Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly, a production of iHeartRadio.
Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly source for the nation's best fantasy football advice, speculation, and whatever stupid stuff they decided to drop into the show. Now here's your host, Paul Charchian.
Welcome to our first in a series of draft rookie related Fantasy Football Weekly episodes. I'm Paul Charchian. Very pleased to be joined by Thorne Eystrom. It's great to have you back.
It's good to be here.
The combines going on even as we speak, we have the whole thing going on. So it's a great time of the year, one of the best times of the year. Love draft season.
Yeah, that's the best.
And you know, we obviously you've been on the show for a long time, but we didn't have you at this time last year, so we didn't have you breaking down players for us, but now we do.
Well. I was happy I could get my pook in Na Koua.
Yeah you got it out there.
Yeah, yeah, we end. But yeah, I'm excited to talk through it the entire process.
Like you know, especially guys that draft early on, you know, some of the underdogs and the best of all.
People, you can get ridiculous values.
Yeah, if you draft those those things before the NFL draft actually happens and we find the values here.
Yeah, no doubt about it.
The guys we're going to talk about now are gonna be some of the bigger names in this show. The premise of what we're gonna do with you thora is this today's show, We're just gonna do first blush observations about your favorite five guys at quarterback, running back, wide receiver,
tight end. So and this is in part for me because like a lot of our listeners, you know, we're all focused on the NFL for most of the season and super Bowl gets over catch your breath for two weeks and now here we are today, and so I need, I still need like basic overview for a lot of these guys. Then in the coming weeks, we're gonna drill down with you on each position and do deep dives on players and go deeper into every position. Love it, Aye, way,
I'm super excited. Okay, So we're gonna hit twenty guys today. Twenty Let's begin at the quarterback position, and the player presumed to go first overall, but not necessarily. Let's start with Caleb Williams.
Yeah, Caleb Williams, the upside the ceiling that people talk about, that's absolutely real. The high end flashes that he's shown are about as good as you'll see for a prospect coming out. I do think there's a little bit higher of a risk in that profile that maybe has been discussed. I'll just start with the gud. I mean, elite athlete
at that size, elite arm and elite improvisational ability. He'll run around, buy his time in the pocket, and then he'll see a dude way downfield who's broken off his route. He can hit him on the hands, he can get the ball out immediately from any angle, throw across his body, get it on the outside of the other hash, different stuff like that.
That's all the good stuff.
Five Star guy had plenty of pedigree hand pick by Lincoln Riley. Lincoln Riley kicked out of the other five star that he had in their Spencer rally. Yeah, so he could start Caleb.
Williams' career there. And then obviously Caleb went with him to us. See.
The two things I'm concerned about ones off the field. One is on the field. The offfield one. It's not that he's a bad kid or anything. It's just there's weird vibes around there. His dad has asked for like weird stuff, like looking into the NFLPA agreement, see if they can get out of a rookie deal. Can we get some steak in a team. It's weird.
I'm not saying that it's it's bad or it's going to pour tend disaster here.
It's just a weird vibe. Like Caleb Williams doesn't have an agent. They're like, we don't need one because it's fixed salary, different stuff.
Like that, which is not inaccurate when you're gonna go in the first I don't.
Fix to the draft.
And he has a different company that does his marketing, so the advertising stuff like he's already fine with. And then the one thing on the field that is just a little bit concerning. And I don't think this is a nippick. I think it's an actual concern. He takes a lot of time to throw the ball. Now this is by choice, you know, but it's also endemic to his game, like he wants to be back in the pocket by time a lot of it and then give his receiver time to break off the routes.
But he's in terms of the.
Time to pass the last two seasons was near the top of the class, well over three seconds.
He needs to get the ball a quicker in the NFL.
Let's talk about Jade and Daniels. There's some steams starting to emerge that Daniels could pass by Caleb Williams potentially go to the first in the first and I think from a fantasy standpoint, Jayden Daniels is gonna be the first player taken because of the running.
Yeah, I mean Jade Daniels. The floor certainly is higher than Caleb Williams is because I don't see how he busts. He does two things that at an elite level that will translate to the NFL. The deep ball number one has one of the best deep balls that we've seen in the last ten years come in the NFL. In conjunction with his ability to steal yards.
As a runner.
Yeah, those two, it makes them so hard to defend, like you're gonna keep you know, a linebacker spy up. If you do that, you can't have the second safety deep. It becomes a spacing problem for the defense.
Whatever.
So those are the things you like about him. The ceiling maybe not quite as high as Caleb, but he does have a higher flare.
Well, fantasy ceiling could be higher. If he's for sure, he is definitely gonna run more. Yeah, I mean last year ran for over a thousand years. I don't know if he passes Caleb. I ambullish on the idea that he passed Drake May, though, in what people see as the board to go in that number two slot. If he doesn't go number one, I think he's a better fit for what Cliff Kingsbury looks for in a quarterback,
going back fifteen to twenty years of his career. I looked at the last nine quarterbacks that Cliff has worked with. Six of the nine were guys that won outside of structure as much as they want inside of structure. That it's not a Drake May trait. Jade Daniels fits out a lot more. Drake May is the next quarterback. I do want to talk about much more of your traditional pocket passer, a little bit of mobility, but that's not
his game, right, I don't want to. You know, the comparable feels like young Kirk Cousins almost, you know, who actually had you know, a little mobility in the first first part of his half of his career.
Yeah, for sure.
I think there's there's parts of his game that have been correctly forwarded and and and things to get excited about. That's the the stuff at you know, big strapping pocket passer with an enormous arm, like he is a sniper downfield and he has all the arm he needs for every single throw, you know, like I said, including consistently
threading threatening vertical. The one thing that I think has been overblown about him, it's it's the thing about like the athleticism and running like he gets camped to like Josh Allen for instance, or even Justin Herbert. I don't think he is yet. He's not even close to the athlete certainly of Josh A. Not as good of a runner as either of them. I don't think his arm is quite as good as Justin Herbert's either, So I think these are sort of like apocryp full comps for him.
I hope people don't get upset with this.
But my comp for him is Carson Pence, which is a combination of Carson Palmer and Carson Wentz. I you know, it's it's not that he Carson Wentz, but I think the pocket game is way better. That's why you know, you put Palmer in there. But I think he's more of a stand in the pocket type guy in the NFL now gonna win with the running, that part of his game is not going to translate. Sam Howell came, you know, came out of the unc offense. He ran a ton, but that didn't translate.
And then the although I still contend it could translate, they just didn't let him.
Could it gone last year? Yeah, But like Drake May, I definitely don't think it is. And and the one other part of the game that I think is overblown is outside of the pocket off script stuff, he's not as good with that kind of stuff.
That then I think he gets credit for.
Let's go to a player that you've been banging the drum on relentlessly, Michigan quarterback JJ McCarthy. You know, there's there's steam that has him going as as high as you know, the lottery of this year's draft into the top ten. Then there's you know, there are other play players, are other people that have him going in the middle of the second round. So you know, we've seen a huge divergence of thoughts on JJ McCarthy. Tell us a little bit about his game.
Yeah, definitely a big fan of JJ McCarthy. I think he's a really good athlete. He did not test athletically at the Combine. I think he's going to do that at his pro day when he does. I think he runs in the four or five and that's a really important aspect of his game. He steals yards, but the more rare trait of his game is getting outside the pocket throwing on the run. Absolutely does not need his platform, and he makes really good decisions when he's on the move.
It's just a super rare trade where you know, there's not many guys that came out the last decade that you can point to to do that stuff with the consistency that he does. People talk about his volume stats, but when you look at the per pass stuff and when we look at the high leverage stuff, that's where he flips from being on the bottom end of some of those guys that we've tossed out to being one
of the best. He was seventy fourth percentile in seven of the categories that PFF looks at to define quarterback play standard drop back percentile adder beyond the six percentile, avoids negative places percent under pressure percentile outside the pocket percent ole, third and four down percentile, and positively graded throw percentile seventy second percent I'm sorry, seventy second percentile
or above. No other quarterback in that top five or even in the class was above fifty two percent in every one of those.
All right, let's go to Michael Pennix, who I think you know, everybody assumed would have been just a lock first rounder. The disastrous National championship game took a ton of the luster off, and now we're looking at somebody who may end up falling to the middle of the second round potentially definitely.
Yeah, And a lot of that stuff with him is going to be informed by how the medical news that we get about him coming out of Indianapolis. A guy who was first four years when he played in Indiana had a season ending injury and every single one of them too or to his lower body, to his knee, and we'll see what they say about that. He was able to stay healthy last two years of Washington, So that was a good part of that. The on field stuff, I love him when he's in the pocket and he
doesn't have to move off his spot. You know, he's like a sniper who needs that gun on the you know whatever and not moving whatever. When he starts moving, though, the accuracy falls off a shelf. So when you can pressure him quickly different stuff like that, he starts making poor decisions. And like I said, the accuracy does not carry with him when he's on the move.
All right, let's go to the running back position. Thor as we're zipping through your maybe I don't know if this is necessarily your top five because I don't think you've really ranked everybody yet. As we're recording right now, the combines in process, so sort of yeah, rafter, I like, do we put that right? Everybody's got the right to change their mind in early May, when we're almost two months away from the draft. Right, let's go to the
running back position. Let's start with one of the fastest guys in this draft at any position, Tennessee running back Jalen Right.
Yeah, Jalen Right, freak of an athlete, was on the Bruce Feldman free clist. The reports that we've gotten about, so we know that he's he's a confirmed twenty three point six miles per hour on which is insane. It's crazy speed. You're you're talking literally world class speed. And this is Bruce Feldman that reported this forty four inch vertical confirmed in the past ten eight broad jump. Bruce Feldman also reported that in high school Jalen Wright ran
a handtime four to eight forty. Now that's Olympic speed. It's stupid and the kids not small either. This is not an air scatback. He has sides with him too. We'll see at the combine what he ends up playing in at but probably to twelve ish, I would expect somewhere around there. He showed a lot of different stuff at Tennessee. He was in this three man rotation, but this past season he moved to the top of it.
He started getting the work.
He's showing some receiving shop, but specifically his elite trait is hitting that accelerator when he has that line to the goal line. Yeah, and he starts a racing that angle.
Nobody's quick. Now he's getting there. All right.
Let's go to Florida State's Trey Benson and I've I was watching him today and man, do I I like this kid? I think his game's going to translate really, really well to the NFL. He also has speed, nothing like Jayalen, right, not on that level, but the vision, the change of direction, the tackle, breaking the home run, the home run plays. Trey Benson from Florida State looks to me. He looks NFL caliber to me for sure.
Yeah, getting off the bus, he probably is the top one in this class, you know, I mean in terms of the side speed combination, he definitely is the top. Last measurement I had on him was six one two twenty one. We'll get an updated one.
Sick in Indianapolis running back.
Yes, And by the way, in the prop markets right now, the books have set his forty at four to three nine man at that side so well, and he's got a sprinting in his background and everything like that, and plenty of explosive plays on tape. So we'll see if he ends up being able to break that number. If he does, obviously the stock he's going to surge. Interesting evaluation didn't play much his first two years at Oregon,
in part because he had this devastating knee. He tore his acl MC elateral meniscus, medial meniscus and gracial tending, which I know what that was, which I guess it's a hamstring thing. As a true freshman when he was on like the you know, the practice team whatever. Yeah, didn't play much as a sophomore, but in uh he transferred to Florida State. Twenty twenty two was his enormous breakout season. Uh, I mean across the board was awesome,
but we're truly historical. That season, he became the first guy in PFF charting history to break more tackle attempts than were He was the only guy over fifty percent in that so he was breaking you know, two tackle attendzie breaking more than one every single time. So I truly prolific tackle breaking that the play came down a little bit last season. I wonder if that was an offensive environment thing. He's a guy who should be projected as a bellkow who never got that opportunity because he
was playing in a Mike Norvel offense. A guy who has used, ever since going back to Memphis, a platoon of running backs. I think Benson would have been better served than one where he could you know, sort of get going and warm up and everything like that. But yeah, very very talented kick moving to the next level.
The you and I may differ on Texas running back Jonathan Brooks. I watched one game just him against Houston, so I'm just I'm very early into this, but I liked some things. I didn't love anything. And you know, I thought his change of direction was okay, the speed was just okay. He can catch. You know what I really bothered me is open space. The guy does not
maximize opportunities. I saw him get tackled a bunch in just one on one open space situations, and it felt like he merely took what the Texas offensive line gave him. I didn't see special traits, at least in one game for Jonathan Brooks from Texas.
What do you think?
And I don't think he's a special athlete either. And one of the disappointing things about his injury from November is that we're not going to see him in the pre draft process. He is not going to have to test. So not only is he coming off the knee injury that's going to affect his rookie season, but we don't We have no idea what that athletic profile is gonna be. But I agree with you. You know he is not a special athlete by any means. He's not a huge
back either, just to tick over two hundred pounds. The one trait I really like about him is contact balance. He's one of those guys where he'll bounce off the glancing shots and everything like that and keep on moving. But I totally agree with you, like doesn't have the jews, doesn't have the long speed, and the make you miss is is good but not great.
Notre Dame's Audric Stimy s Timmy Sma stim I'll have this down by the draft. I'm confident talk to me about him.
I hope he does well in the NFL because I like saying his name, and Notre Dame loved him last season. He was the reason that that team was good and it wasn't because of Sam Hartman estimate last year ninety four point two PFF grade that is speaking of historical sixty four broken tackles with that, by the way, an elusive rating of one twenty six point five, which is very impressive because this is a two hundred and thirty pound hammerback.
He has good feet.
I really like that, and I like the power as well. He runs more angular, but he has really good contact balance for running with that style certainly brings the power. One really important thing about his evaluation finding out what the speed is, finding out what the splits are in Indianapolis. The athleticism is the one thing you question about him. But last year certainly opened a lot of.
Eyes Michigan's Blake Korum had the luxury of running behind this amazing offensive line and it made it. I think it makes him a challenge of challenging evaluation because so many guys could have succeeded, and he looked good in that offense. But he does have some nice traits. He's clearly very shifty, really good footwork in balance. It looks like he's got some sneaky speed as well. What do you think of Blake Korm?
He another weird evaluation last year at the beginning of the season, he did not look impressive at all. He looks sluggish. He was coming off an injury of his own from twenty twenty two. In the beginning the season, he was basically being a scorter for five free yards every single run by that sick offensive lines, in particular run blocking offensive line. I believe this is off memory, so forgive me if I'm out by a couple, but I believe Michigan was number two in PFF run blocking grade.
Last year pass blocking grade, they were significantly lower. That offense was built to have that mauling line for Korum get the free yards before contact. The year before we had seen shops of Blake Korum a breaking more tackles. He's certainly an agile kid. He's one of those bowling ball type bill guys that the short and pack guys.
I like the agility. He doesn't have long speed though, And the thing about last year where it really affected his numbers as far as the sluggishness early on elusive rating for Blakekorm was only twenty seven point four last year. One hundred is what is considered like solid. This kid was at twenty seven point It was one of the lowest we had. Yards after contact was one of the lowest we had. He was better the year before, so you do have to give him that. In his own system,
I think that could work out. But for me, he's more of an early down guy, not going to get the receiving work in the NFL. Some people disagree with me about that, but I didn't see much of him as a receiver at Michigan.
When we come back, let's talk through wide receivers, beginning with Marvin Harrison Junior, who seems to be the consensus number one. We'll see if you and again I don't expect you have all your rankings done at this point, but there's a lot of great a lot of great receivers to talk about, and at least four guys that could go in like the top ten eleven picks of this draft. So we'll talk to that when we come back. Welcome back Fantasy Football Weekly, Paul Charching, thor An Eistrom
with you. You can follow Thor on Twitter at thor ku Rochester and I am at Paul Charching Ohio State's Marvin Harrison Junior. Everybody has got slotted into pick four of the NFL Draft, and it feels like it's been this way.
We knew this was gonna happen. At this time last year.
We knew Marvin Harrison was going to be one of the first players taken in the draft. So no big surprises here unless you see something different than most two.
I definitely buy that.
Yeah, the sports books have the first non quarterback taking odds and Marvin Harrison justifiable, he's like minus eight hundred.
I'm not surprised it's.
Not bettable, but yeah, he's definitely the top non quarterback. And in this elite wide receiver client like truly ELEE one, where you have three guys that would be wide receiver one and almost all the classes you know, past five six years whatever, he stands at top of them.
What makes him unique.
You have the prototypical boundary X type frame that he's in right like he came off the factory line, but he has the route running chops and understanding from his father, Marvin, who you'll recall was not the you know, in terms of the athleticism at all. He was a small guy as well. Yeah, Marvin Harrison had to win on route running and that was the thing that he taught his son. But his son got all the physical.
Guests that he didn't get. And the thing you.
Love about it is so the release package there. There was teams that tried to press him. You're not pressing him. His footwork is really good off the line. He has the strength off the line, and then the route running stuff. I really like his ability to throttle down and then throttle back up, he weighs absolutely no motion in it. And then along the route path he's constantly toggling up
and toggling down his speed. So it's really difficult to get a sense of like, where's that route break gonna begin? Which way is he gonna go? What's he trying to do here? Is he trying to get downtown on me? Is he gonna cut in?
You know? Like what's gonna go on?
Because of all those different cool things, he does love the ball scales, everything like that, so he is justifiably the wide.
Receiver one in this awesome wide receivers. All right, who's the receiver you like next after him?
I would put Melik Neighbors. I love Molik Neighbors. I love Malik Neighbors too.
Yeah, because that big body, the big the big build.
Yeah, the well neighbors.
So the NF, this is the way the NFL is going right with the speed receivers like this. I caught Melik Neighbors to Jamar Chase. It felt too easy because he's coming out of LSU whatever. But they're the same body type. They're gonna test very very similarly athletically, and you know, I sort of see them in the same phylum, but he's just a ferrari.
Yeah yeah, not kingdom, not family, not order. I don't remember all the other Yeah, all right, I like that.
Yeah, but yeah, like the unique thing about neighbors a couple of different things. He's a very very rare guy in terms of it seems as though he accelerates while he's changing directions. It's instant acceleration out of the route, breaks, instant stopping whenever he wants. He gets separation at will because he can be going full speed and then he stops on the dime. He can come back, he can break in whatever he wants. But the other guy can't
do that. Even if he guessed right, he wouldn't be able to athletically.
Stay with him.
So that's how he's always creating that and then he becomes his demon with the ball in his hands afterwards. He's got really good vision obviously, the agility, and then that speed. Last thing I'll mention about him, that's unique. I don't know if he taught himself this or if this is just natural or what. But you don't see you with a lot of guys, but very few. He does not move his upper body much when he is running at full speed. Everyone when they're running, they chug
their arms. This guy's got his arms pretty static all on there. But he's running at four to four maybe even high four threes, and so guys have a really hard time gauging first of all, how fast.
He's actually right, you might think he's at full throttle because it doesn't look like coasting exactly, because that upper body is not moving whatsoever.
And then it's also really difficult to know because he doesn't telegraph it with any upper body movement where he's going to break his route off. If he is going to break it off.
I saw some great blocking on some film on Malik Neighbors too.
He's a dog.
Let's go to let's stay with the same team. Let's talk Brian teammate, Brian Thomas.
Yeah, Brian Thomas is your uh more for me, the prototypical number.
By the way, you can't comp him to t Higgins right now.
I'm not gonna come okay, Goods. I actually come from to George Pickens, another kid that came out of the SEC recently. But it's it's one where it's the big outside receiver who has the downtown uh But you know, the ball scales downtown whatnot. He gets up off the ground, he can high point it. He knows how to pin guy's behind his back. He might be a bit faster than Pickens in terms of what the testing is, but
it's the same sort of utility. I don't see Brian Thomas ideally as a wide receiver one in the NFL on his team. I see him as a really really good number two like he was in college.
Yeah, I could see that.
Let's go to uh, let's go to Ladd mcconkee, who must be related to Phil?
How many common mcconkey's can there be there? There is not a lot of mcconkey's, right, So is there? Do you know?
Is there any connection between these between Ladd and Phil?
All have to get deeper into the research. I don't know.
I'm not sure about that. What I do know about him is it's separation at will. That guy separates like you and I breathe down at the senior ball last year, Tank we had a thing with Tank Delaware after Tank Dell embarrassed all the defensive backs and one on ones on the Tuesday. On the Wednesday, they started grabbing him at the route break because the defensive backs didn't want to get embarrassed getting left in the dust by Tank
Dell in front of all the NFL evaluators. Wow, he changed the behavior at the defensive backs more than anyone by far that year in those one on ones.
That was Lad McConkie.
This year, Ladi McConkie dusted everyone on Tuesday just like Tank Dell had on Wednesday.
When he came out. It was a little bit different thing, but it changed his behavior.
Nonetheless, the defensive backs started playing eight yards off the guy in one on ones. They were not interested in attempting to press him because they knew he was going to embarrass him with the footwork and then the separation is just going to start earlier. The defensive backs were basically saying, you can have a free reception anywhere within six yards of the line of scrimmage. I will just see that and then try to front all of.
The availuyeoho, amazing.
We got to get to a Dunza. We skipped over a Dunze.
Let's do it, yeah, oduns So he's the other one of those top three guys six to three, he's gonna.
Be two fifteen to two twenty.
I think he's gonna test better than other people do in the NFL. NFS and Blessed or the two preseason scouting services for the NFL they put out projected forty times they had Odoonza in the four fives. I think he's gonna run very low four fourths, maybe even high four threes. Certainly that's been the reports. Odonza is the only one of the top three receivers who is athletically testing in Indianapolis.
They asked him why, and he said, I'm good exactly. He said, people have.
Always undersold my speed because I'm a long strider. So I'm moving way faster than it appears on the television screen, and I'm gonna prove it. So I thought that was really cool. I love his play strength at that size. He's a really good round runner at that size and elite ball skills. If he tests as well as the reports have suggested that that he could, I see Julio Jones at him. I think there's a lot of similarities. Certainly the same package in terms of the height and
the weight. And then, like I said, the report, the reports of his test very similar to how Julio tested coming out let's go.
To the tight end position. Brock Bauers was. At this time last year, people were telling me Blrock Bowers was going to go in like the top six players of the draft. I don't think that's quite gonna hold uh in. Barks is just a lot of good players at the top of this draft. I think it feels like maybe a top heavy draft. I don't think Bower's played badly this year.
Not at all.
Yeah, So let's go to the tight ends. Let's start with there, because Black Bowers, I think it's the one tight end that pretty much everybody's got pegged in the first round. And I've seen him as high as pick six or seven, as low as pick like eleven twelve in that area sphere.
Yeah, and that's where I think he'll go.
Very very good prospect, obviously, I don't know if I get, you know, all the way to a generational tight end. I don't even think about him as a tight end. To me, he's a Swiss Army offensive weapon. They lined him up outside, they line him up in the slot, the line him up in line, they line him up in the backfield. Would they would do ender rounds to him? They would manufacture touches because the special sauce of brock Bowers.
It's with the ball in his hands. Afterwards, he has the speed, the potent if he gets an angle to potentially take it downtown. But the tackle breaking it's reminiscent of Sam Laporta from the last class, where he has that combination of the short area agility in conjunction with the power. So it's really hard to square him up. And when you don't square him up, he is absolutely running through your arm tackle attempt. And he's a solid blocker.
I will also say for being a bit undersize round two hundred and forty two hundred and forty five pounds, but he can do all the different blocks.
I've certainly played a lot of inline at Georgia.
All right, it falls off from there at the tight end position. But there are some other guys that could be Day two picks, right Jatavian Sanders. Talk to me about him, Texas.
He is the one that I'm very interested in, particularly from a fantasy perspective. Jatavian Sanders is going to be a more valuable fantasy asset than he is a real life asset because it can't block. He's just a big receipt. He should be a big slot in the NFL. Like maybe not even consider him a tight end. He should just be playing in the slot. But super duper athletic. The speed, I love the speed, I love the agility. The change of direction for his size is upper tier.
He also has good core strength and balance. He's one of those guys that cannot get jarred when he's running the routes at the catch point, guys try to go through his back different stuff like that. You're not doing that either. You can't jar the kid. But yeah, he has that ability to separate for all those reasons. This and then he has the ball skills at the end of it. But that athleticism, the strength that allows him to get open and winning contested situations where he is
really really good in the contested situations. He also makes people miss when he has the ball in his hands. Not going to break tackles, but he will make you miss. But but yeah, the nippicks on him. He doesn't block at all. So that's the big thing. You just have to know you're getting the big edge.
We don't care about blocking.
We don't not in fantasy.
You know else can't block very well, Travis Kelce.
Yeah, who cares?
Yeah, who cares? If you're good enough of a receiver, it doesn't matter. They can't all be George Kittle.
That's exactly right, right, Yeah, that's exactly right.
Ohio State's Cade Stover presumably not the son of former Browns kicker Matt Stover.
I don't think so, but I will look into that. He's an interesting kid who was a prep basketball star. Then he was Ohio's mister football as a senior, mostly as a defensive guy. He signed with Ohio State as a four star linebacker. Then they and by the way I pulled this up for you, two forty seven Sports comped him when he was coming out of high school and signing with Ohio State to Anthony.
Barr, Yeah, okay, all right, as a linebacker.
They then Ohio State switches him to defensive end when when he gets to campus. So he played those two positions as a freshman, moved a tight end as a sophomore, but then briefly went back to defense twenty twenty one. It was the last two years full time tight end where he broke out. You see that springy athletics, you know athleticism, that of course comes with being a basketball player, different stuff like that, and a guy who had the ability to bend the edge when he.
Was rushed as an outside pass rusher.
He also has the skills as a receiver, even though he's really early on with it. The hands certainly speak for themselves, only two drops, one hundred plus targets last two years. I also think he has an advanced route running understanding for where he's at with that position in terms of this stuff like the stop start agility, getting into the route breaks, different stuff like that, the footwork in there, and he's coming along as a blocker. He uses his length well, is one thing I like about him.
And he knows angles and he understands leverage as well. Needs to continue working on his technique and the core strength for that area of his game to become upper tier in the NFL. But a very interesting prospect, noneth.
Last, all right, that's Ohio State's Kate Stover. Let's do We're gonna do three straight Big ten. Well, pretty soon they're just all big ten. Yeah, right, tight end conference, babe, It is a tight end conference. And we will have an Iowa connection coming up in a minute. Penn States THEO Johnson.
He's one of the better size athleticism combinations in this tight end class, and he's showing chops as a receiver. The one thing that you know sort of concerned you in college was there was inconsistencies there, But you have to give them the benefit of the doubt of the offensive environment.
He came from.
Drew Allard, their quarterback, even though he's a value who would recruit, really struggled the past couple of years. THEO Johnson was in a twelve personnel offense where they had another tight end they would throw the ball to as well, but Alla wasn't a particularly good thrower. I like those skills of Johnson. I want to see how he tests, but I like the receiving skills, and he played really well down in Mobile. When we saw him at the Senior Bowl, was clearly the best tight end there. So
the best overall tight end, best overall tight that we saw. Yeah, so he definitely moved up there. If he can do it again at the combine, there's a big opportunity for these guys who are not amongst that top three tight end group that we just talked about. There is perceived to be an enormous tear drop after that. So all these guys in this grouping, if any of them can stand out for the rest of this draft process, you could potentially jump up there, maybe even go at the end of the day too.
There's a bunch of teams that need tight ends right now. Yeah, Miami does, the Jets? Do the Bengals do? Man, imagine dropping yourself into the Bengals offense or the Miami offense.
Yes, as a as a good tight end. Oh, that'd be I want to Tavian Sanders in one of those two.
Wouldn't that be nice?
That's what I want. Yeah, all right.
Let's go to uh Iowa via Michigan. Eric All, who I had not heard of until you just you know, you dropped his name on me a couple of days ago. The give me the update on on Eric All.
Yeah, he's coming from both the sort of the TEUs. He played for Jim Harbaugh Michigan for a couple of years. Then he came over with Cade McNamara, the quarterback that they had the transferre to Iowa. JJ McCarthy stole his jab of course, so they came over. Last year was supposed to be Eric Hall's like you know, national coming out party whatever, and he was playing well. But the problem was McNamara came into the season hurt and then
summarily was knocked out for the season. Then Eric All tears his ACL in October when he was starting to look really good in that offense. This was coming off a season ending back injury when he was at Michigan in twenty twenty two. He's only played in ten games over the last two years, but he looked really good twenty twenty one, last full season that we saw when he was a soft more thirty eight catches, four hundred thirty seven yards and two touchdowns. I really like his
combination of size, speed, and feet. He can change directions really quickly, also accelerates really quickly out of route breaks to return to top speed. You can line them up anywhere. He's showing that over the course of his career. Obviously was coach well at both the schools that he was at. There are some concentration drops on film. That's the one thing is a receiver he'd nitpick. And then he also lacks play strength, so he's not a great blocker even
though he tries. You know, he can pick off the smaller guys with his length stuff like that, but he gets ragged out by the bigger guys and then along the route path he can get jarred a little bit. So those are the couple things. But for me, Eric Hall is the sleeper in this tight end class. This would be a guy.
Can any Iowa tight end be a sleeper at this point?
Well, we've seen some slip through the cracks and then became studs in the NFL, like all of them.
Yes, exactly.
They basically rehab redo all of the drafts from all of these well other than Offan yeah, no offense. The one Iowa tight end that just and obviously he's still in the league and he's not bad.
He's not terrible. It just hasn't.
But for the brotherhood that he's with is y pedigree. Because you have a mount rushmore we do. Basically there is a mount rushmore there. Now we'll dive deeply into all of these guys in the coming weeks.
I can't wait.
And so we'll have all the athletic testing profiles combine, can bake all that stuff and then do a little bit deeper dies.
I can't wait for that.
Yeah, So well, over the coming shows. We're gonna have some free agency shows because free agency looming, We're gonna have some big moves. Whose Kirk Cousin's gonna be throwing too, right? Is Baker Mayfield automatically going back to Tampa Bay? All the free agent running backs, you know, sa Kwon Barkley and Tony Pollard and Josh Jacobs. There's gonna be so much happening.
I can't wait for that.
And then we'll be you know, a lot of a lot of the second half of March. In April, we'll be talking with you, yeah, breaking down all these positions.
Though.
We're gonna find some sleepers too, and a couple of these episodes, we're gonna get out in the weeds and go sleeps. Yeah, And you know it doesn't work every year, but last year, you know, Puka was one of my guys. Tank Dell was one of my guys, you know, and he ended up going in the third, but you know, at this time last year he was considered like a fourth, fifth round guy.
But yeah, we will find you guys, some sleepers out there.
I don't expect you to get them, all right, but your hit rate last last preseason was very high. I think about the only the only guy I remember you really pounding the table for that didn't do much was Roshan Johnson.
Oh yeah yeah.
Other than that, I think you were really really good.
Yeah yeah, I'm still I'm still bullish on Rochan. But yeah, we we had a good process last year, and you know, just bring the same thing over this year and hopefully we can we can find some unearthed some of those diamonds in the rough.
Yeah, it's gonna be fun. Thanks tork Wait. I will talk to you next week. Everybody, Bye bye. Fantasy Football Weekly is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.