NFL Combine Preview + Cover 3 Mailbag | College Football

Welcome back to the Cover 3 Podcast with your hosts Chip Patterson, Tom Fernelli, Danny Cannell, and Bud Elliott. It's your call for the best college football coverage from National Signing Day to the National Championship and everything in between. CBS Sports presents the Cover 3 Podcast. And welcome back to the Cover 3 Podcast here on CBS Sports. That's Tom Frunelli. That's Bud Elliott. That's Danny Cannell. I'm Chip Patterson. Coming to you live at youtube.com slash cover3 and everywhere to get your podcasts on demand. Thanks for hanging out. Smash that subscribe. Smash that like and come and join us in the chat, a.k.a. the Cover 3 tailgate, where Ryan and Dash and Dirty Dogs and Lane and Joey all have comments and questions that will join our interactive show here on a Thursday. A couple of questions from the big old bag of mail. But, of course, as you see it, we are going to be diving into the NFL Draft Combine. On-field activities begin on Thursday in Indianapolis. And so let's go to the tailgate before we jump into a news item or two because at 9.52 a.m. Eastern Time, our guy BL1632 asks, Danny what was your experience at the combine get any weird questions or interview experiences Danny Canale your pre-draft process what do you recall from that time uh I remember it being super stressful you know like I mean it's the biggest job interview life you don't know where you're gonna get drafted you hear a ton of different rumors you know your agents telling you different things. Um, I remember, you know, they always did the drug test super early. So I remember having to wake up at like 5.00 AM, you know, 5.30 AM to do your, you know, urine test right away. I remember it's just, you're very stressed about that. You're very stressed about that, but it was, it just added to the length of the day. Like it was exhausting, you know, cause you had to get up so early and then you go through these meetings and it's basically like speed dating, uh, speed dating. You get about 15 minutes in each room. And so you go in and you're talking to the Eagle staff, you know, in some rooms, there's 10 guys in it. Some guys, there's two or three in it, but you're going from little conference room to conference room to conference room, shuttling through those. And that's where you do the interviews. And that's where you get some of the questions. And mine were, I didn't get too many bizarre questions, you know, maybe some like, cause my dad worked in the NFL. He was a team doctor for the dolphins. There may be something about that but most of it was more how much football do you know like tell me what you were doing like give me your two favorite plays and you know what was your favorite game what was your worst game stuff like that and what why do you think you struggled uh who was the best players you played against just kind of trying to get to know how much you knew about the sport how much you love the sport like hey you know and like the the players are so prepped now in the process they know exactly what's getting thrown their way um but the craziest thing was was john gruden was the quarterback coach for the philadelphia eagles at the time and i remember he did one of the more bizarre things wow he because i mean now he does his thing now with the cadence he didn't have me do a cadence thankfully he didn't have me yell because i was not very vocal at the time i probably would have just not impressed him but he was like all right i'm gonna give you a play tell it right back to me, you know, and he, and then he gave me this long play that I had never heard before. And you had to spit it right back. So it was like, uh, King, right. Trip wing, Sadie Q B two 35 quarterback pass wing eight, Y six, bam, say it back to me, say it back to me. And you're thinking like, Oh my, and you just have to repeat it. He like wanted to test your recall. And it was, um, it was bizarre. I don't think I aced it, which is probably why they took Bobby Hoying over me in the third round and I dropped to the fourth round. But that was one of the things I remember. And it wasn't like Gruden was a hot name, but it really stuck out to me because he had me do this thing that was kind of out there. The other thing was wild. The New York Giants famously had a psych evaluation that players hated, like you didn't want to do it because it was 400 questions. And it was all, that was bizarre. That was, do you like dogs or cats? Do you get faint at the sight of the blood? Are you closer to your mom or dad? Like a lot of yes, no questions. And there were like 400 of them. How long did it take? If you were an animal, what animal would you be? Were you, it's so funny as you were telling that story, I would think knowing you, but I won't, I mean, I've, I didn't know you then, but I would think knowing you that you would do well in some of those interviews. Do you think that you are not the same sort of like, You said you weren't as vocal. I was fine. I think I was a good talker, but I was not very loud. I never liked my cadence, even in the NFL. I don't think I was great at pulling guys off sides. There are some guys that are just really good at it. I was not somebody who had a really great voice, like a deep baritone. I'm always jealous of dudes that have good cadences. But as a conversationalist, as a professional. The Giants had a psychologist on the staff, and he told me, he said I had one of the highest scores they had ever received. For like presents and – Which kind of tells you how garbage the exam is. It doesn't really predict how good you're going to be at the next level. Because all I kept thinking was, what would you want to hear from a franchise quarterback? It wasn't even necessarily me. I'm like, well, maybe I'm closer to my mom, but there's no way I'm going to say I'm a mama's boy. I'm closer to my dad. Like that was going through my head the whole time with every question was, what do they want to hear for a franchise quarterback? You know, and you think leadership, you think of competitiveness, you know, so I was thinking about from that angle every time, even if it wasn't truly who I was. Oh, oh, mute. Oh, I got it. Oh, wow. That's okay. Good, good, good, good. When you were at FSU, had they simplified the play calls to run the fast break? Oh, my gosh. Our playbook was a joke. And that came out probably a decade later was how simplified the offense and defense was at Florida State. I mean, Mickey Andrews just ran a lot of man and just had his guys press and just had dudes get after the quarterback. But in the offense, we had like a little notepad. It was probably something like this, this big, and it was like a spiral flip over. And we would get this at the training camp coming in, and we would take notes, and Mark Rick would draw the offense on the board, and we just wrote notes. We didn't have a playbook. Like in most schools now, everybody has them. We just took notes and kind of memorized it, and we really didn't do that much different over the four years. And it was something that Mark Rick told me my freshman year. He's like, you guys might feel like you're swimming now, but by the time you leave here you'll be able to teach this at the board and sure enough probably by my second year i could teach it but there wasn't a lot of new stuff i mean our stuff that was kind of we didn't have playbooks it was more memorization and a lot of it was language because we just because we ran the fast break no huddle we had different code words you know that we would use to call the different plays so we were constantly mixing those up but the concepts we were running weren't real complicated and it wasn't like we did a bunch of different stuff that was the biggest jump for me the nfl wasn't the speed it was the the playbook and consuming so much more formations and you know language and newer plays every week you're putting in new concepts we didn't do that very much at all maybe a wrinkle or a trick play that was it you guys really ahead of your time then as far as like i mean fast forward what 10 15 years when when tempo was really taking over college ball like everybody was just one word place right you know or uh or the the meme face on the board right yeah exactly um you know and and i wonder i wonder how much the nfl has like the nfl has obviously stolen a lot of stuff from college i wonder how much the nfl has like kind of come back to college to where, you know, you don't end up missing on a guy because he can't call out a 15 word play. Right. Right. Right. Like, you know, is that really the best way to utilize your talent? I'd be curious just to know like how complex the calls are now in the NFL. Yeah. There was a couple, I know, I think it was the Rams with Mike Martz who were very numerical, you know, it was like the play was like seven, six, seven, you know, or, you know, Like it was that was that simple was quick short, but they're still like when I was in Shanahan's and I think Kyle Shanahan's running a lot of the same stuff. And that's kind of the West Coast offense. It's pretty wordy, you know, and I think I saw Matthew Stafford in a huddle. He was talking with McVay and he was like, yeah, like, shut up. I got the play because it was taking so long to get in. But he knew what it was going to finish and it was pretty wordy. So I think it just depends on the systems. so would you guys just so i mean usually it's what protection concept a tag would you guys like you guys would one word that or you just like ours was so easy so we ran a lot of shotgun just four wide receivers shotgun formation and it was no huddle so we all i would do every time was set the strength so i would be yelling as soon as the play was over if it was the ball was on the left hash i would be saying right like that was the strength right right right like right gun we didn't have to say gun because everybody knew it so i'd just be going right right right to get the receivers on the right side of the field and then the protection you know i'd say 560 560 and then i would give a signal for a vertical or you know smash was this you know we had a couple different things but it was and we'd had we had our shallow cross concept which was big at the time was running shallow cross series and it'd be one z you know one was shallow cross z was running it and then everybody else knew what they were doing or it was one y you know and you'd go like this for the y signal or one x and you just had to go one x and everybody kind of knew what to do off that and if you felt like they were getting a beat off it you might tell you know if you were one in one z which was basically a strong side concept and you had a hot on the back side you might call a double move to the x on the weak side just to keep modest you know something to something to throw some flavor in there or you know the one z concept was a shallow cross a curl behind it and work done on a flare and so oh that's a good play run to do that yeah how many guys when you guys didn't huddle would rick signal the plays in or would you have a ga do it he was upstairs in the booth right so usually jeff bowden was uh was the wide receiver coach he was the one signaling him in So was he always hot? Who? Oh, like, yeah, we did not have multiple guys signal. We had one guy, which is kind of crazy thinking about now how people still signals. And he even wore because it was kind of hard to find them. There's so many people on the sideline. He had like a wristband or like a big, like orange, something on his thing. Like it was, hey, everybody, I'm calling the plays. Like if they wanted to steal them, they easily could have without like very easily. I talked to a coach the other day, and he was like, when they started having four or five guys signal, we would research the bios of who these kids are. And so, right, and we're like, all right, who is the coach really going to trust to actually be live with the signals? It's probably not the fourth string quarterback who's high as hell most days of the week, right? Figure out the dummy. We're going to pick off – we are going to character analyze. Son of a coach. Son of a coach. Real gym rat. First one in, last leave. If you think you have the signal stolen from previous games or whatever, you're probably not – you could waste multiple series trying to figure out who's hot or who's live. So if you can kind of – like Prosted to the Nation, probably not that guy. And he's one or two series in. He's not really paying attention. And he's kind of half-assing these things. He's probably not live. And then you kind of narrow it down. And if you do your homework on it, you can figure, okay, they might be switching at halftime. right coach number three graduated from the naval academy right yeah that could be a good guy to do the signals yeah exactly yes trying to find the guy who's just doing like the fake hand signs for the sign language during the speeches just sitting there like oh yeah right did you ever uh did you ever think somebody had your calls no i we were so freaking good we were just better than everybody else like it was kind of like That's what it used to be like when the Cowboys were winning Super Bowls with the trio of Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith. They weren't doing a lot of complex stuff. And I remember them saying we were just executed better than everybody. And I did feel like with our system, even with the shallow cross concept, there was sort of an answer for whatever they were doing. So they might be able to take away one aspect of it, but there should have been somebody open. you know whether they blitz that we knew the hot concept whether they run in cover two you know we knew how we were going to beat it whether it was cover three like we we knew how to beat it but a lot of it was we just had a lot that much better dudes that we were just going to beat them yeah wasn't it the offensive line all awesome too yeah yeah they were incredible yeah did you guys call you in the huddle did what when you guys did huddle would you call like a lot of teams now they'll call two in the huddle and they'll check which one we did a check with me series which was probably my junior charlie's the national championship year we started doing more check with me and that was basically we were just running to a bubble you know on that we'd find the bubble on the offensive line and run that or you know if you were the safety came down you could flip it and go run away from the safety really basic stuff though wasn't too complex and like and we didn't really do double cadence you know that was kind of becoming more popular we had a freeze play that we ran a little bit but we were just starting to get into that where it was we were going to try to get them to jump off sides you would just it was called freeze play in the huddle so that the offensive lineman couldn't jump off sides because there's no play to run and yet every once in a while they would still they would still jump and i'd be like what are you what are you running like you're not supposed to know the play and they'd be like look up with that stupid look on their face like i don't know how many of your protections were you guys calling like a high level college football in like the early mid 90s we had so we had like a free release protection where there was just the five offensive linemen right you know backs out no matter what that's hot we had more of a six-man protection where he would stay in and then we had our traditional you know, max protection, which was 60 protection, which was a tight end in and both backs you know checking to make sure where you have seven man protected And then you had your play action you know concepts you know which wasn that complex You know, it's probably it, maybe five or six different protections. I'm sorry, we're kind of off the rails here. This is kind of, it's kind of interesting. Cause like, I mean, back then passing was kind of, a lot of the best teams had just started deciding to throw the ball around more. Yeah. shotgun was a big deal dinosaur okay no but it was like a lot of your high schools were still running some kind of option right the fact that we were in shotgun was a big deal and that was the fun and gun in florida the game scurrier was doing a lot of shotgun like it was only you only went in shotgun and third downs and like to be in shotgun for a whole half was like whoa this is groundbreaking and now everybody's in a gun i remember reading the newspaper here in florida So in 96, Florida had a crazy loaded team. FSU beats them in Tallahassee, beats the crap out of Denny Warfel. And all the newspapers like leading up to the Sugar Bowl for the rematch was Will Springer decide to like finally like give in because he was stubborn with it and go shotgun because they were all under center for, you know, for the most part. Right. No, I don't mean I don't mean to say Denny through the first four pass. I'm just saying like, you know, early eighties teams were not chucking it around very much. College football, like late eighties started a little more, but not everybody was doing it still. Yeah. I'm, I, I'm going to be thinking for all weekend about John Gruden, Pepper and DK with, with call a spider to why, but you thought spider to why banana was crazy. You know, he's, he's, he probably had that thing strung all the way out. He, have you, have you run into Gruden professionally? Yeah, I've interviewed him a few times. You know, when he was on, when I was at ESPN, we'd have him on the radio every once in a while. Have you forced him to answer a question if he just yelled out a call real quick and then forced him to repeat it to you? Oh, he would love it. He would love it. He'd spit it right back. Yeah, he would absolutely love it. Danny Cannell, great eyes, couldn't call a play. Horrible recall. We'll do a lot more NFL Draft Combine talk coming up in just a little bit. Quick little news item here coming across the desk yesterday afternoon. Cincinnati has sued former quarterback Brendan Soresby, of course now at Texas Tech, alleging that he breached his NIL contract with the Bearcats when he refused to pay a $1 million exit fee. Cincinnati's attorney said the quarterback's representative advised that Sorsby refuses to pay the university anything billable hours. But is this, do you, we have seen and discussed universities and specifically football programs opting not to pursue some of this legal recourse. Duke obviously did with Darien Mensah. But there are other cases too where I think we've said it's almost like a for future, you know, messaging to recruits or prospects, a little bit of your reputation among players. What did you make of Cincinnati actually choosing to try and get after Sorsby for a mill? I think the timing of this is interesting, right? So he, well, he had to pay within 30 days, pretty standard. Right. And didn't. But what's happened within those 30 days? you've seen other teams, you know, pay the buyouts, right? And so maybe Cincinnati is saying, and we've got to balance the factors here. Like, do we really want to be in the business of suing our players? I think other schools are interested in this as well because like, does it set the precedent that this is like an employment contract? Yes, these are all interesting things. Not a contract for NIL, which remember emanating from the house settlement, all this is supposed to be, you know, the rev share is for your NIL, right? It's not for your services on the field, of course. It's for your NIL, right? Because you don't pay long-term disability and long-term medical for NIL, of course. So I think there are people in the industry watching this pretty closely. But after Mensa, after what happened at Washington and other places that buyouts were paid, if I'm sensing, okay, it's a former player. and are we really going to have a bad reputation for this? Does it also have a chilling effect for other players deciding to maybe try to transfer out next year or not? I think they probably just balance the fact or say, okay, he owes us a million. Will we actually get a million? Don't know. Your legal costs start to rack up on this as well, obviously. So maybe if they can get something out of it, then they get some money back, right? All I know is, had I known this beforehand, I would not have had Swords be at six on my list yesterday. I would have knocked him down a few pegs. I mean, I want a quarterback who pays his debts. Speaking of quarterbacks, I thought our – did you guys find that this was a hard list to make yesterday? Yes. After the first. I mean, from like that seven to 15-ish range, there was like pretty much any guy I could have tossed in there and not felt terrible about. we all had a really similar top top four or five right that was so that'd be my question for you bud and buds you know buds list we were able to get at the end of the show and i know the the graphics been made where did you draw your line that was like one of our final questions like where where did you feel like you could say that's a tier and then you jump into the next set of debates and conversations yeah i um so like i didn't just among y'all's list who guys i didn't have, right? I didn't have Hoover, but it wouldn't shock me if he ends up being really good. I do think he's talented. No, no, but within your 10, like where does the drop-off happen? I thought it was kind of a four and maybe a five, like maybe Maiba, but Trinidad is really good too, and I do think Mensa's really damn good. So kind of like a mini tier at like four. I do think Dante, Julie, and Arch, and Carr are kind of a different level, and then maybe like a mini tier of like five, six, seven but i mean if geronica cal like if you told me hey he's the best quarterback in college ball next year i don't think he's going to be but it's not outside the realm possibility that like the based on the level of throws he made last year um and operating a dirty pocket which you know he had sometimes certainly that wouldn't totally shock me um don't forget cal also second in the acc and drop rate last year and they have retooled the wide receiver room through the transfer oh They're loaded at receiver, and they're going to need to be because their schedule gets quite a bit more challenging this year than it was last year. I think Sorsby is a little more of a runner than he is a thrower. 100%. We've got a lot of pushback from Georgia fans for not having Gunnar on there. They didn't listen to the show then. He's 11 to 25 for me, like a really valuable, nice college quarterback. Was I the only one who had Gunnar in the top 10? Yeah. I think so. I had him like 12, I think. Yeah, right. I took my list all the way out to 30, and Gunnar's still right there on the edge where I feel he's comfortably above some of those next 15 to 25, but he just didn't make my top 10, and so we'll see. Kirby's got your three faces pinned on the wall in that locker room right now. The other thing I felt too with mine, like the top, I would say five. I think I had a similar top four and I, you know, add one more in there possibly. I, I, it's like, all right, I get it. You disagree. Like I'm not ready to dig my heels. And like, if you disagree, I had turned out chambless a little bit lower. And we talked about that worried about him without Lane Kiffin and without Charlie Weiss. I'm like, yeah, I saw it. I get it. Like, if you want to have him in your top five, by all means, go ahead. Like it wasn't something, even though there was a lot of. Hey, you're an idiot type stuff. You don't even do. even watch games like I get that but I like most of the people that responded like there was a lot of mess to make her I'm like yeah I see it put them on your top 10 just didn't make mine but I think the one thing that was pretty overwhelming is how different this year going into season is last year because last year it was such a crap shoot so many guys first year starters new programs so much uncertainty the amount the level of talent that's coming back should provide a really fun year college football with some pretty high level quarterback play you would expect um one last thing on soarsby before i hit a break and then we get into nfl draft i could not help but consider that if brendan soarsby had transferred i don't know to anywhere not named texas tech with the the the money gun that it's like there's a little bit of like if you're cincinnati and you're doing the math on this is there public sentiment i mean every even the tailgate. As soon as we started talking about this story, it's like, oh, well, Texas tech can roll out of bed and peel off a million dollars. There's a little bit of this that does sort of check out in terms of Cincinnati might not be getting that much blowback because college football public at large just thinks $1 million isn't a lot for Texas tech to be able to help Brendan Soresby cover. And the reason why Brendan Soresby is at Texas tech, in addition to whatever his relationship status may be with anyone on the volleyball team, really does come down to Texas tech being one of the highest bidders for one of the top quarterbacks in the portal. Am I, am I wrong there? No, no, I, I, I especially with it being in conference. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta be able to draw some lines somewhere. So we'll see if anything does end up coming of that. Like Bud said, a lot of people within the industry just sort of just each one of these cases setting a little bit of precedent in a time where they're very, very murky rules and sort of standards for how some of these transfers and how some of these contracts are dealt with. Last thing, in doing the list, like Chip, you mentioned you went to 30. I was as well. There's so many teams that I feel like at least either feel good, really good, or you can at least kind of dream on their QB situation. She was like, all right, I could really see that working. You know, there's not a lot of programs like, oh God, that's, that's not it. there there are talented players in interesting situations yeah where i do think there's questions to be answered before i'm throwing all my weight behind them 10 toes down we'll see you know like hey byron brown at auburn right yeah whoa what's our mean median deviation bud like like like how what are our tail outcomes of the byron brown auburn offense i mean i feel like you know either away on that one. Yeah. I mean, I, I, like I've seen him a lot at USF. I mean, but hell, everybody's got TV. They've all seen him, right? Um, I think he's got some ability, you know, and, and some, some limitations as well, obviously like it, would he have already been P five last year if he wasn't coming off the injury, you know, maybe, um, in that offense, you can put up a lot of points, obviously. Yep. We'll be very interesting to continue to track the conversation. Thanks to everybody for weighing in on that. Coming up on the other side, NFL Draft Combine getting underway today in Indianapolis as connoisseurs of college football. We're going to weigh in with players that we're excited to see. Now, maybe how some of our opinions of these players are going to get tested by the NFL Draft analysts. We're going to take a look at Tom's latest mock draft and more nukes. sometimes um during the ad breaks uh it is a chance to check in on the tailgate you know i'm trying to be an active listener i'm trying to you know stay dialed in and i did i did not realize we're just we're going ham on on danny was at kitty hawk danny was at grass you know danny would you say the razor is one of the best inventions danny was at the trail of tears and uh and danny did you cry when they announced the attack on pearl harbor on the radio listen just because he through the first forward pass and was the right first shotgun formation ever goodness gracious all right so we did we opened the show with some of danny's memories of the nfl draft combine process obviously things have shifted a lot among the most notable changes that really stand out to me is got a lot of guys that aren't doing anything some guys aren't doing anything a lot of guys not necessarily going through the entire process uh i'm not going to get on a soapbox here it's not my box to stand on but a lot of micromanaging from these teams these representatives you know just trying to like carefully craft your draft stock so let's let's start with the stuff we are excited about um tom i know you love uh the golden dumbbells you know we like to give out some awards at the end of a draft combine process tom why don't you get us started let's let's start with players we're excited to see how they perform we watched them on the field now they're going to get tested they're gonna have some numbers beside their name who do you think is gonna end up really backing up some of what your eyes saw in college football I mean I'm happy that Jeremiah Love is running the 40 that tends to mean he feels like he's gonna do pretty damn well in it because a lot of guys at the top of the board don't typically do it unless they feel like they have to prove something but I think that that should be fun because I would like to actually put a number to it there's a lot of stuff that I'm with the top guys I'm excited to watch them But for me, like there is more with the under the radar guys, I guess, like guys that I have kind of on my board, but I don't really, I just want to see them in this kind of environment just to see how they perform compared to others. Cause it's like when I watch them on tape, I feel like they're pretty good and it's like, I want to see how they do as far as the competitions, but just as stuff to watch Jeremiah love running the 40. I'd like to see what his time is. Does Carson Beck throw? We know Fernando Mendoza is not throwing. he's doing it because he's saying he wants to you know get the spotlight on his guys at the indiana pro day to make sure that all the scouts come to have to watch indiana which is cool you know that's that's definitely 99 yards with the boys move um i want to see and this is somewhat mean i want to see caden proctor going through all the drills because i want to see how tired he gets that's my one thing on him like last year watching the tape he looked tired a lot and i want to see him going through those drills to see how heavy he's breathing. I want to see how that's going to impact his stock. But a lot of mostly it's guys that are under the radar. But one name I will point out that's a big name that I think could start a conversation that we've had for years, but this feels like the perfect kind of setting for him. Harold Perkins. I want to see how Harold Perkins tests in all these combine drills and how high he starts skyrocketing up some boards. and then we all just sit there like nodding quietly to ourselves like well where are you gonna put them how are you gonna use them we need to figure that out because but i will say at the NFL level they have done like with the defense that Mike McDonald and although that tree is now bringing in I feel like Harold Perkins might have a place at the at the NFL level that maybe he didn have in college But I don't know. It's going to be interesting to see the conversations around him. Yeah, like I, I kind of think Perkins should have gone to Texas Tech for like a little over a million just to be like a pure, you know, detached speed rusher type in that defense. but if he kills the combine stuff, somebody's going to, they'll look at Micah Parsons, and he's not that dude. Right. Parsons' speed to power stuff is just insane, but yeah, I'm really excited to see that. I think on Proctor, I want to see him in the reactionary stuff. I think when he knows what he's doing, he is really a special athlete, but I don't know that his reaction stuff is the best. You know what I mean? and that's like at this level everybody's pretty athletic relative to size like that that can kind of separate you some um is that what gets proctor on the field the moment he sets foot in college football but then the fact that he's built like like the heavyweight champion of the world yeah right right and that's what i'm saying on the earth pretty much yeah i mean you're saying the box jumps he does and stuff and he's probably going to do some drills that totally kill the combine like i would say freshman year caden it was a little soft sometimes i would say the last couple years he that's been eliminated but he's been he just gets gassed out from what i can tell he looks tired he's lazy at times when he gets b he looks like he's reaching instead of you know going and being the aggressor i that's my one thing with him conditioning because he is like he's he's an athletic freak and he's huge but i do wonder if he'd be better served to maybe lose some of that weight interesting i agree um another guy who's who's big uh banks from florida yeah like his good is really really good and i want to see like that that's a guy i think who could could kind of rock it up the charts a little bit you had him in your mock right tom yeah i had him first rounders i had him as like the first dt off the board simply because i think of the ceiling he has there's not a lot of dts in this class that i feel like are excellent pass rush guys and i feel like banks has the highest ability to be that because like bud mentioned like when he's really playing well like his flashes are like eye-popping like holy crap kind of stuff it's just it's inconsistent so you need to see that kind of effort on a down-to-down basis and he was banged up last year so obviously he missed time and that certainly played a role in it but even going back to the year before there's just there's some snaps where he just feels invisible i mean and the thing he just hasn't played a lot of snaps i like with the injury i was listening to some podcast on drive home from the baseball game I took the boys to. And I think they were saying he played like 800 career snaps or something like that in five years of college football. That's like crazy low, even for a DT or maybe lower than that. I just remember thinking, oh, that is odd. Is Bain going to measure? I mean, I think he will. it's it's going to be it's really going to come down to like what that front office values like if it's a if it's a very heavy analytical front office that is going to see like the arms and be like well we the measurables just don't work for us this early in the draft we can't do it then he's not going to go but there's going to also be a team that's just going to watch the dude play football and not give a damn yeah i i just think you're getting melvin ingram which which is great i'll Yeah. But he's got to be the right fit in your system. Yeah. I saw his, I think it was his interview this morning. Why should you be one of the first defensive linemen taken? Did you see it too? I love football. That one was like, I just want to play. Because I'm a monster. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. And he should want to go to a team that understands what he is and what he is not as well. Sure. Yeah. Danny what names are you excited to see and uh and definitely tune it in for over the next couple days I mean the QBs obviously um because there's a big void between Mendoza I think there's a pretty big gap between him and Ty Simpson and then there's a really big gap and who steps in to fill that Cole Payton from North Dakota State is somebody who's gained a lot of steam curious to see what he does in his testing Carson Beck curious to see if he does throw because I do think he was impacted by the offseason surgery you know if you talk to some of their coaches wasn't really feeling full strength till late in the year and might have even impacted them the whole way uh taylor green like size off the charts he's somebody i think just raw talent that the scouts could really fall in love with so qbs i got my eyes on i don't is ty simpson throwing i don't at the combine i don't know if he is either i think he should like i want to see all these guys throw and like Carson Beck I would unless you know if he's still bothered by it wants to play in a clean environment I get it but you'd think you by this time you would really hope that you're ready to go and I could see him impressing in a workout the number one indicator that a quarterback class is not great at the draft is when the FCS guy suddenly just like have you seen this guy he doesn't suck he might be good well I mean I think if at like the senior bowl stuff wasn't i mean it was peyton or diego right because you didn't have like beck was playing or you know all the way through the the end of the playoff simpson didn't do any of that right just for health reasons especially after taking that hit in the rose bowl what when you say you want to see ty simpson throw what what would you want to see in a controlled environment from ty simpson getting out there top tier like what is the overall deep ball strength what is his miles per hour because I think that's his limitations are he doesn't have the biggest arm in the world. So I would kind of see him be able to showcase the bigger arm throws. That's the couple, couple questions here that are, we'll start with the more relevant one. Zach says, who is going to run the fastest 40? One of the great, one of the pieces of this that I think a lot of football fans can just get down to is the the oldest like the oldest athletic challenge don't demand line them up let's go run who's fastest so who do we think is going to be who are going to be the players that really flash with fast 40 times zach branch zach yeah that would be my guess for receivers anyway. Arian Brown, the Kentucky LSU. He can scoot. Yeah. I think him. Dion Burks. I think he's more quick than fast, but I. Jeremiah Love, if he's wrong, I mean. I think, yeah. I don't think Jeremiah is going to be in like that 4-2 range, though. I think he's probably going to be closer to like a 4-4, which, you know, these days, God, you got a piano on your back, son? Come on, pick up the pace. but like I think you'll see some receivers closer to the four, two, whereas Jeremiah is probably gonna be like four, four Brennan Thompson from Mississippi state, getting some attention in the tailgate. I could see it. I'm looking at guys with track backgrounds. D'Angelo ponds. Ooh, I said he could run in the four, three potentially, you know, that could have scouts salivating over him. Cause I mean, he's not, when it comes to the other measurements, he's not going to be lighting up a lot of boards, but has he been officially measured? I think he was 5'9 on Indiana's roster. Is he a real 5'9? We'll find out. I mean, I love the player, but he's not a big boy. Let's see. I was trying to think. I don't care much about, because I'm looking at some of these articles, and I do see a lot of people reference miles per hour. I think they're more using the in-game speed now. I mean, the 40, you want to see confirmation like a guy's fast, but I don't think they get fooled as much by the guy that blazes in the 40 because he was a track guy and has great form and knows how to run straight line get off i think they're using more of some of the analytic stuff well the sports bras that they wear while they're playing yeah yeah so uh bane did measure uh so he has a 30 and 7 8 inch arm uh which is not spectacular some of the lowest on record for a d end uh melvin ingram had a 31 and a half so shorter than shorter than Melvin Ingram he does have a longer wing because he's wide he's got very wide shoulders yeah so 6-2 6-0-2-2-2-2-3 at the combine Melvin Ingram was 6-1 and a half-2-64 so they're a pound apart hand 9-8 hand for Bain 9-5-8 for Ingram hey call him a T-Rex if you want that T-Rex going yeah i just i'm not gonna overthink this somebody's gonna screw this up yeah like you look at the dudes who had arms shorter than 32 at the combine and play at the end i mean the list is awful like it's camele correa romeo mcknight carl lawson jamie blacknick marcus golden elijah ponder Wyatt Hubert out of Kansas State, Dean Lowry, Shida Ozugu, Ricky Elmore, Tyree Johnson, and Nate Williams. That's a hell of a list. I would still pick him. I would still pick him. Me too. Would absolutely still pick him. Two questions that came in before the show got started. They're a little bit fun. Cassius Howell, by the way, Ryan points out in the chat, is shorter. And I do think if you watch him, like, I think you got to use him like particularly as well, but he can cover. So, but I do think he gets swallowed up by big tackles. I think that he had a great run in Texas A&M season. I do not off the top of my head. I don't have his game log pulled up. I do not remember him being as much of a jump off the screen game wrecking superstar in the last four games. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like he, like there was a run there. We like, Oh my gosh, this guy's the one of the best players in the sec. Like Texas and Miami blocked him pretty well. There you go. All right. Who would win a cover three 40 yard dash? Not me. Probably DK. He played in the NFL. Let's go. The old guy, all these old jokes. and I still got it, baby. And DK, he runs. Do you do like sprint training as well? I was in a high yoga class this morning, a little fit 45. Let's go. Jumping around. I think Bud, that'd be an interesting race. I think it would come down to me and Bud, the Florida State guys. I'm not that fast. I'm better at the 100. 40's not good. It takes me a while to get to top speed. Who would win the 225? Tom, you putting up any weights or would that be Bud? Bud still gets down. Bud would beat me, I think. Pretty sure, but beat me. If it's a good shoulder day, I think I got Tom. If it's not, I'm just like, ah, I ain't playing this. That's your surgically repaired shoulder, right? Yeah, yeah, twice. And then this one backed it up. I got 275 on incline the other day for a couple reps. Wow. That's pretty impressive. What do you think your 40 time would be if you had to run it today? 4-5. Is it 45 seconds? Just for comparison, like, because we're out there at these events, right? The kids who are like, makes you worry for their long-term health obese, okay? Like your guys who are like 370 at, you know, 16 years old. And let's stipulate that's not a good 370 or not a good 350, which it's almost hard to have a good 350 at 16. At that age, yeah. Those guys are running like six and a quarter, you know? Really? Yeah. Because the start, the start's bad because they don't bend. And also their top speed sucks too. So I think all of us would crack six. I was thinking I could maybe, I was like five, eight, five, seven. You would crack six. I would be shocked if anybody's like below five and a quarter. Yes. If I got five and a half, I would be absolutely thrilled. Yeah. What did Brady run? 5-3? Remember his historically bad, ugly combine performance? I think it was a 5-3. I think it was that bad. I don't think I could beat Tom. He probably went faster now. Tom Brady? Yeah. I thought you were putting Brady Quinn on blast. No, no. Brady is a good athlete still. I bet you I would run like 5-8. those guys are so much faster than people realize, especially if it's on a combine, laser to laser start so you're not getting the hand thing. That's why I did not run at the combine. I wanted to throw. I was like, I'll throw, but I am not running. Like what a dozen Watson run. My pro day. 4-7-8 at the pro day, though. Followed up by a 4-8-2. And Danny Canale, that was with the new sundial technology to record. that was wind aided as well hold on you you did it like i was so fired up i felt like i was gonna be like because i was just hoping to break five like i just wanted something with a four and to run a four eight i was like oh this is great and i wonder still dropped you think there's anybody in media who's not like really recently retired who could still crack five do you remember joey galloway was like Like, he was running 4.5, maybe 4.4, like at 45. He's still somebody who does sprints. What does Rich Eisen run? That's a good question. That's probably who we need to comp this to. Like, could you beat Rich Eisen? Yes. He does it in the suit, too. He does it in the suit, too. I think he got, like, I think he did break six, but maybe at, like, a 5.9 something. Oh, 5.9.4. Okay, yeah. So, I think 5.8, 5.75. Like, you're a half second behind... you know the five and a quarter guys oh damien yeah i bet damien like of like if we extend the universe although he's a little out of shape i don't want to put my guy on blast you know he does say he's like i ain't working out i mean he likes to cook he likes to make you know i'm gonna text could you still run sub five you texted him i was gonna text him too yeah all right so b mac and And Damian. Damian gets it. Oh, BMAC. BMAC still got it. I think BMAC could get it easy, yeah. This should be a thing. BMAC versus Damian, 40-yard dash? I bet you Roddy Jones is still pretty quick. Noah! Hey, Noah! Noah's ears coming right now. Noah, get BMAC and Damian to race each other. That is NFL Draft Combine content right there. RG3, probably still really fast, actually, I would think. Yeah. Yeah Yeah I would say yeah Isn Dame youngest still under one Yeah like two Yeah he very young Different lifestyle And he just had the second, so it's like, yeah. Still, I'm just sitting around. Maybe he did run track in high school, I'm pretty sure, though. Yeah. But Dame always talks about, never mind, we don't need to put his injury history on blast. You know, both of them would beat me. Let me just say very clearly, Both of our CBS Sports College Football colleagues, Damien Harris and Brian McFadden, would smoke me in this. Anybody in the chat, like, could anybody in the tailgate run sub-five? No. Well, Moneyline Mateer doesn't always comment, but I know that John Mateer is a big fan of the show, and so I think John Mateer could get it. Especially the Thursday episode. Especially the last episodes. Sunny Styles, nice measurements there. Coming up on the other side, more NFL drift combine expectations. And we take a look at Tom's latest mock draft and more. Danny, they're doing you wrong in the chat, man. They're saying Desmond Watson would beat you in a 40. Wow. I'm like, they're making this dude walk around the field to lose weight. I'm pretty sure. Like, not jog. Walk. No, no, no, big man. We don't need you to run. just move a little bit. It's gracious. All right, Tom, let's, let's take a look at your latest mock draft. I know that it is up at CBS sports.com. When's your next update do my next mock will run Wednesday next week. Nice. All right. So let's, we got Mikey on the commands right here, Tom, I'll let you, you talk us through what we got and then Bud DK, we'll jump in. if you see something that stands out to you and we can we can dive a little deeper well first of all for for more in-depth analysis danny and i did an entire hour on hq over this mock draft you can find that on the cbs sports youtube page if you want to go watch it but uh yeah i've got fernando mendoza going first overall to the raiders i think that makes a ton of sense rfl reese second overall to the jets because there's no other quarterback worth taking i'm a little different i think than the consensus my first ot on my board right now is spencer for no at utah i've got him going three to Arizona, followed by our man, Reuben Bain, who again, I think you just watch the tape and worry about the measurables later. He's a football player, and I think he's the best edge rusher in this class. Francis Malinoa is fifth to the Giants, who I have below Fano, but the gap between them, not exactly wide. And then my top receiver in the class is Makai Lemon, so I've got him going sixth to the Browns, followed by David Bailey, who may be the role that Harold Perkins should have taken this year, going to Washington at seven. And then my guy, Jeremiah Love, who I was telling you last year was better than Ashton Gentry. He is still better than Ashton Gentry, and he will be better in the NFL than Ashton Gentry was. Going eight to New Orleans, he is going to just step right in and replace Alvin Kamara. Cardell Tate going nine to the Kansas City Chiefs. It's so weird. I think Cardell is a very smooth player. I am a little surprised that a lot of people seem to have him going in the top 10, including me, but some of that's based off what we're seeing and some of this is the fact that I just don't think it's an incredible wide receiver class and that's not a knock on Carnell it's just I don't know if I would have ever watched him at Ohio State and said that's a top 10 pick but he's probably going to be a top 10 pick I mean wasn't JSN at the exact same spot basically yeah seven eight nine I think JSN was more athletic but right but I'm saying that it speaks to the class yeah right where the draft is at that those two players in college we would have thought that they had a wildly different stock in terms of the NFL draft, but you're ultimately going to be measured by who else is in, in the pool and in the player pool, Tate is able to get a little bit higher. It's interesting. If you tell me that Carnell Tate is like a really good two in the NFL and plays for a decade, I'd buy that all day. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so is that worth a number nine draft pick? I think so. Like you get, you get 10 years out of a guy who's like a good two. And this year's draft. Yeah. At 10, I have Caleb Downs. who's one of my two favorite players in the class, but the other one's a running back. He's a safety. Those positions are just treated differently in drafts than they used to be. Number 11, my top corner, Mansoor Delane going to Miami, followed by Sonny Stiles, whose measurements we just saw at 12 going to Dallas. And now this is one that I would definitely not have if I were to do it today. Jermon McCoy, who missed last year with an ACL injury, is not going to be doing any of the drills at the Combine. To me, that is not a very good sign. So I'm going to guess he's going to be falling down some boards here. The medicals might not be great at the moment. And then the guy we talked about mentioned earlier, my first DT off the board, Caleb Banks going to Baltimore. And then 16, George Kittle. I mean, Kenyon Sadiq going to Tampa Bay. 18. Oh, wait, no, we're on 16. Sorry, I got my numbers mixed up. This is the name Danny wouldn't say on TV. Him and Jordan just did an incredible job of getting around. She kept rolling the end of the bus, though. She's supposed to be the home. The first 15 picks of the draft, Jordan would tell us to play her and then go to one of us to be like to say it. And this time Jordan's just like, she didn't even bother trying to say, she's like, Danny, who we got going to the Vikings here? Anyway, Olava Vega, Ione, I have him going to Minnesota in a mock trade. Minnesota jumps up in front of Detroit because they- Well, Jordan, it was a crazy year at Penn State. And you know, you look along the offensive line and this guy just stood out along the offensive line. This guy is- Why'd you have him there? Cash is all going- Come on, Jordan. You're doing UFC fighters now. You need to catch up on your vowels in a lot of these poly names. Cassius Howell going to the Lions. Just a bookend for Aiden Hutchinson. Jordan Tyson with the Jets' second pick. They don't have a quarterback yet, but they get another receiver. KC Concepcion going to Carolina. Keldrick Falk, the edge rush from Auburn. I have him going to Dallas. I don't know if you heard. They traded Micah Parsons last year. They don't really have a great pass rush. need to find somebody to fill it up and then here's the one where i knew i'd probably get some pushback ty simpson going at 21 to the steelers there's going to be a second quarterback taken in the first round probably going to be ty simpson and the steelers make a ton of sense mike mccarthy has done a very good job of developing young quarterbacks over these times so it seems like a good situation uh next i've got peter woods going to the chargers somebody who's gonna be interesting yeah he was a top 10 pick in a lot of the way too early mocks then in the offseason i i get it i i understand why people are so high on him i'm i am not as high as the industry consensus i think he's i mean i still have him going in the first round it's not like i think he sucks it's just i i feel like for somebody as talented as he is and as athletically gifted as he is i would i would like to see a lot more consistent production um avian trail i've got going to the Eagles, AJ Terrell's little brother. Clemson just does a really good job of producing corners. It's like every single year they've got a first-round corner on that team. I think that's another one. Caden Proctor, guy I've gone to the Browns. We've talked a lot about him already. I've got at safety for the Bears, Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, a Toledo player. It's one of those things when you're watching MAAC games or smaller conference games, like another player I'm interested in watching at the Combine this week is San Diego State corner Chris Johnson. You watch these G5, G6 games, and there's always like that one guy who's just kind of standing out, and you're just like, he looks a little bit different, a little bit quicker than everybody else out there, a little bit bigger. That's Emmanuel McNeil-Warren at Toledo. That's an NFL player. Next, going to Buffalo, C.J. Allen. They need somebody to help with their run defense, so why not bring Georgia's defensive coordinator in according to the season? Thank you for saying that. I didn't want to interrupt your flow, but are we believing that? yeah i mean you could if you trust your linebacker to make the calls let him make the calls and for those who aren't aware is he the green dot guy yeah yeah so somebody's calling him right or is he saying he said during the combine this week that glenn schumann would let him make the calls i don't think he's doing it exclusively but i think there were plenty of like up-tempo such situations where he was allowed to make the calls yeah i mean think think about the Ole Miss game, right? I mean, think about how many times that that would have been better for the defense for if you trust him out there. I mean, what a luxury if you're Glenn Schumann, be trusting one of the best linebackers in the country out there. But yeah, for those who aren't aware, he said that Schu gave him the full go in a lot of those situations to be making the calls. There is a new coaching staff in Buffalo, so CJ can double as the defensive coordinate perfect uh so i we got some answers from damien could you still run sub five and he sent me a voice note which i can't play on the air because the first word is something we can't say on this show and it ends with like no yeah okay i said all right second question could you beat b mac and he said no question oh so i'm saying this this is no no uh yeah so you're gonna have to find 40 i mean there's plenty of space in that if we're in vegas again i don't know where we're gonna be i've been living in one of those hallways it's a mess that's what i'm saying there's plenty of space yeah but if we're in india again we could just literally have them do it on the same fields yeah we still don't know where it is i don't think so Come on, Vegas. The coaches did not love that. No. Some of them did. No. Some of them did love it. Hell yeah, I'm out here with my college buddies. We're playing golf. Hell yeah, I'm going to go and jump in a fighter plane. PJ seemed to be happy about it. Brett seemed to be happy about it. Luke seemed to be happy about it. Illinois did a good job with it. I was thrilled with it. I think that to me seems like throwing the West Coast schools a bone, and now it'll drift back east. Now, whether it's a Chicago or an Indianapolis or like where it will be fun. Chicago would be good. Stewart and Hammond, Indiana. Let's see. All right. Back to Tom's mock draft. We'll finish it out. Sorry. Denzel Boston is up going next to San Francisco. I wrote about it in the mock, and I've said it. He just – I've watched him at Washington, And I've said that's a guy who would look really good in a Kyle Shanahan offense. So I'm literally just putting him in Kyle Shanahan's offense. The second Utah tackle to go in the first round, I've got Caleb Lomu going to the Texans who definitely need to address their offensive line. I also have Georgia tackle Monroe Freeling going next to the Rams, the least experienced guy, I think of the ones that are at the top of the board, but there's a lot there as far as his measurements. And you know, the tape is good too, but there's a lot to dream on with really like he can be better than you think he is at this point. one of my guys, I don't think he'll be a first round pick because I just don't think he brings enough as a pass rusher, but I wanted to get him in there. And it's something that I felt like Denver could use Lee Hunter, just that there's your run defense right there. That'll take care of the a gaps for the most part. And you can figure it out from that point. I just really enjoy watching him. Another one, people are going to call me a homer for, but gay back is to the Patriots coming off the edge with the 31st pick. I've watched Gabe for four years at Illinois. and I've said it, the player he reminds me the most of is Mike Rabel. So Mike Rabel drafts him. Makes sense. And then finally, last pick, the first down, another guard, Emmanuel Pregnone from Oregon going to Seattle, who I think could just probably look to add a little more depth to their offensive line. There's not a huge need on that team right now, but you cannot never afford to have enough offensive linemen. No Ty Sampson? No, I haven't gone to this. I'm sorry, sorry. I was reading Damien's text. Apologies. um danny itty what other highlights stood out from from y'all's uh breakdown yesterday and check it out on the cbs sports youtube page of course overall what do you think the strongest positions are offensive line edge rusher i think receiver i think i don't think there's a lot of elite talent in this draft anyway right i think that i would say the deepest position is offensive tackle. I don't think that there is a Hall of Fame kind of talent in the class, but I think there's a lot of guys who are going to be good NFL tackles for you. They might, more of them might end up on the right than the left, but I think it's very deep a tackle. I think it's deep along the defensive line as well. I don't love the wide receiver class. I definitely do not like the quarterback class. The running backs, I think, are pretty good, but the running backs in the draft, they just, nobody cares at this point. Like, you know, it's, there's the one guy who might go in the first round we might get a second guy going in the first round but for the most part those are always going to be your second third day picks and there's going to be plenty of good ones corners i think are fine safeties i think are fine linebackers i think are good so it's offensive line defensive line and probably linebackers would be my top three it's interesting though because i i agree with you on the wide receivers but still there's is that positional need why they're still going to end up being four or five wide receivers in the first round i don't it's like there's like a tier of pretty good you know that's the thing like the way i i look at this class there's like guys going in the top half of the first round would typically be second half of the first round early second rounders and just it goes that way all the way down we're like you're gonna have guys going a little earlier than maybe they would have in other years like just looking at the quarterbacks i like fernando mendoza a lot he would not have been my number one quarterback in last year's class he might not even have been number two so it's yeah it's it's that kind of draft a lot of the guys that are going to go first at their position this year might have been third or fourth at the position last year i like sadiq to the bucks i know all my bucks buddies really want to pass rusher like in the worst way i would i would drive i would draft kenny and sadiq first overall chip chip's got some feelings about kenyan he's He's got a little nastiness to him, too. Like, he's not just a, you know, detached, kind of softer receiver. That person was built to play the game of football. Yeah. Good golly. Started by 2026 watching that guy in warm-ups down on the field in Hard Rock Stadium. No pads on. I was telling Tom yesterday, doing that warm-up drill where, like, strength coach has got the resistance band and you're running against the resistance band. And I'm just like watching these, like the size and the strength. And I'm like, okay, this is... We're going to need a bigger band. A different human right here. Big Kenyan Sadiq fan right here, for sure. All right. It will be on all weekend. Then on Monday, cycling back with some NFL draft combine reactions. Come hang out 11 a.m. Eastern time. And you can follow him on Twitter at Tom Fornelli. You can follow him at Blood Elliott 3. You can follow him at Danny Caneo. You can follow me at Chip underscore Patterson. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you. See y'all.