An Idiot's GUIDE to the 2026 NFL Draft
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2026
⏱️ 68 minutes
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Summary
We didn't say Robert Mays is an idiot. He said it himself! At least when it comes to the NFL Draft class at this stage of the calendar. Dane Brugler and Dave Helman help bring him up to speed on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
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Host: Robert Mays
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Video Producer: Katy Duffy
Audio Producer: Michael Beller
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.social
Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
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Theme song: Haunted
Written by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love Songs
Courtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:04.3 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:05.8 | Kicking off our draft coverage today. |
| 0:07.9 | Obviously, Building the Beast has been going all the way through the college football season, |
| 0:11.0 | but I'm kicking off my draft coverage today. |
| 0:13.0 | This is our first of a month full of draft-centric shows here on the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:18.4 | We've done the show in the past, and I always enjoy doing it because I have the person |
| 0:23.1 | who probably knows the most about the NFL draft to teach me about each individual class |
| 0:27.9 | as we turn the page from free agency. |
| 0:30.4 | So that's what we're doing today. |
| 0:31.6 | Today is the Idiot's Guide to the 2026 NFL draft. |
| 0:35.6 | I am the idiot. |
| 0:36.5 | And Dane is here, along with our buddy Dave Hellman, to help teach me |
| 0:40.1 | about what this draft looks like. What does it look like at the top? What sort of high-end top-10 |
| 0:45.3 | prospects will be talking about? This is a very unique class for that. All the different positions, |
| 0:49.8 | where are the strengths, where are the weaknesses? What is a good spot to be looking for in the |
| 0:53.7 | first couple of rounds? What is a bad spot to be looking for in the top 100? We had all of those |
| 0:58.4 | conversations today. These were kind of precursors to deeper discussions we'll have about this |
| 1:03.9 | class overall, about how this class compares historically, about the individual positions in this |
| 1:08.8 | class on specific shows over the next month. |
| 1:12.7 | But this to me feels like an introduction to both this class and our coverage. |
| 1:18.1 | And I am thrilled to have Dane and Dave be a part of that. |
... |
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