- 1 minute ago
Marc Ross joins to break down the quarterback landscape in the upcoming NFL Draft, weighing in on the remaining options as teams await Aaron Rodgers’ decision with the Steelers. He critiques how some organizations, including the Dolphins, have handled player background evaluations and shares concerns about Malik Willis’ limited NFL experience.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00All right, Woody. Thank you. And always a special guest to have on here. We wish he lived down here
00:05full time instead of just coming down here to see family and bring his wife down on vacation. Mark Ross,
00:11NFL Network analyst getting ready, by the way, for for a big day.
00:15NFL Network provides live coverage today of Indiana's Pro Day today. And you know who that means. Fernando Mendoza, the
00:24Indiana quarterback, expected to go number one from Columbus High School in Miami. And Mark Ross joins us this morning.
00:32Mark, how you doing, bud?
00:34Man, outstanding. Always a pleasure, as you know.
00:36Hey, man, I appreciate you finding time. I know it's a crazy time because that league never sleeps, as you
00:42know, with pro days and combines and and now just a few weeks away from the draft.
00:48Hey, speaking of Fernando Mendoza, things got stirred up pretty good by those guys at ESPN, including a former quarterback
00:56talking about how good Ty Simpson is.
00:59And he's the best overall quarterback at everything. And he didn't have as much talent and everything else.
01:05I don't know about you, but I still expect from the Fernando Mendoza I saw playing the playoffs that he's
01:11going to be the first overall pick. What are your thoughts?
01:14Yeah, you know, Mendoza to me is clearly the best guy. You know, the Ty Simpson hype machine was in
01:21full effect there with his agent and, you know, Dan Orlowski, all those guys, you know, have the same representation.
01:28And that's when you get disingenuous at this time of year, because, you know, there's nothing in the body of
01:33work.
01:33Hey, look, Ty Simpson may end up being better than Fernando Mendoza, but there's nothing at this point that you
01:38would look and say he's better than Fernando Mendoza.
01:41So, you know, that's the unfortunate part of this time of year where you don't know whose evaluations are truly
01:48coming from evaluation and as opposed to people just doing people favors.
01:52You know, Mark, it's amazing because we've heard this from Mike Florio, too, that the power of these guys coming
02:01out with information that's given to them by agents or agencies that they want to get stuff out and either
02:09promoting their guys.
02:10And in some cases, when they're talking about Ty Simpson, my only problem with it is it's like when you
02:16start comparing them and Fernando Mendoza is not better than anything else, even though he's expected to be the first
02:22overall pick and he's gone.
02:23No, no, he does this better and that he keeps his eyes. He he had a better team. Well, yeah,
02:28that's part of the deal. You're you're you're going to win a lot of awards when you're on a good
02:32team.
02:33Yeah, for sure. And, you know, to just go completely overboard in that way, if you want to say, OK,
02:38the one for one of this skill is better, but to go completely overboard in that kind of way kind
02:43of shows your hand.
02:45Hey, so, Mark, I got to ask you, you've been through the whole front office process and meeting with GMs
02:50and assistant GMs and and this time of year is so important.
02:53And, you know, I've talked to you about this and this is where the Dolphins, one of the problems they've
02:58had in the past, we haven't done a good job on background checks.
03:02And it's one thing to see how good guys are, but but also you got to find out their habits
03:07that don't show up during a game and how quick they are and all the things athletically they can do.
03:14I think background checks may be more important than ever with mental health and all the other things that guys
03:19are dealing with.
03:19What about for you? Yeah, that was always a major part of it.
03:23And that's what our scouts were on the road all year for your scouts don't get enough credit this time
03:28of year.
03:28It all goes to the coaches and all this kind of stuff. But, you know, the scouts are there the
03:33whole year getting this information.
03:34And generally, you have the information on these players when you deal for the Dolphins have yet information.
03:40It's just whether you want to take the risk. So you dig in, you dig in what you should be
03:45digging.
03:45And we always did. So whenever we took a player with some red flags or risk, we knew that it
03:49wasn't anything where they got in the building.
03:51It was like, what? This guy doesn't like to work. It was it was known.
03:54It's just a matter of whether you can get them into your facility and your coaches and bring a winning
04:00mindset or change whatever that negative, whatever that red flag is.
04:05And you don't want to just keep taking guys that have these red flags. You want to have some foundation
04:10and stability to offset that.
04:13But for some teams, they are continually doing that where they kind of ignore the red flags and think, well,
04:19we can get them to improve.
04:21And we're looking at the talent, whether that's been the case with the Dolphins.
04:24I don't know. But there's something there that has not been working out.
04:29Hey, so so the other part of this through the years, I've heard this is, man, he's really good, but
04:34he takes plays off.
04:36And sometimes and I'm like, sometimes you watch him, you know, he's going to get drafted.
04:40And other times he dominates against good guys. How do you feel about those guys?
04:44Do most teams think we can get it out of them and get him to go 100 percent?
04:48Because we have seen guys, they get better once they get it figured out or they're around the right guys
04:53in the right room.
04:54But a lot of times they play the same way when they get to the pros. How do you feel
04:59about that?
05:00Yeah, that was always fascinating when we would have free agency meetings, you know, three, four years after the fact
05:05of that player coming out.
05:07And it's generally we're the same. Generally, their skill set's the same. Their strengths, the weaknesses are the same.
05:11There wasn't a huge variance of how we scouted them coming out of high school, I mean, coming out of
05:16college to when they became free agents.
05:18It's just whether they've been able to play with those strengths and overcome the weaknesses.
05:22But generally, guys that don't have a motor, don't play hard, don't have toughness, that doesn't change.
05:29You don't instill toughness into somebody. You don't instill a motor into someone.
05:33And those that have it, they keep that. That's just something you really can't teach.
05:38Even from a kid, when you watch younger guys coming up, like, man, look at this young guy going.
05:44And generally, you can't instill those sort of traits into a player.
05:49So it's kind of fool's gold to say, we're going to get this guy that doesn't play hard to start
05:53playing hard.
05:54Hey, Mark, as you know, the Dolphins went all in on a guy with the Green Bay Packers, with Halfley
06:00and John Eric Sullivan.
06:02They brought in their backup quarterback and really liked what they'd seen from him for two years with Green Bay.
06:08He's now the man. I mean, he got now the man money to come in here.
06:11He's going to be the starter here for this team as they're cleaning out.
06:14You've seen all the dead money that they've had to clean up and clean it up.
06:18It's like 60% of the salary cap so far.
06:22What are your thoughts on him and taking a chance?
06:25Everybody, you know, everybody's looking for the next quarterback, franchise quarterback.
06:29What were your thoughts on that one?
06:30Yeah, I'm commendable for what Malik has done in his career to get better and get to this point.
06:36You know, an old one thought a year ago, he'd be making that.
06:39He'd be a big guy on free agency getting that money.
06:41And, you know, I always had reservations about him coming out of college, which kind of bore itself in Tennessee
06:47there.
06:48But even with Green Bay, you're rolling the dice on a very, very, very limited playtime and start time.
06:55And so you're really just hoping, you know, that little bit of exposure, the positives that he had, he'll continue
07:01to do that and have more consistency.
07:03Now, as you said, it was a fun, it was a good, nice, fun little story before.
07:07Now, all right, man, you're getting all this money that this fun little story is gone with.
07:12He goes out there game one and goes 10 for 20 and throws an interception.
07:16That's a whole different mindset of where people are looking and saying, oh, man, what do we do here?
07:21And it doesn't help the fact that when you're, as we've seen, you're looking at this team and there's not
07:26a whole lot to talk about talent around you.
07:27There's not a whole lot around him.
07:29So, you know, you and a chances go do everything, go every play, just go run around and go make
07:34something happen.
07:35It might be a tough, tough way for him to get acclimated to being the guy.
07:39Hey, so, you know, we got two quarterbacks.
07:43It's been quiet because we talked so much about the young guys now, but we got two quarterbacks still out
07:48there.
07:49It is weird to be talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers for a second straight year waiting on Aaron Rodgers.
07:55And Kirk Cousins is sitting out there and I'm guessing he's kind of waiting on Aaron Rodgers, too.
07:59It looks like what happens here and what do you take on Aaron Rodgers and the fact that it looked
08:05like Steelers went all in on him again this year?
08:08Yeah, I just don't.
08:09The Steelers is kind of, to me, have lost their way.
08:11And I've been saying this for a while about them.
08:14And, you know, when your strategy after what you saw, what you went through with him last year, you know,
08:20they made the playoffs, but in the worst division.
08:22And, you know, they barely made it with the missed field goal there.
08:25And, you know, when you look at all his metrics, you watched him play very, very limited offense, kind of
08:30the bottom of the league and everything.
08:31And to be around that and then the implosion against the Texans, you know, a legit defense he finally played
08:37in the playoffs.
08:38And to look at all that as an organization and say, yep, we want to run that back, it's just
08:42baffling to me.
08:43I mean, this is really just wow.
08:45And in the vacuum, sure, but then you're looking at the AFC and all those other teams that, you know,
08:50you have to go through.
08:52And to think that this is the path is really, I just don't understand it.
08:56So it seems that they are holding out for him.
08:59And next year, hopefully we're not talking about this guy trying to come back one more time.
09:05Again, because I can't, you know, no one gets better.
09:08And I don't think we'll see anything better than what we saw last year or the last couple of years
09:11with him.
09:13Hey, Mark, you got to break this down for me.
09:16I've heard this just recently again.
09:18So these guys finish their season.
09:21They have great years, but now it's a combine.
09:23Then it's getting ready for pro day.
09:25How do you break it down when you watch tapes, when they play against good players, like for the Canes
09:30pass rushers, how they played in the playoffs?
09:34Now they didn't test as well or do as much.
09:37How important is a pro day and a combine versus how much you put into how they play on Saturdays
09:45against top competition?
09:47Yeah, it's amazing.
09:49Again, the workouts are determining who are good players.
09:52And, you know, that's really all you're talking about this time of year is who worked out great.
09:55The combine.
09:56Who worked out?
09:56Who worked out great?
09:57What about the football stuff?
09:59You know, let's get back to that.
10:00But it gets lost.
10:01There's such a long period of time to when they last play their game and then the actual draft with
10:06nothing football related happens.
10:08It's workout related and combine and private workouts and all of that and interviews.
10:13You know, all of that takes center stage.
10:15And that's easy to talk about because those are hardcore numbers that it's easier to say, well, he ran a
10:21four or five and this guy ran a four or four.
10:22He's faster.
10:23Well, not on the tape.
10:24It's harder to talk about it on the tape where, you know, the concrete numbers, people are more comfortable with
10:29that.
10:30And that's why there's so many mistakes.
10:32You know, the good teams just use this time period to massage their boards, get some finality on players, whether
10:38it's good or bad, and keep 90, 95 percent of what they saw on the film as the main reason
10:45why they're going to take a player or value a player as opposed to none of this stuff that has
10:50proven doesn't correlate to being good NFL.
10:53That's the thing there, Joey.
10:55Every year, like this doesn't correlate at all.
10:57But we still use it.
10:59They still go through the drill there, and it still gets talked about.
11:02That's what Jason Taylor literally just said yesterday.
11:06He was asked about his two defensive pass rushers on the outside, and he said, I told him to get
11:13ready for the next football season.
11:15I'm not worried about those workouts.
11:17They can see what you did on pro day and how you work and do background checks and stuff like
11:22that.
11:23I thought it was interesting.
11:24And the other one that's always amazing to me since I played till now, the 40-yard dash is still
11:31so sexy.
11:32Is it still important to the NFL when a guy like we talk about all the guys ran under 439?
11:38It was a zillion guys this year that ran fast.
11:42Yeah, it's really just becoming a track meet.
11:44I feel about it every year to come.
11:46It's just a track meet now.
11:47It's not a test of football player's speed.
11:49It's just a track meet.
11:51But NFL teams still use it, and they still value it.
11:55And, again, the better ones stay away from using that to determine good players.
11:59But, again, not having correlation, you know, Carnell Tate from Ohio State got crushed at the combine because he ran
12:06that.
12:06But then you, you know, he didn't ran super fast and all those other guys.
12:09But then you go look at the best receivers in the NFL, and they all ran that same thing he
12:13did.
12:13So instead of teams saying, well, wait a minute, this is the standard.
12:16This is amazing.
12:17This is what we want.
12:19They're looking for the guy that ran 4-3.
12:21None of those guys pan out.
12:23It's just hilarious how that happens.
12:25I know you've been doing a lot of these draft shows on NFL Network because I see you guys all
12:29on, and it's great in the afternoon to watch.
12:31Hey, I got to ask you, the Dolphins are looking at everything and trying to get a zillion picks here
12:37in the first three rounds like they have.
12:39Can you just tell me some of the deepest positions as you guys have been together and talking about on
12:45NFL Network?
12:46Give me a couple positions you like.
12:48Yeah, just for me, just the evaluation.
12:58The edge class is really good, and there's a mix of guys.
13:02You mentioned the two Miami guys.
13:04Bailey is completely different.
13:06Zion Young, and there's some interesting guys there.
13:10On the offensive side, it's a good O-line group.
13:13It's a solid O-line group as tackles and guards together where you can find, more so on the guard
13:19side,
13:19some kind of instant starters on the tackle side.
13:21A couple instant starters, and then some project guys that you have to work with.
13:25But overall, that O-line and the edge and corner group are really good.
13:30Mark, thank you, man.
13:32I really appreciate it, and you take care of yourself, and I hope I get to talk to you here
13:36in the next few weeks.
13:36Thanks.
13:37Of course.
13:38Anytime.
13:38All right.
13:39Mark Ross, NFL Network.
13:40Man, listen, don't forget, NFL Network provides live coverage of any...
Comments