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  • 2 days ago
The Falcons are picking at No. 48 next week, but they should have several options to choose from on the offensive and defensive lines. Who would top their potential wish list?
Transcript
00:00Our wish list for the Falcons covered the linebacker spot.
00:03I want to move on to the offensive tackle.
00:06And, of course, we still don't know whether we're going to be trading back,
00:09still going to be picking at 48.
00:11We just don't know at this point.
00:12But as far as your wish list,
00:13who would you want to see drafted in the offensive tackle spot?
00:17So, I like what Mike did with the linebacker.
00:21I did something similar with the offensive line position at the tackle.
00:26But what I did, and my thinking, I should say,
00:30because I don't think you're going to –
00:35I prefer to go front seven or wide receiver with the first two picks
00:40on the defensive side.
00:42Either fill it with a defensive tackle and a linebacker
00:45or defensive tackle and maybe a wide receiver.
00:48I would agree with that.
00:49Because I think – I just personally, what we have there is good.
00:53I also am a Jawan Taylor hater, as you all know,
00:58as far as – he played at Florida.
01:00I watched him.
01:01He's a walking penalty.
01:02But I think the guy's immensely talented.
01:05I really do.
01:06He's got – he's way – if you were comparing talent and stuff,
01:11I believe he's more talented than Caleb McGarry.
01:13I'm a big Caleb McGarry guy.
01:15So, I was thinking about this, and there's a name who I think you can get
01:20in later rounds who is a third-team All-SEC, played left tackle,
01:27and I think that he would be there and that maybe you could move him
01:33to right and cross-train him and have him as your swing tackle.
01:37His name is Austin Barber.
01:39He played at Florida.
01:41Now, here's the problem.
01:43I've seen him at left tackle, and I've seen him have problems.
01:46The guy at the edge from Texas A&M, the guy that's really quick off the ball,
01:54he ate him alive.
01:55He ate him alive.
01:56In fact, the biggest thing that bothered me was Billy Napier never gave him help
01:59until the very end, but he ate Austin Barber alive.
02:02Yeah.
02:02But I wonder, and I wanted to get Mike's take on this, this is a guy you couldn't
02:08move to right tackle, train for a year, maybe be a swing tackle type position
02:16since he's played left in college.
02:18I just wonder how hard it would be for him to move to right and go over there
02:23and kind of cross-train at both those positions, and then maybe if the Jawan Taylor
02:29experiment's not working, if he gets injured, or if after, if he plays himself
02:34into a big deal somewhere else, he couldn't slide into that right tackle spot.
02:38Yeah.
02:39So I've seen a little bit of Austin Barber, and I do remember exactly what you're
02:42talking about.
02:43It's like frustrating.
02:44It's like, okay, you know this guy's going to struggle.
02:46It's the Caleb McGarry against T.J. Watt conversation.
02:50It's like, oh, man, he's getting ate alive.
02:52Yeah, but at what point should you have looked over there and gone,
02:55this is going to be an issue.
02:56We should probably make sure this is not an issue.
02:59So I do remember Austin Barber from that.
03:01The question I have when it comes to Austin Barber is, when you say later in the
03:05draft, where are we talking?
03:06Are we talking fourth or sixth?
03:08Because that's a massive difference for me.
03:10Well, again, I think he's probably going to go in the fourth round.
03:16You're supposedly going to pick up more picks, so maybe you'd have an extra one
03:21there.
03:23He's, I don't know if he makes it, I'm not sure if he's there in the sixth,
03:26because he's pretty good at the run game.
03:29In fact, he kind of, if you read about him and you watch him, he's got some McGarry in
03:37him.
03:37Good in the run block.
03:39He's actually pretty good at pulling and doing some of the stuff that you want to do.
03:44He's very physical in that.
03:45He's just a little slow with his feet, I feel like, and you tell me if I'm wrong or right
03:52or what you saw, because I think that's what hurts him when he was facing quicker guys.
04:00It's funny to look at this because the guy that you selected in everything you're saying
04:05about him, he's like the exact same prospect as the guy I went with.
04:09I went with Demetrius Crownover.
04:10He's a right tackle from Tex A&M.
04:12Now, he's going to be ranked a little bit higher than an Austin Barber.
04:15I think he's definitely a solid fourth rounder, end of third rounder, but their measurables
04:21are like exactly the same.
04:226'7", 3'18", outstanding length.
04:25Crownover used to be a tight end and transitioned over to playing offensive line.
04:30He pulls well.
04:31He ran the counter scheme there at Tex A&M.
04:33His feet are a little bit slow, but his strength and his length and everything else that come along
04:38with it are very, very good, and he has shown the ability to kind of cross-train and play
04:43both positions, and I do think he'd be a good developmental prospect.
04:49I haven't watched enough of Austin Barber to sit there and go, okay, I trust his feet that
04:54he can do it on both sides.
04:55A skill set to be a swing tackle is very, very unique.
04:59I wasn't ready to do that until three or four years, third year I think I was doing that.
05:05In my career, it's something that I had to develop over time.
05:09Numerous pass sets on the left side, numerous times against John Abraham.
05:16You have to develop that over time.
05:18It is intriguing to me, though, that we both went with almost the exact same profiles.
05:21This is the kind of guy that you're going to find in the mid-rounds that you can develop
05:25that can become a guy at a certain point.
05:28You just hope that you don't have to rely on them in year one.
05:31How far apart do you think you guys are on defensive tackle?
05:34I don't know, man.
05:35The floor is yours here.
05:36Now I'm very curious where you went here.
05:38Well, I'm greedy.
05:42And here's the thing.
05:43All second-round picks?
05:44Well, yeah, it has to be.
05:47I'm a Caleb Banks stan.
05:52He's everything.
05:53And look, when I say that, I just didn't want to talk about Christian Miller
05:57because I feel like he gets talked about a lot in this city,
06:02and I think he's phenomenal.
06:03I would take Christian Miller in a heartbeat.
06:05Where'd Caleb Banks go to school at?
06:06Just asking for the crowd.
06:08It's not about that.
06:11I know that it sounds lazy.
06:13It's crazy.
06:13You know why I love Caleb Banks?
06:15Because he's 6'7", 330.
06:19He can – go ahead.
06:21Just do it.
06:226'7".
06:236'7".
06:23It happened twice.
06:25We skipped it the first time.
06:26We had to put it in there the second time.
06:29He can play anywhere on the line, Mike.
06:31That's the thing for me, especially at a position that you, that we,
06:36that everyone that follows this team, that pulls this team,
06:40thinks you need, is a big guy in the middle.
06:42But you can move him out there, depending on if you've got some stand-up guys,
06:48and he can be on the end of the line, right?
06:50He can do everything.
06:52I don't – again, the problem is, is we're talking about – the problem with
06:58this draft is – and, Allie, we talked about this the other day – you don't
07:03know what position's going to go on a run.
07:05And one of these positions we're talking about is going to go in a first-round
07:09run, and a Caleb Banks or a Christian Miller could be gone at 31 or 40,
07:17and you never see him.
07:19Let's talk about this from an administrative standpoint, as if we were Ian Cunningham,
07:23slash – and I'll go to Jeff Ulbricht.
07:26Because I talked myself out of this exact talking point.
07:29You said he can play anywhere up and down the line of scrimmage.
07:31And I went into this thinking, okay, I'm going to find somebody that can play
07:34multiple positions.
07:35That's what we've done.
07:36We've got Rook, and we've got Dorliss, and we've got Zach Harrison, and all these
07:39guys can play nose guard, and the B-gap, and five technique, and everything else up
07:44and down the line of scrimmage.
07:46And then I talked myself out of it because I started looking at it, wondering if that's
07:52not what we need.
07:53Maybe, maybe what we need, and maybe what Ian Cunningham will covet, and maybe what
07:59Jeff Ulbricht ultimately would desire in a situation like this is a normal 330, 320-pound
08:06nose guard who can two-gap right there in the middle.
08:09Maybe he says, look, on second down and six, we're going to play four-cross, and we'll
08:14play Rook, and we'll play Dorliss, and we'll play all these guys, but when it comes to
08:17these obvious rundowns and early first and ten kind of things, we're just going to play
08:22a nose guard.
08:22And so I went with a guy in Lee Hunter, who's a defensive tackle at Texas Tech.
08:28I think that he has, he is strong hands, which we've talked about before, great at anchoring
08:34on double teams, can really hold the point of attack at one-on-one.
08:37And I also think he has the power, and this is the key, to actually push the pocket in
08:44pass rush.
08:45Now, Rook, swim move.
08:47Dorliss, swim move.
08:48David Onyman, swim move.
08:49A pocket pusher, Bo.
08:51It's something we've talked about, and it's something about flushing these guys out to
08:55these edge defenders that we drafted last year.
08:58How do you get Jalen Walker to get more sacks?
09:01It's not just having somebody on the other side.
09:03It's having somebody in the middle that can walk that center back into the quarterback's
09:07lap and force that guy to flush.
09:09So I went with more of a prototypical A-gap defender in Lee Hunter from Texas Tech.
09:146'4", 3'18".
09:15He is a tree stump of a defender, and I really like his skill set.
09:20Can I ask you about a guy, then, if you want to talk about this position?
09:24Sure.
09:25How do you feel about Dominique Orange?
09:27Big citrus from Iowa State.
09:29He is literally what you just talked about.
09:33He's 6'2", 320-ish, 325-ish.
09:38He's that guy.
09:39Yeah, he is.
09:39He's that guy, and he could be there, too.
09:41Lee Hunter, let me tell you something.
09:44If they draft Lee Hunter Saturday when me and Mike are doing the draft show with Grant,
09:51I'll be all smiles.
09:52And I know we're going to get into this, but he is my, right now, I think he fits not
09:59only
09:59what we need schematically, but I think he fits where you get him.
10:02I think he's a second-round draft pick, much in the way you just talked about, Caleb Banks.
10:06So when you start putting the draft together and we start talking about these top prospects,
10:09I start looking and go, what can we get where?
10:12I'm piecing together who's second, who's third, who's fourth.
10:15I think he fits right in the skill.
10:16I don't mind Big Citrus.
10:19I didn't think his first step was as good as Lee Hunter, and that's why I went with
10:23Lee Hunter right there.
10:24I'm telling you, guys, if you don't know Lee Hunter, look him up a little bit.
10:29We would all love.
10:31Just watch the playoff game.
10:33He's unbelievable.
10:33Watch the playoff game in the Orange Bowl.
10:35He's unbelievable.
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