The messages teams sent in the 2026 NFL Draft

Summary

Podcast Summary

The Athletic Football Show: "The Messages Teams Sent in the 2026 NFL Draft"

Host: Robert Mays
Co-hosts: Dave Hellman

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode, hosted by Robert Mays with guest Dave Hellman, is the first deep-dive after the completion of the 2026 NFL Draft. The core theme is "reading the messages" that NFL front offices send through their draft decisions—what their actions reveal about roster priorities, philosophical shifts, and signals about the direction of the team in the coming season. The hosts go team-by-team, picking out notable draft strategies and what they say about plans for both the immediate and future team.

Tone: Engaging, informal, insightful, and irreverent, with plenty of inside-football banter and pointed analysis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Houston Texans: Building a Bully

Segment: [04:09–09:44]

• Message: The Texans are determined to physically dominate on both lines, shifting the entire team's attitude closer to their defense's identity.
• Drafted Keelan Rutledge (“old-school lunch pail, garbage man, football player”) to fix their interior offensive line—a "foundational spark plug".
• Aggressively traded up for Kaden McDonald (defensive line) to inject more attitude and playmaking into that unit.
• Four first picks were trench players (counting Marlon Klein, a blocking tight end), directly responding to last season's failures in short yardage and the run game.
• Notable Quote:
  • “Everything about him (Rutledge) is fixing that Houston Texans interior offensive line… The message is really clear: we’re going to move you, we’re going to own the line of scrimmage.” — Dave Hellman [04:37]
  • “We wanted those areas to feel more like the things that have come to define this era of the Houston Texans.” — Robert Mays [07:04]
• Memorable Moment: Rutledge’s draft party was literally just "him and his family eating chicken wings at an Airbnb". [04:38]

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2. Philadelphia Eagles: An Offensive Identity Shift

Segment: [09:44–17:22]

• Message: The Eagles' offense will change in 2026, focusing more on the middle of the field and short-to-intermediate threats.
• First two picks: Makai Lemon and Eli Stowers, both best-slotted as slot receivers/tight ends for over-the-middle production.
• The Eagles’ offense, previously shaped around Jalen Hurts’s reluctance/ineffectiveness over the middle, is now being recalibrated—both through new personnel and a reworked offensive staff (not just the coordinator).
• Raised the possibility that this is also prepping for a future without A.J. Brown (with trade-up for a receiver in Round 1).
• Eagles place minimal value on picks outside the top 100, treating those primarily as draft trade capital.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “Our offense is going to look different this year.” — Robert Mays [09:44]
  • “Slot players who theoretically will be short-to-intermediate threats in the middle of the field for a quarterback who has just not accessed that area of the field, which is a real thing…” — Robert Mays [11:03]
• Stat Drop:
  • Jalen Hurts had “27 fewer seam/over-the-middle attempts than any other starter last year” per Next Gen Stats. [11:34–11:54]

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3. Kansas City Chiefs: Urgency & Identity on Defense

Segment: [17:43–24:40]

• Message: The Chiefs are all-in on reigniting their defense’s edge and aggression; offensive needs (WR/T) were notably unaddressed early.
• Used four straight picks on defense (corner, defensive line, edge) — traded up for Mansoor Delane at corner.
• Emphasized the need to bring back defensive “juice”, reminiscent of Spagnuolo’s best units with lockdown outside corners and pass rush.
• Offensively, zero picks until the fifth round—a signal of faith in existing talent (e.g., Josh Simmons at tackle).
• Notable Quotes:
  • “Who the hell is worried about the offense?” — Dave Hellman [17:43]
  • “They’re aggressive in drafting a polarizing player like Peter Woods…worth taking the ceiling swing.” — Robert Mays [21:37]
• Memorable Moment:
  • “If your quarterback is a little bit limited, maybe it’s a good thing if the rest of your team is not limited in that way whatsoever.” — Dave Hellman, joking about the Panthers but would apply here, too. [38:10]

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4. New Orleans Saints: Welcome to Normal

Segment: [26:23–35:38]

• Message: For the second consecutive year, the Saints made all their draft picks in logical places, targeting sensible roster needs and not mortgaging the future. They're finally acting like a stable, modern franchise.
• No wild trade-ups, loaded up on solid picks (WR Jordan Tyson, TE Oscar Delp, versatile defenders).
• Investing resources to support QB Tyler Shuck—a signal that they want clarity on him with proper infrastructure in case he isn’t the long-term answer.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “It’s incredible how much better I feel about the Saints now that they’ve employed this incredible practice called making all of the draft picks allotted to us.” — Robert Mays [26:43]
  • “If Tyler Shuck’s not the guy, it won’t be because we didn’t try to put him in a position to succeed.” — Dave Hellman [30:21]
• Memorable Moment:
  • Mickey Loomis (Saints GM) joking post-draft: “Well, we didn’t trade up and we drafted an LSU player, so I don’t even know what y’all are going to ask me about.” [27:00]

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5. Carolina Panthers: Go Big or Go Home

Segment: [35:59–41:40]

• Message: The Panthers are prioritizing size — seemingly across the board — as an organizational directive.
• Each pick, especially Monroe Freeling (tackle), Lee Hunter (DT), Chris Brazell (WR), and Zakee Wheatley (S), were some of the largest at their positions.
• Surrounding small-statured QB Bryce Young with elite size everywhere else is a clear and humorous juxtaposition.
• Addressed several roster needs with value picks; could pay off big if a couple of late-rounders develop.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “You can call the Carolina Panthers a lot of things. You're not going to call them small, damn it.” — Dave Hellman [36:09]
  • “If your quarterback is limited, surround him with super mutants who are not limited and see what happens.” — Dave Hellman [39:59]
• Memorable Moment:
  • Realization of a “massive, massive draft class” — position-by-position breakdown of size. [36:03–39:28]

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6. Chicago Bears: Offensive Identity > Everything Else

Segment: [41:42–48:54]

• Message: The Bears showed confidence in their current defensive line—even if fans and media weren’t convinced—by not going edge early. The offensive identity is the franchise’s top priority.
• Their plan for fixing the pass rush partly leans on coaching and new defensive plans (more pressure, stunts). Ben Johnson’s comments: “We have to coach better. We’re going to coach better this year.” [43:02]
• Spent specific resources on center and offensive line after adversity (Drew Dahlman retirement), reinforcing their intent to solidify Ben Johnson’s scheme.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “Their offensive identity is the most important thing.” — Robert Mays [47:09]
  • “You gotta roll with the punches and I would way, way rather have adequately dealt with center…than be nervous about the pass rush.” — Dave Hellman [47:24–48:29]

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7. Cincinnati Bengals: A Franchise Out of Its Shell

Segment: [50:48–56:56]

• Message: The Bengals sent a message that they’re committed to winning now with Joe Burrow, rather than sitting on draft capital and cap flexibility—the Dexter Lawrence trade is a dramatic departure from their historical cautiousness.
• The Bengals’ new willingness to use big picks and possibly restructure deals reflects growing front-office sophistication and a “we give a damn” approach for their franchise QB.
• The team is finally leveraging cap space and spending to support their window; their methods (contract structures, trade aggressiveness) still lag the league—but progress is evident.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “The Bengals sent a clear message of: we’re trying not to screw this up twice.” — Dave Hellman [50:56]
  • “This is a very ‘give a shit’ sort of move.” — Dave Hellman [53:20]
  • “If the Bengals are doing it, that means everybody is… they’re going to be the last ones to that party.” — Robert Mays [56:01]
• Memorable Moment:
  • In-depth discussion comparing the arm lengths and athleticism of different pass rush picks, illuminating how teams now embrace “outlier” body types when there’s production. [57:08–58:45]

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8. Tennessee Titans: The Robert Saleh Show

Segment: [60:01–63:58]

• Message: This draft is a statement of intent on both offense (help Cam Ward right now; Carnell Tate, WR) and defense (classic Robert Saleh archetypes on the edge and at linebacker)
• Taking Keldrick Falk and Anthony Hill fit the Saleh/Niners model exactly—big, long defensive players, attacking fronts.
• Willingness to trade up aggressively for their defensive vision after bolstering the offense.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “This is Robert Saleh’s team.” — Robert Mays [60:01]
  • “No ambiguity about who’s in charge of the body types and skill sets we’re seeking out.” — Robert Mays [62:17]

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9. Dallas Cowboys: New Defensive Era

Segment: [64:06–67:47]

• Message: Handing the reins to Christian Parker, five of seven draft picks on defense, signal a clear organizational shift (Caleb Downs, LT Overton, etc.).
• Parker’s vision for bigger, more versatile defenders is reflected in their early picks, diverging from past Cowboys trends.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “It’s Christian Parker’s show. Clearly, the staff has a vision.” — Dave Hellman [65:47]
  • “I would pay $500 just to sit in a corner and watch Christian Parker and Caleb Downs talk football.” — Robert Mays [66:29]

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “Our offense is going to look different this year.” – Robert Mays, on Eagles [09:44]
• “If Tyler Shuck’s not the guy, it won’t be because we didn’t try to put him in a position to succeed.” – Dave Hellman, Saints [30:21]
• “You can call the Carolina Panthers a lot of things. You're not going to call them small, damn it.” – Dave Hellman [36:09]
• “This is a very ‘give a shit’ sort of move.” – Dave Hellman, Bengals [53:20]
• “This is Robert Saleh’s team.” – Robert Mays, Titans [60:01]
• “I would pay $500 just to sit in a corner and watch Christian Parker and Caleb Downs talk football.” – Robert Mays, Cowboys [66:29]

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Important Timestamps

• [04:09] Texans: Trench warfare & offensive identity
• [09:44] Eagles: Middle-field focus, scheme overhaul
• [17:43] Chiefs: Flame-fanning on defense, ignoring skill need
• [26:23] Saints: Being “normal” & supporting their QB
• [35:59] Panthers: Committing to size at every position
• [41:42] Bears: Emphasizing offense, betting on in-house DL
• [50:48] Bengals: The new “all-in”, trade boldness, cap philosophy
• [60:01] Titans: Saleh’s imprint on both sides of the ball
• [64:06] Cowboys: Defensive era with a Parker blueprint

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Flow & Final Notes

• The show jumped team-to-team, seamlessly following threads between philosophy, scheme fit, and intentional roster-building.
• The hosts repeatedly emphasized the limits of “draft grades” and individual pick evaluation—valuing process over immediate hit/miss narratives.
• Fun, inside-joke tone throughout (e.g., Saints’ historic trading habits, the “size draft” for Carolina, Bears coaching “cope”).

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Summary for Listeners

If you missed the 2026 draft but want to know what it means, this episode is a crash course in league trends, philosophy shifts, and which teams are signaling something new. Rather than grades, you’ll get a sense of which front offices finally “get it,” who’s stubborn or bold, and how the pieces added this weekend will shape Sunday football for years ahead.

Transcript

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[Robert Mays]

welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Our first show now that the dust has settled from the 2026 NFL Draft, I've done this podcast beyond being a podcast, this idea in some form for a very long time. I always like doing it as like the first beat after the draft, coming into the draft, the month before the draft, especially the week before the draft. It's lying season. Teams are telling you everything they can to get you off their scent. And when the draft is over, there's really nowhere to hide. Teams have sent you the messages and told you what they think about where they are, what they felt about their roster, what where they thought they needed to improve. And so we're going to spend today trying to decipher some of those messages that teams sent with their 2026 draft classes. And in a way, they're 2026 offseasons to this point with me and Dave Hellman. So let's get to that conversation with Dave right now. Now that we are a couple days removed from the end of the 2026 NFL Draft, doing a show that I always like to do. I've done this in some version, whether it's being on a podcast or written for years now. Like, I remember the first time I think I did this was like the Christian McCaffrey Curtis Samuel draft with the Panthers telling us we want a certain type of playmaker within our offense. And I always like doing this show, Dave, because as I said when we were doing the live streams this weekend before the draft happens, teams can lie to you. They often do lie to you. Now that the draft is over, they can't. Everything is out in plain sight. Their intentions, what they're valuing, the directions they want to go, how they want to change or kind of tweak the type of teams they are. It's all out in the open. And so we're going to dig into today just the messages that teams sent to us based on what they did this weekend in the draft.

[Dave Hellman]

I like doing this show because draft weekend feels like a fugue state between, like, between the hours that you're working and the things you're trying to juggle. Like, by the time you get to Sunday morning, I barely remember anything. Like, I couldn't on Sunday morning. I couldn't have hoped to tell you, like, a team's toe tap, like, total class. I can't remember that for the life of me. So spending.

[Robert Mays]

I still can't do it with the Dolphins.

[Dave Hellman]

Oh, my God. I mean, they drafted 18 guys, but yeah, like, even teams that drafted six to eight, it just, it's all a jumble. So then you spend part of Sunday and Monday going back through it. And now I kind of feel like I'm getting my hands around what everybody has, which is, it's, it's nice to,

[Robert Mays]

to recap, the show we're doing tomorrow with Fran Duffy is very much in that vein where it's like, now that we've slept on it, like, what are our kind of morning after thoughts about the draft? Or two mornings after, which there's some that maybe overlap with what we can talk about today. But I think there are plenty of things to fit in both of those buckets. So we're going to go through about, I don't know, 10ish teams today and discuss some of the messages we think they sent us in the draft. Why don't you start us off? Where, where did your list start? With this.

[Dave Hellman]

I go first.

[Robert Mays]

You're first.

[Dave Hellman]

Awesome. Because I. $10, I'm gonna take one off of your list. I'm just gonna snipe it from you. It's important to Note that who. We don't, we don't know how good these guys are. Right. Like, all we can go off of is the process. So I don't know if these guys are going to step into the shoes that have been put out for them, but if we're talking about sending a message, I don't know if anybody did that as clearly as the Houston Texans.

[Robert Mays]

Interesting. I. They were on my list, but they were not. They were a little bit further down.

[Dave Hellman]

I just, like, if you're just trying to read the tea leaves of what a team thinks, it doesn't really get more what the Texans did, which is draft a football guy. Like old school lunch pale, garbage man, football player and Keelan Rutledge. Like, everything you read about this guy is. He just doesn't give a. About anything besides blocking people. And like, he, his draft party was like him and his family at an Airbnb eating chicken wings. He told Demo Ryan on the phone when they called him, like, let's put some dudes in the dirt. Like, everything about him is fixing that Houston Texans interior offensive line. And then you trade up ahead of the Giants to get Kaden McDonald, who is a one year starter. It's. It's a little. I don't want to call it projection, but like, there's, there's a little bit of risk there that he's going to continue to ascend and be the guy that he looked like at Ohio State. But everybody is universally high that that's got a good chance of happening. And you just throw him into a defensive line that already has a bunch of monsters on it. And the message is it's really clear where it's just like, we're, we're gonna move you. Like, we're gonna own the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball with Rutledge in particular. I can't help but think back to the fact that or the memory of this past season. How many times did we get on here after Texans games and make fun of them trying to run the ball?

[Robert Mays]

Yeah. And.

[Dave Hellman]

And like, get short yardage. Like, oh, here, here go the Texans again. Maybe this time on third or fourth and one it'll work. No, it didn't. Okay. And drafting a guy like Keelan Rutledge is. It's a direct response to that. I think their first four picks were trench players. If you count a tight end as like a guy that can block. And the line on Marlon Klein seems to be that he can do some of that. And yeah, I think the Texans Got tired of getting pushed around on the offensive line and on the defensive line. Why not make a strength of strength?

[Robert Mays]

Looking back through talking to people in Houston this weekend, one of the notes from somebody there about Keelan Rutledge, when I was asking, he's all ball is. And that's.

[Dave Hellman]

And that seems to be everything I've heard about him is that.

[Robert Mays]

And so that's. I think that adding where they did just in terms of the roster and fortifying the interior of both lines, I think that's a message. I think the message to me is we want the areas of our roster that felt different than our defensive identity overall to be infected with that identity.

[Dave Hellman]

Sure.

[Robert Mays]

We wanted those areas to feel more like the things that have come to define this era of the Houston Texans. And I think the offense just hasn't had those guys. Right. I think they're still searching for that mindset and that attitude and that identity offensively in a way they haven't been

[Dave Hellman]

able to find it.

[Robert Mays]

And I think the whole point is can we, can Keelan Rutledge be for our offense what Kamari Lasseter is for our defense? And so they very purposely I think went out and sought that. Wyatt Teller is the same sort of thing. I think those things are tied together in a way. And the defensive interior, this is more of like we're, we're fudging a little bit, but the defensive interior is the one area that didn't really have one of those difference making pieces. Right. Like just in terms of attitude. Sheldon Rankins is a good player, but you look at the second level of the defense was with Aziz Al Shire. You look at the secondary which is just full of banshees and weirdos and crazy people. And then obviously the defensive end room is what it is. The, that interior defensive line is that one area of the roster where there wasn't that like you player. And Keaton McDonald, Keelan McDonald. Kaden McDonald I think has a chance. Keelan and Kaden is a tough one. Kaden McDonald I think has a chance to be that. For the Houston Texans defense.

[Dave Hellman]

I do think Tommy Togi is worth mentioning, but like if you're just talking about imbuing a unit with that type of talent and that type of attitude. I mean you've seen the photos of Kaden McDonald. He's got like the lacrosse player eye black when he plays football, like just looks absolutely terrifying.

[Robert Mays]

They also haven't invested in that position. Right. Like Tommy Togi is a cast off. No, no Browns. You know, Sheldon Rankins is Somebody that like scooped up off the street after he had that really down year in Cincinnati. And so I think them making a concerted effort to be adding these sorts of pieces that you can feel, whether that's in terms of attitude, aggression or the actual impact at those two position groups specifically. Those are really the last two spots where I think they needed that sort of injection. I think the Texans hopefully got it. They're just guys they added.

[Dave Hellman]

Their goal seems obviously to bully people. I mean they can already do that on the defense, but why, why not try to make it even better, particularly at that position group. But really Rutledge and I love the idea of a guard center being like a foundational spark, spark plug kind of

[Robert Mays]

guy he can be though. Yeah, no Jensen with the Bucks. Yeah, right. Like those players absolutely can change the way a unit like that feels.

[Dave Hellman]

I just, Yeah, I mean that, that's the defense gave them that sort of personality anyway. And it's, it's one of the most obvious things to identify when you look at teams. Just like look at the attitude and the physicality on this defense and to try to spread it to the other side of the football makes all the sense in the world.

[Robert Mays]

My first one here is the message that the Philadelphia Eagles sent based on their first two draft picks. And that is our offense is going to look different this year.

[Dave Hellman]

Vastly. I had to, I had to sit there and think like wait, okay, Philly. Yes.

[Robert Mays]

And so you pick two guys. And it's interesting because I was wondering, I can't remember when, how he said this. It was either at his end of season press conference or at some point before the combine. And he was talking about the way that he saw the tight end position and how his views on it had sort of shifted. And if you look at the types of players they've sought out at that spot over the last like four to five years. It's been a lot of guys who weigh 245 are kind of receiving first sorts of players like in the Zach Ertz sort of mold, you know, Grant Calcatera, Kylan Granson. Those are typically the players they've sought out at that spot. And so I was wondering, are they going to add some more bigger bodied blocking types over the course of this off season? They signed Johnny Munton free agency. But I was wondering if that would extend into so many of the guys that we saw go on day two this year. It didn't really. They go with Stowers as their kind of tight premium tight end edition of choice in this draft, then they also draft Makai Lemon in the first round. You can make an argument that the best deployment of both of those players in the NFL is going to be as slot receivers of some sort.

[Dave Hellman]

Yes.

[Robert Mays]

And so now the two biggest things you did in the draft is add slot players who theoretically will be short to intermediate threats in the middle of the field for a quarterback who has just not accessed that area of the field, which is a real thing, by the way. I was just looking up the numbers cause I was like, all right, how drastic was this last year for Jalen Hurts? So on throws in the seams or between the hashes per next gen, last year Jalen Hurts had 203 attempts. That is 27 fewer than any other full time starter.

[Dave Hellman]

Wow.

[Robert Mays]

The guys that he was closer to than I think, I can't remember who was above him in that list, but it was. Somebody was at 2:30 and he was at 2.03. He was closer to Jackson Dart, Mac Jones, Tyler Shuck than he was to the next full time starter in terms of his attempts in the seams or over the middle of the field last year. Jalen Hurts.

[Dave Hellman]

I didn't know the numbers, but it becomes a meme when it's that drastic. Like you, it was rooted in fact, but I mean the numbers make it even more stark.

[Robert Mays]

So clearly I just think that what the Eagles want to do on offense next year will be different based on the skill sets that they've added. What that looks like and how well that works I think remains to be seen. But I think we will see a very different version of who the Eagles are because even as the coordinators have changed over the last few years, this has still been in a lot of ways the Jalen Hurts offense. I think they've tried to maintain some of that DNA and identity and even when Kellen Moore came in, I think you're still trying to operate within the framework of what the offense had been previously. I just don't think that's going to happen anymore because of how much has changed.

[Dave Hellman]

What do you, what do you think you attribute that to like the quarterback? No, but, but like the decision to do this, is it Sean Manion saying like, this is what's going to help our offense? Okay.

[Robert Mays]

I think so.

[Dave Hellman]

Or like, and you know, you've seen people suggest on social media, whether jokingly or seriously, like the Eagles are basically trying to force Jalen Hurts to do more of this by giving him better options that can win in those sorts of ways. I'm just, I'm curious what the overarching thought process was that led to again. And it's obvious, like we're not guessing at this. Like Eli Stowers is that sort of tight end and Makai Lemon has done so much over the middle of the field like this. This feels very intentional. And yeah, I guess I wonder if it's like a top down sort of thing or Sean Manion wanting it for his sort of offense. I mean, I, I don't know if we can completely know the answer to that, but it's interesting to think about.

[Robert Mays]

Well, I think what's important to note is that it's not just the offensive coordinator that's been swapped out because over the last five years, over the first five years of the Nick Sirianni tenure in Philadelphia, even as the offensive coordinators moved, either because they were hired away to be head coaches or they were fired, all the other component parts of the offensive coaching staff mostly remained the same. The offensive cor offensive line coach and run game coordinator throughout this entire time was one person. And Kevin Patullo, before he was the offensive coordinator last year, was the passing game coordinator across three different offensive coordinators. Now you have an offensive staff that even beyond Sean Manion, you have. Josh Grizzard is now there as the passing game coordinator. Ryan Mahaffey, I think is how it's pronounced. He's the tight ends coach. He came over from Green Bay with Sean Manning, who's now the run game coordinator. And so now we just have very different people in charge of what the structure of that offense is going to look like. I think even as the coordinators changed over the last three or four years, they still held on to certain component parts and principles of the offense, in part because the staff underneath them had remained the same. So I just think we're going to see pretty wholesale changes with this offense for the first time since Nick Sirianni has been there. And beyond the coaching staff, I think the players they've sought out in this draft are an indication that we're heading

[Dave Hellman]

that direction and the players that they still might lose.

[Robert Mays]

That's the other quiet message that I think the Eagles have sent here.

[Dave Hellman]

When you draft a receiver first round

[Robert Mays]

and I trade up to get him,

[Dave Hellman]

that was a, that was a miss on my part because during this whole process I was pretty adamant that, I mean, obviously the Eagles have drafted receivers in the first round before, but Howie Roseman just loves to add big time talents on his fronts. I mean, whether it's an offensive tackle, whether it's a defensive Lineman and the tackle run was part of that. Right. Like maybe some of the guys they liked were already gone. But I, I thought it would be a trench player. Wherever the Eagles wound up picking, that's what I thought they would do. And to trade up to make sure they got the receiver they liked. I don't know how you take any other signal away then AJ Brown might not be here for the long.

[Robert Mays]

Well they, they got him at 20. Right. And in theory like Hana Chart was there if they wanted to do that. They wanted to long term tackle prospect which we thought they might do as like a Lane Johnson succession plan. We all thought that might be a possibility. That's not what they ended up doing. They get mar a little bit later in the draft. It's like a kind of slow play that. And they did get the difference making trench player. They just traded a third round pick and paid $25 million to do it.

[Dave Hellman]

Which not what I expected them to do. But in totality, I mean getting the 69 guy to hang out for a year, that's pretty fun. And then yeah, I mean it doesn't count as, as a selection but Granard for two thirds is. I think that's really great business. And so like the totality of what the Eagles did is very fun. Even if they do wind up losing A.J. brown.

[Robert Mays]

The other message the Eagle sent that I think is at least worth bringing up in this draft is that the Eagles told us we don't give a shit about picks outside of the top 100. They did. They showed us that multiple different times.

[Dave Hellman]

Two fourths in that trade.

[Robert Mays]

They the, the trade and then obviously and also the trade for Garnard.

[Verizon Advertiser]

Right.

[Robert Mays]

Like I think they showed us if the picks outside of the top 100. I really don't care. And that's something worth paying attention to as we get into this place where more and more college players that would make up this part of the draft are staying in school. How teams like Philadelphia that I think are very thoughtful about where they're spending their resources are doing them in any given draft is a signal I think is worth paying attention to.

[Dave Hellman]

And you made the point at some point during draft weekend that you get an extra three for Jalen Phillips next year. I mean that's a guarantee with the size of the deal that he got.

[Robert Mays]

I think that's partially why we'll trade this year's three because we're getting one next year. In a draft that everyone feels a little bit better about.

[Dave Hellman]

They are always doing things to make sure that they can move around the way that they want to.

[Robert Mays]

And that's what those outside of the top 100 picks are for.

[Dave Hellman]

Yeah.

[Robert Mays]

And I think in this draft and also just overall, I think a lot of teams that just are analytically driven and have that bent to their decision making, picks outside of the top 100 are as much for moving around the draft as they are for trying to find players in the draft. And I think the Eagles are probably the best example of that. All right, what's your next message that you want to talk about?

[Dave Hellman]

My next one is the Kansas City Chiefs telling us who the hell is worried about the offense. When did we say that?

[Robert Mays]

I have one note. I had the Chiefs at the bottom says we need juice on defense. That is the message that the Chief sent us.

[Dave Hellman]

My favorite thing about this is the Chiefs draft cycle was very contentious.

[Robert Mays]

It was.

[Dave Hellman]

And I understand why. Because a team like this, you would think is not going to pick in the top 10 very often. And also, no matter how many Super Bowls they've won, when you're the standard for success in the NFL right now, it just can't feel good for anybody in that building and for any Chiefs fan to miss the playoffs entirely. And so it felt very contentious to see what people thought about how they might use this pick. And there were a lot of people in the media space, a lot of people whose opinions I respect, who we talked a lot about receiver, and we talked a lot about offensive tackle. And those two things made people pretty mad. Cause like drafting an offensive tackle, I get it. I mean, that sends a pretty clear signal. I know Jalen Moore's only got one year left on his deal, but drafting an offensive tackle in the top 10 one year after Josh Simmons would have sent a pretty clear signal that you're not comfortable with that, which is. Which is not a great place to be. So not only did the Chiefs not do any of that, they didn't use a pick on the offensive side of the ball until the fifth round. Emmett Johnson, the Nebraska running back, four straight defensive picks. You get two guys on to help on the defensive line after you trade up for Mansoor Delane. And we joked about it on Thursday night. Everybody was convinced, like, wow, the Chiefs, they find this cornerback talent all over the draft that, you know, they can afford to wait on. That Spags is cooking up something. And Spags and Brett Veach were like, no, let's trade up for the best guy. Let's trade up for the best option possible. And so just to see them load up on Defense, I mean, they did. They wound up taking a receiver, Cyrus Allen, but I mean, way down at 176, like, that's. That's gravy. You know, we're not factoring that into this year's plans. And so for all the hand wringing and speculation about juicing up the offense, they leaned very heavily on. On defense. And it makes me think that they're expecting Kenneth Walker and. And some of the other young guys, like. Like Josh Simmons. I mean, to not do anything about that. I'm just like, okay, good. We're. We're fine with Josh Simmons. I like to hear that because I thought his rookie season was really promising. So to see them lean so heavily away from offense felt like a clear signal to me.

[Robert Mays]

The corner thing is interesting just because I think there are a lot of different layers to it. I think they trade up in part because with the injury to Jermod McCoy, you have one corner in that tier of players, right? And because it's only Monsoon Delaine before you get to Chris Johnson way later in the draft.

[Dave Hellman]

But see, that's the funny thing. You're right. But as we see every weekend with some of these teams, like, it's not always so black and white. Like, teams feel differently about this stuff. And I can't say I would have been surprised if the Chiefs had thought Chris Johnson was more than a good enough consolation prize. Obviously, they would have had to trade up for him in this scenario.

[Robert Mays]

So I think the difference is, and this is why we do this a lot, where it's like, well, this team doesn't really draft this position very high, so why would they draft a corner? That's surprising to us. But I think when you watch the Chiefs over the last couple years, even a guy like Trent McDuffie, they didn't have the type of outside cornerback. Those players are good, right? Like, Trent McDuffie went for a first round pick, is now the highest paid corner in the league. Jalen Watson got paid, but I don't think they've had the outside cornerback presence since Legerius Sneed was playing at that level. That allowed them to be the sort of defense they were at the end of the 2023 season when they could really bully people. And that. That to me is. So the idea that they would overdraft a corner or be really aggressive in finding one in order to tap back into that, I think it does make sense because when you watch the Chiefs defense over the last couple years, they're not passive in their approach, right? They're still sending a lot of heat. They're still doing a lot of the things that we ascribe to a Steve Spagnolo defense, but it just felt like they were trying to get by. It just felt like they were kind of hanging on for dear life. It wasn't a dynamic unit, and I think this draft in particular shows us their interest and their urgency to get back to being that sort of unit. You have a corner that can hopefully push you that direction with a guy like Delane. You are aggressive in drafting a polarizing sort of player in Peter woods that you think the ceiling is there. It's worth taking the ceiling swing. And then our Mason Thomas, for all of his shortcomings, literally, figuratively as a player, you watch what he is off the edge. And you look at some of the edge players they've had over the last few years, like, George Cloftus is a solid player. You go get Charles Amanda, who is a solid player. They haven't had that, like, juice off the edge. And so trying to add that sort of pop to all of these different position groups because we want to get back to a place as a defense where we are no longer catching where we are the aggressor. I think that makes a lot of sense when you've watched that unit over the last couple years.

[Dave Hellman]

When was the last time the Chiefs had an edge who screamed off the edge?

[Robert Mays]

Like, it's been a long time.

[Dave Hellman]

I mean, Frank Clark and D. Ford come to mind.

[Robert Mays]

Yeah. Default D. Ford, his best. The Frank Clark thing was that was an aggressive trade driven by a quarterback being on a rookie contract. I think the returns on that were the.

[Dave Hellman]

Yeah.

[Robert Mays]

Fair was that.

[Dave Hellman]

Yeah.

[Robert Mays]

But at that. When did D. Ford. That was eight years ago.

[Dave Hellman]

It was quite a while ago.

[Robert Mays]

So I think getting back to having hopefully those sorts of guys along with Chris Jones up front with a corner that you can kind of build everything around on the outside. I think the Chiefs were clamoring for a different era of the Steve Spagnolo defense and trying to get back to it.

[Dave Hellman]

I'm in favor of it. It's the classic case of the draft where I like the picks that they made. Even like, I wasn't as high on Peter woods as Derek and plenty of other people. But dropping him in here and at that range in the draft where somebody would have taken him within the next five, 10 picks if the Chiefs hadn't, like, I like that pick. I like our Mason Thomas for the value. Obviously, I love Delane. The funny part is you just now you look at the roster and you're like, ah, they really didn't do anything tangible at receiver. Like, I don't love that. But you can only do so much, right?

[Robert Mays]

Juwan Jennings is still out there.

[Dave Hellman]

That's true. That's a great point.

[Robert Mays]

I mean, that's what we wanted them to do in like day one of free agency. He is still out there if they want to do that. Oh, I although I think the Chiefs have like negative cap space right now. You can't literally before everybody. I know. You can't literally have negative cap space when the league year starts. They have $6 million in cap space right now without having signed their rookie class. And so not a lot of financial wiggle room for the Chiefs, even though a lot of dudes right now other than Mahomes playing on untouched base salaries. Trey Smith, Nick Bolton, Creed Humphrey, all guys that if they wanted to restructure,

[Dave Hellman]

they probably could, I think. And we'll see when Mahomes becomes available. But Patrick Mahomes with a running back with legitimate pop is more than enough to make me think the Chiefs offense could be fine.

[Robert Mays]

We can tie it all together. We need more juice. The 2026 Kansas City Chiefs Off Season all right, let's take our first quick break and then come back and chat about a team I think both of us had our eye on.

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[Robert Mays]

We were joking on this on we were joking about this on Twitter earlier today, but one of the messages that I absolutely loved from this draft, and I think it's been over the last two drafts, is the New Orleans Saints just telling us we have decided to be normal.

[Dave Hellman]

We're retiring the meme of why can't you just be normal? And it's the Saints screaming in the back of the car.

[Robert Mays]

It all I've asked them to do. It's so funny. And I made this joke earlier today. I'll rehash it again. It is incredible how much better I feel about the Saints now that they've employed this incredible practice called making all of the draft picks allotted to us.

[Dave Hellman]

Did you see, did you see Mickey Loomis's joke?

[Robert Mays]

Yes, but it's like, but Mickey, you understand why we're asking you. Like, it's, you've done this so consistently. Like you can't make, you can't be flippant about this. You've done insane things so often.

[Dave Hellman]

If you're listening and you didn't hear, Mickey Loomis sat down with the New Orleans media right after the draft and said, well, we didn't trade up and we drafted an LSU player. So I don't even know what y' all are going to ask me about.

[Robert Mays]

The last two drafts, they've done normal things. They've just operated in normal way. This is very new.

[Dave Hellman]

Still.

[Robert Mays]

I went back to the 2024 draft. It's just, it's fun. It's like a little scavenger hunt. You just go look at the Saints draft history and look at which picks are missing and figure out how they lost them. It's a fun little thing. You can go do it right now if you'd like. In the 2024 draft. Okay, so that was two years ago. Not, not a very long time ago. In that draft, the Saints had a first round pick and a second round pick and did not pick again until the fifth round when they picked Spencer Raller. Some of those picks you had that extra. Even with the extra two from the Peyton trade, they still only had two picks in the first four rounds because they were still paying off the trade up for Trevor Penning. When they gave up that second round pick to the Eagles and this is my favorite one in that draft, they traded a fourth round in the 2023 draft, they traded a fourth round pick in 2024 to move up for Jake Haner.

[Dave Hellman]

That's so gross. What did they pay in the Eagles trade? Do you have that?

[Robert Mays]

The explanation for it on like pro sports transactions where I look at all the draft pick trades. It's, it's like a paragraph long.

[Dave Hellman]

That's so gross, dude.

[Robert Mays]

So it's the, the Eagles traded the 16th pick, the 19th pick, a sixth round pick to the Saints for 18, a third round pick in 2022, a seventh round pick in 2022, a first round pick in 2023, and a 2024 second round pick. So that's why one of those second round picks, even with the Peyton trade, they did not have. Because they were paying it off a year later. And that was like two years later.

[Dave Hellman]

That was a full three years after Breeze. Two years after. Like why, why are you operating that way? It's so, it's so refreshing to see the Saints just operate like they don't think they're in a Super bowl window.

[Robert Mays]

It's amazing. And because you look at what they came away with and it's like, oh, we have all of these picks to address, areas of our roster that need address. And it beyond the fact that they're making all the picks, they're making all the picks in a way that totally tracks and like where they're spending their resources. Like you look at what they did in the first four rounds of this draft. Going to get Jordan. We talked about this a lot over the weekend. Going to get Jordan. Tyson fits perfectly with what Chris Olave is. Oscar Delp, adding that sort of athlete at tight end, you, you added Noah Fanton, free agency. He's a very specific sort of player. That's a contract that you didn't spend a lot on. Delp is like a more well rounded tight end that you can kind of develop over the next couple years makes total sense. Even Bryce Lan in the fourth round as that sort of skill set, like big bodied vertical player to go with Olave and Jordan, Tyson. That makes sense. And then Kristen Miller is exactly the type of player they need on that defense. So it's crazy how when you make all of your picks, you somehow are allowed to address several areas of the roster that need addressing.

[Dave Hellman]

Not only that, but I love how much of it is skewed toward Tyler Schuck. Like the other message I think they sent is if Tyler Schuck's not the guy, it won't be because we didn't try to put him in a position to succeed. And I mean it goes back to free agency like David Edwards and Travis Hn and then you add to that with arguably the best receiver in the draft, Oscar Delp. I mean, I don't want to get carried away. I don't know what his role is going to look like right away, but again, you're just adding pieces to the offense that can help things overall, help your young quarterback. Both of the receivers they took have traits that are enticing Lance specifically because he's so big and so fast. But Barry and Brown is a 44 guy with returnability. Here's the the comp it made me think of. It's actually not flattering, but I've talked a million times about. I actually do appreciate all the work the Titans did for Will Levis at the time. It didn't work. But give Tyler Shuck the infrastructure necessary to succeed so that if on the off chance it doesn't work, you know why you're not like, well, who's he throwing to? Who's blocking for this guy? Like if everything else is set, it makes it so much easier to evaluate the quarterback. And obviously if Tyler Shuck is the guy, now we're really cooking with something. So I, I appreciate that. The Saints, for the most part, I mean I really love the Kristen Miller pick, don't get me wrong. But for the most part they're trying to help this guy. They're trying to give him a really nice infrastructure to see. You know, was this a mirage? Are we exaggerating how good he was over the last six, seven weeks or can we really build something here?

[Robert Mays]

I also think that when you build up that infrastructure for that quarterback, if that quarterback doesn't work, the infrastructure is still there.

[Dave Hellman]

Still there.

[Robert Mays]

It still exists for whatever quarterback you want to drop in next. Whether that's because you can thread a needle in the draft or because you can add a mid tier veteran of some kind like those, those like small cheap veterans, those are going to become less and less prevalent just because of the that some of those guys would have had. And I don't know if we're going to talk about the Rams on this show, but I have to assume that that's driving the Rams thinking a little bit like there aren't going to be Sam Darnolds for $10 million just hanging out there on the market anymore. And so our avenues to finding a guy are drier than they would have been maybe two or three years ago because of how the league has operated. But whoever it happens to be, if Shuck doesn't work out, the offensive line is still going to be there. This receiving core is still going to be there. You're still going to have the next guy set up for success. If you do have to pivot off

[Dave Hellman]

of Tyler Shock, it's ironic because none of it has really worked for the Titans so far, but that's they pivoted right off Will Levis to Cam Ward. Not a lot of that infrastructure was as good as it looked at the time.

[Robert Mays]

Well, the problem with the Titans is the cushionberry thing, that injury, you can't do anything about that.

[Dave Hellman]

Right.

[Robert Mays]

And then they spent a lot of their money that offseason, a lot of their resources on defense, which that doesn't help your quarterback. And a lot of those bets did not pay off. Legerius Sneed being mentioned for the second time on this show. The my favorite thing about the Saints this off season, you look at it so the last Saints free agent before this offseason, they signed two guys to like decent sized free agent deals during the 2025 off season. One was Chase Young, one was Justin.

[Dave Hellman]

Justin Reed. Yeah.

[Robert Mays]

Both of those contracts had four void years as part of those free agent deals. If you look at every single major contract, the same sign in free agency this year, Travis Hn, Kaden Ellis, David Edwards, they just look like normal contracts. They're four year deals. They go up in the increment. You might expect there's a signing bonus associated with them. At the end of those four years, the deal ends. And it's just weird to see the Saints being able to operate this way. They have $60 million in 2027 cap space.

[Dave Hellman]

Okay, but now it just makes me wonder how quick are they going to be? Like they just need like the slightest opening or like the slightest reason for optimism to just push the pedal back down to the floor. What? Listen, I'm fine. We reset the books, all right? It's time to get crazy again.

[Robert Mays]

If you I, I'd have to think of like a real trade candidate whose contract is expiring next year. But if you get to week eight and you want to trade A second round pick for an edge rusher you feel good about. Right. They need an addresser. Like the perfect example.

[Dave Hellman]

Yeah.

[Robert Mays]

If you want to trade a third round pick for Kayvon Thibodeau because you think that that's going to be. Gives you a chance to compete in the nfc.

[Dave Hellman]

They have Tyree Wilson now.

[Robert Mays]

Don't forget about that Tyree Wilson trade. So even if you still want to do this after the Tyree Wilson trade, that is something I can live with. Right. It trades being aggressive for players that's acceptable, being aggressive for draft picks that you don't know how good that guy is going to be. That's where I really start drawing the line. The Penning thing, the Marcus Davenport thing, you've never seen that guy play an NFL game and you're going to trade a future first round pick to go get him for any position other than quarterback is an unacceptable decision. And this Saints have done it multiple different times. So there are versions of being aggressive that still fall in line with just be normal for a little while. The fact that we've gone another draft without them just lighting a draft pick on fire is extremely encouraging to me.

[Dave Hellman]

It's. It's just fun to think of the Saints as a run of the mill, encouraging, promising team and not an anomaly.

[Robert Mays]

I don't think that you have to. Like, this whole thing is like rocket science. Like I. This isn't about like trying to throw a formula in there and maximize your chances with all these spreadsheets. It's just about getting out of your own way. And watching them systematically try to get out of their own way over the last couple off seasons has been extremely nice. What's your next one?

[Dave Hellman]

I'm gonna stick in the division. The Carolina Panthers.

[Robert Mays]

Curious where you go with this. I was trying to decode what they were telling me and I wasn't sure how to land where I landed on it.

[Dave Hellman]

I took it very, very literally. Because all I know for sure is you can call the Carolina Panthers a lot of things. You're not going to call them small. Damn it. This is a massive, massive draft class. And I know like right around the time they made their third pick. Cause it's like, all right, Monroe Freeling, the need makes sense. Ikwanu got hurt. Like, this is a, this is a perfectly solid choice. Then they take Lee Hunter and you're like, holy shit, there's some beef on this defensive line. Like, good Lord. Then they take Chris Brazel who is 64 and you're just like, they are just drafting Massive human beings.

[Robert Mays]

They have to account for the quarterback.

[Dave Hellman]

I mean, I didn't want to poke fun at it, but it's a very funny juxtaposition between how small Bryce Young is and how big the rest of this team is. And like, look, I, we don't know how these guys are going to project quickly in their careers. But. But Will Lee is 62 cornerback. They took in the corner out of Texas A&M, fourth round key. Wheatley, the fifth round safety out of Penn State is 6:3. Like they just took massive human beings every step of the way. Now go look at the rest of their roster. I mean, Jalen Phillips is, he's not like super hefty, but he's 6 5. Derrick Brown is 65320. Bobby Brown is 64321. The Panthers top three receivers, McMillan, Xavier Leguette and Jalen Coker, are all 62 or taller. Add Chris Brazil to that, he is a legit six four Treva. Trevon Marig is a six two safety. This is just a big goddamn team. I don't know what that, like what their overall thought process is, but I was looking through it and I was just like, yeah, I'm not surprised. The Panthers general manager played linebacker in the early aughts. Like, that was my main takeaway, really. Like this is a large, large draft class and I just. Yeah, maybe it is because Bryce Young is on the smaller side and like I say that kind of tongue in cheek. But if you're, if your quarterback is a little bit limited from a traits perspective and what he's physically capable of doing, maybe it's a good thing if the rest of your team is not limited in that way whatsoever.

[Robert Mays]

I didn't have that through line in part because I the Willie thing, I didn't realize he was as big as he is, but it's a six three corner. Like he's part of this conversation as well.

[Dave Hellman]

They are all like literally all draft picks, or at least all the major ones, are just huge people. Lee Hunter is in the 80th percentile for weight among interior defensive linemen since 1999. And I didn't say as measurables if you don't know them. Monroe Freeling, the first round tackle, 90th percentile height, 84th percentile wingspan. Like, if they, like, I would believe you if you told me they just set the sliders for size and took all the biggest people possible.

[Robert Mays]

And even if you look at the corners they have on the roster right now, like Mike Jackson is a big corner he's 61210 JC Horn is like a big physical presence for a corner. He's 6 foot almost 61205 and so they really do have like big dudes at all these positions. We didn't really talk about the Panthers very much in the round three kind of overall wrap up but when you look at what they did like obviously who knows what's going to happen with a fifth round safety but like like Zaki Wheatley was in Dane's top 100.

[Dave Hellman]

I like Zaki Wheatley a lot.

[Robert Mays]

Zaki Wheatley was in Dane's top 100. Sam Hecht is a guy they center out of Kansas State that they got in the fifth round. Some people had him as their favorite center in the entire draft. I'm pretty sure that Brandon Thorne he was Hecht was his favorite center prospect in this entire draft. And if you look at the roster overall they obviously needed the left tackle with the questions about Equanu moving forward. Mike Jackson, I believe this is the final year of his deal that he signed and he played phenomenal last year but. But he's going to be third. I think this is his age 30 season and so trying to find some sort of succession plan for outside corner I think makes total sense. And center is a big question for them. They went out and got Lee Fortner in free agency.

[Dave Hellman]

It hurt my feelings a little bit when I was putting this together. Luke Fortner gives up a considerable amount of size to Cade Mays. Like Kate Mays is an enormous guy.

[Robert Mays]

He wasn't the center to start though, right? Corbett was the guy. But even Corbett is a converted guard. Corbett played a lot of guard in his career before playing center for the Panthers last year over the last couple years and so them he's Corbett's six four. So you go out and you get a potential center answer. They safety. The other safety spot was absolutely something they needed to address. I mean Lathan Ransom they've drafted last year but the guy next to Trevin Merrick is I think that's a spot where there's plenty of competition necessary. So this is one where if they thread the needle on a couple of these guys and Hecton Wheatley can kind of beat the odds as 5th round picks and become contributors of positions of need. Like there is a chance that this draft looks really good for the Panthers if they can get even some contributions from any of these gu positionally like where they went.

[Dave Hellman]

No, I, I like their class a lot and like I said it's. It's Slightly a joke, but if your quarterback is limited, surround him with super Mu mutants who are not limited and see what happens. And that was kind of the impression that I got looking back over this thing. I mean, my God, like Tetoa McMillan and Chris Brazil as like two of your top three guys.

[Robert Mays]

Is Coker's not small?

[Dave Hellman]

No. Coker's six' three. They're like, they're all huge. The one funny thing, I was looking through this and I was like, okay, well, Jimmy Horn's five, eight, so that kind of detracts from my point. But he was like a sixth or seventh round pick.

[Robert Mays]

Yeah. And I think that them drafting Brazil where they did is probably an indication that we may see a little bit less of Jimmy Horn as a number three receiver this year.

[Dave Hellman]

Big, big, big football team.

[Robert Mays]

All right. The Chicago Bears sent like six messages in this draft. We, we can, we can parse several of them. The one that I wanted to talk about is the message they sent by what they didn't do. And the fact that they did not draft the defensive lineman in this draft until very late and did not address the edge room nearly as early as people expected them to. To me, is an indication that they feel better about the group that they have than the outside perception might suggest. And something that Ben Johnson said yesterday, I believe I found really interesting after talking about some of the guys he thinks will be more impactful this year. Shemar Turner coming back from injury, Dyo De Bo coming back from injury, Austin Booker playing in the second half of the season. He said, we have to coach better. We're going to coach better this year. That is going to be a part of why that group is going to be better. And I'm curious what he means by that. My assumption is, when you watch the Bears front last year, they were not an impactful group. It was also not a dynamic pass rush plan. You look at Cody Alexander's numbers on match quarters, The Bears were 31st in the NFL last year in stunt rate. So this is not a defensive line and a defensive coaching staff that I think is being really creative in how they're deploying these guys. And I wonder if we see that change a little bit as part of their plan to get more out of the guys who are already on the roster. Because he said that multiple times yesterday, Ben Johnson, we were going to coach that group better this year, and the defensive line coach is the same. And so I really wonder what he's getting at by framing it that way.

[Dave Hellman]

And I also. That makes my eyebrows Go up because Dennis Allen is the defensive coordinator there. Same guys, same guy and like. And highly regarded as. Well, at least as a defensive coach. And so not trying to say that's like a shot at Dennis Allen, but I don't know, wouldn't you say erase last year's pass rush from your memory? Because I know it was tough to watch at times, but, like, I think of Dennis Allen as a guy who can get the most out of what he has in that situation. And so leaning on coaching, like, oh, well, we weren't doing enough last year. When you have a very highly regarded defensive mind is definitely interesting to me.

[Robert Mays]

I think it'll just feel different in some ways. And I think that the amount of twists, stunts, games, just again, trying to manufacture pressure where you can get by or you. You can accentuate the talent you have more than they did last year. I. That would not surprise me if we saw a different plan in terms of how those guys were unleashed this year compared to last year. That's a little bit of cope, right? Like, I think it's much, much easier

[Dave Hellman]

to drop between you and Bell and Scott. I mean, we got a lot of Bears fans here. I've seen the whole gamut of cope over the last few days.

[Robert Mays]

There's nothing, I mean, there's nothing you can do about it, right? Like, this is it. Like, it's over now. They didn't add anybody. So now what is the plan moving forward to make this feel a little bit better? And I will say, if we're digging further into the coat bucket, Austin Booker only played nine games last year. There were no games, or maybe one at the very most, with Austin Booker and Dyo Dangbo both on the field. Shemar Turner is a guy they drafted in the second round last year. He played 75 snaps. And so this idea of they were going to draft an edge high, I think in terms of on field impact, it makes total sense. If you look at the roster, there's a shitload of guys on the roster they've committed to and paid and invested in. And so the fact that they're looking at that group and being like, hey, this is it, like, we've already spent our resources on this group. We just need to get more out of them. They've kind of put themselves in that position. And especially when you combine it with the Grady Jarrett contract and how much they're paying him, it's like the die is cast with the defensive line. At least for the next year or so, we'll have more resources if we can move on from a couple of those guys in 2027. But right now, this is what we got and we're just going to have to do what we can to get more out of them.

[Dave Hellman]

These are all things that sound good in the wake of the draft. And, you know, guys like Jadevi and Clowney love signing contracts in August or September. In some cases, like Joey Bose is still out there.

[Robert Mays]

I think that's also an option.

[Dave Hellman]

And not to say that that's some kind of cure all, but there are ways that you can address this later if you feel like you need to.

[Robert Mays]

100%. And the bears are also a team that does not have a lot of financial wiggle room and so that, that might be feeling this as well. But there is absolutely a chance that you're looking at the players you could have found in the third round and then you're looking at some of the veteran edge rushers that are available and you're like, this guy for 6 million bucks is going to give me way more than whatever developmental edge I was going to draft in the third round.

[Dave Hellman]

A fun thing that I learned covering a team is like, for the, for the next month, everybody loves their picks. Like, he, like, we can't believe he fell to us in this place and he's exactly what we wanted. And you know, you're gonna have 10 to 12 opportunities to evaluate these guys. Not in a padded setting, but you're gonna get to evaluate them on the grass with veterans on the field. And it can change your opinions a little bit. And not to say you're gonna like, write guys off entirely, but I think it's a little bit easier to be realistic after you've seen some of your rookies play football for a little while. And, and I, I don't, I don't think it's a coincidence that teams do these sorts of things after they've seen minicamp and OTAs and all that fun stuff.

[Robert Mays]

The other one message wise that I think the Bears sense in this draft is our offensive identity is the most important thing.

[Dave Hellman]

Can't say I blame him.

[Robert Mays]

That is the most important thing. The Logan Jones thing, overdrafting him maybe a little bit compared to consensus because of the skill set he's bringing. And then drafting Roush where they did this is just a very clear, like, we are going to prioritize the type of team we want to be offensively and we will figure the rest out.

[Dave Hellman]

I think that's worth pointing out to. We've talked about this half a dozen times like it, it's okay. If the Bears are not like built like a contender today, that's completely fine and I think it's worth giving them credit. They got screwed by fate. Drew Dahlman decided to retire out of nowhere one year after signing a deal. And that's not to hate on Drew Dahlman. Do do what makes you happy, my guy. But you get dealt that blow two weeks a month before free agency and you have to pivot and I think they have done an admirable job like Garrett Bradbury can handle this for the year and now you've got a succession plan in place. You probably would have preferred not to spend two draft picks addressing center this year considering you just signed Drew Dallman. But you gotta roll with the punches and I would way way rather I would way way rather have adequately dealt with sinner and have that in place. Considering who Ben Johnson is and the quarterback and all that stuff. I'd way rather have that figured out and be nervous about the pass rush than vice versa.

[Robert Mays]

Drew Dahl or Garrett Bradbury is making $5.7 million this year. If Logan Jones is better than Garrett Bradbury, I think you just roll with that. And I think you should be open to the idea of him being better than Garrett Bradbury based on where you drafted him.

[Dave Hellman]

Even if he's not. Though, I'm also okay paying Garrett Bradbury $5 million for a year. And Logan Jones is a great swing interior offensive lineman to have like that's totally fine.

[Robert Mays]

All right, well, let's take one more quick break and then come back and chat about our last couple messages here.

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[Dave Hellman]

All right, is this your last one, man? I can go as long as you want me to.

[Robert Mays]

Okay.

[Dave Hellman]

I got, I got like one and a half.

[Robert Mays]

All right, so let's give me your full one here. My full one and a half.

[Dave Hellman]

This is, this is one that I wanted to make sure I got in there. And it's a team that didn't make a first round pick, but I think we need to give them the credit of saying the Cincinnati Bengals sent a clear message of we're trying not to screw this up twice. We're trying not to make the same mistakes with Joe Burrow that we did with Carson Palmer. And I think that's worth acknowledging. Like, we have so many of these conversations about the value of the pick and like, oh my God, Dexter Lawrence for number 10 overall. Can we sit for a moment in the fact that the Cincinnati Bengals traded a top 10 draft pick to make their team better. Do you know how insane that is? This is a team, I think from like, from the beginning of their existence to 2014, they traded up in the draft like five times. And from 2014 to now, they've only done it a handful of times. And usually it's like a minor trade to go get like, Cam Taylor. Britt like, the idea that the Bengals would send a pick that big to another team for a player is wild. And yes, it makes their defense immediately better if he's healthy. Dexter Lawrence is one of the best interior defensive linemen in the league. But I think the message is really, really important that, like, hey, we are not the most liquid ownership in the NFL. There's always, we're always going to have to do things a little bit differently than some other teams. But we are trying. We give a damn. And we want our franchise quarterback to feel like he's got a shot to win a championship here. I think it sends a very. A clear signal to me. On top of all the other stuff, maybe this. This wasn't the sexiest draft. Maybe this was a good year to do that. But. But for the Bengals to step that far outside of their comfort zone, I think it's. I think it's very meaningful. And I've noticed that over the last year or so, too. Like, it's a very NBA thing to be like, oh, where's he going to be in three years when his deal is up? Because there's no way he wants to be there. We don't really do that in football because every team in the league has a chance.

[Robert Mays]

But franchise a guy?

[Dave Hellman]

Well, yeah, I mean, we also have incredible levers to maintain control over players. But. But we're doing that with Burrow right now where it's like, pisses me off.

[Robert Mays]

I. I like.

[Dave Hellman]

I.

[Robert Mays]

We can do the. We can joke about the Rams thing, which now that it's off the table, I actually think I. I enjoy that. But this whole thing of, like, Al Joe Burrow just going to be playing for the Rams in three years, just like, probably not. He's probably not.

[Dave Hellman]

I agree with you. And I agree with you even more. Seeing the Bengals do something like this to. To give a damn, like, this is a very. Give a shit sort of move, and I do. And on top of that, from a football perspective, I think it makes a lot of sense. Like, you asked me on Saturday, if the Bengals had known that Caleb Downs and Reuben Bain would be available at 10, would they still do this? And I, With a bullet, I would do it.

[Robert Mays]

Yeah.

[Dave Hellman]

I would absolutely do it. I think he can raise the floor of your defense that much. You've added Jonathan Allen and boy maffe Dexter Lawrence should make those guys look a hell of a lot better. You add in two signings in the secondary, like, it's not going to be the best unit in the league. But the Bengals have taken very real steps to make their defense respectable this year, and that's all it should need to be if Joe Burrow and all the offensive pieces are healthy. So I just. I thought that was cool. And this isn't anybody doing a trade like that. It's the Cincinnati Bengals, and that's pretty wild.

[Robert Mays]

I totally agree. I mean, in the moment, that was my first response, is that I think that there is a. There's something to watch in the Bengals being the team that did this on, on a few different levels. And the Bengals right now, now the Bengals have in 2027 salary cap space. The Bengals have like $60 million in 2027 salary cap space. They came into this offseason with a ton of cap space. In this era, this idea of and this plays into the would you rather have Caleb Downs and Ruben Bane over Dexter Lawrence 10 to overall pick? The two things that make Caleb Downs and Reuben Bain better than Dexter Lawrence with in that in terms of how you use that draft pick, one is age. Right. You'll have more time with them. And the second is surplus value. Surplus value only goes so far when there aren't that many players to spend the money on. And that is a world that the Bengals live in lived in this off season. It's like you can only sign so many free agents and I think with the Bengals in particular, why this matters. The Bengals are never going to be at the top of the list for the most sought after free agents.

[Dave Hellman]

Right.

[Robert Mays]

Because of the way they structure their contracts. There's no signing bonus in Brian Cook steal. He has $14 million guaranteed. That's it. That's the only. Those are the only guarantees in Brian Cook's three year $40 million deal where he has a $13.4 million AAV. The Bengals just do their contracts differently. And so you're not going to be in the running for the best free agents even if you have the money. And so if you have a little bit of excess cash to spend against the cap, using a draft pick in order to find a player worth spending on is a good way to do that. And the fact that the Bengals are willing to adopt that line of thinking I think shows you how that's crept into a lot of different buildings in terms of how teams are thinking about this.

[Dave Hellman]

Yeah, I mean if, if the Bengals are doing it, that means everybody like they're going to be the last ones to that party.

[Robert Mays]

And that includes and he came out and said today during his post draft press conference, Duke Tobin for the first time when they asked about restructuring Burrows deal, it wasn't a like no, we're not doing that. It was let. We'll see. And the fact that the Bengals are slowly potentially adopting these sorts of levers I think is a very good thing. If you were a Bengals F. And

[Dave Hellman]

that's at at times, I think it's fair to at least ask the question of, you know, you've soured your relationship with the number one overall pick and had to Ship him out of town once. Are you really going to let that happen again? And for their part, the Bengals are saying no. I mean we signed your receivers, we signed your tight end, we traded for a difference maker on defense. Like again, they're always going to be more limited than some other NFL teams, but they're trying and I think that's worth saying.

[Robert Mays]

My other favorite part of the Bengals draft is that they drafted cash as how. And so you have another Texas A and M pass rusher that's essentially the funhouse mirror version of the Texas A and M pass rusher you drafted the year before.

[Dave Hellman]

The, the freaky guy with no stats and the very unfreaky guy with a lot of stats.

[Robert Mays]

Well, he's freak, but. Right. But he's just built in a weird way. Right. Like he just has very, very short arms.

[Dave Hellman]

He's built in a. I mean it's a, it's a bad year to call him unprecedented because Reuben Bane is there.

[Robert Mays]

But his arms are shorter than Reuben Bane's arms, aren't they?

[Dave Hellman]

Are they? So this goes back to the how the combine screwed up all the measurables. I think Reuben Bane is at like 30 and seven eighths. And I think Cassius Howell got a

[Robert Mays]

flat 31, 30 and a quarter for Cassius.

[Dave Hellman]

How Woof. I thought his were longer for some reason.

[Robert Mays]

So his arms are shorter than Reuben Bane's arms.

[Dave Hellman]

The two, two of the best pass rushers in college football on two of the best teams in college football had historically short arms in the same draft class. It's very weird.

[Robert Mays]

One of my, the other, the best part about this. So Cassius Howells six two and a half, 253 thirty and a quarter inch arms. Shamar Stewart two 67, 34 and an eighth for Shemar Stewart in terms of arm length.

[Dave Hellman]

Yep.

[Robert Mays]

They're 40, 10 yard split and 20 yard split are the exact same. 459-158-266.

[Dave Hellman]

That's wild.

[Robert Mays]

So you have guys with the exact same like twitch movement ability. Smart. Turner's smart. Stewart's jumps are crazy, but the fact that their 40s and splits are the exact same and you have one guy who's like a shrunken pass rusher and the other guy who's this massive project. It's just very funny that they came from the same school and they're like. There's weird parallels between.

[Dave Hellman]

I had somebody tell me during the draft process that they thought, I mean Howell's tape speaks for himself and it's kind of like I Was told I think he'll be really successful and really, really good if he can go somewhere where he's cherry on top. Sounds bad, but like a complimentary player to a stable of already established pass rushers. And it's probably up to you to decide if the Bengals meet that criteria.

[Robert Mays]

But what I would say is he's a complimentary piece to the body types and skill sets have in that room.

[Dave Hellman]

I would agree.

[Robert Mays]

Right. And that that's the nice part is that if you're open to a player like this for the role he's going to play and he's mostly going to play for you in defined passing situations as a rookie, that's possible in part because of the other body types that they have in that ed room. And we'll see what see what happens with Shemar Stewart in year two. Everything else but Miles Murphy, Shamar Stewart. I mean they've got big guys in that room that theoretically should be able to play for you on early down. And then you add Boy Mafe to the mix now.

[Dave Hellman]

Like it's if I am, if I'm a Bengals fan and let's be honest, I'm like a pseudo Bengals fan because of who plays offense for them. If I was a Bengals fan, I'd be coping my ass off talking about how Dexter Lawrence is going to unlock all of these guys. Like we've got all this talented edge. We just needed somebody to make all their lives easier. Like I'd be saying that to anybody who will listen.

[Robert Mays]

My last one here. Don't spend a ton of time on this. I think the message that the Titans sent in their draft this year is this is Robert Sala's team. No, like you look at what they did with their first second with their second first round pick and then what they did in the second round, the first pick with Carnell Tate. We're helping the quarterback. Right. Like that's. That message is clear. Like we are willing to draft a guy. Maybe people didn't expect us to draft this early because our number one priority is making sure that Cam Ward is surrounded with the right pieces. And I completely understand that after the way that last year went. You get Calvin Ridley back this year, hopefully he's healthy. But them kind of leaving no doubt about how many viable options Cam Ward would have this season totally makes sense to me. But then you look at the Keldrick Falk and Anthony Hill picks and that to me is a. We're seeking out the exact types of players that Robert Sala has wanted on those Defenses over the last however many years.

[Dave Hellman]

That's. It was funny on Thursday night where nobody saw Carnell Tate going to Tennessee. Know, especially with defensive options on the board, like with Arvl Reese there and Sunny Styles for that matter. Nobody saw that coming. And it was like, whoa, good on them for prioritizing the quarterback. I never saw that coming. And then they immediately trade up for like the big long, you know, guy that looks the part first off the bus guy. And it's like, okay, Salah got his, he just had to wait a couple hours.

[Robert Mays]

I mean you look at what the Niners, the types of players that the Niners have drafted along the defensive line when Robert Sala has been there. Like the fact that Sal was one year back last year by the year they drafted Mikel Williams. And then you go back, you know, to the deforest Buckner was before they got there. But like the ar, the Eric Armstead Forrest Buckner and like the, the fact that they lean so heavily on players of like that archetype and skill set, not surprising at all that they, they wanted a guy like Keldrick Faulk in that spot. And then again this, the rangy long linebacker that they drafted in the second round, like going and getting the long tweener defensive lineman, rangy long linebacker as your first two defensive picks of the Robert Sala era. Not. No, no ambiguity about who's in charge of the body types and skill sets we're seeking out when it comes to how this defense is going to get built.

[Dave Hellman]

As a Falk believer, it's no guarantee that it pans out. But Robert Salah wanting him enough to trade up, I was like, all right, I'm not stupid. It doesn't mean I'll be right. But I'm not crazy if Robert Sala thinks the same thing I do.

[Robert Mays]

We talked about this in real time time. Mel Williams went 11th in a much better draft than this one. Keldrick Falk going at 31. Yes.

[Dave Hellman]

I was like, I, you know, I thought he might fall, but I thought falling for him would be 20 to 23. So yeah, once you, I mean at 31, that feels like a no brainer. Even with the trade. I think what they gave up like a third and a fifth. Yeah, that's fine. I, I'm, I'm cool with that.

[Robert Mays]

And the other part is Oladejo was a very, he was a unique player. That to me was an expression of the previous coaching staff and the fact that they spent a second round pick on an edge rusher. Last year and then went out this off season traded to Vondre Sweatford, Jermaine Johnson and then traded up back into the first round for Keldrick Faulk after spending a second round pick on Oladejo last year. That is a we're seeking out different sorts of players for this staff which it makes total sense right? Like they are going to there is enough shared DNA with a lot of defensive systems around the league where there's plenty of overlap. The Niners have a very specific way of playing. They are one of those four down attack fronts which we still have four or five of those still left around the league and so them making a pretty hard left turn to seeking out players that fit that vision probably shouldn't be surprising. But I think what they did sent a very clear message that they are doing exactly that.

[Dave Hellman]

That forgot John Franklin Myers and Jermaine Johnson are there too. One of these years being excited about the Titans is going to pay off.

[Robert Mays]

Maybe it's this year I, I might get there. I, I, I might get there as I think more about Cam Ward throwing to Carnell Tate. Any others you wanted to mention before we get out of here?

[Dave Hellman]

Yeah, it's, it's not new. They do it every time they change a staff. But the Cowboys just handed the reigns to Christian Parker like well so obviously I mean five of their seven draft picks were on defense including three. The the first three were all defense. Four of the first five were defense. You add Caleb Downs to be a nickel and a safety and just set the tone for what you want your defense to be. You get a high upside edge rusher even he's a fourth round pick. It's not the sexiest thing in the world but LT Overton is just the type of guy that the Cowboys would have never drafted. And now you're moving to what makes you say that? Because he's, I mean I, I expect him to play like big end in base and be like a guy who can kick inside. I mean he's six three. He was 287 at his pro day. This is a guy that you're going to play him at 4i and 5 tech and all and like he's going to be at the point of attack and hold up against the run and do all the nasty shit that makes the edge rushers look good. That's what I would expect him to do. And in previous schemes the Cowboys just wouldn't draft that guy. They'd be like ah, where's the bend? Where's the production Getting sacks and stuff like that. And so Downs, obviously, but I think Downs is a guy you can adapt to any scheme in the world. But Overton specifically, I'm just like, okay, this is a guy that Dallas does not draft until Christian Parker gets here. And clearly, I think the staff has a vision in mind for what he might be. And so, like, when. When big departure picks like that happen, it makes you pay attention. You trade for D winners during the course of the draft. So, I mean, you use five picks on defense, including your biggest two, and you trade for a starter at linebacker. It's Christian Parker's show. And also it signals to me the Cowboys don't think they're that far away from having a defense that can make them respectable in that division. And I tend to agree with them. I don't know if all these guys are going to pan out, but I think they took a few swings over the course of the last four days that. I mean, if the offense is anything close to what we saw last year, I think this defense can be much better pretty quickly based on what they've done.

[Robert Mays]

I would pay a real amount of my own money to be a fly on the wall as Christian Parker and Caleb Downs talk about football together.

[Dave Hellman]

Wow. Yeah.

[Robert Mays]

Like, I just. I. I would pay, like, here's like, $500. Just let me sit in the corner and I won't eat. Like, nothing.

[Dave Hellman]

Like, this is all off the record.

[Robert Mays]

This is totally just for my own edification. I just want to sit here and watch them talk. Because as somebody who has talked to Christian Parker about football multiple different times over the last several years, as he's been in multiple roles with several different teams, and everything I've heard about Caleb Downs, they are just going to be two peas in a pod, just sitting there and talking about every single possible iteration they're going to see from whatever offense they're playing that week. So I think personality wise and in terms of the football IQ collectively they're putting in that building, I think that's a very nice marriage.

[Dave Hellman]

Yeah, I think think this. This projection about the Cowboys defense being a better unit pro, it hinges pretty heavily on him being the guy that I think he is. But he's. I mean, he's one of those prospects where everyone I've ever talked to says the same thing, like, across different buildings, across, like, scouts, coaches. I mean, on draft weekend, the Cowboys scouting staff was talking about how he was on people's radars when he was still in high school, let alone being a star. As a true freshman and everything that's happened since then. So it's, it's a lot of expectation, but everything I've heard makes me think he can live up to it.

[Robert Mays]

All right, that is all we got with the messages sent today. We'll be back tomorrow, me and Fran Duffy. As I mentioned earlier today, we're gonna be doing a show just with the some thoughts that may have shifted now that we've had a little bit of time to sleep on some of the decisions that were made by these teams over the last few days. We reacted to every single pick of the first two nights of the first three rounds in real time. Sometimes your thoughts about that stuff changes when you have more time to sit with it. And so that's what tomorrow's conversation is going to be. Maybe some things that we feel a little bit differently about now that we've had a little bit of time and distance from them. Very looking very much looking forward to having that conversation with Fran. And then we'll be back later this week with kind of our last look at the draft being what questions do we still have, what holes need to be filled, what needs have not been addressed by some of these teams as the draft wraps up. So those will be our last two draft shows. Very much looking forward to both of those. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. 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. We'll see you next time.

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