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The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL

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

Football,, Football, Nfl Draft, Nfl, Robert Mays, Sports

4.63.3K 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.


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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.

...

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