2024 breakout candidates: the obvious & the obscure 01:13:42

This episode of Football 301, Charles McDonald joins me as we go over some breakout players. Some obscure, some not so obscure, some pretty plain ones that we're going to be talking about, but still fun to talk about. We're also going to be going over my big board that comes out later this week. Fun show. Can't wait to talk to Chuck. See you guys in a sec.

Fantasy football season is here, and for the first time ever, Yahoo Sports and NBC Sports are teaming up to give you a chance to win $1 million. Entering is simple. Sign up for a private Yahoo Fantasy Football League and draft your team. If any of the players you start scores a touchdown in the week one games on NBC and Peacock, you'll earn bonus entries into the sweepstakes. Each person can earn up to eight entries, one just for signing up, and up to seven more for touchdowns scored in the three games.

Deadline for entries is September 5th. Visit yahoo.com slash fantasy million to join and enter. Happy draft season.

Hello and welcome to Football 301. I am Nate Tice. Another fun show for you today on Football 301. I'll even say stupendous on this one. We got a lot actually in this show. Charles McDonald is going to join me and we are going to talk about some breakout players. Some, you know, you might have heard of some mainstream ones, maybe some obscure hipster ones, maybe some trench guys that you can keep an eye on to maybe break out this year. Also going to do some preseason news, preseason kind of thoughts and observations about

And also I'm releasing a big board this week for the 2025 NFL draft and what Charles kind of take a peek under the hood. And we're going to have some draft thoughts and big board thoughts at the end of the show. But like I said,

Mr. Furverts is joining me today. Charles McDonald. How you do today, Chuck? I'm very excited for the show, by the way. So I'm sorry I kind of said your name before introducing you, but thank you for joining me today. How you doing? I'm doing good. Doing good. It's about 65 degrees today in New York City. Oh, crisp. Crisp. It felt good. I was going to get a haircut this morning. I walked out the door and I was like, ooh.

That was nice. That was nice. Right. It didn't feel like, you know, like the devil's is just sitting on your face as soon as you walk outside. It felt like a normal day. It felt good. Yeah. As someone that lives in Vegas, I've been just peeking at the weather. And today's the last, like, official hot, hot day. It's 105 high, which actually here is tolerable.

Believe it or not. But then now we're going to go to L.A. together. We're going to film something in L.A. together, which I'm very excited about with our friend Matt Harmon. But after that, when I come back, then I started seeing highs of like ninety two eighty eight. Oh, now now we're doing great because that dry heat is perfect. What's the 80s and 92 and all that? Because that feels more like seventy eight. Eighty. It's great. It's fantastic. So, you know, also it's fantastic.

There's big news. If you like money, I'm getting so much better at these transitions. Yahoo Sports and NBC Sports are teaming up for a million dollar sweepstakes. All you got to do, sign up for a Yahoo Fantasy League for instant entry. Someone's got to win this million bucks. One of us does. And you have to do it before the week one of the NFL season. Details at yahoo.com slash fantasy million.

did a panel a few weeks ago. I think I intermixed yahoo sports.com slash fancy millions, yahoo.com slash fancy millions, yahoo.com slash fancy million. I think I said every variation of that URL, but it is yahoo.com slash fancy million. But today we are going to be predicting some breakout players, some obvious, some maybe not so obvious, and maybe some you haven't heard, or you just only heard their first album, but we're telling you to keep listening to them. Some old iterations of this show, uh,

have featured Justin Matabike, Kyle Duggar, Tower Smith, Rashad Bateman twice. So I did not bring him up a third time, my guy Rashad Bateman, but maybe Matt will next time he's on our show. But like I said before, we're going to do some preseason takeaways before we hit on those breakout players. I want to start off with, you know, rookie quarterbacks is a pretty easy subject to hit on for preseason stuff. So week two happens.

All the rookie quarterbacks play except for JJ McCarthy and Michael Penix of your Atlanta Falcons. The number eight pick, who is the backup quarterback this year or slated to be behind Kirk Cousins, did not play, did not even suit up a series, did not even come out for warm-ups and pads or anything like that, was in shorts just like he's the starter. Raheem Morris says he won't play again this preseason.

What do you think about this, Charles? I just want your bold – not bold. I want your naked takes on this, like your first thoughts when you saw that Penix wasn't playing and then the aftermath of Raheem Morris' comments. It's just why? Why? Why do you guys keep doing this? No, this is dumb. It's just dumb because he needs to play. He just needs to – he flat out needs to play. If you're going to do this thing where you acquire Kirk and Penix in the same offseason –

financially, you can't get rid of Kirk for two seasons. So you're locked into him as your starter. And not only that, because I've seen Falcons fans be like, well, can we just get rid of Kirk after one year? Well, do you want to pay AJ Terrell? Do you want to pay Kyle Pitts? Do you want to pay Matt Judon, who you just traded for?

If you do, then yeah, you want to keep Kirk Cousins on this roster because the thing that's going to make it harder to sign those guys is a big old block of dead cap that you can't move from Kirk Cousins being, you know, moving away from his contract so fast. So with Panic's,

He has to play in this preseason because when is he going to play? You've already said the best case scenario is he doesn't play for four years. So what? You're just going to you're going to just not ever let him touch the field? We've seen enough. Right. So 13 passing attempts against a backup Dolphins defense. That was all you need to see.

That's it? And you're just convinced that, oh, well, he's the starter. But now the thing is you invite the conspiracy theorists to come out and talk about this where you have, oh, well, is Kirk Cousins not healthy? Because if you were going to tell me that Kirk Cousins actually was not healthy enough for week one, then yeah, I might sit Penix too. Because then we're looking at QB3 starting the season if Penix were to get hurt. But if he's healthy...

And you don't have any intention. As Taylor Heineken has spoken himself, he does not see himself on this roster. So why is Michael Panics not playing in these games? If you don't expect to play him, it makes no sense. And they keep acting like they've stumbled into some...

war, like some world or some plane that no NFL team has ever existed in before where they have this young rookie quarterback who they think is good. That doesn't matter. He still needs to play. This is crazy. And we were messaging privately about this. And I thought you had a great point too. And I think it was more of a back and forth, but you brought it up. This isn't like he's replacing Matt Ryan. Who's been there for a decade, 12 years, 14 years is a legend. And

okay, now we put him out the pasture or trade him. And then now we got the new guy. Kirk Cousins is not an established figure in the Atlanta locker room. I mean, he's not even an established figure among NFL pundits.

Now imagine him in the locker room. I mean, no one knows where he ranks in the hierarchy. It's not like he's a bonafide, oh yeah, this is a guy. You know, it's like, oh yeah, he gets the job done. But it's not like Kirk Cousins comes in and it's like, oh, this guy's a brand. And I'm not like just trying to, I'm being funny, but being kind of serious too. Like, it's not like people come in and go like, oh yeah, this guy just won the Heisman. This guy, you know, it's Kirk Cousins.

I think that you're creating kind of a uphill sledding for him. And not saying it's not fair to Kirk Cousins. He got paid plenty of money. This is why you get paid plenty of money. Like, prove it. Like, you better be freaking proving it. So I'm not saying woe is him. But just these are the little things, the minutiae of all these decisions that are kind of adding up. And kind of that's, I don't know. I wouldn't say concerning, but just kind of like, what are you guys doing? Like, kind of just what...

You guys are really acting like you solve something that no one else has. And it's just kind of, it's weird to me. Hubris is the word we keep coming back to. And that's just, what's kind of just kind of, it's just interesting to me. Like the,

It's not just throws. It's plays and it's just stuff like huddling. It's stuff like understanding maybe a matchup that week. It's learning what the changing third down plays every week. And yes, he's an older player, but it's different in the NFL. I always come back to this during the draft season when people go, oh, he played against NFL corners or NFL defenses. It's like, no, no, no. Those are SEC defenses with maybe two NFL players. We say those guys are NFL players, but only two will stick. Right.

Well, guess how many of these guys are sticking? A lot of them. So that is that's it just doesn't add up. It's just weird. And the injury stuff to people go, well, he has an injury history. We don't want to get him hurt. Why draft him eight? You know, they have to play 17 games like you if you're scared about one half of a preseason, one quarter, two series.

Yeah, it's just, it's weird. So it's a strange, strange thing. First, I think the Kirk Cousins thing, like, dude, nobody in Atlanta gives a crap about Kirk Cousins. He hasn't played a down. So when you do this, all you do is invite people to just not believe in Kirk Cousins, which people are kind of inclined to do anyways. The second point with Penix and like, oh, he threw against NFL corners.

You look at, let's say the best team that Nick Saban ever had at Alabama. Let's call it a mid-2010s Alabama team. And you take the whole roster from freshmen through seniors. You have, what, 25 NFL players on there over the course of a three-year period? You know what's a lot more than 25? 53. So you're just not playing the same game. And not 25 pro bowlers.

Right. Like, you know, maybe a half dozen, you know, don't get me wrong, probably 10 maybe in that group, but you know, not all of them. Yeah. Most of them are just going to be like practice squad guys or like, you know, bottom of the roster guys. Something like that. This is,

It's bad. It's bad. It is. Yeah. I mean, the other, and we'll just kick it to the other QBs. Cause like what I actually just wanted to see more of Penix because I actually liked some of the things he did in the first game. And I was like, okay, cool. He had a nice throw over the middle, which is a big concern of mine of his. And I was like, okay, good. You're it's cool to see him progress through some things, but you just want it. Maybe it's, I seen other people go like, Hey, they don't care about you.

getting examples for your takes. It's like, it's not that. I'm just trying to understand the process here. I'm just trying to figure this out because you look at every other quarterback, rookie quarterback, I should say, they all played.

Caleb Williams played almost essentially a whole half. Jane Daniels played a decent amount. Drake May played a good amount. Bo Dix played a good amount, started. Well, three of these guys started, and then May played a good amount, too. But, yeah, I mean, going with Caleb, I'll just move away from Pennix because he didn't play. But Caleb Williams, fun stuff. I thought he got off to a slow start, but then you could see the cool stuff with him, the accuracy, the throwing out structure. I mean, the red zone sequence was insane. Yeah.

Some negatives were, you know, once in a while he'll turn down some stuff over the middle. Like, he'll progress and he feels like he can't get to three. Like, even the break-contain play that he threw to Roman Dunzay, that was awesome. I mean, enough people tweeted it that I didn't. But it honestly looked like the bullet from Wanted. Did you ever see that movie? No. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, the curve of the bullet. Yeah.

It really looked like that because of how he was thrown left. And it was just a cool little physics moment, but that he understands that stuff. So it's like little things with him are really fun. Any Caleb thoughts, any bears thoughts, anything from that game? I thought what was interesting was,

I think you have to take the whole, like, the throw within the context of, like, what else happens in that game. But I still think that it's also encouraging because you're going to run into spots where Caleb's a rookie and Romo Dunes is a rookie and they're still, you know, kind of building up this offensive line where you have moments where it starts to sputter and it doesn't look clean every single play. But the thing is,

Like you can get out of it because Caleb can do that. He can go throw a 50 yard dime running on the wrong side. And, you know, he's capable of doing something like that, like maybe once or twice a game. So as you try to get used to the NFL and try to get used to, you know, the rigors of being a professional football player, like the plays that can get you back on schedule when you're way off schedule, which is kind of how they started that game. But all of a sudden here comes the 50 yard pass and

I think that was really encouraging because you're still going to need those plays. Because, you know, as good as Caleb is, look, it's not fair to just come out and say, yeah, he's going to come out and be like top five in success rate and they're going to be moving the ball. Right. No. There's going to be some bad moments. Yeah. There's going to be some really, really bad moments. Yep. But the fact is, he can still go put it on the money 50 yards down the field. He's all the stuff in the Bills game. So, like, that playmaking ability, I think, the fact that it keeps coming up is really, really encouraging. You want flashes that...

They can move the needle, which that play was. And then you want, of course, I know this sounds obvious, but just kind of spelling it out. You want it doesn't have to be the entire game. You just want stretches of consistency. It doesn't have to be an entire game. Doesn't even have to be an entire half. Just every game. Oh, there's two good series. OK, OK. Where it looks real. It looks like, OK, this is sustainable offense. I would say ecosystem, but that's a good word for it, too.

But when looking at it, I also, this is the other kind of tidbit with it all. I thought that was a great point by you. There's going to be, there's going to be some bad games where he's going to have two picks, a fumble where he tries to do too much and several sacks. I've still, the interior offensive line, namely the center of the right guard. I'm still a little antsy about, you know, Jenkins looks great at left guard. You know, he just has to be healthy. And I like the tackles a lot. Darn. All right. This is going to be one of the breakout players spoilers, but he looks great. But yeah,

He's going to have moments where there's some downslope, downslope, downslope. But it's just like you said, it's just chasing those flashes that are real flashes. It's not luck. It's good players create their own luck. He is putting it in spots that if you have good teammates like Roman Dunzay, they can make plays. And that's that's exactly what you're chasing with these guys. Daniels, Jane Daniels had kind of a nickel dime fest. Yeah, which is I think it was more of a oh, yeah, Cliff is back more than anything about Jane Daniels.

Uh, I, we saw the stats out there. Terry McCormick's lined up on the left. I think 26 out 27 snaps. Um, so far in the preseason, that's what cliff is. The only guy that will do left and right. Only receiver splits. Uh,

It took like forever for him to move DeAndre Hopkins into the slot. And also there was like a revelation in their offense. This is why I get concerned about cliff guys. It's out of motion. You know, like a lot of three by one sets with ISO routes and Jane Daniels can pepper the hell out of those stop routes and hitch routes. Like that's where he shines is those placing those accuracy, you know, pin the ball on the chest. That's where he shined. There's just a lot of stuff to the outside. You know, it didn't really get to see much where I'm still look.

the negatives of him i'm still waiting for him to kind of like prove me wrong on but well that got plenty of snaps to in the regular season to see that our friend steven ruiz sent us a stat think of for uh for jayden's first down throws he had negative you know average depth of target yes which is like i because i know commanders fans have gotten angry with us but like i really i really don't have an issue with jayden danielson i don't either

Like, when you watch even this weekend, you go back and you watch, like, all the one million, like, hitches and curls and, like, short comeback routes that he's throwing. They're all, like, on the money, you know? And they're all perfect, like, where they need to be. They're coming out on time. But, dude, like, Cliff, at some point, you're going to have to ask him to do a lot more or else you're going to be scoring, like, 10 points a game. Because it's just not sustainable to come out and play like that.

It's the same issues we have with the Broncos a little bit, but the Broncos that we... Like, Sean Payton has showed more than... But it's that when you're relying... This is what defenses want you to do right now. Okay, be hyper-efficient. Prove it. All right, we only think five quarterbacks in the league can do it. Are you one of those five? Prove it. And so playing into that is not my favorite...

strategy to like play into exactly what the defense wants you to do. Like, and I do think the run game will be cool. I, even if the line's not great, I do. I see that the opening that Daniels brings with it. I did always think Cliff had some creativity in Arizona with that stuff with Kyler and some stuff you do with James Connor. So I do think that will benefit. That's what most of the throws came on to where their bubbles attached with the runs.

I mean, we're going to see a million of those. A million. And why it was such a like, oh, yeah, Cliff is back, because that's gotten weaned out of the NFL. Like, people still do bubbles, but not as much as they used to, because defenses are really good against them now. They know what you're... Oh, okay, we're going to bring in slot pressure. You're going to throw the bubble. The safety screams downhill. Screaming, yeah. Yeah, it's a new game, Cliff. So...

Yeah, that's where I think it's more of a cliff. Question marks are still out there. Daniels is going to be smart. All these guys, too, I want to mention this. All these young quarterbacks are handling the offenses really well. All the pre-snap stuff's really good. I will say I will commend every single one of these guys, even guys I'm maybe a little lower on or offenses I'm a little lower on. I will commend them that they're handling some stuff, which is cool. Daniels included. All right, moving on to Drake May, the number three pick.

fun stuff some misses kind of what uh this is the good and bad of may and why i get excited why he was my qb1 is you saw the big arm you see better pocket movement than he's been good credit for which he's shown college all the time uh you saw a great progression on some place which he's shown college all the time but you got to see that that everyone's going oh my god what can you do what oh my god footwork drills for two weeks and look at them it's like no he didn't do it

But yeah, he also had some misses. Throws to the left and short throws to the left are weird for him for some reason. I'm trying to figure out why. He'll throw them high. I don't know. And that's been a thing in college too. So that happens with a lot of quarterbacks throwing left for some reason. We overstride. So I'm curious as to how they fix that. But any thoughts on Drake May, Patriots offense, all the fun stuff there? There was a throw...

where he moves in the pocket, steps up, and just launches a goddamn missile like 50 yards down the field that was dropped, I think, by Javon Baker. He's had a little bit of a rough preseason. Yeah. I was low on him anyway, so yeah. I think Patriots were the same. He had a little bit of a rough camp too. But to me, that's the difference where –

like Drake and Caleb are going to be in their rookie years where they can both do something like that. But where Caleb, he's got like DJ more robo dunes on the other side. And Drake may has Javon Baker and, you know, like Taekwon Thornton or Jalen Polk right there. So we'll see. But I, I, I do think with, with Drake may, I don't really understand the whole, all the tackles are so bad.

you can't play him this year thing. Cause dude, is there a guarantee it's going to be better next year? Right. So you're going to sit up next year too. Like, I don't know if they're at no point is being an NFL quarterback, an easy thing to do. So no,

Jacoby has been terrible this preseason, so you might as well just go out and just rip the band off in May 17. 17 games. Let's do it. I think the line is way further along than people realize. I think the running is going to be pretty good. The interior is pretty good. I like the coach. I keep saying that. Yeah, Scott Peters, who, again, is a Callahan guy. And, yeah, I think that's the thing. I think the baseline is a little higher than people are making them out to be, even if it's not great. Like, they do need another receiver. They do need another offensive lineman. But I do think they have some more B-minuses and –

okayness around them and make and handle it a little better. And that's why I is a little more mature than I think this wild horse everyone thinks he is. And you did see a moment where the wild horse almost came out. It was an empty play.

and he starts scrambling, and then the running back is split out wide, like looks at him, but then turns upfield because he thinks he's scrambling and may look to throw all the way across field. Like you could see it come, like he had one little cycle where that kind of nut job came out of him, and then he's like, okay, I'll save it for the regular season because just get ready. He's pretty wacko as a player, and it's pretty fun, so we'll see how it goes. Also, you mentioned Roman Duse, DJ Moore. We didn't talk about the...

the growth of Keenan Allen. I love Keenan Allen, but yeah. And it also was a great reminder that no one watches the chargers. Cause I think that everyone just saw the stats, but they don't realize how he got those numbers. Yeah.

old man ball uh uh steven really is second mentioned this show he compared it to sharif abdul rahim uh yeah sharif abdul rahim the old basketball player for the hawks where he said it was like a bad team where he was getting just empty calorie stats yeah that's a great comparison but yeah so i think there's a reminder jihad dotson for the commanders is also on the like seems like he's in the doghouse and uh i've heard it's just more of an effort and and details thing but there's a player there's a player for the nets right now um cam thomas

who is just the nets are terrible, right? Because they've traded away. They failed with the Kevin Durant, Kyrie, James Harden thing. He will have these nights where he'll score like 45 points, one rebound, zero assists. It's the classic, hey, somebody on this team has to score something. It might not be good, but it's going to be me. And that's what Keon Allen was last year. No, funnel these targets my way. Yeah.

Cheryl Everett? Really? Yeah. You seen Johnson? You seen QJ Romer Outs? Yeah, I got it. I got it. Last one, Bo Nix, who is kind of a permanent

on every show for the last couple of weeks. A lot more of the same, a lot more of the nickel dime. I would say he had the one in breaker throw from a pretty clean pocket and a pretty wide open guy, but good thrower on the move. That is one thing. He is a good thrower on the move and he's got some accuracy underneath. It's just a lot of, a lot of underneath throwing. And then he passed up on mesh again.

to scramble left. That's the play that he threw to touchdown. He got caught flag for throwing past the line of skirmish. That was another mesh concept, which was the same one I went on a rant on last time. He passes up the guy sitting in the zone, but then scrambles left again. But yeah, more of the same. The run game looks decent too with the Broncos. But yeah, I will say that. And again, Sean Payton could dial up a freaking ball play.

He really can. It's just that... What's the upside of this offense? Where are you at with them right now? Yeah, I feel the same way. Broncos fans have been pretty upset with us. It's really tickled me. Honestly, it's made me laugh more than anything. But...

Dude, the Bo Nicks, yeah, Sean can drop a play and Bo probably can figure out how to run it. But like, can you execute it when you get out there? That's the only thing that matters. I just think that the margin of difficulty is going to be tough for him.

But whatever. Keep crying, Broncos fans. Go ahead and keep crying. I'm not reading any of that stuff anymore. Yeah, it was the nickel and dime. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. We'll watch it in the regular season. We'll have more takes for them. Okay, real quick, other rookies. Just real quick, one-liners on these guys. A couple offensive linemen stood out to me. Kingsley Sumamata from the Chiefs. Left tackle had some nice moments. Looks like they found a starter there, which is huge.

He already looks better than Donovan Smith last year, which is pretty great. That kind of tells you a lot. Cowboys, first off, Cooper Beebe playing center from Kansas State. My nickname for him was SpongeBob SquarePants because he's built like a box. He's got tiny little arms. But he's a fun player. He's smart. And he had some nice moments in the preseason. Looks solid. That's where he looks like he's going to be a nice, solid starter for them. But that's huge. And then Tyler Guyton, who I was...

A little lower on the consensus, I still saw as maybe a second round, early second rounder. Looks okay, which is way, I mean, actually looks good at times. I would not say, there's been a lot of clips of him looking amazing. He's going against the fifth string Rams edge outside linebacker on drafted free agents. So hold your horses a little bit, but I will say he does look a little further along. Tyler Newbin's safety from Giants had some nice moments as well. And then Brian Thomas Jr., receiver for the Jags, is amazing.

Really rapidly ascending which is pretty cool. We hit on him a little bit earlier Anything any other rookies or any thoughts on these guys? I'm pumped for B because I was a big fan of him coming out of Kansas State It was like I don't because he was he was weird because they they would ask him to do so much within the course of one game like There was one game. I think I was watching against like Iowa State or something like that. So, you know nameless big big 12

Big 12 school. Big 12 with the three down front and everybody... Yeah, everybody plays the same defense. Everyone runs the same offense in the Big 12 with players. Within the same game, though, he played left tackle, right tackle, and right guard. And I was like, what the hell is going on here? But he actually looked comfortable at all three spots. So I was like, okay, you're probably an interior guy because...

know not not not he's an outlier right his arms are truly like an outlier like it i think uh uh dane bruger found the stat on it was like he would have the second shortest arms for a center and the shortest arms for a guard like in the last decade or something like that yeah but some of the second level stuff was nice like i thought he was an athlete he moved pretty well so i'm i'm interested to see how that turns out because i don't i don't remember seeing him take snaps at kansas state but he played literally every position except for that one

one which is a good sign that you can handle center and everything and it now was kind of what dane got to because i was like oh i look him at a guard and dan's like he's gonna be a center because he's just like look at this outlier like he has to be as i was like oh okay uh yeah but everyone it was one of those once you watch him everyone kind of everyone would kind of end up in the same spot i felt like with with with cooper like every no one was low on him everybody was just like all right how high would you take him like that that's where i ended up but

And I mean, credit to the Cowboys, man. I know we were a little lower on the offense and they just, they know how to align scout. I know it's preseason, but it's like, these are encouraging signs. Like these are, these are the flashes you want to see. That's like, it's not going to be great all the time. They're going to have, trust me to have some bad moments, but it's like, they, this is better than what I thought they maybe had a month ago. All right. That will be it for the preseason thoughts. Then we'll get to our breakout players after this quick break.

Okay, it's time to commit.

2024 is the year for prioritizing yourself. Begin your new smile journey with Byte, and you could start seeing results in just two to three weeks. Just order your at-home impression kit today for only $14.95 at Byte.com. Byte Clear Aligners are doctor-directed and delivered to your door. Treatment costs thousands less than braces. Plus, they offer financing options, accept eligible insurance, and you can pay with your HSA FSA.

Get 80% off your impression kit when you use code WONDERY at Byte.com. That's B-Y-T-E dot com. Start your confidence journey today with Byte.

Have you ever covered a carpet stain with a rug? Ignored a leaky faucet? Pretended your half-painted living room is supposed to look like that. Well, you're not alone. We've all got unfinished home projects. But there's an easier way. Thumbtack is the app that makes it easier to care for your home. Pull out your phone and in just a few taps, search, chat, and book highly rated pros right in your neighborhood. Download Thumbtack and start caring for your home the easier way.

All right, we are back with Football 301 Breakout Players.

We're going to start with maybe some more obvious ones. Maybe ones that are like, oh, yeah, duh. You know, the former first-round pick. Maybe the fantasy darling. We have a couple of defensive players in here, though. We'll start with a couple of those offensive players. Actually, I want to start with two players on your team. One is, I think, super obvious, and B. John Robinson. So I don't think we should even spend any time on that. But, yeah, the other one, though, and this is kind of a segue to get into the subsection of this, but that is Drake London.

Charles, where do you stand as a Falcons fan with Drake London right now? Reminder, first receiver taken in a pretty good receiver class. Hasn't broken 1,000 yards yet, I don't believe. It's gotten close. He's sniffed it. But we're having him as a breakout player, and that is why.

Mr. Vertz. He's really good. Like he's really, really, really, really good. He's really good. Yeah. I know he hasn't, you know, he hasn't had like the crazy statistical success, but when I watch him play, I still feel fine about the decision to take him at eight for whatever reason, whether it's Ritter, whether it's Arthur Smith, whether it's Mariota, it just, it just hasn't quite clicked for him. Like as far as stats wise goes, but yeah,

Man, look, when you watch him play, he is insanely talented, especially when it comes to, you know, what we've been talking about, like dunking on defensive backs. Yeah. He's an absolute monster at the catch point. I think he gets better, open better than people realize, too. He's pretty good with the ball in his hands. Like, I think he's a pretty complete receiver, just...

the opportunities haven't quite been there for him yet. So I think this year with Kirk, I'm expecting this to be a pretty big season for Drake London, just because you're getting a level of competency that you haven't had before. And I would say that this goes for Kyle Pitts too. I mean, the one time Kyle Pitts had, you know, a quarterback that kind of knew what was really going on out there with Matt Ryan, his last year in Atlanta, he went for over 1,000 yards as a rookie tight end, which is sometimes pretty rare. So...

Yeah, pretty rare. I think that this is a good spot for Drake London. I think he's going to show a lot of people why he was still a top 10 pick. And I'm still all the way in on this one. I'm full throated.

on this one, Drake London. It's just, I loved him in that coming out of college. I think now what this offense can do, they say that he's the Z as opposed to the X, which is Darnell Mooney, which is a thought for a later time. But with London there, it's, that means he's moving around. He'll be, he can be a jet motion guy. He was really good as underneath guy in college, taking like flats and bubbles and jet, not kind of like jet sweep stuff, but like pitch stuff.

And he's shown that as a pro so far is that he can just bury guys. Like he makes a lot of guys miss after the snap or after he gets the catch through physicality and body control. It's just a different, it's just a great example of how guys win in different ways. Like, and he's a perfect example of that because he is not gonna like juke a guy and make a highlight where he breaks a guy off, but he can throw a guy by over and over and get a couple simple three, four or five yards, hidden yards that the good receivers find. Um,

He's a first down machine, like he hyper efficient guy that this offense is going to pass a little more. And he's and it's not an offense that I'm like, oh, how's he going to fit in that? It's like, oh, this is perfect for him with, like you say, a quarterback improvement, everything. So big, big, I think, Drake London here. And really, this is like a classic NFL thing is the classic third year breakout receiver. So honestly, you could pick anyone from that class and you could go, yeah, that's my breakout candidate this year. Not Jahan Dotson, but Chris Olave.

Jameson Williams, Garrett Wilson. Garrett Wilson already won Rookie of the Year, so how much more can you break out? But he has a great chemistry with Aaron Rodgers. So this was a producer nom, Jackson Smith and Jigba from the Seattle Seahawks. Another receiver that from preseason has encouraged me. My comparison for him was Brandon Stokely.

And so it's like, you know, that will manage your expectations with Jason. I watching him and grubs offense has encouraged me a lot because he's buying into some of the dirty work stuff you have to do in that. And I think he's going to get peppered a little bit more like that offense where he's going to be trying to take like a perfect comparison that role, maybe like the J1 McMillan in that role where it's more of the slot.

Intermediate guy flats do some dirty work stuff and I think it's a much better fit I've never really I don't even know your thoughts on Jackson Swift and Jake but I don't think we've ever have a conversation about him with JSN I don't know. I mean, I I just feel like it's gonna be tough for him just to get the targets all the time maybe that he wants because like DK Metcalf has its faults, but I understand

throwing to Megatron, like Megatron 2.0, or maybe we'll call him 1.5. Yeah, .8. Megatron .8. Yeah, I still get why he might throw to him like 15 times a game because he's huge and fast and he can get open. But JSN, I do think that, I do really think that his skill set for this offense should fit pretty seamlessly, right? It's just more about the opportunity. But I wouldn't be surprised at the end of the year if he has just...

an insanely efficient year from from just like you know a target to like what you're doing on this target standpoint maybe not down for target kind of thing first year for target epa per play stuff like that yeah i think that he could rank pretty highly for them but i think we're probably still like a year away from like him actually getting the heavy target load that he wants but i i still am excited to watch this because like if they if they can just block this year

Like this should be a top 10 offense, but pretty easily I would think, but like, that's the one, the one thing. Cause you got the receiver talent down. I think Jason, it's, it's the perfect trio of receivers as far as like skill sets bouncing off of each other. It's just now it's like just opportunity cost. Yeah.

I know I've talked about Grubb enough, the coordinator, but I'm liking what they're doing so far. It's some good stuff. And they got enough in-between players that I'm really starting to come around. I think the last month, you and I have both kind of just been like, Seahawks, okay. You know, okay, this team overall, the offensive line, Christian Haynes, looks like he's starting to really ramp up their third-round guard. The center, they're trying to figure out. They went and got Connor Williams because Oluwatamee.

the guy that drafted from Michigan was kind of iffy this preseason, which had me concerned as well. But everyone else, even though they've been playing backups, has looked okay. The tight ends make sense, even if the fans have been binged up. Farrell Brown's been blocking his ass off. A.J. Barner's not bad. And, of course, the running back. So, yeah, I don't know. This offense, everyone kind of slots in nicely. This could really make sense. And I'm excited to see Geno in it. And I think Geno and JSN are really going to benefit. But I like what you're saying, though. I think maybe it's a year away before we see that

Even a thousand yard plus, I think it's more of a 900 yard, 800 yard, hyper efficient season, third down monster kind of season where he's more of the hyper super role player type. A guy I do think is going to have more of a statistical breakout season.

It's Trey McBride, tight end for the Cardinals because we have to keep mentioning the Cardinals on the show. The Trey McBride, though, I wrote about him. He was on the article. I think anyone kind of paying attention to fantasy, you might be circling him a little bit as well. But in real football terms, him and Kyler Murray are BFF, it seems like. I think even adding Marvin Harrison Jr. will only help McBride as he kind of becomes like a number two in the passing game.

I think that's great. I think their skill sets align perfectly. McBride's a good route runner. He's got good speed, good hands. This is a tight end that does well. So I think he's going to rapidly ascend this year with a full season of Kyler and the offense and everybody around the offense getting better. The other guy I had there as tight end was Jake Ferguson, Cowboys tight end. Kind of already quasi broke out last year, but I wanted to give him a little nod too because he's a good, good, good player. Not just because he's a former Wisconsin Badger.

Yeah, when I saw Jake Ferguson on here, I was like, the Cowboys are not as bad as it feels. I know. I'm coming around. They're just not as bad as it feels. Defense looks sick, man. Zimmer, I'm already stoked. Like, yeah, defense looks great. And like if Guyton, Bebe, or Beber. Bebe, whatever. SpongeBob. I can't stop calling him Bebe. I call him Bebe too, but I'm too far gone with that. Too far gone with that one. But if those two guys are real...

This is a good offense. It's a good offense. And the defense is good too. It's just, dude, stop dragging your feet on a core that we know is good, Jerry. Like you started from here. It's not going to get much better. Even though, like if I were him, I would probably have a little drafting hubris of my own. But,

Come on now. Keep the good stuff. These aren't in-between players. This isn't like Michael Gallup that you're overpaying. This is, you know, these are dudes. These are real deal dudes, like elite needle movers. These are the guys that you definitely pay and don't think twice about. As our friend Richard Johnson always say.

cap going up yeah maybe it's not going up i think that's maybe why jerry's going like hey why do we have a cap again i make all the money that's my jerry jones impression uh all right now moving on to some former first round defensive backs one has already looked amazing this preseason derek stingley jr corner for the houston texans

I know our friend Deontay Lee has been had shouts from the tower of Derek Stingley. I had Derek Stingley with the same grade as sauce Gardner, the draft class a few years ago, which had me a little scared for a few years, but it looks like it's coming not to a not bad prediction or not bad production prediction. I should say, where are you at with Derek Stingley, Jr. Chuck, a fun, fun player. Oh, he's just good. I'm glad that,

the breakout finally happened. I feel like the true, like the start of the breakout happened last year and then this year you get the true stuff where, because I remember when he was, when he was an 18-year-old starting at LSU, he was like,

I was like, Oh my God, this guy could play in the NFL today. So he was that whole random when we're saying this is an NFL defense, you go, yeah, as sec actually applied for Derek Stigley. That was one of the guys where it's like, Oh, okay. He's 18 and he's like holding his own against the trio of receivers that, uh, that Alabama had a few years ago. Okay. There's two people were calling him baby Revis when he was 18 years old. This has been really cool to see because now he just looks like ready to take this game to a whole new level. Um,

And he's kind of reached like, do you better not throw any bull crap like in that area? Because that throw that Daniel Jones had to clean pocket down the sideline to Jalen Hyatt. And he just under threw it so hard. One yard short. So easy. Picked. But that's the place that...

that stingley has arrived to i think where like if you're going to throw to that side they feel like you better come correct or else it's getting picked off or he's getting knocked to the ground because he has those that skill level so i'm i'm pumped for him i'm really excited for him because i feel like people were kind of giving him a hard time with how fast sauce gardner got off to his start but there might not be that much separating them after after this season

Yeah, he looks like he's joined that table of true outside guys, true outside lockdown guys, which is only like four or five right now. I think Sertan is number one to me. Sauce is two probably, but...

After that, you know wide open, you know, AJ Terrell is probably a tier two guy But sting Lee can go in that tier one. I'm trying to take some other guys there I don't know like to the tier one guys would be with certain sauce like words like kind of like the borderline You know, he's played so well Snead is like a tier two guy to me, but he has such it's just a unique play style That's that's why it works, you know, I try to think who else would be up there. We have a desert. I

We just have a lot of like more like pretty good as opposed to like, yeah, I mean, that's how it should. I always think that's kind of elite shouldn't be thrown around like willy nilly. Like, you know, so like we got, we got Witherspoon in Seattle. Oh, Witherspoon is slot. Yeah. It's like guys are kind of their own thing. Yeah. Cause like branch is a slot guy. You know, Marlon Humphrey is a tier two guy to me.

I'm really just wrecked. Marlon's so funny because it's just like, dude, he's good, but his bad plays are so bad. So bad. It's because he does not care. He truly will go. He's the guy that gets dunked on all the time. Like Brandon Knight, the basketball player. He just doesn't care. He's just going to get dunked on because he's going to try. Tackles his balls.

ass off too. That's why I love him. God, now I'm really trying to think. I know I'm missing somebody and someone's going to yell at me. Oh, the Bears guys, Jalen Johnson. Oh, yeah. Tier two-ish to me too, high end.

But yeah, maybe three guys. Maybe three guys. Yeah. And that's what we're saying. Stanley can make another guy that I think maybe will be more like a tier two guy this year is Deontay Banks for the Giants. I'm pretty high on the Giants defense overall. He's aligned in the slot a little bit this preseason, which I think is interesting because. Yeah, that's been surprising to me. Yeah. And some of it was man coverage where he followed a guy. But still, that's interesting where they said, no, don't follow him inside as opposed to, you know, like stay outside and because some teams will dictate that. Yeah.

So, yeah, interesting. Giants defense had some moments. Brian Burns had some really sweet moments in the second preseason game. So, yeah, I'm still up there with them. But, yeah, Deontay Banks, though, I know it's a young back end. I already brought up Tyler Newman, the safety. But Banks is a really good player, really, really good one. That, I think, is going to kind of ascend this year. Last one I had to throw aside was George Carl Loftus.

I don't know. Have you seen him just pretty seriously? He looks unblockable. Yeah. I had a former first-rounder that's been kind of like a nice, really good number two for the Chiefs. But, yeah, he looks even maybe a little bit better this year. It's crazy. Like, you roll the dice on a 20-year-old who's 6'4", 270, can bend like a 220-pound edge rusher. His name's a Greek freak.

Yeah. It's weird that this ended up turning out well. I almost feel like to a degree you can scout edge rushers sometimes like baseball players. I don't even need to see. Was it 6'4", 270, 20 years old? Special. Sub 7'3"?

We'll take him. We will take him. Especially when you're a team like this, you're picking 30. It's like, why not? Why not? His tape is always funny because you can tell he's learned the game. So he always got better as the game went along.

But like you always tell the if you just watch the first quarter of him at Purdue, you know, he's just become underwhelmed. I was. And then you watch the games as they went along. He would be like, oh, I'm going to try this now. Oh, I'm going to try this, you know, up and under. I'm going to try that. And also did it. And he like came along kind of what's going on as a pro where it's like he's starting to piece together. He's got a damn good coordinator, too. That's going to line him up and get him going. So, yeah, like you said.

Sometimes you just bet on traits. Just get them in the right situation. It works out. I mean, having a bunch of moms kind of helps you do that too. All right. We are going to take another little break and then we're going to come back with some more breakout players and then some big board thoughts. See you guys in a sec. All righty. So this is the obscure podcast.

hipster section. I don't even know. Can you say like Lyman or hipster? I'm going to. But more trench play in this section. This is more of what I'm pretty excited about. I don't care about line play except for us and a few other people. Yeah, I know. It's like Brandon Thorne. It's like, yeah, I know. It's just only a few of us now. I know. Even ones that used to say they are all over it, now they're wanting to just talk about quarterbacks and receiver releases. It's just, yeah, I know. It's so much more fun.

So getting to the offensive tackles, didn't really have a good interior offensive line candidate. For my article, I did Elijah Barry Tucker, and basically it came down to one sentence, just stay healthy. For the Jets, that was it. That's all I got. In my article, I had kind of a grab bag. So I had my, for the article I did for Yahoo, I had to do, I don't know, I had to, I self-imposed myself.

restrictions here year three or later couldn't have like pro bowl couldn't have all pro couldn't have any awards like rookie of the year or anything like that obviously tackle is not going to get that but i had charles cross tackle for seahawks uh i thought they had some flashes a rookie was battled so many injuries last year and that i mean just looked up and down hopefully he comes back this year but i i think he's so talented then i went with a

And that is Bernard Raymond, who's the left tackle for the Colts, and Luke Gettyke, who's the right tackle for the Bucs. Just wanted to give those guys a shout out. They already kind of ascended last year, but I think they're going to take another little half leap this year. So I want to cross to a borderline Pro Bowl maybe leap, and then these other guys to really good starters or good starter leap. So did you watch these guys coming out? I think we talked cross back in the day.

Yeah, we, oh, we definitely talk about cross. I like cross. One guy that I actually didn't watch in college who I've, I've really come to enjoy is Raymond Bernard. He's a, I think he's a good quality guy. And it was kind of like, I'm trying to remember who they had at left tackle for a long time before him. That was like,

Was it Costanzo? Yes. Who was like good, but like not great. Like not spectacular or anything. The decker tier. Yeah, the decker tier. And it feels like to me like Raymond has a chance to like get into that spot where he's not like perfect. But you go out there and you start him for 10 years. You probably feel fine about that. That's where I'm at with him. I...

because his uh arms aren't very long which always scares me on the edge uh or outside but he was a good athlete he was late to the game because he was yeah i think he's austrian yeah he's austrian 32 and 7 days that's not that bad it was just that he was just kind of a he was good athlete and all that i when he got taken though and everyone's like oh yeah i thought it was like maybe a tackle maybe you have to bump him the guard he's like a zone guard or something like that but uh

They were like, yeah, we're starting on my left tackle. He's our tackle of the future. I'm like, yeah, sure. Okay, whatever you tell yourself. You know, like, especially what was happening with the Colts line recently. I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. Like, whatever, if that's your answer. And it worked. Like, he actually looks solid. The scheme helps a little bit. You know, Steichen, a lot of RPOs, play action stuff. But it's like, yeah, he looks solid. I think it's a great call by you where he looks like that kind of solid to good guy.

Like starter of the future. And same with Gedeke, same exact tier, just on the right side. He went from a negative as a rookie, which happens to, I was like bumping works over to left tackle made a lot more sense where you have that. Like I thought they had two plus starters, one plus, plus one plus. So I get a key for the bucks to rookies or second year players. I want to shout out to.

I already mentioned him earlier, but Darnell Wright, right tackle for the Bears, Parrish Johnson Jr., left tackle for the Cardinals. Just two first-round picks that are kind of more obvious breakout second-year guys, but both have looked apart as rookies and should ascend this year.

Get to the defensive line. I kind of, I present a little list there. You threw one in there. We'll start with your guy first. Who, who was your first kind of defensive line breakout candidate, Chuck? I put Devante Wyatt from the green Bay Packers on there.

He's an interesting guy to me. I know maybe I'll get called a homer because he played for the mighty Georgia Bulldogs, back-to-back national champions, 2021 and 2022. Greatest conference in college football history. All that stuff. None of them have been good pros yet, except for Jalen Carter. So funny. I'm going to study it one day and just be like, what happened here? But Devontae Wyatt,

He's interesting because he was an older prospect, which is, it's kind of becoming more common. And I think it's just going to be a phase once we get out of this gap of guys who got the COVID year. And, you know, if you get the extra year in college, why not take it? And that's how you end up with, like, you know, a Kenny Pickett going in the first round. Because he stayed just long enough where you got to play with Jordan Addison and...

And that changed the trajectory of his life and made him a millionaire. But with- I had a Tanner McKee somehow. Right? Still had Tanner McKee. Blowing my mind. No sense. Another preseason standout, Tanner McKee. Makes no sense whatsoever. But Wyatt, he's got everything that you're looking for, just in terms of size, strength, speed. But-

the whole package hasn't been put there yet but i think this year the the interior room for green bay it's a little crowded there's a lot of bodies there that can play maybe it will just give him better you know blocking situations where he can go and take use of that four seven speed um

because he's had his flashes. He's gotten better, I think, from year to year. And then this year is kind of where I'm expecting to see, all right, either you got it or you don't. Either you're just this guy that has flashes in the pan every once in a while, or you're someone that can do that consistently for stretches of time. And I think he has it in him, though.

I do, too. Preseason, again, early returns, preseason, all those disclaimers and everything. But it looked good. It looked like they figured them out where it's, hey, you can get after the passer. You can shoot gaps as opposed to maybe being a plugger type that we're trying to pigeonhole you as. That's much better for him. Fine ball, get ball.

And I think that's good. It feels like, yeah, like you said, their defense attack room's crowded, but they're figuring out the rules a lot better. Another guy I wanted to shout out was Carl Brooks. But I thought those two were kind of a nice little Bash Brothers pairing behind or working with Kenny Clark. They had TJ Slayton starting, but it feels like they're weaning him off to get wide onto the field because he just has more juice. So good shout out. Again, Packers defensive line.

Continues to pique my interest. Staying in that NFC North.

is Alim McNeil, who already broke out last year. So this is just kind of reaffirming that he's breaking out. But he might be battling for a Pro Bowl spot this year. He's good. He's very good. We kind of rewatched some stuff. He has some borderline unblockable moments that star players have. And now he's got some help around him on the back end and the front end. Well, that's another thing I want to mention with Derek Stingley is the pass rush is going to be even better with the Texans.

That helps the corner because now he can be a little bit more aggressive, be a little, just a little bit faster with all those reads that he has. And he reads the game. Great. But yeah, same with here with the lions were getting some help from other spots. It's just going to help out McNeil even a bit more. So kind of want to give him a shout out the lions defense to another kind of more and more interesting defense as you really look at their guys.

I had two more here. Roy Lopez. Had to give him a shout out. Roy. Dude. He's a good player. You know? He's a good player. I feel like... Okay, so Roy Lopez is someone who I was introduced to through Madden franchise. Okay. Because whenever I needed a run-stopping defensive tackle, I would just... I'll go sign Roy Lopez. And for whatever reason, he's...

no matter what year it is, he's rated like 74. And I feel like that's the exact way to describe him in real life. He might be an 80 now. I'll give him an 80. He's an 80. No, but that's what he is though. But trust me, I'm, I know this Carl's defense is obnoxious. How much I'm talking about all of them in general, but it's just,

He splashed. He was a scrap heap nose tackle from the Texans that they, the Cardinals weren't like, Hey, we're signing them and playing them right away. They had them on their practice squad. So the Cardinals last year with the worst roster in the league were like, you can't even make our active roster or even our 53, your practice squad. And then they kind of brought him up and he played well. He just, they have like several nose tackles, like with real size that can play. It's kind of what they're going for there.

He's good. Yeah. In the preseason, he had some real moments. Pass rushing, like chasing stuff down, plugging the run. Yeah, I'm all about Roy Lopez this year. Guy with a little bit more pedigree, another badger, Keanu Benton for the Steelers. Kind of the youth movement they need up front there with the Steelers, you know, kind of transitioning from Hayward and everybody as they kind of get weaned out. But Benton's a stud. Yeah.

Another guy that can rush the passer play the run to gap one gap do a little bit everything I'm pretty excited about him you you were fan of Benton as well when you go well It's just I'm not just me having a little badger bias here. No, I would take him in the first round Yeah, cuz I had it over Mozzie Mozzie Smith that you do He was I'd be behind Jamal Carter for me right that's tackles here. Yeah, cuz the dude because he started listen you start listening off and

He's not getting pushed off the ball versus a run She won gap to gap Roger passer like if you can rush a passage from nose tackle you can play for my team He had a fun background he was uh, I mean another guy that's super young to where you like just bet on young guys the Wisconsin he was the last scholarship offer and

they had in that class and it was just kind of a hometown discount give the local guy a you know a little love kind of thing all right whatever you know doesn't enroll early because shows up you know training camp fall camp you know just like the rest of the freshmen just a month of workouts before and he started as a true freshman like he just was on and because everyone's just like who the hell is this guy like he's because he's ox strong like he's a wrestler

That's like wrestler by trade. So he's just he's figuring it out. That's why I just kept betting on this guy. It's like these guys like he's doing all this and he doesn't even know how to do it like properly. Yeah, I'm going to bet on that. Perfect transition, though. Another Steelers second year breakout candidate on defense, Joey Porter Jr.,

Didn't want to give him a shout-out. Nice frisky player. I think we're both fans of Joey Porter Jr. Yeah, nasty player. I'll just rapid-fire these corners. I know you had one to get to. Bears guys, Kyler Gordon in the slot. Tyrek Stevenson on the outside. Gordon, I mean, shoot, the last preseason game against the Bengals, he just took over. Yeah, he just...

almost knocked jake browning into the to the nether realm um it also blew up a boo like play it was super nice that was kind of a nice encapsulation why i'm high on him tyric stevenson looks like a star on the outside uh you had one of your guys from the falcons yeah in the db room yeah quarterback from uh utah he he's a guy that he had a ton of fans pre-draft um

And then he tested. Probably fell. I know because he's a smaller guy. He's like 5'9", you know, under 200 pounds. But I think it might have translated because like last year when he played and he got in, he looked great. You know, I thought he looked really strong. There was a couple games where he was just –

blanket coverage from the slot and you can play a little bit of outside too. So hopefully, you know, they need him to kind of replicate that performance and improve if they're going to be able to put together this defense in the way that they would like. So with Clark, yeah, just...

Put him out there at CB2, see what else he got at CB3, and then hopefully Justin Simmons can run it. That might be a decent enough secondary where you don't get killed. But I think they need him to be something or else it's going to be a long season. Always love betting on five nine-quarters winners, one percentile arm length.

29-8. Early returns have been good, so we'll see. He's a football player. He's a better football player than it is. But you see why he goes in the fourth round. Right. Yeah, I know. It's just one of those guys. It's like one inch bigger, 10 inches more. He would be great. Or 10 pounds more. But last corner, Garrett Williams. He's more of a slot. They do some safety stuff with him. He's with the Cardinals as well because we just got to keep mentioning them. You had...

Another NFC South defender, another second-year defender. Who is that? Yeah, Diaby from the Bucs. Yeah. It's funny because... Keep forgetting to mention him. I like watching him a lot, even though I don't really know how good he actually is. How good he is? Yeah, yeah. Right. I'm glad you... Keep going, because that's kind of what I was going to get at. It's like...

The effort is so high. Like every player here. Balls to the wall. And I think he was one of those guys that ran like a 4-4 or something like that at the combine. It was something crazy for his position. And the speed is there. But it's just like...

When he's actually pass rushing and engaged with a tackle, there's nothing. There's not a whole lot there. But he still ended up with seven and a half sacks. I remember I started getting intrigued. Like, how does a player like this get seven and a half sacks? It's because he just tries his ass off and he's really, really, really fast.

And that's something like, yeah, maybe the ceiling is not that high because like technically skilled wise, there's still a lot to improve. But dude, if you're going to, if you're going to be that fast and try that hard, you can, you can play on just about any defense. So I'm, I'm still, I really like watching him play because I didn't watch him at all when he was in Louisville. And then when I got to the NFL and I watched him play, I was like, oh, this is fun. This is fun. I can get behind this. I would love to have someone like this on my team if I was a coach.

No, it was a good call by you because the it's just to me, it's just a whirlwind of arms. That's just you try. It was like he's not going to be to this level. But Daniel Hunter, this is why you people bet on Daniel Hunter was that, oh, he's a freak. He's super young and he tries really hard.

All right. Worst player profiles to bet on. Like, you know, then betting on freaks that try hard, you know? But yeah, he's yeah. Sixty and a quarter, almost 34 inch arms. But yeah, you're in a four or five one. And he had a 37 inch vert and a 10 foot as hell, dude. 10 foot broad. Yeah. So usually I look at broad jump and three cone for my addressers and he nine foot nine inches for broad.

is what you want to clear. And he clears that, but he didn't do a three cone. None of these fricking guys do the three cone anymore. So I lose my threshold that, that got me max Crosby. Like, that's, this is how you find guys. It's just those mid round guys right there. So I actually want to shout out collage of fancy too.

Um, we've talked about a little bit perfect pairing with feet of AIA when they go to four down stuff, true gap shooter, true home run hitter, strikeout guy at playing three tech where it's, he's getting a sack of TFL or he is five gaps over. Cause he got washed out of the play, right? That's just, that's going to be his play style. That's how he's going to win. But I do think that this bucks defense is going to be pretty feisty because of guys like this. Uh, also want to shout out.

Just because maybe they're doing his Davis Allen. I don't know if he's going to catch more than 400 yards this year, but Rams tight end from Clemson. Yeah, they like him.

A lot better. I liked him way better than I did in college. His little flashes as a pro. Keeps getting hurt, but I think it was the Ravens game. Ravens game, yes. Yes, he had some real nice moments. Yeah, and I was like, oh, you're a good athlete. And they really like him. They keep dropping hints about him. They signed Colby Parkinson, too. I think they're going to do some tight end stuff, and Alan's a little part of this.

Dude, I had no idea who he was until that Ravens game. And then all of a sudden, like, it's not just like catching passes, but it's like when you see someone like that big who can like dip and bend their hips and get around. The body control. I was like, yo, who the hell is this? And then he had like 10 catches by the end of the season. But yes, love this call. This is a good one.

Yeah. It's the class. My, my Titan scouting is really just gotten so lazy as I've gotten older, just draft the big, fast guys and hope they figure it out. Like this is just really what it's turned into. And he, he went to day three, you know, I, I, he was getting some hype in the pre-draft process. He kind of went to a perfect spot. So yeah, he has, yeah, just more to him.

All right. Enough breakout players. We'll get the last section here. My 2025 big board drops on Yahoo this Thursday morning. So make sure you check it out. I sent Charles a little sneak peek because I haven't fully solidified like who's going where. It's either going to be top 30 or top 40 as well. I haven't figured out how deep I'm getting into that. But I do have my kind of short list and.

My overall takeaways, I'll list off my top 10. How about that? That's going to be my one little spoiler on here, which is kind of not as fun. But my top 10 is as follows. I have Michael Williams, the edge from Georgia at number one. I have Abdul Carter, edge from Penn State at number two.

And I feel pretty good about that one. Uh, three, I have Will Johnson corner from Michigan for, I have Will Campbell tackle from LSU five. I have Mason Graham defensive tackle from Michigan six. I have Emory Jones tackle from LSU. We're going to talk about that. Seven. I have Malachi Starks safety from Georgia eight. I have Travis Hunter jr. Uh, corner from Colorado and I strictly see him as a corner. I'll talk about that in a sec. Nine. I have Calvin Banks jr. Uh,

tackle. Actually, I see him more as a guard from Texas. And then 10,

I'm still up in the air on who I have at 10, but just a couple of names. I'm looking at Benjamin Morrison, a corner from Notre Dame, James Pierce, an edge from Tennessee, Nick Scowden, uh, change his name, but he's an edge for Texas A&M. He was at Purdue, Kenneth Grant, D tackle for Michigan, Dion Walker, D Lyman from Kentucky. I'm not saying tackle. He, cause he plays at fricking D end. Anyone that's saying that he's a big nose tackles hasn't watched him. Uh, and then that's, yeah, that's kind of, that's, that's the rest of my list that I'm looking at for the top 10, but yeah,

Thoughts, takeaways on the list I sent you, and really I have some more thoughts to go from that, but I have talked enough. What a blessed life Jaden Daniels lived last year, right? Right. Two first-round receivers, a top-10 picket receiver. You got two top-10 prospects to offense to tackle. That LSU offense was loaded last year. But yeah, I went back and I watched some clips last night when you sent this to me, and I think, dude, both those guys –

Like, their talent absolutely merits being here in the top 10 at offensive tackle. Like, Will Campbell, to me, there are some guys where...

You start right through the draft prospect draft draft process and like there are some guys where it's like oh five plays I'm good. I get it. Yeah, I get it. And I think yeah, I think he's one of those guys like I feel the same way About Michael Williams and especially by like Will Johnson the corner from Michigan. I only need to see like five ten plays and I get it and I'm good such an easy eval Yeah

yeah he will johnson has a lot of patrick chattan to him the second one ps2 to him yeah he's i have him at three and really it's like if you put him at one for this class i actually wouldn't even bat an eye because he's as clean as a corner prospect and get size ball skills understanding hands um turning like loose hips using the size and uh and just actually like like smothering guys yeah i'm

He's sick. Ever since we've had the COVID season where Micah Parsons, Jamar Chase, Panay Sewell, they all skipped out.

And they came in and it didn't matter, really. My dad, like whenever we're, you know, we're home for the holidays or whatever, we're watching like the playoff games. He's he's started saying a bunch like, he'll ask me, oh, what year is that guy? He'll start with Brock Bowers, right? Brock Bowers came from Michigan. He asked me, he's like, what year is that guy? So he's a freshman. He's like, oh, if that was you, you would this would be your last college football game.

Like you're going on ice for two years until it's NFL. And now there's like a bunch of guys, like where that thought process comes back into my head. Basically, like when you're watching the sophomores, which one of these guys doesn't need to play anymore? College football. Well, Johnson, he's probably be number one on my list for that one. Yep. And we'll Campbell probably be too. Right. Of the, these class, even though they're three and four for me, Campbell, uh,

I'm trying to... He's kind of funky because he has a weird stance. He stands upright. He has his hands like there, which I know some modern teaching to that. But he plays better than he looks. He's a better athlete than he looks just as far as his stance because his stance looks unathletic to me. But yeah, he's clean. That's the best way I can describe him. Is he an overwhelming...

yeah this guy is a freak tackle one maybe not but it's like he's very very good at the very least and maybe i'm underselling i want to see maybe another year of it but it's like i see what this guy is this is a starting tackle emory jones the other tackle plays right side for him probably has more upside than campbell which is pretty nuts but it's that's he's a little bit more freaky has the longer arms it looks like to me um has some kind of more trait stuff to him but it's like

His is a little more projection, but it's easy projection. It's like this is what a top 10 tackle looks like, even if it's not all 100% clean. I wanted to talk to you about Malachi Starks, the safety from Georgia. He might even be hired for that. Talk about football players. Football player. What's your thoughts on Malachi Starks? Give me the Georgia fan synopsis of Malachi Starks. Yeah.

I was really hoping that Caleb Downs was going to come to Georgia. Oh, God. Because they were on the one-yard line. So I could claim that Georgia had the best safety duo in the history of college football. And I think that I would have had some merit to that if they could have gotten Caleb Downs because Malachi Starks, the other half of the would-be duo, is really that good. And it really started because I think he – I want to say he was recruited as a cornerback.

coming into Georgia. And the first game that they played against Oregon, his first game of college, he pulled off one of the craziest interceptions that I've seen over the past few years. And I was like, oh my God, who the hell is this guy? Then you go back and you see, oh, five-star, top five prospect in the country, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he plays just like it. Like, he looks like...

It's one of those no brainer things where he can play in the box. He can play deep. He can play like linebacker. Occasionally he can play outside corner occasionally, but he's just, he's like the linchpin and what Georgia wants to do defensively. Cause he does everything at such a high level. Like,

Again, he's one of those guys. I don't think you need to play son, but I appreciate your service. Go dogs. He, he, you said Lynch, but I was gonna say he's a Keystone player. Like he, he, he makes everything else work for them. He, it's not one where it's like, Oh, he's so smart. And that's why it's like, no, he's a freak.

and he's big, and he's like, yeah, you can play him. He's like a back truck. Yeah, he's a modern defender. Like, he's a modern back-end defender that can do a little bit of everything. So I love him. He was such a fun watch. So anyone that doesn't know who Caleb Downs is, he was the safety at Bama. He is Josh Downs' brother.

Josh Downs is the slot player, slot receiver for the Colts who play North Carolina. So Caleb Downs was a safety for Bama. Anyone who saw him in the postseason against Michigan, he looks like the best player on the field as a true freshman playing safety. Ends up, had a bidding war, ends up transferring to Ohio State. And that's why I think Ohio State should be the easiest favorite, not just because of Downs, but because their defense has...

I don't know, four or five guys that could be first round consideration and their offense has four or five guys that could be first round consideration and they

They have depth. They have vets. They have young guys. Yeah. But yeah, Ohio State's my college football prediction for champion, which as a Wisconsin guy pains me, but let's just be real about it. But yeah. Let's say a guy that will be, I'm sure, very high on the big board. He's number one for me already on 2026. Like it's not a big list right now, but he's number one. That's safety. Yeah.

Okay, yeah, dude even just moving away from Ohio State's defense like you got an offense and I'm playing a ton of calls about 25 and Quintanil Jenkins like there have been debates literally like reddit forums about is this player too overpowered and that player is joining the backfield with Trayvon Henderson who could have been a top 100 pick last year. It was like a day to run it back. Yeah, right.

They're going with an office coordinator chip Kelly who loves having two running backs and in a quarterback They could run a little bit even if he's not the greatest chip cleared his schedule for this, right? He said yeah, I'm done with the head coaching do I just want to call plays give me a bunch of 99 overall guys again a bunch of fast guys Let's let's dial some stuff up again Plays and go home man. So I want to do that. Yes

Dude, I saw him at the Kentucky Derby and he looked giddy. But yeah, Junkins. He's the only running back I have a blue grade on right now, which to me means an easy top 20 guy. A lottery pick grade. And he...

God, he is just so zero. I don't know what his long end speed is, like what his fifth and sixth gear is, but his acceleration from zero to four and zero to five is exceptional. Like his patience to get through holes and burst through holes and, and,

I call it templing runs. Like he's so good at that, the feel. And then he's going to just get real quick. Like he's going to be a doubles hitter, like, but just awesome at it. He's so good. The running back class is really good. I will say that. I also love the guy from Boise State, Ashton Gentee. Gentee? Gentee. Gentee. Gentee from Boise State. He's...

Really, really good. Ollie Gordon from Oklahoma State. I'm a little lower than other, but I still see him as a second rounder. And then there's like Devin Neal from Kansas. Amari and Hampton from North Carolina. There's some. Oh, Jay not from Cal. There's some really, really good backs. But what else I wanted to say? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Before we wrap this up. Other overall takeaways just for everybody else. Other positions. They awesome edge class. Awesome defensive line class. Michael Williams.

And yeah, Michael Williams and Abdul Carter are both freaky freaks. Abdul Carter, he's gone through the Micah Parsons thing. He wears number 11. They had him at off-ball linebacker and rushed past her a little bit. He was still productive when he did it. They're making him mostly just an edge player this year. This dude is a freak. Can bend, can spin, can one-arm, single-arm guys, offense tackles all the way back in the backfield. He's a monster on the inside when they have him rush on the inside. So that seems a little bit of projection for me, but...

Same with Michael Williams because Georgia just has five stars everywhere, so they rotate these guys. But when he's on the field, he looks like a dude. And it's different than Trevon Walker from a few years ago with Trevon because Trevon is just a freak but doesn't know how to use it.

Michael Williams knows how to use it. Like he is productive on those snaps. He knows how to, he can line up inside. They're going to have him more outside this year, which is great for his projection, but this dude can line up inside and like take it to guards. He can two gap one gap. He's got freaky traits. I'm I'm super high on him. So I had seven edge players in my top 30 short list, at least seven. And I had 10 defense alignment and edge players in my top 30. So a third of these guys are defense alignment or edges, um,

I'm not even stretching there. There might be even more that others are considering in there. Good corner tackle class, QB receiver class, eh. I had no Schroeder in my top 30. Schroeder-Sanders from Colorado. Travis Hunter for me, I see as a corner. Twitchy just gets it, just moves different. Receiver, I don't think he kind of gets receiver as well. Like he had a lot of botches and that led to some sacks actually for Schroeder-Sanders. So that's why I see him as a corner. So yeah.

Thank you for letting me get my big board in. Thank you for everyone sticking us out. Breakout players. Chuck's about to fly to L.A. I'm about to see him in a little bit. It'll be great. See you tomorrow. So it'll be awesome. I'm going to the Mariners game. Dodger Stadium. I'm pretty fired up. When's that? Wednesday night. They play tonight and Wednesday night. You want to go? I think I do. Okay. We'll talk about it. I got you. Yeah, I know. I've never been to Dodger Stadium, so I'm pretty. This is my first time to L.A.

That's right. Yeah. That makes sense though. Cause you've been East coast basically your whole life. Yeah. Yeah. I know LA, LA and Texas are kind of the big areas. I've hidden up LA more now cause my wife's from Southern California too, but also just work now. But Texas is another like big area. I just haven't spent a lot of time in, but yeah, I'm kind of like that with LA, San Diego and Bay area way more.

All right. We're closing it out today. We'll be back on Thursday. We have that special in-studio show from LA, like we were just saying with me and Charles. Hey, Matt. I am Nate Tice. You can find me at Nate underscore Tice on social media. That is Charles McDonald. You can find you where on social media, Charles? Probably on Twitter at 4Verts. We'll be tweeting a lot about tacos this week, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Let's do that. Yeah.

You just stumble into a great spot. Yeah, but subscribe to us, pretty please. Follow us, rate us, watch us on YouTube at Yahoo Sports' YouTube channel. You can also follow Yahoo Sports on Snapchat too if you're into that kind of thing.

We will be doing a mailbag in the near future. I don't know how near, but in the future. So please send in your questions. You guys have it steadily sending in. We got a nice trickle going on right now, so it's pretty good. But football301mailbag at yahoosports.com is the email you can send it in. Those emails were great. Again, you can send in voice notes. So if you have a PC, there's a voice recorder, and you can just record something and send it on over. I'd love that. Send in an electronic voicemail. It's great.

But thanks to everybody behind the scenes, Brett, Stone, and Adi. You guys kill it. Thank you for making us look good. We'll be back on Thursday. Thank you so much for listening. See you then.