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Carnell Tate: The Perfect Compliment for Nabers & Dart Does Exist

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Dan and Nick break down the draft profile of Ohio Stater WR Carnell Tate. They discuss his pros, cons, he he translates and projects, how he would fit the Giants with Nabers and Dart and whether or not he's worth drafting at 5 overall. 0:00 Buy Me A Coffee 0:35 Carnell Tate — Ohio State 2:15 Brian Hartline effect 7:00 Tate’s vertical success/route savvy 8:50 The context of Ohio State 12:15 Tate on the vertical plane 16:28 Ads 17:46 Tate’s negatives 23:00 Carnell Tate vs. Darius Slayton 24:00 Tate maximizes ability to secure football 28:45 Giants current WR room 33:01 Who is Carnell Tate? 35:00 Tate or Ohio State defenders? 35:48 Giants safety room Buy me a coffee, please! ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ buymeacoffee.com/bigbluebanter Join our group chat and talk with us!🗣 🔥 Chat BCC Type: BigBlueBanter.chat (into your url) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Carnell Tate: The Perfect Compliment for Nabers & Dart Does Exist

Big Blue Banter: A New York Giants Football Podcast

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Big Blue Banter: A New York Giants Football PodcastCarnell Tate: The Perfect Compliment for Nabers & Dart Does Exist. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.

Hey, what do you say, ladies and gentlemen? Dan and I are excited to introduce our Buy Me a Coffee page. We've had a lot of listeners reach out and say, hey there, Bob, we really appreciate what you do and want to support the show. Well, here's one way to do that, without big corporations taking, I don't know, 30% of the cut of your generosity. Just head over to www.BuyMeACoffee.com, slash BigBlueBanter, and chip in if you'd like to support us directly. Every contribution means a lot, and it helps keep the show going strong. We appreciate each and every one of you, thanks for listening and have a lovely day. Welcome back, it's the BigBlueBanter, New York Giants football podcast. I'm Dan Schneire, joined as always, my co-host Nick Flaude. I think today we are also joined by his dog, Phoenix, who starred for attention as usual. Phoenix lives a very privileged life, though most would say deservingly, myself included. But he's over there begging for something at this point, either next attention or food. It's always at the vaid as far as what you want. A little calm A, a little calm Bay.

Either way, he wants something, and he deserves something, so good for Phoenix. Today we are talking about another draft profile. It is wide receiver carnal tapes, and we're starting with tape for a lot of reasons. One, because we think if any receiver's in the mix at five for the Giants, it's tape. Two, because we think if any receivers in the mix for the Giants, they trade down. I think it's tape, too. And we'll talk about why, but I think he's by far and away the best fit for what this team needs, if they are too draft, they wide receiver early, or really at any point, what the prototype receiver that I think they need, that fits start, that fits the current players they have on the roster at receiver as well. We'll get into all of that. We'll talk about if he's worth drafting at five. We won the draft night five. We'll talk about a scouting profile that we have on him. I watched a ton of tape on tape. I've probably watched now more tape on tape than anyone, because I watched originally Nick, and then we did a bunch of shows for Beyond the Box War this week breaking down fantasy profiles on rookies, and tape was one of them. So for with Jacob, I just watched a bunch of tape. And I was like, I'll say this, Nick, this is my first thing I'll open with and then we'll get to you.

I was way more impressed than I thought. I was going to be watching his tape and like, I was not even open to the idea of him at five before it. And now I'm not saying I want it, but I'm way more open to it than I ever thought I would be. I can understand why. I can understand why, man. Look, he is a Brian Hartlein coach wide receiver. Exactly. He always hit. They do always hit. And we always say, don't scout the helmet. And there is, there's a lot of validity to that. But when that helmet is being coached by a technician, you know, when when you, when you go through Ohio State, you get the best coaching at the most formidable years when you're trying to develop yourself into an NFL wide receiver. And they all show, they all show up, right? Like, whether it be Marvin Harrison Jr., and I know he hasn't worked out to probably the level. A lot of people think JSN Wilson, all these guys, right? Lave, Luga, it just keeps going on and on and on. Yeah, it does go on and on. And I really want to bring that up because when you watch Carnell Tate's tape, it is so, so obvious that he knows how to play wide receiver.

And it's going to be translatable to the national football league because he understands how to attack leverage. He understands how to win at the top of his routes. He understands how to win at the line of scrimmage with his release package. Has great footwork, understands just how to uncover. Like, to me, he reminds me of a route savvy standpoint, a bit of like a Jordan Addison, a bit of Devonta Smith only bigger, right? Bigger than both of those guys. Now, he's not massive. He only came in into the combine. Like, he was one of the combine losers people say because he ran like a four, five, two. And he was I think 192 pounds if I'm not mistaken. But he still has like these massive frickin' mitts attached to his arms. He's like 10 and one fourth inch hands. And the 40 are of a four, five, three. That's still like not the worst for a player of his size. Now, people will look at him and say, this is a deep threat who ran in the four fives. That's not necessarily ideal,

especially when a lot of people were saying he was going to run in the low four fours. But when you do watch him run routes, I just, I can understand how he's going to create more separation that will not be predicated on what his 40 time is. And I also have GPS data on this guy. He reached like 21.9 miles per hour. I think he even might have clocked 22 at 21.9 and 21.5 where his three fastest plays. That was his three, like, so I think his play speed. Passed by the way, yes. I think his play speed is more than what a four, five, two, or four, five, three would suggest. So just overall, man, like I came away more enthusiastic about his skills after watching his film as well. And he's going to be in consideration for the giants and by the giants are considering him. Cause I believe he had a top 30 visit. If not, he's scheduled for one, right? I want to say you already had it actually. Yep. I want to start with a few things and unpack a few things you said. The first thing is we always say on this podcast, don't scout the helmet. What we mean by that is don't say, oh, Miami offensive tackles have never been good

from flowers 20 years ago to this guy 40 years ago, or the quarterback for this team. Just now you never see a Texas Tech quarterback work out. They've all been bet. Oh, wait, then there was Patrick my homes. What we mean by that is don't say colleges can't produce players. What we don't mean, what the exceptions to that is coaches can create players, man. Like Brian Hartline is the best wide receiver coach by foreign college football. I would argue, dude, he's the best wide receiver coach in the in the world at this point when you consider the development of these players, especially when you consider that all of these players you mentioned by the way, Nick, who came out of a house state for all technicians and savvy route runners. And they all win in ways that you see show up with car and L Tate. And that's why when I'm so excited to watch him because like he's that receiver that if you're playing off coverage on him and off leverage on him, like inside or outside leverage, he is able to beat you with his route running with his ability to stand at the vert in the vertical plane. And with his ability to just understand how to do little things that I see like a ton of good examples of him running a rock with the rocker step

that people talk about. A ton of examples of him, like even getting his ability to sink his hips on these double moves on the vertical plane and then just create crazy separation. So it starts with that, like his route running is what makes him an amazing vertical receiver. To me, it's so much more important, Nick, to be able to run routes and to win as a vertical player. Well, it's two things that I think make you a winner as a vertical player at the NFL level. It's your route running. And like I said, when the player's an off coverage. So that's what you see on tape when you watch Tate. It's the ability to set up the defensive back, get him off balance and then have that second move that creates the separation vertically. Or the second thing for me is your release off the line of scrimmage. Which by the way, people talk about with Tate and it's just like the same thing with neighbors, dude. It's like, well, there's not a lot of examples in facing press man coverage. It doesn't mean he can't beat press man. It's just not a lot of examples. But there are some examples of him with like that quick split release off the line of scrimmage where he then stacks a defensive back and he wins vertically because he's done his job. He's creating the separation with the release and he stacks a defensive back. To me, those are the two most important things. And then the third for me is tracking the football,

which we'll talk about in a second because I think he's the best in the class by far at tracking on the vertical plane. And one of the best I've seen in a while when it comes to tracking. And then locating the football with body control and the ability to catch away from your frame with hands. Again, thing he's great at. To me, all four of those things, Nick, are more important than your 40 yard dash of the combine. Literally all four of those. And I'll tell you why, John Ross, Xavier Worthy, the list goes on and on and on of guys who have insanely good 40 yard dash times that aren't great vertical receivers, right? We don't view them as that because they're not good at that. They're supposed to be, they're speed supposed. And technically, there are going to be some reps where they make a defense look silly because they can get that free release and then just go. We saw that with Jalen Hyatt, right? All he was doing, all he had was free releases at Tennessee. And he made defensive backs look stupid because of them. But the reality is in the NFL most of the time you're not going to be able to get that free release vertically. And you need to win with the other four ways that I broke down. In my opinion, he's the best in a class by far at that. And it's something that's really exciting to watch for me.

Like I feel like he does such a good job, Nick, of any time a ball is thrown to him vertically, even if it's under thrown, he just says such a good job of tracking it, contorting his body to where it needs to be and then using his big hands to tack away from his frame and catch the football. He's basically like the anti-diarrhea slate on the vertical plane when it comes to like, just when the ball is near him in the air. Dude, the guy caught 85% of his contested catches in 25. He had, I think over, yeah, he had over three yards per route run. That is, that's insane, right? Like those are insane metrics for a wide receiver. Now people will look at the totality of his stats and be like, yeah, but it was only, you know, 875 yards. Never had over 1,000 yards receiving, you know, at only 14, like, I look at this dude and I'm like, yeah. But if he played on a team that wasn't Ohio State that didn't have Jeremiah Smith on the other. You know what I mean? Like, if people want to be in the contest, yeah, exactly. But people would be like, oh, well, Jeremiah Smith was dictating coverage. It's like, dude, there were times where like, this guy is out running, like he is facing up against number one corners and they are shading a safety

over to Smith's side or whatever. Smith goes underneath and he's still defeating the one-on-one matchups. Like you can evaluate him independent of his situation based off of the skill set, his route savvy, how he wins, where he wins. And it seems to me like all of those trades do translate to the NFL, right? This is somebody who is not deficient as an athlete. I don't really care too much that he did run a four or five because I see him beating good cornerbacks deep and then having the concentration and the tracking ability to come down with these footballs, understanding where to jump, how to use his body to shield it from defenders, understanding how to track it and how to optimize coming down with that football, right? Not just from like a high-pointing perspective, but understanding the angle to take to the football and then securing it through contact. Like there's a, yeah, so thank you, thank you. Yeah, now with Tate is, he's pretty exceptional at a lot of those things. Like I like smart football players, right? We watch smart tough independent, no. But I do like smart football players,

especially at a position like Wide Receiver. You don't want like your guys like Kaderius Tony, you want somebody who's gonna understand where to be, how to be there and then how to just do his job at the best of the ability to maximize the reps that he gets. And I think Carl Tate is, he epitomizes that when it comes to evaluating a Wide Receiver. Yeah, you're right, he maximizes. And I love that you brought up these little nuances to me are what makes a great football player and even more specifically speaking, what makes a great vertical player at the receiver position. Like as far as just like one thing he said, like timing of the jumps. Timing the jumps is so important and he does such a great job. He's one of the best I've seen in this class at timing the jumps. But like how many times do we see NFL players miss time the jumps? And then like that vertical shot turns into crap. We see that all the time. I felt like when I watched Quentin Johnson for example coming out, like to me Tate is such a better prospect than that. And Johnson has like found his niche in the NFL, you know, he's like runs the rail and he's open on the rail or he just does that like underneath drag and he could like do stuff after the catch. But like watching him, when I was watching his tape at TC,

he was like essentially just like missed time jumps and all these just awkward looking catches where he's just letting the ball come into his body. It's the total opposite with Tate, man. I feel like his ball skills are really freaking good. Like if I'm just saying like, is a guy worth a top five pick? If it was just on ball skills and that exact metric, it's not gonna ever be that, but that one trait, he would be a top five pick easy for me. One of the bad, I think he's in that Roma dunes a class of like at the catchpoint and ball skills. I would even say to me, he's a little smoother and better at that. And we'll get to my comp a little later because I think I, I unfortunately told you before the podcast that would have been more interesting to hear your reaction live. But we'll get to that a little bit later. But that's a skill set that works at the NFL level. We've seen it. You know, when you told me a couple of years ago, Nick, that you had watched the tape of Malik neighbors for me, when you told me like, this is gonna be a dancin' hour receiver. You were right. This is not a neighbor's type prospect. Obviously he's not like explosive in an average break, sharp cuts. But for the bigger frame receivers, like there's two, I view them as two different types of receiver.

For this style of receiver, he's my exact type for the bigger frame style receiver. I want somebody who has the route savvy and I'll say this, like as far as winning on the vertical plane. I remember who was one of the best vertical receivers as we were growing up through fantasy football, not more recent, pretty recent. The Andre Hopkins was one of the, in his prime with the Texans was one of the best vertical receivers. He's now like 30 whatever. He's not as good of a vertical receiver. So he still wins if you throw on the ball, just catch it. He ran a 4.5.9 to the combine. Did you know that? 4.5.9. Okay, so let's like retire the idea people of saying, like if you don't run a 40 time, you can't win vertically. I actually think it's the opposite. You win vertically if you show it on tape and you show the ability to understand how to win vertically. I agree, man. And one of the ways to win vertically is one thing. But also you want to be able to threaten vertically which he can do because his ability to get in and out of his brakes on the vertical plane when it comes to like running deep curls, deep comebacks and things of that nature,

it's exceptional, right? Like for a guy who is six to a little bit bigger and like again, he's not like 205 pounds. So he has sub 200 and there is something to that. But holy crap, Dan, does he not sink his hips and just get back to the quarter, run right back to the quarterback, present those massive hands and then just be a target who is open. Like he can sell the vert, up his stem so well and then just break it off so quickly. Like like route, like being able to run routes that well, that's going to create the throwing windows and create the time that's going to allow the quarterback to find you and it's just going to allow you to get open at such an easier rate where it doesn't necessarily matter if you run a fuck or a frickin' four or three, right? Like it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not that big of a deal and a lot of people are saying that the, who was it? Was it Shepter through an agent more than likely tweeted something about like how it was actually like a four, like four or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they started it wrong or something. Regardless, man, he is faster play speed. It's faster play speed and you watch it and you can see that the speed is a little bit faster

when it comes to just a play speed perspective and then you, you know, taking account all the route nuance that we're talking about and I think you have a solid, I think you have an above average to good, possibly very good prospect on your hands at the wide receiver position. I don't think he's, I don't think he is close to Malik neighbors personally. I would give him the Rome though. That's where I was about to go. Yeah, okay. With Rome and Dunesay, I think their similar, Rome was another one who was just excellent at a contestant catch. Like his contestant catch percentage, I want to say was similar when it was like 80% in his last season of Vermont mistaken, right? I think there were more opportunities though, whereas Carnot Tate only had 14 contestant catch according to pro football focus in 2025. I think Rome had a slightly more and he was coming down with a lot of them. I think Tate is a little bit more savvy when it comes to the routes. Even though Rome wasn't bad at that, like I don't want to make it like Rome and Dunesay was a bad route runner, that wasn't the case.

But there is a little bit more savviness because technician is one of my, the first words that come to my mind. You would say give me like three adjectives to describe Carnot Tate. And deep ball winning contestant catch technician, right? Right. And all three of those. And you think about it like Rome and Dunesay definitely had the deep ball tracking, bigger body, more physical than Carnot Tate. But I think Tate is much more of a technician than Rome and Dunesay was coming out of Washington. Completely agree. I think Tate was a better vertical receiver than a Dunesay. Although Dunesay had more vertical wins, I think just because stupid Panic's offense was just like chucking into space. And that was what Panic's was good at too. Yeah, and Panic's is great at it. And especially against packed well defenses with all that space to the field side. Like it worked out, it was great. And you have two other receivers that have to get attention. But like when it comes to Tate, I think he's better as a vertical receiver. But I do think that a Dunesay is better in other ways. I think Dunesay is a better overall like full route tree type of winner, especially slants those quick and breaking routes. I also think that he's much better after the catch

even though we haven't seen as much at the end of the level. They used him a lot at screens of Washington. Endurance athletes don't really talk about this, but heavy training can quietly wrecks sexual performance. Long cardio sessions, high court is all bad sleep. Under recovery, all of that hits the same systems that control hormones and blood flow. And when circulation drops, performance drops everywhere, including down there, they have most guys reach for stimulants or prescriptions, but that's a blunt downstream fix. That's where joy mode comes in. Nitric oxide is the master switch for blood flow, endurance and long-term vascular health. Joy mode reports nitric oxide production with real doses of citrilline and arginine nitrate, not token amounts, so your body improves circulation naturally. And it works. 83% of men noticed a boost in sexual performance and 73% felt positive effects, even without prior ED issues. You tear one open, mix it with water like an electrolyte packet and you're good. Take it 45 minutes to a few hours before you do the deed

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for a chat book or a collection of poetry and essays and short stories. So we started to GoFundMe and our goal was 7,000. What I've learned is so special about GoFundMe is that it's a whole collection of people offering anything from like $4 to $400. And each time you get a ping that someone donated, even if it is just $4, it's so exciting. So if you have a goal and you get there, you can keep making it bigger and bigger and bigger. We did go past our goal. It was amazing. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today. at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com. I'll say this about tape. My biggest concern with tape by far is after the catch. Now, it's interesting though, because you'll watch the tape and you'll be like, wow, that was an unbelievable rep from carnal tape after the catch. Like he understood exactly, he had perfect spatial awareness,

understood exactly where to take the cut and get vertical and then maximize the space. But then like you look at like just like the overall, like you watch like four, five, six games, you're like, but there are a lot of examples of just no explosiveness post catch. And then you look at the actual number and he was like 224th among receivers in post catch yardage. So it was like, it didn't check out overall. There are great reps because he understands space. But like as far as his athleticism goes, it's not like that explosive stop and start you expect. I mean, it's not that kind of player really. So I think that's a little different. Rome had a little bit more on that. It was used a little bit more in the screen game. But the big thing that you brought up that I wanted to touch on because it must be said is like, it cannot be understated that all the stuff that people point to the analytics profile, which is like what kind of people are now using to dance over the grave of Matthew Golden after just one season, the NFL, which I think is very stupid because his tape was actually good last year. He just wasn't used. But all that is used to kind of bury Golden. Like we should have known Golden was going to be a bus. He had a late breakout age and he had a bad production profile,

like not enough target bond. Because they say like, you know, the best players and it's hit for a lot of players, but obviously it's because their stars have like these great target shares. But guess what? Like you said, Jeremiah Smith is on that team. That's the only reason. There's context. It's super important here. Like he wasn't used. He may be able to be a much bigger percentage of your offense than anyone even knows right now. Like remember, Nico Collins, we love him coming out of Michigan. We love him to the senior one. We're like, the quarterback play was just so shit and the offense is keen with so bad who knows what he can be. That might be the case with a player like Tate because it's impossible to be the number one target getter when you have Jeremiah Smith on your offense. Like we'll go into next year, Nick and Jeremiah Smith will be the first non quarterback taken in my opinion. It may be a tackle. We might see, we'll see what happens. But like, I would bet right now, if I had to pick any player, it will be Jeremiah Smith. That's the level prospect he is. Yeah, he's, he's an unreal prospect. And just watching the Ohio State film and you see him on the opposite side of him. Yeah. Can't wait till next year to break this dude down, right? But not a day. Tate, hopefully we don't have to Nick actually.

Yeah, yeah. Hopefully, Jeremiah's picking my, yeah, let's pick 30. Let's pick here. Let's pick 30 seconds, right? Like last, I'll take 28, I'll take 28. It's 28, the conference shot. I'll take an appearance in the conference championship game. That's true. I don't know if I can guess for more than that. Yeah, no, but more about Tate too. We haven't even really talked about this. Yeah. It's fantastic catch, but like the guy doesn't drop passes. Yep. Four percent of his career zero drop passes last year. Yeah, the guy doesn't drop passes. Like he has that, and again, like his, how big are his hands, like the 87th percentile? Yep. Like hand size. Big freaking hands. That, that, that mesh is very well with somebody who was a vertical down the field type of threat. So yeah, there's a lot to, there's a lot to like when it comes to a car and I'll take and what he can offer to the New York Giants. And I think that's another like part to, to look at this, right? Like the Giants, if we want to transition to the, do you want to go over maybe with some of his negatives and then we'll transition to like the New York Giants, how this fits in general. And some of the negatives would just be like,

maybe he's not as, I don't think he's as good of a route. I don't want to frame phrase it this way, but his like deep dig routes and things of that nature in breaking routes on the intermediate to deep portions of the field. I don't think are as smooth in and out of breaks as it is on the vertical plan. That doesn't mean he can't be a good route runner when it comes to that. I just don't think it's as smooth, because I think he runs incredibly smooth routes when he is on that vertical point. I completely agree. I think for me, it's the two negatives are, I'm one more positive I forgot to mention, but I just see it in my notes so many times. Like from these games, I'm watching late hands. I love those versus great, great point. Great. I love those receivers who are just perfect. Like it just because another example being coached, right? It's another example being coached, right? It shows the IQ, it shows poise, it shows confidence. Like it shows a lot of those little things. You're right. You can go a lot more often because you're running around and you're like, I see it, I see it. I don't want this, I don't want this. Like you're playing, like not only are you worried about securing the football, but you're playing mental games with your opponent

to not allow him to know how imminent the threat is of you catching the football, right? Like, and I do appreciate that type of gamesmanship as well. One more thing too that we have that he's a blocker, man. And that's what I was going to say. William, capable blocker with the frame to do it. Yeah, William, capable blocker. And that's something that I always want to watch. The actual frame that can block. That's the difference. Yeah, you need frame. It's great to have these showing shepherd type blockers. They're awesome. They're fun to watch, but they're also whatever size they are. And you know, when you have somebody who's actually six two with 87% dial hand size, you can become an elite blocker with the right coaching. I'm not saying he will, but at least that's in the, you know, his frame makes it capable. Now, as far as the late hands goes, I said like a couple of times I want to know this in my notes. Like late hands, even like when he's getting hit like through contact, it's crazy how strong his hands are at the point of catch. That's why I compared that's why that's the main, the way he looks and that and the way he tracks is how I can bear it at my comfort. We'll get to that now and then we'll get some negative. My comfort him. Oh, oh, wait. Oh, and now I just want to add some more just, I don't know.

Yeah. I didn't laugh to myself because like I remember 15 minutes ago when you said the Darius, he's like the antithesis of Darius late and I was just like, dude, he really is because like when you go through and one of the mentioned is in the positive, that's why I cut y'all's hard. But like going through the Ohio State film, you're just like every time the ball is in the air, you're like, he's going to come down with it. It's the exact opposite of it. Yeah, but by the way, as far as like car ball goes and the way we're trying to build a foundation, he's going to love that about a player like this man. He really is just going to love a player who's just smart and dependable like we always say, like you know the monster you say it however you like, but it's important. Like it really is to come down with the football. We had a lot of, we had a lot of drives and a lot of games impacted by drops last year on the vertical plane. These are big shot plays that could change a game. He's got like magnet hands to the football. It does feel like that. Yeah, because he's just attacks so well away from his frame. That and it's like under thrown passes. It's yes, it's back shoulder passes along the sideline overthrown like he understands where to be.

And that is just an underrated tree in a wide receiver. He just understands where to be to maximize the ability to come down with that damage. It was one route. I wasn't against Wisconsin. That was the one where the Wisconsin was cool. Where he just like got sandwiched and his helmet got blown up and he still had the ball came down the ball. That's how strong his hands are. There was another route where he won vertically. But and then he had to the ball was thrown. Like he's he's coming up the right kind of up the seam on the right side of the field. The ball's thrown to his opposite shoulder. And he has to like completely flip his hips around and then high point the football. And he does it like so smoothly. It's just like, wow, that is star level rep. It's not he may not be an NFL all pro. I don't know he may be, but in that, you know, regards to that, if you want to draft map five, but that rap was so fricking good. Nick, that I just stood out to me. And I think, you know, I want to get into a few of the negatives. Now maybe then I'll wrap up with like my comp for him. The negatives for me are just twofold. It's really just two things. It's the one you brought up. It I don't think he's like a super sharp cutter. And I think that's going to impact him on slant routes.

Eventually those dig routes, those intermediate quick in breaker type stuff that you have to just like kind of beat the guy. But then again, dude, like AJ Brown is not the most like insanely sharp cutter. And he wins on those routes all the fricking time. Because he's just savvy enough to do it. And he uses his body well. And I get the feel that like take could develop into that. He may not be it now, he may not be used that way now, but he could develop into that now. And I saw Matt Harmon did his reception, reception, charting and like slant route was his worst route. And I could totally see that from watching him play like that could be like the thing that can be said at his least productive or successful route currently. The one he wins the least now, but he can develop into that. And then the other thing I had was just find this again. Sorry, this is a bad podcasting. It was that. And it was again, the yards after the catch stuff, which we were anyone over anyway. Yeah, yeah, the yak. I don't have the yak numbers in front of me, but he's not the, he's not like JSN when it comes to creating yards after the catch, right? But I also don't think he's a complete stiff either.

I think he's again, a very smart football player who knows how to like weave a how to angle himself if there are blockers in front of him, you could throw him a screen and he'll figure out how to get the most yards at that. There are a lot of traits when it comes to even though, there are some traits to appreciate even in the negatives that we are negatives, quote unquote, that word listing like yards at. I don't think it's something that he's incapable of. I just don't think it's something that would be something that you would spend a top five pick on, right? Like that was something that you would expect from a receiver that you are taking in the top five. Yeah. It's going to be the, you know, the bait that a lot of GMs have, like, should we take a non-Uber athlete this high in a draft class? I would argue that the athleticism is very overrated at receiver at this point. So it is what it is as far as that discussion goes, but it'll be discussion that people have. Now, I'll ask you this, Nick, we'll get to this part of the discussion. As far as take goes, I want to start with fit because to me of all the receivers that are discussed at this fifth pick, he is by far in a way the best fit for what the giants have

on the roster now and what they need. I said that because think all the times we watched last year where Jackson Dart was able to do an excellent job pre-to-post snap of confirming where the safeties are, where they're rotating to, and understanding, I have a one on one look on the outside and I could take a shot here. Now, these shots missed a lot. Part of that was Dart's footwork, wasn't great. Part of that was just timing wasn't right between the quarterback and the receiver, not a lot of reps between them. And then a big part of that was, little Jordan Humphrey ran a lot of those. At, you know, at five flat, is that what he was, I mean, the one against the Eagles, that one against the Eagles was a perfect ball from Dart thrown to the exact spot he'd need to be thrown to. And he just like could not get there. It was so, it was one of the worst vertical routes I've ever watched from a giant's receiver, no offense, he was good at what he did Humphrey when he was here and I respect his game and he did a great job here. He just was not a fast straight line guy. But like, as far as this team goes, if you're talking about like opposite and Malik neighbors with Malik neighbors getting all of the attention, Malik neighbors getting press man

and then a safety probably shaded over the top of him, you're gonna see a crap ton of, and with the way that we've built, you know, this team with like the records and the like these, you're gonna see a lot of just one-on-one if you draft take on the outside boundary. And that almost feels like Dart can just see that and take advantage of that over and over again and put the ball anywhere near this guy and this guy's just gonna catch it. It does seem that way, yeah. And he's gonna have a lot of those like one-on-one matchups, of course, and play action deep shots, like similar to like the Darnell Mooney thing. And the current construction of the Giants roster, it does not prevent you from making this type of move. Now, you do not have to make this type of move. I think the Giants have enough wide receiver for this season, but you gotta project into year 2027, year 2028. And that's where you start to think like, imagine, because like Darnell Mooney, Calvin Austin, these are one-year deals. No idea where they're gonna be. Can't rely on them. Darius Layton's not gonna be a giant. We've said this before, so maybe I'll put, maybe I'll eat my shoe again, right?

Darius Layton's probably not gonna be a giant beyond this season. The Giants just can't get it out from underneath that contract, it's just not wise to do it. So you do need to add wide receivers for 2027, 2028. And this year coming up is wide receiver your most pertinent need, probably not, but adding Cardinal Tate to this offense right now. You're talking about 12-person L package, version of the Theo Johnson, Isaiah likely, Cam Skataboo, presumably, and then Malik neighbors and Cardinal, like that's much better than whatever else the Giants are gonna roll out there with Darnell Mooney, even, right? So, and that's just 2026 wise too. Fit wise as well, man. And it's the whole, if you want to be successful with the play action passing attack, which we think the Giants are probably going to rely on somewhat, right? And I think Darnell Mooney fits that very well. Cardinal Tate offers something a little bit different to Darnell Mooney. Darnell Mooney is a, he is that burner that you're looking for. Cardinal Tate is going to win off of his ability to win those one-on-ones off the play action. And, you know, you have Jackson Dart who can hit his back foot, scan the field,

hold that safety, safety, look to Malik neighbor, safety's gonna go that way. You're gonna have that one-on-one matchup almost every single way. So you're getting a contestant catch winner who's more than just a contestant catch winner. And that kind of has to grow too, right? Darnell Tate, like he's more of like a, less of like a, size like drive the ball to Mooney when Mooney's got a little bit of space. But Mooney's not like that's a catcher. He's more of a like, put the ball up there with arc and with trajectory. And that's like kind of perfect fit for what this dude take can do. Like that's the whole thing about this, Nick. Well, it's really interesting. That's why people were like, connecting the Giants to Alec Pierce. Obviously, they were never gonna pay 27 million a year for Pierce, but like, because Pierce also fits what dark can do and what dark can take advantage of. So it does feel great from that standpoint, Nick. Now, the part that bothers me the most, I would say is like, taking a receiver at five, let me just make this case. If we could take a receiver at five, and I was six, like we did with neighbors, you can date back to two years ago and you could listen to this podcast. And both you and I were in agreement that neighbors was the obvious pick at six. We weren't considering penics. We weren't considering any of these types of guys.

JJ, we talked about like, oh, we maybe don't want to miss, but we weren't considering that really. We were locked in on neighbors for a very long time. The reason being is, Nick, if I'm gonna take a receiver at six, I need to make sure he's a design your whole, you can design your whole offense or passing game, whatever you want to call it, around this player kind of pick. And that's exactly what Brian Dable did in Malik neighbor's rookie season. He designed the entire offense around him, different underneath looks, different drag routes, a clear out, clear out, to get him the ball, vertical stuff, intermediate stuff, everything. He's getting the ball. What was it like 10 times a game, essentially? Yeah. And then on other times, because he's getting it 10 times a game, he's taking away so much attention at other stuff's happening. I had, like, if you're gonna take a player who's 200 pounds or less at the skill position, running back a receiver, whatever, whatever one, it doesn't matter to me. He needs to be that type of player, design your offense around him, type of player. I'm gonna just say receiver for now, because running back to a totally different position, you can give a million touches, but it does depend on your blocking in your line. But a receiver, it does depend on the quarterback and the timing and the offense and the blocking,

all these things. I just have a feel that in the wrong situation, like in the wrong circumstances, Nick, if we draft a player, like Arnold at five, it could be like 80 to 85% of the plays. He's not really making much of an impact either. He got open and darted and see him on time. He got open and darted and get the ball there on time, or he didn't get open, or the blocking didn't hold up, so the timing was thrown off and he was open, but he couldn't get him in the ball because the blocking was screwed up, and then he gets five targets, a game six targets, a game type of stuff. And like that's not impacting a football game, like Vega, Ioane, who's every single snap, making an impact, whether it be pass blocking or run blocking. It's not impacting the game like sunny styles, who every single snap is reading his run keys or dropping it to his zone, getting in a pass lane, or taking man coverage or blitzing. That's every single snap type player impact. Receivers just don't do that unless you design the offense around him, and when neighbors on the roster, they're not gonna design the offense around tape. So he's amazing to have, he's perfect for what Jackson start needs, but football is one in the trenches,

and he's not impacting every play. No, no, he's not impacting every play that way. It just gives you a very competent secondary option behind the guy that you are designing your offense around, which I do think is very important. It's just, is it as important as some of the other positions, the opportunity calls or some of the other positions that you're not going to select because you want to select a wide receiver at five. And there's also the whole, there's a lot of other wide receivers in this draft class that might not be carnal tape, but what is the difference in selecting carnal theta five or selecting somebody in the fourth round, or maybe even at 37, right? So there's that whole argument as well, which I think can carry a lot of weight depending on how you value this draft class. That's fair. And there are guys that, by the way, in day three, like that are more so than I'm ever used to, that are these types of prospects, like fit this bigger profile of exactly what we want for Jackson Dart of vertical outside guy who can win as the Z in one on one boundary situation. So it's a bit of a luxury pick to me.

I'll say that to start. A little bit, yes. Yeah, as far as what I take him at five, I'm really open to a lot of things at five. I'll start by saying this. I would take him 100 out of 100 times over Jeremiah Love. That's the first part for me. And I think love is a better prospect. I just don't care. I've made my case. I'll make it again a million times in case anyone's interested. But to me, a run game is designed through the blocking and the scheme. That's how you build a run game out. That's how you win in the run game. A running back straight to half. He can make it close to play's love. And he can have game breaking plays as well, just like Barclay did in 2018. Giant's in winning games in 2018, when Barclay was real key of the year with 2,000 yards, they won five games. It just is what it is to me, again, in the bears of the best run game and the Jaguars last year without big name running backs. The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA's heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day, there's a new headline. A new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports.

I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. This is Mike Fuello of Lexicon Valley. And I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words? Do you communicate or acquire information with language? Hey, us too. So join us on Lexicon Valley to true over the history, culture, and many mysteries of English plus some ice cracks. Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts. Anyway, back to this. As far as the other guys go, I still think I take all three Ohio State defenders over him. I don't know where you're at with that. All three Ohio State defenders over Carl Tate. Yeah, I mean, I don't think the grease is going to be there, but yeah, I think I'm on board. So sunny is sunny is for sure.

And I think I would take downs. I just, I really do like Caleb Downs a lot. The giant's current safety room is, I don't want to say loaded, but it's been replenished. Now, some of those guys aren't, you know. The beef maybe is the better way. Yeah. I don't even know, but like, but that's the thing, right? And this could be a whole nother podcast, right? About the giant safety room. Yeah. Yeah, it's deep. They added guys like Jason Pinnock and some of these guys. And you're like, oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Or Darius Washington, I like, but it's like, do any of them like make you feel comfortable at all? Yeah. No, not really. So it's like, are they there were people there that we, Good point. Right now, we literally can't bank on any of them. I know. I think our Darius will have his role. And I like our Darius Washington, but there's not one safety room on the giant right now where I'm like, comfortable. Comfortable with that guy, you know, that's the stupid part. We directed one at 30, whatever. That should be a lock in the NFL. And then we signed one for 45 million. Like, we shouldn't have any questions about them, but we have to because their tape forces us to have questions about exactly.

And I think Bowen does play into that for sure. Yeah. I don't think, um, it's them too, man. Like, down's would imagine down's last year in Bowen's system. He would have been a lot better on the field than those two. Yeah, you know, and that's the thing about like Tyler, like we watched Tyler Nuban at Minnesota. He had, like, he had instincts there though. Exactly. He had, but he had the instincts, those instincts, they went somewhere, right? Because they're not there. They haven't been there. Yeah. And I'll say this about Nuban just as a little side. No, I always feel like we go on like little Tyler Nuban side notes on his podcast, but I will say this year one, specifically, like, he was making plays around. Right. Like big plays, like taking on blocks, getting rid of them, and like making a physical tackle. It wasn't really there that as, as much this year. Get it. And I do think maybe the, and then I want to get your take on this. Was the narrative a little bit unfair to Tyler Nuban because of the plays that made him look like absolute shit. But you really weren't like, look, you got burnt by sick while Barclay up the sidelines. That's going to happen.

Are you the fastest and most like fluid in those situations? No, but should have Darius, Moosow, Phil, behind Rakeem, Nunez, Roach, as in DJ Davidson, who were both off the line of scrimmage, probably, but you know, that happened. And then it all got laid at the feet of Tyler Nuban, you know? And it's like, it's a little unfair to Tyler Nuban. That's a good point. That part of it, I completely agree with you on. And I think you're 100% right on that. He got unfairly criticized for those really bad plays when he's the third level run defender. And it's already been the reps, right? He's been, everybody feel I multiple players in front of it. It's the problem for me is not those as much. So I think that's a big problem for fans. I'm glad you brought that up because I would agree with you. We're on a different page than fans there. The problem I have is there's not enough good plays for him. And there's that like, that's not the bad plays that bother me. It's the opposite. It's the lack of good play. Yeah. And we go through the all 22 extensively, right? Yeah. Like every like a long time listeners of the podcast, no, there wasn't really many like, oh, wow, Tyler Nuban, really. Did you see on the quarterback was looking at the scene and Nuban just got like, I saw that a lot with Caleb Downs.

Well, the quarterback said, oh, I have them. No, I don't. Right. Now I got to check down to some running back who gets tackled for like a loss of one. Like those are the types of plays that safes, like put themselves into positions to make. I didn't feel like, like, who's the last safety? Who I want to say did that consistently, but who's the last safety who really jumped out on film to us for the New York Giants who was doing that? Like, like, love the McKinney were the two, both of them were doing that. Love the McKinney were both doing that. outro role. Did that all roll, you know, for the injury, those for the injury, that now we're starting to go back a little bit, right? But like, with, with Holland and Nuban, you just, you just didn't get that. Yeah, they weren't impose. I don't want to make it like they weren't in position a lot. But like, there was a lot more of like, oh, they're second late here. They're second late there, rather than like, oh, they're completely preventing the design of this play to be successful by coming off of one route and then jumping on another one when they're reading it and reacting and read, react, tack, back type of man. That's the thing with Downs. It's like he tested bad at the combine.

He did from both of the athleticism. We didn't really test much. But like the size standpoint, the measurements, but like he has his superpower. If you ask people who watch his tape is the instincts and guess what? Instincts are probably the most important thing when it comes to the safety position. You want to know why I know that Nick, because the best player to ever play the position that I ever saw at least was drafted really late. I think it was either late one or early or day two at read. And it's because he had the best instincts of any safety to ever play the position. And ultimately, that is the, you have to, if you have instincts as a safety, you can take over games. Like you said, you can force the quarterback to check down the bad spots, or you can make it look like he has something available in the flat, but you're just going him into throwing there. And then you're going to make the tackle short time every time for no yards after the catch. Yeah. It's a, it's a cerebral position. It's a physical and that's another thing. And we'll talk about this on the Caleb Downs podcast. I know we've been talking a lot about Caleb Downs and the safety group. But I think our listeners will appreciate it. He's not a freaking liability at all on run support. He's really good to run support. He's really good at run support and he has all of those.

That's like, this is why, like, look, I don't know what his career is going to be like, right? The NFL could be tricky. But when it comes to just evaluating his college tape, right? He's one of my favorite players in this draft class. Right. Right, which is why he's in consideration at five for me. And probably my number two guy at five, because I know that he's great at playing the position that he's going to have to play in the NFL. And I don't, I think of all the positions, safety, like the instincts that you have at safety translate more than a lot of, and same thing for linebacker than a lot of these other positions. Yeah, absolutely. But the thing is, like, certain deepances might ask you to do different things, right? Like, it might not give you the freedom that you had true. And, you know, so like, you want like a deep as a coordinator who really understands that. Bowen wasn't that is Donard Wilson. That we'll see. Yeah, that time will tell on that. All right. Thank you so much for listening to the Big Boobander podcast. That was our breakdown of Cornell tape. The Ohio Statewide receiver is our second draft profile. Maybe our first. I think we actually going with this one first. No, no, no, we're going to drop you one. Okay. Never mind. Our second draft profile more to come will start with the players that are in play at five and then we'll work our way through other draft prospects.

Other talks will get into mock drafts like we always do. We'll do list of my guys, our favorite players in the class. We'll do mid-round, late-round. Just check out our YouTube page from last year's scroll back to April or the podcast page. And you'll see that we're just loaded with content in the month of April. When it comes to the draft, I think three years in a row now, we've, we've averaged 30 to 32 episodes per month in April. So I think that's still the plan now as long as our health is still intact. And it looks like we're doing well, both Nick and I from that standpoint, at least. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please hit the like button. Please subscribe if you haven't already and you're new to the show. Please leave a comment. This is actually very important. People don't know the comments are super important to juicing the algorithm. And then finally, hype button. So like comment, hype, have a great rest of your day and we'll talk to you soon. The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA's heating up, March Bandis is here and MLB is almost back. Every day, there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got

to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I could follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.

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