NFL Draft Primer: 21 Questions with Daniel Jeremiah

my old black outfit. Did you see my pre production notes about how to light Daniel Jeremiah on our show? I noticed my chair was really low. The whole setup here, disturbing shadow on the on the right side of your face. I know, motivate a watch us on YouTube to see how much better looking we are there. I thought you were going for like a early nineties R and B vibe, because that's all Daniel listens to. Yeah, you had something you were tape dogging recently every year, and what did

you have playing on the spot? Well, I went to h rand, this is not this is out of my wheelhouse a little bit, but I landed on eighties and nineties duets, cop duets duets. By the way, Linda Ronstad a lot of jams back in the in that period of time. Who knew Aaron Neville on his game? And Yeah, I've always wanted to ask you, like, um, you know sometimes when you're watching like game passing stuff, and it's like you're on your third game and it's like silent,

you just sort of nod off. Do you rab just flat out fall asleep watching prospects and what does that say about them? So? Well, it happens good and bad. Like I was watching Dalton Kincaid, who's one of my favorite players out of Utah, and they're playing SC and you know, I don't know exactly what happened in these games from the fall, so I'm just watching it and I'm watching all of his targets and so he had like eighteen catches in that game. So after about the

fourteen catch, I was like, I must do it. I just like I must be hitting the rewind by how many catches does this guy have in this game? I literally thought I was totally just dozed off, not paying attention. I did not know what was going on. It happens those Mondays after the long Sunday and you're just trying just grinded through the game pass games. Sometimes it's like, wait, it's late in the third quarter. Now half a person, Oh okay, should I relind? Decisions decisions m dj ya

thank you for the time. Because we know you're a busy man. You're a popular man. Your metrics are off the chain. People are talking about you at all times. People are coming up to you asking for selfies. Just so happened recently someone had approached you, Um, do you want to share that. I'll just give me the cliff notes. I was it a Chick fil A, which I'm often at.

By the way, this place makes so much money off of me on events because whatever our per DM is, it's like my six dollar Chick fil A dinner every single night. But I'm there with my son. Guy comes up to me. Couldn't have been nicer, shows me his phone. He just listen to one of our episodes. It was

just a lovely conversation. And as we're finishing up, he goes, I do have to tell you, I do really like ATN It's like we had to we didn't want to start our relationship out, you know, not on a solid, honest footing at better that would have been a real I think. I think the fact that he brought it up probably tells me that he did. But he didn't. He didn't go quite that did he indicate in the world of this show, which personal I'm just in it

and maybe you're not telling us the whole story? All right, well that was a false winking get The rule is just play Kate Mark and then we could continue with the show. Um, all right, that's what we're gonna do. Yes, sir, we have twenty one questions for you concerning the two thousand and twenty three NFL draft we're going to. I mean, I don't even feel like my teeth are white, but I'm so dark over here that I feel like Ross from Friends right now. I mean, he's coming out of

the justin. Can we get the lighting right on our guest? This is this is lovely. This is lovely. It's mood. It's a mood. What we got. We're gonna go through the draft. Twenty one questions if we run out of time because Jeremiah said, I have a heart out. That's what he said to me. It's a lie. That's a grabbed him by the collar and said hard out and I said, okay, okay, okay, um. We don't want to keep you for too long, sir, but we're gonna hit

twenty one questions. Greg, you feel like this could be a challenge for us, Well, we'll try to go fast at the end if we have to. I'm just saying, if what if it goes the other way, what if we have twenty one questions done in about eight minutes. Okay, I don't think that's going to happen. That's not our We've taken five minutes to get to the first question. All right, So, by the way, do you like this draft class? Where do you rank this one, let's say

in the last ten years? Is one of the questions? Do we get a ding free? That's a good one. That was more like setting the table. That's a perfect Sorry, there's a question. Okay, Well that's a great question. Dan starting us off here with a real humbdinger. The number one literally could have gone anywhere you wanted. That's where you went. Anyways, let's let's look at it from the standpoint that we've got quarterbacks. So if we've got quarterbacks,

I always say that's good. It's good for us. So we've got talking points and it's fun to look at. I think we've got five starting quarterbacks in this draft class, hann and Hooker be in the fifth, you know, right behind the big four that we're going to talk a lot about, I'm sure. But outside of that, it's a it's a it's the best tight end group we've had in a decade. So if you look individually there that's outstanding.

I really like the depth of the corners. I like the depth of the edge rushers, but and running backs as good as well. But you know, to me, overall, receiver groups not really what it's been in the last few years. Linebacker groups not great. It's it's middle of

the road. But the kicker being we've got quarterbacks. Well, I'll start there then with the quarterbacks because from the limited amount of of tape Dog and I've been trying to do lately, I've almost been feeling like these guys at the top, and I'm talking Bryce Ung and CJ. Stroud maybe as the big two, we're almost undersold to me.

And what I heard as like what this class was going to be, and the reputation and I look at the two of them, and especially Stroud considering he's kind of been at that too or well below young level,

and think, like, what does this guy not have? Because if you compare him to guys coming out like Herbert at the time, we didn't know what Herbert was going to be, or Twa at the time, or Jamis, who was like kind of a lock number one, or even if you put Stroud in last year's class, I feel like someone would have been trading up to one and everyone would have thought that's great, Like what am I missing? That what this guy doesn't have? Because it seems like

he has basically everything. It's really good. I think both those guys, to me, there's a there's a gap between those two and then the next two. But Greg, I can't really argue with it. I think, you know, I'm a bryce young believer. I think if again, it's easy to say, but if he was a little bit taller, we'd be talking about him like we were talking about Joe Burrow coming out. I think we'd be talking about him like we were talking about Trevor Lawrence coming out.

I think he's that good. Obviously, you gotta get around the size but with Stroud specifically, you know there's some there's some games you watch where he doesn't play to

that level. You can look at individual game and moments, the biggest being, you know, the last game that he played against Georgia, he shows you everything that you want to see, but even the Michigan game before that, because the other biggest game, Yes, but there are other games sprinkled in there, and when you're watching him and you're like, Okay, not not his best Northwestern, I throw out because the weather was terrible in that game with rain and wind um.

But I think you know, some of the off schedule stuff, some of the pocket feel those things. I think he's good good. I don't think he's at it all date level. I would take him. I have a higher grade on him than I hadn't Kenny Pickett last year. So he would have been the top quarterback in last year's class. And you're probably right, going through the process last year, somebody would have traded up for him. They're gonna go

one and two. I mean, we can say they're being disrespected, but I don't know how you're gonna be the first or second pick in the draft. I guess it's just more like watching him is exciting to me that it

seems like he gets through progressions quickly. He's incredibly accurate, and his pocket movement I thought was great, like in terms of like making room and that to me seems like someone that Frank Reik would like at one And it's like what, I don't know, I guess yeah, he stands out to me is like the best thrower and that just watching him, he is so natural and it's just like, why would people not be totally fun if he's gonna go second they are falling in love with him.

But I have a question for you about let's say you're Chris abandoned that whole thing. We were just going down a road and now you guys are so hung up on twenty one questions. I don't want this to be one of my officials. So we got to just change the subject. We had such a good thing going right, well, we've got to keep I like that he's coaching. The twenty one thing does put pressure on it. Let's say,

sure is not a bad thing. Pressure. I want to say, you're Chris Ballard, okay, okay, and you have because I know Jim Er says sort of saying I'm not into the guaranteed money for Lamar Jackson for Intis. But let's say you get the green light to pursue Lamar Jackson. But you have you wouldn't know in your mind that Anthony Richardson on a rookie contract would sit there at number four for the Cults, a different type of quarterback

than we've seen for the Cults. And on li ever, what where would you go if you were running the Cults? What's your what would be your gut reaction on how to proceed? I would try and do the Lamar Jackson thing if I was a cult I've been kind of

on record with that. If you're looking at one of the two between Richardson and Levis or the fourth pick this year, and you're one next year for Lamar Jackson and taking into account the money you'd have to pay him, I would still I know what I'm buying and selfishly

and I'm saying I'm Chris Ballard. But now if I got out of Chris Ballard mode and went into fan of Colt's mode, and you can put Lamar Jackson back there when you have a big time running back like that, and Jonathan Taylor sitting next to you, and you've got a unblocked defensive end on a zone read and you've got Lamar Jackson or I've got I've got to deal with him? Are you kidding me? I think it makes sense for how they would want to play there. I think it would be a great fit there. So that's

where that's where I would go. I just feel like Lamar. Whatever anybody's hiccups are or holdups are, with Lamar, I know, I know this guy's on the field. He's gonna play quality football. We're gonna win games. I know what I'm buying. It might be more expensive, but at least I know

what I'm buying. What's the ceiling for Anthony Richardson who obviously knowing, but there's the player two from all the tape, I would say that he he has had some individual moments like Josh Allen, And then that's a comparison people

like to make. Josh Allen had great games, had great stretches at Wyoming throughout his career, there was more body of work to go off of, and then with Richardson, you're kind of picking out a throw here or run there, like there's not you're it's you're you're you're buying on the future here and at something you really haven't seen consistently,

but the payoffs huge. I think he would make sense for the same reasons I talked about Lamar being able to be in the backfield and run the ball like that. Richardson can give you that as you try and develop him as a passer. But again it's an unknown. I just feel like I know, I know what Lamar Jackson looks like on it because this is still part of

sort of marks quests. Yes, really does this strike Does he strike you as the biggest risk of the first round or the whole draft, like a guy that can sink you swim your draft class the way I look at if you look at all these wow, he did that costs you one? You thought you'd get an extra one. But then we're taking this still on the Anthony Richardson, I mean, I'm still feeling a little burnt because I

wanted to hear come back. So with Richardson, I look, if you look at the quarterbacks, won't let it go if you brought it up. It's a good it's a good conversation with Richardson. The UH look at him as a lottery ticket. If you looked at all those guys costing the same amount of money a first round pick, and then one of the lottery tickets pays out significantly more than any other. That's Richardson. But you know it,

it does come with with significant risk. Though he feels like the right coach for either him or Lamar by the way, I mean, Lamar would be even better, but Shane's I don't know if anyone stock has risen more than Shane Stike in this offseason. Just like hearing everything that everyone says about him, I'm like suddenly confident he'll know what to do if they get a mobile quarter Yeah.

From being around him, Um, when he was with the Chargers, he's a he's he's a really good teacher, and I think sometimes we you know, talk about coaches and game playing all those kind of things, there's still an element of development with these guys. He's a really good teacher. So that's gonna that's gonna go well with whatever quarterback they end up with. Would you like to circle back to c J Strout? Wow, now now you're putting me what if I just give a comment, then it's not

technically a question, all right. So with Stroud, the system, don't you Dared Dame, the system that we created. You can go back and watch, especially more last year. You see it a little bit this year as well, when he had to reset, when he got moved off of his spot, reset and throw the football, his accuracy went down. It was pretty consistent. That was kind of the issue

with him. That's why when you look at, you know, the Georgia game, it carries so much weight because he was able to not only it's not like he's not athletic enough to get away from pressure, it was can you get away from pressure? Can you then throw on the move? Can you reset? Can you make things happen off off the script, off schedule? And he did that there, So that to me, that was the difference between him

and Bryce Young. And the other thing is, right, I'm not arguing that he should be ahead of bright Throng. I can They're gonna be one, They're gonna be one and two. And then the other thing is it's kind of beauty in the eye the beholders. So with CJ. Strout, his feet are always in the ground, he's always on balance. The ball comes out from the same armslot in these

consistently accurate in those instances. Bryce Young, I was talking to John Beck about it the other day, who's been training both these guys, and I said, with Bryce, it feels like you could do an exercise with him when he could drop and you could just say eleven o'clock, nine o'clock, like you could put his arm acher wherever you want and he can still get the ball exactly where it needs to be a little more next next level. But yeah, I guess it's maybe that you're right. It's

the type of quarterbacks I tend to like too. It's like he kind not that CJ. Stroud and Philip Rivers are playing at all in the same NFL, but in the way that you're just like, that's going to be an NFL quarterback you could tell an NC State. I

almost feel like you could feel that about So. One of the interesting things though, in Beck had Herbert going through the process, and we've talked about this on here before about his development coming through through the draft process and then getting on the field, and he was like, people don't I think people don't understand Herbert's first year. His athleticism was what was making a lot of that

excitement happen. It was his ability to extend plays, not even you know, not maybe on the right read, not making you know, the right decision, but was athletic enough to buy time absorbed by these move around make unbelievable plays. It's hard when you get labeled as a pure pocket passer now, you know, it's just you have to acquire the knowledge to be able to use that within a stationary game. You can't do that anymore. You're not gonna

be given the time to acquire that knowledge already. Gonna be kind of funny though, I mean, it's just funny to think about like six years ago and like that's someone wh would be criticized for being too much of a pocket passer. Yeah, no, it's but it's different, Like it's totally different. I mean if you look at oh, like here's a young quarterback. Oh he's not athletic enough,

which is like he's plenty athletic. Yeah, they're gonna throw them all on the field right away, and you have to be able to use your legs to survive until you get the knowledge to be able to play purely from the park. You knowing so young and stroud do go one two in some order. When you saw that trade that the Panthers made, they give away their best wide receiver, multiple first round picks. In your mind, is

just going to be worth it? Are these guys? Do they have the potential to be good enough to make up whatever you gave up because now you have a star at quarterback for a decade plus. Yeah, I think it's always worth it if you get the quarterback. If you you know, as much as I love DJ Moore and I'm excited to see what he does in Chicago, you're not going to give up too much if you get your quarterback for the next ten plus years, that's

not There's no such thing as an overpay. And I like the fact they did it early because now they can they can go through the whole process, get the people involved they want to get involved, go do private pro days. It's a difference to trust me, if they called if they called Bryce Young right now while they hold the ninth pick and said hey, we want to fly out there and do a private workout, He's gonna

tell him, no, we're not doing that. So now that they're all the way up there, they can do all their homework and all the top gas, right, I think so I think they do. I think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be Bryce Young. We'll see. So the fourth quarterback, Will Levi us like you have him and I looked at your top fifty him as the twelfth best player right now but in your mock and I mean, like you can see how this would happen. He tumbles down the boards to number nineteen Tampa Bay,

and Bucky Brooks has a new mock out word. He falls out of the first round entirely. So this is the first the quarterback that clearly people are very split on and the variance is high. How what's the How is he the twelfth best player and he's gonna fall that far? I mean, it's quarterback need But you could just see everyone. I always assume everyone just gonna jump up for quarterbacks and they're not gonna let Will Levis slide that that much to not draft your twelveth best player. Thought,

that's not a question. That's it's a very very recent art question. Is stark comment? That counts for two questions? That's the rules. Look, I think when it's all said and done and you play around with different scenarios, and Bucky did it in his latest one and I had him looking at it. To me, it's like, okay, mac

Jones were talking about him being the third pick. He ends up being the fifteenth pick, justin fields we thought would go up their top and all of a sudden, Carolina passed on him, and you know, things happen and quarterbacks ended up dropping. So it's exploring different scenarios of what could happen. Look I do, and we've talked about this before. I do mock drafts off what I hear, not what I would do. Um. I do my top fifty off my eyes. I do my mock draft off

my ears. And I think when it's all said and done, once we take this winding road, once we get to the draft, I think all four of these quarterbacks are going to go really high. Yeah, Like the Raiders just sit out there as a team like that. They're not going to just let a Levis fly by them. Yeah. Everybody I talked to around the league pegs Levis with

the Raiders, like that's that's a spot there. Maybe let's let's wrap the quarterback talk then to get to Hendon Hooker, Like what while we're here because you've been higher on him throughout the process, I feel like than the rest of the draft, you know, COGNISCENTI. Yeah, and now it feels like that's becoming the trenity thing to do. They're catching up to DJ. Would you like to stick it

in anyone's eye in particular? No, this is this is This is the way it happens when you're with teams too, because you'll go in, um, you know, say, say you're an over the top scout, so you've you come in after the area scouts. So the area scout gives a low grade to Hendon hooker, and then you come in and you give him, you know, and let's just say, if you're doing working for a team that does rounds, you know, say they gave him a fourth round grade. You come in and say that, I think this guy's

second round grade. I've put myself out there. I'm a Hennon hooking guy. And then all of a sudden, you go through the draft meetings and like the quarterback coach gives him like a mid first round grade and be like, I don't understand where you don't like this guy? You know, you don't even you're out a hand and Hooker. I'm like, no,

no, no no, I thought I was really going here. Now you just leaped from Tannenbaumb just went big and he had like five I put him in the top five of his mock draft, you know, intermittent around the NFL listener Mike Tannenbaum and the two lane grad This would be one he might plug in on too. Yeah, yeah, we love you, Mike. No, he's he's a nice man. I to me, I like Hannon Hooker a lot. I do think he's going to be a solid starter. I wish he was a little younger. I wish he was

not coming off injury. That is what it is. But can we just take a quick that's like a big deal. He's four years older than these guys. I means deal, But it's not as I was just talking to somewhere that you know as well assistant GM this morning, and we were talking about this, he's not in a team that's going to take a quarterback, and he was like, the eight things over rated, that's not you can't look at it like that anymore. He's like, we're thinking about

even take quarterbacks out of it. He's like, you tell me this guy where we go through the medical process, the doctor says, this is gonna be a one contract player. You're like, great, give me four great years. That's enough for all of us to get another extension here and we'll figure it out when we go along. Like that, thought process has changed a little bit. You have him to the Vikings. He would sit behind Cousins this year because he's coming nothing long term with Kurt right now,

so he'd be twenty six. But their theory is well, he could played at the thirty six and that's a lot better than searching for eight other quarterbacks. Yes, even if you could give you seven eight years, that's tremendous, and five of those years are going to be cost controlled, cheap starters. Did you have an aside? By the way, I had an a side because I wanted to take a quick pause. I don't know if you guys question.

I don't know if you guys do commercials, But I was just thinking about you guys, are you making us take a break. So that's all I'm saying is this. I love baseball. You love baseball, Greg, you love baseball? You do not, so you're gonna enjoy this, okay. But I wanted to do something I was trying to do my homework. Can prepare you know, like you guys, I try to prepare for this interview. And I said, let me go try and find a picture. If I can find a picture of baseball, picture of Dan and Gregg,

maybe they've been to a game together or something. Yeah, so I was able to locate a picture of these guys in the ball game, and we haven't. Yeah, there they are. Look look at markt They cute and let me just look wonderful horrible photo of the two of them. Yeah, it's Ricky, an elderly overweight man and a little boy next to him. Um, now, I know you've never you have.

You work on TV a lot. We love what you do with the draft that you never had your own podcast before you do realize this is an audio medium. We're pulling people from into video. That's why they call that's awesome storm. Yeah, come on, guys, come on, hey along those lines that wholesome assassins um would you rather? And then we're gonna take a break, all right, graver,

would you rav try to tea that up? The San Diego Padres win their first World Series in team history this October or hit a twenty nine of thirty two in your final molding the top twelve really including the top twelve Padres mock drafts is a crap shoot, like you, that's what your ears. You said thirty two would be talked about forever, right, I know, but anybody has done that. Anybody can put a list together and guess like anybody can do that. It's meaningful time. I can assure you

that's true. I do on an it's but think about I wonder what your agent would say. What I mean, what a negotiation tool that can saying this from a relative position of security that he knows he's doing a good job. You know, how much do you make say he's confident in his work, he doesn't need the mock draft whereas whereas the Padres, you know, that would be a miracle. So I told them we haven't heard a

lot from him lately, you know. I told I told Bucky if the Padres win the World Series, I think I'm gonna get Kevin harted like, I'll be at the game and I'm gonna try and get up on the podium. They're like, who are you? What are you doing? Get out of here? Get hearted. I mean, if they can do it to Kevin Hard, they could definitely do it. Oh ye's that's a fact. All Right. We'll take a break and we'll talk more with DJ. All Right, we're back.

Justin Graver. Have you ever met Grave Digger, our producer. I know a lot of a lot of people I have behind the glass. People aren't allowed to make eye contact with you in the studio and around this building. That's in your rider. But that's Justin and he's a good person. Hold on, just real quick, let me get okay, I was gonna get in Dan's lights. You can see me. Hey, hey, you good to see it. How are you doing? Bud Grave Digger is a ut alum, a big time college guy.

And I said, do you have any questions you want to ask? Oh? Great, Daniel Jeremiah, let's go. Yeah. First, i'd left before you do. How many questions are we in so far? What? I feel like we have more than we think we're lost at sea? Okay, we've done ten so far? Ten? Okay, so we got eleven left. Keep that in mind, everybody, and this is number eleven. We got what we got. J I want to say thank you first for hooking me up with the Titans Chargers tickets last fall. That was awesome. Um, I do

have a question for you here. This is what we do. We're just a man of the people. Seen him many times since Oh he's already thanked me multiple times because he's a good human. Justin your arm, producer. We're not supposed to show that Daniel's a good guy, no, right, whenever possible, we sent him in a critical light. Okay, so we're gonna cut that out of the show. Go on. Sure, here's my question. How much do you a positional value

versus talent? For example, a guy like b Jean Robinson from my alma mater, who's number three on your big board. But if he's such a knockout talent, why aren't teams more Okay with foregoing the positional value and just taking a guy that they know is going to be a plug and play playmaker. That's a good one. That's actually the best question I've got today, to be honest with you. Maybe he might have heard another one back there that was impressive. Well, they can't be too good. Then he

doesn't get any more questions right off? To me? Running back things is standalone, like you can talk about other other positions as well. The running back thing is unique. I will say with b John Robinson, he's my third highest graded player. So when you watch the player and you put the grade on him of what he's going to be, I think he's going to be a multi year Pro Bowl player. I think he's going to be one of the top backs in this league, you know,

during the next five six years. So with me, to me, there is definitely, you know, positional value. If you've got somebody that's close in terms of the grade that you gave him, you're obviously gonna lean with pass rushers. Basically every other position, you're gonna lean just because of the life span the longevity of that position. But I don't buy into this you can't take a running back in the first round. I just think when it comes to

running backs, all their carries have to be meaningful. You're not gonna waste their carries if you if we all agree that they're going to pay play five six years of really their top shelf football, and then it falls off a cliff, which has been exactly what's happened. I don't want to spend three years giving you the football on a crappy team, and I'm wasting three years of

your carries and that's why. And I know they will never do it because it's not their philosoph But I continue to make the case at the Philadelphia Eagles, where they're picking at ten, it's rare to have a team that's that good, that's picking in that spot. That's literally a super Bowl caliber team right now, every single one of Bijan Robinson's touches for the next five or six years are going to be for a playoff team. They're all gonna matter. And so if you look at him

as a playmaker instead of just a running back. I mean, the forty nine ers are not dumb. There's a reason they saw where their team was and Christian McCaffrey could come in there and do an unbelievable job and maybe get them over the hump. I think Bijean Robinson, you get that, he's cheaper, he's younger, and you're gonna have a five six year runway here with him. Don't you think your guy Howie could zig when everyone's not expecting him to zag or hoping verses? I guess that is

a question. It is a question. Yeah, that is a question, and because if you look at the tenth content player contract, wasn't Garrett Wilson was tenth last year, right, I believe so. Yes, So that's four years, twenty million. It's not a crazy five million dollars a year for one of the best

running backs in the league. And I think Howie would like it because everyone, you know, paints them as the analytics team, and they and they are certainly, but you know, part of analytics is like once everyone starts going in the same direction as you, then yah zag get to And also to your point, you know, there's self survival involved with these front offices, just like you were saying, they don't care so much about the second contract. Gave me the guy who's gonna make our team better for

three or four years. We'll figure out everything else after. Right, Maybe there is a there will be a sea change in time. I don't know. Yeah, And I think that's totally you know, it's a different topic, but related. That's why I love comps and some people, there's lots of people, there's a weird section of the population who hates comparisons. And everybody you know, comparison is the thief of joy.

And you hear all this crap, right, it's valuable because if I'm telling you this is edgri and James, if this guy reminds me of Edrin James when he was in the league, Like, holy crap, you take Edrin James and put him with Jalen Hurts, and now all of a sudden, you've got Davante Smith and we've got a

j Brown. Like we're cooking with gas now. Man, I wonder if we get to a world where like, if you're a player that could play multiple positions, you're a top athlete in your town, why become a running back? If this is your career, your career, you are an isolate outside of kickers and punters, Like your career money making opportunities seems completely out in an island compared to where it was decades ago. And it's like, why do

this with your career? And well, it's hard because kids like to touch the football, so you can say and

you can preach to them about money. But when you're playing in the backyard and when you're playing for your junior high and you're playing for your high school, I get to play running back and I get to touch the ball every single play versus not knowing, you know, at Puxitani High how my quarterback can actually get me the football at wide receiver if I'm gonna play corner in the high schools in the beginning, that yeah, So

that's kind of how that works. But I you know, I would always argue and lobby for high school receivers and it would see them and be like, just play corner. Just every year the receiver group in the draft board, we're having to lop off all these names and like put them on the sideboard on the freeging board. We have too many corners, were like, did anybody else play corner? Do we have any other corners? Like where we're too low?

We got to put more corner up there. So that's why I've always said for young kids, if you want to get to the NFL and you've got a choice between those two positions, play corner, all right. If you have a pick in the middle of the first round and you're you need a weapon and you're trying to stack this tight end versus yea, the wide receiver class kind of agnostic. Let's say a team like the Patriots who could use both, and it's not like they couldn't

use a tight end. I guess they have Henry Anne Gaziki whatever, though the good long term player, like just these players specifically out in his mind like it's a little scrimmage, a little scrimmage. They could just use a good player regardless, But uh, like, how do you stack the top of the tight end class versus the top of this wide receiver. I love Dalon Kincaid so and he's ahead of the rest for me. I just he's such a dynamic player, and I hate the fact that

we didn't get see him healthy through the process. He had a little bit of back, so we didn't get seem at the combine. I think he said the other day that the Pro day wasn't able to do anything. He's gonna be able to run routes sometime in mid April. He'll show teams. I talked to teams about the physical and the medical. They said he passed. It wasn't you know, like this guy's gonna go on this long fall. But

he's he is so gifted. And to me, when you're looking at tight ends, guys that can separate and then also guys that can make combat catches, usually you kind of get one or the other. You know, you get somebody that's under size, I can get away from people where you get a big, you know, physical slug that just catches balls and guys on his back all the time. He can do both. Um, he's a he is a really really good player. We have not talked about a

defensive player yet. Second, I had one more follow up about tight end. Go for the ship. So um with the tight end draft. So you have two guys Kinkaiden may Or in your latest draft going in the first round. Um, why do you think highly drafted tight ends in the last decade or so? I not or have not met expectations. Do you think it's more about like the team they landed with in the scheme or is there something more

to it from the going from one level to the next. Well, if you'd have told me, I mean, I thought Kyle Pitts would emerge. Is the best tight end the NFL? Like right fast? And it hasn't all clicked. It hasn't all come together there obviously his first year I think you saw more last year was kind of frustrating watching it, but um, it's a good point. Teams have been able to find you know, big time tight ends in the middle rounds and some of these high picks. Hawkinson has been.

He's been a perennial Pro Bowl or he might not be. It's weird to say he's a Pro Bowl, but he's not like an elite elite players like Andy Dalton got a Pro bowler. Two Yeah, but he's been. He's spend to a couple. He's been traded already for what they trade him for. A two. UM this last year good, really good, but not hasn't lived up to where he was picked. No offense did not um emerge is what

you hoped he would be. I think there's you know, it's a trades position where you want guys that are big and athletic, but there's it's also a nuanced position. And I think in college it's just you don't have any of that, you know, so in terms of some of the polished route running stuff in college, you're catching a you're catching a team, you're catching a bubble. You know, it's just you're not as refined, so it's a little

more difficult to evaluate. We uh, we have a team of atl Every year we pick a team to ride with, and it was the Lions this season, and I love what you have done in your mock because you have Kalijah Cancy. Yeah. Brad Holmes the GM, he had spent years with Aaron Donald. He knows what Aaron Donald can do. There's comps there obviously. I just think he's a perfect fit for the Lions. What is is can he be Aaron Donald? Is? Is? Or is that too rich of

a comparison? Yeah, I mean it's there's just nobody like Aaron Donald in terms of the explosiveness and the strength that he has. You know, one thing, talking to D line coaches, they love guys that are a little bit short with long arms because you it's an unbelievable leverage advantage, you know when you can get some and I there you go, exactly what we measured those Yet, well, I mean, let's got the short part then, But he doesn't. He's

he is so like explosive and dynamic and quick. He can get up the field, get on an edge and go. The difference is Aaron Donald could put his hands right in your chest plate and you know, just run you flash over. He's not that type of power. He doesn't possess that type of power. But it's it's hard to find guys that can penetrate in, guys that can be disruptors on the interior. I contend it's hard to find

those guys in his to find edge rushers. So when you're having a debate in the room about an edge versus a defensive tackle, to me, I think Chris Jones, Quinnin Williams, Aaron Donald. Those guys can impact the game more from in their running past than you can coming off. I'm going to answer his question it is unfair to compare him to perhaps the greatest football player of all time. Well, I mean more than the splashes though, But it's the role. Like to me, you can say I'm not drafting the

same player, but I'm drafting for that role. He's going to play the Aaron Donald role for his team, and he has some Aaron Donald traits. He doesn't have Aaron Donald's. You know, again can go down his the greatest defensive shop of all time. Another one from you, Grave Digger. Okay, what number we had too, Graver Digger. This is going to be sixteen, this is going to be seventeen. Say keep that question the final question in the press count.

Right when you're writing your own feature about offensive lineman and you're burning questions during the media time. I'm good, Okay, this is following up on the tight end comments. I'm curious if you think, with it being such a strong tight end group all the way through, does that depth lead teams to waiting knowing that there isn't much drop off from you know, the say, the first guy to the fourth or fifth guy, or does it push up those elite guys even higher because they're the best of

a really good group. I've been leaning towards you know, we could see some of these tight ends drop just because there's so many of them. But the counter argument to that is, I don't think this receiver class is

anywhere near what we've had the last few years. So and I think if you listen to some of the stuff coming out of the meetings, Brandon's daley and it wasn't the only one, but I just remember that one caught my ear where he said, you know, it's somebody asking about receiver to and he's like, we're looking for playmakers, like they trying to just categorize these guys as playmakers. So to Greg's point about how you would stack receivers, mixed in with tight ends, I think teams are going

to say we need more firepower. So I think that I don't think that that drop is going to happen, but I think they're gonna say we need difference makers. Guys are gonna make plays. Whether you're a tight end, whether you receiver, we're gonna we're gonna take him. And I think the tight end group is just more impressive

than the receiver group. How is uh Jackson Smith and Jigbau you know, maybe at the top of this class, but not everyone's favorite receiver class so overlooked in terms of like top end when he's on the same team as just explain it to me, like an I'm an idiot. He's on the same team as Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson and he produces way more than most of them. And I see this in free agency too. I feel like everyone is always grading the previous year instead of

just like grading the whole thing. If he had come out last year, wouldn't he have been a higher pick? And then he knocks out the three cone the shuttle like he's got the great timing, Like why why wouldn't he seem like a very safe receiver pick because it seems like he can't miss. If I'm a GM, I just want to keep having picks where they're like, oh, that guy's smart. He keeps taking good players like and there's been a very few bad receiver picks lately. Yeah,

and especially coming out of Ohio State. Um, he's a slot, So that's that's it. So you've got Wilson and a Lava on each side working against the number one and number two corners and you're in there. That's what they said about Justin Jefferson too when he was coming out. Yeah, but Justin Jefferson's taller, longer, faster like all those things you know. Play he can jump above the rim like all those different areas. He's gonna be over him. And Justin was also coming off of a like a twenty

touchdown season is last year. Smith and Jigby didn't play this last year. So those are some of the differences there. And to me, Jefferson that was the whole. Is he a slot like? No, No, he was. He had played outside, he had played inside, He could do everything. Every team that I talked to and when I evaluated Smith and jig But I think he's gonna be a catch guy in the slot. He's gonna be high volume player. And there's there's obviously teams that covet that and have that

need and they're gonna love him. And there's other teams they're gonna say, we have somebody we can play in there. We want to get somebody that plays outside. One of the most surreal things that occurred last season was mister Irrelevant Yankee a team to the end see Title Game for you know, if you're not a quarterback needy team, but you want to go find that gem. It's probably popular now to mag you know, to focus on one person as like this year's brock Purty. Maybe slightly annoying

to you if that's the case. But is there someone hanging out in the deep distance who someone might grab late, who has sneaky upside a little bit of a gem. Well, I'm gonna turn around and ask you a question. Don't count this one. This one's free of charge. So when when Debo had all that success as a receiver, we did a thing and I came up with a really creative way of saying it, Finding Debo. Okay, So it was like finding Nebo, Find Debo about Okay, got it.

We've still been searching for the next Deebo Samuel. We haven't found him. Like, there's some guys that are different. So I need a catchy pun for Purty, Like, how do we try and find the next Purdy? Anything we think of picks our films from the two thousand, So look, everybody's gonna try and find that. You know, it's darnier impossible. And I still contend, you know, with Brock Purty, if you take him and throw him in a different building in a different scenario, who knows what it looks like?

He is the perfect match. There's the thing I don't know if you guys have read up on the S two test that you guys done at even work on this. So it's a it's a processing test that are now being given to especially quarterbacks. It's been in big in baseball. So it'll be like, you know, six shapes pop up and one's different. How quick can you identify the one

that's different? Is how quick you can process information? If you think about for baseball, pitch recognition and all that stuff, Like, it's very valuable tool and it's made its way over the football the last five or six years, Josh Allen was off the charts on it. Mahomes tested off the charts on it. Last year in the entire quarterback class, brock Purty had the highest number, had the highest grade on that. This year it's Bryce Young So processing information, no,

but that part it is. But so to me with brock Purty in his ability to process, paired with Kyle Shanahan's system with all the pieces in place, hey just being being being get it out, get it out, get it out, get it where he needs to go. He was perfect. He was perfect fit. If you're gonna go play action and ask him power comebacks down the field, and you know in a different offense he might not see the same results. That's all I'm getting at your

final question. If if I think Mark is just in love with Brack Purty, that's it was a great story. It's a great story, wonderful. If your son had been born like ten years later, it'd be Brock, not cult McCoy, Cessler. Well, I didn't name him cult McCoy, Cessler. No McCoy involved him. Rock Cessler is almost worth having another kid for. I did ask Matt Campbell at Iowa State, his coach I said, what did we miss on Purty coming out? Like, what

was it? Any other cool phrase he's talked about? He used the phrase competitive excellence and then I'm like, okay, what does that mean? And then he just went through like the every single practice was like the Super Bowl. This guy, like even when you know they lost some of the pieces around him, Um, you know, it was just every single day, like you don't know it unless you're around it and you can feel it and sense it. Like this guy's just wired like ultra ultra ultra competitive.

Basively my six year old son in Little League as he practice, Yes, if it's literally Game seven in the World Series blocked in, he's obsessed competitive. Harry hans Er Yeah, all right, Greg, your final question, you have a decent gap here as for your top cornerback between Witherspoon and Gonzalez. And Gonzalez why, I think Witherspoon's just a better overall player and so he's not you know you're gonna see bigger, faster with Gonzalez. I just think Witherspoon in terms of

the instincts. I fell in love with him from that standpoint. He sees everything so fast. He plays with no hesitation. I was around a Sante Samuel Senior when I was with the Eagles, and I've seen Junior, you know, with the chargers and guys that can play off and trust their eyes, they just go and make plays like this guy's gonna be able to make a ton of plays.

And he's incredibly feisty and tough. That the days of saying the old clip that everybody would pull out of Dion saying they pay me to cover, they don't pay me to tackle. Not in this NFL, not anymore, not with as much outside zone as you're seeing, not with how they're bringing corner into support. Because as an offensive play caller, I can find out who your worst tackler is and we're not gonna block him. We're gonna block everybody else, and we're gonna make him be the forced player.

So to me, he combines that feistiness and playmaking and all kind of comes together in a real nice package. All right, Final question for Daniel Jeremy, NFL Network Zone Draft Guru, and we thank him for his time and he has a podcast. True you ever think about what we do and specifically here what you do, and every year it's a new draft class a new breakdown of prospects within the same parameters, and think, what is this for? Am I happy? Is this how I want to be remembered?

Am I a hamster on a wheel? Sometimes you can't even see a pattern until it's right in front of you your thoughts. Good question, um to me. There are moments. There are moments when I'll tell you exactly when it is. I try and get all the guys watched in the run up to the combine so that I can talk about it when they get on the line to run. I want to be able to talk about them that I've actually seen them and not you know, read out of the research packet. So it's a lot of air time.

It's about there's a lot of time, a lot of time to fill. So there's I go position by position when I'm watching them, and when you're watching interior offensive linemen, and it usually it'll take you a week to get them done. And it's like I've just dedicated a week of my life to watching mac interior offensive lineman. And then like I'll see a play that's really exciting. I'm like, beat, hey, beat check check this out. When you see this scoop

block are real quick. This guy from northern Michigan's pretty good. And she's like, I don't care. But that's the good side, because if it was like if it was a point where like I'm in a Syntha is under you and you see the mac he trucks somebody, you're just like good block by that make notation like you haven't gotten mad yet. I just I wonder if that's something if you do this too fun, you know what I love.

One of my favorite things along those lines is I have an old phone which I don't use for anything except for texting a couple of guys in the league. So I'll be watching tape and that frees me up. That frees me up to use the other phone, because if you're if you're on the phone with somebody, you

can't video. So if I'm sitting there watching tape and we'll just be sitting there on the phone talking to each other for a long time, and I'll go, oh, hold on this play, I'll use that other phone as a camera, take take a you know, video of the play. Text him and then he'll be text. We have these text changes going back and forth of these different plays. I like caring about the process. But yeah, we got to hear more. Now we're talking how the saucage gets made.

Oh anything else, anything else we have all the time. I think we should set free. We've done enough. What do you guys? It's got many, um you know, kind of quarter zips that you could wear to play golf, but also to work out, but also to the office to go out and buy. So we go to wed some funerals. It's versatile. It's very versatile. You have stepped up your wardrobe, my friend, Yes, buttons, somebody got a new contract collars buttons. By the way, is I didn't

know structure was still in business? Is on fire. That's why they call him a wholesome assassin. Check him out A path to the draft with our friend Colleen Wolf and everywhere else. No more plugs necessary, Daniel, Thank you, buddy, Thanks guys, it's good to see man. All right, we will be back later this week. Till then he had the call.