- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean talk with College Football Expert, Georgia Bulldog, former 1st Round Pick by the Bengals, host of "See Ball, Get Ball," and Author of "Every Day Counts": David Pollack. They dive into the prospects that are in the mix for the Texans to potentially pick in this year's draft.
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00:00Payne and Pendergast with you.
00:01Sean Pendergast, Seth Payne here on a draft day edition of the show,
00:04and it's a pleasure right now to talk to our next guest.
00:08He is a college football expert.
00:09He's a former three-time All-American at the University of Georgia,
00:13first-round pick of the Cincinnati Bengals back in 2005.
00:16Seen him on ESPN for years and years,
00:18and he's got his own YouTube channel, Seedball, Getball, right now.
00:22Also has a book either coming out or out already.
00:25We'll find that out right now from David Pollak, who joins us on the show.
00:28How the hell do you write a book?
00:29Yeah.
00:29All right, David Pollak.
00:30That's a lot of work, man.
00:32Hey, that's pretty funny you say that.
00:34It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done.
00:38Hey, to be a defensive lineman and write a book without pictures,
00:42it's really difficult.
00:44I mean, so it definitely – I understand exactly what you say when you say that.
00:48Oh, you've got to actually, like, sit down for extended periods of time to do that.
00:53Yeah.
00:54You're right.
00:55No, you're 100% right.
00:56Yeah, as a defensive – you know that one of the best character traits,
00:59for a defensive lineman is to have undiagnosed ADHD.
01:02And so, kudos to you that you can manage to have an actual job.
01:07Yeah.
01:08And then actually write a book, too.
01:10That's exactly right.
01:12Undiagnosed – mine's diagnosed.
01:13It's just unmedicated, which is the same thing.
01:16It's got more juice that way.
01:19That's exactly why you say C-ball, get ball, too.
01:21When we started the pod, my buddy was like, how are you not calling it C-ball, get ball?
01:25Like, you talk about being dumb and being a defensive lineman.
01:28Ball moves, you move, you go get it.
01:30Like, why would you not call it C-ball, get ball?
01:31I was like, that's a really good point.
01:33So, no, it definitely takes some – it definitely takes some special intelligence to play defense.
01:38Y'all know that.
01:39Yeah.
01:39Yeah, it's a different type of – it's a different type of intelligence.
01:42Yeah, that's right.
01:43That's right.
01:43David Pollack joining us on the show.
01:45All right, so let's get into some of these prospects then, David, because, as you know,
01:50the Texans, one of the best defenses in football.
01:53They love Georgia guys.
01:54We love Kamari Lassiter.
01:55You're a Georgia guy.
01:57There's a few names on the board for the Texans, I know, that could be there at 28.
02:02They've been – a few of them have been mocked to the Texans in some of these mock drafts,
02:05specifically Christian Miller and C.J. Allen, the linebacker.
02:09Give us the David Pollack thumbnail sketch on both of these guys from being around the team.
02:13Well, I can tell you this.
02:14C.J. Allen is made of everything you would ever want.
02:17Like, he is – he'll immediately walk in a room with Will and those guys
02:23and absolutely fit the mold of what you want to be and what D'Amico Ryan – D'Amico is.
02:28Like, who he is, what he wants to be.
02:31The dude is made of all the right stuff.
02:32One of the most intelligent – one of the most – I mean, just everything about –
02:39like, you want him to marry your daughter.
02:40Like, he's got all of the right stuff, man.
02:42Everything inside that chest is really, really awesome.
02:45Got the football character.
02:47Got the smarts.
02:48Everyone listened to C.J.
02:50And everyone does what C.J. tells them to do.
02:52And his 40 was a big deal the other day.
02:54Like, running the – you know, running the 4-4s.
02:57Because he looks like he's a little bit more old school of a linebacker
03:00and a little bit thicker and he's got some weight to him.
03:02But he also can run sideline to sideline.
03:05You know, he's just – he's just made of all the right stuff.
03:08So, that would be a pick immediately when you say Lasseter
03:10and you say y'all love locker room.
03:12Like, in the defense and the way y'all hunt, he'd be perfect.
03:15Christian Miller, too.
03:17You know, he's a guy that you put in the middle.
03:19He came in as a pup.
03:20And I remember he kind of was figuring it out.
03:23And then you started to see he was – but he was a pup that liked to bite.
03:26And that's what you want, right?
03:27They'll bite young.
03:28They'll bite when they're old.
03:29And you watched him continue to develop, continue to work on his hands,
03:33getting off blocks, being more disruptive, growing as a pass rusher.
03:37But when you think about, you know, the Texans –
03:39when I think about the Texans, I think about interior, right?
03:41Offensive line and defensive line.
03:43You know, those are the areas probably where you're saying the biggest needs are.
03:46You know, Christian Miller, Caden McDonald, Peter Woods.
03:50Those are guys that all obviously are going to be talked about in you guys' range
03:54because 28 – it's a good thing, right?
03:57It's a good thing to be picking 28 now and not weigh in the top ten.
04:00Yeah, and, you know, the one other area that we talk probably a lot more about this locally
04:06than nationally is that at Edge Rusher right now, David,
04:09they don't have a couple of the veterans in Derek Barnett and Danico Autry
04:13that they had last year.
04:14They were a huge part of their Edge Rush.
04:16And I'm wondering, as we get these reports that maybe the Texans are going to trade up,
04:22of the Edge Rushers that might be there in the middle of the first round,
04:26is it Keldrick Falk or Mesidor or TJ Parker,
04:29which one of those guys do you think most fits the way the Texans operate?
04:34I would think Mesidor would be great.
04:36And I think Mesidor would be great for a couple of reasons.
04:39One, he's big, strong, powerful.
04:41He could play on the edge, but he could also be bumped inside.
04:44So if you wanted to do some sub-packages and you put him on the field as well
04:48with your other two terrors coming off the edge,
04:50like it could be really, really hard to stop and to be a pain in your butt.
04:54But he's also – you know who his coach was in Miami, right?
04:57Jason Taylor.
04:58And you watch Mesidor, you watch Bain, and you see exactly why.
05:03Like they're not guys that just rush the passer.
05:05Like Falk is a big, strong dude that's going to get there,
05:09but Mesidor is a big, strong dude that's pretty quick that has a plan.
05:12And if his plan gets taken away – my job as a pass rusher, man,
05:16is like I'm going to beat you with my first move.
05:18But if you overreact, I'm going to beat you with a counter.
05:21I need one really good pass rush move and one really good counter.
05:24And I think that's what's impressive about Mesidor, the ability to be able to do that,
05:28to be able to counter, to use multiple different moves,
05:31to see it as I'm approaching it, to know how to use my hands.
05:35So I would say Mesidor would be the guy that I would want to go up.
05:38If I'm going to trade up, he's the guy I'd want to go get.
05:40You know what, and I should have asked this immediately
05:43when we were talking about defensive linemen and our ADHD.
05:47Caden Proctor is a guy that intrigues me so much because he's an offensive lineman
05:52where I feel like back in the old days when people had more of an appetite
05:54for 360-pound nose tackles, it feels like everything that I'm hearing about him
05:59and reading about him, people wouldn't worry about it as much if you were a defensive tackle.
06:03But as an offensive lineman where they want guys who are a little bit more bookish, I guess,
06:08like what is it about Caden Proctor that seems to be scaring people off
06:13but they don't want to put it in print?
06:16Well, if you watch the first game of the season, you get all you need.
06:19And literally, the first game of the season against Florida State,
06:22and I know his weight was a talked-about issue, but he was, I think, close to, you know,
06:27when you're flirting or anywhere near 400 pounds, that's a lot.
06:30I'm not a dietician, but that ain't good.
06:32And when you're getting beat and you look slow, that's a part of it.
06:36And then the weight, he literally has talked about this a lot,
06:38and he started to shed pounds during the season.
06:40And y'all know this, you don't do that very often.
06:42Like, you're not usually cutting a bunch of weight during football season.
06:46You usually do that in the offseason.
06:47So I think you worry that he didn't cut weight in the offseason
06:50and get where he needed to get.
06:51But you see the athletic ability, obviously.
06:54I mean, that's a given.
06:55When you're taking direct snaps at 350-plus pounds and running the football
07:00and you're catching screens, I mean, come on, man.
07:03Like, you've got some athletic gifts.
07:05And so you can see the traits.
07:07They're absolutely there.
07:08And he's definitely a guy that is one of those guys that you say he's a freak.
07:12Like, he's a freak athlete but needs to get the discipline,
07:15the structure part, and the weight managed because, you know how it is,
07:19you're going to get fined otherwise.
07:21Like, you're going to start paying for that future.
07:23David Pollack is joining us here on Payne and Pendergast, Sports Radio 610.
07:27David, it feels like, you know, draft date this morning,
07:30the biggest story feels like it's Jeremiah Love
07:33and could he go to the Cardinals at three?
07:35Where could he go?
07:36Is he going to be the highest drafted running back since Saquon, et cetera?
07:40I'm definitely curious where Jeremiah Love is on your big board.
07:43And also, just what are your thoughts on a running back
07:47and the position value there with Jeremiah Love?
07:51Well, we got two outliers this year,
07:54and that's Sonny Stiles and Jeremiah Love.
07:56Like, linebackers, inside linebackers and running backs,
08:01their value in the NFL are not going up.
08:03They're going down, right?
08:04Like, I can find a guy in the second round to play that position.
08:07Jacob Rodriguez is one of the best in the country, right?
08:09Like, I can get him in the second round.
08:10I can get him later.
08:12So, to get him that high, that means one thing.
08:16They're aliens.
08:17That's what that means, right?
08:18Like, they have to be so much better than everybody else at that position.
08:22And Jeremiah Love's a freak, man.
08:23Like, you think about what he can do with the football in his hands.
08:28You think about his football character.
08:30You think about what he can do split out in the slot as well.
08:33You think about, you know, just the juice that he'll bring to an offense.
08:37I don't think there's any way he gets out of the top five.
08:39And that's saying something.
08:40Because that means I'm spending a lot of money on somebody when a lot of times I don't have to.
08:45And so, you've got to be so much – you've got to have so much of a superpower.
08:49And he does with his speed.
08:50He does with his elusiveness.
08:52He does with his ability to catch the football out of the backfield.
08:54So, I think Jeremiah Love's floor is in the top five.
09:00That's how good of a player I think he is.
09:02Where do you think Jadarian Price, his teammate, ends up going?
09:06Man, I love Jadarian Price.
09:08I mean, he is – if you watch him play, and I know he's not the biggest,
09:12but I would argue he's got some of the best feel for the running back spot that you'll see.
09:17Like, he understands holes.
09:19He feels people near his bodies and just quickly will, you know, chop or swim
09:23and just doesn't get tackled very often in the open field.
09:26So, I think he's a guy that's probably going to go in the second round because, again,
09:31you've got a bunch of guys like Washington and, you know, Jonah
09:34and a bunch of guys down the road that are going to be those –
09:36and what do running backs look like nowadays, by the way?
09:38They're 5'9", 220 clones, right?
09:41Like, they're bowling balls.
09:42Like, that's what they all look like.
09:44And that's why, you know, Jeremiah Love's a little bit of an outlier
09:47because he's a little bit longer.
09:49But he's got, obviously, that speed and still got the quickness.
09:51But I love Jadarian Price.
09:53I love his game.
09:54I think he's going to be an absolute great back.
09:57I just – again, the position and the value, I'm not taking him probably in the first round
10:02when I've got all these other things that, you know, that are going to demand the big check.
10:07And so, I want the fifth year on a wide receiver.
10:09I want the fifth year on a pass rusher.
10:12I want the fifth year on those guys, cornerbacks, you know, quarterbacks,
10:16not a fifth year that I'm really, really worried about paying a running back down the road.
10:20I was speaking with David Pollack, who wrote a freaking book, Everyday Counts.
10:24So, you can check him out there.
10:26But also, earlier, David, we were talking about how one of my biggest pet peeves the day after the draft
10:31of the first round is I hate hearing people say,
10:34I can't believe this team drafted this guy here when they could have gotten him around later.
10:39When – because nobody knows.
10:41Nobody knows exactly what these teams' draft boards look like.
10:44So, I'm doing this for my own mental health tomorrow.
10:47If the Texans take a pick of a player at number 28,
10:51who's a guy that people are just continue to put in the second or third round,
10:56but you suspect might actually be in the top 30 of a lot of other teams?
11:03Have y'all talked about Lawrence from UCF at all or USF at all?
11:06Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:07That's the name?
11:09Yeah, I was going to mention his name as a guy that the Texans might trade up for.
11:12Seth typed his name next to this question.
11:15Good job.
11:16Good job, David.
11:16Let's see why you wrote a book.
11:18Well, yeah.
11:20Hey, it was in the book.
11:21You should have read it.
11:23But I think that – listen, we're all masters of this draft thing after the fact.
11:28We've all got all the answers after the fact.
11:31It's just such a hard thing to do, right?
11:34Like, there's so many ifs, ands, or buts.
11:36You know what I love, guys, the most?
11:38I love that we actually have – like, we took that 10 minutes away,
11:42and now it's like 8 minutes and 30 seconds.
11:44Yeah.
11:44So, there's less time between picks.
11:47That's freaking fantastic.
11:48Like, I love that.
11:50Like, listen, if you haven't been doing this board for a year,
11:53and you're not doing the scenarios of ifs, ands, or buts,
11:56and everybody coming off, like, I think the trades are the things that always make it bananas.
11:59It always makes it fun.
12:01We never know what they're going to do.
12:03You know, there's several teams with two first-round picks, like the Jets, like the Browns, like the Cowboys,
12:08like, that could change things and make this very, very different.
12:11The Ty Simpson dynamic, like, does he go in the first round, and who's going to trade up?
12:16Somebody's going to take him in the first round.
12:17Like, there's no doubt.
12:18Like, somebody's going to want that fifth-year option.
12:21So, you know, the thing that's most beneficial to me about this draft for the Texans,
12:26I don't think you need edge players or wide receivers early.
12:30I don't think y'all are looking for that.
12:32Those are the two positions that are going to fly off the board early.
12:36Like, they're going to fly off the board, and then the tackles are going to fly off the board.
12:40Well, you guys need – well, you could use a tackle, too, I'm sure.
12:42But, like, guard to get D-tackles.
12:45Like, D-tackles, there's not going to be a D-tackle drafted in the top 20.
12:48Maybe the first one's at 28.
12:50You know, so I think the draft's set up pretty well for, you know,
12:54your position of needs to go down to you guys, I think,
12:57where you'll be in a good spot at 28 to pick a really, really good football player
13:02that's going to address a big need for you guys.
13:04And, obviously, to me, I watch – and what I've seen is the offense, you know,
13:08they need the most help, probably, on that side of the ball.
13:11And I think you'll have plenty of guys with Proctor or Pregnon or Vasantis
13:16or Max from Arizona.
13:17Like, all these guys are going to be there,
13:19and I think that can be immediate starters for you guys in the interior.
13:22I'm still freaked out.
13:23I thought you said Malachi Lawrence when I'm looking.
13:24I feel like I'm at the Shin Lim show again with the card trick or something.
13:27Yeah, I wrote it down on our show prep right underneath the question that I asked you.
13:31I went to DavidPollock.com, clicked on the Amazon link,
13:34and I just bought the Everyday Council.
13:37Nice!
13:37So there you go.
13:39You're the one.
13:40I appreciate that, man.
13:42Do you get push notifications?
13:44Hey, you know what else defensive linemen are really good at?
13:46They're good at cheating.
13:47So I saw it on your paper.
13:48I saw Malachi, and I cheated.
13:49There you go.
13:50There you go.
13:51I love that.
13:52I love that.
13:53So we now know you can get the book on Amazon because Seth just bought it.
13:57Everyday Counts is the book.
13:58See Ball, Get Ball is his podcast and YouTube stream.
14:01David Pollock, a college football expert.
14:04David, love the energy, man.
14:05Really appreciate you making time.
14:06Hope we get to do it again with you.
14:09Absolutely.
14:09Y'all have a great day, man.
14:10Thank you for buying the book too, brother.
14:11Yep.
14:11Thanks, David Pollock.
14:13He's thanking you for buying the book.
14:14I bought the audio book.
14:16I bought Art of War yesterday.
14:18Oh, you did?
14:18I did.
14:19Yeah, yeah.
14:19That was, for those who don't know, Seth is assigning me books to read now.
14:23Yeah, we're slowly turning this sports show into a book club.
14:26A library.
14:26Yeah.
14:27We're going to start talking like NPR hosts.
14:29Yeah, that'll go well.
14:30Sean, how did you feel about Sun Tzu?
14:33That is how they sound.
14:35Yeah, they're like under instructions to keep the decibel level lower or something.
14:38Yeah.
14:39Well, we're not going to do it.
14:42All right.
14:43That was David Pollock.
14:44He was excellent.
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