Full recap of the 2026 NFL Draft

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1:57Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Day three of the draft is in the books. We watched it from the studio today, me, Dane Brugler, Derek Klass, and Dave Hellman. We're going to chat a little bit about some of the more notable picks from day three today. Obviously, Jermade Bacoy lasting to pick 101, Garrett Nussmeyer falling a little bit. Some of the slot and safety players that Dane liked a little bit more than the league seemed to when it comes to their draft slot. So just some notable picks from day three before digging into Dane's favorite picks from day three. We have about a half dozen of those.

2:31Robert Mays: And then we zoomed out and looked at the draft classes overall. Probably hit about six to eight classes that Dane really enjoyed, just like the way that those teams attacked their picks. And then we spent a little bit of time talking about some classes that we found confusing, confounding, trying to find the right adjective to be a little bit nicer than we might've been on the show. But talked about probably 10 to a dozen draft classes overall. And then we're going to be doing a ton of draft talk on the show over the course of this entire week. Dane is going to power rank every single one of those classes that is going to be available on The Athletic if you want to go check that out tomorrow.

3:04Robert Mays: So that's what we got today. Me, Dane, Derek, Dave chatting about day three of the draft and some of our favorite hauls overall from the three days of the draft. So let's get to it right now.

3:25Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show's live coverage of day three of the 2026 NFL Draft. The 219th pick in the draft is now in courtesy of the New Orleans Saints. We'll be keeping an eye on the last round or so as it rolls by, mostly to make sure that no players come off the board that were not in Dane Brugler's The Beast. Yeah, it's always a little nerve-wracking because there's a chance maybe someone sneaks in there, but I'm confident we're good. We'll talk a little bit about some of the drafts overall as this winds down. We'll talk about that at the end, some of the drafts that we like the most, Just a few that found it a little bit confounding.

4:02Robert Mays: But Dave, let's start with the biggest news of today. Just some of the picks that we found most notable, guys that lasted longer than we thought, landing spots that we were most interested in. And I think that conversation has to start with Jermon McCoy going 101 to the Raiders. The idea that at the beginning of this process, we thought that he could potentially be a top 10 pick and he lasts until the first pick of the fourth round. Obviously, we know why that is. But one of the stories of draft weekend, the fact that he was still available as we got day three going here.

4:29Derrik Klassen: It's a small consolation for a guy that we talked about as a top 10, top 15 prospect for a lot of this process until more details started to come out about his health. But considering it was already a bummer of a weekend for him relative to some of the early expectation, I was happy he didn't have to wait long at all on Saturday morning, at least because I was I had to stop for gas. I was 10 minutes late getting into getting into the office. I missed the first two or three picks and he was already gone. Raiders made him the first pick of the day. So like I said, I think it's a silver lining compared to the size of the slide, but at least he wasn't sitting around for too much longer on Saturday.

5:08Dave Helman: And I'm glad he was. Like the talent is just, like you said, like probably a top seven, eight player just based purely on the film and talent alone. And so for him to finally get drafted to come off the board early, it's like, again, for the slide to be as bad as it was, was surprising. Because I think we thought even coming into this weekend, okay, there were some rumbles going into the first round. Like he's probably going to slip out. I think Dane did not have him in his final mock. So we knew first round was probably off the board.

5:31Robert Mays: We were having those Will Johnson conversations. Which was pick 48, 49.

5:35Dave Helman: And once we got to there, it was like, okay, we assume he's going to come off the board. For him to fall another 50 picks, I think, was surprising. So for him to finally come off the board was nice. And from the Raiders' perspective, it makes all the sense in the world. At this point in the draft, it's worth the gamble. I thought they did a great job with their first four picks in rounds one, two, and three. and then you come back, they actually traded up to get that first pick in the fourth round to get Jermon McCoy. You know, you just feel great for him that the slide's over, and now you just hope he's able to stay on the field because he's someone that the tape showed a, like we said, a top 15 player in this draft, somebody that has a long NFL career ahead of him.

6:19If he's healthy, the talent says he's an NFL player. Hopefully the medicals just don't get in the way of that.

6:25Robert Mays: So with the first pick in the fourth round, at that point, it's worth it to take the swing. Let's talk about what resides on each side of this gamble. On the plus side, it is an all-pro corner, right? It is, like, truly a special talent at that position. On the other side, what is, like, the worst-case scenario here? He never plays. He never plays. He just never plays in the NFL. Yep. He has to get a procedure on the knee. He misses a year, and it ends up being something he's not able to come back from. And I can't sit here and tell you the likelihood of that or that happening or not. That's not something I can even an educated guess.

7:01And I don't think even NFL teams have a good feeling for that, which is why he didn't go at 75 or 90. It's why he fell to the fourth round. That's obviously two very different outcomes here in this fork in the road. You just kind of hope for the best.

7:16Robert Mays: And the timing of it doesn't seem accidental. The fact that the Raiders had all night to sit there and be like, OK. okay, what are we going to do with this? Is this now worth it where if we can maneuver up to get him, even if he never plays a down, there are plenty of fourth-round picks that never contribute to your team. Those guys are going to make the team, obviously, but never become more than special teamers, never become more than a guy who's going to get a handful of snaps over the course of the year. And so you can live with the fact that a guy may never play as a fourth-round pick, especially because, obviously, the upside is significantly higher than almost anyone else you're going to draft in the fourth

7:52Dave Helman: round yeah totally and especially like i think fifth round and beyond you expect those guys probably more often than not to be cut or to be you know moved on from maybe you're trading those picks up to to go do other stuff and so the fourth round kind of is the range of like we're drafting backups we're drafting dice rolls here and obviously he's a different kind of dice roll because it's health not just like some sort of skill issue or something like that but at that point in the draft, I don't see why you would do it. Even if it's a situation where he has like long-term issues and cannot have a career into his, you know, age 29, age 30 season.

8:23Dave Helman: If they get three, four solid years out of him before that starts to fall apart at the fourth round pick, you take that every single time.

8:30Robert Mays: That this is, that's why this is a little bit different though than in some other considerations. Like we've talked about other guys where he's just a one contract player, right? Like he's not going to make it to a second contract because there's some sort of degenerative thing. This is a different sort of situation. Like it's not often like he may never play it's he'll only play for so long and so the risk associated with this is a little bit different than some of the other health related discussions we have about players coming into the draft yeah that's a fair way to frame it because it's and that's what makes it so unique and why he did fall as far as he did um you just you hope he's able to stay on the field and if he does this will end up looking like a steal speaking of falls coming into this draft when we were talking about quarterbacks i mean there were plenty of people derrick among them that thought that garrett Nussmeyer would be a worthwhile gamble for somebody on day two and could be the second best proposition of any of the quarterbacks in this draft after Fernando Mendoza.

9:23Robert Mays: We're a hot 221 picks into this thing. And Garrett Nussmeyer, as far as I am aware, is still available. So as you're trying to parse why Garrett Nussmeyer is still available and why a guy like Cade Klubnick is going over him, what leads you to think this is what? Why do you why do you think we landed in this place with Nussmeyer in this draft? I mean, I think part of it is the way things went this past year at LSU. Part of his injury related, both things we knew, injuries that we knew and some that popped up during the process. And then also he just I think some of the feedback that I've gotten from teams, Dave, I know you've heard similar.

10:05Just maybe he didn't handle some of the interviews the best that he could have. And I think part of it is a lack of accountability. it's still surprising that he's still on the board here as we start the seventh round but that's the type of thing that Nussmeier based purely on talent is somebody that probably could start a game in the NFL and help you win but he doesn't have those special traits in terms of size in terms of so all those and so you factor in the medicals and you factor in do we really fully trust him as a guy and all of a sudden here he is falling I think you made a great point when

10:41Derrik Klassen: we talked about this thing because we've been charting this all day yeah he is still on the board at pick 221 uh and i i think it becomes a bit of a snowball effect because like for let's let's lay it out just off the bat the stuff we knew coming in i mean he's just shy of 6 '2 he's 203 he's an undersized guy the arm is good but not amazing he barely had a season last year the injury completely prevented him from putting anything oblique injury yeah the oblique injury Well, and to your point, it comes out a week ago that they discovered a cyst on his spine, I believe, that like not seen as a major issue, but something he could potentially need to have surgery to have removed.

11:21Derrik Klassen: So the most recent tape is not good. You have to go back to 2024 to find the good tape. He's an undersized prospect. He has a potential medical issue right now. And then you just alluded to it, asking around, trying to figure out why he might be sliding. Nothing, as far as I'm aware, that's like a super big red flag, but you just hear the interviews, the in-person, the personality aspect of this didn't go quite as well as we would have preferred. And it's kind of surprising for a guy who wore number 18 for LSU in the final year of his career. That typically means you're like a senior leader on the team.

11:58Derrik Klassen: Stayed at LSU for all of those years, was behind Jaden Daniels. Coach's son. Not even a coach's son.

12:04Robert Mays: NFL offensive coordinator's son. The idea that like these people that you're interviewing poorly in front of and not handling yourself well are people that like are a text away from your dad to let them know how that went. That part of it to me is just like that's so shocking to me, which I don't I don't want to kill the guy too bad.

12:22Derrik Klassen: I like there are different levels of red red flag. Right. Like we're not talking about anything criminal or anything like that, as far as I'm aware, just that for all of the with all the qualifiers we just laid out, like for a guy who grew up around the NFL. did not ace that side of the draft process the way that you might have expected. So combine that with the injury, the lack of tape from the most recent year, the measurables, and the NFL clearly wasn't feeling it because seven quarterbacks have been drafted so far this weekend, and he is not one of them yet.

12:53Dave Helman: Dave, we were talking about it a little bit before we went live. Around the Spencer-Rattler range is when this started to become surprising to me because Rattler was another player where if you just look at the talent, you watch some of the tape it's like that's a top 100 pick at quarterback every time that's a dice roll you would want to make he can start games in the nfl and he's he played okay last year but he fell a little bit further because i think there were just some questions about what is the maturity going to be like and if you're drafting him to be your backup quarterback we say it as a joke sometimes we're like backup quarterback kind of needs to be a good hang like he needs to be a good guy in the room um and if that's going to be some sort of an issue with nussmeyer dave all the other stuff that you laid out that we knew like him being undersized Arm is good, not great.

13:33Dave Helman: Obviously, tape in 2025 being issued. That's all stuff that makes sense to me why he would fall out of the top 100. It's all of the other potential stuff that I think is why we haven't seen his name for the next 125 picks after that. It's so key. When coaches and GMs draft quarterbacks in rounds three through seven, it has to be someone that you want in your quarterback room that is going to help lift what's going on there. And that's why the Browns didn't care about drafting Dylan Gabriel in the 90s last year because they love the person and how smart he is. And, OK, at the very least, we're getting someone that is going to be a someone's going to help our quarterback room.

14:12He's pushing everybody. Absolutely. And so maybe I'm not going to go as far as call him like an extra coach in the room, but somebody that along those lines is going to help point things out as you prepare for the next game and just have a good understanding of game plans. So apparently that's just not the same type of feeling teams have with Nussmeier.

14:31Robert Mays: Were you surprised that the Jets were as aggressive as they were to go get Kate Klubnick at the start of the fourth round? When it comes to quarterbacks on day three, I think it's just eye of the beholder. And so if the Jets don't take Klubnick there, he could still be on the board in the mid-fifth, into the sixth. Who knows? I think it just comes down to, hey, we like this guy enough. We don't really want to wait until the next pick. We'll take him here. And so quarterbacks are just, they're unique like that. What do you think is his ideal path forward as an NFL player, Klubnik? Kate Klubnik?

15:03Hopefully just find consistency. I mean, you watch that Clemson, we can say this about many Clemson players from last year's team, but Klubnik was at the center of that. He has a good enough arm. You see him make some of those backside throws, opposite hash throws. He can do it. He's a good enough athlete, but the timing and the efficiency, it just wasn't there. It wasn't on a level that you say, okay, that'll translate. It's clearly something he has to work on. But he's a good kid. There's a lot to like about the intangible factor and just the raw tools. And so I think what happened at Clemson is not very encouraging.

15:41It's not something you put at the top of your resume. But there's enough there that obviously the Jets feel optimistic about developing moving forward.

15:48Dave Helman: I didn't mind the pick, honestly. In the fourth round, he's a guy to me that, I mean, their backup, I think currently was Brady Cook, which I would expect him to be better than that. The things I did like about Clubnet, I think he's accurate. The arm doesn't really wow you, but I do think that he kind of layers balls really well and gives guys yak opportunities. And I think if he has to play any games this year, that that can be pretty nice for them. And so I think he could give you a little bit of that. And even as a decision maker, again, some teams like this as a backup, he doesn't make to me a lot of decisions that are just like putting the ball in harm's way and in an egregious way.

16:19Dave Helman: Like, that doesn't mean he's always, like, quick to get to his checkdowns and quick to make really high-level decisions. But he did not feel to me like, oh, my God, what are you doing, man? Like, the coach is not going to be yelling at him for that reason, which I think sometimes is valuable when you're drafting a backup.

16:32Robert Mays: One of my favorite conversations we had today was just about the types of bets you're making on quarterbacks later in drafts. And I think my mind very quickly, when we're talking about Drew Aller last night, is like, well, if you're just taking a swing on a guy, like, let me take a swing on the toolsy guy. And we were talking about the history of that. And the history of that is not very kind. Like there just aren't that many of these toolsy quarterback prospects drafted late that end up becoming long-term starters. The guys drafted in the fourth round that end up becoming long-term starters or these breakthrough candidates in the NFL are the Kirk Cousins, Dak Prescott types that aren't necessarily those toolsy players.

17:07Robert Mays: And so I think that was a little bit surprising to me just kind of sitting back and thinking about it and being like, well, actually the toolsy guys aren't the ones that end up becoming the worthwhile bets as we get a little bit later into these drafts.

17:16Dave Helman: Because the guys who are toolsy and show just enough NFL ability, they end up going in the first round.

17:22Robert Mays: Yeah, exactly. I think that's part of it. I truly think that's part of it is like it becomes a quarterback in that way becomes more like safety where like you can find a guy in the fourth round that can do it between the years. But if he's that talented, he's probably going to go a little bit higher if he's actually viable. And so that was just a fun kind of like, oh, yeah, I guess that is right when you look at recent quarterback history.

17:42Derrik Klassen: And I think it's, I mean, it's a rare set of circumstances that push a guy like Drew Aller to the mid-70s. You know, like he gets hurt halfway through his final year. If he'd had an opportunity to put more on tape or if Penn State had had a better season and he's healthier, that much more opportunity for somebody to fall in love with those traits and take him higher. And we just had another quarterback drafted, not named Garrett Nussmeier. Can you tell me what his name is? I can. And now it's funny if you ask it like a, just a general college football fan who the quarterback at Rutgers was last year.

18:14I don't know many that could, uh, Ethan Kellogg Manis, Minnesota transfer who had a, made a big jump between Oh four and Oh five. Like the decision.

18:24Derrik Klassen: Did you pull up your own beast page to get that pronunciation? Or you just had it in there. That's when I practice for sure. Cause that's like all the quarterbacks. You need to make sure you know that one. Uh, but he's someone that wasn't a combine guy. wasn't somebody that, you know, all-star games in terms of like the top all-star games, but had some juice around the league from scouts that were like, there's something here. Six, two and a half, 216 pounds. There are moments on tape where you can definitely see it. And so the commander's drafting him here on the seventh. Not surprised. Now, a little surprised he's going ahead of Nussmeier.

18:59What other quarterbacks are still available? Obviously Nussmeier. Luke Allmeier. Haynes King. uh yeah joey aguilar saw your robertson so again when you talk about day three quarterbacks it's just eye of the beholder and some teams are gonna like one guy over another let's talk about some

19:18Robert Mays: of the dbs that fell further than you might have expected based on what your final board looked like dan let's start with jaylen kilgore who was 88 on your final top 300 he goes 127 to the buffalo bills which derrick is we'll let you get to your jaylen kilgore thoughts but why in your mind is a guy that you felt pretty good about and Kilgore's a top 100 player fall a little bit further than you might have expected yeah and Kilgore is a tough one for me because I didn't love the tape as much as others but I like the athlete a lot and that's why he earned a spot in my top 100 but I saw a player who was a nickel in college who I don't think is a nickel in the NFL I think he needs to play further off the ball use that range be more of a safety I do question the versatility um you You know, I think recency bias with Nick Imanwari coming out of South Carolina just last year.

20:07Like, I think that was something. Oh, this is the next Imanwari. I don't see that. But at the same time, he's over 6 '1". He's 210 pounds, ran a 4-4-0 in the 40. Like, there's a lot about this testing and the athlete. And he had ball production in college. So for him to fall as far as he did was a little surprising.

20:24Robert Mays: What keeps him from being like a pure nickel in the NFL in your mind? He's a good athlete, but in terms of functional athleticism, where I think he doesn't have that efficiency with his footwork. He's too reactionary. And so I want him more in deep space where he can show off that closing burst and that speed, where if you ask him to play tight man against a slot receiver or even a bigger tight end, I think those types of guys can create windows, create passing windows against him in coverage. so I think maybe but again I don't I didn't think that was enough to drop him as far as he ended up going so maybe there is more here we just don't know yet I've killed him for this a

21:06Derrik Klassen: few times in the draft process I like him as a player Jalen Kilgore Kilgore sorry Jalen Kilgore go watch him against your guy Concepcion when A &M played South Carolina and you're like okay I don't know if you want to be down here in the slot with these sorts of demons on a regular

21:21Robert Mays: I mean I think Casey Concepcion is doing that to just about anybody this whole draft is littered

21:26Derrik Klassen: with people where it's like, as long as you don't watch Texas A &M, he's a great player.

21:29Robert Mays: Are you bad? Or did you just play against KC and Tepcio? And a question of the 2026 NFL draft. Mansour Delaney, Brandon Cisse, there are more than a few in this draft.

21:38Dave Helman: I think that one's the case too, where like that's the exact kind of player that is going to give him issues. Like even as someone who likes him, like he can be a little bit stiff in the hips sometimes and he'll guess sometimes based on formation, alignment, all this other stuff. And like every now and then that'll get him a good beat on the quarterback's eyes. Every now and then he's over-leveraging him himself to the wrong side of a receiver's route and then the guy's a little bit quicker and he's just kind of gone in away from him I do like Kilgore though like I think the athlete is great um I I do think that he can play the nickel for them I don't know what they're going to do in terms of the because now they have potentially two very different bodies right where D Alford yeah is the smaller you know under six foot really more of a cover guy not as much of a hitter Kilgore is your six foot plus could be more of a run fitting style of nickel and so I wonder how that's going to play out or do they want to fill him in at safety because this is a team that still needs safety help so I do wonder if that's a case where they're just like well we kind of do think he can do both we're going to get into camp and see where he helps us a little bit more and again Buffalo being that team right in the fifth round we had this discussion earlier today and I think

22:40Robert Mays: that there's a couple of just competing thoughts when it comes to Nichols and their value in this draft because Kilgore goes later than we might have expected Keontae Scott who we'll talk about in a second was 53rd on your board. He goes 116. And there's on one side of it, it's the NFL valuing Nichols and deploying Nichols in a way that it really never has. It's become its own position. We've seen how impactful the right ones can be. But at the same time, if you can only do that, I think that we've seen that the league is maybe a little bit more down on you because you don't have that sort of versatility.

23:11Robert Mays: We saw multiple guys who might be Nichol only or were Nichol only in college fall a little bit further than you might expect. Keontae Scott couldn't start at Auburn last year in 2024. He was not a full-time player, and they struggled to really use him. Now, credit to Miami because they found the exact role for him, and it helped to give them a run to the national championship game. But to your point, as he transitions to the NFL, if you do worry about Keontae Scott in reverse and holding him in coverage from that alignment, it's tough to take him at that high. So, and this is something, it's not any surprise.

23:53Like, we've talked about that. Anytime we talked about Keontae Scott throughout the process, we also talked about he's not going to be for everybody. It's going to take the right fit where the team's going to see him in that specific role with that vision. So, I'm not totally shocked he fell. I'm shocked he fell as far as he did. I'm just not shocked that he fell.

24:09Derrik Klassen: Yeah, but where he wound up is pretty perfect.

24:12Robert Mays: There's a chance he never has to go backwards. while playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That is on the table.

24:16Derrik Klassen: The Bucs just have, I mean, they have so many young, versatile DBs now. Like, they did Parrish and Morrison last year. They've got Keontae Scott now. Tykee Smith. Tykee Smith is still a young player who I like a lot. The athleticism back there is incredibly impressive. And, yeah, I mean, Todd Bowles is probably not going to ask him to – he's going to ask him to live in the backfield a lot, if I had to guess. 13 tackles for loss last year. You want him near the line of scrimmage.

24:48Robert Mays: We're looking at a team in the Bucs that blitzed on 37 % of their third down plays last year. So if they just want to use him in a situational role early on, that is the team that could potentially do it. The last DB I wanted to talk about is Zeki Wheatley, who fell to 151. He was 78 on your board. He ends up going to the Panthers, who we talked about as a team that, But could they go safety in the first round based on their depth chart? And so they get a guy who you like, I think, a lot more than the draft seemed to at 151. He's a tall, lean corner. He's over 6 '3". I mean, he's kind of like McNeil Warren in that respect.

25:22And Wheatley's a guy that he's a missile. He will fly to the ball. Now, his tackling accuracy is a little hit or miss. And that is one of the reasons why I think he fell as far as he did. But that, and he just didn't have a ton of ball production this year. He wanted to see more plays on the football. So I think that he was, like, I thought he'd be a nice fit for Dan Quinn. Like, when you think about J. Ron Curse and the way that he used him. So I thought it would take. Jeremy Chin, like a bunch of those guys. Yeah, so it would take the right fit. But, again, a guy that I'm not surprised fell a little bit.

25:57He was more about fit than anything. Just surprised he fell as far as he did.

26:01Derrik Klassen: I love the guy. I mean, I just think he's super rangy. I get it. The ball production's not awesome, but he gets to the football in a hurry. I think his instincts are usually good. So what? He was in the 70s for you, right? 78. Yeah. I mean, to fall as far as he did. Even if he fell a little bit, that was a pretty steep one in my opinion.

26:23Robert Mays: Let's get to some of your favorite picks from day three, Dane, just in terms of value, fit, ones that you feel like teams did really well with what they came away with. We already talked about Javon McCoy going to the Raiders. Obviously, that is a worthwhile gamble for Vegas and where they are and what potentially waits for them on the other side if McCoy works out. Who else in your mind when you saw them, where they came off the board and where they went, were you a fan in day three? Elijah Surratt, wide receiver from Indiana going to Baltimore. It's kind of the opposite of Jacoby Lane, who the Ravens drafted on day two, where Surratt is more of the veteran presence and not going to separate all that much, but he's more of a pro receiver, pro ready.

27:05I think that anybody that watched Fernando Mendoza saw the chemistry those two guys had with back shoulders and all the timing and their routes. That's something that, and those guys haven't been playing very long, less than a year. So that's something that I think Surratt will be able to quickly adapt with Lamar Jackson in that offense and just be someone that can be strong at the catch point. And I think even if you want him to be inside as a power nickel, he could do that. And so I think the different ways you can use him, I really, I mean, maybe, well, time will tell. Maybe Jacoby Lane will end up being the better receiver when we look back five years from now.

27:40But I think in year one, it's going to be Elijah Surratt as a more productive rookie receiver for Baltimore.

27:45Dave Helman: I'm just interested in them trying that because I think for years, and at least for as long as I've been on this show, I have tried to get Lamar Jackson a ball winner, and I was probably more surprised, like more excited.

27:55Robert Mays: the last one probably miles boykin right it was like the last kind of draft they made like probably

27:59Dave Helman: yeah um at least at that position obviously they've tried a couple of tight ends and stuff um but wide receiver it's been a while i think since they've tried a guy of that body type obviously signed deandre hopkins last year but there was only so much left in the tank there even if i was excited about it i think for as much as i've clamored for lamar to have some sort of ball winner and i do want to see it it's also one of those situations where because we've never really seen him with a guy like that and a guy who can dominate on back shoulders or just win 50 50 balls down the field for a quarterback who pretty consistently tends to almost intentionally it feels like overthrow his deep balls i genuinely don't know how good a jump ball guy is going to be for him like i don't know how well he can make some of those throws just like line driving it on outside the numbers and obviously so you got what you've always wanted and now you're not sure This is more like curious optimism.

28:53Dave Helman: Like, I think Lamar is good enough that he'll figure it out. I think both of these prospects are good enough that one of them is going to hit. But I genuinely, like, for as much as I've wanted it, now that it's here.

29:02Derrik Klassen: You caught the car and you're just like, now what?

29:05Dave Helman: Now what am I supposed to do? But, like, actually picturing it on the field, I'm, like, struggling a little bit. Like, connecting A to B. Looking back through the Ravens draft history, I'm pretty sure.

29:15Robert Mays: Okay, so I think the only guy they've drafted over 6 '1 since 2018 is Myles Boykin. Which is funny because— I think he's the only one over 6 '1.

29:27Dave Helman: Because before that, it was all guys who were like 6 '2 and ran a 4 '4. They drafted that guy every year until that point.

29:34Robert Mays: So we get Marquise Brown, James Prochet, who was 5 '11, Devin DuVernay, who was an undersized returner, Rashad Bateman, who shrunk three inches in the draft process.

29:43Derrik Klassen: I'm going to say, what's the number on him? 6 '1". Yeah, he's not like small.

29:48Robert Mays: Sure, but remember when we thought Rashad Bateman was like 6 '3"? Go back and look at the Rashad Bateman rivals page from when he was in high school, and he was listed at 6 '3". And then he got to the combine, and everyone was like, oh, well, guess not. So he was 6 '1", and then you keep going. So Rashad Bateman, 6 '1". Tylan Wallace was that same draft. Zay Flowers in 2023. Devontae Walker in 2024. I mean, that's, and then LaJonte Wester, who is also 5 '9". Those are the guys the Ravens have drafted at receiver other than Myles Boykin since 2019. This is a bit of a departure. So, which is interesting because it's not only a shift in what they're doing, and I keep coming back to this, it's like, we have a new offense in Baltimore.

30:33Robert Mays: There's just new ideas, new value systems. Like they it's not necessarily surprising to see them seeking out a different sort of skill set, even if the front office in Baltimore is the same and has carried over.

30:46Dave Helman: Right. And I do think that that's why it's interesting, because I think there's a chance that for the first era of Lamar being there, the Greg Roman offense was weird. And I think a lot of their run game stuff was just more by formation and weird personnel stuff. And so I think blocking receivers was not as big a deal necessarily needing to be big there. and Lamar is good at like giving yak opportunities and finding guys who are good in space and all that stuff and so it makes sense they drafted so many of those guys now they're in an offense where it's like we we can't live that way like if that's all we got we cannot live as an offense

31:15Robert Mays: well they a lot of the time the blocking receivers in that offense were tight ends right exactly it's like three of them on the field it's flexed tight ends that end up or Patrick record yes so now even if you're living in 12 personnel and we saw that a little bit with the tight ends that they signed in free agency like the fact that durham smith is there now we're gonna if you look at the numbers on it even mark andrews who was more when charlie kohler was not healthy last year the more like traditional tight end they had on the roster he was only in line like 28 of the time or whatever it was like i think the deployment and where those guys are lining up is just going to be different this year and so if your guys who are in the slot or flex off the formation are now receivers they may need to be different body types in order to hold up in the way that you want them to so So beyond the pass catching element of this, what you're asking of the receivers in this offense is just going to be different than what they've been asked in recent years when the tight ends kind of played that role.

32:08Derrik Klassen: If I can be honest, the super tall receivers don't interest me nearly as much as the super short cornerback. Chandler Rivers landing in Baltimore is one of my favorite picks of the day. Yeah, good call.

32:18Robert Mays: Any others for you before we get to Dane's? Any other day three picks that really stick out to you that you really like?

32:22Derrik Klassen: Dane's the star of the show. We were talking about the Ravens and I wanted to highlight Chandler Rivers because he's one of my favorites. That would definitely be one of them. Keontae Scott in Tampa. I'll look through my notes while Dane goes. Rivers, that's a good one. I mean, he's kind of the, in my opinion, the third-round version of D 'Angelo Pons. Yes. Like, you know, undersized, but feisty. Well, he went in the fifth. Exactly. Yeah. He was a, I had him in the 80s, I think. He was a late third-rounder for me. So, I agree. Tremendous value. My next one, we'll stick with undersized corners.

32:52Keith Abney from Arizona State, who I thought was a top 75 player in this draft. He's a little bit undisciplined as a player. He's a little wild. There's some Terry and Arnold to his game. Just kind of fitting, right? Exactly.

33:07Robert Mays: They got a type out there. He ended up in Detroit in the fourth. Is it fifth, right? Yeah. Jeez. To me, that's just value. I mean, when I'm reading my notes on him, the word love just popped up all over the place. It's like, okay, I love the ball production. I love the competitive fire. I love the read-react burst. It's just he's undersized and undisciplined. But he tested well. He was 4-4-5 in the 40, 6-9-1 in the three cone. So it's not a testing thing. He's just under 5-10, so size isn't great, but it's not a disqualifier. Surprised he fell as far as he did. Corner is a really interesting position for them because you look at it.

33:47Robert Mays: They signed Roger McCreary to potentially play the nickel for them. he's on a very, very small one-year deal. The safeties, we'll see what happens with Branch and Kirby Joseph. They sign Christian Izzy and Chuck Hark, I think, kind of as backstops. But we've seen Brian Branch kind of move out of that nickel role. And so it really, how they end up putting together that cornerback room, like Abney getting a chance to potentially play and maybe play inside if you think he can do that. Like, there's just so much in flux there. I thought the corner might have even been a bigger priority for them coming into the weekend because there are so many questions about their secondary overall in Detroit.

34:20No doubt. I'm sorry, I'm distracted by Eli Heidenreich.

34:22Derrik Klassen: One of your, like, going to be one of your favorite picks of the day, if I had to guess. Yeah, I mean, Navy, but he's a Pittsburgh kid. Didn't you call, like, three hours ago that he would probably be getting picked by the Pittsburgh Steelers? It just made too much sense. They invited him, NFL invited him to the draft, knowing Pittsburgh was obviously his, kind of his hometown, and I thought he could have come off the board as early as the 4th, and here we are on the 7th. just an awesome story for a moment for him.

34:50Robert Mays: Yeah, you can tell. Oh my gosh. That's really cool. Just to get drafted period is awesome, but to be there in person in your hometown, like that's a dream come true.

34:58Derrik Klassen: And as cool as it is, not a totally feel good story though. Like you've been on this guy forever. He's a baller. He's the most prolific receiver pass catcher in Navy history. And I get that's maybe not a high bar considering it's an option offense, but they changed their offense for partly in reason because of Heidenreich, because of how good he is as a pass catcher. Now he's a smaller guy. He's not somebody that has a huge catch radius, but he catches through contact. You don't see very many drops. He's listed as a running back, but really he's more of a slot receiver. Really, like I don't think he's, like maybe he can be somewhat of a Danny Woodhead type, but he's not going to be a true between the tackles runner.

35:39You want him motioned out. You want him running routes. you know, get him on a linebacker on a wheel route, you'll take that every time.

35:47Robert Mays: I'll tell you what, if there's an offense and a quarterback that's going to be willing to whip that shit at the running back over and over and over again right now, it is 2026 Aaron Rodgers. And Kenny Gainwell is no longer in the building. Need a Kenny Gainwell replacement, that's right. So that is a fit for more than one reason, even if he's a Pittsburgh kid. The last thing I wanted to say about Keith Abney, one of my favorite notes in the entire beast this year is learning that a guy that you liked was also a competitive inline skater for like a good majority of his youth. That's like, just walk me through what that even means.

36:19Robert Mays: Like what is being a competitive inline skater even entail? Yeah, I think it was his grandmother when he was little would take him to the local skating park and he just tried it out one day when he was like five and really enjoyed it. And so he got better and better and better. And yeah, in the seventh grade, he won the national championship in the 300 meters in Omaha, Nebraska, set a U.S. record. He was really focused on, hey, how far can I take this? Junior Olympics and beyond. And then, you know, high school came, football started to take over, and then COVID really was the final step that pushed him towards football.

36:55But you can't tell me that some of that, you know, 10 years of your youth focused on inline skating, some of that didn't translate over to being a corner. in terms of balance, in terms of, you know, some of the twitch in your muscles and the way you move, your endurance. So I think that's, you know, we hear about wrestling with offensive linemen.

37:15Robert Mays: This has to be a first. For me, it is. It's like one sport leading into another. This has to be a first for you. And that's the best part of, you know, learning about these kids' backgrounds and all their different journeys. That's as unique as you're going to find. Let's get to a couple more of these. Keyshawn Elliott going to the Bears was one of your favorite picks of the day, which tell me more about that. just as much as you want. You invested? He was my 83rd player, I believe, coming out of Arizona State. He was actually at... You really liked the Arizona State defense last year, huh? I had a really good time watching the Arizona State defense.

37:48Well, another former New Mexico State player. He was at New Mexico State. He was the same recruiting class as Diego Pavia. Eli Stowers was there, obviously. But he was a high school quarterback, got overlooked throughout the recruiting process, goes to New Mexico State and became a linebacker full time and was really good. And so he transfers up to Arizona State. And he was the captain of that defense, basically. They called themselves the werewolves, and he was the leader of it. A really smart player. And again, we talked about it before. The quarterback and that mirror image, I think that was a natural transition for him.

38:24Looks the part, moves well, sees things really well. Just all the intangible stuff's off the charts. I would have had no problem taking this guy in the top 100 picks. And so I think the Bears got excellent value on the third day of the draft.

38:39Robert Mays: Here's the cope is that they took Xavier and Thomas earlier than they wanted. I wasn't going to say it, but yeah. We're just going to flip them. We're just going to pretend Xavier and Thomas went in the fifth round, and we're just going to pretend Keishan Nellie went in the third round, and we're just never going to think about it again.

38:52Derrik Klassen: That's draft 101. Like, if you don't like a pick, just find a pick you do like and pretend it's the other way around. Like, oh, we got this guy in the third and this guy in the fifth. It's great. A serious point.

39:01Robert Mays: The Bears and linebacker death absolutely makes sense. You look at that room right now. Noah Sewell's going to the final year of his deal. They re-signed DeMarco Jackson, who I thought acquitted himself very well last year.

39:11Dave Helman: Given like the emergency situation.

39:13Robert Mays: When that linebacker room was just completely decimated. I thought some of the work that he did in coverage was really impressive. They signed him to a two-year deal, but it's one that they can probably get out of. They can get out of after this year. And TJ Edwards took a step back last year he was obviously banged up for a good majority of the season but even after signing devin bush in free agency watching them try to build up that linebacker depth in chicago not

39:34Dave Helman: the least bit surprising it is interesting though like somebody in the room has to go like they just have too many of them because all the guys that you mentioned they drafted reuben hippolyte last year that's right like you're not going to carry six linebackers somebody's going to go yeah it's a good point you might come down to who's better on special teams um and that's

39:50Derrik Klassen: you could carry six linebackers if you want to do like that's that's i would do that i don't know

39:55Dave Helman: with every NFL team.

39:56Derrik Klassen: Somebody's, you just, one of them's gotta be a special teams demon, but yeah.

40:00Robert Mays: We're saving your best for last. Your favorite pick of day three was who? It's gotta be Riley Nowakowski. Credit to the Steelers. They drafted a few of my guys, but Nowakowski to me, he, if you're just gonna have a conversation about the most useful players in the draft, Nowakowski, absolutely in there. The Indiana tight end who part H-back, part fullback, part just whatever you want him to do. He's a former walk-on at Wisconsin. They didn't know what to do with them. They knew they had something, but they didn't know what to do with them. They tried him at linebacker. Then they moved into offense.

40:32He transfers to Indiana for his final year. And they're like, OK, we can use you. We know exactly how to use you. And he was the whether it was an underneath route and help move the chains. They use them in goal line situations. He had a couple of rushing touchdowns as a blocker. He will get after it. He will drive his legs, fit guys up and be just technically sound and also finish and so special teams the all the different ways you can use them on offense to me this is someone that's going to play 10 years in the league the it's a joke his Steelers tight ends

41:04Robert Mays: at this point after the way the last two years have gone but if you look at the room they actually did have need for a tight end depth Johnny Smith is no longer there Darnell Washington's going into

41:12Dave Helman: the final year of his contract and so well he's he like a serious injury at the end of last year too we don't even know how much he's how healthy he's going to be going into this at first glance it's

41:20Robert Mays: one of those things like my god the Steelers really need another tight end based on how the last couple years have gone the answer is yes the Steelers did need another tight end based on the

41:27Derrik Klassen: current makeup of that roster I'm so fascinated by the Steelers because like they are an example of how projecting into the future with the draft can go wrong because you we talked about it you draft Broderick Jones and Troy Feltanu back to back and you're like we're set here forever for 10 years we're set and that's just not the way it works in pro football you draft Maxi and Achor this year to help address for that but you look at it right now and you're like man they added a lot of beef to positions that are going to be up there on this line of scrimmage between Ian Nachor, Jennings Dunker, obviously, Riley Nowakowski today.

42:02Derrik Klassen: I hope it works out as well as it looks like it could. That would make them a force. Now I'm interested to see how they use him, if they use him just like Indiana did or, but because like I said, I think he's just very useful. Someone asked me, I did a Reddit AMA last week and someone asked me for my favorite player in the draft, and I came up with three names. I went with Chris Johnson, the corner from San Diego State, but the other two, D 'Angelo Pons and Raleigh Nowakowski, the two Indiana guys. So I just, good to see he was drafted to an offense where I think he can be used to his full potential.

42:36Robert Mays: Speaking of Chris Johnson, we're going to go through some of your favorite classes from this weekend, some classes that were maybe a little bit confusing. There's one class that can't fall into either one of those categories because the team made too many picks for you to actually have like one cohesive grade to put on it. It's a good way to put it. So I'm just curious because we talked so much about it coming in, all the picks that the Dolphins had. And sometimes we do this. We're like, oh, my God, they've accumulated so many picks. This is a foundational draft. And then we can go all day today without mentioning what they did.

43:08Robert Mays: The Dolphins made 13 picks or are set to make a 13th pick here in a second. What do you make of this massive Miami Dolphins draft that is one way or the other going to be pivotal in how this team rebuilds, resets and kind of moves forward from here? I mean, you could play create a 33rd team with just this draft class. It's unbelievable how many guys that are here. And it's interesting that there are some swings in here. There's some steady Eddie, like, good, let's just get it on the fairway type of picks. Like they were kind of all over the place. I love, you know, we talked a lot about Chris Johnson and Caden Proctor and Jacob Rodriguez.

43:45That's, I think, an outstanding pick for them. Love Will Kaczmarek. Getting Kyle Lewis, the Pitt linebacker slash safety in round four, is tremendous value. I think that he is somewhat of a tweener where he's not somebody who's going to take on a block downhill as a traditional linebacker. in reverse it's hard to find tape because he just wasn't asked to be a man coverage guy at pit so you know it's just a lot of uh you know drop and cover the curl and just i mean he wasn't asked to actually but now you watch a senior bowl tape and he was doing it and he did it at a high level we know he's a big time athlete he's has a high uh high intangibles what you like about him so a little surprise he fell out of the top 100 but to get him at 138 was was awesome so yeah they just went a lot of different directions three receivers i think total yeah caleb douglas from texas tech chris bell which you know at 94 that's that's the type of swing you want and then to come back with kevin coleman jr in the fifth round um so they are totally uh reshaping how this uh roster is

44:49Derrik Klassen: going to look i'm bounce bouncing between the fairway shots and the ridiculous swings is robert you made the point like it shouldn't be all of one thing like it's fine like throw some massive swings in there along with some safe picks but it is it's just funny to see from pick to pick how it can range between you know Caden Proctor one and then Chris Johnson and Jacob Rodriguez back-to-back are like two of the picks that people feel the most consensusly safe about and then it's like all right here comes Caleb Douglas probably the guy that surprised Dane the most on day two of the draft it was just that type of uh weekend there's not a single defensive lineman in this class like that's kind of crazy given how bad that that room was going

45:30Dave Helman: into it that that actually is pretty crazy that i didn't take one swing so i guess trey more yeah technically they haven't listed as a linebacker yeah technically he's i think probably better as an edge guy um that's probably where we'll see him and they still have one more pick that was coming up here in a few picks i'm curious what they think kyle lewis is like if he is a linebacker like a run and chase sort of guy in that system, which that to me is not really like how Halfley's defense works. So I would kind of be confused about that. I wonder if they think he's more like Javon Bullard was last year.

46:00Robert Mays: Well, Bullard's a converted corner, right? Right, that's confusing, yes. The last nickel player that we saw, and even the other nickels that they tried to trot out there were guys who were inside-outside players. They weren't seeing, like, it's just interesting, right? I wonder if they even know. Like, when you have 13 picks, you can afford that, okay, if he's still on the board at 138, just take him. He's a great kid. He's a good athlete, great athlete. And I think there's something there. Let's just get him to training camp and figure it out. So if he's still there at that point, yeah, why not take the swing?

46:33Dave Helman: And they do have three startable linebackers already. So it's not like they need him to go in and be a linebacker. Right now, they do. Well, yeah, until somebody trades for Jordan Brooks, which they should. I'm not letting go of that dream until we get to training camp. and they clearly have a bigger need in the secondary. And so I wonder if that's where they want to do that.

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49:32Robert Mays: let's get to some of the classes that you felt the best about dan just like how these teams attack the weekend and let's start with the cleveland browns which is a team that's come up a lot in really any recap show we've done over the last three days what about the way the browns attack the 2026 draft really stuck out to you yeah i think it starts with um understanding the needs on the team and then finding value at those positions starting with Spencer Fano in my opinion the best offensive lineman in the draft they see him as a he's a left tackle and that's exactly what they needed worse comes to worse they're going to find a spot for him on the offensive line if it doesn't work out at left tackle but I think it could he is a the level of athlete that he is to me he's going to translate just fine Casey Concepcion at 24 and then Denzel Boston at 39, getting two just different types of wide receivers back-to-back like that.

50:24Emmanuel McNeil-Warren at 58, outstanding value. Austin Barber, the tackle. He's going to be a swing guy right away, but someone that can step in and give you quality snapped. And then on day three, they go Alabama-Alabama with Parker Brailsford and Justin Jefferson, the center, undersized center. But the way he moves is really impressive. Justin Jefferson, another speed guy. I question some of what he's seeing out there sometimes, but he gets there in a hurry.

50:52Derrik Klassen: If he gets there, too, it's going to look violent also, which I really enjoy. He doesn't hold back. The Ohio kid, Joe Royer at tight end in the fifth round, I like that idea. And then Taylor Greene, a quarterback with just a freaky athlete who down the line might be a different position, but that quarterback room is interesting now with Shador Sanders, Deshaun Watson, Dylan Gabriel still there, and now tailing green. So they'll have some decisions to make there maybe. I guess they could carry all four. And, you know, green. They did it last year. Yeah, it's true. They did. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

51:28I desperately need the Falcons to throw, like,

51:31Robert Mays: a seventh-round pick at the Browns for Dylan Gabriel. I desperately need it to happen.

51:35Dave Helman: That would have to be the first time a lefty room that has ever been assembled.

51:39Robert Mays: You have three left-handed quarterbacks in the room together. I need it to happen. I mean, it's not unrealistic when you. No. With Stefanski. It's not unrealistic at all.

51:45Dave Helman: There almost is a sense of like, if you have a left-handed quarterback and you have to bring the backup in, well, now you're getting right-handed spin. And receivers will complain about the way that the ball spins off the quarterback's hands. If they're all lefties up and down the depth chart, I don't know.

51:58Robert Mays: There's practical use of it and the novelty of it. Those two things coming together at the same time, I desperately need that. Let's get to the next one here, Dan. The New York Giants, one of the other classes that you liked from this weekend. Yeah, and I mean, Derek mentioned this yesterday, but when you have two top 10 picks, like you better be one of the top classes. And I think they, you know, mission accomplished. In my opinion, the best player in the draft, Arvel Reese, you get him at five, come back with Francis Maui Noah at 10. You know, maybe you could argue they should have gone Caleb Downs there or not, but you're getting someone that's going to help the offensive line.

52:34You've already helped the offensive line. Now you help it even more. Then at 37, come back with Colton Hood. So you're upgrading at corner and you're getting a good wide receiver in Malachi Fields at wide receiver. Day three, I think, has been fine. Like, I really like Jack Kelly, the linebacker from BYU. He also has one of the better backstories. He was a competitive BMX rider from the age of five all the way through high school. So he didn't really play football because everything was tied up in BMX. So he's someone in the sixth round. I like that value at that point. So the Giants have to be mentioned in any conversation in terms of the best draft classes this year.

53:11Robert Mays: And looking at Malachi Fields, we had this conversation about the Ravens. When's the last time the Giants had a receiver like that? Because most of the guys they've sought out over the last, like, five to ten years. Galladay, does that count? Have either been, Kenny Galladay, they've signed a free agency. Yeah, right. But in terms of guys they've drafted, it's been all speed guys or undersized guys. Wando Robinson, Kadarius Toney, Darius Slayton, Jalen Hyatt. And then Isaiah Hodgins was on the team. The big-bodied guys have not been guys that they drafted. And so it's been a while since they've sought out that skill set.

53:44The kid from Oregon State, what was his name? Gosh, I'm blanking. How long ago? Within five years. But that's, yeah, to your point, that's traditionally not the type of receiver they've gone after. But what we like about Fields is he's a ball winner, right? I mean, he's someone that will balls up in the air. Okay, I'm going to go get it. And so that's as you we talked about with the Saints and Tyler Shuck. You got to figure out what you have. Same thing with Jackson Dart. You have to give him a little more weapons. Give him some help on the outside. Fields can be that guy.

54:16Robert Mays: And I know you like their Giants draft as well, Derek.

54:18Dave Helman: I did. And again, they had a lot of premium picks when you have two top 10 picks. It's easy, but it's a part of it is almost every pick they made is like, that's kind of who I would have taken there anyway. Like, that's part of why I like it. Obviously, Arvill Reese, I think, is kind of hard to argue. Francis Malinoa, it's like, I probably would have taken Caleb Downs, but I don't really think there's that, you know, a bad argument to make to go and draft a starting guard for you, who to me was the best offensive lineman. Him or Fano, probably the best offensive lineman in the class overall. Colton Hood, like, you look at some of the players that went after that.

54:46Dave Helman: Handful that I like and that I would have liked his picks there too, but, like, I would take Colton Hood given the way that their secondary was. And then Malachi Field, just like, to get a ball winner for Jackson Dart in a situation where, like, they've got speed and other stuff in that offense. Like, Malik Nabors can kind of do it all, but he is more of a guy that, like, you're winning with speed. Darius Slayton, obviously, a guy who wins down the field. And so for them to get a guy who can just, on a third and eight, or if he's scrambling outside the pocket, whatever it's going to be, which Jackson Dart does do a lot, for him to just have a 6 '5 target that he can go and find, I like that bet a lot.

55:18Dave Helman: And they drafted, not a wide receiver, but they signed Isaiah Likely. Like, they're just like, they did want to get a little bit bigger on offenses. It felt like I was thinking of Isaiah Hodgins, who you mentioned, right? Yeah, that's I hear. I thought of Oregon State seeing him in that uniform.

55:34Robert Mays: So that's how our brains work. Yeah, it is. In my mind, it's like, when did Isaiah Hodgins sign a weird free agent contract with the Giants? And you see him in an Oregon State uniform. Let's stick in New Jersey. The New York Jets also had a draft that you really liked here as we wind down day three. Yeah, I can't say that maybe I would have like maybe drafted the same play. I still, the Kenyan Sadiq one's still interesting to me, like just how that exactly that's going to look. So I can't say that maybe I would have gone that way. And the same thing with that number two with David Bailey, a player who I like and I think is going to be a good pro.

56:07But then Omar Cooper coming back to Indiana, guys, Omar Cooper at 30 and then D 'Angelo Pons at 50. Like just love those two back to back. And I think even on day three, Daryl Jackson's the type of talent worth drafting. Once we get to day three, just a, a, unbelievable in terms of his size, how long he is.

56:28Robert Mays: A defensive tackle from Florida State. Right. And so I think he's someone that, okay, let's get our coaches with him. And if we can just get him 15 % better, he's someone that's going to give you really quality reps as a rotational defensive lineman.

56:40Derrik Klassen: I knew you loved all the Hoosiers, but it's shining through when we're talking about them all. I mean, there's a reason they won the national championship. And it wasn't, we love Mendoza. It wasn't all Mendoza, though. And I think that we're seeing that, we've talked about it, but we're seeing it on draft weekend with all the Indiana players getting drafted. It was more than just a quarterback doing his thing.

57:04Robert Mays: What do we make of that? Like, what do we make of the fact that how many of those guys were recruited to play at Indiana and how many of them were like JMU guys that came over? Omar Cooper's an Indianapolis kid. He's local. So he count him. But you're right. Most of them came from elsewhere. I mean, Mendoza obviously was at Cal. All the JMU guys, D 'Angelo Pons, Elijah Surratt, quite a few of them. Pat Coogan came from Notre Dame. He was drafted today. Riley Nowakowski from Wisconsin. um uh fisher was jmu wasn't he yes he was and he was drafted so yeah that's a good one so that's a lot of like fbs programs but like the idea that so many like a good chunk of these guys came from jmu and are some picks you are really liking there has to be some sort of like weird signal in that like it seems incredibly strange that like that path forward and like whatever like magic fairy dust they had at indiana to make these guys like real draftable players i don't know what the conclusion there is, but there's something there that's worth exploring.

58:05Derrik Klassen: Well, if Kurt Signetti, Google him. If we're being a little more cynical about it, good shout, by the way, Google him line. I mean, like some of these guys are older players too. And a lot of people noted that during Indiana's run of the title of like, these are grown ass men playing college football. And that's, I think that's a reality that the, I mean, the COVID year and the number of older players that we see, I mean, we had a 25 year old first round draft pick. That's not to take any credit away from Indiana. They were an incredible football team. But I think that is a benefit is a lot like these are these are mature, ready-made football players.

58:39Robert Mays: That's also part of it. I'm sure that's part of it. My thought is just how many kids are there out there at places like JMU or schools like that that are those sorts of recruits that if you put them with a Kurt Signetti and what would be waiting for them on the other side is potential NFL prospects like the pool of available talent seems so much bigger thinking about like that development plan for these guys than you can even like fathom well it's a it's a heck of a recruiting pitch if you're signetti yes i mean look look what i did with these guys and there were how many what star recruits are these guys going to jmu i mean i mean a guy like elijah surat started at saint francis and they found him and you know it's there's some element of luck involved like you jmu had to have these other schools look at D 'Angelo Pons and say, you're too small.

59:29It's not like D 'Angelo Pons chose JMU over Miami or some of these other schools. It took some luck for other schools to overlook them. I don't know if we'll ever see anything to this level again. This might have just been capture lightning in a bottle. Mendoza is a perfect example. If not for a last second offer from Cal, he's going to Yale. Who knows if he ever reaches his full potential as a quarterback and we're talking about him as a draftable player. I think talent shines through. And the old adage is, if you're good enough, the NFL will find you. But it certainly helps when you have a team like a coach like Signetti who is able to get these guys together and then bring a lot of them to Indiana and then go on the run that they did.

1:00:12Dave Helman: That's kind of what I'm thinking, Dane. We're like, the NFL will find you at some level. But let's say like Pond stays at JMU. Maybe he's a fifth-round pick. Because again, it's like lower competition. Then he's a small guy. Maybe he doesn't play in as many big games, doesn't get to have all these. Dane's trying to convince us that he's this great player

1:00:30Derrik Klassen: instead of us being able to turn on the Oregon game. Oh, this guy kicks ass.

1:00:35Robert Mays: My question is, is it the fact that Kurt Signetti was incredibly good at finding those maybe overlooked players who were NFL caliber guys, or did he make them into being NFL caliber guys? And which one of those it actually is, I think there's a really interesting answer there. It's impossible to know. Yeah, and the answer is probably in the middle where it's a little bit of both. And so that's why I just, I'm not sure we'll ever see something quite like this again. Next class that we want to talk about, we would talk about it. It seems like every single, like every 20 minutes or so, you say it or somebody else says like, man, the Raiders, like look at what the Raiders have done this weekend.

1:01:10Robert Mays: And so we cannot finish this conversation or get through this conversation without talking about Fernando Mendoza and everything else that the Raiders have done this weekend. Yeah, obviously, we've laughed about it. You know, Mendoza maybe not getting the airtime he deserved for being a number one overall pick just because we knew it was going to happen as another Indiana player has drafted Aiden Fisher, linebacker. But I think that it just didn't stop with Mendoza. They come back in round two with Trayden Souks. I get it. He's an older player. But the half-glass full part of that is how experienced he is, and you feel like you have a really good idea of what you're getting from day one.

1:01:48in round threes to come back with a the an edge rusher like here on crawford who brings a lot of juice can give you that speed trey zoon a versatile offensive lineman played mostly left tackle but i think you project him at center but he can also play guard gives you versatility across the line we talked about jermott mccoy but then to come back with mike washington obviously ashen dentes you're running back one but mike washington you add to the mix and then i like malik benson i think the biggest uh maybe criticism of the Raiders draft is where are the receivers you know where the these guys that are going to help us on the outside especially Malik Benson can only do so much I mean he's a six-round pick so it shouldn't be expected to really make that unit better than it is but it's it's something and so I talk about juice yeah he has he's a 4-3 guy he'll he'll help as a return man as well so I get the criticism in terms of hey they're not finding uh they're didn't add any receivers in the top five rounds and what that means we'll have to see how it plays out maybe they're not done um you know adding some some veterans or maybe there's a trade coming or you know who knows we'll have to see how it plays out we're gonna do a show later this week me and

1:03:00Robert Mays: dave i believe just looking at the biggest holes that are still left like the biggest questions that we still have after the draft is wrapped up and i would assume that we will discuss the raiders past catchers as part of that show so we will hit a lot of that because that's to me as we're going through all this stuff and trying to all these things moving parts and these picks flying off the board trying to figure out what hasn't been addressed is not always the easiest thing to do that is something we will be doing as the dust settles here over the next couple days

1:03:25Derrik Klassen: i'm ready to do my wind horsed fingers you know because there's there's there could be some stuff

1:03:30Robert Mays: coming down the line especially receiver i think this is a team that a jawan jennings a stefan digs like there are veteran receivers still available it stefan digs it seems like his fate is to be like a raider for like a young quarterback right now like that is the part of his career that he is very much in he'd be a cardinal in 2027 exactly exactly exactly we're gonna do like fake like two-year 45 million dollar deals that are full of fake money for stefan diggs in each of the next three off seasons two more teams you wanted to hit here dain the first of which being the tampa bay buccaneers what did you like about the bucks draft this weekend yeah and we talked about um Keontae Scott, to get a value like that on day three is awesome.

1:04:14But, I mean, my favorite thing, what they did, Bower Sharp, tight end from LSU. Just a great player. No, actually, Reuben Bain. Getting one last LSU thing. God, that's good. Reuben Bain, just talking to some of the members of the front office the last 24, 36 hours, They didn't think there was any shot of this. And so Jason Light is a happy man right now with how things played out. Come back in the second round, get Josiah Trotter. We hit on it yesterday, just a hammer looking for a nail. Not someone you're necessarily going to trust in coverage, but when you think about the scheme and maybe the type of linebacker they were looking for, it makes more sense.

1:04:57Ted Hurst, the toolsy receiver in the third round, and then they got some good depth on day three. I like Billy Shrouth a lot in the fifth round. So I love what the Bucs did.

1:05:05Robert Mays: He's a guard from Notre Dame, Billy Shroth.

1:05:07Dave Helman: I love just the defensive approach in terms of energy. Yeah, I'm shocked that you do. This is a release the hounds sort of defensive approach. Obviously, Bain is just the wants to cave in every guard's face mask that he can. Josiah Trotter, same thing. I say Demonte Capehart, defensive tackle from Clemson in the fifth. He's part of that, too. I mean, throw on the Georgia Tech tape against Rutledge, and he more than held his own. He got a few shots at Rutledge. And so, yeah, there's something there. And it's not just that I love that or that it even fits the Todd Bulls defense. They just did not have that last year.

1:05:40Dave Helman: They were one of the worst run. They were a way worse run defending team than Bulls teams have ever really been. And also, they just did not tackle really well, like in kind of all three levels of the defense. And so for them to get a bunch of guys where maybe imperfect in other ways, but I'm certain that they can hit and tackle you. It's a good approach.

1:05:57Robert Mays: Last one here, the Dallas Cowboys, one of your other favorite classes from the weekend. And what about the Cowboys draft class this year stood out to you? I think it's another situation where a team had multiple first-round picks. So it's easy to look at those teams and say, OK, look at the talent they got. Starts with Caleb Downs, one of the best players in this draft. Then they come back with Malachi Lawrence, a player we knew they liked quite a bit and the fit that he can be in that new scheme with Christian Parker. This is very much a Christian Parker type of draft.

1:06:25Derrik Klassen: They gave him the reins. No doubt about it. They said, what's your wish list? and we're going to go to the grocery store and we're going to get you all the ingredients for this amazing meal you're about to prepare for us. Jay Sean Barham to finish in the third round. Sounds like he's going to be playing off the ball, more of an inside linebacker, which is going to be interesting because I think he was, I think that's where he struggled at Michigan. I think he's more of a C-ball, get ball type of guy and he plays with a ton of just energy and fire. And so reading things out from a stacked position, We'll see how that plays out.

1:07:00Devin Moore and Drew Shelton in the fourth round are interesting because they're talented guys. There's tools there to work with. And so it's just I think you need to develop some things with both of them. They need to stay on the field, especially Devin Moore. He's been banged up quite a bit. Then LT Overton from Alabama, who we thought coming into the year could have been maybe a first-round pick because the talent is there. He's a former five-star guy. It's just the impact level never lived up to what the talent is, It's just not yet the sum of his parts. But I think that you think of that scheme and his part of what it could be for Christian Parker, I think it makes sense.

1:07:37Robert Mays: Patriots just drafted a guy named Jim Miller. Good player. Fun player.

1:07:42Derrik Klassen: Roll Tide. I can't believe I just said that. I was going to say, you did say that. That's a tough one. Clip that out, please. I like the player. I like the player.

1:07:49Robert Mays: We'll roll that one back every once in a while when we're feeling spicy over here. Before we move on, let's take one more quick break.

1:08:25Derrik Klassen: We'll be right back.

1:08:28Robert Mays: Wayfair, every style, every home.

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1:09:35Robert Mays: Let's get to the other side of this here. Just classes that even if, and I know you're not prone to doing this anyway. We're not going to be dumping on anybody here. But even if you aren't going to go to that level where we're crushing what a team did. Just classes that were maybe a little bit confusing, a little bit confounding. ones that are maybe a little harder to parse than some of the others from this weekend. Let's start with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Jags draft, just including some choices that maybe were a little bit surprising in real time. What do you make of the Jags draft class? Not having a top 50 pick, obviously, that's, I kind of mentioned it with the team with multiple first-round picks.

1:10:13It's a little easy to pick them out as your favorite, where the Jags were the opposite. They didn't have a top 50 pick, and that does make it a little bit tougher. But Nate Borchercher, to draft him where they did at 56 to kind of get that tight end run going was a little bit of a surprise. I'm very eager to see just how much they plan to feature him. And I think he, especially as a blocker, when you think about what they want to be, they want to run the football. They want to be physical, and that helps them do that. So it'll just be interesting how that plays out. And that also, talking about being physical, Emmanuel Pregnant in the third round, like that kind of fits exactly what they want to be.

1:10:49Regis I think is a fine player in the third round I don't think we're going to look back at this draft class and say this helped them get over the top and maybe that's unfair to say because they didn't have a top 50 pick so maybe we were going to look back at this class and say it was fine and that's how we should look at it because they had one pick in the top 80 so I'm not going to kill the Jaguars at all it's just not a class that I think you're getting overly excited about

1:11:16Robert Mays: this is we don't need to harp on this too much i just think that it's a really interesting signal and a really interesting thing to point out that the team that got that extra first round pick last year is a team where we look at the haul that they just had and be like man this is look at all the players that the browns had and then we'd look at the jags and it's like ah it's a little bit underwhelming what they came away with and it's just even in a world where you are so so excited about what travis hunter can be as you play this stuff out a year or two in advance it like it's often beneficial to be the team that is accumulating some of these picks and having more bites at the apple it's risky it's it's yeah there it's it usually does end up benefiting teams that are thinking this way when it comes to the draft being like you know what travis hunter might be really good i'm gonna go three spots down and get an extra first round pick next year

1:12:06Dave Helman: and not to rehash to all the Hunter discourse an entire year later, but it's also one of those things, too, that if you're going to do that, if you're going to be really aggressive and go up, and I get that he was a special prospect in some ways, but he was a little bit of an undersized cornerback, and I think that he'll be great. If you want to go up and do that and it's like a Nick Bosa-level pass rusher, totally get it, or like a Joe Alt-level tackle, I get it. They're just to do it for what he did, and I still think that he'll be very good, to be clear, but it's back to what you're saying where when then you give a team like Cleveland so many bites at the apple in the aggregate, there's a better chance that they're going to come out on top.

1:12:39Derrik Klassen: Dane, I'm curious. Where they drafted Bo Kircher, you have to assume he's going to have a role as a rookie. I mean, that's terrible if he doesn't. But other than that, is there a guy here? Like, is Pregnon a guy who can compete for starting snaps right away? Like, if we're looking for impasse. He's 30 years old, he better. Yeah, he better. No, and I think one of the knocks against Pregnon was some of the interviews maybe didn't go great. I mean, because he's big, he moves well. So I think that how big will the learning curve be? And so the coaches getting him over the finish line where he's able to really be someone you trust as a starter will be something important.

1:13:18And I think that's something to watch in Jags training camp is Pregnant. How many first team reps is he getting? What's the progression for him over the month of August? And what does that look like through the preseason? So if you're looking for something in Jags preseason to look for, that'd be one of them.

1:13:38Robert Mays: We talked about it when we were discussing the makeup of their offensive line. That interior is just not full of people movers. I mean, they are getting by with that group. Robert Hainsey was an undersized center that the Bucs consciously replaced with a guy like Graham Barton. Macari is somebody that I believe was an undrafted player. He was never going to be one of those guys. He was a utility lineman for his entire career in Baltimore where he's a problem solver. He's not somebody that you're plugging in. It's like this is an ass kicker. And so that's just what that group is. Like that offensive line in Jacksonville was assembled last year to survive.

1:14:14Robert Mays: It was a group that was assembled to hit a certain floor for them to be functional. And I think in a lot of ways they probably accomplished that. But they don't have a lot of guys who are dictating the way games are going on the interior. And at his best, you'd hope that Pregnon becomes that sort of player.

1:14:30Dave Helman: Right, because when you think about, and there were spurts where the Jags run game was good, but all of their best plays, if you picture them in their mind, were like three motions here. They're doing weird stuff here. It's a crazy perimeter run that's like a one-off thing that they saw in film that week. Like it was not, hey, we just hit outside zone and it was clean and we got them. Like it just wasn't a whole lot of that. And Borker will be a big part of that physicality we're talking about with what they want to be on the offensive line. Now, it's interesting in the fifth, they come back with Tanner Kozio, the tight end who's the opposite.

1:15:00He's not going to give you much as a blocker at all. But as a pass catcher, he's the most productive pass catcher at tight end that we had in college football the last two years. So just interesting there. And even in the late rounds, I think they did some good things with Josh Cameron, the wide receiver from Baylor. Zach Durfee, who Prospect X, pretty sure. Just reading that report. So they did some good things on day three.

1:15:28Robert Mays: The Los Angeles Rams, for some of us, had a confounding draft. Dave may feel a little bit differently, but I think some others in this room are, if not confused, then have their eye on how this draft is going to work out for the Rams. I mean, obviously, we talked a lot about Ty Simpson. And just, I think to the point where it's less about him as a player and more about is this the window now that, hey, we should have been, you know, getting more talent to help push our chips in. I also think it's worth talking about Ty Simpson as a player more than we have.

1:16:06Dave Helman: Because I think with quarterbacks, we're scared to say this was an overdraft, this was a bad pick based on quality of player. If a team had taken a player that was 60th on the consensus board and was an edge and took him at 13 overall, we'd all be like, you can't do that. But there's the element of being wrong on a quarterback that is scary. And obviously the upside of it is incredible.

1:16:28Robert Mays: We touched on this a little bit on Thursday when he got drafted, and we were talking about Brock Purdy and the Brock Purdy path, and I think a lot of people have compared him to Brock Purdy in the process. And if he's their Brock Purdy, that's great. And you mentioned this in real time, but I think it's worth digging into some of the layers of this. Brock Purdy was the last pick in the draft. And Ty Simpson, the idea that, well, Ty Simpson didn't play well in the back half of last season. Well, he was hurt. Well, he's small. And so that is a risk you run with quarterbacks that are small is that they can get hurt.

1:16:57Robert Mays: And so I think so much has been discussed about when you pull the trigger on something like this and how long is he going to sit and everything else. But him being the 13th overall pick isn't only surprising because the Rams did it as an all in team. It's surprising because a lot of people didn't think he was worth the 13th overall pick because of who he is as a player.

1:17:16Dave Helman: And that's the thing, even going outside of the film, because there are some stuff on film that you could see that that could convince you he could be good. I still see some path for him to get to like Baker Mayfield level quality of quarterback where he can do enough for you. You can strike an offense and you can be a pretty good like top five, top 10 offense. but an old undersized quarterback who did not play more than 15 starts like that just doesn't go in the first round like it just never happens and so even if you're just using the purely like objective measures that we have for these guys you just never see a team make a bet like this well the other part of this is I don't like I've heard oh he go he can go sit and I don't think he needs to sit I think he needs to play I think that's that tangible experience on the field That's something that I think he needs.

1:18:02And especially after what happened last year at Alabama, where he got off that hot start, then adversity hit, and he had trouble when it was all on him to get himself out of it. And so that's the type of things ideally you want worked out at the college level before you get to the NFL. So if Stafford plays Garrett Nussmeier off the board to the Chiefs. Okay. Big difference between pick 13 and pick 249 here in these two quarterbacks.

1:18:30Dave Helman: Two guys that were lumped pretty close together by most people. Yeah, always like, oh, who's two and three after Mendoza? That's interesting. But with, let's just say Matthew Stafford plays two more seasons in the NFL with the Rams. We're going on one season as a starter for Ty Simpson in six years before we're going to see him again, and that's just, that's tough. And that's not to say, there's a lot about Ty Simpson I like. I went to bat for Ty Simpson quite a bit over during the season and at different parts of the process. It's just it's a big, big bet to make by the Rams. And to the point of about him potentially sitting and I want to ask you this.

1:19:11Dave Helman: I would say most people thought Ty Simpson's biggest issue on film, even people that liked him, was that when he gets a little bit crowded in the pocket, the accuracy drain is just it goes away.

1:19:21Robert Mays: Because he doesn't have a really good arm.

1:19:22Dave Helman: He just doesn't have a great arm. And you can see like he's kind of fading away. Doesn't always know how to do that. But that to me, kind of to your point, seems like an issue you can only solve with live. Exactly. That is not a mental issue that you solve in, you know, working with on the chalk. It's a really good point. When the bullets are flying, you know, I just sometimes you short circuit and it's like, OK, I have a guy in my face. Oh, I'm going to dump it out here. And meanwhile, you're not accounting for the other defender. So it's just that's I think it's easy to say, oh, he's going to sit and learn.

1:19:49But for some of these guys, they need to be on the field and need to work out some of the kinks out there in live action. And that's why we've seen traditionally one-year starters in college usually don't work once you get to the NFL because it's just it's not a developmental league. So, yeah, I'm hopeful that Ty Sims, he went to a good spot in terms of the coaching staff in that respect, the offensive ecosystem. system, but I still would have liked to see him in a spot where we'd see him on the field sooner than who knows when.

1:20:20Derrik Klassen: I think it just comes down to, and I agree with y 'all that I think he was overdrafted, even if I like him a lot more than all of you, but what's it worth to you to have this in your back pocket if you're the Rams and not be worried about Stafford's future and what pick you will hold the next time you need a quarterback and what all of that looks like. And if Sean McVay and Les Snead like him enough to think that he can develop into something, and obviously you're never completely set. Like, there are other things they could have done with this pick. But if you're in a good enough spot that you don't have a blinking red light there, what's that worth to you to just have a potential answer to the question one to two years ahead of time?

1:21:01Derrik Klassen: And I would like to think, even if you couldn't have gotten Ty at pick 61, I've said this before, maybe you could package some picks and move up higher into the second round for Ty Simpson. But we see year after year, NFL teams don't view it that way. Like, if you feel convicted about a guy, especially at a valuable position, teams just take the guy. And I don't think we will ever all the way agree with that strategy most of the time, but it never stops teams from drafting a guy like this in a slot, even if very few people agree that they should have done it.

1:21:33Robert Mays: Even the, I'm not going to call it messaging. I think even the response when they've been asked about it, the Rams guys at the podium over the last couple of days, they've gone back over and over and over again to what he was asked in that offense at Alabama is some of the stuff he will be asked here. And that stuff where, because I think if you're trying to spin it where if he benefits from sitting, what are the benefits from sitting? I think there is a little bit of a rewiring the way that he sees the game and the offense with the game and the position within that offense.

1:22:00Dave Helman: Or mechanically, like Jordan Love was like this.

1:22:02Robert Mays: Sure, exactly. But it's just like with Ty Simpson, it's like, all right, well, if you're going to sit, we can kind of teach you how you should be seeing the game through the lens of this offense and the benefits that might be waiting. Well, that's already the stuff that they think he does well. We know he can sit. But I think that if I'm playing devil's advocate, I've gone back to this anecdote a lot when talking to Sam Darnold about his time in San Francisco. And Sam Darnold, I think, similar sort of deal where his biggest issue is what happens when it all starts caving in. But his biggest jump as a player in the NFL didn't come after he got experience.

1:22:36Robert Mays: It came after he sat and got to understand how he should be thinking about playing the position within an offense like that. So you're coming around a lot.

1:22:45Dave Helman: But he did have a lot of experience. He played a lot. He played a lot. He played a lot. In college and in the NFL. He played a lot. He played a lot of football.

1:22:51Robert Mays: But his biggest improvement as a player came after an extended period of sitting. And so if you're trying to play devil's advocate a little bit, I've said this the whole time. No, you're right. I get the vision for, like, why they think he is the right answer here. I just think that the needle they're trying to thread is much thinner than you want it to be. To me, it's even different than the Jordan Love thing. because, again, what's waiting for you on the other side of Jordan Love cleaning that shit up because of how talented Jordan Love is, to me, is just very different than what's waiting for you on the other side, upside-wise, with a player like Ty Simpson.

1:23:27Derrik Klassen: But that's the classic case, though, of, yes, Brock Purdy was the last pick in the draft. Where would he be drafted if you could do it all over again? Even if he wouldn't be 1-1, he would go a hell of a lot higher than Mr. Irrelevant.

1:23:38Dave Helman: I think I'm done doing this with the draft because the point of the draft is we don't know. And so you take players with profiles that are a little bit scarier, just go later.

1:23:48Derrik Klassen: But like even and you're right, obviously. I mean, yes, that's the whole it's the whole thing is a crapshoot. And that's why this speculation is as intense as it is. But even if Brock Purdy is an unimpressive physical specimen, what he can do for you and what he's capable of is worth taking far higher than it would have been. And so like if you believe in a guy like that, I still think it's worth drafting highly, even if he's just not an alien sort of talent like a Jordan Love.

1:24:17Robert Mays: This is different to me than the Makai Lemon, Amon Ross St. Brown thing, because I think that the needle we're threading with Brock Purdy is significantly smaller than it is with a player like Amon Ross St. Brown. And I think that's what we're talking about with Ty Simpson. Quarterbacks in general, right? I just think that the Brock Purdy thing is almost like, we're going to make mistakes because we think we can find the next Brock Purdy. And I wonder if Ty Simpson is the first one of those mistakes. We're still watching the draft here. The 251st pick, Dane, just came off the board, and it is the Philadelphia Eagles going back to the well for seventh-round picks from the International Pathway Program.

1:24:50They've had some success in the past. They sure have. And this is Ewer Bernard from Nigeria, who just 21 years old, and some of the freakiest numbers that you will see, 6 '4", 5 '8", 306 pounds, and he ran a 4.66, jumped 39, had 10-10 bruh.

1:25:07Dave Helman: He said 306 pounds. 306 pounds. This is the action figure we were talking about. And look how he's wearing it. Like, it's not, it's all muscle. It's just unbelievable the way he's built. He's 35 and three-quarter inch, or three, yeah, three-quarter inch arms, 11 inch hands.

1:25:24Robert Mays: Are you ever going to say he's 35? Oh, no, no. He's 21 years old. He's young. He's a young player. Shout out F.A. Obata being there for him, too. He did the other international pathways. Yeah, the Mississippi State tight end, right. And so this is, we thought this would happen at some point in the seventh round. Like, take a chance on this guy. It's very raw. Talking to some scouts that were at his workout, like, he is very, very raw as a football player. This is an athlete, you know, a ball of clay that you hopefully can mold into something.

1:25:56Derrik Klassen: Can I just say, like, sometimes I get a little self-conscious, like, the jokes we make about teams and their preferences and the stuff that they like to do. Maybe it becomes a little too much of a meme. but time after time teams show us the stuff that they like to do and the stuff that they're willing to do like this is such an eagles decision the ravens have made several very ravens decisions in this draft this is how those things become memes the eagles are explicit about it yeah

1:26:22Robert Mays: there's no like reading into it with the eagles how he has said over and over and over again we want players especially in this range of the draft that are unusual that's what he says and he It's the word that they use. When they're trying to find picks late in the draft, you're Jordan Mailata's. Jason Kelsey is a player like this. What is unique and unusual about you?

1:26:43Derrik Klassen: They're comparing his protein to Miles Garrett.

1:26:45Dave Helman: This is insane. I mean, it's the same. He's 30 pounds heavier. I get it. It's crazy.

1:26:52Derrik Klassen: I'm not doing my guy any favors. I don't think people realize there's a PPI exemption for the practice squad for these guys. So they can't get no downside. Yes, exactly. The NFL is trying to grow the game. If you watch the draft and you saw all the different international fans that we've seen, they want to grow the game. And a guy like this, this is why the International Pathway Program exists, to find these talents and get them to the league, get them with NFL coaching, and see if they could be something. I brought up Efe Obata on purpose. I mean, he showed up in Dallas' off-season roster when I worked there.

1:27:29Derrik Klassen: He was an IPP guy. They had a roster exemption for years. I don't think, no, he never appeared in a game for the Dallas Cowboys, but he hung out there for two or three years and went on to play for Carolina. He played for Buffalo. He played for Washington. 15 career sacks, 80 career games, and made a hell of a lot of money playing pro football, and he showed up. I loved watching him.

1:27:51Robert Mays: I loved watching F.L. bottom play.

1:27:54Derrik Klassen: He showed up in Dallas' off-season program, and it was like, okay, who's this guy and how much football has he played? I remember that. That's wild.

1:28:01Robert Mays: That's probably 10 years ago. It was 2015, 16 for sure. So Howie on Friday night when asked about Markel Bell, says Markel Bell was a passion player for us throughout the process. Unusual size, unusual length, Mark defined. The Eagles weren't unusual players. 87-inch wingspan, 36-inch arms. Yeah, there were a few teams that were like that with Markel Bell, and that's why the Eagles had to take, they took them to the 60s. So, I mean, a little bit earlier than we thought, but that's what you have to do with these unusual players. Let's get through a couple more unusual draft classes here. We've talked about it a lot.

1:28:35Robert Mays: We don't have to harp on it, but Derek, I think that we're all still a little bit confounded by the way the Arizona Cardinals attack the first couple of days of the draft.

1:28:42Dave Helman: Yeah. And like, it's, it's not even just the Jeremiah Love thing, which we we've hashed over a bunch of times. I don't have to do that. A lot of it is, is the Carson Beck of it all. It's kind of just like a, why are we burning a pick on a quarterback that again? I think if he starts 60 games over the course of his NFL career as a backup and spot starter, I'm not going to be surprised. But that, to me, feels... 60? 60 is a lot. Jacoby Brissett has started at least, I would imagine, 60. That's kind of a weird one, though.

1:29:15Derrik Klassen: Jimmy Garoppolo only started 64 games, which blew my mind. Okay, so let's say 30.

1:29:19Dave Helman: That actually does blow my mind. I guess he was banged up a number of times, right? And he was a backup in New England for a few years. I'll say 30. like two NFL seasons worth of games. But that to me feels like, again, the ceiling for him over the course of his entire career. And so I just don't understand why they're drafting that where this was the top, this was the first pick of the third round. Like there were a lot of good players that went after this. I mean, Malachi Fields who we talked about was I think the 10th pick in this round. There were a lot of good guys in this range that it just felt to me a little bit weird that they didn't want to attack almost anywhere else on the roster.

1:29:51Dave Helman: We talked about it a lot.

1:29:52Robert Mays: I don't think we have to belabor the point, but I think there's a lot of the Cardinals feeling an obligation to gesture at the idea of finding a quarterback in this draft because they felt like they had to and i just i hate that like it's there are years we talked about it when we were discussing some heinous quarterback seasons earlier today when we're all just sitting around if you have to like roll with cody kessler all season and an active tank job that's hard to sell that's hard to sell you would hope that the combination of jacoby persett and Gardner Minshew can get you through to the finish line at the end of an NFL season where you don't have to spend the 65th overall pick on a quarterback that you clearly don't like that much anyway and I

1:30:32Dave Helman: think what's frustrating is like you can get me there on the rest of how they approach or at least the players like again Jeremiah Love I wouldn't have taken him but like he will be a good player Chase Besantis I liked a lot in the second round Caleb Proctor has like an explosive like let's get after him uh sort of defensive tackle like it Reggie Virgil was my like a day three receiver in this class like there's a lot about this that makes a lot of sense to me the Beck thing just sticks out as this like weird sore thumb a draft that you wanted to talk about Dave that again not in a negative way but just in one you were like this is interesting at the very least was the

1:31:05Derrik Klassen: Minnesota Vikings yeah I I don't I don't want to frame it as confounding because I I don't dislike it and I want to make that very clear I'm just fascinated and it starts I mean I guess going into the draft we could have guessed that right sure this is a team without a general manager there rob brosinski is the interim and so it's always interesting to think like who's who's got their hand on the helm here and who's putting their thumb on the scale and driving the decision making and it kicked off with a bang when you take a guy like caleb banks who he's one of my favorite players in this draft class if he's healthy and being a ty simpson caleb banks guy has just been a monstrous weekend for Dave Hellman.

1:31:46Derrik Klassen: It's very validating as long. I mean, we'll see how it ages. It's validating right now. Who knows what it'll look like in a year. But it's a fun pick. It is a swing for the fences. And I think on Thursday we build it as, you know, in a draft where the star power was lacking, Caleb Banks has that type of talent. Like he is that sort of prospect if he's healthy. So I'm fascinated by that. Then you get Jake Golday, who I said was one of my favorite picks of day two, mainly because of who he's going to be playing for. Like Brian Flores is just a guy that can do a lot of stuff with him. I would imagine he's going to have a pass rush role like he's just going to do a lot of varied stuff.

1:32:27Derrik Klassen: And that goes hand in hand with, by the way, trading away one of your best defensive players in Jonathan Grenard, who is an eagle now. And add it to Dominique Orange as well. Like they remade their defensive tackle room in the span of about 26 hours. Throw that in there with Jacoby Thomas, who was another one of my favorite players. They took a fullback in this draft. They took an FCS player in this draft. So a lot of swings, a lot of unusual decisions, we'll call it. But some of them have tremendous amounts of upside. I don't, I don't dislike it, but I just look at it and I'm like, I can't wait to see how this ages.

1:33:05Robert Mays: I was going to say there are teams that have general managers that we don't really talk about as general managers, right? Like the Bengals are like this. Like Duke Tobin is a name that like a general NFL fan wouldn't know. Will McClay is the de facto general manager for the Dallas Cowboys. But when we talk about the Cowboys drafting quality, Will McClay's name would never come up with someone who's a casual fan of the NFL. Is there a benefit to just not having a general manager? Like, would ducking the heat of the picks and being able to avoid it actually benefit teams in the process because the buck doesn't stop with anyone at the end of the day?

1:33:40It just falls into the ether, kind of. Well, I mean, Will McClay is, I mean, obviously he's very well compensated, but he's had opportunities, and he's fine. I think he's got the best job in America. Right. He's shielded from much of the criticism with the Jones family, but he is, you know, the wizard behind the curtain, pulling the strings for a lot of these guys. I just wanted to mention Deion Burks, the last player from my top 100, just drafted to the Colts. The Colts, I mean...

1:34:08Robert Mays: I wanted to bring up the Colts before we got out of here. Because they didn't have a first-round pick, but everything else they've done, you seem to be a very big fan of. I mean, to get C.J. Allen at 53, that's the tone-setting linebacker they were looking for. A.J. Halsey also on day two, and then to come back on day three, uh jalen farmer guard from kentucky who very well could have gone day two bryce betcher from uh the linebacker from oregon what was the quote dave that he had uh there's no feeling like inflicting

1:34:34Derrik Klassen: pain on someone legally legally something i'm paraphrasing right so i mean that that sums him up um george gums from florida i think the edge group really thinned out on day three but he was one of the few that is really intriguing caden curry from ohio state he's a local uh kid in Indiana so that's a good fit for him then Seth McGowan the running back but then Deion Burks who's my 99th player to get him at this point in the draft in the seventh round love what the Colts did considering they didn't have a top 50 pick you look at the needs the Colts had coming into

1:35:04Robert Mays: the draft and I think edge still you know like edge sure a little bit earlier in an ideal world I think you address that there's a reason they were in the Trey Hendrickson market right like one more guy to give some pop to that pass rush group they signed Arden Key in free agency but Like, that's the one area that I think that of the roster that desperately needed addressing or seriously needed addressing that they didn't spend a lot of capital on. Everything else. They needed two linebackers. They got two linebackers. They needed a safety desperately. They got a safety. It was probably time to start refilling that interior and just general offensive line depth with some of those mid-round picks that they've done so well with over the last couple years.

1:35:42Robert Mays: Enter Jalen Farmer. And they did need one more pass catcher after, you know, when you look at them trading away Michael Pittman. And if Deion Burks can come in and be your fourth receiver this year, potentially, those are all the areas you would have liked to have seen addressed, essentially, with the Colts. And they did it all without a first-round pick.

1:36:00Derrik Klassen: I don't want to speak too soon, but Kenny Moore is still on the roster, too, which he requested a trade. Obviously, that could still happen.

1:36:07Robert Mays: He's done that plenty of times. This isn't his first go-around doing that.

1:36:10Derrik Klassen: He made it through the draft, which is a prime time to be doing stuff like that, and he's still on the team. So it is like the Colts were one of those teams where I was like, how much can they really change my opinion of them without a first-round pick? And I'm looking over it right now, and I'm like, Ballard, you got me. I'm in. Burks is 4-3-0 speed. I think that's just something you want to add to the offense, to the mix, even if he's more of a gadget guy. I like Burks. Like, I mean, clearly the league didn't completely agree with me. I think he could be more than that. I don't know. Like, the lack of production to me doesn't mean that he, like, couldn't be more than that.

1:36:49That had a lot to do with Oklahoma's scheme and a quarterback than anything else. But, again, I think at the very least you have a guy with speed. That's something you can use.

1:36:57Derrik Klassen: He is a much more solid player than his height and weight suggests. Yeah. Like, you use the phrase, like, rocked up. Like, I don't think he's a slight 5 '10", 180. He's short, not small. Yeah.

1:37:10Robert Mays: We have two more picks here. I kind of want to just hang out until the end so we can get Dane's reaction to make sure that all the players that went off the board were in the Beast. I'm trying to sit still, and I can't. Was it where Bernard in the Beast? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was one of the last ones. There's your guy.

1:37:24Derrik Klassen: Hey, we're picking all my favorite guys here.

1:37:27Robert Mays: We've got to find out how many tight ends. Tight end from Utah going to the Broncos here at 256.

1:37:32Dave Helman: They're going to stay up at the podium. It's the Broncos again, so this is going to happen. So Dalen Bentley doesn't have to be Mr. Irrelevant. This is the worst part of the draft every year is because we have to wait 20 minutes for them to talk about Mr. Irrelevant before we find out who it is. That's right. I forgot that aspect of it.

1:37:46Derrik Klassen: It's so strange to me. And, like, Brock Purdy is the poster boy now. But even – who's the kicker, Dane? Who's the kicker that was Mr. Irrelevant? The South Carolina kicker. Suckup, right? Yes. Ryan Suckup? Good players can be Mr. Irrelevant, but I don't know. It feels like we're dancing on a guy's grave here. We're just, like, making a big deal and calling it Mr. Irrelevant. It's like a funny bit that has jumped the shark a little bit

1:38:14Dave Helman: that it's such an event within the event.

1:38:17Derrik Klassen: Okay, before we move on to Mr. Irrelevant, though, I like Dallin Bentley a lot. He's a really good receiver. I think he is a better blocker than he gets credit for. But, like, you talk about being validated by somebody's decision. Sean Payton likes this guy. I mean, Sean Payton loves way too many tight ends. So if he loves my tight end, that's okay. He has probably the funniest, I shouldn't say funniest, but most ironic, like pre-college career. He was like a small guy in high school, like just didn't have height, didn't have size. And he hits this growth spurt before his senior year. Finally, he's going to get on the field, be this contributor as a pass catcher.

1:38:59And the first game of the year, He catches a pass down the field like 40 yards and breaks his leg. And so his huddle page is the funniest thing ever because it's one play. That's it. It's one play. He played one play on varsity. And so, you know, he did the religious mission and then came back and went to Juco. He was able to work his way up. But, yeah, he's an older player. To your point, he's another super-duper senior. He's 25. Yeah, so an older player. But the season he put together this past year for Utah earned him a draft pick, and that's pretty cool.

1:39:32Robert Mays: Maybe one of the least surprising bits of the weekend. I'm looking at the Bears draft class, all their picks. Every single guy has a relative athletic score of at least 9.63 or 9.51. The guy that doesn't is the dude who ran 4-2. How about that? That's probably because he's small. Yeah, that's it. That's the only reason. So Ryan Poles likes his athletes. That's interesting. It's been all over the place in terms of the veracity of that approach. But when Zavion Thomas didn't do like any of the, he didn't do shuttles. He didn't do the three cone. It was just speed. Yeah. I mean, that's what he is.

1:40:05Robert Mays: So he's the only guy that's under a 9.51. Everyone else is at least 9.51. They went out and drafted some athletes. Just Zavion Thomas. Rios tested that well, huh? Oh, yeah. He's a freak, dude. At 267. Like he's a good size player. And it's just short arms, like unusually short arms. That was. First percentile arm. Yeah. First percentile arm. 30 and a half inch arms. But yeah, 94th percentile broad, 94th percentile vert. Wow.

1:40:34Derrik Klassen: At 267. My God. Yeah, go spend some time watching Sam Rauch when you get a free minute.

1:40:40Robert Mays: Was Red Murdoch in the Beast?

1:40:43Derrik Klassen: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, he was. Not only was he in the Beast, we talked about him on building the Beast, like, I don't know, within the last two or three weeks. He was my highest graded player still available. The only player left in my top 150. so first buffalo player drafted since malcolm kentz i believe that sounds right yeah you know sean dulac was an undrafted guy for the rams last year at linebacker and i just the 17 forced fumbles in three years it just it's it sounds made up it's an fbs record that's the crazier thing he's it was an fbs record and he broke another buffalo players who who held the record before him like what are the odds of that all right i can breathe easy congratulations buddy You did it.

1:41:23A couple of close calls there, but every player drafted all 257 in the beast.

1:41:28Derrik Klassen: Who scared you the most? The Patriots corner? They went early, yeah, with the Wake Forest kid. Seattle here won the final picks. Michael Dansby from Arizona. There were four Arizona DBs drafted over the last three days.

1:41:40Dave Helman: Isn't there a team that took, like, your 82nd receiver or something like that, too? CJ Williams from Stanford, yeah. The Jags did that.

1:41:46Derrik Klassen: I would have thought the Arizona-Arizona State game was, like, for a playoff spot with all the players that they got there. Them, Clemson, and Auburn, like just a lot of players for teams that weren't all that good.

1:41:58Robert Mays: Congratulations, my friend. Thank you. One more year in the books. That feels good. I can rest easy now. Nobody does it like you. What you put in and just everything that you pour into this process and what comes out on the end of it is unlike anything else in the industry. Sincerely appreciate you spending all of your non-existent extra time doing Building the Beast all season, joining us throughout the draft process. It's fantastic to do it with you. I always have a great time. And if people have not gone back and watched the streams that we've done for the first two days of the draft, you can truly go back on YouTube right now and look at Dane's analysis for every single one of the picks in the top 100 if you are interested in doing that.

1:42:39Robert Mays: It's available on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel. And you're done for the next, like, 10, like, for the rest of the year, huh? Yeah, right. That's it. Pack it in until next April. No, this is cool. Thank you guys for letting me be a part of it. You know, have this space where we can talk about these players in real time. That's the most fun. So thanks to Dave for doing Building the Beast with me all year. I think that was, it's fun taking people behind the scenes of, you know, just the process throughout the year and like how things evolve. And so I think fans really enjoyed that part of it.

1:43:14Derrik Klassen: Listen, I'll give you a little bit of time to catch your breath, but I'm already excited to start putting like a top 50 together for 2027.

1:43:22Robert Mays: Well, I was joking. You have a story coming out tomorrow, right? Yeah. I mean, well, as soon as we're done, I'm going to go back and work, and I'm going to power rank my top 32 classes, and then the next day the 2027 mock draft comes out. And so, yeah, scouting doesn't stop. It's a full year-round thing. We have a show every day this week, so we're in the same boat. We're going to be doing tons of kind of day after and as the dust settles draft coverage. Me and Dave, Dave alluded to it, I think, earlier on this show or maybe yesterday. The next show that we're going to have that's coming out tomorrow, we're going to talk about the messages the team sent based on the drafts they had.

1:43:57Robert Mays: I love doing that every year. I just think that coming into the draft, they're lying. Like, they are just lying to you at every single possible turn. It's impossible for them to lie to you anymore. Like the intentions, the values, the priorities are on full display with what the teams did over the last three days. So that's what we're going to be digging into. We're going to have Fran Duffy on this week to do a little bit of a post-draft post-mortem. I can't believe we didn't have him on in the lead up to the draft. I was like horribly embarrassed about it. And so it was one of my priorities this week was just me and Fran as, again, as the dust settled.

1:44:32Robert Mays: We're just going to do a show about now that we've slept on some of this, What are some things that maybe we look at a little bit differently now that we've had some time to sit with it? And then, like I said earlier, let me talk a little bit about the biggest questions we still have as the draft, after the draft. What needs are still on the board? What needs to be filled? These free agents that are still available, where might they be headed because of how the draft shook out? So a lot of stuff coming your guys' way on the Athletic Football Show this week. And obviously, Dane will have multiple things written about this year's draft and the first look at next year's draft.

1:45:04Robert Mays: So be on the lookout for that. For now, that is all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. And to everyone who stopped by over the course of the weekend, one of my favorite weekends of the year, easily my favorite weekend on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel. So for everybody that tuned in, thank you for your time. We will be back here tomorrow chatting a little bit more about the draft. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating.

1:45:37Robert Mays: We'll see you next time.

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