Commanders Draft Sonny Styles

0:00head on over to our Twitter account at junks radio and you can vote on our junkies poll of the day sponsored by surfside iced tea and lemonade with vodka light refreshing a hundred calories zero bubbles it pairs perfectly with the day on the golf course must be twenty one please drink responsibly. It's your reaction to the selection of sunny styles at number seven linebacker from Ohio State. The commanders get Dan Quinn's guy and this is guy apparently sunny styles. He has a type. You have four options. Do you love it? Do you like it? Me? Or do you hate it? You can vote at junks radio. I can't imagine too many sides of Eric Pickle hates it. But it came down to styles Jordan Tyson and Caleb Downs. Those are the three guys that we kind of talked about at seven. You know, I'm not a commander fan, but I would have thought that Caleb Downs there at seven would have been a great pick as well. We thought Tate might have

1:00been available, but he wasn't. He wasn't. Correct. Another little bit of a surprise in going that early to the Titans and Elaine getting picked one pick before styles with the chiefs moving up. Yeah. Enabled styles to fall into the man's lap. Right. Because if those two things don't happen, he's probably gone. He's probably gone. So those two things really enabled the commanders to land the guy that I wish I saw what the top of their draft board looked like, but I'm sure sunny sunny styles. If he wasn't a top it, he was two or three on their draft board. Yeah. Like he was super high on their board. And they seemed thrilled to be able to get him with the seventh pick. I mean, we'll never know. But do you think it was Bailey Reese styles? I don't think you think love was ahead of style. I think styles could have been a top their draft board. Yeah. It could have been their number one overall player because we know how Peter's really favors these guys who are freak athletes. I mean, you're going to have a pairing

2:01now of Chanel and sunny styles. It's the most most freakish linebacker tandem in NFL history. If you go by that statistically on the. Yeah. Because sunny style scored a perfect 10. Right. Highest ever for a linebacker. And Leo Chanel scored a 9.9. Right. So they have completely revamped this linebacker room in one off season. Yeah. I mean, just on paper, just think about how much better this defense is on paper. It seems markedly better. You got to go out and play and stop teams and win. But on paper, just on who they signed and drafting styles, they are just so much better on the defensive side of the ball. And I think this goes without saying this signals the end of the Bobby Wagner era in DC. Which is fine. He kind of reminded me. Styles kind of reminds me of Wagner. Right. Kind of looks like a younger version of him. Very well spoken. Seems like a good dude. Oh, see, praise is a great leader. Oh, yeah. Really good communicator. No, he's he's going to be really good in the locker room

3:02on the field. It's going to be their leader if he stays healthy. But I can't imagine a lot of J.P. I just in terms of your poll. I can't imagine a lot are going to hate the pick. Well, let's see to hate it unless they were all in on Caleb Downs. I didn't want to touch styles. I got to think that most fans love it. This is where you entrust Peters and his staff to go by their board. And their board clearly had sunny styles ranked above Caleb Downs. Look, everything you say is is accurate about his athletic score. And clearly, if you look at where they were in terms of speed at the linebacker position, bringing in Chanel and then drafting sunny styles, it's going to be a fast linebacking core now. He's going to be the mic linebacker. He's going to call the plays. He's going to wear the green dot. That's where sunny styles can be. The questions that I had along with the B is, well, why not more production this past season on the field? Why only one sack? Why didn't he have more tackles? Why didn't he have more

4:06game-changing plays? I might have an answer. This is from ESPN. One of the questions to his linebackers, coach, at Ohio State, James Laurenidas said, basically, they would have used styles similarly to R. Vell Reese this year if they didn't have Reese. So Reese's skill set was more get after the quarterback, sacks, pressure, and Patricia had him just doing different things. So it sounds like styles can do all those things, but they had a guy who was better at some of that other skill set than he was. Let's hear from Adam Peters, the general manager of the Washington commanders. Let's hear what he said about sunny styles even being available at number 7. Good evening everybody. It's been smiling here to year for a while now. After all the

5:08all the high fives and everything kind of settled in, but we got sunny styles. I can't tell you how many reasons why we liked them, but you can go on and on about him. We're thrilled to have him and so to pick sunny styles with the seventh pick. Didn't think he was going to be there. I thought there was a low chance. There was a chance, but it was an easy pick when he was there and we were on the clock. That's pretty telling. Rage says it was an easy pick. We can't believe he's here. Let's just get the pick in. It came in pretty quick. They couldn't believe that that tape was drafted fourth by the Titans because a lot of Mox had styles going in the top five. Yeah. And then the chief bypassed them because they wanted the corner in the lane. Did the chiefs believe the commanders were going to take Mansor? They may have. Why else would they move up? Or maybe they thought the Saints were going to

6:12pick him at eight. There were a few teams in front of them. So good. Glad those things transpired. Do you think if the commanders had to choose between styles and Mansor, they would have stuck with styles? Yes. You do. If I had to guess, I'm guessing styles is higher on their board than Dylan. I'm guessing it was styles. Yeah. Let's go to cut number two. This is Peter's talking about sunny styles and what it'll bring to the table. A little bit about sunny as a player. I mean, he's huge. He's really like. I mean, it's just the main. He's 21 years old. He's a young guy. He's just scratched in the surface, but he's elite athlete, elite size, elite length. And he's just scratched in the surface as a linebacker and he's already really good and he's only going to get better. That's what gave me a lot of confidence, too, is that he's going to get better. And we have the people in this building with our coaching staff and the support staff to get him there and then himself. He's the type of person who will reach whatever potential he has.

7:15He will reach that potential. He's humble. He's driven. He's just kind of checks every box. And so it made it an easy pick. We had a great visit with him on the 30 visit. Super impressive, super impressive football intelligence, super impressive, just presence and just everything about him, scream commander. Yeah, you can tell there when they had the phone call with sunny styles before he was selected, like Peters was gushing. Dan Quinn couldn't have been happier. Josh Harris seemed super pumped about the pick. Like they, they were thrilled that they were able to land him at number seven. And it just, it's scream to you that they did not expect him to be there at seven. Well, let me just counter this by saying, besides the Sean McVey presser where people are saying he doesn't look thrilled. Yeah. Didn't every war room look thrilled at their selection.

8:19Generally, yes, that seems to be the vibe. Everyone stands up in class and they high five, they hug 25 guys hugging in every war room. Yeah, that's what they do. That's what they do. So I wouldn't read too much into that. You better like your pick, especially when you're at number seven. So they take sunny styles. He talked about potential. And, you know, I think that the people is something I don't like the pick. I just like to see more production from from guys in college. Yeah. Then just great combine stats. I mean, the stats are ridiculous. I'm sure we all saw kind of the same tweets that like his size isn't far from Derek Henry. His speed isn't far from like these blazers. Like athletically, as Kate said, he's got this perfect score on on on on the athletic scores. It's just at least this season. It didn't translate as much. But I think you're getting caught up in the sacks more than anything. Yeah. Like he was also like interceptions.

9:21How about here's an important one. Force fumbles. How many tackles he missed last year? I don't. I miss two tackles. And for a team as bad defensively as the commanders were and it burned our retinas to watch them last year. Having a sound tackler in the middle of your defense is a huge upgrade for them. I think people get caught up in that because in two years at, oh, as the last two years that I had to hit 182 tackles, 17 for loss. He had eight sacks. He had eight past deflections. One pick and you caught talk about interceptions. I mean, it's not easy to get interceptions. Yeah, especially a lot of a lot of. A lot of backs are going to throw at you sometimes. Well, especially do middle linebackers usually come down with a ton of picks. And I think and I think a lot of those when you look at the sack numbers and interceptions, he played all kinds of different positions. He played off ball linebacker. He played edge. He dropped into coverage. She was covering tight ends and running backs. Sometimes receivers too. He's just a versatile. And I'm sure that's what they love about his skill set is that he's not just a guy who's going to be a

10:23thumper as far as tackling and stopping the run. Yeah, he can do what Bobby Wagner clearly can't cover guys coming out of the backfield cover fast tight ends. He hits like a back truck. Yeah, I mean, what's not to love about the guy? Look, I was watching. I think he's going to be really I was watching some of the insiders talk about him. And I'm just giving you part of the equation that some people have these doubts. And I had some of it, but watching and we're going to play some of this audio later watching some of these insiders talk about what he brings the table. I'm a sold. I mean, he's going to have to deliver. I'm sold. Now, he's somebody who also improved in college. Here's what Adam Peters talked about it because he wasn't playing linebacker at first. When you saw you talk about the improvement of a linebacker, where were there some moments that can that you saw maybe some really big improvements that kind of convinced you like he's really taken off. This is a guy that can keep doing this. Yeah, I think it really in every every kind of portion of the game, John, I think you know, you see him playing in the box and

11:28using his hands and shedding blocks and and reading blocks and then getting to the getting in the ball and in planes like physical like taking on guards and they got better and better. And then as a blitzer, he got better. And I think he's just scratching the surface there and he's going to be a great blitzer. And so all those things that come with changing positions, you saw it kind of come to life and you saw it in the playoffs. I mean, he played against Indiana. His game against Indiana was incredible. And he just made some big time plays in the Miami game as well. Indiana wasn't playoffs, but you know, you know everything about them. I mean, Matt Miller, who does analysis for ESPN, cops in the Fred Warner. If you get a Fred Warner, pretty good. That's a pretty solid comp. Yeah. And we know Adam Peters has experienced with Warner from his San Francisco day. So I'm sure he saw some of that in sunny styles. Hence why he made the pick. Well, what they lacked on defense last year, the most was

12:32speed and youth. Yep. They've infused the team defensively for their new defense coordinator with speed and youth. By the way, Frankie Louvre. Frankie Louvre is getting RAS score shamed by his new linebacker crew because sunny styles scored a 10 Leo Chanel scored a 9.9 Frankie Louvre. He's got to do do RAS at 3.91. 3.95. He may not be in the long term plans. That's entirely. That's another reason we talked about that last night. It's another reason why they probably went to that position because who knows how long Louvre will share. So when they got to the seventh pick. Yeah. And you were a priority in your bed. I was. I stayed up until after the Cowboys took downs. What did you think they were going to do? Because as you mentioned, they're at seven. I thought a carnaltated been drafted, but Tyson was available. The next best receiver. You had Caleb Downs. The safety available. And you had sunny styles. Do you think

13:36it was going to be styles? No. I knew it was going to be sunny styles. Once he was there at seven. Once the chiefs picked the lane. Yeah. I mean, I just I do that Roger Gidell was going to step to the podium and say sunny style. I was. That was 50 50 on styles and downs. I didn't know. This is kind of a coin flip. Again, styles one out just because of his. His combine performance. His combine performance mixed with the tape sealed it for Adam Peters and his staff. And we talked about they're bored. We talked about the secondary last night and we talked about the secondary throughout. I mean, they added cross at safety. Yeah. I'm not saying that that means they couldn't have drafted another safety. They certainly could have, but maybe they felt decent about that. Whereas they feel like there was a greater need at linebacker and you'd have a bigger impact. Here's what Peter said about how they plan to use sunny styles on defense. Given his versatility, how do you guys envision using him? Yeah, I think that's one of the cool things because we have a really talented room, I think, and guys that are all very versatile. And so and we have a coaching

14:40staff that is really good about deploying those guys. And so I mean, sunny is a guy you can play off the ball. You can play on the ball. You can you can mug up and blitz. There's so many different things you can do. You can play Mike, play Will, play Sam, you know, they're all those different things. He's got the size to play on the edge. And so he's really versatile. And so we can kind of mix and match and deploy those guys and play as many linebackers we can on the field. And I'm excited to see what the guys will do with with Durante and EQ and Ken and those guys like they're going to be able to get really creative. Yeah, we'll be interesting because most of the time last year, they were seemingly just playing two linebackers. Yeah. And they do have edge rushers. But yeah, now you can use some of those guys to basically rush on the edge. Because styles can do a bunch of different things. You know what I mean? He's not just a linebacker. He's a versatile guy. He's going to cover guys down the edge and go after the quarterback. I love it. I love the versatility. He

15:44brings to the defense. They're going to use them all over the place. Yeah, I think you're I think commanders fans are going to be very happy and excited, including Mr. Bickle. He might need some winning over. Eventually, he's probably going to come around. We're going to try and catch up with E.B. who's and route to Utah for his daughter's volleyball tournament. But what he tweeted last night definitely upset the fan base. So he first tweeted, we drafted a project. Then this is an old school name. He tweeted Mike Mimola, Jr. Who was an Eagles draft choice that was a combine freak. Right. And he got drafted high because he was had these ridiculous athletic scores. And then he didn't do anything in the process. He is going to get the last laugh. If Caleb Downs goes to Dallas and he's an eight time pro baller and turns around a future defense. And he's really good. And of sunny styles face plants here in DC. Yeah. I just don't think that's going to happen. I don't think I think they're both going to be really good. Yeah. I don't think sunny styles is Jamen Davis

16:46part two. No, I don't either. I don't think that's going to be the way it plays out for him, the way his story ends here in Washington. But I'm willing to give him a chance and see actually how good he is in this defense led by Dan Quinn and Dorota Jones. Yeah. And when Eric says he watches when he was watching the highlights of styles and he said, nothing really jumped out. I don't I just think that's preconceived because you're already don't like him. When I was watching highlights from this past year, he's just making plays all over the field. Right. I mean, he is. He's making tackles. He's behind a lot of scrimmage getting pressure on a quarterback. He's deflecting balls. Yeah. He's covering tight ends and running backs. I mean, he's doing a ton more importantly, people that know way more about football and are paid way more to know more about football than everybody in this room. Right. They don't believe it's a project determined that sunny styles is a better player at least for them and for their system than Caleb downs was. Correct. Both of those players were readily available to be selected.

17:52But that doesn't mean that's the right pick because every guy who made a draft choice last night right from every team knows more than us. Yeah. And yet they miss make mistakes all the time. It's not a perfect sign. So I've never said it is. So just to use the argument that they know more than us, that doesn't mean they're right. Doesn't mean they're right. But that brain trust, they spent months and months and millions of dollars researching these guys and they determined that styles is a better fit for them and a better player than Caleb downs. So you have like you just have to beaters. You trust out and people some people don't. If you don't, if you trust that and beaters, then you have to trust in him making this selection. Should we go to the phones real quick? Let's go out to line two. Yeah. I think it's Ben. Ben you're on with the junkies. What's up? I think it's a good pick. And I think the biggest reason is we're seeing a big change in the NFL. You're taking a look at a lot of blurring between edges and linebackers and blurring between

18:56linebackers and secondary and diverse players or I should say versatile players are a must. And it's like some stuff I just heard a little while ago that you said that he may have changed the style a little bit because in Ohio State he's a big fish and a big pond. And when he comes here he'll be a big fish and I'm not so big pond. So I think you'll see his numbers actually go up and he shows he can learn. And I got one other thing to say real quick about yesterday. You do not want to take a private jet to OC. I've flown private jet for work between well wouldn't be a private jet. So Langley. And you don't you don't ever get the speed. It's going to be still going to be a 40 minute trip because you never get up the speed and altitude. Get a tour bottom and live in luxury for the 120 miles. All right. Thank you. Appreciate that. It's not going to be a private jet with 10 seats. It's going to be a legit jet

19:56with a plane with 150 seats. Right. Big boy. And like Draft said last night or you have to stay on the show. It's probably not going to happen. Yeah. It could be a pipe dream. Yeah. Yeah. 1-800-636-1067 is the number talking about the commanders taking sunny styles with the number seven pick the linebacker from Ohio State. You can vote on our poll of the day. Our surfside poll of the day at Junk's radio. When we come back we'll go through the top 10 picks and react to who did really well and who surprised us here on the junkies.