Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid at the University of Miami yesterday.
00:03At least the folks that were there were saying that Cam Ward cemented himself as the number
00:08one overall pick in the draft.
00:09Let's see if Matt Lutovsky feels the same way.
00:11I know Sporting News just released a mock draft and at least those are the reports here.
00:15And again, my timeline a little bit different than yours, Matt living in South Florida,
00:19so I'm going to get all the positives here.
00:21But Cam Ward not only by the way played quarterback, but apparently played some wide receiver there
00:25yesterday too.
00:26Wasn't afraid to do that.
00:27You don't see that very often at Pro Day.
00:29It does seem like all systems are go for him to be the number one overall pick and then
00:33things get wild, right?
00:34Yeah, that's what it seems like.
00:36You know, we know that in these drafts, a lot of times whoever is the number one quarterback
00:41will go number one overall.
00:43Just sort of the way it goes unless it's a particularly down year.
00:46And I don't think Cam Ward is necessarily as strong of a number one pick as we've had
00:52the past couple of years, or at least that perception was.
00:55But he's certainly, you know, a worthy candidate.
00:58He's a dual threat.
01:00He's got the, he's got all the tools everyone looks for.
01:03He's an, a kind of an older quarterback, mature guy.
01:06He's, you know, been around every, I think people know his story by now.
01:09So I think teams actually respond to that.
01:12They like that.
01:13And so whoever has the number one pick, I still think there's a question who's actually
01:17going to be making that pick, but whoever it is, if a team trades up, they certainly,
01:22you know, we'll probably be looking quarterback.
01:24That's who they're going to want.
01:25And that's going to be the target.
01:26And like you said, everything he did yesterday just seemed to cement his status as the clear
01:30cut number one quarterback prospect.
01:33Didn't do anything to hurt himself.
01:35He's been interviewing well this whole time too, presenting himself well.
01:38So I think he's definitely going to go number one again, though, who's going to be making
01:42the pick.
01:43I guess we'll find out.
01:44But whether it's the Titans who are there right now, I think we can all agree they probably
01:48need a quarterback.
01:49And certainly if they stay in that spot, they're going to feel they need one too.
01:54Yeah.
01:55And then that's where things get interesting too.
01:57It's like, I sort of see it the same way as you, but more so for the second pick in the
02:00draft because I still do not buy that Shooter Sanders is going to drop beyond four or five,
02:05six, something like that.
02:06I don't see that.
02:07I mean, this kid is, you know, was maybe considered to be the number one overall pick a month
02:11ago.
02:12I don't know what happened, but Cleveland is sitting in a spot where that's the team.
02:15I'm not sure what they're going to do beyond that.
02:16I see the mock has Abdul Carter, who is fantastic for Penn State.
02:20Then Travis Hunter and Will Campbell seems to be pretty consensus with those five.
02:24Maybe not necessarily in that order, but I guess that's where I guess we have a difference
02:28of opinion.
02:29Matt is just, I feel like the two pick is where some team jumps up and does something.
02:34It could be Cleveland, could be Cleveland taking him, trading him later, or maybe, or
02:39maybe not.
02:40I don't want to say maybe they just take them and keep them, but that's the pick that I'm
02:42just not clear on.
02:43Yeah.
02:44Right.
02:45You know, I'm not either.
02:46I don't think anyone is, you know, Cleveland's in a weird spot where they clearly need a
02:49quarterback and no one's denying that, but there are a lot of questions about whether
02:54Shadur Sanders is worthy of that pick.
02:56So if you're Cleveland and you need a quarterback, but you need a lot of other things as well,
03:01and you see some of those blue chip, super talented guys like Carter, like Hunter, they're
03:06always going to need O-line help who doesn't.
03:09So they have a lot of options.
03:11And if a team falls in love with Shadur Sanders during this process, you might be, you might
03:16be able to extract a lot from them.
03:18So I think Cleveland's in a really good spot.
03:20They're going to get a really good player, no matter what they do.
03:23As long as they don't feel as if they have to take a quarterback, I don't think they
03:27will.
03:28I think they're okay going into this season with a little bit of a, frankly, a mess at
03:32quarterback and playing it out.
03:35Not really being that competitive.
03:36That's not fun for their fans, certainly, but they've been through it before.
03:40Let's be honest.
03:41And I think they'll figure it out.
03:43So Shadur Sanders is the wild card of this draft.
03:46I don't think there's any question about that.
03:48He's going to be the most talked about player in this draft for a variety of reasons.
03:53And it's really going to be, it's going to be kind of like a soap opera.
03:56There's going to be a lot of intrigue.
03:58It's really going to heat up over the next couple of weeks.
04:00And I think anyone who says they know what's going to happen there or feel strongly about
04:05what's going to happen, it is lying, frankly.
04:07I think they're just guessing because there's still a lot up in the air with that situation.
04:11And when he actually performs at his pro day, because we really haven't seen him at all
04:15this offseason, I think that'll tell us a little bit more, too.
04:18Yep, definitely so.
04:20And recapping your picks five through ten over at Sporting News Mock, McMillian on Arizona
04:26was so fantastic in the first half of last year.
04:28His numbers were incredible until teams started like double, triple teaming him, and then
04:31that ended.
04:32Tyler Warren, very high tight end, could get taken in the NFL draft this year.
04:35Unstoppable at Penn State.
04:36Then Mason Graham, Stewart, Ed Rusher on A&M, Ed Rusher on Tennessee.
04:42You know, a lot of folks certainly are going to be looking at Warren here to really upgrade
04:47the offense.
04:48You know, I don't know where the Jets sort of stand, to be honest with you with all this,
04:53but at least we know that they're going to have a great offensive weapon there if they
04:55take him.
04:56Yeah, that's kind of an aggressive placing.
04:59I don't think there's any question about that for a tight end to go that high.
05:03He is ultra athletic and he can bring a lot to whatever offense he goes to.
05:07We've seen that the past couple of seasons with Sam Laporta a couple years ago.
05:11Certainly Brock Bowers last year.
05:13People are looking at these guys as real weapons, but that is a bit aggressive.
05:17There's no getting around that and McMillan, he's a weird one too because his sort of stock
05:22seems to have been dropping lately and a lot of the other mocks have him falling and he
05:28ran a sort of mediocre-ish 40 at his pro day.
05:32I don't think that was shocking though, you know, for him it's more about just the size,
05:36the hands, the route running mixed with the good enough speed, the game speed that's okay,
05:42but yet you never know because sometimes these teams they get infatuated with a certain prospect
05:47and all it takes is one team to become infatuated with a certain prospect and he jumps and it
05:52just kind of throws everything off in a draft.
05:54We see it happen.
05:55It's funny.
05:56It happens in fantasy drafts.
05:57It happens in real life to some degree too.
05:59So those are two real interesting picks.
06:02Still having them that high, that aggressive and we'll see, you know, we'll be releasing
06:05another mock draft here, a seven rounder coming up here at the start of April and we'll see
06:10how much that has changed now that we've had more pro days and some more thoughts on some
06:15of these guys.
06:16Yeah, definitely so.
06:17All right.
06:18So Matt, here is where I don't know this to be a fact, but I'll say it as a guess.
06:23I believe that whatever we're guessing as far as the first round quarterbacks are concerned,
06:29if you give me a line, I'm going to bet over.
06:31Now you got to make it fair here, three, three and a half.
06:34I know how this is going to work with Ward, Sanders, Dart, Milrow, Ewers and Howard.
06:38I don't care about the names, Matt.
06:40Teams are so desperate.
06:41They drop quarterbacks.
06:42I got over three and a half.
06:44Yeah.
06:45Over three and a half.
06:46That's right where the line is.
06:47I mean, I think there's three for sure.
06:49And it's going to be a question of whether that fourth one sneaks in there.
06:52Maybe that will be a fifth, like you said, but I think we're going to get three for sure.
06:55I think Dart's going in the first round too.
06:57And then we'll see how a team feels about Milrow.
06:59We'll see.
07:00We'll see how a team feels about, you know, Ewers.
07:03And it's going to be interesting, but yeah, they can't, they can't resist it.
07:06Can they?
07:07They can't help themselves.
07:08They got to get those quarterbacks.
07:09They can't.
07:10They get to the end of the first round and some team trades away their life to get in
07:14the first round at the end to take the quarterback because they know on day two with pick one,
07:19it's the most valuable pick on the second day of the draft.
07:21They got to do it.
07:22Matt, have a great week.