Jason Harwood: Welcome to another episode of Talking Grit. I am Jason Arwood. With me is Jacob Litton. Today, got a good show. We're going to start our draft coverage. It's about time, right? I mean, we're getting pretty close to draft. A couple of weeks. We're hoping to have Eric Schlitt on. We'll get that and date nailed down for you guys ahead of time so you guys can be on chat. ⁓ you can get some good questions in because Eric's just... wealth of knowledge. we're really looking forward to that. Today, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the first round of the draft. And so we're looking at offensive tackle and edge, because I think as a majority of Lions fans, that's what we're expecting Lions to pick. So that's what we're going to focus on today. As the weeks going to, you know, we'll examine other positions later on in the draft. But today, this is what our focus is going to be on. Also at the end, We want to touch on the Brad Holmes interview with the Lions Collective. thought there was some interesting nuggets in there. Also just congratulations to the Lions Collective for getting Brad Holmes on their program. That is, that's awesome for them. So Jacob, have you recovered from the Pistons loss last night? You were at the game.

Jacob Litton: You know, for it being a loss, we came away having like a pretty good night. It was maybe an inch, inch or two away from being one of the best nights ever. know, during shot follow up shot so close to falling, you know, just the energy in the building. And then Tobias missed when during got it. It was just, you know, everybody's heart stopped at the same time. The ball, it was like it felt like it took forever to come down. It like hung for a second. You know, thought it might go in and.

Jason Harwood: ⁓ yeah.

Jacob Litton: You know, it fell out and then we're all kind of everyone's in disbelief for just a minute or two. Really weird. It's the first time I've been to an overtime game that's played out just like that. So we almost were there for a buzzer beater winner. ⁓ not go out that way. Still a great experience, though.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that would have been awesome. So tell everybody why it was a great experience. You got to meet some cool people that I'm jealous of.

Jacob Litton: Yeah, right. Well, so we were extremely lucky. We we bought the club seats. So the club seats, you know, it's all you can eat, all you can drink. If you haven't gotten club seats before, absolutely try to give it a shot because it's a great experience. We get the club seats. So we park in the parking garage that's connected to the Little Seizures Arena. ⁓ know, you can only go through this tunnel if you have a club or suite tickets. So we just happened we got there early. It's about the time they let people in. And there's an older gentleman and a woman in front of us, you walking. And I could I recognized from the back of his head. I turned and looked at J.J. for a second. He has no idea what's going on. And then I'm just like, George. And he turned around. It was George Blaha. So I was in shock, you know, I like, ⁓ my God. Like, hey, can we get a picture with you real quick? And then, you know, in hindsight, I kind of felt bad. It's like, man, I probably like just sprung that on him and like put pressure on him and take a picture. He was very nice about it. We got a good picture with him. ⁓

Jason Harwood: ⁓ my gosh.

Jacob Litton: Great way to start the evening by just running in perfect timing running into Blaja though.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool. then. Yeah, so you sent me the picture and I was like, oh my God, that's awesome. And so I put ahead on my phone, I show Preston and Preston looked at it like like a 14 year old would look at something like I'm not really interested in this because like what how cool could it be? And then he was like, oh my God. And he's like, he got to meet Gleyber Torres and Tarek Scoobel. He thought you were Gleyber Torres.

Jacob Litton: I sent the picture to you, you said you got a funny story. Like, what are you showing me? What?

Jason Harwood: thought JJ was Tarek Scoobel. And I looked, way that JJ was wearing his hat, looks like Scoobel. And I was, you know, we've had the inside joke that you look like Labor Taurus. I'm like, no! ⁓ was like, that's Jacob. ⁓ was like, look who they're with. He's like, ⁓ George Bly. ⁓ was just so funny. I laughed ⁓ loud. called you, but I figured you were busy in the stadium. ⁓

Jacob Litton: Right? Right, no, by the time you called, we were already down in deep. ⁓ That is hilarious. It's not at all the story I thought you were going to say when you said you had a funny story, but that's great.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ no, no, it's... Yeah, yeah, that was my funny story. All right, let's move on from Pistons. Maybe at the end we'll talk a little bit about the Tigers ⁓ because obviously opening day today and it was a super exciting day. ⁓ Yeah, great. ⁓ let's... Before we get into the prospects, I have a couple questions to ask you, Jacob, and, ⁓ know, I'll chime in with my answers too. So, will you...

Jacob Litton: Good opening day, right. Let's do it.

Jason Harwood: We're obviously focusing on tackle and edge today. Are you going to be upset if those are not the first two picks? First and second round, we don't want to come away with a tackle and an edge.

Jacob Litton: on the surface. If question is just, if we don't get one tackle, one edge of the first two picks, will I be upset? ⁓ Now there's some other variables in there. Like, that mean that we got one tackle and then we drafted a quarterback in round two? ⁓ you know, like another wide receiver. There's some things that would cause some, you know, to make me more upset. Obviously it's inevitable, right? That when the pick comes, there's going to be a handful of players that I really like, that I really hope are going to be there or that are there.

Jason Harwood: Okay.

Jacob Litton: and that I hope that we're going to pick. Most of the time, Brad Holmes does not pick the players that I have my eye on. there's a reason that he is doing this for a living and I'm not. So have to trust Brad for the most part. obviously, are the two highest positions of need for us ⁓ would the offensive lineman and the edge defender. So logically, you would expect those to be the first two picks. But I can't say I would necessarily be upset. How are you feeling about this, though? You think it's a done deal?

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would, I don't, the edge, I, I always, I'm not sure on that because they, they wanted to get edge last year and it just didn't line up with who they wanted and where they pick. If we don't come away with a tackle in the first two picks, ⁓ would be upset if we that that's the position that I was like, we need edge help. We really do. but I based out getting one on them, it's like,

Jacob Litton: Right.

Jason Harwood: do they get us just a specialty speed rusher later on? And I can understand that. just from a cost perspective, it would be nice to get a higher rated edge that we could depend on now. However, in the history of the draft, like if you don't get an edge early, it's a very it's it's a big gamble. It's like getting a quarterback late in second round. You know, those second round quarterbacks, I know occasionally they worked out like Jaylen Hertz. was Lamar Jackson was late first round, right? Like almost into the second round. like they will, I mean, there is this thing that can work. ⁓ however, really, really tough. I, I don't know. Tackle to me is the given it's gotta happen. It doesn't have to necessarily happen in round one, although that's what I hope and I expect, but a lot of other teams know we need to tackle too. And that's going to make it really, really difficult to navigate, navigate this.

Jacob Litton: Right. Yep. especially if we don't go round one, because then every team getting planning around us and round two, trying to trade in front of us, you know, then we've played our hand, they already know what we're looking for. And if you look at the top 10 edge prospects, the top 10 tackle prospects, I mean, the 10th ranked edge is around two has around two draft grade round two, maybe round three, the 10th grade offense or 10th ranked offensive tackle is around three, possibly round four.

Jason Harwood: Right. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: So there is a considerable drop off with the offensive tackles, whereas you could probably get an edge in round two.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's whether the edge is going to fit what the Lions want and what the Lions do. So I mean, that that's the difficult part. All right. So let's just say they, you know, one of the picks is not a tackle or edge. What where do you think where do think that would position? I'm not going to have you name a player, but name a position that you would think, ⁓ this is definitely in the cards the Lions to pick.

Jacob Litton: Absolutely. I would say linebacker. If it's outside of edge, edge and tackle, which I mean, it could even be offensive guard maybe somebody that they envision ⁓ playing tackle or moving somebody else around. But I ⁓ think outside of those top two, it would be linebacker for me. About you though, do you have another?

Jason Harwood: linebacker. Mm-hmm. I'm backer. Yeah. yeah, I don't think they're going to go guard. I think that they've kind of lined up like their depth at the guard position. I could see someone in the secondary, you know, cornerback, you know, the Terry on Arnold store story got a little more interesting today. so I, you know, who knows what, what's going to happen. And then obviously we know the injuries at safety. So you could see something happen in there, especially if they know something more about Kirby's injury. by that time or they already know and you're like, okay, this is gonna be last Kirby's last hurrah. We might need to get, you know, someone in the backend. So I could see that happening. Even defensive line is an option, right? Like they could go somewhere ⁓ the interior too. That, you know, that would maybe give them some pass rush, you know, and then, you know, Liam has an out after this year too. So they could be looking at that depending on what they think about a Liam's injury with the ACL like last year was obviously a little less, less than expected, but maybe he's going to bounce back this year. We'll see. ⁓ but yeah, let's, let's break down these prospects, Jacob. I, so this, you're on Spotify or YouTube, we're going to have some graphics on the screen, ⁓ that I put together. so we're, it's not vital that you have that up, but If you're, if you have access to that, might help you, you know, see the prospect, give you a little additional information that we have. So, all right, Jacob, who are we going to break down first? We're going to go offensive tackle first. So who are we going to go?

Jacob Litton: All right, offensive tackle, the top ranked offensive tackle in the class this year out of Miami, Francis Mawagoa, which I did not study my pronunciation guide ahead of time. So some of these names I'm going to be taking my best stab at. ⁓ But he seems to be consensus, ⁓ number one ranked offensive tackle, pretty much guaranteed to go in the top 10 right now. So any possibility of a Lions getting him would involve trading up, which is very

Jason Harwood: Hahaha. Yep. Yeah.

Jacob Litton: very slim chance that we trade into the top 10. But Malagoa, got first on the list. What are your thoughts on this guy?

Jason Harwood: I mean, obviously three years starter team captain. He's everything that you want. ⁓ early, I saw some mock drafts that he slipped out of the top 10. like say he gets to 11, which I don't think is going to happen, but say that happens, then he's in the lion's, ⁓ wheelhouse. mostly put them on our list here just for completeness sake. ⁓ but I just don't think that, you know, it's going to happen. ⁓ I mean, the weaknesses they have listing for them are just like stuff that they're pulling out. Like everybody would want this guy as their tackle. I don't see, you know, he's highly graded past block, highly graded and run block an athlete. Like there's nothing to not like about this guy.

Jacob Litton: Yeah, I hate reading. Obviously, it's their job as analysts that they have to come up with the weaknesses and what they're going to do. But I hate reading the weaknesses. It's like you're just grasping at whatever straws that you have. he's the top ranked tackle. Teams that need an offensive tackle are going to be looking at him, probably top five, right? mean, tackle is a coveted position. The thing about him is he is a right tackle.

Jason Harwood: Hmm. Yeah. ⁓ yeah.

Jacob Litton: Right? So I mean, he primarily played on the right side. That's something, you know, obviously left tackle for the most part is the moneymaker in the position of need for most teams anyway. And not every, not every person is going to be able to just move comfortably from the right to the left side, especially for a rookie.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So let me ask you this, you know, obviously we have Pene, right? He's been playing on the right side. For you, are you, if we had to move Pene, are you okay with that? Say like, say we get someone that like, you know, Francis here, that's right tackle and we'll go through like where these guys played primarily just so everyone knows. Is that any, does that have any bearing on who we would draft? Like whether they played right tackle or left tackle for you?

Jacob Litton: I think for the team, it probably does not. I think the team is grading all of these guys, figuring out what they've got, can they play, and not necessarily just like, you know, with the thought of having to move Panay or whatever. So I think the team is probably just looking at the player, looking at their abilities, not necessarily making that decision before they even get in the building. Me personally, I would much rather keep Panay on the right side.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: you know, keep that continuity and bring in a rookie, you know, that is comfortable on the left side that could play left tackle. Now, the problem, if you look at the top 10, you know, which will go through each one. But I mean, if you look at most of these guys, the majority of these guys have been playing on the right side. And even a couple player to the plate on the left side have been projected to play right tackle on the NFL just because of their, you know, their weaknesses or, you know, some of their athletic abilities. So

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: You know, it doesn't there may not be maybe there's a perfect guy. Maybe they've got him circled. They're like, if we get this guy, he'll play right on the left. Anyone else who might have to have the conversation about moving Peney? In my opinion, I would rather keep Peney on the right side and bring somebody in that can play on the left. Do you feel that way or do you feel like you you want to trust Peney, you know, in the blind side?

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. I want our five best players out there and if they have to move P'Nay over, I'm okay with that. Ideally, I agree with you. Like, why... We know what we have with P'Nay on the right side. We know that's amazing. We know that's great. We know that's Hall of Fame material. Like, why do we want to mess with that? However, when you're putting together a team, you don't always can choose the right pieces and they're not always available or you don't want to give up the assets. to go get them to, you know, you don't want to trade up or whatever you would have to do to get the perfect left tackle. So ideally, yes, I would love to leave Pene where he's at. To me, I, we draft the best tackle that the Lions have graded when it's their, know, either they have to trade up a couple to get them or they, know, it's whatever falls to them or they trade back if multiple they're, you know, they have multiple guys on the board. They, maybe they trade back to that. That would be an option. I think you deal with everything after that because you have a luxury of having Peney. So it's not like Peney is foreign to the left side. He's played left tackle and college. He's done that. ⁓ know, and then we had Taylor here. We weren't going to move Taylor to the right side and he come in and dominate in the right side. yeah, ideally, yeah, you leave him where he's at because you know what you have, otherwise it doesn't really bug me. All right. Let's move on to prospect number two. ⁓ Spencer Fornell ⁓ offensive tackle out of Utah. This is a guy, he played on the right side. He's the right tackle. He also, they project maybe to play inside now for the Lions. I don't think they're looking necessarily for that versatility. They're going to, you know, at this point they're drafting a tackle to have a tackle. Although is it nice to have some versatility in case, you know, maybe, you know, he isn't the starting right tackle at the beginning of the season. and they need someone gets a jitter on the inside and they have to get them in there to play. Yeah, that's nice. But for the most part, we want to draft a tackle to play him at tackle. This is a guy that could fall to the Lions, but for the most part, he's got a pro. I've seen most of him mocked in the like the 11 to 13, 14 range, even higher, seen him go to Kansas City at nine. So this is a guy that could potentially fall to the Lions, but it's most likely a guy that we might have to trade up. a few picks to get him say he does fall to 13 or 14 or 12 or whatever in that range. What do you like about Spencer? Is there anything that you like about him or?

Jacob Litton: So honestly, like early on when I was going through prospects, I was not crazy about Spencer. ⁓ But you know, and he was highly rated. He was at the beginning of mocks was somebody close to the Lions around that. But now lately he's been towards the top 10 ⁓ going. That's also like his combine score. I think he was like the top, top offensive tackle of the combine, like one or two, you know, tested out really well, I guess.

Jason Harwood: Okay.

Jacob Litton: I've heard like interview wise and things like that, the teams really like him. So he may have locked a top 10 spot up. I don't know. I'm just going off of like the film and stuff that I saw wasn't exactly, you know, excited about Spencer compared to some of the other people on there. He did play left tackle a few years ago. He played left tackle in 2023 and then the last two seasons he played at right tackle. But that's also because Utah had a different offensive line. We're going to talk about a little bit who was the left tackle. So

Jason Harwood: OK. What? Okay. Right.

Jacob Litton: You know, this could be a guy that if he falls to us with his athletic ability and everything like that, maybe he able is able to slot right into the left tackle spot.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Three-year starter, got a high RAS score, is relative, or athletic score 9.8. It's out of 10, so it's very high. The reason why you might hear us mention the RAS scores, if you look at the Lions draft picks, one thing that they all have in common, they all have very good raw athletic scores, for the most part. So I don't think it's like a requirement for the Lions, or maybe it just, that's a type of player that they go after. They just happen to fit that category. But if someone has a lower raw athletic sort of that, I would be less likely to Lions draft him in my opinion. Spencer is a three year starter. if that's like, if that's important to you to like have a lot of starts under his belt, kind of know there's a lot of tape on him. The Lions will be able to study that, be able to, you know, be prepared. They're going to, you know, there's going to be not very many surprises with Spencer, I would imagine. ⁓ He is highly rated, PFF has him as the 12th overall rated tackle. He's evenly rated between pass block and run block, which is good, and they're both highly rated. So you're getting a well-rounded tackle right out the chute. So someone that's probably gonna be ready to separate in and play day one, if you get this guy, which would be nice for the people that do not want Borum to come in, whatever they're worried about him at right tackle.

Jacob Litton: Right.

Jason Harwood: You instantly slot this guy in and then we've upgraded with Boram. He's our swing tackle, which is obviously upgraded over skipper ⁓ I at least in my opinion so high ⁓ Really big upgrade so, you know when you want to go heavy sets then you're ready to go and you got Pacheco back there ready to run behind this big offensive line ⁓ Anything else on Spencer before we move on to the next guy?

Jacob Litton: Nope, think that those two, the first two that you said are the ones that I would say probably ⁓ less than a 5 % chance that either of them are gonna be there when we draft. I think they're both off the board early on.

Jason Harwood: You Yep. This next guy has been getting mocked to the lines a lot. ⁓ It's one of the most mock players that lines that I've seen. you know, when we talk about mock drafts, a lot of the ones right after the combine are a lot more accurate than the ones that get closer to the draft. Once they get closer to the draft, you know, there's a lot of misinformation out there. Also, you know, the The drafters have done like 10 mock drafts by then. They got to do something different. So it's like they change things just to change things. So if you look back around mock drafts around right now, they tend to be a little more accurate. So Monroe Freeling, Georgia, he is a left tackle. Talk about athletic. mean, this guy, you know, 9.99 out of 10 raw athletic score. mean, this guy, this guy can, can move. He had a really good 40 yard time, even splits. And when you look at a 40 yard time, is that really applicable for offensive tackle? Not at the 40 yard line, but he had really good splits. the 10 yard split was 1.71, which when you're out pulling, that's very useful to have. And obviously the Lions like to move their tackles around. I like to move their offensive linemen around. that's good to have. ⁓ wouldn't break my heart if he's ⁓ our pick. Although my worry with him is that he doesn't have a lot of starts under his belt. Only 17 total starts going into the draft. So what do you think about Freeling?

Jacob Litton: You know, 17 starts, but that was also at Georgia, and he's playing some pretty high end competition from Georgia. He played on the same line as Tate Ratledge, so they've got that going for him as well. A little bit of familiarity between them. This, you know, I've seen him mocked the Lions a lot, too. I would be OK with this pick. Big dude, quick. They said he's really good in the screen game, really good getting out. Although if you.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: notice on here where his ranks are his pass block 85.6 passing 61.3 and running. So his run grade was marked low. That's also on pro football focus. So you know, we'll not really take too much of that to heart, but I would be okay with this pick. And I think that this is the first on our list that would be a realistic option for us ⁓ if we stay put and draft where we're at.

Jason Harwood: Yep. At 17. Yeah. Uh, so the weaknesses they have is like, tends to lean and lunge that can be coached out. Like that's not something that, you know, like, Oh, well that's not correctable. It's not like, you know, it's not like he has some sort of size imperfection. He's six, seven, 315 pounds. The guy's huge runs. Like I said, runs really well. He's super athletic. Went to Georgia, which you said is, you know, when you You look at the Lions draft history, especially in the first second round, we're hitting big schools like we're hitting Iowa, we're hitting, you know, you know, tight end and linebacker, those we're hitting, you know, Alabama for your secondary. Last year was a lot of Georgia players. So, you know, those, those all check boxes for the Lions. They, they like these big schools. They, it's easier to compare them because they're playing against really good competition. Now it is the SEC. So it's not like it's the big 10, but you know, we'll give them a pass, right?

Jacob Litton: Yeah, right. with this, keep in mind too, let's say we draft this person, is ⁓ Boram going to start over our rookie? Is this going to be a learning year? this going to be not as much pressure to get out there and be on the left side right away?

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yeah, so the interesting thing with... Okay, so let's think about this. Now we're gonna draft. Like if you're drafting Freeling, he's been playing left tackle. So if you started Boram, he's right tackle. Like they're not going to move him to the, I don't think they're going to move him to the left side. Cause based on Brad Holmes interview, like they looked at like his all his positions, they were happy with the right tackle. I don't think they're going to be willing to do that. I think they moved Penne over. So if Monroe Freeling is more comfortable on the left side, like they deem like he's our left tackle. I don't like the idea of Okay, we're going to put Boram on the right side, on the left. And then all of a sudden when Monroe's ready, we're going to switch Penne over. Like that's a lot. And it's not necessarily for Penne. It's a, you know, I'm thinking of Tate Ratledge, young guy, second year guy. All of a sudden he's going to have a totally different body over there. I'd rather, I'd rather take my, if they feel like Monroe's ready and you know, maybe he's even with Boram and they're like, you know what, let's just have Monroe. ⁓ take his lumps and we'll just keep Panay over there because after a few games and Monroe gets his feet wet we'd be alright. That's at least my thought ⁓ and also I know you're a guy that likes continuity on the line and doesn't like to switch things up so I would imagine you probably feel that way too but maybe I'm wrong.

Jacob Litton: Yeah, I want the same five guys to be the starters. Obviously, I don't want anyone to be injured or anything like that, but I want the same five in training camp to be our starting five throughout the year. I want to pick the right people right away, stay healthy, and keep that same thing going, keep the ball rolling. And anytime you draft somebody an offensive lineman in the first round like that, you don't always know that they're going to come in and mesh, and there's going to be some growing pains involved.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yep. I have a feeling though, you're drafting at 17. I mean, the Lions are expecting a starter. You're expecting a starter out the gate on the offensive line. At least that's what I'm expecting. But you know, with the previous two, they have three years of starting experience. I expect them to come in. like I said, 17 starts. Maybe they don't feel he's ready. Maybe they think he needs a little bit more seasoning. The next guy on our list, however, I think is probably, I like this guy. ⁓ This is my guy. So Blake Miller, offensive tackle out of Clemson. He is projected, he played right tackle. ⁓ So I don't know if he has left tackle like experience. I guess I don't know the answer to that, but mostly that's where he played at Clemson was right tackle. Usually athletic guy, 9.90. So very athletic, 54 starts in college. So you're talking about a guy with a ton of experience. Clemson, you know, not playing their best football, but still a big time school, good coaching. I'm okay with it. So this is probably my guy and I think he would be there at 17 for the Lions to pick. What do you think about Blake Miller?

Jacob Litton: Yeah, he's got right now around one to two grade. So depending on, know, obviously he tested really well at the combine, depending on interviewing different things like that, you know, it's still up in the air if he's going to be around one or two. I think that that is definitely somebody that's going to be there. He's going to be on the board for the Lions, you know, or he's going to be up for grabs if we want him to be our pick at 17. I, you know, I think I feel about the same.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: for Monroe that I do for Blake Miller, which is I would be okay with that being the pick there. I can't say I would be too... I don't want to say excited about either of them, but it's a position of need and it's a player that could slot in right away. That also means you're pretty sure with ⁓ Blake Miller that if he comes in, he's more comfortable on the right side, then you're pretty sure that Panay would be moving to the left.

Jason Harwood: left side. And, and I'm willing to, you know, I'm willing to be, I'm okay with that. So it's highly rated pass block. is this pass blocking is better as run blocking, but still per PFF, he's still in the top 60 of run block. So I, I'm, I'm okay with it. His weaknesses are the same as everybody else, like lunges, footwork needs improvement. I mean, you're going to find that for any, any of these prospects. mean, you're going to, they, they're going to need some coaching. got Hank Fraley. I'm okay with that. ⁓ the next guy is, think this, I think the next guy out of Alabama is gets mocked to the lions almost as much as Freeling, especially early on. He was really getting mocked a lot. So ⁓ who's our next guy there, Jacob?

Jacob Litton: All right, next one on the list, Kayden Proctor out of Alabama. ⁓ Big guy, you have listed on here per Eric that he is a left tackle. He played left tackle at Alabama, but he could play right tackle, also could possibly play guard. ⁓ So.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: I guess that means that most teams are not sure about where they're going to put him or that also just shows that he can be flexible and they show different possible strengths everywhere. know, this we we know how Jason loves big strong men and you know, he this is one of them right here. I think this would be the one that would be, you know, I don't know if it's just the Alabama thing or just the strength, something about him I think is a little more exciting to have him on the team rather than Monroe Freling or Blake Miller.

Jason Harwood: Right. Ha ha ha ha. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Jacob Litton: Maybe that's also just me knowing that he has played on the left side also. I ⁓ think that I, like I said, I don't know how else to put it. I would feel better be more excited about having him on the team than the other two at this point in time. We'll see how the interviews and other things come out as more information comes out. But just for first look, first glance that the size and everything that he's got to him, the power, I like Proctor.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, power says game squats 815 815 like that's insane. ⁓ yeah, I'm sure. ⁓ huh. Yeah, I want to see the bar, my friend. I want to see what the bar looks like when you get that out. That would be ⁓ that'd be amazing.

Jacob Litton: That's almost what I squad. You need a special bar actually and there's only at my gym and they don't allow cameras there so...

Jason Harwood: Okay, yeah good. It's probably they have the no camera rule because of you. The women probably like that guy, the guy you can't get rid of the camera so quit trying to... Yeah, gotcha. I don't need to go to the gym. I'm 46. I play pickleball man. That's what I do. well I'm 46 tomorrow. Tomorrow is my birthday so I actually turn 46 tomorrow.

Jacob Litton: Yeah. Okay. They don't even let you in the gym. I don't want to hear it. Nah. What's your R.A.S score? Yes. Happy early birthday, Jason.

Jason Harwood: Today's my last day of 45. Getting closer to 50. ⁓ So, Kayden, when you talk about power, yes, obviously he squats a lot. He is a brick wall. Power rushers are going to have trouble getting through him. He does need to, he increases ability with speed rushers. So movement is a little bit of an issue. So I don't, I haven't watched tape on any of these guys, to be honest with you. So. I tend to be a guy like, who the lion's draft? Now I'm going to look and I'm going to really study these guys as opposed to I don't have a ton of free time to study, you know, 500 prospects tape and college tape is mostly for me. I don't have access to like all 22 film with college stuff. So you're mostly looking at, ⁓ you know, YouTube videos. But regardless, that'd be the only concern with Kate Proctor is that Okay, his movement, he does have a good route, let it score 9.17. So it is lower than the last two, you know, Blake and mineral freeling, but still, you know, still respectable. So the last, the last guy that we're to talk about is Jacob kind of mentioned him a little bit earlier, didn't mention his name, but ⁓ Caleb Lomu. So he is the teammate of Spencer Faneu, the offensive tackle out of Utah. He is placed on the left side. This one is one that's been going a little bit later in the draft. this could be a, if the Lions like Caleb, it might be an opportunity to trade back a little bit and still get your tag. Excuse me. ⁓ Roth like scored 9.78. So obviously very athletic. What do you think about Caleb, Jacob? I don't know how much you know about him. ⁓ if you have any thoughts or anything.

Jacob Litton: You know, early on, a lot of from what I saw were like top 15 picks. Now, some of that's kind of a little bit more all over the place after the combine. But I still see a lot round one from him. And, you know, he like I mentioned earlier, because Spencer Fano was on he played one season at left tackle and then played the last two seasons at right tackle. But that was because this guy, Caleb Loma, was the left tackle at Utah. And I mean, he did extremely well and was consistent at left tackle. So

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: You know, and it's interesting because from what I know, they said that Loma was pretty good in the run game ⁓ and was decisive in the run game. And then according to the numbers that we have on here, Pro Football Focus has him rated a score of 62, which is two hundred and thirty second out of ⁓ their offensive tackle. So.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. He offset that with a very good pass blocking rate of 82.1. So that is interesting. ⁓ I don't know what I think about that PFF number. mean, PFF grades in college seem to be crazy because there's so much like who they play and what are their competition. What is the scheme? Like there's so much. don't, know, the reason I put them on here is that, you know, just they made a number for every guy. Let's compare it and it'll give us a roundabout. Type of guy if he truly is you know struggles in the run game this much. This is not a Lions pick You know, but maybe the tape says something else in the Lions and then they could go with him. I Am intrigued with the idea like say Blake Miller and Caleb Lomu are available the Lions like both, you know Would you trade back a few picks three or four picks to get another third rounder if you get another top 100 pick I personally like that idea if the Lions are comfortable with their guy, they're comfortable with either one of these guys. I think the Lions have to start thinking about that type of decision ⁓ too. When we talk about the Brad Holmes interview, he sets up to that really gives me caution that that's just not going to be possible. He's not going to be able to trade back unless, you know, it's for sure that he's going to be able to get one of, you know, his guys. That being said, Jacob. Out of all these guys is, know, Kayden Proctor. Who's your, if you had to bet who would be in a lion's uniform? Like if you're putting your stake in your claim, who's going to be a lion if they draft a tackle in the first round out of the guys that we just talked about.

Jacob Litton: So not who I want, if I had to just guess who's going to be in Alliance uniform.

Jason Harwood: Who's gonna wear the Honolulu blue out of these guys?

Jacob Litton: I'm going to say Monroe Freeling.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. I like...

Jacob Litton: Francis and Spencer I don't think are going to be there. I think Monroe is the one that's mocked closely. ⁓ I think that Lomu Proctor maybe might be falling down some drafts for us. Don't know about Blake Miller. There's also another tackle. Max Ehanachor out of Arizona State. That's an interesting tackle prospect, former basketball player. But that's also somebody that right now is most likely mocked in round two. Maybe that's somebody, you know.

Jason Harwood: Okay. Okay.

Jacob Litton: At our spot, still have Blake Miller, Max, know, some of these people on there that we're looking at that we think we can get in round two and we go a different position. If I'm betting on the players that we've said and what I know right now, I would say Monroe Freeling. What about you?

Jason Harwood: Okay. I like that. ⁓ I think. I think you're probably right. I think the best bet out all these guys is Monroe Freling. Now, I think I could see, you know, is the limited number of starts. If the Lions want more of a for sure thing. Out of that pick in this round 17 and you know what they think about the offensive line. Do they want to take a little bit of a gamble? I don't know. I could see them going with someone like Blake Miller. ⁓ I don't think Cain Proctor, if he really struggles with movement like that, that's just not what our offensive linemen do. Now, maybe it's a coaching thing and maybe they, you know, whatever, they talk to the coaches and they think they can, you know, coach that into him. But if he does struggle with movement, I just, I just don't see that working for the Lions run game. But, you know.

Jacob Litton: I think the concern there is, it a weight issue? He's whatever, like 360 pounds or something like that. And his, you know, his 40 time was slow compared to the other guys, which was why his RAS score was lower than the other ones is because of that 40 time, I'm sure. ⁓ Which I don't know when Alabama's pro day is, that already happened.

Jason Harwood: Okay. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yep, yeah, he had us. Yes, Alabama's pro day I think already happened because Ty Simpson was out there. Yep. And so, yeah, I knew that was yesterday. So I don't know. These numbers I probably are not from that pro day if he went because I think I got this bribe before that. All right, Jacob, let's move on to the next position that I know a lot of Lions fans are interested in.

Jacob Litton: ⁓ was yesterday. Pro Day was yesterday.

Jason Harwood: And I'm sure Alliance Lions fans are disappointed with how the Lions have addressed this position thus far. Really since Aiden Hutchinson, they've been really disappointed with how we viewed the outside edge. first guy we'll talk about is David Bailey, defensive edit out of Texas Tech. This is gonna be outside of the Lions range. He's just listed on here, just the case. Brad Holmes really wants to shoot for the fences and. and move all the way up. I don't think that's going to happen. Guys, hugely athletic. ⁓ Top five rank overall defense event in college football per PFF. Definitely a pass rush specialist over a run defender, but he doesn't have a bad run defender grade. Anything that you want to talk about with David Bailey?

Jacob Litton: I think that would be awesome to get. I think there's, I'll say less than 2 % chance that he's there when we pick.

Jason Harwood: ⁓ my god this time I could if it's a lion's got him though. Can you imagine what social media would be like? ⁓ my god, it would be

Jacob Litton: I mean, his jersey would be selling very well before he even took a snap. You know, the hype would be very, very high if we got somebody like that.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. The opposing quarterbacks in the division would be very, ⁓ very anxious for game day with that Maiden and this guy on the other side. So ⁓ let's skip to the next guy. The next guy I think is, is a realistic option for the Lions. TJ Parker, Ota Clumsum, guys six foot four, two sixty three, got a, you know, nine points three six RAS score. He's not as highly rated as past Russian run defense. What do you think about TJ Parker? Do you have any thoughts about him fitting in Alliance uniform?

Jacob Litton: When I was looking at edge defenders, and honestly, guess I would say still, even right now, when I'm looking at edge defenders, what I'm doing, when I'm reading mocks, when I'm reading information, TJ Parker fits what the Lions are about more than most of those other guys. ⁓ He sets the edge. He does that wall, he stuffs the run. He's able to create some sort of a pass rush also.

Jason Harwood: Yeah.

Jacob Litton: I think that he makes the most sense out of anybody else on the list. The question I think that would come up would be, do we reach for him? Like, do other teams feel the same way? Do we trade back? know, is this going to be a tight league thing where, you know, there's a couple of edges that have already gone. Maybe there's a different edge that goes in front and then we feel pressure like, okay, we do need to take an edge right now. And then we, you know, we take him at 17 when other teams maybe have late first. or second round grade on him. I think that he makes the most sense for what the Lions are about. Is he going to come in right away and get, you know, 10, 15 sacks? Probably not. He got 11 sacks last year. He also forced a bunch of fumbles. He had a really good year and that's somebody I'd be really excited to have. Now, if you want to talk about athletic freak and like some of the other like high, ⁓ high ceiling of some of the other players, I think maybe that's where he's missing the mark.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I... Mm-hmm. Well, you're right. Like the Lions view that other side as someone they need to set that edge. That's why they got DJ Wadham. The guy could set the edge. He's not going to light the world on fire with pass rush skills, but he does does a lot of things really well on the other side, and he'll take a lot of snaps. ⁓ When you get DJ Barker, are you going to get a ton of sacks? Maybe because you got, you know, Aiden Hutchinson on the other side. That's going to help everybody sack total. But the Lions view, like you said, he's a good fit for the Lions, what they want to do. He could set the edge because that's number one, what they want from all their edge players. And, you know, it'd be also nice to have a nice cheap option at edge for, you know, have that locked up for four years, right? Wouldn't that be awesome for five years almost, you know, you probably, if he does what you want him to do, you have him for five years if he's the right guy. And then you got the guy next to Aiden, the whole, his for five years, you got both ends locked up. That's dynamite. All right. Next guy is Keldrick Falk. ⁓ He's out of Auburn. What? Well, you know, think that they've I think when I look through the strengths, like someone like Jacob said, you could look through the strengths and they tend to all read the same after a while. But one thing that stuck out with me is that this guy's a culture player, which obviously would fit right in with what the Lions like. mean, the Lions really like, you know, these guys that just come in and are football players, will culture guys, really good teammate will do anything for their teammate work extra hard. You know, that's right up the Lions grit, you know. talking grit right like this is exactly what the Lions want ⁓ he's young he's only 20 but the strengths say he plays much older so do you have anything that you thought about Keldrick fault

Jacob Litton: Thank What's interesting about Keltra Falk is that he is like the same size, like same height, I think same weight as Marcus Davenport, but just moves so much better than Marcus Davenport does. So that was the interesting thing to me. I think that this is another player that chances are he's going to be there. Do we pull the trigger on him or not? If you remember last year, there were so many players that were there when we were drafting. ⁓ There was like five or six who were like, ⁓ my god, all these guys are there. Who are we going to get? Is it going to be one of them? And then we drafted Ty Leake. It was like, that was ⁓ not really on our radar. mean, he was on the list, but not somebody that we expected that name to be called at all. And I just feel like we're gonna, we're gearing up for another situation like that, where there's probably gonna be, you know, maybe there's three edge, three offensive linemen, we're like, which one of those six are gonna go and then we do end up drafting a, you know, drafting another defensive tackle or something, you know.

Jason Harwood: Yeah, yeah, this guy is

Jacob Litton: I think he's gonna be there and I'd be okay with this pick as well.

Jason Harwood: Yeah, I think he's got to be there. think that, you know, you just mentioned like TJ Parker and Keldrick Falk fit what the Lions want. They from that edge. They want a really good run defender. Both of these guys can run, run to fun. TJ Parker is probably better at rushing the quarterback, the Keldrick Falk. ⁓ So, you know, if that's your, you know, if that's your tiebreaker, you go that way. Again, big school, Auburn, SEC school, you know, that's Most of these guys are all big schools and that's who know, typically that's who's going in the first round unless you're you some sort of athletic freak. The next guy is Cassius Howell out of Texas A &M. I don't know too much about this guy. This is the lowest raw athletic score on the on our board here. 8.19 which automatically tells me that I just don't think that he's going to be on the Lions radar right now. But do you have any thoughts on Casualtious Howl?

Jacob Litton: Yeah, I didn't like, I don't know where you saw, did you see a mock to the lions or what? Most of what I saw has him with a round two grade, possibly round three.

Jason Harwood: Yeah, I saw him getting it might have been a trade, but yes, he was in ⁓ using one like it was like one or two ⁓ writers mocked him to the Lions at some point, but it wasn't a major publication. But I just put him on here mostly for completeness sake. I don't see this as a Lions pick at all.

Jacob Litton: Okay. No, because where you have the difference with how is that he can't set the edge, but he's got flashier pass rush moves, which can be nice, but we don't need another, you know, we don't need somebody opposite of Aiden Hutchinson that can only rush the passer and that is going to get blown out on, you know, on these running plays and inability to set the edge. You let a scrambling quarterback, you know, get around you or you get the running back, get to the outside. We can't, you know, can't afford for that to happen.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: So I think they would really, really have to like him as a person and like what he's about and interviews and stuff like that to take a shot on Cassius. But I definitely don't think that would be in the first round.

Jason Harwood: Yeah, this is the type of guy you want later, but he's not going to be there available later. Most likely. mean, unless you could maybe second round, you know, maybe, and maybe we trade out from 50 or something like that if we do like them. But I just feel like, especially for what the lions like on the edge. They, you know, I think of a QM, you know, it's like, we liked them, right. And he was got the double digit sacks. We liked them, but the lions, you know, 20 snaps a game. I mean, that's what he was getting 19, 20 snaps a game and.

Jacob Litton: Yeah.

Jason Harwood: You know, are you going to spend high draft capital for a guy that's going to get 19 or 20 snaps a game? It's not a good, you know, bang for your buck. So I just don't see that that being an option. We're all spoiled with Aiden Hutchinson because Aiden Hutchinson is a guy that's out there for like 90 % of snaps and plays at a super high level for those 90 % snaps. That guy's a freak of nature. Most edges are getting rotated in and out and they're not, you know, they're just not available like that. ⁓ One last edge before we move on Jacob is Akeem Mesudor, defensive end out of Miami. This guy's highly rated as far as PFF. mean he's the number three overall defensive end, highly rated in both pass and rush defense. ⁓ You have any thoughts on Mesudor?

Jacob Litton: I really like Mazzalore and I think that this is just a classic case of people you take his height, you take his weight, you take his age and all of a sudden you've immediately dropped him towards like the bottom of the first second round. Let me see actually what I have him on here. Yeah, round late round one or round two. But if you just look at what he's done out there on the football field, he's around one pick and he makes an impact right away. You know, the guy can play football.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: But any team that drafts him, just has to be, he'll be a 25 year old rookie. He's coming off of, he's got an injury history. ⁓ We certainly, that's a trigger word for us. We don't like injury history when it comes to our players. But if you're just talking about what he puts on the field, that would be a great pick.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I it's the age thing. It's crazy. He's going to be 25 years old when he's a rookie. He's going to be 25 years old. I think he's currently 24. But by time season rolls around, he's going to be 25. The guy. At 30 years old, I know exactly. But you know what? Honestly, if he comes in to does his job, are you really worried about that? Are you are you know? If you get five great years out of defensive end.

Jacob Litton: You pick up his fifth year option. He's 30 years old.

Jason Harwood: you're probably okay with that. mean, honestly, for us, especially with Adam Aiden on the other side, like we're happy. This guy is a good culture fit and listed in his strengths. Can use finesse and power. He has good counter moves. Like he's very eager in the run game. This seems like a lion's pick. And you know, I think the lions would look past the age type thing on this. mean, ideally You're right. If he has all these qualities and he's 22, he's going in the top 10, in my opinion. Right? I mean, he's getting knocked down because of where he's at. I he's at a premium position. He's very highly graded. Comes out of a big school, Miami. know, he's got a lot of things going for him. But yet he's going to be at end of the first round. So he's a guy that, you know, let's say, okay, you trade back. you're getting him and then you're also getting a third round pick too. So you're getting a third round pick, maybe not starting right away, but you're hoping that guy's starting by, you know, certainly the following season, but maybe even by the end of the season and you're getting another starter out of that, another cheap starter for four years. You know, so you, have to weigh those pros and cons with that. ⁓ but yeah, I am interested in, and, and Akim we'll see how it goes, but this could be somewhere where like,

Jacob Litton: Right.

Jason Harwood: Okay, all our tackles that we're interested, they're off the board and you're still picking at 17, you drop back to 25, you pick up even at 25, you might like 17 to 25, you might pick up a second round pick in that or next year's first round. I could see that happening. And if you get that, you got to, you you got to think that that's a possibility and you're getting a premium position if you like this guy.

Jacob Litton: I mean, if you're Brad Holmes, I don't know why that wouldn't be like towards the top of what you're trying to do here. Unless you just absolutely love somebody that's, you maybe you love Keltrick Falk and you're thinking, ⁓ my God, we've got a top five grade on this guy. If he falls to us, like it's a done deal outside of something like that happening though. Would you not want to almost just roll the dice? Like, okay, well we like Falk, we like Macedor, you know, hopefully one of them is going to be there. If we drop back these six picks.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: Especially like you said, if you get a round one pick next year because of that drop, I think that you, know, you got to roll the dice there that one of them is going to be there. And if neither of them are there and you take the next guy on your list, you try to trade out of the first round again. Stockpile some picks if you have to. You got to gamble somewhere there. It just seems like most of the gambles that we see from Brad Holmes are gambling our mid-round picks away to move higher up in round three, you know, for project players.

Jason Harwood: Yes. Yeah.

Jacob Litton: Instead of gambling on, you know, dropping down in these rounds and just hoping that we who we want is going to be there. But it works with Jameer Gibbs, right? I mean.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yes. Well, Brad has a very good, I think he has a very good sense of who's going to be there, like what other teams are trying to do. Like not saying he's perfect. And I know that I have my own issues with the way he drafts. However, I, one of his talents, I believe is that having a very good sense of like, this is where, how it's going to fall. This is how it's going to go. But I, if you're, you know, you We'll talk about the interview a little bit later. He talked about all these constraints, right? He talked about like salary constraints because we want to resign these guys. A way to restock the shelves is to stockpile high draft picks where you get cheaper rookies on four-year deals. You've locked up a position. If you draft right, you've locked up a position. You've locked up a position for four years. And I trust Brad Holmes to draft well. I do. I know that people are on the fence with him lately, but you know, We're in the position we are because he did Draftwell and we've been in this town where ⁓ getting a top 10 pick was not a given that we were going to get, you know, a starter, you know, it just, we're taking it for granted. I think some people are taking that for granted.

Jacob Litton: Here's a question in the chat.

Jason Harwood: Alright, look, yeah, I was gonna say go ahead and hit that up and I'll put it on there. Which one are you gonna go first with the top one?

Jacob Litton: ⁓ Yes, Detroit fan man 9899. So said, still wondering what we're going to do to replace Reader and Lopez. Don't we need a draft a guy who can eat up snaps? know, what about Peter Woods, defensive tackle from Clemson at 17? So have you heard of Peter Woods? What are your thoughts on? mean, we kind of mentioned earlier, like, you know, that same thing, like, ⁓ you know, there's going to be several tacklers, going to be several edges. ⁓ know, what if we go defensive tackle again?

Jason Harwood: You know, I only looked at... Yeah. Yep. Yep. I, I would not be surprised if we go defensive tackle. I would not be surprised. Would I be ecstatic about it? No, I would not be. However, I don't know. I, I'd be a hundred percent honest. my draft focus has been on these positions that I did today. So I don't know anything outside of that. So if you got insight, I'd love to hear it. The only thing that I would love if we do go in to defensive tackle is to have some sort of pass rush ability, because that's what we need. We need someone that can get upfield in the middle of our defense. Obviously, a Liam, we would love a Liam to be that guy. And ⁓ he's not that guy this year, then I don't know if he's going to be on this team after that, because that's why he got the contract he did. So do you have any thoughts on ⁓ Woods?

Jacob Litton: Well, yeah, Peter Woods specifically, mean, would be somebody that got that fast, that quick first step explosive like on lean used to have and would slide in nicely there. And I think he can attack the quarterback more than Tylee could where Tylee, he would kind of count on the double teams are trying to stuff the run, you know, stuff that I think Peter Woods be somebody that possibly could do that, but also could threaten to get after the quarterback. And absolutely would be somebody that I would not be surprised if that's who they took and is on the table there at 17.

Jason Harwood: Okay. Okay. Yeah, like I said.

Jacob Litton: Also would not say ecstatic. you know, it would be, there's very few players that if we drafted right there where we're at and where the team stands, there's very few players I think that I would be absolutely just over the moon ecstatic about.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: I want the depth and I want somebody that makes sense and helps the team out. Doesn't always make it a sexy pic.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, know, if you're drafting a tackle, you know, for the most part, you're not going to be going crazy unless we get, you know, my UGA out of, you know, Miami somehow, you know, then you're ecstatic. Yeah.

Jacob Litton: Honestly though Think about that scenario think about if he's dropping down on these boards then we trade up like we trade some future picks to get him Is that gonna be like ⁓ my god? We just won the draft or then the angle you're looking at is why did these other teams pass on it? Then we just traded away some further draft capital get this guy that nobody else seemed to want There's never gonna be a I Guess trade-up scenario for me Knopf right from the jump not on draft night

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well... Maybe.

Jacob Litton: Two years down the road is when you look really good or really bad if you're Brad Holmes.

Jason Harwood: Yeah, what if, ⁓ you know, on Dread the draft morning, someone drops a video of him with a bong mask, you know, and that's why he's

Jacob Litton: That's possible. Hey, now any more though, you can just blame that on AI. Tunzel could have said that wasn't me, that was AI. No one has enough time to investigate before the draft. You're good.

Jason Harwood: Exactly. That's cool. And that was AI and then let... That's hilarious. All right. So DetroitFanMan999 also says, I'm alone, but I have a hard time, hard no on 25 year old who wasn't dominant until he was three years older than his opponent. He won't have the same advantage in the league. And that's a fair point. But if he's grown into being dominant, that doesn't mean that... he can't continue his development and doesn't mean he's at a ceiling. Any thoughts on that Jacob?

Jacob Litton: I would have to look to see exactly what his grades out were, but I thought that he was rated pretty high the last few years. But I did see, or there's also the angle too, that he's been playing with Ruben Bain and teams are game planning around him and maybe that's why his numbers look better. I don't think that's the case based on what you see the tape. High motor players like that doesn't necessarily matter who's on the other side. But, I mean.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Okay.

Jacob Litton: Like Detroit fan man says, that's a fair point and I'm sure that's a, you know, the same half the league probably feels the same way. And that's probably why this guy does not go around one.

Jason Harwood: All right, let's a couple signings since we've last talked. Lion's sign, edge, Peyton Turner and offensive lineman Barch. Do you have any thoughts on either one of those guys?

Jacob Litton: ⁓ Glad to see the signing. Glad that they're in positions of need. Other than that, nothing too. ⁓ Not excited or ecstatic about either one of these guys. If you're telling me that Ben Bartsch is going to be starting games, mean, something probably went wrong with our game planning somewhere, but could be a solid depth piece and, you like I said, position of need and Peyton Turner, somebody that's very low risk. mean, I don't want to say high reward, but I mean, if he's got something left in the tank, he was a former high draft pick. Why not kick the tires on this guy?

Jason Harwood: Yep. No guaranteed money for Peyton Turner. I don't think the contracts come out on Barch, but I'm going to assume that's a vet minimum contract. So probably very, very low risk. Just trying to get depth in there. I'm okay with Peyton Turner, right? He like, is your speed rusher guy. And if you could, if he shows up then, and we can think we can get 15 snaps out of him a game, you know, on third down, I'm okay with it and let him do his thing. And then You know, he signed somewhere else and they could deal with the injury stuff if the injury bug, you know, you know, just avoids him this year, which seems with an injury guy coming to the Lions. That doesn't seem likely, but DJ Reader came here. even Carlton Davis, I know he broke his leg at the end of the season, but, or, yeah, it was like, think, ⁓ you know, Carl Davis had injury.

Jacob Litton: Doris, his leg. Carlton Davis broke his face or something, didn't he? Yeah.

Jason Harwood: to ⁓ yeah, was it his jaw? Yeah. ⁓ God. Yeah. So we'll see. I don't get all up in arms on people like, ⁓ that's a Brad home side guy. Indra guy. He's, he's costing us nothing other than a roster spot. And why not give a guy like that chance? First rounders, first round edge players are going to get more chances than anybody else. And it's just, you know, all we need is for him to have one good season. And that's all we need him. He signed here and then he'll sign somewhere else. And we don't have to worry about the injury risk after that. All right, Jacob, we're about hour in. So let's talk a little bit about the Brad Holmes interview on Lion's Collective. I am holding my breath that we get, you know, Shep or we get someone else, right? Because they just seem to hand in these interviews out to podcasts. know, POD got petzing, Holmes went to Lion's Collective. I don't know who we're going to get. We'll see where online's PR reaches out to us.

Jacob Litton: We're still waiting guys.

Jason Harwood: Yeah, we're still waiting. Don't hold your breath, right? ⁓ right. So I'll start with the first thing. He said the Lions, Brad is said he's the Lions spent to their budget. They but they do have more room. You know, they could restructure and things like that. Were you satisfied with his answer to that? Like they spent to their budget, even though we know that they have more room, you know, with restructures or Are you buying it or are you one of these people that are really upset that they just didn't spend it all this year?

Jacob Litton: No, actually, I think I'm buying it. I don't think most of this interview, most of what I saw were classic answers. I don't think there was really anything that like blew me out of the water that I had to pump the brakes and be like, what did he just say? ⁓ He used the word constraints a lot to the point where he even had to like, you know, define what he meant by that when he realized that he just said it so many times. But I mean, I feel like that was truthful. And he, you know, I think that was a point that he wanted to make in that interview.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yep.

Jacob Litton: to them and to the fans is that, you know, it's not like we have, you know, obviously it's more, but it's not like they had a hundred million dollars to spend and they're choosing just to spend five million just to be like, okay, cool. We didn't have to spend that much. He said they're spending everything that they have available to us. That's all done with the idea that they have all of these players to resign. That's what he mentioned in there. And I feel like that's truthful because they're worried about Jack Campbell. They're worried about Jameer Gibbs.

Jason Harwood: Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: They have branch, they have Laporta. We've got all these contracts that are coming up and that's, you know, that's on their mind. And that's why they've had to limit their spending. It's a budget. That's how they're doing it. And I, you know, I feel like that part was truthful. What about you though? Was that not good enough for you? Do you think the restructure should have been different or?

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yeah. No. Nope. I'm okay with them doing the way I look at it. Jacob is if I told you, Hey, the lions are going to sign an all pro linebacker. That's young, good leader, ⁓ you know, on the rise, healthy, hasn't missed a game. would you be ecstatic about that? Cause I'm describing Jack Campbell, right? Leading tackler on the team. You'd be really excited if he wasn't on the lines that we signed him. I don't understand why there isn't the same excitement. with us maintaining a guy like that, keeping a guy like that. I just don't get it. Like people want a brand new shiny object instead of looking at it be like, we already have, you know, we have this all pro player here. Lions are, they're right up there with the most all pro players up there with, you know, pro bowl players. have a good roster. We, you know, just need to retool the depth of it and you know, if injuries line up, we're, we're, this is a very good team. So I, I, I'll, I just won't get that kind of reasoning. It's always, to me, it's a grass is green on the other side argument. Like I want that shiny new object instead of what I already have at home. It's like my kids have all these toys at home, you know, when they were younger, but they always wanted something new at the store, right? Well, we got something better at home. I, I, I feel like, I feel like that's the crux of the argument with the Brian Holmes. and I'm saying he doesn't spend any money. No, he's just being smart. He's not overspending his budget. ⁓

Jacob Litton: And those same people would be furious if we just blew all of our money right now and then in turn we didn't have enough money to retain Gibbs and Jack Campbell.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Like you drafted these really good all pros and you're just letting them out of town. Yeah. You'd be, yeah, exactly. you know, how would you feel Jack Campbell was on the Packers and you had to deal with him? You'd be, you'd be pissed, right? All right. The thing I did think it was interesting. He talked about ⁓ Mohammed. He did say that Al-Qadim, they were, they were, they weren't going to be able to afford him.

Jacob Litton: ⁓ man.

Jason Harwood: They felt that they weren't going to be able to afford them. really, mean, they signed Wanam. I mean, Wanam's deal is cheaper, but it's very similar to AQM. So how did you read that answer or how do you react to him saying that they weren't going to be able to afford AQM, but then they signed DJ Wanam for essentially similar money?

Jacob Litton: He said that about a few players, I think, like a meek and Alex just. What he said, I think, is that they were just upfront with these players like, you know, we like you, like what you're about. We just don't think we're going to be able to afford, you know, what you're going to be. What you're going to be getting elsewhere, you know, when they talk to these agents and stuff like that. This one was interesting because ⁓ know the numbers look very similar and I don't remember who asked the question, but then Brad was like, well, you know, I think the contracts.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Litton: the contracts are shaped differently, specifically talking about AQM and Wanam. And I have not looked to see exactly how much different they're shaped. I don't know if he's talking about bonuses or what he's talking about. But it just seemed like, you know, what I thought is what I said before is that maybe AQM wanted more money and was asking for like a higher contract or was looking for something else from us that we weren't offering. And, you know, then free agency hits, he's looking around and finds out that this is all he's being offered, this is all that's on table and he has to take the deal elsewhere. And by that point, then we've already, you know, we're moving on and now we know how much we can afford and then we signed one of

Jason Harwood: Yep. I think what Brad Holmes didn't say out loud was that they expect Wanam to play double the amount of snaps of AQM. So when you look at the value per snap, you're paying half as much for Wanam as you are for AQM. Now that's how the Lions play. Like for another team, Mohammed may have played more snaps, right? They may not value, you know, they may have not valued

Jacob Litton: Yeah.

Jason Harwood: run defense as much as the Lions do at that edge position. I mean, that's really where that, where that comes down to. So I'm okay with it. wasn't, that was just the interesting thought was like, can't afford one or can't afford a QM, but they say one for, mean, I know the deals are structurally different, but they're very safe, very similar costs, total costs. they did ask him about Taylor Decker and I thought that was really good that they brought, brought that up. And I was interested to hear Brad Holmes answer on that, but it really wasn't clear. So I'm just going to ask you straight up, now that we've, you know, we've caught it through free agency, Taylor Decker hasn't signed. Did the Lions fail Taylor Decker with a lack of communication or this all Taylor Decker's fault? Did he misread the market? ⁓ did you know, think he, he deserved more than what, you know, everybody else values him at?

Jacob Litton: That's a tough question. And I mean, I thought it was I don't know if it was I think it was Justin that asked because he brought up he's like not saying that, you know, what you said at the meetings or whatever had anything to do with it. But it was right after Brad Holmes met with everyone. talked about Decker's future. Then all of sudden Decker says, I'm back. And that's when they really need to have those conversations with his agent and everything like, OK, you know, great to have Taylor back, but we really need him to take a pay cut. And Decker didn't want to take a pay cut. They had go back and forth for a little while. I don't know that it's necessarily a communication issue. I think it's just like anything else, right? The constraints. It was the constraints, Jason. ⁓ But they had a number in mind. Decker felt that he was worth more than that number and that he needed more than that. And we decided we weren't going to honor it. They both agreed to go their separate ways. I think that's what we all thought happened beforehand. And I don't think.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Litton: that he let loose anything else in this interview to lead you to believe otherwise? Did you think that he let something slip? Do you think that maybe had they been more ahead of time that we could have still had Decker on this team?

Jason Harwood: Yeah, I don't see the thing is like, we don't know the whole timeline. I reading like how Justin answered that question, how Brad, I think Taylor Decker did surprise him with that post and they did not expect that answer there. I, my feeling was the lines are like, let's get through the combine. Cause they, this all happened at the combine, right? So their focus at that point is combine. They're going to tackle. You know, they're going to move into their free agency stuff. Not that they weren't looking at free agency before that, but I think they didn't expect Taylor to have an answer that quickly or post it openly like that. I don't think they had reached out to Taylor since January. I've, at that point, you know, maybe it's from that talk, they thought Taylor was going to retire. So there's no urgency about us, you know, getting here and saying, Hey, if you're going to come back, we're going to ask you for a pay cut. Obviously, I don't like the idea of us having a pillar of our team and us not being honest with them. But I don't know if that's necessarily the answer that that that's what happened. I don't think the Lions were like in January, they knew, hey, we're going to want Taylor back. We're going to have to You know, we're going to have to pay cut. I don't think that whole conversation had happened at the exit interview. I think it's, know, they got through. They looked at everything. They looked at their budget. They planned all this stuff out. And they're they're saying, you know what? we're just not going to be able to afford to pay him $21 million if he's not going to be able to practice, if he's not going to be, you know, he's going to have all these limitations, you know, and so they thought, you know, when he comes in after the combine right before for agency, we'll talk with Taylor. They, cause they also probably wanted to respect his privacy about, they don't want to hound him about retirement. If they thought he was going to retire too, you know, I'd be like calling him every day. Hey, you're going to retire.

Jacob Litton: Right.

Jason Harwood: You know, it's although another way of like, they might've sickly wanted him to retire so they didn't have to have the awkward conversation.

Jacob Litton: Yeah. Yeah, you want her to break up with you so that you don't have to do it with her. Based on what Dan Campbell had said, though, he kind of said that before he was open about it. He's like, if Decker is good to go, then we still need to be looking at a tackle because he's not always available. He's going through some stuff. And I feel like that was being truthful. I feel like he was just speaking like that was 100 % what the situation was at that point. That they weren't 100 % sure, but they knew that we need to be ready for everything and we need to have a contingency plan in place.

Jason Harwood: Yep.

Jacob Litton: And then Decker sprung that on by making that post. And I'm sure to a certain extent you're fired up like we all were like, OK, cool. We're going to get Decker back. And then it's like not so fast, not for as much as we're going to have to pay him. We're just going to have to eat some of this money and he's going to move on. And for what it's worth, Taylor Decker is still unsigned. And I not heard anything about him meeting with any teams or anything. Have you?

Jason Harwood: Yeah. No, I haven't heard. I saw like a Browns media post like, should we look at Taylor Decker? And then people are like, no, we shouldn't look at him. At least that that was the social media, you know, post that I saw. So I, I don't know. I don't think the market's there like he thought. And also, like, you know, who's a left tackle for Green Bay? was like the highest like that they lost. Yeah. So like everyone was ⁓ the ⁓

Jacob Litton: shade Walker.

Jason Harwood: before he signed everyone's like, he's a $20 million tackle. I think the tackle market was way depressed than it usually is. you know what? And at this point, when I looked at it, the lions, you know, have $9 million dead money for Taylor Decker, right? We that's a worry down the cap right now. He was going to be as cap hit was going to be like 21 million. So like at this point, if we wanted to bring Taylor Decker back, I mean, at most we're going to offer him as like five or 6 million, right? Cause then you're putting them at 14 million costs to us. you know, that's probably what we want them to cut. We probably want him to cut at least, I would say probably, you know, at least five or 6 million. We probably want him to take that pay cut and he wasn't willing to take it. and maybe that's a pride thing. Maybe that's, maybe it's like, you know, if I'm injured, this is not worth it for me to, to, to fight through this, for that. that amount of money I'd rather just retire. You know, he still hasn't retired.

Jacob Litton: Well, right. But that's the answer. I'd rather just retire, not I'm moving on and I have the intention of playing next year. And maybe it's something where he's just like, you know what, I'm in a rehab stage right now. I'm not I'm not taking any meetings or anything like that. Maybe he's waiting to laugh the draft before he makes that move. ⁓ I just there's no chance that he makes as much money elsewhere as what he was going to make for us.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. But he also could have s- Mm-hmm. Yeah. For as much as he had to go through last year, like not practicing, I mean, that had to be a struggle. it, would it be worth it for him to go to another team, a whole new situation? ⁓ I mean, the only thing I could see a situation is if you have, you know, ⁓ top Superbowl contender and then they get an injury on the line and they need someone to step right in, you know, cause like, what else is Taylor Decker playing for other than the title? Right? I mean, what else is he playing for at this point?

Jacob Litton: Yeah, exactly.

Jason Harwood: All right. One thing I, one thing I did find very interesting, and this is probably the most interesting for me personally, that Brad Holmes said in the draft was that he said, you just have favorites. And when he was talking about in the draft, he's talking about individual players. You just have favorites. And when he said that, I didn't like that. That's one thing I did not like. And the reason why I don't like that is because I do think that he falls in love. with players. I Tesla, he falls in love with players and he'll, he will overspend. Yeah, he did. Yes. And so I think Manu was a guy he fell in. think Broderick Martin is a player that he fell in love with. think Cione Bocchi is another player that he fell in love with and overspent because he fell in love with those players and wasn't willing to give them up. And I think until he's willing to do that and to lose his guy,

Jacob Litton: He mentioned Tesla. Unprovoked, he mentioned Tesla.

Jason Harwood: that's gonna be his Achilles heel in the draft. At least that's my feeling.

Jacob Litton: I mean, that's fair when you look at all the middle round picks that we've lost to move up for some of these guys and you know, the mid round picks that we're trading up for, we're not hitting on really, right? I mean, Manu and Tesla are the two big ones and Tesla obviously had, you know, very, very limited sample size. Yes, right, right. I forgot about Project Martin. Burn that out of my mind. You but right. It's just not been not been turning out the way that he thought it was. And that has not deterred him from changing that strategy at all. And you're right. You know, he said that you just have to have favorites or that you just have favorites lead you to believe that that's not going to change.

Jason Harwood: Those guys. I think Broderick Martin too. I think Broderick Martin is a huge one.

Jacob Litton: And he said, you know, we're not going to change up the way we approach a draft. He also said, you know, that they're not chasing need. Right. Which is kind of a weird like, you know, yeah, we have a giant hole at edge, but, know, we're not going to take an edge just to take an edge. We want to really like the guy. I get that you have to like the player and you're not going to draft anybody just because they play the position that you need. So I get from that perspective. But then to also be like, well, you know what? We need these two spots. But Man, I really love this. You know, I can't I really love this quarterback. I really love this other wide receiver as somebody. So this is who we're going to take a chance on here. I don't like that. I don't like the thinking of that when it comes to the top three rounds. I think the players that you love and the sleepers that you find have to be reserved for the later round picks. If you move up in the sixth round or you move up, you trade your six rounds, you can move up a little bit higher in the fifth or the fourth. That's something that you can live with.

Jason Harwood: Yeah.

Jacob Litton: Those top three are so valuable. And when you've missed as much as you have, like you, you know, you're on thin ice with the Lions fans.

Jason Harwood: Yeah, I think it, you know, you have to weigh all that stuff, like what you're giving up. ⁓ Tesla, like I like Tesla and I think he's going to be good. And I think ⁓ an okay pick. ⁓ don't personally though, giving up three third round picks for him was probably an overreach for a guy, especially that you might've been able to get like, you know, at their, at your original pick based on where he was rated and all that.

Jacob Litton: Absolutely.

Jason Harwood: And the same thing with Broderick Martin, you gave up like three fifth round picks to move up to get this guy that you probably could have got with one of those fifth round picks. They weren't even ready for his draft party because Broderick Martin didn't think he was going to go to day three. And so you had to tell them that, you got this same thing with Vocky. You know, we're like, okay, if we didn't get Vocky, would that be the end of the world? Like, especially for a project player, you're moving him over to running back when he like,

Jacob Litton: Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Harwood: I like Vocky and I think he's a great special teams player, I think that there are that like he played, he, he said what he's trying to set out loud. It's like exactly what I thought. And I've read the situation. It was like, there are certain guys that Brad Holmes just falls in love with and has blinders and said, I'm going to get that guy. And I don't care if I have to trade up into the third round when that guy might fall to the fourth round. And until he, until he is willing to like lose that guy and trust the board, then he. that's going to be his Achilles heel and that's where the drafts have suffered. He was patient and you know, Amon in the fourth round, right? Like he could have like fell in love with that guy and took him earlier. We ended up getting a lean in that draft and then you get, you know, you follow that up with Amon Rah, solid picks, right? And then, you know, and I know the roster was at a different point at that, but we're almost at that point right now where we need to draft cheap starters. to fill in because we're going to have all these all pros and pro bowl players that, you know, we're going to be very top heavy very, very soon.

Jacob Litton: I think, I mean, what you had said before and what, you know, people have tried to say, or, know, how we feel is that Brad Holmes usually has a pretty good idea about like where these players are going to go or different things like that. But he's been so far, like Manu was projected like maybe round seven, but probably an undrafted free agent, right? Broderick Martin was maybe round six, probably round seven.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jacob Litton: Tess Law was like, maybe he could sneak in around four, but most likely around five, maybe around six. These are all like late day three picks that we're moving up for and making these moves to round three. So does he really have that good of a beat on them or does he have the blinders on and he falls in love with these guys and he, know, after the first two rounds, he's like, you know what? I'm going to take the guy that I love now.

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I worry about that. And you know, we have a lot of late round picks now, cause we got, now we have two fourth rounders. I know we got a fit. know we have two six or two seven. We've got nine total picks. Right? So we have a lot. would, we're going to be moving up and I just hope it's moving up appropriately and getting a guy instead of moving up. And you know, we're getting a good player, but it's also, we need to get good value. And so I'm hoping that that Brad Holmes has some patience that he has not exhibited the last couple drafts The last thing that I thought that Brad Holmes made a really good point and I think that a lot of us need to realize this is like You really don't know he said it. This is a jerk quote. You really don't know the value of a player until the games kick off we're looking at all these one-year contracts that minimum contracts Thinking well, we've replaced a meek with you know a guy getting a vet minimum, you know, how, how, you know, we've downgraded, right? We were not, not doing as well. The guys that we signed like Amique signed for cheaper than what he'd left here, right? Which means he overplayed his contract, right? AQM overplayed his contract last year. Alex Anzaloni is a good player, still a good player and he's going to sign and get his money. Like, Just because the guy signed for cheaper doesn't mean that they're not going to go in. think McCreary as a guy that has a really good chance of commanding a lot more money next year if he plays up to what I think he could play up to.

Jacob Litton: I mean, that's what we're offering them here, right? That's why like Pacheco and stuff, you get these small contracts, but you get a fair shake. Like you're not going to come in here and because what we're paying you, not going to get those reps like you're going to get the chance to earn it. And if you earn it, that spot's there and you're to get playing time with it.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. So I still think this is a destination for a lot of these guys. They know they're going to get a fair shake. Doesn't matter if the Lions go out and draft someone in the second round. you all play them, you're going to play because that's just the way ⁓ team's built. And I ⁓ the Dan Campbell factor has got people excited. mean, Pacheco, it sounds like from that, from what Brad Hom said, ⁓ offers from other teams decided to come to the Lions. Which is interesting because you already got Jermey or Gibbs, but it could be, it could be the perfect one, two punch. You know, it really could. If, if Pacheco comes back to what he was pre injury, that might be a big if, but I still like the way he runs and he's, you know, can he give you solid seven to 10 solid rushes a game? Yeah, I think he can. And like, I like where the position will be in. So hopefully.

Jacob Litton: Can he throw the ball as well as David Montgomery?

Jason Harwood: I don't think so. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see about the change of playbook. We got a new offensive coordinator All right, real quick Jacob before we go off JSN signed the biggest contract of wide receiver His in history the NFL Did that shock you that he got that much? What what what's your thoughts on JSN becoming the highest paid wide receiver? What's the contract? What's the average like? 42 million. Yeah 42 million a year

Jacob Litton: 42, I think. I think it was 42. ⁓ Wild. But you know what? He had a really good year. an all time high for the Seahawks and everything. The season that he just put out, him and his agent, great work there. Trying to get the maximum out that you possibly can. I still feel like this is one that maybe in a couple of years, people think that they overspent. ⁓ that's the way these contracts work.

Jason Harwood: Yeah.

Jacob Litton: Sign him for 42. The next guy gets 43 then 44 the salary cap goes up. You just keep going up higher You know a few years down the road then he's you know, top five. He's not number one anymore It's just the way these things work. Um That's a lot of money though And like I said, he he had a great year. Where does that put puka though, you know?

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. Well. It is. Yeah, know. Yeah, Puka had to love seeing that contract, but, you know, God, so much money though. I 42 million. mean, I know not, it wasn't too long ago that we were like, man, this quarterback skin of 40 million. That's a lot of money. now wide receivers are getting it. Defense events are getting it. And, ⁓ just in relation to the lions, it makes the I'm on rock contract look amazing. like number nine. like when you talk about value, Amon Ra's given us tons of value compared to contract and production. ⁓

Jacob Litton: Yeah, you talk about production, you talk about all pros and everything that he brings. mean, the people that are above him, AJ Brown, rather of Amon Ra, Terry McLaren, rather of Amon Ra, Garrett Wilson, rather of Amon Ra, DK Metcalf above him, we'd rather have Amon Ra. to, ⁓ JSN, Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, CD Lam, those are the top four right now. But Amon Ra deserves to be up there in terms of talent and production with all of those guys. And yet he's making

Jason Harwood: Yeah. Yes.

Jacob Litton: like five or I mean he's making 12 an average of 12 million less per year than JSN.

Jason Harwood: Mm-hmm. I know. It's wild. I mean, I know people get mad that, know, Brighton signed, got, his own guys early and, know, maybe it hasn't worked out in the Elaine McNeil and the Derek Barnes case, but Peney Sewell, that contract looks amazing. You know, ⁓ Hutchins, it's going to look good. just because you know the way they were able to sign those guys on Monroe looks amazing. JMo's contract the way they work that looks I know that it's going to be weird at the end of that because there's some money that piles up but getting him for what he you know wide receivers are getting paid wild amount of money and I didn't think we were going to be able to afford both JMo and Monroe they surprisingly did that contract and if JMo keeps playing the way he's playing

Jacob Litton: If Alec Pierce, sorry, if Alec Pierce is gonna make just about as much as Amon Ra, like what are we, what are we doing?

Jason Harwood: Exactly 56 catches last year Alec Pierce and I think it was 56 could be wrong. It's it's somewhere around there. Maybe 54 Yeah, exactly Wild so alright Jacob we were about an hour and a half in It's great talking football with you we will have draft stuff next week ⁓ next Wednesday. We'll go live Eric is looking pretty cool. We're you know, we're nailing down everything but it's gonna be like rate

Jacob Litton: He's making more than more than JMo.

Jason Harwood: Probably the week not the week of the draft but the Wednesday before the draft is the way that we're planning for Eric So plan that right now. We're excited to talk to him. We're gonna learn a lot and If you're someone that's out Phil familiar with their chlet You got to listen to that podcast because you will learn what the Lions are thinking The Eric has a very good insight with this grid index about the players the lion that lions covet So it's way better than any national broadcast you're gonna get and it's gonna be all solid giraffes up. We'll be live so you could come on and we will you know I don't know how many people will be in our live stream how many questions we're gonna get fired but we will ask some of those questions Eric and you know we'll get that on there and I'm really looking forward to that so for Jacob over there I'm Jason let's go Lions