Who stood out at the 2026 NFL Combine? (3/2 Hour 1)

Coming up today on PFT Live, we will review the guys who opened eyes at the scouting combine. Will Jerry Jones put his money where his mouth is this year in free agency? And the salary cap makes a significant jump. PFT Live starts right after this. Oh, Mike. How are you? I'm good. Fantastic. Good to see you. First off, we've got to just address the elephant in the room. All right? I mean, Jordan gear here, just looking cool, casual. actually there's a story behind it. Okay. So I had like $500 worth of Nike gear from the Ravens. Right. And before they fired me, I thought I'd spend the money. Well, gentlemen, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. You can spend that extra allotment too. Exactly. I know I have more money to spare, you know. But that's a whole true story. I had like $500. My wife's like, you got like $500? You got to spend your Nike money. I looked down there. I think everything else was sold out other than the vanilla ice outfit. I said, okay, I'll go with the vanilla ice out in here. That explosion of raucous laughter you heard at the end was producer Pete Demolitis. That's what we're talking about. That's how Pete laughs. You want some more sloppy joes? Todd Munkett was hilarious. And for as entertaining as he was during the 15 minutes or so we talked to him at the desk, that scene at the end where we were just off to the side of the desk, and he was basically holding court. Like, he loves that. He was talking to us for another 10 or 15 minutes, and he was better there. And the Browns camera crew captured some of it. That's one thing I noticed this year more than ever with the coaches and a lot of the prospects. Yes, totally, Mike. They don't have an entourage, but they've got a camera crew. Right. Yeah, agreed, right? I felt like every prospect that we kind of looked at that was kind of deemed as third round or above when they came to the set, there was two people there from their school with the camera, right, and documenting everything they do. And you're right, with the teams, that's definitely become more and more popular now where it's like 32 for 32. too. They all got somebody going around documenting what's going on, and yeah, that was cool. They got to do that in the Browns with Todd Munkin, who I hope everybody realizes, too. I know people, you know, there's another great example of, oh, you know, we're looking for, you know, young offensive genius guys. Well, you know, old offensive genius guy can be pretty cool and fun and knows how to relate to players, too. Let's not forget that. Todd Munkin's got a little spunk, a little personality to him. There's an edge to him. And I think that's why he's been successful in the NFL. And I think that's ultimately one of the big reasons he gets hired by the Cleveland Browns when it's all said and done there. And it's not a negative edge. It's not a salty edge. It's, again, there's a presence that a coach needs to have. Yeah. And there's an ability to communicate. and he has that gift of talking connecting communicating in an entertaining way telling stories drawing you in having like right away he's got a great story as to why he was dressed like vanilla ice and it was hilarious and then he drops the vanilla ice thing and it was just perfect perfect moment and it gives us a chance to get to know them and to just get a feel for who's got that quality and i'm reluctant to list the ones who did because then by admission and implication i could be flagging those who didn't but for the most part they do i was impressed with him i was impressed with jeff halfley the new coach of the miami dolphins and i think i'm extra impressed when a traditionally dysfunctional team makes a good hire because i didn't think they'd be able to pull it off. The fact that the Browns, who by all indications were zeroing in on promoting Jim Schwartz from defensive coordinator, that was the vibe in league circles. Schwartz clearly thought that he was getting that job. And then all of a sudden they do the hard pivot to Munkin. And now I know why. And there's another reality, too. Press conference demeanor can be different from interview or away from the microphones demeanor. And you could watch Todd Munkin's introductory press conference and not get the same vibe as you got watching him with us. or if you'd been there for all of the off-to-the-side conversation. It creates a very, very different total impression of a coach. Now, the Browns have many other factors in the organization that could weigh down the ability to succeed, starting with the guy who holds the equity in the team. But they got it right with their latest head coaching hire. The question is, will they get it right on the field, and will he eventually be the next scapegoat for an owner who I think likes to keep his spoon a little too deep in the stew? I don't disagree with that there. There's been some things there in Cleveland that we certainly have questioned, whether they're heavy on analytics, the ownership, all that. hey, the way this hire went down here for the head coach, yes. I think everybody in football, Jim Schwartz, had the inside track to getting that one. But yeah, there's something about Todd Munkin. There definitely is. And that's why you can't judge it just by the look and by the press conference. You can't do that. We've seen that. That's already been proven wrong. It's not always true, the true picture, to your point of what you get in the press conference. I mean, Bill Belichick, he's got a lot more personality than we're on to Cincinnati. Right. So he's definitely that. I could tell you for years my buddy Kyle Shanahan out in San Francisco. I think you saw a totally different person with him at press conferences at times because he didn't want to say anything and he just wants to make sure he says the right thing and doesn't give too much information. And is that the real personality of him? No, not at all. And I think that's the case with a lot of the coaches. They get up there, they kind of just try to get in the straight and narrow, and yeah, people would be shocked if they saw these coaches behind the scenes, the personalities they have, the language they like to use, right? There's a reason they're a head coach, because there's an energy, and to your point, energy, aura, ability to command people, be entertaining, and people want to listen to you and talk to you when you talk, and that's what a great head coach usually has. and some people may wonder why can't a coach just go to the press conference and be that same person there's an obsession with protecting the team you don't want to say anything that's going to be perceived directly or indirectly as throwing anyone under the bus as introducing a subject that could send the locker room off kilter a little bit and that desire to protect the team sometimes will cause a coach, and I think Belichick is the prime example of this, to just shut down and say nothing because he wants there to be zero risk of anything being said at the press conference that could in any way undermine the best interests of the team, of the players, and create issues with his primary job. His primary job is not talking to the media. It's a key part of it, and your ability to communicate in that setting could be crucial. We've seen guys talk their way out of jobs with not great press conferences. Gerard Mayo, in part, set the stage, I think, for one and done, 3-14 record or 4-13, whatever it was. Bad. Bad. Let's just go with bad. That didn't help. But as that season, 2024, was unfolding and there were different press conference performances, and it's like, eh, that's not ideal. That's not ideal. And you had Aaron Glenn, the whole my superpower is defensive play calling. I mean, he got dragged all over the place for that, and for good reason. He wasn't the play caller last year until he fired Steve Wilkes. Yes, right. Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, and that's what sometimes you say things like that, and your personality gets used against you. That's my superpower. Hey, cool, that is. But, yes, that opens it up now for, well, why the hell wouldn't you have used your superpower last year? Superman, wait, you didn't want to fly last year? Superman, Superman, you're not flying? You're not flying, Superman? You can fly. Oh, but Superman, that's your superpower. Fly, go, take off. I mean, yes, so that's one of my pet peeves right there when coaches don't call the defense, offense, whatever they were brought to town to do. But yeah, all these are reasons why coaches can be a little guarded in the press conference at times. faster than a speeding bullet when i feel like it i'll let somebody else do it i'm not in the mood today okay to be faster than a speeding bullet or to leap tall buildings in a single bound no me neither whatever else was at the outset of the superman tv show what was it faster than a speeding bullet able to leap tall buildings in a single bound i think there's more yeah there is there definitely is i don't know something like that right that's you know locomotive That's more your generation there. Like, I kind of know it, right? But I got to hear it again to kind of spark the memory in my brain there. It's a little before my time there, that one. Better dial back the age comments, buddy. I noticed last week for the first time with you for three straight days. You're starting to feel old. And I'm getting a kick out of it. Because like I said, I've already come to terms with it. So I can sit back and I can say, yeah, let's see how somebody else who enjoyed calling everybody else old is going to go through this transition now that he's on the wrong side of 45, which means the inevitable creep to 50. It's not happening. I saw Morgan Freeman this week, and he's getting close to 80. He might be 80. And they said, what's the key to staying young? And he goes, well, I took advice from Clint Eastwood. And, of course, Clint Eastwood, I don't know. He looks like he's 100, but he's still walking around making movies. I'm sure he's 90-something at this point. But his advice to Morgan Freeman was, I never let the old man in. Right? He never let him in. So he never thought about that. I'm young. I'm dumb. I'm stupid. Here I come. I'm just going to be that guy. I'm going down like that, Mike. I'm never going to let the old man in. Clint Eastwood is 95. Okay. Now, are you ready? Are you sitting down? I know you are. Yes. Morgan Freeman's 88. Damn, he's 88. So it's working. Whoa, it is working. That's good advice. See, I'm taking that right there. Man, I thought Morgan Freeman, you were going to tell me he was like 82. I did not realize he was 88. Incredible. Wow. That is amazing. Hey, here's an old man observation, and this will blow the kids' minds, because most of the kids out there are familiar with Morgan Freeman in one form or fashion. He's been around forever. First time I ever saw Morgan Freeman, he was a cast member on a PBS show called The Electric Company, which was like an educational thing for kids older than Sesame Street. It was more like third, fourth grade. A little before that. No, not quite that far. No, if you're watching Vector Company as a teenager, you've failed a few grades. So maybe you did. Maybe you did. But it was one of those things that was always the fun day in school. For whatever reason, it was in the lesson plan. Oh, they let you watch that? Yeah. Maybe the reason was teacher needs a break from these little assholes. Maybe that was the line item in the lesson plan for the day. But there was a TV, the old school cathode ray tube TV on a cart. And the cart gets rolled out, turn the lights off, plug in the TV. Usually it was black and white because, you know, the budget didn't support the color TV. Because you were old and that's what TV was, black and white. Well, we did have color TV technology at the time. It's just hard to justify. You're on a budget. It's a Catholic school, you know. supported by parishioner donations and low-end tuition. But on came the TV and Morgan Freeman on the electric company. That's cool. I think I have seen clips of that before where I've seen him as a younger man. My version of that was Reading Rainbow. Do you remember Reading Rainbow? Well, that was our version. With LeVar Burton? Yes, exactly right. I still believe it was Tuesdays. We knew at Tuesdays at like 10 o in elementary school no class they going to wheel them in the TV color one though a few years later watch it and we were going to watch Reading Rainbow That was like your little cheat once a week to go oh man awesome We don't have to learn anything. We could just sit back and watch the TV for a little bit. So that was my version there. Wow, a little extra information that Gary has tracked down. Freeman arrived on the electric company in 1971. He wanted to give him financial stability and recognition among American audiences. His work on the show was tiring, so he quit in 1975. TV producer Joan Ganz Cooney said Freeman loathed appearing on The Electric Company. That's incredible. It was a very unhappy period in his life. He later acknowledged he does not think about the show, but he was grateful to have been a part of it. And there he is from The Electric Company. That's amazing. And, you know, when you identify someone like that from a show that you watched as your escape from having to sit there and do schoolwork, I remember, like, rooting for Morgan Freeman to become a star. Like, hey, I know him. It's the Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, you point at the TV. Hey, there's my guy from the electric company. Go, man, go. But, you know, he had the talent, too. It's not like he needed a bunch of things to fall his way. Great voice. Great skills in so many things. favorite role, obviously, for me, Shawshank. He's done many, many things, many, many things, but I think of him first as Shawshank. Yeah, it's hard not, I think that's probably what I think of him first, too, as well. I think you're right. I think that's the first one that comes to my mind, but his voice comes along with that. His voice is incredible, narrating, of course, that movie and other things, commercials, wildlife documentaries, all of it. I mean, he's one of great voices of all time man if morgan freeman trips over the show today he may want to check and make sure he hasn't died right like we're going down this morgan freeman rabbit hole keep going morgan 88 and keep going and don't let it slow you down you know i used to be of a mind that i was fine with getting to 80 my plan was to get a ferrari i've got a ravine down behind the house create like an evil knievel snake river canyon ramp and just launch that thing and just call it quits at 80 on the dot but you see people who are functioning at a high level deep into their 80s and beyond i don't know what the secret to it is but let's give it a shot baby i'll be let's see when i'm 90 you'll be 75 and i'll be laughing my ass off because you'll be like oh this hurts Oh, where's my spleen? Oh. Yeah, no, don't worry. I've already strapped you into that Ferrari and driven it off the club and strapped you in there and locked you in there and driven that thing off the cliff for you. So don't worry. Thanks. You're welcome. All right. You can tell that we spent way too much time working last week. Somebody asked me on Friday night, a coach, wanted to know if there was any of the prospects that I found particularly impressive. And I said, I don't really know because we get no time to process these interviews. One ends, here comes the next one. One ends, here comes the next one. And it's one after another after another. And just a few little things like stand out. A few different moments stand out. Carnell Tate and his Lego story. The guy that's the elite level baker, and I can't remember his name without looking it up. Denzel Boston, I believe that was, from Washington. Was he the one? The receiver? Was it not him? Yeah, yes, I think it was. And then there was the kid who was extremely personable, and he told the story about how he used to play Fortnite all the time, and his older brother eventually dragged him to the gym. You've got potential to be great, but you've got to develop it. And he credits that moment with where he now is. Who was he? Do you remember him? He was one of the receivers. I know. It was. It was a receiver, right? Was that Jordan Tyson? That might have been Jordan Tyson, maybe. I believe so, right? Yes. All right, I'm trying. But you're right. It was. It was impressive. It was impressive. It's fun, but it's a whirlwind, as we know. I need to go back and watch them all. That's what I told the coach. I have to go back and watch every one of them to refresh my memory on who said what and who they are and what their draft stock is. I mean, we had some guys who are going to go in the top 10, top 20, top 32. We had guys who may be mid-round, but most of them are guys who are going to be picked earlier than later in the process. And if you go to YouTube and you type in the search bar NFL on NBC, the page comes up and you can find there's a pro football talk thing. And you click it and it's got one after another. You can see all the interviews. We did 40 in four days, which seems like a lot, but ain't as many as last year. No, last year we went over 60. Last year, whatever it was this year, I think multiply it by 50%, and it was 60. Now, I think what's going to happen, because last year we let it get out of balance. We had too many coaches and GMs at the Combine, and it was harder to get them at the league meetings. This year we kind of held back a little bit for Indy, and I have a feeling that it's going to be one after another when I reluctantly go to Arizona. You're very excited, I think, about going to Arizona. I would love to stay home until the start of the season and beyond. But I have a feeling we're going to be going to Arizona in less than four weeks. All right. Well, I'll be ready. I need some warm weather at that time. But, yeah, I do like going to the owner's meeting. I do like that. I do think it's one more chance to get in front of the coaches and the GMs And, yes, talk to them on TV, but talk to them not on the TV as well. And there's a number of those guys, as you know, that we talk to, we communicate, we have our own friends there. And we only get a few chances like a year to see them face-to-face and have that time that way. So that's where I find it valuable, not only for friendships and stuff like that, but for my own job and work and everything that way as well. So that's where I find it pretty beneficial to be there. But the combine itself is an interesting experience. We saw a lot of kids do some big-time things. We had the fastest combine ever. We talked about that a little bit before the show came on, which is kind of crazy because I sit there and I go, it didn't feel like the fastest ever. It didn't feel like we had a ton of 4-2s and stuff like that. But at the same time, and I think you heard me say this, and I think your mind's kind of in the right place here as well, these kids have become so good, and the training has become so good at the 40 and everything about it that running 4-4-7 now is almost like, oh, okay, big deal. No big deal. Oh, 4-4-7. They've got it down to a science, the training. If you've got just a certain amount of athletic ability and explosion about you and your physical makeup, we're seeing more times than not with the right diet, the right training, the right trainer to teach you the tricks of the race. that we can see certain position groups where at certain points during the day last week, DBs, receivers, it was just like, oh, Rich Eisen, it was like 4-4-7. Oh, yeah, 4-4-5. Oh, big deal. 4-4-8. Big deal. Big deal. And, you know, that's where we are. So it's funny that it's the fastest ever, but it didn't really feel like that to me sitting back and watching it for most of the weekend. Yeah, because what happens is when the football season ends for the guys who are heading to the draft, they immediately go to a facility where all they focus on is the combine events. They're being trained to go to Indianapolis or their pro day where it's the same thing. It's just in a more favorable setting, sometimes on a faster track, and the scouts will adjust the measured times accordingly. The time may look good when it shows up on your phone, But the scouts know when to add a .05 or even a .1 to a guy's speed on a faster surface at his preferred location for his pro day. But it's all about getting yourself ready for the combine events, for the pro day workouts. And then you start hopscotching for the best prospects all across the country for the visits where every team can bring in up to 30 guys. And then there's a concern that you get a bunch of guys who, after the draft, when you show up for the rookie minicamp, they're kind of out of shape. Because they went straight from football season to combine prep season to let's go do all these face-to-face job interviews and not get the kind of exercise we ordinarily do season. To, all right, now we're going to have NFL practice and you're going to have guys who are puking on their shoes. Definitely. Well, you see that. Because they've worked so hard. There was no off-season. I went to college. You're training, just as you explained. It goes to the combine. Combine's over. Keep getting ready because you're going to have a pro day in the next three to four weeks at some point. Keep getting ready there. That gets over. You could take a deep breath and go, oh, okay, wait, I don't have to grind and work out every day, which shouldn't be the case. but you're exactly right because now you go visit everybody and you take 20 to 30 days off and then all of a sudden you get drafted and then that team's like hey we'll see you here in two days and some of those teams have a rookie mini camp or something within the first five days after the draft at times in that first week if not an OTAs following up and with what you're saying too that's why we see it feels like every year we have a few people a few rookies who go to OTAs and they have to be held out because they had tightness in their hamstring or tightness in their quad or something like that because to you and everything you're saying, they trained really hard to get ready for the draft and everything there but then took a little break and now it's like, hey, wait, wait. You wouldn't have taken a break if you were in college and we were getting ready to practice or if you were in the NFL. We were sitting here training, getting ready for OTAs, and they have to kind of gear themselves up and get going. And that's going to be one of the tricks of the trade. Stay in shape during the visits. Don't let off. That's going to be one of the tricks for your NFL career. You can't really ever let off. A week here, a few days here. But, man, if you think you're going to make it in the NFL and just have periods of time where you're going to be like, oh, I'm not doing anything for six or seven weeks. Well, your career is not going to last as long as it should, if that's the case. And hopefully these are lessons these guys can learn as they go forward here. The one example that always comes to mind when I think about that showing up for your first rookie practice and you're not in ideal shape. The late Joe McKnight, 2010, when he showed up for the Jets, and I found the story, throwing up on the field, calves cramped, struggled through the first two days. He just wasn't in the kind of condition he needed to be in because they don't have a break-in period. They throw you into it, and they expect you to go out and perform. And I also think some of the coaches get a kick out of guys getting that rude awakening to your point. You can't let yourself ever slip out of shape. This isn't like the 70s where guys went home after the last game, worked other jobs, and then showed up after chain-smoking marbles and drinking booze for six months, and they needed an extra-long training camp and an extra-long preseason to get themselves in shape for the first game. And, you know, even if the rash of impressive 40 times is the result of guys getting the right training, paying for it, learning every little thing to carve a hundredth here and a hundredth there and a hundredth there. The correlation is, if you look at it as very task and goal-oriented, he had something that he was trying to do. He figured out how to do it. He did all the things necessary to get to the desired outcome, and he succeeded. And that's transferable. I remember when they used to do the Wunderlich test, and there were certain agents who knew certain executives who would allow them to get their hands on the six different versions of the Wunderlich test, and the agents would give those to their players so they'd be ready for the Wunderlich test. and it was like, oh, can you believe this is happening? And I had somebody with a team say, hey, if a player can take six versions of this test and show up and answer all the questions right as to one of the six versions, he can learn a playbook. That's good enough for me. That's right. That's life right there. Exactly right That all they want to see And then you obviously putting in the work behind the scene That part of the whole litmus test of what you talking about here So those are all positives for the NFL and how they view that And you're right, the combine and everything we've talked about, yes, it's also part of that conversation. Let's see how ready he is for this moment. How important is it to him? How is he prepared mentally with questions at the board? Is he able to handle that? But then, of course, the physical aspect and everything that goes along with the workout and everything there. And, yeah, we're seeing, really, in my time just working with you in the last seven years, I feel like we've seen a transition of these kids getting better and better at all of this stuff. We talked about on Friday or Thursday how the kids are just more wide open. And, you know, there was a time three or four years ago where they were guarded. and it was just going to be yes, sir, and we're going to barely answer the question and not say anything so nothing else can be expanded on. And they've grown in that department too with their ability to show personality and still say the right thing and not say anything controversial. So impressive. And, of course, the combine itself was impressive, and there was a lot of guys that were impressive. We saw all the DNs. They were impressive in person. I still think that ultimately they were the stars of the show the weekend And the front seven, I think, will continue to be the most talked about thing in this draft. So that's cool. I mean, we got all these guys. Of course, we got, you know, the Ohio State crew right here to lead it. We got the story of the Styles family. Sonny Styles and Lorenzo Styles. Holy freak of nature, brothers. We had that. That was incredible. Jeremiah Love showing that he's a freak of nature. And that he's worthy of being one of the top picks in the draft at the running back position. We had Ty Simpson looking really good. Damn, Talon Green from Arkansas did things that we've seen DK Metcalf and Megatron do at the damn combine, playing quarterback. So that was incredible to see as well. There was a lot of good stuff. There really was, and I think we got a lot of talking points and things to talk about here, not only now, but for the next few weeks when it pertains to the draft. Damn. You know, the measurables, it reminds me of another Arkansas quarterback from 20 years ago who became a first-round pick, and it was a stunner when it happened. It was the first-round pick of the Jaguars. Do you remember his name? Oh, well, Matt Jones, right? And Matt Jones, I used to work out with him. And here's a funny story, because he came up here to Jersey and trained in the place I trained at, which is a place that a lot of guys in the combine and the NFL still work out. And he was a freak of nature in his own right. But also within that, and you're going to like this story just real quick as we go through this, but yes, Talon Green does remind you, same body type, right? Has athleticism that you'd go, that's receiver athleticism, let alone quarterback. But Talon Green's a quarterback, and he does some things at quarterback where you go, ooh, that's pretty good. There's something there. Let's see what we can make this kid as we go. But here's one that you're going to love, all right? Just real quick on Matt Jones. Because, yes, it's rare to have a white guy quarterback that goes to the combine and runs 4-3 and jumps through the roof and does that. That's rare. I mean, let's just say it is. But with the 5-10-5, and I'm already in the NFL, but I'm coming home to train in the offseason a little bit, and they're like, we found a new trick on the 5-10-5 at the place I train at. And the place I trained at already had, like, you know, the fastest 5-10-5 people ever at the combine. Tim Dwight from Iowa, right? He trained at my place. Remember him, Mr. White Lightning, return the kick for the Falcons against the Broncos in the Super Bowl. So he was there. But Matt Jones was, oh, you had to put the poker on him a little bit. Like, hey, come on, let's work out today. Let's go, let's go. And he ran the 5-10-5 one time and never really stood up, just stayed crouched over and, like, low to the ground. And I can remember the trainer and everybody looking at him going, what? And then we looked at the clock, and he ran, like, an incredible time. and it became a little bit like a thing with, well, stay low like Matt Jones. Don't hit the ground and then pop back up and run fast, right? Kind of stay low the whole time. He did it unintentionally, almost being somewhat lazy with the drill, but stumbled upon something to where it's the way it gets taught now in most places when they talk about the 5-10-5. Just thought that was a funny story. That is a good story. That's a Todd Munkin-level, Jason Garrett-level story. Jason Garrett's always got a good story, too. Oh, he does. But that is a good story. And he was the 21st pick Matt Jones was in 2005 and just never – you go back and look at the first round of 2005. Other than, oh, Aaron Rodgers, there's a lot of swings and misses in the first round of the 2005 draft. And I was talking to somebody about this yesterday because – Cadillac Williams. I try to suspend – I try to, like – I don't let it bother me anymore that all the coverage is about how great this guy is going to be in the NFL. Because it's part of their moment. Let them enjoy their night. Reality will arrive later. The reality is half of the guys who go on the first night of the draft are probably not going to work out for a variety of reasons. Maybe it's a bad fit. Maybe they weren't willing to put in the time. Maybe being a first-round pick was detrimental to them because they felt more entitled than motivated moving forward. For plenty of guys, it's better to fall to round two or three because then you've got a chip on your shoulder and you're more determined to prove that you should have been drafted higher. And it shows in everything you do, and it culminates in great performances on the field. But that year, it was bad. And if you go back and look year by year, I mean, there are names that are just glaring. It's like, oh, my God, what happened there? You just don't find out with any of these guys. And that's the thing. As Jerry Jones would say, you're circumcising a mosquito from round one to round two to round three. These are all guys who are going to get a chance to shine in the NFL. They're going to get a fair opportunity. It's a meritocracy. Once they're all thrown in the blender, there are some political realities where, well, we did use a first-round pick on this guy. Even though the seventh-rounder is better, we probably should keep the first-rounder on the roster because we're going to look like morons if we cut the first round. But still, when it comes to playing time, it's all merit-based, or you're going to lose your job. You can't just continue to force J.J. McCarthy onto the field without getting yourself fired at some point because you need to be willing to admit we just got this wrong. And it's okay to admit you got it wrong. Now, they don't want to admit it to their owner, and that's the thing about these draft picks. they act like before they're used that each one is a million dollar winning lottery ticket even though history tells us when it's time to go scratch you're getting bubkis far more often than you're getting a million bucks but until you use it you have to regard it as the one that could become yeah the next great thing that transforms your career like patrick mahomes did for Brett Veach in Kansas City. You get that one guy out of the class, that one or two or three guys out of the class that's on track for Canton, and you've secured your future for the next five, six, ten years. But, yeah, there's just so many variables, right? There's so many things that go into it. There's all those famous stories of, like, GMs going, you know, the most nervous day of the year was the first OTA. You went out there with all the rookies and the veterans to go, like, man, I hope my first rounder looks better than my third and fourth rounder, right? There's like all those stories where that's how the GM feels as he walks out in the field the first time. And yeah, the draft is an unexact science. I mean, it's humans, and we know humans are not exact. So yeah, and with all that variables as far as the human makeup, the physical makeup, putting them in a new place, new environment, can he handle it, all of that, that all kind of starts to, you know, float to the top there when you get on a football team and can you handle it? And of course the draft itself, the first round can go either way. It can go, wait, team takes a chance on a guy because they see, ooh, wait, there's some issues, but he does this one thing at such an elite level. We're going to take a chance on him and we think we can fix all the other things. So that can lead to a bust or it can lead to, as we've seen the last two years and we've heard this from other teams, they get into the conversation of maybe we're not looking for that guy all the time. We're looking for the good all-around player that loves the sport, that we can trust, that's going to work hard. It's more about the high character. So, yes, that pick might work out, but at times they're going to get outshined by second and third rounders where people were like, man, that guy was a freak in the second or third round, but he had a few issues. He had one off-the-field issue, so we didn't trust to pick him and pick 18 in the first round. That just was too risky. And so that's where it seems all over the place at times. That's why sometimes we have third-rounders that look better than the 15th pick of the draft. Sometimes we have a bust at No. 7 pick of the draft because you took a chance on something elite he did. And that's where it's awesome. That's why it's awesome because you just don't know. Like you said, you might get Micah Parsons, you might get LT, and then you might get some bust that's not in the league three years after you draft him. To put a button on the Talon Green-Matt Jones conversation, Matt had a 4-3-7 in the 40. Green ran the 40, 4-3-6. Michael Vick, 4-3-3. So they are dangerously close to one of the fastest, most explosive quarterbacks we've ever seen. And by the way, Tim Dwight was part of the trade package from the Falcons to the Chargers that resulted in the Chargers sending the first overall pick to Atlanta that became Michael Vick in 2001. Did Michael Vick run at the Combine, right? Did he run at the Combine? I don't remember him running at the Combine. I don't know if he did. All I know is 4-3-3 is the number that comes up. Google AI tells me 4-3-3, so you know it can't be wrong. I don't think I really think he was ever put to the test. I think he was one that never really ran because everybody was like, but every field he's on, he's the fastest. So, hey, AI overview on Google says Michael Vick's 2001 NFL combine performance is legendary featuring a blazing record setting for three, three second, 40 yard. I don't know why. I hope it's wrong. Yeah. Anytime I see anything AI generated, I'm like, please let it be wrong. Please let it be wrong because, you know, we're trying to we're trying to win the war with the machines. Did you see what I posted yesterday, too? And I don't know if we talked about this. Like, there's concern among coaches and scouts that AI is going to supplant some of them. Well, no shit. Scouting functions. No crap. I had a GM tell me that you just press a button and you get these reports, and it's like, this is incredible. Yeah. And then you start thinking, I don't need this person. I don't need this person. I just got this little box, and boom, I hit the button. And here's where it becomes interesting. because one executive said that from a coaching perspective, the most vulnerable jobs are quality control. Because think about what quality control does. It's human AI. It's real AI. It's go get me this, go get me that, put this together, run these clips. Fill this in the spreadsheet. Exactly right. That's what it is. Yes, that's what I did for the New England Patriots. But if you get rid of those people, that's the pipeline to develop coaches. that's the entry level right that's how you find out who's willing to grind and who's willing to work and who loves it enough to sleep in the office and make peanuts right but they can make even less if it's ai it's it's it's it's not funny it's scary to think of how it's going to completely overhaul our lives no it is it's crazy i mean we're watching it happen right in front of us and what i would say if we get too far down that road it'll just it'll just mess teams up You know, AI, sure, it's got some benefits, but can it really know a guy and know a person and be in a room with them and get the same feel? No. Just like analytics AI, all right? That analytics bullshit, all right? We've done, oh, we're going to listen to that no matter what. No matter what the situation is, we're listening to analytics. Okay, and that's why a lot of your asses lose and go home because you listen to that. You listen to a formula instead of your gut or what your eyes are seeing on the football field during a Sunday afternoon. So there's some beauty to it, yes, but it's not the end-all, be-all. And the human touch, the human feel, to be able to look into a guy's eyes, get a feel for their personality. As we talked about last week, we saw a bunch of guys that were 6'3", 250, who were not built the same. Is AI going to be able to tell me that one guy's ass was bigger and his hamstrings are bigger? Probably. I don't know. Yeah, maybe, maybe. We'll see. If it gets there, then I'll certainly give it credit for what it can do there. I just think there's a time in the not-too-distant future when a head coach is on the sidelines trying to make a decision about what to do on fourth down he going to have Siri or Alexa telling him in his headset what to do It not going to be a human voice It going to be an AI program that tells him And it will have taken in every possible factor, everything, including a snowstorm is coming. Because it sure seems like in Denver, one side didn't anticipate what was coming later in the game and the other side did. And it all comes down to the quality of the AI, but you just keep feeding more stuff into it, and it takes more into account. Chris, I could see an AI program that is actively analyzing the patterns during the game, just like we see coaches and players do with tablets. There will be machine learning of the trends during the game, and the strategizing could come down to who's got the better machine. You're right. We'll see who's got Grok, who's got Claude, who's going to work better, what team's going to be better. I don't know. Yeah, can we come up with some better names for these things? Maybe it's good. Well, I like that when you look up Elon Musk on Grok, he says he's the most dangerous person in a democracy. He created it, and they tell him him and Donald Trump are the most threatening people in a democracy. It's kind of hilarious. It's like, wait, you invented this machine, and this machine says you're the most dangerous person in the world in democracy, you and the president. That's crazy. You can't make that up, honestly. But wait, back to the tailing. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, back to the tailing green. Because I was going to say something that wasn't going to be good for anybody, so go back to tailing green. All right, but tailing green, back to that, what you said with Michael Vick and Matt Jones and all of that. I mean, not only in the comparisons and what you saw there, he's 6'6". He's 227. He's got 34-inch arms. He could obviously dunk and put the ball between his legs and do, like, NBA dunk contest stuff. The broad jump. I mean, he broke the system almost as far as what quarterbacks are expected. And let's just say this. There's stuff you can see on film, and you know I'm early, where I've only watched, like, Taylor Greene, I watched 30 plays last week just to get a feel. My dad had told me a little bit about him a few weeks ago. He said, watch this Taylor Greene. He's like, his good is pretty good. And he wasn't wrong. There are some moments of Taylor Greene where you go, wow, that's top notch. Now, it's not consistent. And that's the thing you heard Daniel Jeremiah talk about with his throwing and everything there as well. But as we know, in the age of all these quarterback gurus and people that can help you throw, and if these kids are willing to work and do that, and then you have this type of athletic ability behind it, watch out. but that was an impressive performance and certainly one that catapulted him into the could he be one of the first three or four quarterbacks off the board now? Well, that's the question. And I'm a big believer in putting your best 11 guys on the field no matter what. And when you show me a guy that is that size, that fast, that explosive, that dynamic, I'm finding a way to make him one of my best 11 guys. I want that talent on my team. And if he can throw, he doesn't have to be a quarterback full-time. He can do all sorts of stuff. But see what you can do by way of developing the guy into a quarterback. It's the Bill Walsh thing. I think I said it last week as it related to one of the quarterback prospects, something Peter King always said. Bill Walsh's belief was that if a guy does something once, I can coach him to do it all the time. Yes, right. And if you get the right coach working with Taylor Greene, maybe he becomes a franchise quarterback, a guy who, and it's not apples to apples, but, you know, nobody, well, you did. Most people didn't know that Patrick Mahomes was going to be great. Why? Because for whatever reason, he didn't get the coaching. Sorry, Cliff Kingsbury didn't get the coaching he needed to become that no-brainer, this is the guy, Heisman winner, national champion. He didn't have that. And once they get to the NFL, they get access to, if they land in the right spot, the kind of coaching that can turn them into much better players than they ever were. But this is a guy who's got the goods. The question is, can those goods be properly shaped and directed into something that will make the kind of difference that makes him one of the better players in the league? You've got to evaluate him for him. That's what happened with Mahomes. This is where these stupid phrases of, he's a winner. I'm going to draft him because he's a winner. I didn't know he did everything. Damn, last time I checked, Tim Tebow was a winner. but there was 20 other All-Stars on the team. So was it him? Just him winning? I mean, come on. That's where we get into it. He was 4-7. We should put him back. He's not a winner. He can't win the Super Bowl. Well, the team matters, right? And then people look at stats, Mike, and this is how, like, I can remember this. He had a game against TCU his last year against, and that's how everybody kept saying to me, well, what about the TCU game? What about the TCU game? I'd go on radio. That's all I ever heard. And I'd go, yeah, I watched the TCU game. You could put Superman, you could put Peyton Manning in. Nobody was open. There's one thing to go, wait, the stats weren't good and people were open everywhere and he missed throws and he missed reads. But when you go, wait, I watched the game and nobody got more than an inch of separation and he was under pressure and nothing could happen and I don't care who you are, what do you want him to do? He's not Houdini. But people looked at that and went, oh, look at that. He's not a winner. He's a Texas Tech. And look at that game against TCU. He only threw for 175 yards. Well, that was all that was there that had. He took advantage of every yard that he could possibly get in that game. And that's where people, they mis-evaluate at times, especially about the quarterback. They draft the team, a.k.a. Tua. I'm drafting Alabama. Look at Tua. He's great with all these superstar linemen that are better than the other team and the receivers that are better than the other team. And my defense is better than the team. But it's Tua. What? Okay, yeah. Tell me how that worked out, Miami Dolphins. And that's where we get, you know, bust at time, especially at the quarterback position. Okay, so with Jordan Tyson, who is the guy I was thinking of earlier, who was just very magnetic, very electric. You can tell he's ready for this moment. He's going to be a fan favorite wherever he goes. Here is Chris from Friday asking Arizona State receiver Jordan Tyson how many reps he will get when it's time to lay flat on the bench, very flat, can't arch your back, got to do it right, bench pressing 225 pounds. Here's the conversation. What are we going to shoot for in the bench press? Because you don't hear receivers go, I'm just coming into the bench press often, so what are we shooting for here? Yeah, I've been kind of looking at the rules and stuff like that. I know you've got to keep your back real flat and stuff like that. Oh, they're strict with it. Yeah. So you might lose a rep or two compared to your home gym. Yeah, in training I hit about 27. What? Wow. 27? We're going to shoot for that. I just grabbed your right pectoral. It didn't feel like a 27 peck. I know that. Damn, I'm the man. I endured the knee injury, and that's when I got super, super strong in the arms. Oh, you couldn't do the legs. Couldn't do the legs, so I got real strong in the arms. I feel like I needed it too. He's got to put the defensive backs on notice. 27, though. Keep your head on a swivel. If he does 27 as a receiver, nobody is coming close to that. And here it is. And he's pumping them out. Man. And the back, the back, the back, the back. Yeah, he got a little bit. He got a little butt pumping off. Yep, yep. They did a little leeway, which they should. I mean, come on. You know, who the hell cares? It shouldn't be that strict. I think this is perfectly fine. If you're not counting at home, we know the final number. He wanted 27. He got to 26. Does he have one more? Does he have one more? Come on, Jordan. He's going to get like three more. He's got one more. Can you do one more? He's pushing about it. Yeah, the arms aren't even wobbly yet. Right? He's got, yeah, he's got, man, he's really getting them. There he is. Is he doing one more? That now, can he do one more? We're going to say. He might be dead now. He's not going to do one more. Oh, yeah. He was trying to get 27. Nope. That was 27. Way to go, Jordan. He only got 26. So close, but yet so far. But that's incredible. And that's all he did. That's the only workout he did at the combine. He did the bench press. He wanted to show everybody what he could do. 26 is still very impressive. There was an episode of Seinfeld where he got heckled while he was doing stand-up. So he decided that he was going to show up in the office of the person who heckled him and boo her. And I thought of that when I saw that Carson Beck got booed at the scouting combine. He got booed at a job interview. Imagine that. You're going to a job interview and you get booed. And that happened because he was the Miami quarterback in the national championship game against Indiana. and the Indiana fans who are at the Indianapolis Scouting Combine are still holding a grudge. Hey, folks, you won the game. Yeah, you won the game, right. And you don't – this isn't Ohio State, Michigan. Indiana and Miami University have played each other in football three times. Three times. That's it. Indiana has played Miami of Ohio far more often than has played Miami of Florida. So I don't get it. I don't get it. I mean, because there's a celebratory vibe to the whole thing. This isn't a game. It's not competition. There's no reason to boo Carson back. I just saw that, and I thought, this is weird, man. Like, this is just bizarre. It is. I mean, that's the way we are a little in sports, unfortunately, right now. And, you know, Gary, who's running the show today, he did get in my ear, and he reminded me of this, and I think this is part of it, too. He didn't shake Fernando Mendoza's hand after the game, as we've seen. That's become a new thing that everybody looks at. Like, how dare in this mess of everything going crazy and people running all over the field and media and family and there's confetti flying, how dare you don't search out the guy who just beat you in a tough moment for yourself. I mean, Sam Darnold got dragged a little bit like Drake May. When Tom Brady always avoided Nick Foles every time Nick Foles kicked his ass like that, like it was accidentally I'm not able to go shake Nick Foles' hands when he beats me in the Super Bowl, when he beats me, you know, Thursday night game, Bears-Bucks, oh, but that's okay. No, I know. But it's not okay for Carson Beck. That's the problem. That's exactly right. Carson Beck has become a guy that's easy to pile on for anything now because it didn't end well in Georgia, and he threw an interception at the end of the national championship game, even though he had one of the best years in college football playing quarterback. But, yeah, let's get on him more. And that's what stinks. But regardless, we got to meet him. He's a fine young man. He had a pretty good workout, certainly. He's going to be in the NFL. He's going to have the last laugh when it's all said and done. But, yeah, I was with you. When he ran out there on the field and they booed, I was like, what? It took me a few seconds to figure out what the hell was going on there. You know you're getting old when you refer to someone in their 20s as a fine young man. I know. I was saying it all week. I was going, you know, these kids are great. These kids are great. And I was going, damn, that means I'm old. I'm calling them kids now. Totally. It's official. I'm old. Best moment of the week was Texas safety Michael Taff not recognizing that you were Chris Sims. He was fully aware of who Chris Sims was. We've had plenty of moments where some of these guys are too young. They don't know who Chris Sims was. They don't know who Phil Simms was. Michael Taft was fully equipped with the ability in his brain to know who Chris Simms is and didn't realize that his knowledge is of 20-year-old Chris Simms not sitting next to 45-year-old Chris Simms. And when the light finally went on, he was so apologetic. Oh, he was. He was embarrassed. I felt bad. But, yeah, that was probably the best moment. That or Vrabel, you know, talking about the substitution and how the linemen are big and they didn't want to slip on the snow. Those two made me chuckle the most. But, yeah, Michael Taff was great. And he's probably like, damn, there's no way that's Chris Sims, the quarterback. He could be this good at TV and interviewing. He probably just was like, this can't be possible. The guy could be that good at both things. That's what I'm going to tell myself for now. That's exactly why. I thought so. I'm glad you're in agreement. All right. We need to take a break. We're returning. You know, last year, Jerry Jones didn't do his annual meeting on his bus with folks who cover the Cowboys. This year he did. And he had some interesting things to say, as Jerry usually does. We'll make sense of them, or at least try to, when PFT Live continues right after this.