Draft Season: Episode 9- How Evaluations Happen, NFL Prospects

co Sell. He of course has been at NFL films for over four decades looking at the all twenty two and he continues to do that not only for games in season and players in season, but also for the NFL Draft. Because we look at football players, we kind of try to crawl behind the xs and ohs inside the game and tell you what the tape says. And Greg, in this whole process, since you and I started doing this,

feels like we snapped our fingers were halfway the draft. Basically, we're only a month out from the actual choosing of players, but we wanted to start with this week and we're gonna talk about some individual guys coming up a little bit later on some maybe off the radar prospects some guys that have jumped out to you that we haven't talked about yet at varying positions. But I think what people need to understand is what this process is, right Like,

That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to explain to you what the actual draft processes for teams, not the different mock drafts that pop up on your phone, on Twitter or on the Internet every five minutes, but how teams actually arrive at putting together the board that they will use on draft day and what an evolutionary process that is. And right we're about three weeks out from the combine. We have done a bunch of pro days. Now you're gonna get like visits to the team campuses

for prospects, things like that. There's still meetings to go on. You've been watching tape on these guys for a long time.

Where would you say your process at this point parallels you think how teams approach the draft and where you are kind of pie chart was or you know, timeline was moving towards putting together an actual board that might mirror what the teams the NFL are doing to this point, Well, Bob, the way I do it, and because I don't work for a team, I don't necessarily get obviously to speak with players, to do a lot of the due diligence that teams do. I don't have access to all that.

So what I do is I sit in my office at NFL Films, and because I work for Films, I have access to all the coaching tape and I just basically can watch any player, any game, and I can

watch it in its entirety. And the way it works for me is is what the coaching tape shows you is first of a play, it shows you the all twenty two from the sidelines, so you can see all twenty two players, and then the same play, it's followed by an end zone shot of it a little tighter, but that's where you see the offensive line, the defensive line, the linebackers, the quarterback. If you're looking at the quarterback,

you can see him in a little more detail. So I watch full games of players, and there's certain positions where you have to sit and you have to go through a full game to get a true feel for what a player is. You can't watch just a highlight of an offensive lineman making ten great blocks you can't watch a highlight of a linebacker making his sixty tackles. You have to watch games and you have to see, one how they're deployed, because that tells you an awful lot.

And I'll just give you a very quick example. I have no idea what this means for the draft, and we haven't spoken about this player in our previous four segments yet, but Jordan Davis from Georgia, who obviously blew up the combine given his size and his movement, he

did not play on third down for Georgia. So as you project and transition a player like that, you have to decide what is its role in the NFL, simply because he's a big man and a great athlete, and you don't know that he doesn't play on third down if you're just watching highlights of him making tackles. So you've got to go through games. You've got to see how players are deployed. You have to see how often they play. A lot of players are rotational players. You

have to see what happens when they get beat. You have to see, for instance, a linebacker how we reacts to run plays. Is he's seeing what he's supposed to be seeing all This takes time, and you know, as I joke with people, I'm a one man scouting service, so it takes me a long time to watch as many players as I can watch. And I wish I could watch five players, but unfortunately I can't. Well, I think,

but I think the parallel here. You are doing this solo. Obviously, teams have departments that are doing but teams also are sending scouts to campuses to meet with coaches and to watch tape in facilities all during the season. Teams are interviewing these players, They are bringing prospects to their facilities, they are going to the Combine, they are making visits

to pro days. Adding all of that up. I mean, I don't know if people truly remember talking to Terry Bradway one time when he was the general manager of the Jets about this, and I said to him, you know, you guys in this draft or the average draft, are gonna pick seven players, all right, sometimes more, sometimes less, but on seven rounds you get one pick per round. You're gonna pick seven players in the average draft. Do people really understand the number of man hours that you

put in to get ready for that process? And He's like, we fill out about five thousand reports like that in their file by the time the draft. Actually, the whole process is done, and we are setting the board and we are ready for our meetings. We're gonna sit in the room and everybody's gonna have their say about who they think are the under the radar guys, who they think are our highest priority. We're gonna set our board in our needs, about five thousand reports will be written.

Now if we need a quarterback. You know, when the Jets ad Zack Wilson as the second pick in the draft, they might have had twenty five reports on Zach Wilson. They probably sent everybody to go see Zach Wilson, right, everybody had a chance to go either watches tape, go to games, visit the campus, talk to the coaches, all of that. They might have one report on a defensive tackle at Montana that caught someone's eye when they were at the you know whatever, the the one Double A playoffs.

But add it all up, you're talking about five thousand written reports to draft seven guys. It takes a long time to accumulate all that information. And that's why I think people need to realize that no matter how many mock drafts you see right now, don't overreact to those mock drafts or what you think people are hearing. The teams themselves are still in the process, very much in

the process, very much dealing with the unknown. Still I think of how their board probably will shake out come draft Day, and and just to show you, Bob how crazy I am, what I often do is, you know, I get four or five weeks vacation here, films, and a lot of times I don't really go anywhere. So what I do is I come in the office for those four or five weeks and I start watching players who will be in the following year's draft. So, for instance, a lot of the guys who are in this draft

coming up in a month. UM, I watched a lot of their tape from their twenty twenty season last summer, so now when I watch their tape from this year, I have a foundation of what they are because most guys, you know, a high high percentage their physical and athletic trades don't dramatically change. Um. Obviously, can they become better in certain details and nuances and subtleties of a position

as they get coached. Absolutely, but you're not gonna see a guy who's, you know, an average athlete in his junior tape become a high level, phenomenal athlete in his senior tape. That's not likely to happen. But I try to stay, you know, in the summer. I can't watch two fifty guys. I don't have that kind of time.

But if I can get sixty two ninety guys looked at in the summer, then when I start after the NFL season, because obviously that's my total focus on the NFL matchup show, when I start um right after the NFL season looking at at the draft of ball players for that draft coming up in a couple of months, I have a pretty good foundation of a lot of the big names, and I'm not starting from scratch. That's

the way teams do it too. I mean, teams are already putting a lot of information in the hopper for next year's draft while they're getting ready for this year's draft. Like the process never really stops the minute that the players are picked at the end of this April. Consider next year's draft process starting in every scouting COMBA or every you know, every scouting department, every pro personnel department in the NFL, they immediately just flip the switch, turn

the calendar, and start getting ready for next year. And and I wonder during this process something that I mean, you say you have to watch full games, right, you really have to watch the entire game to get the true nature of how the game has played for every position. But are there some positions like how much times it takes you, for instance, to evaluate a wide receiver as opposed to how much time it might take you to

evaluate a safety. Right, a wide receiver has a specific route that he is designed to run on every single play it is and you could probably see based on formation and rout tree and whatnot, whether he did it right, whether he did it wrong. Having said that, though, like safety is a read and react position, oftentimes I got the snap, change the picture and then look at what the offense is doing, and then what are my responsibilities?

And you know it's probably takes I would think more time and more film and more reps and more, you know, just examples to take a look at a read and react defensive players. Then maybe an offensive player like a wide receiver that has a set responsibility on every play, You're that's a great point, and I'll give you an example wide receivers. What I tend to do because obviously

I try to maximize my time. Why receivers, what I'll do is I'll watch all their targets, Okay, and then I'll watch a couple of games against really good opponents. But you can get a really good feel for receiver catches seventy five balls, Bob, he probably has a hundred and forty targets. You watch a hundred and forty targets, you get a really good feel for what that receiver is because you know what the reality. In the NFL, receivers are not drafted because of the way they stalk block.

So yes, it's nice to see a guy who's physical and who cares about blocking, But the bottom line is, if he's a great receiver, it's not going to impact where he's drafted. And the other point you made, that's a hundred percent right. Defensive back, safeties and corners, you have to watch full games. If you look at a corner stats are particularly a good corner, you could see that he's got six past defense the whole season and maybe three interceptions. You can't just watch those plays. You

have to see how he plays in particular coverage. Does he play press man, how does he play as man? Does he play press man physically jamming receivers. Does he play what we call mirror match press man where he lets the receiver declare his route and then tries to get into his hip pocket. How does he play off coverage? You know, there's so many factors. Safeties are the same, so you have to watch games to see that, and

there's a lot of plays. If it's a post safety, there's a lot of plays where he might do nothing, but you have to see those two. So defensive backs really take a lot of time and it's just it's a grind, but you have to do it. Do you think dbs are the hardest position to analyze or or what would be as if not? Yes, I would say they're among the hardest positions to analyze. Sometimes receiver can be too because of what they're asked to do and what they're not asked to do relative to what they

will be asked to do in the NFL. But I think corner and safety are really difficult positions to evaluate when you watch college tape. Also, keeping in mind that the hash marks change the total symmetry of the game, and you have to be aware of that as you try to project and transition corners and safeties to the next level. Yeah, I would have thought also offensive lineman because of how college football has changed. I remember talking to Bill Polian a few years ago. I think we

talked about this in an earlier episode. Um, you know, he came to ESPN and we spent some time. He did some games out on the road, and had a chance to catch up with him on campus, and I remember just having one of those really cool philosophical football questions with a guy who's you know, I mean, if there was a MENSI meating for football, like Bill Polian would be at the head of the room leading the MENSI meeting and asking him the most difficult changes in

the sport in terms of player analysis. And one thing he brought up was there is a crisis of offensive lineman from the college game to the National Football League based on a lot of the air raid offense. You know, sometimes yard yard and a half splits between offensive linemen where they are literally just lining up to pass block.

Even in some of the more kind of quote unquote conservative college offenses that old school I'm gonna mash your face in drive blocking, run blocking offensive lineman attitude that we need to see in the NFL. It's just not that prevalent that much anymore in college football, and it's really hard to project. There are obviously some guys that can do it. It's their job to sift through the tape, find examples and identify a play and a player that

can do it. But that has to be hard because college football has changed in a big way in the trenches as well, without question, and an offensive line is one of those positions. And we can talk further about this, but it is one of those positions that can be very difficult because many, many, many offensive lineman college football never even put their hand in the ground right, no doubt.

And look, when we come back, I want to talk also about how the game has changed right in other ways and why some positions are probably harder to analyze us now than they used to be. And also we're gonna do what we do every week, and that is talk about some players. You know who they are, what they're good at, the guys that jumped out to you on tape this week that we haven't talked about yet

at varying positions. So if you're a football nerd like us, you're at the bar with your buddy and you want to kind of wink at your buddy and say, hey, I got a guy for you. Watch if you see this guy go in the fourth round. Our team got a gem. There are some guys that Greg will be able to give you an insight about that whose names you might not have heard of in the process to this point, we're gonna talk about where they fit in the NFL as well. All of that is coming up

next on Tape Heeds Draft Season. Welcome back to Taped's Draft Season, Baba shoose up Gregg co Sell our latest episode not only talking about where Greg is at in his draft process, where we think teams are at this point in their draft prep process, but also Greg, we were just talking a little bit about how the game has changed and how back when we were growing up, the running back, the big powerful running back, was as much a part of your team's success or failure as

maybe any position. Right in the eighties, you can make an argument that of the top ten or twenty stars in the NFL, half of them were the running backs, and running backs that carried the ball times a game, and that was the game plan. That's not the way the NFL has played anymore, nor can it be. I mean, the football that has played in college has certainly leaked

into the NFL. The process has evolved, and now it seems like the NFL is much more about creating the chunk and explosive plays through the passing game than three yards and a cloud of dust. How much has that changed the draft process for teams tremendously? And the bottom line is, I mean, I was at the combine, you know, for five days a number of weeks ago, and all

you hear on both sides offense create explosive plays. Defense we cannot allow explosive plays, and the percentage wise, as we all know, explosive plays come out of the past game far more than the run game. So the goal is to create those explosive plays. Now, every team will tell you that there are times you do need to run the ball, and certainly there are teams like the San Francisco forty Niners, uh, the Tennessee Titans. They start

their offense with the run game. But if you cannot create explosive plays throwing the football, and there are multiple ways to do that, Bob. Obviously, Kyle Shanahan might do it differently than a team that lines up with the quarterback and the shotgun or an empty sets and tries to create them that way. But the bottom line is, if you can't create explosive plays in the past game,

somewhere along the line, you're going to struggle. And just one other point, I think that you never know how any given game is going to play out in the NFL, so your passing game has to be able to operate independently of your run game. It can be dependent on your ability to run the ball. And then to get to your point about how the college game has changed

how the NFL goes about it. Probably over of Division one college football teams play in a spread formation, So now you're getting players who grew up playing that way from the time they started playing football. That's what they know. So when you draft a guy, uh, it starts with quarterback, of course, but it's true with many other positions on

both sides of the ball. You have to try to play to what they know and what they are because if you draft a guy high and expect him to play right away, you can't teach him a brand new language in three months, so you have to teach him the language he knows and refine that. So therefore, the NFL game has taken more and more from the college game, even though the hash marks still make the game somewhat

different in a meaningful way. The fact is you need these players to play right away and to limit the explosive plays defensively. There it probably has changed how different positions are valued right like pass, rusher, cover, corner. Those have always been big time important positions to draft high.

But one guy, as we promised we would to get to some of your or maybe under the radar guys, guys we haven't talked about yet, Guys that aren't the stars being talked about at the top of the first round. But if you're in the bar with your buddies and you want to give them a diamond and the rough to keep your eyes on and look like a genius, when this guy gets picked, we've got a few to talk about. And safety is a position that takes on

an added level of importance. That's why we're talking about Kyle Hamilton's maybe being a unicorn, but being drafted potentially higher than any safety has ever been drafted in NFL history. I know a guy from Michigan that caught your eye is Dax Hill. Yes, and I don't know if you did a Michigan game, but this kid, this kid is is really to me. Um. I mean, Hamilton's is is probably special because of that size, the length, the movement, and who knows, he could be a top three pick.

But Daxton Hill, I thought it was one of the most intriguing players that I watched. He played field safety, meaning he played safety to the wide side of the field in Michigan's base defense, and then he played slot corner in their sub defenses. Okay, so he's six ft, he's a hundred pounds, he ran under four or four UM and he's long, he's rangy, he's twitchy, he's explosive. It would be very interesting to me to see whoever

drafts him, and it would not surprise me. And you know, I'm I'm I'm big mock guy, as you know, Bob, But it would not surprise me if he goes in the first round, even if it's let's say, after pick twenty, just because he can play two positions and he's an explosive athlete. And you talk about safety being increasingly important today's NFL because he can match up to tight ends, no question as a safety, because he matches up to

slot wide receivers, so he has that experience. So to me, someone like Daxton Hill absolutely fits the profile of today's NFL because he's a two position player and he can play man to man against slot wide receivers and against tight ends. So he's a player I would really look carefully at, and I'm sure teams are. And of course his testing was off the charts. Yep. The Georgia defense, of course, was historically good and there will be plenty

of Georgia defensive players taken in this draft. You mentioned Jordan Davis basically breaking the combine and breaking the Internet when you know he basically ran what was the equivalent for a player of his size of like a three eight in the forty right, and it was just ridiculous. Uh, the athleticism that he showed for his size. But no defense puts up those kind of numbers without some more under the radar guys that blend in and play their game and take care of their job and show that

they can be an NFL player. But maybe not the star NFL player and Quay Walker linebacker where where is human He's more of a maybe a complimentary player than a star player. For that Georgia defense, we're still an NFL player. Well, if you know Bob, they get you know, twenty five star recruits on defense. So so not everybody plays every snap, and you can't hold that against these particular players because they don't play every snap. And Klay Walker did not play every snap. But he has great size.

He's six four, he's two forty one. You talk about forty time, whatever it means. He ran a four or five two, Okay, that's really good for a linebacker at his size. So his size, his length, his movement profile is exactly what NFL teams are looking for. I mean, he's got outstanding size, he's got play speed, he's got range what he was really good at. And this is again goes back to what we said why you have

to watch all the plays. When you combine all that with his ability to read and recognize what he's seeing, the term we like to use is he and diagnose. He's very very good at that. So you have a stacked linebacker with a full complement of traits needed to become a quality starting linebacker in the NFL, and perhaps

much more. It would not surprise me if Kway Walker as he develops with more coaching, with more experience, depending on where he goes, we don't know that if he becomes I don't want to say a star at top three linebacker in the league, but a really, really good player now. He has very similar size and athletic trades to Jimin Davis, who Washington drafted in the first round a year ago and played a good amount for the

now Commanders. And Davis had some issues with his key and diagnosed this year, and I think Walker plays with much better eyes than Davis did. So Kuay Walker is a fascinating prospect in this draft class. There are always coming out of college these days, big time wide receivers. Um Baylor's a program to get to Kwon Thornton next. I know he's on your list. That you know, sometimes it's hard to diagnose a bailor wide receiver right with

the system that they've run in the past. I know new coaching staff and you know you brought an SEC big ten DNA and Dave Randa to Baylor, but you know in the Big Twelve. It takes a while for the entire evolutionary process of a conference to maybe change to look more like the SEC. They're certainly not playing against SEC level defensive backs all the time in the

Big twelve as well. So, having said all of that, you know, the ability to get off the line of scrimmage, the ability to run the complete route tree, like all of those things you need to see in an NFL prospect. Is a guy like Tae Kwon Thornton from Baylor, someone that you are confident can do all of that, Like, what are the question marks with him? As the NFL looks at his game? Well, I think they'll look at his thin, linear build. He's six two and three one.

He's a track guy. Um, he was a track athlete in high school. Um, he was a hundred meter guy at two hundred. Your guy, he ran a four to eight at the combine. Uh, that's pretty good from what I'm told. Um, he obviously has all the measurables. Uh. But Uh, the thing that stood out to me was that he was a receiver as well. I thought there were many snaps in which he showed physicality through his route stem when it was demanded, he competed, he played

tougher than his thin frame might suggest. We know he can run. I mean he ran away from people. And you know, I always wonder if he played in the SEC and he put up similar numbers to what he did at Baylor, would we be talking about him as a top forty pick. But because as you said, Bob, and you're a hun percent correct, he played at Baylor lesser conference defensively, not the SEC. People probably think, oh, he's a track guy who runs fast. Um, he'll be

an outside receiver in the NFL. But you know, he's from South Florida, and South Florida receivers tend to have a lot of grit to them just from where they grew up, the high school football that's played in South Florida. So he's he's got some competitive toughness and grit to him. And he can run. I mean he can freaking run. This kid. And I was really impressed with his tape. And to be honest with you, I knew nothing about him other than he ran afoord to weight at the Combine.

And then I put his tape on and I was really impressed with what I saw. Yeah, there's a really good chance if you're a South Florida wide receiver that at some point in the NFL you're gonna line up across from a defensive back that you lined up from across from in high school, right like one of the guys when you were like, what Miami Northwestern. Then there's a guy from Christopher Columbus to standard across this field

from you. You know, it's because that is the depth of talent certainly in South Florida as far as football is concerned. We've got other guys to talk about that are under the radar players and some prospects that have certainly jumped out. As you've taken a look at the tape, We're going to get to even more players that are gonna make you look like the smartest guy in the room if you bring these names up and cheat and use Gregg Costell's information. When we come back here on

Taped's Draft Season. We are back here on Taped's Draft Season, Bobo Shusan and Greg co Seal as we take you all the way up to the NFL Draft on this podcast, and we're digging into some of the prospects we haven't gotten a chance to talk about yet, regardless of position, but just players that have caught Greg co sells I that you know, at varying positions, he think could be

a big factor on draft day. And let's get to Wyoming's chat Muma and how many how many guys are obviously coming out of Wyoming that are going to get drafted much less at a linebacker position and have an NFL build, But he certainly does. Yeah. And by the way, you know he played with for a couple of years. He played with Logan Wilson of the Bengals. He came in Wyoming a few years ago, and I believe he

was a second round pick. And you always get the level of competition label lobby at you when you play at a smaller school, and and for some that's really important. I can tell you right now. I've talked to many teams who feel that, hey, I don't want to take a guy at a smaller level of competition. They just don't believe in that. But I think he's a really intriguing prospect, really meaningful production, and he was a fun

player to watch. First of all, he plays with a high level of intensity and competitiveness, and his high he's a high velocity player. I mean he made a lot of plays outside the box. He's got really good play speed and range. Another guy that I thought was very good with key and diagnosability. His reactions were consistently quick inside the box, and when he got to the ball carrier, he brought it. He brought the wood. He tackled guys,

And you know it's funny. We we probably think that all linebackers do that, Bob, but you and I both know that's not always the case. Um. And when he got there, he hits you. So he's going to be a fascinating UM guy to to see where he goes in the draft. UM, I would say that he played fast. I don't think anybody would say, though, that he's sudden or explosive. He's a little bit high cut. For some

teams that might be an issue. They may see his transition and change direction not being exactly what they want. But I think that he can overcome that because he saw it so fast and he reacted so quickly, and he got to velocity really fast. So he was a fascinating guy to watch. Another fascinating guy, how about Jermaine

Johnson from Florida State. Um, you know if your team doesn't have the Hutchinson Thibodeau level pass rushing pick and you're upset that maybe, like even if you're the Jets and you don't take one of those guys at four, but all of a sudden, you get to ten and Jermaine Johnson's name pops up as an edge guy. Is he worthy of being drafted that high in the first round or is he a maybe a lower in the first round, maybe even in the second round type guy?

Knowing how much teams want to get guys that can bend the edge and go hit the quarterback. And by the way, he may end up being a better pass rusher than either of the two guys you mentioned. You never know. This kid is long, he's athletic, he can bend um. He played stronger than his lean, wiry frame might suggest. There was a power element to his game both as a run defender and pass rusher. He's naturally quick,

he's agile. Um. I thought there was so much to unlock in his game as a pass rusher when it comes to technique encounters, and I believe he's only scratching the surface of his ability to rush the quarterback and the note that I made when I finished watching him was it would not surprise me if Johnson within two, three or four years becomes a strong edge pass rusher with the versatility to line up inside as well. I think this kid really has a lot to work with.

And like I said, you never know, but it would not surprise me if we're talking about him in in three years as arguably the best pass rusher in this draft class. You know. And to that point, another question that pops up in my head from an evaluation process, how hard is it to find a guy like that on a team team that quite frankly the last few years has been bad, like normally Florida State's real good, like competing for national championships, competing for a CEC championships.

They were right there, you know, kind of going punch for punch for a long time when Dabbo Sweeney was establishing Clemson as the dominant power of the a c C. And now they're going through head coaches every two or three years, and it is a program that has been in turmoil since Jimbo went to Texas A and M. So when you want to get a guy that you think might be worthy of a top ten, top fifteen pick,

if not higher. How hard is it to evaluate that level talent on a bad team, because Florida State has been a bad team certainly by their standards, the whole time he's been there. And it's a great question because to me, it doesn't matter. To me, you're looking at the player and you're looking at his traits and his attributes. Now, look, he's a Georgia transfer bob, as you may know. So he played two seasons at Georgia, so he played in

the SEC. And by the way, his year priory Georgia, he played very very well as a rotational player, so he had success in the SEC. So you saw Jermaine Johnson play against the highest level of college competition. So ultimately, when you look at a player like that, you obviously start with the traits, the attributes, the characteristics. Does the level of competition matter? Sure it does, But then you have to try to interpret what you see uh as best as you can. And I think Jermaine Johnson has

high level trades that would play anywhere. So I'm gonna be very interested to see where he gets drafted. You know, we sit and talk about all this about Thibodeaux Hutchinson obviously both very good prospects as well. We'll get to them in future podcasts. But Jermaine Johnson is really an intriguing player with the multiplicity of traits he brings to the table. Let's run through a few more guys. Another guy that can rush the pass or Arnold Ebaketty from

Penn State. Yeah, Ebic Ketty was was another really interesting guy to watch. And and he's a transfer from Temple, and you know, Temple's obviously, uh, I forget what conference they're in, but it's obviously not considered big big time A uh maybe, yeah, but he played four years of Temple before he went to Penn State. And uh he looks and plays longer than his height, which is just

over six too. In fact, I knew what his height was before I started watching him, and then I put the tape on and I thought, Wow, this guy looks longer than that. But he was only six two and three eight. But he's got kind of a sinewy, sleek frame. He kind of snakes and slips into gaps in the run game. He wins now, he wins as a pass rusher on what we call the high side of the offensive tackle, meaning the outside, and he needs to develop

more counters. There's no question about that. He must develop a wider array of pass rush moves and counters. He must learn to work the low side or the inside of the offensive tackle. But he's got great natural athleticism. He's got flexibility and bend. That's one thing you know. You talk about level of competition, Bob, as we just

did with Jermaine Johnson. One thing you really like to see with the pass rusher is the ability to bend and be flexible because there's a lot of guys that can challenge the high side the outside of offensive tackles, but when they get there, they're stuck. So they might win to the high side, but they can't kind of bend, so they get pushed past the quarterback. So it's very important to be able to flatten and bend, and Ebiketty can do that. Um and I thought that he was

kind of a complete player. He showed some power and quickness as a run defender. Um I think that he would start his career in the NFL as a sub defense edge pass rusher and then likely develop into a full time player. More than likely is an outside linebacker and in probably what we call a five two, which

more and more teams were playing in the NFL. Now, yeah, you make a good point to if you're a one trick pony in the NFL, it'll take an offensive tackle in the NFL, like one half of one game of watching you to get ready to realize, like, I've got one move that this guy has to you know, he's got one move that I have to defeat and other than that, he can't beat me otherwise. And you like,

that's it. Your career is over. You have to have a full arsenal of inside outside moves or against the tackles as big, as strong, as athletic and as good as they are. You can't get to the quarterback. You don't get hired. So what about an interior defensive lineman and Neil Neil Farrell from l s U. You know, it's funny, there's a there's a guy I knew nothing about. And obviously L s U gets five stars as well.

They did not have a great year this year. Obviously the last couple of years since they won the national championship has not been quite the same. But he was a guy because I was watching Stingley. I'm watching other players there, you know. I watched him Moan Clark, who

unfortunately will not play this year. But Farrell's tape I thought was consistently impressive, and I thought he presents a really strong projection as kind of an interior what we call a zero technique lining up head up on the offensive center, where a one technique where he's shaded off the offensive center. UM six four pounds, and he did play in the SEC. He's a gap penetrator. He's got disruption trades both with his feet and his hands. UM. He controlled the term we like to use Bob as

he controlled and displaced interior offensive lineman. And that's really important for those big guys who are essentially going to be rundown players to start. But he's got a trades profile that will be in demand. He's got sized, he's got length, he's got play strength, he's got heavy hands, and he moves pretty well. And you know, the guy that I kept thinking about, he's built differently than this guy.

But the guy that I kept thinking about who was on the Super Bowl championship team this year and ended up playing in their sub defense, and no one would have thought that when he came out of college was Greg Gaines of the Ramps. You know, Greg Gaines litter really played almost every snap for the Rams as the year progressed, and he started out just being a run defender.

That's what he kind of was in college. And I wonder if Neil Farrell, as time goes on, can develop into that kind of player, squeezing one more an interesting wide receiver prospect. And Kyle Phillips from u C l A, Yeah, he I loved watching this guy's tape. I mean, he's he's probably pretty purely a slot guy. I mean, I think guys move around now, but he's pretty purely a slot guy. Fifty four of his fifty nine receptions came out of the slot um and you know, it's funny.

While his time speed does not suggest that he can be a vertical dimension, he did run by people in college. Now, the Pact twelve did not have the best corners you know, in the country, but he had a great savvy about him. He understood how to run routes, he understood how to set up corners. He attacked the leverage and positioning of off coverage corners. He used a combination of body fakes,

head faints he created space. Um, I'm gonna go a little crazy here, Bob and say that when this receiver came out of college and no one thought he'd become what he just did this past year. But I remember Cooper Cup coming out of Eastern Washington, obviously even a smaller level of competition the U c l A, which is a power of five school, and Cooper Cups a much bigger man, and that does mean quite a bit.

But I thought Cooper Cup could roll out of bed and play in the slot coming out of Eastern Washington. And I said that at the time. And obviously Cooper Cup did not catch a hundred balls as a rookie. Kyle Phillips is a smaller version to me of what I thought Cup was coming out of Eastern Washington. Now, I don't want people to listening to, you know, drive off the road. Let's say I'm not suggesting in four years or five years, Phillips is gonna catch in a

hundred and thirty balls in a given season. But he kind of reminded me of Cup coming out of college and that I think Kyle Phillips could roll out of bed and be a quality slot receiver. Tomorrow, great information on all of those guys, and coming up on our next episode of tapeds Draft Season when it drops on Thursday, as we've done each week, we will welcome in some of the voices from around college football in the NFL

that we know and trust. We will be talking to coordinators, former gms, and we will welcome our first head coach. And this is the guy we should started off with as a BC guy because I went to Boston College. That's right. We went right to the well for Jeff Halfley, the head coach of BC football, spent some time obviously not only in college right now, but also in the NFL.

So it's always interesting to pick the brains of the guys that have lived in both worlds about finding the best players, how you evaluate talent, what they're looking for in the NFL, and what the guys that are college coaches no you need to get to the NFL. Jeff Halfley is gonna check every one of those boxes for us. Coming up on Thursday. Wepe you have a terrific rest of your week and we hope that you will join us for the next episode of tapeds Draft Season.