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

been with us. They have to watch them all, not just the first take, but the second take as well. And the second take. UH, as you may or may not know by now. If you don't, this will be news to you that the second take is not a top five at the position. It's a riser, faller and sleeper. UH. Just trying to get the conversation, UH a little more nuanced and UH maybe throw some more names out there

for discussion than you would get in a standard top five. UH. I noticed that uh, Dale and Matt, who conspire the drive on s n R and have conspired to be in complete agreement more often than not on these programs, both of you guys are agreement on your riser. Who would like to take the floor first to discuss the great Trayvon Walker. Go ahead, Matt Sin we apparently share a brain. Yeah, I'm gonna call kind of an audible

here too. I mean, I think this one's just so obvious with Trayvon Walker, and I'll let they'll talk about him mostly, but since we're talking edges and linebackers, I'm gonna include the other Walker from Georgia as well as an off the ball linebacker, Quay Walker. Travon is almost like a combination athletically not production. And this goes to their combine numbers of J. J. Watt and Von Miller. And I know that sounds remarkable, but that's exactly the

kind of numbers he posted. But Quay the linebacker, I think he's rocketing up boards as well, because you can do so much with him. He has extreme length, he can cover tight ends out of the slot, he can blitz, he can play off the ball. His numbers were tremendous too, So two Walkers from Georgia. Yeah, you know, I think Walker Trayvon Walker. Um, I know everybody raved about some of the big guys running. This guy came in a six five to seventy two and ran a four five

to forty at two hundred and seventy two pounds. It's his three coundrel was six point eight nine. Uh. It just really easy change of direction for him. And he's got thirty five inch arms long there. I mean, he's just a physical freak. Uh. And so I think you're seeing a lot of of of movement for him up the draft boards here. You know, I know he was considered, you know, an easy first round draft pick, but now I think you're talking top five with him. And that's why I had to put him as my riser at

that position. There's even some talk that he could be the top overall pick in this draft, and I don't think anybody would blink an eye if that happened. So really freakish athlete and to Matt's point, kind of a combination you could. You could have him put on ten pounds and playment defensive end and not you know, it wouldn't be a problem. You could have him stay at two seventy two and and play outside linebacker in a three or four defense and it wouldn't be a problem.

There's just so much that you can do with a guy like that. Some talk about him being first overall on this very program, well not this specific one, but our last mock draft mocks three point Oh, you guys probably recalled that I mocked him number one to the Jacksonville Jaguar. So I couldn't include him as my riser because there's nowhere to go. He's he's at the top of the list. You can't go higher than the first overall.

But I do want to mention all the points you guys made about his physicals and how he played and where he played. There was a play in the National Championship game and nobody on the broadcast noticed this because it was just after Jamison Williams got hurt for Alabama, and the freshman kid came in number eighty four, and he made a catch a crossing route and then he stopped and made the Obie Dean miss and wound up getting a twenty four yard gain out of it. Guess

who made the tackle. Traymond Walker, lining up at defensive tackle, started to pass rush, didn't get there, saw the ball, release, looked around, located it. Chase down a wide receiver from well behind the play. Now the guy was running sideways a little bit to start, but the kind of football instincts and football i Q and the effort and the motor. Uh, he checks every box. And Uh, if I was Jacksonville,

I'd take him number one this year. Uh, particularly if I had the roster that is currently comprised in Jacksonville. That said, I couldn't make him my riser, So I went with Arnold Ebakte of Penn State. Uh. He's been rising for a while now. Uh, good move transferring to Penn State. He went from second team All American Athletic Conference to first team All Big Ten, going from Temple to Penn State. And another one of these guys who's really got a physical skill set. Uh he was. Uh

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

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

There were nine. There were eight other guys edge rushers taking at him. Some of them have worked out, some of them have not, but he was the best one. So I mean you you had a similar kind of depth in this one in this draft as well with some of his edge guys. Matt Dale and I are the ones who agree on the fall or you're the outlier with my J Sanders of Cincincinnati. Yeah, I mean, to his credit, he's helped the Bearcats get where they are over the last couple of years. And it was

a good college player. But you know, we're not giving credit for what they did in college. You gotta project these guys to the pros. And at six five, he looks like Mike Evans to me not an edge defender, and he's just really, really lean, and I don't think he's really adept and playing in space or playing you know, back and back, you going in reverse. So I just don't think he's got enough you know, sand in his

pants to play on the line of scrimmage. And then another thing I've noticed about him the more I've studied him, is he has a terrible habit of jumping off sides. And in itself, that's definitely bad behind him blowing him into the line right right, right, But but it also indicates to me that he gets a lot of his production by guessing the snap count and winning with speed, and that's not gonna fly at the next level. Yeah,

it's funny you mentioned the off side thing. Interesting littlantic though. Here. Back when I was in college a hundred years ago, I took a class called Football Coaching one oh one, and the way they did it was each week a different position coach would give the lecture, and then there would be a quiz the next week on last week's stuff,

and then you'd learned the new stuff. And Steve Ferness, the old defensive lineman from the Steel Curtain was head coach George Peerless defensive line coach at Michigan State at the time, so he gave the lecture on defensive lineman and and this stuck with me low these many years later. He said, when you play defensive line, it's important if it's starting for not to jump off side. That's good advice,

but you know you gotta take it. I guess it's is the point that Matt, did you ever figure out why uh Sanders lost so much weight between the combine and the Pro Day? I heard some rumblings about an illness, but I mean, even just watching his tape at Cincinnati, he's very lean and doesn't have a real thick to find heavy lower body, and you just get pushed around

and the least is too physical Dale. You and I agree that the faller is David a job, although I don't think he's gonna fall as much as you expect a guy that tours Achilles on the Pro day to fought. This guy is fascinating to me. I think I think he is underrated. I know Hutchinson is a great player, but I think he I think Hutchinson has been anointed to a certain extent for whatever reason. I think a job has got miles and miles of upside. He's just

getting started. I'm curious to see how far he does fall. I think he will a little bit, but I'm not ready to say he doesn't get out of the first round. In fact, in mark three point oh, Matt and I had him going to Detroit at thirty two. Yeah, you know, he's gonna be interesting. I had him as number three on my original triple take at at the edge rusher position. He's not gonna go there. Um, you know, I think he ends up being the six or seventh ad dresser taken.

And so the difference there is that, you know, being a potential top ten pick to being somewhere in the twenties probably. So that's a pretty big fall, and it's gonna cost him a lot of money through no fault of his own. He tories Achilles tendon at his his pro day workout, So you know, it's kind of a

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

much more treatable. It used to be a well, if you tore your achilles, it was gonna be two years before you were back. Now we're seeing guys come back the same season. He should play at some point this season. Um, but he was a raw prospect to begin with. So I do think there's some value to using that fift year option with a guy like a job. I as opposed to taking him in the second round and then you've only got him for four years and the first year is kind of gonna be a wash to a

certain degree. So if you get that fifth year option with him, I think it makes a big difference. Again, I think the upside for this kid is almost Uh. He's a one year player at Michigan, really, and so there's a lot there's a lot of untapped potential there. I'm gonna stay in a Big ten conference for my sleeper bully ma Fe of Minnesota who's making a lot of noise, and a guy who kind of started figuring it out, uh in the latter stages of season that he had a great senior ball and then he had

a really good combine. Matt, we're talking to a previous episode and Dale mentioned this as well, about how some of these guys are afterthoughts where in any other quote unquote normal year, they'd be stars. But they were just great. They weren't freaky. But Uh, this kid seems to have a knack to me, He's figured out how not to run ten yards behind the quarterback and take yourself too deep. He's figured out how to attack with his hands when

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

this year, eight or nine. So there's a shot that a guy like a boy could could find his way into the first round, UM, and he typically you know, if if those guys are going in that later part of that, they're they're going to a team that made the playoffs last year, and so it ends up being a pretty good situation for them. Yeah, situational, maybe not as much pressure. You don't have to get thrown right in.

There's gonna be all kinds of pressure on Aidan Hutchinson Thibodeaux to come out and be stars right away, where a guy like my fae or even a lot a Jobo at this point they can take their time. They let's stick with you and get your sleeper. Uh. Has this pick made in honor of Ben Roethlisborger. You know, it's the same school Dominique Robinson of Miami of Ohio. But he was again one of the guy that I didn't know much about going to the the uh the Senior Bowl and really had a good week of practices

down there. Uh six five to fifty three at the combine. He weighed in a little heavier than that at his pro day UM, but he had a four seven to forty forty one inch vertical at six five to fifty three I mean I get out of here with that. Uh, it is pro day. He had a four one nine short shuttle, which was what was up vertical. Again, does Kellipari know this? Uh? Somebody on the Miami of Ohio basketball team should have known that. Uh. He was a

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

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

Josh Pascal of Kentucky and Dale. That's why I Calipery Toll Perry has been known to some guys from other schools too. I fall started, I didn't snap out, but uh, some intriguing guys matt on both sides of the trenches of Kentucky in recent seasons. Yeah, and Pascal is a real easy guy to root for too. He's a guy you want on your upball team. He's the only three time captain in Kentucky's history. Uh. He came back from a malignant melanoma on his foot back in two thousand eighteen.

Has been really productive since he's almost like a shorter version of Bud Dupre in terms of body type. He's really really thick. He plays extremely hard, really difficult to move off the edge. I mean, he's just really easy to like. Yeah, that's a good stuff as well. And uh, that's one of those positions Dale. How many Uh Well, t J. Watt was the ninth guy, the ninth I wonder how the tenth one will fare this year. Five years now, it seems like there's a lot of them again.

And uh, it's gonna be really interesting to see not only where these guys go, but if they go to a good situation if you know, if it's the right fit. Presumably that's a team's draft for but sometimes they get a little caught up in uh, I think chasing the name or the for the recognition as opposed to, well, this guy really does what we want to do. But a lot of athletes out there, a lot of big guys that can run and jump. Good luck quarterbacks moving forward,

that's gonna do it. For this edition of the Triple Taking on her mind everyone that you can get these and all other like programs on all the Steelers social media platforms. You can catch Matt and Dale conspiring how to agree on subsequent Take two reviews of the positions. You can catch that on the drive on s n R. Thanks to everyone for joining us today, however, and uh wherever you found us, thanks for making that happen. Until next time for Matt Williamson and Dale Wally, I'm Mike.

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