Who’s the best player in the draft that’s NOT a QB?

But I'm tired of talking about quarterbacks, because there are better players in this draft than every quarterback in this draft. And this is where my friend Mike Felder from Watch Stadium comes in. Act in the bleachers. Sir, let's not talk about quarterbacks. Is that fair? Yeah, man.

I live in Charlotte, man. That's all people are doing is talking about quarterbacks. All right, so let's not talk about them. Let's talk about the best player in this draft, who is probably not a quarterback.

Would you agree? Is it Will Anderson? Is it Jalen Carter? Is it somebody else? Jalen Carter got a lot going on.

That's first and foremost. He has a lot going on. The video that just came out, was it a week ago, about the cop not giving him a ticket for going 89 in a 25?

As someone who I live in a suburb, that's terrifying to me. But I think the answer, regardless, is Will Anderson. He's such a talented pass rusher. He's also such a unique pass rusher.

We talked about, like, he's so rocked up top, and then slim waist, and just thick legs, like the get off is crazy for him. I will say this. Lucas Van Ness, running faster than Will Anderson, raised a lot of eyebrows. Because no one thought the kid from Iowa was going to be that fast. And then Jalen Carter, I think, obviously, you throw Tyree Wilson into the mix. I think those are probably the first three edge rushers off the board. But Jalen Carter is such a jack of all trades. I don't think he falls outside of the top 10.

But if you can get him at eight or nine, now you're in business. In a way, is the Jalen Carter conversation. This will be the fascinating experiment in the draft, right?

And I'll go back. I don't remember the year. People who are smarter than me will remember the year that Warren Sapp was drafted.

And Sapp fell to number six, because at that point, marijuana was a red flag, man. We can't have that. We can't have our athletes smoking marijuana and playing professional sports. It's a shame. We can put them on Vicodin.

We can shoot them full of Toradol, but man, we can't have them smoking marijuana. Anyway, he fell all the way to six. He probably would have been the first pick in the draft. Jalen Carter, his issues are, I will say, way worse than Warren Sapp getting high. But in terms of the football player, and I know as his pro day, he was not in shape and apparently did a bad job. I don't pay close attention, but I read that. Is Jalen Carter, the football player, good enough to be the best player on the draft board?

He is. And when the Bears had the first pick, obviously before they did the deal with the Panthers, most people had him going number one overall. Prior to the two incidents that we're dealing with right now, including one, we do have to say, cost someone their life.

Cost two people their lives. So the big thing for me, it's not that he is, I love the idea of introducing Warren Sapp from a character standpoint. I think introducing from a player standpoint, it becomes interesting because Jalen Carter, Warren Sapp, there was no doubt about him as a player ever.

But Jalen Carter, you do have to figure out how you use this kid. Warren Sapp was always going to be a three technique. He was always going to be a three to a four. That's what he was always going to be.

He wasn't a nose. He's a three or four. Maybe you can slide him in at two in a pass run situation so he can really put some hammer, some pressure onto that guard. But Jalen Carter is someone that can truly play from a zero to a five. And that versatility is good, but also it's dangerous in the hands of incapable coaches. And that's the part for me that becomes interesting.

Because if you've got a guy that you can play at a zero on third and seven, but you can also play him at a five on second and six. You've got to have a plan for that and you have to have the people around him that can change and mold and move themselves around. And that's the part that I think is going to be really interesting. I think about this.

Here we go, Gold. I think about this in terms of the NBA draft. The reason the NBA made the rule about having to go to college for one year wasn't because they wanted kids to go to college for a year. It's because these GMs kept making bad decisions. Jalen Carter might make a GM make a bad decision if his coaching staff can't handle.

It's like giving a six-year-old the keystone Ferrari. Maybe we stay away from automobile examples of Jalen Carter. Would a comparison for him, because I'm like a dumb football brain. Richard Seymour?

I think Richard Seymour's a good one. I think that a poor man's Aaron Donald. I don't think he's nearly as good as Aaron Donald was coming out. Aaron Donald was super polished. I think Jalen Carter's super talented. But we've seen Aaron Donald play again from that zero all the way out to the five. We've seen him play everywhere. So for me, yeah, I think he's in that same mold of a super hyper versatile.

The problem is most of those guys are a little better than he is and more productive than he was. And that's the part that makes me, I'm very curious to see how this all shakes itself out. I think it's interesting that you refer to them as, how did you refer to the untrained coaches? Do coaches need permits? Do we need background checks and permits? Never mind.

I don't want to go down a road that's going to get me in trouble. Mike Felder is here from Watch Stadium at In the Bleachers on Twitter. Alright, so Will Anderson, Jalen Carter, Tyree Wilson, Lucas Van Ness, who are some of the, we'll get to the offensive side, and I think the offensive side probably has offensive line.

But let me ask you, I'm going to kind of stumble into this. How come I see Bijan Robinson so late in first rounds? Is it just because people are tired of taking a running back early? Yeah, it's the position. If he was as good at any other position, he would be higher on the board. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. If he was as good at corner as he is at running back, he might be the first corner off the board. If he was as good at offensive tackle as he was at running back, he might be the first off, he might be go before Skorotsky or Broderick Jones. If he was as good at defensive end, he's in the Will Anderson world. It's just purely that he plays running back and teams don't see the value and teams have had so much success getting guys later. That it just doesn't hold up for a lot of teams. So yeah, that's why Bijan Robinson is back there.

I mean, he's awesome. And if there's a team, and maybe there are no teams who draft high that just need to plug a running back into what they do. I mean, I wish it was different, but if I were an NFL team, the running back on a cheap deal for the first three years, that's the running back I want. I don't want to pay the running back, but the running back on the cheap deal is the running back to get. So if you were that team that just needed to plug a high caliber running back, see what Breece Hall did for the Jets until he got hurt. It was a second round pick, which I don't know, maybe that tells us the story anyway.

That's kind of what everybody's hoping, right? Here's the thing, if you're a team that drafts early, top 10, top 15, you need a lot more than a running back. Yes, you do. Who's the best corner in this draft? I go, so there's, oh man, this is the hard one. I ask you the hard one because you're the defensive back. So here's the thing, I have three different things.

I actually have four. One, I think Keely Ringo from Georgia is the best all around corner, without a doubt, in my mind. I think he's the best all around corner. I think that Cam Smith is probably the best man. Christian Gonzalez or Cam Smith, you can pick your poison. South Carolina and Oregon respectively, I think they're the best man corners. Witherspoon from Illinois, he's the best zone corner. Here's the crazy part, I think the best weapon in the secondary is Brian Branch. And I think Brian Branch made a massive mistake when he ran with the corners instead of running with the safeties. Because he ran a 458 and those other dudes are out there cooking. But I think that's the reality.

But again, this all goes back to fit, right? Because we also have DJ Turner out there. DJ Turner is another really good corner. I think that Brian Branch is the best defensive back weapon in the NFL Draft this year. I think if you're picking him to play corner, that you're looking at the sixth best corner.

But he can play safety and teams should be looking for versatility anyway. Alright, offensive line. The best Georgia offensive lineman probably should go number one among the offensive linemen. Because I've watched their offense and they just maul, absolutely maul people.

But I don't think it's going to go that way. Who is the best offensive lineman in this draft? I think Pete Skowronski is the best technically talented guy.

He's so skilled with what he does. Kid from Northwestern. I think Broderick Jones is number two and you did mention he's a mauler. This guy, he reminds me a lot of Orlando Brown. You don't want to step into a phone booth with this guy because he's going to beat the heck out of you. And I'm going to say this.

I think the kid, Anton Harrison, he's the kid from Oklahoma. He has gained a lot of capital with his results at the combine and folks going back and watching him. He's learned a lot from me going back and watching him. He's done the opposite of what Will Levis has done for me, which is he's risen, Levis fallen.

So we're going to see what this looks like at the next level. Why has Will Levis fallen for you? You know what, you don't have to answer that question if you don't want to talk about a quarterback. I can answer it. It's fine. I can answer it. I went back and I said, man, let me see. Because I feel bad.

And that's one of those things where you get kind of stuck in the draft like industrial complex. You're like seeing people. I've seen people that have him mock number one to the Panthers, which maybe that's some off the field stuff, which feels crazy. But I see him. I see people having him going in the top four, top five people trading up to get him.

He never did anything that I found to be remarkable. Personally, like watching him play and but Elliott, you know, he but Elliott actually made the chart where Will Levis can't avoid sacks like he doesn't have the Josh Allen ability to not be sacked. He doesn't have the ability of C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young to not get sacked. This guy, he takes sacks and he takes sacks in an offense where, hey, you know what? I got the numbers right here, my man.

Because I did this the other day. I got the numbers right here. Where are they at? Where are the numbers? There we go.

I got them. This guy threw two hundred eighty three passes. Right.

Okay. Bryce Young, three hundred eighty passes, so one hundred more throws. Right.

C.J. Stroud, three hundred eighty nine passes, so one hundred more throws. Dorian Thompson Robinson, three hundred eighty passes, one hundred more throws. Right. Hidden Hooker, three hundred twenty nine, so fifty more throws.

And then I even went to Anthony Richardson, three hundred twenty seven, so fifty more throws. Right. So he threw less, got sacked more, had negative, let me make sure I get, negative one hundred and seven rushing yards. Right.

So you don't bring anything to the table there. Right. And so you threw less, got sacked more, made less throws down the field. And played in an offense that basically kind of like patted you on your bum and treated you with kid gloves so you could hand the ball off to Rodriguez. Right.

Like I don't understand what there is to fall in love with. And I know, like if, he would have been better served if he had stayed at Penn State and then he was coming out next year and he had to go to battle with Caleb Williams or Drake May. But he don't belong in the same discussion with Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, even Anthony Richardson who has some problems. But I think DTR and hidden hooker are probably better than him. Okay, I did want to ask you this and we'll close on this.

And this is a thought experiment I posed yesterday to people. If Hendon Hooker looked like Will Levis, would Hendon Hooker be a first round pick? With the ACL injury? Even with the injury, a guy that went 229 for 329, his team averaged 46 points per game. By the way, Will Levis' team averaged 20 points per game. Wow, okay.

27-2 touchdown to interception ratio versus a 19-10 touchdown to interception ratio. Yeah, absolutely. Here's the thing. This is the last one. This is the last one.

This is the one that stood out for me. Levis has three 300-yard passing games. It's against Miami of Ohio, Youngstown State, Northern Illinois. Hooker had four 300-yard passing games.

But it was Pitt, Florida, Alabama, and Mizzou. Come on. Right. I'm with you. I'm with you. I said this yesterday.

It's what people don't want to hear. But if Hendon Hooker looked like Will Levis, Hendon Hooker would be a first round pick. That's Mike Felder. We lost him.