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We Did a Mock Draft After Free Agency — And It Got Weird Fast
00:47:55
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- [00:00]
A
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads go to Libsyn ads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today. If your rookie draft happened today, it wouldn't look anything like it did a month ago. The NFL combine free agency drastically shook up what we thought we knew about these incoming rookies. That and today Jeff Bell, Mike Khashuba and I are going to do a two round mock draft. Jeff, you are on the clock.
- [01:06]
B
I mean given the value I have to go with Jeremiah Love. There's absolutely no other option that I could possibly go with here. Jeremiah Love, the clear 101 running back Notre Dame. And we'll wait and see and hope he gets a good landing spot.
- [01:20]
A
Yeah, we've got some context right off the jump from this show with our our pre show chat here which leads me to the 102 from Fernando Mendoza. And we don't have to talk about Jeremiah Love. We know who he is. He's a good player, you know, Heisman finalist, all that good stuff. We know he's probably going top 10 in the draft but there's so much discussion that like if you have the 101 you need to take Jeremiah Love, 102 needs to be Fernando Mendoza. Mike, I'll pose this question to you. Like if you've got the 101 and you need a quarterback, is it that egregious to just take Fernando Mendoza at 101?
- [01:50]
C
I mean he's the first overall pick. Assuming that the Raiders make the right choice, he's going to play for a while. It's not the worst landing spot in the world. If you need a quarterback and the one or two doesn't want to play ball, like take the quarterback, make your team better. It's not always just hunting value.
- [02:05]
A
And I think that's what gets lost is like people do want to just find the value so much but like if everybody is playing the same game and valuing players exactly the same, there's no markets to be had, there's no trades to be had. So, like, I talked about this on Twitter recently, saying, Fernando Mendoza, you could take him at 101 if you need a quarterback. And everyone said, no, you need to trade Back to the 102. Jeff, if you've got the 101 in a draft and you reach out to the guy with the 102 wanting to trade back, do you even have any leverage in that negotiation? Because to me, like, if I've got the 102, I'm just gonna say no. Like, I will just happily take whoever you don't want.
- [02:37]
B
Yeah, I mean, if I'm set at quarterback, then. Then maybe I say, well, like, here's a second or something like that. If I. If, like, I'm thinking about that. But at the same time, you reach out to me, you're telling me that, you know, you don't want to take Jeremiah Love is exactly what you're telling me. And so, okay, here's. Here's a very, very future second round pick. And, and I'll take Jeremiah Love off your hands. I'll let you get for Fernando Mendoza. But, yeah, I do think it's. I mean, value is all relative in your league. And yeah, if that's the move that you're trying to make, you're trying to trade with one person in your league and you're walking to that one person, that one person knows exactly what you're trying to do.
- [03:13]
A
Exactly. So, yes, easier said than done. It's really easy to get on Twitter and say, like, just trade back to the 102. A lot harder to actually pull those off in real life when, like, you know, human nature and le and those sorts of things come into consideration. But, Mike, we are now at the 103 and we are snaking our way through this draft. So you are on the board with two picks. Who are you going with here?
- [03:33]
C
Yeah, so at the 103, I went with Makai Lemon.
- [03:36]
A
I.
- [03:37]
C
Look, there's three wide receivers here. You can make an argument for any of them in any order until we get landing spots, draft capital, team investment, things like that. But I had Makai Lemon, Carnell Tate back to back. Both are good prospects.
- [03:50]
A
Both are.
- [03:51]
C
Both could go anywhere from as high as like 104 in the real NFL draft all the way to the back end of the first round. We'll see how the draft plays out. And I don't think there's a wrong answer at three, four or five.
- [04:06]
A
Yeah, that, that's where I am as well. I mean it does feel a little bit chalky at the top of the draft. My pick here is going to be Jordan Tyson, which when you look at this top five, Jeremiah Love, Fernando Mendoza, Carnell Tate, Makai Lemon, Jordan Tyson. You're going to see that top five in a lot of drafts here. So that's why we kind of rapid fired. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, I say this every single show, but a review is the best way to help this show grow. So if you listen to the show, whether you like it or dislike it, let us know in a review. You know, we, we look at all feedback as good. It is all a gift. Let us know where we can improve. Let us know where you like. Now let's get back to the show. And Jeff, I think this is kind of like where the draft starts maybe. I think the, the 106 is probably chalky for a lot of people, but there are a few different ways you can go here. You, you are on the board twice. 106 and 107. Who are you taking here?
- [04:55]
B
We need to have a conversation. I think about Kenyon Siddiq because he was obviously apparently the most athletic tight end in the history of the world. And you know, if he's potentially a first round pick, if he goes off the board before these wide receivers or if he lands in Kansas City and some of these wide receivers land in some really questionable, awful spots, the way that it is solidified right now with the top five of the draft is without having that piece of information and knowing, you know, I mean, if he is Patrick Mahomes tight end replacement for Travis Kelce for the future and you're looking at Cardinal Tate is a Brown and Jordan Tyson is some other team that we don't want him to be with, it doesn't. It seems like it should be more of a conversation than I think what it is right now. And that to me breaks down kind of like when you're looking at moving around a draft. If you are comfortable with that, if you think anywhere near that, if you got the 103, 104 and you, you can move to the 106 and get a future first or something like that, because this tier is so established and this is the value, then I think that that's something that you need to consider. But it is Kenyan sage for me at the 106.
- [06:02]
A
And you know, we talked about This a lot last year after the draft because Colson Loveland, I think, surprised a lot of people with where he was drafted. And we both kind of used draft capital as our guiding light for our rookie rankings. I remember last year, looking over the last 25 years, if you look at tight ends that have been drafted inside the top 15, which most mock drafts have Kenyon City going there, you're looking at Tyler Warren and Colson. Love them. Last year, of course, Brock Bowers, Kyle Pitts, TJ Hawkinson, Eric Ebron, Vernon Davis, Kellen Winslow, Jeremy Shockey. Every single guy over the last 25 years who has been drafted in the top half of round one has turned in multiple tight end one seasons. So like at a floor, you're looking at Eric Ebron, who for like a short period of time was one of the best tight ends in fantasy football. You've got the ceiling of Colson Loveland, Brock Bowers. So we talked about this a lot last year when we were really moving Colson Loveland, Tyler Warren up in our rankings. And if Kenyon Siddiq ends up going in the top half of first round one, we're going to do the same with him. And there's another tight end, Jeff, that you have here at 107 that is also getting a lot of first round buzz.
- [07:02]
B
Real quick, I do want to talk about that point you make with Colson level and with Tyler Warren, because go and look at your rookie draft from last year and it's probably a decent chance that Caleb Johnson went before Tyler Warren and Colson Loveland and that was absolutely insane. It was happening all the time because it got established, it was firm value, the value of Caleb Johnson, you know, we thought that maybe he'd be a first round pick running back. And this is the value on there. And people are passing up a top 10 pick tight end in order to take a third round running back. And that didn't age very, very well. And so speaking of tight ends, I'm gonna go Eli Stowers, and I'm glad that Mike is on the show because the last time I was on with Mike, you know, I had some questions about maybe the overall athleticism. Eli Stowers, literally days after we did that episode, Eli Stowers goes out there, breaks combine records, is the highest vertical ever, Very, very explosive player, answered every single one of my questions that I had about him. And I think that when you look at breaking it down of him or the next wide receivers, that we're going to end up talking about some of These other players we're going to end up talking about. We. I said on our last show that we recorded Dave, that I thought that Eli Stowers was going to be a first round pick in the NFL draft and if he lands in a first round, if he's towards the end of the first round, lands in a high end offense and that's a pretty, pretty good spot for Eli Stowers.
- [08:24]
A
Yeah, completely agree. And I think if it weren't for Kenyon Sadiq, there'd be an unreal hype train right now for Eli Stowers. Like the athleticism that we saw, the buzz that he's getting and this feels so reminiscent to last year where like Tyler Warren was the guy that everybody was just like infatuated over. Colson Loveland was kind of the tight end too. And we said we can't move a tight end. Like we've already got one tight end in round one of adb. We can't possibly get a second one there. But we saw the NFL but preferred Loveland to Warren. And then still people were apprehensive to like move these tight ends too far up their rankings. We've talked so much about how this is a relatively weak draft class. Fernando Manoza, Jeremiah Love, those are kind of your difference makers. We look at these receivers as potential difference makers, but I think Kenyon Siddiq and Eli Stowers, they really both kind of encapsulate this new NFL where we see these move tight ends that you just talked about recently, Jeff said, kind of unlocking offenses in the NFL. That's what a guy like Stowers could do. So it's gonna raise some eyebrows. And I'm sure when we share this graphic on Twitter, some people are gonna think you're crazy for taking stowers at 107. But I think the justification is there. Now. We're talking a lot about rookies on the show. This group right here, me, Jeff and Mike, we did the football guys rookie guide this year. You can get it footballguys.com rookieguide we came out with version 2 right after the NFL combine. We've got relative athletic score and combine testing in there along with everything from beforehand, scouting reports, player comps, strengths, weaknesses, ideal team fits, and so much more. Version 3 will be coming out after the NFL draft, but version two is free and you can get that@footballguys.com rookieguide I'm gonna make my pick real quickly here. No surprise to anybody. The guy who I think is now the consensus RB2 in this class after an unbelievable combine. Mike Washington Jr. Out of Arkansas. We saw him come out at the combine and didn't do all of the drills but did just enough to qualify for relative athletic score, give himself a 10.00. A perfect relative athletic score. The most athletic running back we have seen since 1987. And then he goes out at Arkansas's pro day, does some agility testing. I don't know if you guys saw this, but just killed his relative athletic score all the way down to 9.99. No longer a 100 percentile athlete, now a 99.9 percentile athlete. Still a very athletic, big, fast and agile running back. So that's who I'm going with right there at the 108. Mike, over to you for 109.
- [10:45]
C
Yeah. So before I talk about my 109, which I think might be spicy, might not be, I do have questions about Mike Washington. I did move him up after the combine. Fantastic prospect. When we talk about the athleticism, the burst, the speed, why wasn't he good for four years? Should we be worried about that two
- [11:05]
A
star recruit didn't really get like a huge opportunity early in his career. I think that is kind of it. I mean like I, I can talk myself in circles about so many different things but like I do like that he came in not a highly recruited guy. A two star recruit had to kind of earn his role and, and he was very productive in 2025. So I, I know a lot of people scoff at the late breakouts but I think he was good enough in 2025 that I'm willing to ignore some of the early career stuff.
- [11:34]
C
Yeah, I think a lot of guys are going to have a question off of like why was it a late breakout? And I like that you bring up lower star recruit had to earn coaches trust. You want to see that upward trajectory with prospects and we definitely saw that with Mike Washington. We didn't see a lot of that with my 109. It's Ty Simpson. We hot and heavy start of 2025. We're talking about oh top ten pick, top five pick. Oh, he keeps climbing. And then he started dealing with some injuries. He started having to take medications. He started taking too many medications and ended up with some intestinal problem. Like there's a lot of things that went into why Ty Simpson had a weird 2025 and then he declares after only one year. This is going to be a common trend with a couple of my picks here if they declared already but they didn't have to with nil. That makes me think that the NFL told them something good. So I'm inclined to think that Ty Simpson was told good news and that's why he has declared for the draft. I don't know if he's going to go in the first round or not, but I'm willing to make that bet right now. Because in a class full of question marks, in a class full of weak profiles, a first round draft quarterback is. Is just the bet that I would like to make. Jeff, are you worried about Ty Simpson in the first round?
- [12:48]
B
I think Ty Simpson is going to be a first round pick, so I.
- [12:51]
A
I think he probably will too. And you know, we can only put so much weight into mock draft database. That's just a bunch of people guessing and then they aggregate everybody's guesses into one. Super. That we. But I mean, if you look like Ty Simpson, there was buzz about him going second overall a month ago and then kind of flirting with top five, then falling outside of the top 10. Now he's kind of like, you know, maybe the guy that the Rams are looking at to take over for Matthew Stafford. So he has been a big faller. But, Jeff, you and I talked about this. Like, you want to listen to what you hear early and what you want to hear late. Like, we're in this middle period right now where suddenly everybody just hates Ty Simpson for some reason, that if he ends up going top five, we'd all just be like, oh, yeah, we, we knew that, that back in December. Like, why did we ever move off of that stance?
- [13:33]
B
I think it's interesting that. And, and so what I really enjoy here is I want to phrase this right, but a lot of times what I see when I see videos of the type of thing that we're doing right now is, you know, it'll run down. Like, here's the three wide receivers, here's Kenyon Siddiq, here's Denzel Boss, and here's Casey Concepcion. It's like rinse and repeat. And so I think that, you know, not to take full credit here, but throwing Eli Stowers in there, I feel like kind of threw a little bit of chaos into this exercise. And you guys both said, you know, I'm gonna go just go get my guy now at this point. And I think that that's what you see when you step outside of like, certain circ draft circles, like my home league. Like, you'll see guys that go off the board and you're like, whoa, like, that's surprising or you're seeing this guy slip and you're like, what, what's going on here? And I think that that more approximates what actually happens in rookie drafts because people either go for need or they go for whatever it might be. I think that if you inside certain bubbles, you might just see kind of the same thing over and over again.
- [14:37]
A
Yeah. And I'll also say that like somebody who plays in a lot of those leagues with other analysts is like the content drafts don't always look like the actual drafts. Like, everybody is so scared to like stray out of what everybody else is doing when they're making content. And then when the real draft comes around, it's like, wait, you're not even drafting off of the rankings. And I saw you publish a week ago. So. Yeah, I mean, I think that's. We, we. We have skin in the game, you know, like the what we, we practice, what we preach. If we say that this is how we're drafting, this is actually how we're drafting, and it might not be the same as the consensus ones out there. And I think that's a good segue to the next guy that you want to talk about. Mike, again, you were double tapping here. So you took ty Simpson at 109. Who did you go with at 110?
- [15:17]
C
Yep. At 110. I know myself. I'm looking for self improvement, but I have a type at wide receiver. I like big guys, I like spectacular catches. I like the untapped potential that we always talk about. So Denzel Boston, look, he's just gonna look differently than the 5 foot 10, 180 pound guy who's trying to run routes out there. Like, it's gonna look a little stiffer, it's gonna look a little slower, but it's still silky smooth for the size. It's. It's still strong hands to the catch point. For the size. It's still all of the things you're looking for for an NFL wide receiver. Like, do I think Denzel Boston could be the one in a bad offense? Yes. Do I think that he better profiles as the physical touchdown red zone guy in a good offense that you'll get in the back half of the first round? Yes. So I like Denzel Boston. I think that he's a good, safer pick because with the frame, with the projected draft capital, he's going to end up around the league for a while. And you know, when you're playing in these dynasty leagues with five wide receivers, four flexes, because you just love the game as much as we do. You need a Denzel Boston. So when it's week seven and bye weeks roll around, you're like, oh, what am I doing here? So it's not a home run pick, but it'll get you on base.
- [16:30]
B
It was right there, Mike. Right? It was right. You were in the flow. You're going with it. I like big guys, and I cannot lie, I was sitting right there and we just missed it.
- [16:41]
A
He's just a really fun player. And like, I. I do think it's worth it to take shots on these guys because, you know, they're all different prospects. I don't want to put all these guys in a bucket, but, like, yeah, you do get your Jonathan Mingos and your Xavier Leggettes, but sometimes you get your AJ Browns, sometimes you get your DK Metcalf. So I think you just, like, keep going for these guys. Like, if the NFL says that we like this guy enough to draft him in round one or round two and he's a size speed athleticism freak like Denzel Boston, we can't ignore that. Of course, we also see some of those other guys that we like that the NFL decides they aren't as into. I remember Adonai Mitchell, who we all thought was going to be a top 15 pick, falls to the end of round two. So, you know, we. This is again why we pay attention to draft capital. We'll be talking about that a lot over the next month or so. I'm gonna make my next pick here. This is the 111, and I think this is going to open up a whole conversation about the knee surgery that was just recently reported because a lot of people had Casey Concepcion as the wide receiver four in this class. Feels like I'm getting a little bit of a discount now, but we don't know how teams are going to weigh this. Like, they're putting the agent spin on it. That it was just a scheduled routine surgery is, I believe how they said it. But regardless, it's still a knee surger right before the NFL draft. But this is the type of receiver that we have seen do really well in the NFL. A guy who can command targets, shifty after the catch, can create separation. Everything we want to see in fantasy football. And then also, like, I had a fear that he was going to measure in at like 5 foot 9, but measured in at 6 foot. So he's got the NFL size that we like too. Again, the knee injury here is the major concern. But Jeff, Mike, either you could take this one. Do you think that's something that is going to impact his draft capital, or do you think that teams are willing to just turn their head and just assume that he's going to be able to heal up?
- [18:22]
C
I was going to say I think the draft capital would be a little lower, but we're talking about like 30 versus 25 or like 35 versus 40. I don't think it's going to be that cataclysmic drop off that we're worried about. Jeff, when's your next scheduled knee repair? Because apparently that's just a normal thing we all have. It's right after your dentist appointment. You have a knee schedule.
- [18:46]
B
I'm not living that life. I'm not living that life of scheduled knee repairs. But I think that there's been talk that Conception injured himself early in the season, basically played through it all year. And that was kind of some of the reason why if you watch this 23 tape, there's a little bit more explosion on the 23 tape relative to some of the 24 tape. And. And I think it might have been the type of thing of he played through the injury and, you know, okay, enough to play through the injury wasn't going to make it any worse. And then this was the opportunity now that he was able to go out and do some things at the combine to just get things cleaned up probably. And I. I don't think that there's any real large concern when it actually comes to the actual NFL draft.
- [19:26]
A
Jeff, bring us home. We are rounding out round one. Who is your pick here? 12th pick of round one.
- [19:33]
B
Chris Brazil is going to be my pick here. And I've been very, very aggressive on Chris Brazil since my initial ranks came out in the rookie guide. And it's some of the markets moving there, some of the market's not. But I think that when you're looking at, you know, Mike, you like the big guys, Brazil is one of those big guys, explosive guy outside. That's kind of what we see a lot of in this class of. And it moves kind of in the direction that we talk about with some of these. Getting that move tight end in the slot and being that slot receiver. To do that, you need wide receivers out who can win outside and bring that into the game. And I think that Brazel has that ability to be able to. To be an explosive downfield receiver that really, if you look at his ceiling, if he reaches his ceiling, I think his ceiling is to be a number one wide receiver within an NFL offense.
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A
Jeff, I gotta ask. I know you know we scout the player, not the helmet. We know all the cliches. But is there like a little piece of you that just sees how Tennessee wide receivers have fared in the NFL that makes you nervous about Brazil, or do you think that he really is different?
- [20:35]
B
He's a Tulane wide receiver, Dave. So I mean, heck yeah.
- [20:39]
A
All right. That's one way to look at it. I like that spin quite a bit.
- [20:43]
B
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- [21:00]
C
Hold.
- [21:01]
B
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- [21:07]
C
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- [21:14]
A
All right, we are back. I am Dave Kluge here with Jeff Bell and Mike Kashuba and we are doing a two round rookie mock draft. We already got through the first 12 picks here. I will recap these for you quickly. If you're just tuning in, Jeremiah Love, Fernando Mendoza, Makai Lemon, Carnell, Tate Jordan, Tyson, Kenyon Siddiq, Eli stowers, Mike Washington Jr. Ty Simpson, Denzel Boston, Casey Concepcion and Chris Brazil. Jeff, you are on the clock again at the top of round two. Who are you going with here?
- [21:42]
B
I'm gonna go Nicholas Singleton here. And it's. We talk about injuries, talk about the disappointing senior season. I mean, maybe at some level, I think that when you look at, obviously there's some ghost of Debbie past when it comes to Nicholas Singleton and the value that he held, I think when you were looking at running backs, the projection we talk about with Mike Washington Jr. Explosive players, basically. And I think that the ceiling on Nicholas Singleton is an explosive running back relative to what some of the other running backs bring to the table. And so that's where I think if you're placing that bet, you're placing that bet on that ceiling outcome. The exciting things that we saw previous to the 2025 season and to get it to him getting to that point.
- [22:26]
A
So I, I love this pick. And he's a guy that, you know, I was hoping to kind of get late in round two after breaking his foot at the Senior Bowl, I thought there would be like a big discount here on Nick Singleton. But his value hasn't fallen quite as much as I thought, especially in a sharp draft with two guys like you. But, you know, where do you expect to see Nick Singleton going in drafts? Do you think this is about where he should be going at that 1, 2 turn? Or do you think that he's a guy that you can kind of trade into the middle back end of round two and still hope to get?
- [22:51]
B
But I think he's probably. You're probably in the market. You're probably going to be seeing him into the middle of round two or a little bit later in round two. I think you're definitely going to see a jam Price regularly ahead of him. You're going to see Jonah Coleman regularly ahead of him. But I think when it comes down to what NFL teams are looking for at the running back position and if they want to make that bet on the overall upside, I think Singleton does have the upside there.
- [23:15]
A
Next pick is going to be round two. Pick two. I am on the clock. I'm going with. Omar Cooper Jr. Has started getting a lot more. Round one was recently, I saw Daniel Jeremiah, I believe, recently came out with a mock where he had Omar Cooper Jr. Going inside of round one. Jeff, I was reading your scouting report the other day, and there was a word that you used to describe Omar Cooper Jr. That I loved. You said he is a fearless receiver, and I think that that just perfectly embodies who he is. Like, this guy will go across the middle of the field, he will take a lick. And quarterbacks love that. Like, he gives you that middle of the field target that a lot of guys we know don't want to run on those routes. But a fearless receiver. Love that word. And you know, when you look at this class, Denzel Boston, Casey Concepcion, they're kind of the guys that are in the mix for being wide receiver 4. Would it surprise you all that much? Mike, I will ask you this question directly so we don't have a little confusion here. Would it surprise you at all if Omar Cooper Jr. Ends up being the fourth wide receiver off the board?
- [24:13]
C
Absolutely not. And I think the Dynasty community has started to say it's only those two guys between Boston and Concepcion, right? And that's catching up to maybe like a couple of months ago. And now the buzz has started to be that bucket is much larger. Like it could be Brazil, it could be Omar Cooper, it could be that those two. It could also be like, you know, a Zachariah Branch or an Antonio Williams or someone else that ends up going early in day two that we don't expect just because NFL teams are looking for a different kind of receiver.
- [24:44]
A
And it happens every single year that, like, we think we know where everybody's going and Then, Jeff, we have watched the draft together in person before, and we're pulling our hair out saying, like, why hasn't this guy been drafted yet? What were they thinking, drafting this guy? We'll be watching the draft together in person in about a month here, probably doing the same exact thing. So we talk about everything like it's scripture at this point in March, when the reality is we don't know who is drafting who where, and who has who where on their board. Like, we get surprised every single year. So Omar Cooper has been a big riser, a guy that I like quite a bit. And I think if you can get it at the top of round two, that's a very good pick. Mike, we got two picks for you. 203, 204. Let's hear about both of them here.
- [25:23]
C
Yeah. So something that I really liked about the rookie guide is that we did this range of outcomes. So we'll talk about, you know, practice squad all the way up to hall of Famer. And I think Nick Singleton, like, has that really wide range of outcomes. The two running backs that I went with, much more condensed, but probably more likely to be either like an NFL starter or an NFL backup. Most. Jadarian Price talked about it with Ty Simpson. Like, why did he declare? What news did he get? Why would he do something like that? Like, Darian Price, all wheels were up. You're going to be the starting running back for Notre Dame with big nil money. And then all of a sudden he declares, why would he do that? Probably because he got good NFL news. And then some of the combine testing didn't go his way. So he's starting to fall into this range, which if I'm able to scoop up Jadarian Price at the, at the beginning of the second round, I feel very, very good about that. And then Jonah Coleman, he was my pre process RB2 guys. I just, I love the way he runs. He's the angriest, angriest dude on the field. He has better hands than he gets credit for. Is he ever going to outrun anybody ever? Probably not, but he's going to really ruin someone's day while they're trying to tackle him. So, big fan of Coleman, big fan of Price. I think that we could be surprised on draft night with at least where Price goes.
- [26:39]
A
And, you know, you talk about the range of outcomes for these players. I did the range of outcomes for all the running backs and I gave both of these guys. Jadarian Price and Jonah Coleman both have Pro Bowler as their High end range of outcomes. Now beyond that, we've got superstar and hall of Famer. I don't think either of these guys is going to be a Hall of Famer. But you know, I could be wrong, but I still think like a Pro bowl, there is a high ceiling here. Like we saw. Joan Coleman can handle all three downs. And both of these guys were fallers coming out of the combine. Like Jadarian Price. This guy was a track star in high school. I thought he was going to come out and like running the four threes. That did not happen. So he falls a little bit. Jonah Coleman sat out a lot of the testing that he knew he wouldn't do well in. He falls down a little bit. So they're, they're fallers if you're looking just at the combine testing. But before the combine, both of These guys were RB2s, like the RB2 in a lot of rankings out here. So maybe we overreacted to the combine a little bit because I still do think that there's a solid floor and ceiling with both these guys. I'd be shocked if either of them aren't drafted before day three. I think both these guys had to be in round two, round three picks. I guess this is just where we are right now. You take Jonah Coleman, I take K tren Allen. The guys who didn't test well that we think are probably better running backs than the combine testing would lead us to believe and cater now set out all the testing that we want to see at the combine but just has that three down skill set. Just like Jonah Coleman. Jonah Coleman, much better pass catcher. Catered Allen, just a little bit heavier, a little bit more physical. But what I like about him and what I've talked about so much is that he had his best season in 2025 when Drew Eller got hurt and everything kind of went down the toilet for Penn State. They leaned on Cateran Allen. He had his most productive and efficient season. Averaged 6.2 yards per attempt. So that to me, like if you can see loaded boxes and still be productive and efficient, that gets me excited. We'll see how the NFL feels about him. But I couldn't possibly let Catrin Allen, one of my draft crushes, fall deeper than 205. Jeff, over to you. We are now at 206.
- [28:36]
B
I just happened by a popular market valuation dynasty. So I looked at their rankings. The people are gonna hate my drafts and I'm really fascinated to see how this plays out. But Skyler Bell is going to be my Next pick, Skyler bell at the 206. I think Skyler Bell's a dude, man. He, he, I think he very much understands the nuance of playing wide receiver. He tested phenomenally. He tested way, way better than my expectation was incredibly productive. Receiver at UConn, the finalist for the Blicknikov award as one of the very best wide receivers in the nation. He's way under the radar right now. He's sitting valuation around a third round pick. They get him in the middle of round two. I think he is a player that when you look at we talked already about these outside receivers that that can win. He's kind of the opposite. He's more in that mold that ends up being a PPR demon that he can work inside out of the slot. But at the same time he is explosive enough to be able to win vertically downfield and some a player that can win in all three levels, player that can handle a lot of volume in the underneath game, can create after the catch. I think Skyler Bell is really, really good.
- [29:44]
A
Yeah. And another big riser coming out of the combine. My computer's running a little bit slow right now, but yeah. 9.66 relative athletic score. We're looking at a guy who is wildly athletic. So that's always something that'll give that guy that boost from being like a mid round prospect to an elite prospect.
- [30:01]
B
And the thing to understand with that, with that relative athletic score is he's not a big receiver. And relative athletic score favors size prospects because it be that's a big factor in the evaluation of, you know, it comes sits in the equation. This is a big player that can also move very, very well. That's a very rare athlete relative athletics who are very high there. Whereas to be a smaller receiver that records a really high relative athletic score. You know you did some things and you did some good. So that's. I think it's was one of the things that I really enjoyed seeing out of that.
- [30:37]
A
Yeah. And his weight, 43rd percentile. His height, 46th percentile. But then you look at the vertical jump, 98th percentile. You look at the broad jump, 99th percentile. 40 yard dash, 94th percentile. So that's why even though he came in small like he was just so good at all of the athletic testing that he was able to improve his overall score. Jeff, you are on the clock again. Back to back picks now you're at 207. Who are you taking?
- [31:01]
B
Here we go. Zachariah Branch here. And that, that's projection probably on, on what it becomes and it, you do see it in the NFL drafts when it comes to some of these guys that I talked about, Nicholas Singleton. But the NFL does kind of defer to guys that carried blue chip pedigree out of high school and because they car blue chip pedigree for a reason. Zachariah Branch, number one wide receiver in his class. And so I think that that's a player I know there are definitely red flags. There are concerns about he didn't really emerge in USC behind Mai Lemon, behind Jaco Lane and then moving to Georgia. The way that Georgia utilized him, I mean it was as a running back more or less in that passing game. It was not vertically downfield. He showed it well at the combine and they could do some of those things. But I think it's a player that when you're getting into the back end of round two, beginning of round three, making that bet on players that do have high, high range of outcome upside.
- [32:03]
A
And this is just the, this year's draft class, right? Like usually when you're in the middle of round two we're still looking at like I remember a couple years ago where you're still getting like Bo Nix in the middle of round two like a quarterback who was drafted 12th overall and like you're still and like in this draft class we're looking at guys in the middle of round two that were like, like you know, could end up being a day three pick but has some upside here and it's just like the draft board flips so quickly when you're doing drafts this year that like once you get past like the, the 14th, 15th, 16th player in the draft it does feel like you're starting to swing for upside a lot more than any sort of sure things. And I think that's just kind of a testament to this draft class overall. Mike, any feedback? Skyler Bell, Zachariah Branch, I saw you nodding along a little bit. Anything to add there?
- [32:45]
C
I'll say. Skyler Bell single handedly earned Joe Fignano combine invite. Like I'm watching Joe and I, I really, I wanted to believe I always walk in with a clean slate and I'm like this is going to be the dude. Just seventh year college player throwing moon balls to Skyler, praying for the best and it worked out because Skyler was just a superior athlete. I agree. Branch projection athlete. Everything you're looking for from a tools perspective just Georgia doesn't like to throw the ball down the field and I don't blame them.
- [33:17]
A
So, so we Also talked, you know, just. I. I had mentioned a little bit about how this class, just as a whole, doesn't feel great. Do you have any, like, big picture takeaways on this class that you'd like to add?
- [33:27]
C
Yeah, so we. We were talking about this earlier, and I. I heard Jeff referencing it in the last show, which you guys should all go listen to if you're listening to this. The draft capital, as we talk about it isn't the same in 2026. So we'll say this is a top 10 pick. This is a, you know, top half of first round. This is a first round whatever. Like, we've started seeing mock drafts where Jadarian Price is going in the back half of first of the first round because teams are just hurting for players, and maybe they really want the Notre Dame backup running back. So we'll see how the draft capital actually lays out. But with the lack of elite quarterbacks, a lack of elite tackles, like, the corners are good, the edge rushers are fine, but each of them has a glaring red flag. I think a top 10 pick may mean something different in 2026 than it will in 2027, and then it did in 2024.
- [34:26]
A
And something Jeff and I have talked about a little bit too is like, you know, every draft class is very unique. And last year, we kind of had to look at a lot of the day three running backs as, like, putting an asterisk next to their name. And it's like, yeah, Bashaw, Tutin, Cam, Scatterboo, Woody Marks. These guys fell to round four, but they fell because of how deep this class was. Like, every GM felt like they were kind of playing chicken to open up that running back floodgate there. And then when it happened, then they all went off the board, where this year, it's kind of different. There are so few running backs available that we might see some of these guys get pushed up even higher up the board because it's like, we know we can't wait until round four to get that running back. Like, if we want to get a Nick Singleton or Jadarian Price, one of these sparked up fast guys, we're gonna have to pay up for them. So similarly, like, you know, comparing, like, you know, it almost feels like a round, like a late round two running back this year kind of has the same draft capital as, like, an early round four running back from last year. So comparing across classes always gets a little bit messy, but that's why we have to look at each one through its own unique lens. Jeff when you made your picks, I kind of talked about how you have to start like swinging for upside at this point in the draft. That's 100. What I'm doing with this next pick here. Adam Randall out of Clemson has become one of my biggest draft crushes. Mike, you talked at the top of the show like, we all have our types. I love a converted wide receiver to running back. And then you put some beefy size on there and I get even more excited. So, I mean, this guy's just a behemoth of a man. Six foot three, 232 pounds, was drafted as a wide receiver, converted a running back just going into last season. So he's only got one year of running back experience under his belt. Still pretty rough around the edges, but, you know, you put him with a creative coach, that's going to take a little bit of time to develop him. Perhaps, hopefully he could do it quicker than year nine like Cordero Patterson, but a very similar skill set. And I think if you put him in an offense with a coach who wants to scheme, touches up to him, get the ball in his hands, use him on some wheel routes and some fun stuff like that, I could see an immediate path to relevance. But again, there's a floor here that is basically zero. But we're just at that point in the draft, in the middle of round two, where you start swinging for upside.
- [36:30]
C
If I'm playing in a kick return or a punt return league, Adam Randall, bump him way up.
- [36:37]
A
Yeah, I mean, it would surprise if he has like six kick returns for a touchdown this year. It wouldn't surprise me. Which again, Cordell Patterson, that's exactly how he cut his teeth in the NFL. Like, he wasn't doing all the stuff that he was doing in Atlanta early in his career. He was just a Pro bowl kick returner that everyone knew was one of the most dangerous return men in the league and then kind of grew from there. So I think that's going to be his immediate path to a roster is special teams. But the upside of being that, you know, souped up Antonio Gibson is. Is hard for me to ignore. Jeff, any. Any thoughts there? Do we want to move on to the next picks here?
- [37:10]
B
No, I think that you're exactly right on making the bet on a big explosive athlete with. With a range of outcomes that could become very, very interesting.
- [37:19]
A
So, yeah, Mike, 209, over to you.
- [37:23]
C
I didn't know that this was going to be available to me. At the 209. Alabama's leading receiver was a 90th percentile athlete who we already thought had silky smooth footwork. Jeremy Bernard was available here, and I just pounced on that. I like him more than a lot of the players that are going off the board, but this is how it's going to look when our rookie drafts come up. Like you're going to reach a spot, everybody's just grabbing their guys. Maybe value falls, maybe you jump on a landmine, but Jeremy Bernard's a landmine. I will gradually, like just jump right onto a great receiver. Great footwork. The hands were there. He was the reliable, steady upperclassman in a receiver room that Ryan Williams really struggled in this year. So I think Bernard another one of those receivers. He's probably not going to be the number one, but he's going to stick around the NFL for a while because he already has some of that professional mindset.
- [38:16]
A
Yeah. And I think that's a good pick because this is another one of those. We kind of talked about this wide receiver class. Like, it's deep. There are a lot of good receivers here. We don't really know who the consensus wide receiver 4 is going to be. Jeremy Bernard probably not going as the fourth wide receiver off the board, but I think we always talk about that cluster, like the. The late first into round two. There's always that big waterfall of wide receivers. I think Bernard probably ends up there getting drafted right around some of these guys that we were drafted a full round ahead of him. So that's just, you know, as much as we scoffed at value at the top of the show, kind of tongue in cheek, that's. That's a great value pick there, Mike. And you are on the clock again, 210. And this is another good value pick. Yep.
- [38:58]
C
Max Claire. Is he going to be a blocking tight end? Is he going to be the focal point of a receiving offense? Tell me what he weighs in at training camp and I'll give you a better answer. He's shown the ability to do both in college. I think that he's a better prospect than he's getting steam for right now. So at 210, I covered tight ends. I like the tight ends. I think Max Claire is a NFL level tight end. I will take the swing on. He will play.
- [39:24]
A
He will play. Absolutely. And he was the tight end too, for almost everybody before Eli Stowers came out and just absolutely wrecked the combine. So this is a good tight end that we expect. Expect to be very immediately involved in an NFL offense. So I think that's a good pick. Jeff is our Ohio State guy. Any. Any max Clay or add ons that you'd like to mention here?
- [39:45]
B
Yeah, I mean if you really want to see the overall upside that he has, you got to watch the Purdue tape because he was just never asked really to do much at Ohio State. It's. I mean when you're kind of wide receiver you and you're cranking out high end wide receivers, you're going to build your offense to feature those wide receivers. You're not really going to build it around one year transfer portal tight end. Even if he does have very, very
- [40:09]
A
high upside at 211. My last pick, I'm going with Jacoby Lane out of usc. After day one of the combine, man, I was feeling good at a 9.69 relative athletic score. But he decided to show up Sunday and bench press did not do well on the bench and his relative athletic score dropped to 9.38. But he gets the asterisk next to his name. He is not scared to compete. He went out there and bench press knowing that it was going to negatively impact him. So love that this is just your prototypical X receiver. My immediate conform. The first time I watched him I said I saw some T. Higgins in his game. Just a smooth operator, 6 foot 4, size, mechanics, speed, all the things we want to see here. This is yet again another one of those receivers that I'm going to say is going to be lumped in with a lot of the receivers we talked about earlier. Given the size, given the production. Wouldn't shock me at all if Jacoby Lane ends up sneaking into that kind of 1, 2 turn in the NFL draft.
- [41:03]
C
I could see Lane becoming one of those guys. Unfortunately for me, I went to the Senior Bowl, I watched him run into cornerbacks and safeties like it was his job. And I just got the ick. He could be a fantastic hall of Fame, unstoppable force in the NFL. I just, I got the ick and I can't forget it.
- [41:26]
B
Sometimes the big receivers, it. It looks like Bambi out there. I feel like is kind of where Jacoby Lane lands. That was my watching him through just. It's. Yes, there are definitely things there, but these are the type I think of big receivers that end up missing where it's just hasn't put all of the things together and gets in the right situation can look really, really good. And then there's other things that you're like, well, we know what the high end upside is here. Why are they not doing it regularly?
- [41:58]
A
And I think a lot of that had to do with Makai Lemon being there. Like, you know, there's only so much that can go around. And with Makai Lemon getting his share, you know, Jacoby Lane was kind of on the outside looking in as the second option on a lot of those plays where Makai Lemon's getting open and he's getting the ball instead. So I don't know if he's ever going to be like a true wide receiver one, but I think that, you know, you could see him a part of a good offense, especially like what he can do near the red zone. That's why the, the T. Higgins count for me. Like we don't see t. Higgins pulling 180 targets a season, but we do see him scoring touchdowns and what was it like 11 straight home games or something like that. I could see that sort of out for Jacoby Lane more than being that 32 target share type guy that we want every rookie to turn into. But Jeff, before you make your last pick, you know, when I was planning this show, I said we should draft on Sleeper. You know, we love our friends over at Sleeper. And I was prepping the mock draft that we were going to use for this show. We're going to screen record it and you just messed it all up, Jeff. You picked a guy that isn't even in Sleeper's database yet at 212. But I think this is a good pick here. Let's hear it.
- [43:00]
B
So a little bit inside baseball on when it comes to building out the player database and just what we end up utilizing for the football guys rookie guide. One of my big reference points is Bruce Feldman's freak list. And so Bruce Feldman's freak list. Bruce Feldman basically talks to every strength coach in college football around the country, talks to the programs and is he builds this list every single year of basically the, the absolute freaks of the guys that. And then when it comes to the NFL, I've found that the NFL tends to like freaks. Tends to like to place darts on freaks. And so this player was, was on that list but then watching him and there was a nasty rumor about him that somebody, I don't know, somebody on a message board posted that Bryce lands ran a 46 40. And so when you're watching it's. There was out there and it's. I don't know who it was, who, what was going on there, but when you're watching it, it's. It's playing at North Dakota State and you're like, well supposedly this is somebody saying it's his 46 speed. When you're watching at North Dakota State, you're kind of like, is, is it really this guy? Is it the guys that around him? Is it these. These players that will be selling insurance in six months type of a thing that relative to some of these guys that might be playing in the Big Ten or the sec? Then he goes out in the combine and just snoops everything out, just like Bruce Feldman's list and said he was a freak. He turned out to be a verified freak. And so my comp, actually, it was funny enough. It's. I don't know what it is in my mind. Maybe it's just the green and the yellow of the uniforms, but like, I'd go to. I go to Packers. Like, I feel like whenever I'm watching, like North Dakota State and. And maybe it's the Tucker crowd. He went to South Dakota State, but, you know, like Watson, Christian Watson. Well, my initial comp was Romeo Doves. And then after the combine, I changed it to Christian Watson because I was like, this is not Romeo Dubs anymore. This is Christian Watson on the potential explosion and high, high range of outcomes here. But, you know, another North Dakota State player. So.
- [45:00]
A
And also, like we, you know, I said it at the top or some point in the show is that said we don't want to scout helmets, right? But don't you think that the guys who are out here recruiting and have been at schools for a long time, they kind of have their types just like we do, like, you know, Tennessee recruiting. They love these, like, tall, lean guys that can just sprint down a field. We've seen North Dakota likes the Christian Watson, Bryce Lance, just like hyper athlete, big sort of guy. Like, we do see a lot of the same types of players coming through the same programs because the same people are recruiting those players. So I don't think it's like that egregious to comp a player who recently went to that same school.
- [45:37]
B
Well, it's. It's these players. This is the program, this is the offense that they're running. They are looking for archetypes as they go through. And so not only I'm a big advocate of same school comps, because the literal people that their job is to put players in these positions that to say, we need a wide receiver that does this. They go out and they scout the country and they get the wide receiver that does this. And then they're like, well, this guy's very successful. We would like another one of those wide receivers that does this. And so it's. To me, it's, it's not helmet scouting. It's not like it's. It is a program that is looking for very specific pieces within their offensive schemes of very specific players that have skill sets. Building a pipeline, getting these guys for two or three productive years before they move on again. You build this pipeline and you don't want to go from having, well, we've got these big fast receivers one year to these slot receivers another year because it's. We're all just off the board, like picking random guys. It's like that's not how it works. Like it's. They're looking for very certain archetypes within their offensive scheme and structure.
- [46:46]
A
Mike, before we wrap up here, there were some names we didn't talk about today, and I'm sure we're going to hear about it in YouTube that we didn't talk about Emmett Johnson in our top 24. Taylor Green, you know, the, the quarterback with more upside than any quarterback has ever had. We didn't talk about him inside our top 24. Who do you think are some of the other guys that didn't get drafted today? Or you talk about Johnson or Green if you want, but who, who are some of the guys that you think maybe should have been inside this top 24 that didn't make the cut in our draft today?
- [47:13]
C
Yeah, I think Johnson and Green are great names because a lot of people have Emmett Johnson as their RB2. I will say when I saw Jeff put Skyler bell at the 206, I double checked to make sure it wasn't a typo for Chris Bell. There's some like buzz of him as a top 50 pick even coming off of an injury. Elijah Surat, I can't quit him. I think he's, I think he's good. I don't know if he's going to be successful in the NFL, but I think he's a good receiver that, with strong hands. I know that I'm just rolling through names right now. Garrett Nussmeier, Cole Payton, just start naming quarterbacks. Some of them are going to go off the board in the second round because super flex teams are hungry for quarterbacks. They're going to see a landing spot that maybe the guy starts, maybe it's Tyler Shuck, maybe it's Jalen Milroe. We'll figure that out a year from now. But I think there's going to be maybe some more quarterbacks in the second round than we expect.
- [48:08]
A
What I will say, Jeff, when you pick Skyler Bell. You said Skyler Bell is a dude and that might not make sense to a lot of people, but I remember that's exactly how you talked about Kyle Williams last year when Kyle Williams also wasn't in Sleeper and nobody knew who he was and he was going undrafted in five round rookie drafts and you were just taking him at the end of round two and saying he's a dude. That's enough for me. So you know, the, the Jeff Bell, he's a dude stamp of approval has a pretty solid hit rate over the years. And Jeff, if you think Skyler Bell's a dude, I will take your word for it. But that'll do it today if you're still watching on YouTube, if you made it this far and you haven't given us a thumbs up, now's the time to do it. We're wrapping up the show. Just give us a quick thumbs up. It takes two seconds. Means a lot to us. Leave the reviews on Apple podcasts and of course the rookie guide. As I mentioned footballguys.com rookieguide where the three of us worked hard on that and we'll continue working hard on that between now and through the NFL draft. Want to thank you so much for tuning in. We will see you soon.
- [49:08]
B
Has the news been getting you down?
- [49:10]
C
I'm Megan McArdle and I'm here to help.
- [49:12]
B
I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post, Opinion Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic. And it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now.
- [49:21]
A
Every Wednesday I'm gonna talk to people
- [49:23]
B
who see a path forward.
- [49:25]
A
It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are. You know, I am a believer in America and it's worth fighting for. Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever
- [49:36]
B
you get your podcasts.
- [49:38]
A
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