Adam Peters breaks down how free agency shaped their NFL Draft approach

0:00All right, we're kind of playing some of the best soundbites from yesterday's NFL league meetings and our top team brass being out there, the owner, the general manager and the head coach. I think at the end of the show yesterday, we had some of what Quinn said and we've got a little bit more from Quinn, but you know, the general manager obviously has just gone through a very, you know, busy period of free agency and now he's gearing up for draft in which he's got the number seven pick overall. He was asked by Channel 9's John Doran, right? Next. Yeah, John Doran. John Doran from Channel 9, W USA, Channel 9. He was asked by John about just Jayden Daniels and the fit with David Blow as the new offensive coordinator. Here's what he said. I want to corner back with you for a minute, Jayden, I'm sure you saw him play some flag

1:01football. Try not to watch. You didn't know that. I was going to say over here on the other side. Yeah, I know. Yeah. What are you excited to see in his development this year? Really excited with his, you know, I think he's going to thrive in this new offense, not that he didn't in the previous offense, but I think he'll really thrive in this offense and really open up a lot of different things and give him a lot more opportunities where he doesn't have to put the team on his back. And I think that's something that's going to be really cool to see and just his skill set and this game really developed. And so he's been working hard throughout the off season and he's in really good shape, obviously, and he's still healthy after the flag football. So that's good. And some excited for him to come back and really start leading this offense again. Yeah. So there was nothing necessarily in there about David Blow and the fit with the offense. I know he talked about that a little bit as well. That was more about the flag football and he's in good shape and he's healthy.

2:03Yeah. They were, again, beating a dead horse here. They were, you know, unpins and needles with this flag football thing as they should have, especially when he went out and lined up at wide receiver. All right. Here's some more Adam Peters. This was him on the unpredictability of free agency. Free agency is very unpredictable and so, you know, you think you can have the best situation, you know, the right people, the right coaches, the right scheme for somebody and they still don't come to you for whatever reason that is and sometimes it's a great reason. Sometimes you don't think it's as good of a reason, but you can't count on that. So you really kind of just go down the line and just always keep your options open. I think there is a point there where we made a couple of signings and okay, let's just sit back and reassess and see where we're at and let some things come to us and that's what happened this year. I'm able to get some guys that I didn't think we're going to be able to get and I'm really happy that we got him. I wonder who he didn't think he would be able to get among the free agents that they

3:08signed. Going through the list here. I would think that O.A. was, look, we've talked about this before. O.A. was probably after Jalen Phillips maybe and perhaps even Tray Hendrickson. Who did they get sort of after the first wave? I don't know. Conquo. Chase on. Hmm. I like their free agency class. I like what they did. They filled a lot of holes. I don't know if they've got a superstar. I think O.A. has got to play like, I mean, when you get, when you get what he got 68 million guaranteed over four years, basically 100 million, 25 million a year, although I did see the updated number on the actual contract. I think it's four years, 96 million, according to SpotTrack, so that's four for 96 would be 24 million a year and 68 million guaranteed.

4:10That has to equal major impact. It does, you know, a major impact can be, you know, we could get to the end of the season and talk about pressure rates and all of that stuff, but it better equal 10 plus sacks. The sack total needs to be in double digits for it to seem like it made sense. And by the way, with him, you know, two to three forced fumbles during the course of the season as well. All right. This was Adam Peters on how much the free agency moves he made impacts the draft. When we get into the draft, understanding how fluid the draft is, how much does what you've done at pre-agency impact what you do, especially earlier? Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things we wanted to do is make it so we don't have to force a pick. All right. We don't have to pick for me. We don't have to pick a certain position. So we're in that position now.

5:10So it's really just, you know, especially with that pick number seven's a big pick. And so just finding someone who can really impact our team, you know, impact our team right away and impact our team long-term. So whoever that is, and there's a lot of good players in there, but with what we didn't free agency, it's not like, okay, we have to go get this because we have a gaping hole here there. And you guys can debate on, you know, where we need to add and all that and I understand that. But for where we sit, we don't feel like we need to reach for anything. That's a good position to be in. I don't know why you'd ever reach at number seven. I mean, I don't know how many times I can say this, but Bobby Bethards, the greatest general manager in the history of this city. And I can't tell you how many times he told me on this show, the biggest trouble you get in is when you draft for need, biggest mistakes he's ever made, drafting for need, Charlie Kasserly, same thing, biggest mistakes you make is when you draft for need.

6:11So I'm glad they're in a position where they don't have to draft for need, but I'd love to know that they would never at number seven overall draft for need. You're trying to draft a player that's going to become a perennial, all pro slash pro bowl kind of player when you pick in the top 10, doesn't always work out, usually doesn't, even in the, you know, this draft isn't two thirds misses on, you know, the entire draft, which it is just, just the entire draft, but you miss a lot in the top 10 too. But number seven, you're looking for a blue chip A plus player for years to come. You got it. That's what you're swinging for at seven. You're not going in there saying Jeremiah loves the best back in this draft, best back in many years. If you have that feeling best player on the board for us by miles, but we like our running back room. We're going to take Mansor Delaine. We got a bigger need of corner. You're not doing that. You shouldn't do that.

7:13I, I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you that that's what Bobby Bethard and Charlie Kasserly would tell Adam Peters. Any idea Adam, who will be there at number seven? Is it harder to get a feel for what teams are doing this draft in the air to other years? Do you have a different, you know, at this point in the time, do you have a sense over the harder than previously? Yeah, that's a great question because I, I feel that way. I've got, I have no idea who's going to be there at seven right now. I mean, I, I, there's a couple guys that I know are going to be gone. But then how that goes after that, I don't know. And it changes every week. You know, I think if you look at a mock draft this week, next week, the next week, it's kind of changed. So it'll probably get a little more clear as we get closer to the draft. And obviously, we're still right in the middle of our draft meeting. So the more work you can put in, we still have a lot of touch points with the guys. We have 30 visits coming in. So kind of getting an understanding of the landscape and who these guys are, even a little bit more. But yeah, it's a mystery to me right now.

8:15And so we just got to be ready for anybody. I wonder which mock drafts they pay attention to. You know, like, wouldn't it be nice to know which ones they pay attention to so we could just focus in on those? Because Casserleys told me before they got a lot of information from some of the mock drafts, you know, certain guys like Kuiper way back in the day, they paid attention to it because they had information on where teams were going. And it wasn't information that the team necessarily had. You know, he said, you know, other than a few players, I would say other than Fernando Mendoza, right now everybody else has been moving around with every single mock you see. Like I just saw Matt Miller, ESPN's latest seven round mock draft. Yeah, he went for the entire draft. And he's got Washington selecting Mansor Delay in the corner from LSU at number seven with David Bailey still on the board, Ruben Bain still on the board and Sonny Stiles still

9:17on the board. This will be a fascinating night on April 23rd, fascinating night because there is no doubt that what he just said, I believe 100% that they just don't have a good feel for how the board is going to, you know, move before them and who's actually going to be there. You know, it's possible. I mean, they're going to draft their board, right? So the goal would be to get number one on your board. And number one on your board might be David Bailey might be Jeremiah Love. What you don't want is you don't want them to be in a position where they end up getting number four, number five on their board because their top four were selected. And I think that's what they don't know. That's the mystery for them is they're going to have their board. They're going to have it ranked out and they're going to go into that thing and they're going to, you know, as a player gets picked, it's going to get crossed off their board.

10:17And they just hope that it's below where they pick. Delane. First time I've seen him mocked there. I think, no, maybe the second time, a lot of talk about Delane, the corner after his pro day last week, a lot of talk about him. This was him talking about does the lack of clarity make it more difficult, you know, even that he doesn't know how this, you know, draft is going to sort of play out before they get to seven to move the pick, to trade the pick. Here's what he said. Because of that, does that make it harder to maybe help teams to move around in that program? Yeah, I honestly don't without having a ton of quarterbacks, I don't know there's going to be a lot of moving around and moving back. I wouldn't anticipate it. You don't really see that happening unless it's for a quarterback because it's pretty costly to do that if you want to move up. So yeah, I haven't heard much about that in terms of guys, but teams move around. That makes sense, I think, you know, the moves typically are made to get into position

11:23to select a quarterback. This right now looks like best case, a two first round quarterback draft with Ty Simpson being the second quarterback selected after Mendoza gets picked at number one overall. I have seen some mocks with Carson Beck sneaking into the late first round. I've also seen some mocks, including Matt Miller's, that doesn't have Ty Simpson coming off the board until night two at number 33 overall after the first round. So you know, the anticipation for all of us on trading back or the idea that that would be the best overall scenario. It's probably not likely in this draft. I think we've known that all along, but to hear him say it and to say it in the way he did, I think he's kind of telling John there who asked the question, John Kime, yeah, we're probably not going to have an opportunity to trade back. There's just not going to be a player, a quarterback specifically that someone would want to bounce

12:25up for. Now is it possible that a Jeremiah love or, you know, another player, David Bailey, if he actually fell the seven, somebody might be interested, let me just tell you, if David Bailey falls to seven, I'm going to be concerned as to why he's fallen to seven. There's nothing about his tape or anything with respect to Indy or anything else that would say, yeah, Bailey did this poorly. So he's probably going to drop guy at 14 and a half sacks last year. He was literally unstoppable. He's got the quickest first step of any of these past rushers and just has a relentless high motor. So if he's not there, if he's there at seven, I'd wonder why I'd still take him though. Still take him. We've got one more from him that I wanted to play and that is he was asked about, you know, the idea of drafting at number seven non-premium positions, running back, linebacker,

13:30those are mentioned safety is sometimes mentioned. Here's what he said. There's a lot of conversation about some of the guys at the top of the strap are non-premium positions, including like running back and part of the conversations are for the economics of it like draft that player, it's just not as the price later on, especially, it's not a tie or some other ones there for maybe it's not making it a value play from a salary capital. Does that matter to you at all? Yeah. You consider it, yeah, but I really consider more how much they can impact us and talking with our coaches, talking with the staff and the other scouts like, okay, how much can this player impact us, you know, and whether you're saying, whether you're saying it's running back, whether it's a safety, whether it's a linebacker that are non-premium positions, but at the same time, like I had Fred Warner in San Francisco and I can't tell you how much that guy impacted our team. And so, like, there are, you know, there are exceptions to that and so, I think you can

14:37overthink it by doing that sometimes, but I would like to say the best player can help us now and in the future, and worry about the second contract later. Yeah, I love that answer. I think, you know, you get into a lot of the NFL draft geeks and analytics geeks and sure, if it's close, you know, running back and wide receiver, you want the rookie contract to be on the wide receiver because you're getting the most benefit from that position because it's going to get paid so big time if it works out when they get to the second deal, whereas our running backs second deal is not a massive cap, you know, a strain, same typically with linebacker, same sometimes with safety. That's why we've heard, you know, over the years, you know, you can't take a linebacker in the first half of the first run. You can't take a running back in the first round. You can't take a safety in the top 10, but remember what the Lions did in 2023.

15:41They took Jameer Gibbs at 12 running back. It's worked out and they took Jack Campbell linebacker at 18. It's worked out. So you want more than anything else, you got to draft a player that you're confident is going to become a great player. If that player ends up being a running back or a safety or a linebacker, even if it's at number seven, yeah, give me the great player and let's worry about the contractual stuff later because we were not going to get that great player later on. Somebody else was going to take him to. I think that's the part where you, you know, there is a lot of, you know, strategy and there's a lot of gut instinct on not everybody's got a, you know, a board that looks like everybody else's, you know, you'll see these consensus boards put together before draft so that the evaluation post draft isn't about whether or not the team got the right player. It's about whether or not they got the right player in the right spot. Was he overdrafted or was he under drafted?

16:43And you can under draft or overdraft by miles and that doesn't look great. But ultimately, if you got a great player, you'll take that along with the criticism and maybe not the necessary, you know, or not the eventual cap benefit and contractual benefit that you might get. Look, with our track record of first rounders here recently, they need to get a really good player. They need to draft a player that they feel like is going to be a star. At number seven, you got to get somebody who's going to be a star. You have to do that's, that's what you want. The contract stuff, the benefit of rookie deals, et cetera, to me, that comes second. All right, we're going to shift gears here. Mark Zuckerman's going to jump on with us. The Nats have started the season three in one with a player that had an absolute historic start when it came to his first ten plate appearances.

17:45That's next.