 Welcome in! Welcome in! We are on the clock. I am Joel Klatt, Fox Sports Draft Analyst, and I am happy to have you. Thank you for joining me here. We're going to get all things draft today covered. I've got my new mock draft that we're going to go through the top 10 picks. I'm going to outline the top 10 picks, including a trade that I have proposed in my latest mock draft. I'm going to talk about Josh Allen and Free Agency, how one affects the other, as well as a pure player evaluation of Josh Allen, the quarterback from Wyoming. And then we'll get to some of your tweets a little bit later in the show. And specifically, I might have a little response to a couple of them in a, I don't know, maybe spirited tone. We'll get to that a little bit later. But for now, let's get to mock 4.0 on the website right now, foxsports.com, here are my top 10 picks. All right, so for the top 10 this week and in the 4.0, there's a lot of change up. And the reason is, is because there's two factors with the giants that could lead them to take a quarterback and could lead them to take Josh Allen. So, because of that, all of a sudden some pieces started to fall. And from the 3.0 to the 4.0, there was a lot of change up in the top 10. So let's get after it right now. With the number one pick in the NFL draft, I project Sam Darnold to the Cleveland Browns. That's been consistent for me in each and every mock draft. And it will be consistent all the way up until we actually do this thing in Dallas. I believe Sam Darnold is the safest pick at number one. Now, does he have some red flags? Absolutely. The turnovers are concerning. He threw too many interceptions. And I would say even outside of the interceptions, the more concerning part about Sam are the fumbles that he had. That can be corrected. Remember, Kurt Warner struggled mightily with fumbles at a point in his career and then actually fixed that before he went to Arizona and ended up taking the Cardinals to a Super Bowl. So there is some sort of precedent for Sam Darnold to fix some of those fumble issues. And I don't think he's going to have to force the football as much as he maybe did at USC in order to keep them in the game. So Sam Darnold to the Cleveland Browns, that's a long-term solution right there. With the number two pick, here's my first change from 3.0 to 4.0. The New York Giants, I have selecting Josh Allen, the quarterback from Wyoming. A couple of factors. Let's just look at this from New York's point of view. Okay. If you're the Giants, I think it would be foolish to put Eli Manning in the category of a Drew Brees or a Tom Brady. I'm not talking about ability-wise, I'm talking about longevity-wise. Okay, because Brees right now and Brady are the exception to the rule. They are defying father time, but father time is undefeated and eventually those players will succumb as well. And Eli turned 37 in January. Okay, so we think like, well, you know, Brady's 40, maybe he's got three more years. No, maybe not. And probably more likely not. So let's talk about a quarterback solution. Obviously, this is a quarterback rich in particular at the top and you start debating them with Darnell off the board. You've got Allen, you've got Mayfield and you've got Rosen. Something tells me that the Giants view themselves as more put together, if you will, for Baker Mayfield, the police video, the crotch grab, so on and so forth. Because of that, I think it will come down to Allen and Rosen for the Giants and that's not necessarily a problem for the Jets, which we'll get to at number three. But if you get to Allen and Rosen, I think it's more easier, I guess it's easier to explain away his red flags versus Rosen's. Let me explain. So we've already got to the point where the Giants are going to take a quarterback. Now you get to Allen versus Rosen and Allen's problems were completion percentage. You can explain those away very easily actually. His supporting cast at Wyoming was not very good. The wide receivers did not create space. They did not create windows to throw the football. Therefore, it leads to a lower completion percentage. That plus the fact that that was, I would categorize it as like a big boy offense, all right? You're not going to throw for 70% because you don't throw 13 screens a game for Wyoming. That's just not what they do. You're going to sit back in the pocket and make throws down the field. Therefore, 56% becomes not great, but not as egregious as a 56% would, let's say in the air raid system for an Oklahoma or a Texas tech or a Washington state, if you catch my drift. They were forcing the ball down the field, tight windows, not a lot of separation. And all of a sudden you get at this point where a quarterback that maybe does have some accuracy is coined with the inaccurate mantra because of the 56%. You can explain it away. Whereas Rosen's red flags become durability, harder explain those away, right? I mean, durability is what it is. You're not on the field. You're not on the field. That's where I get to Josh Allen at number two, the Wyoming quarterback to the Giants. Long dissertation and from there it starts to fall into place a little bit quicker because the Jets need a quarterback. You get to Rosen versus Mayfield. I think Mayfield is the fit for New York. Okay, listen, he is very Nameth-esque, right? I mean, this guy is the personification of competence and cool and swagger. And I think that's what the Jets need, right? This is an organization that desperately needs a quarterback. I think Mayfield's the best quarterback in the draft. He might not be the safest pick and he might not be the right fit for the Giants, but I think he's the best quarterback in the draft. And I think he gets taken at number three right there in New York. Cleveland at number four, likely to move this selection. Okay, with Rosen still on the board, three quarterbacks gone, a really high probability that they moved the selection. Let's say they don't. Well, now the best offensive player is on the board as well. And so all of a sudden you can get Sam Darnold and Saquon Barkley. Now all of a sudden Saquon Barkley comes off the board at number four and Cleveland gets two very potent offensive weapons, one at quarterback and one at running back. Now you can go on and on about Saquon Barkley and everything that he provides a team, leadership, intangibles, explosiveness, the ability to create big plays in the special teams, the ability to catch the ball out of the backfield. All that's true. You would love them on your team, you'd love them in your city. And Cleveland I think would be very excited if Saquon was there. There are some things that are worrisome about Saquon, but that's for another conversation and another day. At number five, the Denver Broncos, select Denzel Ward the corner from Ohio State. Think about it now. Denver won a Super Bowl by rushing the passer and playing tight, aggressive man coverage in the secondary. Keep to lead moves on, they need to fulfill, they need to fill that spot. I think Denzel Ward's the perfect fit, played man to man at Ohio State, really aggressive style of defense. He's a physical corner. He might not be the biggest rangiest guy, but he covers well, he tackles well, he gets off blocks well. And if you were reading anything that Bill Belichick was talking about this week, he says the best two attributes that any defender can have at any position, whether it's corner linebacker, defensive end, safety, any of them, the ability to get off blocks and the ability to tackle. I think Denzel Ward does those better than any other corner in the draft. And then you put on top of that, he's a great man to man cover corner. I think he's a perfect fit for Denver at number five. At number six, the Colts could easily trade out of this spot. All these guys, the Browns, Broncos, Colts, all of these are prime trade opportunities, but if Indianapolis was sitting at six and Bradley Chubb is on the board, all of a sudden the worst pass rushing team in the National Football League have the best pass rusher available to them at number six and they're going to take him. Bradley Chubb should be the selection if he's available to Indianapolis at six. He's got a rare skill set in that he's a great pass rusher and yet he also plays with a high motor. A lot of times you don't get those two things molded into one another. Bradley Chubb certainly has those. Very gifted player, long lean, athletic, can bend well, gets to the quarterback and he would certainly help the Indianapolis Colts there at number six. At number seven is my first trade and the only trade I actually proposed in this. So what I have here is Buffalo trading the 12th and the 22nd pick to jump up to Tampa's number seven spot. Tampa gets to get two first-round draft picks. They move back. They can continue to bolster their roster but now all of a sudden Buffalo with guess who? Josh Rosen on the board. They jump up and they get a quarterback. I think that this is a pretty good fit. Not a great fit but a pretty good fit. Buffalo is desperate to get a signal caller and Rosen at least in my view is the best pure quarterback in the draft. It's hard to draft him any higher than this for me because of the durability questions but I think Josh Rosen could fit very well with Buffalo. At number eight the Chicago Bears. Chicago shocked everybody last year when they traded down one spot to take a player that would have been or excuse me trading up one spot to take a player that would have been there at their original selection. It was weird to say the least. I think they make up for that this year. They don't move and at number eight I think they get the most NFL ready, safest player on the board, Quinton Nelson. They need help in a lot of different areas but this is the type of guy that could be a Pro Bowl all-pro style player right away in the NFL even in his rookie season and probably do that for 10 plus years. That's a good selection, right? That's a safe pick. That's what you need to do if you're Chicago in the top 10. Not the shenanigans super troopers that happened last year. I think Quinton Nelson would be a good fit for Chicago there at eight. At number nine the San Francisco 49ers. This is a really advantageous spot to be if you're John Lynch because there's a lot of quality players on the board and one of the things that John Lynch has the opportunity to do is be great at every level of his defense. Remember this is a guy that won a Super Bowl with Tampa as a player, as a safety, and they were great at every level. He believes in that layered defense from to back inside out and he has an opportunity to build that. Think about what they've been building in the front seven. Think about their draft picks a year ago and now all of a sudden rather Minka Fitzpatrick's available to the San Francisco 49ers. What a great fit, great selection, a safety almost in the John Lynch mold in that he's tough, can play everywhere, highly intelligent. I'm talking about every position, man coverage, zone coverage, more athletic than John Lynch. I think Minka Fitzpatrick is such a good fit for the 49ers that's why I have him going there at number nine. Across the bay in Oakland at number 10 Derwin James. So a couple of safeties. I'm going to go back to that Tampa team because Lynch is going to try to replicate what that Tampa team had in terms of the layers of defense. And I think that John Gruden has a chance to start to replicate what Tampa was in that he didn't have to be the best offense in the NFL to win a Super Bowl. He could lean on his defense and be good enough on offense, right? They've got some really good players on the defensive side. You add a piece or two and all of a sudden you're talking about a team that could, could dominate on the defensive side. Derwin James safety from Florida State goes to Oakland. Gruden starts to build his Tampa version there with the Raiders in his second stint with the Raiders. So that's it. My top 10 picks, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield, Saquon Barkley, Denzel Ward, Bradley Chubb, Josh Rosen, Quentin Nelson, Minka Fitzpatrick and Derwin James. All right, so that's the top 10. Now let's get to some free agency because clearly it's been a wild free agency period, really a couple of waves now of free agency. And as we all know, it's going to affect what happens in this draft in particular up there at the top. Let's talk about the Patriots. Okay, they're the ones that made the splashiest move of the week so far during this offseason. So they trade up essentially to get a second first round pick. Not really the Patriot way, right? They have not generally been aggressive upward in the draft as they have been aggressive downward in the draft, accumulating more picks later in the draft because they, they believe in their system of evaluation, remember? I mean, they believe in their free agents. They believe in their low round draft picks. They've built, you know, a decade of dominance on guys like that, you know? But this time they get aggressive and Cook's leaves, who maybe wasn't a great fit for them anyways, in particular if you read between the tea leaves like Tom Brady, maybe not a great fit. Cook's moves on to the Rams, which we'll get to that in a second. And now New England has two first round draft picks. Um, this is really important because they have two, what I would deem glaring needs, and there are positions that have to be fixed immediately. You can talk all you want about weapons and so on and so forth. The bottom line is, is New England has got to get to the passer and they've got to protect the passer. They've got to do that better in particular after losing some of their players like Nate soldier, their, uh, mainstay at left tackle. Um, they were, I thought too old rushing the passer last year. So at 23 and at 31, I have them addressing those two specific needs in the first round. Mike McGlinchey, the offensive tackle for Notre Dame, I think is a good fit for New England. Uh, really tough player, smart player, solid offensive line that I think fits the Patriot way down there at 31. Then I've got Sam Hubbard, the defensive in for Ohio State. He's tested really well. He's flying under the radar. Remember Bill Belichick was actually at Ohio State's pro day. I believe it was to check out some of these pass rushers like Tyquan Lewis, Jaylin Holmes, and more particularly Sam Hubbard. Um, Sam is very smart. He can be a role player, but he's also a guy that Ohio State used in several different situations, i.e. he can move down and play the three technique, he can play the five technique, he can play the nine technique, all that to say he can line up anywhere and be effective as a pass rusher. So that's what I believe New England is going to be trying to do. They got aggressive to move up. They have to address the offensive tackle position. They've got to address their pass rush. And this gives them a chance in this first round to do both. Now let's talk about the team that they were dance partners with, uh, in that trade, the Rams. What? I mean, as much as you can win the off season and rarely does the team that win the off season win the Super Bowl. But however, at this point, they're all in, man. I mean, seriously, you win the NFC West. Granite wasn't a great NFC West and Garoppolo didn't play all year. So it's going to be a very different division this year. But you clearly have your quarterback moving forward. You got that fixed. You win the NFC West. You lead the league in scoring. And all of a sudden they get Marcus Peters, a keep to leave all of a sudden, the best tandem cornerbacks in the league. Think about that. Like Rams have the best cornerbacks in the league. That's crazy. Just like that. Endama can sue up front with Aaron Donald. What? Like good luck blocking those guys in particular in the run game, much less pass rush will come, right? I'm talking about like, can you run the football against the Rams? Nope. Can't do it. Can't do it. And then they get Brandon cooks. We'll see how that plays out. Getting weapons for a guy like Jared Goff is always good. I think cooks fits pretty well with what they're trying to do. They're not a system of we're going to try to have big bodied wide receivers that have possession style of catches. They like kind of a more of a West Coast style of system that runs on timing, spacing, things of that nature. So I think cooks is a fit. Just think about this. Combine nine all pro selections and 12 pro bowls with just those four Peters players, including Marcus Peters, who was a defensive rookie of the year. Endama can sue was a defensive rookie of the year. The Rams all of a sudden, I mean, are you kidding me? You're gonna have to deal with that, which then begs the question, Arizona, what are you doing? Like, look at your division all of a sudden. You weren't that good in your division last year, probably not going to be all that good in your division this next year as well. And listen, I'm not trying to throw shade. It's very easy to project San Francisco and the Rams in the playoffs. That's all I'm saying. Very easy to project that. Those two teams are clearly all in, clearly saying, we know what the other is doing. We're going to compete with them for the next five, six, seven years for division supremacy. I think you've got a situation right now. Seahawks Niners back, you know, what, five, six years ago, we've got to go back and forth, back and forth playoff. I think we can see that with the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers. So kudos to the Rams. I think kudos to New England for what they were doing. I think that's a trade that's going to benefit both sides. And to me, that's the mark of a great trade. Great trades do not fleece one side because then you can never go back to that dance partner. Okay, so you never want to hammer the other person in a trade deal. What you want is both people to be successful off of that because that means that the fit was the fit. The players are doing well. The teams are doing well. And ultimately you can improve yourselves later in, what, two, three years when you need to trade again. You've got to partner right there because equally it was amicable between the two. So that's kind of what I'm thinking about the offseason right now. All right, let's get to a player evaluation. We're going to do this Madden rating style. We're on the internet. You guys are probably gamers have never played the game. I know Boomi, if you can Boomi online, Boomi online right now. And that also be interactive. All right, invite the show with some friends, be interactive, send us some of your comments. We'll try to get to them as best we can maybe next week or the week after. Josh Allen player evaluation Madden style. I've got some areas where we're going to rate him one to 100. And what are we going to start with? What do we got? Awareness. Let's see, one to 100 and awareness. I think we're going to go with 65, 65 on awareness. And the reason why I mark him, I would consider this down. Okay, so anything under 75 for me, I don't know how you view Madden ratings, but under 75 for me, you need to improve. You need to get like minimum, you need to be at about 75 to be an adequate starter in the national football league. If you want to be a really good starter, you need to be in the 80s. If you want to be an elite starter, you got to be in the 90s. Okay, so in this category, in terms of awareness, I'd say 65. I say this because he does not anticipate throws very well. This could be born out of a couple of things. One, he just doesn't and he trusts his arm too much because it's so powerful that he's always going to try to see a throw before letting it rip. And two, he's been burned by subpar wide receivers too many times that he's going to wait to see the throw before he lets it rip because he can. Okay, either scenario is bad and you got to get yourself out of that and learning awareness, learning anticipation, very tough, very tough. I can't give you a great example of a guy that I thought didn't have great awareness or anticipation in particular with windows down the field in college that then got that later in his career. It's one of the reasons why I'm not as high on Allen as some of the other quarterbacks. But yeah, 65 for awareness. All right, next category. Oh, geez. This is just because I can't, I feel like one of those stodgy baseball writers right now is like, I can't give a first ballot vote. I just can't do 100. But like, this is my first 99, right? I mean, it's one of the more powerful, high velocity, high RPM arms I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of guys throw football, you can imagine, right? I've been around this game forever. My dad was a high school football coach for 30 years, played at Colorado, banged around and NFL minicamps. Now I've covered the game, you know, for 13 years at the college level, all these different pro days, watching almost every single quarterback that was worth his salt, workout, throw live shorts and a t shirt. When you see Josh Allen throw football, it's like, whoa. I mean, it it's hard not to get enamored with that. You have to remind yourself that the position is more than just arm strength. But man, 99. If he was on Madden, you throw a football over that mountain. Like cousin Rico, that's right. Rico, this one's tougher. This one's tougher. It'd be really easy for me to write like a 55 down right now. It would be very easy, but I'm not going to. Okay. Accuracy is a two way street. I'm going to give them a 70 basically meaning like, I'm not made up. I haven't made up my mind about this guy's accuracy. There's a part of accuracy that has to do with timing and spacing throwing the football. If your wide receiver is not in the right spot, you can look like a total you know what? And it's not your fault, right? Like you're doing everything that you've been taught to do and maybe you throw an accurate ball and your receiver sucks. It's like, what are you going to do? Sometimes receivers jump when they're not supposed to. Sometimes they do weird things to try to catch the ball behind them. On tape, he doesn't have the most accurate arm. His wide receivers don't help them at all. At all. Okay. So not the most accurate. I think he can get there. I'm not going to knock him like some others would. That's like this big deal is like, well, he's not accurate. It's two-way street, man. Very much a two-way street. If you haven't been in the pocket and felt the rush and understood the windows or the timing and man coverage, it's hard to explain. But there are throws you make that when it comes off your hand, you're like, that's a perfect throw. Perfect throw based on the defense, the timing, everything involved. And the wide receiver is like running around the field like a slappy and like falls in complete. And I was like, nice throw. You're like, yeah, it was. It was a beautiful throw, actually. I wish you knew. The wide receiver just jogs off. No one says anything to him. I'd like to say something to him. Maybe I can clap back at him on the sideline. But then I'd be a bad teammate. Way to go. All right, next. Speed and agility. Not applicable, right? I mean, this guy's in the pocket. It's like, is Rathisberger's speed and agility really a factor? No, his strength is, right? His overall I mean, it's not even his agility, right? It's just like guys fall off of him like he's made of concrete or kryptonite or whatever. It's not necessarily that he's so fleet of foot. Is Tom Brady fleet of foot? No, is he agile? No, not really. They manipulate the pocket well and Alan manipulates the pocket better than you would expect. So if you're talking about that, right, like that type of agility, I would say Alan is adequate, right? So speed doesn't matter. His agility, though, his ability to move subtly in the pocket, get himself on balance in order to throw the football down the field, about a 75. I would say it's average right now. It could get better, certainly, but he's a big guy and he's still young. Remember, a lot of times guys that big, this is going to sound so strange, guys that large, he's a large guy. They've only been that size for like three years of their entire life. So they're still kind of learning. Small guys have generally been small forever. So their agility is what it has always been because that's what they've had to rely on forever. A guy like Josh Allen, he's not generally had to rely on that. He's relied on his big arm. He can manipulate the pocket just fine. I think he can get better over time. All right, lastly, kind of set this one up at the beginning. I'd say Josh Allen right now is kind of average NFL quarterback. I think this is a positive rating for him. I think it would be easier to rate him lower than this. We'll see how it goes. I think fit has a lot to do with what Josh Allen can become at the NFL level. Great kid. I'm talking about a great kid. We'll be tremendous in the locker room. Really love him. I hope he has a lot of success. I have my question marks. I don't think he can be an elite quarterback in the NFL, but for right now, 75. So let's try to project that out a little bit. Not Madden style rating, but like comps. So if you don't like the rating system, let's talk about comps. When I talk about comps, I always try to look at best case scenario. All right, so for instance, last week I told you like the comps for Mayfield or Russell Wilson and Drew Brees, that's a best case scenario. That's not just like run of the mill average comp. Best case scenario for Josh Allen, I think is Joe Flacco. Okay, think about it now. Flacco, where does he win outside the numbers and down the field? Right? He's not a great intermediate thrower. He doesn't win with touch all the time, although he has touch, and certainly he's got some accuracy, but he's really dangerous outside the numbers and down the field. Think about when they won the Super Bowl. I mean, that's what they did, right? I mean, they were struggling offensively, and then all of a sudden they changed some things up. Remember on the offensive staff and they started doing what? Throwing the ball down the field, allowing him to set up and use that big arm to get the ball over the defense. That's what I think Josh Allen needs to do. If he goes to a place that's trying to run him into a intricate West Coast timing oriented, middle of the field oriented system, I think he's going to struggle because he doesn't generally change speeds well. He's a fastball thrower, so he needs to go to an offense that wants to sit back and throw big fastballs outside the numbers and down the field. And if that bit takes place, I think he'll reach his potential like Joe Flacco. Now let's talk about a comparison that I hear a lot and yet I don't buy into as much. And that is the Carson Wentz comparison. Okay, I get it. They both went to a quote-unquote small school, although I think Wyoming, that's a little bit disparaging to call them a small school like North Dakota State. They played for the same coach, Craig Bull. I get it. They were a little under the radar and then like someone says before their last year in college, like, hey, watch this guy. You say, you know, he's on a lot of people's draft boards. And so they had a similar path that doesn't mean they're a similar player. Okay, I think that that distinction needs to be made. The comparison for me between Wentz and Allen is path. It's not player. Wentz is much more athletic. Wentz can change his arm angle. Wentz was a winner. I mean, Allen in Wyoming didn't win a lot, right? Like he's got, he's so gifted as a thrower of the football, whereas like Wentz was kind of like this rugged battler at North Dakota State. He won a lot of football games. Yeah, he had the frame, but he was athletic. He did have a big arm, but not nearly what Josh Allen's was. He had some injury problems his last year. He overcame them. Hopefully he can overcome this injury issue that he had this year with Philadelphia. But again, just keep that in the back of your mind. When you hear comparisons for Josh Allen to Carson Wentz, keeping them back in your mind, people are doing that more so out of laziness because they're comparing path than they are player. The players are very different. Think more Joe Flacco rather than Carson Wentz. All right, let's clat back a little bit. And I'm going to do this to two different tweets. One, I'm going to reply to thoughtfully because I thought it was a question posed that I'd like to answer. And that's what Twitter should be used for. And then another was a less than glowing remark on Twitter that I'll respond to first. So Jason at Jason Bach underscore writes, Allen going before Rosen automatically makes this mock trash. Says who? It's a mock. Like, what are you evaluating this against the actual draft? That comes at the end of April, Jason. So like trash in your mind and somebody else's mind. I don't quite understand because if you talk with NFL decision makers like I do, you'll hear a lot of them like Josh Allen over Josh Rosen. Why? Because of the very things I talked about at the beginning of the show. Josh Rosen's red flags are harder to get over than Josh Allen's. You can explain a way in accuracy with Josh Allen or lack of competition with Josh Allen because you can say there's been a lot of quarterbacks that have come from small schools or a lack of competition and had success at the NFL. His supporting cast and his wide receivers did not help him throw for a high percentage. All absolutely true. All absolutely true. Meanwhile, you get to the red flag with Josh Rosen. I'm not talking about his attitude either. Okay. Let's leave that at the doorstep. I'm talking about the fact that his durability is an issue. See, there's nothing I can explain that away with. It's not like, oh, those injuries didn't really mean anything. Well, that means he was just not on the field for no reason. Worse, worse. Rosen's a beautiful player. I love Josh Rosen. I haven't gone top 10 in the NFL draft. Okay. I don't think he's a bad player by any stretch of the imagination. I think when you just look at him play the position, he's the most fluid. He's the most beautiful of any of these quarterbacks. The fact of the matter is though, he takes some hits. Born out of competitiveness and toughness, he takes some hits and subjects himself to durability issues. He was not on the field for UCLA for a number of games in the last couple of years. That hurt their chances to win. Well, that's going to hurt the chances of the NFL organization to win as well. So Allen over Rosen, while I might think Rosen is a better quarterback, there's some NFL personnel that can explain a way a red flag for Josh Allen, and it's very difficult to do that for Josh Rosen. Remember, a team's job is to minimize risk when drafting a player, in particular in the top 10 in the NFL draft. If you can minimize the risk with Allen over Rosen, you're probably going to do that. The fact that you think this is trash just means that you have no idea what standards actually are because there's no way you can actually say that with any definitive mark. The draft's not until the end of April, guy. All right, guys, that's going to do it for On The Clock this week. I appreciate you watching, being a part of the show. Remember, send us your comments, your questions, particularly if they're thoughtful. I'll answer them thoughtfully. If they're not thoughtful, I will answer them unthoughtfully, if that's a word. Nah, until next week, I'm Joel Klatt on The Clock, next week on Wednesday.