The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NFL Draft Recap With Andy Benoit | Dual Threat With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

Russillo talks with SI's Andy Benoit about the 2019 NFL draft, teams that addressed needs and those that didn't, the Josh Rosen trade, the Giants' first-round decisions, draft sleepers, and more (1:40). Then, Russillo talks about mock drafts, the first-round QB bust ratio, trains, and more (38:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome in. I hope everybody enjoyed the draft. Nashville looked like it was lit AF. So that's pretty much it. I've been to Nashville a few times. It is a lot of fun. It looks like, I don't know, I'm going to do a little bit on the draft at the end of this, okay? And it's going to be a little solo deal. We're going to run through it. I do want to remind everybody that in this post-draft deal that we're doing, I'm excited to talk to Andy Benoit, who has for a long time been one of my favorite guys to read at SI.com. And I would encourage you to go read him as well and check out his piece where he

grades every single team's draft and all the picks and all the stuff. So I'm just pumped to talk to him for a little while. So we have a bunch of different things that we're going to do there. But I have to, it is my duty to let you know about maybe the biggest problem in America. Not the imbalance of the economic structure. Not the relations that seem more strained than ever before from different corners of society, but it's actually trains, man. And if you've ever stopped at a railway crossing and the signals are flashing and you don't see the train, or it looks

like it's moving slow and you're thinking maybe you could get across the tracks before the train comes, think about this. In 2018 alone, 270 people were killed at railroad crossings. This is not a joke. 270. Stop. Trains can't. Andy Benoit, what's up, man?

Hey, Ryan, how's it going? Great, great. Tough transition out of that, Ryan, how's it going? Great, great. Tough transition out of that, so I'm just going to get right to it. I have all of these draft things that I want to do. Maybe I'll even tease a few here ahead of time. Let's see, let's see. I know I sent this to myself. Why is it about need?

You gave out all the grades, the Rosen market. Why is this one team so bad with this one position when everybody loves the head of the organization? Okay, let's do this first. I was going through your draft stuff and you know, need is such a big part of this. And we'll just, we'll get to that in a second, but give me two teams that had glaring positional needs that you think at least on paper addressed it. And then maybe some other ones you can just list off. And then we'll do like two teams that have a glaring need that you still think is there. And they did nothing during free agency or the draft. So give me the one that jumps out.

That was the most addressed problem. The most addressed, I think singularly in and of itself would be the Steelers at inside linebacker, given how much there is to gain by finding that fast, dynamic, three-down linebacker, and given how few other needs they had. That was a really pinpointed area of weakness. Okay. I know Texas O-line, or Texas O-line is more accurate,

was one that you had written down just because we looked at what Deshaun and what O'Brien had to do with their offense and keeping so many people in, and it still didn't really protect the guy. It didn't feel like it. So how do you feel about them as far as the guys that they took? Yeah, I like it.

All we can talk about with these guys are concepts as players anyway, because we don't know which ones will fail and succeed. That's why there's more than a handful of first- round busts every year, but you touched on it perfectly. They didn't trust their offensive tackles at all last year and with good reason.

So Bill O'Brien solution was let's keep tight into running backs into block. The problem with that was it forces longer downfield routes because there's fewer options for the QB. Now he holds the ball. And then the guys guarding the men who stay in the block, those men become blitzers. And Deshaun Watson took a bunch of hits. So they needed to find offensive tackles that they trust because they need to

play a different way. Their scheme was the wrong approach with Watson. I don't know if, I mean, they got Max Sharping second round. They got Titus Howard. I believe it was earlier in the draft, late first round. What's interesting to me, Ryan, those are both smaller school guys. That doesn't mean they're developmental prospects. I'm a little bit surprised that they didn't get a guy that's a clearer plug-and-play right away. But maybe they see something.

You know, they've scouted these guys a lot closer than I have. They don't have time to mess around developing tackles. They need someone who can get on the field and make them comfortable immediately. Okay. All right. So this is, so it's not a total solution. This is of all the little tidbits that I pick up as, and I explain this all the time, like there's NFL front office people that call me just because they love the

NBA and I've met them on the road for college games that I've gone to, or somebody reached out and was like, Hey, you just want to let you know, I always like the show and all that stuff. Titus Howard, it was weird. I had a guy go, Oh, that guy's going to end up going for a second round, Alabama state. Oh, really? Yeah. Right. So there was, and it wasn't Houston by the way. So it was a different team that loved him. And from what they were hearing, that was kind of one of those deals. Okay, let's go to the other side of this. Give me the team that had the most glaring need that you still are sitting there going, I don't know, like, I don't know how they're going to fix this.

Well, I mean, am I even allowed to say New England? That feels almost sacrilegious to say anything negative about the Patriots and not go crazy that they traded down and got extra picks at some point in the draft like they do every year. They didn't find the tight end, though, for Rob Gronkowski's replacement. They don't need the next Rob Gronkowski, which might not even exist for another 20, 30 years. But they need what I call kind of a five-tool tight end, a guy that can block in every dimension and then catch passes from the slot

out wide or up at the line of scrimmage in his usual spot. As long as they've got a guy, they can move around. They're going to have the same offensive approach. I don't know if they've got that guy in the roster. Now the Austin Safarian Jenkins is he's been tried like that before. And that's why he's a journeyman. So I was a little surprised they didn't find the pure tight end. They do have flexible running back.

So, so they can still diversify their passing game, but they don't have, they do not have the Gronk replacement at all right now. They have, and they even, they even traded their boy Hollister too, which I know.

And I was a little surprised him for a seventh round pick too. And I was a tad surprised by that because they used him as a flex blocker and receiver last year. So I, and he's familiar with the system. So I thought maybe they had plans for him. Uh, clearly though they've got other plans. Cause you just always expect at some point, like, okay, they're gonna, they're going to take a tight end somewhere. And with Belichick, that's why, you know,

when I look at O-linemen and their depth because of Skarniecki, I just go, okay, these guys are going to be good, and they'll figure it out. That's just what I always expect. And then I think defensive back was a real hole for Belichick. For receiver, he's been historically terrible. But I would bet that at tight end, they're going to end up just, they're going to be somebody cut in August and

they'll pick up like two, two of them. I mean, that's just, I don't know. That's just kind of the way, that's just the way I always expected to work out with them. So you know what, that is a good, I don't know if I want to do this first on the need thing, but okay. So clearly receiver was a need for New England and this never really dawned on me other than just, I was a guy that liked the NFL draft. I read everybody else's stuff, regurgitated on local radio 15 years ago and think I knew what I was talking about. And for the most part, like that's the really funny thing is that I know you watch the tape. I know all the guys that I like we have on the show and they watch the tape, but a lot of people that do what I do on my side of it,

we don't really know. Like, it's different. Where basketball, it's easier to figure out who's good and who's bad. Where I don't know that anyone who's ever been like a long-term talk show host like me,

non-player, watches guards and trying to figure out like who's actually winning his matchup or who might be losing because of scheme and all this stuff. So when I really started looking at the Kipers and the Big Shays and on and on and on, and I think like, why do you have him go in there? And it was always because of need. If a team had a top, if you listed the team's top three positional needs, chances are first, second round,

that's where they were going to draft. So why is this so much about need as opposed to best player available on the board, which teams tell us all the time, but I just don't think that many people actually pull the trigger on that. And I agree with you 100%. It's weird. There's almost like something admirable about saying we take the best on the board. Like that's supposedly better than drafting for need. The goal is to build a team and construct a lineup. It's not to just stack a roster.

And to get guys in the same position, that's not the most effective way to build a team. I think it's become even more about need, Ryan. And it's where this collective bargaining agreement was agreed upon way back in 2011. It's almost expired now. But it's almost like in the last few years, teams have really gotten the full understanding of what it means and how it impacts the league on a day-to-day basis. There's two things that have happened among other things,

but two as it pertains to the draft from the CBA, one is that younger players are replacing veterans at a much higher rate. And you and Kevin Clark have touched on that in the past. And it's a younger players league because those rookie deals are so much more affordable now than veteran deals. And then two is there's less practice time available. So you've got younger players and you have less time to develop them, which means the logic just tells you, all right, well, then we've got to find guys who can contribute right away. And the fastest, best way to do that is to find guys who already fit our scheme to some degree.

So it's more scheme-driven than ever now in the NFL because you don't have time to practice and mold players from scratch anymore. Yeah, that makes some sense. But I also think, like I was talking with another team about this, and I said, look, everything you just said makes all the sense in the world. So the way in my tone is, is if I'm about to disagree with you and that's not really what it is, but you know, I had this theory years ago about the NFL and the lack of backups, right? Everybody'd say like, look how terrible all the backups are. And you go, well, how the hell could a league develop any of these guys when they don't get

to develop like other positions get to develop, even if they're not getting reps on Sunday. And we all know about the quarterbacks that don't want to give up any of those reps because they selfishly don't want any threat to their job whatsoever. So I don't blame the number one guy for telling his staff, hey, I want all the reps.

And I would do that. And what are you supposed to do? And tell the staff, like, hey, sorry, you got to split with this guy because we hope in three years we have a nice backup. So what would happen is that all these kind of, not third, but maybe fourth, some thirds,

just think about the middle-round quarterbacks that are taken because I've gone through and looked at all this, is that you draft him and then you're kind of like excited about it, right? You go, oh, yeah, you know who I kind of like is that guy. You know, like Ryan Nassib was always the one that I think about. Like, hey, is there any way Ryan Nassib could take Eli's job and all this stuff? And then the guy never plays because the starter ends up staying healthy and plays well enough to not lose his job. So this guy sat around for two or three years. You have no idea if he can

play or not. Even if he gets into a game, it's probably not a real thing. There's no real development. And then you just cut him and then you replace him with the next guy who's just new. So that's very specific to the quarterback thing where this league by design doesn't just eat its quarterback depth. It never even serves it. And I feel like, you know, position 43 or number guy 43 through 53 on the roster, that it's not necessarily that those 10 guys are bad. It's just that they never really got much of a chance, or maybe they didn't show enough, and you just want to replace them with 10 new guys. So it's a lot like there's this turnover that just kind of happens, not because of injuries,

not always because of talent, but because it's like, well, I've got these seven or eight picks this year, and I'm just going to keep this guy because he's brand new and I haven't figured out if he can't play yet, as opposed to the other guy that I think can't play because he hasn't really gotten a chance. Yeah, I agree with the overall sentiment. The NFL is not – in some positions, depth is key, but there are certain positions where depth is used only as a form of emergency, and that's basically its it's offensive line and it's quarterback.

And for whatever reason, and maybe to a less degree, cornerback, maybe. But I'm with you. It's just not a league where you do... There's no farm system built in within the NFL. There's no farm system feel. It's not a developmental league. It's a win-now league in just about every fashion.

Yeah, and I think one thing I said that I maybe want to correct is I'm sure, you know, if you have defensive backs that are in the bottom 10 on your depth chart, and I don't mean at the position, but your overall roster, you probably had figured out at some point in practice, like, do we have something here or something to work with? But just the sheer numbers, I think, lead, and mean, numbers by how many draft picks you have, the supplemental picks, like some of these guys are bringing in 10 new dudes into camp every year. I think some of the turnover is just about the math more than it is. Do we really need to replace 10 guys that are on this team? So, um, that's anyway. So moving on to some of this stuff,

the Josh Rosen market, people can rip the Cardinals' math here, and maybe this thing completely blows up in their face. But if there just aren't that many teams looking for Rosen, and maybe some are scared off by his personality, maybe other teams could not care less about that whole deal, but I really don't think there was another trade out there that made them feel like they were going to salvage the asset enough. And they definitely didn't want to keep him around. And I know on paper, all the different, like when people start

doing, oh, expected value and all these different things, I kind of hate all of those charts. Like this is specific to this market. It's not a value chart. It's, we have a quarterback that's rep is dinged a little bit here. Everyone knows we need to move on from him. We don't want to have both guys. And there aren't that many teams out there that are kind of quarterback question marks right now, April into May, which is pretty rare. But I feel like the 1 through 32 is as solidified as we've seen in many years. Yeah, it's not a good time at the buyer's market for QBs right now because there aren't a lot of teams needing quarterbacks.

I think we've talked about that, too. There's an unusual number of solid veterans late in their career that are still going. There's an unusual number of good-looking young guys that got plugged in as first- or second-year guys the last couple years. So there's just not a ton of QB-needy teams. What stood out to me is bizarre, though, Ryan, and there's got to be a reason behind it. And you wonder if it has something to do with Kyler Murray and his flirtations with baseball.

And do the Cardinals think he'll be a football player forever? What's the deal with that? How do you build a contract for that? But why, if it's true that Arizona didn't start actually actively making calls about Murray until hours before the draft, why would they wait until their backs are against the wall like that? And until the Redskins and the Giants are about to take themselves out of the quarterback market, I don't understand why the Rosen deal wasn't pursued more aggressively several weeks ago if indeed Murray is your guy. And I don't believe that they just decided early on draft week that, okay, Murray's the guy. I think that decision was made many weeks ago.

There's so many things about the Rosen story that don't make sense to me. They don't because there's an obsession, and I would say a waste of time obsession by front offices in both basketball and football and do a less like I don't I don't talk to baseball people the way I used to when I first started coming up um but it's it's such an obsession from us on the outside to go like oh we gotta figure out we gotta figure out these angles that I think a lot of these teams and guys waste time trying to be secretive about it. And they don't owe us anything. They don't owe us to tell us anything. I'm totally fine with that.

But if you didn't want Rosen to know what was going on with him, because in that one SI article, Rosen seriously says, he says, like, I didn't really believe it until it happened. Okay? Now, you could argue that's a didn't really believe it until it happened. Okay. Now, you could argue that's a really poor way to handle it by the Cardinals. You could also say, hey, we just wanted to make sure that no one knew and we weren't tipping our hand. But if it's not right, I mean, you have the number one pick. It's like they're acting like they're boxed in right here.

And you can't be boxed in when you have the number one pick. Yeah, you're right about it. But then again, it kind of gets back to my pointless obsession of these teams. It's like we still don't want anyone to know our clear path because you never know if there's an 11th-hour offer to move up and all that stuff. And then you go, okay, but then if that's your reasoning, then is Murray really your guy?

Because if Murray's absolutely your guy, then I don't care what is being offered to you. It doesn't matter. If you really believe in him and he's your guy and he's a perfect fit and all this stuff, you're going to move on and take a loss on Rosen that you can't write off to the IRS, then you just go ahead and do it. So were you playing this game of being secretive because it actually led to an advantage or are you kind of contradicting yourselves here a little bit and i don't have the answers to any of this stuff i don't either and that's why i would love to get an unfiltered version of this story because maybe there's something where because i agree with you 100 if murray is the guy that make him

the guy and maximize your value for josh rowe i mean, that's a quarter. That's an expensive asset that you're selling and trading out there. And to not maximize that, I can't fathom that any NFL general manager, especially when Steve Kime has had a successful few years at times.

He had a horrible year last year, but Steve Kime's not a fool. You don't become a general manager by being a fool. So I can't imagine he twiddled his thumbs on this and then had nowhere to go. There's something going on that we're missing here, and I would love to hear the truth on

it, and it might be years if we ever do get to hear the truth on it. Yeah, I don't have all the answers on that one. Okay, now let's talk about everybody's favorite topic, Daniel Jones to the Giants. Your evaluation of Jones is what? My evaluation of Jones is the same as every QB, which is that we don't know what he is completely, but if he doesn't have these two things, he won't amount to anything. And one of them is precision accuracy, and the other is pocket mobility.

That comes pocket poise, moving with subtlety and nuance within the pocket. Nobody talks about that. What makes Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Phillip rivers. Great. It's never talked about by people outside the NFL, but those are the two things that you have to have.

And you've got to have them. Now you can't develop them. Once you get to the league, you can polish them, but you can't just outright develop them. So it's hard to know because there are different demands in college than in the pros on pocket mobility. Precision accuracy, you can kind of tell the guy is what he is. But, you know, I don't know for sure because we haven't seen Jones be tested that way.

We haven't seen Haskins tested that way. We'll find out. But I trust that the Giants took the QB they wanted the most. out, but I trust that the Giants took the QB they wanted the most, and if it works out for him, Jones is a star. No one's going to gripe that they took him at number six when maybe they could have gotten him later in the draft, and vice versa, if Jones busts and they got him at 17 and he flames out, no one would have said, well, that's all right. They waited until 17 to get him. It's a quarterback, and he needs to play well, and the Giants will be judged on that. The problem is, though,

is if you look at it all, you go, what changed in 12 months where you thought you were good with an older quarterback? And Eli's turned into a guy that, you know, for all the pluses of New York, and the guy's going to end up being in the Hall of Fame because he's got the two rings, even though to me he's not a Hall of Fame quarterback over the course of his career, but that's just the way that league works. Those are

the standards he's in. I don't know why in 12th, like the whole thing doesn't make any sense. And I'm not trying to be the pile on Gettleman. This guy's an idiot like everybody else is. Right. You could have had Darnold and Josh Allen and then the other pick from the Beckham trade. And instead you went, you know, a running back who's really good in Saquon,

Daniel Jones, who isn't even close to the prospect I think Darnold is. And ultimately, you know, you could argue, wait a minute, you have Darnold, Josh Allen, and Odell. And in 12 months, you went from pay Odell this new deal, all the money up front, and we'll get rid of him less than a year later because of culture. And we didn't want to take the quarterback last year. And now we do.

And no one, I haven't heard one person say, if I had to place money on it, I would expect Daniel Jones to have a better career than Sam Darnold. That's the part that I, by itself, okay, you like Daniel Jones. You took him. You're right. If he works out, who cares where you took him? But the package you could have been 12 months ago

versus the package you are now, that's basically indefensible. I kind of agree with that because last year and this year really do not correlate. And even this offseason with New York does not correlate. I don't believe that they are, I certainly don't believe they're tanking. And I don't think they see themselves in an utter rebuilding mode. They signed Golden Tate for notable money. He's a play now guy. Uh, not long ago, wasn't this off season, but not long ago, they paid for the big expensive left tackle and eight soldier. You drafted a running

back. You plug and play those guys and build your offense around them. They, a lot of their actions suggest that they're competing right now. And then all of a sudden they take the developmental QB. Who's probably not the prospect that last year's developmental QBs now. And then all of a sudden they take the developmental QB. Who's probably not the prospect that last year's developmental QBs were. And you're right. What happened last year that changed the overall approach for this team. I'm with you on that. And I'm also of the belief. The other thing we need to remember, Ryan, is that you don't need quarterbacks to have been drafted in the first round and then truly red shirted as rookies and then gone on to become franchise QBs for their team? It's happened twice since 2005.

No, it doesn't happen. Rodgers and Mahomes are the only two that have done it. Everyone else either plays as a rookie or they don't turn out or work out. So the idea that Jones might sit one year, two years, three years, again, everybody says that when they get the QB, but it's gone that way twice, and it was maybe the two most talented guys to ever come in, Rodgers and Mahomes. There's a few things.

I could keep a list, maybe 10 things. It might be a pamphlet. I don't think it'd be a book. But a collection of things that if you say this as a sports person, it just means I'm never going to listen to you anymore. If you tell me that guys are landing in Harden's landing area when he swings his legs forward, like I just don't want to hear you ever say anything about basketball the rest of the way. I just don't because when he goes straight up and down when he's wide open, the legs don't move forward. Magic, right? So if you're a

landing area expert, chances are I don't want to hear your next thought. If you are somebody that goes, well, this is great. You know, Daniel Jones, three, four years, Aaron Rodgers model. The Aaron Rodgers model was not by design. It was because Brett Favre kept retiring and unretiring. And that's why eventually they did move on from him because they were sick of it. And Rodgers is sitting around. So there is Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers is awesome because Aaron Rodgers is awesome. Not because he sat behind a indecisive, non-supportive veteran quarterback who wasn't

there to help Aaron Rodgers out. That's as unique a scenario as anything. And the other part of this is I just refuse to believe that the quarterbacks that didn't work out, it didn't work out because they just were rushed. I think if you're going to be really good to even great, eventually you're going to figure out how to play this position. Are there examples of guys that were rushed that were too soon? Are there examples of guys whose confidence were absolutely shattered? Yeah, but if your confidence is going to get shattered as a rookie,

then how strong are you actually mentally? Right. I've always thought that too. Yeah. Well, and is it, is it that they're rushed or is it that the situations for, cause a lot of times when you rush a QB in, you're rushing a man amidst a bad situation. Like Jared Goff's the one who complicates this whole thing a little bit because he looks like such a different guy in year two with a new coaching staffers year one, but that whole new system that he got under McVay, that was a whole different style of football for Jerry Goff. So he was rushed in as a rookie and it looks like, Oh, he can't play. But then all of a sudden he gets a system and decent circumstances.

And it's very different. Would golf have looked flustered as a rookie. If he were under McVay as a rookie, we don't know the answer to that, but I'm with you on that. I do think, I don't think a guy has been, Troy Aikman got beat around like terribly his rookie year. Peyton Manning did as well.

Ton of interceptions. I think if you're going to develop and be a star, you'll survive the lumps as a rookie. Yeah, that's the other thing too is anytime a rookie throws a million interceptions, like, well, Peyton Manning

threw 28. What was it? Was it 28? Was it 35? I don't know. And it's like, yeah, okay, well then apparently your guy is going to be Peyton Manning through 28. What was it? Was it 28? Was it 35? I don't know. And it's like, yeah, okay, well then apparently your guy's going to be Peyton Manning then. Awesome. Okay, let's go a little quicker with some of this stuff. Give me the team that you think now is going to look the most different week one as opposed to the team they were week 17 of last

season. Well, I think Arizona is the easy answer to that because of the Murray factor and then the Cliff Kingsbury thing. The other one, and it's not really a draft answer, Ryan, but if we're kind of sticking with offense here, Green Bay, I'm fascinated to see what they look like because they were so rudimentary schematically under Mike McCarthy,

and now they're going to be very precisely detailed and schemed up very highly under Matt LaFleur. That, to me, is fascinating. That's a huge philosophical shift in one year. Give me your evaluation of a player, meaning you have him a lot higher than where he actually went, the one that jumps out to you the most. Chase Sternberger, tight end at Texas A&M.

My buddy Greg Cosell, yeah, Sternberger. My buddy Greg Cosell, he's compared him to Travis Kelsey. We're talking style of player, so we're not saying Sternberger is the next Travis Kelsey. Travis Kelsey is a third-round pick, too, if I recall.

I feel like there's a lot of good value at tight end in the middle rounds. The offenses that have a dynamic, movable tight end have a huge advantage over the defenses that have to defend them. And yet, some of the tight ends that we've seen that have gone middle round, Jimmy Graham, Jordan Reed, Kelsey is another example. You can find good, raw athletes. George Kittle, most recently, is a middle-round pick. I think Sturmberger is potentially the next one.

You are. I am, too. I think he works great within not just the context of their offense. I think he's a really good player in and of himself. How does he fall? How do you not get drafted higher? I saw him out once. It's skinny frame. Yep.

He does not pass the eyeball test. You're exactly right about that. It's skinny frame. Yep. Yeah, he does not pass the eyeball test. You're exactly right about that. You look at him and you're like, are you a roadie? Like, what's your deal? You look a little crazy. And then he's incredible because you know people, anyone that passes through Iowa, those state borders,

they're just, they come from good stock. That's kind of how I see it. Give me a guy that went way higher, and then in your evaluation, he's like, you're going to be kidding me, and it may reinforce your feeling of a front office that you don't think is that good. A lot of depth there. Well, that little tag on at the end, that makes a bolder statement. Yeah, you don't have to do that if you don't want to.

Well, I was kind of amidst the people whose jaw was on the floor about the Cleland-Farrell pick at number four overall, not because I don't think Farrell can play. Who knows if he can or can't. Again, these guys are all just prospects. But stylistically and conceptually,

in order to be a dynamic dominant edge rusher in the NFL or defensive end, you've got to have explosiveness and physical pliability. You've got to be able to bend around the edge. And when you put on Farrell's tape, I don't know if he's quite the, and Von Miller's probably the best bender in the NFL. I don't know if he's quite got the Von Miller traits around him. He looks to me like he could be one of these good at everything,

great at nothing guys. And I struggle with the idea of taking that style of player that high in the draft. The Farrell one is perfect too because again, my NBA thing is far deeper, but I've had general

managers talk to me and they go, if you guys never did any mock drafts, and I don't do one for ESPN, but if they never existed, and it's impossible because they're too much fun. We love clicking on them. Even if we think they're stupid, everybody just wants to look at them. It's one of the greatest things you can have on a website is a mock draft traffic. But if you didn't have any, this, this one guy in particular is like obsessed with mock drafts as a subject is like, I think the draft would be dramatically different.

Now, yeah, Zion Williamson would go number one, but if there was a guy that you kind of liked at 12, you just can't take him if you have the sixth pick. You can't because everyone's been preconditioned whether it be a year or the fired up intensity of the coverage of the previous months to the draft that it changes everything. And Cleland Farrell,

and this is the thing that's kind of funny for Raiders fans that were sitting there and all the memes that happened. There's, I would bet 95% of the Raiders fans in attendance with bummed out faces were bummed out about a guy in Farrell who they had not seen play and the Raiders didn't pick Josh Allen, who they've also 95% of them have never seen play. Right. These mock drafts set these almost artificial expectations for the draft. And this works against, and that's why I'm not like banging the table saying,

no, get Mike Mayock out of there. I mean, the Raiders have their reasons for what they did. And I do believe the whole idea, like, well, they reached for the guy. I think that gets way overblown. Ultimately, the draft is about getting good players. And if there's a player you want and you can take them and pick them, let's not overthink this most of the time. I was surprised stylistically, again, that Farrell was the guy they wanted that high given his traits. But it's not like they just saw Cleland Farrell on YouTube like a lot of the mock draft people do and then put him on their board.

I mean, there's some research that goes into this. I'd be interested to hear everything they thought about Farrell, and they probably have shared it, but I wonder if there's any negatives or if it's all just positive. Give me another set of quick hitters from you then on just everything, because I know you had some extra notes for me when I sent you kind of the outline of what I wanted to do here. Well, we were talking about needs that I thought were really well addressed and some that weren't addressed. One thing, and it's not, it doesn't make for sexy podcasting, but it's the

difference between good football and great football, I think, is some teams that needed help along the interior offensive line. Minnesota could not function on offense last year because their guards were inept. They get Garrett Bradbury now. He'll either play center forward and they'll move Pat Elfline to guard or Bradbury's a guard. He's a perfect fit for their outside zone scheme. And that's got a domino effect on it. That's going to stabilize a lot with the offensive line.

State's got Eric McCoy. That's a nice way, center from Texas. That's a nice way. Center from Texas. That's a nice way to rebound from the Max Unger sudden retirement. And then speaking with the interior O-line, Denver, Dalton Risner,

they needed a guard there. Guards, Ryan, and again, it's not sexy podcasting, but I think guards in today's NFL are every bit as important as left tackles

for a variety of reasons. And the teams that got them are going to get a lot better. Is it still as bad as everybody's making it out to be with the lack of offensive line depth? So at guards, you felt like you could always just plug in because of the college systems. I just kept hearing it more and more. We've heard it publicly and definitely privately. Like a guy like Bill Polian, who I got to know pretty well when I'd be back in the studios, you know, I just went, hey, what's going on?

We start talking and he goes, you know, I'm going through it, and, you know, I'm just doing my job, so it's not like I'm running a team anymore. But I can't believe how bad the offensive linemen are in general. Like, I don't know where they're going to come from. Like, the tap is out. And I never know, like, that was starting to happen with quarterbacks, which is really funny, right?

Because before it happened with the offensive line thing, there was this theory going, where are they going to find the pro quarterbacks? Where are they going to be? Because nobody's running any of this stuff. And it really forced the NFL to adapt. And in a way, I think forced it to wake up a little and go, you know, it's not the end of the world to spread some people out and have smaller players and all this stuff.

And I actually think one of the guys that I've talked to, it was a great quote. He goes, I just don't think the league is that intimidating from a size standpoint anymore because the quarterbacks and some of these skill guys, they're just running around, and the league has had to go smaller. So when you're out there on Sunday, it's not necessarily as intimidating as it used to be because there's not this massive size gap

between some of the positions. You know, one of the things with Kyler Murray, his offensive line at Oklahoma is going to be bigger than the one he has at Arizona. It is. Yeah. So I guess the quarterback concern was almost a little too Y2K-ish, where it's like, oh, wait a minute, what's going to happen?

Oh, it's fine. It's fixed. Not a problem. I wonder if the offensive line concerns are more valid or if this is kind of being solved in a way. I think on – I hear exactly what you're saying, and I don't disagree with it either because when you're talking offensive line,

first of all, you're usually talking what it means in the passing game. And the passing games in college dilute how you can evaluate a QB, and the same is true with offensive linemen who don't have to block very long because the ball is coming out and being thrown to these wide receiver screens.

The NFL though, is it's still a third down game largely. And on third down obvious past situations, these college concepts that have filtered into the league, the bubble screen, the spread formations, those get nullified a little bit and you still got a pass block. And what defenses do now for one,

the defensive tackles are better than they used to be. There was not an Aaron Donald type and a Fletcher Cox type and an Akeem Hicks type in the NFL, not very regularly, not like there is now, but for two is the lines put their defensive ends inside. They get flex rushers inside and they put five guys up on the line of scrimmage, which forces one-on-one blocking. It's become easier than ever schematically or more creative than ever to isolate individual blockers. And usually your worst blockers are your inside guys. That's why they're inside. You hide your bad athletes. So I don't think you hide left guards or right guards or any of them as easily anymore. And they're harder to give help to schematically.

It's not like a tight end can chip block and help them. It's hard for the back to stay in and help a guard. Yeah, they've got guys on both sides of them. But in third down, obvious situations for passing, those guards are getting isolated a lot in today's NFL. Give me your final thoughts here. The number one pick in 2020, and I'm going to make you answer two things.

The number one pick a year ahead of time and the guy you're most excited to watch in college and where he ends up going next year. I guess my default answer would be Tua because I feel like that's just the answer I'm supposed to give. But Ryan, you would probably be floored at how little I know. I live 10 minutes from Boise State, and I don't know a single guy on the Boise State football team, and that's all they have here in Boise where I live.

So I have my head in the sand on college football until spring right before the draft. That's totally fine. I have to take my head out of the sand. No, no. football until spring right before the draft. That's totally fine. I have to take my head out of the sand. No, no, that's actually, look, you work the way you work and that's, that's actually, I know how it is because everybody's asking me to do some of these NBA draft segments now. And I go, I'm, I'm just not ready. Like just get to me.

Like I go to the combine in a couple of weeks and I'll be way more ready over the next two weeks, but it's just not, especially now with not having the radio show and just being on the phone and stuff. It's just, it's just different. So, uh, don't worry about it. No, you know, I'll tell you, I'll give you a quick story. The other day I was with a head coach watching film and then we talked about the draft and I said, you know, I really don't,

I don't get fully into it because the amount of time it takes to do this, right. I think it's a year round operation for most people. And I would include myself. I don't have time to do a year round, but the other thing is nobody cares about these guys after the draft. A lot of the time, half of them are not going to make it. We'll never talk about them again. And then the other half of the, who do make it, we'll probably won't talk about again. Duran pain, for example, the good player for the Redskins mid first round pick a few years ago, big guy in mock drafts. Nobody talks about Deron Payne now. The return on the investment for me

from a media standpoint, at least if I watch NFL film, I'm seeing NFL players. It impacts free agency content. It does impact draft needs. You know all the players. The guys are sticking around. The draft, you could spend 100 hours on guys and might only get 20 hours worth of return

on that investment. I hear you. I hear you. All right. So that was good, man. I really appreciate it. And we can check you out where and follow you where on Twitter? At Andy underscore Benoit and Andy Benoit at Sports Illustrated. Perfect, man. Enjoy a couple down weeks, hopefully. All right. All right. Thanks, Ryan. I just want to talk about 2020's draft for a second. But first, before we do that, I want to tell you about our good friends at ZipRecruiter.

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The smartest way to hire your quarterback a year ahead of time is probably not looking at mock drafts. Now, I am not an anti-mock draft guy at all. I like them, and I think people just get really mad. I think the whole thing is kind of crazy. I think people just get really mad. I think the whole thing is kind of crazy. But knowing that probably 90% of my audience is the same way that I was when I was growing up, where I became obsessed with some edge guy that I'd never seen play before because I read three or four different mock drafts.

That's just the way it works, man. You guys got lives. You got kids. You got people hassling you all the time. The man keeping you down. Some short-sleeved middle management guy trying to tell you because he didn't make it and trumpet that, that, you know, he's taking it out on you. The rest of us, I had one of those guys, he offered me a contract once. And I had found out that he

offered me just $5,000 less a year than he made because he couldn't stand the idea that because I didn't have a wife and kids that I was going to make more money than him. And I thought to myself, Hey man, there was a crossroads. This whole deal is a choose your own venture chapter. And I chose the harder one that had the bigger payoffs. And you decided to be a manager. You didn't want it. You wanted to be on radio, but you kind of wanted the stability of the early on management stuff. And now here we are years and years later, and I'm here and you're there. So I don't know what that has to do with the mock draft. That felt really personal there. And I almost forgot I was doing a podcast. But the point is, I get it, man.

You can't be watching the SEC or the Big 12 or the Pac-12 late at night really breaking it down going, I like this guy's hips, or I like his quick twitch. You know, I like all this stuff. You're not going to do that. Hey, this receiver doesn't battle for 50-50s the right way. He's slow out of his plant. I don't like this corner's hips. That's fine, man. It's fine. You have other stuff to worry about, but you do get really worked up when it doesn't go according to the mock. Now, according to the

mock for next year, and I've heard this off of the Rosen thing, is that, yeah, the Dolphins went and got Rosen, but realistically, they're just going to get Tua next year. You have no idea how this is going to work out in the NFL. I mean, think about bad teams that are still competitive. And bad is 6-10, so it doesn't do anything. Like, a 6-10 team is not going to pick first. Yes, you could maybe go out there and tank. I still think tanking's a little tougher and more difficult in just 16 games

because you're really telling these guys that go out there and put their bodies on the lines every Sunday to be like, we wouldn't mind it if you didn't tackle that well for the next few months. Is that cool? Because Tua and Herber are in next year's draft. So, yes, I think it's harder to tank that way. we know because it's always one of my favorite things when a team isn't doing that well and the coach or the gm because everything's about self-preservation they go you know we had we had said over nine losses of one score games like yeah so's every fucking game okay sorry but almost every game in this league is is a one score game it's just it's kind of the way it works a lot of times teams are down 21 and they get a couple late scores scores. You're like, yeah, we cut it to, cut it to eight, the two pointer,

you know, right in this, right in this. Be like, no, it was 24, nothing at half. And they stopped trying. So as, as I try to figure out like who's maneuvering for Tua or Herbert next season, I don't, I don't even know how you'd be able to do that right now, okay? And if you want to go down the, I don't know, it's not the history books. Just use Google on this one I did. And I think I need to do a more extensive version of this. So maybe I'll do my revisit my quarterback first round bust thesis. It's more than a thesis. It's graduate level stuff, credits, where I went through 20 drafts.

And it's like, look, 50% of these guys are going to be busts, which is crazy because if you look at the first rounders in 2018, we already see the path to two of those guys being busts. And Lamar Jackson's totally overrated too, but Darnold still hope Baker looks like he's going to be awesome. But Josh Allen, I don't know the Rosen thing. We'll see. I hope it works out for him. So maybe all five are going to be really good, but the math tells you at least two, if not three, are going to be bad. And for those, because I know it's just the way it is now, no, I get it. He thinks Lamar Jackson's a little overrated. Hmm. I wonder what that's about. Okay. How about this? I thought

Black Panther was kind of average. Oh my God. You know what else I think is average? Captain America. And I think Doctor Strange is boring. Now what? Okay, back to football. So, we've got Tua and Herbert. Who's going to go number one?

Jake Fromm in the mix. I could do this. I need to do a longer version of this, maybe 30 straight minutes. If you go back and look at mock drafts and where the quarterbacks are supposed to go when we do this exercise a year ahead of time, there's so many whiffs. The first one ever was Matt Barkley. If Matt Barkley had come out when he could have, he would have been top 10 pick. Then he ends up as a mid-round guy. Never to be heard from again. Christian Hackenberg was thought to be number one.

And I could tell when I asked Josh McCown about him, he immediately was telling me he isn't any good without saying it because Josh McCown's too nice to do that. He's got all the tools. Cardell Jones, a year ahead of time. And I'm talking reputable mock drafts. Again, not criticizing the mock drafter for doing this.

It's just amazing how much variance there is from sitting here today. Like, it would seem impossible. Hey, next year, one of the guys, Tua and Herbert, are going to be thought to be a second round pick. No way, Rosillo. That's crazy

talk. Yeah, but it happens. It happens every year. Drew Locke, an ESPN mock draft, top 10 pick last year. Cardell Jones, top 10 pick in a mock draft the previous year. Jared Stidham, first round pick for a mock draft just a year ago. It seems impossible that Tua Herbert could be going outside of the first, but it would have felt impossible for every one of those guys that you listed, or at least 90% of them, 80% of them. I'm going to go back and do more extensive research on the first round mock that comes out a year before the draft. And it's not knocking the player. It's just, I cannot emphasize this enough. If you're going to learn one thing from me, one thing,

it's not that everybody that drafts quarterbacks is stupid, as 538 would have you point out, or would point out, because they did. Or that there's something wrong with the kids. It's just the things that we need to know about the guy on Sunday in that huddle. I don't know that there's a statistic that exists that predicts success greater than just, hey, is this guy actually going to figure this out? Is he going to be into it? Is he going to be a leader? Is he going to deal well with chaos? Is he going to see a second read? Is he going to see a third read sometimes? A lot of college guys are great on first reads and because their teams are so good,

they don't have to worry about the second read. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I do. I just like Andy a lot, man. I know he puts in all the time. I feel bad about asking like who are you looking forward to next year, but that's almost the exact same thing I do with the NBA thing. When guys start being like, hey, what's your top five in the NBA? And it's like November. And I go, I'm watching Ole Miss right now, dude. I'm out. Okay. We are taking a little bit of a break from dual threat because there's a little dead time here. So I'm traveling out for a couple NBA things too. I'll be back on the East coast with ESPN doing some TV stuff. And I have a huge

announcement for a podcast, uh, coming up, but we'll be off for a few weeks. Uh, hit us up at Ryan A. Rosillo if you miss me and we'll, uh, talk to you probably in June, end of May. So we still have more episodes. I'm trying to come up with some new concepts and some stuff to do because, you know, just weekly transaction stuff or who got in trouble. That's not real interesting to me because I think you can get that everywhere else. So I appreciate all the support. This podcast has always gone to top 10. Whenever it's up on the episode rankings, it's done really, really well. And just a few months we've been doing it. So again, a huge thanks to all you guys, because it just, it's been a really great year for me personally and made me feel great that trying out some different things and knowing that the audience is out there, it's been killer, man.

It's, it's for, I'll just put it this way. There's a few, there's a few doubters of your boy. And, um, what's happened over this last year is proven all those people wrong. you knew i couldn't leave you without some kind of train news that's good because i've got it for you the good news the number of collisions involving a train at a railway crossing is down 83% from its peak in the 1970s. Here's the bad news. There are still more than 2,000 incidents a year. Stop. Trains can't.