NFL Draft is next week!

For the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile, and the ones who get in early so everyone can go home on time, there's Grainger. Offering professional-grade supplies backed by product experts so you can quickly and easily find what you need. Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you. Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done. NFL Draft round one was one week from yesterday, but today we are seven days out from the Panthers paying attention.

Although I'm sure they'll watch like everybody else. Ryan Wilson, CBS Sports.com, NFL Draft expert, Pick 6 podcast, and also with the first pick that he does with former NFL executive Rick Spielman. He joins us on the Adam Gold show. I want you to indulge me as we get started here, sir. How are you? Hey Adam, how you doing, man? I'm doing well. I know you've been just all over the place. I appreciate you carving out a few minutes. So I've been I've been playing around with this mock draft simulator.

Like seriously, I'm not even that into it, but when they give me this to look at and play with I'm like, I'm all about it. So here's what I just did. Tell me if this makes sense. I made the selection with Carolina's first pick in the second round number 33 and Adonai Mitchell was still there. So I took him and the Panthers definitely need wide receiver help.

Don't don't critique it yet. But then I traded the 39th pick with Arizona. I traded back and got their 66th and 71st pick. So it gives the Panthers three picks between 65 and 71. First of all, and it was accepted.

So I assume it was a bad deal. Is it does that make sense that the Panthers could trade back and get two additional third round picks? Yeah, yeah, of course. Okay. I mean, it's just a matter of what the it only takes one team. We say about trading up for quarterback. So yeah, sure. It only takes one team.

All right, good. And then with those three picks, I took a center Zach Frazier from West Virginia. Keon Coleman was still there and I took the defensive end from Washington, Braylon Trice. Did I win the draft? The universe of that trade actually is feasible in real life is the universe probably in West Japan is going to win the Super Bowl anyway.

So you absolutely nailed it. Now, if those players are available when you were able to get them in the mock draft simulator, man, that is an A plus plus. You go from kindergarten to PhD program in the span of three days that the draft takes place. That would be an incredible hall. And Bryce Young, Dave Canales, anyone associated with that organization is jumping with joy up until the start of OTAs because that would be fantastic. All right, so Ryan Wilson, by the way, CBS Sports at Ryan Wilson, CBS, joining us here in the Adam Gold show.

Appreciate that. I'm seriously, I don't even follow it as closely. I don't know who the best players are at each position. I don't even know.

I do know this, but this much. There's a lot of depth, a wide receiver, obviously. And there's apparently a lot of depth on the offensive line so you can get good off. I also think there's depth in the defensive, especially interior defensive line. There seemed to be some really good defensive tackles that you could get early. And while the Panthers, it's not necessarily an area of need, I'm not sure why it isn't. Derek Brown needs a friend to play next to him, somebody you could make look better because Derek Brown is so good. But is it fair to say that if the Panthers need one of their top needs is wide receiver, that they could exist pretty well, you know, taking a couple of those guys on day two?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that, that's the beauty of this draft. 80 Mitchell edge. You mentioned he could be there at 33 and they're going to be some guys there at 39. They're going to be some guys there at 65, the 33 pick that I keep coming back to.

And I've actually heard that the Panthers might be interested in secondary at that pick as well, depending on how the word falls ahead of them. But if you're there at 33 and landmine, I've been talking about lad McConkie for months now. If he's there at 33, it just feels like a natural fit because 80 Mitchell and Brian Thomas Jr are taller and thicker and faster than more straight line. Although he has a little, the ability to do some stuff underneath lad McConkie, you put him in there day one and he's the production is going to be through the roof. Now he's five 11.

He's just a hair under one 90, but he ran a four 39 and he plays that fast and he, there's no better. I was just talking to someone the other day in the league. And they said, there's no better rapper in this class and let him compete and talk about timing and guys getting open. And what, what happened last year with that?

The wide receiver crew, no one could get open and the offense was stagnant and everyone suffered. And I think that would be a huge help to Bryce young. Because again, if bright young replicates in 2024, we saw in 2023, Adam, you know, better than I do, the conversation is going to be okay. Who's who are they going to draft a quarterback right a year from now? Adam golden studio with my man coach pizza route, a capital financial advisory group, financial advice industry can be overwhelming for a lot of people.

Is there a way to be sure you're getting the best service when you don't know? Yeah. Adam, it's not just if you gave the money to a planning team and they did good the first year. I mean, anyone could do good for one year, but it's a track record and it's a longterm accounts that are very important. We call that a financial Phillips strategy, Adam, and that gives you lifetime income. You can never outlive. We'll put together for you, the listener, your very own total retirement plan.

If you call right now, call and claim your comprehensive review with coach Pete and the team, triple eight, eight, four, three double O 13 or text Adam to 600 700 Adam gold is a paid spokesman investment advisory services offered by capital financial advisory group, North Carolina registered investment advisor. Yeah. Like I, I have supreme confidence in young. I, I, I, I just don't think that the, the way it was like the way we talked and a lot of it was because CJ Stroud had such a good year. But we have to remember that not only was Bryce young given no weapons at all, zero Adam Thielen was there is only reliable target, but they had no offensive line to protect him.

They didn't really establish a legit running game until later on in the season. And it wasn't all that great anyway. And the coaching was not good. Other than that, how was the play?

Mrs. Lincoln? There was no chance for Bryce young to show anything. And he probably showed more than people even realized because he really did have no chance.

They played poorly, but like all rookies are going to play poorly at times. Anyway, hopefully it'll work out, but hopefully the coaching staff is better. Hopefully David Tepper won't interfere. That's probably too much to hope for. Yeah.

Well, it's the same hope isn't a plan, but I think you're right about Bryce. We watched every one of his rookie snaps last year because we talked about him on the podcast the following Monday or Tuesday. And there was a lot that you would shield your eyes from, but there were moments where you were asking yourself, okay, why aren't they doing more of this? Why aren't they getting the ball up quicker? Why aren't they running using motion? Why aren't they running more mesh concepts?

And the other thing is, and I have to talk to people about this, this is no grand revelation. This offseason, I don't know if it's happening, but Bryce needs to work on his footwork because by the end of the season, it was all over the place. And he looked like someone that was tired of getting hit in the mouth, which I also understand. Yeah, that's why I keep saying this and I understand that people push back on it because one of Bryce's strengths has been his brain, right? You know, his ability to recognize. But at some point you recognize when you're like in a lot of trouble. That's the first thing you realize when you get to the line of scrimmage is that, oh man, I'm screwed because you're smart that way. And you can ruin quarterbacks if you keep getting them hit and you give them no time and you give them no chance of success. And I asked why wasn't Carolina like letting him sit? Who cares? You're going to lose anyway. Let him sit.

Don't expose him to all this because you run the risk of ruining him. Hopefully, I mean, I'm not saying they have or haven't. I just think it was a risk and they took a risk with a guy they traded up from 9 to 1 to get. Yeah, and again, you touched on it, Adam. I'm sure that David Tapper was looking down to Houston saying, wait a second, they're getting all this out of CJ Strud. Weren't we having similar success? And that's just pressure on the coaching staff and the front office that it's not helping anyone. If that's how the conversation went, I think you got what you got.

Now you got to make it work. And I don't think they did Bryce any favors with the offense. To your point, he didn't have to play. I mean, they weren't contending for a Super Bowl and it could have been a situation because Andy Dalton actually played pretty well in the one start. And then you create that controversy and you touched on it in terms of confidence as well.

I don't care who you are. If you won three national titles in a row and you come out and you're just getting your brains beaten in, you may want to take a little time off to reevaluate to get to where you want to go to next. And I think a lot of times when these rookies talk about how their first season went, when they have a chance to reflect on the offseason, everything is moving so fast, they can't keep up. And Jonathan Mingo is another great example of that. Someone who was trying to learn a much more complicated offense than the one he came from, and he didn't play nearly as fast. He got better towards the end of the season, as we saw in college, because I would imagine much of his time on Sunday was spent thinking about what he's supposed to do and he just looked slower. Yeah, look, I don't know if Jonathan Mingo is, if he's one of those guys who's going to take a big leap forward. Well, I guess we'll find out.

But I think they're going to bring in as many wide receivers as they can. Ryan Wilson, CBSSports.com, pick six podcast, but also with the first pick podcast, I saw in your latest mock, you've got Drake May 3 to New England. Your thoughts on, I mean, I've seen May all over the place. I've seen him number two. I've seen him number six to the Giants.

What is the knock right now on Drake May? Just a lack of consistency, but we were at the Carolina Pro Day a couple weeks ago in Chapel Hill, and he looked great in shorts and t-shirts, and that was no surprise. He came at six, four to 27, I think is what he weighed at the time, gained a few pounds from the combine. Big arm.

Again, no surprise to him. Great touch in the deep ball and all the things you want to see and everyone and their brother in terms of NFL evaluators are there because clearly he's going to be one of the first guys taken the knock on him. Just a lack of consistency last year, Adam. And the other thing that I have to keep reminding myself is that he's only 21. Jay Downs and Bo Nix and Michael Page, Jr. are 23, close to 24. And if you go back and look three years ago, all those players had their struggles.

And I think if we're willing to be patient and that's something that, you know, folks don't like to do in this day and age, whether it's NFL owners or fans or media, I think you have a chance to be good. Now, this is, again, another obvious statement here, but fit matters. If you're going to the Carolina Panthers and you're Bryce Young, or if you're C.J. Stroud and you're going to Houston where Bobby Slow was able to get the most out of C.J. and C.J.

was able to reciprocate that. I think that's also important. Does that make the Patriots the best landing spot for Bryce, excuse me, for Drake?

No. Right. On the way they treated Matthew, you think the opposite, but, you know, new coach, sort of new front office.

There's some guys that are still there from the Belichick regime, but Elliott Wolf is running things now along with son. So we'll see how they approach this. But I think, and I made myself be cautious about coming down on Drake because I think he's going to be really good.

You're just going to have to be patient. There's some head-scratching throws and you guys saw it all fall. But I mean, Justin Herbert was terrible his final year, for much of his final year in Oregon.

And I draw parallels between those two. And I think he has a chance, Drake in the right situation, with a little patience to be a really, really good football player. Yeah, we do forget that he's 21 because he plays with, he actually plays with a level of maturity that we, it's kind of uncommon with guys, but he does, he looks the part. And I've heard a few comparisons to Justin Herbert, although I think Herbert's just in a bigger package. Like 6'6", 240, he just looks, he looks a lot closer to Cam than he does to Drake. But Drake just looks a little, like he needs a little lower body to kind of help him out a little bit.

But look, I think Drake has all the tools in the world. Let me just ask you real quick. We know Russell Wilson and now Justin Fields are all in Pittsburgh. Actually, you tweeted out about a Pittsburgh mock draft earlier. I'm curious because we're, you know, we're following Russell.

Is it going to be him? And what do they need around him to get the most out of him? You're the ones who get it done. At Grainger, we're here for you with professional grade industrial supplies. Count on real time product availability and fast delivery.

Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Yeah, it's going to be him according to Mike Tomlin. So I think it's going to be trusted and have every opportunity. I think that was probably explained to Justin when they trade for him. And, you know, we talked about giving a quarterback a break.

I think Justin might welcome the break, at least early on. What do you need for for us? You have to continue to build the offensive line. So there's a right tackle there at 20. I think they take a right tackle and there's there's every opportunity for him to be there. If the right tax is gone, you take a center like a Jackson Powers, Johnson, or maybe a grand part, not a Duke right down the street from you guys. And then you can circle back and get a wide receiver. If you want to get another guy, because you see was sent Beyonce Johnson to Carolina.

And that could be an option. And I think at the end of the day with Arthur Smith, you're going to see a return not to what we saw in Atlanta with Arthur Smith, which wasn't a lot of fun to watch. But it heightens Arthur Smith, where you lean on your go to guy and Derek Henry and you give your quarterback.

I mean, Ryan Tannehill was playing at a at a Pro Bowl level. Yeah, I think you don't ask for us to do everything. You don't let let Russ cook. You let Russ hang out in the kitchen and be a contributor. And it's going to be sort of a situation where there may be too many cooks in the kitchen in terms of who gets the ball. But that'll be in a good way because Russ won't have to do everything. And also, and you know this, Adam, I think Mike Tomlin is going to be a little better about trying to instill confidence in Russ. We got the sense that Sean Payton wanted nothing to do with Russell because he wasn't his guy when he arrived.

That was that was such a disaster. Like, I don't like Sean Payton to begin with. I root against him anyway. And I'm not even a big Russ guy. You know, we obviously had him here for, you know, three years. So there is some familiarity. And I know what Russ is about.

He's a little bit of can be socially awkward. But like, I just felt bad for Russ because it got off to the wrong start right away because Sean Payton had to essentially, well, I'm not going to use the what dogs do when other dogs pee in their area. But that's what Sean Payton did. I thought I basically marked his territory. And that was that was never, never good for us.

All right. I lied real quick because I know I've Marvin Harrison, Jr. I thought he was the best wide receiver in the draft. Yet, I still see Malik neighbors or at times, Roma didn't say from Washington picked ahead of Marvin Harrison.

So how are they? Marvin's going to go for the fact that say by the Cardinals, they put effort there. They like Marvin and Marvin actually talked to them about not working under the pre draft process.

Apparently, they were okay with it. They're all close and what I keep like Marvin's my quarterback wide receiver one. I hadn't leaked neighbors going just ahead of him in my life's mock draft.

Prior to the Chapel Hill pro day, we were in LSU. So I got the same leaking person and that may have contributed that and teams love Roma doomsday because he's great off the field. He's a hard worker.

He made huge strides from 2022 to 2023. And what I keep coming back to Adam is the draft a few years ago where I think Henry rugs with the first wide receiver taken wide receiver five in that group. Yeah was Justin Jefferson. Why was he received my group Brandon? I look so you can find guys outside of the first guy that are going to be difference makers in this class has a chance to be as good as that class that we were talking about and whether it's Marvin or Malik or Rome. I don't think you can go wrong. Yeah, there's so many so many good wide receivers and just get back to the Steelers.

I don't think any team has been better at finding wide receivers in the you know, fourth fifth round then Pittsburgh has over the years Ryan Wilson at Ryan Wilson CBS on Twitter. Appreciate your time. My man will talk to you soon. Thank you Adam. Thank you. Are you struggling to get a good night's sleep? Look no further than Parkway Sleep. For 20 years, we have been your locally owned and operated sleep center.

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