00:00And then the Falcons have traded defensive lineman Rook Ororo for Mason Smith from the Jags.
00:06With the draft looming, this feels like it plays into that somehow.
00:11Does it change anything before Thursday?
00:14Well, Thursday, Friday?
00:16Not Thursday.
00:18I would tend to say.
00:19I wish Thursday.
00:20Yeah.
00:20Yeah.
00:21I mean, it's really odd because obviously I'll be a part of the draft show on Thursday and Saturday.
00:27I'm just kind of doing more producing roles on Thursday.
00:30I've always loved doing that show.
00:32It feels a little bit odd.
00:36Not odd, but just, I don't know, it just feels different not being able to have a pick in that
00:42round.
00:43But I don't, if anything, I would say it gives you a little more flex,
00:50and I say just a tiny bit more flexibility with if you want to trade out of 48 and trade
00:56back.
00:57and gather more picks.
01:02But not anything crazy.
01:06Like, I always felt like they were going to try to do that anyways.
01:12But, you know, maybe if you've got a couple of the defensive tackles that you like there at 48,
01:17and that's the best position.
01:20And that's, basically, those are the best players on your board and the highest ranked players on your board.
01:25And you've got a couple of them, and you can move back a few spots and know that one of
01:28them is still going to be there
01:29based on intel and how others draft.
01:32Then it maybe gives you a little bit more of a freedom to do that, basically.
01:38Yeah.
01:39No, I'm with you.
01:42I think if there was somebody they were in love with at defensive tackle,
01:45they would 100% still take that defensive tackle at 48 if he's available.
01:50Mason Smith, as much as I do think there's some upside there,
01:52I don't think Mason Smith or Rook, either one, stops you from doing much of anything.
01:57I think that when, I think Rook in and of itself, he's going to be always looked at as the
02:03guy he traded up to get.
02:04And we obviously understand now that Ian Cunningham doesn't really believe in that.
02:10He's just like, we need to value these picks.
02:12And, you know, we were known under Terry Fontenot for trading up in certain instances.
02:18And you always kind of wondered, I think every GM kind of has their own philosophy, trade up, trade back,
02:23whatever it may be.
02:25We've been in a position multiple times where I'm like, just trade back.
02:28You know, you don't, if you've got the quarterback, just trade back.
02:31And yet we didn't, multiple times.
02:33So I think that's unfairly going to be linked to Rook, because Rook's not the one that made the trade.
02:37But I think this is just, both of these guys fit the profile of their new teams.
02:42And it's simply, hey, let's see if we can shake some things up and get, you know, better horizons.
02:47Yeah, I've heard some even call Rook a reach at 35.
02:50It's funny that you say that.
02:52It's not, you just said about, it's not like Rook traded, like, it's not like Rook traded up for himself,
02:58guys.
02:58He didn't be like, he didn't call Terry Fontenot and be like, you better trade up for me.
03:02I mean, you know, like, and I think the first year for Rook, it was part of probably maybe what
03:09their plan was,
03:10but also the system they use.
03:12And then Ulbricht probably looked at it, well, I've got, I looked at it like this, and they're not the
03:18same player.
03:19And they're not, well, they're not built the same.
03:21But I always felt like maybe Brandon Dorliss, how much he came along in last year,
03:30kind of gave you a little bit of luxury to be like, okay, we have our guy that can knife
03:34through the backfield
03:35and make plays against a pass game and at times a run game.
03:38And we have a few other guys like that, we, Rook is expendable.
03:43Let's go get a guy that can maybe fill one of the voids of being a run stopper.
03:47Is he, is he a double team eating, run stopping defensive tackle, Mason Smith?
03:57Not from what I saw, but one thing I did see is, is he's a guy that can stand,
04:03when he's singled, he can stand, he can stand that offensive lineman up.
04:08He doesn't get penetration necessarily, but he, I didn't feel like he got moved either.
04:13I felt like the one thing he did was he made plays a yard past the line of scrimmage
04:21because of his, he didn't quit on plays, which I thought was good.
04:24But, but, but then again, it doesn't scream to you that this is a guy that solves all of your
04:30run defense problems.
04:31100%.
04:31Well, what are the biggest differences between these two?
04:34Because you were saying they fit their new team's profiles a little bit better.
04:38But when I look at the stats, they're, they're pretty similar.
04:41Yeah.
04:41And I, I would, I think a lot of people are doing that and I will caution you against that
04:46because having watched the tape and kind of broke down where his, where Mason Smith's stats come from,
04:53they're not ones that you're going to stand on and be like, oh, look, you know, there's,
04:57you're really beating up on the Titans.
05:00You know what I mean?
05:00You're really beating up on, I think, Las Vegas.
05:04The Raiders were one.
05:05I don't even want to hear about the stats in that.
05:07Like, I'd rather you just tell me he had zero stats because I'm now I'm looking at his stats going,
05:11I don't, that didn't mean as much as it did five minutes ago.
05:13It's funny because I, I wrote that, I started to write that down this morning.
05:20Like, well, so far all I've seen him do is good stuff against bad teams.
05:24I did see, I did see him do something good against Seattle, but then, but then the first
05:31thing I thought of was, well, I didn't, and Mike and I had watched him extensively.
05:35Their guards.
05:36Their guards weren't very good.
05:37Their guards were not that good.
05:39Especially at right guard where I saw him do some damage.
05:43Look, the reason people are talking like that is because he's an inch taller and played last
05:52year about almost 30 pounds heavier than Rook.
05:57Because Rook is 6'4", 295-ish.
06:00And last year, Mason Smith looked closer to 320-ish.
06:06And Mike pointed that out earlier.
06:09There, he's, he's just a bigger body guy that's going to maybe, he, he, to me, the
06:13biggest difference is I think Rook didn't necessarily, wasn't necessarily a guy that
06:17was going to play that one technique.
06:20And Mason Smith's a guy that you could, if you wanted a guy to slide there, he could.
06:24Yeah.
06:24And I think, like I said, I think Allie, I think a lot of people are doing that.
06:27You, I think it's easy to say apples to apples and defense tackle, defensive lineman,
06:32interior defender, whatever it may be.
06:33But to me, and I'd be curious to know from Jeff Overkin, Nate Allie, what was like
06:37the actual thing that Mason Smith can do that stuck out to you when you watched his
06:42tape?
06:42Because of course they're going to sign off on the trade.
06:44I do think that laterally there is some upside of him being able to move laterally.
06:49He wasn't asked to do it a ton in Jacksonville from the little bit I've seen of him, but
06:52he does kind of skate down the line of scrimmage better.
06:55That's just not what we've done in the past.
06:57And I said this the other day, talking about draft prep, like what is, what do we need?
07:01What do we, I think we get so caught up into looking at Jeff Olbrick and saying, well, we
07:05need to find a guy that's better at doing this than that player was, and we're going
07:09to find just a better version of that player.
07:12We don't, we don't know that that's what Jeff Olbrick really wanted last year in some of
07:16these players.
07:17And I think Ruka Rora was a prime example of, hey, because remember the interview when
07:21Jeff Olbrick took over, it's like kind of defense to run.
07:23He's like, dude, there's not, there's not even a scheme anymore.
07:26You don't even say three, four or four, three hardly anymore.
07:29You, you, you have both, you have a hybrid, you have the option to go in three, four, four,
07:34three scheme and play different styles.
07:36And I think if we get caught up in, hey, you know, we want to create violence in the
07:41backfield and we want to penetrate into the backfield and make sure we make plays, then
07:46sometimes we lose out on the players that can two gap and skate down the line of scrimmage
07:50and play in different style of defenses that you probably need when it's third and one
07:54or on the goal line.
07:55And those, that's the kind of guy that I think we got Mason Smith.
07:58And I don't want to get too technical, but I, I, I think that there's something to
08:03be said about what that whole statement about, you know, that when I started getting in this
08:09business, like three, four, four, three, and then, uh, I can't remember who it might've
08:14been Brian Van Gorder, uh, or Mike Nolan here and said, well, we're a three, four with
08:18four, three tendencies, or we're a four, three with three, four tendencies.
08:21And then it became that, you know, the, the common knowledge was you're in nickel 70% of
08:25the time.
08:25Right.
08:26And then it became, well, we're just, we, we just, what Mike just said about what
08:30Ulbricht's comments, I feel like it's more about, are you an attacking defense where you
08:35want your lineman penetrating down upfield?
08:38Or are you more of what we're going to try to stall everything right there and let our
08:44linebackers kind of pick through the, the, the, the, the, the, the kind of like the trash
08:49there and, and, and, and make this place to me, Ulbricht in his press conference, when
08:56he was retained, came out and was like, I looked at the Seattle and the new England method
09:01where they had, they had everything in defense on, they had big guys and they had a guys that
09:07could attack and just how good they were aligned.
09:09And I think that they are just trying to collect a few bigger bodied guys to stall in that middle.
09:14That's a hundred, like a hundred percent how I'm thinking of this is we got to stop saying,
09:18well, this guy fits the profile of Brandon Dorlis.
09:21So we're going to go draft that kind of profile.
09:23It's just not how it, it's not how it seemingly works.
09:26And I think when you look at Mason Smith, I think, I think opposite ends in the spectrum,
09:30another way to look at it.
09:31If I told you, we traded Brandon Dorlis for Eddie Goldman, right?
09:37That's your, you're okay.
09:38They'd both play interior defensive line, but they could not be more opposite.
09:41And I think that we have kind of gotten caught in situations where we want an attacking style
09:45defense, which is smaller players that can get up the field.
09:49And then you get a short yardage or you get an obvious rundowns and you're like, we, we,
09:53we don't have that guy.
09:54Yeah.
09:55We don't have that guy.
09:55And you need, you need multiples of both.
09:59And I think we have multiples of, of, of the Dorlis, Rook, but not multiples of the runs,
10:06the Eddie Goldman type, right?
10:07And so that's why I don't think anything's off the table defensive tackle wise at 48.
10:14I just don't, I don't believe it.
10:15And if you think that, I think you're, you're thinking that they're going through this draft
10:19just to pick up needs and they're not, they're saying best player available, but yeah,
10:24need comes into it, but they're not just going to say, well, we don't need that anymore.
10:27Let's go get this.
10:28I'm curious if you guys think more trades will happen before the draft gets kicked off on
10:33Thursday, but we'll have to bring this back up at eight.
10:35Got to say one thing for sure though.
10:36I am going to miss Rook's smile.
10:38When we got to talk to him, smiled through the entire thing.
10:41We asked him about the fights that were happening during training camp.
10:43He was like, Oh, I was in there.
10:44Big smile on his face.
Comments