Speaker 1: The Around the NFL podcast runs the entire route tree poorly.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another edition of Around the NFL.
Speaker 3: My name is Dan Hans's got heroes here, Greg Rosenthal,
Speaker 3: Mark Sessler very special edition of ATM. It is the
Speaker 3: one with the wide receivers in friends style. Boys, We're
Speaker 3: gonna dive deep today on what is a very rich
Speaker 3: and promising wide receiver class. And I will say this,
Speaker 3: greggie wide quarterback is always gonna have the most juice
Speaker 3: right naturally, because they are the most important player. They
Speaker 3: can change the fortune and direction of a franchise immediately,
Speaker 3: the most recent example, of course being CJ. Stroud in Houston. However,
Speaker 3: to me, it is wide receivers that that gets my
Speaker 3: juice flown in the sense of you want to fix
Speaker 3: your offense, you can do it overnight. Because these guys
Speaker 3: are now entering the league and so many of them
Speaker 3: are instant you know, number two, fringe, number one guys,
Speaker 3: some guy, the special ones are immediate superstars. So when
Speaker 3: you hear about this class in particular, it feels like
Speaker 3: we're gonna get a couple of those this year and
Speaker 3: maybe more.
Speaker 4: That's a great point.
Speaker 5: Dan Receivers out of rookie contract before like a CD
Speaker 5: lamb until he's gonna get paid whatever he's going to
Speaker 5: get paid this offseason is such a ridiculous value. And
Speaker 5: I think the contracts top right receivers are getting there
Speaker 5: kind of reflecting that after quarterback, if you had to
Speaker 5: pick one position that you think is the most valuable,
Speaker 5: it's either left tackle, receiver or edge, but it might
Speaker 5: be number one true number one receiver, and there's only
Speaker 5: so many of those, and that's a bit of a
Speaker 5: flip compared to what teams thought about, you know, ten
Speaker 5: to fifteen years ago.
Speaker 6: I also like, I wonder if what we're experiencing with
Speaker 6: this draft class, you know, and it certainly stands out
Speaker 6: wideer serier wise from from others they've been, they've been,
Speaker 6: they're getting better and better, and it's like, is this
Speaker 6: at some point the new norm? Because I think like
Speaker 6: the one starting to watch these guys, like so many
Speaker 6: of them, like usually it's like, oh, he's really good
Speaker 6: at this, but he's got to work on this with
Speaker 6: NFL coaches to kind of get up to stuff. So
Speaker 6: many of them look completely prepared to start right away,
Speaker 6: and we aren't that far away from a time when
Speaker 6: like you could draft a wide out outside of like
Speaker 6: the top one, two or three, and they're kind of
Speaker 6: ghosts until season two or even three sometimes. But these
Speaker 6: guys look like ready to roll immediately, a big junk
Speaker 6: of them.
Speaker 5: They're out there doing those seven on sevens and and
Speaker 5: the quarter you know, quarterback camps and all that stuff,
Speaker 5: and they're practicing on air. And it's why I take
Speaker 5: exception to the money drop. I can run an out
Speaker 5: route walk. It's Walker's favorite thing in the world. To
Speaker 5: go over to the middle school. They got a nice
Speaker 5: football field which has some open and we're practicing quite
Speaker 5: a bit where throwing routes and I break off that route.
Speaker 4: I can get off press coverage.
Speaker 6: I mean, Greg, what if you have like a six
Speaker 6: to two hundred and something pound cornerback jamming you at
Speaker 6: the line, how's your out out route looking?
Speaker 4: Then I'm just gonna duck under them. I kind of
Speaker 4: I do this little movie.
Speaker 2: Yes, slip it. Okay, you're undersize, you're forty five years old.
Speaker 3: Like, let's know our limitations, Bud, Like you can't play
Speaker 3: on the outside, you'd get man handled.
Speaker 4: The route tree is complete, though, you know.
Speaker 3: The idea of like again, you've you've been down on
Speaker 3: Hunter Renfro in the past, like that's kind of your ceiling, bud,
Speaker 3: Like that's what you have to operate in that realm.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be the bear of bad news.
Speaker 3: Like I'm an inline tight end blocker, like I know,
Speaker 3: and maybe hit me at the at the in the
Speaker 3: red zone or a little misdirection, but.
Speaker 4: I see at least five aj green.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: I mean to say that Hunter Renfro is Greg's ceiling.
Speaker 6: It's like the ceiling three stories up on a building
Speaker 6: from where Greg is or any I know.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to like rein them in somewhat to
Speaker 3: saying putting in some work lately?
Speaker 2: Are you running these routes against your your held your
Speaker 2: son again?
Speaker 4: Too much time?
Speaker 5: We got that football, you know that football where it's
Speaker 5: got the routes on the football. So if I love
Speaker 5: that check, you know, what's what's a five route?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 4: There's no defenders there?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: And by the way, coming up just a little bit,
Speaker 3: Matt Harmon, he of the reception perception fame, and we'll
Speaker 3: talk them out about what that means and which players
Speaker 3: are really jumping out to him. But before we kind
Speaker 3: of get to Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean every team can use a number one, right,
Speaker 3: even the teams that have a number one.
Speaker 2: What's better than one? Number one? Two number ones?
Speaker 3: It's the most second most supporting position, a backup quarterback,
Speaker 3: and the third most The third is the backup back
Speaker 3: up quarterback.
Speaker 2: Charlie Casserly, where are you, buddy, Greg?
Speaker 3: Who's a team or teams that really jump out to
Speaker 3: you that are going to be all over this wide
Speaker 3: receiver class when you look at what they currently have
Speaker 3: in house.
Speaker 5: There were so many when we did this, like I
Speaker 5: wrote down no less than fourteen. It's crazy, like as
Speaker 5: many good receivers have come in so many needs. But
Speaker 5: Baltimore is one that I think is high profile that
Speaker 5: hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Like Zay Flowers is
Speaker 5: not a one, Rashad Bateman is not a two. Aglar
Speaker 5: would probably be best as a four. So they're not
Speaker 5: gonna find a one most likely in this class. But man,
Speaker 5: they're counting a lot on Rashad Bateman right now, and
Speaker 5: maybe they'll pick up a veteran at some point, but
Speaker 5: that is a high profile team and just staying in
Speaker 5: that division too. You kind of you look at Cincinnati.
Speaker 5: The most Cincinnati move in the world is just replacing
Speaker 5: Tyler Boyd one for one in this draft with the
Speaker 5: slot receiver.
Speaker 4: I could see that happening. And then Pittsburgh they have
Speaker 4: one receiver.
Speaker 5: It's George Pickens, who hasn't exactly been the most reliable
Speaker 5: player in the world. And they're they're two and three.
Speaker 5: Is I don't even know who quit? They really don't
Speaker 5: have a two or three. It's Qus Watkins, it's Calvin Austin,
Speaker 5: it's Van Jefferson. So that division, all those teams need receivers.
Speaker 5: The Bounds are the only team they look pretty solid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cycling back to to Baltimore, I trust the Ravens
Speaker 3: in so many ways in terms of roster building, but
Speaker 3: they've proven time and time again that they they can't
Speaker 3: find a number one wide receiver. If they're franchise, is
Speaker 3: life depended on it? Not that Zay Flowers is a
Speaker 3: bad pick.
Speaker 4: I know you're a good pick.
Speaker 3: I think you're right that he has the ceiling to be,
Speaker 3: you know, even a Pro Bowl player, But he's maybe
Speaker 3: not the number one you mentioned Rashad Bateman. He was
Speaker 3: also a first round pick. Is there a third first
Speaker 3: round pick. Who's the other name he threw out there,
Speaker 3: Nelson a.
Speaker 2: Philly.
Speaker 3: He was another high for a high round pick. Odell
Speaker 3: Beckham they brought in last year thinking he would fill
Speaker 3: a role and that didn't really work out either. So
Speaker 3: would the Ravens go back to the well once again
Speaker 3: with the kind of the one blind spot when it
Speaker 3: comes to real left identify talent you've got.
Speaker 6: You brought in Todd Mounkin and they they you know,
Speaker 6: correctly addressed wide out a year ago, but then you've
Speaker 6: lost like Odell Beckham's gone, and like you're kind of
Speaker 6: back where you started from, and like this is the
Speaker 6: draft class to do it. I think there's a couple
Speaker 6: of teams, like, you know, it's a little more overt,
Speaker 6: but I see like coaches getting canned if they don't
Speaker 6: figure out what they're doing at wide out. In some situations,
Speaker 6: like the Arizona Cardinals, they've got literally they've got a
Speaker 6: fringed number two type of guy and nobody else, and
Speaker 6: it's like they're in a weird place because it's like
Speaker 6: everyone points to them as the team that's going to
Speaker 6: trade with the Vikings to get Minnesota up to number
Speaker 6: four to take their quarterback. But then it's like, Okay,
Speaker 6: you pass on Marvin Harrison Junior, when like, the most
Speaker 6: important player in your franchise history in the modern day
Speaker 6: age was Larry Fitzgerald. You can go get that player
Speaker 6: a version of that player again. It's like I think
Speaker 6: Cardinals fans they're really split and they're divided on like, wait,
Speaker 6: do we trade these do we acquire picks and get
Speaker 6: lesser players, or do we get this guy who can
Speaker 6: change the franchise for fifteen years twelve?
Speaker 4: I'm with you.
Speaker 5: They all this talk that like, oh, the Bears should
Speaker 5: they take Roma Dunes at Nins, Like he's not getting
Speaker 5: there because there's too many teams in front that will
Speaker 5: be taking receivers and the Cardinals are one of them.
Speaker 5: And if the Bears do have a chance they can
Speaker 5: they they should because they need to receive. They've got
Speaker 5: They've got DJ Moore, They've got Keenan Allen who's a
Speaker 5: thirty two year old on a one year contract in
Speaker 5: nothing else.
Speaker 2: And I look at the AFC East and the Dolphins
Speaker 2: are all set. They're loaded.
Speaker 3: They have maybe the best one two punch in the
Speaker 3: league with Tyreek Hill and Waddle.
Speaker 2: But the Bills, their struggles.
Speaker 3: To have a real wide receiver room were well documented
Speaker 3: before they traded Stefan Diggs, so you would think they
Speaker 3: will be all over one of these prospects we're going
Speaker 3: to talk about with Matt Harmon in a bit. The
Speaker 3: Patriots are a team that is screaming out for some
Speaker 3: juice and who is Who's it now? They're gonna most
Speaker 3: likely target a quarterback at the top of the class,
Speaker 3: but they could use wide receiver help, and you imagine
Speaker 3: they're going to go hard at this group. And then
Speaker 3: the Jets, who have Garrett Wilson, who is a budding
Speaker 3: superstar entering his third year who could be a monster
Speaker 3: if Aaron Rodgers stays on the field. Mike Williams was
Speaker 3: I thought a nice move to bring him in, But
Speaker 3: you can't assume Mike Williams is going to stay healthy
Speaker 3: coming off in ACL and all his issues. The Jets
Speaker 3: sitting where they are in the draft, like, I'm of that.
Speaker 2: I'm of the.
Speaker 3: Thought like if Joe Alt is there, who's as flawless
Speaker 3: as an offensive lineman prospects as you'll see, if he
Speaker 3: is off the board by the time the Jets pick
Speaker 3: at what eight, I believe I'm going and grabbing one
Speaker 3: of the ten, is it? Sorry, I'm grabbing one of
Speaker 3: these wide receivers because they're gonna one of these big
Speaker 3: guys will be there because of all the teams that
Speaker 3: are picking a quarterback at the top of the top ten.
Speaker 3: So that's a team that jumps out to me like
Speaker 3: that would be you want to get as somebody who's
Speaker 3: obviously been struggling a little bit as a Jets fan
Speaker 3: after last year's harrowing season. If you pair Garrett Wilson
Speaker 3: with one of these gifted young players and then everything
Speaker 3: else they have Breese Hall and Mike Williams is a three.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can really start to get excited. So
Speaker 3: we'll see if they go that route.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, Holts are a team at fifteen that I
Speaker 5: think are a nice spot. Like Brian miss Junior to
Speaker 5: them is one of my favorite matches. But because of
Speaker 5: what you just said, and because of going through the
Speaker 5: top ten and thinking like, well, which team doesn't need
Speaker 5: a receiver here, I kind of think he'll go higher
Speaker 5: than people expect and we'll get to him a little
Speaker 5: more later. But like the Titans, they could still use
Speaker 5: a receiver. I know, everyone just thinks it's tackle tackle tackle.
Speaker 5: They could absolutely use a receiver on that team. Still,
Speaker 5: the Falcons could absolutely use a ride receiver, like even
Speaker 5: teams later in the draft. Not that they're going to
Speaker 5: trade up for these top guys, but like the forty
Speaker 5: nine Ers have to think about the future of replacing
Speaker 5: either Deebo or Ayuk. The Lions, they love Aman Ross
Speaker 5: Saint Brown, but he's an inside guy, and yeah outside
Speaker 5: it's like you're hope and Jamison Williams works out, it's
Speaker 5: Josh Reynolds. Like they need receivers. The Panthers are still
Speaker 5: shortened weapons. They're just like so many teams. To me,
Speaker 5: that's why I just think there's gonna be what twelve
Speaker 5: receivers maybe go in the first two rounds. It's gonna
Speaker 5: be a lot.
Speaker 6: But you can't get this far and not mentioned like
Speaker 6: the Chargers, who, like, I mean, this offseason has been
Speaker 6: a disaster on that front. I think like it's one
Speaker 6: of those times where what the draft provides couldn't match
Speaker 6: more perfectly with the way football operates right now. You
Speaker 6: don't have to it's not nineteen eighty six. You don't
Speaker 6: have like one wide receiver and a number two and
Speaker 6: a bunch of tight ends and fullbacks.
Speaker 2: You need four or five of these dudes.
Speaker 3: Not to mention, we're coming off a somewhat me year
Speaker 3: from wide receiver in twenty three, So those teams that
Speaker 3: have been looking for wide receiver helped weren't able to
Speaker 3: get it in most cases last year. So now it
Speaker 3: goes down that road, and I thought you were going
Speaker 3: to go in a different direction, Mark in the AFC West.
Speaker 3: We cannot end this part of the conversation without mentioning
Speaker 3: the defending champion Chiefs, who picking thirty two, who made
Speaker 3: a move and got Hollywood Brown, a move I wasn't
Speaker 3: in love with personally, and it seems so obvious to
Speaker 3: me that there's another move coming. My question is do
Speaker 3: they sit where they are or do they really go
Speaker 3: aggressively up the board and try to get one of
Speaker 3: these big boys, because that would be the talk of
Speaker 3: draft night if they do get aggressive, right, anybody else
Speaker 3: want to throw out another team?
Speaker 5: You could just do that whole division because the Broncos,
Speaker 5: like the Bronco sneaky, need everything. But they have Courtland
Speaker 5: Sutton and then just a lot of question marks tim
Speaker 5: Patrick Mims. I mean, it's not the worst receiver group
Speaker 5: of the world, but again, there's so few of these
Speaker 5: teams that you couldn't see like a second round pick
Speaker 5: at receiver helping.
Speaker 3: I waited so long for it not to be a
Speaker 3: conversation anymore, but now that it's here and gone, I
Speaker 3: miss it. Like, but you know, Courtland Sutton and Jerry Judy,
Speaker 3: they could be dynamic.
Speaker 2: Going to miss that conversation?
Speaker 5: Are you You can still talk about him in Cleveland?
Speaker 5: You know Jerry Judy, He's he's the long term future
Speaker 5: as of Cleveland.
Speaker 2: Are we cool with the Browns? Mark with them?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: Because I think what they've done is is kind of interesting,
Speaker 6: Like Judy and Elijah more like represent players that others
Speaker 6: that haven't had breakout success on any level have been frustrating.
Speaker 6: You can see it a little potential, but other teams
Speaker 6: gave up on them. Yeah, and Amari Cooper is getting
Speaker 6: up there in age. I thought he had a great
Speaker 6: year last year. But like that team has to feel
Speaker 6: us all in with their financial situation everything else as
Speaker 6: anyone out there. But they don't have a lot of
Speaker 6: draft picks, but I would absolutely want them to get
Speaker 6: a wide receiver.
Speaker 2: You know who really helps.
Speaker 3: Them in that realm as a playmaker, that David Njoku.
Speaker 3: It's quite a player. Mark, He's a good player. I've
Speaker 3: come around on that.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: With that said, let's take a quick break and when
Speaker 3: we come back, we will have Matt Harmon to break
Speaker 3: down some of the young wide receiving talent about to
Speaker 3: flood into the league.
Speaker 2: And all those teams we just talked.
Speaker 3: About, many of them, well all of them are gonna
Speaker 3: be jockeying for these guys and we'll find out in
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks who gets him.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back to the answer. God touch down
Speaker 2: Harrison again?
Speaker 1: Why seven the occasiones Corman Harrison Junior Flowers heading to
Speaker 1: the end?
Speaker 4: Ze man? Is he devastating it with a count? That's
Speaker 4: brock Powers.
Speaker 3: There's the shot to it. Tuesday.
Speaker 2: My own mind, my weak neighbors is just lighting up
Speaker 2: this morning.
Speaker 1: Thomas just trad sweed from Brian Thomas. That's pretty with that, so.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's the one with the wide receivers episode, and
Speaker 3: we just talked about what teams are going to be
Speaker 3: aggressive on draft weekend targeting wide receivers the teams that
Speaker 3: make sense. But now let's talk about the wide receivers
Speaker 3: themselves that are entering the league. And it's a potentially
Speaker 3: historic wide receiver class. And we think wide receiver boys,
Speaker 3: and you think the NFL, and you think about route
Speaker 3: trees and you and you think about the receptions, but
Speaker 3: you think about the perception, don't you as well. Matt Harmon,
Speaker 3: welcome back to Around the NFL.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, Dan, thank you for that intro. I got
Speaker 1: to think about stealing that for like the start of
Speaker 1: our own podcast. That is that is pretty good. So
Speaker 1: I'll have my lawyers talk to your lawyers and maybe
Speaker 1: we'll come to sort of an agreement on on buying
Speaker 1: that ip.
Speaker 2: There no problem working a little bit blue to make
Speaker 2: a point.
Speaker 3: Matt, of course, a former colleague of ours at NFL
Speaker 3: Media was a fantasy guy, and as he was a
Speaker 3: fantasy guy, he created the mythology Reception Perception, which has
Speaker 3: its own website which you could check out, and Matt
Speaker 3: is all over that and also of course does writing
Speaker 3: and analysis for Yahoo. So Matt, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: And it's always good to see a friend. And yes,
Speaker 3: even though you said it before we came on. I'm
Speaker 3: now going to steal that little bit of pre show banter.
Speaker 3: You've moved away from the swoosh hair style. Then I
Speaker 3: saw you when we lived together in El Segundo before
Speaker 3: you move back east. You said I'm a hack guy
Speaker 3: now and that surprised me, and quite frankly, as a
Speaker 3: fellow follicle guy, disappointed me. And now you got the
Speaker 3: Travis Kelcey fade. So it looks like you're not a
Speaker 3: hat guy after all. I would say, I'm like a
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: You know, when the weather is nice and you know
Speaker 1: you're doing a lot of sweating, it makes it's nice
Speaker 1: to have the hat. That's good. That's that's a nice call,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, look, Dan, see you're a gifted
Speaker 1: hair guy or follicle guy in your words, and you're
Speaker 1: wearing the hat right now, so I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to be able to do both. Versatility
Speaker 1: as you get older is important.
Speaker 6: It's not an incredible upset that we've spent the first
Speaker 6: forty percent of this interview talking about Dan's hair.
Speaker 5: Also, you're we're too old to do the Travis Kelsey
Speaker 5: at least I was speaking for myself.
Speaker 4: I'm much too old, but you pull it off.
Speaker 5: You look like you could be the unathletic third brother
Speaker 5: of the Kelsey.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I'll take minor offense to the
Speaker 1: unathletic part because I do like to say that I'll
Speaker 1: work out.
Speaker 2: I'm a gym guy as well.
Speaker 4: But at the same time too Hall of famers, Matt,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, if I hit my peak a little earlier,
Speaker 1: I think I could have gotten there. No, but in
Speaker 1: all seriousness, I just want to say, for the record, yes,
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it the Travis Kelce. You
Speaker 1: guys can call it the Travis Kelce, but officially it's
Speaker 1: a It's not the Travis Kelce. Just just just to
Speaker 1: get that on the record.
Speaker 2: What is it? What is what is it?
Speaker 3: The Because my haircut is the modified gentleman's contour? Famously,
Speaker 3: what is yours called? It's just a fade, just your
Speaker 3: old fade. Okay, okay, but enough Honkin' let's focus up.
Speaker 3: Hair is great, but these wide receivers my own harmon
Speaker 3: And can you give people that maybe are not familiar
Speaker 3: with the reception perception model, like how you came to
Speaker 3: study the game this way, wide receivers and playmakers this way,
Speaker 3: and what it what it tells you, And then we'll
Speaker 3: get into some of the players in this draft class,
Speaker 3: which obviously have to be very exciting for what you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wide receiver business is booming right now, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: But what reception perception is is the methodology that I
Speaker 1: created around like twenty thirteen, twenty four fourteen. Twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: was the first year that I tracked league wide data
Speaker 1: with reception perception or close to league wide data. I'm
Speaker 1: not charting every single player in the league, and certainly
Speaker 1: not every single college prospect, that's for sure. But what
Speaker 1: I do is I going over eight game sample for
Speaker 1: NFL or college prospects when the film is available, and
Speaker 1: chart every single route they run, where they line up,
Speaker 1: really try to give you a view of what a
Speaker 1: wide receiver is doing in isolation, because all those years ago,
Speaker 1: my thought was, you know, you're lucky if you're a receiver.
Speaker 1: You get like eight to ten targets a game, but
Speaker 1: you're running, you know, thirty plus routes a game. You're
Speaker 1: playing like sixty plus snaps a game. If you're a
Speaker 1: true number one guy, and we all know the quarterback
Speaker 1: or wide receiver production is so inherently dependent on quarterbacks
Speaker 1: depending on pass protection, is dependent on like the environment
Speaker 1: that they're in. And even we know this more now,
Speaker 1: even maybe more than we did ten eleven years ago,
Speaker 1: that a wide receiver is not a wide receiver, right, Like,
Speaker 1: these guys are so different, even if they all have
Speaker 1: wr next to their names, so reception perception through that
Speaker 1: charting data that I'm the only one doing the charting.
Speaker 1: You know, James Co, my business partner, would love to
Speaker 1: maybe take some of that work my hands. Yeah, he'd
Speaker 1: love to add some more people to the team. But
Speaker 1: to me, you got to pry the charting away from
Speaker 1: like my cold dead hands. Man. That's why I love
Speaker 1: to do. This is actually the the grunt work of it.
Speaker 1: But through that charting data tries to give you a
Speaker 1: real picture of who a wide receiver is in isolation
Speaker 1: away from their production, you know, for a variety of
Speaker 1: different reasons to try to categorize these guys, try to
Speaker 1: understand them within their roles and obviously from a you know,
Speaker 1: for fantasy fans, you know, you want to try to
Speaker 1: spot a breakout before it's coming.
Speaker 6: I was going to ask you real quick, like, have
Speaker 6: you the same way you know, PFF started their own
Speaker 6: way to you know, track mythologize like play like have
Speaker 6: you had NFL teams or scouts of that ilk reach
Speaker 6: out to you about about what you.
Speaker 2: Do every now and again.
Speaker 1: If there are any NFL folks wanting to you know,
Speaker 1: pay me a bag that listen to this show, i'd
Speaker 1: gladly do you guys know this as big as big
Speaker 1: big media bros like consulting work, That's where it's at,
Speaker 1: and I'd hire me as your consultant.
Speaker 2: I'd love to do it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that would require me taking you know,
Speaker 1: information off the site to my loyal subscribers, but really,
Speaker 1: I'm a man of the people, Mark. I'm out there
Speaker 1: for the folks that can afford a you know, thirty
Speaker 1: dollars subscription to learn about wide receivers. Hey, if it
Speaker 1: works out, it works out.
Speaker 3: Whenever I meet somebody and they tell me they're a consultant,
Speaker 3: they're almost always very wealthy.
Speaker 2: So that's something I want to get into one day,
Speaker 2: all right. So with that in mind, let's get into it.
Speaker 3: And we kind of built up the atn Heroes here
Speaker 3: some superlatives, and we're going to tee you up and
Speaker 3: you could tell us which one of these prospects, because
Speaker 3: we're hearing what three out of the top eight picks
Speaker 3: maybe to start the draft could be wide receivers. Maybe
Speaker 3: even better than that, we'll see. But it's not just
Speaker 3: the big three. There's a lot of talent and stress.
Speaker 3: So let's start here. The twenty twenty four Reception Perception
Speaker 3: Man Crush Award winner.
Speaker 1: Is Oh, I'll just start off with Roma Dunza there,
Speaker 1: because to me, I don't watch college football on Saturdays.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a happily married man, and I already
Speaker 1: ruined like three days of the week with nfell work.
Speaker 1: It would be kind of hard to justify to missus
Speaker 1: harmon like I'm gonna ruin one more day of the
Speaker 1: week by watching a bunch of college football. It's something
Speaker 1: that doesn't really have anything to do with my job.
Speaker 1: So I'm not super familiar with these players before watching
Speaker 1: them for the draft, other than obviously I knew Marvin
Speaker 1: Harrison Junior's name and knew the hype around that particular player,
Speaker 1: So coming into this process, I didn't really know anything
Speaker 1: about these guys. But the first time I put on
Speaker 1: the film of Romadoonsea, I mean, whatever superlatives you have
Speaker 1: for this exercise, boys, I could probably say Rome's name
Speaker 1: for most of them, because I think he is just
Speaker 1: so good at everything. I think he's an extremely clean prospect.
Speaker 1: He lines up on the line of scrimmage as a
Speaker 1: true X receiver, which is not something we could say
Speaker 1: about last year's draft class. Right like last year's draft class,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of guys like Jackson Smith and
Speaker 1: Jigba z A Flowers, even Jordan Addison, these guys that
Speaker 1: were gonna play off the ball and be more of
Speaker 1: the kind of complimentary players. All three of the top
Speaker 1: receivers in this draft class are not of that ill
Speaker 1: calthough Malik Neighbors doesn't really line up as that true X,
Speaker 1: but specifically Rome, like he's just out there doing NFL things,
Speaker 1: running NFL routes. I love the way he gets off
Speaker 1: the line of scrimmag against press coverage. I think he's
Speaker 1: a great separator. Really kind of underrated as a separator
Speaker 1: because he has all these contested targets on his resume,
Speaker 1: But a lot of that is the fact he's running
Speaker 1: downfield routes. He has a quarterback, he's willing to trust
Speaker 1: him in those tight areas. To me, he just looks
Speaker 1: like kind of a I had did prospect comparisons like
Speaker 1: aggressive and cautious comps for a Yahoo video series this year.
Speaker 1: My cautious comp for him was Alan Robinson, like another
Speaker 1: guy that just you can line him up at X
Speaker 1: back in his prime and you could win there. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of short to intermediate, but also be a
Speaker 1: contested catch threat. My aggressive comp for him was DeVante Adams,
Speaker 1: another guy that you know wins at all three levels.
Speaker 1: Great route runner, nice separator, pretty like a solid tackle
Speaker 1: breaker after the catch, and obviously someone you could throw
Speaker 1: to in contest the situations like, hey, hey, you funnel
Speaker 1: thirty percent of your offense to this guy and you
Speaker 1: never think twice about it. I do think at his peak,
Speaker 1: Rome could be that guy.
Speaker 3: Here's a comp from Daniel Jeremiah. He sees Lary Fitzgerald
Speaker 3: as a comp coming out of college, which is obviously
Speaker 3: high praise too. That's a Hall of Fame re mark.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I was just gonna say watching him, the contested catches
Speaker 6: stand out. I feel like he had defenders in his
Speaker 6: bee hive and he'd come down with the ball. But
Speaker 6: also a lot of it is with these college guys,
Speaker 6: like you've got these quarterbacks like paired with Michael Pennix Junior,
Speaker 6: I felt like they had like ten thousand catches or
Speaker 6: accombinations that were like forty yards downfield where it just
Speaker 6: was like he could do no wrong, and like, I'm
Speaker 6: with you. I came away just kind of in love
Speaker 6: with this guy. So I love what you said that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's so many you mentioned the extraceiver even even
Speaker 5: the ones further on and we'll get to them. It
Speaker 5: seems like in compared to the last couple of classes,
Speaker 5: there's like six seven guys that you could see as
Speaker 5: number ones. The thing I was worried about going into it,
Speaker 5: and you can tell me how the reception perception worked
Speaker 5: out for Roma Dunes. He was like, whenever the first
Speaker 5: thing you hear is contested catch guy that's been a
Speaker 5: bit almost been in like a red flag for players
Speaker 5: in the last handful of years. Drake London's a bit
Speaker 5: of an exception. I think he's kind of made his
Speaker 5: style of play work in the NFL and he's gotten better.
Speaker 5: But you're seeing a Donze maybe a little more subtle
Speaker 5: with his route running, a little more versatile than maybe
Speaker 5: just positioning him. And he's kind of turned into wide
Speaker 5: receiver three. We'll see if the NFL agrees with that
Speaker 5: or not. But he's kind of landed as a three.
Speaker 5: Even though at the beginning of the process, guys like
Speaker 5: Jeremiah maybe had him as high or higher than Harrison
Speaker 5: or Neighbors. It doesn't feel like a lot of people
Speaker 5: believe he's gonna go ahead of them. You seem to
Speaker 5: think he's a little more versatile, though, and you would
Speaker 5: put him ahead of him, would you.
Speaker 1: I had a long kind of internal debate with myself,
Speaker 1: you know, my war room up here, me and the
Speaker 1: two dogs. We had a long internal debate of like
Speaker 1: who was the wide receiver one in this class? Which
Speaker 1: to me, I think I was close to making it
Speaker 1: Rome I eventually maybe just broke a few ties in
Speaker 1: favor of Marvin Harrison. But Rome is the second guy
Speaker 1: to me, and Malik Neighbors is a third guy. Now,
Speaker 1: my mission statement with this draft class, these top three
Speaker 1: guys in particular, like, these guys are all so close,
Speaker 1: they're all great prospects. To me, they're all tier one
Speaker 1: prospects on my stacked board for the last four classes.
Speaker 1: So like, you like this guy with this guy that's
Speaker 1: with me, you want to take this trait over that
Speaker 1: trade also fine with me. It's kind of reminiscent. You
Speaker 1: brought up Drake London. To me, this is reminiscent a
Speaker 1: little bit to that draft class where like you could
Speaker 1: put Drake number one, you could have put Garrett Wilson
Speaker 1: number one, You could have put Chris Alave number one,
Speaker 1: and I would have been fine with that. Ultimately I
Speaker 1: went with that year kind of the route running craft
Speaker 1: guy which was Chris Olave and then you know, then
Speaker 1: Drake London, then Garrett Wilson. To me, I think I'd
Speaker 1: probably flip that up now that they're in the NFL.
Speaker 1: But I see this group as very similar to that.
Speaker 2: It could.
Speaker 1: It kind of depends what type of player and what
Speaker 1: number one receiver you value in terms of a traits perspective.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like on the separation part of it, it
Speaker 1: was a very similar exercise with with Drake London where
Speaker 1: you actually had to watch him on film and see
Speaker 1: the routes developed to like, no, this is a guy
Speaker 1: that is getting open early in the routes and maybe
Speaker 1: gets thrown into some of these contested situations. Like Terry
Speaker 1: mclaurin's always kind of high in the NFL in terms
Speaker 1: of percentage of contested targets. But I don't find any
Speaker 1: issues with his separation. I think he's just played with
Speaker 1: some erratic quarterback playing. And Michael Pennix is a good quarterback,
Speaker 1: but he is a little bit of an erratic passer
Speaker 1: down the field as well.
Speaker 5: All Right, I'll throw it out you and look, rum
Speaker 5: could have been the answer to this, but now you're
Speaker 5: gonna have to pick someone else.
Speaker 4: All Right.
Speaker 5: The wide receiver in this class that would have been
Speaker 5: a number one would have been the number one receiver
Speaker 5: in last year's class.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could go with any of the top three guys.
Speaker 1: I think you could honestly make an argument that even
Speaker 1: like Brian Thomas and JSN kind of have similar grades
Speaker 1: in terms of last year's draft class. But I'll say
Speaker 1: Malik Neighbors as the obvious guy here. Another one that
Speaker 1: to me is my wide receiver three, but easily with
Speaker 1: a bullet would have had like a tier break between
Speaker 1: him and any of the players last year. Neighbors is
Speaker 1: very fun. He's he's like an easy player to love
Speaker 1: because I think it takes like three plays to see, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy's different from an explosiveness standpoint. Like I mentioned
Speaker 1: that twenty two class, I'll bring it up here again
Speaker 1: that he's kind of the Garrett Wilson of that draft
Speaker 1: class to me, where he's a little bit of like
Speaker 1: a wild horse route runner. He's not the most refined player,
Speaker 1: but he's so explos with the ball in his hands.
Speaker 1: And if he just continues to develop, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of confidence, just like I think Garret Wilson has
Speaker 1: developed into a true number one at the NFL level.
Speaker 1: I think neighbors could do that too.
Speaker 6: One thing noticing watching him is like I love the
Speaker 6: seeing the body language of the poor individual that's forced
Speaker 6: to try to cover him, because it's the kind of
Speaker 6: like the way that you watch a sprinter at the
Speaker 6: end of a race where he's bending his upper body
Speaker 6: forward to try to hit the tape first, and these
Speaker 6: cornerbacks like are losing control of their bodies and like
Speaker 6: he's catching past us nine or ten yards ahead of them,
Speaker 6: And I just think he's like the kind of guy
Speaker 6: that could like break someone's spirit by the end of
Speaker 6: the first quarter in the NFL.
Speaker 5: He seems so reliable but like so flashy at the
Speaker 5: same time. I mean it maybe it is the LSU
Speaker 5: thing and I'm just a simpleton, but he really did
Speaker 5: kind of remind me of Odell or like or like
Speaker 5: a little bigger Steve Steve Smith type, where he's just
Speaker 5: got such a natural feel as a runner and he
Speaker 5: has great hands. So I hear you that, Like maybe
Speaker 5: he's a little rougher around the edges running routes or something,
Speaker 5: but he just seems very easy to project in like
Speaker 5: any of these systems that like, he doesn't need to
Speaker 5: even get any better to just like immediately just put
Speaker 5: a thousand yards plus up there.
Speaker 1: The only thing with him that's different from these top
Speaker 1: two receivers is he does play out of the slot
Speaker 1: the most, which I mean, who cares, it's not that
Speaker 1: big of a deal, but fifty point three percent of
Speaker 1: his sampled snaps in reception perception came from the slot.
Speaker 1: He was more of like a split between on the
Speaker 1: ball or off the ball. But that's totally fine, Like
Speaker 1: you can funnel your offense through that player. But it's
Speaker 1: similar to kind of DJ Moore coming out of the
Speaker 1: NFL Draft, where the guy but kind of like a
Speaker 1: two X version of that type of player where he
Speaker 1: was rough around the edges from a route running perspective,
Speaker 1: but he was explosive and you could see that he
Speaker 1: was going to develop that in the league. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm not, like, I'm not docking him out of my
Speaker 1: first tier of prospects because he's just the least refined
Speaker 1: of these three players. He's also like not even twenty
Speaker 1: one yet. I don't think he turns twenty one until
Speaker 1: after he's drafted. So he's a guy that you do
Speaker 1: feel pretty good about that growth. But like you said, Greg,
Speaker 1: his explosive and his ability to break tackles, which in
Speaker 1: my opinion is easily the best in this class, and
Speaker 1: I think it's actually the best of like the last
Speaker 1: three classes. His ability to make plays in the open
Speaker 1: field like that gives you like a floor for any
Speaker 1: if you're a team like the Giants, which I know
Speaker 1: it's weird with the Giants because they a lot of
Speaker 1: things are weird with the Giants, but they don't have
Speaker 1: they have a lot of like these slot guys, right,
Speaker 1: like guys who've played mostly inside, and Neighbors is a
Speaker 1: mostly inside guy at LSU, but it feels like they
Speaker 1: need someone to just say to Danny Dimes or maybe
Speaker 1: Drew Locke at some point, like this is your first read,
Speaker 1: he's gonna run a crossing route or a dig route
Speaker 1: something like that. You just get the ball to him
Speaker 1: and worry about the rest later. It feels like a
Speaker 1: good way to start to kind of build a foundation
Speaker 1: on your offense.
Speaker 3: That's the Jets offense with Garret Wilson the last two
Speaker 3: years basically.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, correct, which is why I kind of see
Speaker 1: those two guys similarly.
Speaker 6: All Right, here's one for you. I'm not Marvin Harrison, Junior,
Speaker 6: Malik Neighbors or Roma Denze, but I have the best
Speaker 6: chance to put up number one type numbers as a rookie.
Speaker 1: If we're just talking numbers depending on depending on where
Speaker 1: he's drafted. I kind of think it's got to be
Speaker 1: Brian Thomas, who's the consensus wide receiver for He's my
Speaker 1: wide receiver for in this draft class. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he has he definitely has the ceiling of a
Speaker 1: number one, but I think he probably projects best as
Speaker 1: like a high end number two. He only runs like
Speaker 1: three routes. I mean, in his reception perception sample, sixty
Speaker 1: seven percent of his routes were a slant, a curl,
Speaker 1: or a go route.
Speaker 4: And that's it. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean it
Speaker 4: can't learn it.
Speaker 5: How can we kind of learn that with wide receivers
Speaker 5: in these weird systems that they can learn it when
Speaker 5: they get there.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, like, and you, But at
Speaker 1: the same time, his success rate on a wide variety
Speaker 1: of other routes is really high. Like, I think he
Speaker 1: does show the skills to expand that route tree, but
Speaker 1: it gives you kind of like if you look back
Speaker 1: at DK Metcalf's rookie season, sixty seven percent of the
Speaker 1: routes that he ran as a rookie was a slant,
Speaker 1: a curl, or a go route. And so I think
Speaker 1: that sort of development plan for Brian Thomas. But if
Speaker 1: he lands with the right offense, like I think about
Speaker 1: the Colts at fifteen, make a lot of sense. Like
Speaker 1: you have a guy in Michael Pittman that you're gonna
Speaker 1: throw the ball to a ton in the short to
Speaker 1: intermediate area, and then you have Brian Thomas just kind
Speaker 1: of ripping you on the routes that you wanted Alec
Speaker 1: Pierce to win on. That makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: to me just from a pure numbers perspective. I think
Speaker 1: he can put up like number one numbers and then
Speaker 1: maybe eventually grow into that player.
Speaker 5: He's the guy I was hoping you would say for
Speaker 5: the last one, because I don't have many draft takes
Speaker 5: where I'm personally like a like a student who is
Speaker 5: just studying for the test at the very last minute
Speaker 5: and then like is over confident going into it. But
Speaker 5: my one over confident take is like, you can't take
Speaker 5: Brian Thomas Junior too high if I didn't know anything
Speaker 5: about it, I'm just sort of basic. If I didn't
Speaker 5: know anything about where these guys were, and you just
Speaker 5: watch Brian Thomas's six games, You're like, wait, why is
Speaker 5: he not at top five?
Speaker 4: Pick? Why is he not at like cause his stop.
Speaker 5: And start and his ability to move so smoothly at
Speaker 5: that size is just insane, Like it's just as insane.
Speaker 5: I kind of see his ceiling like in a perfect
Speaker 5: world where it all went well, is like just as
Speaker 5: high as those other guys. And I get it, Like
Speaker 5: he used to be a basketball player. He ran a
Speaker 5: limited amount of routes that you know, some of these
Speaker 5: deep threats from the SEC, like like Jmo having totally
Speaker 5: worked out, but a guy that huge, that can run
Speaker 5: like that, that can stop like that, Like he looked
Speaker 5: like Nico Collins to me, looks now and Nico Collins
Speaker 5: is great now. And I was like, if he looks
Speaker 5: that good now and he's this age, and like his
Speaker 5: testing is off the charts, like he could be Nico
Speaker 5: Collins plus plus, which is which is like a top
Speaker 5: ten receiver. So like I I wouldn't be shocked if,
Speaker 5: like if the Falcons or one of those teams takes
Speaker 5: him in the top ten just because of the way
Speaker 5: he looks. If a Dunze goes early, like I don't
Speaker 5: see why he wouldn't go against ahead of some of
Speaker 5: these defensive players or tackles too.
Speaker 4: But maybe I'm stupid.
Speaker 1: You're not stupid, Greg, But I think the good the
Speaker 1: good things Thomas. The good thing with Brian Thomas is
Speaker 1: you also saw him get better throughout the year, right,
Speaker 1: Like I think a lot of analytic models will ding
Speaker 1: him because he only has this one big year of production.
Speaker 1: But that production number one was earned and number two,
Speaker 1: like you saw him on film, get better, like the
Speaker 1: September routes are not as good as the December routes.
Speaker 1: Like the later games, He's getting better and better. He's
Speaker 1: already making that development, that projection that you kind of
Speaker 1: want him to make. And I just love the idea
Speaker 1: of him across from a competent number one, so that
Speaker 1: Atlanta spot makes a lot of sense to where you're
Speaker 1: getting the most out of him. And then you know
Speaker 1: Drake London's or Michael Pittman from the example that I
Speaker 1: gave earlier.
Speaker 3: All Right, everybody, let's stop down for one minute. We'll
Speaker 3: take a break, and then we'll continue on with Matt Harmon.
Speaker 3: All right, we're back. So along those similar lines to
Speaker 3: Mark's questions, so we've now hit on the mount rushmore
Speaker 3: here if you will, of prospects at this position. Let's
Speaker 3: talk superlative for sleeper stud So who's flying under the
Speaker 3: radar here a bit as a twenty twenty four. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying super or number one wide receiver, but a
Speaker 3: guy that steps in and is an immediate difference maker,
Speaker 3: like a Nico Collins, and then he develops and turns
Speaker 3: into a star, like, who is the difference maker that
Speaker 3: people aren't talking about.
Speaker 1: I really like Ricky Piersaw is kind of my favorite
Speaker 1: guy that's in a few tiers down fun player. I
Speaker 1: think he's a really good route runner. To me, he
Speaker 1: seems like a guy that's just going to be a
Speaker 1: quarterback's best friend very early on, because he's really good
Speaker 1: on like slant routes and flat routes and these sort
Speaker 1: of just routes around the line of scrimmage. But he's
Speaker 1: got legit juice down the field. He's a guy that
Speaker 1: you see on film play all three positions, so you
Speaker 1: see him a little bit at X. I think his
Speaker 1: most likely home in the NFL is going to be
Speaker 1: as a flanker slot, like a guy that moves between
Speaker 1: those two positions, someone that I think has that sort
Speaker 1: of floor that you're talking about early on Dan where
Speaker 1: he just gets open against man's own coverage. It's a
Speaker 1: little more average around press, but again there are ways
Speaker 1: to hide that. You get him working around the line
Speaker 1: of scrimmage. He's a quarterbacks best friend. He's always at
Speaker 1: the right landmarks. He's always at the right place in
Speaker 1: terms of where you want him from a route running perspective,
Speaker 1: but I do see the upside for him to develop
Speaker 1: into like one hundred and twenty type of target player
Speaker 1: in year two, year three. I think that there's a
Speaker 1: chance that he goes higher than people think, just because
Speaker 1: he checks a lot of like athletic measurements as well
Speaker 1: that you really want to see. So he's been a
Speaker 1: guy that outside of the first couple tiers of this class,
Speaker 1: that I've really gravitated to from.
Speaker 2: I don't know, a.
Speaker 1: Sleeper perspective, because more people are talking about him now
Speaker 1: than they were at the beginning of the process, but
Speaker 1: definitely a player.
Speaker 2: I like.
Speaker 5: It's the draft process. Everyone talks about everyone. It's un right.
Speaker 5: I'm almost disappointed though, that he was your answer, because
Speaker 5: he's really one of only two options for my next category,
Speaker 5: which is just white guy that Mark is going to
Speaker 5: fall in love with. There's really only two guys, probably
Speaker 5: towards the top of the draft unless.
Speaker 6: I yeah, mcgreg it's the other guys, so you set
Speaker 6: the table. Well, oh okay, I'm just well, it's up
Speaker 6: to Matt though to guess.
Speaker 3: There's no way the guy isn't Ladd McConkie. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's just no way.
Speaker 4: Gotta be. It's gotta be.
Speaker 1: But the the great But of course, but the best
Speaker 1: part about Lad McConkie.
Speaker 3: Somewhere Zack Zenner just got like a shiver and he's
Speaker 3: like someone is thinking of me.
Speaker 4: Wasn't Zach Center was in the news for something recently,
Speaker 4: like in.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and six during the preseason.
Speaker 1: Maybe now, I swear to god I saw something about
Speaker 1: like he went back to school or started a business
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I'll deep dive that for you, Mark
Speaker 1: and send you the article after the show. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Lad McConkie, the great part about him is that he's
Speaker 1: not just your typical like lunch pale, gritty, white slot receiver.
Speaker 1: The guy legitimately wins on deep routes and like actually,
Speaker 1: in terms of reception perception, the game sampled here he
Speaker 1: was more of an outside receiver. You saw him play
Speaker 1: a lot more. Now he does struggle against press coverage.
Speaker 1: He does struggle against in like contesta situations. But again,
Speaker 1: those are things you can get around from like a
Speaker 1: deployment perspective. You can move him inside. You can also
Speaker 1: move him off the ball, like so many of these
Speaker 1: receivers now I think are going to have their worlds
Speaker 1: opened up by how much motion is going on in
Speaker 1: the NFL right now, especially these like full speed motion
Speaker 1: that a lot of smart coaching staffs are using. So
Speaker 1: McConkey could be a guy there, But I think he
Speaker 1: runs the best out routes in the class. Like just
Speaker 1: pure I'm selling vertical routes and then I break to
Speaker 1: the outside. That's Lad maconkey. To me, his success rate
Speaker 1: on out routes is among the best in the class.
Speaker 1: It's among the best of the last few years. So
Speaker 1: when I was trying to think of like a cop
Speaker 1: for him and go beyond the gritty white slot receiver cop,
Speaker 1: because I don't really think that's how he he plays.
Speaker 1: I like went into the RP database and looked like
Speaker 1: who has some of the best out routes since twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and Tyler Lockett popped up as like a comparison player,
Speaker 1: And I think that's sort of the kind of the
Speaker 1: bucket that Lad fits into. If he can play inside,
Speaker 1: he can also play outside, and he's more of a
Speaker 1: speed based slot receiver when you do line him up.
Speaker 6: There, I've got one for you, Like if you Matt
Speaker 6: Harmon had to write like a Shakespearean sonnet to you know,
Speaker 6: not one of the stars that we've talked about, but
Speaker 6: like a girl next door type of wide receiver. That's
Speaker 6: a weird way to put it, but just like a
Speaker 6: little under the radar, like who would you pen the
Speaker 6: sonnet too?
Speaker 2: And of your affections?
Speaker 1: Uh pearsall would have been an option, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm intimidated by the leg tattoo, So I'll go with
Speaker 1: Malik Washington, who actually went to school in Charlottesville, nearer
Speaker 1: where I live now in Virginia Beach. Guys, just like
Speaker 1: a fun player I don't know what the ceiling is for,
Speaker 1: you know, a smaller receiver like this that really only
Speaker 1: has like one year of major production. But I mean
Speaker 1: he's got fantastic hands. He breaks a ton of tackles,
Speaker 1: like he plays bigger than his size. So if I
Speaker 1: was writing kind of that sonnet to a player, I
Speaker 1: definitely think i'd pick Malik Washington as kind of the
Speaker 1: deeper sleeper.
Speaker 5: Here it shows how hard that this class is crazy,
Speaker 5: because it feels like, you know, six receivers could go
Speaker 5: in the first round or something, but it almost feels
Speaker 5: like there's like nine or ten guys who could be fire.
Speaker 5: There's like five or six guys who could be that
Speaker 5: fifth or six, and there's not really a consensus who
Speaker 5: it's gonna be, And then that means there could be
Speaker 5: like ten to thirteen in the second through two rounds,
Speaker 5: Like Malik Washington is not a name I've even heard,
Speaker 5: as probably in the first three rounds, there's like fifteen
Speaker 5: to seventeen guys, and it really seems like there's a
Speaker 5: lot of disagreement where there could be ten to twelve
Speaker 5: guys that could go anywhere from like pick twenty five
Speaker 5: to pick seventy five, which is just crazy in terms
Speaker 5: of what flavor. Like if you're running a team, which
Speaker 5: guy who's athletic do you not really trust? Like an
Speaker 5: awesome athlete that maybe is in that bucket of like
Speaker 5: he could go pretty high, but that you're not really feeling.
Speaker 1: I haven't really had that well, I don't really have
Speaker 1: any like true full field athlete. I do think that
Speaker 1: the Xavier worthy for two to one, the speed part
Speaker 1: of it, if that if that pushes him up in
Speaker 1: the first round, that's gonna make me just a little
Speaker 1: bit nervous. I think he's much better at doing like
Speaker 1: real wide receiver things than some of these other kind
Speaker 1: of smaller speed based receivers. But he's just not good
Speaker 1: at contest the situations. He's a guy that's gonna have
Speaker 1: to kind of be used in one of these specialized
Speaker 1: roles where he's full speed motion at the snap. That
Speaker 1: that's definitely great, Like teams want viable target earners in
Speaker 1: that position now, so I can see the vision there
Speaker 1: depending on the coaching staff. But there are just a
Speaker 1: lot of other receivers that I prefer in terms of
Speaker 1: that can give you like high volume perspective, like high
Speaker 1: volume type of season. So he's one that if you
Speaker 1: went in the first round, I'd be a little nervous.
Speaker 1: If you went in the second round, I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I see where your.
Speaker 2: Vision is there.
Speaker 3: To that point, I'm totally with you. Player like that
Speaker 3: with that skill set and that flash you got, where
Speaker 3: he ends up is so important and what coaching staff
Speaker 3: and what the surrounding talent is you kind of you
Speaker 3: have to have a a scheme that knows how to
Speaker 3: use a player like that.
Speaker 2: You kind of hit on a question greg I had.
Speaker 3: I was asking kind of who to you might be
Speaker 3: more LaQuan treadwill Well then justin Jefferson. So a guy
Speaker 3: that is so there is there a guy to you
Speaker 3: out there other than other than four two one that
Speaker 3: jumps out to you as someone that you think is like, oh,
Speaker 3: if I were running a team, I'm staying away or
Speaker 3: are you just like this clay Where there aren't.
Speaker 2: A lot of red flags out there.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of red flags in terms of
Speaker 1: the early guys. Because I know some people don't like
Speaker 1: Adie Mitchell, the other receiver from Texas. I actually like
Speaker 1: him better than Xavier Worthy, just because I think you
Speaker 1: see him do like real NFL X receiver things, and
Speaker 1: he's definitely a volatile prospect, but I can understand chasing
Speaker 1: the upside there. The guy that I've been kind of
Speaker 1: like back and forth on where my feeling on him
Speaker 1: to changes depending on the game that I chart is
Speaker 1: Xavier Legette, who some people do have as a late
Speaker 1: first round pick. To me, that's definitely pretty rich despite
Speaker 1: the fact that he's got great tackle breaking ability and
Speaker 1: he shows an ability to get open on certain routes
Speaker 1: at that size, it's very impressive to see him working
Speaker 1: out there. But at the same time, I do think
Speaker 1: he is a developmental player that might take a few years,
Speaker 1: and even like that type of average separator is typically
Speaker 1: like it matters even more where he ends up because
Speaker 1: you've got to find the right quarterback to to sort
Speaker 1: of see that, like sort of see that vision if
Speaker 1: he's gonna be an outside player, which I do think
Speaker 1: is gonna be the case. Like I look at another guy,
Speaker 1: Keon Coleman, who's not a separator, but if you look
Speaker 1: at his reception perception profile, I won't bore you guys
Speaker 1: with like the very hardcore percentile stats.
Speaker 4: With this, get dirty, get dirty with the numbers.
Speaker 1: There's another say there's another drop. But like over the
Speaker 1: over the last few draft classes I've charted, there's a
Speaker 1: handful of players that have been below the thirty fifth
Speaker 1: percentile and success rate versus man zone and press coverage
Speaker 1: or at least two of the three. Almost all of
Speaker 1: them have been total flameouts except five guys, and they've
Speaker 1: all become like big slot receivers like Rashi Rice was
Speaker 1: an outside receiver who didn't really get open. He moved
Speaker 1: inside in the NFL found career success in year one.
Speaker 1: I'm on ross Saint Brown. He was good against zone coverage,
Speaker 1: but wasn't really great against man and press coverage as
Speaker 1: an outside receiver at USC, moves in the slot, has
Speaker 1: a great season, has a great career, obviously. Jujus Smith
Speaker 1: Schuster another one struggled beaten man press coverage outside as
Speaker 1: a collegiate player, was a big slot receiver in his
Speaker 1: good year with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Like I see that
Speaker 1: vision with Keon Coleman, where he's a guy that is
Speaker 1: below that thirty fifth percentile mark and man and press coverage,
Speaker 1: but it's a pretty solid zone beater, and he's pretty
Speaker 1: good on these routes like dig routes and slant routes,
Speaker 1: and so if the right team takes him, you know
Speaker 1: that has a coaching stat like the Chiefs they take
Speaker 1: Rashid Rice. I talked to Rashid Rice at the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl kind of asked him, like when did the vision
Speaker 1: of you becoming this receiver, like a big slot receiver
Speaker 1: sort of when did that materialize? And he said it
Speaker 1: was right after he was drafted, and like Brett Veach
Speaker 1: talked about in the post draft presser, they saw him
Speaker 1: as like a juju kind of replacement for them, which
Speaker 1: was weird. To me because he was mostly a pure
Speaker 1: outside receiver in college. So the right team takes Keon
Speaker 1: Coleman has that vision for him. I can see that
Speaker 1: working out with Lagett because he's a ball winner and
Speaker 1: like he theoretically is more of an like a straight
Speaker 1: line athlete. In my opinion, I think he has to
Speaker 1: be an outside receiver and in that case is going
Speaker 1: to take kind of the right team to really maximize
Speaker 1: that skill set.
Speaker 4: He looks like the freakiest maybe of any of these.
Speaker 5: It's a little worrisome that you're like a fifth year
Speaker 5: senior that you know, for various reasons, didn't have production
Speaker 5: before you were twenty three, playing against some nineteen year olds.
Speaker 4: But if you just like, look at this man running down.
Speaker 5: The field, he's a total He looks like DK Metcalf
Speaker 5: or A J.
Speaker 2: Brown.
Speaker 5: So some team has got to fall in love with
Speaker 5: that at some point and just try to make it work.
Speaker 3: And don't forget greg that Tommy Callahan, son of Big
Speaker 3: Tom Callahan, after a rough start on the road with
Speaker 3: his colleague, ended up making Callahan's break pads hugely successful
Speaker 3: in Tommy Boy. So just because you might he was
Speaker 3: an eighth year senior as I recall, and Tommy did
Speaker 3: just fine in the end.
Speaker 2: A trenching point in nice thanks, nicely.
Speaker 3: Done, thank you, last thing before we let you go. Macaus,
Speaker 3: I know you're busy. Whither rock Bowers M. I don't
Speaker 3: chart tight ends. Man, No, I love I love it.
Speaker 2: I love the man that was last year.
Speaker 3: Last year was a for The man has a code
Speaker 3: respect code methodology.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: It is a serious code. Because the Kyle Pitts bros.
Speaker 1: Have been, you know, banging on my door for years
Speaker 1: now about like where's our Kyle Pits reception perception chart?
Speaker 1: And I have two reasons why I only stick to
Speaker 1: the wide receiver position. One is kind of the the
Speaker 1: statistical reason that I've been doing reception perception now in
Speaker 1: these wide receivers for ten plus years. Like you know,
Speaker 1: I've been working on this for a long time. I
Speaker 1: have a very understanding of what the data show, very
Speaker 1: good understanding what the data shows us, right like you
Speaker 1: did you score this against man coverage? I understand where
Speaker 1: your position should be. I should understand like what thresholds
Speaker 1: are that all that type of stuff. To start a
Speaker 1: whole new database with tight ends, we're starting from square one.
Speaker 1: The second reason is can if I can work blue
Speaker 1: on this show? I got enough show on my plate. Okay,
Speaker 1: like I got I got enough wide receivers on my plate.
Speaker 1: Right we're talking about there's you mentioned Greg, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be eyes that come off the board in the third
Speaker 1: round that I'm not gonna have a route chart for.
Speaker 1: And it's gonna it's gonna make me nervous, it gonna
Speaker 1: make me feel weird.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: Let's be fair, though.
Speaker 3: We began this conversation with you saying, James Co your
Speaker 3: partner with reception perception, who, by the way, is one
Speaker 3: of the great showmen and hosts. But he wants to
Speaker 3: bite at the apple and he wants to start studying.
Speaker 3: He wants to start charting. Give him tight ends, throw
Speaker 3: him that bone. Let's expand the property.
Speaker 1: I would love to James, this is your call. Step
Speaker 1: up to the plate, buddy, contribute contribute to the to
Speaker 1: the charting here. I mean, listen, this is what we
Speaker 1: did with Derek Lassen, who does great work on quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, Derek is a free agent not
Speaker 1: working for football outsiders anymore. Let's get him to chart
Speaker 1: quarterbacks for reception perception. Dot com and that's what he
Speaker 1: does now, So aspiring tight end whisper out there. Yea,
Speaker 1: this is this is your call. Come come chart tight
Speaker 1: ends for reception perception and that's how we'll get it done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I don't think.
Speaker 6: I don't think like tight end perception is gonna work
Speaker 6: well on certain corners of the Internet. But that's okay,
Speaker 6: inside of your your great.
Speaker 3: I was gonna sat but that's a little, a little
Speaker 3: backdoor entry to get into the data.
Speaker 2: Nailed it.
Speaker 3: Matt Harmon at Matt Harmon underscore b y B on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Sorry Mark X. Also check him out on Yahoo and
Speaker 3: of course reception Perception dot com which has everything in
Speaker 3: the wider wide receiver realm. And if we're lucky, tight
Speaker 3: ends very soon. Matt, you're the best buddy.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you boys for having me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker 1: And can't wait to see where these guys actually get
Speaker 1: drafted and then we can have a real conversation about it.
Speaker 2: I can't wait, Thank God.
Speaker 3: All right, let's take a break and when we got back,
Speaker 3: we'll put a button on this.
Speaker 2: One welcome back.
Speaker 3: And uh yeah, I gotta get me myself a mythology.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's that does we didn't if we had
Speaker 5: to have a mythology. I think you're talking about like
Speaker 5: a methodology. You've created quite a mythology of oh, mythology. Yeah,
Speaker 5: methodology is I think methodology.
Speaker 3: Methodology, mythology, mythology, that's what you got.
Speaker 6: You've got that down. I think the methodology part of it.
Speaker 6: I'm just letting you know. I think you're you've got
Speaker 6: a lot going on too. Just like Matt was saying,
Speaker 6: like it would probably take about one hundred plus hours
Speaker 6: a week to create some sort of rival site to this,
Speaker 6: and you starting it back in twenty thirteen would have
Speaker 6: been a wise move.
Speaker 2: Are you ready to take that on now?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 2: Just like how does one come up with a methodology? Like?
Speaker 3: How does one like? How does that originate within one's
Speaker 3: own brain? That that, to me is something that I
Speaker 3: aspire to have an idea come into my mind that
Speaker 3: makes me think, not only is this an interesting idea,
Speaker 3: this might be a methodology.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is not the way you use the
Speaker 4: word methodology.
Speaker 5: You have done that, Dan, like that, this is that
Speaker 5: podcast the way you create different episodes of the shows
Speaker 5: and heighten certain characteristics from other people and that.
Speaker 4: Actually, that is your methodology. That's very nice. That is
Speaker 4: the correct usage.
Speaker 2: But that's not what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 3: I want something like Matt has, where people come off like, whoa,
Speaker 3: that guy is smart, that guy has his own methodology. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean listening to ATM and be like, well, Dan
Speaker 3: really nailed his methodology this week.
Speaker 6: But part of your mythology is this like state mandated
Speaker 6: mythology lagged hardcore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 6: Part of your mythology, though, is the fact that you're
Speaker 6: notoriously ill at math, that you don't have any skills
Speaker 6: at math, so you can't market you don't have to
Speaker 6: reverse market that.
Speaker 2: Let's that's true.
Speaker 3: Okay, Let's let's talk about Zach Xaner, real quick, undrafted
Speaker 3: rookie out of South Dakota State mark the preseason rushing
Speaker 3: leader in two thousand and sixteen when he rush for
Speaker 3: a buck eighty three on thirty five totes five point
Speaker 3: two yards per Carrie. I didn't really translate, and Zach
Speaker 3: is obviously long gone from the league, but he is
Speaker 3: active on social media. I just came across this late
Speaker 3: in our conversation with Maddie. Here it is Zach Xenner
Speaker 3: thirty one follow him. When someone tells me I don't
Speaker 3: have time, I think they don't have a strategy. I
Speaker 3: had twenty five minutes to eat lunch and shower and
Speaker 3: no prepped food parentheticals. Yesterday, put two salmon filets in
Speaker 3: the airfire, showered, then ate it with some veggies and supplements.
Speaker 3: Still made my two PM Part two.
Speaker 2: Was it my best meal?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: But I got my protein in and the nutrients came
Speaker 3: from unprocessed whole food sources. The key was that I
Speaker 3: had a plan in case I didn't have time to
Speaker 3: prepare my typical lunch. Strategies and plans are crucial for
Speaker 3: any goal, especially healthy and wellness. There you go, so
Speaker 3: Zaxy on the path to He's got his own methodology
Speaker 3: around health, fitness and wellness. So he's on that path
Speaker 3: in life.
Speaker 6: I think, I if you, if you look back at it,
Speaker 6: I I from a certain angle.
Speaker 2: I properly scouted him. Which angle would that be exactly?
Speaker 6: I mean, we're ten years later and he couldn't be
Speaker 6: more successful. He's writing long mantras about air fryars and showering. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and he's got more almost four thousand views on that
Speaker 6: first tweet.
Speaker 5: I'm sure he's a blast at parties. He was in
Speaker 5: the news recently as as Matt said that he's taken
Speaker 5: his mcat and he actually has a nutrition company, so
Speaker 5: it all it all, and he wants to be an agent.
Speaker 5: So he's got a lot, a lot of things going on,
Speaker 5: and you know, now we've got some some white receivers
Speaker 5: to fill his his place. I was surprised he went
Speaker 5: Pearsall there too, by the way, because Pearsall was a
Speaker 5: guy didn't didn't get me going watching him because those guys,
Speaker 5: it's a it's kind of a cliche to say that
Speaker 5: the white guys fit better in the slot and they
Speaker 5: tested out out of the him.
Speaker 4: There's got a better way to put that, well, but
Speaker 4: it's true.
Speaker 5: What do you mean, Well, it's like a big cliche
Speaker 5: that you put the white guys in the slot. There's
Speaker 5: there's not many white outside receivers for a long time,
Speaker 5: and these guys have crazy athletic scores. But Pierce All
Speaker 5: really is a slot guy, and that kind of limits
Speaker 5: I think where we would go. And McConkey, he mentioned
Speaker 5: like was not beating outside press coverage, Like it was
Speaker 5: not the type of receiver that you would normally see
Speaker 5: go on, but he snaps, he moves well like in
Speaker 5: some team is gonna fall.
Speaker 6: Don't you think Maconky is like pretty fun to watch?
Speaker 6: I mean I spent like, yeah, I didn't spin out.
Speaker 6: I can see working giant.
Speaker 2: What got me?
Speaker 6: That's what put me in the doorway because I was like,
Speaker 6: is he related to film a Coonkye?
Speaker 2: And no, there's no no relation. The internet.
Speaker 6: I guess if you, I mean, if you know, if
Speaker 6: you if you dug deep into the family tree, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm sure there is.
Speaker 2: But it's not like his son or something big fun.
Speaker 3: Can you dig deep into the Maconkie family tree and
Speaker 3: see if the four I'm a New York Giants wide
Speaker 3: receiver teammate of Sean Landena, I believe Mark who had
Speaker 3: a circus catch in Super Bowl twenty one against the
Speaker 3: Denver Broncos, if he is related in any way to
Speaker 3: the highly lauded draft prospect Ladd McConkie, Ladd la double
Speaker 3: d mconkie, thank you anything else?
Speaker 4: Boys, that's fun.
Speaker 5: It's such a crazy draft that there's guys like like
Speaker 5: Troy Franklin. He's got an outside chance to get drafted
Speaker 5: in the first round. Like we didn't even mention Harrison
Speaker 5: or whatever. There's just it's almost hard to like figure
Speaker 5: out which one is which guy here, Like Texas, for instance,
Speaker 5: has two we mentioned that could both go in the
Speaker 5: first round in Worthy and Ady Mitchell.
Speaker 4: There's just like guy upon guy upon guy. And that's good.
Speaker 5: Because as we talked about, there's like a million teams
Speaker 5: that have needs at the position.
Speaker 3: And you're right, it feels almost strange not to dig
Speaker 3: in on Marvin Harrison Junior and this episode, the one
Speaker 3: with the wide receivers. But I will say this, he
Speaker 3: is number two on Daniel Jeremiah's top fifty twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four NFL prospects that he just put out, and I
Speaker 3: don't agree with the decision, but I don't have full
Speaker 3: control of things, Like we will have Jeremiah on the
Speaker 3: show next week, and let's dig in on Harrison when
Speaker 3: he is with us. One last thought, because we have
Speaker 3: so many potentially high end wide receivers or certainly at
Speaker 3: the very least sought after wide receivers, and a reminder
Speaker 3: that not everything works. And of course Matt Harmon is
Speaker 3: going to be tracking this on RP reception, perception and
Speaker 3: a lot of these guys are gonna pop, but sometimes
Speaker 3: it just doesn't translate. I thought about with this many
Speaker 3: wide receivers this position, it's probably if you probably really
Speaker 3: do the dive, it's probably not that out of the ordinary.
Speaker 3: It certainly happens with the quarterback position for obvious reasons.
Speaker 3: But teams can go on runs in the first round.
Speaker 3: Two years come to mind, twenty twenty three. Last year
Speaker 3: four straight wide receivers. Seattle took JSN at twenty, the
Speaker 3: Chargers took Quenton Johnson at twenty one, Baltimore took Zay
Speaker 3: Flowers at twenty two, and then Jordan Addison went to
Speaker 3: the Vikings at twenty three. And then I had mentioned
Speaker 3: the Lakwan Treadwell, who did not work out from Minnesota.
Speaker 3: He was part of another run in twenty sixteen when
Speaker 3: Houston took Will Fuller at twenty one, Washington took Josh
Speaker 3: Dockson at twenty two, and then Treadwell twenty three. None
Speaker 3: of those guys really made it well, Fuller almost did
Speaker 3: but then disappeared. Strange, So I wonder if we're going
Speaker 3: to get that, if we're going to get this year
Speaker 3: another one where we get a run of three or
Speaker 3: even four guys in a row.
Speaker 2: I think we will.
Speaker 6: But I think so we're going to get I still
Speaker 6: look at I know it looks like the best class
Speaker 6: we've ever had during our show, clearly, but forty percent
Speaker 6: of them are going to be on the same team
Speaker 6: three years from now.
Speaker 4: I believe it's different.
Speaker 5: The receiver has hit well, Like you look at that
Speaker 5: AJ Brown class and granted those guys it was crazy
Speaker 5: because they went and the second McLaurin was in the
Speaker 5: third they were all over the place. A lot of
Speaker 5: the like it. To me, it's hit at a higher
Speaker 5: level than other positions. And the difference this year is like,
Speaker 5: I'm pretty confident Brian Thomas would have gotten drafted over
Speaker 5: all those receivers last year, and he's four here, Like
Speaker 5: I think he'll go top top twelve, top fifteen. So
Speaker 5: it is a better class than I think we've seen
Speaker 5: in the last few Then there'll be some boomer Bus
Speaker 5: guys after that.
Speaker 6: Well, and like a rookie wide receiver contract is very
Speaker 6: valuable too. But I I I'm just saying, I'm telling
Speaker 6: you let's let's let's talk in four years and see
Speaker 6: where we are.
Speaker 2: It's not all gonna be starters and number one dudes.
Speaker 2: All Right, Mark, we get it, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean I don't know because I'm like I was
Speaker 6: like looking at but we don't have to dwell on
Speaker 6: it well because you know, I was looking at the
Speaker 6: draft class from just like three years ago and I
Speaker 6: find it relatively depressing, which one just like in general,
Speaker 6: what's happened to tons of players that we were squawking about?
Speaker 2: And I'm not you know, I get it. I'm not
Speaker 2: trying to go down that path. But it's like, oh, Mark,
Speaker 2: you sent it called Sonova bitch.
Speaker 4: I'm with you, though, but I think it's like, I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Said it first, but you know, we don't need to
Speaker 3: hammer it home that these guys play.
Speaker 2: I'm tapping it, understand.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 5: How about the twenty twenty two would be the closest comp,
Speaker 5: but this one would probably be viewed as better Garrett Wilson,
Speaker 5: Drake London, O Love.
Speaker 4: I mean those are all hits.
Speaker 6: That, yeah, but I'm not talking about the first five guy,
Speaker 6: and we're talking about like there's sixteen, like twenty people.
Speaker 6: Like the comps for the bottom ten are a lot
Speaker 6: of them are just sort of normal wide receivers, so whatever,
Speaker 6: we'll see Well, in half a decade, I will be right.
Speaker 3: Yes, we will circle back in exactly half a decade. Finally,
Speaker 3: one bit of update here, Big Funk, who never shies
Speaker 3: away from any challenge, including incredible photoshop work on the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four San Diego gray Beard's Media Guide. He
Speaker 3: has a date. According to Randy, this is a direct quote.
Speaker 3: There is no reported relation between eighties mconkie in twenty
Speaker 3: twenties mconkie.
Speaker 4: Well that was what Mark said.
Speaker 3: That was reporting, right, But we threw it to Randy,
Speaker 3: so if you want it, if it makes it feel
Speaker 3: more official, Randy is officially.
Speaker 2: Going on record that there is no relation. Well, I appreciate.
Speaker 6: I appreciate Randy, but it doesn't feel any more official
Speaker 6: to me because I went and researched it like like
Speaker 6: this week myself.
Speaker 2: But that's fine, Oh, Raby, this isn't good out.
Speaker 3: For you, Randy says, We'll take this, mister Cinek. The
Speaker 3: mconkie name originates from Irish.
Speaker 2: Del Riata delta dan Tarriata.
Speaker 3: It's Gaelic, I guess, so while not direct, there may
Speaker 3: be something somewhere down the line.
Speaker 4: Well, sure, we're all related somewhere down the line.
Speaker 3: If you go far enough back, you know what I think,
Speaker 3: that's that's a great way to the end end the episode,
Speaker 3: greg that we are all, we all bleed red, and
Speaker 3: we might not all look the same, but we are one,
Speaker 3: even if we are not the same.
Speaker 2: Till Monday heat the b