NFL Draft Primer with Lance Zierlein + NFL Report Cards

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The Heed the Call podcast.

Wishes they were a Blanche, but know they're more of a Dorothy.

Ah, yes.

Hey, I'm proud to be a Dorothy.

That is my preferred mode of Golden Girl.

Welcome to Heed the Call with Dan Hansis and Mark Sessler.

Mark Sessler, who absolutely is a Sophia.

Am I?

You know,

I hope I don't have this wrong, but I thought one of the bigger nuggets of the Golden Girls was that the oldest woman

was the actual youngest, like, in the show, like, the one that was sort of their senior was the youngest woman in real life.

Right.

But in this case, because that was

Sophia.

Yeah.

I'm not a Sophia Getty.

In this case uh you are the oldest person on the show and also the oldest character that i'm referring to

well i don't appreciate that on multiple levels so

and by the way gravedigger is absolutely a rose total saint olaf and i could see that pouring off the gravedigger And while we're here, you've never seen the show.

Do you even know what we're talking about, Justin?

Full disclosure, when I received this particular zum drop,

and then I was telling you, Dan, which zumdrops I had, and I told you this one, and you said, oh, go with Golden Girls.

I had to do a little quick Google, Dorothy, Blanche, Golden Girls, and I had to put the pieces together because I had a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a drink.

A little bit of a cultural disconnect, but it's something worth diving into.

Justin does not respond.

He does not respect

older generations.

He does not respect older women.

I don't.

I have no respect for anyone even a day older than myself.

So that includes all of you guys.

Sorry.

If you're not a George H.W.

Bush baby, you are not anything worth living for Justin Graver.

Don't dare be a Reagan baby.

Don't be a Jimmy the Peanut Farmer baby.

Don't be a Gerald Ford baby.

Don't be a Dick Nixon baby.

Hold on.

Well, that's, and that's, yeah, that throws me off.

You guys, you left the country in shambles for my generation.

So what am I?

Am I supposed to like you?

Give me a break.

It's such a Rose.

All right.

So if Justin's Rose and I'm Dorothy and Mark is Sophia, that must mean that this man, Connor Orr, is our Blanche Devereaux.

Knows all about football, from coaches to the cap.

Lives in New Jersey, but foot mine not on the map.

No, he ain't kidding.

He's a pig skin and a hallmark dinner sore.

It's gonna roll.

It's gonna roll.

It's gonna

And thank you to Jake Smith for that fine song.

And that actually checks out also, Mark, the Golden Girl side of things, because Connor is like the total slut of the group.

Well, no, but we, you know, we don't always, we don't market that verbally often, but that's, that's well known within our circle, that he is.

Con man, how you doing, bud?

I'm just doing

she was actually sexually liberated as an older woman, Blanche Devereaux.

In modern times, she would be celebrated, but back then it was seen to be scandalous that she was still,

you know, active in that way at her golden.

In multiple ways, correct.

She was.

And yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody was at the time digging into what was really going on at all these nursing homes.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, these places are like, you know.

In fairness, they had a very nice home in Miami Beach, you know, Miami Gardens.

But

by the way, Connor.

She was still able at that point.

I know that Connor's active because he has a kid on the way.

It could have a baby.

At any moment, at any moment, Connor could bail.

We're now like in, we're in that territory.

How you feeling?

Good.

This show will be a valuable time capsule thing for me because

I do public speaking sometimes and I'll talk to like middle schools or do career days and I'll always tell kids, you know, nerves are just a feeling.

Being nervous is just a feeling.

No one can tell.

Well, this is a great opportunity for me to watch myself on youtube when i feel absolutely terrified and uh and see how i look in real life but i think i'm doing okay i think you're doing great and i think and i think connor that that you serve as a great example even as you're you know this is baby number three incoming it's very normal to have these nerves if you're a expectant uh father or yes uh or mother and and i was just just so you know like there are many ways obviously this could all play out uh the next few hours for you Like, for example, here's one way it could play out.

Connor, honey, it's time.

Oh, wow.

All right.

I'll grab your bag and I'll go warm up the TNC.

Are you sure?

Maybe, maybe we just Uber?

There's one way this could play out.

Just make sure your app is updated because you don't know.

Oh, man.

Do you have like a crash sound effect too, Graver, you dick?

What do you got over there?

Yeah.

Give me 30 seconds, baby.

Wow.

That was, who was the,

who was the female lead on that one?

That was your wife.

Well, my wife playing your wife.

That is uh well done.

Tremendous.

Let's not.

Let's not.

We don't, we don't need to even bring that energy into the world.

Oh, it was good.

I wasn't worried about the ride over like until now.

There's something have you ever done this?

So, like, the drive home with a, like, an, I'll never forget driving home with

when the child is released from the hospital, like the nursing staff that's all like on board with you, suddenly it's just like gone out.

And so like I'm driving home with like a two-day-old human being in a cradle or whatever, a car cradle seat like in the back.

And then you're driving down like the 10 on the LA freeway.

And it's like, this is a disastrous situation.

I don't want to be driving with like a new person.

Like take me home via like multiple limos and like a present, like a presidential cavalcade.

But it's like, I'm just ripping down the 10 with like someone that was just born.

Absurd.

There's that great scene at the end of Knocked Up where they take the baby home and that Rufus Wainwright song is playing, and it's just their car, and then like the entire LA freeway backed up because he won't go over two miles an hour.

There's really like there is something to that where it's like, well,

I'm not moving this car forward.

I'm terrified.

Well, best of luck to you and your whole family, Connor, especially your wife, of course, for this exciting journey to come.

We're going to get one more app out of of Connor, I think, before he steps away to his beautiful family.

And for this episode, coming up a little bit later, we'll have Lance Zierlein, NFL draft expert who's in Indianapolis at the Scouting Combine.

And we'll have our first mark conversation about the draft class and what we're interested in, and maybe some things that we haven't even thought about yet, and what will be a long process on that side of things.

Also, at the end of the show, with Connor, we'll hit the mailbag.

We haven't done that in a while.

Check in with the listeners and the audience.

So, looking forward to that.

But let's start with one of my favorite, like,

you know, speaking of Dorothy, and she's sarcastic and biting, and at times cynical.

And I just, I love Dorothy.

Like, there's nothing more like bitchy and biting than when the union puts out their

NFLPA team report card 2025.

I love it.

It's so petty.

And they frame it, Connor, as something that's very important

to their clients, the union, which I agree.

I think it's a nice tool to have if I was, especially as we head towards a new league year, which means free agency.

But what makes it so delicious and so Dorothy Spornack-like is dropping it right after day one of the Combine, where so many GMs and coaches now have to answer to like, wait, why is your team 29th out of 32 in terms of organization quality?

Why does this happen, Connor?

Like, what is this?

What is the union and the owners?

Like, is there, do they hate each other?

Like, what is the vibe, the energy on that side of the sport?

So I was at the reveal last year, and that was the first time that I was at the reveal of the report card.

And it's interesting to me because I'm not dubious of it in any way.

I think this is a really important thing.

It forces teams to change things.

I mean, the Cardinals completely had to revamp a lot of their processes.

And it's nice for these owners to be put on blast for charging for take-home meals, for example, which is an absolutely ridiculous thing when you're trying to keep them in the facility as long as humanly possible.

But all that said,

there are a lot of questions.

Like I remember asking about the methodology, for example, at one of these.

And everyone's like, well, it's not anything we're going to talk about.

It's like, okay, well, how many people per team?

You know, is there an exact number?

You know, what exactly is the, you know, the process here?

But.

Connor, what does treatment of families actually mean?

Like these.

Treatment of families.

Okay, so that's, that's an important one.

So for those who don't, haven't seen the report card, there are all different categories.

One of them very specifically is called treatment of families.

And that can mean a lot of stuff for players.

For example, on game day,

what is the parking situation like?

Is there a daycare at the game so that the wives can watch their husbands, so the kids can be somewhere?

During training camp, how many days are you allowed out there?

Is there

a tent, for example, for the kids to be under?

Are you just baking under the hot sun?

You know, if something happens at home, are the players allowed to leave?

You know, are the players encouraged to leave and be with their families?

So I think it's a little bit sweeping and broad, but very generally, this is an important metric for players because they're asked to spend so much time at the facility.

So when they are, how are the families then brought into the fold?

For example, there's a lot of there's Halloween parties, there's Christmas parties, there's Thanksgiving

things.

How did the owners act during that?

Are they out front?

Are they shaking hands?

Are they making you feel secure?

All those kind of things, I think, fold into that category.

And as has been the case the last, I think this is only the third year maybe

that this they've had this.

And like I said, it really shines a light on certain organizations.

And I'm sure it's a point of pride for certain teams, like among them, let's say, who did really well in this team?

The Dolphins.

The Miami Dolphins.

The Dolphins have an A or A plus in every category.

Right.

And then you have like the Atlanta Falcons, like straight across the board, straight A's pretty much.

And to me,

this would matter.

Now, the other part of this is, you know, who does terribly?

And the Arizona Cardinals are an example of a team that grades very poorly.

The Cincinnati Bengals grade out okay in some places,

but they grade terribly in others.

Like getting an F minus, for instance, for treatment of families, that would spook me a little bit if I were to go.

I thought F minus had been removed from.

I love F minus.

Like, there's nothing more savage than an F minus on dropping that on somebody's ass because it doesn't even really exist.

Right.

And I'll note that there was only one owner in all of the NFL that got an F.

There were a few that got a D, like surprisingly, Robert Kraft got a D,

or maybe not surprisingly, depending on how closely you follow what's going on there.

But Woody Johnson got an F

for ownership.

And

just real quick on that, he's had a pretty harrowing six months or so as team owner.

And I'm thrilled that he got an F.

Anything that maybe shocks this guy into being halfway competent and getting the hell out of the way.

So when I saw that, I kind of did a little fist pump.

But like, I think there's also probably a correlation.

I didn't look at it close enough, but like the Jets as an example are 29th out of 32 teams overall.

Look where the teams, the organizations that are traditionally successful, probably are doing better on this list

than the ones that are traditionally

failures as franchises.

Don't you think if you're Woody Johnson, though, one of the reasons you're getting low marks is because you look at this and you don't care.

You've never had to care about anything.

Like

you're well stocked, you're well-fed, you're thick in the belly, and you just keep rolling.

You don't need to worry about these grades.

Like, like the Cardinals got dinged years in a row.

Well, let me just say to that, Mark, I think this is the one, these are the types of things.

These are ego shots and these oligarchs have massive egos.

And you don't want to be the one owner that's an F because that means you're the worst.

And like, I think these guys, it hits them where it hurts a little bit.

At least that's how I hope now.

They might be so disconnected.

to your point, Mark, that I don't care about anything.

And, but I think these guys probably, a lot of them, have, this is something we couldn't say on the old show, but we'll say it now.

A lot of them have very fragile egos because they live live in an ecosystem where they're at the top of the food chain and have been that way for decades.

I doubt that I'd have to go look back

on last year's grades and the year before, but I don't think Woody Johnson went from A to F.

He went from B minus to F.

Well, Woody Johnson, like, I don't think he's going to look at this and it's going to be the sort of like a spiritual Paul on the road

to Damascus scenario where it's a spiritual wake-up call.

I don't believe that will be the case.

Here's the only reason that I'll disagree with you, Mark, in that is because I think just sort of reading the tea leaves on this situation,

the rhetoric surrounding Woody now involves and implicates his children, right?

We're seeing reports of his kids being involved and the Madden thing that came out, right?

And even though other teams do use Madden grades, I mean, the Ravens came out and said they use Madden grades.

And I'm not saying it's a good thing or it's excusable or whatever.

It's a right way to run an organization.

But the fact that his kids were implicated in this, I think, is a massive fork in the road moment for Woody.

And I would be shocked if he's not miles away from this team for a little while.

That's what I want to hear.

There's been a light, a bright spotlight shining on his incompetence for the last six months.

And I really think that could, that could help the organization, or maybe not.

Maybe there's nothing that could save my Jets.

But anything else that stood out on this?

Anybody, Justin included, on this?

I do think it's a little weird.

Like, for instance, a lot of teams get bad grades for food/slash/dining area.

That seems like a pretty easy one to check the box and do well in.

Training room, your training room, that should be state of the art.

I mean, you're a multi-billion dollar organization.

Locker rooms?

Like, how do the Arizona Cardinals, how do you have an F-minus locker room?

What is this?

1974?

Are you in the ABA?

Like, this is easy shit to fix.

And if you got an F-minus in 2024, how the f do you not have a better grade the next year?

Like, the i guess the teams that aren't paying attention to this stuff they it's a bit of a la ravile magnifico yeah like i'm looking you go to your own team right right out of the gates like i'm looking at the browns and like um they have an f minus locker room

but they get an a for the weight room like how are we doing one thing so well and one thing so poorly but um i also know like the browns of anything i know they put a lot of money into their facility And to have an F minus locker room, I, Connor, I'd ask you, like, having dug into this, like, what is, what does F minus locker room mean?

Because it's not like, oh, like the, the, the, um, elements and the type of wood they've used to create our locker space isn't like the right type of like oak and wood.

But like, what does it mean?

Because it's like, how do you get an F minus?

Like, it's a competent locker room from what we've seen.

This isn't oak.

This is plywood.

Exactly.

It is funny.

I mean, and what's even scarier is how easy it is to fix most of it, just to write a check that really wouldn't hurt your bottom line at all.

But it's like, like i and i won't say which team but i remember going to a place once and just being in the food court or whatever the dining area and there were just three trays of what looked like completely like shriveled roasted vegetables and then some sort of like it was like firefest food chicken white protein and then i looked over and i saw a player and like i can't really adequately do it but like one of those otis spunkmeier muffins you know what i'm saying those giant airport chocolate muffins And like, this is like an athlete making like $8 million a year, just opening a Spunkmeier muffin and shoving it into his mouth because he was like so hungry.

But then like the kind of eating where you don't even take it fully out of the plastic.

And so you're thinking like, Jesus, man, like there's probably got to be another option.

Whereas you go to some of these other places.

I mean, the Jets, for example, have a state-of-the-art dining.

I don't know what their dining grade was, but I know traditionally they are one of the top dining places.

And like, you know, it's not hard to do.

Let me see.

What are the Jets for dining?

They got a C they got a B plus or traditional dietitian.

They were usually higher.

C minus for no C minus for dining area, though.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, you know what happened in the,

I think Samidi wrote about that with them, that they fired their dietitian who was very popular, and then he went to the Chiefs.

And then, so I think maybe, it is a little funny, though, like, how do the, how do the Giants, and the Giants have a C minus for the locker room and the Jets have a D plus, but they literally have the same locker room.

It's like

they just got a dynamite MetLife stadium, let's be real.

Well, also, it could be the facilities too.

And to answer Mark's question, right, like

layout, locker size,

accoutrements, right?

Like, are there couches?

Does it feel private?

You know, how close is it to the shower area?

Like, all that kind of stuff.

So, yeah.

And, yeah, these are the players in the organization that do all the voting on this.

1,695 of players in the union provided information to share with one another about their current club.

It should be noted that most head coaches graded out well, other than the Bears, which I guess it's last year, right?

So that would be Ibrifluz,

the Browns with Stefanski, who's won like 14 Coach of the Year trophies.

So that's surprising.

And that was a little thing, the Jaguars.

Like, look at the coaches.

Like, all these coaches got fired, right?

For the most part.

But everybody else got pretty good grades on that.

And then, as I mentioned, Woody got the only F at ownership.

The Buccaneers, D plus.

The Steelers, a Tiffany franchise, got a D for ownership.

And the Pats, as I mentioned, Robert Kraft, a D for ownership.

And the Panthers, Tepper, D minus for ownership.

So there you go.

All right.

By the way,

a bunch of tattletales.

Snitches.

One last takeaway on the PA report card thing.

The Patriots team plane doesn't have Wi-Fi and still has ashtrays.

What are we doing?

It's 2025.

I would love to smoke on an airplane.

Are you kidding me?

That would be a feature, not a bug.

The idea of the Patriots not winning a playoff game for the next 400 years, that just sounds wonderful.

Wonderful.

All right.

Oh, we have developing news.

I'm Tom Brook.

He's Tom Brook.

I'm Tom Brokaw.

Developing news.

From Rapsheet, Raiders minority owner Tom Brady, speaking of the Patriots, and Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford ran into each other likely story.

At a ski resort in Montana, sources say the meeting, comma, unplanned, comma, a likely story, was not extensive or in-depth and did not include Brady hosting or recruiting Stafford, despite reports saying otherwise.

So that contradicts a report we heard from Fox.

Jordan Schultz had reported Tom Brady recently hosted, this is a verbatim, Tom Brady recently hosted Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford at his home in Montana where they spent time together and went skiing.

Brady has been actively trying to convince Stafford to join the Raiders, and discussions are ongoing.

Several teams are interested in Stafford if the Rams decide to move him with Las Vegas, believed to be the most aggressive suitor.

So somebody is right in the reporting.

Somebody is wrong.

But you may remember, audience, and Connor, I know you do, that the Stafford-Rams marriage began with a vacation in the offseason down south of the border.

And I guess it really does, I mean, it is a big difference.

Like running into each other on the ski lift and fist bumping is very different than like, let's cozy up by the fireplace and drink wine together and talk about a future.

That kind of is the devil and the details that matters here with this certain developing news.

It sort of presses a button for me.

And I wish Jordan was here to sort of therapize this a little bit.

But

I just hate when elite people skirt the rules.

Like, this is clearly, this shouldn't be allowed to happen.

And there should be outrage, and there should be owners trying to push this guy out and to disallow him from, you know, running into the top free agent on the market

on a freaking ski lift.

It's not real.

Yes, because what Connor's alluding to is that Matthew Stafford is under contract with the Los Angeles Rams, which means any type of canoodling is outside the rules.

He has to seek a trade.

He has permission to seek a trade, but

he has permission from the Rams to seek a trade, but this is clearly.

overstepping.

No?

I mean, well, is it within outside the rules, the rulebook, if he was given the permission?

Does that allow him to potentially be at a log cabin with the chimney blasting and some Luther Van Dross playing?

Like, what's allowed and what's not?

I guess that matters here.

I'm not sure what the truth is.

I mean,

right.

I think those are slippery guidelines.

But

you do not simply run into someone on a ski hill.

You don't run into two pro quarterbacks and historically viable pro quarterbacks do not just simply run into each other on a ski Well, rich hill in Montana.

But rich people operate in that realm where they all do the same shit and they all go to the same ski resort.

Like, that is a thing.

I'm just saying that.

You're probably right.

I get that, but like, I find it like, let's, can we just

let them?

Well, just let them.

Like, why are we, why, why are we, why do we have dueling reports about how this might have just been a coincidence that like Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford ran into each other on a ski hill in Montana?

Like, there's an option.

He's got to land him because he couldn't land Ben Johnson.

He's 0 for 1.

So let's see.

Yeah.

Is there one of these reporters carrying the water for somebody right now?

Well, that never happens.

So of course not.

Tell the truth.

This is Tell the Truth Week.

That's what I'm saying.

Just leave the call.

Go be elites to Conrad.

Just go be elites.

That's it.

And do what you want to do.

Like, it's so frustrating.

And what's going to be even more frustrating is there's the report and then there's the counter report and then Stafford's going to sign.

And I don't know if you guys ever remember, but there was

the long read about how the Knicks recruited,

oh, God, the quarterback, the coach of the Bowles dynasty.

Bill Jackson.

Do you remember that?

And like, all these rich whites just went to the desert and were driving dune buggies around.

And then they decide, you know, and so there's going to be some TikTok long read about how like, oh, Tom Brady learned exactly what wine Matthew Stafford's wife liked and had it ready at dinner.

And,

you know, this is how it's going to end up.

So, why don't we just come out and say it?

Like, you know, rich people skirt the rules.

Please, that's Connor news.

Before you go to the hospital, can you bang out a column on SI just going off?

Because I feel like you got a gorgeous one in you right now.

Other Stafford news.

Well, let's hear from Sean McVay, who is on the Fitz and Wit podcast.

That's with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Andrew Whitworth, talking about his quarterback and the drama all around it.

When we had these conversations prior to the Super Bowl, I think the important thing was let's be clear, open, and honest.

And this isn't that we're trying to be able to figure out, you know,

what is the next right move, but let's at least have all the parameters relative to you and Jimmy Sexton being able to talk to teams that have called on you.

Don't want to have to do anything in secret.

Want to make sure that we're all abreast of the situation, even though the first goal in mind is to have you come back here as the quarterback.

But that's where we're really trying to measure all those things.

He and I have had great dialogue throughout this process.

I know where we wanted to be able to end up, but these decisions aren't made in a vacuum.

And that's kind of the challenging part about it.

But love this guy and he's been incredible for us.

Like, dance.

He doesn't have to do anything in secret.

So why the fk are we going to a ski resort in Montana?

Like, just just do it.

They just bumped into each other at the lavatory next to the snack shack, Connor.

That's all.

This is all.

How does Sean Sean McVay ask his, I believe his wife is from the Ukraine.

How does he ask her just to get like a fork and knife and a napkin?

Right, this is what you got to do.

You got to go over to the island, and it's a third drawer.

No, not the second drawer, the third draw over.

You take out one fork, you take one knife, but make sure it's a steak knife because if you take out the regular knife, it's not going to be the right knife.

I got to be able to cut it with a serrated knife.

He's got one.

He speaks one way.

There is only one tone and one, there is no character change there.

If that was my spouse, it would drive me crazy.

Yeah, well, he'd be rich.

They can put up a he's up on the mountain.

Yeah.

He's going straight from Indy to that same mountain.

All right.

You guys want to cool it on the F-bombs a little?

That's like the fifth one.

I'm going to have to bleed.

Sorry.

Oh, Mr.

I'm in Texas.

I'm in God's country now.

See you at church, buddy.

All right.

And by the way, there's one more report out there.

Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News seems to be pounding this drum pretty hard.

So Leonard is leading the charge on this reporting-wise.

Matthew Stafford's representatives met with the Giants on Tuesday at the Combine.

Well, would you rather meet at the Combine or on a snowy white hill in Montana

with the flakes coming down on you as

you slalom down a hill between

bumps?

True, true, true, true, true.

All right, Connor, hang tight, right?

You can check on wife, see how everything is.

We're going to go talk to Lance, and then we'll circle back with you for a little mailbag.

All right, with that said, heyo,

Pivot.

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audience only.

We move on.

Now joining us is an institution

in Texas.

You should aspire to be

Justin Graver,

newly moved back to Texas, to be the inspiration and the celebrity that this man has.

Morning radio host in Houston for over two decades

and an NFL draft analyst of the highest order at NFL Media.

Lancy Irline, welcome back.

Well, welcome to Heed the Call.

Well, I know this.

If Justin just moved to Texas, he moved to Austin.

If you're you're in a podcast space at all, you're in Austin, probably.

He's in Dallas.

He's like,

he's like neighbors.

He's like neighbors with Matthew Stafford's

uncle.

Nice.

Dallas is pretty fancy.

It's good to be back, boys.

It's good to be here on the show.

I've been pumped up about doing this.

I just did four hours of

draft like the same questions over and over and over.

Although I have noticed that the people who host these shows are pretty talented.

There's some talented people out there who are doing a good job.

And then I'm doing this show also.

So I'm pretty excited

to be here with you guys too.

You can be guaranteed that Dan and Mark will ask

very niche, specific questions versus general draft questions.

You should know what you're walking into.

I like to really hammer down for about seven people.

Lance, last time you joined us at the old place,

it was the Mark Sessler mock draft, which

you just disassembled like an angry dad taking apart a rusted swing set in the backyard.

And I look forward to if we can book you for that again.

Just

humbling something.

It's like

if you went into a kitchen and tried to start cooking in front of the chef, how do you think that would go?

It's the same thing.

Well, you know, I did my best, but I do acknowledge that the results left something to, they were unrewarding.

They were unrewarding results on the mock draft.

So you were correct in your critique.

But at the same time, Mark, you are, for heed the call, the closest we have to a draft expert.

So I need you to present a strong front, a front of confidence

and to push back at Lance.

And but that's something we could stick a pin in that, okay?

For

essentially the next world war between SESI and Zealine.

Lance, I did notice before we ask some really detailed, in-depth questions about this year's draft class, there is a red Gatorade bottle behind you that's about 80%

taken down.

And

it makes me think you might have had a night out in Indianapolis as I have had with you in the past, hanging out with Matt Money Smith.

Who's your crew last night?

Last night was

it was actually a friend of mine from his

local broadcaster,

Well, local, a Houston broadcaster, and who I'd never met before.

I think he does really good work, relatively new.

And then

I was with somebody from the team, from a, from an NFL team.

And I didn't go late.

Like, I didn't, the night before I was with money, and tonight I'm going out with Money Smith.

So tonight we have dinner.

We'll probably finish about 9:30.

And then that's when decisions are made.

Because for Money and I, we fancy ourselves, you know, we fancy ourselves old men who like the early dinner, think about things, maybe we'll do it, and then we go back to the room.

But money was out last night until one o'clock.

So the odds of money going back to back are low.

But for me, I haven't really gone

too hard.

I mean, I have radio in the morning.

So

I'm thinking I do go for drinks after dinner.

And it's probably a little later for me.

I probably get in, you know, maybe around 12, 12.30.

And then I wake up and do my show starting at 8 o'clock Eastern, 7 Central.

And

you're in the load management era.

What's that?

You're in the load management era.

Oh, yeah.

No,

I'm the Kawhi Leonard of draft guys right now.

Do you find yourself entranced by

now?

You have a wonderful voice too.

Like you're a radio man.

Let's be real.

Backball is completely different than basketball.

Thank you, Justin.

Do you find yourself entranced by Matt Money's just sort of spinning vocally?

the vocal vocals

velvet cake was made so that there would be a comparison for Matt Money Smith's voice yeah like they didn't have a velvet cake until Matt was born and they said what can we do to emulate

the smooth textures and richness and they said well you know there's always

the the Fairlife 42 gram protein drink that tastes like a milkshake or there's a velvet cake, and there's Matt Money Smith.

So, yeah, I found like women are like, women are like ripping their cars off the side of the highway when Matt Money's, if they like mistakenly, mistakenly switch over to AM Radio in Los Angeles, like they are just their cars are going off the highway.

That's what I found.

Yeah, and then and then they meet them and they get back on.

I did get a text last night at, I guess it would have been 10.42 Eastern Time from Money.

It's like, are you guys here?

So he was just warming up the night, probably looking to

kind of build out his flock of dudes.

And unfortunately, we couldn't join him.

Maybe next year.

Yeah,

that's what it is.

Money.

Yeah, well, you know, money.

He wants the right people around him.

You got to have money wants the right setup.

You know, we're the part of our life right now.

You don't want to spend time, waste time with people you don't really care.

to have small talk with.

You got to have people that you hit the ground running with.

All right, let's talk talk a little draft.

Now, here's what you should know.

Because why we're not going to bullshit you, man.

Like, we are not at near the level of you, not even in the same stratosphere.

We kind of were counting on you, Lance, on some level to give us the

training wheels version of what we need to know.

And I know that probably is deeply depressing for you to hear, seeing as you've been giving interviews for the past 14 hours and another 14 after that.

But can you just help us contextualize this draft class?

Like, for starters, what grade would you give this draft class overall, like in terms of juice?

Ooh, juice C.

By comparison, what would last year be?

Oh, probably an A.

You know, five quarterbacks.

You had three really good wide receivers.

You had good pass rush, good tackles.

Like, man, that's sexy.

We're getting it.

We got quarterbacks.

We got people who sat quarterbacks.

We got people who protect quarterbacks.

And we got touchdown makers at

three really good wide receivers in the top 10.

So, yeah, I'm

last year was a really sexy draft.

This year, you don't have the quarterbacks.

You don't have the tackles.

You have really good pass rushers.

It's just not sexy.

It's, it is,

you know,

so you know how it is when you buy a washing machine or a dryer?

It doesn't, you know, if you buy a, if you buy a television, there's instant pleasure from that.

If you you buy

a refrigerator, you know, there's certain features you might be a little excited about, I guess.

A washer and dryer, you just have to have them.

There's nothing really to get excited about.

That's what this draft is, the mud room.

This room is,

you have to have it.

It's not the most exciting room

in the house, but...

It is necessary in getting done what you need to get done.

And it can be very, very helpful and make your life easier.

And that's who some of these players are.

Some of these players can make your life a little easier.

Well, let me ask you this because, like, I get we get it, like, it's not a good quarterback draft at all.

Um,

do you buy into

either of the top two quarterbacks?

Do you buy into them as like starters?

And, like, name aside, like, are we here?

Are we real here?

Well, so I think that both of them will be starters.

Will they be starters by the second contract on the same team?

I don't know.

I think they're both second-round type grades.

One of them could get pushed into the first round in other drafts.

It would probably be, honestly, it would have to be Cam Ward.

Shador Sanders would not be a first-rounder in most drafts, except for, you know, except for the fact that quarterbacks get pushed up.

But Anthony Richardson didn't carry a first-round grade, in my opinion, and he got drafted fourth.

So

there is something to be said.

Like, it is kind of interesting because Cam Ward has some real arm talent.

He's a very hyper-competitive person who I think is going to really stand out to teams when they talk to him.

He can make throws that no one else in this draft can make, but he'll also make mistakes that hurt his team.

He tries to play too much hero ball.

Shadur Sanders is actually very confident in the pocket.

He's very poised.

He's extremely accurate.

Those are things typically when we talk about quarterbacks, accuracy, poise, confidence.

Like that's typically what we talk about when you want the magic, you know, the magic elixir for a quarterback.

It's not about arm strength or arm talent.

It's about poise and accuracy and

confidence.

And he has that.

But I think, you know, my problem with Shadur is I worry that he's going to try to be a playmaker.

Because when he tries to work off-platform, he does not have the arm to be an off-platform passer, an off-script passer.

I mean, he he can do some things with it, but he takes too many sacks.

And if he just stayed on time and played to his strengths and didn't try to do too much, I think he'd end up being actually a pretty good starting quarterback.

Now, I'm stopping there, and I'm not going to get into whether or not he's going to be a pros-pro all the time.

Is he going to be doing a podcast?

You know, is he going to be

talking about his teammates or his offensive line like he did at Colorado during the summer?

I don't know that.

And that's the big wild card right now:

can he be a pros, pro as an NFL quarterback with a bunch of grown men in the room?

Let me ask you about another quarterback

because this is a guy I've heard kind of floated out there as an interesting guy.

There's some like Bo Nicks comparisons out there.

I don't know whether it's playing style or just this idea that maybe fall in love with a guy and take him a little earlier just because you love his game.

Jackson Dart is a player from Old Miss that

is not seen as a first-rounder, as I understand.

But is he a guy that potentially could zoom up at the draft board, especially given the scarcity at the position?

I'm looking like, for instance, just like for a little bit of context for this podcast, we got a Titans fan and our producer at number one.

We got a Browns fan and Cesi at two.

We got a Jets fan at seven.

Is Jackson Dart as somebody that any of us would be excited about if we got them, whether it was a first-round pick or a second or even third-round pick?

Your thoughts on Dart?

I mean, I wouldn't be super excited about dart i think dart is i think somebody's going to try to talk themselves into hoping he's the next brock purdy because he can move outside of the pocket a little bit he's got kind of a compact body type like like purdy um a multi-year starter i just

you know and i brock went in the seventh so who knows brock also played better earlier in his career which is you know he showed he could be a better player than he was over his last two years at iowa state

I think with Jackson Dart, if the Rams trade Stafford,

it might be interesting because that means that they have a plan in place.

Either to go after a Kirk Cousins, for example,

which potentially be a big cap hit.

I have to check that for the Falcons.

Or maybe there's a quarterback they like, and maybe Jackson Dart would be that guy.

I could see Jackson Dart sneaking into the back end of the first.

I don't think it's the favorite, and I don't think that's what I see on tape, but I could see it happening just because teams get,

you know,

they talk themselves into this guy is going to be the next this guy.

And maybe they're right.

I know that they're, I, I don't see it on tape.

The tape wasn't good this year.

The accuracy wasn't good.

The decision-making wasn't good.

But there's something about Jalen Milro.

And the ball in his hands and making explosive plays that I wonder if NFL teams are going to say, you know what?

Jalen Hurts went in the second round.

There's only been six quarterbacks drafted in the second round over the last 10 years.

Six.

You either get him in a first where there's been 35,

or you get him in a third where there's been 15.

Six second-round picks.

The only one is Christian Hackenberg, Will Levis, Kyle Trask.

Like, it is not good.

And then you get to Jalen Hurts Super Bowl.

So

I could see a team saying, well, maybe we get,

maybe we can go milro we'll make him a better passer we run the ball really really well

we have him run more he's explosive we have him try to create chunk plays we put another quarterback in there for competition and if all and if everything doesn't work out as a quarterback we move him to another position where he's still an explosive playmaker i mean i could see somebody thinking like that but i just can't take I just can't take Dart or Milro or anybody like that in the first round.

I just couldn't do it.

It's just not a quarterback draft.

Because once you draft a quarterback in the first round, your job's on the line.

You either develop them or you get fired.

And there's really no F's, ands, or Buts.

If you go to NFL.com, you write up hundreds and hundreds of players.

If not thousands.

It's kind of incredible.

And

part of me wants to just sit down and ask how you do that and how long that takes and the process of that.

You've looked at everyone.

Who's your favorite?

Nance isn't Disney, so maybe he will do do that right now.

He'll give us four hours to break down the process.

Yes.

Who's your favorite player in this draft?

Who are you obsessed with?

And they gave your man my very own podcast.

He's got the dog in him, Lance.

I would say probably Tyler Warren.

Well, no, it's really Ashton Genty, who's the first pick of the draft.

I mean, he's not first picking the draft, but I have him as a top-rated player in this draft.

Not that he's necessarily the best.

Well, I think he's the best talent in this draft, but you're not going to draft a running back ahead of a pass rusher.

I get that.

But Ashton Genty reminds me of LT, Ladanian Tomlinson, in that Ladanian Tomlinson didn't have a great offensive line in front of him with the Chargers, and yet he did these incredible things.

Now, Genty is not the pass catcher that LT was, but he creates for himself through wiggle, through power, through speed.

He's got the big three, wiggle, power, and speed.

They basically just said, you're our entire offense.

We're going to give you about 380 carries.

Just see what you can do.

And he just went to war every single game.

Carry, carry, carry, carry, carry.

And watching him on tape, like some of the things he did, you just realized, man, this guy is really special.

He had eight-man boxes all the time.

He was.

He held up despite this incredible workload.

And watching him, I just got really excited, just thinking, man, you know, I gave Bijan Robinson a really high grade, but the three highest running backs I've graded since I've been doing this in 2011 were,

I think Bijan, I have to check, because we changed grading scales.

So maybe Fournette and those guys, we changed grading scales since then.

But I know the highest is Saquon Barkley.

Saquon's one of the highest players I've ever graded.

And then Ashton Genty

is pretty high as well.

Wow.

So those two are my favorite all-time two running backs that I've graded since 2015 draft.

But then Tyler Warren also is one that I really, I just, I love watching him play.

He's got a Jeremy Schockey swagger, which you guys can appreciate.

When I say the name Jeremy Schockey, it's not the guy that ended up having injury issues.

And it's the guy that came out of the U, right?

It's the guy who was like good at everything he did.

It was a guy with an unshaking amount, unshaken amount of confidence and

swagger and toughness.

And

Tyler Warren has that same stuff, not as much arrogance, but he's got a level of confidence and consistency that, and his body type, I'm like, dude, this is a lot like Jeremy Shockey.

And people who understood what I meant, they love the comparison.

Other people try to say, well, you know, you had the well-action.

Well, actually,

if you look at Jeremy Shockey on pro football reference and you look at the injury issues and his

approximate value per San Angela is like, shut up,

nerd.

I'm not trying to talk talk about them.

I'm just trying to talk about this is who he's like.

I'm not trying to.

I hate doing player comps, by the way, for that very reason.

You can never make people happy on player comps.

And they get all worked up, like, but why are you saying that Jameis Winston is like Eli Manning?

Because he just throws a bunch of interceptions.

That's it.

They're both going to throw interceptions for the rest of their lives.

That's it.

That's the only reason.

But Larry.

You correctly aged us, and we appreciate the Jeremy Shocky.

I also have a running note of things not to ask Lance to trigger him.

Don't ask him about player comps.

Don't ask about the Cincinnati Bengals.

It's like a running tally of things to stay away topics.

If you ask, ask early on.

Don't call everybody generational.

That's another one.

Yeah.

And I know you got your first

mock draft out.

And I mean, it would be an absolute apocalypse on the back page of the New York Post if the Jets took a running back, I think, because a lot of Jets fans and people that cover the Jets still believe in the upside of Brees Hall.

But that speaks to you putting him even in a mock scenario at number seven.

That's a culture change of Aaron Glenn and

that ownership.

Look, here's my thought process.

This is my thought process.

Brees Hall's got a contract coming up after this year.

He's been nice.

He hasn't been, you know, he hasn't been special.

He's been nice.

He's a good player.

but I could probably move Brees Hall for a fourth, is my thinking.

Probably about a fourth.

Fans always misjudge how much you can get for players, but when a guy's contract's coming up, you can't get as much.

So let's just say, you know, let's say a fourth.

And then

I put this guy in here who I think is special.

And then we are going to run the football.

And we are going to have a guy who is more dynamic than Brees.

He does everything Brees does, only he does it a little better.

And all the factors, he's faster, although Brees is sneaky fast.

I think he's going to be a little faster.

He is a little more elusive, and I think he's a little more powerful.

Brees is a better pass catcher.

I'll grant you that.

But I'm not going to linger too long on Mach 1, but I just thought, hey, you know, you just.

How about a guy to bring excitement to New York?

Aaron Glenn says, hey, we want to get a guy in here who's a hard-nosed dog.

It might not be the way I would approach it, but I also think you're getting a really good football player when you draft Ash Nicholas.

That's also, I get what Lance is doing that's spicy I mean if you do a mock draft 7,000 mock drafts get spicy in your mock you gotta spice it up somehow the Jets fans were not happy with me no I know they weren't but it will be that's just also just that's 1.0 you can like come in and like oh yeah add some spices ingredients and look at look at Ceci trying to get on the same page as you with mock drafts as if you guys are contemporaries please Cecily we are we are

one last point on Genti and then one question from Cessnery we're gonna let Lance go because he's a busy man and we really appreciate it but he I think is gonna to be a fascinating test case because we just came off a year and we've had some good conversations with Connor Orr about this, how the Eagles went out and, you know, they got this offensive line, then they get this big-time dog in Saquon Barkley, and then they just destroy the world and win the Super Bowl.

Maybe the timing's right for a running back to get drafted highly in this setup.

It does happen occasionally.

Bijan, I guess, would be the last guy.

What if I throw this at you?

He's going to get drafted highly.

Let me throw this at you.

What if we saw as many as three running backs in the first round?

I think it'd be a huge upset.

It'd be a huge upset.

But O'Marian Hampton, so what if

I think they'll go offensive line, but what if Jim Harbaugh just says, I want a hammerhead.

I want a guy to just, we want to just beat the hell out of everyone we play.

And this guy is like 220 pounds and of lean mass and he runs like

It's like he's trying to run through a wall.

I don't even know if he can see.

He just runs as hard as he can into anything and everything that's in his way.

But I think that's the way Jim Harbaugh kind of likes it.

What if somebody says, wait a minute, we like what Jameer Gibbs did.

We're going to do that with Trayvion Henderson.

I think there is a world where we could see two running backs drafted in the first round.

Genty's going in the first.

I think

if I had to guess Trayvion Henderson, because every draft, you want to look for what happened in the NFL the year before, because somebody's going to copy it.

So Gibbs could potentially be the copycat.

And of course, drafting pass rushers, the Philadelphia mode, you know, that's, that's, and it happens to be a deep year for, for, um, it happens to be a deep year for defensive tackles and defensive ends.

So, I mean, they're going to go early, but I could see someone saying, Trayvion Henderson, this is going to be our Jameer Gibbs.

I could see that happening.

And just some context there.

So far in the 2020s, only five running backs have been selected in the first round, none last year.

Ceci, one more question.

This is a draft where we're saying there's maybe like four or five blue chip first-round guys.

Like, do you think that we're going to get

wild trade action?

If you're the Titans, the Browns, the Giants, fill in the blank.

Like, do you move out of these spots top in the draft to like stockpile draft picks and try to do this differently?

Or is it going, how do you see this going?

Well, see, I don't think there's a bunch of trade-up for quarterback drafts, so that immediately hurts you.

There's not a bunch of good wide receivers in this draft i mean it depends on what you is hunter a wide receiver a cornerback he's really good at either position so you know maybe somebody would trade up for him i don't know but um

i think the problem we have is what you just laid out there mark it's that who are you trading up for and how far are you going back and what is uh what does it look like going from tier one picks to tier two

and if you really want to know the truth the best like tier two the middle of the draft is not great but if you get me to the back end of the first i'm liking that.

You get me to 24, because I think the value of a 28th player

can be potentially equal to the 14th player.

And so I'd rather be 28 to 60 or 28 to, yeah, 28 to 60 than I might be at pick number 16.

You know, so if I can move back and pick up the right amount of picks, I would consider it.

But I don't know who wants to, I don't know that there's going to be a big desire to move up when I'm telling you that it's a good, meaty, buy-the-washing machine and dryer type of draft in the second through fourth rounds, really into the fifth round, you can go find starters.

They're just not going to be splashy.

All your wide receivers are going to be wide receiver twos and wide receiver threes.

You're not going to have a, there's not really a star in this year's draft other than potentially, you know, a wide receiver other than maybe Travis Hunter if that's what he plays, which I don't know.

Sounds like wake me up in August.

Dana Fels pretty excited that, A, I'm coming on your podcast, and B, I'm telling them, yeah, this draft really didn't have anything going for it.

It's a mudroom draft.

This draft is real meat and potatoes type of, you know, just a six-hour braise of a stew type of a draft.

Just let everything marry together, the flavors.

It's hard.

This draft is hard.

It's like podcast topics for the next five months.

Like, how do we do this?

Lance,

we will meet again in Indianapolis.

They can't keep us apart.

They're trying, but they won't be able to forever.

We thank you, buddy.

And if you would be so kind, join us in a month and a half and climb up to the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository and go to work on Mark Sessler's mock draft.

I can't wait.

I'd be more than happy to scope that thing out.

Literally.

All right.

Thanks, man.

Let's take a break.

You know, Dan, we had a softball team for years and I touted myself as the manager and it's because I couldn't see anything.

Yeah.

So it's like, who wants to put me at the plate?

So it's like time, it's like, I'm an adult.

It's time to get glasses.

And I walked by Warby Parker here in LA and like got a great pair of glasses.

And I look up at trees now.

I can see the leaves.

I couldn't see anything before.

Warby Parker changed all that.

Mark, I get it.

And we would have loved to bat you clean up and had you at center field for that softball team.

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All right, we're back.

Thank you to Land Zerlon.

That's just the first of

many deep dives around the NFL draft coming up at the end of August and Green Bay.

How about that?

Now, let's turn to our attention.

Welcome back, Connor.

Con man, how are you?

Good.

How many kids you got right now?

Right.

Any updates?

Still two?

Still two.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Good.

Let's dive into the mailbag.

I sent out a little bit of a prompt to a little bit of a prompt.

It was a prompt to our loyal audience, and they delivered some real thunder.

Here's Stephen Lancaster to get us going.

Is it starting to become a bit of a red flag when invited players are declining to participate in drills at the combine?

If I'm a coach, I want to see performance when conditions aren't tailored to you.

Yes.

And what Stephen's getting at is a lot of players now, they stand on their performance in the college season.

They'll take part in their pro day, which is a more controlled environment, playing with their own dudes in many cases that they played college ball with.

Connor, is this something that you've heard or that some teams are rubbed the wrong way by it?

I think that there are to a to a coach, right?

It's always going to be different, right?

There was the coach, right, who used to hand somebody a

Heinz 57, the glass bottle, to see how they would get the ketchup out of it.

There's weird people in this business, and there's people that are going to take things in a different way.

But I think that players not doing it is great for the entire ecosystem because you're conceivably then making room for players who wouldn't have gotten that attention and may improve their own draft stock by showing off their various metrics at the combine.

So I really think it benefits everybody.

But if you're a top 50 prospect, there's almost zero reason for you to do any sort of like lateral quickness drills, a bench press, anything that's like very vigorous and physical and in short bursts that could possibly permanently tear something or injure something.

So I think it's all good.

Now, and again, any coach who's going to say, I'm not going to draft a guy because of that, good luck.

I mean, you know, okay.

How do the 11 teams that passed on Jalen Carter feel?

You know?

Yeah, like the coaches, like the older set have no power over this.

And

I totally agree.

I mean, we're talking about college players that are getting paid more money than 99% of Americans at this point, if you're a college star of any status.

So having to go to the Combine and also the idea that the Combine is...

setting you up for drills that suggest real time or like real conflict is all is utterly ridiculous.

So like I have no problem with them sitting out.

I think the combine also,

for me, this is not what they're trying to do, but it pushes against the concept that the Combine has become this like television event that we all need to sit around and watch non-stop.

Like, push against that.

Push against that.

How about that?

Well, some people just love it, though.

Some people are junkies.

Let them be junkies, Mark.

I know, but what do these drills, like you go quick, tell me what Lamar Jackson's drill times were on any of these things.

No one knows.

It's like it is a fading, it's a leaf in the water on the stream passing by us.

It's gone.

It's out the door.

You know, you're Connor's wife right now.

You've got a large human being in your belly.

It's going to become an adult.

It's going to be slightly ridiculous.

A pantomime, a joke on many levels.

Nice way to tag that one, Mark.

All right.

This is along those lines.

Jody Crocker asks: what would be your most dominant combine event at your current age and at your college age?

Okay, so let's see.

40-yard dash, 10-yard split, vertical jump, broad jump, three-cone drill, 20-yard shuttle, bench press.

I'll go first.

Bench press would be, I'm not a fast man.

I'm a bit of a big cat.

I'm more agile than you might realize, but I'm not going to probably blow away anybody time-wise in those type of drills.

But I got, especially now, I got some dad strength, and so that would be mine.

But overall, I wouldn't test well.

I'd be like Brady.

It'd be like, you're not measuring the heart because that's what it's really all about.

Yeah, I'd go,

well, interview probably, although that could go disastrous.

The event,

yeah.

Okay.

I don't know what broad jump means,

but in my definition, broad jump.

I'm killing women, Mark.

Then I don't have an answer.

None of these things are.

I'm looking at the list here.

None of these are things that I would.

Sex?

You're addicted to sex?

Sex addiction or something?

I'm not laying out for that.

I would do poorly in all of these.

20-yard shuttle.

Let's give that a try.

Con man?

I would have said bench press in college and now probably the 40.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you're a long distance runner, so none of these things really help you.

No, Connor at Connor's in the best shape of his life, though.

Like, let's

see,

he's not a good match for

this particular set of events, but there is an athlete inside Connor.

Again,

can't measure the heart.

For me, it would be the vertical jump.

You know, only 5'10 over here, but I can dunk a basketball.

Give me that vertical jump.

No, you can't.

You're full of shit.

I can.

On what kind of basketball?

What kind of basketball?

I challenge you.

I challenge you to produce a video of this.

Have Jessica document it.

We want to see you dunk a basketball.

Okay.

And if you can dunk a basketball, Mark,

we should offer a reward because I don't believe it.

And it can't be one of those dunks where you get near the rim and then you kind of throw it at the back iron and it rattles in.

I'm talking a dunk.

Are you talking about you could do a dunk, a straight-up dunk?

I can't do a thunderous slam, but I can put the the ball over the rim, grab the rim, and push the ball through the rim.

A technical dunk.

I would be impressed if that's it.

If you can produce evidence of this,

I will give you a

$25 gift certificate to DoorDash.

Yeah, and

I would send you my second child.

I don't want that.

Rejected.

I will not be able to do that.

No matter the conversation, Mark's just trying to send his children to different places.

Mark, will you match my $25 DoorDash if you can do it?

Absolutely.

$20 DoorDash.

Yeah, be visually appealing.

Sure.

We'll play it on a podcast soon.

I got to get to the, you know, we haven't found the closest basketball court to our new house yet, but as soon as we do that, Justin's like, they swear on that basketball court.

We don't go there.

Do you believe, Rascona?

Do you believe that Justin can dunk?

I just want like six kids that were just like home from elementary school to be just running around and then Justin just like pops the vape out of his mouth and just slams basketball

while his fiancé is just filming it.

And then he just walks off the court.

And all the parents are like, what in the hell was that?

No explanation.

Don't say anything to anybody.

Like a peak, like shack dunk where the whole rim comes down the backboard.

All right.

Interesting.

That's fascinating.

I'm glad that we hit that now because that is something to look forward to.

This from Mike Thurkettle.

From the teams picking in the top 10 of this year's draft, who do you think has the chance to have a season similar to the Commanders this year?

All right, let's take a look at the top 10 in the draft.

Here are the teams right now.

And of course, you could trade out of the top 10, but right now, the Titans at 1, the Browns at 2, the Giants at 3, Patriots at 4, Jaguars at 5, Raiders, 6, Jets, 7, Panthers, 8, Saints, nine, Bears ten.

I think if you were to take this to the desert,

I think people are going to gas up the Bears again now that they have Ben Johnson there and Caleb Williams in a healthier place and a roster that would probably be upgraded in different areas.

So I would say that would be the betting money would be going toward the Bears.

But yeah, the quarterback who can make that

Jaguars lost

a bundle of like one-score games last year.

They've got the quarterback.

They've got a good roster.

I wouldn't sleep on the Patriots with Drake May already in place, depending on who they take and what they pick.

You don't like to say that.

I'd love to say the Titans, the Jets, are Browns, but I don't believe any of those to be the answer necessarily.

Developing news.

What?

I would have cut that out if you guys.

You can't because you got a case of the Saussie fingers over there today.

And you did the Orson Waltz drop.

I forgot which button it was.

Sorry.

Jordan Schultz responds.

Go ahead, Justin.

Take it.

Jordan Schultz says, if you really think Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford just happened to run into each other at a ski resort in Montana of all places at the exact same time, I've got a bridge to sell you.

They were together over the weekend.

It happened.

Multiple teams are interested in Stafford, and Brady has been leading the charge to get him to the Raiders if the Rams decide to trade him.

Good job, Jordan Schultz.

I think sometimes everybody's too nice in the industry.

That is a direct shot back at Rapsheet saying, how dare you?

I see what you're doing.

You're trying to carry some water and keep things calm for different people.

I am telling you the way it is, Schultz.

Well, I don't know.

But to be fair, Dan,

you yourself said, you know, this is just elites just sort of mingle and they rapidly.

I did not say that.

If you were listening more carefully, I said it is possible it could happen because people in the upper crust of society all go to the same places when it comes to resorts and things.

But it's far more likely that these two guys, it was a part of a plan.

It is more likely.

And you're like, well, it's possible that Leo Harvey Oswald sat in like the sixth floor of a book depository, a Porsche gunman who like took out the president with no problem.

Oswald acted alone.

I'm sorry totally bubble on that.

That's absolutely ridiculous.

And I don't know why you still sit on

that hill.

I know it angers you, but that's the way it is.

That's tough.

I understand.

But let's stay focused here.

Oh, I like Jordan Schultz's report on that incident.

Whatever Jordan reports on the JFK assassination, that's what I'll go with.

All right.

So there you go.

Interesting.

All right.

Next up in the mailbag.

He's going to be on the Raiders, isn't he?

This is going to happen now.

No.

I do.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

What if Tom keeps getting close with these people, but he doesn't find the Raiders, you know, the Raiders absolutely killed in that NFLPA thing as well.

A's across the board.

We've heard James Palmer has spoken.

I've heard it in other places that they're the sleeping giant because players are going to love playing there if they could just get their shit figured out.

Like, hmm.

But you say no.

No chance, Connor?

Well, I don't know.

I mean, this, I dealt with this frustration in this

when Brady jumped in and decided to start wading into the coaching pool.

And you report on this stuff for months, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, no, he's going to land Ben Johnson.

It's done because it's Tom Brady and everyone loves Tom Brady.

And it's like, oh, okay, I guess, sure, why not?

But no, I mean,

these are human beings that are not just attracted by, you know, if Tom Cruise came to my house and was like, I'd like this child you're about to have, I'd tell him to

pounce in.

Now I'll feed into that conversation.

Well, I would say yes to Tom Cruise.

I'll feed into your theory here that

probably Brady had a little egg on his face that Ben Johnson didn't come with him to the desert.

And he, maybe Brady, who, by the way, Ian used to cover the Patriots for the Boston Herald.

Maybe Tom was like, I need them, I need to turn down the temperature to take the pressure off me a little bit.

Because if it's known that I actually facilitated this hardcore meeting, I almost have to land him or I look bad.

So let's just make it look like we ran into each other at the chilies right off the exit before you get to the mountain.

You know what I mean?

And just

to kind of put my frustr my bow on my frustration right it's like okay we we brought this guy in to be this visionary and this genius and the plan is to just try and sign the best goddamn quarterback on the market go find the next you i mean that's why we want him there go find the guy in the seventh round that's going to play for 18 years and have heart like go find yourself don't just show off and you know throw it down on the table and be like oh yeah the the solution here is just to sign the best player on the market no you know i think everybody every other every owner can figure that out.

Do we need to bring Tom Brady in to do that?

It's like, it's like bringing in a consultant that's like lower costs and increase productivity.

Thanks, asshole.

Here's the sound of Tom Brady throwing it on the table.

You ready?

Oh,

okay.

Milton Burrell over here.

Okay.

Cox, find a way to pound this thing in there.

Oh, God, I'm tired.

Taylor says, I love Mark Sessler's impressions.

If you missed the

Combine Day One, you missed the Mark Sessler George H.W.

Bush impression,

which also doubles pretty much every impression that Mark does, including our old colleague in NFL Media, Paul, who piled up his tortilla bowl with many mexican goods anyway uh i would listen to a whole show of these impressions could each of you do what you feel is your best impression i would love a sneak peek into the comedic genius

of heed the call now i've already done mine i feel i'm standing on my sean mcvay i feel good about it i thought that it it performed well uh felt right so sean mcvay in the here and now is my best impression connor your best impression let's hear it

uh

All right.

Let me see if I can do Elmo.

I can do a good Elmo when I'm warmed up.

All right.

I might need like two takes at this, okay?

Okay.

One, two, three.

Elmo.

Whoa.

It's pretty good.

It's good.

Pretty good.

That's an eight and a half out of ten.

Right.

Mark.

Wait,

Justin?

Wait, Justin, do you have an impression?

Didn't I just do mine?

I mean,

I could try Stitch.

Stitch.

Lilo and Stitch, you know?

Oh, I'm Stutch.

I'm an alien from another world.

Lilo, Lilo and Stitch.

Great movie.

Now, I don't track your cultural thing.

I think I know that's an animated feature.

I know that.

Yes, it's a very popular animated feature in Hawaii.

It's a duo, right?

Is it like a square piece of cheese walks around with someone else?

Is that what that show is?

No.

What?

It's a movie about a small Hawaiian girl who finds an alien named Stitch and adopts him as a wait.

Are you talking about SpongeBob SquarePants?

Probably.

Yeah.

I don't spend my hours

absorbing either of the shows.

Jesus Christ.

All right, Mark.

I feel like the question has come in because I've already done these.

And I've said they're not good, but I think like

I was a little annoyed with my...

I feel like you have to work on Ross Perot a little bit more than I did last night.

It's like, he's like,

do this up.

I'm not going to do it.

Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.

You got that deficit over there.

Like, listen, like, that, like, George Bush, actually,

it's the same George Bush.

He's like, we've got that guy over here.

And then down that ridge, you got that guy.

He's right down there.

And then you got to be putting it together in a state bump.

Hello, everybody.

But that's that's me doing someone else's impression of it.

Like, it's not mine.

And I don't, I appreciate the

commenter.

What was the person's name?

Taylor.

But, like,

nor do I think that I'm good at these.

Well,

they're entertaining.

That's the most important thing.

For the wrong reasons, I would imagine.

But, yes.

All right.

One more.

Let's do one more.

Middle ground fan, is Daniel Jones or Mac Jones, or both, more likely to be the next Sam Darnold who we thought was done and got with the right coach and team?

And is it a better dart throw compared to getting Rodgers, Cousins, or Flacco?

Well,

there's a lot going on there.

Well, you want to, I, Daniel Jones and Mac Jones are both guys that are in their mid-20s, so that you know, you got the upside there.

Rogers, we've talked about Rodgers, he could still play, but he's injury prone and in general, a lot to deal with.

Kirk Cousins could be totally washed, but would cost nothing because of the situation with his contract.

You could pay him the veteran minimum.

And Flacco is also going to be similarly cheap

and has shown flashes, but also he's Joe Flacco.

So I don't know.

I would certainly like Daniel Jones in the right setup.

That kind of interests me a little bit.

I got to be honest with you.

That interests me a little bit.

I want to hear Connor's answer, but

forget the second part of it because the best version of Rogers is the answer.

But

you kind of feel like we're going to live through a period of human time where Daniel Jones has one like monster season where we get to see everything that we've kind of seen, flashes of, elements of.

Yeah, I like Daniel Jones on this list because I think he's the only one.

Can we fly it back up real quick?

So I just make sure that I'm not

misspeaking here.

Yeah, I like Daniel Jones on this list because he's the only one where you could run some sort of a zone read element with your offense.

All these other quarterbacks are pretty much stationary at this point.

But I would add that I really like Kirk Cousins.

I think I'm alone on this island this year.

I think he was hurt in a very strange way and had an offense that was totally ill-suited for him.

I think he's due for a really good season this year.

I am absolutely with you on that, Connor.

I'm not saying that he's going to turn back the clock and be 2021, Kirk Cousins, but I think especially the cost it would be, and you know you're getting kind of an A-plus locker room guy and a guy that's going to be all in on trying to resurrect his career.

I think you could do a lot worse than throwing the dartboard for Kirk Cousins in a one or two years.

Isn't he like the same age as you at this point?

Like, I don't know.

I don't, I'm not, I'm betting with time, father time.

He's actually not.

I mean, he's, yeah, he turns 37

in August.

That's, that's not young, but that's like Matthew Stafford's age, right?

Here's the one thing, and we need to start, and this happened with Arthur Smith in Atlanta, and now it's happened to Kirk Cousins, Where, unless some quarterback goes in there and throws for 6,000 yards with this supposed dream team offense, we're going to say that they're not living up to expectations when maybe the GM, who just drafted all these like quote-unquote star offensive players, just didn't do a very good job of drafting offensive players.

Like, Drake London's fine.

He might be great.

He might not.

Kyle Pitts is injured a lot and hasn't fully realized his potential.

So, when are we going to stop blaming all the other people who didn't meet our expectations with that team?

I don't know.

Thank you to everybody for sending in mailbag questions.

Pivot, Mark, Adriat.

Underdog streaks is here, baby.

Okay.

Hey, by the way, did you guys know Underdog isn't just higher-lower pick'em entries?

They also have streaks, Connor.

You can enter for $1,

get a nice streak going, and win as much as 1,000 times your entry.

Wait, can you do it?

Mark, can you do the rest of this read as the voice?

Like your impression guy?

My impression guy.

Well, it's meant to be George Bush.

I think Ross Pro George Bush.

You can enter for $1.

You get a nice streak going.

I'll just do it as a southern person, which I also don't do upset.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

You get a nice streak going and win as much as 1,000 times your entry, okay?

If you have a nice streak and you don't want to risk it anymore, you can cash your streak out any time.

Check out streaks by scanning.

Sorry.

Check out streaks by scanning.

This is like Justin's neighbor.

Check out streaks by scanning the QR code on your screens,

okay, to download the underdog app.

You got a deficit over here.

You just take it, you got to treat her like an ant.

You take her out back, you hose her down.

That's what I do with the deficit.

That's what Ross Pro would say.

QR code on your screen to download the underdog app or sign up with the code HTC.

That's our show.

And receive up to $1,000 in bonus credits for our U.S.

audience

only.

Very nice.

We should try.

Let's start tracking it, Justin, how many people connect to this.

Right now, I got Paul, the desk guy at NFL Media, Ross Perot, Jerry Jones, and George H.W.

Bush.

Bush also, like, the one thing that he's like, gonna go jogging in the nude.

Same.

Connor, in all sincerity, good luck, sir.

Yes.

We love love you, we love your family.

Be there for your family as you always are, and come back whenever you're ready.

Enjoy this beautiful time in life.

See you in December, bitches.

He gone.

And we'll see you guys

later in the week.

Friday Fun Show.

Check it out.

Jason Zumbalt sitting in for Connor Orr.

Until next time, heed the call.

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