It’s always entertaining and uniquely informative when NFL analytics expert Mike Tanier visits the show and gets Nestor ready for the NFL Draft and the Ravens’ infinite possibilities with the 27th pick in the first round in Green Bay. Let Joe Flacco’s high school geometry teacher school you on the prospects and The Two Deep Zone.
Nestor Aparicio and Mike Tanier discussed the upcoming NFL Draft and the Baltimore Ravens’ offseason. They highlighted the Ravens’ success in drafting and developing talent, despite recent controversies involving Justin Tucker and Ben Cleveland. Tanier praised the Ravens’ consistent drafting philosophy and their ability to trade and acquire players effectively. They also touched on the NFL Draft’s focus on defensive players and the potential for trades. Tanier’s substack, “The Two Deep Zone,” offers in-depth profiles of draft prospects, emphasizing personal stories and intangibles beyond just stats. They concluded with a discussion on the Ravens’ potential draft strategies and the importance of player character evaluations.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
NFL Draft, Ravens possibilities, Justin Tucker, Ronnie Stanley, defensive draft, offensive line, quarterback turmoil, analytics, Mike Tanier, football season, crab cake tour, liar’s luncheon, player evaluation, draft strategy, team needs.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Mike Tanier
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We call this magic Baltimore positive.com we are into the magical time of the year. I have the magic eight ball scratch off, still left. Handful of these before we get to the back to the future could be said something about our presidency, but I’ll save that for the later. Um, we are going to be having the NFL Draft later on this month. Uh, Luke is attending the liar’s luncheon. So in between all of this baseball, all of the political nonsense we’re dealing with in crab cakes, and all the stuff that we’re doing over cost this this week, we’ll be doing a Beaumont next week in Coopers north and Cocos later on in the month for the crab cake tour. It’s always football season here, and even though, I mean, all I’ve talked about is Justin Tucker and Ben Cleveland and Bucha and Harbaugh counting their money while being interviewed by one of their frightened employees at the owners meetings, it has been a little bit of a respite for me. There was no combine in Indy. For me this year, there was no Super Bowl, but there was a cup of soup or bowl where we featured charities, and there was no NFL owners meetings for me last week as well, I’ve been off the beat a little bit. I used to run into this guy at several of these locations. Sometimes he had a guitar with him, with Doug Farrar, another rock and rollers. He hails from Joe Flacco, pronounced Joe Flacco down here and his hometown, he is somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. He was Joe Flacco geometry teacher at one point in high school up in Haddonfield, New Jersey and Audubon, as I know how to say it, at exit three, we welcome in a defending champion of all things football analytics, the run and shoot, the choke and puke offense, and now a draft captain, Mike tenier, is here. Um, how are you happy football season? I guess they’ll gather a quarter of a million strong for the NFL Draft here in a couple of weeks and they’ll paint Lambo up. I’m sure it’s football season, even though it feels like baseball. We’ve done a lot of baseball here. Mike, I’m happy to have you on. Tell me something good.
Mike Tanier 02:10
How are the Orioles doing? I have no idea. The Phillies are doing pretty well. How are the Orioles doing
Nestor Aparicio 02:13
sub 500 as I sit here right now, in need of pitching, in need of more consistent bats, in need of consistent defense and in search of bullpen help. Um,
Mike Tanier 02:25
8yeah, status quo. In other words, down there, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 02:29
early. It’s April. You know, I we had many years here where we didn’t really have baseball right, like, where you knew they couldn’t win. So anytime we have a new owner, you know, I’m still banned in the media. I’m writing a letter to Katie Griggs this week, which is absurd, but the football thing and the beat that goes on ravens are one of these stable places where they don’t have quarterback turmoil that they have in Pittsburgh. They don’t have who are they going to draft? Who are they going to get their draft in 27th they are hiding with their tails between their legs because they haven’t won the Super Bowl, and they’ve been a January disappointment, right? I mean, and Lamar didn’t even get the MVP this year, and he probably deserved it. But all of that sort of quells down, and then this Justin Tucker thing blows up, they go and sign their sixth offensive lineman that blew a double deuce on the on the on the meter with the DUI thing. They’ve had a really weird off season where they’re kind of hiding, but they’re really good. And guys like you that know football think that, you know, if you had $1 you’d better on them to win the Super Bowl, because they’re good at this. They are. They’re good at drafting, they’re good at all of this.
Mike Tanier 03:38
They’re good at all this. They’re good as a succession game. They’re good at taking care of promotions from within. They took care of their business with Ronnie Stanley. The Tucker thing is like, sort of a black mark on what they’re doing right now. But you’re right. They’re hiding. They’re hiding behind the NFL coattails on that they’ll probably grab some sort of late round kicker, etc. Yeah, this is a team that you when you do the analytics, they’re like, Well, this is one of the two or best, three best teams in the NFL come January. I’m going to be honest, I forget how the Ravens choke this year. I’m talking to you right now. I can’t bring up Mark
Nestor Aparicio 04:11
Andrews dropped the ball twice. And, yeah, you know. And that was I had, actually, I was up in Buffalo last week. I had dinner with the two young men that created a GoFundMe that raised $150,000 for diabetes based on the mark Andrews thing. And I, honestly, I’ve given more oxygen to mark Andrews since that moment, and he ducked out on the media. What’s left of the media in Buffalo hasn’t really been heard from since he had a little Instagram thing. But, you know, most of the Ravens news has been not such good news. And even signing Ronnie Stanley and what feels like a discount at this point, you know, I don’t know that that solves their offensive line issues or ailments, they’re still going to come back with a freight train running back and all world quarterback and offense. That got a lot done last year, and has weapons, a defense that has roquan Smith, Marlon, Humphrey, Kyle Hamilton, one of the, maybe the top 10 defensive players in the game, and an emerging player, you know. And they have this brain trust. They signed Pagano. They have all of this good stuff. But to your point, you’re running from your kicker being a serial predator, potentially, maybe those you you didn’t win. You didn’t win. You want Mike tenier to forget how you didn’t win, right? I mean, I was in Buffalo last week. They didn’t win either, right,
Mike Tanier 05:29
right? That’s fresh in my mind, because they find new ways. It just kind of felt like this is the Raven season. Here we come into the big game in the end, where they we lose. This time, it was Mark Andrews. In the past, it’s been other guys. That’s what happens. You’re right in terms of the hiding. I mean, I was there in the at the Combine when the GM goes up and gives a speech, and they kind of start with the Tucker thing. And it’s like we’re shutting the Tucker thing down. We are not going to give you anything except, well, this is the NFL investigation, and if you ask us again, we’ll tell you again. Sounds like they took the same approach down in the winter meetings. I was not there. Very solvable problem, in my opinion, you suspend them or you cut them very, very solvable, very simple, but they, they refuse to do that. That’s weird. No, you’re right. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 06:12
he’s going to kick again in the league. Mike, right. I mean, he’s going to kick again. He’s not done kicking. Yeah. And if he’s going to kick, why not kick for them? Well,
Mike Tanier 06:19
he’ll probably get put on the commissioner’s exemplist. That’s part of it. The problem. There’s a couple problems, and one of them is that we don’t know based on what we’ve heard so far, there might be more explosive allegations coming. There might be more explicit allegations coming, based on what we’ve heard so far, you have to think that that’s a problem. The Ravens were through this. The Ravens played this game 12 years ago with Ray Rice. Is that the direction that this direct, this team wants to go in with a kicker coming off an off season, an off year, where you can simply, they’re going
Nestor Aparicio 06:49
through it right now. We’re still sitting here talking about it eight weeks later, right? And that that’s the point that’s crazy, that if they wanted him to not be their kicker anymore, he wouldn’t be their kicker right now, right? Right? And they would make a public statement, say, after June, they would do whatever they do, the fact that they are, you know, they’re doing. Tammy Wynette here, George Jones, they’re standing by the man. You know, they really are, right,
Mike Tanier 07:12
right? Which, which is disturbing. Now, maybe it makes some football sense, or maybe this becomes a situation where they play, they play the game with this, and then in July or August, Goodell says, okay, 12, game, 15, game, indefinite, suspension, whatever, or and, you know, no one’s wishing for this to happen, but here come the details. Well, here comes a new allegation. Oh, this
Nestor Aparicio 07:30
is where the NFL investigation becomes a punchline. Mike, if he had it, I know stuff about the Tucker thing. I know stuff inside their building. I shouldn’t know. That’s terrible. That’s awful. I’ll say that out loud. And if the NFL investigators knocked on my door and said, Tell me what you know, I’d say, what are you going to do about it? If I told you anything really awful that happened, you’d hide it. That’s what you do. You’d lie about it. That’s what you do. That’s what the NFL every NFL investigation has ended with an oral report or some private thing didn’t see and we’re gonna hand down it Look over there. We find somebody like, I watch what they did. The guy. Watch what they’ve done to my career. I own a FCC license. I’m a media member. They’ve tried to portend that I’m not a media member anymore, or that somehow I did something to I mean, they’re sleazy people in a general sense, and the investigation part of whatever it is is a punch line. To me, it is a punch line.
Mike Tanier 08:26
There are sleazy people who often hand down for things like this, 12 game suspensions. Often hand down suspensions that that was what the Sean Watson got. So there’s sleazy people who will sometimes hand these things down. So you need a plan B either way. Now, granted the plan B can be whatever is kicker. It’s different. I just don’t know what they what they benefit from getting from this. And this is where I have to buy for Kate, me as a human being saying I don’t want to see this guy anymore. I don’t want to hear from him. I think it’s bad at a very human level. And somebody who you know works for FTN and works for Aaron shots and says, Okay, we plug in this level kicker for this team, and they’re going to win 13 games if they have him for those 13 games, if they, if they don’t have a suspension, and that’s where we have to balance this. Like, what are we talking about here, real life, or over, unders, you know?
Nestor Aparicio 09:10
Well, I mean, that would be the same case for the Sean Watson, or for any you know, they rinse their hands of Ray Rice right away. 12 years ago, they’ve been running Bucha. He’s been running from Ray Rice ever since he ran for me on the veranda this time last year at the owners meetings. And they don’t, they don’t want to take any of this on, which is why it’s so peculiar to me. And I keep saying, and I said to my wife two months ago, I’m like, he’s done. And I remember she looked at me, my wife looked at me, and she’s like, but he’s a really good kicker, yeah, and that’s always the he’s gonna kick again in the league for someone. And I’m thinking, if it’s them, why not us? You let him. Let him boo us. They booed us before. I if they were zero tolerance, they wouldn’t assign Ben Cleveland three weeks after he he got. He got arrested. You know what? I mean,
Mike Tanier 10:02
that’s orders of magnitude. And there’s a little bit of apples and oranges to that sort of thing. We have DUIs all over the league. It says something we match. This is something on the Deshaun Watson level of you’re going to bring in national scrutiny, you know? You’re going to bring in the people that Bisco doesn’t want to deal with. With Ray Rice, it was suddenly he’s out there facing questions from national media, from news media, you know, from CNN people, people are comfortable with you and Jameson and like sick people hanging around the center down
Nestor Aparicio 10:30
No, he didn’t like my questions. I assure you he did. You know, it’s a small group down there in Owings, but I’m the also the other one that ever bought tickets. I paid for my tickets, so I feel like I had a right to ask question. Mike denier is here. I ask him questions. He asked a lot of questions. Is this where it is when you’re in Philadelphia and you win a Super Bowl, you just forget what happened to everybody else along the way? You know, all the other pains. No, not necessarily. Remember
Mike Tanier 10:52
what happened to lions. I remember what happened to the Vikings. Remember what happened to the bills? It’s just that the ravens, it’s like, turned into this mush at this point, it’s like, okay, and then they they look like they were the team to be in the playoffs. And then something happened, and I just lost track of this, something this time.
Nestor Aparicio 11:07
Well, there you go. Yeah, there’s something. Is that they’re picking the pieces up from all of this from a much better position, um, evaluate the draft a little bit for me, and what we’re trying to do here, in a general sense, for the places that are trying to find quarterbacks and figuring out what’s going to happen the first hour of the draft, which is always the highest drama in a couple of weeks a month, the worst teams and how they get better. Well,
Mike Tanier 11:30
there’s that’s two different stories, because the evaluation of the draft is really good defensive draft, good at defensive tackle, good at your edge rusher positions, really good at corner, pretty good at safety, okay, at linebacker, all of that on offense is heavy in running backs and tight ends. So when you hear that, you say, well, who’s going to get drafted at the top? Because the top of the draft is usually quarterbacks, which this draft is very weak, and wide receivers, which this draft is extremely weak, in left tackles, which I don’t think there’s a really good one in the draft class, frankly. And then, yeah, the edges, the top edges and corners go in there. So you might see teams at the top doing the things that people are anticipating, reaching for chador Sanders. And chador Sanders is a reach if he goes in the top 10 100% reaching for wide receivers like tutorial McMillan, out of Arizona State, who would be a reach at that point, because these teams sort of instinctively, reflexively, wind up drafting for need. The smarter ones might try to draft to trade down. But who’s going to trade up? If they say, Well, if we stand where we are, we can get a Pro Bowl defensive tackle, Pro Bowl safety, if we stand where we are. So it’s going to be, is going to be high drama in those first 1011, picks, when these teams with the Giants jets put up or shut up mode, what are you going to do? Are you going to reach a quarterback? What are you going to do? And then we don’t know, because these teams are unpredictable by nature, because they’re bad teams that are always doing something crazy. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 12:47
the thing we do with the draft around here, especially in the Raven seed, is say, 2727 Yeah, could be anybody. And when they get to that point in the draft, they tend to trade, you know, because 27 and 38 didn’t feel all that different. They got players that they sort of ranked the same way that that is. That’s the thing about the Ravens off season, when they perform like this, and they’re a flop in January, and then they have really this sizzling thing going on with Tucker in the off season and where they are, the Stanley thing, and bolstering that doesn’t preclude them from taking their left tackle the future. There’s a lot of directions the Ravens can go in. And I know one thing, there’s, there’s no organization that does it the way they do it and the way they’ve had one system ever, and they’re in their 30th year right now. One system ever.
Mike Tanier 13:39
One system ever in their 30th year, and that makes it so when they go out there and say, What kind of edge rusher do we want? What kind of left tackle do we want? Everyone knows the answer. Scouting department, personnel department, horrible his assistants, they all know the answer, because the answer has been, hasn’t it’s changed. It changes over the years, but they all change together. So you don’t get these situations where you might get with the bears, where our scouts like, Well, wait, what does Ben Johnson one? We don’t know that. What? What is, what does Glenn want? The jet scouts might not necessarily have that communicated that’s to their advantage. You talk about a team that trades down, I think there’s going to be teams trading down at that level, because they say, well, there’s nobody here. We really want. Can we just get a pick next year? Even if we go down 10 spots, we’ll still get one of the guys on this tier. Um, if you’re looking for an offensive tackle of the future, there you’ve got guys you say, well, here’s a guy with the traits. I’m thinking of Josh Connolly out of Oregon. Here’s a guy with the traits. Probably isn’t ready. If you put him out there this year, he’s going to get beaten if you let him train behind Stanley, bulk up, learn more technique and be good. Those are the kind of things that ravers can do. And as you know, I think the Ravens have, like, four six round picks. They can play all kinds of goofy games. Oh
Nestor Aparicio 14:47
yeah, and move up too, right? I mean, if somebody’s at 21 that they feel like was in their top 10, they can, they can move up too. And I think from that perspective, they don’t do it often, but if they. Be a player in an acute need. And I often think like, Where are their acute needs? And it feels like wide receivers always something that I’m open minded to pass rusher is something that they haven’t been particularly great at, you know, acquiring and and, you know, the Terrell Suggs thing, not withstanding. They’ve tried on OA, they’ve tried on a variety of different sort of mid round linebacker types, but just finding a player or two. I mean, they grabbed Kyle Hamilton, who’s turned out to be sort of a generational player for them. I mean, they’re still very, very good at picking football players. They really are. They are and
Mike Tanier 15:37
doing the draft and develop game, putting the guy on the bench behind Stanley for a year, putting a guy behind somebody else for a year. And as you get down to like 1920 21 if you look at moving up it, there’s a possibility cornerback Maxwell Hairston, out of Kentucky, big, long guy, could probably start pretty quickly in the NFL. That’s kind of a need for him. He’s there. He probably wouldn’t be there by the time you get to 27 they need a safety across from Hamilton. There are guys I don’t know how long Xavier watts of Notre Dame stays in this draft class, but he could still be there. Nick emman Wari, who’s an absolute specimen out of South Carolina, looks like a looks like an edge rusher, plays like a safety. He could be there. There’s a guy you can team with Hamilton, and they could be doing all kinds of things. Those are the kind of guys I wouldn’t count on them being there at 27 but there’s somebody at 2223 you make the move for that because you can move up a couple slots based on the capital you have later in the draft well,
Nestor Aparicio 16:29
and also based on whether they love the kid or not, right? I mean, they have been famous for towing the line on where their value is, not what Mel Kuiper was doing, or what Joel Bucha was doing 30 years ago, or what anybody on the internet is doing. They have their system, and they have been quick to strike, and I don’t think anybody’s used the capital they have within the organization, and I mean sandwich picks by allowing players to go to market, inviting them to go sign and make as much money as they can in other places that they’ve backfilled a lot of mid round picks, whether it’s Mark Andrews, Orlando Brown, those kinds of picks that have wound up being really great value, third and fourth round draft picks. For them, those picks aren’t wasted in the 80 to 140 range. For them. No, they aren’t. I remember
Mike Tanier 17:20
a couple years ago they must have had like five or 6/3 round picks. I’m trying to think of the year. I don’t have it with with me. But like a lot of those guys, we picked in third fourth round supplemental are still in the roster. They’re starters. Um, I you probably have to go back to like, 2121 or 2022 but you’ll just see pick after pick after pick that they made in the third round. This one’s a little different, because they don’t have as much supplemental firepower, it’s more of a six round situation. You can still use those kind of picks to move up a pick, move up, you know, one or two slots, maybe package them with a third rounder, because you don’t have the need right now to fill out your whole roster. Have you found it? Have you found what I was Yeah. Well, Ben
Nestor Aparicio 17:57
Cleveland, Brandon Stevens and tylen Wallace all went between 94 and 131 they’ve all obviously made a nice history in the league. They had all of those fourth round picks couple years ago. Travis Jones, Daniel file, Lele Yes, armor Davis, Charlie Carr, Jordan, stout, Isaiah likely to Marion Williams, yes, they that was the 22 draft that that happened. 23 they didn’t have a lot of picks. They took zay flowers in that draft, and then, you know, last year still rose and garden got in right away. Nate Wiggins is a guy you mentioned, maybe getting another quarter, but they still have a whole like back line of players, you know, that that they like, depth, guys that they like, and they hide a little bit, right?
Mike Tanier 18:40
That’s it. That’s the way they they operate. And yeah, I’m looking last year they did have 2/4 rounders. They tend to be in that position. TJ, Tampa
Nestor Aparicio 18:47
got hurt. He’s a quarterback as well. Mike deneer is here. I want to reset. Mike, tell me what you’re doing these days, because everybody knows you in the analytics world, everybody knows you. To my pal, Aaron shots as well. What are you doing these days? Well,
Mike Tanier 19:00
it’s called the two deep zone. It is a sub stack. It is NFL content. For people who find regular NFL content a little boring. I like to think of as a Micro Distillery. You come here and you want to get your you want to get your charcoal barrel aged fine drinks, as opposed to just getting your, I don’t want to name a sponsor here or anything like that, your regular domestic drinks. You come to the two come to the too deep zone. What I’m working on, we’re in draft mode right now, and what I have is a project called the two deep 96 I’m going through the who I think are the first three rounds worth of prospects in this draft. I’m doing profiles of them. These aren’t scouting reports where I sit and talk about his footwork and his hand placement and whether his elbow goes here or here, and all that other goofy stuff that when I read a draft guide the second sentence, I just want to throw it away. Talk a little bit about the individual, talking about his college history, maybe if I know something about his his favorite video game or something that gets into play here, and we talk about my sense of where they should be as a prospect based on the fact that, yes, I do want. Tape. I do watch film. Yes, I do do a lot of stats. So, so too deep, 96 it’s ongoing every day. I put four or five new players up there, and you can find it at Mike tenier dot sub stack com.
Nestor Aparicio 20:09
I think the hardest part of the draft for me being an older person now I’m 56 I’ve attended 15 combines, I mean, more than anybody should. I have sat in war rooms and talked to all of these people that have dispersed through the league in regard to philosophy and x’s and o’s and Jimmy’s and Joe’s? I was introduced to your whole tree of people through Jim Schwartz when I got to meet Aaron shots, maybe 20 years ago, before the words analytics were even a thing in football, and I all of the analytics, all the measurables, and I talk so much about golf and baseball because masters week and watching baseball with spin rate, and all of what the Orioles try to do, the hardest part. And this goes back to before Eric the Costa started lying to me, way back when he told me the truth, which is, it’s an art form to some degree. And I think the one thing from the very, very beginning of time, and Mike, I say this from my heart, from 30 years ago. Oh, Phil Savage has been my friend for a long time. And, you know, and Phil, Phil and I have are still close. 30 years later, he was running the Jets 10 minutes ago, last I text with him, the Senior Bowl, the Reese Senior Bowl. Excuse me down there, Biloxi and and, and fair hope and, yeah, all that. Yeah. Mobile, mobile, yeah, so. But nonetheless, the notion that this franchise, my franchise, the ravens, not mine, Steve’s franchise walked away from Lawrence Phillips and drafted John Ogden. Yeah, Lawrence Phillips showed everything he needed to show on tape to be running back, right? There’s this part where the nerds like you look at the hips and the elbows and the measurables and the numbers and what he did. I think the bigger thing for all of these organizations now it’s getting security in, scrubbing their Instagram, looking at whatever they can do to figure out what they’re going to get in the building. And I think the Justin Tucker thing is a glaring spotlight for them, and on Royal farms chicken, by the way, who went out in front of Justin Tucker that all of the measurables and all that we see in Indianapolis and all of that, there’s definitely a part of this where nobody wants another Aaron Hernandez,
Mike Tanier 22:26
well, that’s absolutely true. And one of the things is, when you’re doing this, especially from a media standpoint, you don’t know, and you don’t know, and when you find think, you find out something, it could be a rumor. It could be something that has been blown out of proportion. It could be a one time thing on the individuals character sheet. So, you know, I have to work very much personally. Intangibles. Mike Green from Marshall said that he had two accusations of sexual misconduct against him, one in high school, one in college. According to him, they were, they’ve never been tried. They’ve never been there’s never been an actual, you know, arrest made anything like that. Those are the facts. I can put them out there, but I can’t say, well, be, you know, obviously he’s this or that we, we can’t do that. Or
Nestor Aparicio 23:11
say the bears are willing to overlook that in the third round, but not the second round, right, right? Because Phil would always tell me there were red flags. There were, you know, purple stars that they put on players, and then there were just sort of the black mark to say, we’re not taking that kid. We’re just not bringing that kid into our building. And you know, the Ravens have brought in some delinquent humans over the course of time, some before, during and after in the zero tolerance policy. I mean, they decide the guy who’s been a complete flop on the field who got a DUI, and they went and gave a bunch of money to say, we need to keep you around, because we lost our other, you know, our other six man signed elsewhere, somebody who gave more money in Jacksonville,
Mike Tanier 23:52
and like, a DUI is an example of it. I can’t remember the young man’s name, but there’s one with a DUI in there, and it’s about it was a DUI at 18 or 19 there. But for the grace of God, go I, or a lot of other people. So how do you evaluate that? So they do these other things, where they go in and they try to investigate the player, and then, you know, whatever they decide, they decide this, that’s a black box that we don’t see into. I do try to look at
Nestor Aparicio 24:16
these players. Nobody wanted Randy Moss. He was a pain in the ass. He went to the Hall of Fame. And what
Mike Tanier 24:20
happens if it’s like, Well, what we found out is that this kid argues with his coach a bunch of times. It’s like, well, maybe his coach is an idiot, or maybe, you know, or maybe the kid really is just like, incorrigible in a certain way. Or five
Nestor Aparicio 24:31
minutes before the draft, they they show a kid with a gas mask on get to do a bong hit. Then now everybody’s on gummies in the league, right and right, right, right. I mean, and
Mike Tanier 24:40
a couple years later, it’s all legal, and I could be doing bond hits after I get off here, and no one’s going to
Nestor Aparicio 24:44
say, and he might be going to the Hall of Fame Tunsil, who knows, right, right, right. But
Mike Tanier 24:48
like, you know, we got one like the I also try to look at things, because you talk about, we get to myopic if we’re looking at stats and EPA and elbows and knees and wrists and things, because I think
Nestor Aparicio 24:59
the team. Don’t they like all of that. But I do think there’s an intangible part of who the human being is that is really everything when you manage humans at the end of the day,
Mike Tanier 25:08
right? And we can also look at things like, okay, Missouri wide receiver Luther Burton, who has a pretty good on field record, looks like a really good on field player. Great Yak, great potential. He had, like, I don’t know how many unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. There’s situations where you see him having an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and kind of like, drawing with his coach and then on the sidelines doing this afterwards. And it’s like, well, I have to put that in the profile. I’m not going to say, Well, you shouldn’t be in the NFL or this side or the other thing. But if I’m talking to you about who is Luther burden and what kind of ball player he is, and all I do is talk about Yak, and I don’t talk about him like showing up his quarterback when he didn’t get the ball, and the silence, that’s an important thing. There’s another one, Shamar Turner out of Texas, A and M, I think it is, defensive lineman. A bunch of personal fails, a bunch of spearing penalties, roughing penalties. Got into a fight before the game at one point, this is part of who the kid is. The NFL knows this, okay, and they’re making their decisions. And some coach might be like, Hey, he’s tough. I like him. And another coach might be saying, I’m worried this kid has no idea when the whistle blows.
Nestor Aparicio 26:12
I had an hour long conversation when the Ravens dealt for Terrell Owens, who was in the league and was a special we all know it’s real long. It’s Hall of Famer, and I remember having this pacing conversation with Billick on the phone where he was telling me, we’re going to absorb him. We’ve got Ray we’ve got Dion, we’ve got we’re going to absorb him. He couldn’t by and by the time I get off the phone, he had already shat upon Ozzy Newsome and figured out how to get out of you. Remember that fiasco with the Eagles and all that. I
Mike Tanier 26:42
remember the Eagles. I don’t remember Yazzie knew someone,
Nestor Aparicio 26:45
oh yeah, when the whole thing went down, remember he’s the trade, yeah. Oh, right. He Right, exactly. And not going back 22 years now, 21 years, whatever it was, and all I can remember is how giddy Billick was, because he thought we could fix him. Because every coach thinks they can fix these guys. They do right and,
Mike Tanier 27:04
you know, sometimes the right answer is, you know, you’re Dan Campbell, I can do this. You’re going to try. Okay, have a plan. Sometimes you have no plans. Sometimes you’re the jets or the browns, and they’re just like, well, it’ll solve itself. Or, you know, I’m such a great leader of men because I was an offensive coordinator for one year, you know, like you’re not. So maybe you say we’re going to pass on these guys. There’s no one right answer, because each of these guys is uniquely different. You don’t know what they’re going to be like when they get money. You don’t know what they’re going to be like when they get better coaching. You don’t know what they’re going to be like when they have a baby. You don’t know some of these things in to his case, it’s also, well, it’s worth a try, because look at the guy, right? That’s what every coach would say, right, right? And for some teams, the answer was, for the Eagles for one year, it was worth a try, then another year, it wasn’t. For the Cowboys for a year, it was worth a try. You have to ask yourself, Okay, Luther burden, he ain’t to okay, but he’s also not, you know, out there he’s, he’s accused of being a pain in the ass on the field, not like crime. So, so what? Most
Nestor Aparicio 27:59
wide receivers in the league are accused of being a pain in the ass. Right over this
Mike Tanier 28:04
is a bigger pain in the ass than anybody, and he’s getting older, and the Patriots put a bunch of money in front of him and like, oh, Fra Bull’s going to keep him under control. Izzy, is he though, or is it or are we going to get another hamstring injury that lasts six months? What are we going to see here? Hey, the
Nestor Aparicio 28:17
Ravens gave $15 million to washed up wide receiver to make the quarterback happy a couple years ago because he had his posters on
Mike Tanier 28:23
the wall. Mike, you just did it again with DeAndre Hopkins. So Correct,
Nestor Aparicio 28:27
yeah. I mean, it is something. Mike tenier is here. He is the run and shoot gangster. He is Tell everybody where to find you, how to subscribe. Give me the whole lowdown, because nobody knows football like you and your crew do. Really you
Mike Tanier 28:39
want to subscribe. First of all, you can go to any of the links on my blue sky. You can find me on blue sky now at Mike tenier, or you can go to Mike tener dot sub stack.com, or just Google all that stuff. You will find me very easy. Subscribing. You become a free subscriber. You get a big chunk of it. A paid subscription, $8 a month. You get the whole thing, and you’ll get pre draft coverage. Post draft you’ll get draft grades. The way I do draft grades, we have a historical series right now. You can find out the all time top five quarterbacks on just about every team. I just did the Rams today, because I’m tired of drafts, so I talked about the Rams. All time top five quarterbacks. And you can go find all these. Kurt Warner, number one. Kurt Warner, who’s John Hale. No, he didn’t quite crack the top 10.
Nestor Aparicio 29:24
Well, I know Pat Hayden and go Vince Ferragamo aren’t going to be no, no, these
Mike Tanier 29:29
are good choices. Oh, Roman Gabriel, how about that? Oh, Roman Gabriel, of course. How about that? Matthew Stafford, who led the team in the Super Bowl three years ago, he’s got to make that list.
Nestor Aparicio 29:36
I’m so confused with this, the old rams and the Fred dryer and the new rams, and did Saint Louis Rams, and now the old rams are the new rams, and they’ve gone back and they actually won. I witnessed them winning the Super Bowl in their own stadium, let alone, right? There’s,
Mike Tanier 29:50
that’s the thing, there’s so many rams, because, yeah, you have those 70s teams, and then you have the greatest show teams, which are St Louis, and then you have the modern team. Well, I wrote about 1000 words. Like the 1950s rams, because I was writing about Bob Waterson and Norman van Brocklin sex lives.
Nestor Aparicio 30:04
Nice. There you go, man. You know that’s these guys. That’s the way you do real NFL history, real pro football history. Mike tenier on my run and shoot gangster and one time math teacher to Joe Flacco. Flacco did the show a couple he he’s going to play again. He said to me, he’s he’s never going to retire, right? Mike,
Mike Tanier 30:25
well, he was almost there. He was quasi retired when the bear the Browns pulled him out and he played well enough last year for the Colts to continue this mentoring. So so we’ll see when his kids get a little older, when his kids get a little older, I have a funny feeling he’s going to want to be there a little bit more, but why stop now?
Nestor Aparicio 30:43
He moved him out to Indianapolis at the time of their lives. He sat here and told me all about it glowing. He’s just having one big party through life, playing football, you know, and he doesn’t like anything else. He’s not interested in anything else. That’s why he wants to play football. So God bless him.
Mike Tanier 30:58
I can’t imagine moving from beautiful South Jersey out to Indianapolis and loving it. But hey, he might have found the perfect neighborhood out there. You
Nestor Aparicio 31:05
know, when they came and stole our football team 40 years ago, we used to say that’s a friendly heart of the Midwest out there in Indianapolis, friendly Indianapolis. Mike tenier, I used to run into him in the little hobbit trails on five degree mornings in Indianapolis, out at the underwear Olympics. He is arresting comfortably somewhere up in the swamps of Jersey getting ready for all things NFL Draft. We’re going to try to keep you informed of all things. The liars luncheon is the 15th Luke will be out in Owings Mills for that they don’t around. Allow me around anymore, because I don’t like liars. It is a baseball season around here. Have a dear Katie Griggs letter going out this week. And we have been trying to uphold democracy. No one trying harder than my friend Mike tenier, who’s out on the front lines against,
Mike Tanier 31:49
I guess, evil. Let’s call
Nestor Aparicio 31:51
it evil, just evil. I just leave it at that. Mike, keep up the good. Work out there. I will be following you on social media, and at some point, you and I should convene at the man theater up on the hill in Philadelphia for some proper rock and roll this summer. If I’m, I think I’m going to make an invitation to you for that, for something we got to figure something we can agree
Mike Tanier 32:09
on. We got to figure something out. You know, all the acts we really, really love are getting a little older. They’re going from the man to like Atlantic City and places like that. We got to find something. Could
Nestor Aparicio 32:19
take you up to the Keswick to see the fix last night. But that’s another story altogether. We’re at the fix. Yeah, it was pretty good. I’ve never been to the Keswick then I saw was a movie theater, and I’m like, I’m gonna see him a Wolf Trap next week. Rock and roll. Soon, you and me. Mike tenier, up in Philadelphia crowing about the Eagles of big victory up there on the Jersey side. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S D. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
