In This episode, Taylor talks about the Chicago Bears trading the number one overall pick in the NFL draft to the Carolina Panthers for a haul of picks and DJ Moore. Talks about the ramifications for both the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers as well as the Houston Texans. He also discusses the Miami Dolphins trading for Jalen Ramsey and what that means for Dolphins defense
In This episode, Taylor talks about the Chicago Bears trading the number one overall pick in the NFL draft to the Carolina Panthers for a haul of picks and DJ Moore. Talks about the ramifications for both the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers as well as the Houston Texans. He also discusses the Miami Dolphins trading for Jalen Ramsey and what that means for Dolphins defense
Taylor: What's up, everybody? It's the Roundtable Sports Podcast coming to you on a Monday what's turning into afternoon, and we're busting in into the legal tampering period. And we're going to start hearing numbers and players going to different free agents situations any minute now. That's why you're seeing so much of the resignings, the restructures and any last minute trades. You're kind of seeing that now before the flurry of free agent moves take place, where everybody's getting themselves in position and everyone has a plan. And I'm sure there's actually been some things decided as far as where these players are going to go already because unlike Lamar Jackson, most of these players have agents and they've been talking and have a pretty decent idea probably already on what they can do here with their clients. But regardless, we'll start to see that information come in any moment, I feel like. So I thought it was important to go through two pieces of news that came in that one's bigger than the other, no doubt, but I think they're both due some time and we'll have way too much to go through when free agency comes in. So I think it's important to go through these things now, especially the first one. The second one, spoiler alert, being Jalen Ramsay being traded to the Dolphins. So we'll go through that and my feelings about that trade because I definitely saw a bunch of Jalen Ramsay this year and can kind of relay what I saw there. But the bigger thing I thought was that the Carolina Panthers traded a good size haul to the Chicago Bears to move up from nine to the number one overall pick. The haul for the Bears ends up being a first round pick this year, the 61st pick in this year's draft as well a first round pick next year, a second round pick in 2025, and DJ Moore, who has played well for multiple different quarterbacks and had a more up and down year last year with the quarterback situation. Especially when Baker Mayfield was the quarterback and couldn't really work the ball deep. So a pretty sizable haul for Bears fans. I haven't seen a big cat's reaction or gone to anyone with the Bears, but I got to think that they're very happy about this. DJ Moore, as it turns out, has a $21 million cap number this year and would be a sizable dead cap figure if he was cut this year. But next year it would only be one of his $16 million guaranteed and then zero of his 16 in the following year. So if this for whatever reason didn't work out, the Bears really aren't on the hook for much as far as the contract goes, but an interesting haul for sure, especially when they're still probably going to get somebody pretty good at number nine. And then without these picks and without DJ Moore and without Christian McCaffrey, I have to think that the pick next year as well could end up being good for them and possibly top ten. When you look at their roster in comparison to other rosters on the Bear side of it, we've been seeing that they were probably going to trade this pick from the very beginning. There was some talk that the Bears should trade Justin Fields. And that made me sick to my stomach, because I think that Justin Fields, just from what we've seen from him last year and even the year before, I think he would be a better prospect right now than the other two guys that are considered the top two guys in this draft. In Bryce Young and CJ Stroud. You do get some extra years of control with the draft pick, but I think you're going backwards when you have somebody of Justin's Ilk that has the physical tools that he has, you want to give him a chance to try and figure this out and restarting the process. Doesn't really make a lot of sense to the point where the draft pundits were all trading the pick before actually trying to go through. Not all of them, but even Mel Kiper and Todd McSHAY didn't go through the exercise of saying, okay, I know this isn't how it's going to go. Let's draft Willie Anderson to the Bears and then do the rest of the mock draft. Even Mel, who's a little bit more steadfast when it comes to the trades and everything, had this trade going down. Maybe not this one. There was some speculation with the Colts. It was popular to move the Texans down one so they could get the guy that they actually wanted. Maybe they wouldn't have given up such a price, but you got to think there had to be a first round pick involved for the Texans. So I think that most Texans fans are probably okay with getting the second guy and not giving up pick number twelve or even their next year's pick. This roster is okay and two, worst team and everything, but they have decent pieces. I still don't know that they're a quarterback away, though, from being like a playoff team or being somewhere where they're not going to need that pick. So they certainly have some talent they need to draft onto the team even though they've been doing a better job of it, and hopefully Derek Stingley can stay healthy and anchor the defense and they can kind of go from there. But with the pundits all being on board with the trade, we kind of knew something like this was going to happen. I kind of thought it would be the Colts, especially before Javon Carter got arrested or, well, whatever, turn himself into the police, whatever happened there. When there was a clear top four, I thought if they could get, like an extra first round pick out of the Colts, move back and still get one of Willie Anderson or Javon Carter. I thought that made the most sense. Now that that's a little bit more up in the air, and you can get this haul from the Panthers, who, like I said, haven't been the most stable organization and would be a team that I would want to control their draft. They won't control it for long, but they still get a pretty sizable haul here on top of getting DJ Moore, who they desperately needed wide receivers for Justin Fields, and now they don't have to worry about what is a pretty poor wide receiver class. They can trade for DJ Moore here and kind of make it a two birds with 1 st instead of giving up a second round pick win. You've also got a lot of holes to fill. You could have given up a second for DeAndre Hopkins. He's older. He's not as much on Justin's timeline, even though DJ Moore isn't exactly a spring chicken like Justin is. So you're saving some draft capital there. You've got the numbers, you have 21 for this season is a lot, but you've also got Justin on a rookie deal and you've got a ton of money that you were going to have to spend in free agency anyway. So you knock out a bunch of different things here with that and then you got a full off season to work Claypool in, along with Cole Kamet, and then you've got DJ Moore to throw over the top of that. I think that puts everybody in more appropriate roles. And while Justin hasn't shown to be a savant in the pocket yet, he can absolutely work the ball over the top on deep balls. That's not a problem. So that'll fit well with DJ Moore and then I believe that DJ will be able to create a lot more separation than the guys they were trotting out there last year. The receiving core was pretty bare, and as much as I might like Mooney, he's ill suited to be like a number one. Number one because he can't beat every type of coverage because of his size. So that leads to some inconsistency and now he doesn't have to worry about as much of those possessions. And then Beales Jones can operate as the four. It just slots everybody appropriately in their role, I believe, and I think they can do a lot more than what they were able to accomplish last year. Now they still have a long way to go on the offensive line, but now they've got a lot of ammunition to take shots on that and get better. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see them go with a tackle at number nine, and then they've got additional capital to be able to go and deal with that later on in the draft as well, and then in the next coming years, too. So that's where I would want to see them focus for their salary cap efforts for Justin Fields. Maybe they re signed David Montgomery. Maybe they get even better at the position they have Kalil Herbert, who I like a lot, but I'd like to have them have somebody else in that mix as well that would really sure things up because they've got a lot of other things put together. They really need a lot of help on that offensive line. We haven't really seen what Justin can do when given full pockets to be able to read the field yet. We've just seen him kind of either running for his life or pulling the ball and running when there's nobody getting a whole lot of separation for him. So this trade should knock a lot of that out and should really help him even if they go defense. They need a lot of help on defense, too, after trading away a lot of that. And I got to think that's where some of the free agent money is going to go with the Bears. But still, I think the priority is getting Justin upright so that he can develop the skills to be a complete quarterback overall, because we've seen what he can do running the ball. Now we need to see what happens when he gets corralled. He needs to be able to make a defense pay for that, too, with throwing the ball over the top and throwing accurately from within the pocket. There's a lot of footwork that goes into that that I think Justin needs to work on, and that will just come with time. And working with the staff they have there is top notch, I believe. So I think that's something that's going to come along, but that's the big thing is the accuracy portion of it. But once again, he was throwing into a lot of tight windows when he had to throw last year because it just wasn't a lot of separation, because they just needed to get him some guys, and they've worked on that, giving up a top second rounder that they've kind of recouped. Not really 61, but still, they've gotten Claypool in there, they've gotten DJ more in there. That should put everybody a little bit more into their appropriate roles. And they didn't have a first last year either to try and retrofit around Justin. They had to kind of eat some of their old cat mistakes, which is something you have to do unless you're the Saints, which I believe, as I said in the last podcast, that Bill will come due at some point. So good for Chicago. It may not be the full Herschel Walker, but I think it was as good as you were going to do and stay in the top ten. Unless the Colts were going to overpay and without Javon being the deadpan number four, then I don't know if it was worth it for them to stick around for that or to take less from the Texans. Although if you hear a lot of the things you could trade it back multiple times. That doesn't usually work. Usually there's one trade up and then that's it. Unless there's a second team at number two who also is able to make a leverage play. And I don't believe the Texans are going to do that. I think they're going to take whoever is the second guy, but that's out of their hands now. What the Panthers have done is they firmly put that in their own hands. They've taken their destiny by the balls and now they're going to be able to call their shot. They paid a pretty penny to be able to do that, right? But I believe that's something that you have to do in the NFL. You have to take shots at these young guys and you have to kind of cross your fingers because there's a big track record of these first round guys going off the rails. But you just have to take shots at it. And then hopefully you don't have to go through the rebuild process again because it's really scary to build without having the guy. You don't really know what you're building towards. You're just kind of wandering around. The most useful metaphor that I could have for that is you're wandering around in the woods and you can't really see the clearing because of all the trees, because you're just kind of wandering and there's no telling how. Long you might wander until you're out of the woods and you're actually building with a clear direction and it can turn on a dime. You can sign Kyler Murray to a huge deal. He could have troubles and underperform, and then he gets hurt and your whole season is in jeopardy and everything, and you got him to this huge contract and you don't really know what's going to happen from here. It can just turn on a dime from there. I expect the Cardinals to go with Billy Anderson after the two quarterbacks would be my guess on that part. Not to spoil my thoughts for the mock draft challenge where me and the fellow members of the round table will go in and pick all the different picks that we think will happen. And then based on the scoring system, someone will lose and take a pie to the face at the next pie party. And then the winner, of course, will collect. I believe it's going to be 40 or $50 maybe this year. We'll see what everybody agrees to. But anyway, now we have a better sense, at least, of who it's going to be when we go to that mock draft challenge. Still a lot of time between now and the draft for Carolina to choose who they're going to go with. As I mentioned, it's going to be kind of tough because they don't have a whole lot of playmakers on the offense after trading away Christian McCaffrey and now DJ moore, and they could have traded away more. They don't have a first round pick anymore, but they do still have a second rounder. They'll have 39, 93, 114, 132, 145. So still five picks in that draft. They'll still have their second rounder next year, so they won't know first, but they have some trade assets there as well. So while I think they'll be able to replenish some of this, it's still pretty bleak when the Dante form in Cuba Hubbard combo is kind of your top end. Terrence Marshall Jr. Shy Smith and Leviska Chanel, along with Ian Thomas. Make up your skill position. Players I might like Ika Kwano and Taylor Mutton as the ends, but the middle leaves a lot to be desired as far as this line goes. So there's still a lot to do on this offense for whoever they draft and I think it's going to be a pretty serious retooling here. But to my point about all of that, it's something that they needed to do and to quit spinning their wheels with guys and retreads like Sam Darnold. You just have to take these shots at these guys and hope they develop into a franchise quarterback. The two guys that are being considered mostly are Bryce Young and CJ. Straud. Mel Kuiper likes Will Levis, which is fine. He has a big arm and is more prototypical foregone era of the pocket passer. And then there's a lot of people that like the measurables, like the big plays, like the highlights of Anthony Richardson, but he's still pretty far behind as far as his processing and reading of the field. So in my mind it's Bryce Young. It's CJ. Stroud, and I think that I'd probably go for Bryce Young first, just from a feel for the game standpoint. Makes a lot of big throws despite his size, very quick, very good about moving around the pocket and being elusive when he runs and then making really big anticipatory throws down the field that I saw. I mean, it is Alabama, but they didn't have the same wide receiver talent that they had in years past and he really made something happen with that. So that's probably who I would have. But I did see a report where the Carolina Panthers, the speculation around the league is that they traded up for CJ. Straud and that would be a play more towards having prototypical size with CJ. Stroud being six three and Bryce Young coming in measuring at 510, like £204, which puts him more at a Kyler Murray height, and CJ. Is just a little bit taller than Patrick Mahomes, it would seem with his measurements. CJ. Is a little bit more stiff and doesn't have quite the same feel for the game that Bryce Young has, but is more prototypical with the size. He has plenty of arm strength to zip the ball down the field and did plenty of that in college. The thing was with him, he stood in the pocket more and wasn't really running the ball as much, even though it seemed like he had plenty of speed and plenty of ability to move and we just never got to see it. So it was kind of a beef that everybody had that, hey, are you going to be able to do this when you're going to have to be moving around a lot more when your first round pick lineman that you have at Ohio State are dominating in a way that your NFL line is not going to be able to dominate and keep you clean or you can be able to run. He did that more in his last game and it was cool to see it and it seemed to really kind of complete things. So if you believe that's who he can be, then it makes a lot of sense that that's who you would choose. I get that for the Panthers and good news for Frank Wright. He doesn't have to go through this process again with Sam Darnold or with Philip Rivers or Carson Wentz or all these different guys that they tried to get it done with, with Frank Wright and could have got it done. Now it's going to be on him to develop CJ. Straud, and I think that gives him a lot more leeway to not be very good up front and try to get things going in the right direction. At least they still have some pieces on the defensive side. I like Brian Burns a lot, even though it probably would have been good to get two first round picks for him if you're going to be this bad. Derek Brown like him too. Gross. Mattos Ionitis, they're solid across the front. Jack Thomas, JC. Horn, I don't know that he's as good as what Patrick Sartan is, so that may be a miss a little bit, but he's not a complete miss either. Anything to keep CJ Henderson off the field because he is a complete whiff and is horrible, so I would not want to see him on the field. And he gets picked on pretty regularly when that happens, so at least there are pieces here and I definitely got better as the year went on. Ika Kwanu so if you have your left tackle there, that's something to build on. And then Taylor Mutant, they restructured his contract, so he's going to be there, and that gives you book ins to kind of move things around to trying to work with and at least try and keep CJ. Upright so that he can develop good habits and grow as a quarterback in a year where he's definitely going to struggle, because all rookie quarterbacks tend to struggle. But I think CJ has a lot to offer, but I think Bryce does too. I think they both have equal chance to be good quarterbacks. They're both kind of like coin flips, like if Kenny Pickett was a 40 60 shot to be a plus starter and like Joe Burrow was like 80 20. Then I would put CJ. Stroud and Bryce Young at 60 40 or a 50 50 better chance. I like him a lot more than Kenny Pickett where I thought Kenny went at an appropriate place and I do like him a lot. Maybe not as a super elite guy, but as a competent guy that may be more than a game manager. I could be very into that for the Steelers, but I think CJ. Stroud and Bryce Young have a better chance. I don't think they're Joe Burrow. I don't think they're generational guys. They could develop into that, but they have the ability to be on that tier if they go through a ton of development. Joey B had it right out of the gate. These guys are going to have a little longer way to go, but I think they definitely have something to like they have the physical skills. It's just going to be a question of can they adjust? And for Bryce, can he stay healthy and can he avoid big hits and can he see over the line to be able to work all the different parts of the field? He had a huge line in Alabama. It didn't seem to be a problem. I was watching that pretty intently to say, okay, does he have the same thing? Because Kyler has a problem. Kyler has a problem working it over the middle. You look at his throat charts and his successful throws are at the corners where he can see and that's why DeAndre Hopkins is so good for him. And I think they're going to trade him. Hopefully they get more than a second. Maybe they will, maybe they won't because of the contract. But I digress that's. The big thing with Bryce, the size, he doesn't look like he has very broad shoulders either. So it's just an overall aesthetic thing for is it going to transfer? Is he going to be able to stay healthy? Because durability is a skill. Make no bones about it. If you can't stay healthy and be on the field, then it's no good. It's all paper. It's kind of like we talked about with Michael Thomas. It sounds great, but it's all paper until he's on the field proving that he can do it. You know what I mean? This isn't madden where you can turn the injuries off and just play with your guys. That's great. I used to do that sometimes. But it's not the way the NFL works. And you can also be out there and lose a step. And just because your name is Darrell Reevis, then it doesn't mean that that's the way things are going to go. Because there are young guys getting funneled into this league all the time and we're going to see a ton of them get funneled in here with the NFL draft. And those guys, if they catch up to you, that's a problem, especially on the outside. And it can happen up the middle, too, with losing strength and you lose your back or something with those guys, or knee or something. And that can end. And the same can be said for quarterback. I mean, in all of them, quarterback stopped being willing to take big hits and stand in the pocket to get the playoff, and that can have a really big trailing off effect, too. That's another one of my beasts with Derek Carr. It's the same thing that happened with Big Ben. Big Ben used to stand in that pocket and was unflappable, and you couldn't take him down. He would stand in there and get that little extra time for his wide receiver, and he'd get the ball off, and then the defense will be left scrambling. And that's part of what made his quarterback equation make sense. And then when he wasn't doing that, it stopped making sense and he stopped being a plus quarterback for Bryce. That'll be like what I'm saying, with throwing it over the top and making the adjustments as far as the throws. And can he be as dynamic as he was at Alabama, reading the field and making big plays down the field? Will that translate? Will he be able to do that when everybody gets a little bigger and faster? Same thing with CJ. Will that last game transfer? Will he be able to run? He's a little bit more stiff, so can he increase his feel for the game? That's what I'll be looking for when it comes to him for next year. It'll just be interesting to see if that's with the Panthers or with the Texans, because kind of seems like that's locked in now to me. Maybe the Texans trade out now because the Panthers aren't going anywhere. Those posts about, well, the Panthers could get this, this and this now that's bullcraft. So now it'll be the Texans saying, okay, once the Panthers come out with their decision, because there's no real reason for them not to. I think we'll know sometime before that who they're going to take. But no, that I think that's usually how it goes down, when someone knows they're going to make the pick. We knew it was going to be Joe Burrow, and then it kind of opens things up, maybe just the ten to 15 minutes right before that that they have while they're on the clock. Maybe it's five. I can't remember what it is for the first round these days, but still they'll make that move if they need to. But I think they'll take the quarterback. You have to take shots at guys, like I said, and you can't count on being right up there in a position to draft these guys. Because had this been next year and it's the Bears again, had this been next year and say the Colts miss out on a quarterback and pick Willie Anderson or something and it's next year and they're the number one pick. They're not trading that pick for any number of first round picks. They're going to pick Caleb Williams because he's supposed to be one of those guys. You can kind of see it when he's throwing in this last year when he was healthy and one banged up in his legs, that he was really good and dynamic. So if you're not number one next year, you're not getting that guy, and you may be left out and you're counting on things that I don't think you can count on. So I expect the Texans to go ahead and pull the trigger there. Even with a defensive head coach, I just can't imagine going out there with the second year of Davis Mills and thinking that's going to be okay, or any of the retreads, really. I mean, all the retread quarterbacks don't really look all that advertising. Maybe you talk yourself into Jimmy G. There is some Casserole connection there. I'll be honest, texas fans have been on that, but I just don't see that being the way I think you have to go for it. Speaking of going for it, the Dolphins are going for it. They've got to still at a low number. They picked up his fifth year option as well, so that is out of the consciousness. They're going with Tua. Hopefully he can stay on the field. And they also added to their mix here, bringing on Jalen Ramsay. Now, they had previously cut Byron Jones, so they had an opening there, and Byron hadn't really lived up to the contract he signed when he left the Cowboys. But that happens, and that's one of the dangers of free agency. So when your team wins free agency here coming up, that may or may not be something to get super excited about, but now they have a guy that I think can actually fill the role of number one cornerback for the Miami Dolphins. Now that I don't think that Xavian Howard is at his absolute prime. Like, he was a Jay Lee Ramsay type, number one guy at his prime, but I still think he's really good, so he can be the step into the number two. Now that you have Ramsay, you ended up getting him for a third round pick and a tight end, hunter Long, who I actually hadn't heard of at this point. So the 77th overall pick and Hunter Long, this gets you a guy that I still thought looked like one of the best, if not the best, corner in the league. He's not a speed guy. He's a physical guy, no doubt, but still has maintained his speed to the point where he's able to still cover pretty much all the different guys you would want to throw at him. And then he's big enough where you can play him inside, too, so he's not bound to just the outside cornerbacks. You could put him on a tight end. You could put. Him on Travis Kelsey and try and get the best results. Now that hasn't always worked out for sure and Travis still got his against Jalen, but still it gives you your best opportunity and gives you a lot of flexibility as far as what you can do with Jalen because he is such a big guy and he is so physical that he's able to make those big tackles and big hits and everything. That was one of the big questions about him going into the draft was, is he actually a cornerback or is he a safety, how are you going to use him? And he's taken all those concerns and flush them all right down the toilet. And the good news is for Dolphins fans is that you can still absolutely see that when you watch him play. The Rams might have had a down year that is undisputable, but you could really see jailing out there still playing hard all the way to getting baited into a late hit on Gino Smith at the end, where Gino kind of barely steps out, but yet is out and kind of lets Jalen run into him. It was a whole thing, but still, it was an interesting situation. But to my point, Jalen was playing hard and still making plays, made two picks in that game and I think adds a dynamic element to this defense, too, that didn't have it as much last year. Like they had a really solid defense across the defensive front and then Xavian was good not so much on the Byron Jones side of it and then the safeties are fine but it was mainly the front that had everything going, and they traded for Bradley Chubb, who was okay. But still, it was the fact that they were solid all the way across when they had Ogba. Especially now. Of course, it'll still be on Tua to stay healthy during the season after the head injuries, which were horrific in that they happen so closely behind, but weren't that crazy as far as when they happen. It didn't look okay. The one looked that bad, but with the fingers and stuff. But the other ones, it didn't seem like they were that big hits, but the point being that he didn't take monster stupid blows and still got hurt. So that's definitely something to look out for. But when he was right, they were really ginning. And now they have another season to kind of retrofit everything while they're still figuring out if Tua is for sure, for sure the guy. If he can be that guy and stay healthy like you did for that one stretch, then I could definitely see it because he looked good. He was making leads and doing some advanced quarterback stuff that he hadn't done before. Now, it's still a long way to go with that, but I think it's something that I want to explore further and clearly the Dolphins do as well. One final note, they had said that Jalen got his salaries guaranteed. It's not reflecting that on spot track, but he does have three seasons left here at those aren't crazy numbers when it comes to what some of the cap figures are going to be for Jalen for the for the Dolphins, but it's also not reflected as far as the guarantees go. I thought I had heard that they had guaranteed a second season here. Maybe it was just that this year's salary is guaranteed, but it's not even reading that way for spot track, which is usually pretty on that stuff. So we'll reserve that judgment there for another time while we're recording. As I discussed, there's going to be some stuff coming up. Bears have signed TJ. Edwards. Ben Powers signed with the Broncos already. Johnny Smith just got traded to the Falcon. So we're about to have information coming in hard and heavy as this goes along. The Raiders are expected to be in on Jimmy G. That makes a lot of sense for them as a stop gap going forward. I thought this one was interesting. Austin Eckler is requesting to seek a trade after contracts with extension with the charges have fallen through. That would be interesting to see what they do with him. He's very needed there, though, so I bet that is a contract ploy because they're doing contract extensions. He's not hearing what he wants to hear there, so a lot is going to be on the table. So I'm glad we got to this now. I know it's a little shorter, but I just wanted to get to this before we had all of this stuff come in. Clays Campbell got released. I think that was partially expected, but like I said, I knew all this would be coming in. My God. Chris Lindstrom, five year, $105,000,000 extension. He's a pro bowler. But man, there's a lot going on here. Another restructure for the saints. My God. All right, so we'll get to that. And I'm going to do a pod later this week once we've got more information on the rest of this. But I wanted to give the Panthers their due, and I guess the Dolphins kind of a small due there. Appreciate your time. Should have more coming up this week videowise and like I said, newswise with the podcast to look forward to that. Appreciate your time today. Have a great rest of your day. You.