Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreigner and Hutch back with you. A lot to get to today. Trent Williams, Quesi, Anthony Richardson, and Jake's undying love for Devontra Capehart is about to become national.
Welcome to the show, everybody. Jake, let's just get right into it with the Trent Williams stuff. This is dumb, right? This is all very stupid.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: It's stupid.
They don't have a plan to replace him.
Granted, there is no such thing as replacing Trent Williams, but they have never put a plan in action to have an alternative.
And if they got rid of Trent, what they'd have to do is go sign or trade for one because, you know, they're not going with a rookie day one at left tackle, right? Or if they did, it would have to be a round one rookie and then a veteran, which they're just not going to do. They're going to keep Trent Williams and if they don't, they're not interested or serious about winning because they can afford to keep him and very easily. But they want to restructure the money and they want to have an extra 20 million in cap space, but they don't want to really have to deal with having Trent, you know, having a fully guaranteed year this year and probably next year, which to me, that's what it takes. Guarantee this year, next year, and then have year three be, you know, a plus one that maybe has a tiny bit guaranteed.
I think that's probably what gets it done. And then you add some void years on top of that and you go, here's 30 plus 30 plus 30.
Where it would get tricky is if Trent's like, what do you mean? The numbers keep going up. Give me 35. And they're like, well, you're 38 years old. And he'll be like, but pff, ranked me so high. And then they. And he goes, soon to be part of Teamworks. You right, you haven't tried to replace me and you can't replace me. So I don't care how old I am, you don't have an alternative. And I can always just say, I don't feel like playing if you don't meet my number, which I've done before and remember how that worked. So they're gonna have to pay him and that's how that will go. I, if, if it goes another way, I will be surprised.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: So many things to jump off of on that. Let's just give a shout out to Vincent Taylor for the most overt use of Adam Schefter ever.
Well done. 90 minutes before John lynch is to speak at the podium in Indianapolis. He's like, hey, you know the thing that everybody knows? What if you were to just remind everyone right now and put it in like cryptic terms and Adam's like, sure thing, buddy, and tweets it out. So then John lynch, not just getting there were going to be questions about Trent from the San Francisco based media, because he is, again, something. We've been. You and I have been talking about this for months. Jeremy Fowler came out and we had been talking about it beforehand. Jeremy Fowler came out mid season.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Just Jeremy Fowler really quick. Always does this where it's like, he's like, hey, this is going to happen in three months and people are going to start reporting this in three months. I'm going to do it now as like a little side note anyway.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Right? Because that's reporting. But instead of regurgitation, which is what the other party is doing.
So great work there. Now he has the national media kind of coming up and being like, are you going to cut Trent Williams? And it's like, no.
Unless our owner's super duper cheap and wants to save $30 million, which we would advise him not to do, but until proven otherwise, has to be considered an option.
Trading him is unlikely because now you're kind of. As I was talking about in the last episode, you're in the Mac Jones paying on the front and the back end. Except Trent Williams. Maybe it's an easier sell in that regard.
It's like, oh, great, we gave up a second and a third round pick to get Trent Williams. Now we have to give him the contract the Niners didn't want to give him.
It was. It was you. You mentioned the.
Every negotiation that's gone like this. Vincent Taylor again, just very, very good at this. Every time Trent is like, I don't have to show up to work. And the Niners are like, what if you took less money? Or what if you gave us any sort of, you know, team friendliness whatsoever? And then Trent's like, no. And then he just stands there and waits for the 49ers to fold like a cheap card table. And they do every time, which is fine because it's Trent Williams and he's a shrewd negotiator. He's a better negotiator than he is a tackle. And he's a Hall of Famer. He can't say first ballot anymore, by the way, because I don't know what the hell a first ballot hall of Famer is.
And this thing has to get done now. There is A note, and I think Bill Barnwell brought this up.
The reason that this is happening now and not in training camp, like the last couple of times is because there's a $10 million option vesting whatever on March 20 for all the positives I want to give, you know, all the flowers I want to give Vincent Taylor for being a shrewd negotiator. That's a dumb date for a guarantee.
Because the reason this is all happening is because I am sure there's already been very serious negotiation. Right. And I'm sure the 49ers are like, you're 38 years old. We don't want to pay you a tremendous amount of money moving forward. And I'm sure Trent Williams and Vincent Taylor are like, yes, you will. You've done it every time. And we're going to do it again. Here comes the song and dance. The Niners, for as little leverage as they might have, do have that March 20th date, which is.
We can just wait.
We can just wait you out.
Now. It doesn't behoove them, cap wise.
It does behoove them to kind of get on the books. Do the March 1, the post June 1 designation. You have to get that done earlier, which, again, I don't think is going to happen. But the March 20 thing is huge because if Trent Williams were to become a free agent on March 19 at 11:59pm, right before that thing vests, where's the money coming from for Trent Williams? He knows that he's not hitting the market with.
He's showing up late to the farmer's market and then hoping he can get fair price.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Right, Right. Like free agency opens like a week or two or before that. And so Trent would miss that wave of teams would be like, yeah, we want Trent, but, like, is he really going to shake free? We can't bet on that.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: He used to be a player who could probably make the market weight.
He's 38 years old. He's coming off his worst year. He's still the best left tackle available to anybody, including via draft. But, like, teams aren't going to wait a week and a half for Trent Williams to then figure out what the free agent market's going to be. They're already negotiating free agent deals as we speak.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: So I do think this thing's going to get hashed out. I do think it will come down to, I don't know what date would kind of have to be figured out. Let's call it like March 1st. Let's call it March 5th, I don't know.
But to bolster your point, if you don't want Trent Williams on your team, just do the whole damn thing, right. If you think that you're better than. We're going to move on. We're done being held hostage by Trent Williams. Then just tear the Sun Bitch down. Tear it down to the studs. It doesn't matter anymore because you're not competing for a Super bowl without Trent Williams. You can't go into a season with Austin Pleasance or Monroe Freeling as your left tackle or, you know, Spencer Burford. You can bring him back.
You can't do that and then be like, we're going to compete for a Super bowl, so you might as well just get rid of every.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: It's just not viable.
By the way, I should note that the NFL report cards that weren't supposed to come out came out. But of course, instead of like, putting actually all the stuff out, what happened is Kaylin Kaler, espn put them out, and then they're like, the report cards are out. And it just names, like, the top three teams, and it also names, like, a couple quotes where it's like, some teams did poorly, so we don't actually have the report cards.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Did that. Did that just happen?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: It just happened. And I went, oh, I wonder how teams did. And it's like, you know, 800 words not giving you almost very little. It's mostly describing how the background of the grievance between the owners and the nflpa, and then you don't actually have the numbers for teams, so that's cool. It talks about the Steelers a lot.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't have a good facility. They share it with the pit Panthers.
Like, duh. Yeah, let's get back to Trent real fast.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Sorry about that.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Weird aside.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: So I got excited and it was disappointing.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Oh, well, I'm sorry that my. My points couldn't grip you enough next year. First off, he's 38 million on the cap. Well, 39 million on the cap for this year. That's the number that the Niners are trying to minimize. You don't want that much money on the cat.
He'd be owed about 30 million in just cash if they were to get off of them, which, again, I don't think is the case, but until proven otherwise, has to be considered a possibility with this ownership group, given what they did last year where they just overdid it just to save cash. The bigger issue isn't even the 38 or 39. Sorry. Of this year, which is more than 11% of the cap. It's 28.3 as a void year next year. And to your point, you got to smooth this stuff out. You just got to smooth it out. He says he wants to play till 40.
You might not believe he can, but you don't really have a choice. This was a contract that he signed to sign another contract, and we've done this now two or three times.
So you got to do it. And at some point, the Bills come and do, but you can make it a lot less painful because this is the last time you're renegotiating with Trent Williams.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I just think there's no world in which you get out of paying him next year. He's already on the books for next year.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: So I don't keep him. To me. To me, you just guarantee him all the money for these next two years, bump it up to 32 or whatever, and maybe Trent's gonna be like, I want 35 or on 40. And you go, okay, well, you're 38. Let's, like, actually have a discussion here.
And then by March 20, like, you're not going to have a market, so let's, like, meet somewhere in the middle. And then in year three, it's. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. The cap keeps going up. You're going to guarantee new TV deals
[00:10:04] Speaker A: coming at the end of this year. So the cap's not just going to go up. It's going to jump massively. Depends on how much they want to smooth it over.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: But no pa. You're right. Right. If it's 35 million a year for three years, plus a void year that you basically take some of that cash and push it down the line. Just do that. It doesn't matter. You can afford to pay him. You can afford to do that where you drop his cap number by 5 or 10 or 15. 20 million. Like, there's a lot of different ways to do it.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: I don't. I don't understand what the issue here is. If he just feels like negotiations and he's just. They're going to come to an agreement and it'll be a two plus one is how I'm guessing.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: I think you nailed it when you first texted.
Obviously, the second the tweet goes out, it's like 45 texts. But your text was.
What was it? What was it exactly?
[00:10:53] Speaker B: It was like the Niners probably asked him to take a pay cut, and he laughed. And that's where we're at.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: And this is the response to that. So I, I don't expect anything untoward to happen. I expect them to figure out the deal as you laid it out.
But you never really know with this team. You got to keep that 5% chance. In the back of your mind, Trent,
[00:11:11] Speaker B: who's just like, I will stay in Texas until you give me what I deserve. And as he should because he's Trent Williams and he gets his bag every time. He's one of the most well compensated players in NFL history. He has made hundreds of millions of dollars. And you can do the thing of being like, well is, should NFL players be making that much?
Who knows? It's an entertainment.
But certainly Trent Williams should.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: He has made 253.7 million in his career.
Listen, there's a, there's a reason the man flies private. Let's just leave it at that. And it's not because of his significant size. There, there. The reason that this is an actual negotiation though is because there was some diminishment of skills. There was, it was a little bit of a slip and you have to hedge against that a little bit. But they're also in a position where there's just no win. There's just no win whatsoever.
Okay.
One of the reasons I got out of like news breaking.
Well, both, both of these things in line, one, it's the chef Ization of all this crap where you're just getting used by agents. And two, and again, because I don't like breaking news because things change and I overtly will admit to this shortcoming. I'm not so plugged in that any minute change is going to come across my desk.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Right?
[00:12:35] Speaker A: So when stuff changes, like, oh, Brandon Iuk changed his mind again. When he's changed his mind three or four times before. And I go out here and show my whole ass with a column saying like he's done and then he changes his mind again. Well then, you know, now I look like an asshole. Even though.
Yes, probably true, but. But also like he changed his mind again and they no one told me, which I'd like to known, but you can't always catch them all.
Nevertheless, Quessi did come in and he's going to be John Lynch's number two. And that might result in some actual name changes a year from now. So.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Right. They went, hey, we would. We actually very badly want you in the building, but the terminology of what your title is is going to upset people. So let's wait until the draft when that really matters.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Brandon Staley them we're going to Go
[00:13:25] Speaker B: full brain trust on this and get as many good people in as we can.
And we're going to see where that takes us. And depending on how the draft goes, we'll see. But we're going to work out a title after that and some people will be upset.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Well, and also some people will love it because again, the idea that John lynch would no longer. And this is, this is speculative, which it always was. No one seemed to want to steal a phrase from my three year old. Listen to my words and beautiful, strong communicator. Yeah, no, but as I said, they brought him in.
One, he called them.
Two, they were very happy to receive the call. And three, the real question is how would this work?
[00:14:18] Speaker B: And they don't have an answer yet.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Right. They're going to figure it out on the fly. But the conversation was happening of, okay, well you're like an NFL GM who was surprisingly fired. I know that everyone now has sort of reverse engineered it as, oh, he wasn't good. It was a shock when he got fired to the point where people were saying like, is it because he took Pat leave?
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Well, that was the weird part is the way that was reported. Like he, he made some, some big mistakes, no question. And they, and their lack of draft capital is ultimately I think what did him in.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: But he also power struggle between him and Koc, like overtly and the Wolfs are out in New Jersey, you know, concerned about malls or something. And they're not hands on, they don't understand the day to day. I'm not arguing that Quesi is some sort of, you know, savant in this great, great GM or anything, but it was surprising, unquestionably. So it became a political, you know, there's some palace intrigue there. He's out. And it always made sense that he would come back to the spot that he was at that got him really going on this path. And John really, really likes him that, that everyone's known.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: He's talked about him in glowing terms every single year, like almost unprompted. Like we'll just ask general questions. He's like, you know, when we had Kwesi in the building, it was such a good time. And we're like, John, no one asked about.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: He fills a lot of the holes that John doesn't do well at. He's analytical, he's very fastidious. And John is a people person. And Quesi clearly by the nature of his exit, not as much a people person. Though he had a lot of admirers in Minnesota, which is Maybe how certain news comes out. So listen, what does this mean? Nothing. Until it means something like he's.
If you had to really pull it back onto a more macro phase, it just means that for all the attrition that they've had in their front office, some good, some bad, most of it bad in terms of smart people leaving, they're now getting somebody back in who was unquestionably smart and unquestionably an asset in whatever the role might be back into the building.
And that can help them. And the fact that they're openly saying this now, because I got confirmation after I mentioned it kind of offhand on Rob's podcast, I got confirmation from a couple other people who were in the know and saw me kind of getting dragged online or. I don't know.
The Grant Cohn universe is vast, apparently. But I got confirmation of it. But then everything kind of went radio sound, so I was unaware that he was in, in, in already.
The fact that he's in, in already is very telling as to how highly they think of him and how much they feel they need him because typically.
And we'll do it again this year, the draft ends and they fire everybody in their front office.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: That's how it goes. You wait until the end of the draft, then you hire new scouts and stuff because that's the end of their sort of fiscal year as scouts and talent evaluation. The fact that he's in before the draft but before free agency again highlights how highly they value him and his input to whatever degree that might come.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe he'll just teach them how to use CLAW to do some data modeling.
Maybe that'll be it. Who knows? I certainly think he will have a strong voice in shaping the draft.
I'm not necessarily sure that he will want to, like, step on toes or, you know, or come in guns blazing, but I do think when he does speak, his voice will be very well trusted.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: There's not that many toes to step on anymore. I mean, let's not forget this is a team that basically told all their scouts to shut up and let the coaches figure it out last year. And they don't have that same luxury this year. But, like, they lost so many people and it's not the big, you know, it was Ran and Peters, which, you know, that kind of goes both directions. Adam seemed to get credit for all the good stuff and never had any of the bad stuff that he did stick to him because he's handsome, but.
And he's a good people person, unquestionably. They lost a lot of mid level talent to a lot of middle manager types. And not that they were doing it like just those, those people that keep the machine running and you know, are really solid. They lost a lot of those guys too. They lost a lot of good scouts over the years. Everyone from 2019 on was trying to pick off pieces of the 49ers either through, you know, just over. We don't know what we're doing and they seem to. Or kind of, you know, duplicitous reasons on like, well, now they don't have them anymore and we do. So I would, I would, I would say that this is a win for the 49ers and it wouldn't shock me if my initial, if that conversation that I was made privy to.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: You know, where it's like, how's this going to work? That in a year from now it turns into a very clear delineation of responsibilities. At the same time, it could also be like a Brandon Staley thing to where it's like, oh, you know, we're not so sure and.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Right. It could, it could very easily turn into John is the evp, vp. Vp. Vp and Exactly. And Quasi is the gm. Like that's.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: And it went. And by the way, a lot easier to do that. And it would, I think it would be present in a football operation a lot easier to do that without Guido moving to CEO because now you don't have two presidents and that none of that stuff should matter. It should all be very easily handleable and it's all just sort of titles and pay.
But it will be interesting to see this is not terribly dissimilar and forgive me, I forget the exact intricacies of like John Elway when he got bumped up. So it's not unprecedented and it's now standard operating practice at the NBA level where you have a gm, but then you also have someone who kind of oversees the GM bureaucracy. It's a hell of a thing.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. I think it is interesting though, like how there was. I forget where. Oh, is the Matt Ryan thing where they hired a person of color as their gm and then. But they're like, well, you don't get the draft picks because he's not the top guy. And then Matt Ryan goes, oh no, he's the gm, I'm not really doing anything. And they're like, well, where are our draft picks? Like, what's, what's happening here? There's just, there's a lot of.
There's a Lot of weird structure things that I feel like organizations that are, well, run top to bottom can deal with certain things like that. And organizations that are a mess go who's really in charge. And then there's sort of like this constant underlying power struggle that never ends well.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: To be fair, the. The guy you're talking about is Ian Cunningham. Ian Cunningham has some serious chops with the Ravens, with the Eagles as director,
[00:21:08] Speaker B: so clearly in charge.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Right. And Matt Ryan is there to bust her Posey, Buster Posey. Which, by the way, is what John Lynch's original tasks were and a credit to Kyle for recognizing that. You know, so when Bill Walsh left in 1989, not to go full, like, old timer boomer thing. When Bill Walsh left and everyone just watched this documentary, I've read many books on Walsh and I find him to be an absolute, kind of a tragic figure in so many ways. But when he left, it was because he was totally burned out. And he was totally burned out because he was doing all the jobs. So he couldn't get away for even a month. And I think he told Mike Silver, like, before he died, like, if I had just delegated and gone away for a month, everything would have been fine. But because I was the GM on top of being the coach, and because he was so granular in everything that he did, he totally burned out. Which is again, then he comes back to Stanford like a year later because he just needed a little bit of time off.
The same thing was happening with Kyle.
It really was to where it's like, I can't be the gm, make all the personnel decisions and be the head coach and constantly be hiring for new, new coaches. I'm always hiring new coaches because we keep getting poached. I keep having to make decisions on all of the middle manager guys that are going. And it's like, John, you have to do this. But John is not.
He's not a former scout, he's not a pro personnel guy. And they lost so many of those guys over the years. John is a really good organizer of people. He's a really good face of the product, but he really does need a right hand man. And when Peters was around, he used him like the right hand man. That worked again in both directions.
Gets more credit probably than he deserves. When Rand was around, it was the same thing. I don't think Josh is. Is up to the task yet, which is why I think Wesley is in here. But John really does need the football brain. And then he can be sort of the people, the people person. Up out in front. And it will always be collaborative.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Right. And the unstated.
The unstated weirdness of why it's difficult to give him. Give Kwesi a title is there's the tier below. There's sort of like a trident of like Josh Williams, Tariq Ahmad and RJ Gillen, who are sort of all sort of promoted up to similar levels.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: And all talked last year where the Niners like to do that and like to promote people and give them some face value. And also they kind of know more about the picks in some ways than John. So John's like, hey, you guys, get out there. Looks. Looks good for me. Looks good for us.
That's the dynamic that's tricky.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: It will be interesting, though, to see how Quesi and Josh work together because Josh is clearly like the heir apparent. Right. He's interviewed for a lot. This is Josh Williams, San Francisco kid. All that very bright guy they directed him to. They promoted him to director of scouting and football operations, which sounds like gm, right? You're in charge of scouting and football operations. Oh, so you mean I generally manage the team, but that. That's what he was promoted to. You have the. The pro personnel, you have the. The college scouting department. It doesn't. It's hard to tell if Josh is above them or not. But I. I agree with your trident analogy. They're certainly on the same level at the very least. So it'll be interesting to see where Quessi kind of falls in, at least nominally.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Right. And because obviously Josh is a go getter. No. No problem with that at all. He's gotten promoted to a sort of vague role.
No one really knows where he fits in here, but they trust him and they value him. And so now you have questions. You know, got the gm. He was kind of in that role beforehand with the 49ers back in the day. So I'm interested to see how they play off of each other. And I'm sure. Well, this is. This is my call out to any people who have information about that. Text me about that when you get some info on that.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Send us some messages.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Send us some messages.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: By the way. Yeah, very briefly, we had. We talked about it a while ago. I feel comfortable saying it now.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Let's do it.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: We will be doing the draft guide.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Hey, look at us.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: We will have more information as we go. But people have been asking. It's gonna happen and it's gonna take a form that I think people are gonna be excited about.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: And I think it's gonna be a little more functional, easier to access, look better, cleaner, and be better on our end.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: So the better on our end is really the key. But. But not just in the actual product itself, but not just in the. The analysis ingrained in the product, but in the product itself for ease of use and. And change. So, yeah, it will still and we'll figure out all the, the tranches and tears and all that. We appreciate all the members and want to make sure that everyone's taken care of in that regard.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: But just wanted to let you know, we. We've been cooking behind the scenes.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Boy. And yeah, it's. It is a not a strange draft class.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: It's a very, It's a very strange draft class. And I, and I, and I wanted to mention it just because the combine's like really properly starting and so it's like now is when everybody sort of locks in. It's strange. I think I have more disagreement with people that I'm seeing online where I'm just like, I just don't agree with that at all.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: I think that that's a positive sign, frankly. Not that we can agree, disagree, whatever. We're going to agree and disagree with everybody. I think that this shows that more people are coming at it from a holistic spot as opposed to just copying and pasting off of other people's analysis. And that is worthwhile because the one thing being on both sides of the coin and then talking with kind of the third side of the coin. Great analogy, Dieter.
Talking with people who are, you know, in buildings and dealing with this stuff, being in media and then also just being a fan, especially of the draft. Like the differentiation between teams, draft boards and the media's draft boards are humongous.
And if we have more people on the media space, be that fan related media, legit media. What? Legit media is not the right word, but we're in this very flat media space that we're in.
Like, if we have more people who are actually putting in the work and coming up with their own opinions, we can judge those opinions on their merits. 1 and 2. I think that in a weird way, kind of the wisdom of the crowd, we might get closer to the real answer because we'll have disagreements on stuff is because 32 teams have disagreements on, on these guys, there's very few consensus players.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: They have different needs, they have different schemes and they have different tolerances for personalities like some teams. And in medical, like, sorry, the Eagles
[00:27:59] Speaker A: have a very high tolerance for personalities. It's going great for Them, by the way.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Yeah, well, Chiefs.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Sorry, sorry.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Raiders.
Yeah. And there's just. They have different tolerances, they have different thresholds for, for medical stuff. You know, where certain guys, where you're like, listen, this guy is a first round talent but his medicals are a nightmare. And some team says, we don't care about the medicals, we're going to take them anyway.
There's just so much different process and some teams are like so outdated. Like the Bengals just have like two guys and there's. Some teams aren't using data modeling and some teams are relying on it too much. And there's just a total wide range of outcomes.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: That's the wild thing to me. So there's. You're going to get the same chorus of people on the Internet complaining about coaches not going to the combine and stuff. And it's like, dude, right, dude. Like the combine. The combine is cool if you're looking for very specific data sets. Like if you're. Let's just use the example. Like if you're demontre k part and you're somebody who hasn't really broken through yet as a prospect that has a lot of buzz. Jake's been on this dude for two, two and a half years, something like that.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: I literally saw him two years ago and I went, who is that?
[00:29:12] Speaker A: And I want that.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: And he's like, I'm gonna stay in school because I am not turning the corner.
I am a one trick pony, but maybe I'll figure it out.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: So he's somebody who, who stands to gain by going to the combine because he ran a 4, 8, 5 at 315 pounds and he had a 33 inch and a half vertical leap and you're like, oh, that dude's a freak. That's unreal. That's unbelievable. Like a guy like Grayson Holton. Who?
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Grayson bolton.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah, the DT from Oklahoma.
36 and a half inch vertical today. Like that matters.
And like by the way, it matters that Lee Hunter is at 21 that
[00:29:54] Speaker B: size by the way, to get, to get that high.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it does seem impossible. He said, he said 293. Right. So this is again the, the matrix. Oh, well, he had, you know, at 293, he jumped 36 and a half. Okay. Yeah, but the mondrick Part's got 20 something pounds on him. He went 33 and a half. So like, which matters more? And by the way, like you can read into some of these numbers and we talked about them last week, like, what are the numbers that matter? Like if you're a big man, you can run a big 40. Like that's there. A low 40. Like, that's cool.
Broad jump, three cone vertical. Like explosion scores, they kind of matter.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: And bench press doesn't matter too much because a lot of that is dependent on arm length. I mean, if a guy can't do more than five reps, that's a problem. But that's so rare, it's not really an issue.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: I should mention goddamn reps. Is Reuben Bane gonna do with his 30 inch arms?
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Oh, my God, I can't wait. I can't wait. I should mention.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Just as a brief aside, I used. I, I still have them, but Nike built these shoes that have little chips in them where they would measure your vertical. And so in high school, I was fully obsessed and I had like, I, I just kept jumping. I had like a 41 inch vertical. Now my knees are shot.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: You didn't have a 41 inch version?
[00:31:07] Speaker B: I can jump. I can, I could, I could jump.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: What are you, Dominique Wilkins?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: I could. I almost dunked. I almost dunked once. And now my knees are shot. And I, and I ail. I have ailments and I am broken. But that said. Yeah, the measurement.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: No, no, like, some of this stuff is cool. There's also a lot of it that doesn't matter. And you mentioned sort of which teams like the Bengals need the combine because the NFL is subsidizing all the stuff that they should be doing forever, like, for everybody. Like, here it is. Here's some baseline information.
And like, I'll just use the Niners as an example. There are many teams that even go above and beyond. I know the Rams have something crazy. I know the Eagles are really intense on this stuff. I can't speak to how bespoke their situation is. But like, the Niners have a big R and D department. Some teams, R D department, if they have one, is reading pro football focus scores. I'm not kidding. Like, they're just. Or like sorting by category in stats.
Other teams are legitimately gauging miles per hour based on game film using AI algorithms and you know, creating specific athleticism scores based on computer modeling that they can run. Because, like, and by the way, like, almost too much, right? Just ridiculous things that probably like Tampa
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Bay Buccaneers commercial where they're like, find me a linebacker that's going to have 150 tackles and with good leadership skills.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: It's all I could think about.
Leadership skills.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: I got to know what the mechanics of that were. Whether they asked teams or The NFL said, hey, we're doing this commercial. You can put in your bids if you want it. Like, how does that.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Like hard knocks. It's like, you have to do this.
We were going to find you for having too many OTAs, but instead you have to embarrass yourself nationally. Bad Microsoft copilot commercial, which, by the way, copilot could never do any of that stuff. It's a terrible LLM.
So read into the combine just as much as you want. Like, all it does for us just to kind of go behind the iron curtain here to steal your phrase. Like, all it does for us is give us some data points. And sometimes we have to go, ah, shit, I gotta watch that again now. Like, that's all it is. We did. I gotta watch that guy again now because I didn't see. But if you don't see any of that stuff on film and we're talking about a day one or day two pick, like, then we got some real issues. If we're in day three, you could just take someone based off of a cool 40 or, you know.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. We're gonna have a lot of weird prospect. There's going to be guys like, I want to take. Just mention a guy.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: Mike Washington, the running back from Arkansas, who's very large.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: And very fast.
Some people, and it couldn't run are like. Are like, this guy is. Is RB1. Like, some people are like that high on him. And some people are like, he's kind of just a big running back.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: I'm sort of in the middle where I'm like, he could probably run for 1200, 1500 yards if you block well enough for him.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: But he also goes down incredibly easily. Not a lot of horizontal ability at all. No lateral quickness. But if you get him in space and let him run in a straight line, he's an enormous dude who's running faster than everybody else.
So it's almost like a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of Isaac Arando. I think he plays football a lot better.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: That's the whole thing. Which guys play football well.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: And like, you don't need when you watch Caleb Banks to have any of this data, which, by the way, is flabbergasting, horrifying.
You don't need any of this data to tell you that he is explosive as hell off the line and is humongous. He had a 9, 6 broad jump at 6, 6 and 330. 330 pounds. That's not normal. That's unbelievable. And he's not a good football player.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: He is. He is an inconsistent football player. When it works, it looks tremendous. It looks as good as anything. And it doesn't. He's injured a lot. It doesn't work consistently. He's not shown well.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: If only there was a player that the 49ers took in the not too recent past who could be a clear cautionary tale for taking a guy like that in the first round.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: I do think Banks has more violent hands.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: He does, I'll give him that. But he does not have the absolutely humongous tree trunk legs.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: And sometimes he just does this. Like, I saw him get blocked in his midsection with his hands up. And you go, what do you. What's the plan there, buddy?
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Well, it's the Kinlaw thing, which we've talked about for a while with Banks, like, kind of even goes further than that because you go, oh, he's in the sec, got good coaching. And you're like, I don't know about that with Florida. And then you go, well, Javon Kinlaw is in the sec. And it's like South Carolina will must champ at the time. Like, I don't. I don't know about that. So then almost that's used as a positive. It's used as confirmation that you actually should take him because he got bad coaching and he could be so good when he gets the good coaching. But what if, in fact, it was a double negative and he's not a good player who was never going to reach his potential? Cause he never got close to good coaching. Like, just because he got bad coaching doesn't mean good coaching is going to fix him. So it's kind of an outlier data point that teams use to convince themselves. And I'm just of the mindset now that Banks is either going to be the linchpin of a Super bowl winning defense or the exact reason stated why a GM gets fired. But there is really no in between here with Caleb Banks and. And for that, we're very thankful that the combine can provide clarity. Because the tape was telling me that the combine yells it at us.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: And you're like, this guy is a total freak. If it hits, great.
And it's one of those things where you're like, well, I kind of can't blame someone either way for buying fully in or being fully out.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: Honestly, like, if you're at the end of the first round and this is, you know, the team that, you know is going to, like, love them because they've done it now, like the Eagles, like that's their type of player, right? It's like to a T because you can see the Jordan Davis in him. You can see the Carter. And like I get. I don't think they're going to take him. But like the Eagles are also drafting late most of the time now. Not with Carter.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Like which is why they get the guy who has some sort of off field issue or is flawed but has talent nobody else has and they go,
[00:37:36] Speaker A: well, if it fails, it fails. We're good enough otherwise we'll make up for it later on in the round.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: But they always get pure talent and that's. And they say we'll figure the rest out.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: That's their mo.
So yeah, we'll get into all that in just a bit quick bit of news. I'm not sure if you have a take on this or not, Jake. Anthony Richardson allowed to seek a trade and the first team interested take it for what it's worth. This is mere speculation and rumor reporting is the Vikings, who. I kind of get it. I kind of get it.
They don't throw it over the middle of the field. So what's the issue with a guy who can't throw it over the middle of the field? Like, what do you think about Richardson and how does that change? Are very chaotic and frankly, borderline unlistenable. Quarterback talk Last, last episode.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: One of the most maybe guys of all time just like the craziest athletic specimen and then he's just gotten injured sort of constantly doesn't know how to play quarterback. But Kevin o' Connell's like, hey, maybe I can do it. And, and honestly, who am I to tell Kevin o' Connell he's wrong and
[00:38:45] Speaker A: what is kind of cooking right now? What is he gonna call JJ McCarthy
[00:38:48] Speaker B: a fourth or a fifth?
[00:38:50] Speaker A: It does cost you something against the cap because he is a first, an early first round pick. But yeah, sure, whatever. I'm not even sure what that would cost.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's, it's. I bet it's. I'm just blind guessing. I'm guessing it's probably like 8 million or something.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Oh God. This is how I know I'm spending too much time with Larry. I just had a very intrusive thought thought. What if someone's going to trade for him to convert him to tight end Tim Tebow style?
[00:39:15] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: I'm kind of in on it.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: I mean he's one of the greatest athletes that's ever tested. Yeah.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Nikki, Memoir of offense in many ways.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: I agree. Listen, if anyone's going to figure it out. Let Kevin o' Connell try. Why not?
[00:39:30] Speaker A: There will certainly be somebody who suggests that the Niner, like just all these dominoes, like get rid of Mac Jones, then bring in Anthony Richardson. First off, still waiting for anyone to tell me about any team that's interested in Mac Jones. Overtly interested, because they're all there now. I mean, not. They're actually not all there, but enough teams are there and are talking.
And it's not like the Rams didn't send emissaries who are there basically to gossip and get drunk on the company dime.
Like any. Anytime someone wants to tell me who wants Mac Jones, like, I'm all ears again. You know, I throw, throw out the phone. Maybe we need to get a voicemail line so that we can just have that. You got my number. You can text me.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Like I just do a self help inbox separately.
Just a football inbox.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: That's free. Scouting Dieter and Jake at gmail dot com. We'll do it for you.
So anytime I want to hear that, that'd be great. Meanwhile, Richardson hits the trade market and immediately it's like, Vikings want him. Vikings want him bad.
Again, just a little bit telling there, but there will certainly be folks out there on these, these unregulated streets who are like, the Niners should trade Mac Jones for a second in a player and then get Anthony Richardson. Kyle Shanahan can fix him and you know what?
Can't tell them they're wrong.
I don't know if Kyle Shanahan would fix them, but that might be the tight end that they need.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: I would love to see him play tight end. I don't think it would will happen, but I'd love to see it.
I was watching Michael Trigg today and I went, I miss people that are actually shaped like tight ends.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Because this new breed, like one tight end that is has long arms that are so long they don't know how to use them to block.
And you enter just literally flailing. I saw him block with his elbow like this, like a chicken wing. I went, what is. What are we doing?
Dallin Bentley is my guy from you.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Okay, okay, listen, don't, don't give it all away. I know, I know.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Listen, there's a lot, there's. We. We got a lot to get into, boy.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Do we. Okay, do you want to just go gut. We're going gut right now. Okay. I want to be very clear. We're.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: Are we doing. Let's clarify. Are we doing our pick or who we think?
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I Want the way that things are falling right now, they call you up and they say we're panicking. Jake, Jacob, we have no idea our collaboration schemes have failed. Quessi's fighting Josh and John is despondent and Kyle is stuck in Cabo and like we don't know what to do. Jake, give us the answer. You already. You've been watching, you know the board pick number 27. This is not a mock draft. Who you taking?
[00:42:13] Speaker B: Chris Brazil.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Okay, how does that work in. In the current wide receiver room? Because he's a rookie.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: He's their ex. He's there. He's their ex. And the. The problem is making sure he stays healthy for training camp and all that. So he can learn the scheme but a few things can block. Can really, really block.
Two, he has the suddenness again, he doesn't have this. He didn't run the same route tree. So I think some teams will mis evaluate him based on what he actually did at Tennessee. And because of this sort of coached laziness, I think some teams will hang on to that.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: I think because they like to call it energy.
Energy. What is it?
[00:42:58] Speaker B: It's like energy conservation or something.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: Yeah, something like that.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Right, right. Want to make sure the law of entropy doesn't catch up to you at the end of the game.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: They literally don't move the wide receivers out like they, they have a right wide receiver and a left wide receiver like they're defense in 2000 and just run straight.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: So yeah, I think, I think a few things he, Matt Brock has done a great job of throwing the ball high over the middle of the field in very dicey situations. This is a guy that's going to go up and get it for you. And, and I'm not talking about like a lot of people love like the Denzel Boston and these receivers who aren't really like doing all that much to separate and are sort of limited in their route craft, but just are tall and athletic so they can go up and get it. Brazell is so much more than that. He has the suddenness to decelerate and snap in and out of routes. I think year one, how does it work initially? I think there's going to be some growing pains, but I think you can say, hey, running in like, yeah, you can block for us and I think that will help.
I really am so sold on him and I'm going to have to keep going back and finish my evaluation in full.
I just think I don't know any system that he really wouldn't work in, like, I think he. He's kind of the total package. I know that seems crazy for a guy that some people are viewing late. In my view, he's just an outrageously talented receiver who moves way too well at 6 foot 5, who, despite having a slim frame, blocks really well. And when he's asked to block, can really move people.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: That's.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: That's what I care about. Yeah, I'm gonna say Chris Brazelle, pick, pick 27.
[00:44:41] Speaker A: I think it's a great option. I'm not sure he's gonna be there.
I'm yet to kind of get the feedback of, like, Brazil. Brazil. Brazil to where? I think, like, oh, you know, somewhere in that. Because once you get to, like, 15 to 20 things, anything kind of go off the rails.
And that's, like, where the Colts are always picking, and they always do something a little weird. So Falcons, you know, it's. It's these teams that are perpetually stuck in the middle. They always do something dumb that breaks boards.
But enough about James Pierce.
My answer is Caleb Proctor. I don't want to talk about Caleb Proctor. Because if I'm really going gut, right, if I'm. If. If you're like Dieter, I really need the answer here. I got to have it.
I go, you should do Proctor. But if you're really wanting my opinion, you take Anthony Hill from Texas, the linebacker.
I love him. I love him so much.
I really think that he's a special player. Three down linebacker, tackle for loss, machine. Just instinctive. He sees it all. There's no wasted movement.
Well, he's playing almost £240. You would think that he's 215 with the way that he moves. I love him in coverage.
I keep going back to it, and I keep trying to talk myself out of it. Linebacker is such a hard position to evaluate.
And so you're like, it can't be this good, right? It can't be this good. There's no consensus around him right now. No one's really seemingly got to his tape yet.
I think the answer is Anthony Hill. That is a win now, win later move. You play him at week. If Fred has any more troubles going forward, he's your mic.
I just don't think. And you know that. I think. I think he's going to, you know, interview wonderfully by all accounts. He's, like, really bright.
I think, Anthony, real gut. I think that that's the one that would get away. Like, you'd regret it for the rest of your life if you didn't Go with Anthony Hill. Whereas with Kaden Proctor, you might have some immediate regrets, even though I really love the possibilities. Like a guy that good being available for you at 27 is a kind of a red flag. If you're asking me, that's not the way you should go about it. You should just take them, play them at guard.
Obviously the Niners are thinking about offensive line because I think offensive tackle specifically is going to fall to them in this draft, which is a total rarity.
That's probably part of the Trent Williams negotiations, at least somewhere in the back burner for the Niners.
But man, I really think that you'd regret not taking Anthony Hill. So I'm going to say Anthony Hill.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, that's your prerogative. I haven't seen it enough of him to feel anywhere near as high as you are. But you've been, you've been on this since day one. So I love him.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: I've been, I've been on it. I mean we, we're both big C.J. allen guys, linebacker from Georgia.
I'm going to end up having Hill above him and I still think Allen is really, really good.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: Really good. I'm. I'm not even anywhere close to feeling that way. But we'll.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: We'll see. Okay.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Still early in the process. Okay.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Should we do some.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: I will say. Oh no, please do say one more thing.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: Either of the Oregon guys. Dylan Thieman or Emmanuel Prenon. Yeah, I think anyone who. Those are both. They're going to be good players.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: Like, do you think they'll be first round players?
I don't.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: I do. I kind of do. I think Thienaman is going to be like the last first round pick and Prenyone is going to be like the first second round pick. I think they're both like right on that borderline. I. I am having a trouble.
I'm having trouble not making premiere in a first round player because every time I watch him I'm just amazed. I mean his, his measurables will be telling. Thieman's a freak and makes the right decision every time. He cleaned up so much for Oregon on the back end.
I forget who I was watching him play against, but he can play and you can play in so many different ways.
You might worry about his size or being slight, but I just think he's such a dynamic safety.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: I. I was going through my notes. So, you know, full disclosure, I have notes in about nine different spots and every. If I'm watching college football, I usually have Like, a little field notes thing in my back pocket and do it. I'll also just pull up Apple notes and write, like, a note which is just like, player and number.
So I'm going through my notes. There are thousands of these things. Right. And I have tried to accumulate all of them, and I've done a much better job of it. And I was going through it the other day and I forgot Thea Min played for Purdue. And so I just searched Purdue.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: And there are two different Purdue 31 notes in my Apple notes app from a couple of years ago.
Yeah. So we're gonna.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: So rangy. He's so sharp. He's always in the right spot. He. You know, you're watching somebody, like, break free into open space, and then there's 31 flies in from the corner of your screen to save a touchdown. Yeah. Like, I think he's a true, like, free safety, capable player.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: I hate. I hate doing this, but you know who he reminds me of, right?
[00:50:00] Speaker B: I know. It's so hard.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: It's so hard not to do it. He's like three inches taller, too, but he's Eric Weddle. Right. Like, he's just Eric Weddle. By the way, if you ever want to make John lynch really sad, just say Eric Weddle.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: I know.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: I've done it a couple of times.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: I thought you were. I thought you were going to go with, oh, the other white safety that played for Minnesota for the longest time.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Harrison Smith.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: He does not, actually. You know what Harrison Smith does? He does not. No. He's Weddell. Where I agree. He's back there. He's dying.
[00:50:32] Speaker B: Eric Weddle was.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: Oh, Eric Weddle was so goddamn good.
And, I mean, there's a reason the Niners didn't go to the Super Bowl. It was Eric Weddle. It was. Everyone wants to blame. I'm sorry. It was Tart who dropped the.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Dropping that. But that. That wouldn't have secured that game.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: No, it wouldn't have. I mean, it was obviously a big play. No one's arguing that. That wasn't a big play. The big play was Eric Weddle. Absolutely. Giving them the business for four straight quarters after they signed him off the street. That was the problem and never has. Safety's our destiny. Felt stronger than that exact moment where Tart drops an interception after playing a very good game. But, like, kind of unremarkable. Yeah.
And. And Eric Weddle is just everywhere. I mean, he was like a.
He was like a pair. Anything that Aaron Donald did in that game, Eric Weddle was there right behind him to just make sure that it, it got the no yards it deserved. He was unbelievable in that game. And that's what you're kind of looking for. I mean, in a weird way, you're looking for somebody like that. When you're watching college film, you're looking for someone who's just clearly two steps ahead of everything and who's cognitively just way beyond. Right.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: It's like, it's like Cole Wisniewski at a Texas Tech, I think has it mentally. I don't think has it physically, which makes it a tough eval. You're like, safety. You don't necessarily need to have it, but you need to have a certain threshold. Finding a guy like Feman who has it every way is special.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: And again, we'll just have to watch again and again. And again. Safety. I mean, I was complaining about how hard it is to evaluate linebacker. Safety is like damn near impossible.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And again, again, like, everybody loves the Toledo kid. And I'm like, ah, he's fast.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: He's really fast and he's really close. I don't know if he's making good reads.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: I've seen him take two horrible angles that directly he was responsible for touchdowns in the same game. And I'm like, does he read it well when he's playing deep or is he just like a sick box safety? Like, that's, that's fine. But like, is that a first round worthy player? Maybe?
[00:52:33] Speaker A: So, like, cool, you're the fastest, most athletic dude in the Mac. Like, I'm not trying to disparage the Mac guys, but like, if you were doing the cool stuff that he was doing and you played for Georgia, now we have a little bit of a different conversation. This is why you have to watch the low end tapes, right? Like the. Hey, played UT Martin, did he look awesome against UT Martin? Yes. Okay, that means something. But then I also need to put it on when you're playing LSU or when you're playing, you know, or Ohio State, Kentucky.
[00:53:01] Speaker B: And I was like, you missed some plays against Kentucky and Kentucky's not the cream of the crop.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: Listen, so like, I like this corner out of Southern Miss, Josh Moten. And it's like, okay, well, Josh Moten, he was at Marshall. He went with to Southern is, you know, there's some questions about, like, you transferred a lot but never seemed to improve your standing.
So there's something to be said there. But we're talking day three pick. But with Moton, okay, Marshall got to play Ohio State on a big noon 95 degree kickoff in Columbus two years ago. And all he did was lock up everybody he went up against. All he did was make Ameca Abuka look mortal. All he did was intercept a pass one on one with Jeremiah Smith. And all he did was have Carnell Tate in hell. And it's like, okay, well that, that means something to me. So I can watch all of the tape I want of him against, you know, and it will look awesome. But then it's like, okay, you played somebody who they should all be kicking your ass because all 11 players on the field are better than yours.
Except you kind of got yourself into that mix. You looked like the fourth or fifth best player on the field. Like that speaks volumes to me when we're talking about mid level guys.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: I'm with you.
I think we go to some questions here.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: I think that's the right answer.
[00:54:16] Speaker B: Shout out big Tone. Josh Williams from Santa Rosa became friends at the Boys Girls Club playing basketball.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: There was a smart guy PDX Niner.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: This one's for Deeter.
[00:54:26] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: Can I pay you for a sticker or a hat with Sicko on it?
[00:54:29] Speaker A: The hat was Sicko on. It's a little trickier. We are working on that. Stickers are literally in the mail. So here's the deal. If you're a seek help, I'm gonna find you and I'm gonna send you a sticker. Everybody else, we're gonna figure it out. So seek helps. That's a guaranteed perk. I'll just send you a sticker. A quarter if you're a seat help sicko like you deserve to figure out
[00:54:48] Speaker B: over the summer or something.
[00:54:49] Speaker A: We got a lot of. We got a lot of.
We're trying not to be transactional, but we do have some commerce to deal with here in the next couple of weeks, so we'll get that figured out. This was just funny. From Nevin Ring can tell you which neighborhood dog linebacker.
They're not backpedaling at all. They're backpedaling better than any corner in this.
[00:55:08] Speaker B: Honestly. Incredible. They're like, we don't have secret contracts for the US Government.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: We're not. We're not dunking on ourselves with the super bowl that costs $10 million.
[00:55:16] Speaker B: Scott asked an interesting question.
I mean, I don't think there's a clear answer on my end. No, you haven't done a deep. The deep draft stuff, but is there a Nick Imanwari the Niners could find this year? To be fair, there's no such thing as a Nicki Manwari. He's kind of a one on one guy. Someone who might not work for 90 of teams but would be a game changer for SF system. Good question.
Do you have someone off the top of your head for the Niners that would do that? To me, where I mentally go first is kind of it. It's not the same thing. Because Eman Warrior allowed the defense to be super dynamic and just stay in basically dime.
And it made like they were just running dime all the time.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: What I would say is I think a guard can maybe do something similar if they can run it. It's not the same schematic. It's not a one to one thing.
But I would say if I were to pick one or two players who could maybe do this and it's not the right comparison, it would be like Caleb Kaden Proctor at guard or be. Or it would be like Emmanuel Perennon at guard. It's a different thing, but it's something of like physically upgrading the offensive line to be able to deal with physical fronts I think would allow them to fundamentally change like what they are as an offense.
[00:56:36] Speaker A: So I'm with you on that. It's very difficult to make such a determination on the defensive side because we have no idea what their scheme is.
So we're going to have to reverse engineer what we think Raheem's going to do based on the personnel that they bring in if they make any changes to scheme year over year.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: And it's a weird defensive tackle class. And I don't necessarily know that they need to go for edge the way people are talking about it.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: It depends on what they do with. With how Huff is handled and obviously Keon. I don't know the severity of Keon White's injury, but that's a factor too. But I don't think that they're not going to. How about this? I feel pretty confident they're not going defensive end, defensive end in the last two first rounds. Like.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: They still firmly believe in Mikel.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And I don't see one that really makes sense. Like some like Cassius Howell, like old Stumpy arms.
[00:57:32] Speaker A: I mean, he ain't Reuben Bane, but he's got the same arms. I'm gonna give you two names. Okay. One, one. Everyone knows. I think Casey Concepcion fits what the 49ers do better than he will fit every other team. Now that is maybe just a statement of.
That might be a semantics argument in that I think that Casey Concepcion can really fit into a tight split situation as A Z receiver and do some Debo like things from that spot. But there are other teams that will just use them as a slot, which is.
So. That might just be a semantics thing, but I think conception really fits sort of the ideal Kyle offense, if we've seen that in the past. The other name I'm going to give you, and I'm not deep enough on him yet, but I really. I. He's one of those guys who I just think about every now and again is Demon Claiborne, the running back out of Wake Forest.
He's not going to be everybody's cup of tea, but he's. He's vision led and he's a really good. Okay, okay.
[00:58:37] Speaker B: You don't. You don't. No, no, no, no, no. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Go ahead. Like, I. I didn't mean to interrupt your flow, but like, Claiborne's sick. I think he's the most physically talented running back in the class.
I don't know if he's got the feel for it. I. I think he is okay.
Yeah.
He also fumbles more than anybody in this class.
[00:58:58] Speaker A: That doesn't surprise me.
He's a really good pass catcher out of the backfield and I think he just presses the edge at a really, really high level. So he'll fit the Niners run scheme and their offense better than he will most teams if they decide to go that way. I don't think that he fits the mold because he's kind of a late day two, if probably not early day three guy.
[00:59:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:26] Speaker A: And they already have a Jordan James in house, so there's a level of redundancy there.
[00:59:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:59:33] Speaker A: But he does, just going off the top of my head, he feels like somebody who the Niners will value more than other teams would value because he has very particular. He has a very particular set of skills. Shout out. Liam Neeson, that, that behoove, you know, that play to the Niners offense as. As we know it.
[00:59:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I think there's a real.
He is the most boom, bust running back in this class.
[00:59:58] Speaker A: To me.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: I've been watching him a lot as of late and I think there's so, so much physical upside. Like he is a first round physical talent physically.
He's got kind of like a crazy. He doesn't have any tempo to his runs. He's sort of like running full speed all the time. I really didn't like his vision. He fumbles a lot.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:00:21] Speaker B: I compared him a little bit to Garendo in terms of, like, physical talent. He could be the best running back in this class, though.
[01:00:27] Speaker A: Like, he has. I think the Garendo thing is totally fair, but there's a reason the Niners drafted Garendo. It was boom, bust, and it busted, right? And so maybe they just do it again and it's a boom, but he's totally a guy.
[01:00:40] Speaker B: The Niners will be like, oh, God. Fans are just having flashbacks to Garendo, but I also think, yeah, the upside is so monumental, you can warrant it, even if I'm leaning, that he's going to be a bust because he's not polished and he fumbles a lot and there's all these other things. But if he hits, you're going to feel like an idiot for not taking this way, right?
[01:01:00] Speaker A: So listen, this is somebody that you take when you just really don't have any choice but to take him.
Like, if everybody else has said no and you've had. And you've gone against it once or twice already, when it's like, oh, we have him kind of here, and then let's not, you know, there's some questions there. Let's go with this safer pick or whatever. And then you come around and it's like, you have to say no a third time. You're gonna be like, yeah, let's do it.
[01:01:23] Speaker B: I think if he's. I think you want to get past round three. And then if he's there in round four, you say, what do we got to do? I don't care.
We'll see.
[01:01:34] Speaker A: We'll see. That's how they round one on typically just Jesus. Exactly. It's a very process.
[01:01:41] Speaker B: Important question.
How tall is Jake? When I'm standing next to Dieter, I look about five. Two is the answer.
[01:01:47] Speaker A: You're what, five, ten? Five eleven.
[01:01:49] Speaker B: I'm five ten.
And people think I'm literally five foot two. Because Dieter is.
What are you, six, ten, six, eight?
[01:01:57] Speaker A: I'm six foot nine, 300 pounds.
[01:02:01] Speaker B: And Dieter's gonna be drafted in the seventh round. He is still draft.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: I was. I was a legitimately terrible offensive lineman.
I had full rides to multiple Mac schools on spec. The Mac in the hallway, they're like, you are from the Midwest and you are of that size. I'll figure it out. Like, this is both of. I mean, first off, there were many conversations in that regard, but like, both of the recruiters who first offered me, I'm certain they went home that day thinking that they were the luckiest boys in the whole wide world, because it's like there's someone that size just wandering hallways and we can make him a Toledo rocket.
So that's, that's that awful.
[01:02:42] Speaker B: Could have been. What could have been?
[01:02:43] Speaker A: No, it really couldn't have been. We tried a lot longer than we should have and, and I don't think we're any better for it either. I'm not really sure what we learned from the whole process, but here we are. Here we are.
[01:02:53] Speaker B: And I final question before we get
[01:02:55] Speaker A: myself in that regard.
[01:02:57] Speaker B: Can you back up Austin Pleasants?
[01:02:59] Speaker A: No. No.
[01:03:00] Speaker B: I.
[01:03:00] Speaker A: Again, I want to be very clear. I'm an awful offensive lineman.
Not built right at all.
No ass, just no footwork. I'm not an athlete. I'm not. I, I get, I get by because I got big old bones. But like, no, just not an athlete. Just a big old doughboy with a baby face and a penchant for not trying to get hit in the head. So, yeah, not, not great. But we, we, again, we gave it a good shot. I.
Yeah, they're. There was one conversation with a coach where it's like, we're just, we're going to call this okay? It's like, yeah, I think it's okay.
[01:03:35] Speaker B: We all agree.
[01:03:36] Speaker A: We all agree this is over.
Good show. Thanks for the, thanks for the shorts. We'll. We'll see you down the line.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: Appreciate you, folks.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: That's it. Thanks for the shorts. Bye.
