Marc Ross, NFL Network Analyst

Alrighty, welcome back in. And this is that Gelb show on the Infinity Sports Network. Mark Ross is an NFL Network analyst and you have live coverage obviously of rounds two and three will air tonight on the NFL Network at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. And Mark Ross is here with us right now to recap the craziness of the first round and also take an early look ahead to rounds two and three tonight. Mark, appreciate the time. Thanks so much for doing this. How you been? Great.

My pleasure. Well, let me start you off with Chidor Sanders. So we got a sense yesterday that he was falling. I never thought he was really going to fall out of the first round altogether. What was your reaction last night when you saw Chidor Sanders not go in the first 32 picks? Yeah, I thought Pittsburgh was the landing spot. You know, I thought that I didn't think he was going to go up at the top, but I thought for sure Pittsburgh was it.

And especially in light of when he had his visit there and he talked about Tom and remind him of his dad and the connection. And of course, we're not even going to talk about the dire need for a quarterback that Pittsburgh has. So so that was definitely a surprise when they passed on, especially to take another defensive lineman. But, you know, it looks like the top here will be the place for him. If Cleveland doesn't take him or the Raiders, this might be an interesting night.

Yeah. Your NFL Network colleague, Ian Rappaport, I was just watching a video right before we came back from break. He said the Raiders potentially in the second round or the Steelers in the third round. I saw Adam Schefter was on ESPN and he was basically making it seem as if it's not going to be the Saints and it's not going to be the Cleveland Browns with their second round selections. If you were running the Browns front office right, you made the move. You got Mason Graham. You got a future first round pick next year. You also got an additional second round pick and you're picking at 33 and 36. If you're Cleveland, would you take that call in Chidor Sanders now or would you just maybe say, OK, we'll beef up the rest of the roster and go a quarterback a year from now with two first round selections? Well, these questions about the quarterback are always interesting and it's always depending on your job security as a head coach and a general manager. When you got job security, you can say, sure, let's just keep building the roster and push it to next year. But when you don't and we see what the Giants did, it's like, we better go get somebody right now.

And that's the difference. So if Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski are sitting there now and the Haslams say, yeah, just do what you got to do. Build a roster.

You'll be here for two, three years. Do what you need to do. Then you and you don't think Chidor Sanders is your guy?

Push it forward another year or however long you need to do it. But if you're sitting there saying, well, this is a way for us to kind of buy some time and get some assurances from ownership that we're doing the right thing, taking Chidor and he's the guy and give us time to work with him. Then those desperate, those sort of desperation moves happen to be clear. I'm a fan of Chidor. I thought Chidor should have been the second quarterback off the board in this draft. Just out of curiosity, Mark Ross, what's your view of Chidor Sanders as a quarterback? You know, I always thought he was around a second round pick talent anyway.

So this, him getting drafted wherever he gets maybe drafted today is really in the proper spot for for where I saw his talent when I evaluated him. And, you know, I think a lot of people were up in arms about, especially in New York, where they thought it was going to be Chidor, not Jackson Dart. But I knew all along it was going to be Jackson Dart. And if you paid attention to anything, you just know the people in the building that they were not going to take Chidor Sanders. So, but that being said, I thought he had built up enough goodwill on film and put enough good film out there that teams are going to take him. But again, that comes with a lot of concerns around him, whether they're justified or not.

Maybe there are some concerns that the general public doesn't know about. So that's why I think all of this is coming together with Chidor where he is right now. You're not wrong. A lot of people yesterday said Brian Deball preferred Jackson Dart and that was the quarterback. Once they took Abdul Carter at three, they would trade up to go get. Do you think that was the right decision? Because personally, I think Chidor Sanders is a quarterback than Jackson Dart. So I would have rather had the Giants take Chidor Sanders.

Yeah, well, whether it doesn't matter, we're laughing. Brian Deball thought it and this is their legacy right now with Jackson Dart too. And the interesting thing with making that move is, I mean, the Giants go three and three and what's my math here? Three and 15 next year.

Is that right? Are they going to be around to pick the quarterback? So here it is, you entrust your head coach to go, this is your guy.

Let's go get him. And then you have a terrible year and you get rid of that said coach. And now you're just setting your franchise back even more. And now you're pushing it over once again with the Giants with, well, now you've got a whole new staff in here. Maybe not even like Jackson Dart. So yeah, whatever the vision there with New York and with pushing it all in with Deball, I guess now you have to give them time, but it's a very complicated issue there.

What's going on? Yeah. How do you think they'll approach that this year? I know Dave's last night said, you know, Russell Wilson and the brass, they said that's their guy, that's their starter. So you have Russ, you got Jamis Winston there. I got to think eventually at some point, because I don't expect the Giants to be that good this year, that they're going to have to play Jackson Dart. And if he doesn't play, I'm not saying great, but if he's not average to start, then yeah, you're probably right. Shannon Deball then would be out of a job. Deball then would be out of a job at the end of the year.

Yeah. And that's, and he gets set back again and he has to play this year. You know, Russell Wilson, he's done it. We've seen it. We've seen the story with Russell. We've seen a story with Jamis.

You know where you're going with those two. So you moved up to take him for a reason, however many games you need, two, three, five, ten, whatever it is to get Jackson Dart in there, you must do that. And you know, some other teams that have taken, you know, just look at last year's crop of quarterbacks, those guys all jumped in right away and played, you know, and they, for the most part, they, except for Pennax, you know, but then once he got in, they all looked really well.

They all looked good and they all looked like, okay, these guys made the right decision. So I think with the Giants and Jackson Dart, you got to get them out there to see what you have. What do you think Jackson Dart can be as a pro quarterback?

You're suspect. Let's just start with his own division. I mean, he's, he's fourth, you know, right there in his own division. I mean, okay, we're not even getting to the rest of the landscape of the NFC, but when I evaluated him, you know, there's some good things to like and, you know, the timing throws and he is a good athlete, he can run, but there was just a lot missing for me when I watched him. It was just like he, the feel for the game, the streakiness, the pocket, in the pocket, not having a great, great feel and poise there and pressure got in his face. I thought he fell apart a lot. So there are those sort of intangible traits you could see in him. But overall, I just had a lot of questions and a lot of issues with his overall talent. And I don't see him being a, hey, go compete against the top-notch quarterbacks in the league to go win you playoff games.

Mark Ross here with us from the NFL Network. Get him back to the start of the draft. We had Cam Ward go one and I think Cam Ward, I wouldn't say that he could be a top five quarterback in the league, but I think that he's a very good quarterback and Tennessee needed a face of the franchise.

So I love to pick there. Then at two, most of us were expecting Cleveland to go take Travis Hunter and the Jaguars trade up and there was some steam brewing there in like two hours before the start of the draft. What did you make of that deal of the Browns going back to five, picking up future draft capital and the Jaguars moving up to go get Travis Hunter at two? Yeah, I think it was a brilliant move by the Browns and from where they are as a franchise to Travis Hunter wasn't going to solve many of their problems that they have. And for Jacksonville, just two first round picks for, okay, let's just look at Travis Hunter. I know we keep talking about him as this unicorn and everything, his words have been thrown around, but I think it was Calvin Johnson the last time a receiver has been taken in the top two and, you know, a corner being taken that high, you know, it really hasn't happened. So I just have a hard time seeing him playing full time on both sides of the ball.

And if he does split time, you know, how much impact is he really making? So even though I think he is a fantastic athlete and all the accolades he's gotten, it was just way too much to give up to go get him for Jacksonville, where they are as a franchise. I know much has been made about James Gladstone coming over from the Rams and F those picks and all that. But look, everything's different.

Every organization is different. That was a whole different set of circumstances. What went on with the Rams? They had Matthew Stafford there to hold that all together.

And you can afford to do that. If you're Jacksonville and the struggling Trevor Lawrence, if this is your way to say we're going to save him. Okay. But to give up all they gave is I think it was just way too much. Mark Ross here with us from the NFL Network. Other things I was surprised about.

We talked about Chidor. Tyler Warren fallen to 14 and the Bears. They ended up taking Colston Loveland at 10. I also thought you could argue maybe the Jets or Panthers could also take Tyler Warren.

Why do you think Tyler Warren fall the way 14th to the Indianapolis Colts? Yeah, I think the whole I thought the Bears were always the landing spot for Tyler Warren. But, you know, it always been a lot of back and forth between the Warren versus Loveland. And they were completely, completely different players. You know, whereas Warren, the versatile guy, big strong, can do more work underneath in the middle.

Loveland was more the athletic stretch. So it was really about Ben Johnson. That tells you the vision that Ben Johnson has of what he likes in a tight end because he chose to go with the, you know, that vertical speed guy. They have Cole Kemet on the team already.

So maybe it was more of, well, let's get more of a basketball roster up on here instead of getting another guy that's similar to Kemet. But, you know, for the Colts, I think that was an outstanding pick. It always seemed as if, I actually had them flipped in my mock draft where I had Warren going to the Bears. I think most of us did.

I had the same thing. I had Warren go to the Bears and then at 14, Loveland going to the Colts. Yep. So, but I joked last night that, you know, Tyler Warren got on the roster now. He's the best quarterback on the Colts roster. You're not wrong.

Like Daniel Jones, Anthony Rich. You know what? Maybe that's a surprise destination for Chidor at some point. For sure. It may be. It may be.

So it'll be a fun night. Another thing. So you look at Cam Ward, right? One time, a zero star recruit, entered his name in the draft last year, took it out, went to Miami, ended up paying off as the number one overall pick. Will Johnson had to come back last year. This time last year, we're sitting there, he's probably would have been a top five pick in the draft when we were prognosticating him.

Now, because of a knee injury and some other injuries as well, he falls out of the first round. How do you make those evaluations when you know the player's really good, but there is an injury history, especially when you're right towards the lead up of the draft? Well, that's all about your medical staff. And you have tons of meetings with your doctors and trainers about every player.

And some players are easy. They check out as an A. And, you know, we used to grade players and most teams do A, B, C, D, F, just like you do in school. And all right, you got an A guy, move on.

You got a C. All right, let's talk about a little bit. Once you're getting to that C minus D range, F, all right, you're talking about those people nonstop and Will Johnson fell into that category of whatever those injuries are, you know, how soon will he be healing from them? Is he injury prone? And then you have to go back to the Michigan trainers and what they say about him. And you're really piecing that all together with your medical staff. It's your scouts aren't even in those meetings. You're talking about it with your head coach, GM, you know, you're really executive team.

And, you know, that's a lot of what the outside doesn't know. The fans don't know. Media doesn't know what exactly is said in these meetings with the medical staff. And so it's all about what team, whoever takes Will Johnson, you'll know their medical staff feels okay with those said injuries. You know, the Jahad Campbell pick last night with Philly where his shoulder and how he Roseman did a great job saying, you know, this was a long term, but he was kind of putting that together like this guy might not be out there week one, but we're getting a top 10 player because our doctors feel long term he's going to be okay. Whereas other teams probably looked at Jahad Campbell say that we, you know, we can't do this right now. We're not in a position to wait on a guy for half a season to play him.

So it's so, so vital. What takes place at the combine? Well, during the year with the scouts, getting medical information at the combine and post combine, when you're bringing players into your facility to get them checked out, what were some other picks last night that really set out to you? I thought the Ravens did it again. You know, Kyle Hamilton a few years ago.

Now they get Malachi Starks. Were there, were there a few other picks that you were like, wow, really loved that pick that maybe coming. I really love the back half after 24 on for most, for the most part, those were all the pictures like, yep, that's a great pick. That's a great pick. That's a great pick. I had Starks going to the Ravens in my mock draft too, which was like, and I said, like, they took Kyle Hamilton.

They're going to take Kyle Hamilton part two, put those two guys together. They might have the best safety duo in the league. And you know, the, we just mentioned Jahad Campbell, even a Josh Simmons pick, another medical question mark there for, for, you know, him and his process where the chiefs get him at 32nd. And he was my second tackle after Will Campbell, you know, top 10 talent physically. I love the Maxwell Harrison pick for Buffalo down there at the bottom too, even Josh Connerly, who I had over Kelvin Banks who went much higher. So, you know, the back end there, there was, there was some really good picks, even Donovan Jackson going to Minnesota.

I loved him. It was, you know, that for the most part, I thought in the middle there, there was a lot of questionable guys there for a stretch with the Walter Nolans of the world and Shamar Stewart's and Gray Zabel, even though I think he's a good player, like going that high. So it was, it was definitely, and then the Steelers right after that. So I mean, every pick, you go into the draft, you thought there wasn't gonna be much drama. Then once the draft hits, it's drama all the time. Last night was like, every pick was a drama, was some drama.

How about today? So we talk about Will Johnson. We talked about Chidor Sanders. I know Mike Green from Marshall still on the board. You got the running backs from Ohio State. A few names that maybe stand out to you that you're like, okay, that's a steal falling in the second round. Well, Mason Taylor, loved Mason Taylor, the tight end out of LSU, who I thought could have been a first round pick. You know, Luther Burden has, his name has not been called yet.

He's in there. I think there'll be a run on running backs in the second round with the Ohio State, Ohio State duo there. We mentioned Will Johnson already. He's, someone's going to take a chance and we'll see what the quarterbacks, if they start going with, you know, even Millrow getting a lot of buzz, even though I'm not a Millrow fan, there seems he's gained a lot of steam. You know, I think players like Mike Green, it was a lot of character issues, first round talent, but the character issues is pushing him down to where he is. So still a lot of really, really good players that are on the board now.

Last thing I'll ask you, it's kind of a three part question. I got a Raiders fan. I got a Jet fan and I'm a Patriot fan. Armin Membu to the Jets, Ashen Genti to the Raiders, Will Campbell to the Patriots. What do you make of those three selections all pretty early in the first seven? I think there was no surer pick outside of Cam Ward than Will Campbell going to the Patriots. And then, you know, Genti was rumored to go to the Raiders all along too. And you know, that's a way for, you know, I guess then to get his Marshawn Lynch part two, Coach Carroll to get Marshawn and for Geno to be Russell. And then the third team was who? What was the third team? The Jets going Armin Membu. I think that was even too.

That was kind of chalk too. Many believe that they would go try to bolster that offensive line, get that run game going with Justin Fields. So I think none of those were really much of a surprise there, but good picks. He's Mark Ross, NFL Network analyst.

You remember that the NFL Network's coverage of the NFL Draft continues tonight, rounds two and three, and it airs live at 7 p.m. Eastern on the NFL Network. Mark, good deal. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. My pleasure.

All right, we'll take a break. It is Zach Gelb show on the Infinity Sports Network. 88710 for ISN. Take some calls after this 887104476. Also, I got a little three words or less on each team and their selection in the top ten. Update time first. Here's Zach.