Latest / The Jake Wimberly Podcast / Chris Landry Talks NFL Draft and Undrafted Free Agents

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Chris Landry Talks NFL Draft and Undrafted Free Agents · The Jake Wimberly Podcast

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  Chris Landry on your radio Monday edition of the program, of course finding at
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  Landry Football. Also Landry on ex Landry Football, Landry Football dot Com,
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  Chris Happy Monday. What's going on? Oh just uh graph week? That's
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  all ready to get this week over with? Yeah, so you know,
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  obviously, you know, for consultants like yourself, I know that it's pastime.
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  You're ready to move on to something different. But what is kind of
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  and we've talked about this, but just for those that haven't heard it before,
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  it's always interesting to hear your take because you've been a part of so
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  many of these, you know, internally and and of course with consulting.
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  Now, what what is going on in camps today? You know, first
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  part of weak until Thursday, Well, every hey's in the barn really with
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  the evaluation. What's going on right now is the final meeting. So usually
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  by this past weekend you set your draft board up and you've gone through scenarios
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  a little bit, and you'll spend today, Tomorrow, Wednesday and even you
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  know a little bit of third just going through scenarios and spending you take maybe
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  more breaks than you normally do, and you get on the phone and you
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  try to get a feel for what others might be thinking. Who might be
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  people that you think might be interested in moving up or down, or you
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  know, you kind of get a feel for things. So always we always
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  like to have everything done. You know before this week was so that you
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  can go through different scenarios. I tell you what else that people may not
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  realize that gets done right now. You spend a lot of time going over
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  the guys that are priority free agents that won't get drafted. So you spend
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  a lot of time going through your guys at the bottom of your draftable board
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  because that becomes very competitive. And so what I always like to do you
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  meet with coaches and you say, look, these are the guys that we
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  want that we want draft. And what you do is you try to go
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  through and sometimes you'll sit and break out the film and you have arguments,
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  I like this guy better than that guy. You get them in the right
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  order. And so what I tried to do is I had the coaches in
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  the area of scouts call the players, like in the seventh round of the
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  draft on Saturday, and basically he played good cop battop. You know if
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  d line coach saying hey, you know, Jacob, I love you.
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  I want to get you drafted, but my no good. You know,
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  GM, we're trying to look at other wee, I don't know. If
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  we don't, let me tell you what we got. You got a great
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  chance to you know, earn a starting job here or whatever. You and
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  so you need to make sure at this point before you going into the draft,
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  how you want to have those guys stacked, because I will tell you
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  there will be guys, not maybe definitely, there will be guys on your
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  draftable board that are still there when the draft's over. So those are the
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  guys you go after first. So there's a lot of painstaking detailed on how
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  you got guys right in the fourth or fifth front because you don't have a
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  fourth or fifth round great on a guy that goes undrafted. And so that's
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  obviously a priority signing for you once the draft is open. Chris Andanry talking
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  about the draft. Of course, Draft Week is here Monday edition of the
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  program Finding One Exit Landry Football also Landry football dot Com. Chris, that's
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  that's interesting to hear hear that, and I haven't ever thought about it from
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  that perspective of kind of working backwards. So I mean you kind of know
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  what's going to happen round you know, here's round one, round two,
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  round three, maybe round four, but working backwards. But you know,
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  when you start talking about and I can't remember the numbers, I know that
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  the studies have been done on what percentage of undrafted free agents make it in
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  the league. You know, get make a team, and I'm sure that
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  numbers is low. But still those those guys after Saturday are if I hear
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  you correctly, positioning teams positioning those guys. That is extremely important to these
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  organizations absolutely, because just pure numbers, you're going to have more more guys
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  signed as undrafted free agents than guys that are drafted in the six or seventh
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  round. So that's why more of those guys make the roster than the six
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  or seventh round, because it's just more numbers. I mean, you only
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  got you know, with compensatory picks. You might have thirty five to forty
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  you know, picks in the six or seventh round, maybe as much as
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  forty two, you know, with compensatory picks, but you got on team
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  guys that are signed. I mean you may sign you know, you know,
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  six or seven linemen. You know, so just percentage wise, you've
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  got a better chance of those guys making it. Here's the other thing.
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  If you've got a good agent, the agent does their job well, you
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  can convince an undrafted free agent that you know, this is the best place
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  for you to come my team, because a good agent's gonna have the roster
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  and the depth chart of every team in the league, so they're gonna know
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  where their best chance of making a team. So in other word, I
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  tell players all the time, look, he can get five ten thousand more
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  from the other guy, you go ahead and get it, but we've got
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  a better chance of making our roster. You know what the two year superseded
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  contract for an undrafted frig it is. That's three fifty seven there in a
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  fifty seven thousand. So if you want to, you know, have ale
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  over five thousand, go ahead. We're giving you to the best chance.
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  And obviously that's where the recruiting part comes in to kind of show them why
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  you would be a good fit in the age. It needs to help the
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  player to understand that, and obviously they've got multiple teams talking to them,
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  so they're trying to get the best of both worlds. Let's go back to
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  the top of the draft. Looks like I mean, there's no doubt Kayleb
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  Williams. So it's gonna unless something weird happens, and we know that we
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  have seen some weird stuff before. He will come off the board at number
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  one after full evaluation. Is in your mind he the best quarterback in this
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  draft? Is that the best move for Chicago that they will likely make.
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  Well, I think that's what they're gonna make. Here's what I would say.
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  I think the guy's upside is permitted. I think he has a lot
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  of natural ability. I have said that I'm a little bit more concerned about
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  him, not saying he's gonna end up being a problem, but you're dealing
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  with someone that comes across to me is very entitled that he maybe is a
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  little bit more me than we, and so I worry a little bit about
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  there's maybe a potential that I don't know that I call it a buff factor,
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  but maybe he might not be the best locker room guy. Now,
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  part of that is just accepting today's world. We are very new into the
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  nil war, and you know, so a guy like David Williams probably has
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  made as much money at USC than he likely will in his virtualtie contract,
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  believe it or not. So these guys have a different way of looking at
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  it. So is he just kind of a little bit of a turnoff or
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  is that just gonna be the way of the modern world. Obviously that's what
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  you have to decide if you're Chicago, And obviously they have decided they're very
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  comfortable with Chris Landry talking NFL Draft Monday edition of the program. Find him
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  on Exit Landry Football also Landry football dot Com. Chris, I'll come back
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  to a couple quarterbacks in a minute. I want to ask you about the
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  receivers. Obviously, Marvin Harrison Junior, he is projected to come off the
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  board as the first receiver. We'll see what happens with the Link Neighbors right
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  there as well, Romodunze. Who who in your mind is the best receiver
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  in this draft. I think Marvin Harrison is great. I think mylite Neighbors
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  is great. I think they're on the very top line, and I am
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  comfortable going in either direction of how to stack them, but the same grade.
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  I think Romeo Donze is also in that same group. I'd put them
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  third and next group, but I think all three are going in the top
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  half dozen picks, well, you know, at least seven or eight.
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  I mean, I think there's a couple of I don't see this scenario where
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  let's just say top ten. I'm very comfortable in saying those guys are definitely
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  coming off the board. And before we go to break brock Bowers, when
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  you look at him, you know, obviously it looks like he will be
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  a possibly top ten pick depending on what you look at, I mean anywhere
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  from the Jets to the Chargers and some others. Your thoughts on his ability
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  at this level, I think he's got I hate to throw this name around
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  because people will hear it and say, oh, this guy's think this guy's
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  going to be the next But he's got Travis Kelsey ability. He's got the
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  ability to make plays as a weapon, as a not a tight end,
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  but a weapon that can line up in different spots formationally and can be addict.
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  This guy, I think is you know, people say he's a luxury
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  pick. I think he's a weapon, and I think you have to put
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  him more in the line of the big receiver, the flex guy, the
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  flex tight end guy. But could also do some things in line. No,
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  I think he To me, his ability puts him in the category of
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  the kittles of you know, the Kelsey's. I think he has that type
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  of ability. It may take him a little while to get there, but
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  I think he's special