- 2 days ago
The GBAG Nation takes a look at the medical red flags surrounding Francis Mauigoa and how "leaked" injury reports could shake up the top of the draft. They evaluate the rising stock of Auburn’s Keldric Faulk and Akheem Mesidor’s polarizing age and injury history. Finally, they debate why the NFL is obsessed with measurables over actual game film, and more.
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00:00Two weeks and a day away from the NFL draft.
00:03Here's the Chief with football's finest.
00:05Yeah, lots to get to, especially when it comes to the draft, right after this.
00:09At the end of the day, it's about taking it a day by a time.
00:11A day and a day and a day, just continuing to do that.
00:16You cannot lose games in the NFL and still win.
00:22To win games, you have to win the game, not lose the game.
00:26It doesn't matter. He pulls another rabbit out of his head.
00:31Francis Maui Noah.
00:34Looks like he might have a bit of a back issue.
00:36Oh, no.
00:37That's a bummer for him.
00:39Yeah.
00:40As of an hour ago, all the insiders.
00:44Yeah, I mean, this could be a bummer for the Cowboys.
00:46If this is a guy that ends up slipping out of the top ten
00:48because teams are worried about his back,
00:50and now that's one less offensive player that's being taken ahead of you,
00:53like that's the collateral damage, I would say, from a Cowboys perspective, right?
00:58Yeah, it is.
00:58The good thing is, Field Yates, Ian Rappaport all coming out with
01:02this does not seem like it is going to impact his draft stock.
01:05Teams around the NFL are having their final medical meetings in the next week or so,
01:09and they don't believe that his stock's going to be affected by this.
01:13So unless, God forbid, something shows up in this medical recheck in Indy,
01:18I think he's going to be okay here because that absolutely would spoil our plans
01:22with these 11 picks ahead of us to get Caleb Downs.
01:25Yeah, this is a guy that is a surefire top ten pick for the most part
01:29and very well could be a top five pick.
01:32So apparently he had some back discomfort late in the season,
01:37and so when it comes to the combine rechecks,
01:40they went for some additional imaging here.
01:43So he started 42 straight games in college, all 16 this past season,
01:47so it doesn't seem like he's considered to be a candidate for immediate surgery,
01:53says Ian Rappaport, but that's not a ringing endorsement.
01:55It's like he's not going to need immediate surgery,
01:57but is surgery on the table at some point down the line?
02:00Can you expect by drafting this guy that he's going to need a back surgery
02:04at some point within the first few years?
02:07You know how a back can haunt you through your entire 20s?
02:10100%.
02:11You don't want to be signing up for that right now.
02:13I think you've got to call.
02:14Anytime you have a back issue, aren't you calling Tank Lawrence
02:17just trying to figure out, hey, what did you do here?
02:21Who was your doctor?
02:22What was the rehab like?
02:24What if we did Dr. Dossett?
02:25Did you go to overseas like Luca to get something special?
02:30Like just give me your itinerary post-back surgery,
02:34and I would just follow that because he's a guy that's been through quite a bit
02:37and still sustained a really nice career.
02:39Absolutely.
02:40Yeah, I mean you've got to get lucky, I guess,
02:42because not a lot of players can return to the height of their powers.
02:44I think it was two back surgeries for DeMarcus Lawrence,
02:48significant like disectomies.
02:50So, yeah, but I think a lot of it comes down to the physical therapy
02:54and how you can increase your strength and flexibility on the other side of it.
02:58For sure.
02:59Yeah, all of that very important, the core strength, everything.
03:01But that is definitely a bummer for a guy who is projected to be one of the better players
03:06in this draft having an issue like that.
03:09I'd still take him.
03:10Let's do this.
03:10He's a big man.
03:12Most big guys are going to have back problems.
03:14They're all fighting through.
03:15Sign me up at 12.
03:16Let's do this.
03:18Wow, at 12.
03:18Okay, so you weren't just talking as the Cardinals GM right there at 3.
03:22You were talking about the Cowboys.
03:23Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:24I mean, is it a silly idea to talk about him being available at 12?
03:27I mean, it sounds like it just from the insiders right now.
03:30They're saying this is not going to impact his stock at all.
03:33They don't expect him to fall.
03:34But if you were there at 12, yeah, I think you've got to talk about taking him.
03:36The dude's that good.
03:37Okay, how about our buddy Lance Zerline?
03:39I kind of feel like he's one of the cleanest players in this draft.
03:42Well, evidently not because of this back injury.
03:45No, but I thought, no, no, before the back injury.
03:47But up until, yes.
03:48Did you have him back before this?
03:50No, this is the first time we'd heard about this.
03:51He was a clean player up until then.
03:53Yes, yes, but we just talked about this back for about five minutes.
03:56No, but where do you have him, like, on your player stack?
03:59I think that he would probably be right there in the top, like, three or four.
04:03Probably number four where I would have him.
04:05This guy, I mean, you start talking about the two cleanest players in the draft,
04:09off the field, all that stuff.
04:11This guy is squeaky clean.
04:15And him, Downs, I think those are the two guys you're probably talking about for cleanness.
04:19But we're going to ask about that.
04:21We'll figure it out.
04:21We've got trainers around the league.
04:22We can find this out.
04:23Hope there's nothing wrong.
04:24No rechecks on Caleb Downs' knee?
04:27No word on that?
04:28I haven't heard anything about that.
04:29Yeah, that's a big one, too, because that's kind of gone quiet.
04:31But for a few days, like a month ago or whatever.
04:34We think the Chicago Bears leaked that out.
04:36The Bears leaked it.
04:37Yeah.
04:37Trying to get him to fall, probably.
04:38Hope that was nothing, Berger, and hopefully this is nothing for Francis.
04:41So, Lance Zerline, NFL draft guy, has put out a couple of things that he is sort of feeling as
04:51we inch closer to the draft.
04:53He says, digging around, he thinks that Keldrick Falk, the Auburn edge rusher, is going to go a little earlier
05:03than he's being mocked by most.
05:05So, I guess he's been kind of maybe falling into...
05:08Maybe the top ten.
05:09Could he go into the top ten?
05:11Like, could Cincinnati be a team?
05:12I'd be hopeful of that.
05:13Cincinnati's...
05:14Yeah, I could definitely see Cincinnati.
05:15Because Falk is super young.
05:17He's like 20 years old.
05:18And he's an outstanding run defender.
05:21Like, there is a world where a team looks at the skill set and says, yeah, that's actually what we
05:26need.
05:26Maybe we have a really awesome pass rusher, and we need a guy who can absolutely stop the run and
05:31develop at 20 years old to hopefully being at least a respectable pass rusher.
05:36But, I mean, the skill set of being able to stop the run at a super high level, being pretty
05:40dang big and athletic, and being that young, I mean, I get it.
05:43I don't like it for the Cowboys, because the Cowboys have a lot of guys that can hold up at
05:48the point of attack right now and stop the run.
05:49We need guys that can get after the quarterback.
05:51Falk's not necessarily that for the Cowboys, but maybe for somebody else he is.
05:54So, him going a little bit earlier than anticipated.
05:57Mesidor, Akeem Mesidor, the guy that Broaddus says would probably be the Cowboys pick at 12 if they're wiped out
06:04and they don't trade up.
06:05The edge rusher out of Miami.
06:07He might go a little later than Zerline's been mocking him.
06:11And this is a guy who, on the flip side of Falk, he's much older, 25 years old, and he's
06:15got a bit of an injury history from a couple of years ago.
06:18So, maybe he falls a little bit.
06:20He didn't test.
06:21We don't know how he is athletically.
06:23Right.
06:23Right.
06:24That's tough.
06:25Yeah, you saw him work out, but you didn't see him actually do the 40s and stuff like that.
06:30And he had a 12.5 sack season?
06:32He did, yeah.
06:33Yeah, I mean, really, really.
06:34If you just look at his season from last year, you're like, oh my gosh, this guy is absolutely fantastic.
06:39But he's 25 years old.
06:40Is this a 25-year-old that's dominating 20-year-olds?
06:43I mean, I guess that's some of the questions you asked.
06:45But I know a lot of scouts, I've seen like our guy Bob McGinn, who brought us, has quite the
06:49history with, has scouts that talk about, they think Mesidor's better than Bain.
06:54Like four different scouts talking about Mesidor and how they feel like he's better than Bain.
06:59So, but Lance Zerline says Mesidor probably falls a little bit more than maybe where he's been mocked to.
07:04And he says, go ahead.
07:06Did I hear that, did I hear that, that the Indiana Hoosiers were the oldest team in college football?
07:14Yes.
07:14Yeah.
07:1522 years old across the board?
07:18Just like on average?
07:19Yeah.
07:20Yeah, on average, I think they were 22 or 23.
07:22Like the Packers, like the Green Bay Packers, I think were 23, average of, age of 23.
07:2623, but he was like going up against older guys, Indiana, Miami, the matchups like that.
07:33Oh, for sure.
07:34Yeah.
07:34Yeah.
07:35Like in.
07:35I mean, I think generally like college teams are now older overall.
07:41Absolutely.
07:41With what's going on.
07:43I think we make.
07:44Eligibility stuff.
07:45Listen, I understand the whole age question.
07:48I do.
07:50I'd love to see Dallas get somebody to the fifth year option and actually pick it up.
07:54That would be kind of cool.
07:55Because they're worth it.
07:56Yeah.
07:57Somebody that could do that.
07:58But I, I just feel like to me though, that when you start to talk about age and college
08:03football, because of what happened with COVID, what's happened with NIL, guys are staying
08:09in the legal, I mean, staying in college a lot longer because they're just making more
08:12money.
08:13It's not worth it for them to come out.
08:14I think you're going to see, I think you're going to see a lot of these guys who are going
08:18to be in draft situations where, oh, he's 24 years old.
08:21He's 25 years old.
08:23You know?
08:23I think, I think he just happens to be, I think he's going to be the last one that
08:28we talk about this because college football is getting older overall.
08:33It just, for me, comes down to where your team is.
08:35I think the Cowboys are in a spot where it makes a ton of sense to take a 25-year
08:39-old
08:39guy.
08:39Right.
08:39He's ready to rip.
08:41You know, if you're coming off a two-win season and you're multiple years away from contending,
08:45I probably want to go with the 20-year-old dude.
08:47Agreed.
08:48And then finally, here from Lance Zerline, a decent chance that only two safeties go
08:52in the first round.
08:53That'd be Caleb Downs and then probably Thienemann, I think, for the most part.
08:58They're talking about your Toledo guy now a lot.
09:00McNeil Warren?
09:01Yeah.
09:01Man, that is my guy.
09:03And I think he's definitely worthy of a first-round pick.
09:08So, I wouldn't have a problem with any team that did that.
09:10But if he slipped to the second round, somebody's getting a heck of a player in the second round.
09:14But with safeties, you see it plenty.
09:15I mean, we're now seeing where, I know Schrager, you guys probably talked about that yesterday
09:20with him, with Downs being there at 12.
09:23Like, the value of safeties just isn't quite there across the league, even for a guy as
09:28clean as Caleb Downs.
09:29So, maybe only two safeties going in the first round.
09:32And would that be Thienemann and Downs?
09:35Would that be Downs and McNeil Warren?
09:36But I know a lot of people felt like McNeil Warren, Thienemann, and Downs for sure were
09:41going to be first-round picks.
09:42Maybe it's only two of them.
09:43Can I play this game where you guys are general managers?
09:47And tell me what your objective would be if you were picking in the top ten.
09:53Tell me your objective if you were picking in the top ten if you were a general manager.
09:58Your objective.
09:59I want a rookie pro bowler.
10:01Okay.
10:02Rookie pro bowler.
10:03What else we got?
10:05If I'm picking in the top ten, I generally want a premium position, and I want him to
10:13be a guy that I think could reach the ceiling of being an all-pro kind of player.
10:17Okay.
10:17How about you, Willie?
10:18Yeah, I mean, I'm looking to get a player that hopefully four or five years into his
10:22career, he's considered top five to ten in his position.
10:24Okay, so, like, nobody said we're looking for the best player.
10:29Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, that is basically what you're looking for.
10:31Where I just thought that would kind of be too easy of an answer.
10:34But, yeah, I just want a good football player.
10:35But it's that simple.
10:36It's that simple.
10:37It really is that simple.
10:38You know, Eric, you tagged it as the premium position.
10:41You know?
10:42You tagged it as that.
10:43And that's cool.
10:44If that's, seriously.
10:46But the whole idea in the top ten is to get the best player.
10:50You know?
10:50I think getting the best player, regardless of the position, is the most important thing.
10:55Especially in the top ten.
10:57You know?
10:57I'm not interested in passing on somebody just because it's positional value.
11:03I'm interested in getting the best player.
11:05Yeah.
11:06Because I surely do not want the struggle of this player not living up to it or bust it.
11:13If I take whoever I think the best player is, I think I've got a pretty good chance of that
11:18player working out for me.
11:20But if I limit myself, if I limit myself and say, well, I can't take this guy because he's a
11:27running back or because he's a safety,
11:29then I feel like I'm hurting my chances to getting the best player.
11:34Yeah, I get that.
11:35I get that for sure.
11:36I'm just saying in the top ten, if you want to go further back in the draft and you're picking
11:42at 25, 26 or something, I get it.
11:46But, man, my ass is on the line picking in the top ten.
11:50Yeah.
11:51And all of a sudden I'm kind of limiting the where I could.
11:54I think the Cowboys are hurting themselves by not considering.
11:57Bobby Belt is adamant about the whole thing with McCoy.
12:01He's adamant about that.
12:02If you're not going to take McCoy, okay, but he's one of the best players in the draft.
12:08Yeah, I agree.
12:09And that is at a premium position, and you could use that spot.
12:13I get it, though.
12:14If they're looking at his knee and they don't think medically it is just an appropriate selection, then I would
12:19get that.
12:19I'm just saying, though, when you start eliminating players, I think you're eliminating your chances of selecting the one that's
12:26going to help you.
12:27Yeah, 100%.
12:28I mean, the medical reasons would be the only thing that I could be like, okay.
12:32Like, if we don't think this guy's going to be able to play for us right away, and we're trying
12:34not to do the red flag deal, that makes sense.
12:37How about Bain, then?
12:38The short arms.
12:39See, that's not an issue for me.
12:40Yeah.
12:40I think Bain's a really good player.
12:42This is where Dane Brugler and I went at it.
12:44And Dane's like, well, he's an outlier.
12:46This guy's an outlier.
12:48You know, you're drafting a guy that's an outlier.
12:50I said this yesterday.
12:51I should be the guy that's crusting this thing up.
12:55But all these young guys and gals I scout with are all now, well, man, you can't.
13:00That's just short-arm thing.
13:02Short-arm guys don't work.
13:03I'm like, seriously, you watch this guy play?
13:07I mean, when do we stop watching the film and just, when do we stop?
13:12When do we let just measurables completely override everything that we believe in in these players?
13:19I think it's that the league knows that the players in the past.
13:24The league sucks at drafting, too, by the way.
13:25They do.
13:26But they also have data of guys that have come into the league with this limitation and how they do
13:31in this system.
13:33And when you're talking about playing gap and a half as opposed to shooting through one gap,
13:37I need to have the arm length to pull that guy to the other side and get to the opposite
13:41side of him to play the run game.
13:44So I wonder if the Cowboys scheme now is set up to let the shore-arm thing slide with playing
13:55gap and a half.
13:55Playing with a smaller corner.
13:57I mean, I've always felt like the smaller DBs have been knocked,
14:01like whether it was Antoine Winfield Jr. or Asante Samuel Jr.
14:04There's been a lot of good, tinier corners.
14:06And it's like, well, their arm length is not what it needs to be.
14:09Or they don't meet the size, the measurable requirements.
14:11It's all about the measurables.
14:12Well, these guys come into the league and they're damn good football players, right?
14:15But we're certain teams, they don't fit our arm length, our height, our weight requirements.
14:20So now we're going to just eliminate those players from our board.
14:23So you're just taking yourself away from possibly selecting really good football players.
14:27Like I thought Jacob Parrish was a guy like that, the corner from K-State.
14:30Had a pretty darn good rookie year.
14:32Cowboys were not going to be interested in him.
14:33Because the way their defense was set last year, he didn't fit those measurable requirements.
14:38But this year, it's different.
14:39And thank God that it is.
14:40Because you're morphing into the tinier DBs.
14:43I think I'm right about this.
14:44Who was the highest paid free agent this year in the cycle?
14:50Ooh, that's a good question.
14:51Who got the most money?
14:52Was it the center from the Ravens?
14:54Linderbaum with the short arms.
14:55The Cowboys didn't want to take him.
14:56I mean, he definitely was the highest paid center in the history of the sport.
14:58Short arms, smallest guy.
15:00Short arm, undersized guy.
15:02But you guys will tell me, and I'm not saying you guys.
15:05No, the NFL will tell you that.
15:06You guys will tell me.
15:07Oh, he's an outlier.
15:08Yeah.
15:09He's an outlier.
15:10Yeah.
15:10Yeah, you just gave that guy $35 million a year, something like that.
15:14Some crazy number.
15:15But he was coming out.
15:17All I heard was, oh, man, he's undersized.
15:20Yeah.
15:20He's got short arms.
15:21We wanted him.
15:22He can't handle the power.
15:24He can't handle this.
15:26Yeah, we wanted him on this show.
15:27You guys in the league just gave him.
15:29T.J. Watt over Taco.
15:30Yeah.
15:31Right?
15:31That's why they took Taco.
15:32They didn't see T.J. Watt put his hand in the ground.
15:35Oh, yeah.
15:35Right?
15:36Certain things like that.
15:37Well, right on.
15:38Football's Finest is in the books here.
15:40It's the G-Bag Nation on 105.3 The Fan.
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