This is the Patriots Catch twenty two podcasts with Evan Lazar and Alex bar and Lazarre. Hello, everybody nailed it, joined us always our bar Here is Evan Lazar and Alex bars Its a really good chiefs team. More point is Kyle Shanahan. You're not even blaming at the argument correctly? I am no, you're not. I am up you're talking about it doesn't matter? Uh? Do we get fine for that? Morrel Harry in trouble, I didn't make anything, you know, when I get fired up.
When I started swearing on the era, I think I swear the most out of anybody. I think I have the biggest potty mouth on Patriots dot Com radio.
But it's it's always just s h I T. Morrell. It's not I it never it never. No, you've dropped you dropped the F a couple of time. No, yeah you have. I remember you did? I remember? No.
No, it never escalates beyond beyond that, and that in my vocabulary, that's that's like not a swear, you know, it's in that like middle ground of swear not swear. All right, Anyways, Evan was our Alex Bartha The Patriots Catch twenty two. Busy, busy week, busy couple weeks for the off season coming up. Yesterday, we got a chance to speak with the Patriots new coordinators. We also got a chance to speak with the entire coaching staff in a off the record'll lit'll get together what do you
call it, a little gathering after meet and greet. That's what I'm looking for, meet and greet afterwards. So we can't really get into too many details about what we talked about with the coaches, but it was great to get some FaceTime with them and obviously hear from the coordinators in a more formal setting as well. And on the one hand, Alex I, I I have to be fair.
Last week I came in here hot about how I felt like there was really no direction from a full ball perspective, not not from a culture building, a you know, CEO perspective, but a football perspective.
So I have to be fair. Yesterday I got it.
I got a little bit more of what what we're going for here in terms of building the team. But with that said, I I also, you can't win me over just because you you you know, gave me some appetizers and got let me talk to this alex fan falta against about uh, you know past protection, right like that doesn't you got to win football games and you got to put together a football team. I'm not that easy. Okay, I'm not that easy. Don't be don't just be, don't
just be nice to the media. I'm not that easy. With that being said, uh, I do want to discuss what was said yesterday and talk about some of the things that I thought stood out to me about what was said at the at the press conferences with the coaches, and we are starting to talk about football, thank god, thank god, we're starting to actually talk about some real football here. But just in general, what were your impressions
of the day yesterday? And it certainly feels different. I know nobody really cares about them being nicer to the media, Like I know that a lot that you shouldn't care, frankly, right, But at the end of the day, it was, honestly, it was a lot of fun to get to pick those guys' brains and to talk football with the coaching staff. And we saw Dante high Tower, which was really cool to see him back in the building. So what were your general impressions yesterday?
Yeah, I think just in terms of the press conferences, and again they didn't get into a ton of football stuff there, but it's something we talked about last week. I think flexibility is going to be a big part of what they do and not being you know, they'll have their core concepts, but they emphasized not necessarily being married to doing things a certain direct, concrete way if they can't do them. And you know, again from Alex
van Pelt yesterday, it's not so much about scheme. It's about the players and putting those people in positions to succeed. There's a lot of different schemes out there. The best ones put the best players in positions to be successfully. Again, that's what I think, and it's something the Patriots were
so good at for so long. But something I feel they got away from the last few years was I'm not breaking news here when I say the Patriots won't have the most talented roster in the league next year, right, probably not even if they get there. You know, you're
talking about three four years. So what you have to do to punch above your weight is figure out ways to maximize the talent you have and figure out ways to incorporate players where where they're hitting their absolute ceiling, and you're maybe able to hide some of those deficiencies that is going to have to be and there's numerous ways to do that. That's a very umbrella answer. It's a very big ten answer. But yeah, I think that, I I know, I hear it by that. I'm not
annoyed by it. I just I'll believe it when I see it.
So okay, And and this end to the point, I think a lot of these guys, and not to cut you off, but I think a lot of the offensive guys, especially like an Alex van Pelt at Ben McAdoo, like these guys have been married to their scheme for decades, like this is not It's like kind of telling Bill O'Brien to like start over, Like I just don't see that happen.
You're not picking up where he left off last week. You're not starting over. There's a core concept there. You're not gonna tell Alex van Pelt to go run the air raid, right. He's run offenses out of shotgun, He's run offense out of under center. He's run offenses with mobile quarterbacks, He's run offenses with statues he's run tight end heavy, like, there's different ways to execute that scheme. Not He was asked about if he's going to run
the same offense he did in Cleveland. Yeah, and he said similar, not the same, And then he said, because the personnel will be different. That's the point. And like you said, it's all well and good to say that does it translate to wins? It's really the only thing that matters. And my big big takeaway was I think these guys get it from a this is where the team is at, this is what they have to do sort of thing. Whether or not that translates is another question,
and we won't know. I mean, we don't even get to start talking about that until we get in the spring practices and then obviously the games that actually matter. But I do think that understanding of hey, we're probably gonna have to be creative. It's not gonna be the exact setup we want. How can we maximize what we have getting started here? That I think that's a lot better than bringing in a coach who says, all right, well, you know, I came from San Francisco, so I'm gonna
run just exactly what I ran in San Francisco. Even though you don't have McCaffrey, you don't have Debo, you don't have Kittle, that would be banging your head against to all that would work. I think there's this recognition of we're gonna need to find ways to maximize the talent we have while this roster gets rounded out. And that is again something that I think maybe fell off here the last couple of years, and that we've always
done it this way. We're gonna do it this way even though you didn't have Tom Brady, you didn't have Devin mccordy, you didn't have Danta Hitier, didn't have Julian Edelman, and they were still sort of operating like they had those players. Yeah, No, I agree. Feel like now the agree coaches, all right, if we have to, you know, skew it more towards tight ends, We're gonna scuw it more towards tight ends. We're gonna skew it more towards receivers.
We're gonna skew more towards receivers if we need to do. If we need to run it more out of shotgun, We're gonna run it more out of shotgun. If we need to run it more under center. We're gonna run it more under center. And that, to me is one of the most interesting parts about Van Pelt as a candidate, is that, well, his offense isn't maybe this heralded Shanahan whatever. He's been a lot of places, He's done a lot of things. He hasn't always run the exact same offense.
There's the core concept still, and he's not gonna go out. They're gonna but they're gonna be a wide zone team. They're gonna be a wide zone team. Yeah, I'm not saying they're not, but there's.
So they can't be drafting, you know. Frankly, Dwan Jones is as we've had a little bit yesterday, like if you have to build this team, yeah, in the vision of the coordinator. And I think that the fear that I have is that I'm not as Actually I shouldn't
even say fear. I just I guess it's just more I would rather them get with Elliott Wolf, who I want to talk about in a second, as well, and say we need these types of tight ends, we need these types of receivers, we need these types of tackles, and get those types of players versus Elliott Wolf just handing them whatever he hands them and saying make it work.
Well, yeah, no, obviously obviously, and he I would think he does. He is kind of communicating with them and saying like, yeah, all right this, you know, these are the guys that kind of fit in this basket. These
guys are kind of fit in this basket. But they're not gonna go out and get I mean they might, it would be nice, but are they gonna let's say they draft Marvin Harrison, right yeah, or let's say they draft Joalt the with the ultimate offensive scheme for twenty twenty four is gonna be is gonna look slightly different if you draft Jolt and you have, you know, a little bit lesser a wide day or draft market.
But they want to run the ball. Yeah, that's I think gonna be a major emphasis for them. I think that they want to run mostly wide zone like they can do other things. And Cleveland certainly had a wide variety of runs that they went to, but it sounded like they went to some of the more gap stuff that they did recently more out of necessity than out of desire. But that's my point it and it worked to an extent. I mean, like, let's not act like Cleveland was the two thousand and seven Patriots.
No, but that's exactly my point. Instead of just hey, this, we can't do this thing, but we're just gonna keep banging our heads against the wall and failing with it because it's what we do. We are going to adjust and actually try to you know, fair enough. And that's that that just I would just rather be really good at what they were really good at.
I think the worst, the worst thing to do is to say to Alex van Pelt. And I'm just using this as an example because it's the guys that are prevalent right now, Like here's Jaden Daniels, figure it out, like your scheme like running under center, like bootleg gun action things like that. All right, excuse me, bootleg action, no gun right right? That that that's not gonna work with with Jaden Daniels. But asking him to all of a sudden be Greg Roman is a mistake, Like that's that's not gonna work.
I guess here's here's my point. What if Alex van Pelt goes to them and says, I can make my offense work with Jane Daniels I'm gonna adjust these things, and this.
Is that's different than me and him see it differently, which is like he's definitely right, way more experienced than I am. So maybe that's the case, right, Like maybe we see the players differently. But I want to get into the quarterbacks too. I don't want to get bogged down on this.
I just think I just think being flexible at this stage is good because there are so many that can go and and look, maybe in an ideal world it works out and ultimately he gets the exact personnel he wants and he can run the exact offense he wants, and awesome, we're off and running that. That would be great. I would love that. That's not happening this year. Even if they have a perfect offseason, they're more than one
off season away from getting to that point. So how are you gonna compensate for you know, maybe you don't have maybe get Marvin Harrison, but you don't have like the secondary receivers you want. Maybe they don't plan the tight end they want that David and Joku role, something like that. How are you going to Are you just gonna keep throwing the ball to bad tight ends? Because well in the offense we run, we throw the ball to the tight end eighty five times.
Now I would just say prioritize the tight end. Okay, well, I mean now there's there's options. Maybe a tight end gets hurt. Maybe you have a big game and the tight end gets hurt. Are you just gonna throw the ball to a bad tight end because that's what we do. Are you gonna get creative, get in the lab and be like, all right, well this week, this is gonna be a bigger part of our game plan. That's what I'm saying that I felt like did not exist here the last few years at Macro and Micro.
I just now I want the vision. I want.
This is what our scheme is. This is what we're good at coaching, this is what we're good at designing play wise. So this is we need these players for it, and I want you know, unison like in vision of like personnel is lined up with coaching and that they understand, you know, this is we're gonna do X, Y and Z on offense.
So we need you know, ABC player right and looking at it.
If he wants to emphasize still a David and Joku type of tight end that's an explosive guy, make big plays happen. There is Jatavian Sanders, there is no fan in free agency. I Gerald Everett isn't necessarily the downfield player and Njoku is, but he's the scheme touch kind of guy that in Djoku is Like those players exist, So that's get it.
But so that's exactly my point. We just said with Jerald Everett, because it's your whole plant's not gonna go perfect, right, You're gonna have to and and having contingency plans as part of this. But Jerald Everett good player, fits the system, but is not a one for one for David Joku. No, he's not the downfield player then, but maybe maybe they look at that and say, all right, we can bring him in and we can alter the tight end role a little bit in the bigger picture of what we do,
and we're gonna make it work with Jerald Everett. Like that sort of flexibility to me is a good thing as opposed to all right, we wanted Jatavian Sanders, we didn't get them. Shoot, I guess we'll kick the can for tight end down to next year because we didn't get the exact player we wanted.
That to me is what they've done the last few years under Bill, and how they got into trouble was like they just they didn't aggressively pursue.
Those But they didn't because they did the first part of it. They would say, all right, we didn't get player A, we got player B. But then they would try to they would just use player B like he was player A exactly, even if he was a different player. I just want this regime to say we need player A and we're gonna do what it takes to get players right, and I want them to do that too. You're not gonna go one hundred percent doing that in the NFL. You're just not even if they spend, and
that's not a the team's not gonna spend thing. That's just how many teams get every player they want in an offseason. Not every player. But there should be.
Using tight end because we talked, there should be like a cluster of players that fitted so at some point in time, whether it's in free agency or it's in the draft, they should be able to get that type.
So maybe using tight end isn't isn't a good example. It's not It's not just tight end. But like again, we're going to argue about this for the next like six months, so let's let's move on for now and and not filibuster too much. But I want to I want to talk about we're talking about it already, personnel because right now, at this point, my big picture takeaway from yesterday was the Patriots are not going to fail because of their coaching staff. I really feel that way.
I think a v P and what they're building on defense with Mayo and Covington is gonna be good enough from a schematic strategy type of state, like a special team staff too.
I'm just gonna say that, Yeah, yeah, sure you were gonna say it, no, because I fell asleep during that.
So all, come on, allow you to talk about football guy.
He is a football football oh yeah, talking about Adam vin Terry and like that. He's special team. He played, he played the hits. I don't I don't hold that again. He's a fireball, he's a ball of energy, which I know, like Cam McCord is not the most popular person around here right now, but Accord was the same way. A lot of energy, a lot of intensity, competitiveness, and that's a special teams coach, and that's.
What no one else is about Springer.
And I know it's it's not a glorified position, right, Like it's not like the sexiest of roles, so you have to have or you know. And when I say roles, I mean like for players to play in the kicking game is not the sexiest.
No, But I think for him too. He played it at UTEP, which you know, no disrespect to UTEP, but it's not a premier program. And he said, yes, he was like I knew I wanted to be in the NFL, not playing coaching. He's a guy that seems like loves football, wanted to be around football however he could get there. And the other thing I'll say, he is a big time college coach vibe Yeah, like he is a college coach, which on special teams the way most teams build it,
and I woul think they're gonna build it now. You generally have younger guys, yeah, and you have guys that maybe are going through that adjustment period. So I think a guy with a more college type of approach to it makes a lot of sense in that role. And he he reminds me, He reminds me a lot more if I were to say, like personality and just talking to him about his coaching philosophy. If I was and he spent a lot of time coaching college like this
isn't a surprise. But if I were to go through like coaches he reminds me of, I'd probably list like four or five college guys before i'd get to an NFL coach. Yeah, and he's got Tom Quinn on the staff too, which is great. Ben a defensive special teams coordinator for like a decade with the Giants. Yeah, and so he's got a ton of extent. He was with the Titans last year where I think it was I don't know why I have fifth and eighth in my brain.
I don't know which one it is, but top ten special teams unit last year.
Yeah, So I want to At the end of the day, the coaching staff I don't think is going to be a detriment to this team. We'll see about Girod in terms of the CEO type of stuff, but in terms of x's and o's schematically, I don't think the coaching staff is going to be the reason why they're not good.
I have one question about it. I'm just curious what you think. Yeah, so it's the only two we didn't have last time we talked, and it's tight end and wide receivers, coach talent us.
But let's let's let's we'll get to that in a second. I want to stay, you know, kind of big picture for a sec. The biggest thing now is personnel. It's been, it's been the biggest thing I think this whole time. But now is when we start to really turn to personnel. The combines next week, free agencies a couple of weeks away. The draft is obviously at the end of April. So I think what we need to come away from this
is is that now can Elliott Wolf pick the players? Well, it goes back it's Elliot Wolf's show, Like we need to not that we don't already on this show, but Patriots fans need to realize that even though he doesn't have the title, the general manager of the Patriots right now is Elliott's.
What I said the other week, right, Call him whatever you want, Call him the GM, call him the president of Football Ops, call him the King of New England. Call him for breakfast like he's he's my guess?
Is his like a total guess, but president of Football Ops has a nice rank.
To as long as it's not chief football officer because I don't think it will Yeah, okay, no, because they don't really use like the general manager title around here. They haven't used it since Sullivan like this, it's not even a Robert Crafting orth Line never employed it.
Right, So director of player personnel right now is what macro is. So to create a role above macro that's not general manager, president of football operation seems like that would.
Be so in the past, I just pulled it up here. In the past, they've used VP of Player Operations. I could see that. Yeah, director of player personnel, director of pro personnel, de facto general manager, director of player personnel and uh VP, So they've used craft uh Peoly was VP of player personnel. Yea, So maybe that's what that's. I mean, it's this is just academic at this point. But it goes back to your point, can you pick
the players? Remember all during the season when we would kind of do the offseason look aheads and people say, what do you think of this player? What do you think of this player? Should they do this? Should they do that? And we always kind of came back to who's coaching the team, who's picking the players. We finally, finally, finally have the answer to those questions, and now we lock in on this and and those guys set it up. Those guys set it up yesterday. Covington didn't talk so
much about it. But there wasn't a ton of scheme talk to get into with Covington because he kind of set off the top. Yeah, we're gonna do what we did right, which you'd expect. There's nothing wrong with that. But Van Pelt was very He didn't use the exact phrase, which I love, but he danced around at a bunch. It's Jimmy's and Joe's, not X's and O's. And Springer talked about that. But that's what it is you can have. That's what it makes us a good combo. You you
you come at it from that angle. I look at it and say, inside, I want my coordinator to be like, I'm gonna be the best schemer. No scheme. You can have a good scheme. But Kyle Shanahan could go out there with his best game plan and he could put I'm using him again, you know, I'm using him as the best play designer in the league. I'm actually complimenting him because I do think he is that who would
you rather me? Andy Reid could design the best offense he's ever designed for a game, but he could put me you I I'm just being it would look tight.
I obviously agree that at the end of the day, it's about the players, which is my whole point here is that I think that if you give Alex van Pell good enough players that they're going to be a
decent offense. And I don't think it's going to be him that's going to be holding them back it now it comes down to their setup right now is going to be Elliott Wolf and Girod Mayo are going to be picking the players when they go to turn in the card at three overall on April twenty eighth, it's probably going to be one of those two guys that has final say in the pick. I would lean probably towards Elliott, but I don't know that for a fact.
And that look, all the heavy is the heads reported right, I think Rapport reported that he has like he has a final say, yeah, and heavy is the head that wears the crown. Like that's great. I'm happy for Elliott he's a good guy. I think he's got the experience. I think it's it's a long time coming for him to be in this role for a team, but now do it. But right now now you're the guy, right so whatever if success or fail, it's all gonna be on you. I just I think it's that's, at the
end of the day, the biggest thing. And I thought one of the better quotes I just was pulling up quotes here from Gerard Mayo is it seems to me, based off of his remarks yesterday that this has been brewing behind the scenes that him and Elliott Wolf have kind of mustered up a connection with one another, you know, talking about he hit it off with Elliott Wolf the first time that they met, when Elliot Wolf got here
a couple of years ago. And then this was I think really a very good quote of you're a Patriots fan. Because it's important again for the coaching staff and the personnel department to be in unison and to have a shared vision from a team wide perspective all the way down to the individual players. Our philosophy's match. We want to put good football players out there that are fast, smart and really play for one another. He really sees
it the same way. So I think that those two guys, at least currently, Let's see what happens if one of them likes j Daniels and one of them likes Drake, But at least currently those two guys have a shared vision. And I think my bigger takeaway too was just that, not to take anything away from Gerrod, but it really feels like Elliot Wolf is the one that's pulling the strings right now in terms even in terms of the
coaching staff. Like Alex Van Pepe got up there and said, Elliott called me and I came in for the interview, right, Like he just came.
Right out and said that, well that makes sense. Elliott Wolf's had more experience in this than Trop Mayo has, and and Drod even said like he leaned on people through certain steps being new. So yeah, no, it's it's very clearly Elliott Wolf's show. He's the GM.
Yeah, getting to some of the schematic stuff, And this is what I was really looking for, right, I mean, this is what I was blew in the face last week about, is that can we stop talking about you know, bridges and silos and start talking about X's and No's and Jimmy's and Joe's right. You know, that's right. That's the big thing for me. And I thought that one of the couple of things that Mayo said about Alex
van pel were really intriguing. He mentioned, you know, he was asked what coaching against Alex van Pelt, which he did twice over the last couple of years when the Patriots have played the Browns. They killed the Browns both times, so not exactly a great showing for the Browns offense, but there were reasons behind that. One of those games, Baker was hurt. They they had a bunch of guys
out to injury. I don't think Nick Chubb played in that game the mac Jones' rookie year, and then the next year was Jacobe Brissett, like it was that Rundown Brown's offense. Anyways, the one thing I'd say about Van Pelt is that he can make the same concept look a bunch of different ways. That's always hard for us on the defensive side of the ball. So when he said that, I immediately thought to myself, Okay, this is Mayo telling us that that's the type of offense that he
wanted them to install. He didn't want to have an offense that had a million different plays and was like more like EP System style where it's just like a million different things going on. He wanted to have an offense that had, you know, a lot of the Shanahan McDaniel, Sean McVay type of roots of this is all the same thing until it's not. And the Patriots had elements of that in their old offense, there's no doubt about that.
But the Patriots in their old offense really tried to overwhelm you with information like we're gonna show different personnel groupings, we're going to show different formations, we're gonna do a bunch of different things, and you're just not going to be able to get a beat on what we're doing.
This offense is going to be more married together in the in the run game play action pass and that sort of thing where it is wide zone, wide zone, bootleg, where it is you know, they're they're gonna run a lot of inside zone I think as well, you know, and then half boots like those types of things. So it was pretty clear even though you know, we knew this already based off of the guys that they interviewed that this was an offense that was intriguing to Girod.
Mayo was something's a little bit more simple, a little bit more streamlined in terms of what they did in terms of the birth of the playbook. And I do think I think that, you know, just to gut, I think what's optimistic about this too is I do think that there's gonna be a lot more shared responsibility and it's not gonna all be on the quarterback at the line of scrimmage. Now, we talked a lot of yet last week about the Super Bowl and how it has to be a little bit of bolt and I think
it will be. But in terms of the run game and in terms of most of the protection stuff, I think that the center, and you have a really good one and experienced one in David Andrews, is going to start to take on a whole lot more of the responsibility and that sort of respect as well. So in a lot of ways, I think that this was the way that they wanted to go offensively. Now, again, it just comes back to getting the players to run it.
But I think that it's a good sign that Mayo was like, yeah, this was a this was a difficult offense to defend. Even though they didn't put up fifty points against us, you know, we saw that this was a difficult offense to defend.
Yeah, I mean, I just I'd agree with all that. I think the big thing is how they're going to handle the quarterback position in the transition. Again, it goes back to it's a different challenge, but it's similar. Yeah, I think rolling through five starting quarterbacks compared to having
a rookie, there's unique challenges with both. Like Joe Flacco, although he's coming off the couch late in the season as your fifth starting quarterback, there are things you don't have to worry about with him, you are gonna have to worry about it with rookie. But overall, Van pel was in a situation last year where it moved him to make things easier on the quarterback. And that's again, that's not a dirty thing.
That's not especially when the Patriots are gonna have a rookie most likely right and I don't know if he's gonna start right away, but the whole program is going to be around making Jaden Daniels or Drake may or Michael Pennix or whoever the best possible quarter right exactly.
And I mean I've done this rant before. Everbody knows how I feel about this, like saying, oh, so you have to make it easy for the quarterback because he sucks. That's what it is. He sucks, so you have to baby, No, that's what smart teams do. The Bills do it for Josh Allen, the Ravens do it for Lamar Jack. Well, it just seems so silly Patrick Malmes for a long time not.
To rag on like everything that they used to do, because I don't want to get into that pattern, right because it all, it all didn't stink, obviously, but it just was always so weird to me that they had David Andrews, who is as a veteran experienced of a center and smart as a center as you could possibly have in this league, and they gave the keys to the entire alert system and protection system to two rookie quarterbacks,
essentially Mac Jones and Bailey Zappi. You know, Bailey's Appy's making his first career start and he's out there making checks and audibles at the line to scrimmage. When you have a ten year veteran at center, you know that that can handle these types of things that always interested you know, was fascinating to me that they put that much responsibility right away on the quarterbacks. I mean last
year Mac Jones. I know he's not a rookie anymore, but he talked about it during training camp about how much the offense puts on the quarterback.
And it was the third offense in three years. So it's not that he was a rookie, but it's just again, he's constantly learning and it's a lot to ingest. Yeah. Yeah, And look, the quarterback position inherently has more going on than any other position. I'm not going to sit here and say take it all off the quarterbacks plate. That doesn't work. The Niners tried it. What you no reaction? No, okay,
I'm over. We're moving on what we're We're onto the comp I'm not saying take it all off the quarterbacks plate. What I'm saying is there are inherently things the quarterback is going to have to do that are our challenges that are just unique to that position. Why put more you have a young guy, right, why continue to pay And it's it's one thing when you have Tom Brady and he's been in the League for time. I feel
like that's what they got stuck on. It is like they had Brady to do it, so they went that direction because Brady probably wanted to go, But also Brady wasn't doing that for twenty five years. Probably not. It
built to that. And if you want to tell me, like, if they draft Drake May in ten years, Drake May's making all the check like hopefully still here in ten years, he's playing well, and he's making all the checks and calls and audibles in ten years, Well, that makes a lot more sense because that was probably a progression and he built up to it year one. Not so much. You want to ease these guys in. It's not a bad thing to say, Yeah, we want to ease our
rookie quarterback in. And it goes back to the flexibility point two and all of that. But I do they're gonna have. They're gonna have.
The quarterback's going to have some sort of power to be able to get to the line of scrimmage and once the center sets the protection and sets the call, and if the quarterback sees you know, this is what we're talking about with the Super Bowl that I felt like perty didn't do. If the quarterback sees a blitz tel on one side of the formation and he says to the center, hey, where are we going on this play?
And the center says, the mic is over here, right, and he's saying, well, wait a second, where we need to be blocked up on backside here, then I think the quarterback is going to be able to have the control at the line of scrimmage to flip it right, to say, let's remike, let's flipper this, let's go over here now instead. I think that that's going to have that ability. But it's more gonna be Q seeing it before the ball is snapped.
Right.
It's not gonna be the initial sort of stages of the setup of the play. It's gonna be the last second, Oh, you know, we have something funny going on over here. Let's make sure we alert that, or let's make sure we slide this way, or whatever the case may be,
and he's gonna be able to do that. Whereas in the Patriots system, the quarterback got to the line of scrimmage, or I should say the Patriots old system got to the line of scrimmage and it was all on him to do the setup and then to do the final stages of it as well, So I like that they're gonna move on from that. The other thing that I like from what Mayo said about Van Pelton just about their vision. You know, he was asked kind of more about what how do you guys envision playing offense? What's
important to you on offense? He said, I'm expecting for us and foremost a tough team, which you know every coach says. After that, it really gets into smart players, which I think is interesting because Van Pelt talked a lot about smart, you know, intelligent football players as well, not just at the quarterback position. He also mentioned it at the offensive line too, that they they are gonna have to have guys and con see things and are smart,
intelligent players. You don't have to be a genius, but you have to be smart enough and really explosive players and guys that play for one another. It was that simple. It was that simple. Just that was so cookie cutter, surface level. I know people are gonna think I'm crazy for being like that checks the box that I was arguing about last week.
But that's all I needed. That's all I needed.
Just tell me how you're your thirty thousand foot fit feet view and vision of how you want to start to build this offense.
That's all I need.
I don't need the I don't need you to tell me the PowerPoint presentation of the entire offseason and which players you like and which guys you're gonna target and things like that would be great, but I don't need you to tell me that. I just need you to say, these are the types of football players that we want. This is the type of mentality that we want to have offensively. At least we got a little bit more of that.
I felt like yesterday, Yeah, no, it started and they set off the top. They weren't going to talk x'es and o's, and then they did a little bit. So surprised by that, but you got the the general basis of it, I think for sure. Okay, a couple of last things here. We obviously have to talk about Van Pelt's answer about the quarterback right and what he looks
for in the quarterback. He said it a couple of different ways, but I think the bigger things that he said, you know this was well, let's use the first answer, because that I think was more honest. That was the more gut reaction. The second one, the question was kind of phrased in a different way, so I don't.
I wrote this with both answers combined. So I are talking about the decision making accuracy that answer.
Hang on, I have it. No, I'm talking about the first one. Were talked about leadership, Yeah, the one that you hate.
That's definitely ben was a theme of all the answers he gave about quarterback.
It was leadership. Yeah.
So I'll just read this one decision making, accuracy, the fundamentals and mechanics that the guy has sound, and a big one again is leadership. The big piece for me is leadership, toughness, accuracy, decision making. All four are important. So he went on a lot about leadership, and here's the other one. Smart, tough, and a leader. You put him in charging those categories. Obviously, there's accuracy in the past, game, mobility, decision making.
There's a lot that goes into it. But at the end of the day, that role is so important to the risk, not just the rest of the offense, but the rest of the team. A guy that's a true leader that can come in and really understand his teammates and get the best out of those guys. And then he said something a little later on. I'm trying to
find it. He said something about, like, the physical traits are the physical attributes are obviously important, but if a guy's a leader can come in and make good decisions and throw the ball accurately, those are all pluses. So we refers to like actioning decision making. His plus has been on leadership. It kind of is like, well, if you can't be a leader, I don't really care what you can do elsewise.
Yeah, I think that leadership obviously action decision making. Exactly what he said, And I think the last thing that he said, and I think, you know, Ben McAdoo sort of subscribes to this as well, is fundamentals. I think
fundamentals is going to be important to these coaches. I think footwork, I think mechanics, and I look at some of these quarterbacks in the draft, and my guy, Drake may not necessarily the most mechanically sound right certainly more of a project right now in terms of those types of things. I'm not saying that they're not gonna that that eliminates Drake may from the conversation. But we have a show today. So the point, like, look, who do we think it fits that mold?
There's no quarterback that checks every single one of those boxes. So I mean, I'm writing this column later today. But we can do we can do this fun little game here. Take Caleb Williams out of it, because we think he's going one one right, So we're not gonna include Caleb Williams in this. We'll go through the traits that he he included. Smart could mean a bunch of things, but let's just whatever you would consider smart for a quarterback
reading a field. Yeah, give me a top three in the draft in terms of smart smart Yeah.
Oh that's tough, because I think it's it's hard. There's so many different systems with these quarters.
However you want to qualify smart, I.
Would say in terms of the guy that I feel like has the most thoughtfulness in terms of manipulation processing that type of stuff.
This is what intrigues me about Drake May.
I think he's the best passer out of this group, honestly, Like, not the best thrower necessarily, but the best passer where I see him using I'm using pump fakes, Like he knows that if he looks over there, it's going to open the passing window you know over there, you know, like those types of things. So I would say, in terms of decision making, processing and sort of the quarterbacky.
Type of decision making, who's the best? All right? So smart? You're going Drake May? Yeah, best decision maker, best decision maker? I would probably have to give it to Jaden Daniels. I mean the guy through like seven turnover worthy plays the entire year. I thought, you know, he he showed a good ability to take care of the football. Wait, wait back to we were gonna do top three to put together? Who else is smart? You go? Drake May, I go Drake May. I would say that Caleb is
probably a little bit take care of about it. They're not kidding it, okay, Pennix Penex Okay, yeah, in that Washington sis him Like, I don't know what it would look like in a different event. You only can work with what you you have to have. So I would say, Drake May, Pennix, and then you can go outside the top six too if you want.
Yeah, I know, I would say Drake May, Penix, and maybe bo Nicks, but not because I want bo Nicks, just because I.
Well, no, no, no, I mean, I think people see him going with this.
Yeah, he's been here for seventeen years in college. I mean, so like he's got.
Experience decision making, said Daniels.
Daniels, One, I would think, I mean, I think in terms of pure decision making, like I do think Pennox is pretty strong in that category. Two and uh, the last one I would probably go, I said Jaden.
One, right, I would not put Drake. I will I was going to jump over his table if you try to put Drake is that is his biggest knock? Yeah, like he is. He's He's the Carnival Red. Uh. Can I pay I mean death guy. Can I pitch Michael Pratt? Yeah? Like, yeah, I mean I'm not drafting Michael Pratt. But but I mean, just for the sake of this pure Yeah, okay, so we have we have smarts, we have decision making. Toughness, Well, Jayden's certainly tough, but maybe too tough, right, Like a
guy plays like Wiley. Kaya, I think there's a clear cut number one here. Who's that? It's Michael Pannis.
Oh yeah, yeah, I guess that's fair just because of it bounce backs from the injuries and stuff like that.
Yeah, certainly also the NASH Championship game with like a broken rip. Yeah.
I think Drake may is up there too in terms of just staring down the barrel and willingness to take hits and things like that in the pocket poise, you know that stuff. And I would put Jayden up there just because he does take risks with his body like he's not afraid, Like he doesn't play afraid. He plays maybe a little bit too confident, but he doesn't play afraid, which I think is important.
Okay, so now we're not gonna do leadership because we're not in the room with these guys, and that's the biggest But I think that, you know, just like hearing some of the things that I was, you know, thinking about this, right, hang on, we'll save that for last year. Let's do accuracy. Most accurate, Yeah, I mean, I mean Nick's completed like seventy something percent.
Yeah, Nicks's Nix was accurate. I think, you know, these guys all are accurate in different areas of the field, and some guys have issues for weather, area for.
What they want to do. So put them in the kind of throws they'll be making with Patriots.
Okay, most I think Daniels would probably be up there.
Daniel's number one.
Uh, He's his short accuracy is not very good, that's the problem. But like his deep acker, he's probably the best deep ball thrower.
In the class, him or Penix.
But in terms of timing accuracy, ball placement, I mean, look, I the one thing I'll say in Penis applies to the same thing as well. But when you're throwing the Molik Neighbors and Brian Thomas Junior, like those guys, everything's going to be on there. They're gonna they're open all the time. So it's kind of tough to say, but I think Daniel's really accurate with it. I think Pennix is obviously really accurate with especially the big time throws
down the field. Is that point accuracy? And then probably.
Bonnix Yeah, okay, so and then leadership.
So I've heard some really good things about Drake May's leadership. Okay, I like guys, you know one of those guys he walks into the room, gravitate towards him and like you know, like Bill Partslls I think used to call him planet player. Yes, right, does guys that have that gravitational poll that can get the group together. I think he's up there. I think Pennix is one one though, and that k oh yeah,
so i'd say Pennix Drake May two. I've heard that Jayden Daniels has gotten better in this regard, but certainly early on in his career like at Arizona was at Staate Arizona State.
Did you watch that that series LS you put out on but obviously it's from LSU. You did watch? Yeah, so he's I think he's grown into it. I think he has. So here's what you have and we can kind of is this is an aggregate like I was gonna say, we're gonna kind of aggregate it. Yeah, so Drake May and we'll see it was the the highest score we do. So d May has three plus and now is at five. So we'll give Drake May a seven. We'll give Michael Penneck unless you want to talk while I add this up. Now.
Yeah, I just I know where you're going with this on your in your report card.
I don't necessarily disagree with you. I honestly, like I'm writing this later, I just that's why I head you do it.
But I just think the biggest thing that I came away with from yesterday is is It's so fascinating. I think this goes back, you know, not to make everything about the forty nine ers, but it goes back to so many of these quarterback decisions that we've seen over the last couple of years around the league, where the coaches want one thing and the personnel department. I'm not saying that they're out of Divie because I don't know that,
but I'm just this happens all the time. The personnel department looks at traits right like they look at arm strength, mobility, accuracy down the field, toughness in the pocket, poise, and then the coaching staff comes in and says, this guy's foot is a mess, this guy's release is a mess, Like I have to fix all of this.
Okay, so you know we'll we're gonna have one more because you talked about it. Mechanics.
Mechanics, Yeah, I think the cleaning. I think Jaden Daniels is the cleanest thrower and this class. He's got some footwork things that he's got to work out, but in just in terms of delivery and upper body, he's got a really nice compact release. I know you're gonna hate that. I'm gonna say this, but JJ McCarthy is probably number two on the list.
Well, they're not always consistent, but yeah, I.
Mean he has a really good ability to uh snap the ball out of his hand and you know, really connect his body together to generate velocity. Uh JJ McCarthy number two. I can't put Pennis in there because he's just he's lefty and it just I have you seen have you watched it flip Okay, but it's like it's real, so right, and like I just I wouldn't put him there, And I can't put Drake may there either because he's all over the place.
Sometimes put Joe Milton there. Definitely Rattler Nicks, I would say, uh, Pratt, it's probably Rattler. Michael Hartman, Rattler might.
Be up there, honestly, like just because you know, he does a really good job of generating velocity from his lower half.
So I would say rattler. Okay. So here's Evan Lazar's aggregate scores for the best fits for what Alex Van Pelt said he's looking for at quarterback. Yep, I'm gonna go bottom to the top. So Michael Pratt Spencer Ratler both scored a one. Good. You want a high higher number better? Yeah. JJ McCarthy scored a two. Yeah, Bo Nick scored a four. Okay, Drake May scored a seven. Yep, jayde and Daniels scored a ten, and Michael Pennock scored an eleven. Yeah.
I hear what you're saying. I mean when you start to really boil it down. But again, I think what I was talking about when you were computing your your report card over there is this, I think often is the divide between the coaching staff and the front office. The coaching staff wants a leader. They want a tough guy. They want a fundamentally sound guy. They want to pro ready quarterback. Frankly like, that's what they want. They want
an adult. They don't want to take a kid and have to develop him because, let's face it, you don't often get a lot of time in this league. So if you have to take a guy and develop him for two or three years, you might get fired by the time the.
Guy is ready to really so if you take leadership out of it, yeah, then Jaydan Daniels actually has the best score with a nine, then it's Michael Pennix with an eight, then it's Drake May with a five. Yeah.
Look, Jayden Daniels is a really good prospect. I have him in the same tier as Drake May. I don't hate Jayden Daniels by any means. I think the only difference is is that I think one is fit to play under center and one isn't. And is that going to be a deal breaker for AVP? Is that we have to be able to play from under center. You're not putting Jayden Daniels under center.
Now.
We talked about it in the past, and we'll get into it a little bit more, and certainly if they draft and we'll get into it a ton. But the one thing that teams like Baltimore, teams like Miami I've done with quarterbacks that aren't comfortable under center is they run a lot more pistol because in the pistol they can still have that action with the bootleg and turn your back to the defense and fake a handoff, and then the running back still has the option to go
either direction because he's not offset. So you have that freedom to be able to do some of the same mechanics of being under center, but you're doing it from a more of a gun type of alignment. So maybe that's the answer. Like if they draft Jaden Daniels, maybe they run wide zone like Miami runs wide Zone, which is from the gun in the pistol. Maybe they run, you know, more of stuff that is a little bit more like Baltimore from the pistol. But again that's the
fasibility that would be fun. Like, I'm all for that. I think that the one thing about Jade and Daniels that you have to ask on that list that Van Pelt said is that he made such an emphasis on leadership. And I don't know Jayden Daniels, so I don't want to like. But based off the speculation, especially in Arizona.
State, and look, I wasn't there, but most people who knock Daniel's leadership ability cite the Arizona State the locker video where he announced he was transferring out of a program that a lot of players transferred out of because it was a mess. He announced he was transferring and guys trashed his locker. Yeah, would you really do that if you were happy somebody left. No, they were mad he left because they knew he was good. They knew they were going to win games with him. That is
not a knock on leadership. That is just being a victim of a transfer portal and Herm Edwards running a toxic program. There are some other things people will cite, but I'm not saying that he's I'm not saying he's gonna go out there and be like the ultimate leader of men. I'm not saying he's gonna go out there and be somebody who is like, Oh, as soon as he's done football, he is going to campaign for president. But I I do think that that was five years ago,
much older now. He's been through a lot. Everybody at LSU who seems to rave about him, So I don't think it was as bad as people painted at Arizona State. I'm not saying it was perfect, But I also think he used his time at Arizona State as a learning experience and change. If you can get guys to gravitate towards even a Brian Kelly program, you're doing something right.
He's he's a quiet leader, though, he's like a lead by example type of guy from what I understand.
When you know who was like that by all accounts, mail.
Yeah, No, it's not a bad thing necessarily it's just that that's he's not going to be you know, you're not gonna necessarily see Jayden Daniels walking up, down and down the sideline yelling at everybody like Tom Brady used to do.
But he kind of start doing that later and later in you know, last Leadership I think is such a silly thing because like there's no way to quantify leadership, and I think ultimately what it means to me is just do guys play for you, like when we look when you know the we're not going to necessarily talk a ton about the Dynasty because we have plenty of you know, p and the Dynasty podcast covers that. But like the in the Dynasty, Danny A.
Mondola had that like famous quote that that's getting or making the rounds of you know, we work for Bill, but we played for Tom. And you want a quarterback that we play for this everything that's what you want.
Everything that we've heard out of LSU's guys played for jam Day. I agree. So I agree.
I mean, you don't put up the season that he just put up with and guy with guys not wrecking you very often.
And look, there's leadership like when I do mine and I'm gonna do a version of the exercise we just did and that I'll be up tomorrow ninety eight five the sports sub dot Com. Nice plug. Thank you. I'm actually not going to include leadership because it is so like you're in the locker room. You don't Yeah, so you want to include it ended up skewing it. It put Pennix over Daniels when you include leadership when you don't, Daniels is the guy I will say to your results,
and I texted you this last night. So this is something I believe before we ran through that Michael Pennix is more in play than we maybe thought he was. I think based on what they say, not necessarily at three. I'm not saying they're gonna go take them at three, but the way Van Pelt talked about quarterbacks, in my mind, I kept going back to Michael Penix. There's no guy, there's no better leader in this draft than Michael Pennix. There's no better leader, to no guy who's tougher. Yeah
he has. I mean, we've we talked about this last week in terms of scheme fit. There's you're a scheme fit. He might be the best and are his mechanics perfect. No, I don't think they're as bad as a lot of people think they are. I think they're just thrown off by the lefty thing. I've compared him to Philip Rivers, whose mechanics obviously weren't perfect. But here's my thing with me.
As long as you're throwing motion is consistent, exactly, it doesn't if you throw the ball the same. It's like a shooter in basketball, like you might everybody shoots a little bit differently. But as long as it's a consistent launch point, it's not gonna necessarily.
So I look at it, and I'm not saying Penis is Aaron Rodgers. But the point is, you would never teach a quarterback you're starting with like a kid. Yeah, you would never teach. You would never on Aaron Rodgers and say throw the football like this. No, you'd put on Brady and say through the football. Aaron Rodgers one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time because it worked for him, because it was consistent. Yeah, I worked with somebody ones who in scouting kickers, and it's it's similar.
You can roll your eyes, it's similar to the mechanics. What he would do is he would take ten kicks and he'd overlay them on a video on transparency, and it would look like if the kicker was good, it would look like one kick. You wouldn't see deviation. Now, quarterbacks a little different because there are times where you're gonna change your arm angle or you're gonna try to throw off platform. But they're not the prettiest mechanics. But it's the same thing every time. It's the same He's
throwing the ball the same way. And if your motions repeatable and you're having success with it. If it's not the prettiest thing, if you're making it work, you're making it work. And that is what i'd say for people.
Again, like some of it's because they're both lefties, but like, like Tua doesn't have the prettiest throwing mind.
Well, remember when they flipped the video for Tua and everybody was like, what the hell's going on? Why does this guy look like a real quarterback? Again? Watch Michael Pennock's flip.
In general, though I do agree with you that Penix checks a lot of the boxes that the coaching staff yesterday was talking about. Is that gonna align with the personnel department, is Elliot Wolf can override everybody because of talent, Like that's a different conversation, but certainly experience I think goes hand in hand with leadership as well toughness, accuracy,
decision making. Penix checks a lot of those boxes. But we all know that the biggest week of Mike Michael Pennox's life is next week in Indianapolis, when they he.
Doesn't really have to do anything except sable. Yeah.
I that is literally a difference for Michael Penix and millions of dollars of what those doctors tell teams about his shoulders and about his knee. So it's gonna be fascinating to see the reporting that comes out of the combine. So on that note, I just retweeted the Michael Pennock's right handed video, so please watch that. Is an Is there anything else? I mean, Troy Brown being back on the staff, I guess is notable. We don't necessarily know
his role. Yeah, it's hard to talk about, so it's hard to talk about, but those were the main.
Head I had one other question about the stat Yeah, so they bring Bob Bicknell and Tyler Hughes to tight ends and wide receivers coaches, respectively. Hugh's been here, Bicknall's been coaching football so long. He coached it PU and he coached in NFL Europe. So you know, I'm not saying those are great things, but that's how long BU hasn't had a football program and how long an NFL Europe point away. How long ago? So Bignell played tight end college. He started off as a tight ends coach.
He coached titands a little bit, but he's spent the better part of the last decade and a half coaching wide receivers, and he's coached receivers on teams that had good receivers, the Eagles in the mid twenty tens. He's with the Niners for a year. Hughes was a general assistant here, and he was a general assistant in Washington. And I mean, obviously, I Washington had good receivers, and I think he worked with receivers here his first time around. But Bicknell, to me, is what I wanted them to
hire in a wide receivers coach. Yeah, and he's coaching tight end. And it's something against Tyler Hughes. It's just I look at Bicknell's resume, he hasn't coached tight ends in thirteen years.
Well, so I think that the tight end position coach is a really important one on your staff because they have their hands in so many different things. So I think that experience at that spot with multiple positions can actually be really helpful because you are in the run in the past game meetings, like you have to coach your guys up on the run elements and the pass elements equally at the tight end position, where as like receivers for example, Yeah, I like blocking with receivers is
a thing, but it's not the most important thing. So I think in that element, it's good that bick Nell's had experience with various positions. I think it's important because he's going to have a hand in both things. In terms of the receivers coaches. The way that I see Tyler Hughes and Taekwan Underwood, I think Tyler Hughes is going to be more of game plan x's and o's opponent studying this is what we're gonna do right in this week, and this is how we're gonna go forward.
Taekwon Underwood, I think what they're hoping is gonna you know, you know, my guy. The footworking is like he's gonna be their own footwork.
I like the Taekwon Underwood high I really do.
I think it's you know, there's a lot of really good UH receiver coaches around the league, and I know it hasn't necessarily worked out with Troy Brown, but in general that obviously played, you know, like a Keenan McCardell, Shan Jefferson, like those types of guys, and you don't necessarily I know, Taekwon Underwood wasn't Randy Moss, Like, you don't necessarily need to be a great player to be
a great coach. I just look at him, and you know, I think he's gonna be the guy that's out there early drilling releases and drilling top of the route stuff and things that are gonna be more technique based with these guys, I think when they if they draft the guy, which they should, but whenever they draft the guy, you know, let's say the first day that that Roman Wilson's on on the property, I think the guy that he's gonna
be working with a lot is Taekwon Underwood. In terms of doing the actual movement skill type stuff of playing the receiver position, and Tyler Hughes is going to be more of a guy that's going to be handling, you know, helping Van Pelton mcado with those guys with game plan and x's and o's. That's just my hunch, just based
off of their backgrounds and expertise. But I think Bicknell, I think a lot of these guys, you know, Bicknell mcado, I think a lot of these guys responsibilities is going to be helping to run the offense from a more big picture standpoint and a more a game plan oriented standpoint, because I don't think Gerard Mayo is gonna is going to take on a ton of responsibility in that regard. Offensively, I think this is going to be completely Van Pelton
mcadow's show on the offensive side of the mall. I I don't think Mayo is going to have a ton of hand in it, which I think is good. Yeah,
I think what's you know. The other thing before we started to open the phone lines and talk a little bit about the combine as well, the other thing I thought was good is that he's it sounds like DeMarcus Covington's going to call the defense, so you have a first time head coach who's one of the youngest head coaches in the NFL, and they are trying to manage his responsibilities and manage what's on his plate right out of the gate, which I think is a good thing.
If he had been it had been more than fair for him to say, I'm a defensive guy. This is my I'm calling the defense, right Demiko ryantce in Houston calling the defense. But I think he wants to take more of that CEO approach, probably something he learned from Bill, and try to be a little bit more of an overseer. And I think that's good for a first time head coach.
I think it's hard to be in your play sheet and then also deal with all the other things that the defensive coordinator or that the head coach, excuse me, he needs to deal with. So I like the fact that he's handing off some of those responsibilities. You know, obviously Van Pelt was going to call the offense and nobody else would, But that DeMarcus Covington's going to call the defense, I thought is a good thing as well. Yeah,
all right, take some of these phone calls. You know, some people have been waiting on for a while we appreciated Kendall is in North Carolina.
What's up, Kendall? How you doing.
I heard y'all talking the first opening segment about this game about Van Pelt, what receivers in this draft fit his scheme? And my second question is I had a chance to look at the Arizona wide receiver Jacob cow I believe, and how would he fit with the Patriots?
Thank you, thanks for the call, Kendall.
Yeah, Jacob Caron is at the Senior Bowl, right, I remember seeing him again every week now. I think the first question what receivers fit?
Uh.
I don't think that it's necessarily such a receiver heavy scheme that one receiver wouldn't fit versus another receiver. I do think that the one thing that I'm hoping and that they're going to get to is, you know, I think separation is a little bit of a buzzword around here. I don't necessarily think that they love that. They were filled with Devonte Parkers and Juju Smith Schusters and guys that graded out really poorly in terms of top of
the route separation. So I'm hoping that they're going to be a little bit more like that, you know, guys like in Cleveland, Amari Cooper, one of the best route runners and separators in the NFL. Guy like Elijah Moore, who's a speedster, you know, speed slot, kind of like a Pop Douglas. I think that those are the types of guys that they're gonna look at in this draft. But I would I would say that we have to talk about it, like blocking is going to be somewhat
important in this scheme. They're going to run the ball a lot, and they're gonna have to be able to have guys that block. You know, teams like the Rams San Francisco, those teams have great blockers. Now Miami is built with speed demons. They don't have great blockers and they can still run the ball. So it doesn't have to be that way. But that's how I see the
receiver position. I'm not necessarily thinking that they are going to have a certain type of receiver that they say like, we need receivers that play this way, because I think the scheme is a little bit less dependent on guys on the outside and a little bit more dependent on obviously the marriage or the run game in the past game, but also you know, tight end running back things like that.
Yeah, they it's more about overlapped than scheme. And that goes to a guy like Jacob Cowing. You're not gonna have Jacob Cowing and Pop Douglas on the field at the same time. Yeah, it's a good point. And so drafting a guy like like getting X get a true Z. Yeah, and there there are multiple ways you can go about that. Yeah, calling for me, he's really small. Yeah, I think he checked in at like one sixty something at the Senior Bowl. So a guy that's small, who And I I mean,
I like Colling. I don't want to like say he's he's an undrafted player, but.
He's an interesting you know, same Pop Douglas got drafted in the sixth round. But I thought Pop Douglas.
Well, I think just coming from Arizona. Yeah, I think probably helps Cawen, like he played in better commense. Yeah, five eight, one sixty five. I just think a guy that's that's like two two at well size, a guy that's that small in a role they already have filled, Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense for them. Yeah. Where you're gonna have to take him, which is probably early on day three a Senior Bowl.
I don't think it was great for him, and Pop Douglas had a great Shrine Bowl. Yeah, and so I think that those are two things that are working against Cowen is his size and his performance at the Senior Bowl where his size showed up. It was he was having issues, you know, getting off physical coverage and stuff like that.
I mean, a guy at that size the draw with him as Wes, he catches everything, and he had some issues with drops. Yeah, yeah, all right. Devon is in Florida. What's up, Devin?
Hey, how you guys doing today?
Good? Thanks?
All right? So I had two questions. My first question was, Von, sorry, it's all good if you guys, if the Patriots end up missing out on Drake Man they end up drafting Jaden Daniels, do you feel like, uh, his ability to throw into the intermediate middle part of the field will be a problem developing. And my second question was, how would you feel if the Patriots found a way to pry Brandon?
I you Gotto's difference?
Yeah, good, two good questions. I think the biggest thing with Jayden Daniels that I see on film with him is he passes up some things in the middle of the field that are maybe like the second and third read in the progression to run. And he's such a dynamic runner that I've put up plays before on Twitter where he might pass up a dig route and then he runs for forty five yards and nobody cares right like,
you're just like all right whatever. But the problem is is that you know, twofold one in the NFL, those scramble yards are gonna be less like You're gonna get caught faster in the NFL than you are in college. So the forty five yard run in the NFL might only be a fifteen yard run, right, you know, follow me. And then the second thing is is when you run that much, the body blows start to add up.
You take a beat it.
And I my biggest concern with Jaden Daniels as a prospect is that is he going to be able to get there as a passer where he can beat you simply from the pocket with his arm. And this was the issue with Justin Fields, like he hasn't gotten there yet.
Justin Fields is uber talented, good runner, strong arm probably has a better arm and more arm talent than Jaden Daniels does, but he has not been able to take that next step as a pocket passer where his running ability is like an extra, It's like a sprinkle on top. Lamar Jackson got there. Lamar Jackson's running ability is his superpower, but he can also beat you from the pocket. That's why is the MVP of the league. Those are the two comparisons I have for Jaden Daniels. That's his floor
and his ceiling. So are they going to be able to develop a guy like Jaden Daniels into that next phase of his passing ability is going to determine whether or not he can be a consistently good thrower, and that will determine everything with his career, because I don't think he's going to make it in a ten year fifteen year career playing the way he does now because it not not just because he runs so much, but also how he runs like he cannot like he I
mentioned Wiley Coyote earlier, like he he runs like like a crazy person, Like he runs like he's Josh Allen, but he's not Josh Allen's size, right, So those body blows are going to catch up to him, and that's where the passing comes from. I think the other thing that that gives me pause about Jayden Daniels too. I'm
interested to hear your your thoughts on this. So many much of his production came from throwing fade routes to Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas, and those two guys are going to get drafted in the probably top twenty, top twenty five picks. Milik Daghbors might be a top five pick in this draft, so he's not going to be
able to replicate that necessarily. Now, Joe Burrow didn't matter, right like Jamar Chase justin Jefferson, he had all world receivers and he got to the NFL and he got well, well yeah, but you know what I'm saying, Like it mostly didn't matter, but some guys that does matter for I think, you know, there's so many triggering qualities from f Jaden Daniels, but it's our job to tell you both sides at the coin with every single player, right, and I think that those are the two things that
hold me back the most with him.
I think I've said this before. If you're gonna knock quarterbacks for having an outstanding surrounding cast, then you're taking Drake may or you're not taking a quarterback that's just that's in the nil are And I even think I've kind of come around on this take, and this will become for the people who don't really follow college football, this will become a lot clearer next year. Yeah, Drake May's supporting cast was not nearly as bad as we've
made it out to be. They're just all underclassmens, so they're not in the draft this year, guys like Omar and Hampton. The running back Bryson.
To be fair to him, though it's nowhere near what it's nowhere Well Daniels and Pennex were playing.
Wait till you watch Bryson nesbit next year. He's not Aroma Dune, a league name. But here's my point, Like, if you're gonna fault the quarterback for the surrounding cast, you're not gonna find it's not so much faulting him for the supporting cast. It's just the type of throws that he was, you know, like making well. But that's what I would say is a deep ball works when Milk Neighbors is five yards behind him, So then go out and get a deep ball receiver. Like that's what
you do for your young quarterback. You build around him. Again, that's not a dirty thing. You don't go out and surround Jane Daniels to slot receivers. Yeah, and that's not saying you can't have a slot receiver, but you don't go out and surround with guys. You don't run routes past fifteen yards. You don't run anything past a five route. I agree with you. So it's I mean, it's a fair question. Yeah, like all right, but but I think
you're phrasing it wrong. It's not what's gonna happen when he doesn't have Milik Neighbors to throw fade balls to. It's who do we get Jaydan Daniels to throw the fade ball to? Because that's one of his best throws. Yeah, that's how and that could be that is his best throw.
Right the heath drops more dimes on So I would say back to you, dis are his bread and butter.
So I would say back to you, I mean, we'll take Harrison out because you're in in Neighbors and Odoonsay and Thomas obviously, but right free agency in the draft, who are the best fade receivers? I know? Was it aighty Mitchell we were talking about last week Adie Mitchell's are really good. I think Adie Mitchell is going to be more like a possession receiver. And who was it you were talking? You said about somebody who were like,
he sells every route as a fade route. Oh, probably a dude's say he's really okay, So maybe it wasn't like and Ady Mitchell I think is good at that too. Who's the best fade receiver in the draft or give me the best fade receiver in the draft, Give me the best fade receiver in free agency, best fade receiver in the draft outside outside of like the guys they could get if they get Jane Daniels Xavier Worthy. Okay, I would say, but he.
There's a lot of overlap there with Pop Douglas certainly, but in terms of what about like Jam Polk, Yeah, but Jalen Polk does it with more like skill at the catch point. You know, he's not like necessarily fast enough to create a ton of vertical separation, but he's he's got the strongest hands, some of the strongest hands in this class. I hate I don't want to like be hyper bowl. It can be like everybody is so great, but he is really really strong hands and great at
the catch point. So he wins more like that in in terms. But I'm not saying it's totally contested, but it's like more through traffic.
All right, how about in free agency? That's a good question.
Because this is not really like a it's in terms of that skill set, it's not really a fab class Calvin Ridley. Calvin Ridley's definitely got the speed to be that type of guy, but he I always think of Calvin Ridley as more like an inbreaker guy like crossers, dig routes, things like that. The other guy I would just mention in the draft is Troy Franklin just because of his speed. He's more of like an outside the numbers fade receiver than the slot fade. But I don't
see why he couldn't run a slot fade again. And this is this is what we talked about earlier, having a plan. If you're going to draft Jaydan Daniels, you identify it and.
You see it's a vertical system. For sure, you're going to push the ball down, but but you identify if you're Van Pelton, I mean, I don't you're better at this than me? Like I don't were they overly vertical heavy in Cleveland or.
Yeah, especially when they transition to Flacco obviously, but in general, that is a it's a vertical passing system based off of the run game. So so they're not trying to not to cut you off, but they're not trying to like pull a guard to get a linebacker to step up so that they can throw a crossing route at the second level. They're trying to get like single high safety, draw everybody in, and then throw a post fit high play Madden.
So then yeah, so this is what we talked about the plane. If you're gonna draft Jan Daniels, this is his best throw, you identify the receivers that are best on the other end of that, and you go out and get them. Yeah, that that would be my response to that. And they're not gonna be Thelik Neighbors and brown House, and maybe you don't get them this year. You know who's really great on the fade balls is
Luthor Burden. I don't know if you're sick of me talking about this guy yet or if you remember who he is.
I'm just trying to think of a free agency because free agency is you know, I mentioned Ridley's like a pure z to me, Like he's a guy that is gonna really want me to just give you the ranking goes in the middle of the field.
Yeah, hang on, I gotta find a wide receiver here that tught my. Let's have Chris Jones. I don't think you want Chris Jones running fades. Probably could T Higgins more of a jump. I mean, yeah, you could make T Higgins work with jayde Daniels, but it all looks different. Yeah, Michael Pittman, No, no, yeah, he's not Mike Evans.
I mean in his own way, but again, more like T Higgins. Hollywood Brown, Yeah, Hollywood Brown definitely could. I I like Hollywood Brown more than most people because you know, I like the speed guys. But playing through contact is obviously he's he's not tough, Like that's not enough to.
Go out to get a true big X to take that. I would say that, Yeah, I mean I I would. Calvin Ridley talked to it drops off man. Darnell Mooney, Yeah, Darnhill Mooney is honestly pretty good at that. Like that's probably the one thing that Darnell Mooney does at like a decently high level. So like I know people want more than Darnell Mooney, but I'm just saying, like, you bring him up and so. But but this is what I'm talking about earlier with the with where Van Pelt's
talking about with maximizing players. I'm not saying Darnell Mooney is your big addition. Right. Maybe you add a Calvin Ridley, right, yeah, but they don't know. Mooney is just like Pop Douglas with a little bit more size. But you you add Darnell Mooney maybe, and I mean PFF estimates him one year, nine million dollars. Easy. Yeah, you add Darnell Mooney is
like your second or third wide receiver edition. And if you know you're drafting Jane Daniels and you say, all right, you know he's gonna play fifty some percent of the time, but we're gonna just have him running a bunch of vades, Yeah, because that's a throw.
I kind of like Darnell Mooney. Like Darnell Mooney reminds me of like a poor man's Tyler lock it to be one guy good at you know, vertical slot.
I don't know if he still comments and he just comments about other stuff because I don't remember what like his username was, But do you remember that guy is like around this time last year who used to comment on every one of our shows that Darnell Mooney was like, Oh, they hitting Tyreek Hill or whatever. Yeah, and was like, Oh, if they get Darnell Mooney, they have a wide receiver one.
So shout out to that guy if he still listens. Uh, Gabe Davis no outside vertical receiver obviously, Yeah, Odell, I'm just gonna for other reasons, I'm going to pass on. Yeah, Tyler Boyd, Curtis Samuel who I know you like. But actually, and then I get to Kendrick bort how about the guys here as fade receivers.
Yeah, uh, you know, in terms of separation, Pop is obviously the best one. Yeah, He's definitely the guy that can do that. I mean, I've I've given up on Taekwon. I've hyped Taekwon enough and gotten burned by it. So I'm not gonna expect anything out of Taekwon Thorton. But obviously his body type, his speed, It's it's not in terms of like what he does well. He obviously has that in his bag of getting vertical. That's the only thing he does well, so like, I.
Mean, there's that. Yeah, the other guys though, you know not remember he had his breakout game against the Browns, his breakout game two touchdowns. But yeah, okay, so you have to go into the draft. I'm looking at an exerous class. Now, so many good fade runners in here. Nobody you want to feel, you want to feel old? Who moves in Muhammed the third? Oh that's crazy, Yeah, I would say that.
You know, I love Xavier I have him ranked pretty high, probably higher than most people. I think he's my wide receiver six in this draft, behind you know, the first the top four, Thomas being the fourth guy in Troy Franklin, who I'm probably maybe a little bit higher on than people too. I really like Xavier Worthy. I think that, you know, thirty four is a spot that you probably could get Xavier Worthy.
Now is that a little high?
If you take the quarterback and then receiver then tackles an issue you know who knows well.
Again, they're not gonna be able to have a perfect offseason, right, there's too much and maybe maybe you attack, maybe you keep on when you sign Tyron Smith and then yeah, Polk is a good shout too.
Though, like you know, not not He's not as fast as Xavier Worthy as obviously in a straight line. Yeah, but he definitely that's how he wins, you know, is those types of what we've talked about.
Who's your comment for him again? Uh, Jayden Reid right, Green Bay?
So yeah, who's Yeah, he's not as fast as Jayden Reid, but in terms of the routes that he has, Yeah, I just.
Bring up him and we go back to talking about them wanting to land or us thinking that like Michael Pannix is the guy they want to land. Also know you have Tyler Hughes here. It's like people ask all the time, are you who are pairing quarterbacks and receiver? That would be an interesting.
Good time to that that I gotta talk to Tyler. He was at some point about the Washington guys, like, I mean, that's that's obvious, Like that's a really good thing. And you know, Taekwon Underwood was just in college too. I know it's just that pit but like he he was just in college. Yeah, Sad Jordanas's and yeah he counts the pit guy because he sucked you.
Yeah, and I think that Taekwon Underwood was there for I think they were like technically there together for because I think he hasn't Underwood been there for like three years. Hang on, I'm pulling it up. I because I said this the other day on the radio and I realized I didn't have the timeline exactly right. I think they were there together for like he was still working out at Pitt while he was in the transfer portal got
it and Underwood. Yeah, so Underwood got to Pitt. Underwood was hired by Pitt and Jim Nanuary of twenty twenty two, and Addison transferred to USC in May of twenty twenty. So it's just a couple of months. But there is a I'm trying to find there is a Jordan Addison quote somewhere about Taekwon Underwood. So cool thing about Taekwon Underwood real quick. So Taekwon Underwood.
Rutgers, Yep, Rutgers guy was roommates at Rutgers with Devin McCarty. Yeah, and so that that connection is when he was here in twenty eleven for a little bit.
Uh.
You know, Devin mccorty and Gerrod Mayer were obviously really close. So that's how you get to the you know, six degrees of separation that brought Taekwon Underwood back to New England. All right, let's get back to the phones here. We got a Trevor in Kansas City. What's up, Trevor, trev Are you there?
Yeah? Gotcha?
Sorry, cut out for a second.
All good.
Hey, I've got two questions. I'll be fast and i'll take them off their The first one you're probably not gonna want to answer, Evan, but I'm curious to know your guy thoughts on Cody Schrader in his fit in the Patriots offense from Kansas City. So I watched a lot of the Zoo football. And then second kind of talking about Michael Pennock's fun. You just brought him up. He's my quarterback one if you take away the injuries.
And honestly, I know you can't take him away, but I you know, I don't know what I don't know, and I haven't heard any other reason we shouldn't take him at three besides injuries.
So I'd love to hear your guys thoughts on that.
I'll take it off the air.
Thanks Gg.
Thanks for the call, Trevor. So obviously, no one's taking Michael Pennox in the top ten because of the injuries. Even if you get to clean bill health of the combine, it's not happening.
Just that that history makes it so tough. Yeah.
In terms of his play, I think the biggest thing is is that in hindsight of the National Championship game, one thing that I did was I went back and watched some other pennis games again, because I would encourage people to do.
I wanted to.
Look and see was this just because Michigan's defense is just dominant and he was flustered by the pressure because he's playing Michigan's defense, or was this an issue that was you know, under the surface because he was so good at you know, the rest of the way. I think that there are some legitimate concerns about how he handles pressure.
That's his big knock. Yeah, he's not great under pressure.
Yeah, and when I I don't necessarily like some people fear like his mobility. I think that he can move around, right, I don't have concerns about that. I think that decision making and especially accuracy under pressure is a concern. He threw a bad pick under pressure against Oregon too, you know, just moving off his spot, resetting and throwing down the field with the accuracy was a big knock for him, and he's only going to see more of that in
the NFL. We know how that goes around here. If you can't if you can't handle pressure and be poised under pressure in terms of your accuracy and decision making, that's tough in the NFL because these pass rushers are not going to let you off the hook.
Yeah, that's outside of the injuries. The biggest knock on him everything you just said, is that when he gets rushers in his face, he gets a little sped up times. Now, he's good at not he's good at snapping out of it. In that if he's pressured early, even if the pressure some guys that they're pressured early, even if the pressure comes up stops late, they still continue to act pressured because they're their internal clocks off. With Pennix, it's very
play to play. I don't think you ever really see it. We're like, he'll get pressured early in the game, late in the game, the team will back off and he just kind of goes back to being himself. Yeah, so that's encouraging, but the pressure is a real concern, and you have you draft him. I think off they need offensive line one way or the other. I'm not saying they don't. They need to defense, like I'm talking about.
That's where it's You signed Tyron Smith, you signed Mike and Winne, and you took a guy in the top one hundred. Yeah, kind of kind of investment in the offense line. Cody Schrader to the other point, I am a running back. Yeah, he's the running back for Missouri. I don't know how much Missouri. Well, you watched him on Foster's you must have been exposed him a little bit. Probably just didn't pay attention. Really interesting. So he played four years at the D two level and was kind
of a backup. I think he sort of broke through. I can get his stats real quick. Yeah, he played four years at the D two level, only one as a starter. Truman State transferred to Missouri, had a solid year and twenty two and then last year came back. Was a team captain, unanimous All American, ran for sixteen hundred yards, like highly highly productive, tough tackle. And he's not a big guy. He's five nine two fourteen. He was I have the number somewhere. He was like top
ten according to PFF and broken tackles. So I have for a guy that size.
I have two running back takes, and one of them I think is really going to surprise you in the draft. Dylan Lobby and Dowan Edwards from Georgia and my guys. I like both guy I like and I like the Is it the kid from Baylor? Is it not Baylor?
I don't know. I'll think I'll think of it in a second, but those are those two guys on day three or my guys right now? Okay at TCU, Monti, Bailey, No, I'll think of it in a second, all right. The thing to me with Lobby and I like him as a player. I really like him as a player. I like Louby. Does that role exist in Alex vand Pelt's offense?
The spread back? It's not so much that I don't. I see him as a guy that can play in like a sub package back role that's not just third down like. I think he can be like a true sub back, you know more maybe in like a Rex Burkehead type of way than like a James White type of And I think that that could exist, especially if they draft Jaden Daniels and they're more gun heavy and that's how they run there. They're gonna need sort of
that speed spread. You know, we're gonna spread the field out and gash you down the hill like they're gonna need the back that can get downhill like that like Lobby can in a hurry. Edwards, I was really impressed with Marshall Lloyd from USC you know, fight on.
He's really good. He's gonna end up being top one hundred. Yeah, he's awesome, really good, right back, Jalen, right now, Tennessee. I'll look it up in a second.
The one thing that I I this is bothering you, isn't it?
Is you actually like a running back? I need to know who it is. Who was it? I don't know. I don't know who I'm thinking of, and my brain is broken right now? Is he the SIOL? I think so? Yeah.
I don't know where else I would have seen him. All right, I'll look it up in a second, I promise, really really quickly. On the running backs, this is gonna blow you away.
Yeah. I'm kind of four of going after a running back in free agency.
I kind of am too, because this is a loaded free agency class at running back Derrick Henry Josh Jacobs.
Wait wait wait wait, I thought you meant like giving some guy one year three million. No, no, no, no, I'm serious about this. Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, Saquon Barkley, Tony Pollard, Austin Eckler, DeAndre Swift. Those are the top six I think in free agency. Okay, they want to run the ball. They can't go into another year where they have two running backs. It's not it's not feasible.
And I think that there's a really good argument to be made that this this could be an old Bella check. And I know he's not here anymore, but maybe one thing that they do hold over a zig where everybody else is zagging. Like all these running backs are hitting free agency. Nobody wants to pay running backs, which tells me that someone is going to be cheap on this on the market.
Not the projected contracts from PFF.
I think the projected you can tell me. But the projected contracts I think are gonna end up being too high.
Barkley three years twelve per Oh, Bucky Irving, That's who I was thinking. Oh, I like Bucky Irving, Oregon, Yeah, whatever, I like Bucky ir Bucky, he's kind of come to me more change of pace back? Yeah on this list? Sorry? Uh, Bucky Irving in the draft, didn't Why do I think he went back to school? Did he? I don't know. I saw him in a mock draft, like, oh, no, he is in the draft. Yeah, yeah, it's weird. He's
not on our big board, all right? True? Oh yeah, oh because his name's his real name's Marquise That's why he's listed as Marquee serving. He's projected top one hundred pick. How much do you like him? Not that much, but I just like his play. I like all right, No, I like him too. I forgot that Bucky's not a really back.
But I think that there is a real chance that running backs, especially some of the free agent I'm blown away this is, I know, because I think that there's a real chance that those guys are going to be extremely undervalued because all the nerds like me are telling you not to pay running backs. So I'm not saying to pay a guy ten million dollars a year. But let's say they we get to free agency and like Austin Eckler is available for like six million bucks, like
Zeke was last year. Right, you know, I'm all for that. I think pairing. I would like ideally to pair Ramandre Stevenson with like a thunder and lightning type speed. So I look at it, and I say, Tony Pollard Austin Eckler like those.
You look at what Cleveland had last year, Nick Chubb, the last few years Nick Chub, kareem Hunt. They put together a true all right, So Barkley three years twelve per yeah, no, alright, twenty guaranteed, Josh Jacobs projected three years eleven per eleven and a half per Nope out Derrick Henry two years ten per ten per year for thirty year old, thirteen million guaranteed twenty total food. No, I would absolutely do that. No, that thirteen million guaranteed
on a two year contract way too much. It's like six and a half what they pay Zeke.
I think it's a combination. But like I just said, like that's you have. Now you just have two bulldozers like what.
Like all right? Fine?
Uh?
Pollard three years eight per yes, Eckler two six point seven per one hundred percent. Yes. Swift really interests me because I just think he fits that style. Three years six point two per.
I love the idea, and I know that he had a down year last year, So I like gravitate a little bit more towards Tony Pollard because I think he's a little younger. Tony Pollard had a down year last year with Dallas as the as the work course, like he was supposed to be the lead back they moved on from Zeke. But the year before that, when he was like in a tandem with Zeke, he was the better back.
Excellent.
Yeah, And so I wonder if he's more of like one hundred hundred and twenty five touch guy versus a two hundred touch guy, Like does that help him? And he just exploits with Thermandra, I could see that it's
a thunder and light. Look, I think they need to draft a running back because Ramandre's in a contract year and you can't unless maybe that I'm saying, like, obviously, everm Andre, give Tony Pollard like a two year deal at a reasonable contract, and you draft a running back in the sixth round, you know, like to round it out like that sort of thing.
Well, that would be that's about where Cody Schrader is supposed to go, and he'd be a really good compliment for those.
Yeah, yeah, just draft a younger guy. Maybe Kevin Harris is another guy that could be like the fourth back in that committee, right, and the third back would be somebody that you draft.
I am surprised, Okay, I am.
My whole take in free agency, and then I do want to get to the combine. We have some more calls to get to too. My whole take in free agency is that I want to pay talent. I don't want to pay Nelson Aguilar and John Smith, right, I want to just because those guys play positions of need that are bigger on your board. If running back is deep in free agency and you have seventy five million dollars in free agency to spend, pay a running back. If all these defensive linemen and edge rushers that are
going to be free agents, that are studs. If some of the a lot of these guys don't get tagged and they actually hit unrestricted free agency, go give a bag to Brian Burns, you know, go give a bag that idea I love, Go give it.
You know you know who I really want? Who Josh Allen? Yeah, the other Josh Allen, right, No, the like the Josh Allen the good one. Oh god, that's not fair, the one that's been a problem. Okay, do you know who I really want? Lagarious Need?
I would back up the Brings truck if I could have Christian Gonzalez and Lagarious Need for the next four to five years in the secondary.
All for that? All right, since we're just randomly throwing out free agents at this point, which is fun. Yeah, somebody was the ESPN or PFF. Somebody put Christian Wilkins.
Ina.
I love that fit too. I mean that you're you're running a different defense. Now, are you two gapping with Christian Wilkins and Christian Barmore? No? No, I think you could.
But I don't think that they're necessarily like pigeonholed to one thing, you know, like up the field players. But last year in Fangio's system, he's playing gap in a half, which is similar to to gapping.
So it's possible.
I think that Christian Wilkins, like that's we're talking in free agency. I'd like talent grab right, Like Christian Wilkins is a great player. Make you'll figure it out. Yeah, local Christian Wilkins. But if oh god, if they got if they got Sneid and Christian Gonzales as their perimeter corners.
That way you're gonna say they got Stephen christ Jones. That would be absolutely terrifying. Like I don't know how like you can play pressman to man for four quarters with those two guys. Let me give you again, Well, we're thrown out names because obviously it didn't end here. Great for him, but it's a new coach and maybe to bring gilmore he's still played pretty well as he's all right, he's he doesn't have I'm not saying it
like the same. Let's say, but he's fine. You're not gonna sign Lugerious Sneed and Christian Wilkins, Like that's just too many assets on defense and what are you doing a tackle? And why not? That's probably you're probably talking at thirty thirty five million dollars. Yeah, but you know how contract structures work. That's true. Okay, I'm just saying, like Stefan Gilmour is like a bridge corner. I've always liked the idea of Steph coming back here. Yeah, no,
I don't hate that. The other valuable part of that, it's just one year. Get Steph in the classroom. With Christianzalez.
Yeah, no, I don't hate that at all. I don't hate that at all. If that's the route that they decided to go, I don't. I don't love the offensive players in free agency. I'm gonna be honest. I hate the tackles. I think all the tackles.
I hate the tackles. But I also think they've put themselves in a position at that position where they can't be picky.
Okay, but the pro is that like so many of those guys don't even stay on the field. So like that that's my bigger concern. It's one thing if oh, yeah, if they were going to bring in a tackle, because they just have to bring in a veteran tackle, and yeah, he's probably more like a C plus player than like a true blue chip tackle. You're not gonna find the blue chip tackle in free agency. Most likely they don't come available. That's fine.
So you're out on Tyron Smith as like a bridge guy.
Yes, And I also just don't see Tyrann Like why at this point of Tyron Smith's career is he leaving Dallas money? They they'd pay their players in Dallas, I know, but aren't they trying to like reconfigure der line. Wasn't there something that like they're gonna try to move on from him?
Uh?
Maybe, I He's probably the one guy that I would say, okay, Like, you know, he's obviously an upgrade.
He's thirty four, he's not forty. No, you sign like a two year deal heavy, heavily away the guaranteed money in the first year, and it just buys you a year of tackle essentially. Yeah.
I mean I also like Jonah Williams, Like just as a player, I think that that, you know, he's a fine player. But like last year in free agency with tackles, you know, I would have been okay with overplaying a little bit for McGlen cheek. We talked about this at nauseum last year. I would have been over okay with but.
Soto sign one Draft one.
I would have been okay with doing that. But this class in the tackles in this class are not on that level. Like those guys all were like like I just said, like C plus B minus players. Yeah, but they all stayed on the field and they played right like they were all right.
You know that you could count on those guys this this group, like Mackai Beckton Jones. I would rather they not have to go to tackle for free agency. That obviously means you're using a top fifty pick in the draft on a tackle and bringing back Mike Go and Wuenu. The only two positions that excite me on offense and free agency running back, which we talked about in tight end. Yeah, tight end does excite me as well, especially because you've got Austin Hooper and the other one who's in Cleveland
with Harrison Bryant. Harris and Bryant are there. I think we talked about no making a lot of sense for them. Like I, I think they need to sign a tight end. You can't do the two rookie tight end thing. Again, that position historically is the slowest developing. Yeah, rookie tight ends produced less than rookies at any other position. Doesn't mean tight ends aren't good. They just start producing later.
So even if you're in a draft a tight end, I still think he signed somebody to pair with him, whether it is Fant or Bryant or Austin Hooper or like Adam Troutman.
I would be really surprised if Harrison Bryan isn't isn't a Baseriot. I just feel like watching their film last from last year with Cleveland, they used him as as a pretty unique player in terms of the run game, and you know, he was blocking more as like a wing instead of like a true in line most of the time. But they moved him around a bunch, and
he's athletic. I think he's got some breakout potential. Like not like that he's gonna all a sudden be a thousand yard receiver, but well, could he be what Kendrick Bourne was to the twenty one class, Yeah, something like that. We're like, they sign Kendrick Bourne and we were all kind of like all right, like he was in the mix with some other guys, and you look back, he was their best offensive signing. I just look at the way that they use tight ends with AVP. I love
Hunter Henry. I think he's been a great Patriot, you know, one of the clear you know, they hit on that signing when they signed him in free agency. But AVP likes more athletic and more explosive guys. You know, Harrison Brian certainly fits that category and his you know, tier of player. He's not as good of a player as Hunter Henry but you know, a guy obviously like David n Joku is probably one of the most explosive tight ends in the league, right, Like, those are the types
of guys that they gravitate towards. So I think, no offense on the table, he's not the best blocker, but in terms of getting up the field and getting vertical and creating big plays off of play action, he's certainly somebody that can do that for he's fast, explosive player.
I think Gerald Everett, I mentioned a couple of times, really like that fit for them because when they run bootlegs and stuff like that, he can be that guy that's the dump off in the flat on the slide or submarine route coming out across the formation that you just throw them the ball in the flat and it can turn into a fifteen twenty yard game. It's funny because Gerald Everett, in my mind, it reminds me a lot of John new Smith, but they just didn't have
the plan the first time around. For John john Smith, meanwhile, it would be like a great fit for this offense they're gonna run.
Now.
That's why I feel like Gerald Everett's a decent fit for it. You know, he's similar type of players. So I agree that in free agency they should be able to get a tight end that is a starting caliber NFL tight end and that'll allow them to maybe not need it as desperately once we get to the draft.
But I still think they should draft somebody just oh yeah, to have that pipeline going. Yeah, all right, we got to get through these got Donald parm Oh is he free agent? Actually? I think he is. OK. Steve is in New Jersey. What's up, Steve? Hello, Hey, Steve hid So.
I have a two questions, well, one kind of comment for Alex, but one of them is so the comment I'll start with is I think we should go with the white helmets for all the time. I feel like the silver just didn't even match the uniforms. I want you to go on Madden tonight and tell me how they look for next week show. Okay, And then the question is what do you guys think of TEUs Walker matching him up with Drake Meg We judged in the first round because we get ted Walker in the third round.
Thanks guys, thanks for the calls. Team.
Look, it's definitely there right the connection I tedes Walker had an awful senior Bowl Walk. Yeah, and I have a lot of hesitations about Ted Walker. I didn't like think that he popped watching Drake mayfilm. I didn't necessarily notice him. And then at the Senior Bowl separation finishing through contact hands obviously had a ton of drops that week at the Senior Bowl. It was a disaster for tes Walker. Now with that being said, is there a chance that Ted Walker is now available in like the
fifth and all of a sudden he's value Maybe? And that would be more intriguing to me.
I think there's inherent value in tes Walker becomes a better pick if you draft Drake May. Agree, if that makes where like there's a level of comfort for both, Yeah, that should elevate both. Does that mean you race up the board to get him?
Know?
But like you said, like, let's say you can get tes Walker, I'd even say in the fourth round and you have Drake May, It's like, all right, well, now Drake May is a familiar face to throw to these guys, already gives him chemistry, It'll help him hit the ground rolling, it'll make things easier, and maybe that helps. Because it's all about player development, right, I'm not saying like, oh you're burning a fourth round pick to make your quarterback comfortable.
It's maybe it makes both players develop a little bit at a little bit higher level than they would otherwise.
Big big week for tes Walker next week, because the one thing that he has his speed. Yeah, so when he runs in the forty, if he doesn't put down something in the low four fours, then I don't know where he's gonna go in the draft after the Senior Bowl.
Like it could it could be.
On Day three after a guy that some people thought early on in the problem, this is gonna be like a second round pick. So that's gonna be interesting.
You know, if he if he's like a four four eight guy in the Senior Bowl week, then watch out, Like he could fall all the way down the board. If he runs well, he might be able to save his stock a little bit. So it'd be interesting to see what he runs. Nick is in Omaha. What's up? Nick?
Hey, you guys, how's it going good? My girlfriend got wyn and I was calling in and she wanted to listen, So shout out to Riley, Hello, how's it going? Which nice kind of a side story. I was a little nervous to meet her family and I show up and her brother's got a Patriots hat on. So hey, you know that's there, the stars aligning right there.
Nice.
No, I I called a couple weeks back for it was like a Madden question. You guys helped me out, so appreciate on that. A couple of comments, one Evan, I am actually very surprised you don't play.
Matt No, I used.
I know I used to back in the day, but you know, I grew up. You know, I just I don't. I don't have time for it anymore. Unfortunately.
Yeah, I should probably stop playing, but I just figured the schemes in the con No.
Don't stop playing. It's fun. Plus we're getting it. We're getting the college game in a few few months.
So true.
True.
Yeah, I just heard like three or four people mentioned Madden as they called in, so I was like, I got to bring that up. But appreciate the help on that. I haven't made to bowl yet, but I'll let you guys know. My question is a little unorthodox, and but to be fair, my you guys got me down this train of thought, so I just kind of wanted to bring it to you guys. Is there any piece of you that is like thinking the combine is a little outdated, is that? Is there any opinions there?
Uh?
Yeah, thanks for the call, Dick.
There's so there's so many Alex's single jokes in there that I'm just gonna let fly right by on all these things go ahead. No, no, no, I know, no, No, I think the combine being outdated. Yes, and no, I think that there's still a lot of value, certainly for teams. There's a ton of value in the interviews and the medical side of things, like that's ninety percent of the combine at this point in terms of the actual event.
But I still think that there's value in this is a timed forty that everybody's on the same track on the same watch, right, and like it's not necessarily judging game speed off the eyeball test. And I was talking to at the Senior Bowl, Macro and Cameron Williams did interviews with us, and I talked to Kareron Williams a little bit about this because he had mentioned that at Wide Receiver that they still think that there's value in the forty yard dash and like seeing how these guys
test athletically because it's such an athletic position. And I asked him about in game player tracking, and I was like, well, don't you guys have the zebra speeds, so like what difference does it make? And he said that that they do, and they obviously use that stuff. But certain guys, you know, we're just talking about teses Walker, right, like go ball receiver. Certain guys are running eighty yards down the field, and when they run eighty yards down the field, they can
build up speed to twenty one miles an hour. Then you have like a Pop Douglas who maybe was running out of the slot the entire like he's running five yard routes, He's not going to be able to hit that top speed as easily or as often. So what the forty yard dash allows you to do is to you know, kind of take away the parameters of like, oh, this is an next receiver that plays on the outside,
that's a vertical guy. Those guys are obviously going to test really really well in the in game and tracking data because they have the build up to get to those speeds. So I think that that context is important with those types of things where you have to realize that not every player gets the opportunity to hit twenty one miles an hour, So what does everybody look on an even playing field in the forty yard dash? I think it still has some value in it.
And I think that splits like you taught me this, and it's very valuable that ten yard split. How explosive is a guy? I also think, and you can say this is unfair, but this is just how the NFL works. I think teams are interested in seeing what kind of shape guys show up for to the combine and what's their technique like on the forty because you just want to see it's it's what do people refer to as the most important job interviewer or whatever, something like that.
Or there's pressure, there's absolutely so how seriously you may not see the player prepare, but you can tell in the outcome maybe how seriously they took their preparation. And I think that weighs in too. If there's a guy you don't expect to run a certain speed at a certain time and he impresses you, it's not just he's
faster than you thought. You then go and you talk to him about his preparation process and maybe you end up learning, wow, this guy he took this really seriously and his ability to study and pick up new things, because training for the combine is not at all there's very little football application to it. Yeah, so it's all right. This guy took something he hadn't done in the past and was able to pick it up quickly. That's valuable.
Like I remember, I go back to Cole Strange told us this after his rookie year that we asked him about, you know, his first true NFL off season, and he said the one thing he was looking forward to was getting was actually working on football because his rookie off season he spent so much with training for the combine, right that there wasn't a ton of football involved. Yeah,
so I think just learning how guys approach it. And then obviously there's the whole thing about the original purpose of the forty, which the first, the first to the first comment on the show in the chat today was asking if I was gonna tell the story, So I won't.
It only took us to almost two hours into the show for Alex to finally tell us about the forty.
Did they run the forty even to cover punts like that? Right? So I will not stop until everybody on the planet knows that the last thing.
And look, I I'll fully admit I'm pumped about the combine next week. I'm it's my favorite thing, like of the year probably. I love the combine. I'm a sucker for it, all right, So I'm gonna I'm gonna say the combine still still matters for those reasons. But I also like you your point about how well they trained
for it and how well they prepared for it. When you get to the on field drill portion and a receiver is going through the gauntlet or the quarterbacks throwing or whatever, there's a lot of there's natural pressure that's created in those situations. Everybody's eyes are on you all thirty two teams are staring at you, You're on national TV. Like, there is a lot of pressure in that and how
people handle that environment is important. I think a lot of the things that receivers do and these are important as well. Like you can really see, especially you know, when we get to it next week when they run the gauntlet, Like you can really see who is a natural hands catcher, Like who's really able to.
Know that's a football apple? Yeah, and that's important.
Yeah, you know, who's not fighting the ball, who's smooth? With it who you know drops or obviously like those are things that matter a lot because you you know guys that can transition and run and then catch the ball on the run and not slow down and not lose speed like that such an important skill for the receiver position.
Not just receivers. The combine last year, remember we were trying to sort out the top of the cornerback board and combine. Last year was when Christian Gonzalez became one one for me for exactly what you just said. Going through some of the like full field drills. Yeah, and just the effortless change of direction, it just it jumped out where you're like, legit, Yeah, So those hold more meaning than tests. The tests don't hold a ton of meaning to me unless it's like an extreme result and
when we're or the other. But the full field drill, certainly.
The test is just confirming your priors or not, right, like is this guy fast or is he not fast? If I mentioned tes Walker, I think he's a great example for this. If tes Walker runs a four to three eight, then you can sit there and say, okay, you know the vertical ability on film it matches up to the forty.
That's good.
If tes Walker runs a four to five, then you can sit there and say, you know, bad Senior Bowl four or five, like maybe you know we miss something with this guy. So I do think there is some application to it. And I'm always gonna stand for the I'm because I love it.
I mean, he's great, it's good sod Ware Olympics, all right, Mark is in Connecticut? What's that? Mark?
Hey, guys, you guys actually kind of stole my thunder there. I was thinking for free agent running back, I'm actually going with d Swift. I think that if you pair him up with Remandre, like you guys are saying, you got that thunder and lightning action going on there. And then also the Harrison Bryant. I remember watching him back in college and then I wanted him back when we took the two dopes that aren't even in the NFL anymore at tight end. You know, I just you know,
I don't know. Harrison Brian makes a lot of sense for New England, especially when he works with Alex van Pelt. So that those are my takes on that, and you know, I wouldn't mind Pollard, but I really think the Swift would be an electric electric player for them.
Yeah, thanks for the call, market call. Yeah, I agree. First of all, don Key is in the legue on a futures contract with the Texans, so.
He's barely in the league. He has, it's a future contract, like he's he'll be in the league in March May. He might be on a practice squad.
Yeah, I'm just joking around. You were a big Bryant guy, now Jackie Award winner, like your best tight end in the Adam Florida Atlantic, which to get noticed at Florida he's so alt American again it Yeah, Florida Atlantic. That's not easy, very that's not a program. That's I mean, you got to dig in the channel guy to find the Florida Atlantic games.
And I think you know a pretty good athlete if I remember correctly, and I had a really good Senior Bowl week obviously.
Combine numbers. Yeah, give me his comedy. He didn't test uh four, so measured at six four two forty three. Yeah, that part concerns me a little bit. That's fine, he's not very big, Okay, keep going six five, six, five, okay, six uh four to seven three forty Oh really yeah? One six in the first splint, I don't know why I thought he was seven three cone, Yeah, thirty two
and a half vertical, nine foot broad eighteen. But he plays I wouldn't say he plays fast, but he plays like fluidly, you know, like you can tell that he's like he's got good body control and he's a decent act. You thinking of Adam Troutman in terms of the speed, maybe, yeah, Trotman ran a four eight. Uh yeah, because you like Troutman too. I think I did like Troutman. I liked everybody besides the two guys that they drafted. I was all col Comet that year. Is the only guy I
wanted to Yeah, he's a good player. Uh so you were right about that one. Yeah.
In general though, whether it's swift, you know, I'm sorry. I know that shocks you.
I know it's not. I love it on the website. I did. I wrote it in the mail bag, but I kind of buried. No no, no, no no no. Alright, headline Lazarre wants to pay running back. Okay, all right, all right, Dmitri is in Braintree. What's up, Dmitri?
Hey, guys, I'm just kind of thinking about the certain pick that we're going to have, and I'm kind of like scared death about Drake May. I don't know about you guys, but I I kind of feel like we're gonna end up with them in some way. I just don't see the commanders going with like another UNC quarterback back to back rafts, like after drafting Sam Howell. I mean, I just kind of feel like we're gonna end up with them. I would firstly trade out of three if that was the last one.
What don't you like about Dmitri?
I don't know.
It's just like it's gonna sound dumb, but I keep seeing like AI pictures of him and catching it forms and it scares the hell out of me.
Uh.
But like I don't know his UNC like the lack of like pass pitches around him. It just doesn't feel good.
Okay, all right, so thanks for the call. I think that this is something and not to like pick on Dmitri or whatever, but like this this like comparison that's out there.
Uh to Mitch Trubisky, Yeah, keep talking, I'm gonna find something. Keep talking.
You're scout in the helmet, and that's fine, Like if you if that bothers you like Dmitri and like you just can't get over the fact that he's in North Carolina quarterback and you know, Trubisky owl like not exactly the best pedigree there in terms of quarterbacks. I get it, But I'm just telling you that Drake May and Mitch Trubisky are totally different prospects. Like they're just play totally
different styles. They have totally different strengths and weaknesses. Like to Risky made like fifteen starts in college like the whole time. You know, like Drake May is a multi year starter. They just couldn't be more different. Trubisky was a good, strong athlete with a good arm that was in like a one read rpo style offense at the time at UNC that was extremely raw, that had very few starts in college football. So it's just totally different.
I'm gonna give you a list quarterbacks from the modern era from a certain school. You tell me the schools good at producing quarterbacks, Okay, Joe Barnes, Yeah, Tommy Dunvine, Ron Reeves, Billy Joe Tolliver. Who are these people? I'm gonna give this away a second. Cliff Kingsbury, BJ Simmons, Any good NFL quarterbacks on there? No, So if we're sitting here in twenty seventeen and you're saying, I don't want a guy from that school they never turn out quarterbacks.
Yeah that's Texas Tech. You're passing on Patrick Holmes. So the point, like I get it, Like the UNC quarterbacks have been fluking. Like I'll be honest, the first thought I had when I saw Drake May, especially because he's from North Carolina. Yeah, and there's that whole pipeline of North Carolina. Go, guys going to you and see him Like here we go again. Different, different, And like Sam how Drake May was a five star recruit, Drake May was originally committed to Alabama.
That's something that I feel like we should we should like hammer home with him if they.
Do draft well. A lot of people use that as negative why they say he was scared of Alba. He just wanted to stay home. He was not like Sam Howe, was not a five star like he wasn't he might have been a five saving, he wasn't the level of recruit.
I I just blamed the Bears for this because like it's their fault that they drafted Mitch Trubisky way too high. And I could have told you at the time they drafted him.
Wait too all of us could have Like I'm not saying that I'm like some special savant because of that, right, Like everybody knew they drafted him too high. If you if you want to be down on Drake May and you want to like Daniel Jones, is such a better comp in terms of like just play style experience in college football, the type of offense that they were running Drake May And I know not a lot of people, I feel like, realize this. Drake May is playing in
an air raid at UNC. He plays in an air raid offense, and yeah, it's there's a lot more like you know, full field progression. Mitch Mitch Trubisky was an RPO quarterback at UNC. That's that's the offense that they ran. Drake May is is reading the full field like he's he's doing NFL quarterback stuff. He's not playing in that type of system. That that comp bothered me.
Like if you're gonna say that, he's gonna stank and like compare him to like Daniel Jones, like at least compare him to somebody that that.
Has, Yeah, quarterbacks just don't have uh a good the schools don't have a good quarterback until that's just not the many good I mean, Alabama didn't have a good quarterback for like some people. They still don't. But I mean I would, I would, But to Jalen Hurts, I think are are so Look, this isn't gonna sound like much of a difference as somebody who follows recruiting. I promise you this is a big difference. Uh, Mitch Trubisky
and recruiting tables get it wrong all the time. Marvin Harrison Junior was the twenty first rank wide receiver recruit in his class. You can believe that, Yeah, I can't actually, but it really Yeah, I think that his game has has developed in terms of like you know, twenty first I wasn't even a top one h I don't think that he the top one hundred recruit. I could see that because he's not like blazing fast. All right, fair enough, But here here's my point, Like when you talk about
the background in where they started from the foundation. Yeah, Mitch Trubisky was a four star recruit. He was seventy ninth ranked player in his class. Sam Howe was a four star recruit. He was one hundred and fourth Drake May was a five star recruit. He was twenty fourth. He was the fourth quarterback in a class that also included Quinn Eewers and Caleb William sam Hewart ended up being like a major bust, but two guys who were
viewed as generational. So this is Drake May is starting from a different point than those other two guys, where there's more raw ability there. Now that doesn't mean that he doesn't have a long way to go. I think he needs to be coached quite a bit. But Sam Howe was never to your point, Mitchell Trubisky was never that kind of prospect. He never was. The Bears just saw It's like Zach Wilson. They just saw something that wasn't there. It was big, tall death. Sam Howe's a
fourth round pick. I don't know why we're acting like remember after the Patriots played the Commanders, and everybody's trying to tell me, tell us that Sam Howe is like this great quarterback because he led the league in passing, which doesn't mean anything. The corpse of Ben Roethlisberger led the league in passing one of those last years in Pittsburg where could barely move. It just means a trailing in a lot of games late and you're just throwing a ball down the field. Drake May does not comp
as a Mitchell Trubiskier. If you want to compare Mitchell Trubisky and Sam how you can do that. The only thing that you're doing when you compare Drake Made and minche t Bisky is saying that they both went to you, winc That's it. That's it right, and that's he's not actually not even from North Carolina. He's from Ohio.
Okay, uh, but we gotta wrap so just really quickly, is there anybody from the combine? We we didn't talk much as much about the combiness and wanted to, but is there anybody from the combine that you're really looking at?
Player? I mean, it's it's Michael Panics. Man, how can it not be?
Like?
Where is he at healthwise? And I want to see Joe Milton throw the ball? Yeah the eighty fight he said, he said he's gonna try to throw up a one hundred and twenty yards is combine?
So god, all right, my my list? Yeah, obviously Panics is high up down there. I mentioned all the things about the receivers, like I think that's gonna be important watching those guys. This is my favorite thing about the combine. Yeah not no, no, okay, you're.
Gonna talk about the shrimp. Nope, okay, but that is good arm length for the offensive. This is important, folks. Who's the guy this is important? It's the guy that's that's close in terms of the thresh Like, oh, yeah, the last year was scronsky. We kind of morgan did he measure it? The he did?
But you know, I need to I want confirmation. At the Senior Bowl he was like thirty two and a half, which most teams so used to be thirty four. Yeah, now then Joe Thomas happened, so now it's now it's thirty three, right, So thirty three is really the threshold nowadays. But I think that arm length and range at the tackle position and the type of scheme that a VP likes to run is going to matter a little bit more than it maybe did in the Downhills.
Thirty two and seventy eighth.
Okay, so so that's like, really that's to me, that's that's close.
So his arms grew in the last I wouldn't be surprised because some of these guys go to like doctors to get that. Didn't didn't Kenny pick it? Do something? Yeah? He was like stretching his hand, Yeah, bigger hands and can you pick about.
That's sad uh. I'm telling you arm length is gonna matter. H is he just like sleeping in bed holding in each Jordan Morgan's the one big one and I fought now from Washington's the other big one.
He's he's somebody that the Fatanu. Yeah say, did I say wrong?
He said, like fought now. I don't know Troy Fatanu, his measure his arms. I think most people are projecting to be in the thirty two's instead of the thirty threes. So Gord, those are factors. I don't necessarily subscribe to it because Dante Scarnekia didn't necessarily subscribe to it, and I I, you know.
I'm not doubting that guy.
Yeah, exactly, But I think a lot of offensive line coaches and a lot of scouts still do. If you're below that threshold, like Jordan Morgan at thirty two and seven, a's one eighth is not going to make the difference.
But that's a shorter arm tackle. That's what it's Also, is he that much of a standout that you're willing to overlook it. Like if the guy is thirty two in charms but he's on tape just unbelievable, you may overlook it. Morgan didn't have a great week, I thought in Mobile.
No, I think Morgan, and we don't have a ton of time. So Morgan, he's one of those guys that like hugs people with his hands instead of like getting into the chest. Like I hate watching tackles that your guy Patrick Paul had this going on a little bit too, but I think it can be corrected. Yeah, but the point is is just when you go like this and like you're you're not getting that inside hand placement consistently.
It's really difficult in the NFL because guys, guys will just get into your chest and they will push you back into the quarterback. Like that's how you get bul rushes when you give up your chest. So you can't give up your chest. So I think that that's gonna be a thing for Jordan Morgan that he's going to
have to fix. But yeah, measurables for all these tackles is gonna matter like nothing that happens on the fields in terms of the tackles matters, Like, I don't care what any tackle runs in the forty yard dash, but in terms of.
Yeah or done with Jordan Davis, that was the only time I ever cared arm length the big deal for the tackle. Actually, i'll give you one I'm interested in. Devandre Sweat didn't measure in at the Senior Bowl. Eye.
Well, he doesn't want to weigh He's gonna be like three hundred and eighty pounds.
I know, I want to see how big he is. No, but he's but he carries it. He's athletic.
Yeah, he's somebody that you know, depending on how free agency goes, because they moved on from Lawrence guy, Like you know, you.
Gotta take Deventre Sweat and top fifty.
Yeah, he's gonna be high. Pick last thing really quickly. I think hands size for quarterbacks is gonna matter as well. Yeah, because we've already got a couple.
I know.
I made fun of you a couple of weeks ago about the whole run game thing when it comes to New England. But throwing the ball in New England and handling the football in New England with small hands is not going to be easy. So like that that that's gonna matter.
You remember before how we said we thought the Patriots all everything they said yesterday kind of fit one guy. Yeah, you know who had the biggest hands in Senior Bowl Penix? He Well he's tied with Joe Milton. But yes, yeah, ten and three A's like big, massive hands, massive hands. You know you know what that means. No, look at him hold the football though it looks weird.
Yeah, no hands. It's gonna like if you have a guy that has small hands. It's genuinely a concern about it. Work out in New England with small hands, not a joke. All Right, that's gonna do it for us here on Catch twenty two. We'll be back next week. I think we're in the afternoon because of the Combine schedule, but I'll be in Indianapolis. Alex will be here to host the show. Listening, and we'll talk combine fully next week.
All combine hopefully, and stay tuned for Patriots Unfiltered that's coming up here in a few minutespe.
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