Ranking the 2026 NFL Draft: Linebackers, Safeties and Defensive Tackles

30:33Ollie Connolly:I just think that he's going to make a whole bunch of plays. To me, he smacks of a guy with a really high national identity where everyone knows him. He's making a whole bunch of plays on red zone every week. He's playing for the Jags or whatever. It's like, wow, another punch out from Jake Rodriguez. Then the PFF scores come out and he's in like the bottom 25 linebackers in the league. The down-to-down consistency is not what you're looking for, but there's a whole bunch of game-breaking plays. Like peak Devin White or something? Peak Devin White is a good one. I like that. Shout out to Devin White, still making those tackles.

31:08It's crazy. I just counted on the consensus board, like seven or eight day two sort of prospects at linebacker. Do you have any favorite comps? It could be, give me a positive Anna or a derogatory one or both.

31:26Ollie Connolly:I'd say Kyle Lewis as like a Jeremiah Owosu Kuromoa. Oh, that's good. Is he a linebacker? Is he a safety? Can he do in a different frame some of the Eamon Worry, Jalen Petrie stuff where he's playing nickel some snaps, he's playing weak side linebacker some snaps, then we can do all these fun rotations where he's firing out to the half field. he just moves differently now he has very little interest in tackling and it is a contact sport gives me deep concerns but if i just imagine if you got someone like steve spagnolo the volume of what would be on the menu would be different and if he just turns out to be really talented in coverage down the slot even if it's just taking away tight ends he's got to be on the field and you're going to have to try and live with the ups and downs if a team can force him into the box and run at him over and over again you're just going to have to live with the downside i gotta i gotta watch him i mean is he is he moved like osu koremoa i mean talk about a guy who moves different and it was obvious pretty early in his nfl career jok was like that there's almost a ivan pace type movement where the explosiveness off the ball is just jarring and then he's really really slippery kind of laterally bouncing around um now you do get to see him go up against jeremiah love where you're seeing saquon like movement skills and he gets put on like three posters a little bit concerning you gotta face jameer gibbs and bijon and saquon and jeremiah love as well in the nfl um but he played in a really complex system and he was kind of the pivot player they would move around to be the problem solver um so i think there's a little bit of jok and even jok in where the league's at right now you question can you live on the field and all three down so i think he's gonna be a pretty specific player but he's one of those guys where whoever gets him clearly will have a vision for how they can use them all over the place a bit Leo Chanel-like something in that vein.

33:18Ollie Connolly:And so I think I've just come around to the Chiefs are taking him. Forget about the profile anymore. He just makes a ton of sense for them. Oh, I love that. Maybe round two, round three, something like that. Harold Perk, probably round three if we are to believe the consensus. Harold Perkins is a guy, if there was a draft after his rookie season at LSU, might have gone in the top 10, right? I mean, he was like the next big thing. Yeah. And now he's projected 122. I'm ending the linebackers on a downer note, but just as again, as a casual, it's like, what happened here? I know it sort of fell apart, but there's, is there any hope here for a guy like who was that productive early in his career to, to fall off that hard?

34:03It just shows you how long the draft process is.

34:06Ollie Connolly:He isn't. If Belichick was still in the league, he would take him in the second round. He loved those guys who were the, you know, the high end high school players who had the great one season that maybe they fell off a bit he would bet that he could coach it up um he just is i think too small to play true off the ball linebacker and then with all the movement stuff we discussed with arval reese can he play on the line of scrimmage he cannot he is crazy crazy explosive more of a straight line mover then they kind of flip the hips and turn in coverage so it's all straight ahead which is why the testing numbers are off the scale and if you're brian flores or the falcons and we're mugging up seven guys and we're just gonna rip off the ball he has oh speed and you need to be to be able to work in in those systems so for one of those teams as a package player i think there's a there's a possibility again it would be that ivan pace type situation where there's 10 unbelievable splash plays and then a lot of it is pretty rough the rest of the go around it's just how much you you value that in a class with seven guys who could be truly solid starters we just need more flores i guess durante jones maybe could be that guy for washington just to take these mismatched pieces that could be great in a fun defense and get the most out of them he is not he's not a mismatch it's just pure speed and the speed is beneficial there is no power he seems often confused but by the fact it's saturday let alone that they're playing football um so you're just you're betting on well someone has to get off the ball so fast everyone panics and that's what we're paying for uh a deep fun class we could we could do linebackers all day But let's take a break.

35:37Let's come back, talk about a really good top end of the safety crop and the defensive tackles in a minute.

36:05Ollie Connolly:as hot as free-to-play social casino. Download the Moto Casino app today. Moto Casino is a social casino board. We're prohibited. No purchase necessary. Visit Moto.us for more details. Moto Casino. America's social casino. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and Free Agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stops. This is my favorite part of the calendar. Yeah, mine too, Greg. Free agency, the combine, the NFL draft, pro days, trades. This is where teams reshape their future. This is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money on 40s and free agents. We break down every move that actually matters.

36:43From my draft evaluations, mock drafts, and team fits. To my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the tough decisions included. You got quarterbacks on the move. We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season. Yeah, absolutely. It's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise and what it means for your favorite team. Smart analysis, real conversations every week. I don't know about the smart, but definitely analysis.

37:11Ollie Connolly:Listen to 40s and free agents on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

37:21Back on NFL Daily. my last show, my last few segments before take a little time off and go see the parents. We've been cranking daily since training camp started, but we'll still have you covered next week. Jordan's got you. Shook's got you. Ollie and Daniel Jeremiah's got you. But yeah, I feel a little bit like my kids in the last few days before spring break. You are the teacher for me just playing like a movie for me to watch. I'm just enjoying your analysis. So thank you, Ali, for carrying me home.

38:01Ollie Connolly:Just repeated Kyle Lewis tapes, sending you off on your way to your parents. Oh, no. Forget Kyle Lewis, because I think you're true beloved in this class. Why do I always confuse the two names? The safety from Indiana. What's his name? Oh, Lou Moore. Oh, man. You spent 25 minutes on Louie Moore. Wow. On your show, and I've directed people to it when you've been on the show, but if you're really into the draft and you like this kind of coverage and would want to expand the read optional, Ollie and John Ledyard, I'm going to just break contain here and actually start our safety conversation. Give me the 60-second elevator pitch on Louis Moore before we get to the big names.

38:48A guy who's projected to go in the middle of day three, but you believe has a lot more to him.

38:54Ollie Connolly:I do. I mean, he's tiny and there's going to be questions of, is he a nickel? Is he a true kind of on the shelf safety? I don't think he's quite got the lateral quicks to go and down playing the nickel spot. I think you need real physicality to play there at the high level in the league right now. I think his brain dysfunctions at warp speed and you can just see it over and over again, not just kind of reading and jumping routes, which is the most obvious stuff, but just kind of shutting down reads really quickly in the progression, understanding everyone's assignment I just think he operates at a different pace and it's weird to me that I just watched Indiana run through everyone's face in college football and now I'm hearing when people are knocking Mendoza well you know the defense was really good it was really good in those playoff games defense is really good and yet I'm looking through the draft and I can't find an Indiana player who a team is falling in love with it was D 'Angelo Pons but is he too small Aiden Fisher the linebacker another really intelligent player but he can go on day three not athletically good enough it's like didn't these guys just maul alabama in the rose bowl didn't they destroy miami defensively didn't they destroy ohio state in the big 10 time to game defensively and none of these guys are viable enough to go and play on sundays i don't someone has to be good enough to play on sundays and i think that if he played in a re-blankenship type role we're not talking about a superstar here just a backside safety with free reign to go and find the ball and make plays he works a different speed to everyone else and he's a guy i would i would one of my team 25 years old but you called him the best goal line player in the country that's 221 on the big board i'm gonna be following louis moore if if you listened closely last year you know we asked ollie uh for just a deep under the radar type of guy that he loved and one of them was uh efton chisholm who made the patriots roster uh is a hero to many small whites in new England and who knows who might have a fun career if nothing else he contributed to a team that made the Super Bowl which is a great result for an undrafted free agent it's time for charging into the offseason presented by Apple Card for all your game day purchases let's go to the top of this safety class really the top three are all expected to go in the first round what kind of impact do you think Caleb Downs can have like right off the bat in his career and kind of where do you put him assuming he's number one at safety for you compared to the rest of the the entire draft class I think he's the number one safety to me I think just overall in terms of the fundamentals and having the fewest negatives on the report he's the number one player in the draft whether he has the playmaking upside of someone like an Arvell recent Sonny Stiles I think is fair to debate and then the positional value that falls into that too I would value a hybrid linebacker slightly above a hybrid safety in terms of what you can do structurally but I see flash of his game I you know people talk about him I think in different ways I see elements in how he is used and as the pivot point of the entire defense and what they wanted to do on a unit that had probably four first round picks he was the centerpiece of everything they tried to get to defensively with a super bowl champion defensive coordinator that that does matter to me and i think there are flashes in usage of a buddha baker with more of a brian branch play style is how i put it where he's kind of a slot he's more fluid than explosive whereas buddha is a bit blurrier a bit more explosive off the ball but there is real intelligence there is um unbelievable tenacity and get after it type stuff unbelievable technique and almost everything he does he's pretty flawless technically um and so it's difficult to go through and try and find something to complain about with the player yeah and a guy who you saw in multiple systems you know before patricia got there at ohio state obviously was at alabama early i think that's huge i i always think and this is more of a broader question for you but you can apply it to the Caleb Downs, however you want, that the breadth of the career in college tends to get overlooked a little.

42:59And I know you want a player to develop, of course, but if you see high points earlier in the career and his ability to adapt in different systems, to me that is a huge plus. And the earlier years, I feel like, should matter a lot, especially if you see something good and then maybe it's not there quite as much at the end of their career.

43:18Ollie Connolly:certainly if a DB played for the most sophisticated complex defense in all of football under a complete genius in Nick Saban and he was the linchpin of that defense then he goes to an NFL DC playing in an NFL communication system he's a linchpin of that defense it kind of kind of matters to me a lot yeah and I do think you can get your heart broke by chasing the freshman year that has happened all along particularly in the second round is where teams usually bet on that stuff and and sometimes it's just the player got found out the play didn't develop and you just going back to betting on athletic traits that were always there, which is why they were high end recruit, which is why they started as a freshman for good school anyway.

43:54Ollie Connolly:So I do put a little bit more emphasis on the most recent year, unless you can find a staff change, a system change, a positional change, or the player explains it away. And when you say that, when it just in terms of the lack of negatives and just cleanest prospect that he could be as, as good as number For one, it makes me think, and everyone seems to agree on Caleb Downs. You never know. There's always disagreements about different players, but he seems like that Kyle Hamilton type that everyone knew was going to be good. Linderbaum, actually just kind of thinking of that draft, was similar to that too.

44:29Everyone was kind of like, why is Linderbaum falling so hard? Caleb Downs feels like he could be that guy if he does fall. I don't see why he would in this draft. And yet, I don't know, we tend to do this at safety, we being the NFL, and I do work for the NFL.

44:41Ollie Connolly:I think it's in play. I think it's in play from to go as low as whether it's the Cowboys or even beyond that. I think it depends on the old school mentality versus new school, who's running the building and whether people are drafting to archetypes of players of what they view as a first round pick versus who can be the most impactful for us and have kind of first round value. Playing every down at a high level would be first round value to me. It's why I don't get caught up in the positional designations as much as other people. the only position I give extra grading points to to inflate the number is quarterback because it's clearly the most valuable one.

45:15Ollie Connolly:Other than that, to me, it's go amass as many good players as you possibly can. And I think Downs, he's not quite Hamilton because the length difference is pretty vast. I don't think he's as good deep in the field as Kyle Hamilton was coming out of Notre Dame. And so that impacts the grade slightly. And I think first round safeties, particularly from that old school mindset, is if the guy's not making plays in the ball from the middle of the field, which just doesn't happen in the league anymore. It's like three guys who can do that. And you're just lucky to have one. If you have one, teams aren't structured that way anymore defensively.

45:47Ollie Connolly:But I do think that's still hanging out there that if you're not the kind of ball hawking guy from the middle of the field, how valuable can you be as a safety? And then as you said, we go through and there's Hamilton and there's Brian Treppel's like great football player, but he's got to go in the second round. You don't take slots, safety hybrids in the first round. I would take a dominant slot, safety hybrid as soon as I can get them. Cooper Dejean, Brian Branch, Jalen Petrie, Kyle Hamilton seem pretty important to some of the best groups in the NFL. I mean, if you if you're redrafting, all those guys go top 15.

46:17Cooper Dejean might go top 10 in this draft. Let's say if you could somehow mind trick yourself into like knowing the career like Cooper Dejean's a top five player. So, yeah, why? Why not Caleb Downs? I love that. And maybe the league is coming around because they did give out a lot of like three year, $39 million contracts to safeties this offseason with a lower ceiling, but a high floor of guys that were available. That's charging into the offseason presented by Apple Card. Apply for Apple Card in the wallet app today and start earning daily cash back on all your game day purchases from tickets to tailgate munchies to merch subject to credit approval.

46:57Let's talk about a superlative I'm going to give out, which is the weirdest scouting note of maybe this entire draft process, which is the fascination of Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, the Toledo player who is in the mix to be the second safety, along with Dylan Thienemann from Oregon, and both of them are probably first-round picks, and his obsession with his mouth guard and just always playing around with that.

47:29Ollie Connolly:have you ever seen anything like this ali uh once i discovered it with mcneil warren and it's every single play there is something wrong with the helmet there's something wrong with the mouth guard he's chatting to the official the ball is snapped he's still putting the mouth guard in ball will be mid-flight he takes the mouth guard out he puts the mouth guard back in once you see with him you see with zeki wheatley in this class there's like three or four guys i don't know there's there's something going on in the water where the safety class just does not want to play with the mouth guard i don't know if it's like vibe or coolness or it doesn't fit but it is preposterous and frustrating and genuinely impacts his play in a way that annoys me speak to that a little bit like he what it delays him a little bit the ball will be snapped and he'll go oh no the ball's in play let me put my mouth guard him we're now two beats into the rep now he's crazy explosive all sorts of juiced up he can make up the time but I think it speaks a little bit to attention to detail focus in the game and that focus is evident I think just generally in coverage he's a massive gambler he makes an unbelievable amount of plays on the ball but a lot of it is gambling rather than reading reacting and processing understanding i think what's uh what may be coming his way based on down distance and situation and it's just i'm off the ball i see it i trigger it and i'm a better athlete than everyone on the field even when he's playing kentucky in the sec he's just a better athlete than everyone he's going up against so i think that allowed him to get away with some bad habits so him and as i mentioned theneman are in the mix to be the number two safety.

48:59He is fun to watch. I mean, you can just pull up the tape of all the forced fumbles McNeil Warren had, and there's a million of them, a lot of punch outs, a big, big, good athlete. I don't know if he quite passes my moves, different threshold, but he moves well. He just, you look at him and you're like, oh yeah, that's an NFL player. He will be like, I just, you can, you can see it. Who is your choice between those two and kind of where do you think they they fit into the larger picture i love fienemann

49:31Ollie Connolly:um i think oregon sometimes it's hard to tell with his profile he played in such a specific system that is uh not unique to them but they're the guys who push it to the limit the most i would say where it's a lot of three safety stuff and he's playing in the middle of the three safeties and they really pack the middle of the field intentionally to try and offset a lot of the rpo work that's happening in college football so just the geometry of the field becomes really narrow and it's nothing how you would play in the league where you're playing on half the field and you got this wide aperture to kind of keep focus of everything so it's pretty narrow situation he's playing in then when you go back to padu i think he's almost even better at padu than he was at oregon and he's playing all nfl safety stuff it is half field it's post safety he's not around the box as much uh oregon he was effectively an august three linebacker for a lot of the work they did and he was flying around everywhere, making a ton of plays.

50:22Ollie Connolly:Outrageous range, outrageous athlete, we found out in testing. Don't think he quite plays to that speed all the time, as he did as a tester. But at Padua, I think you get to see more of the traditional safety work he would be asked to do in the NFL. I just think that the work there was better. To your point earlier about digging back through the guys in their previous history, you find a guy booked it into a certain system. Can you go and find him playing more in the role he would be asked to play in the NFL? fortunately with the enemy you get to see it and i think the work was actually better well and you also it's a skill set to be able to pick up and fit in two different systems that's going to happen in the nfl you you're very likely going to have two different coaching staffs on your rookie contract alone like unless you're drafted by you know the the tomlin harbaugh era you know ravens and stealers i guess you can get lucky and hope hope that that happens yeah he he's an interesting guy where he just the enemy where he feels like a rock solid pick but he's a testing freak which is like a nice like a nice combination i he has shot up the consensus board uh over the last couple of months i think the idea was these guys were going to go in the second round and the enemy might have been deeper into it and now i think the consensus is they're both going in the first round and look i i heard legit whispers that i think was a little bit more of dot connecting that he'd go as high as Cincinnati, which is...

51:45Ollie Connolly:Cincinnati, I know, loves him. And I think the question for them is the kind of core crop of potential or pro players are going to go, plus Mendoza or a quarterback. And then it becomes a pick who you just love after that. And maybe someone falls to them they weren't expecting. Maybe Bain, maybe Bailey. Maybe Downs. You think they would take Downs? I think they would. Downs, I think they would take Downs too. But I think as they kind of game plan it out, they think, well, what if that happens? And then we've got 50 players and we've got to pick the guys we just love. And then we're thinking about positional value.

52:17Ollie Connolly:I think they're so in love with the enemy and it would be hard for them not to just pull the trigger. And given what the class is like, we're going to get shockers. This is what happens when you get these kinds of draft classes in it. It wouldn't shock me necessarily if they decided to go that way. I hate thinking about just this year, but there's only so many defensive backs. Yeah. Linebackers even, but they're not going to, I don't think they, they probably should be drafting at linebacker. but I don't think they'll be looking at C.J. Allen, although that's not the craziest idea with the roster that they have.

52:47But they need guys that can save everyone's job and help the defense this year. And so I think the Edelman could be that guy. It's not a bad fit. Let's move on to the defensive tackles unless you have just one more safety take, whether it's positive or negative. You just need to get out there. You've spent all this time. You said something. You try to watch all these guys, right? you try to watch what is your process actually i'll just ask you that uh watch every player every snap every player every step so define every player because you can't like they're in theory there could be 400 players so where do you get to with every player this year probably it's gonna be about 260 i think you can you can leave that out there man

53:37Ollie Connolly:260 every snap five games isn't enough it depends on the player if there's cross off guys where I'm like it's just not for me then I'll just cross them off if someone tells me there's a medical flag on a late round guy I'll cross them off but for everyone who's going to go in the first four rounds there are thereabouts yeah this is why John asked me this too and you gotta say it's a superpower to not have children as everyone else is having like fun successful fulfilled meaningful lives i am in the cave watching safeties from missouri you're younger it's something people don't want to talk about in general um in in some ways the job actually is easier with a loving family and children uh my my son right here is is is in the room just giving me a fulfillment that i couldn't otherwise have which makes it easier to do my job on the other hand uh it's a huge time drain and it makes your job uh way harder when that happens you have to be able to do you suddenly have two jobs and one of them is as all-incumbency and more important than your actual job that it actually uh yeah it does but no one ever wants to say that because it's like you know it make it makes you sound ungrateful or it almost sounds like hitting out at the people like yourself without without having but what i i like that we're recognizing Ali that's just an advantage it's like analytics you're taking advantage of the system yeah oh I'm you know deeply sad man stop stop um don't you feel though and now we're way off track considering I gotta get out of here soon I gotta get on that plane go see Tom and Debbie in Massachusetts when you're like watching like a seventh round safety let's say Bishop Fitzgerald of USC have you watched it by the way I have watched Bishop Fitzgerald when you're into like game six of Bishop Fitzgerald, don't you just think like, I've had enough?

55:33Or no, that's how much you love ball. Deep within this, I think it's just a love of ball, which is pretty good.

55:38Ollie Connolly:Yeah, a love of ball. And I care about being accurate. And I think it's just cheating to watch five games. And so you've got a full, complete picture of a player. And you're going to then go out publicly and start addressing what a team did in the draft when you haven't had the full scope of evaluation that the team has put the effort into doing? Is the team watching every set? I guess they are, if someone like you is, they are, of Bishop Fitzgerald. I would hope so. Someone on the staff is watching every game of Bishop Fitzgerald. Okay. I don't know the process. I'm always really fascinated by other people's process, certainly within the NFL, but also in our industry.

56:17So I hope listeners like that conversation. And yeah, it's great. like the juice that you get from finding a guy that you love in the deep rounds like Louis Moore. But I was just handed a piece of paper that says officially, as we were playing, my son is now the number one player in the world in Wii Tennis, according to the rankings.

56:42Ollie Connolly:You see, and wouldn't you rather be handed that note than watch Genesis Smith's eighth game for Arizona? The fulfillment that that gives me, that I have a success, that he's made it.

57:25plus. I'm Daniel Jeremiah and I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and free agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stops. This is my favorite part of the calendar.

57:37Ollie Connolly:Yeah, mine too, Greg. Free agency, the combine, the NFL draft, pro days, trades. This is where teams reshape their future. This is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money. On 40s and free agents, we break down every move that actually matters. From my draft evaluations, mock drafts, and team fits. To my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the tough decisions included. You got quarterbacks on the move. We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season. Absolutely, it's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise, and what it means for your favorite team.

58:11Smart analysis, real conversations every week. I don't know about the smart, but definitely analysis.

58:17Ollie Connolly:Listen to 40s and Free Agents on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

58:26Let's get to the defensive tackles. And if I've been spending some time here, it's only partly because I don't know what to say about this defensive tackle class. I'll start this way. There's like a big group at the top, and no one can really agree. It's four or five players. Peter Woods from Clemson's in that mix. Caden McDonald from Ohio State. Caleb Banks with his very unique frame from Florida. There's Lee Hunter from Texas Tech. Kristen Miller from Georgia. All five of those guys could go somewhere in the late first, maybe somewhere in the second round. Do you have a favorite of that group?

59:04And then on top of that, do you have any of them graded as first round players?

59:08Ollie Connolly:no one great as a quality starter um it's a lot of big run cloggers and then sorting through do you think anyone's got the juice to maybe be a three down player or in that second band you're referencing there it's really light players upfield rushes and you're trying to figure out who quite has enough mass or understanding to just play all three downs for us so it's a lot of rotational players and then it's just how you value which part of the rotation the rundown i think versus obviously the passing downs and just trying to figure out who could be that crossover player. And that makes it really tough in the evaluation process.

59:46Ollie Connolly:The one who has probably the best chance at doing that, if healthy, is probably Caleb Banks, I think, of just kind of fusing the two together. Unbelievable talk off the ball, unbelievable power in his hands. Just the foot problem is a massive concern. very similar to Johnny Newton just keeps fracturing the foot over and over again obviously untraditional size 6 '6 6 '7 for an interior player so the the pad level and technique is is pretty skewiff and then he just goes missing for massive stretches of games even against bad competition where you're the biggest fastest strongest guy on the field at all times he buries great competition just one-off snap just it's almost Chris Jones like how quick the wins are inside why is it not arriving 10 times a game against bad competition.

1:00:33Ollie Connolly:So he's the one who's probably going to break your heart where the GM's like, I just feel it in my bones. If we can get him in the building, in our building, in the right system, it'll work out. And in three years, you're wondering why he drafted the guy. He was the one during the combine I'm watching and they show some of the highlights. And I'm just like, wait, how is this guy not a top 15 prospect? This is awesome. This is cool. This is a guy to get excited about. If you were an NFL GM and you've got, let's say, like a late, like an early round three pick, and these guys have all fallen or late second or something, who is the one, you know, kind of with how defenses are run now where you just feel like he's going to be a solid player.

1:01:15He's going to help our team. I'm not swinging for the fences here, but he's going to be my guy that's going to help us maybe even get a second contract for us.

1:01:24Ollie Connolly:I love Dominique Orange from Iowa State the big citrus uh big enormous nose tackle but I think he can move better than a lot of these other guys I think Lee Hunter's more of the the rum plugging guys who are going to go in the second round I don't quite understand why he's in a kind of different category on the consensus board I think he's in the 80s or somewhere like that and Hunter and uh some of the players above Orange is not in that five pack that I mentioned who were all between 25 and 47 although the the people that I trust more I feel like are bucketing them more 35 to 50 to 55 something like that but yeah you're right dominique orange big citrus what a nickname that's unbelievable yeah that's it come on now uh but he is i don't there's not that much of a distinction to me with someone like mcdonald who i think will be the one who sneaks into the back in the first round where you're saying big like tylee williams with the lines big run clogger is there maybe some pass for a source we could tap into over time even if it's just knockback power or walkback power and it kind of helps everyone else win and he just kind of has a big presence in the middle line of scrimmage i think orange has got real lateral quicks for someone as big as he is with the the big heavy anchor hold up the point of attack uh allow everyone to eat on early downs around him but the motor is outrageous he drops out into coverage and he drops out and he blasts running backs in space so if you're looking for okay who's just got some under the hood movement skills that weren't quite a central part of the defense he was asked to play in and just maybe there's a tim settle like arc in there where he's just in the rotation is a nuisance um whilst the the star players go win off the edge over and over again dominic orange is the one i would bet on okay tim settle like arc tim settle did get a surprisingly good contract and every team that has him is like man i i wish we had tim settle back whenever they lose him so So it's a totally fair comp, but also kind of shows where this defensive tackle class is at.

1:03:23Peter Woods, I want to get your opinion on him just because the Clemson product, I think initially this is where I think the league told the draft Knicks that like, no, we're not really that into him. You guys are into him. I'm not totally sure why. Ranked super high, like if you were looking at in-season rankings from a lot of the draft, even January stuff, and now it's settled back to the pack. I don't know if you have any Peter Woods of Clemson talk, who could still be a first round pick potentially.

1:03:52Ollie Connolly:Yeah, I think that's still in play because one of these interior guys are going to go and we're going to get the Seattle, New England, Philadelphia effect that those teams were built with internal pass rush and like waves of those players. And so teams are going to try and chase it. The Lions tried to chase with a play who was not that anyway. It was like, we got to take him. We need internal push. Woods is crazy explosive off the ball. He is a small fellow for someone playing inside. He's built like Maurice Hurst with that kind of quick twitch off the ball. Describe small fellow, though. What is his size?

1:04:24Ollie Connolly:6 '2", 298. So you're looking there. I mean, that is small. That is in the bottom 5 % of defensive tackles drafted in the past decade. Which is a crazy statement on this sport. What a weird sport. It is a weird sport, but it's a size and power position, and he just has the speed. And another guy who goes missing for long, long stretches. And can he really live on those early downs? Or is he a situational pass rusher? And do you draft situational pass rushers in the first round of the draft? And even with situational pass rushers playing inside in the NFL, it's a speed to power position, not just a raw talk off the ball type situation.

1:05:03Ollie Connolly:So he kind of falls between a bunch of positions. I get why people fell in love with him. It's just unbelievable explosiveness for an inside player. The production is really poor. The production fell this season. he was a unanimous top 10 selection a year ago and then the production really declined and there's motor concerns too he just he just slows down during games and slowed down throughout the season yeah to bring it back around to where we started the conversation i feel like anthony hill was a guy people thought might go before the season top 10 top 15 and then you get more data you find it out you watch every game you know i hope i hope you don't see what i was saying about watching every game as a criticism it's a respect and i think what people don't get about that it's not about um you know being robotic about it you got to have a real deep love for the game to go to go that deep so how do you do 20 minutes on mcneil warren's mouth guard if you're not digging through every game that's why that's why we do the read optional podcast the way we do it's why we do seven hours on six safeties it's just the way we do yeah i had to bring up that was like the most amazing note and it is the right way to do it because i i did the qb index for so long and i never understood you know that the only way to evaluate it was to watch every single throw every single week because if you miss to me a 17 game chunk or 16 games back in the day was like the best way to evaluate a quarterback if you miss like if you miss an entire game or stretches like it's just it is a totally different picture that that is how uh it should be done i have to admit though and it's it's the worst part of me as a draft as a an analyst in general is sometimes when I'm watching for all the draft prospects once I get deeper and deeper I always think like oh wouldn't that be better spent just watching NFL tape right now I could just be one because that's how I know I'm not a real draft Nick like you or like like but I have said this to John before I do think there'd be great value in a team in just having someone watch like the 10 or 15 best plays of a player putting their own board together putting it in an envelope and then three years down the line open the envelopes because I think you can massively overthink the players and you can start juicing up things against either lower competition or just had a good game or the game plan was excellent the player wasn't a function of it i think if i was running a building which will never happen unless it's the london jags and tony khan is feeling you know very let's go um then i would employ someone probably greg rosenthal to say just watch 10 clips of every player put that board together we'll put it in an envelope and in three years we'll open up and find out whether we're overthinking this stuff yeah you could do the same with the like the consensus board just drafting off that in general but what fun would that be my only thing is for some reason i'm like watching this is like man i i'm like itching to get to like the kyler murray tape from that i just i'm already like getting a little itchy for nfl football and want to go back but that we'll spend a lot of our off season talking about that um ollie is the best at what he does a great way to cap the week let's hit that music uh the next time you will hear from us on the feed.

1:08:03It's going to be a different us. The kids are taking over the show. As I mentioned, when Jordan was on the show from the owners meetings, it will be Jordan, Rodrigue, and Nick Shook in the feed on Monday. I'm heading to Massachusetts, but the draft series with Ollie is not over yet. We'll do that on the other side. See you then.

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