And now move the sticks with Daniel, Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
What's up, everybody. Welcome to move the sticks. DJ and Rhett coming to you from a hotel room and mobile Alabama. Buck is at the East West. He's doing his work there. For if you're not watching this, I am holding a stick mic sitting really close to you. You're on a little couch that we've got in this room. I'm gonna yeah, I'm I'm gonna chair. That's not a lot of cushion. I'm not gonna lie to you. It's like sitting on a piece of plywood. But we had a fun day
to day. Htt I got a chance to see two practices. We've got two more days to go here. But what we're gonna do today is just kind of go practice by practicing, break down some of the fun things we saw.
Yeah, and look, I think that you know this is you know for all that you kind of do while you're here and all the work that goes into it, you know, at the end, like this is why we love this part of the year because this really starts the clock for us on the draft. So you've got your first mock draft out, You've got your first top fifty out as of the recording of this podcast today, So it feels real that the draft is here, and now, you know, we get to really kind of hone in
on some of the best players. You have sixteen of your top fifty players that are here competing in this game. We've got a bunch of guys that are in that mock draft first round that we're going to talk about, and we can kind of take this kind of the
same way that we did on NFL Network today. By the way, if you're listening to this and you're not watching the practices which are available for you starting every day at noon Eastern time on Tuesday through Thursday practice Recap show eight o'clock Eastern time, like you are going to get your fill of Senior Bowl content and we're going to give you kind of the best of the best in some of the highlights here on the Move the Sticks Pod today, starting you know, with the national American teams.
Yeah, first of all, before we get to that, I always forget that when you're in mobile during Senior Bowl week, everybody you we went into whether you're at a Chick fil A down the street, whether you're in the elevator or you're walking around. Everybody is affiliated in the NFL somehow, and I always forget it because I'm in an elevator, I just arrived, got my bag, and and someone's in the elevator with me doesn't have any team gear on or anything. Yeah, and he goes, so you like Golden, huh?
And my first thought was like, Okay, there's the auction company like Ken Golden, who does like.
The and I'm to sell?
And I was just like, I just like confused, like excuse me. He's like Golden, You like you had him twenty four And I'm like, oh, yeah, the Texas wide receiver.
Yeah, yeah, No, I do like Golden.
He's a good player. But it's just every conversation everybody run into its football football football.
Yeah.
And it's also, you know, like you're doing top fifty work, you're also trying to get familiar with all these players. We got one hundred and you know, thirty guys here at the Senior Bowl, and it is kind of like drinking through a water hose or fire hose right these first couple of days. But then you know, like we'll get the game on Saturday, and I think we'll kind of put it all together, and that's kind of what we're judging now. It's like, all right, they want to
practice is in the books. You know, we can kind of put that to bed and and you know, kind of hope that we really see guys take off tomorrow. But there were definitely some standouts here to begin on the national.
Side, Yeah, one hundred percent. Now it is it's always a whirlwind this first day and then it kind of settles in. You recognize the helmets, the numbers, and then it comes a little bit easier. But you mentioned it, let's start with the national things that stood out there. Quarterback wise. You got Tyler Schuck and Dylan Gabriel, and then give me Canada's last name, Taylor.
Taylor elger Zma from Laurier University in Canada.
I don't think anybody blew us away from that quarterback group. Excited to watch a tape and we'll have more takeaways as we go through the week on what the quarterbacks do look like. Did enjoy the visit though with Dylan Gabriel afterwards?
Yeah, Dylan's like just a really he kind of understands his surroundings and I remember talking to him this summer at the Manning camp, going into this his only year at Oregon, and he was really trying to kind of right some of the wrongs. He felt like you were on him from the first time he transferred from UCF to OU and felt like he was much more mature
about it this time around, a real connector. We talked about him, you know, having the minivan and bringing all of his teammates together through that, piling them into the van, you know, going on their dimetime retreats, and I think you could see that, and I think I would imagine by the end of the week we'll be talking about you know, Dylan Gabriel is a guy that brought the national team guys together, at least on the offensive side of the ball.
Because that's the type of guy he is. And that was the.
Vibe I think we got from him when we talked to him after practice too. It obviously the guy can spin him with the left hand. Looks he's not prototypical NFL size, So this is a great opportunity for him to kind of show that he can compete with the best of the best in those type of scenarios.
I know, I think the game will be big for him. And again everything real quick, RPO's ball comes out. That's really his strength. All right, let's just go shotgun. We'll go back and forth players that stood out. I'm going to start first of all. I don't know I even had a better day than Grey's Abel from North Dakota State.
His first of all, he checked in. He was six zho five three, three hundred and sixteen pounds, arms a little bit shorter, thirty two and a quarter, which is one of the reasons some people thought, Okay, well he's going to go from tac to guard. Well not only to go tackle to guard today, but he went played some tackle, played some guard, played some center, and I don't know that he lost to rep the entire day.
I don't think he did.
And you know, one of the first things we talked about in the open of our Senior Bowl shows today was the strength of this defensive line group really kind of overall in the draft class. And then so many of those guys are here in Mobile at the Senior Bowl that we kind of thought it was really just going to be, you know, a showcase of domination. But I thought the offensive line kind of overall on the
national team side really held their own. You talked about Gray's abel, I think you could kind of say the same for Ariantae Ersrie from Minnesota left tackle, had a nice performance against Abdul Carter Penn State in the regular season.
Thought he was really.
Anthony Belton might have had one of the best days too. Who is the heaviest guy. He is a big man playing. He played a little bit of tackle and interior for the national team as well. I thought we saw some good things from Jalen Travis from Miami moving up and down, but Joonah Manheim might be I mean, where do we think he is on centers in this class?
Well, I think he's up there. You know, he got moved around a little bit today, but he stayed attached and he lost slowly, So it wasn't like he got bet right off the snap. He just did a really good job. Now, I just you get some heavy size, which you'll see here in this game right over his nose. He's gonna have a little bit tougher time just putting the breaks down. But I think once you get in in eleven on eleven and he's got some neighbors, I think he plays really well.
So I was.
I was a fan of what he did. A couple other guys that we'll hit on here the tight end. Oh yeah, because we just talked about that.
Yeah, we can do that.
We can go over there. Look to me, Mike Green was as advertised carrying his two hundred and fifty one pounds from Marshall. He played it or he was measured and weighed in the spring he was two hundred and thirty six pounds, so he's added a lot of weight over the last you know, half a year, and he carried it well. Today, had a bunch of wins. Zura k I get that right as a rocket by the end, by Saturday, get it. Ez A raq I thought he's a little spin happy today. I like to see him
just win. Just went straight up, use your length, use your power. He'll be able to, I think, be a little bit better as the week goes along. Josiah Stewart still a fastball from Michigan. Off the edge. He was able to, you know, kind of win on the on the edge with speed, So he had a nice day. Anybody else from that group and there that jumped out to.
You, Yeah, definitely as far as like the edge guys, goes John Joyner. I think was was kind of you know, Charles Davis kind of noticed him a couple of different times, and we called his name a few times.
Oli with femi Ola Dajo from UCLA kind of a roller coaster day.
He had some really good reps and then he had some reps that show that he's played about nine games at this position. So I think, you know, it's an intriguing prospect on that front, but still a guy that was able to quit himself very well. And then josh Farmer, you know, if we're talking about you know, Monheim, you know, losing slowly, Joshua Farmer was winning slowly.
Yeah, just steady push. He's just strong. He's a powerful, powerful dude. So I was impressed with what we saw from him. Black as well as man. He is enormous out of Iowa. Give me by the way that that's just so a.
Short Yeah, whya whye.
Why ye see see I got I'll get a bigger print tomorrow so I can actually read this sheet. Anyways. Yeah, Black is a he is a big, big dude. Let's get to what I think was the star of the show that's got the tight end position. Elijah a royo. I still want to say arroyo. I know, a royo. Arroyo just sounds so short, stoppy. I kind of like that from a baseball but a royo he was. He was literally one of the top three players the entire day.
He's over six four six four four, so six four and a half two hundred and fifty one pounds, And when I watched him, put in my top fifty because he's a stream a seam stretcher. He can really get down the seam, he can get over the top. He's got big time speed that showed up today, as well as a little route savvy to go along with it.
Yeah, I thought he was really impressive, and you know, I like the athleticism they he showed. I mean, you and I kind of both had visions of, you know, watching him in an orange eighty jersey with the Miami helmet. We were like, it was a little bit of Jimmy Graham there, you know. But I don't know if he's got that kind of athleticism that was pretty unique, but he's got This is a really good tight end group
on both sides. We'll tell you about Mason Taylor and the American team tight ends here in just a moment. But Terrence Ferguson's a guy to watch from that group in the tight end spot. But look, I think, you know, one of the things that I'm really kind of interested in as we progress throughout the week is which.
Wide receivers are going to separate themselves.
Because the only one to me that really separated today was tes Tes Johnson. And that was not just kind of an overall evaluation separation. That's what he was doing on the field was creating separation. That is one of his superpowers. You know, he sticks that foot in the ground at the top of the route. You're gonna be hard pressed to find a corner or whomever out there that's going to try to be able to keep up
with him. So I thought Dylan Gabriel's college teammate there at Oregon, Tess Johnson, it was best in show at the wide receiver spot on the national team.
You could make a case Oregon had the best quarterback day one, had the best receiver day one, and I can make a strong argument they had the best off the ball linebacker day one. Bossa was all over the field. Bossop sounds right that time. You know, big time Range had a couple of nice pills. Not tackling out here, so just kind of pass him off and tag him off. But I thought instinct wise and energy wise was excellent from him.
Yeah, and I think we'll see him, you know, really pop once we kind of start unleashing a little bit of that pad pop and when the you know, when the full pads come on, and we'll see him, you know, get after it with some of these running backs. Looking forward to seeing that as the week progresses. But Boss is that alpha dog leader like that. He's gonna ace the interviews.
Too, no doubt. Oh there you are. There's a look at the national team. We'll take a quick break, we'll come back and we will knock out what we saw from the American team practice right after this. All right, right, let's get to the American team in the afternoon, and I will say, look, and the coaches even admitted after the game when they were talking, a little bit of a slow start for this group. Energy was not great,
pace was not great. Wasn't a great practice, to be totally honest with you, And then it picked up towards the end.
Well, yeah, and I think, you know, Bubba Ventrone who as part of the coaching up program with the Senior Bowl here is the special teams coordinator for the Cleveland Browns in the head coaching role for the American team, kind of noticed that himself and he was like, at the end, we got to finish this thing with some juice.
So he pulled down like the microphone from this from the rafters as a boxing announcer like Michael Buffer would do, and he started doing these kind of crazy introductions for the best on best competitive period.
So they had I'd say what five to ten.
Reps where he called out guys you know that played really well in this first practice and had them go again in front of the entire team, in front of the entire stadium, and I kind.
Of everybody's watching this rep.
Type of moment. A couple of guys really stood out in those moments. To Carson Benson was one of those guys the the Alabama A and M tackle who stood up Shamar Stewart. We'll talk about both those guys, but but yeah, it did kind of echo your point on the energy. It didn't really pick up to the end, like to see them start with that type of energy as we get into Wednesday.
Yeah, and you look at the quarterbacks. Mcmilroe was a little inconsistent accuracy wise. Jackson Dart I would say was was solid, was steady, but didn't really see the you know, the big arm that you're hoping to see. That's the question mark on him. Riley Leonard a little up and down.
That's kind of what you're gonna get there. But you're gonna see, you know, him at his best probably when we get to game day and again some again, just some some inconsistencies, some up and down, a little bit late out to the perimeter on a couple of throws. But uh, you know, hopefully we see a little bit more from that quarterback group tomorrow. Where do you want to go next?
Yeah, let's just stay on the offensive side of the ball, because you know, I think we can't bury the lead here. The best player of the day on the American team was Mason Taylor, you know from LSU, And you know, I think he's a guy obviously, Jason Taylor, Hall of Fame dad, you know there and got to he was actually using his cell phone there to try and I don't know why why he felt like.
He needed to, yeah, to watch our broadcast exactly. But I thought I thought he was as advertised. You've got him in your top fifty high up there for a good reason.
He was one of those guys that really kind of showed up to the level of play you'd expected from it.
Yeah, everything, And I thought the interview with Jason was excellent because he just kept using the word natural, natural, And I think sometimes people hear that word and they it's almost like it can be a code word for some people and they think, oh, he doesn't work hard. It comes easy to him, and it's like no, no, no. Some people were put on this earth to do certain things. Jason Taylor was put on this earth to rush the quarterback. And he would readily admit he's a natural pass rusher.
His son is a natural pass catcher, and that showed out through the first day. Let's go through the rest of these what stood out.
Yeah, I don't know that we had a real state.
It wasn't a great practice.
Yeah, Jack Besh had one of the other catches of the day, kind of contested catch ball that he had today, So I would say he was pretty good from the wide receiver group. And then as you get to the offensive line group. Let to be honest, they struggled a little bit, and armand Membu, the highest graded player that you have and that you put in your mock draft from this game was unavailable to go. Today's dealing with the stomach illness and who knows.
Whether we're gonna I do he's done?
Yeah, Okay there, yeah, he's he's gonna. Like that's hard. Who knows how much weighty loss? And you got all that.
Well, the other side of it is do you want do you want him here getting potentially others sick as well?
That that's a that's a big, a big part of it.
So but I kind of thought Carson Vincent from Alabama A and M, you know, one of.
Our HBCU he hung in there.
I thought he did a really nice job, especially as I mentioned at the end against a guy who was arguably best in show on the defensive side and Shamar Stewart, So I thought, you know, he was really good looking at the interior offensive lineman Clay Webb, I thought from Jacksonville State, who was a very highly recruited player, I think a five star player, went to Georgia and transferred to Jacksonville State. I thought he was maybe the best of the interior guys that played out there today.
Yeah, he got one of those big wins at the end of practice. So it's cool to see those competition periods. We go to the other side of the ball defensive line wise. When you look at this group, I mean, you can make a case that Walter Nolan in terms of if you're going to just rate the players for the entire day, I might go Zabel one and I might go Walter Nolan too, and then the two tight ends those would be probably the top four guys.
Yeah, that's that's a good point. I mean, Walter Nolan, you know, we talked about on the show, like he wants to have an Aaron Donald like impact, you know, and he's not the type of player that Aaron Donald is.
But look, yeah, set your sights on the stars, and that's what he did.
And I think, you know, he did as good as you could imagine for a player on day one of the practice week in terms of kind of setting the expectations for what he is capable of. T J Sanders and his sweatpants was good. I'd love to see him now in full pads moving forward. Tim Smith had a couple of nice reps today as they camp. I thought the interior d line guys really showed up on this team now that we kind of look for it. Omar
Norman Lott was definitely one of those guys. I think he's dealing with a little bit of an injury now, so I'm not sure how much more we were going to see of him, but I think we saw enough today to feel pretty.
Good about it.
He had about three plays in a row where he was knifing through the line of scrimmage and they didn't even get a hand on him, to the point where we kind of laughed. During the broadcast, the offensive line coach was like, guys, we got to put our hands on him. I'm like, that is a good piece of advice. Blocking hands are requirement there. When we look at the the rest of this group, I think, corner wise, you know, is this the afternoon group was the Kentucky corner yeat.
Maxwell Harriston had a really nice day. Now. He's a buck seventy nine and he came in at five to one, one two. I thought he was going to be a six, you know, over six feet. I thought he'd be like one hundred and ninety pounds. So one of those ones where you never know what you're going to get measurement wise when you see on paper and what you see when they actually get officially weigh and measured. But man, he was sticky and coverage.
Yeah.
Max week Williams had a good rep too, as did uped In Stout in one of those kind of call out competitive periods at the end of practice. But without question, Maxwell Harston stood out as the best there. And then as you look at kind of the the the other Dante Trader had a big rep you know, at the end of practice.
Really interesting story there.
One of the best lacrosse players in the country in high school, played both at Maryland both you know lacrosse and then competing at safety for the Terps. Other guys out there that that stood out, you know, Jack Kaiser is a guy that was around the ball, a bunch of Notre Dame linebacker again, like Riley Leonard, probably still feeling the after effects a planner in a national title
not too long ago. But I think what it did today was set the table for guys that we want to see kind of ramp the game up as we get in to Wednesday's practice.
Yeah, looking forward to seeing what we get day two of practice. Usually it's a little crisper. Even it sounds like it's not a big deal. But going from just shells to putting some pads on it just makes everything go even a little faster, and I think that makes things easier to see and I think hopefully we'll see some better execution as well. But if you're looking for tight ends, you're going to like this draft. You're going to like what you've seen here in Mobile. We've got
running backs, We've got a ton of defensive lineman. I think this is it's always a kind of a microcosm of the draft as a whole. What you see down here in Mobile, and those are the strengths of this draft.
Yeah, I would agree with you, and you have final thought. There are those position groups to me really stood out.
But again, I think a big hat tip to the offensive line guys on the national side in particular for rising to the challenge because this is an opportunity, you know, like they know that these are some extremely highly regarded defensive players in that position group, and so those those O line guys I think kind of felt like they took that personally and really kind of came out there and they won the day on the national side when you look at you know, O line versus D line.
So excited to see who takes the next step as we move forward here.
But a lot to like from day one.
And I'm excited to see if those offensive linemen are going to jump the snap count every single rep like they did today. And I'm gonna excite. I've seen I've been to a million of these things, so this is I've been over twenty of these Day two. The defensive lineman, look at the difference in the jerseys. They will be taped up, they will not have any cloth to grab, and then they're gonna give holy hell to the offensive line coach for allowing them to get an early start in every single rep.
Yeah, we're gonna start to see some of those inequalities start to level out a little bit. There were definitely a lot of flags on the ground. Hopefully we can clean it up really on both sides of the ball and get this thing rolling. But a lot of fund still to come and excited for what the rest of the week is.
Going to bring us.
You can't see it. I think we almost have a sunset over a red shoulder, right, We actually do have a sunset back there well, Bill showing out. Appreciate you guys hanging with us. That was a little snippet of what we saw. Again, check out the coverage on NFL Network all throughout the day. We've got practices coming your way all day Wednesday and Thursday. The game will be coming your way on Saturday. So appreciate you guys hanging with us. We see you next time right here on with the sticks.