Latest / Guy Football Focus with Guy Haberman / Is There A Solution For The NFL's BIG NFL Draft Problem?
Transcript
- 0:00[SPEAKER_00]: Hey guys, guys, guys, here.
- 0:01[SPEAKER_00]: Draft Day is brought to you by Plesto, Mejhi Kano, Moderna, the fine people of Plesto, where every day is the Super Bowl, the Adler Brothers, what they've created.
- 0:13[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing food.
- 0:15[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, it's available in Levi Stadium, so as you're planning your first,
- 0:19[SPEAKER_00]: road trip may be to leave eyes this year.
- 0:21[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget, plus those going to be the place to eat.
- 0:23[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, you can find Puesto at their restaurants in Santa Clara and conquered in Southern California.
- 0:30[SPEAKER_00]: They've got some in Orange County.
- 0:31[SPEAKER_00]: So go check out Puesto's locations and check out their menu.
- 0:36[SPEAKER_00]: The signature Mexico City style crispy melted cheese.
- 0:39[SPEAKER_00]: They've been honored for with award after award.
- 0:43[SPEAKER_00]: Their
- 0:46[SPEAKER_00]: with Scratch Masa from Masienda, the best you can find on the market.
- 0:49[SPEAKER_00]: My personal favorite has I've been telling you, the short rib case in Buria Taco, the juicy short rib, the ooey gooey crispy melted cheese, a little kick of Halisco salsa, they've got the lobster, they've got the filet mignon tacos, okay?
- 1:04[SPEAKER_00]: The rib eye taco, the shrimp taco,
- 1:07[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, the Margaritas are so good.
- 1:10[SPEAKER_00]: The vibe in this place is always perfect, no matter your occasion, the Adler Brothers, huge nine of fans, and supporters of the show.
- 1:18[SPEAKER_00]: So we appreciate you supporting Plisto.
- 1:20[SPEAKER_00]: Mejito Moderna.
- 1:23[SPEAKER_00]: with a draft day round one conversation.
- 1:26[SPEAKER_00]: I said something at the end of the podcast through the day about John Lynch and the N.A.L.
- 1:30[SPEAKER_00]: problem that he identified and how it affects the NFL draft that the NFL's getting less talent.
- 1:34[SPEAKER_00]: And I decided to dive into it a little bit deeper, made a YouTube video about it today and wanted to share that here.
- 1:40[SPEAKER_00]: Before I do that, I wanted to share a couple little draft nuggets.
- 1:43[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, the Dale Jeremiah mock draft came out.
- 1:47[SPEAKER_00]: He had Denzel Boston going to the Niners at 27, that one would surprise me.
- 1:51[SPEAKER_00]: I think, and I know DJ well, I think sometimes, I think his mock drafts are really packed with information, you know, and it's hard to know to have like, strong takes about all 32 picks.
- 2:07[SPEAKER_00]: So you just have to kind of discern, okay, which one is really?
- 2:11[SPEAKER_00]: This is like really something and which one is I got to put a guy in a spot and I see that only because I don't Denzel Boston doesn't feel like There's a lot of reasons to like him, but he doesn't feel like exactly the guy called would like if he had his choice at receiver and to me that pick feels like a I don't think that I actually actually drafting in this spot selection
- 2:37[SPEAKER_00]: That's my read on it.
- 2:38[SPEAKER_00]: I love what I, you know, I love the NFL draft for the clues.
- 2:45[SPEAKER_00]: You know, some people love it for like watch the O'Lime and evaluations, which is awesome.
- 2:51[SPEAKER_00]: We need that stuff.
- 2:53[SPEAKER_00]: But I love it for the detective work.
- 2:57[SPEAKER_00]: Or at least let me rephrase.
- 2:58[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I love most about it is the detective work.
- 3:01[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I thought DJ's mock draft last year.
- 3:04[SPEAKER_00]: If you look at his mock draft last year was really interesting.
- 3:06[SPEAKER_00]: He had shit or Sanders 21, 21, 23, whatever it was.
- 3:10[SPEAKER_00]: He had him go into the Browns.
- 3:12[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know, it was like, I bet if we really pressed them and said, hey, do you think he was going to be a first round or my guess is his answers?
- 3:19[SPEAKER_00]: No, he wasn't surprised, but yeah, I'm in the Browns.
- 3:21[SPEAKER_00]: So I like those are the sorts of things.
- 3:24[SPEAKER_00]: Like last year he had gray Zable was like, I, he really liked, you know,
- 3:32[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it would have been great if the night was had a graysable, the guard that the Seahawks took.
- 3:36[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, that's that's something to watch for.
- 3:39[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think the other thing to watch for when we talk about trades at the end of the first round, we talk about a lot like, okay, you want to get from 27 and you're hoping somebody who's at, you know, Arizona at 34 wants to come up, let's say.
- 3:54[SPEAKER_00]: I saw it in that DJ mock draft, I think it was the DJ mock draft.
- 3:58[SPEAKER_00]: Was it Trader?
- 3:59[SPEAKER_00]: One of them had Arizona coming up to 26 where the bills are to take Tyson's and from Alabama.
- 4:07[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, that's a significant trade.
- 4:10[SPEAKER_00]: The cost on that's not prohibitive, but to go from 34 in the second round to 26, four quarterback, that's a great trade for Buffalo, if that happens.
- 4:22[SPEAKER_00]: But there's also trades that happen that are tradebacks in this range, like 26, 27, where the NIOs are,
- 4:29[SPEAKER_00]: Um, don't cost as much, meaning the team coming up.
- 4:32[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I'm getting at is the possibility that like you sit in a 27 and you trade back and trade back tonight doesn't mean to 34 or to 50, it might mean to 32.
- 4:42[SPEAKER_00]: It's weird though.
- 4:43[SPEAKER_00]: Would you trade back from 27 to 32 with Seattle?
- 4:48[SPEAKER_00]: You you would trade back with Miami at 30.
- 4:51[SPEAKER_00]: You trade back with Kansas City 29 right you would trade back with Houston at 28.
- 4:56[SPEAKER_00]: You trade back with New England at 31.
- 5:00[SPEAKER_00]: Would you trade back with Seattle at 32 I don't think so.
- 5:07[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, that's something to watch for Arizona 34 Raiders 36.
- 5:13[SPEAKER_00]: Would you trade with the Raiders with date?
- 5:15[SPEAKER_00]: Well, no, yes, you would with the Raiders trade with you.
- 5:20[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, okay, let's get to the steep dive into the big problem with the NFL draft that John Lynch identified the day I dive into it.
- 5:31[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just going to provide to you the audio from what I did this morning.
- 5:36[SPEAKER_00]: This is it and it's got some other audio that is now a new YouTube intro or one of the YouTube's intros which you'll hear and you'll just have to close your eyes and visualize it and trust me that it looks way cooler on YouTube.
- 5:48[SPEAKER_00]: Here we go.
- 5:50[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty drops back.
- 5:51[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty steps up.
- 5:51[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty throws middle.
- 6:00[SPEAKER_01]: There's getting.
- 6:00[SPEAKER_01]: He's got it inside the 20.
- 6:01[SPEAKER_01]: The 10.
- 6:02[SPEAKER_01]: He's gone.
- 6:02[SPEAKER_01]: Touched him.
- 6:03[SPEAKER_01]: 40 orders back in front.
- 6:09[SPEAKER_00]: Big day, very excited about it.
- 6:11[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be covering a lot of the picks, about 10 teams.
- 6:15[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe think they can hit a home run today.
- 6:17[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that number's high.
- 6:19[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt drafts got a problem.
- 6:22[SPEAKER_00]: John Lynch said it on Monday.
- 6:23[SPEAKER_00]: I talked about it a little bit on the audio version of the podcast, but not on YouTube, but I thought it was pretty significant and I got glossed over a little bit.
- 6:30[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he's on the competition committee.
- 6:31[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, he is very aware of some of the global problems that the league is facing.
- 6:37[SPEAKER_00]: Challenges at the league is facing and he's not the only one.
- 6:40[SPEAKER_00]: I talked to people around the sport and they agree.
- 6:43[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I do think there are some solutions.
- 6:46[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm one great solution, actually, but it's good, it's gonna sound a little bit crazy.
- 6:51[SPEAKER_00]: But with John Lynch said on Monday, Jerry McDonald, reporter asked him, how many first round graves you got on guys?
- 6:58[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, well, you know, last year we had 20, first round graves.
- 7:03[SPEAKER_00]: I don't wanna say the number, but this year it's less.
- 7:06[SPEAKER_00]: They just have 27th.
- 7:07[SPEAKER_00]: So you can understand why there's been a lot of reports about them wanting to trade back.
- 7:14[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see if they can because, you know, their draft board is going to be somewhat similar in terms of first round grades to other people's draft boards.
- 7:21[SPEAKER_00]: But he said, here's the problem for the NFL.
- 7:23[SPEAKER_00]: College football used to be a feeder system.
- 7:26[SPEAKER_00]: Now the NFL is in competition with college football.
- 7:30[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're in competition.
- 7:33[SPEAKER_00]: That's what NFL GM just said.
- 7:35[SPEAKER_00]: So for all of the people crying about the sky is falling on college football and look, I don't want to dismiss it.
- 7:42[SPEAKER_00]: parts of college football that are totally broken and the sky is falling for a lot of people in college football, but at the top end of college football, they're becoming more competitive with the NFL.
- 7:53[SPEAKER_00]: They're becoming more competitive as an entertainment product because, well, they're keeping better talent.
- 7:59[SPEAKER_00]: And the numbers back it up.
- 8:01[SPEAKER_00]: In 2018, 166,
- 8:03[SPEAKER_00]: underclassmen declared early for the NFL draft, okay?
- 8:07[SPEAKER_00]: Five years ago, that number was 128.
- 8:09[SPEAKER_00]: Guys who could still play in football, could still play football in college, but deciding to leave early for the NFL.
- 8:16[SPEAKER_00]: So five years ago, 128, this year 42, underclassmen, plus another 21 who finished their college work, but still had eligibility left, but even combined, that is the smallest early entry group in a long, long time.
- 8:31[SPEAKER_00]: So what are the NFL's options?
- 8:33[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a crazy fix for them.
- 8:35[SPEAKER_00]: I'll get to that in a second, and maybe a more realistic one.
- 8:39[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to illustrate that it's not just John Lynch.
- 8:42[SPEAKER_00]: OK, guys and draft rooms around the league are feeling this right now.
- 8:45[SPEAKER_00]: I was texting with a scout who is reading the scouting department of a team that is drafting near the 49ers.
- 8:54[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I don't think there's that many home runs coming on this draft, especially late in the first round, the way he put it was, if you get a contributing guy and average starter, I think I would take that and they're drafting in the 20s think about that.
- 9:08[SPEAKER_00]: an average starter in the first round.
- 9:12[SPEAKER_00]: That's what some people are hoping for this year.
- 9:15[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, on the college side, I heard something that was even more direct.
- 9:22[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I was texting with a guy who's a, let's just call him a major player in college football management.
- 9:28[SPEAKER_00]: Like, he knows how the sauce is just made.
- 9:30[SPEAKER_00]: He is behind the scenes.
- 9:32[SPEAKER_00]: He sees the playing field for 10 years and 20 and 30 years from now, not just for,
- 9:37[SPEAKER_00]: you know, opening Memorial Day weekend.
- 9:40[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, there's a few things they can do.
- 9:41[SPEAKER_00]: He said, well, first of all, he said, guaranteed money for rookies would help get guys had a college to the NFL.
- 9:49[SPEAKER_00]: But the way he viewed it was that the NFL is profited from what we could all agree is the best farm system in the world for decades.
- 9:59[SPEAKER_00]: And now they're starting to feel the pain.
- 10:02[SPEAKER_00]: So that's somebody on the college side.
- 10:05[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
- 10:05[SPEAKER_00]: This is, he works in the area where people are saying like, they need to get it figured out.
- 10:09[SPEAKER_00]: And he's saying, no, no, the NFL's chickens are coming home to roost.
- 10:12[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe the reality is that both of them are dealing with their own individual problems together.
- 10:16[SPEAKER_00]: And college football solves creates a new problem for the NFL.
- 10:22[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think we spend a lot of time talking about colleges like, well, they're not guys aren't developing because they're moving around.
- 10:27[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's a separate problem for the NFL.
- 10:29[SPEAKER_00]: that they have to now like try and find quarterbacks that haven't been developed in the NFL style when they come to the NFL.
- 10:36[SPEAKER_00]: So that also makes players less valuable.
- 10:38[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not what we're talking about today.
- 10:40[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about the thing we're just the raw talent.
- 10:45[SPEAKER_00]: isn't even coming up.
- 10:45[SPEAKER_00]: That's three different people, Lynch, a scout with another team, and NFL power broker, all saying the same thing this week.
- 10:52[SPEAKER_00]: And there have been other comments, plenty of other comments publicly.
- 10:55[SPEAKER_00]: The Boston Globe wrote a big article about this, which is worth reading, but I'm going to give you some of the, you know, some of what they said.
- 11:04[SPEAKER_00]: Because the quarterback picture is really, you really can illustrate it here.
- 11:07[SPEAKER_00]: Every single
- 11:10[SPEAKER_00]: Every single year, the quarterback really affects the draft, right?
- 11:14[SPEAKER_00]: Because the position gets so dramatically overdrafted.
- 11:18[SPEAKER_00]: And out of all the early in role, I mean, I'll say early in role these in the NFL.
- 11:24[SPEAKER_00]: You see, like early in role these for a guy coming out of high school.
- 11:26[SPEAKER_00]: And early declaration player, okay, in this draft, only one's a quarterback and that's Ty Simpson from Alabama.
- 11:34[SPEAKER_00]: my all the other quarterbacks like fighting the stay in college and he actually falls in that category guys that have already finished their degree.
- 11:43[SPEAKER_00]: So there's no true underclassmen like academic underclassmen quarterbacks declared for the draft.
- 11:50[SPEAKER_00]: Dante more was a projected top three pick he went back to Oregon where Dylan speaking of money we're Dylan Raiola now he heard himself he's going to sit out the year but he's a big
- 12:04[SPEAKER_00]: Arch Manning, who some people would say like, oh, Arch Manning is a hype guy.
- 12:08[SPEAKER_00]: You talked to, I think when you talked to football people, like they think Arch Manning is still, has not lost the shine and it's still the real deal.
- 12:16[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, I think you easily could have come out this year in another era.
- 12:20[SPEAKER_00]: Now maybe if you weren't a manning, maybe he would have, but the reality is he's staying, okay?
- 12:26[SPEAKER_00]: Guys like Brendan Sorsby,
- 12:30[SPEAKER_00]: You haven't been doing draft prep on him because he's not in this draft.
- 12:33[SPEAKER_00]: But he was a day to pick.
- 12:35[SPEAKER_00]: He decided to transfer a text to stack.
- 12:37[SPEAKER_00]: And we look at the money, understand why, Hended Hooker got drafted 66th overall by the Lions in 2023.
- 12:44[SPEAKER_00]: His rookie contract, 23, no, 2021, whatever.
- 12:51[SPEAKER_00]: A handful of years ago, that's beside the point.
- 12:54[SPEAKER_00]: His rookie deal paid him $5.5 million over four years.
- 12:58[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, five and a million dollars over four years.
- 13:01[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Brennan Soursby is getting $5 million dollars this year.
- 13:07[SPEAKER_00]: At Texas Tech Reportedly, but here's the hand and hooker thing.
- 13:10[SPEAKER_00]: It's not even really five and a million dollars.
- 13:13[SPEAKER_00]: Of that rookie deal, less than two million of it is guaranteed.
- 13:19[SPEAKER_00]: So he'd have to like play all four year.
- 13:22[SPEAKER_00]: He would have had to be all four years at Detroit.
- 13:24[SPEAKER_00]: just to make the money, Brent and Sorris was going to text that and get hurt tomorrow.
- 13:27[SPEAKER_00]: He's getting the money.
- 13:28[SPEAKER_00]: So for the players, they look at the spreadsheet and the decision is obvious.
- 13:33[SPEAKER_00]: And it gets worse, like as you get into those middle rounds and then obviously the NFL money in the late rounds is not even close, right?
- 13:41[SPEAKER_00]: A practice squad player who's undrafted makes $20,000.
- 13:45[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, look at Brock Perty a few years ago.
- 13:47[SPEAKER_00]: 7th round pit, if he had spent the whole year on practice
- 13:55[SPEAKER_00]: If he had maxed out, making the active roster, he'd make a million.
- 14:01[SPEAKER_00]: Great deal for the miners.
- 14:02[SPEAKER_00]: But not a great deal if you're starting quarterback in the SEC or the big 10, making $45 million.
- 14:09[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you've got seniors at major programs out earnings, seventh round rookies by a lot.
- 14:16[SPEAKER_00]: You've got non-premium position, guys.
- 14:19[SPEAKER_00]: You've got third string cornerbacks, maybe not third string, but third cornerbacks, making more than a seventh round quarterback.
- 14:31[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the NFL used to offer a couple of things, real money, not brown back money, and the dream.
- 14:37[SPEAKER_00]: And college has caught up on the money.
- 14:39[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, the dream is still there.
- 14:41[SPEAKER_00]: You still come out of a key measure, or 25 years old, Miami.
- 14:45[SPEAKER_00]: So, all right, here's a wild idea.
- 14:46[SPEAKER_00]: TV Binanza, unlike anything they've ever done, they're not gonna wanna do it.
- 14:50[SPEAKER_00]: But, Major League Baseball does something like this, right?
- 14:53[SPEAKER_00]: You could create a made for TV, well, that's all made for TV, but you could create something similar to what baseball does for their international for agents, where you have bidding, open bidding.
- 15:07[SPEAKER_00]: on the first round.
- 15:08[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe you make like rounds two through seven, still slotted, but you create a world where there's just more top-end talent coming in to the first round.
- 15:19[SPEAKER_00]: Every team gets like a rookie pool.
- 15:20[SPEAKER_00]: The worst team's get a bigger pool.
- 15:22[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say 80 million bucks.
- 15:26[SPEAKER_00]: And then you go down the list and teams get less 25 million.
- 15:30[SPEAKER_00]: And that would be your effort
- 15:37[SPEAKER_00]: And it would be wild.
- 15:38[SPEAKER_00]: You make it three nights at prime time.
- 15:40[SPEAKER_00]: So you get like pixel one through 10 on Thursday, picks 11 through 20 on Friday.
- 15:49[SPEAKER_00]: And then on Saturday, you do the 21 through 32.
- 15:54[SPEAKER_00]: And then something you do the whole thing, I don't know, you have to figure it out.
- 15:56[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you started earlier.
- 15:58[SPEAKER_00]: But like the Browns.
- 15:59[SPEAKER_00]: They, we always use the browse for these examples.
- 16:02[SPEAKER_00]: They've got $80 million in pool money in the scenario.
- 16:05[SPEAKER_00]: They could spend 60 on Jeremiah Smith.
- 16:07[SPEAKER_00]: If he wants it, and Jeremiah's like, well, I don't really want to be at Brown, but no one else can offer me $60, no one else will offer me $60 million.
- 16:12[SPEAKER_00]: And then they've got $20 million left over.
- 16:16[SPEAKER_00]: In order to they spend it across multiple players and do they trade their pool to another team for future assets.
- 16:26[SPEAKER_00]: I think it'd be pretty fun.
- 16:27[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
- 16:29[SPEAKER_00]: And it might solve this problem for the NFL, where your 17th pick is like no chance.
- 16:36[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I mean, there's always a chance.
- 16:38[SPEAKER_00]: You get third rounders, fifth rounders.
- 16:41[SPEAKER_00]: The 49ers are a great example that become stars, but it's just your odd, they feel like the NFL people feel like their odds are getting lower and lower and lower.
- 16:51[SPEAKER_00]: in that system it fixes the guarantee issue right because like players are competing so or teams are competing for players so non guarantee contracts the hand-in-hooker contract you can offer that contract but not in the second round right you can offer that contract maybe the fifth round so there's still some things you gotta work out here but the point is
- 17:14[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, something dramatic, all right.
- 17:16[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a perfect solution.
- 17:17[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't vetted the whole thing.
- 17:19[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you will.
- 17:21[SPEAKER_00]: You could chew plenty of holes in that.
- 17:22[SPEAKER_00]: But the, the point is like, that is,
- 17:26[SPEAKER_00]: If you're in the competition committee room, like that is the big idea needs to I don't know if they're having it, but to me, that's the obvious kind of big idea that you know, the CBA runs for another five or five years.
- 17:38[SPEAKER_00]: So that's not happening tomorrow.
- 17:40[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in the less dramatic version of that is just the guaranteed contract thing.
- 17:43[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, rightfully owners would push back and I felt free agents who are known producers don't get fully guaranteed deals.
- 17:49[SPEAKER_00]: So the guarantee waste.
- 17:51[SPEAKER_00]: on rookies would be even worse, but at least the numbers would be smaller, right?
- 17:54[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm getting 7 million guarantee, 7 million dollars, but at least it's all guaranteed.
- 18:00[SPEAKER_00]: The one thing is clear though, the solution is going to cost the NFL money, right?
- 18:05[SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to be a hard sell.
- 18:11[SPEAKER_00]: Now, one fun question for the end of this, if the bidding system were in place today, who would the 49ers be trying to get in the 2026 draft?
- 18:20[SPEAKER_00]: It have to be this combination of like, not prohibitively expensive, but you know, you feel like well, maybe they would stretch a little for somebody really impactful at edge or tackle, right, this would be the year where you can like,
- 18:34[SPEAKER_00]: on tackle, push, say like, hey, dude, we'll pay a little more.
- 18:38[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to come learn from Trent Williams, what a good situation.
- 18:40[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'll predict that their target, how do you get a little bit of value?
- 18:46[SPEAKER_00]: You spend money at a non-premium position, but some non-premium position guys are we're spending money on, right?
- 18:53[SPEAKER_00]: Running back, safety, cable down, Ohio State.
- 19:00[SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy the same old draft tonight.