 Nice, nice, nice. Hey, welcome in. Thank you for joining me. I'm Joel Klatt, and this is On the Clock. And we got a little bit different format this week, but something very cool. So normally I go through my latest mock draft, give you the top 10 picks, why I'm talking about those guys in particular because of free agency and what's going on in the NFL. But since there wasn't a new mock this week, I've got something really cool this week. The 10 guys that I would categorize as somewhat of sleepers are flying under the radar. So I have 10 players that aren't getting a lot of buzz right now. Some of them are, but they aren't getting as much buzz as some others at their position group that I think you need to know. Cause I think all of these guys have a chance to get drafted maybe in the first round, some maybe even in the second round or into the third, but certainly first two day picks in this spring's NFL draft. So let's get to it. My top 10 sleepers under the radar. I'll start with number 10, a safety from Penn State. Not getting a lot of run at all because there are so many good safeties above him, like Derwin James or make a Fitzpatrick, but Marcus Allen, the safety at Penn State was a terrific player for the Nittany Lions. Now, this was a senior laden defense that was really the backbone of what the Nittany Lions were doing. In the last couple of years, Saquon Barkley got a lot of love, Trace McSorley got a lot of love, Mike Kaseki got a lot of love, but it was this defense that was so good. Marcus Allen was a huge part of that. Remember the guy who blocked the field goal against Ohio State, Marcus Allen, then he took it back for the touchdown. Remember the fourth down stop that sealed the big 10 championship in a win over Wisconsin? Who was it? Marcus Allen, the guy makes big plays at big moments from the safety position, a hybrid player, great instincts, so someone to keep an eye on in the first two days. Number nine, guy under the radar, an outside linebacker with past rushing specialist ability, Obo Ocaronco, the outside linebacker from Oklahoma. This is a guy that really was the best defender in the Big 12, and he was with a lot of young players for Oklahoma. I know it wasn't gonna great defense, and they certainly got shredded against Georgia, but it wasn't because of this guy. I mean, he was a sensational player. You talk to any coach around the Big 12 that was on the offensive side, they would tell you, when you faced Oklahoma, you had to understand where Obo Ocaronco was at. Great pass rusher, understands defense, really good kid, solid leader. I think he's gonna make a solid contributor. I would say somewhere in the top 55 picks in the draft, you'll find Obo Ocaronco. At number eight, a guy that is getting no love because everyone's talking about the other player from this school, B.J. Hill was also on the defensive line for North Carolina State. No one knows who B.J. Hill is, and listen, I understand Bradley Chubb's getting all the love. Well, when you turn on the film to evaluate Bradley Chubb, B.J. Hill just sticks out. I mean, his quickness, his ability to rush from the interior, this guy is a really good football player. Maybe a top 45 pick in the NFL draft. Maybe even a higher than that. Maybe a top 30 pick. He could find himself in the back end of that first round, possibly if the right team falls in love with him. But remember, from the defensive tackle position, if you can press the pocket back into the lap of the quarterback, that's so important, so valuable. He's someone that can do that. B.J. Hill from North Carolina State. I'm gonna stay with the defensive side, and in particular the interior, the defensive line. You're gonna start to see a trend, and I'll explain that as well. But number seven, I've got Harrison Phillips, the defensive tackle from Stanford. Now, Harrison Phillips had over a hundred tackles. And you're like, wow, that's really good for a defensive tackle. Yeah, he also never rotated and was in on almost every snap, over 90% of the snaps for Stanford at the tackle position. And oh, by the way, they played the odd defensive front, which means he's actually a nose guard. So a nose guard who plays over 90% of the snaps made over a hundred tackles. That's incredible ability, athleticism, lateral quickness, the ability to make plays. Nobody's talking about Harrison Phillips, and this guy's gonna be a very good NFL defensive lineman. I think he's gonna start right away, and it would not shock me if Phillips is in the pro bowl in his first three seasons. I think he's got that type of ability. Number six, another defensive lineman. You'll have to, and this is where I was gonna stop and say, the reason you're getting a lot of these players, I'm a firm believer that you build your defense front to back and inside out. Front to back, inside out. So for me, the guys that are very valuable, whether they're under the radar or not, are interior defensive linemen, linebackers. You get some pass rush up there, maybe some safety, so what do you see already? Safety, outside linebacker, defensive tackle, defensive tackle, and now a defensive end, Sam Hubbard. Number six from Ohio State. The defensive end, Sam Hubbard, this is a guy that's very fundamentally sound, okay? I don't know if there's a better defensive line technique position group in college football than Ohio State. Larry Johnson is their defensive line coach, and he's one of the best technicians in all of college football. Look at what Joey Bosa is doing. Yeah, he's got great athleticism, and he's an absolute freak into the quarterback, but he came into the league with such a refined skill set. Well, Sam Hubbard's a defensive end from Ohio State, with that type of rush mentality, not ability mentality, I think he could impact positively any defense that he's on. So Sam Hubbard's not getting a lot of love. I think he could be a late first round selection. A guy that I know loves Ohio State players. Remember, Greg Schianna's a defensive coordinator. Greg Schianna was almost the New England Patriots' defensive coordinator this offseason, and now all of a sudden the Patriots have a couple of selections at the back end of the first round. I think Sam Hubbard could be one of those selections. They need pass rush badly, and I think Hubbard fits perfectly what Belichick would be trying to do there with the Patriots. So a nice fit there for one of these sleepers. Into the top five we go. Number five, Vita Veja, another defensive tackle, this time from Washington. You might be thinking to yourself, Joel, this guy's not a sleeper, nor is he under the radar. I understand that, but I'm talking about like top 15 pick, and I don't think people are talking about Vita Veja in that vein. They know he's very good, most likely a first round selection. I'm talking about top 15, maybe top 13 picks. I think Dallas is a great fit. I don't know if he'll make it to when Dallas selects. This guy does it all. Listen, he's a great pass rusher from the interior. He was a run stuffer. He's a playmaker. His size, strength and athleticism doesn't make sense. You see him, you see his strength, and you're like, oh yeah, that makes sense. I mean, he's like a bolder. And then you see him move, and you're like, what in the world? Like how does that happen? Vita Veja is a great player. I truly believe that this guy has all pro potential. That's why I think he should be selected in the top 15 picks in this year's draft. And I don't think he's been talked about quite like that in this process. Number four, a really good player that came into college football, highly recruited at a big place, kind of fell off the map and then just had his best year on a top 20 defense in college football. And he was a huge reason why, maybe the reason why. Malik Jefferson, the linebacker from Texas. Look at me, front to back inside out. You're getting all the defensive players on this sleeper list. Malik Jefferson is a terrific player. And he played hands down his best football for Tom Herman and more specifically, Todd Orlando, the defensive coordinator down there for Texas. He's fast. He finishes really well, which I think is the best attribute for any linebacker, really, any defender, the ability to tackle. And he tackled really well. He's better in coverage this year than he has been in the past. He was a quality leader for them. Malik Jefferson is going to make a roster. There's no doubt in my mind. I think he's going to be a huge positive impact for whatever team selects him. I think he's a late second round selection, maybe early third, but late second is a place that I would go to, but certainly flying under the radar. All right, top three. This is a guy that you know nothing about. If you do kudos, I'm shocked because you did not see him play in college. Nathan Shepard, the defensive lineman, defensive tackle from Fort Hayes State. See, I told you, you never saw him play in college. If you did get a chance to see him play, which you didn't, you saw a chiseled 315 pound guy that was way above, way above. I mean, he was kind of like a man playing amongst boys at that level for Fort Hayes State. Raw, I'll give you that. Certainly not refined, but boy, the skill level, he's fast. He's got powerful hands, very powerful hands, dominated with his strength, all the competition that he faced, and I'm really excited to see him go to the NFL and see how this translates. I think he could be a really good player at the next level. My top two sleepers, number two, are running back. You heard a lot about him last year. He was one of the guys I was pushing for the Heisman Trophy, but now he's been lost in this deep running back shuffle is what I call it. And it is deep. Like, the best position group in this draft is running back. I think that the biggest sleeper though is Rashad Penny from San Diego State. I've had two different head coaches in the NFL tell me point blank that after Saquon Barkley, Rashad Penny is the next best running back in the draft. Not many people are talking about him like that. And I get it, right? There's Ronald Jones from USC, really good back. You got both Chubb and Michelle from Georgia. You got Geis from LSU. There are a lot of good players to evaluate and to look at. But remember, who are the best two running backs in the league last year? I'm talking about young rookie running backs, Alvin Kamara and who led the league in rushing, Kareem Hunt. Third round guys. So Rashad Penny, who I think could sneak into maybe even late first round, but certainly second round, it would not shock me at all if Rashad Penny was not only the leading rookie rusher, but right up there with the league leaders in rushing in the entire national football league. He ran for well over 2,000 yards last year for San Diego State. He is a guy. If Saquon Barkley is not required to carry the male 25 carry a game guy, Rashad Penny certainly is. That's what he made his entire college career on was the fact that he could get the bulk of the carries. He's got great vision. I think that's one of the best attributes any running back can have. Terrific vision, and he's patient enough to allow his blocks to take place before exploiting those blocks. Again, I could never do it. I'm not one, I'm not athletic enough or fast enough, but it's one of those rare traits. Like the ability to anticipate for a quarterback, it's tough to teach. Well, it's tough to teach a guy how to have vision as a running back and then be patient enough to allow his blocks to work. Will Hernandez, the guard from UTEP, is going to be my number one sleeper. The reason that I have him number one is the fact that everybody, including me, and rightly so, is talking about Quinton Nelson from Notre Dame, the guard who might be the safest and best pick available in this draft. And that's true. I'm not taking anything away from Quinton Nelson. I'm just saying that Will Hernandez is likely to get selected in the top 20 picks and it wouldn't shock me if he's in the pro bowl early in his career at the guard position. This guy is a great player. He went to UTEP, was lightly recruited, but then all of a sudden gets a senior bowl invite and he goes there and dominates. Think of Aaron Donald's great senior bowl week and what has that propelled him into? Remember, Aaron Donald from Pitt didn't hear a lot about him in college. He was a good player, goes to the senior bowl, dominates, and now he's gone on to dominate in the national football league. Will Hernandez from UTEP did a similar thing down in Mobile, went, dominated almost every drill, whether it was pass rush, whether it was run blocking, all of that. He was phenomenal, strong, stocky, doesn't allow the bull rush to push him back, dominant in run blocking, lateral against a quick rush. All of those things are true about Will Hernandez, which is why he is my number one sleeper in this year's NFL Draft. All right, player profile time and we're gonna go with my number one pick in the draft, Sam Darnold in the player profile as rated by the Madden rating. Very important, as you know. Very important, the Madden rating. Here we go. What attribute, remember, one to 100 on this Madden rating. So Sam Darnold, here we go. What do you want me to rate first? Awareness. Awareness. Darnold's awareness. All right, I wanted to go higher and I know that this is a pretty high mark, but I think it could be higher. The reason I say 79 is he fumbled too much. I know you didn't say like, you know, I didn't say ball security. Yeah, but ball security in particular fumbles for a quarterback have a lot to do with awareness. In the passing game, I believe he is very aware. He's very aware of the rush, but he's a little careless with the ball. So you need to be aware and have ball security. That's why I give him a 79. Again, not a bad rating. I think 75 is average. He's a bit above average with his awareness, but if he curtailes those fumbles a little bit, all of a sudden you see this rating for awareness go way up. Next attribute. Arm strength. Arm strength. Arm strength. That's a good one as well. Well, let's see. I think he's got an average arm. Not brilliant. Certainly not bad. Certainly not bad. And a lot of guys can win with the 75 in arm strength. I think arm strength is the most overblown attribute that any quarterback can have. Point-blank period. Here's why. Let's correlate it in sports, okay? In baseball, you throw the baseball from any position, but let's just take the pitcher. Every time they throw the baseball, it's a max effort throw, okay? Everything in their kinetic energy and movement is being put into the throw in order to throw with a max curveball, slider, all of it, split finger, whatever, even a changeup. You want to simulate the fastball. It's a maximum effort velocity throw. As a quarterback, you almost never throw with maximum effort. You win with touch and accuracy. You also win with anticipation. So a lot of people talk about arm strength and you ask me to rate it for Sam Darnold. I say 75, it's average. It's not gonna blow you away. Can you get by with 75? Yeah, you're damn right. You can get away with 75. In fact, 75 is plenty. There are guys in the NFL that have 60-65 arm strength, Drew Brees, and shred it. He's gonna leave the league with maybe every single passing record, no demand. So arm strength, don't weight it too much. That's one of the reasons why I don't have Josh Allen in my top three quarterbacks. He's my fourth of the top four. All right, next attribute. Accuracy. Accuracy, okay. See, now we're getting into it. Let's see here. 90, highly accurate. This is where we get to what Sam Darnold does best. Accurate with the football, anticipates windows. If you go back, if you want to, you could probably YouTube this. Late in the game against Texas. And Texas had a great defense. I'm talking great defense. Sam had to be brilliant in order for them to come back and tie this football game. It's late in the game and they're driving from left to right. Darnold gets a blitz right in his face. I'm talking about an unblocked Texas longhorn. I mean, unblocked. And he kind of evades, jumps in the air and throws a football to a running back, running right down the middle of the field, right over the defender, right into the running backs arms. He jumped past a 15 yard throw that was like on the money. Call it a dime, whatever you want to call it. I mean, it was ridiculous accuracy through the roof. That's a 90 for me. Next attribute. Speed. This is what I should say for speed in Madden, right? I mean, have you seen Tom Brady run? It's like a baby deer. Yeah, it's like a baby deer. I mean, it's just painful on ice. Speed is in the, now, let's break it into kind of a different, now, let's talk about efficiency of movement and speed in the pocket. So let's talk about it in kind of a quickness frame of reference. You're talking about foot speed, quickness, things like that, manipulating the pocket, fluidity of movement with your base. I think Darnold is very good. I would put Darnold as an 88. So if you're just talking about like the agility needed, not necessarily straight line speed, but the agility needed to manipulate the pocket like he's going to need to at the NFL level, it's an 88, it's really good. He does it as well as anybody. If you watch him play, he constantly gets himself back on the platform, even with dirty pocket, dirt around him. He's got players at his feet. He can get himself set and his arm to the throw spot. So that's where I would go with speed. All right, what's next? Overall rating. Overall rating for Sam Darnold, 86. If you look in Madden, if I'm not mistaken, he shares this rating with, I think, the current comp, which is Matt Stafford. That's who I, I think that's Sam Darnold. Now, high end, you're going to get far, okay? If he can surpass this, if he can reach deep and then draw on something that's even better than his skill level, which some quarterbacks do, then you're going to see him overachieve this 86. But 86 is really good. I mean, it's really good. And anybody would take that. And I think that the Cleveland Browns would be absolutely crazy if they didn't draft Sam Darnold. I know there's some noise right now that they might take Josh Allen. I think that's a smokescreen, because when you compare the two, there is no comparison. I know they're reaching the top four and Allen has a very strong arm, but I just debunked that for you, why the strong arm is not necessarily a great attribute to have, in particular, when it's your only great attribute, is the fact that you rarely throw with max velocity in the national football league. You win with anticipation, touch, and accuracy. And that's what Sam Darnold has in spades, 86 on the Madden rating. All right, a little clapped back time, and this one's gonna be a little different because it's not actually a clapped back. It's just like, please be serious that you sent this because I think it's amazing. Ryan McElaro, hope I'm pronouncing that right, at Ryan Mc818 says about my mock draft, if the bills got Josh Rosen at seven, I'll cut off all my toes. Hell, if he reaches six alone, I'll cut off all my toes. Hashtag bills. There's so much to react to. One, how is that your go-to? Like, not, I'll give you $100. Or like, I'll bet you $1,000 that he doesn't get there. Or, you know, I'll cut off my toes. Like, are you a little Lebowski urban achiever? I'll get you a toe, I'll get you a toe by toe with nail polish, says Walter Sobczyk. Is Walter Sobczyk? You're like, long lost uncle? If you don't know who Walter Sobczyk is, then I'm questioning everything about you, Ryan McElaro. By the lack of laughter in this room, I'm guessing no one in this room knows who Walter Sobczyk is either. If you don't know who Walter Sobczyk is, Google it because it's phenomenal. It's a great movie, the big Lebowski. We gotta understand what's going on right now. Cut off all my toes. Here's, it's a good chance he might get to six. I'm just, Ryan, tweet us back. If you're serious, I don't want you to be serious. He's gonna go to six, maybe even seven or lower, and I don't just want you to cut off your toes. I'm not gonna hold you to this, or will I? I think I'm gonna tweet you. Draft night. One toe. Pinky toe. What do you think? Pinky swear? Ryan, were you pinky swear? Bad joke. All right, that'll do it. Ryan McElaro. I hope you can keep all your toes. There's a good chance that you won't. There was your top 10 sleepers. We got to Sam Darnold, awesome show today. Appreciate you watching. Remember, share this with your friends and comment. Comment back and forth so that we can get more tweets and comments about you threatening to cut off your own extremities, because that's awesome. I'm Joel Klatt, we'll be with you next week on The Clock. Yeah!