Building the Beast: Why defensive backs are the crown jewel of the 2026 NFL Draft class
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Beast isn't out for another week or so, but we'll spoil one thing for you...you're going to see a lot of defensive backs in the top 50. Like, A LOT of defensive backs. Dave Helman and Dane Brugler dive into a loaded group of corners and safeties on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Connect with The Athletic Football Show
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@TAFootballShow
Podcasts: https://podfollow.com/the-athletic-football-show/view
X: https://x.com/TA_FootballShow
IG: https://www.instagram.com/tafootballshow
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tafootballshow
Discord: http://discord.gg/theathleticfootballshow
Buy our merch! http://theathletic.lnk.to/tafsmerch
Call us: 847-448-0701
Email us: athleticfootballshow@gmail.com
Host: Dave Helman
Co-Host: Dane Brugler
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Senior Producer: Katy Duffy
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
Follow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.social
Follow Dave on X: @davehelman_
Follow Dane on X: @dpbrugler
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
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to an all new episode of Building the Beast. I am your host, Dave Helman, and we are in the final |
| 0:05.1 | countdown a week from right now, Dane Bruegler's annual draft guide, The Beast, the namesake of |
| 0:12.4 | this podcast will be available for download. You can get your hands on it starting next Wednesday, |
| 0:18.8 | April the 8th. We're finally there, y'all. |
| 0:21.2 | I think I can speak for Dane, confidently say. |
| 0:24.2 | A lot of hard work and effort going into this. |
| 0:27.3 | I'm sure he is excited for y'all to get your hands on it. |
| 0:30.3 | Until then, though, we've got a really great episode for y'all. |
| 0:33.5 | We're going to continue to take a deeper look at this 2026 draft class. |
| 0:37.7 | We decided to combine two positions today. |
| 0:40.5 | I just figured we'd knock out the entire secondary in one episode. |
| 0:44.3 | Dana and I took a deep dive into a very fun safety class with a lot of really cool prospects at the top. |
| 0:51.1 | As well as the cornerback class, it's a very topical day to be doing this show. |
| 0:56.3 | Some news as it pertains to Tennessee cornerback, Jermad McCoy, as well as Clemson's |
| 1:01.0 | Averyon Terrell covered all of that and took as best we could a very deep look at the |
| 1:07.7 | corner and safety classes in this year's draft. |
| 1:10.3 | Let's get right to it. |
| 1:21.5 | Dane, right off the jump, I feel like I owe you an apology today, man. |
| 1:25.3 | Yeah? |
| 1:26.0 | Because you are about to send in a draft guide with 400 reports. |
| 1:31.6 | You could talk for 15 minutes about every single prospect that's going to get drafted later this month. |
| 1:38.6 | And here I am about to ask you to condense two positions into one podcast. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Athletic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Athletic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

