"Winners" & "losers" from the NFL Combine

0:00Hey there, I'm Kendra Adachi and my show The Lazy Genius Podcast helps you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't and you get to decide what matters. I'm not here to tell you what to do, I'm here to give you a new way to see. Episodes of The Lazy Genius Podcast are full of compassionate time management tips and permission slips to do what makes sense for you. New episodes drop every Monday. Follow and listen to The Lazy Genius Podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning everybody. We're on. Yes, we are. The Indie Combine is over. Thankfully, there were some standouts and some disappointments per usual, but does it really matter more on that coming up? We are one week away from the period that we used to refer to as legal tampering in free agency. Starting a week from today at 12 noon, you can start to reach out to players and have conversations with players and agents. Free agency actually doesn't start until Wednesday,

1:04March 11th, a week from this coming, but I'm going to share some gut feel on two things that I am gaining confidence on that our team may do or may not do. That's coming up this hour. Ben standing will join us at 12 in his normal spot back from Indianapolis. Steve Souter jumped on with me on Friday on my podcast to talk about Tyler Biotish getting cut and needless to say he was surprised as well. He went back and looked at all of his film analysis from every game that he did this year. You'll hear what he said coming up this hour, maybe at 11 a.m. at the latest. So a consensus list of winners and losers comes out, you know, all of these lists. You can turn them into a consensus, which I did for the last couple of years, which I'll share with you in a moment. But you'll see the indie winners and the indie combine losers list in a big winner without question

2:09was sunny styles. I mean, did you see some of the numbers that sunny styles put up? I mean, sunny styles went from maybe, you know, top eight to 15 somewhere in that range to perhaps going number two overall. The six foot four and a half inch linebacker, 240 pound linebacker from Ohio state who played primarily off ball linebacker, but Matt Patricia's scheme a lot of things are, you know, not necessarily indicative of what a player will play at the pro level or not. But sunny styles had a 43 and a half inch vertical leap. That is the highest in 23 years at the indie combine for any off ball linebacker. He ran the 40 in a blazing four four five and then his broad jump was like 11 and a half feet. So this guy made a massive jump. But of course,

3:12you know, Miami's defensive end, Ruben Bain, well, disappointing, very disappointing, indie combine. Don't look at the tape. Look at the measurement of his arms. 30 and five eighths. That would be 37 eighths, excuse me, would be the shortest for a first round defensive end slash edge in 27 years. Carnell Tate, the wide receiver, remember we were talking last week if all of these defensive players are off the board. Who would we take? I said, Tate, he ran a very, very, unimpressive four five three. Yeah, well, watch the tape. It's not like he's a blazer, but in a football uniform, he's fast enough and he catches everything with his hands and he catches basically 90% of the contested balls thrown in his direction. He's really good as a route runner too. All things that are important. So you'll get the, you know, the big stories out of the indie combine, the winners

4:17and the losers from the indie combine. The receiver, did you read about the receiver from which receiver apparently just bombed every interview? Akai lemon, I think. Yeah, Makai lemon, bombed every interview. Like they are talking about an all time bombing of every interview. By the way, the fact that it's out must mean it's really bad. Really bad. Do we have any of these specifics other than apparently he got up in the middle of his meeting with the jets and basically just walked out at one point? I haven't really heard many details. I did see that his little the presser that he had with reporters and stuff like that. He was moving all weird and just giving everybody a weird look the entire time. I think it threw a bunch of people off and I guess he was doing similar in his meetings. I don't know. It's a very weird predicament that I haven't really bizarre strange disastrous. These are some of the words

5:21being used to describe USC wide receiver, Makai lemon's combine interviews. Hey, these are the things, by the way, I've mentioned this before. I mean, I've in talking over the years to people who do this for a living. They say the part that you guys never know is how these interviews go and that's actually the most important thing for us. It's our first face to face with these prospects. There is a gut feel that you get on what type of person you're getting. Are you getting a smart guy? Are you getting a dumb guy? Are you getting a guy that loves football or a guy that hates football? Are you getting a competitor? Are you getting more of a flight guy in a fight or flight situation? What are you getting? Apparently he was very aloof, cocky, avoided eye contact, was angry in some of these meetings. Look, it could be that he's just

6:25got some sort of social anxiety issue. If somebody breaks through and gets through to him, maybe turns out to be great. His tape looked good from last year at USC. So I did something last night. I just went through the last few years of a consensus indie combine winner and loser list, which of course is media. The result is from the results come from media descriptions, not team descriptions, but the media descriptions, the kipers and all of the draft guys, the Jeremiah's, the brooklers, etc. And a lot of other stories. AI can do a lot of this for you now. But you know, last year, if you recall, there was a big defensive winner coming out of the combine and a big offensive winner. Look, I'm a big believer that you can't judge after one year a draft or even after two. You really got to get to three, but this is just so. Everybody has

7:27a sense of the biggest winner last year was defensive and Texas A&M, Shamar Stewart. He had a 40-inch vertical. He had an 11 foot broad jump that both of these were in the 97th percentile. He was 90th percentile when he ran a 45940. He was listed between 280 and 290, but he showed up to the combine at 267 and people went nuts. So nuts that Cincinnati drafted Shamar Stewart at number 17 overall in the first round. I would not say that Shamar Stewart had a banner year by any stretch of the imagination far from it. One sack in eight games. Last year's other big winner was wide receiver Texas Matthew Golden. Do you remember the 40 time he ran last year? Four, two, nine. One analyst wrote boom on Matthew Golden coming out of the indie combine. Look, both of these players may end

8:31up being great players and Matthew Golden did finally after an entire season of basically not playing anywhere near what Green Bay was hoping for from that position. He ended up having 29 total catches on the season in his rookie year, but he did play well in that playoff game against against the Bears at Soldier Field. Had four catches, 84 yards in a touchdown. It was by far in a way the best game of the season for him. On Aspire with emigrate, we talk about mindset and vision and the work that actually moves the needle. Listen to Aspire with emigrate available where you get your podcasts. But those were the two big winners from last year's draft. You know who the biggest loser was? Now there were several candidates, but Luther Burton Jr. I was the biggest Luther Burton guy out of Missouri. I wanted Washington to consider him late in the first round. And what was written about him was the measurement of his hands, eight and a half inch hands,

9:34puts him in the bottom fifth percentile. Does it mean he's a he's a bust? A one person wrote, no, but it's a bad thing in general. Yes. Luther Burton really I thought came on at the end of the year. I think he's a star for the Chicago Bears. I mean, man, they've they've got some talent, don't they? The Bears. We really saw it at the end of the year. And that was by the way without a Dune's day, right? A Dune's day was hurt for pretty much a bunch of the games down the stretch. But between, you know, DJ Moore and a Dune's day and the tight end, they drafted Lovelin and Luther Burton III. They've come that member, Olimeti Zacchaeus played well for them. They've got the two running backs in Swift and a non guy who played so well in his rookie year at a Rutgers. But Luther Burton ended up in his rookie year having a pretty good season as a role player, but really came on at the end of the season. And I guess you could say that to a certain degree

10:36about Matthew Golden. But from 2024, do you know on the quarterback list of winners and losers, the big winner. And again, I can see it. It's way too early to say anything about this because it's two two seasons. But the big winner out of the Indy Combine, everybody agreed on it. JJ McCarthy. Why? Because on the Michigan roster, you know, the program weight was 202 during that final year. And people wondered, oh my god, he's no quarterback under 205 pounds, is ever fair to well at the NFL level. But then he came in at the Combine weighing 219. Safe to say, one Indy Combine analyst wrote, franchises don't have to worry about that anymore with the very talented JJ McCarthy. It's not over yet, I'm McCarthy. Not suggesting it is.

11:39By the way, the loser of the quarterbacks in 2024 was Jayden Daniels because he didn't really work out. The best is this, the big winner from the 2023 Combine. So now we can go back three combines ago. The big winner overall offensively, Anthony Richardson quarterback Florida. Richardson measured six foot four two hundred and 44 pounds, then proceeded to test in the 99th percentile. Ran the 40. Remember this fastest ever for a quarterback, ran it in four four three with a 1.53 second 10 yard split. People are going nuts. And then Anthony Richardson, because this is so important for a quarterback, then he jumped vertically 40 and a half inches. And then because this is obviously so important for a quarterback, he brought jumped 10 foot nine. The narrative surrounding Richardson is that he is a terrific athlete with ample space to

12:41grow as a passer. There was no simulated rush, but Richardson presented himself nicely during the throwing portion of the event as well. Combined that with one of the best athletic workouts at the position we've ever seen. Anthony Richardson, the big winner from the Indy Combine. The big loser in that particular year was Jordan Addison because he came in small and slight. I think Addison is a big time receiver. 2022, the big winner, the big loser, Kyron Williams, because he posted a very slow four six five 40 and his jumping metrics were in the fifth to 10th percentile lowest. Kyron Williams has been one hell of a back. That's my only thing on the Indy Combine. I didn't watch any of it. I never do really, you know, the participation for this particular Indy Combine was

13:42very low, but it's a good television show because you get a lot of conversation about the NFL and NFL teams and you have it signed up at through Indianapolis through 2028. So I don't see it ending anytime soon. Even though this was one of the worst turnouts in terms of players working out that they've ever had, you know, there are a couple of Indy Combine, you know, lists that I'll look at for players that I'm interested just to see if maybe they had a bad combine so they'd be, you know, available a little bit later because, you know, the underwear Olympics don't really do it for me. I know they do it for some of you. There's a receiver that Kuiper wrote about that I would love Washington to end up with. One of my favorite receivers in the draft is Zachariah Branch, who is a pure slot receiver at 5859, but he's very much like what I thought of Luther Burden coming out last year. And apparently he ran a 43540, where Karnel Tate, more of an outside

14:50receiver ran a very slow-ish 40 times. So we'll see if that hurts him or not. Did you pay attention, Max, to any of the big Indy Combine results this weekend? From the end of the week, I mean, the edge in the linebacker class, yes, I did see a lot of that, but I did not get to see a lot of the skill positions. I watched TV's and tight ends, and there were a few. Did you see Sonny Stahl's brother, ran a 428? Yeah, so the parents must have been athletic, huh? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did see that. I think I saw that on social media. I didn't watch it for sure. Look, Sonny Stahl's, the tape is impressive. The tape's impressive for all of those Ohio state players. I mean, Arvel Reese didn't have the production, but you can see it in the play. You can see it in Sonny Stahl's. You can obviously see it in Caleb Downs, and you can see it,

15:53I think, very much so in car and L. Tate, regardless of his 40 time. I do wonder whether or not the Combine results for Sonny Stahl's take some off the board for Washington at seven. You know, things change between now and the end of April. This is the first real post-season wave of changes to the mock draft boards. And then when you get into the pro workouts, the personal workouts, et cetera, you start to get people with true inside intel. You'll start to see those mocks change even more between now and the end of April. And you'll get a lot of the stories about, yes, unbelievable workout, but there are red flags because of this, this, and this. And then there are other players. My God, he is a boy scout, even though he didn't run as fast as he should have, but watch the tape because he plays plenty fast. So we'll see how the mocks,

16:55you know, change and I've already looked at some of them. But if you were Sonny Stahl's guy, like Fred Smoot we had on last week, big Sonny Stahl's guy, but Sonny Stahl's may have just combined his way into the top five. It happens. All right, there are two things that I've got to gut feel on. I wouldn't call it, you know, super intel, but intel enough that I want to share with you related to our team. I'll do that when we come back. Kevin, she showed the team 980 and the team 980.com. What's up, little psychos. I'm investigator slater host of the Psychopedia podcast. Psychopedia is a true crime podcast delivering raw, real, and absolutely gripping episodes every single week. I dig deep to uncover fascinating details of heinous true crime cases, while exploring criminology and psychology theories. I take you into the absolute darkest corners of the human psyche, my favorite territory, and present cases like you've never heard them before.

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