Coming up a special two-parter. This is part one, the NFL Draft. Next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Hardcore. It was the last episode of Rock Bottom Month. Controversial month, controversial movie, amazing movie. A super funny movie. Also a super depressing movie. Sean Fentacy and Chris Ryan and I, we broke all of it down. You can watch it eventually on youtube. Com/bilsimmons as well. Very, very entertaining podcast. Also had a good time on that YouTube channel. Me and Rosillo, we went live on Sunday. We might do that a couple more times as basketball playoffs keep going and going and going here. Speaking of the basketball playoffs, I'm doing some boosts on FanDuel during the playoffs. I'm on a hot streak, can't lie. We've knock on wood, but we've been doing pretty well. I'm going to have one either Wednesday or Thursday. Stay tuned. We're going to boost something, something from the Wednesday or Thursday game. There you go. Okay, so part two of this podcast is coming later tonight. It's me and Kevin O'Connor reacting off the Tuesday night games and also talking about the incredible, incredible, incredible Monday night double header that we had as well.

Part one, Ben Solak from the Ringer. I hope you're reading the Ringer's Excellent NFL Draft Guide or listening to the Excellent Ringer NFL Draft Show, which is live in Detroit this week. But Ben and I, we talked about trade up teams, trade down teams, what to look What do you look for to go wrong with a quarterback, are there specific rules of that, and who he likes with the quarterback? A whole, whole bunch of stuff. Really good combo. We're going to bring in our friends who just had a new album come out. That's right. Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this on Tuesday morning, where the 2024 NFL draft has just thrown my life into an absolute Tizzie Ben Solak. You're working for the Ringer. You're writing mock draft stuff for us. You're part of the Ringer NFL Draft Show and the Philly Special with Sheil. Where does this rank on craziest draughts that you've covered since you've started doing this.

Oh, man. I mean, I don't think it's '21 where we had... We were expected quarterbacks one, two, three. We thought five quarterbacks would go top 15. There's Trevor and Zack Wilson and Trey Lance with the nine is going to do at three. I don't think it's that, but it's just a level below that. And if we get a Viking's Trade up to four in the next 30 minutes, if we get a, Hey, the Giants moved up to three in two hours, then it'll start to reach that level. The one thing we're missing right now is the sell the farm trade. And once we get the sell the farm trade, all of our chips in the middle for some team, Vikings, Broncos, Giants, whoever it is, then I think it'll reach that level. So this is a fun one.

Well, I'm nervous because we're not running this pod for another 12 hours, and God help us.

God only knows what's going to happen. That's very dangerous this time of year. Yeah.

I did a little thing. I did a YouTube short yesterday because I was walking around so frustrated by the pats, the information that Jonathan Kraft might be running the draft. But I was thinking there's three types of teams. I'll just do what I did in the short. Three types of teams that either do the trade up or trade down. And the first one is where where the chargers are at right now, where it's just Harbaugh took over. He's going to be there for half a decade. It's a marathon, not a sprint. You got the fifth pick. They have 37, 69, 105, 110. Maybe you could move back a few spots, still get your left tackle or your receiver, and just try to build something for Herbert. That's where you want to be if you're rooting for a team, where it's like, All right, this guy, this is a marathon, not a sprint. The second type of team is the Minnesota type situation, which is like there's some urgency, but it's a fun urgency. You want to get a quarterback. We have some good players. We weren't bad last year. We could move up, but it's not out of desperation.

Then there's the third type of team where the guys who are running it might not be there in a year. The coach might not be there in a year. To me, that's a team like the Giants, where it's like, We got to do something. Just getting receivers isn't enough. Where are we going to be? What if Danny Dimes is bad? We're all getting fired. Those One of the most dangerous teams around the trade as we head to the draft. I don't know where the Patriots rank out of those three. I don't know if they're desperate. I don't know if this is a marathon, not a sprint. I can't figure it out. You don't care about the Patriots. You're just watching this from afar. What do you think their strategy is?

Yeah. And it's funny because in March, I would have told you, I don't think they were a marathon, not a sprint team. They were a 10K, not a sprint team. They probably didn't have the five years to mess around, but they had... Okay, it seems like, all right, Dron Mayo has been the guy they wanted for a while. They have a five K. They have a couple of years. They got a little bit of time. And then, right, you start to get the whole, Hey, we didn't give Elliott Wolf the GM title, and the owner might be running the draft room. And once you hear that, you're like, Oh, We are not supposed to have hierarchy this way. The Patriots under Belichick were a long time an exception that proved the rule. But in general, a healthy organization has a GM that runs the draft room and has a head coach that runs the day to day and has owner to whom those people report. And that structure is a good structure. It works when it's healthy. There's a little bit of a dynamic equilibrium, but it works. Right now, the Patriots, they haven't been in that structure in ages.

I thought maybe they were stepping into that structure, and increasingly, it's looking like they're not. And this team needs to learn how to just have a head coach just head coach things, and a GM who does GM things, and an owner who does owner things. You need that trio of competing, but still towards the Super Bowl interest. You need that dynamic equilibrium. And so with New England, they are without question the hardest team to peg this year in terms of what they are going to do and why they are going to do it.

So maybe there's a fourth type of team, which is that team's a mess. We don't know what the F they're going to do. They just might be in their own category. And I don't even know if anyone's in that category. I wanted to talk about move up teams and move down teams because I do feel like we're going to have some traits. So we'll go move down teams first. We just talked about the Pats. They have three and 34 and 68, 103. The Minnesota package is just being dangled all over the place. It's almost like you get a free order of chicken wings and two slices of pizza if you take their offer. Minnesota has 11 and 23. They clearly want to get a QB. They're not going to get whoever they want at number 11. What is the fair price for you for them to trade up to number 3 or number four? Whether they're like, Jake May or whether they're like, McCarthy, Arizona is at four. So they have 11 and 23. It's got to be more than that. I think their 25 first has to be involved because I'm moving back. I'm not getting three picks, I'm getting two because I'm moving back eight spots.

So that's one of the picks. Basically, I'm just getting number 23 in your first next year to move back eight spots. I want more than that. So what's more? What's fair to you?

Yeah. So when the Niners moved up for Trey Lance, they moved up from 12 to three, and they sent this year's first, next year's first, the following year's first, as well as a future third. So three ones plus a three. That was 12 to three. This year, it's 11 to three. It's not that big. Yeah, but the Niners executed that trade well before draft week, and there wasn't as much competition. They got ahead of the market. They secured through overall, and everybody knew what one was going to be and knew that a quarterback was going to go at two. We obviously know what one is going to be. We know a quarterback is going to go at two. But this year, start talking about three and four. There's a lot more buyers, Minnesota, right? You have the Broncos at 12 who are willing to do something crazy. The Raiders at 13, they're willing to do something crazy. The Giants at six present a huge obstacle for the Vikings because you got to get up to three, four, or five. You have to get into that range. You can't wait. Oh, maybe he falls to seven.

The Giants might stay there and take a guy. So to me, if I'm Monte Assa for, I'm the GM of the Cardinals, and Quesi, the GM of the Vikings calls me ask for four overall. I say three first in a three. I want the Niners deal, and I'm probably putting the screws to you a little bit more. And I think that's why we haven't had a trade done yet, because there is a lot of leverage in the hands of the Cardinals at four, the Chargers at five, excuse me, and even the Patriots at three if they want to get involved. They have a ton of leverage over the Vikings right now. And every day that this inches towards the draft, every day we get closer, makes me more scared for Minnesota. Why hasn't a deal gotten done yet? Who else is competing with them? I'm asking for three first and a third. I'm asking for the tree land steal.

So don't you think part of the reason the deal hasn't been done yet is because people can't get a handle on who Washington is going to take? I feel like there's probably some pocket deals, but it all hinges on where Washington goes. And there's been so much confused. We're taping this again, Tuesday morning. Jaden Daniels is down minus 390 to be the second pick on FanDuel, but that dropped to minus 125 at one point over the weekend. It's been a roller coaster ride. And believe me, Ben Solak, I've been watching the roller coaster every moment. There was a moment where it seemed like Drake May was going to be the second pick. You feel like Drake May is going to be the second pick?

I think that he's got a better chance than the market currently projects. I think right now, if you put Water Gun to my head and made me put my life on a guy, I think I probably am taking Jaden. That's my guess. And I put Drake May in my mock draft on Monday. I wrote it on Sunday. We're talking on Tuesday. I talked to a couple of people on Monday that made me believe it was a little bit more Jaden. So that's how this process is going. But what I do think is that with the amount of emphatic belief that we've gotten from national reporters, Oh, every team thinks the commanders are taking Jaden at two. If that information were getting into the market, if sharp betters had Jaden at two to the commanders, this line wouldn't be minus 390. It'd be minus 3,900. This line would be flying. We saw that last year. One dude says, Hey, Will Levis is going two to the Texans, and the money just starts to come in and come in and come in. And so the fact that this market has only moved a little bit and not too much, indicates to me that Nobody in the betting space has a degree of confidence as to who's going to the commanders.

That's not to say Jaden Daniels isn't going. Say that usually once a guy is locked in, sharp betters sniff it out within 24 hours. Usually, sharp betters have a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, and they get the information. And so to me, this is still open. The fact that the strongest endorsement of Jaden Daniels we've gotten to this point is just, Oh, the other teams think he's going to? That does not clear the bar for me as, Okay, I definitely believe this is happening. I'm still suspicious.

In the next segment, we're going to talk about quarterbacks really quick, just about what you want if you're spending a top three pick on a quarterback. It is interesting to me, though. It's not like they've been trying to win Jade and Daniels over. I thought how they handled bringing all the quarterbacks in last week was pretty strange. If they I feel like Jade and Daniels was the guy, why wasn't a little more red carpety? I just thought that was weird. You mentioned the Trey Lance trade. The other doppelganger for the type of trade to move up would be what Chicago did last year with Carolina, where Chicago moves back from one to nine. They get a one and a two this year, which turned out to be the number one pick, and they got DJ more. That feels like less than the Trey Lance trade, but people also didn't last year's draft as much. It feels like, I would say people probably like the Daniels May combo. It feels like a whiff more than last year's quarterbacks. Do you think that's fair?

Yeah, absolutely. I definitely think so. The other thing about that trade that is challenging is the DJ more of it all because what exactly is DJ more worth?

Whenever you trade a few- Probably mid-second rounder, high second rounder, somewhere in there.

That's what I would have told you at the time. I would have been like, I guess he's a proxy for another one, but I really think of him as more of an early two. Then he had a better season for Chicago than I thought he would. I was like, Okay, maybe my estimation of DJ more was lower than it should have been. You see the deals that get signed by more wide receivers and you go, Oh, maybe getting a guy who already signed his deal and his signing bonus already belongs to the Panthers. Maybe that's part of it. The DJ more of it all is a little bit of a moving target. Whenever players get involved in draft day trades, man, it's hard to riddle out.

Well, what do you think Ayuk's worth? Do you think the Patriots could get Iuk for the 34th pick? Because San Francisco, I think they have 31. I So you could say for them, they would have 31 and 34. Obviously, take a receiver with one of those, you'd save the money that you're not paying Ayuk because you're already paying Debo, you're already paying Kittle, you're already paying McCafree. But it feels like he's worth maybe 10 spots higher than that because I think Iuk is really good. To me, he should be in the 20 to 22 range if I'm trading a pick for him. But maybe the pats could get him for that. I don't know.

I don't think you're moving them off Aiyuk for 34, even if you could say, Oh, he's only worth 34. The way that John Lynch is playing this and talking about this, he's presenting that the 49ers are extremely reticent to move Aiyuk, that they expect to get a deal done with Aiyuk. So whether that's gamesmanship or reality, it's going to take a lot, I think, to move the Niners off of Aiyuk. You go and you look at the AJ Brown trade, the Eagles sent 18 straight for A. J. Brown and then signed him to a big deal immediately following. When the Ravens sent Marquise Brown to the Cardinals, they sent Brown and a third to get the 23rd overall pick. So you're looking at, all right, the deals have typically involved that late teens, early 20 pick. Obviously, Baltimore sent a decent pick as well with Marquise Brown. So yeah, I'm thinking Iuk is 23 straight up, 24 straight up. And then if you're doing 34, you've got to include probably more on top of that to get the 49ers done. But I don't think the 49ers want the optics of we trade a brand Iyuk for two seconds.

I think they would want to see a pick that's got a two in front of it. They want to pick in the first round.

Right. So that could be... I'm looking. That'd be an interesting packer's trade. I'm not sure they would trade with them. Yeah, It's not really a fit for that. More trade down teams. Arizona, four, you mentioned. They have 4, 27, 35, 66, 71, and 90, just out of the top 90 picks. If they went backwards and also got 11 and 23 and Minnesota stuff, if that was the Minnesota trade, man, that would be good. Or maybe the Giants move up two spots and throw them something else for their troubles, and they still get the receiver they want. I guess the question for me is, is the difference in Marvin Harrison and the other two top receivers that significant that it's not worth McCarthy going in that four spot? Because McCarthy on Fandool, he's plus 400 right now. I just feel like he's going to go four. I don't know how it's going to happen, but somebody's going to move into that spot because even if you say whether this is, what do you think, 11 players, 12 players drop off, 10 players, 11, it's somewhere between 10 and 12, depending on who you like.

Yeah. But you have the four quarterbacks, you have the three receivers, you have Brock Bowers. Then it depends how many top tackles you have in high field by the defensive players. I'd probably put it like, yeah, about 11 because I like all- Somewhere 11, 12.

Then somebody will take some defensive player five spots higher than he should go. Then maybe that pushed it 13. If you're Arizona, you could move back six, seven spots and still feel like, Oh, we're still getting a blue chipper. Plus, we're getting more picks. We're trying to rebuild our team. I know everybody loves Harrison, but I don't think people feel like he's going to be one of the best three receivers in the NFL at any point in his career. I haven't heard that. Have you?

Yeah, I don't think people talk about him like that. I think the main reason why people don't talk about him like that is because Malik Nabors is so good and because Rome is so good. And so if you say, Man, all three of these guys are great. Oh, and also, I think Marv can be a top five guy, then you're implying, Hey, Malik and Rome might be top five guys. At that point, you're too high on the top three receivers. There's just too much gas. This is a really, really, really Really good top three wide receiver group. In any given draft, Malik Nabors is the first receiver off the board. Rome and Dunes is the first receiver off the board. If you look back at that 22 class that had like, Drake London and Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson and Jamison Williams, I would have had Roma Dunes, Malik Nabors, Marvin Harrison, all of them as the first receiver graded in that group. This top three is truly like elite of the elite. You said the word blue chipper. It is a blue chip group. This is the cream of the crop. That's why the Cardinals are very interesting because I agree the Cardinals should look at a tradeback, but I wouldn't want to move back too far.

Because right now, who's the third best player on the Cardinals? They have a lot of C-tier level talent, average level talent. They've done a good job scraping it together, finding guys in the margins, day three, picks and freeing them from other teams. But in terms of impact, guys, guys might be one of the best at their position. Kyler is like, fringe top 10 quarterback. They have Paris Johnson, who's a growing young tackle, who's great as a rookie on the right side. They have Buda Baker, who's been a good safety for them. Other than that, they don't have dudes who dominate, dudes who decide on Sunday, I'm winning this ball game, and then do. They moved off the Will Anderson pick last year, go and get Paris Johnson to accumulate some picks. That was good business. But at some point, you have to stop sending the buck into the future, and you have to stay and draft some impact players. The Cardinal's roster doesn't need Picks 38 and Picks 76 and Picks 54. The Cardinal's roster needs to pick six. Then he pick four. That's the player they need right now. They need a blue-chip guy, a field-tilting high-gravity individual.

And so if they move all the way back from from 4 to 11 or 4 to 12 or make that big leap, I'll be curious to see if they stay or if they try to hop back up into the top 10 like they did last year with the Paris Johnson deal, because this team needs blue chippers. They need that elite player.

Well, you're speaking my blue chip language. I love the blue chippers. That's what I do all summer is try to figure out blue chippers and pink chippers. The trade that makes the most sense to me is Arizona and the Giants' Flip & Picks. The Giants have 6 and 47 and 70. Is 6 and 47 and maybe like a third round or next year enough to jump two spots. And if you're Arizona, I'm still getting a receiver, plus now I'm getting 47.

Yeah. So when the Jets traded up from 6 to 3:00 to go get Sam Donnell, this was in the 2018 NFL draft, they sent six to this year's second rounders, and then a future second rounder. So the price to move up from six to three was three second rounders total. So when you start talking about six to four, and again, I'm talking about a high desire draft pass. I'm talking about, Hey, I'm on the phone with Giants, but I'm telling you, I've got Minnesota area codes on this line. I've got Denver area codes on that line. Everybody wants to steal. I got Vegas.

Vegas is getting super aggressive.

Exactly, yeah. I'd like to get multiple... Okay, we'll start with... We're looking at three twos of that previous framework. I'm going to try to get twos in a one. I'm going to try to get multiple picks off you, at least a one, at least a two, and then probably a third pick as well. I think you can jack the price up. I think there's a lot of leverage right now if you're that tradeback team.

The thing to be- But hold on, though. That's where it gets scary if you're a Giants fan. Because if you're running the Giants, you're like, Hey, man, if McCarthy doesn't hit, we're all out of here anyway. So, yeah, maybe we'll trade next year's first and six to move up to four.

And that's always the thing. As the GM of the Vikings, Quessi, I next to be the guy picking with his first round pick next year. He's probably going to keep his job. The same is true of George Payton with the Broncos. George Payton isn't running that draft from Sean Payton, but still.

Even after the Russell Wilson trade, he's still going to keep his job.

But if Sean Payton wants that job next year, and I think Sean's the guy who's more running the draft room, he's going to be there to make that pick. Raiders at 13. They just hired Tom Telesco. He's going to be there to make that pick. If you're Joe Shane with the Giants at 6, you're a little bit less confident that you're going to be the guy there making that pick next year. And so once you start to feel that heat as a GM, start spending next year's picks because either it's your problem to figure out next year or it's somebody else's problem to figure out next year because you don't have the job anymore. And so I do think, right, the Giants, if I were the Giants right now and I felt like I could move the Patriots off of three for a huge upcharge, 125 %, 130 % of what it should be, I still might do it just to get control of the draft, just to be in charge and not have to worry about making the draft day trades. And that's why I say every day that a trade doesn't get done, I feel more worried for the Vikings because I'm just like, man, you Guys, you have the two first job picks this year.

You've been very clear for two months. You want to trade up. You feel like you've been in a pole position this whole time. So why hasn't the bell run? Why haven't you crossed the finish line? What are we waiting for here? And so I'm worried for the Vikings for that reason. I do think the Giants have a good reason to get aggressive, trying to move up and be the team that gets their quarterback.

Well, I wonder if you're the Pats at three, could you get the Giants, the six pick, their first next year, and also get 47 or a third first? I wonder what the price is just to move three spots to get into that top three territory. Because the other piece of this is there's been a lot of Vegas Daniels buzz. Just anecdotally, people are like, Vegas loves Daniels. Daniels would be amazing. Daniels doesn't really go to Washington.

Yeah. Antonio Piers, who's the head coach of the Raiders now, was at Arizona State when they recruited Jaden Daniels. So he recruited Jaden back in the day when he was a boy. Yeah.

Right. So Vegas has 13, 44, 77, 112, and then their first for the next couple of years. And it's like, what's their godfather offer? The problem with them at 13 is now you're moving out of that top 11, that top 12, and it gets a little dicey if you're three or four. It's like, I'm going back to 13. Am I even going to get one blue chipper? What am I We're getting out of this? It's almost like Vegas has to do two deals. The other thing is, so New England could rig it. So they get, let's say, Minnesota is like, All right, 25 and 26 first, 11 and 23 to move up to three. And the Pats like, We got to do that. Sure. So they make that trade, and then they use all that capital to try to move back to get to four if they like McCarthy as much or more than May. Does it feel the other way? That's the other way this could go, where the Pats trade back, and then they trade 80% of what they got to move back to four, keep the extra 20%, and they got McCarthy anyway.

That's my fear, is that they like McCarthy more than May, and they're going to try to get super smart the same way we would if we were just having dinner, Hey, what if we move back? Almost like fantasy baseball. We'll move back, then we'll move back up. It's like, eh.

It's not easy to do. You got to have the second half done when you do the first half. That's typically what you'd like to be the case. When we talked about that Trey Lance deal, we got to remember when the dolphins moved back, they moved back from 3 to 12, and then they immediately moved back up from 12. I think they went like six to 6 to 8, and they went God, Jay, the Waddle. They had the second half tied up before they pulled the trigger on the first half. Then you go and you look at the Cardinals last year when they moved back off of Will Anderson and then move forward from Paris Johnson. They did that on draft night. And so that's where you get that super cut, that four and a half minute highlight reel of Monte Austin Fort. Got six phones. Jonathan Gannon is watching him like, Oh, this is crazy. Which we're a little bit hypebeasting Monte Austin Fort too much. We're just calling people. But in general, it is higher stakes when you've got to do it on draft night when the bullets are live. And so good on Monte to pull that off.

It is challenging to do. You want to have the second half in place. You mentioned pocket deals earlier. I can't imagine how many pocket deals there are right now, conditional on what happens at two and what happens at three. And you feel good about a, Hey, Arizona told us if it's Jane at two as we expect, and it's may at three as we expect, three first, we'll move up to four. It's JJ McCarthy. He's a Viking. Great. You feel good if you can say that in the room, but a lot happens between now and then, and you can't fully believe it until you see it. So, yeah, the bullets are going to fly on draft night in the top 10. If we get a chalky first hour of the NFL draft where the trades that happen are the ones we expect and the players go where we go, I'll be flabbergasted. There are too many dark horses. There's too many tradeback teams. There's too many trade-off teams. Something's going to break. It's going to be a weird night.

Well, especially if the Raiders tell the Pats, Hey, if Dennis falls to three.

Yeah.

This is on the table right now. Our first, and we'll give next year's first, the first after that. Let's take a break. I want to talk about a couple more move down teams, and then I want to throw a giant quarterback there. The road to the NBA final starts now, my friends. New customers on FanDuel can go on their own playoff run with $150. Just place any $5 bet and you'll get $150 in bonus bets, win or lose, to use during the NBA playoffs. Fanduel, now live in our nation's capital, Washington, DC, the home of Joe House. Just go to fanduel. Com/bs to get started. Fanduel, official sports spending partner of the NBA, you must be 21 plus, 18 plus in DC. President, Slack States, Gambling problem, call 1-800. Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. First online, real money wager only, $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-with-draught bonus, bets that expire seven days after receipt, restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fanduel. Com. All right, move down teams. Arizona at four, we mentioned. Chargers at five. They have 537, 69, 105, and 110. They're like, Can we just get somebody good? I don't even think it really matters.

They need receivers. They need to tackle. Could they go back from 5 to 9? If Chicago says to themselves, Man, we're locked and loaded now. Let's go up and get one of the three best receivers. We don't feel like all three of them be gone by the time it gets to nine. We'll just move up to five with the chargers, give them some other stuff, and try to lock down the second best receiver in the group. I feel the same way for Tennessee at seven. They have 7, 38, 106, and everybody has them just taken Joe Alt or some left tackle. They could move back two spots with Chicago, pick up some stuff, let Chicago take the third receiver. Would you consider Atlanta at number eight a move down team or a stay put team? They have 843, 74, 79, and 109. If they take another receiver, they should probably take the team away. They just can't. You can't take another receiver. You can't. You shouldn't be allowed. But anyone else said they're like, What do they do? That's another team I just can't figure out.

Yeah. Terry Fontana, this will be his fourth draft as the GM of the Falcons. In the first three, he's made all top 10 picks, picked at 4, 8, and 8, and he's picked a tight end wide receiver and running back, right? Yeah. That plus the contracts they put into the offensive line and then the Kirk Cousins deal This offense is supposed to be very good, according to the numbers, according to the money spent and the pick spent, which high expectations in Atlanta, who, by the way, have not won a playoff game, made the playoff in the last eight seasons. To me, I expect this to be defense because of the amount of resources that have been put into the offense. Accordingly, I think they're a tradeback team because there isn't really a defensive player in this class. We're like, Oh, yeah, for sure. Bonified top 10 pick. Go ahead and send it. You take Byron Murphy here, the defensive tackle out of Texas. I think I-Rouse will raise. I don't think anybody will be offended or flabbergasted. You take the top edge, whether that's Dallas turnout of Alabama or UCLA, Liatulatu. Again, I think people will be surprised.

I don't think people would be shocked. We have to remember the latest that the first defensive player has ever come off the board in the NFL draft, 2021, J. C. Horn, eighth overall pick. And that's what the Falcons are picking right now. And I'm telling you, one through seven is offense. If a defensive player goes one through seven, I will be astonished. So if the Falcons move out of this pick because someone's trying to get in front of the the bears at nine to go get a wide receiver, get in front of the jets at 10, you'll get a wide receiver, go get a tackle, then this will be the latest the first defensive player has ever come off the board. But if you're the Falcons and you like two or three defensive guys, it's a reasonable expectation that you can move from eight to 14, right? You move from 8 to 15. And one of those guys will still be available for you. So I very much expect the Falcons to be at least looking at the tradebacks because there's a chance that the guy they take at 8, they can just get at 14 anyway.

You've been known to gamble on a couple of things time to time in your Never. You've placed one or two wagers. On Fandol right now, the Cardinals are plus 180 to trade their pick, and the Chargers are plus 280 to trade their pick. I'm trying to figure out why you wouldn't just make both of those bets. You're going to at least get one and possibly two. But basically, 100 to win 180 on the Cardinals or 100 win 280 on the Chargers, so you could lose 200 potentially, or you win 80 or you win 180. I don't think there's any scenario where both of those teams keep their picks. I don't see it.

Yeah, I agree. I think that would be very surprising. I also am surprised that the Chargers are considered less likely to trade their pick than the Cardinals. The Cardinals have done a really clear job in terms of getting the message out to the media. Hey, if we have to stay at Four and take Marvin Harrison, we will be here at a party. We will be popping confetti in here. We are thrilled about that. Which again, some of that is gamesmanship. That's what you want the Vikings and the Raiders are ready to believe. But I also do believe there's veracity to that. I do. Because like I said, I think they need blue chippers. The chargers Five, the Chargers have just a desolate roster with a horrible cap situation. This team is in such desperate need. And remember, Jim Harbaugh is running the team, Michigan, whatever. Joe Ortiz is the GM there coming from Baltimore. Baltimore knows about a tradeback now. Ortiz will understand what is valuable in the draft is having a lot of swings at the play, especially when you're at a stage like the Chargers are, where they just have so many snaps to give young players, and they just need development from everybody.

The Chargers have two players who are veterans, who are in veteran deals, signed beyond 2025. It's Justin Herbert. They have three. It's Justin Herbert, Derwin James, and Will Disley. That's the team in 26. The team in 26 is Herbert throwing to Disley and Derwin James covering guy. They need pips. Right. So they just need dudes. They need guys who are cheap under contract for future years. They have a couple of rookie receivers and Tulio. They have some guys who are under contract, but it's nobody who you're thrilled about. So they need the bodies. I think the chargers are as likely, if not a little bit more likely to trade the pick than the Cardinals would. So I agree with taking both. I think between the two, the charges are plus 280 is the one that I'm most interested in buying.

Is it insane to say maybe it makes sense to buy JJ McCarthy plus 400 as the fourth pick, but also JJ McCarthy plus 450 as the fifth pick? And just say JJ McCarthy is going fourth or fifth in this draft because he's going to have the most value. We've seen this happen too many times, and there's no way he's falling past five.

So the JJ McCarthy over under is under five and a half at minus 148. And so basically what you're looking at, because you said plus 400 plus 450. Technically, right. Then, yeah, I think doing the math quickly.

You're betting that he's not going three.

You're betting that he's two or three, right? That's what you're assuming that he's coming in under, but you're not exposing yourself to two or three, which means you're really confident in McCarthy or you're confident in Daniels in May being those pics. I would say if you're somebody who owns a JJ McCarthy to go two overall ticket at a really long price, which I mean, I think a lot of people got over the course of the last couple of months. I know I have it. Then I'd be really inclined to take a little bit of four, take a little bit of five, instead of taking the under five and a half because you just protected on two. But at the same time, right now, figuring out the first four quarterbacks, for me, it's so challenging. I'm exposed to it six different ways to Sunday. I don't want to wrap myself in so many bets with so much juice that I'm just losing money no matter what happens. You start circling the drain a little bit. If you are trying to predict the exact outcomes, that's where you go to the top three picks, exact order, the top five picks, exact And that's where you sprinkle your long-shot stuff and you see if you get lucky there.

One other Trade-down team, Denver at 12. They have 12, they have 76, they have 121. That's it for picks. Yeah.

You would do better consulting a Ouija board to figure out what the Broncos are doing at 12 to ask me.

But the thing is, if they're going to take Pennex or Nix, if they really want to just get a quarterback out of this, especially if they decide they like Bo Nix and everybody's been talking and writing about how he's like an ideal Sean Payton type of quarterback, Could he be... Lombardi was saying, Could he be Andy Dalton? It's like, All right, Andy Dalton played in some playoff games. That's not a bad outcome. But you don't need to take them at 12. Could they potentially trade back into the 20s Just get them there, pick up some more picks. I just feel like that's a trade-down team. Trade-up teams, again, Chicago at 9, I think, is a team that has to move up. If they decide we want one of these receivers, I think they have to move up at least a couple spots. Minnesota at 11, we mentioned 11, 23, 108, 129, their picks. Vegas, we mentioned. The only other team I had as a possible trade-up team. What about the Green Bay packers?

Oh, yeah?

What about them picking 25, 41, 58, 88, 91, and dangling one of the receivers they already have with some of those picks with 25 and trying to get in that top 10 to get an absolute blue chipper? Right? Could Jaden Reid in the 25th pick and 41 and 58 to move to six so you can end up with neighbors? Does that make any sense to you or you think Green Bay just takes picks?

I think whenever you have the bird in the hand, which like Jaden Reid is not Malik neighbors, but you know he can do something. You've seen him play. That's always the scary part of it, right? Is if we do this and neighbors just misses, neighbors just pops his Achilles on day one of training camp. It's not just that we traded picks, that we traded a player that we could have done something with, right? So the bird in the hand thing always Takes a little bit of the wind out of the sales whenever teams want to execute these trades.

Because we don't usually see trades like that. In the NBA, we see trades like that. In the NFL, we don't, where it's like, here's a player who's worth this. Here's some pics. We're going to move up and we're going to grab this. I guess DJ Moore was the only time that's happened. Yeah.

And I think the argument I would make for why that happens is GM stability, which I think in the NBA, you probably feel like you have a better chance of holding on to the job for a longer period of time or at least selling an owner on a longer time frame of like, Hey, I'm going to do this over the course of several years than you do in the NFL, where I think GMs turn over a little bit quicker. But that's just my assumption. I don't know for sure if GMs actually have that substantially longer of a lifespan in the NBA. But I'm inclined to think the packers wouldn't want to go as big of a deal up for one of the top three as as opposed to looking around in the early teens, mid-teens, wherever Brian Thomas ends up going and saying, okay, are we able to go and get him and be aggressive there? Gutekunst, who's the GM of the packers, is an aggressive trade-up guy. He moves around in the first round. They moved up for Jair Alexander. They moved back, then they moved up for Jair. They moved up for Christian Watson.

They moved up for Jordan Love. They have historically moved up for their guys early in the draft. And so if a packer's measurable dude is falling, the packers only draft big guys. The Green Bay beat has the packers draft board nailed every single year because they have such clear measles that they look for. So if an Amaris Mims is falling, if a Graham Barton is falling, these are the players that the packers are going to be targeting. Terry and Arnold fits their needs and their athletic thresholds. Then, yeah, packers trading up is never a big surprise for me. Packers and Eagles are the two teams in the 20s who are always willing to trade up in the first round.

The funniest would be if the packers took Pennex at 25, and people were just like, No, not again. Why?

Are you expecting Pennex to be around one guy? Are you buying it? I'm very suspicious of it.

I just don't think enough teams need quarterbacks. And I thought first five picks a day two, I think those last two guys go because the over-under is four and a half, Yeah.

It was heavily juiced to the under early. It is now losing some of that juice because Pennex is over under, has been placed at 32 and a half with juice to the under. Right now, let's see what FanDuel has Pennex at. Pennex is at FanDuel, over-under, 32 and a half. The under is minus 270. Fanduel is telling you there's a 78, 82% chance that Michael Pennex is going in the first round.

That's for me. That's crazy to me because of the surgical stuff. We had this in basketball 20 years ago with Brandon Roy when his knees were bad and ended up going seventh, maybe sixth or seventh, somewhere in there. People were like, Look, it's going to be a great pick short term, but long term, this guy won't be able to play basketball. That's what happened. He had a five-year career and he was awesome. He left it. The Penek stuff, he's already had so much stuff happen to him. It's like when you draft running backs, we just want to get four years out of this guy and move on. Everything after four years with him feels like it would be a bonus for me because of how bad his knees I don't know. It just makes me nervous. It feels like the 30s would be a better spot for him.

Here's my philosophy on first-round quarterbacks. If a guy is going to go in the first round, the league figures it out by January. By January, we were getting Jane Daniels as a JJ McCarthy, that was happening. Pennex was on a team that played in the national championship game. Pennex has been around in college football for six seasons. He has been known. The idea that in April of 2024, the league was like, Why? First round, Michael Pennex? I just don't buy it. They would have already known. It would have already been established. He would have been up here since day one. For me, anytime it's a late-breaking round one quarterback, I'm very suspicious of it. To me, this feels like a Hent and hooker.

I'm glad we're aligned. The other thing, the red herring with him was the 4'6 speed at the combine because it's like, Well, this guy didn't run in college.

What do I care if he runs a 4'6? He rips off a 4'5, 6' at the pro day. People are like, Oh, he's an elite athlete. I'm like, Dude, I watched him play. He doesn't run. I don't know where this was.

I don't see it with him. Granted, I'm not a Mr. Quarterback, Jojo, but there's some red flags with that, the body type, but then also the fact that he can't really move around. That one makes me nervous. Bo Nix, I could see him coming in and being poor men's Andy Dalton. But ultimately, I think we have four first-round quarterbacks. Mccarthy, somebody had a tweet about him, about 10th grade, 13 and 1, won the state Championship. 11th grade, 13 and 1, lost the state Championship. 12th grade, 8-0, won the national Championship. Didn't start as a freshman in Michigan, 12-1 at the starter as a sophomore, 15-0 as a junior, won the national Championship. Jj McCarthy is a winner. He just wins football games. That's the narrative. You're a skeptical NFL analyst draft guy. Do you believe in narratives? Do you believe some people are just winners?

Yes, but I think it It has a lot less impact. It matters a lot less than we like for it, too. It's a little bit like momentum, where it's like, oh, no, I'm positive. Momentum is real. I can feel it. It's in my lived experience of things. It is happening. Now, does the effect that it has on the outcome reflect or is it proportional to its realness, its proximity to me, how much I feel it? Probably not. I think the fact that McCarthy has won so many games gives him a disposition towards playing football, especially down in the fourth quarter, divisional game, Monday Night Football game, primetime game, seven-point game. He's made mistakes. There becomes a little bit of a sense of ordination or pre-ordination. Well, listen, I just win ball games. Don't worry about it. There becomes an unbelievable, just a towering level of confidence that is good for a quarterback to have. You want your quarterback to feel immortal. You want your quarterback to feel like bullets would bounce off of him in those moments. It's going to give him the confidence to make the plays you'd like for him to make. And so I do think that that benefits McCarthy to have had that experience.

Versus if you look at some of the experience a Drake may have this year at UNC, where that offensive line was terrible. He's getting a David Card a little bit, where he's like, All right, at any time, I might be getting demolished by a 300 pounder off my blindside a second and a half into the play. Our past experience predicts our future experience in everything that we do, and certainly in playing quarterback. Now, McCarthy's a winner. He's always been a winner. Yeah, I mean, if he goes, let's say he goes, Forgive me, Bill, to the Patriots at three with their roster, he ain't going to be a winner next year very much.

We don't have a left tackle or a decent receiver, so I don't know how many games he's winning.

And so, oh, McCarthy is a winner. But you know what? Probably impacts winning more. How good is your left tackle? That's still the thing that impacts winning more than the mystique and the persona around the guy.

The funniest thing that could happen from a holy shit standpoint with this NFL draft is if the Chargers traded Herbert over the next 48 hours. Let's say the Chargers just traded Herbert to Washington for the number two pick and got all the pics. Washington has so many pics and just like, holy shit, they did it. And then his end game would be to end up with McCarthy and a bunch of pics and to sell on Herbert.

I know you're laughing, but- No, I'm laughing because I agree. The minute that Harbaugh went to owners meetings and said, JJ McCarthy is the best quarterback in this class.

It did raise my attention.

If I were Ryan Polls, I would have called Joe Ortiz that second. I would have been like, One for Herbert. It's JJ McCarthy for Herbert, straight up. Because I'm giving you one. You go pick the guy. One for Herbert right now. I guess you probably don't call him Ortiz because Ortiz is the voice of reason. But maybe you call Jim if you've got Jim's number. Absolutely. I would do it. Then if I were, I get no joke, 100% serious. I'm Ryan Polls. The clock starts to pick one overall. I got 10 minutes on the clock. I'm talking to my guys. I'm hanging out. We're so excited to pick Caleb. Then right before I send the pick in, I just go to a dark corner when no one will see me, and I call the chargers. I say, Are you short? Mccarthy for Herbert right now. And then they say no, and then I pick Caleb Williams, and I feel amazing. And I make sure I don't tell anybody that I did that. But absolutely, I'm calling that bluff. There's no cost, and there's huge benefit, 100 %.

Well, let's talk this out. So chargers trade Herbert for the number one pick. Then they have a second deal with Washington, where they move back one spot, and Washington has- Oh, Washington gets Caleb? Yeah, Washington gets Caleb, and Washington has a shitload of pics, right? They have- Two, 36, 40. Two, 36, 40, 67, 78, 100. They have their first next year. It's like, Hey, man, you want Caleb? Now you move back to two.

This is some draft day nonsense.

You just take McCarthy at two. Oh, my God. I mean, this would be the most fun. It's like, Oh, you really do think JJ McCarthy is going to be a great quarterback? You just fucking traded Justin Herbert. Holy shit.

I know, and I'm positive, and I'm certain, and I'm guaranteed that Harba is just talking because it's free, and he's just saying it because it's not going to matter to him. He has Herb, and who cares? He can say whatever he wants. He's going out for his guys. But for the slightest sliver of the possibility that he's crazy enough to do it, you make the call, and then you make the call again.

Well, as we've discussed many times, can't remember a lot of great Justin Herbert moments so far. What are you trading? No, I know he's good, but it's like... It would be funny. I think out of all the things that could happen on draft day, other than Chicago not taking Caleb Williams, just taking another quarterback this would be the most jaw-dropping, shocking thing.

It does feel like five years from now when Herbert has bounced to two different teams and McCarthy's- He's Jay Cutler. Mccarthy won an AFC Champions Game or whatever, there's going to be some story written like a Harbaugh's biography where someone's going to have a story about how he almost got so close to pulling the trigger and trading for McCarthy over Herber and Ortiz in a letter. It does feel like the thing that we learned about in 2032. So looking forward to that.

I love those when the guys three, four years later. Like, I told my owner, and it's like, Is there any evidence? Is there a video of you telling him this?

It's crazy how good I am at drafting once I know which players are good. I'm 100% hit rate once I know who's good or not. It's unbelievable how much I knew.

I tried to I know people. All right, one more break, and then I have one more thing to do with you. All right, so I've been saving this for you for two months. Oh, I did some real recon on this because my team has a top three pick, and I've been really thinking about quarterbacks and what works and what doesn't work. A lot of people have done work on this. Rosillo updates his thing every year. It's a 50/50. It's probably even 45% now that you're going to hit on your top pick. I used to feel like it was 50/50. I actually feel like the odds are probably worse. Look, situation is 80% of this, where you could take somebody who may have been really good and he's just in the wrong spot and one thing leads to another, and you just watch a guy's confidence get shattered. I'll never know if Mac Jones is going to be a good quarterback. He's slapped the ball, he wasn't a good athlete. But there was a scenario with a different team, with a real offensive coordinator, with a QB coach, with a certain type of system where maybe he could have been Brock Perry in the Niners.

I don't know. There's other guys that just aren't going to happen. I'm leaving situation out of this. I'm going to give you the nine reasons why I think a quarterback will fail.

Is this if he has one of the nine, he's done?

He can survive it.

Okay.

But when he fails, it's usually at least one of these things, maybe more, maybe two, maybe three. First one, not a leader, unpopular. The Bo Callahan theory. Who came to his birthday party? Nobody. I feel like this nailed Carson Wents a little bit.

Yeah, they lost the room.

You saw that with the Eagles, right? Kind of lost the room. It happens. It's a thing that happens.

Right. It's that plus, which I imagine is also on your list, which is injury. He got hurt. That plus losing the room is just you lose your juice, you lose your momentum.

Yeah. There's one. There's some Caleb Williams stuff that I think a lot of people have alluded to and talked about it. Just like, Hey, the quarterback is supposed to be the coolest, most charismatic guy on your team. Can he be a leader? Can he be the coolest guy? Can he be the calming force? Or is he just a little bit enigmatic? Can you be an enigmatic, awesome quarterback? There's some dialog about it. Next one. Too sloppy. Sloppiness, I feel like, is the number one thing we overlook with quarterbacks. This was the Sam Darnold thing, right? You go back in college and look at Sam Darnold. Just super sloppy. And not just interceptions, but fumbles. Not not being able to basically protect the ball. Darnold had 27 college games. He had 14 fumbles and 20 interceptions in the 27 college games. And there was a lot of people were writing about this when it happened. There were some stats from 2007 and 2017. Qbs with eight fumbles or more in their final college season. The list was RG3, Jamarcus Russell, Ponder, Jake Locker, Blake Bortles, and Blaine Gabbard. It's like, Well, that's not a good list.

I don't want to be on that list. That's your final year. You had eight fumbles? Well, Caleb had eight fumbles last year. He did 33 over three years. That makes me a whiff nervous. The interception rate, it's a little tougher to figure out because sometimes guys are in offenses where it's like, Hey, man, just take chances. Just hunk it downfield. But I think the combo of those, would you agree? If you're sloppy in college, you're probably going to be sloppy as a pro because these guys are faster. They're coming at you all. The coaches are better. Sloppiness, I feel like, carries.

Absolutely, yeah. My line is always, quarterbacks don't change their stripes. So your play style is your play style. You can get a lot better or a lot worse within your play style. A lot of different play styles can be elite, and a lot of different play styles can be really bad. But you are what you are. If you're a high turnover player, you're probably going to say a high turnover player. If you're a high sac player, you're probably going to say a high sack player. If you're a high throw away player, check down player, you're probably going to say a high throw away check down player. Tiger doesn't change his stripes.

Next one. You're just too short.

Yes, agreed.

We can fake this in a bunch of ways, but when you're too short, you're too short, and you have to be fucking fast, or you have to have just incredible poised the way Russ did. Because Russ was probably too short, but Russ for years, was a magician with the way he was able to move around the pocket and buy himself time. So you can be short if you can buy a time.

And the deep ball made it worth it, too. Because when you're short, oftentimes you're losing the intermediate area of the field. It becomes really hard to throw to. So you lose some of those explosives that are in the intermediate level of the field. Russ could pay you back on that with really, really good deep accuracy. And even like early Breeze, people always forget with breeze. Early breeze, young breeze was hucking that thing. He was shooting down the field. And then breeze also had preternatural vision and sense and feel. And that's where late stage breeze, when you couldn't throw it down the field as much, was just like hitting windows the moment they opened, crystalline, perfect clarity between two linemen. Just a gorgeous understanding of feel and space, maestro-level stuff. And so that, right, if you're going be short, you better have some truly unique traits. And that's where your Baker struggles, your Bryce Young struggles, and Kyler starts to become your pivot point, starts to become your inflection point. It's like, okay, when he's healthy, Kyler's got it sometimes, and he can get around it. When Kyler So it's not healthy and he can't move as much, then you start to see the limits of the size.

It's a tough one because I still don't know where I stand on Bryce Young, but I know that he could not throw the ball over the middle of the field, and I don't know if that ever changed. So now you got to be moving around and you got to be hitting deep balls. Otherwise, you're not making it. Next one, not athletic enough. This is Mac Jones. Mac Jones is just not athletic enough. There's a world where you could have created a system that works, but ultimately, he just seemed like an inferior athlete in every football game he was in to the guys he was playing against. And at some point, defense has figured that out.

That's the one that Jared Goff somehow survived. Goff endured. Goff is the last great just statue drafted first overall. We'll never see another one. He's the last of a dying breed. If he just sits back there and hopes the pocket says, Clean up. And by this point, he's crossed the Rubicon. He's good enough now that he gets away with it. Early on, it was like, Okay, Sean McBay is helping him. But Goff is the guy, to me, where I, athletically, I watch him now, and I go back and watch him at Cal, and I'm like, How is this dude possibly surviving the NFL? But he's got it. That's the one he survived.

Yeah, Bledso had a little of that, too, where he was just 6'6, and anytime he was running, limbs were just going everywhere, and eventually it came and got him. The God thing, a little bit of the situation with him, where he goes to McVeigh Graduate School, and then goes to this lion situation where it's like, Hey, man, anything you give us is a bonus. And then he gets a good offensive coordinator. He gets weapons. They build around him, and everything is additive, positive, and somehow it worked out. But I think there's nine other scenarios where he's out of the league already, right?

Yeah. And it's always with him with Cousins, the thing that always stands out to me is they just started for long enough in these systems that eventually they got good. Experience is so helpful. Once you start 70, 75, 80 games, you round out your game. You know where your bread is butter. You know what you can get away with what you can't. And they can actually start giving you more. Like, golf in the playoffs last year was playing big boy, grown up 101, quarterbacking and doing it well. That was for real stuff. And Goff wasn't capable of that the last time he made a play off run with the Rams. And that's why they moved off of him. But eventually experience accumulates and you start to really, really sharpen and hone what you're about. So Goff, it was fun to take the Mickey out of golf in the late 2010s, but now we got to give him his due a little bit.

Yeah, I agree. Next one is Too Raw. That's Trubisky and Lance. Just Too Raw. Didn't play enough games at quarterback and came into the league and things were too fast. No matter what their athletic traits were, didn't have enough experience. They were the guys playing the video game that you just jumped them from the rookie to the all madden level and they just couldn't handle it.

So is it starting experience for you? That's the solution because people will talk about rawness as a.

I don't know if it's starting games in college or just not enough time playing the position or what it is.

Because the name that immediately came to my mind was Anthony Richardson, who obviously only started the one season of Florida last year. And we talked a lot about his rawness coming out. But for me, it was always like, all right, he's not raw. He's just an experience. You can see him. To me, raw is always like, they don't know how to process. They don't know what they're supposed to be looking at. They get back there deer in headlights. They're confused. They're disoriented. They haven't started to ingrain the instincts, the subconscious decisions that a quarterback needs to make at lightning speed. Richardson was always, for me, in experience, not raw. He was always like, okay, I can see him making the choices. Yeah? He just doesn't have enough time yet to really get the plan off the ground. I think you saw in his four starts with the Colts, how that in experience, but not raw, he would make some mistakes, but you'd also have some high caliber plays. So raw is always a tough thing to categorize. It's basically what I'm getting at.

Where would you put Zack Wilson on that?

Yeah. So Wilson... I would not have described Wilson as raw. What I would describe Wilson as is cuddled. And that's one that I'm interested to see where you come out with the rest of your numbers. I'm always very cautious of quarterbacks who are playing at a lower level, we're playing with other NFLers, and we're just playing on easy mode, right? Just running the game on normal mode, and then have to deal with some of the challenges that you're going to see in the NFL. Thinking Thinking about Zack Wilson as being one of those guys, thinking about Carson Wentz, having that a little bit as well at North Dakota State. Just when these guys have really just really sweet environments in which to develop, to a little bit, but like obviously he's at Alabama. But still, when they're just playing with all these top 10 picks, all these top 20 picks, sometimes it becomes hard to see the cracks in the facade because they're just protected. They're insulated by the guys around them.

Whereas Josh Allen, nobody believed in him, had to go to Juco, still only got a couple of scholarships. I've just got to win people over. What else could I Three more. Oh, four more. Too erratic, too inaccurate, which is also Zack Wilson. Just fundamentally, just can't consistently throw the ball to the guys on his team. That's a skill that I don't... Other than Josh Allen and maybe one or two other examples over the last 25 years, usually doesn't get better from college to the pros.

It's Trey Lance, too. Trey Lance and Paxton Lynch. Those guys just missed two Too many players.

It's like, whoa, you're spraying around. Weak arm, Josh Rosen. It's just like, your arm's not strong enough. Steve Walsh, who predates you, you weren't even born yet, but Steve Walsh was Dallas draft. I can't remember if Dallas drafted for him or traded for him. But he was one of those guys who was Steve Walsh, winner, game manager. And then he just got to the pros, and you could time his throws of the sundial. But Weak Arm, I think, killed Josh Rosen, also who was not athletic enough.

Yeah, Kenny Picket, I put up there with Weak Arm well, where Picket just doesn't access enough of the field to scare me. He throws a nine ball, and it's short every time. I'm just like, All right, I can stop this guy. Don't worry about it.

Two more. Two one dimensional. I think this is the Justin Fields problem that a couple of teams exposed last year, like the Browns in that one Justin Fields game, where they were like, Oh, you can only do this. So we're going to make you do this instead. And there was no plan B. We'll see if he can shed that one. You are a bigger Justin Fields fan than others, But to me, it's like, Oh, he succeeds in this one type of game. But can he succeed in multiple types of games? I am not convinced.

That's the thing is I agree with you. And the one dimensionality makes it impossible for the bears to keep him for a year overtaking Caleb Williams. But whenever it came to, hey, Sam Howell is going for a third. Kenny Pickett is going for a fourth. It was like, all right, Justin Fields might be one dimensional, but that one dimension is pretty good. 4, 4, 2, 40. We like that 4, 4, 2, 30, a quarterback. That is a rare thing to have. The thing about fields that interests me for the second stage of his career as a QB2, as a spot QB1, is just his dimension. If Garner-Minshu's one dimension is like, I'm accurate, and Justin Fields' one dimension is like, I can outrun everyone on defense. I was a little bit more interested in the Justin Field dimension.

Last one, you mentioned Coddled, Uncoachable, not a hard worker. That's basically the Jamarcus Russell, the famous story about they gave him the DVD with the plays and they put something in it. Whatever that story was, we never thought. Those are some guys, too, where they're just like, they just don't want to put the time in. If we're going backwards and we're not counting wrong situation or we're not counting injury, not a leader unpopular, too sloppy, too short, not athletic enough, too raw, too erratic and accurate, weak arm, two one-dimensional, uncoachable, cottled, not a hard worker. Then you look at all the guys we're staring at right now, and we already talked about Caleb. If I give you those nine things, what worries as you with Jaden Daniels.

Yeah, I would say one dimensional, right? Because he is really like a one read and scramble guy. He does not want to sit there, go through his reads, and get to a check down. I would say the dimensionality of it worries me. We didn't really say late breakout, talked about a little bit being too coddled, but just he had a Kenny Picket career arc where he started for four seasons, never really moved the needle as an NFL guy. And then all of a sudden, his fifth season when he was older and the environment around him had two top 10, top 20, I should wide receiver. His left tackle might be the first shoot off the board next year. He's had NFLers across the field. He all of a sudden looks really good. And so environment and the coddled nature that he got there, I think that red flags for me. And then he's not too short. He's a little bit slight. And I think that body arm-A little bit slight.

He's allegedly weighed 2.10, which to me means he's 205.

Yes, he is extremely slight. It's funny when you go and you try to find athletic comps for him in terms of his height weight. He's one of the best comps for him is Tom braided because he's 6'4, 2'0, 5, which is also Brady's size of the combine. It's just very funny that Jaden and braided cannot possibly be more different in terms of how they play the position. So, yes, I think those are your red flags for Daniels.

For May- But just because we haven't talked about him on this pod. The age piece, I guess that's another way a QB can fail. I don't know how to figure out how to put that in. But to trying to compare somebody like May, who's 21, and Daniels, who's a year and a half older, who spent half a decade in college, and as you mentioned, in his fifth year, ended up in the best possible situation. I don't know how to evaluate that because a year ago, you wouldn't have put him in the top three.

Right. And I said, I was talking outside of my mouth. I said, Jared Goff gets all this experience. He's good now. And you say, well, okay, well, Ben, like Jane and Daniels got all this experience. Isn't it true that he could improve and develop? And the answer is yes. The same is true of like Bo Nix, who absolutely got better at Oregon than he was at Auburn over his five years. Michael Panek's at Washington got better than he did over his time in college as well. I want to draft the quarterback before he develops. I don't want to draft the final product. I don't want, okay, this is what Jaden Daniels final product is. It's scrambling all over the place. It's tucking and running. It's not going through his reads. It's not throwing in the middle of the field. I agree that he's gotten better, and it's okay to get better over time and get all these reps on this opportunity. But if this is closer to your ceiling than Drake May is or JJ McCarthy is, I'd rather go that direction because I believe in my coaching staff. I believe in my ability to foster development in quarterbacks.

Of course, I need to actually have that. I need to have that present in my building. And some teams don't have the wide receiver, the offensive line, the coaching staff necessary to do so.

Well, and then you think like, Drake May, all right, let's say he stays another year in college, and then in his fifth year, goes to a team like LSU had. Would he have been really good? I'm going to say yes.

This is also Justin Herbert theorem as well a little bit, because remember Justin Herbert went back to school because he was a giant geek who cared about getting his degree. He was a bit... But for the league, it was like, Oh, no, he went back as a senior, and then he played better that that year than he did as a junior, in my opinion. I liked him more come off as a senior year than he did off as a junior year. But the league had already decided, he's too old, and why did he go back? And he should have dominated, and he didn't win the Heisman. There's always the narrative arcs can get convoluted at this thing.

I also like that Drake may stayed at North Carolina when he easily could have left because you knew the team wasn't going to be as good. He could have just jumped to some other program, tried to win the Heisman, tried to have an awesome season, positioned himself as his number of pick. And I don't even think he even considered it. He's like, I'm North Carolina. My dad went here. My brother went here. This is where I'm staying. And if we're not as good this year, so be it. These are my guys, which I think matters.

Yeah. And my number one takeaway from charting this year, where I watched all the games from the senior seasons, was just how bad UNC's supporting cast was. I think people know the name Tess Walker because he had his dispute with the NCAA, and he's certainly an NFL receiver. He's a middle-round guy, and I think he might be the only NFLer on that team. The tight-end might be a late-round guy when the day comes. Beyond that, this offensive line was really, for a college line, dramatically below average. And they didn't have schematic solutions to help them in protection. Like, May was throwing on the Superman cape every Saturday.

And his OC had left from the year before, right?

Yes, Phil Longo was replaced. I can't remember the name of the new OC. But so they're right. They had a massive switch overall. They lost talent. And May is just dying back there to beat George's attack. It was not a good situation for him.

So would you say for him, too erratic and accurate it would be the way that he fails?

Yes. I think too erratic and inaccurate. I think a proxy for too erratic, a little bit too sloppy, I think, is maybe a better one for me.

Slappy. Oh, yeah. Too sloppy is even better. Yeah.

It's because May is so aggressive.

Well, you called him a big game hunter, which I loved. He's just always going to take the 50-yarder over the 20-yarder.

May loves to just be like, What if I won the game on one play? And he'll do that first quarter, eight minutes left, second and You're like, Dude, there's a lot of game left. You got to chill out. There's nothing May loves more than identifying a blitz and saying, Okay, well, my hot read's over there. But really, if I wait for a second and the post gets over, he just loves opportunity. If you're going to let a little bit more space developed for him, he's going to try to kill you for it. So he is very aggressive. I don't think he's in the red with aggression where you're just like, Okay, this guy is reckless. He's never going to fix this. Jameis Winston, he's going to have 30 touch downs, 30 pics. We're not going to be able to field an offense here. I think he's more in the yellow where it's like, Okay, we can get away with this, but we probably need to calibrate you back. But I think the sloppiness is more the red flag than the erraticness because a lot of his accuracy issues are a product of the fact that he's attempting 28-yard throws into the sideline into a tight window.

Where it's like, okay, yes, this wasn't the most accurate pass, but also it's because only the most precise pass could have possibly been caught in this context. If he was just throwing bone-next checkdowns the whole game, he'd look really accurate.

Well, he'll get used to them, the Patriots next year. Receivers that aren't open trying to squeeze things in. Just before we go, JJ McCarthy, what would you say if you failed? Out of those nine things I gave you, what would be the reason? Oh, I like JJ. Jesus.

I do. I think if you were making me commit my franchise to a guy and I had to pick between JJ and Jaden. Honestly, the closer we get, the more I feel like I'm like, man, I think I would do JJ. I think I would. I think McCarthy, I think the rawness is there. I do think that you just have so little data. You have a small sample size for what he was in college, especially in the context of... People say, oh, if you look at his numbers on third down, they were good. I'm like, oh, when he was trading in fourth quarter, they were good. Yes, but he never entered a game under the conditions that Caleb and Drake entered it, where they were like, or even Jaden, where it's like, Hey, if I'm not the best player on the field for four quarters, we're going to lose. Mccarthy never had just the size of the weight on his back that these other quarterbacks did, even when they were against Ohio State, a key game. It's still just like, Hey, I know the way our team works, and I get to defray some of the responsibility to other players.

I still think that sensation is very real. To me, the rawness is there for JJ. I thought, honestly, he was going to be a little bit more slight at talking about the Jane He knows as you. He came into the combine quite heavy. I don't know how real that number is. I have a little bit of size concerns, a little bit of arm talent concerns as well. I think that McCarthy has a fine arm, but if you watch him try to throw outside of the numbers, you really see he has to put both cheeks into every single throw. There's big accuracy drains accordingly. And so he really feels to me like a Brock Purdy type of player, where it's just like, Hey, give him the super friends, and he'll get the offense off the ground. But once you make him having to try to carry extra of the load, he's going to start making mistakes for you. He'll black out and throw it right at a linebacker sometimes. He won't be able to hit a guy open against the sidelines sometimes. He's just a little bit limited. So it's not a high ceiling guy, but I do like a JJ McCarthy.

And he's young. I like that he's young. I want the Patriots to draft Drake May. He checks the most boxes for me. I love the fact that he'll probably end up being 240, 245 pounds. There's some Josh. Anytime somebody's being described as there's some Josh Allen and some Justin Herbert there, I'm in. I like all the leadership stuff, and I've said this before, but I love that he was like the little brother, just getting the crap kicked out of him by the bigger brothers, all from good athletes. He's tough. Tough kid, loyal. I get it. None of this is a sure thing, but to me, it's like he's an 80/20 bet that he makes Yeah.

My expectation is that if it goes one, Caleb, two, Jaden, my bet would be on Drake. Drake may be the third overall pick. That's my expectation for how the Patriots would behave in that context. Or what are you rooting for if Drake is two?

I mean, I have to talk myself into Jaden Daniels or JJ McCarthy really quickly, right? Yeah. I guess the case for Jaden Daniels is, could he be one of the best 10 players at his position?

Yes, he could.

And it's like, ceiling-wise, he could. I don't know if JJ McCarthy will ever be one of the 10 best players. With JJ McCarthy, it's more like, Can he be Brock Purdy? It's a different question. I think May and Daniels. Some people think May, no way he could be a top 10 guy at his position. I disagree.

Yeah, I think May can be. I also think Daniels can be. Daniels is tricky because I'm a huge quarterback mobility guy. I've been talking about it for years. It's so great. One of my big things is that quarterback mobility, when you have a guy who can really run, he's not just high ceiling, he's also high floor. Because the running, the scrambling, it takes away sacks, right? It takes away throw away. It gets you to second and six instead of second and 17 and second and 10. That's the value. But Daniels takes a lot of sacks. And he makes bad decisions under pressure. He freaks out in clean pockets. He doesn't give you the typical high floorness that a lot of these mobile quarterbacks do. May, as a counterpoint, may is a good mover, and may does a lot to eliminate sacks and to get positive scrambles. He has it the right way. Jay is just so high with some of it. And so Jayden is really, truly, I don't like to say this because I think it gets used way too often. I didn't say this of Anthony Rachertan at the time, and I didn't say this of Josh Allen at the time, and I was wrong on Allen.

But when people say, Oh, he's high ceiling, low floor, I oftentimes think that's too big of an oversimplification. With Jaden, man, he is really high ceiling, he's really low floor. There's no two ways around it. He has a roll of the dice and hold your breath.

Well, I already have Chris Hapsport-Zingas in my life, so to have my quarterback also be a hold your breath guy. Some of those hits he took in LSE was, especially in the Alabama game, just that one alone, he took three monster hits.

If they take Jaden at three, you go to youtube. Com, you type in Jaden Daniels versus Florida 2023. You watch that, you don't watch anything else. That's the greatest player I've ever seen. Then you're good. You're fine.

Well, if they took whatever, may or Daniels at three, they get a receiver tackle at 35, and then they just throw darts to fill the other positions, I think their defense is going to be good. I'm actually excited to I agree.

Do you ever give receivers you like top around, too?

Not really. I didn't go that far. I'm just really focused on the quarterbacks.

All the eggs are in this basket, understandably so.

Well, you don't understand the Pats history with drafting receivers in the late first round, second round, third round has been so grim. I just think there's no rhyme or reason to it at this point. I love the Troy Brown, St. Brown types. I just feel like those guys always hit when they come in. These five 9, 5, 10 chip on their shoulder guys who catch everything. And I don't understand why over and over again, these teams are like, the 6'3 guy is so fast, how fast that guy is. And those are the guys that go over the St. Brown dudes.

While you're hanging out watching round three, Super bored because patrons are big for 20 pics. Malik Washington out of Virginia. If you like a 5, 9 kid with a chip on his shoulder who catches everything under the sun, Malik Washington is exactly what the doctor ordered. Fun player.

So you're doing a live show in Detroit and then a little post-draft, post-first-round show?

Yeah. So Wednesday, we're live in Detroit. So if you're in Detroit, you want something to do Wednesday night, come check us out at St. Andrews Hall Ringer NFL Draft Show. It's going to be blessed. But then after that, we got Pots coming out after Thursday, day one. We got Dandy Kelly's draft rates will be up on the draft guide. We'll have stories off of the quarterbacks where they land, top 5, top 10, Ringer NFL YouTube channel. All the good, John. It's going to be a fun week.

Ben Solak, great to see you.

Thanks, Bill.

All right, that's it for part one of the podcast. Thanks to Pen Solak. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget, part two of this podcast is coming a little bit later tonight, probably within 75 to 90 minutes after the last game ends. So stay tuned for that. I will see you in part two. I don't have a Must be 21 plus, 18 plus DC, and present in select states, Fandil, offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLLC. Gamble problem? Call 1-800-Gambler or visit fandle. Com/rg. In Colorado, DC, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800-Next Step or text Next Step to 533-42 in Arizona, 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg. Org/chat-andconnect. Connecticut, 800 down with it in Indiana, 800-522-4700, or visit ksgamblinghelp. Com in Kansas, 877-770. Stop in Louisiana, mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland, 800-gambler. Net in West Virginia, 800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-877-8 Hope-N-Y or text Hope-N-Y in New.