The PFF NFL Podcast
Malik Nabers, Marvin Harrison Jr, and Brock Bowers SHINE: PFF Rookie Review
(upbeat music) What's up everybody and welcome back to the PFF NFL show here for the week two rookie review. I'm Trevor Sycamod, that is John Ledger back here with you guys as we always are. On a Wednesday to review some rookies. And look, I'll just be honest with the people. There's so many rookies to talk about. This show could potentially be four hours long with all the rookie performances that we have, but we gotta make sure that we talk about these guys throughout the entire season. So we'll give you six that we're talking about here today. Some notable performances from guys that really have stood out already and some from some high notable guys that don't wanna bring up that hey, they're struggling a little bit, but it's not signs that hey, they can't out improve, but I wanted to bring that up to be fair, talk about the good, talk about the bad. John, how are you doing my friend? - I'm doing really well. It's kind of like a sigh of relief week. I feel like if we're talking about rookies because there was a bunch of big name rookies last year, we were like, oh, okay, maybe it's gonna be a little tough sledding. And I think some of that's still gonna exist for the quarterbacks, but I know there was a couple of players. You and I were texting each other. We're like, I am relieved to see this player go off and week two and look more like the college version of the player that we felt like because we can't be taken. I mean, it would be the first time for both of us ever being wrong about a prospect, and so we obviously don't want that to happen. - Right, correct. Yeah, we cannot have that happen. It's been a perfect record for over the decade for both of us. We've never been wrong at any point in time for any prospect, so we can't ruin that. We cannot ruin that. And obviously this week, we're not ruining that here. I feel like it's a lighter show 'cause we're not talking about quarterbacks. So it's less of just like, what do we do here? Are these teams screwed forever? And it's like-- - No, it's so heavy last week. We're like holding franchises in our hands as we criticize these guys. - Yeah, it was basically like, all right, after one week, are the Chicago Bears cooked or super cooked? And it's just-- - No, but after two weeks, maybe. Nevermind, we're not talking about that. We're not getting into it. We're not opening up that can of worms. We will obviously talk much more about the rookie quarterbacks as the season goes on. I think the dead at some point in time, Drake. May is gonna start Kirk Cousins holding off the Michael Pendix rumors, I will say that, but we'll be talking about plenty of other quarterbacks. John, I wanna start with you as we kind of kick this thing off here, 'cause we're gonna go back to back wide receivers. You're gonna talk about a wide receiver. I'm gonna talk about a wide receiver here to kick off the show. One of us had to talk about one of these guys. One of us had to talk about Malik neighbors, 'cause the performance this past weekend was crazy, especially the target show that the guy got. And then we did have to revisit Marvin Harrison Jr. again, just because, you know, thought that he was a CFL player after week one. Now he's a Hall of Famer, so obviously we gotta talk about that. Gotta talk about the Hall of Fame induction speech, but no, in all seriousness, let's kick it off with Malik neighbors, a new name here for the show, a guy who a lot of people love throughout the draft process. Obviously we did, 'cause we nailed it that he's a good player, 'cause we've never been wrong, but what did you think here about neighbors really going off against the commanders, albeit in a loss from the New York Giants? - Yeah, 10 catches, 127 yards and a touchdown for neighbors. And what I think really sort of stands out is that 83 of those yards came after the catch. He forced two missed tackles, he was really, I think first of all, Brian Dable deserves a lot of credit. He did an awesome job of getting neighbors open throughout the game. And I don't mean that in say, oh, neighbors are gonna have trouble creating and getting open himself, but just conceptually. And I think that's true last week too. I didn't watch neighbors till after our show last week, but I think he's done a great job in general. Like this is our guy. We took him in the top for 10 of the draft. We're gonna prioritize getting to the ball no matter what. We're gonna live or die with this dude. 18 targets in this game, and I'm 30 routes. It's crazy. Like basically every time he was, they dropped back to pass, it was to get the ball to Malik neighbors. And so I thought that was awesome. Dable, it's kind of gotten him open. There's some rub concepts they used a couple on two of them for big catch and runs. And as he kind of ran a shallow cross, caught the ball in the move, got help from a pick. Their motion at the snap on one, they sent him across the formation to the opposite flat. He sort of used a play fix on him across the formation. He pops out on the other side. The linebacker's freeze with the play fake. Nobody flows to him as he comes across the formation. They got an easy completion to him. Just so happens, they also blew the coverage. So he had a nice little run after catch there. There was a couple, they used good concepts, route concepts to set him up for what he does best. They didn't really hit the vertical ball so much with him down the field. They almost did on a couple. They tried a double move that they had set up with a couple deep curls. And that was where neighbors talent really, you could see it really shine to me. His stopstart Trevor is unbelievable. And that trait is so critical to be at full speed and to be able to stop and break back to the football. Every route concept that happens on a linear plane is going to be so effective for him throughout his career because we know he has the speed to get deep. He can threaten that. But also his ability to put his foot on the ground, break back to the football, whether it's on stop routes or curls and comebacks further down the field, he is going to be able to create separation against off coverage and what was really encouraging in this game was also against press coverage. His work against press was probably the most encouraging part of this game. Washington's corners aren't good, but they are big and they are physical, right? And so they tried to beat him up in the line of scrimmage. You saw some like one hand stabs into his chest of the line of scrimmage. He either beat those with his hands or absorbed it, bounced around them and got open after the, on his release. That part of the game I think is one of the most important things for him as a guy who wasn't pressed all that much in college, seeing that work for him was huge because now I think we feel really confident. Everything he needs to do as an X receiver, he can do. We already felt like he could do some of the other things, but if you want to put him outside, tethered the line of scrimmage and asked him to win on the vertical plane against physical coverage with the sideline as the friend of the opponent, he showed in this game, he's absolutely able to do that. The deep speed is for real creative with the ball in his hands. He was, he had two drops in this game, focused stuff. I'm not really ever worried about drops to be honest unless they just completely plague a player. Those are 10 catches, as I mentioned. So he was over three and contested catch spots. I think a lot of that's like a ball placement issue. And I don't really think that, I don't know that he's going to like need to spend his whole career and contested catch spots, but when you have 18 targets, that's going to happen sometimes. So I'm not super preoccupied with the other's numbers, something to watch moving forward. I think the biggest thing is how effective is he against middle of the field coverage is because a lot of his damage was done on the outsides and underneath. And so any route concepts, if we're going to ask him to be the complete player, route concepts that break to the middle of the field, where those concepts break, especially against zone coverage is what you're often going to see in the middle field. How does he read it? Where does he sit down? Where does he break his patterns off? That part of it I think is still happening for him. Like he is still feeling that's part out. But the fact that he has no issues with the physicality of the game and that he welcomes it and that he's a competitor the way that he is with his gifts, he's going to be one of the best receivers in the league. - You know, and that goes into one of my talking points, you know exactly what you brought up there. He did a lot of his damage outside of the numbers towards the sideline, which is fine. Obviously he did a lot of damage and he played very well this past game. But you brought up the couple of contested catch opportunities over three and contested catch opportunities. Two of those throws, you talk about the ball placement maybe being a bigger culprit here. Like two of those throws, he didn't really have a chance on or not much. Like if he would have caught two of those passes, it's like, okay, that's one of like a crazy contested catch that you have there. But there was one throw where I went. I wish you were a little bit stronger at the catch point there for that one. You could have hauled that one in. I felt like I saw a little bit of that through LSU as well. And I think that is the key to Malik name is becoming what you said there, truly one of the best receivers in the game because the more you come over the middle, the more comfortable you have to be with contested catch situations. You have to be okay with getting hit. And I loved that he showed a lot of fight when it came to dealing with the physical nature of playing against press coverage. That's obviously good. That's a really good step in the right direction that you could play at the physical level in the NFL. But when he starts to develop more of that route tree and those in-breaking routes, when he starts to become that more complete receiver at this level, it will come with more contested catches. That's just the nature of throwing the ball over the middle and catching the ball over the middle. So where I'm not going crazy with the whole like, oh, over three contested catch situations, he's soft. Like I don't think that that's the case. But the next big step for him is one, developing those routes over the middle, but being a little bit better at contested catch spots. Now he doesn't have to be like Drake London or AJ Brown or whatever, like that level of like contested catch type of a monster, but hanging onto a couple that are over the middle where you're getting popped or you know that you're like, like a physical tackle is going to come your way. If we can get a little bit of that with the late neighbors, like you mentioned, the ingredients for the recipe is there for him to be an all pro type of receiver. - Yeah, he's a full package if he gets that and I think that he's going to. I mean, I thought his college tape showed a player who has not hesitant about going over the middle to feel it at all in those reps. And now a lot of that was against zone coverage or off coverage a lot of the time is how he was working. But I thought his toughness and physicality is why I'm just not worried about these things at all because I know he has the ball skills. We've seen him make crazy catches on the boundary. We've seen him go up and compete for the ball in the air. I know he has that. Yeah, he's not the biggest receiver in the world. So I know that I'm not, if he had to live here and make his entire living here, I don't know that that would be a recipe for success. But because he's able to separate to the degree that he is and because of his speed and how much he's going to threaten the vertical elements of the field at all times, I just think everything back to the quarterback, everything else is going to be open for him because of those things. And I think he's more than going to check the box in those areas too. So I think it was encouraging from a coaching perspective because if you were, I don't know if it's from a fantasy football perspective as much, but just Malik neighbors is going to be heavily targeted, heavily utilized, heavily focused on in this offense. And Dabel knows that, everybody knows that. I'm not saying the whole Giants operation is great, but this aspect of things they understand, they will live or die by how good this guy looks as a rookie. And it was awesome in week two, the usage of him and everything that he put out there on the field. Yeah, just to quantify how much the New York Giants utilized Malik neighbors in this game, PFFs has started charting things like this since 2006. And since 2006, if you use a minimum of at least 25 receiving snaps in a game, Malik neighbor is wide receiver usage of 63%. Being targeted on 63% of the routes that he ran would be the number one score that PFF has ever charted since 2006. We thought that the Brandon Marshall game in 2009, the record breaking game, we thought that that had a little bit higher. It was just a tad lower, actually. He was at 61.4% of Malik neighbors this past weekend was at 63%. So just insane, just insane usage. And we talked in the preseason. I think everybody talked in the preseason, fantasy football people, everybody, they're like, ah, the passing offense is going to run through Malik neighbors. It is just solely running through Malik neighbors at this point. And they're going to be down, so it's going to work. That number is absurd. We talk about some of the best receivers in the NFL. Like the CD lambs, the Justin Jefferson's, the Tyree kills, those guys have a threat percentage of like 31%, 32%. And even that number is like, whoa, they are clearly a big time emphasis in the offense. 63 is insane. It's nuts. That's like nobody else being on the field. So he had a great day. He's able to handle that as a rookie. That's, I think, what's even more impressive is like he's able to do that in a wide variety of different assignments and types of routes and things. Yes. And I think that's what's so encouraging is that this isn't too big for him. And I know he took it hard after he had the drop toward the end of the game, but he is going to be. I mean, everything you see on tape traverse is like, yeah, he's at a different level in terms of how he moves than most rookie receivers we ever see. I mean, he's second in the league right now in targets. And so I wouldn't be surprised if he's up there, if he stays healthy, if he's up there for the league lead and catches by the end of the year. Yeah, so I mentioned it before. Last week, the next guy that I want to talk about here, Marvin Harrison Jr, he was a bum. He was a CFL backup last week. Could barely even play in the league. Looked like he didn't even play the game of football before. I'm kidding, obviously, being extremely hyperbolic there. But week two, a lot better, bounce back performance. Now, there's some things to go into. Like there, it was a lot of broken plays. It was a lot of Kyler Murray magic. But still, when Kyler was breaking the pocket and escaping and getting away from pressure, where was he looking early and often in this game? Marvin Harrison Jr. And so you talked about that in the post game. It's like, look, my job is not to dial things up for Marvin Harrison Jr. Our offensive coordinator is dialing those things up. And if Marvin's a primary read, or if I get to Marvin Harrison Jr. like, so be it. But certainly in week one, it just didn't look like that. You and I talked about how it's not that-- it's not that MHA was slow in week one. It almost looked like he wasn't operating at full speed. It looked like there was still more in the tank from him. And I think we saw that much more so here in week two. I went back and I watched all of his receiving snaps him. He did. It almost looked like he just kind of snapped into gear for this week two game. Four catches, 130 yards, two touchdowns, 33.3 threat percentage there. The speed-- I don't think Marvin Harrison Jr. is going to kill you with speed at the NFL level. It's good. It's not great. He's going to be maybe a little bit more of a contested catch receiver than some people were willing to admit when he was coming out of Ohio State. But that's OK, because on the first touchdown that you saw, he's got such beautiful footwork. He's got great hand-eye coordination, whether it's short routes, intermediate, deep routes, tracking things deep. The technique of how he is setting up defenders, getting to their blind spots, if they're shuffling or being able to attack different types of inside and outside leverage, he's going to do all of these things. And he's going to look like a complete receiver. He's got the ability to run every route in the route tree if you will. It's just not going to-- and I think talking about Malik neighbors right before Marvin Harrison Jr. is a great way to kind of bring that up, because there were people who scouted last year who had Malik neighbors as wide receiver one, because the way that he moves and how he naturally separates looks a little bit easier than it does for Marvin Harrison Jr. And so I think it's important to remember, like, just because Marvin is going to be really good doesn't mean that he's got like NFL separation speed every time that he runs the route. But that also doesn't mean that he's terrible. So I think that this was a nice bounce-back performance to show you he's still going to be a great receiver in this league, even if the speed portion of it might be something that is a talking point with him throughout his NFL career. And I think the measured mile per hour is when him were off. I don't know how much-- I've seen those not match my I-tested times before with players. But I think those were up this past week. And last week he looked slower than he did this week. So people are preoccupied with the speed. And I think some of that's understandable because of how slow he moved last week. My bigger concern last week was just how lost he looked on the field, like in terms of where he should be in the route tree, and how lost he looked against contact in the route tree and contact at the line of scrimmage. Couldn't get off press coverage to save his life last week. And so we will see there's still some questions to be answered with Marvin Harrison, obviously. I mean, he is in his second NFL game. But what I said to you last week, Trevor, I still think it's true. I think his ball skills are so special that he's still going to find a way to be a good player. Even if he isn't like immediately you watch Malik neighbors right now and you're like, different dude. Like totally different level of athlete and mover on the football field than any other rookie driver's receiver. Even in this class-- I know we talked about Brian Thomas last week and he's off to an encouraging start. But neighbors just looks so ready to go. And I think for Marvin Harrison, we expected that. And so we're after temper our expectations. But I still think the ceiling for him is pretty much the same. Like is what we thought it was. The process of getting there may just take a little bit more time. But this guy's ability to catch the football-- the catchy man in the back of the end zone is completely bonkers. I felt like there was this relief that he did something. And people were just like, wow, he got a touch on that. That's awesome. But like the actual catch was insane. Like he was getting wrecked. That ball was thrown in a keyhole. And he somehow caught it and got his feet down on the back of the end zone. When I look like he was the ball skills and the body control and awareness of where you're on the field. All that stuff is so special, Trevor, that I don't think he's going to ever be this elite separation creator. But whether it's Hopkins or Larry Fitzgerald or other players that you want to fit Cheryl's game, obviously, evolving over time, made his longevity such a-- I think Harrison could eventually be all of those different things to fit into those different types of molds of receiver and still be successful. Even if he doesn't have every single athletic trade to the max that you ever could have won. Yeah. And I think the truth, obviously, with the MHA over the last two weeks is somewhere in between, right? You look at the 130 yards and the two touchdowns and the big catches. I mean, there's 130 yards off of four catches, right? So it's like, again, you look at most of his catches or at least the big ones that he had. They were Kyler Murray broken play. So it's kind of like a scrambled drill. You're trying to find the open space. You're trying to find the space in between coverage. And that was a good amount of his catches there. It wasn't like straight. OK, I'm winning off the break point of the route. You're hitting me in stride. It was a really good rhythm type of a throw in a catch that happened there. We didn't really see that a ton this week, albeit with great production numbers for him in the stat sheet. So again, the truth, I think, is in between there for him. It's going to take a little bit of time for him to sort of master the technique and timing that he needs to at the NFL level. But you mentioned the ball skills are something that you could always lean on with Marvin Harrison Jr. So I think that he is going to be totally fine. Rest assured, fantasy football people, he is not cheap. He will just continue to get better. And I think, like John said, the ball skills are something that you absolutely have to bet on. We've got two more rookies that we're bringing to you. But best part of football season, it's always checking out the post game stats, right? Which wide out scored two touchdowns-- Marvin Harrison Jr. this past week-- which quarterback suffered for less than 350 yards. If you think that you can pick what is going to happen before kickoff, then play pick six from DraftKings, an official daily fantasy partner of the NFL. You download the DraftKings pick six app, select between two to six players, and choose if they'll have more or less of their stats. It's that simple. You can use Marvin Harrison Jr. for an example, right? I think that they're going to be figuring out the line of what he's capable of every single week. If you think you have a good feel on it, go make it happen. For the first time, pick six players, you can check this out. New customers, if you play just $5 on your first pick six bet, you will get $50 in pick six credits right back to you. You can download the new DraftKings pick six app now and use the promo code PFF. That is promo code PFF. For new customers, to play just $5 on your first pick six bet, and then you get the free $50 in pick six credits. Only on DraftKings pick six, the crown is yours. If you've got a gambling problem, call away at 100 Gambler. Help us available for problems with gambling, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut. Must be 18 plus age and eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick six is not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario. Woodward prohibited. One per new customer, non-withdraw pick six credits expire within six months, limited time offer, cterms@picksix.com/promos. I'm very excited to get to this next one. We had to talk about the wide receivers. Everybody likes to talk about the wide receivers at the top of the show. But now we're getting into the trenches. Now we're talking about real football here. This was the player that if you've listened to John and I do podcasts before, you know that we've got a saying of doing the show before the show. John and I love football. We love talking about football. I love hearing what John has to say about football. And the second that he logged on to the Zoom, I was like, buy a Murphy the second from Seattle, huh? And it was just like, and we just immediately started to get into it. And so I wanted to dig into his performances two weeks into the season. They go up against the different Broncos in week one and then the New England Patriots in week two. John, what did you think about buy a Murphy the second from Texas? Now getting a lot of playing time early on in this season here with the Seattle defensive line. Yeah, he's the kind of guy that tempts you to do the show before the show because you just want to gush about the high highs from his performance, which are pretty out of control in this one against the Patriots. His some of his top reps are like, what in the world? At the same time, some of his low reps are also a little bit like, oh, man, like he is still learning his way. And I'll start with some of that and then get to some of the overwhelming positives because the peak plays are crazy. He is still definitely putting together a pass rush plan and learning to find the ball quickly. There are some inconsistencies in all of that. And there are also some elite plays and all of that. It is such a wild mixed bag with him right now, but he plays so hard and so crazy that I think it comes out to like being way more of a positive than a negative because of how high the flashes are, how good they are. But the first three of his first four rushes of the game Trevor, and this wouldn't be hard for a lot of guys to come back from. He gets chipped to the ground by the center. Not necessarily anything he did wrong. The center comes over and helps him chips him to the ground, like right, hammer some. Okay, early on, first out of the game. Next snap, Layton Robinson, who had some great battles with Byron Murphy in this game. We're gonna have to talk about Layton Robinson down the road. He's doing some good things at right guard for the Patriots. He's snatching traps, or snatching traps Murphy onto his face. Okay, let's sit on him. All right, first two reps of the game, this is tough. - Not great. - Next play, I forget what it was. The fourth rush of the game, he got pancaked, I think, by, oh, no, pancake does the second run and then, or the third one, and then the snatching trap was after that. So he's put on the ground three of the first four pass rushes of the game trailer. It's like, okay, like he's kind of getting his tail kick. Like, and a lot of it's just like technique things. It's not necessarily like he's getting physically dominated, but it was just like, man, like these are, this is what the lows can look like. Then he comes back and just annihilates everybody the rest of the game. It was just like pure vengeance. He had two great forklift moves on David Andrews. He had him in the quarterback's lap, all game long. He had a bull swim for a sack over Robinson later in the game. I think the most encouraging thing from the pass rush perspective, we can talk about the run game in a second, too. From the pass rush perspective, a lot of these defensive tackles from college get into the NFL. I know you've probably heard me say this before and people have listened to us prior to me say this before. They get into the NFL and they just think, I can bulrush everybody. Like, I bulrush everybody in college. I'm just gonna knock people back. I'm stronger than everybody. I'm just gonna keep trying to do that. And it just doesn't work that way. And I think that's one of the most exciting things about Byron Murphy and Johnny Newton when they were coming out for both of us who loved both of them. We're like, both these guys cross face. They understand how to cross face. They can snutter step and cross the lineman's face and rip underneath and bend their path to the quarterback and still be disruptive. But to get on the edge of a player, often is a nuance, an opponent that's blocking you, often is a nuance that escapes college interior passrushers. So for Murphy to come to the NFL in week one and week two, to be honest with you, be crossing guys faces and understanding how to set up interior guys when he gets his one on ones is so encouraging because he has the power. Like he can, like I said, the forklift, the bulrush, the long, those things are there for him. He's gonna have that in his bag and his leverage because he's like the shortest D tackle in the league is so good that it's hard for guys to stop that with him. But the fact that he can also threaten you on your edges consistently, I think is just the most exciting thing. Now, if he brings his bag with him as a rusher, if he brings the moves with him and for doesn't forget to use his hands to clear contact, he's just putting it all together and he had five pressures, one sack, he had a 21.1% pass rush win rate in this game. He had two tackles for loss or a no-game tackle in this game. We could talk about the run game stuff too, but I know the pass game stuff stood out to you too, Trevor, just in seeing how disruptive he was throughout the game. - No, it did. It's a good way to kind of round out the conversation about Byron Murphy when you bring in what he is a run defender as well. - Yeah, I think in order to talk about him appropriately, you got to go back to Texas and you got to go back to the tape of Texas where Tavandre Sweat was on that team. Tavandre Sweat weighed 380 pounds when he played at Texas, right? They still had Byron-- - I mean, you're being very kind, but sure. - You know, could have been pushing four bills, but you know, you know, it's just what he was listening. I'm just a simple man reading a bio from a team because teams never lie about, you know, guys, hype. - No, of course not, yeah. I think in his bio, it's that he was on a dirty bulk the entire year. - Sure, yeah, at 362, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. He was more of like a jacked 330 with 8% body fat, actually, is what he was. Anyways, Tavandre Sweat, he's 380. We'll just call it 380, whatever you want to call it. They still had Byron Murphy, who at the combine showed up at just over six feet tall and just under 300 pounds. Now, is he probably playing a little bit heavier than that at the NFL? I don't know, 305, 310, whatever. Sure, but they had a guy who weighs 70 less pounds than Tavandre Sweat playing the nose. Byron Murphy played the nose because he was that strong, because he is as strong as an ox in the middle and you can afford to play him at zero in one technique as a nose tackle because of how strong he is. And when you are allowed to do that, that's when you really start to get to some of those pass rush moves because his violence, his first step, his quickness, it's often too much, especially at the college level, it's too much for center and guards. They're just not really the athletes. They don't typically have the arm length to be able to make up for it. Sometimes they don't have the foot speed to be able to make up for it. Sometimes they don't have the flexibility, like you said, handle if he's really attacking one side of the shoulder or if he gets across the face. When you put a quicker interior defensive lineman against guards and centers, the whole thought process is I'm winning with speed, but you often tell yourself like, okay, well then I have to sacrifice power. What we've seen through the first two weeks of the season for Byron Murphy, not that it's been perfect, but that it's this situation, this rare situation, we don't really have to sacrifice too much, especially if he gets his balance right and he understands where that contact is coming from because there is specifically a play where he was against New England Patriots, I don't want the timestamp in front of me, but he's aligned over the shoulder of the center and the second that he engages with the center, he understands what's happening here. They're double teaming him. They're some sort of combo block and the guard is coming over to take him on. So he's doing a corkscrew technique where he's putting his knee down basically to try to anchor himself and not give up any space despite taking a double team and we saw him do that plenty of times at Texas. The guy who is trying to double team him, double teams it for a second, tries to give him like a shove, he barely moves. Again, 300 pounds, he's barely moving, taking on both of these guys. The guard goes, all right, well, now it's time for me to get to the second level, so I'm out of here. So he goes to the second level, it's just then buyer Murphy in the center and buyer Murphy rips him off of him, discards him and then helps make the tackle at the line of scrimmage. So I bring all that up to say, when you have that kind of grown man strength at 300 pounds and you can play at that spot and then you add the pass rush ability and then you add the speed, now you're talking about a really, really dangerous football player. I think that you made a fantastic point when you talked about his ability to cross the face and I think that his best move at the NFL level is however you want to label it, where he is on one side of the offensive lineman and at the snap, he pairs his great first step to get across their face with a violent strong club move and then that arm comes over. If you just want to call it like a cross the face swim move, you can, that's fine. Or if you want to just call it like a club and an arm over combo, whatever, that's going to be his most devastating move at the NFL level. 'Cause I feel like I already saw it against Denver, but I certainly saw it against the New England Patriots as well. And I think that when you just kind of combine everything that Murphy brings to the table and him getting that type of a pass rush move down, he's going to be a good player, man. - I mean, the run game stuff too is just awesome. Like, you know, some of the things he can do and you talked about his, hey, it reminds me so much of Grady Jarrett, like I feel like when you watch him from the size to the impact that he makes when you see him snap to snap the way that they move, like they are very, very similar players, I think. The run game stuff is so solid right now too. Your first rep of the game, he's at three tech and he blows up the left guard, Michael Jordan. Then he takes David Andrews. That's on a base block, I think it was. And then he takes David Andrews for a ride on an outside zone run. He stretches the play out. He's got great technique for his doubles. He's smaller and that can hurt him. And you mentioned the double that he wore it off and helped create a tackle for loss as a result. He got moved on one earlier, wasn't anything he did wrong. He's just a little bit smaller. I mean, that's kind of goes back to the Jarrett thing. I think that's always been sort of it. But who cares? Like how often throughout the course of a game are you going to get double, like truly double? Like it's not going to happen that often, especially with how he can move around the D line and be different things, depending on the matchup against different teams. And so I think the big thing for him is making sure he just doesn't hug his opponents. He doesn't want, you know, sometimes he can get body to body with them and his chin can kind of get up on their shoulder bad a little bit. And so he wants, he doesn't have great length. And that's kind of always going to be the thing that we talk about them probably is like how he overcomes that with his other traits. And then he's going to do that wonderfully and I think he's already doing it wonderfully. But just have to be careful when he's getting body to body with guys, he can get, guys can get in his pads and turn him when that happens. So he just got to be able to keep his distance with the length that he does have and make sure that he's locking out, stacking and shedding. But the Patriots disrespected him. They tried to cut him on the backside of like a pin and pull run away from him. He just evaded the cut and made the tackle for loss. Like this guy's way too athletic to do that too. Like he's going to get around those, I think more often than not. And so I thought like just when you think about different blocks that he took on in this game, double teams, bass blocks, down blocks, zone reach blocks, cut blocks. And he won in some film or fashion against all of those at some point in the game as a rookie. I think it's just very pro ready in a lot of ways. There are some bad reps where he gets himself into trouble but it's all fixable stuff. His traits are going to be awesome. I think we're looking at a very, like I said, Jared is a trisimilar trajectory and type of career in my opinion for Murphy. - I agree, I agree, man. We also got to talk about Brock Bowers, take it a little bit out of the trenches. Still attached to the trenches here, but Bowers in week two, Raiders got a huge win against the Baltimore Ravens this past week and Brock Bowers is a massive reason why. First year, tight end from Georgia at nine catches on nine targets for 98 yards. Last synergy going on there. Already a 32.1 threat percentage. They are emphasizing this dude in the passing game. And what I was so impressed with Brock Bowers is basically just who he was at Georgia. I can't, you know, I shouldn't be shocked by this, but who he was at Georgia, it's the same thing that we're seeing in the NFL there. That number, 100% of his catchable passes have been caught. He is so tough over the middle. He is so tough with contested catches. You see there, 100% contested catch rate as well. This dude, it's just, it is just what the doctor ordered for a quarterback like Minshu, who probably, Bowers is often going to be, like a first read, he could be a first read for a play. But I think he's even more valuable to this offense when Bowers is actually like a second and third read that Minshu can get to. Because it allows them to hike the ball probably most likely look Devontae Adams way, or maybe it's a different kind of a play where hey, they're emphasizing a different one of their receivers. And then if that happens to be covered too much, he doesn't want to take the throw, he can often look to where Brock Bowers is. Because okay, the coverage might be close to him, and I might be having to make a split second decision throw. But if I'm throwing his way very clearly, this is somebody who can come down with the football more often than not. Just super strong hands from him. They're using them all over the field already. And for a team that I understand, had other needs that they could have gone to with other players in the draft, Bowers is truly going to be an offensive chess piece for them. And I think they don't win that game without him. And it's crazy to say that about a rookie tight end already in week two of his NFL career. But you got to believe that not just from the production, but also just because of what he means in this offense already. So Bowers has just been, he's just been such a treat already to watch. - Trevor, I don't know if you know this or not, but the Raiders have really struggled to draft well in recent years. Have you heard that before? - You know, that come across your desk. - You know, it's, it's been tough sledding as they say over the last half decade. Yes, it has been. - Might be the understatement of the century, but yes, it has been, this team has been beyond atrocious at drafting. Like whatever you think is bad, just by 10. I mean, factor by 10 literally. So very important draft, right? You go into what I think was a really good draft after probably two drafts that I would say and impact player positions like it was a little bit lean. And you've got a chance. Okay, this is it. We're starting, we got a new coach. Like we are starting a new regime in a lot of ways. We got a new GM. This is going to be critical for us to get this right, right? And they take a player who didn't work out really during the pre-def, I mean, he may have done a workout for teams, right? But I don't think he ran, didn't, didn't run. Smaller, tight end, right? After they took a tight end, or like with one of the first picks in the second round of the year before. And there were some questions like, is it going to translate? Like he was used to Georgia in a pretty odd way. And we'll talk about some of how they're trying to replicate some of that. But it was a really risky pick. And I think people touched on this. But like, this was one of the craziest picks of the first round. What's the hit rate on first round tight ends? Like astronomically bad, right? It's terrible. - Yeah, it's normally not good at all. - And even if they're good, they're like, what TJ Hawkins is like, he's nice. Like, but he didn't change the franchise. You know what I mean? - Sure. - The way the Raiders are going in this draft was some of the talent that was on the board. They took Brock Bowers at 13 in a way that I would think they feel like he can be a franchise altering type of tight end. - Yeah, right. - That is so rare. And there are so few of those players that this pick probably deserves more scrutiny than we'll ever be able to get it throughout the next couple of seasons. And Bowers, not necessarily his fault, will be under that type of scrutiny. I think rightfully so. At least the pick will be because of that. So that context kind of in place, how Bowers performs each week is massive. We talked about this with Keyon Coleman some too. That because of all the other wide receivers that were drafted around them and how great the need is for the Bills and the window that they're in and needing an impact player, how he performs is going to be bigger than some of these other guys earlier on in the first couple of years. Maybe not his fault, maybe not Bowers fault, but because of the full context of the pick, I think it matters a ton. And so with Bowers, what do you want to see? Like the types of things that you want to see from him as a player in this game. I think you saw a lot of those things, right? Athletically looks totally fine. That's a relief, right? Because he didn't run. And so there was some, I think understandable, like, okay, well, yeah, but he was also used like in a lot of space in Georgia. And so sometimes it can be hard to tell when a guy's not running vertical all the time, like how fast are they really? The Raiders are really trying to get them going with like the bubble screen and quick game targets and the flats sort of like Georgia did. It's not really working at all for a bunch of reasons. So that was the downside of this part of the game. Not Bowers fault really, but the blocking out there hasn't been good. I think the looks they ran against the surface they were running against were not great. So that part hasn't showed up. I think we maybe come back to a little bit of the is he gonna be as good after the catches? He was at Georgia. I think fair question. Not many tight ends are in the NFL, but down the field, he's been awesome. His hands, body control, where the route should break, where space is, his ability to make contested catches is huge. That wasn't, I mean, you saw it at Georgia more so, I think not as last year, but the year before, but it was still something that was like, okay, this guy's getting like easy, manufactured targets all the time. And so how he catches the ball in combat situations, especially for a smaller tight end is so, so, so important. What's he, would he have three of them in this game? I think he was three for three. - Yeah, I think he was three for three in this game, yeah. - And some of those were like over the middle, again, ball thrown through a keel. He's all hands catching the ball. We'll go into the ground. Some really impressive stuff. So he isn't a quick like hard cutter as a round runner. I don't know if you noticed that he really rounds into his cuts, but he doesn't lose any speed when he does it. And he's faster than most tight ends, I think. So he is still creating really good separation. I don't know whether certain matchups that will catch up with him, but I love that he saw tight endstoppers. I mean, he'd separate against Marlon Humphrey and made catch in this game zone coverage. He knew where he was working too. He made plays down the field and improvised, kind of scrambled drill, break it off, come back to the quarterback go up and get the ball down the field near the goal line. I don't know if he's going to be crazy elusive after the catch, like he wasn't college in some ways, but he's physical and tough. And so that's a great start. No missed tackles forced, I don't think yet. I think that could be coming. I don't know whether they're going to be able to lean on him as like a post catch creator of the way Georgia was. And it seems like they're sort of trying to with some of their usage of him. But I do think he has so much of the other stuff that that may not matter as much as we probably thought it would have mattered pre-draft. So a fascinating pick, a fascinating player to watch try to translate to the NFL. And some of the early returns being as good as they are, I mean, have to be a sigh of relief for the Raiders, even if he ends up being really good, he could look back at this pick and be like, wow, they missed out on like guys that could have been more impactful for the franchise. I don't want to belabor that though. And the analysis of Bowers himself, who has been really good through two weeks, I think. - Yeah, I think that that's obviously really good context because that's what the draft is about. Like it's not just about nailing players, it's about nailing the players who can help your franchise in the biggest ways. And so that is really important. That's how draft value kind of comes into account. We talk about like value from positions all the time, the types of players that you draft in the top 20 because there's just more scarcity of them. They can do more for your franchise. You're drafting Bowers in the top 15. Like you really believe that he could be a franchise changer for you as you mentioned. And so this is a really good star for him. It's hard to imagine that he would have been, that he could have been more than what we have already seen from him. So so far so good, I think for Bowers. But what does the peak actually do for the totality of the offense and the team? I think that we will continue to see that. Hopefully the team drafts better, continues to get more players there and better players around him. So we will see. There's no doubt about it though. He won't have the open space that he had at Georgia. So he was going to have to be that contested catch guy. I wasn't worried about that, but is that dynamic enough to justify that pick versus other ones? We'll see, but it's hard too. Like you said, it's hard to criticize Bowers part in all of this at all whatsoever because you can't really ask for a better start for what he's given you with the Raiders, especially taking down the Baltimore Ravens in a big time win this past weekend. We got two more rookies that we want to give to you guys. But before we get to those, this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. As an adult, do you make time to learn new things as often as you like? Or is that something you feel like you lost in childhood? Kids, they're always learning and growing, but adults sometimes we just lose that curiosity, right? Therapy, it can be a great way to get your sense of wonder back because that back-to-school era, if you will, can come at any age, really can't. Therapy can be a really useful tool to get a better understanding of how your mind actually works and become more aware of your own patterns of behavior and how to improve them. It's useful for everybody, not just people that are struggling with something specific. I've been doing therapy for over a year and a half. And for me, it did start with something specific that I kind of needed help getting through to be able to talk to somebody about it. And that was really, really helpful for me, but now it's something that I do twice a month every other week. And it's been a really great way to just sort of navigate the things that are happening in my life and be able to look back and say like, hey, here's how I handled something. I could've handled it better. Here's sort of why I handled it this way and always understanding the why. It's very powerful. It's a very powerful thing in life. And again, I could not recommend it anymore. If you're thinking about starting therapy, give better help. A try, better help is convenient, flexible, and entirely on-line way to get therapy that is right for you. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Rediscover your curiosity with better help. This is at betterhelp.com/PFF to get 10% off your first month. This is betterhelp.HELP.com/PFF. We get two more guys that I wanna get to here. John, I'll start with you. Your third guy that you're bringing to the table here is Jared Verst, the edge rusher from the Los Angeles Rams. I can't remember. Did you have versus edge one in this past class? You know, when it came, it was Law 2. It was Jared Verst. It was Dallas Turner. You know, there are a lot of those guys, and I think if you ask, you know, 10 different people, you might get all sorts of different orders and answers of where they had those guys ranked. So what'd you think of Jared Verst pre-draft first and foremost? Just for the people here on this show to know your pre-draft, Austin, then? What did you see him two weeks in? That's a pretty important context, actually, Trevor. So what I'm gonna talk about now, because before the draft he was versus my edge three, he had him behind Dallas Turner and behind Law 2, who was Law 2, was one for me. But he and Turner, I think, had the same exact grade. They were pretty close, I think, in grade for me. And my biggest question with Verst, whose tape was definitely better than Dallas Turner, no doubt about that. My biggest concern with him was translating to the NFL. How will it translate when you, because people who have listened to me before know I talk about this and probably sound like a real nerd when I do, but the four pillars of pass rush athleticism matter a ton, right? You're burst off the ball. How quickly you explode in your first step, right? Super critical trait. First had that for sure. Speed up the arc, right? Can you maintain that speed, the first step speed? Can you maintain it even when you turn the corner? And then that gets to bend and flexibility, right? At the top of the arc. Those two, I thought, major questions for Verst. Maybe not so much to speed. The bend and flexibility just did not win very often as a high side rusher in college. A lot of power stuff as a smaller, not smaller, maybe shorter edge defender. It was like, okay, like, is all this going to translate? Like is his style of play going to be able to be effective without like a massive, he doesn't have Gregory Russo arms. You know what I mean? Like, or something like that. So is this stuff going to be able to translate the way he rushes to the NFL? And that's where I freaked myself out on Verst. The fourth pillar, by the way, change of direction, which is a very important one for Verst. - Sure. - Because not many guys in the league, I think could do it like he does right now. So still don't think he's very bendy or flexible at the top of the arc. However, dude is so good with his hands. - Dude. - Like literally pro level. - Oh, holy cow. - All pro level with his hands already. I mean, it's unbelievable. His tape, I can't remember ever watching a player come from college of the NFL and have tape like his Trevor. Like not even like just sheer so much dominance. Like obviously, there were guys, Miles Garrett. There's been guys over the years that have been like real quick acclimation of the NFL as Ricky Ed Drushers. He's just, the way he plays is just completely unusual. Like he won't. So I'll give you an example of the run game. Cardinals are sent or whoever it has been over the last two weeks because it isn't just about the past week. It's really about the last two weeks. But this past week, Cardinals are pulling two guys out of him, okay? They're running the ball. Like most guys in those situations, the end guy in the line of scrimmage doesn't block Verst. He's the end guy in the line of scrimmage. So the offensive tackle or tight end whoever was on the end of the line of scrimmage inside of him just steps down and blocks inside. So in most of those situations, the edge defenders caught, taught to step down and take on the puller as tight to the line of scrimmage as they can. If you can wrong arm it, you can try and get in the backfill. There's different ways to do it. Nobody's just like float out there and let yourself get kicked out. So he just floats like he doesn't care. He's just standing. I'm like, well, this isn't the right technique at all. First puller comes, dodges him, second puller comes, dodges him, makes the tackle for loss. I'm like, this is supposed to be able to happen in the NFL. And he did this a bunch of times. Like he just like decides, oh, I'm going to jump inside this block and get him through here. And like, I mean, the way he plays the position is completely unorthodox right now. So it's fascinating and fun to watch because of that. He's just doing stuff we don't see edge defenders do. I don't know whether it's going to work every single matchup. Once maybe twice he's gotten caught and it's resulted in some of the bad, it is extremely unorthodox. It's not really how he played in college. So it's also kind of fascinating from that perspective. So I love that stuff in the run game, how often he's willing to turn and take a chance to be a disruptive player. Some of the places he's made in the run game have been straight up jaw dropping. I didn't even know that you could do this kind of stuff in the NFL. This is crazy. As a pass rusher, I think we can get into it as well some of what we've seen from him because that's also brought some really unique things to light in terms of how he creates for himself. But his ability to consist, I mean, the power stuff's all there still. Like that stuff has been 100% as advertised. Taylor Decker went for rides last week. Paris Johnson have jumped on, went for rides this week. Like both those dudes have gotten bulldozed and tossed around by because of versus power. The way he comes off line of scrimmage, stutter step into your chest, like creating a huge push right off the bounce. But then the way he's able to mix that up, oh, I'm gonna go fake bull. Now I'm gonna slip outside of you. I'm gonna knock your hands down. I'm gonna corner. He's creating space for himself because he knows he can't bend. So he can't just be a speed, a burst speed, bend high side edge rusher. But he's creating access points for himself all over in relation to the tackle because of how he's setting up his rushes. And a lot of guys do that, but they do it with so much wasted movement or they aren't quick enough off the snap. So they can set it up, but it's a late win and it doesn't actually matter. We'll see if it ends up mattering for verse, but he does it so quickly, Trevor, that I actually think he's gonna be able to play this way. And if he can make this work to be as good as he's looked so far, which he had three pressures on 15 past rushes. And he had a 26.7% pass rush win rate in week two. He had six pressures in a sack last week. If he can keep this up, absolutely, it's gonna be mind boggling to see a player play like this because his style of play is one of the most unique in the NFL right now. - So I was with you. I had Jared verse as my edge two, but he was very close to Dallas Turner. I had law two as my number one edge rusher in last year's draft. And he's only two games into his NFL career. So again, I'm not giving him a gold jacket yet, but there's an aspect of Jared verse that I wish, that I already after watching these two games of him, I wish I would have allowed this because I knew it. I wish I would have allowed it to mean more towards where he was ranked on my big board and what I thought his pro outlook was be. And that is Jared verse wants to be great. Jared verse wants to be great. And you look at his background, really under recruited coming out of high school because they didn't know if he was gonna play tight end or defensive end or whatever. And he really wanted to play defensive end, but a lot of other schools wanted to play tight end. Albany gives him a shot to play defensive end. He's there for two years, doesn't really do anything. Then we had the COVID year or he was there for one year, didn't really do too much. Then we had the COVID season because he was at Albany, they just canceled their COVID season. So what did he do? He wasn't like, all right, I guess free year off, I guess. He and his dad like built out a whole home gym. He gained like 30 or 40 pounds of like sheer muscle, basically came back one conference player of the year was unstoppable at Albany, ends up going to Florida State, dominating at Florida State, the last year that he had there, it wasn't as strong. And so I think I let, I think I let that last year with him over shadow, what was the year before, 'cause you know, I had the same concerns as you. It was like, all right, great power profile, but how many guys win with just power at the NFL level? I was worried about the bend, I was worried about the flexibility, but who Jared verse is? He wants to be great. And already what I see from him, dude, the hand usage from him and the hand speed is already like a third or fourth year NFL player. I mean, you cannot, for a player who wins, for a player who wins as much with strength as Jared verse does, you would think he would want to car crash a lot of these defensive linemen, you mentioned, he took Taylor Decker for a ride, he gave Paris Johnson's a fits as well. You like, you would think that he would be very willing, overly willing, probably, to be physical and try to bulrush all of these guys. But instead, what I watched so much of these past two games, he's trying to stay clean. And like, that's what you love. He's got the two-handed swipe, he's got the club rip, the hands are moving, even if you block him up right away, he is immediately getting to some sort of counter. He's immediately trying to, like if he gets into you and something doesn't work and the offensive linemen got him blocked up, he is immediately trying to cut you in half and hit the half man and get a rip move or like some sort of push pull, whatever it is, to get off the block. And that speed is unbelievable. And I think the most important, I would say the most impressive is probably the better way. Here's a better word here. The most impressive part about it is, when you were rookie at the NFL level, when you were starting in the trenches, you were often just looking at what is in front of you, right? You used a great example. A guy is pulling from the opposite side of the line of scrimmage, he's coming to you. Most rookie edge-rushers are gonna just look at that offensive lineman and go, okay, this is my job. I am going to just run into this guy and that's it. That's all you look at. Jared verse is looking at the football. All right, he has this, he has this like veteran peripheral vision where he's just looking at the football and as the offensive lineman is coming at him, he is veering and swiping and his eyes are in the same spot. He's just looking at where the football is. Rookies don't do that shit, man. Like Rookies do not have that vision for where the football is. And verse, I think he has already been in the lab since he graduated from Florida State or since he was done at Florida State and before he got to the NFL, I think he's been working with pastors, coaches, I think he's been listening to former NFL players and he's been in the lab 'cause you don't have the results that we've seen from him if you don't want to be great. And I think that Jared verse is drive to be great. We're already seeing the fruits of it already this season. - I mean, it's been pretty, his motor is once, I mean, he missed tackles on Tyler Murray twice on that touchdown scramble that Murray had where he scrambled around and threw the ball back at the end zone. But most guys already even in position to make either tackle. Like the fact that he was just that disruptive and obviously Murray made an incredible play but it shouldn't take away from how absurd it was. The first missed the tackle, got back up, chased down Murray again and Murray got away from again, but it was just like a cat in a mouse, man. It was unbelievable to watch him play and his boundless energy. The other thing is on Twist, which is gonna be a pretty big part of what the Rams do 'cause that's like why they drafted he and Brayden Fisk. They were like, oh yeah, we're just gonna pair you guys up on a side now if you guys twist people to death 'cause you didn't in college, we know you guys know how to play together. Well, Fisk is having a hard time at Commanding the NFL. Maybe we'll talk about him on a future show or we'll see how he develops over the next couple of weeks. But verse, his ability to dent protections just because he's like, okay, I'm the crasher. Great, I'm gonna literally throw my body through this guard's chest cavity. That's my goal in life. - Right, and that's it. - That's how you want every defensive lineman to be though. - I know, he's so crazy in how he plays. I mean, I was ecstatic watching, I was like, this is crazy. And yeah, it makes me wish, as you said, that I was hiring him, that I even was, I had a second round grade on him and people know I only have like a couple first round grades. So he's still high for me, but I think it's just like a really interesting lesson and there's a probably bigger conversation we don't have time for today, just about power washers. And it seems like there is a big swell right now in the league this season, literally starting this season of some of these guys being really successful who are built their games off power. That's a little unfair to verse because he is, I mentioned Rousseau earlier, I'm gonna mention him again. He's more of a straight power guy, power and what that opens up for you. Verse already, I think has shown a little bit more versatility in his game than that. I was trying to think of a good comp Trevor and see how many of you hate this? Melvin Ingram before like the pounds, like before he kind of got a little bit heavier. - Yeah. - Like I think maybe that could be like the type of player we see verse play. - Sure. - And not just because verse didn't wear gloves last week and Melvin Ingram was obviously a non-glove wear for many of the days in his career. But I think that sort of could be the type of player, it's possible versus even has a higher ceiling even because we're just seeing him now and I'm comparing him to a guy who I think was, if not for injuries and some of the composition issues maybe like a guy I think was really underrated player in the league. I think that sort of potential might be there for him but just like man, it's really been exciting to watch him and I think like because he's so good against the run and the pass already, he's not even playing a ton of snaps right now, like not as many as he could be, he's playing off a rookie, he's starting obviously but it's been really, really encouraging to see his development so far. And I think he is probably one of the most pro-ready rookies that we've seen in the league this season and maybe even for a couple of years at this position. - Look, all I'm saying is if you would have told Jared verse, like happy for the Rams fans, happy that you have Jared verse but if you would have told Jared verse that his team wasn't gonna have the chance to play for a national championship that other year, he would have declared after being a junior, he would have gone number seven overall to the Las Vegas Raiders instead of Tyree Wilson. I'm convinced, I'm convinced. - Do you think the Raiders would have done something smart, buddy? - Their hands would have been tied. I'm trying to give Raiders fans something to hope for 'cause I think he was so much better of a football player than Tyree Wilson when he was coming out and I think that verse, if he was in that class, he would have been the pick at number seven overall. - That's a vicious take, that is very interesting. As someone who thought Tyree Wilson was a fringe top 100 player and had no idea why he was in the first round, I would have supported that for sure. I just don't know if the league would have gotten there given the fact that they seemed so enamored with Wilson and his physical attributes. - Crazy, crazy. That's the topic for another day. Last guy that I want to talk about here is Tera and Arnold though. Somebody who, a lot of people really loved in last year's draft class and he's already playing a ton here with the Detroit Lions as a rookie. 115 snaps for him, 58.5 overall grade and I do want to talk about some of the good and the bad with Tera and Arnold one. It's the cornerback position. It's going to be very up and down anyways. That's just the nature of it. But Neil, when they're playing him in off coverage, I want to give him his credit. He is not afraid to come downhill. He likes to tackle, he's triggering downhill pretty fast. I think that his fit in this defense is going to be a really good one. Now, where is he getting in trouble? I think he's getting fooled by a little bit of the eye candy that the NFL has. I think that, you know, whether it's pre snap motion or some of the play action or just one receiver coming one way in his zone and he's like, "Whoa, okay, I got this guy." Wait, wait, no, no, just kidding, I have this guy. It's all, he's reacting instead of anticipating. And you know, you look back at this past week, Chris Godwin's touchdown that he had. Arnold was the closest defender to him and honestly it was just a really good cover. Three beater call by Liam Cohen because in front of Taryn Arnold was Mike Evans at the snap. And he can't just not pay attention to Mike Evans. So Mike Evans has an in-breaking route and Arnold kind of just follows him along the in-breaking but then he does not pass that player off to the safety who is over top to get back over to Godwin who is then occupying his part of the third of the field that he was guarding in that cover three situation. So it was just one of those things where to me, yes, Arnold is struggling a little bit here but John, I think it's much more of, he's just reacting instead of anticipating against NFL type of receivers and NFL speed. I'm not worried about it because I still see him playing with a lot of confidence but it's just, it's gonna take Taryn Arnold a little bit of time here before he becomes the corner that a lot of people believe that he was drafted to be for Detroit. So maybe that'll happen, you know, December time when they're getting into their playoff run and it could be just at the perfect time for them but it is gonna be, it looks like it's gonna be a little bit of an up and down process until Arnold really is able to slow the game down a little bit and anticipate a little bit better from what we have seen. - For sure, I think that anybody who watched Arnold, I know there was a lot of hype about him pre-draft and I think he was good, yeah, he was a really good prospect. I was high on him, I liked him a lot and I think he's going to be good but anybody who watched him in college, I think, if you watched him from an unbiased perspective just said, okay, if this guy's in an off coverage it is gonna take some time. Like he doesn't see things as quickly as he should. Sometimes he'll jump at eye candy. All those things were there on tape where he was giving up some big plays because of that stuff. Physically, athletically, from a mental makeup, all those things, no doubt. He has the full package when it comes to that kind of stuff, the traits of the upside, all that stuff. Everybody raves about his intelligence, his competitiveness. You felt like he was gonna figure it out. There were enough peak plays and plays on the ball too where you felt like he was gonna figure it out. I bet we see sort of this roller coaster for a while, maybe even two years of him making plays, which he did, by the way, on the deep ball that he got called for the passing or appearance, I think, when he, 'cause he went up to get the ball and he hit the guy in the face. He was just a little bit of a sloppy thing, kind of unlucky. But that was a great play other than that part of it. And so I think you're gonna see great plays like that. I think you're also going to see plays like the one you described where he blows an assignment because I think there's gonna be some confusion and it's not necessarily totally instinctive which of those, what he's supposed to do in all situations from off-covered. So there are a lot of lessons to be learned, I think, when he watches this tape. A lot of what we're gonna see from Arnold is either how much is he able to develop and can he still make some of the peak splash plays while giving up plays too? Because he's gonna give up plays as a rookie. Like I think there's no doubt. Like there's a steep learning process for him. He didn't even play that much in college. We don't talk about that probably that much, but I think there's gonna be a learning process for him for sure. This is gonna take a couple of years, maybe. But can he give them some peak plays in the meantime? Right, and that's the thing. Can he not just get gushed and give no positives back? That is to me what'll make this a good early returns pick or not, and then obviously long-term, we'll see if he develops in a more of a complete shutdown type of corner. Yep, I agree with you. Go follow all of John's great work over the Audibles and Analytics sub-stack as well as the Audibles and Analytics podcast. He does the read optional podcast as well with Ollie Connolly who you guys know from the "In the Trenches" episode from earlier this week. They do a great job continuing to take deep dives into the NFL and how they cover them. It covers a lot of buck specific stuff, stealer specific stuff, but then general NFL and NFL draft as well. So go check out all that fantastic work. Appreciate everybody watching and listening to another episode of the rookie review. John and I will be back with you right here to do the same thing for the rookies in week three. See you guys then. (upbeat music) - Bingo. - All right, fellow, we're recording now, so it's live. Go ahead, pick on me the way that you want to. - Did I say that? I would say that to my son, man. I mean, come on, man. - Just go. - This isn't CBS. - All right, be quiet for a few seconds. Why would people want to listen to the Sims complete podcast? Well, a couple of things. One, if you'd like to see sons pick on their father, this might be the place. If you want to see a place where the father just kicks the (beep) out of his son, this will be the place. What do you like about it, Matt? - Ditto. Father, son, dynamic duo talking about the game of football that we love and share and appreciate together, and hey, it's an extension of what we did growing up. I was able to watch my father play football, then obviously watch him as a broadcaster, and then he taught me the game of football and share the wisdom that he learned throughout his playing career. And hey, sometimes we're full of it and sometimes we actually know a thing or two. - Well, we do do a lot of research, at least I do. You're a little spotty, but you hang in there. It's fun, I love doing this and it's been awesome. - Sims Complete, check us out. Wherever your podcasts are available on the Believe Network, appreciate it.