Latest / 3 Guys, 6 Balls NFL Podcast / EP 55: Discussing Proposed NFL Rule Changes + 2026 NFL Draft Scouting Reports For Georgia OT Monroe Freeling, Indiana WR Omar Cooper Jr, and Georgia LB CJ Allen

Transcript

EP 55: Discussing Proposed NFL Rule Changes + 2026 NFL Draft Scouting Reports For Georgia OT Monroe Freeling, Indiana WR Omar Cooper Jr, and Georgia LB CJ Allen · 3 Guys, 6 Balls NFL Podcast

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  3 lifelong friends, 6 trusty balls and endless NFL takes.
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  Welcome to three guys 6 balls NFL podcast.
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  Welcome to episode 55 of three guys 6 balls NFL podcast.
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  I'm your host Joel, and I'm here with my Co host Will Avery isn't
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  joining us today because he's busy with work and so it'll just
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  be Will and I today. And I wanted to start off
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  today's show a little bit differently.
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  So I've been hearing a lot more talk about the arm measurements
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  thing for players like Ruben Bayne and cashew Sal.
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  And so I had the thought the other day, how long are my arms?
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  And so I got a tape measure and I measured my arms and I wanted
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  to show you guys how long my arms are, just to put this arm
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  thing into perspective. And so just so you guys know, go
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  ahead. I said, notably, you cannot
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  extend your arms all the way. Yes, it has always been a thing.
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  OK, Yeah, I play a lot. Hours and hours of basketball
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  with you. You cannot extend your arms all
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  the way and your elbows are very pointy.
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  They are, yes. So I was going to say I am 61
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  and I cannot extend my arms all the way.
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  So what I'm going to do is I'm going to measure my arm and show
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  you and will I want you to read the number that shows up on this
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  tape measure. And so this is going to go from
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  the start of my shoulder to the very tip of my middle finger.
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  So I'm going to measure my arm and tell me what is that number
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  right there, Will? I mean it looks like a 30, maybe
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  a 31. It depends on where you measure
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  it at. 31 inches. 31 inches. I have longer arms than Ruben
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  Bain, and my arms don't extend all the way.
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  But to all the people on the Internet, to all the people on
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  the Internet who are about to tell me how bad of an athlete I
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  am, just let me have this, OK? Don't take this away from me.
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  Ruben Bain's arms are shorter than mine.
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  And just let me have it. Just let me have it.
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  I'm going to tape measure. I'm very curious now.
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  OK, while Will is getting a tape measure, just to let you guys
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  know what we're doing today, we're going to be giving you
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  guys some more scouting reports for the 2026 NFL Draft.
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  OK. So you said from tip of the
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  middle finger to in your shoulder region and I'll let you
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  read the read the camera here. So tip of the middle finger.
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  You can't to right where your shoulder begins.
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  Well, my I honestly cannot see that.
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  Like right here. Like right here.
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  Oh, inside. Yeah, I looked this up.
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  That's where they measured. Well, they say from the back of
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  your shoulder blade, but I can't obviously do that so and I
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  cannot see that your screen is kind of blurry to.
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  Be honest, it's a crisp 34 inches.
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  Will also has longer arms than Ruben Bane.
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  I also am 6 foot 3 inches, two different measurements and 33
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  inch long shoulders. Not that that means anything,
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  honestly, I just thought it was. Interesting.
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  Terrible athlete, had to tear. Abysmal.
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  I mean worse than Lee Hunter Athletic, But that's not the
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  point. I'm not trying to get the NFL.
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  Yeah, I just thought it was interesting.
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  It was just a question that came to my mind.
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  So I decided to measure and it turns out that I have longer
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  arms. Well, we both do.
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  We both have longer arms than Ruben Bane and Cassius Hall and
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  I'm sure other players in the NFL draft as well.
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  I would not have guessed that. No offense to you, but again,
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  notably you you don't extend your arms all the way.
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  Just so everybody can see it doesn't work.
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  It doesn't work. It's like 170° or so, but it's
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  not the full flat 180, but still.
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  OK. Yeah, that's that's short.
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  Yes, yes. So Reuben Bain does have and
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  cashew salad. They both have very short arms.
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  Take that for what you guys will, but I just thought it was
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  interesting and I wanted to point that out, do a little
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  activity to start the show off today.
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  So there you go. But anyways, what we're going to
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  be doing today is we are going to be talking about some more
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  2026 NFL Draft scouting reports for you guys.
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  And then we are also going to talk about some of the proposed
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  rule changes that were proposed by the Cleveland Browns and the
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  Pittsburgh Steelers, as well as rule changes that were proposed
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  by the Competition committee. And so to get us started, let's
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  just go ahead and start with the first one here, which was
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  started or which was submitted by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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  The proposed rule change submitted by the Pittsburgh
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  Steelers was to make permanent the change implemented during
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  the 2025 season that permits clubs to have one video or phone
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  call with no more than 5 prospective unrestricted free
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  agents during the two day negotiation period and to permit
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  clubs to make travel arrangements with such players
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  upon agreeing to terms. So this rule was previously
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  implemented on a trial basis and the two day legal tampering
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  window that just happened was the first time we saw this rule
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  in effect. So before the NFL allowed teams
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  to do this, teams could only negotiate with agents of the
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  players, not the players themselves during the two day
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  tampering window. So will give us some thoughts on
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  this proposed rule by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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  Just to clarify, you said until now they were only able to talk
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  to agents, not players, correct? During the two day tampering.
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  Period. They could.
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  Only talk to their agents, not the players directly.
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  And now this year we saw they were able to talk to players,
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  correct? Yes, but it was on a trial
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  basis. So this was the first time that
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  they've tried it out. So it's not a permanent thing
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  yet, which is why the Steelers have proposed it.
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  They're going to have to make this permanent.
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  They're going to have to you get more and more players like Lamar
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  Jackson who are out there representing themselves.
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  And if they're trying to negotiate a contract early in
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  the free agency period, more and more players are wanting to
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  represent themselves and or be a part of the discussion.
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  Agents. Not that they're going away by
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  any means, but players are becoming more financially
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  responsible for the things for their own contracts, not just
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  trusting agents or trusting a third party, which I think is
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  incredibly smart. It's a, it's a wonderful
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  business decision. Let me see what's written down.
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  I don't I trust you, but I also trust but verify.
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  And so with with a, more people, more players representing
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  themselves and trusting themselves to make that deal.
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  And B, more, more players wanting to be a part of the
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  business decision. That way they can see their own
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  financial future and not have somebody else sign off for them.
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  They're going to have to make this permanent because because
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  when somebody big like again, I'm going to keep referring back
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  to Lamar Jackson, he's the biggest one I can think of
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  stopping my head who self represents when his contract is
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  up, that's when you want to get done.
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  If it's not the Ravens, someone else has to sign him.
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  And that's something they're going to want to get done very
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  early in free agency. That way they know how much
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  money they have to leave. They have to spend the rest of
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  free agency. I agree with you.
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  I actually really like this proposed rule change by the
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  Steelers, and I don't think there's really much significance
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  here as far as how the fans are going to see it.
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  But I think where we will we'll see this be significant is in
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  teams being able to sell themselves to the players.
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  Because before it was almost like a game of telephone where
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  the first person says banana and on the other end it comes out as
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  fart. Then the team.
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  So the team tells the agent and the agent tells the player, and
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  then the player decides on information that was told to
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  them indirectly. So I'm sure it's not that bad
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  because these are professional agents, but it is different
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  being told something directly from someone.
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  So if this rule does take effect, teams could now
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  personally tell players during the two day tampering window
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  what their vision is for them, how they would be used, what the
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  goals are for the team, the culture and everything a player
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  wants to know directly instead of through their agents.
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  And I think that will go a long way with the players because now
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  they can say, well, I was deciding between these two teams
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  and I really like what this team told me versus what that team
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  told me. And so I'm going to sign with
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  this team. Right.
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  And there is a there's a level of accountability that the
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  player can hold the team to. Well, you told me this like in
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  like when you're playing NCAA and you're trying to recruit and
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  you have to make these promises to these kids.
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  And so you're like, OK, well, I'm not going to we're going to
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  win the national championship. Well, now at the end of the
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  season, if you don't that again, this is all video game and he's
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  going to say I'm leaving the team because you didn't do that.
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  It's the same thing here where you have to talk to the actual
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  player, not talk to an agent who then may or may not tell you the
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  information. And so not that every agent is
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  withholding information from their player.
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  I'm not trying to bad talk to agents, but not every agent is
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  good and and agents are going to do what's in best interest for
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  them to some extent. Now it is also what's in best
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  interest of their clients. But at the same time, everyone
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  wants to get paid, including the agent.
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  And hey, if if Team A is paying us 125 million over whatever and
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  but team B is paying us 120 million over whatever, I get a
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  higher percentage from this team.
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  Yeah, you're going to be second or third string over here, but
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  you'd be starting over there. And I know you want to start,
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  but we all get more money over here.
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  And that's what I care about. And so it's this whole you're in
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  the room too. You get to talk to him.
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  I, I like this change a lot. I also think so.
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  Sorry you go. Oh, I was just going to say it
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  says add on to what you said. I think with, you know, with the
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  players, this is just during the two day tampering window.
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  So even though they're right now that it's just the agents
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  talking to the teams, like the player can still look at the
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  contract and all that stuff and sign it when it's not the two
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  day tampering window, like when it's the actual league season
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  and they're actually allowed to. So the player can still do that.
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  But I think that there's such a rush to get things done because,
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  you know, teams are trying to sign as many big free agents as
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  they can right when the window opens officially.
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  And so it's just like a rush to get everything done.
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  And I think this kind of gives the players a little bit more
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  time to just like look over everything that's presented to
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  them. And so I think it's going to be
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  beneficial for him. Right, I agree.
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  What? Were you going to say?
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  No idea, not important, no clue. Oh, you know what I do remember.
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  That's crazy. I don't usually do that.
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  I don't remember that is. I also think it's going to the
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  NFL. They did a ESPN, specifically
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  NFL. They did huge shows for this
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  opening of tampering period. It was freezes.
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  It wasn't even open yet. But Monday the tampering window
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  open and they these, these networks had these huge shows to
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  broadcast every single signing along the way.
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  Schefter's fingers were on fire. Ian Rapport, all these insiders
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  had their their twitters just going crazy because every single
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  piece of information they're trying to get out, get it out as
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  soon as possible. And so the NFL likes that it
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  draws more attention in just like the draft.
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  That's why they cut it to just the first round on day one
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  because that's where the excitement is.
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  And they used to do round one and two on day one.
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  Maybe it was yeah, one or two on day one.
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  OK, well, let's make a let's not cut the time down at all, but
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  let's make it a bigger spectacle for day one.
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  Let's draw more eyes in. If you watch the first round,
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  chances are you'll TuneIn for at least parts of the day 2 and day
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  three. And so they the NFL specifically
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  to bring more viewers and more viewers means more dollars to to
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  bring all that in. They want these big spectacles.
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  And so they want the showcase of, hey, let's get these these
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  guys in here for the camp tampering periods.
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  And if you can talk to another human who's the guy actually
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  signing, chances are you have a higher possibility of signing
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  them. And so it's that that human
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  interaction that that drives it rather than just agent
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  interaction. Right.
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  So will if you were an NFL owner, would you vote for or
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  against this rule? I would vote for it.
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  I think it benefits you with the owners a lot.
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  It benefits the players, but it also benefits the owners and
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  getting their players in faster. Right.
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  And just so everybody knows, just a reminder, there has to be
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  a vote of at least 24 votes for this rule to take effect out of
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  the 32. So 24 out of 32 owners have to
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  say that they would like this rule to take effect in order for
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  this to actually happen. A quick correction.
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  Quick correction before you get blasted on the Internet.
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  There's only 31 NFL owners and one team president.
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  Screw the Packers. Dude, screw you.
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  You and I both know. Excuse me, there's only 31
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  owners. I I actually think that.
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  You're you're right. You're 100% right.
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  I actually think this doesn't benefit the Packers probably the
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  most because they do things by committee.
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  I don't know what executive power their team president has.
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  I've never looked into it. I've never needed to look into
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  it. I'm not a general fan of the
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  Packers. I don't hate them, but whatever.
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  But if they're not making, if they don't have one guy able to
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  just make, and I know they have AGM, but they don't have one guy
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  ever to make these financial decisions.
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  And if it is all like a a by committee thing, then that's
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  just going to slow down. The process in this tampering
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  window is just going to fly by before they can get anything
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  done, because when your team moves at the speed of
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  bureaucracy, that's going to be slow, slow, slow.
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  Now it makes sense why the Packers were the one that
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  proposed to ban the Tush Bush because all their owners were
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  mad about it. It makes sense now.
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  Makes sense. All right, well, let's move on
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  to the second proposed rule by a team, which was the Cleveland
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  Browns. They propose to allow drafts
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  elections to be traded up to five seasons in the future.
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  Right now, teams can only trade picks up to three years in the
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  future, and the Browns want to increase that to five years.
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  If I were a Browns fan, I would absolutely hate this proposed
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  rule change to be able to trade picks five years in the future.
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  Because the last time we saw the Browns trade their draft picks
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  three years in the future, it was the Deshaun Watson trade.
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  And so it makes me wonder what trade they're trying to make
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  that will set their franchise back another 5 plus years.
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  It feels like the Browns are trying to do something totally
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  irresponsible here. Now hold on.
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  In the last five years, do you know how many GM's the Browns
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  have had? One.
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  They've had the same GM since 2020, so they are betting on
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  their GM to make the right decisions.
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  Now, if we're being fair, if we're being fair, if you look
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  back to 2015 or 2014, you know how many GMs they've had since
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  2014, the last 12 years. And if we go back to, yeah,
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  they, they've had four GMs since 2014, right?
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  So, so that that their first guy made it one year, the next guy
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  made it one year, the next guy made it two years, and then he's
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  made it since 2020. Andrew Berry's made it since
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  2020. So currently they're writing a,
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  we'll call it a hot streak, but it's not it's it's not.
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  I think we're both on the same side here.
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  This is just this creates a problem of GMs selling a future
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  of a franchise that they're not even going to be a part of.
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  And it's possible that AGM now obviously they want to be a part
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  of it. The plan is your five year plan
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  is not to be fired from this team.
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  Sure. But that's just not reality.
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  NFL, if you're not winning, you get moved on from most of the
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  time. And so it's very possible that
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  if I was to trade my 20-30 pick, I could be fired.
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  The next guy could be fired, the next guy could be fired, all
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  without having a single first round draft pick.
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  And so we're getting judged and, and fired and, and our
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  performance reviews are based on decisions that somebody else
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  made before we even showed up, right?
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  So I said what I said about the Browns and how I hate it for the
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  Browns. But if I were a Rams fan, I
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  would actually like this because the Rams are actually good at
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  using their draft picks responsibly to trade for players
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  who don't suck, and this would give them the ability to do that
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  even more than they already do. So if I were a Browns fan, I
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  would hate this. If I were a Rams fan, I would
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  probably actually like it. But will you are a Rams fan so I
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  don't know if you would want this effect or if you don't.
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  I'm against it. I'm against it for the same
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  reason. And at risk of repeating myself
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  here, it is not fair for your franchise's future to have
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  current GM mortgage, the future for potentially future GM or
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  GMs. And, and you should always try to set your team up for
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  success. And I get it when you're in win
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  now mode. But especially let's look at
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  the, let's look at the Buccaneers, what, five years
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  ago, four years ago, and also get the Rams right now, very
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  similar positions where they're in win now mode.
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  We are trying to win the Super Bowl right now because our
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  quarterback is about to retire. And so if we're trading away
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  five year from now, picks right now to make our team win right
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  now, five years from now or we won't have the probably 10% of
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  the roster will still be on that team in five years.
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  And, and maybe that's too high, but your team will not be the
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  same. And if you can't rebuild, if you
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  don't have the pieces to rebuild, you're going to be
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  stuck in a perpetual cycle of either mediocrity or suckiness.
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  So that actually brings up another angle that I thought of
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  that needs to be looked at here, because if you trade your future
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  draft picks five years down the road, it gives you more time to
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  recoup the picks that you gave away.
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  So let's just say, for example, that you make a trade with a
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  team that's asking for two first round picks.
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  Well, if you give them a 2026 first rounder and you give them
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  a 20-30 first rounder, does it suck that you don't have a 20-30
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  first round pick? Yes.
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  But it also gives you a lot more time to get that draft capital
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  back for that year. From that aspect, I actually
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  like it because if you do trade a pick that far down the road,
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  it gives you several years to get that draft capital back.
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  But overall, I don't think this is a very good idea,
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  specifically because I think teams like the Browns are just
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  going to find ways to screw it up.
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  I think if they do move forward with this proposal, they need to
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  do something like the NBA has. We are not allowed to trade
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  first round picks in consecutive years.
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  I don't know what that rule actually is.
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  Maybe it's the same trade, but but you see it all the time
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  where they trade 26 first round pick, 28 first round pick, but
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  they're not allowed to trade consecutive first round picks
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  because it just it has potential to just destroy your team.
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  Now, yes, in the NBA, there's only two rounds of the draft.
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  I get it. There's the the teams are
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  smaller, there's less players. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  But I, I think you're going to have to have some safety
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  protection so these teams don't just wreck themselves.
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  Or for instance, heaven forbid some GM isn't knows he's about
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  to get fired or at the end of the seasons and get fired and
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  just makes a bunch of poor decisions.
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  And then all right, I'm out. See you.
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  Or like, I'm going to do all this and retire.
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  Well, I thought it was in the best interest.
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  And then I guess not, not again. Not that any of these people in
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  the general manager of the NFL's positions are any amount
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  unprofessional. Well maybe probably some amount,
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  but business wise I don't think there any amount unprofessional
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  when it comes to the business decisions they make.
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  I truly believe they're they believe it is the best option
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  for their team as it sits currently and they're trying to
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  slander these GMs. I just there is too much risk to move forward
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  this proposal in my opinion. Yeah.
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  And I can see how this would benefit A-Team potentially, but
• 18:48
  I just think that teams would be more irresponsible with these
• 18:51
  picks being traded in the future than they would be responsible
• 18:54
  with them. So if it were me, I would vote
• 18:57
  against this and just to keep it the way it is.
• 18:59
  Will, I'm assuming you would be the same.
• 19:02
  Concur. Yes, I would also vote against
• 19:04
  it. OK, cool.
• 19:05
  All right. So that's all we have for the
• 19:07
  proposed rule changes from the teams, but Will is going to go
• 19:10
  over the proposed rule changes by the competition committee.
• 19:13
  OK, so there's 3 here that that all kind of go together.
• 19:19
  And so I'm going to read them off actually as as one rule out,
• 19:22
  there are three separate rule changes.
• 19:25
  One is and these are all submitted by the playoffs or
• 19:28
  she's made by the competition committee.
• 19:30
  So the first one is to permit the kicking team to declare an
• 19:33
  onset kick at any time during the game.
• 19:36
  Along with that they've got to eliminate the kicking teams
• 19:40
  incentive to intentionally kick the ball out of bounds when
• 19:43
  kicking from the 50 yard line. And along with that, again, it's
• 19:47
  to modify the kick off alignment requirements for the receiving
• 19:51
  team players in the set up zone. And so they want to change the
• 19:55
  kicking game to where you can onset kick whenever you want to
• 19:59
  if you kick out of bounds. I think Dallas did this where
• 20:02
  they were kicking from the 50. And I said, well, if we Kick It
• 20:04
  Out of bounds, they're going to get it at the 40 anyway and we'd
• 20:06
  rather not chance to run back and just all this other stuff.
• 20:09
  So you just kick to that bounds and you said to have more
• 20:12
  heavily penalized that. In addition, the first one, the
• 20:15
  on site cake and the modified kick off alignment requirements
• 20:20
  for the receiving team players to be set up wherever that those
• 20:23
  2GO more hand in hand with the hey, you can stand wherever you
• 20:27
  want because we may onside kick it whenever you whenever we want
• 20:30
  to. So did I hear correctly that
• 20:32
  they don't have to declare that it's an onside kick, they can
• 20:35
  just do an onside kick? That is actually no so to permit
• 20:40
  A-Team to declare an onside kick at any time during the game,
• 20:44
  which takes away the surprise of an onside kick.
• 20:46
  I think that's dumb. I think you should be able to
• 20:49
  onset kick it whenever you want, just like in that Super Bowl.
• 20:52
  What was it the the Saints and Colts?
• 20:55
  Yep. Yeah, like in that Super Bowl,
• 20:57
  that was cool because nobody. Expects he was relaxed right
• 21:00
  right after halftime. Sean Payton calls in onset.
• 21:02
  I don't. Remember who the kicker was?
• 21:03
  But yeah, it was. That was cool because nobody
• 21:06
  expected that to happen. And the Saints got the ball.
• 21:09
  That was cool. I think you should be able to do
• 21:11
  that whenever you want. Having to declare it is so.
• 21:14
  Stupid. Well, he was probably guess is
• 21:17
  right now if you do that, you didn't land inside the kicking
• 21:20
  zone. So it's a penalty.
• 21:22
  It's a procedural foul for for not landing your kick inside the
• 21:27
  landing zone. So you can't.
• 21:30
  The way the rules currently set, I don't want.
• 21:32
  To change the fact that it's getting.
• 21:33
  Off yeah, I don't really like what they don't want to kick off
• 21:36
  I I don't really know I have no real opinion on this.
• 21:38
  I think you should be able to declare a contact kick whenever
• 21:40
  you want because the percentage is so low that you should just
• 21:44
  be able to. But the other thing is, is if
• 21:47
  you're going to declare it, then there has to be the substitution
• 21:50
  rule right? Where you, hey, you walk out and
• 21:53
  declare. There has to be time for
• 21:55
  substitution and you're at risk for delay of game.
• 21:58
  Is there is there is a play clock on the kick off, whether
• 22:02
  we realize it or not, it's there.
• 22:04
  And so you are at risk of of substitution violations because
• 22:10
  when the offense, in this case King team Subs, the defence that
• 22:13
  has to have time to sub as well. When are they going to finally
• 22:16
  figure out what they're doing with the kickoff?
• 22:19
  They changed it and. They were moving from the game
• 22:22
  they when it probably probably about the.
• 22:25
  Probably about the same time that they figure out what it
• 22:27
  catches. That that will never happen.
• 22:31
  They will remove the kickoff from the game first and they'll
• 22:34
  just start. You start your drive on the 25
• 22:36
  yard line. Offense only.
• 22:38
  Kickers are only here to kick field goals, which anyways that
• 22:41
  creates a whole other host of problems anyway.
• 22:43
  So let's move on to the 4th 1 here.
• 22:45
  The 4th one by competition committee proposal here to
• 22:47
  without league personnel to consult with on field officials
• 22:52
  when considering disqualifications for both
• 22:54
  flagrant both flagrant football acts and non football acts
• 22:58
  without being called on the field.
• 23:01
  So basically they get to call the NFL league officials and and
• 23:05
  the when the referee puts the headset on to review a foul, the
• 23:10
  league officials get to consult with them rather than having to
• 23:13
  be on the field to talk about. They get to watch a replay of it
• 23:16
  and say yes or no. Is is how I view this.
• 23:19
  And I'm for this because I think it will be, I think it will be a
• 23:24
  less emotional because as a very much lower level referee than
• 23:29
  NFL, you still as a referee feel the emotion of the game.
• 23:34
  When team emotion starts to rise, your emotion starts to
• 23:38
  race. You are in the moment with the
• 23:40
  players. Now you are not playing and your
• 23:42
  job is to not affect the game emotionally.
• 23:46
  But sometimes when two players start fighting, you get heated
• 23:52
  with them. When, when people are mad around
• 23:54
  you, it raises your own emotion levels.
• 23:57
  And so I think it'd be very beneficial to have someone not
• 24:01
  on the field who can't feel the emotion, who isn't trying to
• 24:04
  judge intent based on on field emotion because you're regularly
• 24:08
  doing that. Well, I, I view the intent as
• 24:11
  this. You have no idea what the intent
• 24:13
  is. You're just making a gut
• 24:15
  assessment based on personal feeling.
• 24:17
  And so you remove all of that from the on field officials to
• 24:21
  consult with, not that they're making the call, but it's hey,
• 24:25
  from a third party, how do you view this?
• 24:27
  OK, well, we view it this way and this is how we're going to
• 24:29
  rule. Do you stand behind this one of
• 24:31
  those kind of things? I think they should be able to
• 24:33
  consult on anything, but that's just me and we'll talk about
• 24:39
  that a little bit more when we get to the next thing we're
• 24:41
  going to talk about. But will do you have anything
• 24:43
  else on that? No, I don't.
• 24:45
  I like this one. I would vote for this one.
• 24:47
  I would too. I would, too.
• 24:48
  All right, so this isn't a proposed rule change.
• 24:51
  But Will, because he is a referee, he wanted to talk about
• 24:55
  the collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Referees
• 24:58
  Association. And so it's not a proposed rule
• 25:00
  change. But a notification came out last
• 25:02
  week about the NFL laying the groundwork for hiring
• 25:05
  replacement officials this season if the league can't agree
• 25:08
  on a new collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Referees
• 25:11
  Association. And there was a notification
• 25:14
  that came out today, and I sent it to you, Will.
• 25:15
  I don't know if you read it, but I just want to read a little
• 25:18
  part of this real quick, just so everybody knows kind of what's
• 25:21
  going on here. So this is kind of the
• 25:22
  groundwork that they're laying if they have replacement
• 25:26
  officials. So this says.
• 25:28
  The NFL Competition Committee has finalized a series of
• 25:30
  wide-ranging rule change proposals to account for the
• 25:33
  growing possibility of a work stoppage amid tense collective
• 25:37
  bargaining agreement negotiations with the NFL
• 25:39
  Referees Association, according to a list released by the league
• 25:43
  Tuesday. The changes would only apply if
• 25:45
  the NFL hires replacement officials, a process it began
• 25:48
  preparing for earlier this month by reaching out to mostly small
• 25:51
  college officiating supervisors in an effort to develop a list
• 25:54
  of 150 replacement candidates. If a work stoppage were to
• 25:58
  continue in the regular season, the new rules would create a
• 26:01
  type of centralized officiating that the league hopes would help
• 26:04
  avert the chaos encountered in 2012 when the replacement
• 26:08
  officials worked the first three weeks of the season.
• 26:10
  While each game would still be officiated from the field staff
• 26:14
  in the league's Art McNally game day, Central Command Center in
• 26:17
  New York would be permitted to weigh in on a variety of called
• 26:20
  and uncalled penalties and would take on additional roles
• 26:23
  following the two-minute warning and in overtime.
• 26:26
  In my opinion, they should always be able to do that.
• 26:30
  I don't care if they're replacement officials or not.
• 26:32
  If the call is wrong, the call is wrong and New York should be
• 26:36
  able to overrule a call that is wrong.
• 26:39
  So for me, why can't you do that always?
• 26:43
  I don't get. Would you like the answer I have
• 26:45
  I have an answer for you. The reason is is because NFL
• 26:50
  referees are not employees of the NFL.
• 26:55
  The. NFL is still.
• 26:56
  Wrong. Sure, sure.
• 26:59
  You're I'm not telling you you're wrong.
• 27:02
  They are not full time employees of the NFL.
• 27:05
  They are actually independent contractors who work through a
• 27:09
  union or an association of union, whatever you want to call
• 27:12
  it and contract with the NFL. So all grievances and all calls
• 27:19
  made by those referees are union specific.
• 27:23
  Sorry my union doesn't talk to your union.
• 27:26
  Get out of here. There is a a bubble of
• 27:30
  protection. The easiest way to fix this is
• 27:34
  to absorb the NFL referees union into the NFL bubble.
• 27:39
  Much like the NFL PA, the players association have a
• 27:43
  referees association. Get them all under one room, one
• 27:47
  house, 1 collective if you want to call it that.
• 27:50
  And then at that point, you can have full time referees, you can
• 27:54
  have full time training, you can have offseason training, you can
• 27:58
  have discipline, you can have standards where you have to be
• 28:02
  this good. And if you're not this good, you
• 28:04
  don't get the referee or you don't get to be a white hat or
• 28:07
  you don't get to be this position, that position.
• 28:09
  You get bumped down to these. And then there should be some
• 28:12
  sort of like flow through basically where players who
• 28:16
  retire, who can prove themselves as XY and Z can work through a
• 28:20
  process to become league officials or league referees
• 28:24
  because no one's going to know the game better than the people
• 28:28
  who are actively doing it for their career.
• 28:31
  Now, there would have to be some bias and some positional bias
• 28:34
  and team bias that you have to work through.
• 28:36
  But again, these are professionals who are doing
• 28:39
  their job professionally. I I don't think it would be as
• 28:42
  big a issue. So will I have an opinion on
• 28:45
  this? And obviously I don't know any
• 28:47
  information about these negotiations.
• 28:49
  So you're an actual official. So you might have a very
• 28:53
  different opinion than me on this.
• 28:55
  And again, I don't know any information here, but I feel
• 28:58
  like a big hang up in negotiations between the NFL and
• 29:01
  the referees Association could be the NFL trying to give some
• 29:04
  sort of penalty to officials for missed or bad calls.
• 29:08
  The NFL fans have been pounding the table for officials to be
• 29:12
  held accountable for making bad calls.
• 29:13
  And I understand that the officials are graded based off
• 29:16
  of their performance, but really the only consequence is not
• 29:20
  getting to work playoff games. That's like your boss coming to
• 29:22
  you and saying you messed up so you don't get to work overtime.
• 29:26
  Aw man, you mean I don't have to work extra hours?
• 29:29
  I'm so disappointed there's no real consequence for these
• 29:32
  officials for making bad calls right now.
• 29:35
  So to me, I feel like it could potentially be a hang up in
• 29:38
  negotiations if the NFL wants to try and put some sort of
• 29:40
  consequence in place. I don't know if that would even
• 29:43
  be a thing that they're going to talk about because again, you
• 29:46
  mentioned that the referees association are not part of the
• 29:49
  NFL, so I don't know if they can even do that.
• 29:51
  But if I were, the NFLI would try to put in some sort of
• 29:55
  consequence for the officials when they suck.
• 29:57
  Yes, but I I hear what you're saying and I don't disagree.
• 30:01
  There should be some sort of accountability, which is just a
• 30:07
  garbage corporate word nowadays. It doesn't really mean anything,
• 30:11
  but every corporate entity everywhere likes to throw it
• 30:13
  around. There should be some
• 30:15
  accountability held to these referees, but there's not
• 30:19
  currently. And they can't because you work
• 30:22
  for a contractor, a yes subcontractor, a concrete
• 30:25
  subcontractor. Yes.
• 30:27
  I also work for a construction subcontractor.
• 30:30
  This would be like our whoever our client is trying to penalize
• 30:36
  us. Well, you didn't do this out of
• 30:38
  the other. Now you the only thing they can
• 30:40
  do to us if it's if it's truly wrong, like if if we broke
• 30:46
  contract, that's one thing. But if they wanted it one way
• 30:50
  and you didn't, it's not inside your contract and you did it a
• 30:53
  different way. Well, we actually didn't define
• 30:56
  those terms of our contract. The only thing they can do for
• 30:58
  you do to you is not hire you back.
• 31:02
  And the problem is, is as we saw with the replacement refs the
• 31:05
  last time, the crop of, well, fine, I won't hire you back,
• 31:09
  I'll hire somebody else. Those crop of people aren't
• 31:12
  there. They don't exist.
• 31:14
  The caliber of referee that we expect and demand out of the NFL
• 31:19
  referees is not just a dime a dozen.
• 31:22
  It truly is not matter of fact, the ones we have we still
• 31:25
  complain about because they're not good enough.
• 31:28
  How is this an NFL ref? How are we making these calls in
• 31:31
  the NFL? Right?
• 31:33
  Because, and this is I, I, this is all third party knowledge.
• 31:38
  This is not Obviously I have no sources inside the NFL Reference
• 31:42
  Association, but this is what I've heard as general opinion.
• 31:46
  Part of The thing is these reps don't want to be full time
• 31:48
  employees. They don't want to be held to
• 31:50
  offseason standards. They don't want to be held to
• 31:52
  all this extra stuff because they're not part of the NFL.
• 31:54
  You can't make us do a training and offseason training or
• 31:57
  offseason classes because we don't work for you.
• 31:59
  We're part time employees that are contractors for you.
• 32:03
  And so the NFL keeps trying to put all these expectations on
• 32:07
  him. The NFL Reference Association
• 32:09
  says absolutely not. We're not doing that.
• 32:12
  And then this is where we get, I'm very curious to see the new
• 32:15
  terms of the agreement when they agree upon it.
• 32:17
  I, I truly, I've been saying this since mid last season.
• 32:21
  I truly don't think they get this done before the season
• 32:24
  starts. It's going to take some other
• 32:26
  egregious call just like the last time when the referees
• 32:29
  finally say, OK, we can't, they're butchering our products,
• 32:32
  too bad. We have got to step back in.
• 32:34
  And as you mentioned, Joel, it was very subtle in there.
• 32:38
  But in that thing you read, they reached out to small college
• 32:43
  programs, correct? That's what you said.
• 32:46
  Correct. Meaning they're not taking the
• 32:49
  best from the SEC, they're not taking the best from the Big 10,
• 32:52
  They're not taking the best from the Big 12, the ACC, the
• 32:55
  Mountain West, all of these big Even so much as the Mountain
• 32:59
  West, the Sunbelt, the Mac, the, the, whatever you want to call
• 33:01
  it, All of the, the Group of four, the Big Four, and then the
• 33:06
  Group of Five conferences. They're not taking those ones
• 33:09
  because they still have to put a product out on Saturday and
• 33:12
  those conferences can't lose their employees or their
• 33:18
  referees or not. Again, I don't believe college
• 33:20
  referees work for the actual conferences, but that could be
• 33:24
  wrong. I don't know as much about
• 33:25
  college refereeing. However, the small time colleges
• 33:28
  where you can replace that crop, they have the football knowledge
• 33:32
  and hey, this is a lesser known college.
• 33:34
  This is your your D2 schools. They can be trained up and we
• 33:38
  could be good. That's how we get here is that
• 33:41
  the college program, They can't, NFL won't sacrifice the college
• 33:44
  programs that we see on Sunday TV because again, it's all about
• 33:49
  revenue and streaming and, and and money.
• 33:52
  But they don't. The teams that don't get
• 33:54
  strained as much, that's where they're going to be like, OK,
• 33:56
  well we need 150D2 referees because you're not on TV anyway
• 34:00
  and you can be taught the NFL game.
• 34:02
  So what I'm taking from this Will, is that you're probably
• 34:04
  going to be moving up a level in your referee career.
• 34:07
  Absolutely not. It's not that I don't want to.
• 34:11
  I, I think it would be cool to be a college ref, but what
• 34:14
  people don't realize is, is because you're, because you're
• 34:17
  an independent contractor, they may, they may pay, they may
• 34:21
  reimburse travel, but you pay travel and they reimburse you.
• 34:24
  You pay for your own does that and the other and they
• 34:26
  eventually reimburse you. And so there's a lot of upfront
• 34:28
  money that, as a dad of two young children, I just don't
• 34:32
  have regularly at hand. So screw that.
• 34:36
  I did that for one of my last jobs.
• 34:37
  Screw that. That and you don't just
• 34:41
  especially from high school, you don't just jump to D2, you go to
• 34:45
  like junior colleges in your United States region.
• 34:51
  I, I referee with people who referee baseball collegiately
• 34:55
  and volleyball collegiately. And one guy referee to game on
• 34:59
  Friday night in Corvallis and had to fly to Idaho because it's
• 35:04
  in the Northwest to referee a volleyball game Saturday
• 35:08
  afternoon. And no thank you.
• 35:11
  And it and it's, it was like he said, Oh, yes, I got 125 bucks
• 35:14
  to referee this college match. Your flight cost more.
• 35:17
  They cost more to get there and it's worth the game.
• 35:20
  Oh, yeah, they partially reimbursed that.
• 35:22
  All right, this I'm out. I'm out.
• 35:25
  They can have fun. I'm so glad for them doing it.
• 35:27
  They're passionate for without referees, the game doesn't
• 35:29
  happen. And so it is vitally important,
• 35:33
  which is why I'm going to stay in the the high school and
• 35:35
  younger because that's the the programs have to grow from
• 35:39
  somewhere. Well, I tried to give Will a
• 35:41
  promotion but he turned it down so.
• 35:42
  No, absolutely no. Thank you.
• 35:45
  Appreciate it, but no thank you all.
• 35:48
  Right. Well, do you have anything else
• 35:49
  you want to add with any of this stuff we've been talking about?
• 35:52
  No, I yeah, that's not true. Yes, I do.
• 35:56
  I have one final thing here. As an NFL fan and a fan of the
• 36:00
  product, be prepared for the referees to not be there for
• 36:06
  the, the Ed Hochulies, the, the, I guess Sean, I think Ed retired
• 36:10
  the Sean Hochulies, the, the Jeromes that all the people
• 36:14
  we're used to seeing on Sunday, get ready for them to not be
• 36:17
  there and get ready for a worse product.
• 36:20
  I mean worse in every way because when just like every
• 36:25
  human nature, when you're not being watched closely, you're
• 36:28
  going to take every advantage you can to your own benefits.
• 36:32
  I'm going to hold more. I'm going to be a bit more
• 36:36
  outside, I'm going to be a bit more past interferency and that
• 36:39
  stuff is just going to get missed because you're going to
• 36:42
  try to crash course these referees.
• 36:44
  It's March 24th today that now that we're recording league
• 36:47
  starts in six months, I mean it less than six months.
• 36:49
  By September 24th, we are we are four weeks into the season.
• 36:55
  And so in less than six months from now, right?
• 36:58
  Yeah, Yeah. Less than six months from now,
• 36:59
  the season starts and it takes more than six months to learn
• 37:03
  the NFL game. Even when moving from college to
• 37:06
  NFL, it takes more than six months, especially when you
• 37:09
  don't have any actual trainers on the field.
• 37:12
  They don't throw new referees in at any level into the hot seat.
• 37:18
  OK, go figure it out. You're you're a full crew of new
• 37:22
  people. You put one new person on a crew
• 37:25
  with a series of veterans. That way they can be comforted
• 37:28
  and ask questions and and if they make a mistake, possibly
• 37:32
  somebody else going to capture it.
• 37:33
  We will not get the benefit of that could be a bunch of new
• 37:36
  people and it's not going to be a good product.
• 37:38
  Hopefully it lasts, you know, three weeks at Max likes a lot
• 37:42
  like last time, but I don't know.
• 37:46
  I don't. I don't have any good feeling
• 37:47
  about it, truly. I don't either.
• 37:50
  So basically everyone just get ready for your team to get
• 37:52
  screwed somehow. Yeah, fantasy teams, NFL teams,
• 37:56
  just get ready because these reps will be to blame for
• 38:00
  something every single game, guaranteed.
• 38:04
  And I'm not big into blaming referees.
• 38:06
  All right, well, if you don't have anything else to add, we'll
• 38:08
  we'll move on to a couple scouting reports.
• 38:10
  We had four planned. I don't know if we're going to
• 38:12
  get through 4:00. So we'll see how many we get
• 38:14
  through here. And I know I say this every
• 38:16
  time, but just to recap, what we're doing is we're going
• 38:18
  through the ESPN top 50 big board and scouting those players
• 38:20
  one through 50 and then building our own big board.
• 38:23
  And by the way, we'll we will rank our players again once we
• 38:26
  are all three back together again because we didn't do that
• 38:28
  last time either. So once Avery's back with us,
• 38:30
  we'll rank the guys that we have on the big board.
• 38:33
  ESPN keeps moving their list around, and so we're kind of
• 38:37
  just jumping around here, but the first player we have on the
• 38:39
  list today is Georgia offensive tackle Monroe Freeling, who is
• 38:43
  currently ranked the number 14 player on ESPN's top 50 big
• 38:48
  board. So I will share my screen here,
• 38:50
  get the slideshow going so we can see the scouting reports.
• 38:54
  I wanted to start this one off with a question for you Will.
• 38:58
  All right, so Monroe. Freeling only had 17 starts in
• 39:01
  college. Do you think he's a day one
• 39:04
  impact starter in the NFL? Crazy, let me just go right to
• 39:07
  my notes. Sitting out for you will help
• 39:10
  him out extensively. I that is I wrote that down.
• 39:13
  He should not start day one should not know Siri.
• 39:18
  Whoever drafts him in the first round will be spending a first
• 39:20
  round pick on a person you do not want starting to begin with.
• 39:24
  That's why I asked the question. I thought you might say that.
• 39:28
  Would you like me to go into into more?
• 39:31
  I know your your default offensive line guy.
• 39:34
  My row freeling 6 foot 7 had to do it.
• 39:39
  It was. It was.
• 39:40
  I knew you were going to say that as soon as I put the height
• 39:42
  on his scouting. Board couldn't stop myself. 315
• 39:46
  pounds, 34 3/4 inch arms, huge hands.
• 39:50
  Ran A49340 with AA171 split which is which is really quick.
• 39:55
  33 inch vertical, 9 foot 7 broad jump.
• 39:59
  Heck of an athlete. Heck of an athlete, good player.
• 40:03
  He he is a true tackle and we've talked about some other guys
• 40:07
  with Maui Noah and Fanu and Wilmu that there's potentially
• 40:13
  these guys moving inside because it might fit the play style
• 40:16
  better in the NFL. In fact, I think that was like
• 40:19
  the first thing I wrote down for for Caleb Wilmu.
• 40:23
  Spencer Fano. It was Spencer Fano.
• 40:25
  Sure. Yeah.
• 40:25
  It was like one of the first things I wrote down was like,
• 40:27
  oh, he should move inside. He should not play tackle
• 40:29
  anymore anyway. That's the point.
• 40:30
  But he just Monroe Freeling is like a true tackle.
• 40:34
  And in the pass blocking, he can stand up on an island on his own
• 40:38
  and he can be out there. He can make the the pass block.
• 40:40
  He can He can block the edge. He's got very quick feet and
• 40:43
  incredibly long arms at 34 inches.
• 40:46
  We just talked about this. His arms are three inches longer
• 40:48
  than yours. And if you don't think that 3
• 40:50
  inches arm length matters, go ahead and and put your arm on
• 40:56
  your kids head and see if they can reach you.
• 40:58
  Now that's more than three inches.
• 41:00
  I get that, but that's basically what it is.
• 41:02
  It's like the like the old cartoons where where the bully
• 41:04
  is holding the kids head and the kids just swinging his arms.
• 41:07
  You can't even reach them. That's what you're dealing with
• 41:09
  here and in three inches is significant in this case and and
• 41:14
  so when you're able to replace your hands fast that is that is
• 41:17
  significant. Again, he's 6 foot 7 has a very
• 41:21
  large frame with room to gain weight.
• 41:23
  He's actually pretty lean for how tall he is.
• 41:26
  The one part of his game that he does need to work on is his run
• 41:30
  blocking. He gets to the second level fast
• 41:32
  because he's very quick. The problem is he stands up too
• 41:35
  tall and you can't get down to where these players are just
• 41:38
  scraping around him. He he doesn't hold his block
• 41:41
  well at the second level. Often times people just get
• 41:45
  around them or or shed shed the block quickly and and get around
• 41:49
  them at the second level. But when he does make contact,
• 41:51
  he does make contact very good at creating the ceiling edge,
• 41:55
  creating the whole great player. But again, at the NFL level,
• 41:59
  he's going to need to sit for a year.
• 42:01
  And we'll talk about this more with other players.
• 42:03
  But the NFL game is is constantly changing and right
• 42:06
  now we're moving back into a run game phase of it where it's more
• 42:10
  play action, more run, more play action, less just solid passing
• 42:14
  the whole time. And so he's going to have to
• 42:17
  work on his run game in his combo blocks to be able to get
• 42:20
  to be very proficient at that level.
• 42:22
  Yeah. And one thing.
• 42:23
  So I had two things actually that I wrote down for his areas
• 42:26
  of improvement that I wanted to bring up.
• 42:27
  One was that he plays to upright, which you mentioned.
• 42:30
  The other thing was that he he doesn't get the best hand
• 42:34
  placement as much as he should. He needs to get better at
• 42:37
  knowing where his hands need to go because I saw a lot of plays
• 42:40
  where his hand would slip off defenders because he would place
• 42:43
  it either too wide or too high and then he'd have to reset.
• 42:47
  And so he's going to have to work on that because if you do
• 42:49
  that against NFL defenders, you are going to be in trouble.
• 42:52
  It's just not going to work. But overall, like, one thing I
• 42:56
  love about Monroe Freeling is that although he lacks the
• 42:59
  overall starting experience, he did display visible improvements
• 43:03
  as the 2025 season went on. There were several areas where
• 43:06
  he showed clear improvement. And that's what you're looking
• 43:09
  for in a guy going from college to the NFL.
• 43:11
  Is he going to continue to get better if he's already this good
• 43:15
  after 17 stars? Here's where we think he can be
• 43:17
  after X amount of years. So I think Monroe Freeling is
• 43:20
  rising because of his potential rather than because he's a
• 43:24
  refined NFL ready prospect right now.
• 43:27
  He's kind of the opposite of Venga Iwani we talked about last
• 43:30
  week, who's ceiling in floor are very close to each other.
• 43:33
  I think he's ceiling in floor are very far apart.
• 43:36
  I can agree with that. I would not be mad if the Rams
• 43:39
  took him at 13. That's kind of how I judge this
• 43:42
  crop of players and where we're at in our big boards.
• 43:46
  I would not be upset if they picked him at 13.
• 43:48
  We talked about this on the phone earlier.
• 43:50
  Freeland has been as high as 8 on the big board.
• 43:53
  I think he's down to 14 now on ESPN big board.
• 43:56
  And so he's kind of been all over the place because they
• 43:58
  don't know what to do with these offensive lineman because
• 44:00
  there's no true stand out tackles.
• 44:03
  There's there's only one real good stand out guard.
• 44:06
  There's just not a lot of top end talent in the draft when it
• 44:10
  comes off in the lineman this year.
• 44:11
  Not to say that they won't become that, but it's just it's
• 44:15
  it's really hit and miss. And and I think that was
• 44:17
  Freeling sitting behind somebody who is aged and experienced and
• 44:23
  willing to teach. That's a big part of it is that
• 44:27
  not just a coach with the players who willing to teach.
• 44:29
  I think he's going to be, he's going to turn them into a Year 2
• 44:32
  and perpetual starter after that.
• 44:34
  Yeah. And before we end this scanning
• 44:37
  report for Mineral feeling, I just want to point out a couple
• 44:39
  things that I really liked about him.
• 44:41
  You did mention kind of one of the things, but I think Monroe
• 44:45
  Freeling can probably move better than any other Taco
• 44:48
  prospect in this draft class. When you look at Monroe Freeling
• 44:51
  and when he's asked to be a move blocker, he's out there
• 44:54
  exploding out of his stance and he's running like a tight end.
• 44:57
  This guy can move. He ran a 49340 which tied for
• 45:00
  third offensive lineman at the combine and a 1.7110 yard split
• 45:04
  which ranked 2nd. And I know you already mentioned
• 45:06
  that, but his testing numbers back up what you see on tape
• 45:09
  with his ability to move. And because he's got that
• 45:12
  ability to move, you do see him blocking multiple defenders on
• 45:16
  the same play. But kind of like we already
• 45:18
  talked about, like he needs to work on his hand placement to
• 45:21
  get better at blocking those multiple defenders.
• 45:23
  So he does block multiple defenders, but he doesn't block
• 45:25
  them though in the, I guess like the most technical way is what
• 45:30
  I'm trying to say. So that's one thing that I liked
• 45:33
  about him. The other thing that I liked is
• 45:35
  I saw a lot where he can transition from 1 defender to
• 45:38
  another in path protection when players are trying to do stunts,
• 45:42
  when defenders are trying to do stunts, he did not get confused
• 45:45
  by them at all, in my opinion. And he started blocking his
• 45:48
  original assignment when the play would start.
• 45:50
  And then he quickly realized, OK, now he's going there and
• 45:52
  he's coming to me, so now I need to block him.
• 45:54
  So I was impressed with his ability to just kind of switch
• 45:57
  from 1 defender to the the other without any sort of confusion or
• 46:01
  any problems at all. So I noticed that on tape and
• 46:03
  that was something that I was really impressed with.
• 46:05
  I think the hand placement thing is going to be a quickly
• 46:07
  corrected thing in the NFL because it's like you mentioned,
• 46:11
  Julie had 17 starts, Julie started for one full season.
• 46:14
  So I think this hand placement thing is going to be something
• 46:15
  that's going to be easily fixed in the NFL.
• 46:18
  As you mentioned, it started for 17 games.
• 46:20
  That's only one full season. I think there was a couple other
• 46:23
  starts along the way, but only one full season is starting.
• 46:26
  And so he just doesn't have the the experience of of different
• 46:30
  levels of of not that he didn't face a bunch of different edge
• 46:33
  rushers, but the the talent and ability.
• 46:36
  And again, SEC understand this is it just means more down
• 46:39
  there. Whatever you want to say.
• 46:41
  He just needs more time. He needs more experience.
• 46:43
  He needs more people to go up against more competition to
• 46:48
  learn different elements of the game.
• 46:50
  So I, I as much as I'm worried about that, I'm I'm less
• 46:53
  worried. I do think that's something
• 46:55
  easily fixable. Where do you rank him as far as
• 46:57
  potential versus Fano and Slomer?
• 47:02
  I think his pure athleticism puts him higher than, oh, now I
• 47:06
  have to think about how these ranked athletically because one
• 47:11
  of them ran really well and one of them did not run as well.
• 47:14
  I think it was Bono that ran well, but that's like Bono's
• 47:17
  thing is, like Bono's thing is, is his ability to move.
• 47:20
  Right. I think I like him better than
• 47:21
  both truly do. The size versus athleticism
• 47:25
  comparison. I I think I like him better.
• 47:28
  And now I do believe, man, I'm, I'm getting all my players mixed
• 47:33
  up. We've talked about too many of
• 47:35
  these guys. I believe Fono only started for
• 47:38
  the first, his first. This was his first year
• 47:40
  starting. Am I just making stuff up now?
• 47:42
  No, no, that, no, that's not fono.
• 47:47
  Nope, Fono's a three-year starter.
• 47:50
  This is Freeling's first full year starting.
• 47:52
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just go back over my notes.
• 47:57
  I mean, I've got written here, he's got Limu has first round
• 48:00
  talent in the third round body. And I mean the first thing I
• 48:03
  wrote down for final is whoever drafts him should look to switch
• 48:05
  him to guard, which means his athleticism is great, but his
• 48:08
  size isn't there and everything you need there for for the
• 48:12
  tackle. So he had to put him ahead of
• 48:14
  both of those guys. I had to.
• 48:19
  I had to one more time. I, I, I don't know if I put him
• 48:23
  ahead of Francis smelling though or not.
• 48:24
  I have to review the tape side by side, one right after the
• 48:27
  other to really get a good good gauge of that.
• 48:30
  That's fair. Do you have anything else to add
• 48:32
  with Monroe Freely? No, I like this guy a lot too.
• 48:35
  Yeah, that seems. Coming from me, yeah, that seems
• 48:37
  coming from me. I don't like.
• 48:38
  Anyway, notable hater on this show.
• 48:42
  All right, well, with that, let's move on to the next
• 48:44
  prospect on the list, which is Indiana wide receiver Omar
• 48:47
  Cooper Junior, who is currently ranked as the number 23 player
• 48:51
  on ESPN's Top 50 Big Board Homer.
• 48:54
  Cooper Junior might be one of the biggest risers I've seen
• 48:57
  through this draft process. Honestly, I haven't heard anyone
• 49:00
  talking about him until the last couple weeks.
• 49:02
  I haven't seen any mocks with him going in the first round
• 49:04
  until just recently, but after watching his tape, I can see why
• 49:07
  he's rising so much. Omar Cooper Junior's best trait
• 49:11
  is his ability to consistently break tackles.
• 49:13
  In 2025, he forced a missed tackle rate of over 30%, meaning
• 49:17
  almost one out of every three defenders who tried to bring him
• 49:20
  down failed. Once he gets the ball in his
• 49:23
  hands, he's turning into a running back and it's just
• 49:25
  running through guys. And there's always a place in
• 49:27
  the NFL for a guy who can just turn a 1 yard screen pass into a
• 49:31
  first down because Omar Cooper Junior can do that.
• 49:34
  I think he can be a big contributor in an NFL offense
• 49:37
  from day one. I agree here is dude balls out.
• 49:41
  I mean he you are right. And when that ball gets into his
• 49:45
  hand, he just makes place. That's that's the big reason why
• 49:50
  he has 13 touchdowns this season.
• 49:52
  I mean, he when he when it's his hand, he just he reads his
• 49:55
  blockers, he runs with them. So out running them, he just
• 49:59
  does the right thing and makes the right play.
• 50:00
  This is his first year in the slot.
• 50:02
  He moved inside this year for the first time and and it worked
• 50:06
  wonderfully for him. He just has a pure natural
• 50:09
  feeling of finding the soft spot in the zone from the inside and
• 50:12
  then making a play, as we've mentioned a few Times Now is
• 50:15
  making the play when the ball is in his hand.
• 50:18
  I'm excited for him the pro level for whatever team, truly,
• 50:20
  I think I think he has potential to be like an early season and
• 50:25
  Mecca Egbuka where he's not the number one and so and he and
• 50:29
  he's a rookie. So you just kind of ignore him,
• 50:31
  but yet he's just like the biggest playmaker on the team.
• 50:34
  Now. I, I don't want him to fade off
• 50:37
  like unfortunately, truly unfortunately, Ibuka did.
• 50:41
  But that was. Play calling that wasn't
• 50:43
  because. Of sure, sure.
• 50:45
  Well, that's fair. You're right.
• 50:47
  It definitely wasn't. It definitely was not good to
• 50:49
  kill that it was not because. The Bucks offensive The Bucks
• 50:52
  offensive coordinator last season would run things in
• 50:55
  practice and then not do them in the game.
• 50:57
  So yeah, I. I but.
• 51:00
  I view Amari Cooper Junior as as as similar.
• 51:02
  That Indiana team was so loaded offensively with weapons and
• 51:06
  talents that any one of those guys could pop off at any
• 51:10
  moment. And so they all benefited from
• 51:12
  having each other on the team. And I think it's going to be the
• 51:15
  same way in the NFL where he's going to be the young new kid on
• 51:19
  the block and he's going to go to whatever team and hopefully
• 51:21
  they've got a star receiver or two on their team.
• 51:24
  And he can just sneak in there and just make every play because
• 51:27
  he when the ball's in his hand, that's when he does the best
• 51:30
  screen passes, bubbles, all that kind of stuff.
• 51:33
  And then he's just making plays in the open field.
• 51:36
  Yes, Indiana used him a lot on like shorter and intermediate
• 51:39
  routes just to get him the ball in space and let him go to work
• 51:41
  after the catch, which he is very good at.
• 51:44
  Now the downside to that in the NFL is that Indiana's offensive
• 51:47
  system made it easy for him to get open and his current route
• 51:51
  tree isn't super developed because the system just didn't
• 51:54
  require it to be. I think he can easily develop
• 51:56
  his route tree though at the NFL level, especially in the right
• 51:59
  system because he does show flashes of being able to do
• 52:02
  other things outside of shorter routes.
• 52:05
  But again, Indiana's offense just used him where he really
• 52:08
  excelled, which is with those short screen passes, crossing
• 52:11
  routes, slant routes. So I think he has the potential
• 52:14
  to expand his route tree, but you just don't see it a lot on
• 52:17
  tape because that's just not what Indiana needed from him.
• 52:21
  Now I have a question with one of his skills, Will that I want
• 52:24
  to know your opinion on. How do you feel about Omar
• 52:26
  Cooper Junior's ability to win contested catches?
• 52:30
  Oh, it leaves much to be desired in my opinion.
• 52:32
  I I feel like he wants to be physical after the catch.
• 52:35
  He wants to get the ball in his hand to be physical after the
• 52:37
  catch, But when making the catch, there's not a lot there.
• 52:42
  It's it's I would rather catch the open ball and hit you
• 52:45
  afterwards, which is not great for NFL because you're not even
• 52:49
  when you're not open, you you're going to get the ball anyway.
• 52:53
  The, the windows for being what they call open are much smaller
• 52:57
  and so you have to make more contested catches.
• 52:59
  But I, I don't think he had a high rate of success, did he on,
• 53:03
  on contested catches. So.
• 53:04
  Here's The thing is I looked at. I tried to find this number for
• 53:09
  his contested catches. The first one I saw was 56%, but
• 53:13
  then I saw about 12 other numbers that were different than
• 53:15
  that. So I actually don't know what
• 53:17
  his contested catch rate was. The lowest.
• 53:20
  One I saw was 50%, right? Exactly.
• 53:22
  Yeah, the lowest one I saw was 50%.
• 53:24
  So I'm going to assume that it was 50% because that was the
• 53:27
  lowest. But I I saw it as low as 50 and
• 53:30
  I saw it as high as 56. So it's somewhere in between
• 53:32
  there. But I don't know what the actual
• 53:34
  number was, but I just feel like go ahead.
• 53:39
  Sorry, I said he called a 5050 ball, but you're as a receiver,
• 53:42
  your percentage should be higher than that.
• 53:44
  Yes. And I just feel like Omar Cooper
• 53:46
  Junior, for how physical he is of a player with the ball in his
• 53:50
  hands, it doesn't match the physicality of what you would
• 53:53
  expect from him in contested catch situations.
• 53:56
  He's not winning contested catches at the same rate of a
• 53:59
  Mikhail Lemon or a Carnell Tate. I just want to see the
• 54:02
  physicality in the air match the physicality on the ground.
• 54:06
  However, I will say that his body control when he's in the
• 54:09
  air is very good. He's got very good body control
• 54:12
  and he's very aware of where he is all the time.
• 54:15
  He's very good at getting his toes down near the sideline.
• 54:18
  And there's a couple plays that I want to highlight here, one
• 54:21
  being against Oregon where Fernando Mendoza threw him a
• 54:24
  short pass to the outside and it was a little bit too far
• 54:27
  outside. And so he catches it with one
• 54:29
  hand and he brings it in with a defender all over him, breaks a
• 54:32
  tackle and then runs up the field to get a first down.
• 54:35
  So that's just an example of his body control.
• 54:37
  The second play is against Penn State when Indiana was down late
• 54:41
  in the game. Fernando Mendoza just throws a
• 54:43
  ball high in the back of the end zone and Omar Cooper Junior
• 54:47
  catches it. And when you're looking at the
• 54:48
  play, it looks like there's no chance, no chance that this
• 54:53
  guy's going to come down with the ball inbounds.
• 54:55
  But somehow he gets his feet down and it was just an
• 54:58
  incredible catch. He's just got really good body
• 55:00
  control and he's aware of where he is, whether it's the back of
• 55:03
  the end zone or on the sideline to get his feet down.
• 55:06
  So that's something that's really impressive.
• 55:07
  But again, the physicality in the air just wasn't there for
• 55:11
  me, but the physicality on the ground is very, very good.
• 55:15
  I I can agree with that, yes. I'm trying to figure out where I
• 55:18
  like him in the draft, where I want him to go when I guess
• 55:22
  maybe is a better word. I, I, I don't know, See, I don't
• 55:25
  think he's top end first round talents, but I don't want him to
• 55:28
  go, man. I mean, maybe the briars, the
• 55:30
  Bears, maybe the Bears towards the middle of end of the first
• 55:35
  round, I don't know. If they might, I don't know if
• 55:36
  the Bears. The Bears are probably going to
• 55:38
  go defense in my. That makes sense.
• 55:41
  The Bills, maybe. I think the Bills could use
• 55:45
  another receiver. I know they just got DJ Moore,
• 55:47
  but I think they could use another receiver.
• 55:50
  Any team could use a player who can break 30% of tackles.
• 55:53
  Right, I could see. I could see Dallas at 20.
• 55:57
  I think they probably go defense too.
• 56:00
  I'm assuming you go defense for their first one.
• 56:01
  I wouldn't be surprised if they switched it up.
• 56:04
  I just hope it's not the Browns at the end of the first round.
• 56:07
  I do think he's going to need, and I say this for every rookie
• 56:11
  coming in, right? This is just I guess my line,
• 56:14
  but he's going to need assistance from from other
• 56:19
  people to bring the pressure off him.
• 56:20
  He's not your stand out number one guy currently.
• 56:23
  But I think he will have a very good rookie season, and I think
• 56:26
  you will contribute to an NFL offense right away.
• 56:29
  In my opinion, I think he'll be a contributor from day one.
• 56:32
  Yeah. Do you have time for one more
• 56:34
  Will? Because the next guy we have on
• 56:36
  the list I actually really want to talk about because I really
• 56:38
  like him a lot. Sure, let's go.
• 56:40
  All right, so the next guy on the list is Georgia linebacker
• 56:43
  CJ Allen who is currently ranked as the number 31 player on ESP
• 56:46
  NS Top 50 Big board. I honestly don't know why more
• 56:50
  people aren't talking about CJ Allen.
• 56:52
  I think CJ Allen modeled his skill set after the linebackers
• 56:55
  from the early 20 tens NCAA Football games.
• 56:58
  I remember being in high school playing NCAA Football 10 and it
• 57:02
  seemed like every time I throw the ball over the middle, a
• 57:04
  linebacker would jump what seemed like 12 feet in the air
• 57:06
  and swat the ball away and it was the most annoying thing
• 57:09
  ever. That's the type of stuff that CJ
• 57:11
  Allen is doing when the ball is in the air and that's what made
• 57:14
  me fall in love with his game. I related to that because I
• 57:17
  lived it in my NCAA Football, my player career so many times.
• 57:21
  So I was very impressed with CJ Allen because of that.
• 57:24
  And I think it's even more impressive because CJ Allen
• 57:26
  isn't the biggest linebacker when you look at his
• 57:29
  measurables. He's 6/1 with 31 1/2 inch arms.
• 57:32
  Those aren't measurables of a guy you'd expect to be out there
• 57:35
  doing that type of stuff. That's something that you expect
• 57:38
  Sony Styles to be doing because he's 65 with almost 33 inch arms
• 57:42
  and an insane vertical jump. And I don't know what CJ Allen's
• 57:45
  vertical jump is because he didn't test at the combine.
• 57:48
  But I'd have to assume that it's up there because his ability to
• 57:52
  make plays and just swat the ball down when the ball's in the
• 57:55
  air, it was very impressive to me.
• 57:57
  Again, reminded me of those linebackers from the NCAA
• 58:00
  Football games that can seemingly just jump as high as
• 58:04
  they want to get the ball. Very, very impressive to me.
• 58:07
  I like CJ Allen a lot and I think more people should be
• 58:10
  talking about it. So they're not because he's not
• 58:12
  testing. He's got lingering knee swelling
• 58:16
  from a November injury. And so he's not athletically
• 58:19
  testing. And so he's not putting the
• 58:22
  product out there. And I think that's part of the
• 58:23
  reason why there's some apprehension to him of like,
• 58:26
  well, maybe not, but he's your he's your leader, He's your guy.
• 58:33
  He's your, you're in the NFL. He'd be your green dot guy.
• 58:37
  Excuse me? He's the guy getting everybody
• 58:39
  lined up. He's the guy getting everything
• 58:41
  ready to go. And he's also an elite run
• 58:44
  stopper. He gets downhill fast, reads the
• 58:47
  play, moves to the right spot and makes the stop.
• 58:50
  Everything he's got going for him is I, I dependable.
• 58:54
  I think it's just the right word.
• 58:56
  He's playing in an era that is too late or too early for him.
• 59:01
  And we said the same thing about there's another linebacker.
• 59:04
  Who was it Styles specifically? Yeah, freak athlete playing
• 59:09
  football 20 years too late. Yep, bingo.
• 59:11
  We've got a very similar things going on here where it's just a
• 59:15
  size of it's a team leader. He's a player you want for the
• 59:18
  current Trinity NFL doctor. The same thing with Sony styles,
• 59:21
  which we're we're shifting more into a run game.
• 59:23
  We were just in a passing era of NFL and now the offenses cheat,
• 59:29
  right. They they know the play call
• 59:30
  before the play happens. And so the offenses in this
• 59:35
  case, they're going to adjust based on what your defense did
• 59:38
  last year. And so our offense is now going
• 59:41
  to you're stacking heavy secondary.
• 59:43
  So we're going to shift to run it until you can stack the box
• 59:46
  again. And then we're going to go back
• 59:47
  to throwing over the top of you. And so he's a guy at the very
• 59:51
  forefront of this change. You got a couple of this year
• 59:54
  and Styles and Allen where they're just going to stand
• 59:57
  there and they're going to stop the run.
• 59:58
  And I really like what you guys going on.
• 1:00:00
  One thing you mentioned is that CJ Allen is always flying to to
• 1:00:03
  the ball in the run game. I think when he's flying around
• 1:00:06
  on the field, he looks like a missile out there.
• 1:00:08
  When he's closing on the ball carrier, he's just constantly
• 1:00:10
  around the ball, constantly flying around the field.
• 1:00:13
  However, I think that can also get him into a little bit of
• 1:00:15
  trouble sometimes because he can get too eager in certain
• 1:00:19
  situations. I think he can get caught
• 1:00:21
  against play action sometimes, which leaves the middle of the
• 1:00:23
  field open. And just to give an example,
• 1:00:26
  there was one play where I saw a tight end run towards CJ Allen
• 1:00:29
  and then just turn around and stop and waited for the ball to
• 1:00:32
  come to him. And the reason he was able to
• 1:00:34
  get the ball is because instead of covering him, CJ Allen
• 1:00:37
  thought the ball was going somewhere else.
• 1:00:39
  And so he started to react as if the ball was going that way and
• 1:00:42
  he just left the tight end open. Now, CJ Allen did make the play.
• 1:00:45
  He made the tackle on that play, but had he just stayed with the
• 1:00:49
  tight end, he wouldn't have. He wouldn't have had to make the
• 1:00:52
  play. It wouldn't have been a play
• 1:00:53
  because CJ Allen would have been right there.
• 1:00:55
  So that's something he needs to work on.
• 1:00:57
  But overall, I think he's a very instinctive linebacker who is
• 1:01:01
  got excellent close out speed and is just an overall solid
• 1:01:04
  playmaker. I agree.
• 1:01:06
  So I actually saw this this same draft comp which I thought was
• 1:01:10
  very interesting. Jacob Rodriguez from Texas Tech
• 1:01:15
  When? He he's an awesome player.
• 1:01:17
  I really want to talk about him coming up.
• 1:01:18
  He's an awesome. Player.
• 1:01:19
  He is the exact same height and weight as CJ Allen.
• 1:01:24
  The air roll 61200 and 30 lbs. And when you watch them on film,
• 1:01:29
  Jacob Rodriguez looks significantly smaller than CJ
• 1:01:32
  Allen. Allen plays a lot bigger than
• 1:01:34
  his frame and so I I think that that's going to be a huge
• 1:01:38
  benefit for and moving forward. Yeah, I really like CJ Allen a
• 1:01:41
  lot. And again, I think more people
• 1:01:42
  should be talking about him. We had one more plan for this
• 1:01:45
  week, but I think we're going to just do that next week.
• 1:01:48
  So Avery should be back with us next week.
• 1:01:50
  And unless something significant happens for us to talk about,
• 1:01:53
  we'll probably just be doing a full episode of scouting reports
• 1:01:56
  for you guys. So we'll probably get to
• 1:01:58
  hopefully at least six players do 6 scouting reports.
• 1:02:01
  The NFL draft is pretty much a month away now, so we need to
• 1:02:04
  get through as many prospects as we can.
• 1:02:06
  And then we will add these guys and rank these guys in our top
• 1:02:10
  50 big board. So will do you have anything
• 1:02:12
  else to add before we close out? I do not.
• 1:02:15
  I hope that Avery doesn't have to deal with his girlfriend's
• 1:02:20
  friend ever again. Yeah, you know, it's great.
• 1:02:26
  It's neither Avery nor his girlfriend nor that friend will
• 1:02:29
  ever hear me say that. But you know who will?
• 1:02:32
  Dwayne. We love you, Dwayne.
• 1:02:37
  All right, well, as always guys, don't forget to keep your balls
• 1:02:40
  played with. We'll see you next time.
• 1:02:41
  Bye now y'all. Also, Mark Davis and Sarah Kyle
• 1:02:44
  still sucks.