Ranking the 2026 NFL Draft: Linebackers, Safeties and Defensive Tackles

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. It's a tough sport. It's not for everybody. You got to be a little sick to love this game. And we got some sickos. Welcome to NFL Daily, where linebackers are absolutely back. I'm Greg Rosenthal with me from across the sea. My friend Ali Connolly, who is a linebacker. Savant, would you say? Just an appreciator. Yes, we're going over linebackers. We're going over safeties. And we're going over defensive tackles, all the positions that most people ignore. We're going to go deep on today, Ali. I love it. I love when you get a linebacker draft and everyone says it's boring. And I'm just sat there in my room till like seven in the morning, grinding the film, saying there's just more linebackers oozing out of everywhere. I really do believe, yes, linebackers. Like we got a couple of great rookies. We got better play, I think, out of the veterans last year. And I do think people are coming around to the fact that, man, having a knockout linebacker who makes a difference on all three downs is like one of the most valuable things that you could have. And and having these two guys at the top of the draft, I know is big for you. Some background. What is your background with with the linebacker position and scouting specifically? Oh, well, early in my scouting career, I did seven years exclusively scouting linebackers, digging everywhere. Does Penn have one? Does Harvard had one? Is there anyone available to be drafted by the league? That was the bulk of my scouting career was focusing on linebacker play. That's awesome. And that's why, yeah, this is this is really the Ali Connolly draft. I hadn't really thought about that. And so let's let's just get going with the top of the board. In general, we can we can talk about it's a deep class. I think we'll get to that. And it's what you want out of like a fully loaded class at a position, which is there's some superstar talent at the top. There's some fun middle class talent. You know, we could have more first round linebackers and certainly a bunch of day two. And then there's also depth. But the reason I think for the casuals out there are that Arville Reese and Sonny Styles from Ohio State are right there at the top. And I think just to start the show, let's just note we're including Arville Reese in our linebacker podcast. You feel strongly about this. Ali, why is that? I feel strongly about it. First of all, let's just know those two played together. And it's maybe the most absurd linebacking tandem we've had since like the hurricanes are rolling in the 2000s. It's just preposterous. And I know he wants to be considered an edge. I know plenty of evaluators consider him as an edge. I think if you just go through the film and grade skill by skill, whatever your grading scale is, mine would be four to nine traditional NFL stuff that the the highest marks you give those nines, those eights, truly elite type traits map up to the linebacker work. Whereas the things where you have maybe some question marks, more so in the refinement and the technique than just the traits, the athletic skill is in the straightaway past rushing stuff. And there's a lot more development that needs there technically. And he's just solely reliant, I think, in the past rush game on true athleticism, just speed, power, speed to power and kind of winning a short edge and now athletes and people, whereas there is such immense technical refinement for someone so athletely gifted as a true linebacker. And I think those skills match up so perfectly with what is being asked of linebackers today. I think a little bit of the scouting parlance is going on through the draft season is looking at linebackers in the bucket of the 2010s, even back to the nineties and what they were asked to do and what the requirements were. This is what a lot of the elite guys being asked to do in 2026. So in this idea of what a linebacker is, you're not ignoring that he could be very valuable as a blitzer, as a past rusher, essentially in the Zach bond mold. I don't know if there's another comparison of like how you see him being used, but you see that as a linebacker, which is different than I think a lot, how a lot of people are viewing them. Yeah. I think that old school style, which Sony styles is more built in, which is you sit off the ball, it's really sift and find work. The front gets fractured. They kind of work through the space. They go and find the ball and attack that way. And then a release as blitzes the odd mug, double up blitzing from death. I do think R. Valoris can be a core part of like the pressure group and you move them around and you find matchups. If there's like a clown at right guard that he can just kill for 20 reps, you just send him to go do that for 20 reps. But the way the league is playing right now with so much movement and motion from the offense, you got to find ways to address it. And what the best DCs are doing is having an off ball linebacker who walks down to the edge and plays as an edge defender on early downs. Then you move them around, either in coverage or in the blitz game and move them around the formation defensively. I don't know why you wouldn't take the guy whose skills are so suited to that and say, we could have the best one, the league. Zach Bourne was most impactful player in the league two years ago for the best defense, the NFL, Nicki Monwari, to similar things in a slightly different body type of safety. We could have that with maybe the best athlete to ever attempt to do it. Why would we not try and get the force multiplier and race ahead of the league with someone who just has a completely different level of athleticism to someone like Zach Bourne? Yeah. And I just don't buy like he's helping your pastor. I just don't buy that somehow. The positional difference, let's say with David Bailey, who's just more of a pure pastor, is going to be the difference of like maybe why you would take him ahead of Arville Reese. When I watch these two guys, Reese and Styles, and I do want to just stick on Reese for now, despite the testing numbers, which for sunny styles were just completely outrageous, but they were outrageous on its own for Arville Reese. When you're, when they're actually playing football and you watch Reese on the field, to me, he's more obviously like, wow, like he just, just the way he moves. And that, that's how my basic, you know, I looks at it. Watching him is like, okay, like I don't think you have to be that smart to want to take him to overall in this particular draft. If you're the Jets or if, if he falls to three to meet, I keep seeing tackles to the Cardinals. Why wouldn't they take Arville Reese? They absolutely need a lineback. And if he falls to the Titans, why wouldn't they take Arville? Reese, they could absolutely use him just because there's only so much crazy next level talent in this draft specifically or in any draft. And it just, it just looks like on paper to me, he has that. And on film, what, what do you see from, from that angle of just being a difference maker? Oh, there's a difference maker. I think the diagnose and attack feel is completely off the chain. The take on skills, the competitive toughness, the range, the tackling. It's like all the minutiae of the position. I really do feel he doesn't an elite level. Then it's wrapped up as you mentioned in this Uber athlete. And usually when you're going through the draft, you're bound between the two rides, like, OK, it's a really technically proficient player. And you get some of these zooming linebackers you've played in less complex systems. This is a guy who played in an NFL system with NFL communication. He's playing on the edge on early downs for the most part. He's playing the NFL role that I'm describing. Then they back him off the line of scrimmage or move him around in the in the past rush game. I don't know why you wouldn't just adopt that position one to one, which is what the league is asking for anyway. So you can kind of designate it however you want. You can call him an edge defender. You can call him a linebacker. I think he's going to play in those multiple roles irrespective as the the offense moves as they go through heavy personnel. You've got to have erasers on the field where you have to substitute all the time and go through different personnel groupers and tip your hat on what you want to do. You've got to have these kind of hybrid type players. And to me, he's just going back through recent seasons. It's really hard to find a player who had that overwhelming a linebacker skill set. And I just don't understand why we're trying to force him to be a out to now edge defender to say, hey, he can be this dominant pass for sure. And if he is a dominant pass for sure, that's great. I'm all good with that. I'm happy to say a wonderful. He's a 12 second season guy. What a great time we're all having. I just think there is such value in that degree of force, multiplication, if that's a word, by having this kind of movable piece at the second level, who can go and play on the line and scrimmage. I'm going to get you and Daniel Jeremiah together next week on 40s and free agents. So you're going to get ready to make make this case to him in terms of the positional value. It is interesting, though. I hadn't heard is he selling himself as an edge that actually worries me a little bit, because it's it's almost like I heard the the Yahoo guys, Nate Tyson, Charles McDonald, they do a good job. And they framed it as like they wanted to ask him, oh, how do you see your next five years that that kind that does? And I think that's fair to maybe wonder how he sees himself. It is. But I mean, go look at Devon Lloyd's contract and then go look at the ad rushing contracts. Would you not try and sell yourself as an ad rusher? If you've got the athletic traits that beat someone out of their stance, just straight speed off the ball, not quite the David Bailey rate. And I don't think that he's got that quite that kind of first step quick. So there's a lot of real technical issues is just a straight pass for sure. But if I was going into the league and I was that kind of special athlete, say, let me try the really, really valuable spot. They'll still use me the way that I'm describing is the off-ball linebacker, but they'll call me an edge. And then when we get to franchise, tag territory, or we get to contract discussions, I can get the big time money. He literally could be one of those players that helps like change pay structure. If he's as good as you think he is, as we think he is, where a guy like that gets paid more. Zach Bonn started the process because if a guy like Zach Bonn can get the contract that he gets, I think a player like Reese, if he's as good as we hope he's going to be, will show the value of that position. I heard you say, go ahead. The last thing I really do want to touch on with him is I think this idea of putting him in the edge bucket, it's almost narrow minded, where I think the skills are so overwhelming that he is the kind of guy you structure the defense around. Maybe you're not a team that uses a move linebacker right now. Aranglion the Jets, they don't use this kind of hybrid linebacker type. But if you get him in the building, you will be doing yourself a disservice to not have Zach Bonn on Super Serum. It would just be foolish coaching to not try and play the game this way. If you just try and say he's just going to be a wide edge rusher and we're going to let him go after him. We think that's going to be a three year development plan. He'll be better in 20 27. I just think you're doing yourself in the player disservice. Now that I think about it, I was thinking he's the smart, he's a good pick for the Jets at two. And they're thinking a little bit more about 20 27, supposedly, and they keep might have the higher ceiling, so they might take him. But is that a good fit for him for the Reese fans out there? Not really, although this week, I don't know if you saw at the coach's breakfast, Aaron Glenn said they're going to be multiple on defense and working in some three, four principles, not just static. What do you think? Let's go. I think he's saying if I get all of L, we'll do whatever we can to move all of L around. I'm into the idea. So Ali had Reese, I believe, as your highest rated linebacker prospect since Luke Eakley. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. So where is Sunny Styles then on that spectrum? Because in a normal season and certainly the last handful of season, I'm going back to try to think about who's been the best recent linebacker prospect, I would imagine Sunny Styles would be ahead of all those linebacker prospects and very high on this scale, too. He just happens to be in this draft with his teammates and some people like Daniel Jeremiah specifically have him rated ahead of Reese. So it's kind of pick who you like. Yeah. And I think it's pick the play style. Reese is more in that vintage mold of off the ball, sea ball, get ball kind of clang and bang in the middle of the line of scrimmage. He's got unbelievable range in coverage, which of all Reese, it's different. That is more of a pop style. You're saying is more of the traditional one. Yeah. Styles is more of the traditional one and has just more coverage range and more coverage chops. And so if you're valuing that level of coverage, it really comes down to what you value in the past rush game with a kind of moveable linebacker and early down front structure, which I know is boring, but is essential to coaching staffs. And then if you're just more of one of these, the Texans, the Niners, the Titans now are pretty static. It's a pretty traditional front. You're playing at a four or three football and you need a dominant linebacker and someone who can play all three downs and carry someone in coverage. And your ideal linebacker is just Fred Warner. How close can we get to Fred Warner? Styles falls more into that bucket to me. And I do think with him because the athleticism and the power, there is untapped potentials of blitzer. It's just that's more projection than what is evident on the tape in college. I love what you hear about him as a guy, as a student of the game. And do you think that shows up in terms of the way he plays? Yes. And I think it's going to make the transition so much easier. I think this position is a three year development position now. There are so much on these guys play. The defenders are so multiple. The offense is so sophisticated. I think you see that with all the starters now. It's a lot of guys you forget about who go in day two, day three, and all of a sudden they're like five year starters, but they didn't really kick in till the second, third year of their career. I think him playing in a full NFL communication system, that is the most complex thing for these guys to wrap their head around. And most of the linebackers who come into the league are terrible in coverage that you just got to live with that. Most guys are not good coverage guys. I think he can be a day one plus coverage player, which is a super skill that most guys walking the league just aren't going to have. They're going to have to find their way there over time. That is the stuff that is really tricky for them to pick up and takes that second, third season to get to. I do think he can hit the ground running in that way, which very few guys can. And look, I think the combine workout and you see it sometimes when you're watching him, not as much. He seems the guy who's just he's in control and he's got to make the play and he's not asked to be like spitting down the feet. Like he he does seem like if I thought about like, I don't know who the comp would be at linebacker. But when we talked about Travis Hunter, for instance, a year ago, where like the game seems slow for Travis Hunter, that he can adjust his speed, like that's another level. Maybe Sonny Stiles has a little bit of that to him. He does. And if anything, at times, I'm like, can we give the guy some smelling salts? He's got knockout power. I would love him to just take over a quarter a bit more than he does do. I'd like a little bit more thumping tenacity, but there is no disputing the technique and the violence when he's really getting after it. And so I just don't see if you go through its skill set by skill set, where there's any degree of downside, it would have to be some poor scheme for off the field thing, I think for him to not at minimum be a plus start. And I think that with the coverage range he has as a former safety converted to linebacker, the history of those guys recently who are actually at linebacker size is a way better hit rate than just traditional linebackers and then trying to get them to to pick up some of the coverage stuff. And he played safety for a long time. It's not like he was a one year guy and then switched over and played in multiple systems, played in NFL defense. So I'm really confident that if you take him third or fourth overall, you at least will be able to say we've got a six year starter and then that the ceiling is how close we get to Fred Warner. So I did go back and listen to your guys' show. And it's interesting because you tape linebackers first just because you love them so much. And it was early in the process. It was before the combine. And back then, like people were not talking about styles necessarily getting taken in the top five. He was 12th or so on the consensus board. And now it's very much more of an open conversation. Reese is still number two on the consensus board. But when you look at the top guys in the mock drafts, it's it's more of a conversation where styles could go anywhere from two to. Ten. I mean, you never know because he is a linebacker. Whereas kind of early in the process, I don't know what changed. Maybe it just was the comment or maybe it's just people catching up to like, hey, go where this draft actually is. And this is where the great talent is. You guys were kind of talking about him that way to begin with. But maybe the the consensus at the time has changed in just two months. Well, I fall for the linebacker's hard. And when you see almost like a perfect technical linebacker, who's that athletic? Yeah, I fell I fell pretty severely in week one against Texas. And it just carried on through to early in the draft process. I think with styles where teams would have him ahead of our Valorice is just you do get to see more of the traditional linebacker player and almost perfect level in college. And there is this umptap potential, which the which the combine gave to us as there's so much burst off the ball. If he did display in a really attack based system, if you went to the Cardinals and they really want to just still get after it as an attack based defense with Nick Rollers, is there more to his game in that vein than we've seen so far? Whereas with our Valor, a lot of that stuff still comes on the edge. And even with the crazy explosiveness, he doesn't always play to that tempo. So I think with styles, they're just more certainty in the traditional linebacker play for the teams, at least with still that feeling of he could be a difference making behind the line is Grimmage. And certainty is always a tricky word this time of year. But it does feel like there's only so many prospects in this class that have that feel that most everyone agrees about him. I would even include Ruben Bain and Carnell Tate in Caleb Downs in different ways in that bucket, different levels. But Tony Styles is is one of them. And it's just like go go where the draft is. And that's at the linebacker. One guy whose whose consensus spot has fallen quite a bit. Actually, since you talked to that, I thought was interesting is is CJ Allen. I'm a little surprised by that. So CJ Allen, the number three linebacker in this class and from Georgia, you know, great profile, extremely productive seems to me like he has a pretty high ceiling and I don't know why the consensus has fallen on him a little bit. But he's an interesting combination of ceiling, I think, in in floor and exciting player in his own right, which again, to repeat the sunny Styles point wouldn't be maybe at that level, but would be the number one linebacker, I feel like in a lot of classes. Oh, yeah. In most of the class of the past 10 years, I think he'd be one or two. Pretty comfortably. He's more in that short, thickly built, the Kobe Dean type mold. Georgia certainly have a type, but he more than anyone is out to take souls on the football field. He just wants to hit everything that moves. He plays, I think, ahead of himself far too often. I think that will drive teams pretty bonkers as they dive through things. And I know there's all the reports out there about, hey, he called the defense. I mean, if you go watch them actually play, they're rarely lined up correctly. They consistently misaligned. Sometimes the players even in. So I don't think it's like a benefit to him to say he was calling the defense, not just checking things, the line of script. It's like, well, why are they a mess then if he's calling things all the time? So I think there's a lot of development need. I think he will be on that kind of three year arc, but he undoubtedly has unteachable athletic skill. So I gave you a little bit of a project here. I don't know if CJ Allen fits into these buckets. Like, do you have a player who is better, you think, than the consensus board? Where the consensus board is at? It would be Kishon Elliott, my beloved from Arizona State. I know I keep talking to you about him, but I think that I don't know. One 35 on the consensus board. And he was three hundred and eightieth in February. So he's he's making a run there. So I hope NFL Daily has helped with that. The people have got eyes on Kishon Elliott now. I think to me, he's a compact rundown player, plays with intellect and power. He looks to me like all these starting linebacks in the league, where it's not these crazy high end explosive traits and people go and chase those all the time, particularly in the second round. And then you look in year two, year three, you go, where are they? Are they playing on teams? Oh, they're not getting on the field anymore. And teams are more comfortable saying most of these guys aren't great in coverage. Can we at least be solid in the run fit? And then can we kind of mask them with a really zone based defense? There's a lot of split safety looks as a lot of coverage protection. And he just me just fits that mouth. He is really, really smart. I think though he's not a great athlete, he actually is active and alive in coverage and picks things up pretty well. And then it's just a muller around the box. Just kills people over and over again, one on one in space. So I think he's got all the traits of a starting linebacker. I would take him comfortably on day two. And but based on where the consensus board is, at least it wasn't fair. But I guess he's he's rising now. Maybe he won't last as long as I thought. Well, that that is late fifth round. Arizona State, Kishan Elliott, and it just shows you how deep linebacker is that he's listed as like linebacker 15 or so right now. And I know you you like the depth of this class, but who's a player that maybe is in that middle tier? Because I think there will be a decent amount of day two linebackers taken. And I'm guessing this is this is where this guy comes from a player that you're kind of lower on than consensus. The one I struggle with is Anthony Hill from Texas. Mm hmm. He really does look the part and I'm open to just being completely wrong on the player, but there's just a to me anyway. He's six, three, two, forty, three. He's going to be 20 years old. So it's like the perfect profile. If you can get him in the second round, where I think he will go to invest that time in two, three years and then become a full time starter. And he has the athletic profile to play in basically any system that he wants. I just find it to be so lacking in a lot of the technical details. I think there's a slight whiff that he's not always engaged in the fight for someone that big, you'd like to see him take people on and really bring the thunder over and over again. And to me is the kind of like generic football question of block destruction, take on skills, are they tall? How much is it technique? How much is it the mentality of the player? I think that the number one point on the hit list before you can get to some of the skills involved is just they want to play violence. It's a contact sport. It's a collision position. How much they want to take guys on one on one when we're really getting after it. When you're facing an all pro center, when Creed Humphrey is firing off the ball, are you willing to give it right back to him? And there are real great flashes of it off the tape. If you go on social media, you'll find four or five clips and go, wow, but consistently over and over again, you got to bring the fight for 70 reps. It's just not quite there for me. And I just wonder if you can really develop that over time or if you give someone 20 million dollars, they say, well, it's a pretty good payday. I don't really have to go throw my face into the fire every day. I mean, physicality is a trait, right? I mean, that's something you look for, especially at this position. Kind of compare him and in CGL and because it's interesting again, kind of going back to this draft process, you know, back in February, I think the idea was Anthony Hill was going to be battling for that kind of linebacker three spot. And maybe he will in the league will wind up liking him and him and CJ Allen were both ranked a little higher. They both have fallen a little bit. Whereas I look at Jeremiah's top 40 and there's a huge gap between those two guys. He sees CJ Allen and I do find Jeremiah tends to reflect the league pretty often or at least a certain type of, you know, organization in the league. And he has CJ Allen as a top 20 player in this draft. He'll barely cracking his top 50. How do you see kind of the comparison of those two? The physicality that that Allen brings. And I know we kind of short shrifted if I did want to get into like the ceiling of it all, because he does feel like a guy who's very exciting to watch and and maybe is getting mislabeled a little bit as like a lower ceiling player when when he does have a lot of explosive potential. Like he is a fun guy to watch. He might be the as almost as fun as watching the Ohio State guys when I checked him out. It's just he is kind of a blast to watch. He is. He's more frenetic and outcontrolled than those guys. I think those guys know what they're doing every single down. I'm not sure he's always sure. He's often pointing things out to teammates that are just flat out wrong. It's it makes me cackle watching him. It's like the leader of the group and he's just getting things wrong all the time. But man, when he arrives, he just kills people. He crushes them. He chases everything down. The range is off the scale. The play speed is off the scale. He is in that more shorter stouter pocket rocket type mold. I always fall for those guys. I just can't help myself. I always fall for the guys who are six one, but play at the six four and just bring Thunder to the point of attack over and over again. Yeah, like and he's covering a lot of ground. And I know you're saying sometimes he didn't know, you know, the plays right. But like a lot of his profile when you hear him talked about almost feels like he's like, you know, the Gruden grinder. It's like the the smart, tough, reliable guy. But I see a guy that's that's running all over the field. So that's a great that's a great combination. Maybe he's like the next London Fletcher or something. Give me a hug. I agree with that. I think he's he's almost too eager to make plays. He'll get caught in the traffic and all that kind of stuff. So I think that's just a subtlety to his game that's lacking. I think you can refine that. And that's what the two year, three year process rather than try to tap into someone. I do want to really get after this every single day. I think it's easy to try and refine someone who plays with real violence and aggressiveness and is flying all over the place and trying to funnel that in. And if you get him into one of these systems where he's just playing off the ball and playing clean up duty, I think someone like the Saints, where it's a lot of six one stuff, where he's just the one linebacker off there, just running, chase, run, see, hit and then go and play good coverage. I think he's he there's more quality stuff in coverage, I would say, than there is truly the take on skills. Now, he's super aggressive and that stuff can be coached up, but he can really move in coverage in a different way and cover a ton of ground. I think he's ideally suited for where he's at right now. I haven't graded out as a quality starter. I've not had three guys with quality starter grades in. It has to be 12 years and he's the third guy in there. So I'm with DJ on that. I think he's way higher to being in the top 20 plays in the class than than any of the guys on the list. OK, so you have him then third. Who who's who's kind of in your your next tier of linebackers putting you on the spot? Well, I have key shown in that list that in the solid starts to this is where the real meat of the classes. I love Jacob Rodriguez. I think by the time we get to draft now, I'm just going to close my eyes and move him probably to fourth. Maybe even as high as that. I just can't quit the guy. I have key shown Elliott in that list. Marisona stay. We got Josiah Trotter. We've got Jake Golday. I have Anthony Hill in there for the reasons I mentioned. There's still real talent in there, just I don't quite fall in love with the player. And I've got Kyle Lewis from Pitt, who's this kind of weird malleable. Is he a safety easy? And then there's Nickle. Is he a linebacker? I'm not sure he can play a linebacker in the NFL, but he might be the most electric quickest player in the entire draft class. And I think he could carve out a role as one of these hybrid players moving around the formation. OK, Kyle. Kyle Lewis is, you know, projected again, like a high third round type of pick. You mentioned Jeremiah Trotter's son. Isn't it like a little bit of a red flag that he has the same sort of profile as his brother who just came out and his dad, and that's not the model of like a modern linebacker. And his brother, you know, hasn't really played much. I really like the brother. I think Jeremiah Trotter, Jr. is really, really intelligent. He just doesn't quite have the athletic skills, I think, of what is demanded, particularly in the league. The Eagles don't seem to like him that much. You know, they're not they're not playing him that much. I accept that. But how many guys have been let go? Blake Cashham was let go by the Jets, goes and starts for the teams. That's just the way linebacker play is, I think, at the moment. Josiah is a footballing lunatic who really struggles to find the ball, but is interested in running through every human's face who comes near him. So and he is a really, really potent blitzer. His brother does not have that level of first step speed and kind of feel navigating through in the past. So he can, I think, be a positive on third down, whereas brother is kind of a run down only type player. Got it. Yeah. The point and shoot type of guy. What do you think about the criticism for Rodriguez? I know we're bouncing all over the place. You know, Nate Tyson, for instance, thinks, you know, that maybe he's not in it for the in the fight enough enough, visits out physicality for Rodriguez. That's a fair criticism. He's more of a bouncy dance between the cracks type player. You know, the kind of buzzword all the coaches use these days, which Jesse Minter brought to us all is block destruction. And when you use that verbiage in your mind, it's someone just smashing someone. Right. It's two hand punch and stack and shed. But there are many high tower. It's it's absolutely Dante. High tower, number one guy on the board. But there's more to it than that. There's there's throw bys. There's eye fakes. There's different ways to defeat the block effectively. And I think he's got so many tools to his back to just navigate through space and to navigate around people. I think he's probably more of a coverage first drop into zone coverage, sprint all over the field, go find the ball and get it. And maybe he does have to be more of a sub package guy for you. But those are the more valuable downs now that the actual we're setting a heavy wall, you've got to throw your face into it. A few were downs. If you can play all three, that's when you move into the tier of R. Vell and Sonny. And I think CJ Allen can get there. He might be more coverage first, racing around all over the place. And then over time, could he become like an Aziz Al Shaiyed type player? If you can get a bit more tenacity out of him. I think that you could look at that. But he is just an incredible playmaker. I think some guys just know the sport. See it, feel it. The volume of plays on the ball, the amount of time he's undercutting plays, jumping plays, his understanding of down distance situation, all the punch outs, all the game breaking plays. I just think that he's going to make a whole bunch of plays. To me, he smacks of a guy with a really high national identity where everyone knows him. He's making a whole bunch of plays on Red Zone every week. He's playing for the Jags or whatever. It's like, wow, another punch out from Jake Rodriguez. Then the PFF scores come out and he's in like the bottom 25 linebackers in the league. The down to down consistency is not what you're looking for, but there's a whole bunch of game breaking plays. Like like peak Devin White or something. Peak Devin White is a good one. I like that. Shut up to Devin White still making those tackles. It's crazy. Seven. I just counted on the consensus board like seven or eight day two toward a prospects at linebacker. Do you have any favorite comps? It could be give me a positive or a derogatory one or both. I'd say Kyle Lewis as like a Jeremiah of Osu, Karamoa. Oh, that's good. Is he a linebacker? Is he a safety? Can he do in a different frame? Some of the Eman Worry Jalen Peet yourself for his play. Nicholson snaps. He's playing weak side linebacker. Some snaps. Then we can do all these fun rotations where he's firing out to the half field. He just moves differently. Now he has very little interest in tackling and it is a contact sport. Gives me deep concerns. But if I just imagine if you go into like Steve Spagnolo, the volume of what would be on the menu would be different. And if he just turns out to be really talented in coverage down the slot, even if it's just taking away Titans, he's got to be on the field. And you're going to have to try and live with the ups and downs if a team can force him into the box and run at him over and over again. You're just going to have to live with the downside. I got to watch him. I mean, is he move like Oh, so Cormorant? I mean, talk about a guy who moves different. And it was obvious pretty early in his NFL career. JLK was like that. There's almost a Ivan Pace type movement where the explosiveness off the ball is just jarring and then he's really, really slippery, kind of latchly bouncing around. Now, you do get to see him go up against Jeremiah Love, where you're seeing Saquon like movement skills and he gets put on like three posters, a little bit concerning. You got to face Jamegibs and Bijan and Saquon and Jeremiah Love as well in the NFL. But he played in a really complex system and he was kind of the pivot player. They would move around to be the problem solver. So I think there's a little bit of JLK in that. Even JLK, where the league's at right now, your question can you live on the field and all three down. So I think he's going to be a pretty specific player, but he's one of those guys where whoever gets him clearly will have a vision for how they can use them all over the place. They're a bit Leo Chanel like something in that vein. And so I think I've just come around to the chiefs are taking him. Forget about the profile anymore. He just makes a ton of sense for them. Oh, I love that. Maybe round two, round three, something like that. Harold Perk probably round three, if if if we are to believe the consensus. Harold Perkins is a guy if there was a draft after his rookie season at LSU might have gone in the top 10. Right. I mean, he was like the next big thing. Yeah. And now he's projected one 22. I'm ending the linebackers on a downer note, but just as again, as a casual, it's like, what happened here? I know it sort of fell apart, but there's is there any hope here for a guy like who is that productive early in his career to to fall off that hard? It just shows you how long the draft process is. He isn't if Belichick was still in the league, you would take him in the second round. He loved those guys who were the, you know, the high end high school players who had the great one season, then maybe they fell off a bit. He would bet that he could coach it up. He just is, I think, too small to play through off the ball linebacker. And then with all the movement stuff we discussed with Valverde, Reese, can you play on the line of scrimmage? He cannot. He is crazy, crazy explosive, more of a straight line mover than they kind of flip the hips and turning coverage. It's all straight ahead, which is why the testing numbers are off the scale. And if you're Brian Flores or the Falcons and we're mugging up seven guys and we're just going to rip off the ball, he has a speed and you need to be able to win in those systems. So one of those teams is a package player. I think there's a there's a possibility. Again, it would be that Ivan Pace type situation where there's ten unbelievable splash plays and then a lot of it is pretty rough. The rest of the go around. It's just how much you value that in a class with seven guys who could be truly solid starters. And we just need more Flores. I guess Durante Jones, maybe could could be that guy for Washington just to take these mismatched pieces that could be great and a fun defense and get the most out of them. I love it. He is not he is not a mismatch. It's just pure speed and the speed is beneficial. There is no power. He seems often confused by the fact it's Saturday, let alone that they're playing football. So you just you're betting on, well, someone has to get off the ball so fast everyone panics and that's all they're paying for. A deep fun class. We could we could do linebackers all day. But let's take let's take a break. Let's come back. Talk about a really good top end of the safety crop and the defensive tackles in a minute. Back on NFL Daily. My last show, my last few segments before take a little time off and go see the parents. We've been cranking daily since training camp started. But we'll still have you covered next week. Jordan's got you. Shook's got you. Ali and Daniel Jeremiah's got you. But yeah, I feel a little bit like my kids in the last few days before spring break, you know. You are the teacher for me, just playing like a movie for me to watch. I'm just enjoying your analysis. So thank you, Ali, for for carrying me home. Just repeated Kyle Lewis tapes and you off on your way to your parents. Oh, no, forget. Forget Kyle Lewis, because I think you're true beloved in this class. Why do I always like confuse the two names, the safety from Indiana? What's his name? Oh, Lou Moll. Oh, man, you spent 25 minutes on Lou Louis Moore. Wow. On your show. And, you know, I've directed people to it when we've been on the show. But if you're really into the draft and you like this kind of coverage and would want to expand the read optional, Ali and John Ledger. I'm going to just break break contain here and actually start our safety conversation. Give me the like 60 second elevator pitch on Louie Moore before we get to the to the big games, who a guy who's like projected to go like in the middle of day three, but you believe has a lot more to him. I do. I mean, he's tiny. And there's going to be questions of is he a nickel? Is he a true kind of on the shelf safety? I think he's quite got the electoral quicks to go and down and play in the nickel spot. I think you need real physicality to play there at the high level in the league right now. I think his brain dysfunction is a warp speed. And you can just see it over and over again. Oh, not just kind of reading and jumping routes, which is the most obvious stuff, but just kind of shutting down reads really quickly in the progression, understanding everyone's assignment. I just think he operates at a different pace. And it's weird to me that I just watched Indiana run through everyone's face in college football. And now I'm hearing when people are knocking Mendoza, well, you know, the defense is really good. It was really good in those playoff games. Defense is really good. And yet I'm looking through the draft and I can't find an Indiana player who a team is falling in love with. It was the Angelo Pons, but is he too small? Aiden Fisher, the linebacker, another really intelligent player. And but he can go on day three, not athletic. Good enough. It's like, didn't these guys just more Alabama in the Rose Bowl? Didn't they destroy Miami defensively? Didn't they destroy Ohio State in the big 10 times in defense league? And none of these guys are viable enough to go and play on Sundays. I guess someone has to be good enough to play on Sundays. And I think that if he played in a rebland and ship type role, we're not talking about a superstar here, just a backside safety with free reign to go and find the ball and make plays. He works a different speed to everyone else. And he's a guy I would I would want to my team. Twenty five years old, but you called them the best goal line player in the country. That's two twenty one on the big board. I'm going to be following Louis Moore. If you listened closely last year, you know, we asked Ali for just a deep under the radar type of guy that he loved. And one of them was Efton Chisholm, who made the Patriots roster as a hero to many small whites in New England. And who knows, who might have a fun career if nothing else. He contributed to a team that made the Super Bowl, which is a great result for an undrafted free agent. It's time for charging into the offseason presented by Apple Card for all your game day purchases. Let's go to the top of this safety class. Really, the top three are all expected to go in the first round. What kind of impact do you think Caleb Downs can have like right off the bat in his career and kind of where do you put him, assuming he's number one at safety for you compared to the rest of the the entire draft class? I think he's the number one safety to me. I think just overall in terms of the fundamentals and having the fewest negatives on the report, he's the number one player in the draft. Whether he has the playmaking upside of someone like an R Valorant Sunni styles, I think it's fair to debate. And then the positional value that falls into that, too, I would value a hybrid linebacker slightly above a hybrid safety in terms of what you can do structurally. But I see flash of his game. I, you know, people talk about him, I think, in different ways. I see elements in how he is used and as the pivot point of the entire defense and what they wanted to do on a unit that had probably four first round picks. He was the centerpiece of everything they tried to get to defensively with a Super Bowl champion defensive coordinator. That that does matter to me. And I think there are flashes in usage of a Buddha Baker with more of a Brian Branch play style is how I put it, where he's kind of a slot. He's more fluid than explosive, whereas Buddha's a bit blurrier, bit more explosive off the ball. But there is real intelligence. There is unbelievable, nasty and get after it type stuff, unbelievable technique. And almost everything he does, he's pretty flawless, technically. And so it's difficult to go through and try and find something to complain about with the player. Yeah. And a guy who you saw in multiple systems, you know, before Patricia got there at Ohio State, obviously was at Alabama early. I think that's huge. I always think, and this is more of a broader question for you, but you can apply it to the Caleb Downs, however you want, that the breadth of the career in college tends to get overlooked a little. That like the years and I know you want to play or to develop, of course, but you should if you see high points earlier in the career and his ability to adapt in different systems to me, that that is a huge plus. In the earlier years, I feel like should should matter a lot, especially if you see something good and then maybe it's not there quite as much at the end of their career. Certainly, if a DB played for the most sophisticated, complex defense in all football under a complete genius in Nick Saban, and he was the linchpin of that defense, then he goes to an NFL DC playing in an NFL communications system, he's a linchpin of that defense. That kind of kind of matters to me a lot. Yeah. And I do think you can get your heart broke by chasing the freshman year. That has happened all along, particularly in the second round, where teams usually bet on that stuff. And sometimes it's just the player got found out, the player didn't develop. And you're just going back to betting on athletic traits that were always there, which is why they were high end recruit, which is why they started as a freshman for good school anyway. So I do put a little bit more emphasis on the most recent year, unless you can find a staff change, a system change, a positional change or the player explains it away. And when you say that, when it just in terms of the lack of negatives and just cleanest prospect that he could be as as good as number one, it makes me think and everyone seems to agree on Kiehlbdowns. You never know. There's always disagreements about different players, but he seems like that Kyle Hamilton type that everyone knew was going to be good. Linderbaum actually just kind of thinking of that draft was similar to that too. Everyone was kind of like, why is Linderbaum falling to our? Kiehlbdowns feels like that he could be that guy if he does fall. I don't see why he wouldn't this draft. And yet I don't know, we tend to do this at safety. We being the NFL and I do work for that. I think it's in play. I think it's in play from the go as low as whether it's the Cowboys or even beyond that. I think it depends on. Old school mentality versus new school, who's running the building and whether people are drafting to archetypes of players of what they view as a first round pick versus who can be the most impactful for us and have kind of first round value playing every down at a high level would be first round value to me. That's why I don't get caught up in the positional designations as much as the people. The only position I give extra grading points to to inflate the the number is quarterback because it's clearly the most valuable one. Other than that, to me, it's a mass as many good players as you possibly can. And I think down to he's not quite Hamilton because the length difference is pretty vast. I don't think he's as good deep in the field as Kyle Hamilton was coming out of Notre Dame. And so that that impacts the great slightly. And I think first round safeties, particularly from that old school mindset is if the guy's not making plays in the ball from the middle of the field, which just doesn't happen in the league anymore. That's like three guys who can do that. And you're just lucky to have one. If you have one, teams aren't structured that way anymore defensively. But I do think that's still hanging out there that if you're not the kind of ball Hawking guy from the middle of the field, how valuable can you be as a safety? And as you said, we go through and there's there's Hamilton and there's branch. Everyone's like great football player, but he's got to go in the second round. You don't take slot safety hybrids in the first round. I would take a dominant slot safety hybrid as soon as I can get them. Guba Dijine, Brian Branch, Jalen Peachtree, Kyle Hamilton seem pretty important to some of the best groups in the NFL. I mean, if you if you're redrafting all those guys go top 15, Guba Dijine might go top 10 in this draft. Let's say if you could somehow mind trick yourself into like knowing the career like Guba Dijine's a top five player. So yeah, why why not Caleb Downs? I love that. And maybe the league is coming around because they did give out a lot of like three year, thirty nine million dollar contracts to safeties this offseason with a lower ceiling, but a high floor of guys that were available. That's charging into the offseason presented by Apple Card. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app today and start earning daily cash back on all your game day purchases from tickets to tailgate munchies to merch subject to credit approval. Let's talk about a superlative I'm going to give out, which is the weirdest scouting note of maybe this entire draft process, which is the fascination of Emmanuel McNeil Warren, the Toledo player who is in the mix to be the second safety along with Dylan Thienamann from Oregon. And both of them are probably first round picks and his obsession with with his mouth guard and just always playing around with that. Have you ever seen anything like this, Ali? Once I discovered it with McNeil Warren and it's every single play. There is something wrong with the helmet. There's something wrong with the mouth guard. He's chatting to the official. He's a ball is snapped. He's still by the mouth guard in. Ball will be mid flight. He takes the mouth guard out. He puts the mouth guard back in once you see with him. You see with Zaki Wheatley in this class, just like three or four guys. I don't know. There's something going on in the water where the safety class just does not want to play with a mouth guard. I know if it's like vibe or coolness or it doesn't fit. But it is preposterous and frustrating and genuinely impacts his play in a way that annoys me. Yeah, speak to that a little bit like he what it delays him a little bit. The ball will be snapped and he'll go, oh, no, the ball's in play. Let me put my mouth guard in. We're now two beats into the rep. Now he's crazy explosive. All sorts of juice stuff. He can make up the time. But I think it's speaks a little bit to attention to detail, focus in the game. And that focuses evident, I think, just generally in coverage. He's a massive gambler. He makes an unbelievable amount of plays on the ball. But a lot of it is gambling rather than reading, reacting and processing, understanding, I think, what's what may be coming his way based on down distance and situation. And it's just I'm off the ball. I see it. I trigger it and I'm a better athlete than everyone on the field. Even when he's playing Kentucky in the SEC, he's just a better athlete than everyone he's going up against. So I think that allowed him to get away with some bad habits. So him and as I mentioned, Thiena, men are in the mix to be the number two safety. He is fun to watch. I mean, you can just pull up the tape of all the force fumbles McNeil Warn had. And there's a million of them. A lot of punch outs. A big, big, good athlete. I don't know if he quite passes my moves. Different threshold, but he moves well. He just you look at him and you're like, oh, yeah, that's an NFL player. And he will be like, I just you can you can see it. Who is your choice between those two and kind of where do you think they fit into the larger picture? I love the enemy. I think at Oregon, sometimes it's hard to tell with his profile. You play in such a specific system that is not unique to them, but they're the guys who push it to the limit, the most I would say, where it's a lot of three safety stuff and he's playing in the middle of the three safeties and they really pack the middle of the field intentionally to try and offset a lot of the RPO work that's happening in college football. So just the geometry, the field becomes really narrow and it's nothing how you would play in the league where you're playing on half the field and you got this wide aperture to kind of keep focus of everything. So it's pretty narrow situation he's playing in. Then when you go back to Purdue, I think he's almost even better at Purdue than he was at Oregon and he's playing all NFL safety stuff at his half field. It's post safety. He's not around the box as much. Oregon, he was effectively an August 3 linebacker for a lot of the work they did. And he was flying around everywhere, making a ton of plays, outrageous range, outrageous athlete we found out in testing. Don't think he quite plays to that speed all the time as he did as a tester. But at Purdue, I think you get to see more of the traditional safety work you would be asked to do in the NFL. I just think that the work there was better to your point. Earlier about digging back through the guys in their previous history, you find a guy booked it into a certain system. Can you go and find him playing more in the role he would be asked to play in the NFL, fortunately with the enemy and you get to see it. And I think the work was actually better. Well, and you also it's a skill set to be able to pick up and fit in two different systems that's going to happen in the NFL. You you're very likely going to have two different coaching staffs on your rookie contract alone, like him unless you're drafted by, you know, the the Tomlin, Harbaugh era, you know, Ravens and Steelers, I guess you can get lucky and hope hope that that happens. Yeah, he he's an interesting guy where he just the enemy and where he feels like a rock solid pick, but he's a testing freak, which is like a nice, like a nice combination. I he has shot up the consensus board over the last couple of months. I think the idea was these guys were going to go in the second round and the enemy might have been deeper into it. And now I think the consensus is they're both going in the first round. And look, I I heard legit whispers that I think was a little bit more of doc connecting that he goes high as Cincinnati, which is Cincinnati. No, loves him. And I think the question for them is the kind of core crop of potential or pro players are going to go plus Mendoza quarterback. And then it becomes a pick who you just love after that. And maybe someone falls to them. They weren't expecting maybe Bain, maybe Bailey. I doubt you think they would take downs. I think they would downs. I think they would take downs, too. But I think as they kind of game plan it out, they think, well, what if that happens? And then we've got 50 players and we've got to pick the guys we just love. And when they were thinking about positional value, I think they're so in love with the enemy and it would be hard for them not to just pull the trigger. And given what the class is like, we're going to get shockers. This is what happens when you get these kind of draft classes in it. It wouldn't shock me necessarily if they decided to go that way. I hate thinking about just this year, but there's only so many defensive backs. You know, linebackers even, but they're not going to. I don't think they probably should be drafting that linebacker. But like, I don't think they'll be looking at CGL. And although that's not the craziest idea with the roster that they have, but they need guys that can save everyone's job and help the defense this year. And so I think I think the adamant could be that guy. It's not a bad fit. Let's move on to the defensive tackles unless you have just one more safety take, whether it's positive or negative, you just need to get out there. You spent all this time. You said something. You try to watch all these guys, right? You try to watch. What is your process? Actually, I'll just ask you that. Watch every player, every snap. Every player, every step. So define every player because you can't like there in theory, there could be 400 players. So where do you get to with every player? This year, probably it's going to be about 260, I think. You can you can leave that out there. Man. 260 every snap. Yeah, five games isn't enough. It depends on the player. If there's cross-off guys around like it's just not for me, then I'll just cross them off. If someone tells me there's a medical flag on a late round guy, I'll cross them off. But for everyone who's going to go in the first four rounds, there are thereabouts. Yeah, don't this is why John asked me this too. And you got to say it's a superpower to not have children as everyone else is having like fun, successful, fulfilled, meaningful lives. I am in the cave watching safeties from Missouri. You're younger. It's something people don't want to talk about in general. Um. In in some ways, the job actually is easier with a loving family and children. My my son right here is in the room, just giving me a fulfillment that I couldn't otherwise have, which makes it easier to do my job. On the other hand, it's a huge time drain and it makes your job way harder when that happens. You have to be able to do you suddenly have two jobs and one of them is as all-incumbent scene and more important than your actual job that it actually. Yeah, but no one ever wants to say that because it's like, you know, it makes you sound ungrateful or it almost sounds like hitting out at the people like yourself without without having. But what I like that we're recognizing Ali, that's just an advantage. It's like analytics. You're taking advantage of the system. Yeah, all I mean, oh, deeply sad man. Stop. Stop. Um, don't you feel though, and now we're way off track considering I got to get out of here soon. I got to get on that plane. Go see Tom and Debbie in Massachusetts. When you're like watching like a seventh round safety, let's say Bishop Fitzgerald of USC. Have you watched it? By the way, I have. I've watched Bishop Fitzgerald. When you're into like Game Six of Bishop Fitzgerald, don't you just think like. I've had enough or or no, that's how much you love ball in deep within this. I think it's just a love of ball, which is pretty. Yeah, a love of ball. And I care about being accurate. And I think it's just cheating to watch five games and say you've got a full complete picture of a player and that you're going to then. Go out publicly and start addressing like what a team did in the draft when you haven't had the full scope of evaluation that the team has put the effort into into doing. Is the team is the team watching every set? I guess they are. If someone like you is they are of Bishop Fitzgerald. I would hope so. There's someone on the staff is watching every game of Bishop Fitzgerald. OK, I don't know the process. I'm always really fascinated by other people's process, certainly within the NFL, but also in our industry. So I hope hope listeners like that conversation. And yeah, there it's great, like the juice that you get from finding a guy that you love in the in the deep rounds, like like Louis Moore. But I was just handed a piece of paper that says officially as we were playing. My son is now the number one player in the world in we tennis, according to the to the rankings. So you see, and wouldn't you rather be handed that note than what's Genesis Smith's eighth game for Arizona? The fulfillment that that gives me that I I have a success that he's he's made it. Attention. Oh, attention, rail travelers, platform paces, window gazers and arm rest negotiators. Have you heard the big rail fare freeze is here? Railfares have been frozen across England until March 20, 27 on standard class tickets, including off peak, anytime and season tickets. For more information, visit nationalrail.co.uk slash fares freeze. Teasing season exclusions apply. Let's get to the defensive tackles. And if I've been, you know, spending some time here, it's it's only partly because I don't know what to say about this defensive tackle class. I'll start this way. There's like a big group at the top and no one can really agree. It's four or five players. Peter Woods from Clemson's in that mix, Caden McDonald from Ohio State, Caleb Banks with his very unique frame from Florida. They're Lee Hunter from Texas Tech, Kristen Miller from Georgia. Now, all five of those guys could go somewhere in the late first, maybe somewhere in the second round. Do you have a favorite of that group? And then on top of that, do you have any of them graded as first round players? No one great as a quality starter. It's a lot of big run cloggers and then sorting through. Do you think anyone's got the juice to maybe be a three down player or in that second band you are referencing there, it's really light players, upfield rushes, and you're trying to figure out who quite has enough mass or understanding to just play all three downs for us. So it's a lot of rotational players. And then it's just how you value which part of the rotation, the rundown, I think, versus obviously the passing downs and just trying to figure out who could be that crossover player. And that makes it that makes it really tough in the evaluation process. The one who has probably the best chance at doing that, if healthy is probably Caleb Banks, I think, of just kind of fusing the two together. Unbelievable talk off the ball, unbelievable power in his hands. Just the foot problem is a massive concern. So very similar to Johnny Newton just keeps fracturing the foot over and over again. Obviously, untraditional size 6667 for an interior player. So the pad level and technique is pretty skewed with. And then he just goes missing. But massive stretches of games, even against bad competition, where you're the biggest, fastest, strongest guy on the field at all times. He buries great competition. Just one off snap. Just it's almost Chris Jones, like how quick the wins are inside. Why is it not arriving 10 times a game against bad competition? So he's the one who's probably going to break your heart where the GM's like, I just feel it in my bones. We can get him in the building and our building in the right system. It'll work out in three years. You're wondering why you drafted the guy. Why he was the one during the combine I'm watching and they show some of the highlights and then I'm just like, wait, how is this guy not a top 15? Prospect, this is awesome. This is cool. This is a guy to get excited about. If you were an NFL GM and you've got, let's say, like a late, like an early round three pick and these guys have all fallen or late second or something. Who is the one? You know, kind of with how defenses are run now where you just feel like he's going to be a solid player. He's going to help our team. I'm not swinging for the fences here, but he's going to be my guy that's going to help us. Maybe even get a second contract for us. I love Dominique Orange from Iowa State. The big citrus, big, enormous nose tackle, but I think he can move better than a lot of these other guys. I think Lee Hunter is more of the run plug in guys who are going to go in the second round. I don't quite understand why he's in a kind of different category on the consensus boat. I think he's in the 80s or something like that. And Hunter and some of the plays. Yeah, Orange is not in that five pack that I mentioned who were all between 25 and 47. Although the people that I trust more, I feel like are bucketing them more 35 to 50 to 55, something like that. But yeah, you're right. Dominique Orange, big citrus. What a nickname. That's unbelievable. Yeah, that's it. Come on now. But he is. I don't. There's not that much of a distinction to me with someone like McDonald, who I think will be the one who sneaks into the back of the first round where you're saying big like Ty Lee Williams with the lines, big run clogger. Is there maybe some pastoral sauce we could tap into overtime, even if it's just not back power or walk back power and it kind of helps everyone else win. And he just kind of has a big presence in the middle line of scrimmage. I think Orange has got real lateral quicks for someone as big as he is with the big heavy anchor, hold up the point of attack, allow everyone to eat on early downs around him. But the motor is outrageous. He drops out into coverage and he drops out and he blasts running backs in space. So if you're looking for, OK, who's just got some under the hood movement skills that weren't quite a central part of the defense he was asked to play in. And just maybe there's a Tim Settle like arc in there where he's just in the rotation is a nuisance. Whilst the star players go win off the edge over and over again, Dominique Orange is the one I would bet on. OK. Tim Settle like arc. Tim Settle did get a surprisingly good contract and every team that has him is like, man, I wish we had Tim Settle back whenever they lose him. So it's it's a totally fair comp, but also kind of shows where this defensive tackle class is at. Peter Woods, I want to get your opinion on him just because the Clemson product, who I think initially this is where I think the league told the draft nicks that like, no, we're not really that into him. You guys are into him. I'm not totally sure why ranked super high. Like if you were looking at in season rankings from a lot of the driving even January stuff. And now it's settled back to the pack. I don't know if you have any Peter Woods of Clemson talk, who could still be a first round pick potentially. Yeah, I think that's that's still in play, because one of these interior guys are going to go and we're going to get the Seattle, New England, Philadelphia effect that those teams were built with internal pass rush and like waves of those players. And so teams are going to try and chase it. The Lions tried to chase with the play who was not that anyway. I was like, we got to take him. We need internal push. Woods is crazy explosive off the ball. He is a small fellow for someone playing inside. He's built like Murray's Hurst with that kind of quick twitch off the ball. Describe small fellow, though. What is his size? 6 2 2 98. So you're looking there. I mean, that is that is small. That is in the bottom 5% of defensive tackles drafted in the past decade. He which is a crazy statement on this sport. What a weird sport. It's a sport, but it's a size and power position and he just has the speed. And another guy who goes missing for long, long stretches. And can you really live on those early downs or is he a situational pass rusher and he addressed situational pass rushes in the first round of the draft? And even with situational pass rushes playing inside the NFL, it's a speed to power position, not just a raw talk off the ball type situation. So he kind of falls between a bunch of positions. I get why people fell in love with him. It's just unbelievable explosiveness for an inside player. The production is really poor. The production fell this season. He was a unanimous top 10 selection a year ago and then the production really declined. And there's motor concerns too. He just he just slows down during games and slowed down throughout the season. Yeah, to bring it back around to where we started the conversation. I feel like Anthony Hill was a guy people thought might go before the season. Top 10, top 15. And then you get more data, you find it out, you watch every game. You know, I hope I hope you don't see what I was saying about watching every game as a criticism. It's a respect. And I think what people don't get about that, it's not about, you know, being robotic about it. You got to have a real deep love for the game to go to go that deep. So how do you do 20 minutes on McNeil Warren's mouth guard if you're not digging through every game? That's why that's why we do the redoptional podcast, the way we do it. Why we do seven hours on six safeties. It's just the way we do. Yeah, I had to bring up that was like the most amazing note. And it is the right way to do it because I I did the QB index for so long and I never understood, you know, the only way to evaluate it was to watch every single throw, every single week. Because if you miss to me, a 17 game chunk or 16 games back in the day was like the best way to evaluate a quarterback. You know, like if you miss an entire game or stretches, like it's just it is a totally different picture. That that is how it should be done. I have to admit, though, and it's it's the worst part of me as a draft as an analyst in general is sometimes when I'm watching for all the draft prospects, once I get deeper and deeper, I always think like, wouldn't that be better spent just watching NFL tape right now? I could just be one because that's how I know I'm not a real draft. Nick, like you or like, like a lot. But I have said this to John before, I do think there'd be great value in a team in just having someone watch like the 10 or 15 best plays of a player, putting their own board together, putting it in an envelope and then three years down the line, open the envelopes because I think you can massively overthink the players and you can start juicing up things against either lower competition or just had a good game or the game plan was excellent. The play wasn't a function of it. I think if I was running a building, which will never happen unless is the London Jags and Tony Khan is feeling, you know, very, let's go. Then I would employ someone, probably Greg Rosen, thought to say, just watch 10 clips of every player, put that board together, we'll put in an envelope and in three years we'll open up and find out what we're over thinking this stuff. Yeah, you could do the same with the like the consensus board, just drafting off that in general. But what fun would that be? My only thing is for some reason, I'm like watching this is like, man, I'm like itching to get to like the Kyler Murray tape from that. I just I'm already like getting a little itchy for NFL football and want to go back. But that will spend a lot of our offseason talking about that. Ali is the best at what he does. Great way to cap the week. Let's hit that music the next time you will hear from us on the feed. It's going to be a different us. The kids are taking over the show. As I mentioned, when when Jordan was on the show from the owners means, it will be Jordan Rod Rieg and Nick Schuch in the feed on Monday. I'm heading to Massachusetts, but the draft series with Ali is not over yet. We'll do that on the other side. See you then.