 This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans, plan on paying less for the coverage that you need with Farm Bureau Health Plans. Get a quote today at FBHP.com. I'm Amy Wells, Rhett Bryan is also here and we are joined by the great Charles Davis. Charles, thank you so much for taking some time to be with us. Thank you so much for being so hyperbolic about what I am, I just love you for that. We know it's not true, but one can dream. Oh it sure is. It's true, he's the gentleman of sports, one can dream. Yes, and actually I want to start off by asking you about something, and I don't know if you get asked about this a lot, maybe you do, maybe you don't, but one of your roles here in Indianapolis is broadcasting the workouts. You are part of the big show that everybody watches when people are running and jumping and doing all of the things that they do during the NFL Scouting Combine. But what I want to know is how do you prepare for a broadcast like that? Because it's not like you're preparing for a game, which is something that you also do and I'm sure is a very regimented routine, you do the same thing for every game, but this is a very different type of broadcast, how do you get ready for it? Well number one you're exactly right about getting ready for a game, it's the same routine every week, you know, you can set your watch by it, Tuesday at 2.28pm, I'm likely doing this, so you're right. Getting ready for this is much more, I'm coming off the NFL season, have I watched some college football, yes, am I totally invested, no, okay, because you know, I'm like Winnie the Pooh, bear of little brain, you only have so much, right, and I have less than others, so I'm locked in the NFL and then once we get past the Super Bowl, because I'm lucky enough to call the World Broadcast for that game, once I get past that now it's time to get going, alright, now do I know a few things, sure, be like Osmosis in college football is really a good thing, right, even if you didn't watch it, you heard the names, you heard this and heard that, and then we get, you know, who's going to be in attendance and we get that big book of it, I got one in my deal here, 321 names I've gone over all of them, does that mean I know them, that would be a lot, okay, but now I'm starting to get familiar with the names, now I'm starting to watch tape of them, now I'm starting to get a measure, I've been to the senior bowl, I went to the HBCU, you know, all-star game, so starting to fashion and starting to think draft more and more and more and more and more, now how does this fit, I know the league pretty well, so that helps, because now I'm looking at teams and what their needs are and who would fit, and as I watch players play, I actually can see them in certain uniforms, certain systems, certain people, because I know that coach, I know what they like to do, I know this, this, and this, so that's where my prep starts, you know, Amy with this one. The second thing is, and the last part is, I'm fortunate enough to work for a producer that the last couple of years has asked me to not just be on a desk, because the way we're set up is rich eyes and Daniel Jeremiah, you know, like, you know, if you're doing the billboard for the show, they're the marquee, right, they're the top of the deal and deservedly so, then come the rest of us, I'm sitting down at a desk with Chris Rose, myself, Peter Schrager, so we do relief for them, we do a couple, you know, you know, we're, you know, we're not marquee adjacent, you know, but we're, we're there, right, you know, we can jump in there if we have a few nuggets and all that, but my producer, Mark Tidalman, the T-man, he wants me to go down on the field, and that has been a godsend, because now you're in the middle of it, all right, you're locked in, Rhett, you're seeing what's happening out there, you're hearing conversations from players, you're getting to meet some of them, you're standing next to them and kind of take the measuring, my God, he is immense, right, he is a big guy, or he's tiny, but boy, can he run, all of that comes into play and now accelerates my learning, so that as we get closer and closer and closer, by the time we get to Detroit. You're in it. I'm not gonna say, you know, this is just 17 years' worth of understanding that it starts with panic and it ends with knowledge, I just have to, I just have to make sure I temper the panic to get to the knowledge and then we'll get there and over the 17 years, this is gonna sound so braggy and I don't mean it to be, but I take a lot of pride in knowing these kids or knowing something about them, I'm gonna say 10 kids that when it came up and we were the focus that I might not have known, you know what I mean, or didn't have something on them and I will always admit it, I'm never going to try and fake it because that's wrong for the kid, it's probably better for me to say, as opposed to give a false impression of who this young man is, we had a kid out of Yale, a couple years ago, Rodney Thomas, he's in Indianapolis, he popped up and I went, I got nothing and I'm immediately on the phone to my Yale contacts, I was like, how come, and I'm contacting another Ivy League coach because I've talked to them during the process, his name never came up, never came up and that's, you know, it just kind of happens that way sometimes, but boy, Indianapolis know they're talking about, he's a good football player, and that's just an example, so I don't mean for it to go too long, Amy, but it's just a different process, but down on the field watching them go and now you know how it is and it's like for all of us, it's repetition, right, like when we go to camp and you're learning your new roster of Tennessee Titans, it doesn't take you terribly long, right, because you start to figure them out and you see them and after a while, you don't even need numbers on them, you can tell by the way they run, he wears his towel a certain way, you know, you just kind of get it, absolutely get it. And speaking of that, real quick, just ran into a coach not long ago, George Stewart, longtime NFL coach, he was on the last staff with Chuck Noel at Pittsburgh, and you guys might not remember this, but Chuck, but Chuck, but Chuck Noel never put numbers on his players in training camp. Really? Yeah, it was always a black jersey or a gold jersey, because Chuck Noel came from Cleveland, and in the old days in Cleveland, with Paul Brown, every coach was paranoid there, by stole, people would come filming your practice, sitting in trees and running a room across the thing and the whole deal, so he would keep the numbers off of them to try and confuse whoever's trying to get information out of them, so as a coach, you had to learn your players by their nuances, you had to learn your players by their body types, you had to learn your players by what cleats they would like to wear, and all that sort of stuff, because if you just looked at the snapshot, you didn't know the number, you had to know the player. Wow. And in some ways, it helped make you a better coach, because you got a little more in depth. I hope we never go to that system here, because I want to know who running back for is running back for, because I would be in trouble. Gosh, as a broadcaster, it makes my eyes cross, like, oh no, there's no numbers, what do we do? Well, here's the thing, for all of us as broadcasters, at one point, some of the great broadcasters did a lot of college football games and whatever. There were no numbers. Think about that. There were no numbers. They were doing ball games with no numbers, on radio, way back in the day, and a lot of times, they would get confused, and you have no idea if you listen to an old-school, radio broadcast football game, you will hear that people have lateraled the football probably 25 times in a game. They didn't necessarily lateral it, they just realized they had the wrong guy carrying the ball, so they would say he lateraled the ball, too, to get it to the right guy. It didn't actually happen. Really? I gotta give them credit. It's really creative. That's really smart. And no one would know, because it was right off the mind. Right? Right? Thank you, Rhett. And it was all radio, but the greats had to do it, because they realized, oh God, that's not Brown with the ball, that's Smith. No Brown, lateral's with the Smith in the 25. And we're back on track. And you're back on track. Oh my gosh. Well, let's talk a little bit about here in Indianapolis, what's going on this week. There are a lot of storylines that are rolling about as there are every year at the Combine. What are some of the things that are sticking out to you that you're watching this week? We know the top wave of quarterbacks. I'll just start there, because that's just obvious, right? We know the top wave of quarterbacks, probably the top three, right? It's the big three at the top. Caleb Williams, Drake May, and Jay Daniels. Or is it Caleb Williams, Jay Daniels, Drake May? It feels like Caleb Williams is locked in at one, two, and three, that's where your debate begins. But I don't think it stops there. I do think that we're going to have a second wave. It just feels that way, you know? We've had it where quarterbacks have been pushed up and it hasn't usually worked out so well when guys have gone higher than they should. E.J. Manuel, Christian Fonder, Jake Locker. We can do all those sorts of things, but it happens. They get pushed up. The next quarterback to me is probably J.J. McCarthy out of Michigan. I think he has the chance to be the number four this week. Right? I think that's right, Rhett. And so I'm with you on that when he's got a chance to really show us a little bit more than what we've seen. And it wasn't his fault at Michigan. They lined up and beat you up in the run game. Do you realize the second half of Penn State game they didn't throw a pass? Did you know that? I didn't realize that. Michigan, they lined up in the second half and beat them up. But Charles, in the time they went to him, he made all the throws. He made plays. He made plays. He's got the stuff. I'm going to be, I'm really eager to hear from my friends as they do the interviews and all and see how it all goes. But he seems like the legit item in me. Now you got Bo Nicks out of Oregon. You got Michael Pennicks out of Washington, who both played extraordinarily well this year. Where do they slide into this whole thing? Right? I mean, it's going to be a wild, wild deal at the top. Offensive tackles, a ton of them. How do they come off the board? And where do they go? And by the way, I would think Tennessee would be very interested in the offensive tackles. That's just me, just taking a shot at it. Running backs, I don't think it's a group that you have a Bijan Robinson in, which gets some really good players. I think their run starts in the second round. I don't think they would get a first-round runner this year. We'll see. You never know. Because remember Clyde Edwards, he went 32 to Kansas City. None of us saw that coming. That's right. So you never know when a team decides to go in that direction. Corner backs, plentiful. Linebackers, plentiful, but not at the top of the food chain. Again, probably starting in the second round, and then you'll get some good players that come out of it. That Queen Gray out of North Carolina reminds me of a former Titan named Zach Brown. That's a good comparison. Right? You feel we're all going with that red. And both from the same alma mater, yeah? You know, sometimes I can get lazy with that, because they're in the same alma mater. But this one doesn't feel lazy. This one feels like the way that they make plays. Space linebackers who run it down and make a play. That's what it feels like to me. Because Gray had a ton of tackles in the senior ball. Big defensive tackles, decent number of them. Edge rushers, yes. Elite. We'll see. Jared versus the top of the class, Chop Robinson, not as many reps as you'd like to see. Law 2. Law 2 from UCLA. Yeah, Law 2, Law 2, yep. Those are probably the guys we're talking about being the ones that are up there. Chop Robinson, we're taking him on spec. We're doing that a lot with Penn State Edge rushers. Adafi Owe. How many sacks has he seen in your ret? Zero. First round, right? First round. Because his athletic ability was off the charts. We figured that would come. Chop Robinson's athletic ability is off the charts. His production numbers are anything to blow you away for two schools. So you're like, OK, you're trying to balance that part. Hopefully, better people, better thing, you see it go. So that's what we've got. I think it's a loaded group. Oh, yeah, wide receivers, so the cows come home. Charles, there might be. So the cows come home. I mean, it is unbelievable. There might be seven or eight receivers taking the first round this time. Yeah, and that's a legit number. That's not hyperbole. You're spot on. And if the run really goes, it might go higher. Because offensive tackle is the place. Because I think back, remember when DeWayne Brown came out of Virginia Tech? He had a second, third round grade on him. But Atlanta, that year, this was the year Matt Ryan went, number three overall, and that was a big debate. Should it be him or Glenn Dorsey? Remember? And they took Matt Ryan. And then they signed Michael the Burner Turner as their tail back. And they needed a left tackle to help the young quarterback. And they took Jake Matthews. And then later on, they ran out of tackles in the first round grades. And Houston was getting going. And they needed a tackle. And they traded back into the first round at like 26 or 27, somewhere in the neighborhood. And they drafted DeWayne Brown. Everybody went, whoa, I got like a third round grade on him. What are we doing here? How'd that work out? He's had a nice career. Really nice career. Remember when Travis Frederick came to Dallas from Wisconsin? Everybody flipped out because they took him in the first round. I got a third round grade. I didn't get a center any time. How'd that work out? He was an all pro before he got, before illness got it. He was a heck of a player. If you have conviction on a player, you go get the player. Don't worry about what us knuckleheads say. We don't matter. It's what your scouting department says, what your coaching staff believes. And if you got conviction, you take him where you take him. Charles, I think we could talk to you all day, but they are going to physically remove you from this seat if we don't wrap it up. It's always me dealing with security. I don't know what I did. Every year, they have to physically remove you from our table. You would think I'd become a better person. All right, let me give my John Mulaney intervention out of the way. We can go. Well, we'll save it for the next time. We'll save it for the next time. Charles, Davis, thank you so much. Thank you. It's so great to see you all. Let's be honest about it. You're my summer family. And I'm so lucky that way. And now we have a reset button. And you guys already know Brian Callahan. I think you're going to really like this crew. I was really impressed with him at Cincinnati. You'll miss my big man. But at the same time, happy for Brian Callahan. Sure. It's going to be a fun preseason. All right. Seat Geek is now the official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans. Whether you're buying or selling tickets to Titans games or any other live event in Nashville, Seat Geek is the place to do it. Seat Geek, the new official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans, so Titans fans can fan. Dane Brugler from The Athletic joins us on the OTP. Dane, thanks for taking the time to sit down with us. Of course. Looking at a group like the wide receivers, there's so much buzz about the wide receiver group. What makes them so special? Well, I think first and foremost, we're seeing the best athletes. That's where they're going. When it starts young and then the 7-on-7 and high school. And if you're not quite good enough to be a quarterback, you're going to be a receiver if you're a top athlete. And so I'm convinced until the end of time, we're going to have very strong receiver classes every single year. This year is no exception. Marvin Harrison, Jr. at the top. Malik neighbors might be ahead of him for some teams. It's not the true consensus. Malik neighbors is an outstanding player. In most drafts, he'd be wide receiver one. But I think Malik neighbors, regardless if he goes first receiver draft or second receiver drafted, he's one of the top three players in this draft, in my opinion. I don't think you can name the best three players in this draft without mentioning Malik neighbors. And it just comes down to, there's so many things with the receiver position we can get into. But let's just keep it. Can you get open? Can you catch a ball? Can you create after the catch? Just keep it down to those simple things. He can do all three things at a very high level. And same thing with Marvin Harrison, Jr. Roman Dunze from Washington, same type of thing. And it doesn't end there, you think. You look in the second round, third round. This is a very receiver-rich draft. So the depth within that position is just as impressive as the fact that there are some phenomenal athletes at the very top. No doubt. And I think you look at the top 15 receivers in the NFL in terms of receiving yards this year. There's a lot of non-first-rounders in there. Devonte Adams and Terry Kills. There's a lot of guys that are really talented that didn't necessarily go in the first round, including the top 10. So this year, trying to figure out who those guys are, Adnan Mitchell from Texas, or Malachi Corley from Western Kentucky, Roman Wilson, Michigan, there's a lot of good players in this draft. Now it's just about, OK, who are the ones they're going to break through? Where are they going to end up? And what's the best spot for them to really take off? A player that's been very intriguing to me is Brock Bowers, the tight end. What makes him such a special athlete overall? I'm glad you phrased it like that, because that's how you have to look at him. He is a hybrid player. You can't just look at him through the prism of, OK, he's a tight end. He's not a traditional wide tight end. That's not what he is. He's more of that joker, the move tight end. But Georgia, their entire offense revolved around him. That's what made everything go. And so whether he's lined up in the backfield, whether he's in line in the slot, he's out wide, he's a weapon. And that's how you have to look at him. It truly has a weapon. And he's a guy that can beat you with speed. He's very tough at the catch point. So he's going to win those 50-50 balls. And he's a master of the hidden yards. After the catch, which normally a seven yard gain for a lot of these guys, he's getting 11 yards because he's so hard to bring to the ground. So not only does he have the athletic part of it, but he's really competitive. He'll block his butt off too. So I understand you look around the NFL, a lot of these tight ends. They were day two picks or fourth round picks. You don't necessarily have to use a first round pick on a tight end. But if you have a plan for Brock Bowers and all the ways he can help you, he's worth the pick. So that's another one of those key story lines I think of the draft in the first round. Where does Brock Bowers go? How far does he fall? Does he fall out of top 10? Does he fall out of the top 15? That's going to be something that's really interesting to see play out. We've got to talk about the offensive line because for the Tennessee Titans, that's a position that a lot of people think could be one that the team is investing in. And it seems as though there are a couple people at the top of that group that could really be a good fit no matter where they go. No doubt. And yeah, I mentioned we talked about the quarterbacks and the receivers. This is also a tackle rich class. And we're going to see in really the premium positions. You talk about the quarterback receiver tackle and then corner I throw in there. Those are the positions that are going to make up the top 20 this year. Tackle, we might see six go in the top 22 picks. It's crazy the amount of tackle depth we have. And then there's a drop off. So if you don't get your tackle early, probably not going to feel great about the options you're looking at round two, round three. So a team like the Titans, they could be looking at their board and say, we've got a similar grade on a tackle as we do a receiver or whoever else. But we feel really good about the receiver. We can get around two, around three. Whereas that's not the case. We can't say that about tackle. And so whether that's Joe Alt from Notre Dame, Olu Foshnu from Penn State, all these guys are a little bit different. So I think everyone will have their own preferences with exactly what they're looking for. Joe Alt's more of the, he's an all around guy. He can hold up and pass protection. He'll hold up as a run blocker. He's got a really fascinating background too with his dad being a former pro bowler, blocked for Joe Montana in the early 90s. But he had his son growing up. He didn't play him at offensive line. He played him at skill positions. He wanted him to be an athlete. And so through high school, he was a quarterback. He was a tight end. It wasn't really towards a senior year that he became more of a tackle. And then of course at Notre Dame. So to see his development the last three years especially has been really, really impressive. Olu Foshnu, not the best run blocker, but outstanding in pass protection. Talise Fouaga from Oregon State. He's a really good player. Tyler Guyton, one of the more, maybe the most intriguing player in this entire draft in my opinion is Amarius Mims from Georgia. This guy, he was built in a lab. I mean, it's really interesting how he's built. He's 6'6", he's long. He's gonna be around 325 pounds. And he's gonna test well. He moves differently. But he has eight starts to his name. The body of work isn't there. So do you bet on the athlete and the traits and what he's gonna grow into? Or do you focus more on the guys that are more well-established? So this tackle class has something that's a little bit different for everybody. And three years from now, when we look back at this tackle class, it'll be interesting to see how in retrospect we look at these guys. The depth within each position group is so imperative to how any team puts together their draft board. This year, it seems just in kind of surveying the scene a little bit, that there is a lot more of a separation within a lot of different groups of the elite players and then everybody else. Is that fair to say? Yeah, with every draft, that's what you're doing. When you build your board, you obviously, every draft has X amount of first-round players and for some teams, that's 15. What's that number? And then from those 15, it might be a six-person draft where it's like, okay, if we have a top 10 pick, these are six guys, we have to come away with one of these six guys. And everybody's a little bit different with how they view these. And I think fans have to remember that there's no consensus position about the position. Like I get questions, can Jane Daniels cement himself as quarterback two? And maybe for some teams he can, but he might not even be considered for other teams because they just, they don't love them. Or, same thing with every other position. So it's really important to understand for all the fans that, hey, every team with their scheme, with their culture, they're looking at all these guys differently. They have different preferences for different positions. Guys, some teams will prefer someone that's a better pass protector, someone wants someone that's more well-rounded. You know, there's receivers as well. So yeah, every single position has certain traits you're looking for. And every team's a little bit different with all the specifics that they're looking for. When you're doing things like mock drafts or a top 100 list or things like that, how much do you have to take those elements into consideration? For me, my top 100 is more just, you know, I think these are the top 100 best players, you know, a little more generalized. Mock drafts, absolutely. Because you're taking into account not only team need and, you know, contracts and pending free agents and all that kind of stuff, but also tendencies. You know, you look at teams, general managers, what have they done in the past? What is their, they're more likely to draft this position early and wait on this other position. You know, you have to take all that into account. And you know, some teams are tougher to gauge. Obviously a team like the Titans with a first year head coach and, you know, Rand Carthons coming into what a second draft as a general manager, you know, we're still figuring things out with a team like the Titans. Some teams are more, you know, they, we know what they're going to do. You know, we know the Eagles, they're not going to draft a linebacker on the first round. They don't value that position that early. Other teams are, you have certain thresholds at receiver, you know, they will not draft a receiver in the first round. That's under six, two, or doesn't have at least 32 and a half in charms, you know, all these things. So understanding the trends and tendencies of each team, each general manager, that's a key part of doing a mock draft. How much tape do you watch in a calendar year? No, I couldn't. I mean, I couldn't put a number on it. I mean, that's what I'm doing. Obviously all of the summer, the summers when you build your database of, okay, these are the guys and you'd be watching in the fall. And then in the fall, that's really my entire week is I can't wait until Sunday morning when the tape is uploaded from the previous day. And I'm able to, because I'll watch college football on TV and just take mental notes like, okay, I need to make sure I watch that catch from the second quarter for this player or whatever. But it's not until the next day Sunday where I'm watching tape and figuring out, all right, these trying to build the database of these guys and then the reports and figuring these guys out. But yeah, it's a year round process. So at this point, you know, most of the haze in the barn, this at the combine, it's a cross-checking exercise. It's like, okay, we know this guy's fast. Let's make sure he runs fast. He did, okay, you know, check that box. I was actually talking to a scout just this morning. He said in their room, in their kind of their war room that set up, they have a sign that says, fall in love with the tape, not the tag. Tag talking about the, what goes on the draft board and is, you know, has the player's name, but the height, weight, length, 40 time, all that stuff. You know, it's easy to fall in love with that. Like, you know, six, three receiver, 210 pounds, runs a four, three, like 34 inch arms. All right, that's perfect. It's exactly what we're looking for. Don't fall in love with that. Fall in love with the tape. And then, you know, if the tag, hopefully the tag matches up with what you're looking for, but make sure you're falling in love with the football player first and foremost. You've got to make sure that the traits are reflected on the actual football field. No doubt, no doubt. Some guys are just good testers, you know? And some guys are just good athletes, but not good football players. And some of those guys, you think you can coach up. And, you know, sometimes you're right. That's where it's so important to get the coaches involved in the process. Because, you know, having the assistant coaches understand what a player, you know, the area scouts, they do most of the work. They understand, okay, this is a player that I think our coaches really like. He needs to get better in this area, but that's where our offensive line coaching come in and really coach them up and make them better. So that's where the importance of area scouts are, to really set the table for, at this point in the process, because coming into the combine the last few weeks, all the teams have had preliminary draft meetings. All the scouts come back to the headquarters and, you know, some of them do over Zoom, but they build the preliminary draft board. So coming into the combine, you have a good idea of what to expect from all these players. The coaches starting to get involved. This is, for a lot of coaches, this is their first exposure to these guys here at the combine, but they already have an idea based off of what the area scouts have done. You know, they've all got their packets and, you know, their reports and things like that. So this is a really fun part of the process for a lot of these coaches that are just now getting involved. What do you do after the draft with all of this information that's in your brain? I reset and I coach my son's baseball team, my daughter's softball team and try to just, you know, take a step back. Decompress. But, you know, it is important after every draft to, well, what I do is I go back three years and I look at, okay, these are my reports from three years ago, how has things played out? You know, the best trait for an evaluator is to be a self-evaluator because you have to understand if you missed on, because everybody misses on guys, you know, but it's about learning from why did you miss on it. Sometimes I feel like I got a player right. He's just maybe not in the right situation in the NFL. Sometimes I miss something that it's, okay, I need to make sure that when I'm watching offensive tackles, I'm paying more attention to this, whatever it may be. So self-evaluating is a big, as soon as the draft's over, that's where my brain goes to be better for next year. So the month of May definitely takes some time off, but focusing on grading myself from a couple of years ago and then June, when June comes, it's really diving right back into it, preparing for next year. Dane Brugler, always a scout, always a scout. It's a year-round process, it really is. It's in order to be better every year. You have to understand, because the game of football is always evolving, right? You know, the NFL, what the NFL game is today is not what it was five years ago, seven years. You know, it's so different. So you have to understand what the NFL's looking for, what has worked, what hasn't. Yeah, it's a really fascinating thing that just keeps you busy.