The Art of Drafting a QB

I did not go down that path, but I believe me, when I was putting the sweater on this morning, I was like, do I go Do I go s medium? And I was like, you know, no, I can do it. Yeah. I thought you were gonna say, do I go do some push ups? Or I didn't work out the smaller clothes. I actually I actually worked out this morning, which is part of the I felt swell swoll, So I thought I could have, but I decided not to go down

that past. Legitimately excited for today's podcasting. By the way, I always talk about the dms that are coming in legit so many great questions. Mail bag episode was terrific. We got more mail Bag episodes down the road. This one I'm excited about because I think you are uniquely qualified to discuss this topic. It's all about how to draft a quarterback, why it's so hard to get it right. But I'm gonna start with an old school cliche. Hardest thing in sports is to hit a baseball. Are you

buying that or no? It's very tough to hit a baseball, dude, like it is. But to me, what a quarterback has to do to manipulate a defense, to be able to read a defense, to be able to understand what the offensive game plan is, to understand what the team game plan is. Oh yeah, and you've got other three pound grown men who run a four or five who are trying to come rip your head off. That's tough, Yams, That's really tough. And I had a coach one time, Mike,

and give us an example. We told us that we passed around of football, and then we just talked about what the football meant to us. And you start to realize that football is everybody's hopes and dreams and everything in The quarterback touches that damn thing every single play that lets you know how important he is. To the team. Yeah, this is not for this episode, but that's why to win m v P is so hard if you're not a quarterback. I actually think there's a case for some

guys that are not quarterbacks this year. You and I have talked about that office that's for another episode. But the argument, obviously playing quarterback being ridiculously hard to do is really significant and in a lot of ways really valid. There's so much information. You got analytics, you've got game film. The hardest thing, though, to do is not maybe playing quarterback, it's actually finding a quarterback and then drafting that person. We just finished up we twelve of the NFL season.

There's so much hype and hooplat hype might be the word hooplat is. I don't even know if hooplaws really technic lee a word it is today about what's happening in New York, right, I mean, Zach Wilson gets drafted second overall and instead it's Mike White who goes in. Wilson gets benched. I was listening to the NFL Network insider Mike Arefolo talk about this on one of our shows, and he said, no, man like this idea that Zach

Wilson might not be the quarterback anymore. The Jesse's like, draft position matters, and that's why his time New York might not be done at this point. But throwing the football the idea of like boosting your stock, I mean, Zach Wilson, I think back man, he's zapp b y you. There was this past you know what I'm talking about. There's this video that went viral before the draft. He's rolling out and he's throwing him. Daniel Jeremiah had a tweet and he's like, yo, Sam Donald did the same

thing in an actual NFL game. How much, though, do you think moments like that impacted where Zack was taken in the draft? Well, I think Zach Wilson, in his agent and his pre draft team did a marvelous job of a marketing Zach Wilson, of controlling his pro day and making sure that you are situated the things that maybe what's his special power, which is the arm angles in the arm talent. But I remember that viral video and I remember saying, yeah, I mean that's a really

good pass. He's kind of rolling to the left and he kind of launched itn't it And he went all the way back to the right. That's a that's a big boy throw. But uh, can he read single safety, middlefield safety open or not? Can he just hit three steps and just hit the regular pass. That's what I

was interested in seeing. And at the end of the day, when when you see these pro days and you see, you know, especially today's quarterback and how today's Pro days are manipulated by passing gurus and all of those things, they're almost showing the offensive coaches exactly what they want to see as opposed to showing maybe some of the negative aspects of the quarterback that maybe we saw on tape that maybe now that quarterback is better at I

also think we gravitate towards the big armed guys, like I think back to Thanksgiving because you can see they can see it exactly. Josh Allen makes a throw towards the end of that game and David carrs working Thanksgiving with David Carr, and David's like, watch this throw. It never leaves the screen. And until he said that, I was like, oh damn, he's right, Like, you don't see throws like that. I saw this zip pass that's there. But it's really fascinating and you've highlighted a lot of

these throws. It's not always about the the you know, the hundred mile an hour fastball, getting back to baseball. Sometimes it's that touch pass, that intermediate past. Like we've highlighted some of those throws, and not every quarterback can make that throw. And I think to your point, that's really important. It is very important. And you know, yeams, you know, I played a lot of different positions in this game. You know, I blocked at a high level,

tackled at a high level on special teams. I've caught the ball at a high level in college. All of those things and all of those different positions that I've played, ex specially the receiver side of things. You notice that there's two parts to a catch. There's the throw and there's the quarterback and all of those things that there's also the catch and understanding how the ball is, when

the when the receiver gets it and right. And a lot of these quarterbacks because when we're young, we're taught, oh, we want to have these big strong arms, so we want to put as much heat on it as we want because again, like you said, that jumps off the tape. That gets us the style points that gets us the cool points when at the end of the day, if that nose is down and the ball is coming too fast six times out of tend, that receiver is probably

gonna drop it. And so you had to figure out, I know when I played quarterback, you started had to figure out, how can I make that nose come up? How can I make the ball a little bit more catchable for the wilde receiver? And then then my numbers will go up. I think those are some of the things that in this generation of quarterback and that we're starting to see young quarterbacks start to acentuate a little bit. And you can see it in two A to a tongue of our lore. I mean, look at his timing

and anticipation. That is that kid's superpower, and it's his timing and anticipation is at a level that not a lot of quarterbacks in this league have. How hard is it? Because this is just part of the evaluation process that I want to get you on, But there's no way for you to tell. Every Sunday we watch games and there's at least one quarterback who makes a throw Guys like I don't know, fifteen feet from him and he's throwing it like he's forty feet from him and I

can't get over. I'm like, man, you don't. How can you not evaluate the distance like a golfer who goes out in the golf course, like I'm not taking my driver out when I get to the green right, Like the feel of that stuff like that's hard to measure. Oh, it's very much hard to measure. That's why you have to look at so much tape on these quarterbacks, man, I mean, and look at the types of throws that these guys have had and how they will their teams

two wins. Because at the end of the day, all of these quarterbacks before they got to the National Football League at the top, you know, topping their game and they all figure out ways to win games exclusively off of the off of their talents and offer their arms. All right, So I want to take everyone and back draft five quarterbacks taken in the first round, including Wilson. Third quarterback taken was Trey Lance out of North Dakota State.

I was actually covering the Niners for NFL Network and there was all this conversation around if they were going to go and take Tray and and maybe Mac Jones was in the mix. Justin Fields was also there, but third quarterback was Trey Lance. He basically played one season and coming out of high school he had no Power Five college offers, So the hype meter just continued to build for this guy. Didn't turn over the ball a ton.

What he was able to do in the play action past that was something that was really attractive to Kyle Shanahan remember having conversations with him about that. But does the media actually play a role in which players are gaining momentum? Like, take me through this evaluation process, to be honest with you, Like, I didn't think the Niners I was there. I didn't think they were going to take Trey Lance. Like there was a real mac Jones conversation.

There was real Justin Fields conversation, and and yet here it was the smart Dakota State kid that's to do that they went with. It's crazy MS, how the National Football League has changed in such a relatively short time. I came out in the two thousand six draft. You're talking about the quarterbacks in the draft. The big knock on me. I was Big Ten Player of the year.

Hasman final was one of the top college players in the country playing quarterback, and the knock on me at the quarterback position was I didn't have enough game reps. That's what they told me. They said, we really don't feel comfortable giving you an opportunity. I heard this from multiple teams because they said, you know, the Matt Lioners, Da Vinci Young's of this draft, they just have five thousand more game reps than you. Fast forward to one

and you're talking about Tree Lance. You know, high school year, high school, only one year of college football, didn't play in the Power of Five. But yet he gets drafted third overall. I mean, that's what a way that this

game has changed. But when you talk about the media influencing decision makers, look, I don't think it's wrecked in the regard of you know, um, a general manager calling Michael Robinson or Daniel Jeremiah and saying, hey, uh, what do you think about this guy, or you know, just looking at us on television and making their professional opinion based off of that. But I will say this, all

decision makers have family and friends jams. All of them do, whether it's they have a young people in their family, wives, or whatever the case may be. And those people watch

the media. So I will say decision makers can be indirectly influenced by the media, just based off of the conversations they have, by the people closer to them in their circles, right, their family members and things like that, watching people on NFL network like myself giving their opinions, and that's how I can see that a decision maker gets kind of I don't know, um kind of gets

influenced in the peripheral of the evaluation process. But I will say that the good people in media, yams, the great people in media talk to real decision makers in the National Football League, and oftentimes if a guy's name is rising up, you know, rising up the ranks and gaining a lot of momentum, it's not by mistake. Oftentimes there's a decision makers somewhere in the National Football League that's telling that media person, oh, yeah, this is the guy that we want to put our hands on, and

that's why the name is rising. You know, I respect you a tons So if you're talking and I'm on my phone, I'm not like texting Twitter, right, So I made reference to the fact that I was at that draft and you said something about your starts in college and immediately I thought about a stat that I was using in a lot of my reports. I love technology. I was able to find it. So check this out about Trey Lads seventeen college starts, three hundred and eighteen attempts. Like,

think about that. Seventeen college starts is one thing like that doesn't really register. I know it's not a lot, but three eighteen attempts that's crazy. Up until that point, the last ten Super Bowl winning quarterbacks thirty five career starts and over twelve hundred attempts. That's what they did in Edge. So think about the amount of experience that translates, and that this kind of feeds into the draft conversation

that we're having right now. Some gms might prioritize, Hey, give me the guy that's thirty five career starts in twelve attempts, and John Lynch and Shanahan said, no, no, no, I'm good the guy with seventeen college starts and three and eighteen attempts. I see something in him that I

think I can work with. I'm gonna roll with this dude. Well, And I also think John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan are just looking at their roster and saying, hey, all right, is this roster good enough to absorb a quarterback that doesn't have that much experience, because we're gonna go to some growing paintre that the difference between those thirty five starts for other Super Bowl winning quarterbacks in the seventeen for tree Lance, I mean, you can't just get the

You just can't make that stuff up. I mean, that's real experience that he does not have, but you make it up in the roster that you surround him with. Now, the question is still out on whether Tree Lance has enough of ability to elevate this offense. Tom will tell all right, welcome back to the NFL Explained Podcasts. Mike Yam and Rob with you. Okay, so it's really easy to Monday morning quarterback drafts, like we can all do

it in the moment. Though generally speaking, the guys that we think really highly of, we want our teams to go and get those kinds. So you kind of gave me a little bit of a glimpse of the evaluation process. I want you to take listen to some of these notable misses by GMS man. I feel bad putting these dudes on blast, but it isn't Baker Mayfield, Sam Donald

Day go before Josh Allen criminal criminal. And I know there's a decision maker in the National Football League that listens to this show because we've had some conversations about it. I'm not gonna put his name out there, but this dude was all on Baker Mayfield when he was coming on. I remember telling this dude, bro, you are nuts. Something's wrong on with you, and I was right. But I'm just saying, so those are a couple of misses. How about this though, Josh Rosen going twenty two spots ahead

of criminal Lamar Jackson. That's not good. Okay, defend that one though, or maybe like it's once again easy to Monday Morning quarterback this thing. But there were concerns about Lamar. I mean people were talking about him not even being a quarterback in the NFL. Yeah, but the concerns won't because of Lamar and his ability to concerns were because the National Football League and their coaches were archaic and didn't believe that a guy with this type of ability

can lead an office successfully for the long haul. And Lamar Jackson has proven all of that stuff wrong. I mean, it just is, and you look at Josh Rosen. Yes, he reminded me sometimes in his release of Aaron Rodgers at times. But you just look at the way the kid came up, and you wondered his passion for the game, and it turned out, I don't know if Josh Rosen

loves the game like that? All right. Well, the year before that, the Bears actually traded up to take Mitch Drobiskie eight spots ahead of another m v P. Patrick Mahomes. We're just gonna move on from now. John Let's tricked him all that year. I remember saying, dude, you gave up what to go up one spot? Bro? He would have been there just chill. But Blake Bortles, Johnny Football, Johnny Manzel one over guys like Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo. That's when the pro days started to become a little

bit more theatrical. Remember he had the music, he had the Army fatigue stuff. He about to show the pads on. That's when he started to say, you know what, I'm gonna create this environment to get myself to me. That's when that stuff started happening. Blaine Gabbett, Jake Locker, when ahead of Andy Dalton, Colin Kaepernick, and Tyrod Taylor. I gotta tell you, Locker wasn't like, I'm not gonna hate on that. No, I can't hate on that, right, I can't.

I mean Dalton's longevity and what he's been able to do. I'm like, okay, cool, like that. Fine, he can be in that mix, but Locker or I won't hate on that one. The point is, like we really could go through and by the way, that's just the last couple of years. We can keep going further back and talk about guys and the misses. But there's certain different traits that you can throw out there, right, accuracy, speed, physically talented in terms of the throws that they can make.

Insert any sort of draft is m You know my favorite one is when they talk about guys having twitch's out there? Is it? Why is it for some accuracy versus arm strength? That's in favor of one dude, But when you flip it, it might not be it like works against the guy, Like why do you like the consistency at which you evaluate guys? Like it could be two quarterbacks one's really accurately, other's got a big arm.

One gm really likes the accurate guy, but then the next year he is like, no, you know what, actually the guy with the strong arm, he's the guy that I want to go like. It feels like sometimes the value traits change from person to person, year to year. To your point, I think you're you're right about that, the value trades do change. I think individual teams situations, uh determine. You know, you know how you want and

who you want to draft at that position. I mean, you think some teams believe in just building a dominant roster around the quarterback position, making sure that you know, like my Seahawks did, making sure that quarterbacks on that rookie deal so that from a business standpoint, the business of the football, you can pay those guys around him. So that roster is dominant. So when the quarterback's ability and his experience does meet all that preparation in the

roster building, you have a championship team. Do you have other general managers who come across that guy. You get a Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes in the draft, and it's just like, you know what, these guys have so much ability that they can literally be the cologne of the deodare from for any bad decision that I make being a general manager, and so you give them all the money they want, and you say, you know what

will win because we have one of those guys. There's not a lot of people that can walk around and do that, and a lot of general managers get it wrong. I mean, and I know this may not be the favorite opinion amongst some of our fans, but I think there's no cardinals are in that situation. I think they mismanaged Colin Murray. I think they've given that kid a

little bit too much power in that organization. And now they've paid him invalidated his work ethic and all of the bad behavior and all of those things, and they they paid him invalidated him being the leader of that team. So yeah, I think it just depends on the individual team situations and the individual general managers situations. By the way, because we were talking a little bit about the amount of starts that guys have, getting back to Trabinsky and Mahomes,

Patrick Mahomes thirty two college starts. Drabinsky had one year of starts, so even a little bit more experience, which makes it you're probably a little more salty about it. And I'm a little bit more salty about it. You know what quarterbacks are making? Are you kidding me? And that goes to me. I think that also muddies the evaluation of my homes. Making half a billy. Billy would have be y'all, hear us, be Lee. I'm talking about a player, not an owner player making half a billy.

And again, like that's why I think it's so hard to evaluate these guys, because when you're picking a franchise guy, you know, man, I'm taking twenty five to thirty percent of my salary cap and I'm dumping it on this guy. This is his now only got this amount to build my team around, and so the future of your organization and everything is critical to pick in that position. I mean, just think about jersey sales. I mean sometimes I think teams pick guys just because you know, Johnny Winzel, he's

a you know, a guy that's gonna sell jerseys. That's a great business decision. By picking him in the first round may not equate to wins. Okay, so you're talking about business decisions, I'm gonna circle back here and talk about playing decisions that organizations need to make. I think There's another thing that applies not just the quarterbacks, but every single player that has the dreams, the hopes and streams are playing in the NFL. And that's fit where

you go making a difference. How much is that a factor in a quarterback excess, because I think even you brought up to a before, I don't. And this is not a knock on coach Flora's I mean, look how hard those dudes played for him. That's all old another situation there. But Mike McDaniel comes in, this offense is rolling, and is it a coach? Is it Tyreek in that offense? Is it ra most like there? This team looks different,

The situation looks better for twa. I'd make the same case for every quarterback that's coming out, like I want those dudes, yeah, man. And that's one of those tricky issues when you're a top quarterback coming in from college. The the I don't say bad, but the teams that aren't so good pick first, and so again, it really

depends on your situation. And I remember seeing Lamar Jackson and go to the pick thirty two and looks like he's upset, And I remember Prime up there interviewing him and you can see, you know that Lamar was a little ticked off. It's like, man, I'm been winning the Super Bowl, but I'm sitting there thinking, Bro, you got drafted to a great situation. I mean, you look at the Baltimore Ravens. They have one of the most steady front offices and their player friendly. They understand the business

of it and they understand paying their players. You should be happy you got drafted there. Again, some guys don't look at it that way. Some guys look at their position and where they got drafted as respect or disrespect. That was the exact thing that Sean Lynch said about drafting Trey Lance. He said, we're picking third overall, and typically it's teams that don't have rosters that look like our and that roster is clearly thriving right now and it's got the potential to get to a Super Bowl.

But Jimmy g at the helm current crop of quarterbacks in the NFL. Check this out. Twenty one A thirty two current starters in the NFL selected in round number one. None were undrafted free agents, which I thought was interesting. Lowest pick. You know, man, it's still to go. It's Tom Brady six round pick. Let's be honest. They got lucky and circumstances forced that to happen, and we wouldn't be talking about Brady and bless and when he got hurt,

I was I was flipping through. I don't even know what play form it was on, but there's like a doc on Brady and you know, like I'm only watching the trailer. It's like two minutes and he's talking about a moment super Bowl. You guys made the best decision ever drafted me, you know, the whole thing, and you know, looking back, like if there's different type of swag for that dude, it's a different type of swag. But I'm gonna be be honest and I'm gonna take anything from

Tom Brady. All guys who didn't get drafted in the first round who think they should have got drafted higher think that way. He's just not a lot of them are able to stick around long enough to prove people wrong. Is it justin Jefferson who knows every wide receiver taking before him? He should? He should? Does that sound right to you? That sound that I think that is the truth. He shouldn't know everybody, Oh, it's I'm ross St. Brown.

That's what it was. By the way, you guys are in the soundproof like behind a glass, so like when you guys just yelling at me, I can't actually hear what you're saying. But you're right. It was from hard knocks. That's how I remember. I'm gonna ros St Brown. I don't he rattles off every wide receiver taking in front of him, freaking awesome by but he should. He should know that, and he's a really good receiver. By the way, thanks for the assist, guys, I appreciate that. Um alright.

So beyond Tom Brady, six current starters taking number one overall, but their success kind of mediocre. They've compiled an overall record of to nineteen two, forty eight losses and four ties, so it's a forty six percent win percentage. No, I didn't do the mass. Someone did a form teams who have drafted the most first round quarterbacks since nineteen sixty seven,

which is the beginning of the common draft era. How about this the Bengals, the Bears, the Browns, the Colts, the Jets, and the Titans, all of whom have taken six and in the case of the Bears and the Browns. Man, I don't even need to tell your fan base. You know where I'm going with this. It has not been pretty all right. So all of those teams, m Rob and I'm talking about the Bengals, Bears, Browns, Cults, Jets, and Titans put together a combined winning percentage of forty

seven percent. And it's only the Cults boasting a record over five hundred during that spam. And that's basically for two reasons. Really, it's Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck. Well, yeah, and there's a generational talents. I mean, Hill paid Manning pretty much invented a style of offense that still being ran the day. I mean, you just can't. And I think the Bengals, I think they're done looking for their quarterbacks. Well, I think they're good, but uh, the Jets, they could

probably still be looking. I'm not so sure about Zack Wilson. All Right, So I just gave you some of the numbers. First round, guys, that doesn't equal success, are we? I say we like I actually have the gig our teams spending too much draft capital to go and get what they think is a franchise quarterback and round number one. I believe so, because again you gotta understand who I am.

I'm a firm believer in building the roster. The quarterback is a football player, He's one of the guys just like everybody else, and you build the roster around him, which can almost guarantee the success of that position, and then you don't necessarily always have to pay that guy thirty five of your salary cap. But yes, I do think it's a little bit of paralysis about analysis. I do think that we overthink it. I do think that

they give up too much draft capital sometimes. But at the end of the day, when you look at the teams who have one of those guys walking around, I mean, they're the ultimate the old Evan. They cover up for for bad decisions or bad front office decisions, they cover up for injuries that happened during the season, and general managers again, they cover up from bad decisions from a scouting department. Well and and even speaking of some of this capital, sometimes it does work out right. I mean

the Rams is an example of that. I mean, they don't have draft picks like god, I mean we're kind of joking. I think they had one picking this last draft. So again. You you sacrifice your future just to get this one super Bowl last year. Now you're last in the division, your thirties in our power rankings. Did you just all want to do it all for one year? Or do you want to build something that's gonna be around and build a legacy that's gonna be around for

a long time. I don't know. To me. You build a team for the long haul and successful just happened. You don't build it for one year. It's been a long haul the like two or three years. Let's be fair here, right, Like Aaron Donald bang up, Stafford banged up this year, Cooper Cup banged up this year, Allen Robinson banged up this year. Like no one saw this coming.

Like if they didn't get back to a super Bowl, be like all right, cool, Like I get it, that happens, Like well done, you got the you got the chip last year. But to see it unfold like this, like they were supposed to have at least some legs here, they were supposed to three year run some legs. But at the end of the day, most Super Bowl teams, you're lucky because the health fell in your favorite no doubt,

you know what I mean? If you're gonna if you're a guessing man, which a lot of these different managers are, you kind of gotta be when you're guessing your future, right, you gotta anticipate injuries happening. You gotta anticipate you're gonna need some of those draft picks. All right, So we're talking about draft cafall here. Just to put a bow on this conversation, as you would imagine, quarterback selected number one overall more than twice as any other position, the

second most drafted spot. This shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering what we've told John some of our previous shows. But defensive ban so since nineteen sixty seven quarterbacks number one overall, thirteen d n s, seven running backs, four offensive tackles, two wide receivers to defensive tackles and two linebackers, have thought it would be bit more tackles being first overall again. And I understand everything is about the quarterbacks. So the quarterback, then the guy rushed in.

The quarterback makes a lot of money, so you know you want to you want that guy, But the guy protecting the quarterback means a lot as well. And just because we spent some time talking about twenty eight team. Check this out, a little bit of a microcosmhouse Selecting the wrong quarterback can set a franchise back Baker Mayfield number one to the Browns, Donald number two to the Jets.

Arizona took Josh Rosen. Rosen doesn't make it into year two as a start in their combined records of the Jets and the Browns in the three years subsequent years thirty seven and fifty eight and one. That's terrible. That hurts, Yes, it does in a big way. All right, So a little bit more on this quarterback draft strategy here when we come back here on the NFL explained, we're gonna see if it's easier or harder to evaluate quarterbacks in

this era. Like think about this man, Like all the data that is available to everyone in the front office, all the film, every angle. I mean, hell, you can spin around. We do this on NFL network all time, like cameras that spin around on the whole thing, and we might work out just a little bit um. An interesting conclusion to from an economist or two economists who tried to quantify how difficult it is to draft a

quarterback and their findings are really significant. We'll tell you what those are coming up next on the NFL Explained Pod. All right, welcome back to the NFL Explained Podcast. If you have a question, it's like our normal p s A. Do you just DM me. I promise we will get to as many questions by the end of the season as we can. If you did send one, I look, I hit everyone back and you guys know this. So if you got a question, if we haven't gotten to it,

trust me, we will. But we're talking about quarterbacks here and the draft. Uh, the difficulty of finding the quarterback that can lead your franchise. Is it easier now and rob or harder to evaluate guys that play this position compared to I don't know, years ago. I think it's harder even with all of the information that we have. Yeah,

I think sometimes there's too much informations, you know. Sometimes, you know, I hear a lot of people in our business, you know, evaluate quarterbacks and things like that, and I don't even hear them talk about just does this guy win? Does wins follow this person? I mean, to me, that's one of the most overlooked genes, just the win gene. You look at some of these guys. And yes, they can throw the ball through a brick wall, they can throw the ball a hundred yards, but every level they've

been on, they've lost. And to me, that says something about just you know who the guy is, the pr of the guy right within the team? Can he operate with every group of the team. To me, that goes a long way, and it shows whether or not the team is gonna fight for a guy. Right Like when we talked about the Jets a little bit earlier. You look at the Jets and Mike White versus Zack Wilson. You look at when Zach Wilson has success in the team's reaction and look at Mike White's when he has

success in the team reaction. It tells you all you need to know about the leadership of those two guys. I just think sometimes when we're evaluating quarterbacks, we look at all of this hard dat. Oh he did for this many yards, he had this many starts, Uh, he want this, this and the third? Did he win games? First and foremost? Did he win in high school? College? All? If he wanted all those levels? You know what, it's a pretty good chance wherever this kid goes he's gonna

win in the National Football League as well. I'm always amazed by talent evaluators because here's what I'll say. I almost think it's easier on the NFL side to evaluate for the draft than it is to be on the

college side. And hear me out here. Years I spent my career covering college athletics and we would do like the signing day shows they throw off the film and be like a four star dude or a five star guy, and it's a guy that's like crushing the dude size, and I'm thinking to myself, like, yeah, that guy is gonna look good on tape. Like look at the competition, Like the level is just different, whereas if you get to and this is why the Trey Lance thing right,

like FCS versus FBS, Power five, the whole thing. Like that's why that was fascinating to me, because the level of competition is just different. And clearly you don't need to be in a Power five school to thrive in the NFL. There's so many examples of that. But I almost feel like with with everything that's out there, when you the competition is more steady, I don't know if that makes sense. It does make sense. I would agree with you that the competition is a little bit more steady.

And what makes things difficult to evaluate on the college side of things is a lot of these college evaluators they just don't have the time to see all of the different athletes out here, so they go to these sites and rely on their rankings to see how to look at any of You end up finding out those rankings are a lot of times pay for and so that's to me, that's what makes it difficult from Italian standpoint, in college or the guy's signs with the team and he goes from a two star to be four five

start just based off of the university to Alabama and yeah, no, there's no question. What about like schematically right, like Jalen Hurts trail Aance comes to mind, We'll throw Lamar's name into the mix. The college game has looked different at times in the NFL game, where now the NFL game is almost catching up to the other levels. How do you think that affects that evaluation? Well, first of all, um,

you know one thousand percent spot on with that. The National Football League is now just starting to catch up with college. Uh. To me, all the innovation, all the great plays and great play calls happened in college first. Then the National Football League coach just look at it and they say, oh, we can you know, we should

be doing that. I think the spread offense, the read option, our peoples, all of those things, they aren't foreign concepts to the National Football League, but it was legitimized in when the Philadelphia Eagles, with the way that they did their offense. It legitimized it because that style won a Super And so to me, now a lot of teams are looking for these dynamic types of quarterbacks, and to me, is malpractice for you to put a guy like Lamar Jackson or Jalen Hurts to put him in a system

where he's throwing the ball fifty times a game. To me, that's stupid. I mean, it really is like like a fifty yard explosive play. It doesn't matter without ran fifty yards through the ball five yards, you ran forty five, or throw the ball fifty yards, it's still a fifty yard explosive play. And I think that's what now offenses in the National Football League are starting to kind of understand, like man, like the guy who touches the ball every

single play. Probably should be my most dynamic player. Uh So you can see the athletic ability, you can see what these guys have in terms of arm talent. Sometimes you don't know what's in between the ears the giants. I love this story. They used to give two hundred page psychological exams to different players. One of those guys was Dion Sanders, who actually walked away in your experience. How should do some of those intangibles? Like, how do you how do you figure out like the mental makeup

of a guy that's gonna be the face of your franchise. Well, again, you kind of gotta look at him on every level. Does wins follow him? Does you know, good energy follow him or that's negative energy? Does bad situations follow the kid? Um? When when I look at some of the intangibles, when I'm looking at quarterbacks, first and foremost, the ability for that kid to communicate right, And I think that's why going to pro days are so critical for some talent evaluators.

I want to see a kid in his environment. I want to see him comfortable. I want to see him around his guys. He's been throwing two for two, three or four or five years or whatever the case may be. And I just want to see him let it go and let it. I want to see him light up

a room. Uh. People talked about Baker Mayfield having that ability that whenever room he walked into when he was, you know, going through the draft process, that the other quarterbacks would kind of shrink and his personality would show up, and it gave him a egg up. It gave him an advantage. And to me, that is a very important intangible that you gotta have. I had a young I had a football coach, and I was eight years nine years old. Yeah, maybe in ten years old, nine years old.

I think, tell me, like, dude, like your ability to communicate it is crazy. You gotta watch what you watch on TV, the music you're listening to, the books you read. Because your gift is when you speak, people listen. So you gotta be responsible about what you let in your hands. So I knew. I knew that earlier on in my life. Another intangible, it's work ethic. Does this person like a Tom Brady have the ability to be a force multiplier? Can this guy, just by his presence and his work

ethic elevate everybody else around him? And then finally, for me, I think it's the most important authentic leadership leading in your way they see, leadership isn't a book that you read and say, you know what, that's what I gotta do to be a leader. I'm gonna go do that tomorrow. And I've been around guys like that where the leadership and the things that they say you like, man, you're not real. You know, you speak into the team, but you're really not real. Good quarterback and a great quality

of a quarterback is having that genuine authentic leadership. I know, for me, I was a guy that when I played quarterback, I love to respond to adversity. So I would create our seven on sevens so that it was nothing but a roast session. Really. I mean we would throw the football or whatever, but I was cracking on the linebackers and defensive backs. They were throwing jokes at me, and

it turned into this thing. Everybody loved to come to seven on seven, even the defensive lineman because it turned into a great road session while all that adversity and going back at each other and all of those things brought the team together. That was my version of authentic leadership. My way keep you a quiet leader. Yeah you can. I mean you can, but again, if your ability to

in human situations communicate with a person. I'm not saying you gotta be the guy to speak to the entire team, but if if a guy runs a wrong route, you have to be able to go over there and tell them, and he has to be able to respect to a pare and to me, that comes with Again, authentic leadership doesn't necessarily have to beat aloud as, but authentic definitely. All right, So, speaking of some of these intangibles, got

a couple of economists, David Berry and Rob Simmons. They try to figure out how you could nail down the process of selecting a quarterback in the NFL draft. Two thousand nine, they published a paper went over decades of

data drafted NFL quarterbacks. Here's what the conclusion was. On a per play basis, quarterbacks chosen with picks eleven through fifty, as well as picks fifty one through nine outperform quarterbacks chosen in the top ten or comparing two quarterbacks with the same NFL experience, the players selected early in the draft is not predicted to have significantly different NFL performance

levels than a player pick later in the draft. They did, however, find that the top picks are given more time to succeed. I go back to Zack Wilson here. I brought up what Mike Gara Folo was telling. Mean, hey, draft positioning matters, second overall pick. What do you make of what the economists came up with. It's some interesting information. I got a lot of thoughts on that. I mean, you know, a lot of football players dreams are to be drafted top ten like a draft. Like you're an eight year

old little boy. You fall asleep and you dream of hearing your name called and you're the first pick of the draft. And so I think sometimes when you're a top ten pick, it's almost like, these guys take a breath. I achieved it, you know what I'm saying, As opposed to some of the other picks, whether it's later on in the first round or later on in the draft or whatever, there's a natural chip on your shoulder to kind of response because you didn't all of a sudden

meet the goal. And I think there's a subconscious something there with that fact that when when you're looking at the way, you know the numbers that the economists got I do think it's something there, But I do think general managers are scared to put a plug on some of their draft picks because if you do it, it's indicative that you messed up on you, flection on you, and oftentimes with with the Eagle and some of these general managers, they don't want to admit that they messed

up and had a bad pick. That's why I got so much respect for people like Bill Belichick, the Bill polian Is from back in the day with the Colts and guys like that, the Ozzy Newsom's. You know, they're not afraid to say, you know what, I thought this dude was good, but I was wrong, and now I'm gonna let this guy go and see if he can find employment somewhere. Is they're just not afraid to admit that they messed up. To me, that acknowledgement, that humbleness

that they come from makes them great. Well, one thing that everyone focuses in on you don't even have to be a quarterback. You just gotta be a professional athlete. You know where I'm going with this, right, It's like, did he used to say man or maybe he was puffy at the time, all about the Benjamin all about the money. Yeah, he's probably at that point, all right.

So in the in the previous collective bargain agreement, top ricky quarterbacks, you guys got, I was like Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford, Sam Bradford, they're making seventy plus million on their first contract. Remember Bradford, that happening to him. Lord, he might have been even the last guy to take advantage. But most rookies right now are making considerably loud and a little insight on that. I don't mean interrupted, but

inside on that. When I first got in the league, Geane Upshaw, who he was our leader of the union at the time, he said, guys, we want these first round quarterbacks to get this money like this. We wanted to be big, and as veterans they're like why. And his whole thing was a guaranteed longevity of the player. If the player wasn't paying out, he would have to renegotiate towards the back end of his deal because the team wasn't gonna pay him that money, and so it

added years to his career. But the way it is now, you see teams just cut the guy he could possibly be out the league. Well, That's where I was going with it, Like I almost isn't that kind of like not to sound like Darwin, but like, isn't that kind of a good thing? Like, Yo, you can play, you could still be out there, you could it is man and and again that's why he wanted it structured that way and again every but I like, oh, guarantee you why they make us so much money all of those things.

There was a little bit of a backstory behind that and why they wanted those rookie contracts front loaded that way. Okay, So I like where you're going with that. How about this, because we've spent a lot of time having you take me through the evaluation process, things that you really value. Twenty twenty three draft I would go to because I already know who's gonna be the first overall pick. But is there a quarterback that you think should be deserving

of being the first off the board? Uh? Yeah, who's the the Ohuse State kid. You know, I'm a pin Stater. It pains me to say this, but that kid, I've seen a big jump from last year to this year. He's willing his team to wins. He can run, he can protect the footbably can make every throw on the football field. To me, that's my number one quarterback. Okay,

so I said, I'll tell you this. I don't know if I've seen a I don't want to say more talented because that's not fair, but a better pro prospect at the quarterbacks the Caleb blames oh Man and he's not even knowledgeable yet. I know, yeah, Bro, I could make a case for him when it has been this year. Yeah, I think that's going to happen. Always appreciate you guys checking us out, and I know I always throw this out there. He got a question, don't know who to ask. It's me and m Rob. Shoot me a d M.

We'll make it into a podcast. But why is it so hard to draft the right quarterback? Hopefully we gave you those answers. Always appreciate you guys listening to the NFL explain pot