. And now
Tom Tiles never traded back in allthose years with the Chargers. They still
didn't trade back this year, butthey did make some sound picks. This
(53:07):
was a lot of fun, Thomas. People have been asking for you back
on the show that the The receptionhere has been phenomenal. The chat's been
great. Thank you all for cominghere on a Monday. Thank you all
for coming. Like I said tothe live show on Thursday, all of
our content, We're going to continueto roll out content. If you don't,
you know, go to our YouTubeshow. We have a ton of
(53:28):
great stuff from Mike Mayock. Wehave a ton of great stuff from all
the folks we brought to Detroit.We want to thank our sponsor, Underdog
Fantasy for their for all their supportfor this past weekend. This has been
a great time Thomas. This hasbeen fun for Thomas Mitchell, for Eric
Egert, this has been the summersports show.
All right, welcome to the SummerSports Show. I'm Eric Eager. I
am joined by Thomas de Mittrov.Thomas, we are back. We are
here to review the twenty twenty fourNFL Draft. Thank you all, by
the way for coming to our draftshow on Thursday, all of the post
draft analysis stuff that we've been doing. Thanks you to everybody who's been following
(00:58):
us along on the series XM Showevery Friday. We are still going to
do a show this Friday as well. Thomas, just a few questions,
like this whirlwind that has been theNFL Draft. I know you were on
Kay Adams this morning your Jim Romelast hour. A little bit of a
(01:18):
whirlwind, especially considering your former team, the Falcons make a draft pick at
the quarterback position for the first timein the first round since you took Matt
Ryan. What's going on? Man, man, look Ay, it's great
to be back. I feel likewe're home a little bit. So I'm
glad we're doing the pod today foreveryone out there. I really appreciate all
(01:40):
your support on it. I thinkit's really cool regarding the draft, regarding
Atlanta and what's going on there.Obviously there's a lot there. I feel
like these national national media people thatare reaching out are trying to dig a
little bit deeper into it from aperspective having been around Atlanta. You're around
Atlanta now too, though. You'rehearing a lot and seeing a lot here
(02:02):
in your community right now, beinga tried and true Atlanta community person.
And every time I turn the corner, someone is saying something about this pic
polarizing. Is that the right word? I maybe it is. I don't
think that's negative. Picks are polarizing. Yeah, it's funny. My wife
texted me Stephanie's who's you know?She was substitute teaching on Friday, and
(02:24):
she's, you know, we gotback late on Thursday night, right,
so no one was up to talkto us about anything. And of course
my wife texted me like around noonthe next day and she's like, Eric,
what did the Falcons do? AndI was like, Uh, they
took a quarterback and no one expectedthem to take And she's like, yeah,
(02:45):
because like everybody at school is talkingabout Michael Pennix, and I think
that that's like a fair characterization.I was on this network called The Hammer,
the Hammer Betting Network, and theywere asking all of us to do
a little bit of a mock draft, and they did a mock to kind
of like what you would do versuswhat you think will happen. And I
(03:05):
had the Falcons at eight, andI took JJ McCarthy with the what I
would do situation because I and youand I have talked about this, and
I think you were ahead of this. Like I don't necessarily think Kirk Cousins
is the long term answer quarterback.I think that the big surprise is the
quarterback they took. Right if ifyou're coming into it in March with the
(03:29):
eveil that they had, and sothey had in you know, the reports
are coming out that they had theevil on Pennix as the second best quarterback
in the draft, and that's allwell and good. You're allowed to have
that eval of course, now Pennixis twenty four going on twenty five.
So I think that people are worriedabout, Okay, you go to Cousins
(03:50):
one hundred million, guaranteed two years, you're kind of locked into him.
By the time you get to MichaelPennix, he's twenty six. That's the
kind of question some people are having. I think quarterback is fine if McCarthy's
the pick and he's twenty three bythe time you get to him. So
that's like I think where people area little bit like kind of trying to
(04:12):
connect the dots like Pennix is agood prospect. I think, very good
accuracy numbers, very good usage numbers, great pressure to sack ratio, a
lot of good things going for thekid. Kirk Cousins is a very good
bridge quarterback at worst and a verygood starting caliber quarterback. They can get
you to the playoffs at best.And yet like the puzzle pieces here are
(04:36):
a little bit off I think fora lot of people. And so that's
I think where the question marks comein, and I think that they're real.
I think that they're realistic question marksand it's not that you know,
again, this could work out.And I think Terry's quotes at the end
I think puzzled people a little bitmore where he said if he sits for
(04:57):
five years, then weren't a goodplace because I mean, doing great at
the position. So I just thinkthat the whole thing was a little was
a little weird. But I don'tthink them wanting a quarterback was silly,
and I don't think them wanting KirkCousins was silly, and I don't think
that them liking Michael Pennix was silly. It's just the combination of it kind
of kind of jarred people a littlebit. I think, Yeah, I
(05:18):
think you hit the nail on thehead. There's it's it's jarring for certain
people. I was going to takea step back, and it's easy.
Let's call this way. It's easyto pile on, right all, we
all get in that mode when we'rewatching him. It's easy to pile on
what is going on. First ofall, as you mentioned, I think
it's important to know Michael Pennix isa very good football player and as long
(05:40):
as his injuries play out well,right, I know he's defended that.
You have a really good football playerto grow with, albeit a little bit
older, right I When now,let's jump back to the idea of taking
on Kirk Cousins as you're your heirapparent here and there wasn't a whole bunch
of air pairs to be done here, right, I mean, he's not
(06:01):
taking over for a situation that wasclose. I think this organization. I'm
not speaking for Arthur Blank, butknowing Arthur knowing how competitive he is.
They want to win and they wantto win now, right, that's a
big thing. And I think aswe're looking at this, they know how
important it is to bring a quarterbackin for Rahie Morris as a first time
(06:25):
head coach or a second time headcoach coming back in here, and Terry
Fott knowing his third year. Thisgroup knows that they need to win.
They need to win the fan baseback, and they want to win games.
And they don't only think Eric,that this is going to be a
three, four or five six winseason. Their plans on having Kirk Cousin
in here, I would imagine,not that anyone told me that out of
(06:46):
their building. Of course, Iwant to make that clear that this is
this is a lot of wins.This is deep into the playoffs and maybe
make it a run for the superBowl. You're not paying forty five million
plus for someone who's just a rando, right, He's not that he obviously,
So I think just for a lotof people to understand there is means
to their approach. It's not justlike they weren't thinking I know this that
(07:11):
building, even though it's polarizing outside, Eric, I don't believe it's polarizing
within the building. They all know, they all talk about scenario building.
Arthur Blank's very involved in the way, not picking the player, of course,
but they keep him updated on it, and that's a great thing for
that organization. When I saw allthose pictures out there Eric, where Terry
(07:31):
was trying to explain to him,my hunch is, at least as I
know it, I can't imagine that'snecessarily what they were doing. I think
they're probably talking about next plans goinginto the next rounds, whatever it may
be. Yeah, and you're thelast general manager to build a team that
has wanted a vision as a memberof the Atlanta Falcons. And right now
(07:54):
we're looking at the betting markets herecourtesy of FanDuel, the Falcons are the
favorite to win then at minus onetwenty. They're a favorite against the field.
So the the goal that they wantedto achieve when signing Kirk Cousins so
far Thomas has been achieved. They'rethe favorites and and and quite heavily so
(08:15):
right there. If you look Thomasat these other divisions, you know San
Francisco's a bigger favorite to win theirdivision than they are Detroit's not, Dallas
is not. Kansas City's a biggerfavorite to win their division, Baltimore's not,
Houston's not, Buffalo's not. Sothe you know, when you look
at the Atlanta Falcons, only threeteams are bigger favorites to win their own
(08:37):
division than they are. And sothe signing of Kirk Cousins has accomplished what
they've wanted, which is, you'vewon seven or fewer games every single year
since Thomas, Dibitchrov and Dan Quinnleft and that that's, you know,
so you're trying to get over youknow, the hump there and and you
(09:01):
know, a cash can be rightall he wants with the line being wrong.
And I think our simulation at SUMERSports would tend to say that they're
being a little heavy on the Falconshere. But they signed kirk Cousins to
get over the hump and win adivision that is winnable, which they weren't
able to do last year. Andthat's one of the reasons why Rahee Morris
the head coach and and not Arthur'sArthur Smith. Now the other part of
(09:24):
the equation, Thomas, and whythey you know, why they had to
sign Kirk Cousins in the first placeis because since you were there, they've
never and you would admit to this, they've never taken the young quarterback to
back up Matt Ryan, right,and and so they've never had that guy
in place to be this second company, to be the heir apparent. And
(09:46):
that goes back to again, whenTerry had a chance in twenty twenty one
to take Justin fields, they tookthe tight end instead. And it's kind
of perpetuated itself. So what they'retrying to do is kind of satisfy both
masters. This is a town wherethe Braves are really good, right.
The Atlanta Hawks are in the playoff, you know, they're in the least
in the playoff, in the playoffplaying game, and they want they want
(10:09):
to think that stadium is a stadiumwhere it's so nice and so spacious that
sometimes no one's watching the football game, and so they want to be They
want to they want somebody in thereto watch the football game. And then
they want to build a sustainable future. And Kirk Cousins is thirty five years
old off of torn achilles. It'sjust to me, I think people are
questioning the particular pick but I don'tknow, like Pennis very well could be
(10:33):
a better quarterback prospect than bo Nick'sor JJ McCarthy. Well, yeah,
so let's talk about this. Youand I listened to it this morning.
It was almost outrageous. Outrageous,meaning if you listen to Michael Lombardi's delivery
on this, it's I mean,he was just enthused, full of passion.
(10:54):
He obviously was is completely behind hisloyal friendship with Bill Belichick. Of
course, that was a strong twentyminutes of passion from him. But let's
just step back and dig through thepassion for a minute and talk about what
he was talking about, and thatwas this idea that's been discussed quite a
bit. Why, yes, theyneed to win games. They need to
(11:18):
win games now. Of course,there's always been that in the back of
their mind. What if a thirtysix year old pops his other achilles just
because your minds go there, right, Michael was talking a lot about how
they approached it. Why didn't theyalready know that this quarterback was available and
he was as good as he wasthat he might be available, and they're
(11:39):
going to be sitting at a sweetspot. What do you feel about that?
Approach the And this is not aboutMichael's his dig at Terry Fine though,
It's more about the idea. Let'slet's break through all of that for
a minute. The idea of thatwhen you're when you're going into free agency
and you know that this quarterback ispotentially available, do you still, from
(12:03):
your perspective, snap that free agenttag off the board and go after ninety
million dollar commitment? Well, what'sthe alternative? I mean, Desmond Ritter
was somewhat of a plot for them. I mean, you know, Sam
Howell was available, and I knowMichael had a take that he thought that
Sam Howell was a better alternative toWashington than Jaden Daniels was right. So
(12:24):
it shows the variability and quarterback opinionsamong even people who have sat in that
chair before. I think that youknow, it's it's a lot to put
on a rookie quarterback's shoulders, right, if you are Terry Fonto, you
are on year four of your generalmanager tenure? Are you going to put
(12:45):
that on? And and we've alreadyseen this and it's not quite the same,
but because Raheem is a second timehead coach, but let's assume because
there's been over ten years since hewas a head coach. Before we've done.
The number defensive head coaches who drafta quarterback with their first pick are
have about a one in three.It's a lower success rate than normal,
(13:09):
and I think part of that isbecause they know how to build a defense
and they're not using the tools,which are high picks on their craft.
Right. And you talk about thiswith Dan all the time, where he
didn't get to you guys drafted high, but it was always higher players on
offense, you know, the JakeMatthews of the world and stuff. And
(13:31):
so it's a weird situation where youdraft a high quarterback and he's going into
the hands in this case of ZachRobinson is the great football mind. But
Zach Robinson, let's say he goesin and he turns Michael Penis into Rookie
of the Year. Well, where'sZach Robinson going. He's going to be
the head coach of some other teamnext year. And so now Raheem and
(13:52):
Terry now have to scramble to getthis to get Michael Penix's next coordinator.
And so I think that like youdown, and it's just risky to put
you know a must win season.Frankly in the case of Fontana, less
so for the case of Morris intothe hands of a young quarterback as good
as I think Michael Pennix can be. And so I think that having Cousins
(14:15):
there, everybody knows Kirk Cousins isa shoe in to be eight to ten
wins every year. And if youget ten wins with this Falcons team,
everybody's gonna be happy here, right. Everybody wants this Falcons seem to be
relevant because it really has it beenfor the last three or four years.
And so that's I think the point. And and so they're trying to serve
two masters. And here's the otherthing. And no one wants to hear
(14:37):
this because and especially not like youknow, probably not you, because you
love, you know, the wholegame, you love scouting everything, and
I'm kind of more of the analyticsguy. But if Michael Penix hits or
if Kirk Cousins hits, none ofus, none of us matters. Right.
If Kirk Cousins throws for forty touchdownsthis year, the fact that they
didn't take Dallas Turner at eight doesn'tmatter, because there's gonna be so much
(15:00):
meat left on the bone for them, that you know, and if Kirk
Cousin sucks, and if Michael Pennicksucks, it's not gonna you know what
I'm saying. So like they're tryingto get the biggest problem out of the
way, which is quarterback. Andjust like you did in two thousand and
eight, right, if Matt Ryandidn't hit in two thousand and eight,
Like we're not talking about the storylike in certain ways, right, and
(15:20):
so you get the first problem outof the way. Again, I'm not
trying to play an apologist for them. I'm just more trying to see it
from their perspective, which is getthe first problem out of the way,
which is short term quarterback, longterm quarterback. And in the case of
Penix, like I tend to believethat he could be good short term.
(15:41):
But if I'm Terry Fonto, ifI'm putting my career on it, maybe
I'm less likely to believe that.Well. I think he also had to
think about Raheem Morris is coming ina second time head coach, first time
with the Falcons. Of course,highly energetic, highly positive. The organization
wants to be upbeat him. Positivein a good way kind of it harkens
(16:03):
back to times with dan Quinn Wright, a lot of positivity. Like you
said, this is not about apologizingbecause it is a complicated situation. We
know that academically. You know thatacademically, and the group that's listening does
trying to figure out why is whatwe're discussing here. And I think it's
important to have both of those sidesof the coin to talk about Eric versus
(16:26):
just bad polarizing pick why are theydoing it? They're not thoughtful on it.
This is not about that right now, It's about Okay again, Raheem
comes in. You want to turnthat fan base around, So how do
you do it? Arthur Blank?Back to my point earlier, he is
willing to give, right, ArthurBlank has always put his complete life into
(16:48):
providing for the Falcons. He nevercame up short with money for me as
a general manager, not not mepersonally, but for us to go out
and do things. This is anothercase of that, right. I mean,
he will pay to give this organizationthe best opportunity, and time will
tell if it was the best.Uh yeah, I would say, though,
and I do think like very difficulthis his he I mean, we
(17:11):
are rationalized in this decision. Thisis a decision that I don't think either
one of us necessarily would have made. And it's a decision that it's a
decision again that I think people areright to question, and it's okay to
question, and it's okay to MondayMorning quarterback these things because for one,
(17:32):
it's sports and it's supposed to befun and and you know that there's an
element of explaining something, explaining tryingto explain something. Maybe Again, I'm
not trying to say it's right.I'm just trying to explain maybe what's going
through that going through people's heads here. And you know, I'm one of
(17:52):
the biggest Kirk Cousins. I wouldn'tsay haters, but like I always thought
the Kirk Cousins contract in Minnesota heldthem back, and I do think think
that in Atlanta, the goals aredifferent. Right When when Kirk signed with
the Vikings in twenty eighteen, thatteam was thirteen and three, they were
in the NFC Championship Game. Hewas supposed to help them win a Super
Bowl. This Falcons team has wonseven games. Reviewer for four or five
(18:15):
years in a row. He's supposedto get them eight or nine wins,
which is what Kirk Cousin specializes in, and so I think that's that signing
makes more sense for them. ThisPenick sign this Penix draft pick, along
with the Cousins signing, is somethingthat makes kind of everybody's eyebrows go up
quite a bit, and so totry to explain it from their perspective as
(18:37):
if they're just planning for the future, and I think people are rightly questioning,
well, how the Penix's age andthat kind of thing. Now,
I will say this on Penix's front, he has not gotten hurt the last
two years enough to miss games.I do think he was injured a little
bit last year, which hurt hisperformance down the stretch, but people give
him the off injured label. Hehas been healthy for most of the last
(18:57):
few years, and so I dothink, especially considering how how little he
takes sacks, it's a I thinkit's an overblown narrative for him. But
again, this is a This isa puzzling pick when it happened, and
it'll be interesting to see what theFalcons end up with as a result of
this. Just to finish on this, and we understand that this this fan
(19:22):
base right has been talking about alegitimate pass rusher. So when your head's
around that, and they didn't geta chance to address necessarily the bona fide
pass rusher that they were looking foror that was rumored to happen, right,
So they go after their second pick. They move up, by the
way, which you know exactly howto pronounce his name. I don't,
(19:42):
so I'm going to let you attemptit. But before we move on,
that's where I think some of thethe agitation comes as well, who's going
to rush the passer this year?And yeah, for sure, yeah,
And I actually am not very goodat it announcing that the defensive lineman picks
(20:03):
Ruke o'caroru from Clemson, another Clemsonpass rusher. The last time a Clemson
pass rusher went in the first tworounds, he led the NFL and sacks,
which was your guy Vic Beasley,who actually right now is playing for
the Arlington Renegades of the UFL.But that's an interior rusher. They had
not gotten good. I mean,you you say it as much yourself.
(20:23):
It was like this team has struggledgetting edge pressure all the way back to
John Abraham right all the way backto you know, even Vic Beasley,
you know for his moments. Edgepressure doesn't grow on trees. And there
were Dallas Turner like to Latsu JaredVerse. Now those two, those three
men went fifteen or later, whichwould suggest that the Falcons could have gotten
(20:45):
them by trading back. But atthe same time, you know, who
knows what the market would have been. I do want to transition because that
does transition into this one. Also, because the Minnesota Vikings at ten,
with the trade up with the Jets, took J. J. McCarthy.
From what I can tell you,they like McCarthy quite a bit. It
(21:06):
sounds like from reports that they wantedDrake May. There was no appetite for
New England to trade back with them, even though the Vikings offered eleven twenty
three next year's first so three firstround picks to move up, as well
as some pick swaps that were advantageous. I also think that there was a
chance, now I have not heardthis reported, I had not heard this
(21:29):
off the record at all. Butthere's also probably a chance that they wanted
Pennix. That's another reason why theFalcons probably just took them at eight as
opposed to trading back. I'm justreading the kind of board here. The
Vikings stay and take JJ McCarthy nowquarterback five on the board again, a
younger guy, less usage, kindof the exact opposite player of who Michael
(21:52):
Pennix is now. From the Vikingsperspective, it's quite a bit different of
a situation. The thing about theVikings in this situation is it's kind of
the opposite, right, Like,the Vikings have had thirteen win seasons,
they've kind of pressed up against theNFC Championship game in the last five six
(22:15):
years, but they've also kind ofbottomed out here. They're the fourth best
team in this division per odds.They're looking up at the Bears, who
just got Caleb Williams and Roma Dunesin this draft. They're looking up at
the Packers who just had, youknow, Jordan Love emerged this year,
who just were in the Divisional round. And they're looking up at Detroit,
who was one bad half a footballaway from being in the Super Bowl.
(22:36):
They needed a swing for the fence, and it looked like they wanted to
with Drake May. Now they haveJJ McCarthy. It looks like McCarthy is
gonna sit in year one, andit looks like reports are it's due to
the fact that Quacy at Applamensa andKevin O'Connell have done extensive studies on the
benefits of sitting in year one.Now there is not a ton of evidence
(22:57):
for the benefits of sitting in yearone. And you know this as good
as anybody. You put Matt Ryanout there day one, three point underdogs
against the team in Detroit who wouldnot win a game all year, and
he went out and he won tengames for you right away. When you
think about JJ McCarthy and his justlack of data in college, don't you
(23:18):
just want to throw them out therein year one, and just especially considering
expectations are gonna be low from Minnesotathis year, do you just want to
throw them out there and play?Yeah, I'm a play now guy.
This has to do with what I'vetalked to you many times about Eric not
for long league. Even more sothan ever. It means making sure that
you're seeing what he's capable of soonerthan later. I know that some people
(23:41):
think that's premature. If you putthe right team together, your creative how
you do it. You take somepressure off of him by not expecting him
to do everything and be the world. I think making sure that you have
strong people around him and being creativeis a big big deal and getting them
out there. I'm I'm a fanof moving forward to try to get him
(24:03):
early reps, no question. Yeah, I just I just think about it
from because look like we have thePatrick Mahons SAT a year a year,
We have Jordan Love SAT three years. Both guys ended up being you know,
from all you know great, Butwe also have Paxson Lynch SAT.
We also have Trey Lance SAT,and we have you know, when you
look at the data, it's aboutequal guys who SAT end up being good
(24:26):
end up not being good. Ithink about it from Trey Lance's perspective.
Trey Lance has almost no data tohis name, goes to San Francisco,
doesn't really play much, gets hurt, doesn't really play much, and doesn't
develop. And so I I'm justthinking to myself, you have two great
tackles in Brian O'Neill and Christian Darasaw. You have Jordan Addison, Justin Jefferson
(24:49):
T. J. Hawkinson, whoyou spent premium capital and they're probably gonna
give Jefferson a contract extension soon.What bet way that what better way to
get reps and you play indoors,What better way to get reps in this
NFL and to figure out if you'regood or not then to just go out
there and play right away, especiallyconsidering they have running backs like ty Chandler
(25:12):
are pretty good. They brought inAaron Jones from Green Bay like, they're
going to be able to run,play action, They're gonna be able to
do these things that will make himcomfortable. I know, Sam darnalds are.
I know they spent ten million dollarson him, but to me,
I think it would be a blunderif they sat him. It's and your
futures instricably tied to him, andyou might as well find out as quickly
(25:36):
as possible. Yeah, And Ithink finance as quickly as possible means again,
making sure that you have the rightpeople around They have legitimate people around
him. To your point, right, However, when there's kind of this
new wave of people talking about maybethe the Green Bay Packers approach is a
way that everyone should approach it movingforward. But that's very different right behind
(26:00):
a guy like you know, playingbehind a guy like Aaron Rodgers. Right,
it's not the same. There aredifferent there's different elements to it.
Right, when you're around a guywho's one of the best quarterbacks to play
the game versus some of them thatare more mid line players in my mind,
So I love the competitiveness of thiskid. I know he's happy to
(26:22):
be there and everyone's happy for him. I wonder, truly if they did
want Michael Pennix. Very interesting tothink about that, but it is what
it is now. I think youroll forward on it. Like I said,
I think you get him playing rightaway as soon as possible. Yeah,
I just think that you're right.I mean, it is totally different
when the guy is even Alex Smith, who you know. Alex Smith led
(26:47):
the league in passing the year thatMahomes sat behind him. Alex Smith had
led the team to twelve wins theyear before they drafted Mahomes. Alex Smith
is kind of the starter that youhave that you you Alex Smith is like
the starter that you want to replacewhen you can't win a Super Bowl.
But he's good enough to play overa guy like Mahomes for one year,
(27:11):
even though as a Chiefs fan,I would have rather than played Mahomes and
see, you know, taking theirchances that year. It makes it makes
sense. Rogers again makes sense.Back in the day, the Bears drafted
Jim Harball while they still had JimMcMahon. They they, you know,
the the nine Years, drafted JimDrunckenviller while they still at Steve Young like
there are tons of these examples.The Broncos drafted Tommy Maddox while they still
(27:33):
had John Elway, like there areI think those are fine, especially when
your team is is good. Whenyou take the luxury pick on a quarterback
in the case when it's like SamDarnold or Chad Henny or you're just you're
just delaying the inevitable in my opinion, And and and in this situation where
the guy ends up being pretty good, Thomas, you waste games, right
(27:53):
because you can start at zero tothree and finish the year you know,
seven and whatever, and then youmissed the playoffs based upon games that the
first guy started that he should havebeen starting. It's a great point.
It's a great point. We'll beinteresting to see how they play it out
though, right, and they havesome veteran people there, as you know,
with guys like you know, there'rejust some guys on their staff of
(28:15):
course that are probably pressing for itin a certain way with Quasi to see
what's going to go on, andRyan, you know, Grigson, you
know, guys like that who aretried and true football people be interesting to
know what their play is on it. Yeah, let's let's talk because we
got a good question from difficult here. He said, if you need a
quarterback and don't trade up, howmuch of a reach does the player have
(28:37):
to be for it to actually bea bad pick? Asking for the Broncos,
there's a little bit of a leadingquestion because bo Nix was expected to
go at about thirty two. Wewent at twelve. We've seen that happen
a few times, Like Christian Pondercomes to mind as a guy who went
exactly twelve to the Vikings. DanteCulpepper was another one two, so you
get both sides of the point Callpepperended up being pretty good. Ponder didn't.
(29:00):
The Broncos didn't have a second roundpick, so that was gonna be
when they took their quarterback or ifthey traded back. But trading back didn't.
There weren't that many trades in thefirst round Thomas right, So I
think Nicks, you know, Nickswas certainly in the basin of quarterbacks where
I'm not going to skewer them fordoing it, but it did seem a
(29:22):
little bit rich for my blood totake him at twelve. He has some
good trades, He's a little older, but he does fit into what Sean
Payton wants to do. Where doyou see this one? I think the
Broncos are going to do the rightthing and just play him right away through
thick and thin. Where do yousee that one going? Because I see
some possible I see a possible successstory here. Even though the Broncos are
(29:45):
not a great place for young quarterbackto play right away because they're still reeling
off off of the Russell Wilson tradeand the dead money and having to trade
Judy and having to trade, youknow, let go of some of their
defense. They're going to struggle asa team. But I think Bo Nicks
individually might get some of the bestcoaching than any of these young guys get
from Sean Payton. I think theSean Peyton bow Knicks thing is quite positive.
(30:10):
In my mind. You know,I've talked about him from the beginning
of evaluating these guys. He isa guy that was on my mind as
of being an interesting guy. Yes, a little bit older, but he's
mature, he's tough. He's agood athlete. He's going to run the
ball when he needs to run it, and he'll jam it down people's throat
if he has to. He's atough, competitive person on as both the
(30:33):
runner of course when he has to, but also as a guy who's going
to throw the ball. He's asmart football player who's a system guy,
which I think is really good forSean. I like it. I also
think it's good even though some peoplethink you could have traded back two,
three, five picks. Look,when you're a general manager, I get
that. But also when you thinkthere might be a run on quarterbacks and
(30:56):
there's no one else out there,and you know how important quarterback is to
you, you're damn right you willfocus on three, four or five picks.
Is almost like nothing, as oddas that sounds, right, I
know there's a lot of talk aboutit, but in Lou missing on a
player like that, because I'm surehe would have gone by I don't know
the next two or three with theRaiders in the next pick right their divisions.
(31:19):
So jump up, take care ofbusiness and know that you have a
coach that can probably out there.He's one of the best coaches to teach
a guy like this to continue tolearn. Again, there's a veteran element
to this guy that is good.I think the team needs it. I
think George Peyton, who have talkedabout many times, that was a tough,
tough goal with him with Russell Wilson, but here he is now in
(31:41):
a good, solid sound spot herefor them to continue to grow and to
kind of right the quarterback situation thatwas a little, not a lot challenging
in the last couple of years.Yeah, I think the Broncos, you
know, not to not to betoo shameless here, but I think the
Broncos are really the type of teamthat would really benefit from some of the
some of the work we're doing hereat SUMER, of course, because they're
(32:04):
not working with the full deck ofcards as far as resources. Right the
draft picks, I mean, theyneeded to send draft picks over to New
Orleans just to get Peyton, ofcourse, and they've had to trade players
off to make sure that they haveyou know, they're under the cap and
cap complying over the next two yearsto deal with the dead money. I
mean, they can't spend any moneyright now because they had to post June
one, Russell Wilson when they letthem go in the first place, and
(32:25):
so forth. So you know,as far as building this team, they're
gonna have to get creative. They'regonna have to, you know, spot,
They're gonna have to do things thata lot of teams don't simply don't
need to do. And luckily forthem, they have the Waltons. You
know, they have ownership that willbe generous as as per the Sean Payton
(32:46):
acquisition, So that's a good thing. There are some teams, you know,
you know, you think about KansasCity, you think about Dallas,
you think about teams that aren't spendinga ton of money on a cash basis,
And then you talk about teams likelike you said, Atlanta with Arthur,
and Cleveland and Philadelphia and Minnesota andand now you know, Denver who
(33:07):
are willing to spend and pro ratehave an advantage in these cases. But
even then, like you still arehave to be cap compliant, and Denver
has to do some things I thinkthat are gonna be a little bit uh
sharper because of what they're dealing with. Now. If boon Nicks hits to
the point I made about Pennix,it's gonna be easier, right, Just
(33:29):
the same as when Patrick Mahomes hit. A lot of the Chief's mistakes were
papered over by by his brilliance,and so that that should be a good
thing. I want to go backto New England here because this your your
former place, Elliott Wolfe Girodmeo.You know, my narrative was, I
didn't think New England was good enoughto to take a quarterback at three.
(33:52):
I was, of course, Iwas disagreed with they took a quarterback at
three. They I thought they hada really good draft up and down.
They took players of value, kindof Jalen Paul. I thought that they
did a good job all draft,and so maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they
were able to restock this roster withthis particular draft, and Drake may has
a chance. In addition, theyhave you know, Mayo and so forth.
(34:15):
The coaching staff can be It's hardfor me to believe that this coaching
staff can be better than Belichick's coachingstaff. But you know, I felt
like they needed to build the rosterup with picks. From having the third
pick. They got big offers.They got a big offer from the Giants,
they got a big offer from theVikings. They took May instead.
(34:37):
Everybody liked May. From what Ican tell, The Vikings like May,
the Giants like May, A bunchof teams like May. It. Now
that we've seen the die cast herestill the right move for them to take
a quarterback at three. I likethe move at three. I've said this
as well. I think Elliott Wolfcomes from stock his dad, who was
(34:58):
a Hall of Fame team builder inthe NFL. They know the importance of
bona fide, legitimate talent at thequarterback position. There hasn't been one there
in the last few years, ofcourse, one that they can hang their
hat on and grow with for yearsto come. Yes, there are elements
to Drake May that need some work. Like all of these quarterbacks, as
(35:20):
good as they are, I lovethis draft class because I think there's a
lot to come to the table andbuild on. Yes, he might need
a little bit of work on hison his footwork, et cetera, et
cetera. But this is about everything, right, This is about the full
full package here. As much aspeople say, oh, I should have
moved back and got a lot,I get that, respectfully to you all
(35:40):
on the data side where you seethe benefit of it, but the opportunity
to get someone like this, you'renot getting them next in next year's draft.
Of course, I'm saying you're notgetting the same talent group. And
so I think it is the rightthing for them to do. And I
wouldn't have I wouldn't have made themove myself. As attractive as it is.
(36:01):
You look at it, Eric,you consider it, but you also
consider there's no way to win inthis league without a quarterback. You can't
win, in my mind, andbe a legit team with a middling quarterback.
I think that that's so refreshing foryou to say, because you have
(36:22):
like I don't how many how manyfootball people like so I consider you're obviously
very progressive, and you know we'reobviously have this you know, working relationship,
this friendship, and so we wewe're back and forth on stuff.
But you are a die in thewool football person, right, and and
and yet you you you said somethingthat I think all analytics people would agree
(36:45):
with one hundred percent, which isthe quarterback is all that matters to a
certain extent. I mean, notall that matters, but it's the it's
the it's the it's the necessary condition, not a sufficient condition, but a
necessary condition. How many is sowe just saw a draft where six quarterbacks
weren't the first twelve picks. Isthat I started to wane on my opinion
(37:08):
that the NFL believed what you justsaid, which is that you can't win
without a premium quarterback. And yetin this draft we just got we got
rebutted on that, Like the NFLjust bellied up to the bar and said
no, like, we're going totry. We're going to try to get
our franchise quarterback. Because I feltlike over the last few years, and
(37:30):
this is one of the reasons whyI was skeptical that we get all six
guys in the first round, becauseI felt like, over the last few
years, we saw guys pass onMike you know, we pass on Will
Levis, We saw guys like passon Malik Willis and guys and maybe just
just they're better at evaluating quarterbacks inthe public and they're just like those guys
suck. But can you expound uponlike that does appear to be Elliott Wolfe's
(37:50):
opinion? Ron wolfsn right, thatyou cannot win without a great quarterback.
And do you think that the majorityof the league now has that opinion?
And not only that opinion, butthe one that you said, which I
think is a little stronger. Youcannot win without a quarterback who isn't a
blue chip type player, a toptwelve draft pick. Yes, and remember
(38:14):
you're talking about not only the skillsthat Drake May has on the field,
representing as a team member going intothis is great for the for the New
England Patriots, right. I mean, he's a smart guy. He's a
top notch leadership type individual guy.So when you're a general manager and a
neophyte general manager, and believe me, I've been a neophyte general manager,
(38:37):
there's a lot to that you don'tyou're learning you've known a lot because again,
Elliot's been around his father a longtime. They talked about this,
you better take a shot at it. Back to not for long. You
get usually one opportunity as a asa as a GM to pull a legit
big time pick at the quarterback position. You probably get too shots to run
(39:00):
the situation as a coach. Youknow, to hire your coach this quarterback
situation. If you're going to messup, you better mess up on trying
for a guy that you know hasa lot on the table. The probability
is what how many of this groupof six is it three or four that
(39:20):
are going to not work out?Three? Maybe four? Depending? I
think the expectation is probably four,right, that don't work and two guys
end up being bang up quarterbacks,right, just like the you know most
And it's interesting we had I hadBill Pollian on a different podcast and he
was saying that the difference between thenand now is we pushed so many quarterbacks
(39:42):
into Round one that you know,some of those guys would have been Round
two guys later because of the waythat they cost, and so the hit
rates are lower now. But yeah, I mean the hit rates are going
to be a little Yeah, fora six quarterback draft, it's going to
be probably two or three that aregoing to work. And I'll take that
because it's not just about one orzero like when Matt Ryan hit for you,
(40:07):
it was a thirteen year career.It's not just oh, I you
know, way to go. It'sa long term successful Falcons had never had
back to back winning seasons and nowall of a sudden they have three straight
winning seasons, you know what I'msaying, or four straight, five straight
and then and you're you're going throughthat and it ends up being the return
(40:29):
is so phenomenal when you hit ona guy New England. They hit on
Drew Bledsoe in nineteen ninety three,then they hit on Tom Brady in two
thousand and one, and you're talkingabout thirty years of the franchise almost moving
to Saint Louis and then now beinglike one of the best most profitable,
you know, franchises in sports history. Right, Like when you hit on
(40:49):
a quarterback, these all these thingsshall be added on to you and that
so it's totally worth it to gofor these guys. And remember all that
you're saying is so correct. Itis a lot easier, sorry, and
more beneficial of course, to havea quarterback who is a good quarterback or
a good to very good, verygood to excellent quarterback versus you know,
(41:10):
solid when you're picking players, right, it makes that pick for a tight
end that much better for you,or that pick for the receiver, or
that pick for the running back oryour O line. When you have a
package guy like this, that canchange the production and the skills and the
talent and the end all hit onthe other positions. I truly believe that
(41:31):
if you have some very good footballplayers coming in, when you have a
middling quarterback, it just makes everythingso complicated, and the players that you
think are going to thrive, theytend to take a step back because they
just don't have that quarterback talent aroundthem to shoot for the next level.
And it can be you want totalk about something that drives you nuts as
(41:54):
a team builder when you don't havea quarterback playing for you. Again,
this is obvious, but I'm justsaying, the stresses in that organization from
day to day, month to month, season to season, and year to
year, I can't even begin.And that also goes to the owner,
right, you have an owner inyour ear all the time. That's not
(42:15):
a fun place to be, ofcourse, Well, it just makes everything
so much harder. To your point, like I remember talking to one of
my friends in the league, andyou know, I had done this research
on weak links and how important itis to have your weakest player and like,
so, for example, the fivemen on your offensive line, the
most important one as far as itsstatistically is the fifth one, the fifth
(42:37):
best one is Your offense goes asthey go. But the fact is,
if your best lineman is next tothe fifth best lineman, it makes the
fifth best lineman better. And andto your point about quarterbacks is like,
if your quarterback can protect his offensiveline, he makes the whole offensive line,
including your fifth best offensive line better. So as a team builder,
(42:59):
you're better at picking You're all ofa sudden better at picking the worst offensive
lineman on your team because your quarterback'sbetter at covering him. Up to your
point about tight ends, the samething with tight ends, like that first
round tight end, like brock Baueris a great player, he goes to
Vegas, Who the hell is throwinghim the ball? Is a good question
as far as whether or not brockBauers is going to work out, same
thing with like all these tight endsthat have gone in the top ten you
(43:22):
know in the past that have failedwell of course, David and djok who
is going to struggle with Cleveland whenCody Kessler, Deshaun Kaiser and all these
other guys are throwing in the ball. You know, it's you know,
and so there's there's elements to that. I know you talked about on k
Adams Show about you know, tradingup and trading down, Like if you
trade up for a guy and yourteam's already good, he's gonna do better
(43:44):
than if you trade up for aguy and your team's not very good.
Like, there's there's elements to thisthat are that are apparent. The last
thing I want to talk about,and I know we've been pretty quarterback centric
on this is nineteen eighty three wasthe last time we had six quarterbacks in
round one. Interestingly, in thatdraft, there also was no quarterback taken
in rounds two, three, andfour. That same thing happened this year.
(44:08):
So no quarterbacks went in the nineteeneighty three draft in rounds two,
three, and four, and noquarterbacks went two, three and four in
this round either. So you know, Spencer Rattler went the fifth round and
Michael Pratt went the seventh round.We talked about Michael Pratt on the on
the Serious Show. We had afew other quarterbacks in the fifth sixth and
seventh round. How how do youinterpret that? Because there's no way that
(44:31):
there's that big of a gap betweenSpencer Ratler and Bonix from a talent standpoint,
So how how do you do yousee that? As teams are just
not willing to kind of do whatthe Eagles did with Jalen Hurtz what the
Commander back then they were called somethingdifferent, but the Commanders did with Kirk
(44:52):
Cousins in RG three? Are teamsjust not willing to put kind of a
young guy with some potential back there? Because I look at this league and
I watched kind of the pace ofplay last year. There was the average
game had less than forty four pointsin it, And I think, how
(45:12):
many starting quarterbacks did we have alot? And I'm looking at this draft
and I love the fact that sixquarterbacks going round one. I'm less crazy
about the fact that no quarterbacks wentrounds two, three, and four.
Do we have a quarterback development problem? Or is it just is it rational
to wait until round five to getyour kind of developmental player? I think
the latter. I think the peoplethat needed the quarterback were going and they
(45:37):
ostensibly could have been pushing their needas we've talked about, right in other
years, maybe they were second rounds, they realized, let's do it now,
let's just go for it. Let'slook at the trade charts and decide
we're going to make this move,and then the down the line guys that
are drafted. I do maybe disagreewith you a little bit. I do
think there's a difference between Bo Nixand Spencer Ratt. That's what I think.
(46:00):
I think there are a number ofdifferent things that I think, you
know, Bo is that much morepositive on. But as a team,
you're thinking, Okay, we havea lot of other areas here. There
are some really good running backs here, some really good receivers, there are
some good defenders in the second,third, fourth fit. Let's focus there
and then let's revisit. Let's revisitfor a lot of those teams that are
(46:22):
looking for the second, you know, the number two later on, and
the other teams are saying, we'llget there. If we get there,
if not, we'll figure it outanother time. It just it feels like
that's how I would look at it, probably like there's a lot of really
good players here that we could takecare of in these rounds and the ones
who really need them already picked themin the first round. So it's just
(46:45):
like a little bit of a deadspace right now, and it may start
going that way. I don't know. It depends from year to year,
of course. Yeah, I justwish because the NFL did change a rule
that was really subtle this offseason,by the way, where you can and
elevate a quarterback from the practice squadto be your third stringer. And maybe
(47:07):
I'm overreacting, I just don't thinkthat that's good for the league, right
because you know, the rules onpractice squad guys were like they can they're
kind of transient, right, Likeyou can sign a guy off of guy's
practice squad to be on the fiftythree anytime. And I can't get the
image shaken from my head of thetwenty fourteen playoffs where case Keenum started to
get or John Skelton started a playoffgame, Ryan Linley, They're all the
(47:30):
same. Ryan Linley started a playoffgame, and he started the year with
the Cardinals on the practice squad withsim of San Diego and then back on
the Cardinals. I'm like, hecannot be developing being transient on all these
teams. Same thing happened with caseKeenum and I'm just thinking to myself,
there isn't There aren't really mechanisms forthese teams to sign and stash quarterbacks and
(47:50):
develop them. And yet at thesame time, I look and I think,
well, first round quarterbacks are cheapanyway, so why not just continue
to recycle them? But it's Idon't know. I look back at a
league where the Jake Glomes and BradJohnson's and Mark Boulgers and those guys were
all playing in Super Bowls, andnow I and now when we get in
(48:12):
the dog days of December and there'ssome bad quarterbacks who are underdeveloped playing in
the NFL, and I and Ikind of get sad for kind of the
quality of play. That that's whereI worry about that gap between rounds two,
three, and four and teams,because if you draft a guy in
round five, there's no guarantee heeven makes your club, right, Whereas
if you take him in round three, he's you're investing at least some time
(48:36):
and effort into developing him. AndI think that that's holistically better for the
NFL. I agree, And thereYou're exactly right. The last thing you
want to do is lose a playerin the third or fourth round. It's
just not good. It's not goodfor your it's not good for the morale,
it's not good for their owner,it's not good for the GM.
That's a great point. So yeah, it's just interesting. So anyway,
(48:58):
Yeah, this was fun. Iokay, let's let's end with this.
What was your favorite? Which teamhad the favorite draft? For you?
Look, I keep coming back toHowie and his ability to trade around and
get what they wanted to get.I love the fact that they got at
corner as he did in Quinnon Mitchelland you know, because I think he
is a heck of a talent.And I love the fact that they came
(49:20):
back in the second round and theydidn't reach on Cooper Degene. Right,
it's that way. I always wonderif it's Cooper, is it Degen?
Yeah, it's Cooper Gene in thesecond round. Look, there are a
lot of teams out there, Arizona. I love what what Manty Austin Forth
did, of course, and Ilike what as you know, and you
can talk about him a little bit. I really like what Dan Quinn and
(49:40):
Adam Peters did up in Washington yeah, Dan Quinn, Adam Peters, you
know, Cardinals and Commanders, you'renot going to You're not going to ever
get a bad grade from me forhaving as many picks as they had.
That is, you know, reallya I think you know that that's just
restocking, right, And the Commandersneeded both the Commanders and Cardinals needed players.
(50:06):
I think Jerry Newton a great valuefor the Commanders in round two.
Obviously Daniels is the face of thefranchise. Now Cardinals get Harrison, which
is just a great player to pairwith Murray. Murray's always at his best
when he had DeAndre Hopkins there andand so forth. So I like both
of those drafts a lot. Myfavorite draft and I know, look I
(50:28):
three months ago I could barely pronouncehis name, but now I love his
draft. Joe Ortiz, Corey Kraiwickand the Los Angeles Chargers. I gotta
say, everybody was saying, oh, they're gonna take j C. Latham
at five, and YadA, YadA, YadA. They hung tight at five.
They took Joe alt joelt right likethe the you know John alt Chiefs
(50:52):
legend his son to play right toplay tackle for them. Now you think
about this team. They were barrenfrom a talent standpoint, terrible cap situation.
They come in, they clean thething up. They get a fourth
round pick for Keenan Allen. Theyhave a great quarterback, and in Justin
Herbert, they have alt They doa pick swap. They they somehow manage
(51:14):
to trade up in the second roundand lose no value. You look at
the charts. They figure out howto trade up without giving up a ton.
They get Lad McConkie, a guyboth of us like at wide receiver,
which is a great, great pick. Junior Colson, the linebacker from
Michigan, who you know obviously JimHarball likes a lot. And a running
back, by the way, whoI really like as well, Kamal Ddahl
(51:37):
from Troy, who I know I'vetalked about in here, big bowling ball,
kind of running back, a toughnessguy that that they Chargers have gotten
kind of a reputation for being softin recent years. I really like him
both speed wise but also ability.And then they get Jerry Rice's kid in
the in the late later rounds,Brendan Rice from from USC. I like
that draft a lot. I thinkthe Chargers obviously up pill Battle looking up
(52:00):
at the Chiefs. They had notwon that division since two thousand and nine.
Ortiz, I think it's gone inthere and and and done a good
job in building that team. It'sthe long haul for them, right Like,
They're not gonna go and win thatdivision right away. It's not gonna
be like the Niners when Harbaugh tookover in twenty eleven. That team's not.
(52:20):
That team was ready made an underachievingteam. This Charger team is gonna
take a little bit. But Ithought that their draft lasses really I thought
they did a really good job.I think Joe coming in there, Ortiz,
you know, with Jim Harbaugh,there's just a good synchronicity there between
them both. They have the personalitiesthat need to roll together. They you
know, look, you know aswell I do. Joe coming from the
(52:44):
from from Baltimore, with all ofthat background, with Ozzie Newsom in that
group, he's going to be areally good addition for that franchise. Along
with a head coach that we allknow can coach. It's gonna be fun
to watch those two operate coming years. Yeah, for sure. And now
Tom Tiles never traded back in allthose years with the Chargers. They still
didn't trade back this year, butthey did make some sound picks. This
(53:07):
was a lot of fun, Thomas. People have been asking for you back
on the show that the The receptionhere has been phenomenal. The chat's been
great. Thank you all for cominghere on a Monday. Thank you all
for coming. Like I said tothe live show on Thursday, all of
our content, We're going to continueto roll out content. If you don't,
you know, go to our YouTubeshow. We have a ton of
(53:28):
great stuff from Mike Mayock. Wehave a ton of great stuff from all
the folks we brought to Detroit.We want to thank our sponsor, Underdog
Fantasy for their for all their supportfor this past weekend. This has been
a great time Thomas. This hasbeen fun for Thomas Mitchell, for Eric
Egert, this has been the summersports show.
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