- 2 days ago
Many believed the Lions would draft Monroe Freeling, instead they went with Clemson tackle Blake Miller, do you approve?
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00:01Good morning. Congrats. You made it to Friday. Jim Costa. John Jansen
00:05Gov and Greg behind the glass. Lions beefing up that offensive line
00:11watering the garden as some would say. Good morning. What'd Doug say?
00:18Balake Miller out of Clemson. Why did I think that it sounded like Doug
00:22but obviously do you think Keegan Michael Key sounds like Doug in that
00:26little yeah clip there a little raspy voice. We got to have him say Javier
00:31Bays to do a real test. Yes. Yeah. Have Doug say that. Yes. Anyway I'm
00:38excited that we get to say the word Balake quite a bit now that we have Blake
00:42Miller as our starting right tackle. So let's start with initial reaction to
00:48the pick and then the obvious question for you John is you were Monroe Freeling
00:52guy. Why Miller over Freeling? I think there is a higher floor and maybe
01:00ultimately not as high of a ceiling as Monroe Freeling and Monroe Freeling
01:05probably would have kept Penny Sewell at right. So you don't have any miss match
01:11but Blake Miller at right tackle. I mean he's got 54 starts there and we know
01:17that Penny Sewell has some starts in the NFL there. He played his college career
01:22there. So I don't know that there's there's much of a give and take there but
01:27I think Blake Miller for the Lions for Dan Campbell for Brad Holmes. They're
01:34probably looking at the number of starts the experienced coming in 54 starts
01:40versus what was it 15 for maybe just a hair more for I think yeah for Monroe
01:47Freeling and obviously not the same as a quarterback and we'll talk about Ty
01:52Simpson and and that whole thing with the Rams but I think there is value in
01:58there's more proof that Blake Miller is what he is that you are getting what
02:04you're purchasing with that 17 pick versus well we what we liked what we saw
02:11and I think Monroe Freeling is gonna be a really good offensive tackle and like I
02:16said I'm happy with Blake Miller. I have no problem with this pick and I'm
02:26excited. I think it's it's exactly what this team needed whether it was Monroe
02:31Freeling or Blake Miller both of those guys we had talked about get now you
02:37you've you've solidified that offensive line all now who's gonna step up at that
02:42left guard spot the competition there. So this gets a John Jansen stamp of
02:47approval. Oh, yeah, Blake Miller. Yeah, I don't think there's any question we had
02:51talked about it. We didn't sit there and say oh Blake Miller boy if they go there
02:54we didn't put him in a Caden Proctor category and when Cater Proctor was taken off
02:59the board. I thought you know when teams draft and we're like I'd such a
03:04Baltimore pick or you know it John Harbaugh is it's such a John Harbaugh pick
03:09now that the Baltimore is up in with the Giants Steelers. That's such a Steelers
03:14pick. I thought that was such a Miami pick. Yep. And and a couple of people had
03:20texted me a lot a lot of sigh of relief from I'm sure a lot of Lions fans and
03:25you're exactly right and I text back. I'm like it's such a Miami pick. Yeah
03:29Blake Miller is a guy that I had been pushing in the tackle conversation for
03:33well over a month. Mm-hmm. What I love about him. He checks almost every box.
03:38What you yeah, that's what Brad thinks the same thing as you do. Well, there you
03:42and Brad are just became best friends. We are best friends. This is a pick I really
03:45like. So in addition to hey, he can play right tackle. You know, we can play right
03:52tackle 54 consecutive starts Iron Man John. He didn't miss any games. He only
03:58missed one practice and this is when it really started to solidify the profile
04:01for me. Doesn't that feel like a Detroit Lion a guy who loves football who the
04:06only practice he missed is because he had wrist surgery and then he was right
04:09back out there the next day. He has a high school wrestling background. I kind of
04:14like that in the profile of offensive lineman. He was a team captain and and I'm
04:18giving you a lot of intangibles, but the Duke could just play football. I mean he
04:21had an athletic score that was nearly perfect and nine point nine. He's big
04:27long arms. He moves. I trust him to stonewall NFL pass rushers and now I can
04:34have the luxury of taking him at right tackle because I know Penesul could play
04:39either tackle. This gives them bookends. Here's the other thing and I went back
04:43and watched more obviously Blake Miller film last night. Missed a large part of
04:49the last half of the second first round there because I was watching Blake Miller
04:52film and here's what you get and it's really the difference of a guy that's
04:58played 17 snaps versus a guy that's played 54. When you watch him in pass
05:02protection, he's he's really good at throwing the change up pitch and by that
05:08I'm talking about. Okay, it's not always a if he's if if he's if he's not cover me
05:13up at all. I've got to make I've got to take these two steps if he's a wide nine.
05:18I've got to take these three to five steps. It's the change up pitch of a maybe
05:24he's not covering me up, but I could still jump him and I could throw him off by
05:29doing that and you watch the way he uses his hands. It's sometimes there's a right
05:34punch. Sometimes a left punch. Sometimes there's a fake and the ability to clean
05:39a guy's hands if you know, you're going to get a guy into your chest at some
05:42point giving up a bull rush and it's how do you react when that happens and it's
05:48a much smoother transition for a guy that's got 54 snaps who's done it seen it
05:54and this works this doesn't work. I feel comfortable in experimenting with these
05:58things. That's where I think he's ahead of Monroe Freeling. Monroe Freeling is
06:03going to get there. They may have had both on their board, but the difference
06:08was hey, we can plug and play Blake Miller more than we felt we could plug and
06:13play Monroe Freeling. Is that a way to look at it? I think as a rookie you're
06:17going to get maybe a much more reliable performance and you're asking them to go
06:22and right left tackle all that stuff. It's like when we were talking with with
06:26Ross Tucker the other day you're he is right in regards to pass rushers are much
06:33more free in these days to go right and left and there are plenty of guys even if
06:39they don't switch sides that are left defensive ends rushing over the right
06:43tackle it that that is where I disagree with him is if a right tackle gets beat a
06:52quarterback staring right at it. Yeah, you know right-handed quarterback if a left
06:56tackle gets beat now all of a sudden hey, you know, you might lose a head in
07:01regards to you know, you get your head knocked off because you just don't see it
07:05coming. Is it fair to say the gap used to be bigger like it felt more important
07:10that your best tackle was on the left side years ago and now that gap your most
07:14athletic tackle. Yes, and now that gap has closed where hey defenses are bringing junk
07:20junk from right. Well, it's like how we look at Aiden Hutchinson Aiden Hutchinson
07:26could line up at all four spots. Yeah, and you know, he can rush over the right
07:30he can rush over the left. That's that's you know, it doesn't matter where he lines
07:32up. So and more defenders are like that. I still think Monroe Freeling has a higher
07:39ceiling, but the gamble of taking anybody in the draft is will they reach it?
07:44Will they reach it? Yeah, I felt like Penny Sewell gave them the luxury of just
07:48taking the best tackle that I don't think they forced a right tackle. I think
07:52the right tackle was the more polished player and they also aren't short
07:56changing him on his ceiling either John. We talk about potential if you've got the
08:01long levers if you're athletic if you're coachable if you're a high IQ tough
08:06football player, you're gonna play a lot of games. You're gonna learn a lot. You're
08:11gonna grow. I don't feel like they're really sacrificing too much on the ceiling
08:14front and they're getting the more reliable dependable plug-and-play dude and
08:18because they had Penny Sewell they could take a right tackle knowing that he could
08:22do the job at left tackle highlighting what he did at Oregon what he did his
08:26very first game in the NFL on the left side for eight games. Yeah, for a good
08:30chunk of his rookie season and there's a blueprint here Tristan Wirfs who is one
08:34of those elite offensive tackles started his career right in the NFL and now has
08:38moved over to left and is again still one of the best tackles in football. I have
08:41no hesitation about moving Penny to the left side and it allowed them to take
08:45the tackle they felt was better in the first round right and the biggest
08:48difference because you've heard TJ talk about this you've heard me talk about
08:52this of taking a guy and you know from right to left left to right right it is
08:56difficult. We talked about it with Taylor Decker last year. Why not just put Penny
09:00Sewell over there? Well, Taylor Decker has always played left tackle and for me
09:06moving to the left side at the end of my career playing left guard like it was a
09:11huge challenge because I had only played on the right side right-handed
09:17stance Penny Sewell doesn't have that he has played both sides equally as
09:22dominant. Yeah, I'll never forget. We were on a training camp a couple years ago
09:26and Graham Glasgow, you know, we asked him about moving from one side to the
09:29other and I said just playing dumb like how hard is it? He gave a look like oh
09:33no, it's oh, yeah muscle memory. It's a whole thing. Yeah, you don't want to
09:37displace people how your brain is wired like it just it gets wired a certain way
09:41and it's really hard to switch things over even if you're just hearing and how
09:49you associate how plays are called some text coming in want to get that instant
09:53reaction from Lions fans Blake Miller's the pick tackle out of Clemson. He's a
09:57name. We spent some time discussing text says it sounds like they really loved
10:03Blake Miller, but Freeling was enough as a backup option. If Blake Miller was gone,
10:07they didn't have to force a trade up. No, and here's if we're going to nitpick
10:16could they have traded back? You never got some. That's a question like you never
10:22know, especially since there was starting to be a run on tackles and I mean nine
10:27offensive lineman went last night. If you are convinced that this our guy then just
10:30take him at 17 and that's we get to mock draft brained as sports fans or Blake
10:36Miller in the PFF simulator that you did while you were sitting on your couch would
10:41go in the late 20s. So when the Lions take him at 17, it's a reach. It's like
10:45hold on. They evaluated him as a plug-and-play starting right tackle with
10:51upside the idea that they should try to game the system and move back six or
10:55seven spots and cross their fingers act decisively and with certainty get your
11:01guy. I suppose you could make the case they could have traded back. I have no
11:07hesitations with that and here's the other thing about move a penny all over
11:11because I know there's going to be a whole lot of people say well he's been
11:13there for such a long time. You're right. He has and he has been amazing. It's the
11:19ability to get over there at this time of year, right? It's not a we heard from
11:25glam gram at the end of the season while they asked me to move to center in in one
11:30week or they asked me to move over to the other side within one week like that's
11:34not enough time to work on that. Penny Sewell is will have and has had as much
11:40time as you would ever want to go and do something that he grew up doing. He grew
11:47up as a football player and I'm not talking about at the age of eight or nine. I'm
11:52talking about from 18 to 20 playing on the left side. He came into the league. He
11:57played on the left side. He knows what it looks and feels like he'll be just fine as
12:02a twitch comment puts it. That's his natural position. So now you're going to play
12:05both tackles at their natural positions. You upgraded the center position in free
12:09agency. You're remaking this offensive line. Texas great pick feels like a 10 to 12
12:15year starter in the league. Feels like we got right tackle Taylor Decker, a fringe
12:19pro bowler year in and year out. Now let's stockpile defensive players. So I was
12:24clicking around to see who Blake Miller was being copped to NFL.com says it's
12:29Roger Rosengarten, who's a big athletic right tackle for the Baltimore Ravens
12:33quality player. Taylor Decker was the ringer comp. Yeah, that was before the Lions
12:39took him. So convenient works out that way. It's that it's that comp, though. That's
12:43the only reason I have any negative feelings toward this right now is it could
12:47have been taken care of before. It was the watering of the garden that me and
12:50John had been talking about for two years and you two as well. And it was just
12:54OK, the water, the garden finally got watered, but it could have been watered
12:58sooner. And then you could have used that capital to I didn't mean to set him off
13:03with Roger Rosengarten. No, no, no. You're not setting me off. And look, I just
13:06pointed out a thousand times they should have taken him instead of rake
13:09straw. So that's that's where the frustration was leading into the draft
13:13that this hadn't been taken care of sooner. It's been taken care of now.
13:17And I'm optimistic about this. The Lions improved their Super Bowl odds last
13:20night. I think they got a starter. You look at the offensive line and there's
13:24one semi question mark, right? It's the competition that left guard. Yeah. And
13:30they've got guys to compete for it. And if you know, they've got some depth now
13:34with Borum. So I think the offense is going to be just fine. Yeah. The other
13:39comp I saw was PFF. They compared him to Joe Staley, who began his career as a
13:47right tackle and then was a steady stud for a decade. Yeah, that's what you're
13:52thinking. You got here to four, eight, five, three, nine, 97, 97. If you think
13:56we're gushing about the pick, wait till you hear what Dan Campbell thinks of the
14:00pick. We'll play that next. It's 97 one.
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