00:00Danny, we've been looking at the draft from different angles.
00:03I wanted to discuss what I perceived to be a real pivot this year
00:06for Adam Peters and his staff, and I wonder if there's a reason for it.
00:11I don't think it's purposeful or was a design going into the draft.
00:15I think it was just kind of what happened when you're looking back at the result.
00:20But over the last two years, the Commanders ranked number one in the NFL
00:27in drafting athletes in that RAL relative athletic score,
00:32one in each of the last two seasons in terms of the average player
00:36and how they graded out athletically.
00:39This year, they ranked 29th out of 32 teams in that RAS metric.
00:46Really? And that's super surprising considering Sonny Stiles is 1-1,
00:49not this year, but all the years put together.
00:52Exactly right. I mean, if you take him out of the equation,
00:55it's like it wasn't a consideration or really an area where they aced the pick at all.
01:00Now, drafting an RAS monster doesn't mean you get to have a good football player,
01:05and there are certain positions where the track record, frankly,
01:07of being the best athlete isn't even ideal, maybe.
01:11But I just thought it was really intriguing that this team
01:15that has thrived in that way, that has thought that way,
01:18like you can predict what they're going to do normally
01:20by just looking at the best athletes at the position you know they're interested in
01:24and how they grade out RAS.
01:26And it was the opposite.
01:27They go from basically the very top of the board to the very bottom of the board this year.
01:30Meanwhile, the inverse of that, the flip side,
01:34was how many times over the last couple of seasons
01:36have they gotten a guy, who generally was very high in the RAS rankings,
01:42who was taken way before the board,
01:44the very San Francisco 49ers-esque, where it's perceived as a reach.
01:47You think about Luke McCaffrey in this way, where you go, wait a second.
01:52A lot of people are telling you that's a fourth or fifth round pick.
01:54You guys just grabbed him at 100.
01:56You don't really care because you're just following your board.
02:00But this year, for the first time, on the consensus boards,
02:04if you look at where players are drafted over expected
02:07based on tabulating all of the mock drafts
02:11and all of the experts that matter, the credible places,
02:13they were number one out of 32 teams in getting value.
02:17So it seems to me, Danny,
02:19when you look at what they actually did this year
02:23compared to last year and the year before under Adam Peters,
02:26I think they went more with the tape,
02:29kind of older school evaluating,
02:31than they did the athletic scores.
02:34And I don't think it was something that they were cognizant of
02:37putting their board together.
02:38It's just how their class came together.
02:40But that's not nothing.
02:42I mean, that's really interesting.
02:43It is significant.
02:44And I welcome it.
02:46I think anything that you do as a hard and fast rule
02:50where we're not pliable, we're not flexible in any way,
02:53I think gets you into trouble.
02:54I think you should have guidelines.
02:55I think you should have good rules where you go,
02:58I understand that I'm breaking my rule here,
02:59but I've got really good reason for it.
03:01Right?
03:02Like in general, it's like,
03:02I don't want to spend a whole bunch of money on stuff.
03:04Well, here's something you could spend money on that's great value.
03:07Okay, sure.
03:08Let's spend up for the bed
03:09because I sleep on it eight hours a night
03:10and I'm going to spend a third of my life sleeping.
03:12Let's pay for the good mattress.
03:13Right?
03:14Whatever that is.
03:15So that old approach,
03:17I say old because who knows if this is forever now,
03:19but the RAS only approach got me Johnny Newton.
03:23It got me, as you said, Luke McCaffrey.
03:25It got me a couple other guys that frankly haven't,
03:27Ben Sinnott,
03:28that haven't really helped this team an awful lot.
03:30Nowhere near what their draft position would have told you.
03:32Now that doesn't mean you don't ever draft good athletes
03:34because Sonny Stiles is a great athlete
03:36and that's why I would have drafted him at number seven
03:37and they did.
03:38I got no problem with that.
03:39But, you know,
03:41the best player that they've taken other than Jaden Daniels,
03:43probably the most successful,
03:44would you say Mikey Sandristill?
03:46Maybe?
03:46Who was one of the lower ranked guys
03:48that they've taken in terms of RAS.
03:49Not some disaster,
03:50not some, you know,
03:52peg-legged pirate from days of yore,
03:54but that's not a guy that blows you away with athleticism.
03:58It's just a quality player
03:59that I think they have a good opinion of.
04:01So it tells you you don't have to do something just because.
04:04Now if you're in round four, five, six, or seven, whatever,
04:06by all means take an RAS guy over some plotting zilch
04:10that had a decent college career
04:11because you're looking for upside there.
04:12But when it comes to making picks,
04:14I think there's no hard and fast rule.
04:17There definitely isn't.
04:19I want to touch the people on this though
04:22and we can take some calls on this
04:23at 800-636-1067.
04:27That's 800-636-1067.
04:30We'll open up the phones on this.
04:34Do you think there was any kind of cognizant approach
04:37of maybe getting away from caring so much
04:40about the athletic scores
04:42and those elite athletic traits
04:44and getting back to kind of some older school
04:47evaluating and scouting?
04:48Or is this just us looking at a result
04:51in a small sample?
04:52The board falls how the board falls.
04:54You're debating between Antonio Williams
04:56and say Ted Hurst or whoever it is.
04:58And Hurst is the RAS maven.
05:00And you go with Williams and we say,
05:02well, it's because you weren't focusing on RAS.
05:04When really it could just be,
05:05no, we love Antonio Williams.
05:07We think he's the better football player.
05:09Josephs is kind of an RAS guy that they got
05:11in round four of the edge from Tennessee.
05:13But Katron Allen is not that.
05:15You kind of shirked your normal way of operating.
05:18Like I listed a bunch of receivers on Friday
05:21that I thought they might draft at 71
05:23based on the last two years
05:24and how they viewed the position.
05:25I listed a bunch of running back options
05:28for them in the mid rounds on Friday
05:30based on how they've drafted the last two years.
05:33And I couldn't have been further off
05:34from what they actually ended up doing
05:35because they zigged where they've been zagging.
05:39If I had to guess,
05:40I would say it was just a one-off this year
05:42and it's how the draft fell.
05:44But that is something that's really,
05:46really interesting to me.
05:48It's hard not to notice, right?
05:50Again, even the thing I want to keep stressing is
05:52this is an average.
05:54Sonny Stiles raises the average so much
05:56it's like a rocket went into space
05:58and it's still barely six inches above Earth
06:00is what the average is.
06:02It tells you that everybody else
06:02is so far below the norm for that position
06:05that it's hard not to notice it, right?
06:07Again, I'm not criticizing it at all.
06:10It's just something that's noteworthy
06:11because it is such a major departure.
06:13And I like that for the record, okay?
06:16And here's why I like it.
06:17Again, I'm not into drafting bad athletes.
06:19I don't care about that as much.
06:21But I'm into departing from what didn't work all that great.
06:24If you've got a paradigm and you've showed up
06:27and you don't have a ton to show for it
06:28in your multiple draft classes
06:30and you are under-talented at a number of spots
06:33where you had to go out in free agency
06:35and spend a bunch of money on Chigakonkwo
06:36because your second-round tight end
06:38can't beat out anybody, that's an issue.
06:41You have to go spend money to fix that problem.
06:43Your defensive tackle should be Johnny Newton
06:46entering year two a couple years ago
06:48or last year rather
06:49but it said you've got to go out
06:50and pay over market for Javon Kinlaw
06:52to just not have any tackles for loss.
06:54You had to go spend on Eddie Goldman
06:56to make sure that Johnny Newton wasn't playing.
06:58I know it sounds like I'm picking on those guys
06:59but just a couple examples.
07:00So you go, you know what?
07:01My paradigm hasn't produced great results.
07:03Let's change it.
07:04I like that.
07:05I wonder if you look at Ben Sinnott
07:08who was a 9.72, 9.73 relative
07:11athletic score out of 10
07:13who was 32nd out of 1,100-some tight ends.
07:16You know, really, truly elite
07:18when it comes to RAS
07:21because he's huge.
07:236'4", 250, showed agility that's special.
07:264'2", 3, shuttle.
07:286'8", 2, 3, cone.
07:31You took him way before everyone else
07:34thought he was going to go.
07:35Around or so before.
07:37Certainly dozens of picks before the consensus.
07:39Maybe they knew that another team might pounce on him.
07:41That did not work.
07:42And the jury's still out, I guess.
07:45The verdict has not been returned.
07:46But so far, it has not worked.
07:48Luke McCaffrey's another great example of this.
07:509.56 relative athletic score out of 10.
07:54He ranked 137 out of over 3,000 wide receivers
07:59that have come out in the draft during that time.
08:02And he displayed, again, elite agility,
08:04which is the stuff they care about.
08:05That 4'0", short shuttle, which was 97th percentile.
08:096.7, three-cone drill, 95th percentile.
08:13Like, really off-the-chart stuff.
08:16And that was another one of their big reaches
08:18that didn't work.
08:19So I'm sitting here saying,
08:20I wonder if there's something to this,
08:23if they actually have pivoted.
08:24And I'm dismissing that.
08:26I don't think that that's the case.
08:28My guess is that they haven't.
08:31But there's two examples,
08:32and maybe their two biggest swings and misses
08:35in terms of how early they drafted guys.
08:37Because Johnny Newton didn't get an RAS score.
08:39Because remember, the foot,
08:40he didn't do a lot before the draft.
08:42But maybe, you know,
08:43Peters talked about this
08:44in the press conference last week.
08:45He's like, we've gone back
08:46and we've studied everything we've done.
08:49What have we done right?
08:50What have we done wrong?
08:51What led to that?
08:52And so in the back of my head,
08:53I'm going, are they going to pivot away
08:54from that a little bit?
08:55Because that's the calling card for Peters.
08:57That's the thing he cares the most about.
08:59Or we thought.
09:00He did.
09:01Yeah.
09:01Yeah, and it didn't look like it this year.
09:03And he might go back to it next year.
09:04You're allowed to do that too.
09:05I mean, it's...
09:06Maybe the draft class was part of it.
09:07Yeah, if we don't learn
09:08based on our experiences,
09:09what are we even doing?
09:10There's some expression about history
09:11and repeating it and being doomed.
09:13Any hoodles,
09:14when you look at, yeah,
09:15when you look at the roster,
09:16they were slow last year.
09:18That's despite all these great RAS scores.
09:20So how do we...
09:21What are we doing now?
09:22And they've shown you an adjustment
09:25where they go,
09:25we are so tired of looking at this slow defense.
09:28We're changing that immediately.
09:29Enter Leo Chennault.
09:30Enter Adafio way.
09:32You know,
09:32now you've got...
09:34Sonny Stowell is a linebacker as well.
09:35You went from the slowest linebacking core
09:37in human history
09:37to one of the quickest,
09:39fastest, most athletic overnight.
09:41That's not coincidence.
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