Roman Harper, Former NFL Safety

That's what I'm talking about. It is the Zach Yelp show coast to coast on CBS Sports Radio. We'll head out to the guest line right now. I'm welcoming a man that played his college ball at Alabama, then played in the NFL with the Saints and the Panthers, and did go to two Pro Bowls, is in the Saints Hall of Fame, and won a Lombardi Trophy with the Saints. And that is our pal Roman Harper, who's kind enough to join us right now. Roman, how you been?

Zach, I'm doing good, man. I literally just picked up my kids from basketball practice. Now we're going to head to the house and get ready to get on the road, man. Headed down to Louisiana with Mardi Gras.

Oh, wow. I've been to Mardi Gras once. I would tell you I have all these great memories, but I can't remember anything that happened at Mardi Gras. That means you had a great time.

That's all that you need to know is that I had a great time. Anytime you don't remember anything, it's a good time in Louisiana. That's what they encourage. They never tell you to go home.

They never tell you to stop drinking. Except for Fat Tuesday. So I remember, obviously, the other day when you see the Chiefs parade. What do you remember about the parade in New Orleans after you guys won the Super Bowl? That it was way better than any other city that has a parade, because New Orleans is built for that. They literally stopped Mardi Gras. They didn't run parades for a whole day.

They pushed everything back. We got to ride in all the Mardi Gras floats. The Kickers rode in the Muses, which is a big stiletto shoe. The Kickers rode in that one. We rode in this big pirate ship where the DBs did.

Our DB coach, Dennis Allen, who's now the head coach at New Orleans, was literally at the top on the crow's nest. At one point in time, he had a do-rag on. It was crying. He was so emotional, just so happy. The drinks were flowing.

Just know that much. It was awesome. The police went and got us the drinks. It was great. It was awesome. It was epic.

It lasted about four hours longer than we actually planned for because it was so many people out there. It was just so crazy for us. You winning that Super Bowl. What's the lasting image for you when you look back at that team? It's really not about all the plays, but really and truthfully, we had so much fun together as a team off the field. Those are the memories I really have. We did so much together off the court and off the field.

Sorry, I'm leaving basketball practice. Off the field, that's what really made all the memories. No team I was ever on hung more than that team. Man, I just remember jumping up and down in Jonathan Villema's arms when we actually won the Super Bowl because you're playing against Peyton Manning. The game was never over. When the clock hit zero, zero, zero and we had won, I was just there jumping and hugging. I've never been so happy. I better share that moment. I still got the picture of my mom and I holding the Lombardi Trophy on the field during the celebration. Man, I didn't think I looked like my mom so much until both of us were sitting there with the biggest Kool-Aid smiles on our faces. It's amazing. Those are the things that I truly remember.

I couldn't tell you two things from the game I remember. That's awesome. Roman Harper here with us. You talked about Mardi Gras.

That's who you're going to now. You also talked about the Saints Parade. How does that stuff compare to what you saw this past weekend in Arizona at Waste Management? I know you're exchanging some texts and I've never seen anything like Waste Management.

The Waste Management is a complete four-letter word show. It is crazy. It is off the chain. It's nothing pretty and it's not for the weak or the weary.

Just know that. You show up there, people are hammered. On the way in, it was 12 o'clock lunch time, and on the drive in, I saw three people throwing up outside just randomly. Oh, that's another one. They're throwing up. That one's hunched over. That one's throwing up. Then another one was throwing up, too. The people watching is crazy. You've got to be aware, though.

I would tell all the young ladies out there, could you please wear something underneath the dresses? It looked like a nightclub out there, but people are passed out on deals everywhere. It's great people watching, but I don't think they understand how many people actually show up. There's no real walkway, so everybody's just kind of going all in the same direction.

It's easy to get stuck in a bottleneck situation, which to me, I don't like. Unless you're a streaker running across the golf course and then jumping into a pond, you don't get kicked out. I saw a lady try to do the limbo underneath one of the strings that prevents everyone from crossing into the fairway. She fell practically in the fairway when golfers were coming, and then her friend just picked her up and she didn't even get kicked out. That was crazy to me. It's literally no home bar out there. Nobody ever gets kicked out. People are just going crazy out there. That's acceptable, and not only that, but it's almost encouraged. I was right, because you ride a bus over to there. If you get an Uber ride over there to drop you off, then you catch a bus over to where the tournament is, to where you have to be able to go in and stuff. Literally, this young lady behind us in the seat, my wife and I were sitting there, and she's just yelling at people on the bus like, they needed to tug their drinks.

You need to hurry up and get through with it. Then she called them another couple of names that they didn't drink it fast enough, and she kept calling it. She referred to the tournament as the wasted management. I was like, this is the wasted management. What are you here for? I was like, I kind of like this girl's energy.

I don't know about you, but this girl's on one, and I'm here for that. The wasted management. I like that. Roman Harper here with us. You mentioned Dennis Allen. He's looking for a quarterback now. There's a big rumor that it could be Derek Carr.

Can you see those two gelling together? I could. Automatically, if Derek Carr comes in there, he's going to be the best quarterback in that division. That gives you a chance and a leg up.

You've got to stay healthy, of course. Things kind of got to go right, but you're not even in the conversation of a championship team until you get the quarterback in the NFL. That's where today's game is.

You've got to understand that's why it's so important to have that position, and that's why they also claim the biggest fluff. I think Bryce Young is a brilliant quarterback, but the only knock you hear on him is the size or lack of it. Is the size an issue in the NFL for Bryce Young? It will be until he throws his first touchdown, and then when people, he's able to take a hit and get up, because you're not going to be able to keep him all the way clean. But quarterbacks don't take bad hits like they used to in the 80s and 90s when you wanted a six-four, 230-pound quarterback.

That was very stationary and stagnant. The game has changed. People move the pocket more. People do a lot more things from shotgun position, which is exactly where Bryce Young used to, and he can go under center. And he has all the arm strength and the creativity within the pocket to do and extend and do all these great things, but people will knock him for his size.

I saw him in Phoenix. He's clearly growing his hair, which I think is a smart play right now, so then he doesn't get measured shorter than what he is. So any time you can get some hair, they can only hate on you just a little bit more, because that's going to give you at least a quarter of an inch, a half an inch, which every inch counts if you're Bryce Young right now.

I need him to eat an inch, and I need him eating a lot, because you want him closer to that 200 range, as close as possible as he can get. Yeah, but when you watch him this year, I was so impressed by him because this is not a usual year for Alabama where they have all these stars at the wide receiver position, and I thought he did more with less, and nothing against CJ Stroud. I think he'd be a good quarterback, but Stroud had so many wide receivers at Ohio State.

Shout out to myself. I co-hosted Paul Feynman today with Cole Cubic, and we had Jordan Reed on, who's an ESPN draft draft expert, and he said that same exact thing, Zach. He was more impressed with Bryce Young this year than he was even last year, so you saw what he could do when he had NFL talented receivers around him.

They were ready guys, like Davidson Williams, like John Mechie. The numbers he put up, he put up numbers and he won a Heisman, but if he does not have those things, which you saw this year, he could still go out there and win you the game. He could still lead Alabama to right there at a championship caliber team this year at winning the championship, that they lost two games by less than four points, and you never said that they lost the game because of Bryce Young and his inconsistent play. It was always, you know, they are in this game because of Bryce Young.

Roman Harper here with us. So we talked about Stroud, we talked about Young. How about Anthony Richardson and Will Levis, because those seem like those could be the four quarterbacks that go in the first round.

That is what I'm hearing as well. Anthony Richardson has so much upside. He has so much potential, which is one of the worst compliments you can get in sports is potential, because you haven't done anything yet, but you still got it in you.

So that's one of the worst compliments, but he's got it. He can run. He's big. He's got one of the strongest arms, if not the strongest arm in this draft, and he has the potential to be great with all his attributes.

Now, how do you get it out of them? That's going to be the question mark is how do you get it out of them and can he like when you give him the coaching, is he going to be able to take it all in and be able to read defenses and coverages because he didn't always do that. Well, he went games in college where he didn't throw touchdowns and he looked really bad at reading coverages and laid on throws.

So how do you speed up that clock and still say, all right, well, is he a project? Is he a is he not going to be ready for one or two years? And if so, is that worth the draft pick and where you're going to have to draft him that because you know how highly coveted these quarterbacks are now, will Levis on the other end. He's going to look the prettiest out of anybody in any pro day this year when it comes to quarterback. Nobody's never spend a ball like he is. Nobody's going to measure like he is and he can run. He's athletic.

He has all the attributes in the world. The one attribute that I don't like about will ever so that scares me is like buyer beware is the fact that he turns the football over a lot. So with his fumbles or interceptions, he's had 20 something of them in the last year and a half of playing ball. That scares me because I thought Sam Darnell would change when he got to the league, you know, at USC his sophomore year. He was great junior year. He turned the ball over a lot more than he did his sophomore year and that trend never stopped.

I know going to the Jets didn't help when he was there. But overall, these characteristics are kind of like who they are. Some of the time when people show you who they are and don't tell you who they are, but when they show you something, you better believe it. How do you rank those four quarterbacks from one to four? When you like the most, when you like the least between young shroud Richardson and Levis.

So I got holes in everybody's game. So right now, Bryce, Bryce is my number one quarterback and only knock on him is his side. You love everything else about him, the intangibles, the leadership, the ability to be able to get protections, right? He does way more than any other quarterback in college right now.

Second, I got CJ Stroud. What I saw him do against Georgia flat-out shocked me. I didn't think he'd be that successful. But man, he throws a very, very catchable football. The knock I have on CJ Stroud literally has nothing to do with him. It's because he played at Ohio State quarter at Ohio State. I haven't seen Ohio State quarterback make it in the league that I love it.

Just I don't know why. Maybe he's different, but I'm just telling you what the what the numbers and what I've seen in my own eyes. Third, I got Anthony Richardson purely because of his upside. I think we'll leverage is more ready to go right now.

The will levels, like I said earlier, has a turnover issue, which really scares me. Anthony Richardson, you just can't deny the skill set and the ability. Now, can you get around the coaches and then the right system where now he you allow him to use his legs and not just make it all this RPO, but initiate him running the football, getting his game going and then making guys come up and then taking advantage on one-on-ones on the outside.

Because on the outside, that's what it's all about, man. Giving your guy a chance to make a play in space and do that with an accurate pass where now he's able to catch and run. I think answer Anthony Richardson has all those abilities. Sadly, on the outside, looking into those four is hidden Hooker, who is a great college quarterback.

The system he ran in Tennessee that has nothing to do what he's going to be doing on Sundays. But it's very interesting because that 15 to 18 yard throw in between those hash marks, two yards on the outside of it, two yards inside the numbers and two yards outside the hashes in the NFL. That's got to be a freaking layup back on Sunday and handed missed those throws at times at Tennessee. You just overlooked it because he was hitting 50 yard bombs to Jalen Hyatt running down the field wide open so many times this year.

So, these guys will be projects, but hidden Hooker I love as well. And you just never know in this quarterback game. You just never know because going through the right system with the right coach, sometimes with the right defense and run game, makes all the world and the difference to a successful quarterback. Before we let Roman Harper run, how did you react to the news of your former head football coach Sean Payton going out to Denver and become the new head coach of the Broncos? You know, I texted him in and he hit me back and I congratulated him.

I'm really excited for him to be able to go and get back in the booth and not not in the booth, but back of the headset on and get back to coaching, which I know he loved and I know he missed. And it's a great experience and going to Denver is going to be different. It's a and it's a it's a team in a franchise that has storied history where New Orleans. We made the history, right?

It's just a different concept where now you don't have to go there and just blow the whole thing up and say, this is what I want to do and this is what I'm trying to create. You're already in an A-plus organization that has a storied history and won a couple Super Bowls and has all these great legacies. So now you just got to go in there and get the thing right. You got to fix whatever this fracture is in this locker room between Russell Wilson and all the other great players around him. I just met with Jerry Judy over the Super Bowl in Phoenix and I told him, man, be excited. But some days you got to understand Sean's going to try and push guys, try and make them uncomfortable to see what he can get get out of them. Don't back down from him, but go out there and show me what you do, man, and work. That's all he really wants. He wants the best at everybody.

He has that Parcells in him. So, you know, some days it's just going to be your day. You're going to be stretching. He's going to come to you, call you some kind of names to really try and push you to see how do you break?

How do you handle pressure and how do you react to these things? And eventually he understands like, you know what? I'm gonna get the best out of this guy when I do these certain things. And he's going to try and figure out how he pushes everybody's buttons to get the best out of them. I love working with Sean. I love playing for Sean because I never went into a game feeling like I was an underdog.