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Jeff Legwold joins Kreckman & Lindahl 1-22-24 · Jeff Legwold ESPN Broncos Reports

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  Jeff Legwald is our Broncos insider Altitude Sports Radio ninety two five Pro Football,
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  the insider I've covered, Jeff wall disappearances are always must listen radio. You
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  learn a lot. Five Betsafe Colorado, the exclusive club for passionate gamers and
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  vetters across the state. It's Leggy on Altitude Sports Radio ninety two five.
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  Yeah, we got NFC and AFC championship games set Chiefs to go to Baltimore,
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  fun Detroit. We'll head to San Francisco to take on a Niners team
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  that survived quite the scare from the Green Bay Packers. Joining us right now
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  to discuss the upcoming AFC and NFC championship games. To discuss what turned out
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  to be a very fun divisional weekend of NFL playoff football. It is our
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  pal Jeff Legwald. Leggy, how you doing, man? I'm great,
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  are you guys? We're doing what, Jeff? Are the four best teams
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  in football playing for a right to go to the Super Bowl this upcoming weekend?
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  I think so, Nate, I mean I do. And you know
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  we've talked all of us here that you know, this is the physical time
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  of year and that really shows up. I mean, it seems to me
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  almost every week you go in the playoffs, it takes a little more heavy
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  lifting type of play defensively, offensively you I mean, it's fine to look
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  pretty at Halloween, but this time of year, man, you are gonna
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  have to at some point, you're gonna have to lift the couch by yourself,
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  you know what I mean. You're gonna have to get in there and
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  do some football stuff. And these four teams can all do that. I
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  think it's you know, I know, we don't want to talk about it
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  ever now, but it's very telling to me that against all of the nickel
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  defenses. You see the league, three of the top five rushing teams are
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  in the final four. Legy Will any team suffer fallout from this weekend's losses?
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  And I think you know which one I'm hinting at which one? I
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  mean, like that Buffalo. There's a lot of talk about Buffalo, about
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  what nine or whatever? Yeah, yeah, no, I thought you none
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  of the teams that survived, but you know, Detroit had a couple of
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  injuries. Had to add hurt Ertz today, So but I mean, yeah,
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  I mean I covered the bills. I know what wide right means in
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  that town. I mean I've I've lived, I've lived among the people,
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  I've covered the team, I've been around Marv Levy and all of those guys,
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  Bruce Smith, Herman, Thomas, Jim Kelly, all those guys from
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  that team. Uh, when they lost to Super Bowl, you know,
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  much the same way. And I would argue, it's the same scenario.
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  You didn't get the guy a good enough kick. You gotta get it closer.
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  I mean, they they left Norwood out to dry in the Super Bowl,
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  and I thought yesterday he had already missed one or I mean, uh,
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  he's got a huge leg. He's got one of the biggest legs in
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  the league. He's renowned for his power. But you got to know a
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  young kicker is really going to swing it hard when when the games on the
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  line, like the first time he's faced a kick like that, So you
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  know he's really going to tag it and it's probably gonna have some drift on
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  it. You got to get him closer. But you know, they they
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  missed. You know Josh Allen, for as great as he played, you
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  know he had he had a good look there for for the score. But
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  you know that's the kind of stuff that happens to you. That's what I
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  mean. It's it's physical football. The margin for air is nothing. Now
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  you don't see the blowouts and and you know, not often. I mean,
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  now it's all about the details and it only takes one thing. But
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  you know, I'll tell you there's no fact, little basis to it.
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  But the fun Hey, what about rumor going around the league today is what
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  if Buffalo hired Belichick. I mean, that's the one that just everyone's kind
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  of chit chatting about just in case. But anyway, Yeah, that one,
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  that one's gonna stinkley. This is such a good time of year to
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  watch the chess match and to watch adjustments that get made in these games.
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  And boy, Buffalo just really controlled things on the ground in that opening half.
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  And then you know, Steve Spagnolo, you saw him, You saw
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  him make adjustments in that game. You saw them get a lot heavier upfront
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  with what they were able to do when Kansas City's defense was able to close
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  that thing out. I think in the first forty six minutes of that game,
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  five lead changes, last fourteen minutes, there was nothing which which was
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  just wild. The way that that thing went, but Andy Reid for what
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  he figured out with what they could do offensively in that game, leaned down,
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  Pacheco, took advantage of the fact that they had no linebackers, picked
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  on those corners when they were able to do it. And then Steve Spagnolo
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  and the way that he just evolves things through the course of a game.
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  Like I know Mahomes is brilliant, but when you watch the Kansas City Chiefs,
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  how much do you just sit back and appreciate game planning, especially against
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  specific opponents at its finest and just don't be stubborn, you know, be
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  willing. And yesterday I thought was, I mean, we won't Nobody will
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  write about it or talk about it. But that was all the crap people
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  said Andy wouldn't do in Philly, was that he wouldn't, you know,
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  take a game and just stump it in the run game when he had to,
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  you know, And maybe he would have gone to more Super Bowls than
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  Philly, but I think it showed his evolutions. And when you have Mahomes
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  or somebody like that, I think you're just it's more willing to have that
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  feeling. I've got to get this guy to the big game because then we
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  can win. So I think you're more willing to do things because you're you
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  know, you just have the ultimate peace on the board, and you're thinking,
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  is if I can just get through the day, he'll get us through
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  the big one. And I think you saw that yesterday. That was all
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  stuffed. You know, fifteen years ago people said Andy Reid wouldn't do and
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  he did it. And Pacheco was perfect for a playoff kind of day.
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  And that's the kind of runner. That's a playoff runner on a cold day
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  and a you know, in a tough environment, you know, and I
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  look, I know, like I love the passing game. I love what
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  quarterbacks are doing. I love the innovation I see every week in football.
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  But this time of year, the clock always turns back and the guys who
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  don't fight it advance. And that's just a fact. Jeff, is Matt
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  Lafleur underrated as a coach. I mean I could not believe they hung with
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  him that way. Jeff, I thought the miners would know all their secrets,
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  not the Cays. No, he did. I mean, anybody who
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  thought he was just a you know, product of Aaron Rodgers, you know,
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  got the full lesson this year. He coached like crazy, and I
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  think Jordan loves a little better and got a little better than maybe we all
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  thought he could. You know, he made one bad decision late in the
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  game, but you know, you're just trying to make something happen. It's
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  really your first time in that environment. But just what I saw from him
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  yesterday, that won't be their last swing at this I think that kid really
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  has He's he's progressed better than I thought he would when he came out,
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  which is I think is really cool. But he's got a lot of some
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  of those tight window throws he made late in the game. We're pretty special
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  and Lafleur especially defensively. I mean, they were ready to fire Joe Berry,
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  you know, in November and the last month of the season, they
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  kind of pulled it together and played much better defensively. But I think that
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  whole coaching staff sort of did whatever they had to do to move it.
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  But Lafleur lead led the way that Again, Mike Shanahan's staff in Washington,
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  it's like Belichick's and Cleveland. They didn't win many games, but they sure
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  launched a bunch of careers. Wild game I mean, it was just it
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  was so many little things on the margins. You know, Leggi, it's
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  a drop pick six, it's not converting a fourth down in the red zone.
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  It's a miss field goal in the fourth quarter. And that tells the
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  story of that football game. And you know, a pedestrian brock party without
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  Deebo Samuels can put together the late drive in San Francisco, can go and
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  win that game. But you know, we don't know what Deebo Samuel's health
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  status is going to be. That was a really physical game that they played
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  with Green Bay and they're about to play I mean, you talk about physical
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  teams that that Detroit Lions offensive line and their defense, as much as it
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  has struggled, I thought they had a pretty good day yesterday against Tampa Bay.
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  Like, when I'm looking at these two conference championship games, I think
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  the forty nine ers might be ripe for the taking right now. I think
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  the Lions could be in the damn Super Bowl. Yeah, and you know,
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  yeah, imagine how that stity would go bananas. I mean, they've
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  they've not been in a championship game since the fifties. I mean, so
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  it's it's you know O for the Super Bowl era? Uh so I I
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  you know, again, the physicality, I think it's really up to Ben
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  Johnson, a young coordinator, a hot name and a head coaching circles right
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  now, But it's really up to him. Are you going to roll up
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  your sleeves and get after when you have too? Because people are going to
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  take away, you know, some of the flow stuff and the movement and
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  your ability to get the crossers free and all of that. And he's gonna
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  have to manage a defensive line that's hard to manage in the Niners. I
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  mean, they come at you a lot of ways. So a lot of
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  it is on him. Will he be willing to do those things? But
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  again, it's all four teams physicality. It's just a theme. And locally,
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  you know, I think the Broncos should take note. You know,
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  when they were at their best, they were physical. You know, the
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  Super Bowl teams, the three Super Bowl winners here were physical. They manhandled
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  people, whether it's offensively or defensively. And that's that's what it takes.
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  Again, it doesn't fire the confetti cannons. It just gets you trophies.
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  You know what's so funny about it? Two. Leggy is like, I
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  look at Detroit and they're to me that that is a model in how to
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  build it right of of the you take your lumps, you acquire the picks,
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  you build it through the trenches, the way that Dan Campbell advocated for
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  them to do and Brad Holmes advocated for them to do. You know,
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  you use a number two overall pick on Aiden Hutchinson, you use you know,
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  a top ten pick on a Pinna Sewel, and you build yourself up
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  there. And then they get to a draft like this year and they take
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  a running back at twelve and I believe an inside linebacker also in the first
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  round, the kind of positions where everybody says, don't use premium draft picks
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  on those positions, and yet like the way that they built that team,
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  it's like, no, you don't understand. The foundation is built. Let's
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  go be awesome at these spots on the field now, and this is the
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  thing that can put our team over the top. And that's sort of what
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  Detroit has done. I know it's been a you know, a long,
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  painful build for them to get to this point. I'm not even talking about
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  Lions history right there, but like you look at that, like NFL franchises
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  need to see what the Lions have done and say, okay, let's hold
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  our water and actually build this thing. All teams should. The Packers did.
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  The young team Baltimore. Baltimore is a testament to I mean, how
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  often you see Baltimore running out there in free agency, you know, waving
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  the TechBook around and people say it, oh, Baltimore won March. You
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  know, Baltimore didn't much care if they win March. They like win in
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  April. Uh. And you know, again it's it's a broken record for
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  me. You take blue chip players on the draft board. Hutchinson is a
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  blue chip player. I mean, there aren't many more high effort guys you're
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  ever going to see in your life play football. I mean, look at
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  the Niners, Fred Warner, that's a blue chip player. You take,
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  you take those guys in the draft. You build that way. And the
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  Chiefs were forced to, uh in some ways, you know when they when
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  they built the line in front of it. But you're right, Detroit did
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  it. But they had a lot of picks and they used them. You
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  know, they just used them. And I'm always gonna advocate for the draft
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  in any team building. I know it's not sexy, and we don't you
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  know, it's always an unknown, and if two picks fail one year,
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  everybody's like, all the draft stinks and all this stuff. I just look
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  at the Every year, I look at the final four, and I go
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  back through my draft books just to see and every year I see just loaded,
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  you know, first two day picks who were put in the lineup and
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  developed by a culture that celebrated young players. And frankly, that's a big
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  question here that needs to be answered. Are they willing to celebrate young players
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  to get the good stuff? Because you know, Green Bay was the youngest
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  team in the league, and look look how far they went with those young
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  guys. All right, Jeff, since you brought up the draft, never
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  too early for a mock draft, despite no Senior Bowl combine or all the
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  other important measuring sticks, A lot of mock drafts early on have seen you
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  going with an A or see you have Denver going with an Alabama corner.
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  Is there a world? There's a part of me, Jeff. We haven't
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  talked a lick about this yet because why would we, But is there a
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  world where Sean Payton makes his first first round pick of the Broncos. A
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  defensive guy just feels like that's not gonna happen to me. Well, he's
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  the best player on the board. He should. But yeah, we don't
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  know how he's going to react in that situation yet or what even the dialogue
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  will be. You know, he was I think it was. You know,
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  it's at least we're talking about he was more than willing to let George
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  Peyton handle all contract negotiations this year. I mean, sure he offered an
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  opinion, but he wasn't diving in on that stuff. So, you know,
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  I think how they handled the draft together, we don't know yet.
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  You know, they haven't been in this situation yet. But the worst thing,
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  and I say it, you guys know, the worst thing you can
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  do if you're the Broncos in the middle of the round is take a quarterback.
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  You have a hung jury on. You know, if you're split and
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  you take a quarterback there, you're begging for everybody to fail, including the
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  quarterback death legwild everybody. ESPN dot Com check him out right there, get
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  all of his latest But the draft preparations are beginning in earnest Leggie could work
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  as always, buddy, Thank you. Yeah, headed to Mobile and not
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  too long here, seven days or so. What I know, you can't
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  wait? What do we start with? Senior Bowl? Is that our first
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  one for me? Yeah? The East West game is first, and there's
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  you know a couple other smaller all star games have gone on. But for
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  me, getting back to Mobiles good. I've been there a lot over the
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  years, so it'll be good to get down there and see what's up.
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  This will be the best Senior Bowl roster in history just because of the construction
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  this year with the underclassmens. All right, Jeff, we're gonna be talking
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  to you about it, buddy. We appreciate it. Jeff Fellows stick care
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  all right, Jeff Legwell joining us on the ramos Law Hotline. Car accident
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  You need ramos Law medical doctor and attorney Ramoslaw dot com.