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[Assistant] Uh, chess pieces that you, that you can operate inside of that defense. And Buddha Baker has been one that's really panned out. That's just sort of my thought on those three guys.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and worth noting that, uhm, when he...


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[Assistant] Two pro bowls, two first team all pros, uh, didn't make it last year, uh, in terms of the all pro, but was a pro bowler as well. And I think you could even make a case if you wanted to that.


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[Assistant] Like, Tyree Hill is clearly better in his position than the Honey Badger is at this point in time. At least based on what we've seen through 2021. And that's not a knock on Matthew, it's just the reality. But like, I feel like you can rarely, you can compensate for the loss of Tyree Hill.


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[Assistant] On offense when you have Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey and all these other weapons that you can bring in and you have Andy Reid calling the plays. I don't know that you can sufficiently.


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[Assistant] Sorry, I'm trying to figure out who wrote for cbsports.com the Antoine Winfield retires story because I haven't.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, it's like, welcome, welcome to hell. Uhm. It's crazy. Let's see, yeaah, anyway, uhm.


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[Assistant] I agree with you completely. I think Bitterbaker's a special player. Fun to watch. Uh, let's take a break. And when we come back, Sully's top five safeties coming up next.


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[Assistant] So number five, you have, uh, uh, God, I'm like, yeah, you know, when you take like a week away and you just really turn your brain off of football.


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[Assistant] I bet this is like the hardest article you've written in a year. Just cause you're like, you're like, ah. It's crazy.


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[Assistant] And then I said something stupid anyway. Uh, point being, Marcus Williams checks in at number five for you.


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[Assistant] There's just always somebody who's like lurking in the back end of that defense ready to like make you pay.


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[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. And look, uhm, you know, Marcus Williams had the, of course, the Minneapolis miracle.


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[Assistant] Uhm, that, you know, he, and I think one of the things, Pete Prisco and I have talked about this a bunch, but he bounced back from that so well. Like, that's the type of situation where it's so ugly, just an on-field, on-field mistake.


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[Assistant] That it can mar your career and like derail your, your play. And, and it was very, I was just always very impressed with how he, you know, like didn't.


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[Assistant] Came back in, I guess, 2018, right? And didn't, didn't really skip a beat. It was in 2000, is that right?


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[Assistant] The absolutely, and now it's like, you know, it's sort of.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you know, two of the guys are gone, so it's not quite the same. Actually, I guess, uh, technically three of the guys are gone. But the 2017 New Orleans Saints draft class.


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[Assistant] Marcus Williams in the second round, 42nd overall. Alvin Kamara.


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[Assistant] Alex Anzaloni and Trey Hendrickson in the third round, 67-76 and 1-0-3 overall. That draft class, completely, the Saints are going 7-9, three straight season.


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[Assistant] Or is like has to leave earlier. I think there's a chance that the saints don't, you know.


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[Assistant] Like maybe, maybe, I don't know. I'm not saying they move on from Drew Brees. I just think that draft crash changed that trajectory pretty dramatically for the New Orleans Saints. At number four.


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[Assistant] We'll do four and three and then we'll do two and one just for time purposes. Justin Simmons at four and Jesse Bates at fourth and third respectively. Two guys who, I mean,


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[Assistant] I mean, obviously anybody that's in this podcast, I assume knows those names or is like familiar with those names because they're really good football players.


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[Assistant] But like, they are definitely not household names in terms of, uh, you know, being like superstars or anything.


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[Assistant] I was going to say Prisco talking about this too when he was on the show and talking about where he put Bates in his top 100 and Bates came out and said.


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[Assistant] That the Kai's contract situation was weighing heavily on him throughout most of the 2021 regular season.


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[Assistant] And that he sort of finally kind of got past it as the later in the year. And that's why he played so well in the playoffs too. And now he's being franchise tagged. Uhm, so you sort of wonder like, will there be...


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[Assistant] Part of the problem for him is probably that...


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[Assistant] And look, this has happened across multiple positions. We talked about it, uhm, who are we talking about with? But the, you know, the Browns, uhm, you know, did it with, uh, oh, we're talking about the top 10 tight ends.


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[Assistant] If you're Jesse Bates and you feel like you are an all pro safety who is coming into his own and is, you know.


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[Assistant] Really just two years away from hitting the, hitting free agency as a true free agent. Like you just, you cannot take less than 15 million dollars a year. And my guess would be that the Bengals are not inclined to pay the safety position.


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[Assistant] Talent in the draft that works out well for them, they typically do retain it.


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[Assistant] And don't like to let it walk, you know, Carl Lawson and they brought in Trey Hendricks and swapped out. It's sort of the exception. Point being is I agree with you completely. He should get paid. I just sort of wonder if.


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[Assistant] These big numbers in the safety market might have caused negotiations to stall a little bit.


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[Assistant] Deshaun Watson got, again, back to the Browns. They screwed up the tight end market, and they screwed up the quarterback market for everybody else.


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[Assistant] You're probably not a billionaire, like very close to a billionaire, but let's say if you're worth 925 million dollars, which is, I saw a report


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[Assistant] I don't know how accurate it is, but that's the report. Let's say Mike Brown's worth $900 million. Well, if you write


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[Assistant] So I think you are correct in the Joe Burrow contract factoring into all of this and how they want to build out their roster and whether or not they want to allocate a significant, you know, percentage of their resources to the safety position.


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[Assistant] And they probably believe that, you know, as good as Jesse Bates was, that they can, cause they, they, um, yeah, he was 54th overall in the 2018 draft. Like, you know, he, same draft as Minka, same draft as Jamal.


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[Assistant] Absolutely, uhm, okay. At number two and number one overall. Derwin James checks in at number two for you and I Derwin James is probably one of my like.


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[Assistant] 10 favorite players, uhm, to come out of the draft over the last...


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[Assistant] Five, ten years or whatever. Like, I, I, I, I can't believe you told a seventeen. Same draft, but what a draft for safeties.


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[Assistant] Jamal Adams, Mika Fitzpatrick, Derwin James, and Jesse Bates all in the same draft. Unreal class. Unreal. Yeah, unbelievable. Was there, trying to make sure, uh, Terrell Edmonds was in that as well for Pittsburgh. Um, just trying to make sure I don't, you know, crap on any other. Justin Reed was in that draft? Wow.


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[Assistant] Pretty impressive for safety's sake. I'm sure I'm probably missing somebody, so apologies if I am.


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[Assistant] Uhm, just trying to run through the list of safeties on there. At any rate, point being is, uhm, Derwin James fell to 17th overall in that class. Uhm, he


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[Assistant] Where, you know, you have a really good player who just keeps getting hurt because the Chargers, for whatever reason, uhm, aren't able to keep people healthy. And he bounced back in a very nice way last year.


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[Assistant] I don't know, 10 or 15 best defensive players in the entire NFL, so.


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[Assistant] I think it's probably, if I may, so I have more of a projection on what he might do with a full healthy season in 2022 than it is necessarily like.


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[Assistant] You know, was he the second best safety lash in the NFL last year?


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[Assistant] Kevin Byrd tweeted at Deon Sanders like, uh, like Deon was like, who is that? Like, or like Deon left him off the top safeties list or defensive backs list or something, something like that. Kevin Byrd tweeted at Deon and was like, yo, like, I mean,


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[Assistant] I would say that, you know, there's an obvious snub on this list.


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[Assistant] You keep staying, you keep, uh, being a fan and I'll keep being the man. It was like, Leon, that's an actual NFL player on the league that you cover professionally who you snubbed and don't like, you don't know who Kevin Byard is. Everybody knows who Kevin Byard is.


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[Assistant] That's such a perfect encapsulation of like Kevin Byard and just how underrated he is as a player.


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[Assistant] Uhm, alright, so here's the full thing. God, I love this story so much. This is like so, so, oh yeaah, look at Divo. Divo, you're the best. So, uh, Dion said originally, he said in an NFL network tweet out of March 2018, so like the off season, Dion Sanders, a big fan of the Houston Texans latest DB edition and said, honey badger is the best safety in the game.


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[Assistant] And Dion quote tweets him and said, you're looking at who writers tell you who's the best. I know who players and former players feel is the best.


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[Assistant] Actual infor, Artina's son, I wonder if, although he may have changed it, something may have happened to him. And he's very involved in...


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[Assistant] Uhm, like if you click on his website, it's like the Byrd family legacy fund.


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[Assistant] Somewhere between 10 and 20 hours per week.


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[Assistant] So, alright, that's the list. Those are the safeties. I continue, you know, we talk about, you know, hard work grinding on these lists. I would also like to point out that somehow,


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[Assistant] I squeeze 50 minutes out of these lists for this podcast. It doesn't matter position. I'm like, listen, this is just a tough list to do. We're going to rip through this thing very quickly and then.


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[Assistant] You know, 45 minutes later, look up and all of a sudden it's all like, look, you, you were on vacation. You came back and grinded through the safety list. Good work, man.


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[Assistant] Yeah, send him love at Tyler Sully on Twitter. And also if you were watching on the live stream bonus, we're going to have another live stream coming up right after this. I think we're going to talk offensive line with Jeff Kerr. So if you're hanging out on the YouTube channel and you're like, man, I don't want to go back to work. I need.


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[Assistant] Uh, these warriors to grind out another fascinating nebulous top 10 list in June with Princeton screaming from some living room, uh, in Raleigh. Well, you're in luck because it's happening next. Uh, stay tuned. We'll make sure to set an alert, but you can just hang by the YouTube channel and refresh and it'll pop up. Sully, as always buddy, a pleasure. I'm sure we will talk soon.


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[Assistant] Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.


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[Assistant] You're procrastinating. There are ten other men in this plant would have done it already. Kirshenbaum, come get me when these old women are ready.


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[Assistant] Hi, I'm Craig Mazin, creator of the HBO and Sky Mini series, Chernobyl. This is a follow-up podcast to the podcast that we did for the series, and it is going to be a terrific discussion between myself


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[Assistant] And again, Peter Sagal, and we're going to also be joined by Jared Harris, who portrayed Valeriy Legasov on the series. But before we begin that conversation,


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[Assistant] I have a little prologue to add because current events have taken a strange turn and a reminiscent turn lately.


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[Assistant] I'm talking about a nuclear explosion that happened in Russia. And just a few days before I'm recording this now, on August 8th,


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[Assistant] Five nuclear specialists deployed by Rosatom, which is Russia's state atomic energy company, as well as two military personnel were killed.


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[Assistant] That this explosion involved a new kind of cruise missile that Putin is particularly proud of.


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[Assistant] This cruise missile apparently can reach any corner of the earth. Because it is not a typical missile that's powered by liquid fuel like a normal rocket.


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[Assistant] It's a cruise missile that is powered by a small nuclear reactor. Well, it exploded.


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[Assistant] Now Rosatom did not confirm that anyone died until Saturday, August 10th. So two days go by before they say anything about anyone dying. And it's not until August 11th, three days after the explosion, that they come out and admit that it was nuclear in nature. The words they used, and these are fascinating,


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[Assistant] Because the Russian government has not been particularly forthcoming. We do know that in the city of Sevravinsk, which is about 20 miles away from the missile test site,


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[Assistant] That someone detected a rise in background radiation.


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[Assistant] Even Russian news media recorded that that radiation level had gone up briefly to at least 200 times normal background levels. Now to put that in context,


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[Assistant] That's not like Chernobyl where you're getting upwards of 7,000 times background levels, but it's still not good. And then the reports sort of began to disappear.


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[Assistant] There is a regional news site that states that victims of the accident were not told that they may have suffered from radiation injuries.


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[Assistant] Nor were the doctors and nurses told who were treating those people.


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[Assistant] After treating them, apparently the rooms, uh, that they were treated in were sealed and doctors were sent to the Capitol for medical evaluations. Does any of this sound sickly familiar?


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[Assistant] The point isn't that accidents should never happen again. The point is that when they do


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[Assistant] It is incumbent upon governments and people to be as open and transparent about them as possible. Chernobyl happened 33 years ago.


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[Assistant] And here we are, just a week later, and there has been a nuclear explosion in Russia that we were told about days later. And there's a town called Nyonaksa.


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[Assistant] Which was told to evacuate and then we're told they're not evacuating so we're not quite sure.


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[Assistant] And there are doctors whose medical scrubs apparently have been setting dosimeters clicking because they are contaminated. That's what we know. That's all they've told us. Hopefully this doesn't lead to more deaths. It's terribly sad that scientists are still dying. It's terribly sad that first responders are still dying.


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[Assistant] And it is my great hope that after this incident and maybe in a little way because of our show, people finally demand that their governments tell them the truth. And I have high hopes that people in Russia who are currently protesting Mr. Putin's government demand answers. This can't keep going on. 33 years ago and today seems like not much has changed. Now on with the show.


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[Assistant] Slava's threads were fascinating. And by the way.


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[Assistant] I learned things that I didn't know because, you know, I'm not aware of every single tiny choice that the production department makes, so when...


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[Assistant] And when he says, oh my gosh, they actually knew to put the wedding ring for Emily Watson's character on her right hand because that's how it was worn as opposed to the left hand. Or, look, not only is the license plate on this car


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[Assistant] Our guys did a great job. I mean, they really did. There's a, there's a word that I guess in Russian translates to cranberries.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but what it means essentially is it's like a fake romanticization of Russian stuff. You know, so cranberries are if, if you make a movie about Soviets and they're all, I don't know, wearing those hats, even when it's not co-


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[Assistant] You know, it's like, it's that, that, that silly stuff. And, and we were, we were rather cranberry free, according to, uh, most people that spoke with us. And there's a lot of surprises that we got it right.


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[Assistant] Because they have seen the West and by the way, they've also seen their own media in Russia, for instance, which is state, generally state run and state funded. They've seen a lot of people get it wrong.


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[Assistant] And I think they were surprised that someone kinda got it right.


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[Assistant] Well, we got a little, some of that's luck, uhm, but some of it is tailoring a part to


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[Assistant] An actor. So the actor there, uh, playing Bache was Faris Faris, who, uh, was born and grew up in Lebanon and then moved to Sweden. So he is Swedish-Lebanese or Lebanese-Swedish, however you, you want to mix it up. And so when we cast him, I changed that part. That part was originally written to be a Ukrainian, actually.


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[Assistant] And because of Forrest's physicality and his appearance.


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[Assistant] It was also a great opportunity for us to represent, uhm, the different parts of the Soviet Union. We think of the Soviet Union as Russia.


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[Assistant] And, and you know, certainly by land and population, it was majority Russian. And then you have Ukraine and Belarus, which are even closer to Europe than Russia. But you have all this Asia minor area and you have all these interesting other republics.


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[Assistant] That aren't so, you know, blonde haired, blue eyed, white people. There, there, there's a certain ethnicity that's going on there that's fascinating. And so we kind of just tailored it to him. We tailored his name and his.


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[Assistant] The Soviet-ness of him, that's something that Johan worked really hard with, with everyone. I mean, I'm sure Jared.


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[Assistant] You know, right off the bat when you were talking with Johan, he probably immediately started in with the, what he would call the Soviet weight.


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[Assistant] Is, I believe it's the, it's in the beginning of episode four, uh, Ludmilla has arrived in this new apartment that they've given her in Kiev. And there's a landlady that's essentially your building manager that's showing her the, the room. And, and she is a, um, she's, she's an Eastern European actor and she's holding her cigarette and just standing there.


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[Assistant] And then Liudmila looks back at her, Jesse Buckley turns back, and the woman just goes, ehh, like moves her cigarette like...


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[Assistant] Ugh, I'm tired of standing here and just walks away. It's perfect and I don't think any British or American person would have ever th-


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[Assistant] Done that naturally. It's just this kind of, I'm done here and walk away. Loved it.


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[Assistant] Well, this is, this is one of the reasons why Jared is so good at what he does. He doesn't just interrogate and understand his own character. He also is interrogating and understanding the characters that are in the scene with him because that


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[Assistant] That informs what you're doing and how you're supposed to do it. You see, to me, character is not in isolation. Character only exists in relationship. And what's, what I love when we're cutting these scenes together is finding those moments, and this is where Johan and I, I think,


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[Assistant] We just had a lovely philosophical convergence. We feel the same way.


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[Assistant] Jared would do these things just beautifully all the time. You could see him looking at Stellan and going, thank, thank God he's doing this, but also, oh.


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[Assistant] Oh, I'm starting to understand something about him as a human being and my relationship to him has now changed because it was, I'm going to throw you out of this helicopter and now it's something else. I'm seeing a human in there that actually is quite noble and there's a beauty to this man. He is not what I thought he was.


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[Assistant] It was immature. Craig, did you set him up for this? I did not. Jared came to me and he said, why so short?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think so. I mean, we, I had been kind of beating it up from the point of view of just being terrified at the amount we were showing the audience and demanding their attention for. But also, you know, just Jared kind of undersold a little bit earlier.


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[Assistant] His process with the script because, you know, he and I had a series of conversations before we started shooting that were really influential, particularly


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[Assistant] On the, the way that episode four turned into five and how episode five worked dramatically in terms of what the stakes were and what his goals were and how that was gonna function and, and some really significant changes came out of that and then just going through


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[Assistant] There was a very careful examination of, look, it's an enormous amount. I mean we had to figure, and unfortunately because of the way our schedule worked in terms of both availability and budget, that


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[Assistant] So the one thing that Jared was like, please put the trial at the end of the schedule. And our scheduling people came back and said, the only way we are going to be able to make this show for this amount of money is if that trial is on week three. And so yeaah.


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[Assistant] That's exactly right. Every chance we could, we tried to avoid doing what it seemed 70 years of television had taught us to do. And ending a trial with an utter failure. I mean just an utter failure.


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[Assistant] Is interesting in and of itself and also I think very Soviet.


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[Assistant] The history of people making brave stances and ending up with ice picks to the back of their head is pretty long and glorious. And he tries something there out of just a sheer devotion to principle.


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[Assistant] And it fails. And only then through that failure, I think, do we imply that Legasov gets the idea of what he's going to eventually need to do. That there's only really one way to win. And going through everything that we did with Inside the Kremlin and certainly at the trial, it was always about trying to figure out


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[Assistant] What this explanation meant to Legasov as he was telling it.


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[Assistant] It was through the lens of his contempt and, um, outrage for Diyatlov and the decisions he had made.


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[Assistant] It is also sometimes powered by his love of the science itself. I mean, when he starts talking about the nuclear reactor, you see him getting lost in the thing that got him excited as a young man about all of it, which is that it is beautiful. When it works, it's remarkable. It's an incredible achievement and there you see reflected back a little bit of what.


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[Assistant] The Soviets had for their scientific and industrial complex, this reverence, which as it turned out was, was somewhat misplaced.


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[Assistant] We had also the benefit of some circumstances that helped that mystery along because if there was simply one thing that happened that night, then.


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[Assistant] You might run into a situation where you're faking a bunch of storytelling to eventually reveal a fact.


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[Assistant] But what's, what's so bizarre about the procedure of that night is that this thing that blew up


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[Assistant] It kept getting colder and colder and kept dropping in power. It was so...


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[Assistant] It's counterintuitive and that in and of itself is a kind of gift because it allows Legasov to tell a story knowing fully well that as he tells it, it shouldn't be making sense for the people listening to it, which is interesting.


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[Assistant] Right, so now he has that going for him in a sense, that he, he has to start to explain to them, listen, what I'm about to say makes no sense, but trust me when I tell you, this will make sense.


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[Assistant] So acknowledging those things as he went along, I think helped a lot. And also the fact that, and I completely agree with Jared, that I don't think when he showed up, he thought he was going to tell the truth. I think he was quite sure he wasn't.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I thought that, that when you got to that moment, you, I think the best thing you could have imagined would happen is that you'd look in the eyes of those scientists and you would see their acknowledgement that yes, what you had said made an impact and they were going to carry this message forth and these reactors would be fixed. You would then get shot, but, but that something would be carried on and yet all you see in their eyes is yeah, no.


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[Assistant] Well, Diatlov, when Diatlov, even in the version that we have in, in the show, which is, it is a shorter version.


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[Assistant] I think, at least my, what I get away from it and, and what I, what the intention was, was that


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[Assistant] You're on the edge of what you should do or say. You're probably not gonna do it. And then Dyatlov interrupts your moment of hesitation.


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[Assistant] And essentially says, this is a bunch of crap, and you, Legasov, know it, and you're a liar. And, and that...


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[Assistant] It's a, it's a strange thing to have a villain be the person that inspires the hero to do the right thing, but that's kind of what happens there because the truth of the matter is, do you out love?


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[Assistant] Had no concept that what he was doing could lead to an explosion. None. Zero.


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[Assistant] And to, to that extent, he is innocent. He's, he's guilty of a lot of things, but, but...


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[Assistant] And calling out Legasov in that moment, I think, is what inspires Legasov to say, okay, you know what, actually?


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[Assistant] That's, that's true. Because he knows it's true about himself.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, he couldn't have done anything. I think basically he has arrived at a moment where he can. This is it. This is the one moment where theoretically he could do something and this man has cut to the heart of him and essentially said, you are a liar. That's why you're not doing anything right now when you could.


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[Assistant] And, and that's ultimately what I think changes Legasov's mind.


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[Assistant] That scene also is a moment, I mean, you know, when I, so I have this, you know, we have our different theories about how this works. Jane Featherstone, one of our executive producers, her theory is that it's, it's in the moment following that discussion with Sherbina on the little park bench there.


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[Assistant] That Legasov decides, I think I'm probably gonna do the right thing here and tell the truth. So everybody has a different kind of interpretation of it. Yeah.


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[Assistant] Not all of them, but a bunch of them. Anybody who looks at this show and says, you know,


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[Assistant] This teaches us something about blank. Generally, they're correct. The show is about people. And I wish I could explain that to those who think it's about politics. It's not. It's about people and it's about our weaknesses as humans and the way we think and process the world around us.


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[Assistant] And so of course it can be kind of kaleidoscopic in that regard. You can look at any human failure and go, this is quite reminiscent of the human failure at Chernobyl.


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[Assistant] I do, I do have things that are coming next and they, uh, I can't talk about them per se. I will say that at the very least the first one is also about our world and things that happened, but the...


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[Assistant] They happened much more recently and they happened much more close to home.


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[Assistant] They sure do. So, so a, a, a remarkable stream of, Oh God, look at this depressing chapter in history has made its way to eight bucks. And, and, and, and listen, I, I entertain them all. I mean, I, I look through all of it. I consider all of it, um, because.


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[Assistant] What you are looking for from, and I'm fascinated by history, obviously what you're looking for are chapters in history where there are people and relationships embedded into it that you think are gonna...


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[Assistant] Translate to now and offer some kind of universal perspective and...


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[Assistant] Like for instance, Gallipoli, which is one of my favorite movies and how you can take something like that and really make it about human beings. That's, that's what you're hoping for when you're thinking about these moments in...


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[Assistant] Well, Legasov just wasn't funny. He's just not a funny guy. But he did, but see, you're a funny person, so there were moments where you created laughs.


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[Assistant] Out of your awkwardness. I mean, I remember the first time, so I think it was week two, it was the first day of the second week and I'm sitting with, uh, Johan in an open field watching the scene where Jared and Stellan have arrived.


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[Assistant] And are meeting, uhm, Burkhanov and Famine to discuss, you know, why did I see graphite on the roof and all that? And, and initially Jared's character, Legasov, has to hang back by the, the helicopter because he's, he's been, he's been naughty, you know, he got into an argument with Sherbina in the helicopter. And then Sherbina will wait like, all right, come on over.


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[Assistant] And Jared just has this thing where he's walking and then he gets close and then the guards that are walking with him stop. He like moves a half a step in front of them and then just awkwardly steps backward.


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[Assistant] And the two of us were just, we honestly thought that was the funniest thing we'd ever seen because it encapsulated a certain kind of leg-


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[Assistant] Um, you, I mean, you, you made us laugh anyway. So that's hats off to you. And, and yes, once I, well, I'm going to go back to comedy and it'll, you'll be, um, justly rewarded.


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[Assistant] Hi, this is Peter Sagal, sometimes known as the host of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR, but more recently and gratifyingly known as the host of the Chernobyl podcast, originally produced with myself and the show's creator, Craig Mazin, to accompany each episode of the HBO miniseries. Well, some months after the extraordinary success


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[Assistant] Of that mini-series, we have gotten the band together for a special After Effects.


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[Assistant] ...episode of this podcast. Craig Mazin, how are you? I'm good, Mr. Peter Segal. How are you? I'm well, thank you. I've been enjoying all the undue, uh, uh, uh, attention I've been getting for, for being on this podcast. We are also joined, and I am extraordinarily excited by this, by the leading actor of the miniseries.


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[Assistant] Who played Legasov to such extraordinary effect. Jared Harris is joining us. Jared, hello. Hi.


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[Assistant] As anybody who has seen the mini-series or even has just been watching the press, the mini-series kind of took over the national and international conversation in a way that, even though I was a tremendous admirer of the show, was frankly surprised by.


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[Assistant] I mean, it's not, shall we say, uh, what you'd expect for popular entertainment. So I wanted to start by asking you, Craig and you, Jared, if, if you were at all surprised by the extraordinary response, uh, to this television show you guys made. Jared, were you surprised? I was surprised. No, not at all.


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[Assistant] Can you guys talk about any of the specific interactions or reactions you've heard from viewers of the show that stood out for you?


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[Assistant] There was a guy on Twitter named Slava Malamud who says that he grew up in the Ukraine. He now lives in America. And he, and he posted extraordinary reviews of each episode.


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[Assistant] Just talking about the extraordinary accuracy of everything depicted. He talked about the clothing, he talked about, you know, down to the pins, worn in the party officials, uh, suits, to the wall decorations. Yes, we all had that on our office wall. And I recommend the Twitter feed for those who are interested. Yeah.


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[Assistant] One of my favorite things that he went on about was one of the characters, uhm, in episode four, with the liquidators who are taking care of the dogs, he talked about the Georgian character and how that actor, uhm,


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[Assistant] Actually managed to actually get across, not just the physicality, but like,


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[Assistant] The actual nature, like the soul of a Georgian. And I was like so amazed by how impressed he was by that accuracy.


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[Assistant] Jared, so tell me exactly what a movement person is.


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[Assistant] Jared, we haven't had the pleasure of having you on this particular podcast before, so let me ask you if you can to talk about how you


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[Assistant] Approached the role. Uh, every actor prepares in a different way. How did you start with Legossip?


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[Assistant] It's interesting that you mentioned like there were things that didn't happen or things that weren't there. One of the things that occurred to me is this is not always a very heroic character, for example.


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[Assistant] I mean, like there are places where he could have done something brave or said something more truthful but didn't.


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[Assistant] There are moments in the miniseries where Legasov, as you say, acts out of fear or even acts dishonestly. For example, the scene where they're asking for the volunteers who become the divers to go in there and go down there. And the scene begins, and this is a brave choice I think by Craig,


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[Assistant] To have the hero, Legasov, stand up and basically lie to these guys. Lying to them, yea.


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[Assistant] Jared, I have two more questions for you and obviously want to hear whatever else you have to say. The first is rather specific, the second is larger.


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[Assistant] Craig already knows that I think it's remarkably successful, but I wanted to ask how much of a challenge you found that scene, the courtroom scene.


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[Assistant] So, so being able to talk for 10 minutes about Xenon is an actor's dream or an actor's nightmare?


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[Assistant] Jared, you said earlier that, uh, when thinking about say, the Kremlin scene, it's important to think of like, what is the character doing other than simply imparting information? What is, what is he trying to do in terms of his desires, motivation? So what did you bring to that final courtroom scene in that sense?


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[Assistant] Do you think, Jared, that in that moment, after Sherbina stands up and says, let him finish, that when he chooses to finish the explanation, to talk about the graphite tips and the flaw in the reactor, the stuff he wasn't supposed to talk about, do you think that, uh, Legasov knew


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[Assistant] Exactly what would happen to him, what then does happen to him in that conversation with the KGB guy.


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[Assistant] And yet he does it anyway, and that probably, uh, just trying to understand it is what gives that supposedly dry technical scene such extraordinary power.


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[Assistant] That's something that I think most people don't know, that what we, the audience, see from an actor is one of many things if they're good and if the production allows it.


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[Assistant] Many different choices they tried in the day and, and that, and that what we are seeing is the one that was selected usually by the editor and director as best representing what happens. That's a fascinating aspect of your craft that I don't think most people know.


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[Assistant] I, I wanted to, I said I had two questions. Uh, the first one took a long time. Here's the second one. And it, uh, and it reflects something that I talked about with Craig, which is that as a writer-producer, what had he learned? Not so much about his craft, but about people.


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[Assistant] And about the world having done this project. And I wanted to ask you the same thing. If you


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[Assistant] After playing this character, and maybe even after watching the reaction to it, if you had learned anything about people or the world or how the world works.


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[Assistant] I can let you cogitate on that as I move over to Craig. I feel I would be remiss if I did not ask both of you what you thought about how much this show has become.


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[Assistant] An object of political argument. Do you guys have any feelings about that conversation? Whether you've enjoyed it, whether you think it's a worthwhile thing, whether it bothers you, anything at all.


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[Assistant] Jared, do you have any thoughts about that? Have you been like amazed to see it as it's unfolded?


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[Assistant] The show, of course, came out to extraordinary acclaim that seemed to increase as more and more people found out about it. Both of you have been nominated for significant awards or won some, I think, so already. Uh, I'm assuming, I'm not in the industry, but I assume this means that more opportunities will open to both of you.


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[Assistant] In your field, so I'll ask both of you, do you know what's next?


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[Assistant] So anybody listening out there, Jared Harris wants to do a comedy. Send him like, hangover four? What do we have to do?


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[Assistant] Speaking of last words, I think we have arrived there at the end of this, probably, I think we can say, final


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[Assistant] Podcast, I am Peter Segel, have been here with Craig Mazin and of course Jared Harris. This podcast was made possible by HBO, Sky, and Pineapple Street Media. It was co-hosted by myself, Peter Segel with Craig Mazin. Our team at Pineapple Street Media includes executive producers Max Linsky, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Barry Finkel.


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[Assistant] This episode was produced by Christine Driscoll and Barry Finkel. Our associate producer is Melissa Slaughter. From Craig Mazin's team we have producer Jack Lesko. And music by Con Urbe.


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[Assistant] Craig, it was an absolute pleasure to talk to you again, and a genuine pleasure to see you acclaim for this great work, and Jared Harris, absolutely a joy to talk to you, and, uh, just speaking on behalf of, shall we say, a few million viewers, thank you for your extraordinary work.


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[Assistant] Thank you. Bless you. Thank you for having me.


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[Assistant] Starking different, like, Stark's a new word. I think it's just Stark, yeaah.


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[Assistant] We're gonna look at these players and we'll see if we have any starking differences between what we think and what the general draft community thinks on these guys. So the last two positions we've gotten here. I can't believe it. You've looked at a lot of dudes. I'm done. It's looking at dudes.


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[Assistant] And rank people, uh, three notebooks. I have been telling you for years that you gotta go digital. And I know you get a lot out of actually writing it with your hand and pen, but you can do that on iPad now.


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[Assistant] So, that's where the writing does really come in handy that way. Cause I've used Microsoft OneNote, not to be like, but they are a sponsor for us and the NFL and our Football Night in America.


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[Assistant] There are no projected first round safeties. There are no projected first round linebackers as well. Technically, yes. Technically, although that's where we're gonna get into a little difference here, here with the safeties. So, we'll do linebackers in a bit, but let's go through safeties and what we'll do


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[Assistant] For linebackers, we're going to just go higher or lower there. If you, if you watched our, what was it, what did we do this with?


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[Assistant] Running backs. This is where they're projected. Chris thinks they may be better than this, worse than this, and that's where we'll go with the linebackers. Safeties will do that, but also you do have a top two for your safeties.


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[Assistant] These two positions, safety and linebacker, have evolved. They were the neck roll positions for the longest time. These had a ton of neck rolls.


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[Assistant] The way that the league is going, I mean, you look at baseball, I watch baseball all the time and the defensive positions in baseball used to be, you're our third baseman. You're our second baseman. Now all these teams have players that are like, you play third, you play second, sometimes you play the outfield. And I feel like that's the philosophy.


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[Assistant] Defensively too in the NFL right now. And why wouldn't it be? Right? It gives you just so much. There are so many injuries that you need that positional flexibility. Yeah. Well, I think, you know,


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[Assistant] You have a top two this year in safety. Before we get to that, let's go to your top five last year. So you're really slacking off compared to Chris last year. You did five last year and here's who we saw. Quan Martin from Illinois was your number one. And then Sydney Brown, you had a couple Illinois, you had Illinois love in your safety department last year. Brian Branch, uh, you had as number three.


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[Assistant] Christopher Smith and then Jay Ward, uh, I feel like, you know, I, I'm biased. I loved Brian Branch last year. Yeah, he was awesome. I thought he looked really good. Right. What'd you think?


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[Assistant] So that's a good player to end off on as we go into this year's rankings because your top two will have two players that other people may not even have on their board in top safeties because they don't call them safeties and we've seen that. I think that's changing with especially this first guy.


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[Assistant] So after your cornerback rankings and he was not on there, people are going to be like, why do you hate Cooper DeGene so much? And now you can say he's number one at the position in my eyes. Exactly. Safety is just the right position. Exactly. It was so hard to be a Iowa defensive player last year because their offense was so bad. I was looking at the amount of plays.


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[Assistant] That he played in some games versus Penn State. 93 snaps for Cooper DeGene. That is insane.


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[Assistant] We just talked about Chris Jenkins last week from Michigan, played 40 at most.


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[Assistant] Throughout the year, they just had such a rotation. Makes life so much easier. Versus Purdue, 84 plays. That's insane. Versus Wisconsin, 79 plays. Yeah.


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[Assistant] With 35 passing touchdowns, had 1200 rush yards. Now this is Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but I'm sure there's some good players in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and we have some, do we have basketball highlights? We got Nicole back there. Hello, welcome back Nicole. We got Nicole pushing the buttons. Here's Cooper to Jim Duncan. White men can jump in this video, okay? I mean, this is making, you know, huge news in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I'm sure.


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[Assistant] He was a third, no, second all time in Iowa High School basketball history in points. T.J. Hockinson, number one. Cooper DeGene, number two. Harrison Barnes, former warrior for the current Sacramento King. He's three? He's three. The guy in the NBA is three? I think he went to North Carolina. Yeah, he did. He went to North Carolina. That's exactly right.


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[Assistant] Uh, yep, not as good as Cooper DeGene. So he has a fallback plan. If this defensive back and safety thing does not work out for Cooper, who knows? Maybe the Detroit Pistons could definitely use a guy like that.


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[Assistant] Your number two, uh, ranked safety is also a player that many people think is a, is a corner. And one, Devin McCourty, when he was on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, really liked this guy too. Your number two safety is? Ennis.


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[Assistant] Octagon, he shows some of his measurables here. He was wide for 1500 snaps, he was a slot corner for 400, so that's what he did in college. And it's an unusual, cause he doesn't have, even though he brings it, he plays with aggression for sure, he kinda has that Chris Sims like ability to


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[Assistant] You know, get you pumped up after you make some play. You see the energy.


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[Assistant] He was coming out. So the weight would be concerning to me. 14th percentile. Now this is even compared to other defensive backs, right? Cornerbacks, ooh yeaah. So he's small for his safety here.


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[Assistant] An anonymous NFC regional scout agrees with you. He says, quote, you can mix and match him in coverages, but I think there will be some man matchups that are going to be tough for him. Like he'll be great against Travis Kelsey, right?


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[Assistant] As recently as December, he was a round six pick. How about that? And now he is projected. Look at that. No one even knew about him. Who is this guy? Missouri started to have a good year. They're like, maybe they got some good players there. Uh, so now he is mid second. We're looking 40 second overall.


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[Assistant] So those are your top two safeties. Yes. And we're closing the book on safety, but now we will look at the other safeties who you did look at and see if they are being projected around where they should be projected. And in fact, we're not even going to give you that option again, like last time.


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[Assistant] We're going to say where they're projected to be drafted. Okay. And you have to say they're going to go higher as in, you know, better. Yeah. Taken earlier. Right. Or lower later. Yeah. Cool. Okay. I like it. Tyler Nubin is the guy. Minnesota safety. This is the name that you hear often times like the best safety. If you do not


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[Assistant] Tyler Newbin, Minnesota, 6'1", 22 years old, 200 pounds. What do you think of him?


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[Assistant] There's a really good play against Illinois. I was watching, uh, Luke Altmeyer was, was looking, uh, left, kind of looking him off that way and then turned towards the center of the field. And Newman was able to flip and he was covering like the outside receiver and then he goes and breaks up a pass in the middle of the field.


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[Assistant] So before we get to that real quick, BFF says it agrees with basically what you just said. He would likely make the most plays in a system that consistently uses maybe two deep coverages allowing him to play free, robber, box, safety roles too for him. You talked to him at the combine. Awesome dude. I want to hear him in his own words. Here's what he had to say to you and Mike.


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[Assistant] So the next guy did run at the combine is in the 80th percentile for safeties. Javon Bullard for Georgia, five, 10 and a half, nearly 200 pounds, turns 22 years old in September.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so this is a guy who played in 2022, mostly slot corner. Yeaah. And then last year it was 3-1 free safety. So a position change for Javon Bullard. Your thoughts on the Georgia Bulldog.


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[Assistant] And so, uh, NFL.com Lance Zerline says George has provided the blueprint by playing him as a big nickel with run support, modest in man cover duties. NFL teams would be wise to follow suit here, perhaps. I think so. But he's not that big. So you mentioned he's a, his height is 11th percentile. He's got a heptagon.


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[Assistant] Uh, his weight is in the 18th percentile, wingspan in the 18th percentile. You see all those measureables are very.


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[Assistant] Close to the center of the heptagon, which means they're in the lower percentile.


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[Assistant] They have other strengths and weaknesses, but as an overall prospect, they're all very close.


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[Assistant] So novice film watcher guy, made some notes about Jaden Hicks out of Washington state, uh, he looked good versus the run. He's coming up to do damage in the run game. He's coming up to do damage, that's right. I thought he had pretty good instincts, uh, thought he had some pretty good speed to the sideline, and some real standout plays versus the run. Now his bad plays versus the run seem to just be over aggressiveness mostly for him.


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[Assistant] That's six against Colorado, which looked good. And then he picked off Michael Pennex on a deep throw later on in the year.


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[Assistant] So we're getting into the third round guys now. Projected third round pick out of Utah. The safety Cole Bishop, 6'2", so another taller guy, 206 pounds from Georgia, was a three-star recruit.


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[Assistant] Started 29 of the 36 games played in three seasons at Utah team captain last year that shows up on the tape immediately He's just like pointing directing people around and so everybody's gonna love that super comfortable as a leader How about as a player on the field?


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[Assistant] And look at that. Look at all the athletic traits here. It's like the 40 yard dash and the 84th percentile gets off the ball well. The 10 yard split was pretty good. Vertical jump, 86 percentile. Uh, and he's bigger too. Height, 85th percentile. So you're like, man, a bigger guy who still runs fast. He's going to be a beast.


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[Assistant] The athlete was good. Yeah. Right? I didn't think like watching it as novice film watcher guy. I was like the tape doesn't show anything that he does particularly really well. Nothing elite.


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[Assistant] Which is interesting because he played more free safety this past year than he had in his first two seasons combined and so it was an adjustment period, maybe a little out of position.


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[Assistant] Kaylin Bullock, USC, also a projected third round pick, 6'2", 188, 20 years old, so young. He's from Pasadena, California, so went to his hometown school there, played wide receiver in high school, started 32 of the 38 games in three years.


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[Assistant] At USC in this past year was first team, all pack 12. The credentials sound pretty good. How'd the tape look? Hey, this is my mo fo right here.


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[Assistant] Yeaah. You did? You too? I was like, is it just the USC jersey? Cause I like Marshawn Lloyd too. I was like, do I just like it? Am I biased towards this jersey?


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[Assistant] Interesting, cause I, and I don't know exactly what games you're watching, but I did see somewhere he was more reluctant as a run stopper. Man! I saw...


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[Assistant] So he could probably play corner in the NFL. Yea, it's funny you say that because who else was saying that? It was uh, yea, Lance Zerline from NFL.com. If he runs well enough at the combine, which he did, he was in the 75th percentile for safeties, there might be a team more interested in his skill set as a corner than as a boom bust.


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[Assistant] Like in coverage, he did, it kind of pops, he just moves so smooth, and Grace is just like, man, that guy's covering a lot of ground in free safety.


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[Assistant] Alright, so that, that is it. Oh wait, no, we gotta do the, we haven't done this yet. Projected mid third round pick. Right? Will he go higher?


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[Assistant] Uniform in college football. So that closes the book on safety. Let's go to linebackers right now. And we only looked at a handful of these guys. There's no one projected in the first round right now.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so, let's go with PFTGhost, who has a question for you. Okay. Uh, how does, or why does it feel like these two positions, linebacker and safety, often have the least amount of athletic freaks coming out of the draft every year? Does it feel like that to you?


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[Assistant] In some ways I feel like they're more versatile. It's like the edge guys have one skill that's like, that's awesome. These players have to have a lot of things where they're not terrible at.


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[Assistant] Here are your rankings from last year, where you did, you did a top five, and we got uh, Dianne Henley was your number one, Trenton Simpson number two, Jack Campbell was the only one of those, right, that went in the first round.


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[Assistant] A lot of people thought no linebacker would go in the first round. And Jack Campbell was okay. He was not all, he did not, wasn't the greatest last year. No, he's not my cup of tea.


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[Assistant] So let's get into it this year. We don't have a top five, but we do have higher lower for the guys that are consensus. One more thing. One more thing. Already a one more thing.


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[Assistant] And there's a learning curve there. Is there something to, if you were in college and the game is so much sideline to sideline and quick screens, like if you had a Fred Warner, what's the most impactful position to play a guy like that in the college game? I mean, would you want to play him at linebacker or are there? Yeaah, I think so.


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[Assistant] Edren Cooper, Texas A&M, linebacker, projected, uh, the first linebacker off the board, but that would be in round two at the 41st overall pick as of right now. So as we switch over to linebackers, the top linebacker out there, uh, 6'2", 230, was, uh,


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[Assistant] A team Hyand tackles this past year. First team All-American. So he has the accolades, but again, does he have it on film? He does. I mean, he does. He's a, he is


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[Assistant] I think that's the interesting thing about what you're looking for in a prospect is like what are the things that could render all of his good traits?


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[Assistant] You know, non-existent. It just, it eliminates it all. And his weight is in the 17th percentile. It's the nonagon for Edgeron Cooper. All his athletic traits are awesome. It's just like, all right, 40 yard dash, 93rd percentile, 10 yard split, 88 percentile. But is he a big enough dude where all that other stuff can, can play on the field or does he have one glaring weakness that brings it all down?


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[Assistant] But then sometimes he's flying a little too much and he over pursues it, like it works against him at times. Got to play a little more controlled game that way. NFL.com says play, uh, plays each snap with unbridled passion and intensity for sure. So he is projected as the 41st overall pick round number two.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna say lower there too. So you think it'll go later? It'll go later.


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[Assistant] Get ready, buddy. He says, do you see some edge reps at the next level for Edgeren Cooper, given his measurables, athleticism, plus blitzing ability? And so he had seven sacks. I did look at him. And I think he was unblocked in six of them. Yeah, he was. He just gets there with pure speed.


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[Assistant] If you're a defensive coordinator, a fun tool to have in your toolkit, for sure.


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[Assistant] Prospect here was the Chuck Bednerik award winner for the nation's top defender in 2013 and the Buccus award winner for the nation's top lineback. He's got all the trophies in his trophy case and his 40 yard dash at the combine 4.43.


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[Assistant] That was better than 16 wide receivers at the combine, including Roma Dunze.


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[Assistant] Who you have as a top wide receiver in this draft. So he has a very interesting chart and Tomas Pena says to you, Peyton Wilson might not be your LB1, but I'm sure you're going to love his style, good size, speed, instincts, plays with no regard for his life.


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[Assistant] Does Thomas Penna know you? Do you like Peyton Wilson?


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[Assistant] He does know me pretty well. He does know you. He is a regular homie. Does he know you on your love of Peyton Wilson? No.


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[Assistant] So novice film, thank you for deferring to novice film watching guy. Uh, first line I go, does not play very big and strong. Notre Dame had him in a blender. He was blocked pretty easily and it did not take any of the NDOLs, oh, did not take on any of the Notre Dame offensive line and tight ends. I mean, that's...


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[Assistant] But all those athletic traits. Which is funny because you watch him in past coverage too and you're like, I don't necessarily see the 40 yard dash. Definitely not. I think he has a little bit harder time changing directions it almost seems.


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[Assistant] And no shame in having those Notre Dame


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[Assistant] Surgery or shoulder injury in the second game of the 2022 season.


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[Assistant] Was adopted as a young, he's got a really cool story. And you heard Jim Harbaugh. Jim Harbaugh loved this guy. Uh, the first thing I saw in America was a Michigan hat, he said, when he was nine. Uh, that's what all my family members were wearing. They're big Michigan fans. And so, um, a tragic upbringing that brought him there to, uh,


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[Assistant] To Tennessee and then, and then Michigan born in Haiti. And so he's got a really cool backstory. It was a four star recruit. And then this past year had a team high 95 tackles for the national champion. Wolverines started all 15 games for Michigan as well. So.


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[Assistant] We have a photo too here. I think of Junior Colston in the national championship, uh, game with Cass on both of his hands. So it's like, this is a guy who just played with injury, played through pain.


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[Assistant] You see Washington in the background there. It's just like, he can, he can barely point his finger. I think he had his cast made so that he could give this someone that, hey, how's it going? Good job buddy over there. Um, Junior Colson, all around tough guy. You have reached your,


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[Assistant] Yeah, and you told me that before I watched him, so it probably colored the way I saw Junior Colson as well as my love of the University of Michigan, but uhm, yeah, his negatively graded run plays are ma- mainly getting


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[Assistant] It's him and Kaden Proctor, who's 6'7 and 355 pounds. He kind of just stands him up with one arm, does not lose his balance, holds him off long enough, uh, and then makes a tackle on the ball carrier. Then I'm like, dang, that's a strong.


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[Assistant] And to your point about in the passing game, it did look like, like if you caught one underneath on Junior Colson, you were probably gonna get tackled.


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[Assistant] He's your, he's your favorite of the linebackers. Right. There are some people that have Jeremiah Trotter as their favorite linebacker. Clemson projected around three pick now in mock drafts. I think that's fallen a little bit. Oh yeah, it has. He was a top 40 projected pick back in December, six foot.


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[Assistant] We have, we have a comparison, right? Do we have that? Do we? Oh, is that just the graphic of their measurements? Oh, here it is. Oh, nice. Good job back there. Gabby, I assume, and Nicole. Oh, there we go. There it is. So here's Senior and Junior. So, yea, Senior was 261. Same height, basically. Senior was 261. He's 228.


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[Assistant] So if you just watched him as a pass rusher against Notre Dame, you'd be like, man, that guy's great. He had three sacks, showed some good agility and dodging some blocks there. Uhm, but outside of that wasn't really a big factor in the run game, in that game. Was around plays, but not really involved in plays in the run game.


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[Assistant] And to your point, same thing that you said, when targeted in the pass game, gave up a lot of completions and was not great at open field tacklings and you questioned the speed in those situations.


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[Assistant] Alright, and that is it. Those are the linebackers we're going to look at. And it's a big day. It's a big day because you are done looking at dudes for a while. And we're also 100 days to the Olympic Summer Games. We are 100 days out from the Paris Olympics.


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[Assistant] The countdown is on. You can tune in this summer. NBC and Peacock is where you can watch the Olympics in case you didn't know. To see the greatest athletes in the world go for gold in the city of light. So it's going to be a huge deal. We were talking about it before the podcast here with Matt Casey.


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[Assistant] One drink into you this year. I will definitely do one drink. Now I do have to go back home afterwards, but the draft is like three hours, and so I'll have time, you know, an early, early drink, and maybe I will do a new one.


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[Assistant] No, it's perfect, it's like a piggyback off of that. He's still got 11 inch hands, he's got massive hands.


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[Assistant] You know, something we were talking about before the show was just, player comps can go so many ways. It can be body typing, athleticism, play style, it can be range of outcomes.


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[Assistant] Like, there's gonna be wide receiver comps I have on here where I'm like, this is his best version of him. It doesn't mean, hey, walks into the NFL and you're AJ Green today. Like, that's why it's so hard when you just, you know, post the graphic and it's like, player comp. There's so many varieties and routes to get to how a player is compared.


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[Assistant] Alright, I think it's the best way to paint a picture for the fans of like, this is what you drafted, this is what you hope you're getting, and we're gonna look at the wide receivers right now, and there's definitely some really rich comparisons. I mean, some of these are best possible outcomes. So the top, Marvin Harrison Jr.


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[Assistant] I see AJ Green the way he wins with his length, the way he comes back to the ball. I hear that. I think the speed from 20 to 40 is better than the speed from 0 to 10. Gotcha. Which is almost the opposite when you look at Malik Neighbors to DJ Moore.


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[Assistant] Which, when you look at their testing, their jumps, their explosiveness, it's almost identical. Oh yea, they're freaks. Freaks. Explosives. And that zero to ten is in a different universe of how you get them the ball in space or how you use them over the top. Right. So I mean, AJ Green and DJ Moore, they're very rich comparisons, but I think it also speaks to how special this wide receiver class is.


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[Assistant] You know what's funny with Green? Cause I agree with you how explosive he was on tape. He was such an average tester. Which is, cause I had to look back at this. This is, when you brought up Connor Barwin, this is the time of year where I go back to like players that played like 10, 15 years ago. I mean Green was a guy 34 and a half inch vertical, 36 percentile. I mean the 10 yard split, 155, 54. Like he wasn't different.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's slower than I would have thought. But like, I mean, he's somebody I got to see play in person when he was with Cincinnati and it didn't look like that. It definitely did.


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[Assistant] And what happens to them if, if four and five want to trade out? And then you're looking at it and you're going, well, the Giants, if they get jumped for all the quarterbacks, they're, they have to take one of them. Right. But then Tennessee, how do they value the top tackle? Are you a believer?


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[Assistant] I think in the right situation, I think that they would, if New England does not want to take one, then the Giants are a great trade partner because you're only moving back to six. That's what makes them so attractive. The Giants have to look at it like this, where


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[Assistant] Are they gonna be bad again this year no matter what in a quarterback class that I believe next year will be thinner than this one?


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[Assistant] Where, like, do you have to get the guy now? Because Dable and Shane, I think their job security's fine, but it's the NFL. You're always thinking about the long term. I think they would be willing to move into three.


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[Assistant] For somebody, maybe physically gifted like Drake May.


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[Assistant] I don't know what I make of the McCarthy rumors to them. That's really interesting to me. I've always liked Michael Pennix for them.


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[Assistant] But I, I had heard that I think a lot of teams like the Giants love the idea of Penix at the top of round two, and then they realize those days are gone. Yea, that's not happening. That's not happening. Right. Like there's a reason why Penix is taking private, you know, workouts with the Vikings and teams like that, cause he's going in the first round. Sure.


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[Assistant] That's, yeaah, I think it's real, but I think the Giants will also be a little careful. Where like, you look at 11 through 13 Vikings, Broncos, Raiders, I think they would sell their franchises to come up for one. I don't think the Giants would do that. I hope not. I don't think they should buy that.


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[Assistant] It is interesting, just to put a little bow on it, I thought when they had pick 39, that they traded to the Panthers, the best route for the Giants, and this was two months ago, was receiver at six, preferably neighbors for them, because they don't have that guy.


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[Assistant] And then come up from 39 because you also have 47 back into round 1 and get the tier 2 quarterbacks, which is the Pennix and Knicks kind of range. And I thought McCarthy was there at the time too, he's not anymore. And those days are just gone. The quarterback thirst is insane.


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[Assistant] How to catch the ball in close quarters, in foam boots, in congested spaces. So that was a very, very difficult one to nail down.


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[Assistant] But listen, Brian Thomas Jr. does not run an advanced routery. I don't care because the routes he runs, he's excellent at. The hang time, the acrobatic nature.


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[Assistant] Simply just that, Chris, once again, these guys, there's not a lot of people that are built like this that move like this.


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[Assistant] He's going in the first round. Who's that? Adonai Mitchell from Texas. Because of the traits, and we can have that conversation when we get to him, the shortcomings as well, but he's going very early.


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[Assistant] The first step is where they're the same. Like Franklin's first step makes it really hard to disrupt his release package, and then he's gone. And they both have some shortcomings. They're both really skinny. They drop some layups that drive you insane. Like why aren't you bigger? Right?


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[Assistant] That's an interesting one to meet. Franklin is the classic, if he goes to Buffalo, if he goes to the Chiefs, you're like, wow, he's gonna explode. If he goes to the wrong place, like Carolina, in the second round, you're like, eh, this is not gonna be so great.


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[Assistant] It's really good. And that brings me to Jalen Polk at six. I mean, Chris Godwin, obviously the highest range of outcome for Polk, but the concentration, the ability to go over the middle of the field.


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[Assistant] Not shocking with Polk, but what tells you about his DNA is, I think he's the best run blocking receiver in the draft. I mean, they will motion him behind the line of scrimmage and he'll go through the A-gap and take on linebackers. It's like, there's a different energy to this kid.


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[Assistant] That will work at the NFL. There's just something about him where he's fearless. Once again, that concentration is unbelievable. Some of the tipped passes that he was able to catch. And he tested a little better than I thought. Which gave me a little comfort.


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[Assistant] Oh man. Ricky Pearsall. And this is probably a comp that'll, you know, some eyes will open calling him Greg Jennings.


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[Assistant] But there, when you look at the three cone, you look at the short area quickness and how they can slither through defenders in that first ten yards, that's where I see him exactly like Greg Jennings. Like, I'm going to get open.


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[Assistant] You have to project to the NFL, and that's where that size starts to matter, and I think the frame was different for them too. Definitely. I saw a different body type, not height-wise or length-wise necessarily, although, McConkie's got very short arms and small hands, but uh, the, the frame.


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[Assistant] Right, and that's what you hope for. I think he struggles to separate, but he doesn't always have to be open. No. That's what matters the most. They really threw him screens and jump balls. You watch the offense. I mean, you only had two games of 100 plus yards. So it's like, hey, we're throwing you a screen. I think he returned.


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[Assistant] He definitely was a returner for them in some capacity, which is bizarre for a receiver built like him. Uhm, usually you just don't see those big X receivers returning back there.


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[Assistant] It's dunking on people. It's some of the best plays in this wide receiver class. I guess we'll put a bow on this with Adonai Mitchell. I mean, just for me, the highs are, once again, I mean, he can make great plays in the air.


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[Assistant] He's somebody that you love the movement, the explosiveness at times, the intensity and overall aggression drove me completely insane. Like, completely, I watched him more than any receiver in this draft because


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[Assistant] Every time I ranked him, it was the most feedback where people were like, and this is everyone, agents, scouts, fans.


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[Assistant] He's going earlier than you think, he's a number one receiver, all these things. I just, this is such a weird nitpicky thing. I cannot stomach a guy that big. How many times he lets a corner or a safety run by him in the run game?


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[Assistant] I mean, I'm not saying he missed the block. I'm not saying, like, ran by him where I'm like...


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[Assistant] Dude, the intensity of the NFL, it's gonna be tough, man. Like it's, it's not just about catching a fade route in the back of the end zone. And I know it's such a nitpicky thing and it'll drive people crazy when I say that, but it's just a DNA thing where you can't cruise through


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[Assistant] I think about 33 to, we'll say 51, cause that starts with the Panthers and ends with the Steelers. Yeah.


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[Assistant] The amount of receivers in that range that come off the board. It might be like 8 receivers taken. I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't be shocked, yea. I hear that. I agree with you, Chris. I think teams will look at it that way as well. Uh, if you want to see my, I ranked 30 receivers in this draft. It's all on mbcsports.com. Came up with player comps for about 18 of them. 17 of them.


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[Assistant] Yep. That's right. That's right. Let's get into some questions here, Chris. I like this first one here. The good people here have tons of questions for you. This is from Justin Hardwick.


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[Assistant] This one's tricky, I was looking for my 2020 big board, uhm, okay, I think I actually went back and found it. Now, I know this, I like Chase better than...


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[Assistant] Marv. And they're the top receivers from this year. Where I get a little mixed up is, and I really liked Waddle. Waddle was my wide receiver too that year. And Devontae's a great player. I just thought physically I went with Chase and Waddle over him.


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[Assistant] This is really tricky. I think I'd align with you because you have the top guy in the group and then it's almost a tie across the board.


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[Assistant] So yeaah, this one, having the fourth guy is nice. Like, Brian Thomas, when you take it into a fourth guy, you're like, damn, this one's really, really good.


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[Assistant] As much as I love Marv, he's my top player in the draft, I thought Chase was... Chase was special. Chase is the best I've seen, and it's close, but Chase is the best I've seen. Chase was really special. I think people didn't realize how strong he was. Right.


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[Assistant] Really tricky, yeaah. So, okay, I think I actually found the 2021 Big Board. I had Chase 6th, and this was, I liked this draft. Didn't work out the way we thought. Right. But Chase 6th, I had Waddle 7th. Gotcha. And Smith 10th. Okay.


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[Assistant] Chase Waddle, Chase and Waddle, one and two had the receivers, Smith was three, and then, uh, you had to go down. I liked Bateman that year, that hasn't worked out.


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[Assistant] They will not. So he will come out of that with about, I believe, 67-ish guaranteed. Wow.


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[Assistant] It's a great deal for him. Take the money. Yeah. Yeah, great guarantees. It's almost 23 a year. And we still don't have a Justin Jefferson deal. We don't have a T. Higgins deal. They're going to get chased on. We know that eventually. Right.


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[Assistant] That's the issue of why first round picks don't often get traded anymore because of you have to also factor in the contract. And this is a totally different position, but look at the Brian Burns trade.


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[Assistant] Brian Burns got traded for a second round pick. Yeah. Cause the Giants had to pay him. Right. You can't trade a first rounder and have to take on the salary cap hit. You can do it. Or you better be special. Right. Adrian Brown's a great callback to it. Uh, obviously the Bills did it a couple years ago with Diggs. Minnesota, then Jurassic, then Justin Jefferson.


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[Assistant] The NFL collective bargaining agreement is unbelievable when you look at it sometimes. Yea, well the owners always win. They always win. They always win. With the franchise tags, the fifth year option. Basically, the security teams get it. This is good timing from Elliot Wilkinson.


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[Assistant] Do you think the 49ers should pay Iuk or let him go? I think they should let him go just because of the price. Plus with the amount of good receivers coming out of the draft now, I would only pay top end money to guys like Hill, Chase and Jefferson. That's kinda what you just said.


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[Assistant] And it feels like Debo, after this year, he'll turn 29 in January. It's a different 29?


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[Assistant] It's a beat up physical, right? It's a running back-ish slash receiver type body. That's what you have to keep in mind. It's not all 29s are the same at receiver. No, definitely not. I'm with you there. Let's jump back to the draft. This question from DaxS19. What's the ceiling on Quinion Mitchell?


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[Assistant] It's funny that the question was about the Ravens. My player comparison for Quinian Mitchell was Jimmy Smith. Right, right. That size. Yeah. Jimmy Smith was a better athlete than people remember. I know, I know he was.


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[Assistant] Of course it's a sneaky one. Jared verse could be the first one if someone really needed to pass rush. I think the reason I like Quinian is if the Chargers move out of 5 to that 11 to 13 spot, I think the Chargers would take Quinian. That feels like a hardball. We need corner help. We want someone physical. We want to change the identity of the team.


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[Assistant] It's just a lot more projection. It is. Like, I wrote down, his field vision, decision making, and inconsistent throwing sets a scary floor. Yes. I am aware of this. When people ask me, who's the best potential in the top ten?


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[Assistant] It's my number two quarterback, Drake May. But I think, number one, the body type. It's a quarterback body type. It's also the fact, I think he throws the middle of the field better than a lot of guys in this draft. Which would matter to like a Minnesota. Remember we had the conversation when they didn't go after Russell Wilson. I think that matters a lot.


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[Assistant] He's got the gunslinger in him. Some of the throws are unbelievable. But like you said, the consistency issue, it takes projecting him. I don't think he should start as a rookie. And I don't think when you're a top three pick anymore, you're afforded that luxury.


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[Assistant] He overcompensates at times, like the back foot throwing into three defenders is just like, you can't do that.


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[Assistant] Oh man, Chris, when you talked to the PFF guys last week on their pod, Sam Monson said May reminds him of the Brad Pitt moneyball scene. If he's a good hitter, why doesn't he hit good?


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[Assistant] I think with Rattler, I mean, there's a couple things I'd written down. He was pressured on 38% of his drop backs this year. He didn't stand a chance. He didn't stand a chance back there. So I think that'll be something teams factor in. He transfers from Oklahoma to South Carolina. I think he becomes a smarter player, but I also think he wasn't able to put up the Oklahoma stats anymore because of the drop backs.


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[Assistant] Alright, Halal's Real Football Talk. Who are some of the toughest players to evaluate or project how their game would translate to the next level?


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[Assistant] You know who shocked me? Until I rode him up, and I never thought I'd feel this way, and he's still a first-rounder to me. Dallas Turner. Okay, I hear you. I did not think Dallas Turner. The film's not wowing. I didn't think Dallas Turner was the typical, like you look at the testing, the traits, even the production. Cause he's got good production in the SEC.


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[Assistant] It's, I, I compared him to Addafe Owe, actually. There's just, the things I need, like, pass rush plan needs to diversify. He's in a speed rushers body, and he wants to win with speed to power. It's fun against certain college teams. It probably won't go as well until you, right.


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[Assistant] The hands at times stop through the rush. Definitely. Like you gotta sync the lower half with the upper half. Uh, he gets engulfed in the run game. And it's not just, it's not just tackles. There's tight ends that are big, that they just know how to leverage against him. Where I just thought the intensity in the run game didn't match the pass rush juice.


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[Assistant] I'm not saying Dallas Turner isn't a great prospect. It's a very good one. He is not a elite pass rushing. I know I'm getting 10 sacks. Like I think there's a learning curve there that's gonna surprise people.


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[Assistant] I didn't know that. That was crazy. It's tricky with that body. I know. You'd think D-tackle. I know.


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[Assistant] There's a couple, I think, and, you know, players that I really like. Like, Kamari Lassiter's a weird one, right? The corner from Georgia. He's always in the hip pocket of receivers, he's tough, he's physical. We just don't see a lot of corners that run in the 4-6's playing in the NFL.


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[Assistant] Did you watch Kingsley, Sue and Mattia, the tackle from BYU? A lot of projection. Five star recruit, goes to Oregon, transfers to BYU, plays on both sides.


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[Assistant] I mean, looks like an offensive lineman. When they ask him to climb and pull, he moves really well. The hands and the passets come out so low, and you don't know if you're gonna get a punch to the face mask, a punch to the thighs, like they're just flying in 40 different directions. He's got a lot of things to like. And he does.


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[Assistant] It eliminates his deficiency, because when they had him at tackle and they would set him really wide, they'd have like a guy in a seven or a nine, he didn't understand like playing with a wider base, it was like a very narrow angle and then if the hands miss it's over on the inside.


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[Assistant] We had the quarterback combo, where there's concern there. Is there anybody that you think the public just loves and you're like, man, there's more concern there.


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[Assistant] Then people are letting on. You brought up Terra and Arnold, which was interesting.


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[Assistant] I'll give you one. Yeah, go ahead. Marius Mimms, who I love.


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[Assistant] Mims, he was a one year starter this year, and he missed time with ankle tightrope surgery.


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[Assistant] I love everything about Marius Mims. The character, the film, the passpro, he's the size of two humans. You have to get around two humans to get around him. I think the run blocking is still a work in progress. Definitely a work in progress. Just getting lower and firing off.


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[Assistant] I get that with Fashon. I get, Olu Fashon is the most I get, like, cold feet on, like, uuuh.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and I like Fashanu a lot. Like, just not a lot of guys have the length that can move like that on an island to tackle, and he's a late bloomer to football, so I give him a little bit more of a curve than other guys.


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[Assistant] Like he can go in the 20s and I'd be like, I was kinda prepared for that. He can go top 10 and I'd be like, I get why you would take him in the top 10. I think there's that.


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[Assistant] The next question here, evaluating prospects. This is from 1987HLW. When you're evaluating a player, how many games do you try to watch and do you take stats into account or just your expert eye? Love the pod from the UK. I look at stats a little.


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[Assistant] I use numbers when I'm trying to like figure out a problem that's a little bit deeper like


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[Assistant] Chris Jenkins from Michigan, right? He just doesn't have pass rush production. I really like the player. But then you go in and go like, why is his pass rate...


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[Assistant] And he was really good in those situations. And I was like, man, that's what the NFL's like. So that made me a little higher on McCarthy than where I was. So things like that. Situations. Situations, yea. And I think it's better that numbers are getting that way rather than like, you had 10 sacks, you're a great player.


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[Assistant] Kind of a follow up here, like, you go through that scenario, is the draft board already made by the GM before the coaches enter the process? So basically, like, if a coach, you know, really likes a guy, how much leeway does he have to move him up or down?


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[Assistant] Right, and you have to factor in, like, owners coming to this equation. So when you're selling this plan, you're passing on the cost-effective first round quarterback. And then you're telling the owner, I need $120 million in cash because we gotta pay the guy and he's a quarterback. It's a very difficult thing to do when you're picking in the top 10.


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[Assistant] What do you think of the combo of them drafting a left tackle like ult when they have slater at left tackle? How does that conversation work out? Or does it make you, cause I think they're a sleeper for Latham at five.


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[Assistant] Like a real. I like Latham better than all. I don't, but I think that there's a world where Latham is the first tackle taken and it's to the Chargers at five and he's a right tackle. Gosh, he is. I love Latham. And he kind of fits what Harbaugh loves.


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[Assistant] Alright, this one, uh, staying in the NFC from Colin O'Grady. Who would you rather have at number 9 for the Bears? Byron Murphy, Jared Vers, or Dallas Turner?


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[Assistant] They took two last year, so yeaah, I would agree, they would take an edge guy in that scenario. Let me just throw something crazy at you, and there's, you know, pretty close to a zero percent chance, but just because it would be interesting. They re-signed their great corner in Jalen Johnson, right? Right.


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[Assistant] Is it just nuts to consider Quinian Mitchell there and go, you know what?


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[Assistant] We go against the Lions passing attack. We think Jordan Love's pretty good. We know Kevin O'Connell's passing attack's really good. We just want shut down outside corners.


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[Assistant] That is interesting to me. It's probably unlikely.


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[Assistant] And he kicked everyone's ass at the senior bowl. Like, and that was a good group of receivers out there, he kicked everyone's ass. So I don't really worry about the competition. He is, I think a freak.


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[Assistant] So here's their corner group, of course Jalen Johnson is the dude right there, but then you have Kyler Gordon, probably gonna play in the slot.


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[Assistant] And then there are other outside corners, a mix of Tyreke Stevenson, Jalen Jones, Terrell Smith.


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[Assistant] That's what I always say. Cause he could start a left guard this year over John Simpson. He's that good. And then he's gonna be your long term piece on the offensive line when everybody leaves.


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[Assistant] I've heard rumblings of that. You line it up where you look at and go, okay.


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[Assistant] Garrett Wilson, Mike Williams on the outside, Brock Bowers in the slot, and he could do a lot more than that. With Rodgers under center, that offensive line, and Bruce Hall in the backfield. Right. I mean, where does that offense stack up for you in the NFL? That's up there. Everybody's healthy, which is the big, you know.


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[Assistant] But, and then if you flip it, Roma Dunze on the outside, Mike Williams on the outside, Garry Wilson in the slot. But then, like, I always call it the eating your vegetables, the Fatano pick.


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[Assistant] It's like Brock Bowers feels like dessert where it's like, man, this is awesome, like it's great, but, you know, we might have some problems later because this is the route we went.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he's, he's pretty special. One more Jets question here from Amiri Jets.


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[Assistant] Can you guys talk about some offensive line prospects? More importantly, Taliza Fawonga and Troy Futanu. Chris has them as guards in the NFL, so I don't know how I'd feel if the Jets take one at 10. Love the C&C duo. So you did just say Futanu could play tackle. Yes. In a pinch. Yes. And a lot of people are doing it the way you did where they stack him as a guard, but they know he has tackle flexibility.


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[Assistant] Talk about Fulonga a little bit. That's my favorite, one of my favorite linemen in the draft. I think he's the best run blocker in the draft. Definitely. If not tied with a couple people. I mean when you just say, and it's every, zone blocking, man blocking, all of it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he's, he's a difference maker, but I'm with you. I, I put him right tackle only and, you know, with upside at guard. He's not going to play out on an island all the time. You get guys cross his face a lot. Definitely.


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[Assistant] Alright, before we, uh, close the book on this one today, one more jet stuff. New uniforms dropped. I like it. While we've been sitting here. They kinda went back to more simple, closer to the 80s. I like this a lot. I think the color palettes a lot better. The only thing


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[Assistant] The only, and this is very nitpicky of me, I love the white face mask. I don't know about the metallic helmet with the more dull old school uniform. I think I have to see it on the field. I would have went with more matte helmet.


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[Assistant] Especially for the guy that was like, we need to get all the distractions out of the building. It's tough when you say that and then you kinda go the other way. Yea, yea. We'll see what happens. They will be one of the most interesting teams in football and I don't say that because I do their pregame show. I hope they stay healthy. They could win 11 games. I wanna see them max their potential here. And then they could all bottom out again. No doubt about it. You just don't know.


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[Assistant] Nobody even cares about straight up picks anymore. It's all about best bets and money. That's where the world is. Eat that crap. Regular season champ. Go ahead and run her up.


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[Assistant] Alright, and where, what, I can't even remember, what were your best bets last week? I kinda like forgot what yours were. I knew mine were Cleveland, and uhm, I picked the Green Bay Packers to stay close, right? What was yours? What did you, you picked the Texans, right?


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[Assistant] Yeaah, that was great. I know. Good job by you.