Welcome to the athletic football show. I am not Robert Mays. I'm Derek Klasson. I'm your other

co-host. Usually I am sitting next to Robert on the co-host seat, but today I will be hosting.

And today we're going to be running through, you know, I think the fantasy people this time of year get a lot of run to do, who's going to be our breakout quarterback and skill players and all that jazz. We're going to flip it to the other side. We're going to talk about some of the defenders, some of our favorite trench players that we think are coming up. A couple of linebackers that we think could really have some good seasons. So we're going to talk about a handful of guys that we think can go from solid to good contributors, maybe jumping into that

Pro Bowl tier, and then the ever elusive guys jumping from the Pro Bowl tier into that elite,

the market setting type of talent. So here to do that with me today is the ringer's Deonté Lee.

Let's get into it.

All right, we've got a very different show here today. Usually I, Derek Claston, am your co-host, but today I am the lead co-host. And today we're talking a little bit about some breakout defenders. We're going to talk about some guys who are going from Pro Bowl to Elite, good to Pro Bowl, all that jazz. And here with me today is a great friend of the show,

great friend of mine personally. The ringer's Deonté Lee. Deontay, how you doing? Glad to be on. Always good to be on the Athletic Football Show. You know, I haven't spent a little bit of time here. Good to finally be on with you in this capacity. You know, a lot of conversations that we've had in Indianapolis, getting a meet up for the Super Bowl and that whole deal.

So we've talked a lot of conversations that we've had in Indianapolis, getting the meet up for the Super Bowl and that whole deal. So we've talked a lot of ball off camera, haven't had a many guest appearances or many opportunities to bring on or our show or to come here since you've been working with the athletic dude. So it's exciting to finally be able to talk ball in an official capacity, especially now when the off season is wide open and we've got a lot of stuff that we can touch on. I was going to say, before we get going, how's June in the NFL calendar treating you? How are you doing? How are you hanging? Oh, this is great. This is like the sweet spot for me. My son's still in school, so I got a lot of open time at home. There's no football stuff that's really pressing right now.

Even from a coaching perspective, this is probably the last patch of calendar where I don't have to worry about going to a practice.

I don't have to worry about, you know, getting something in, you know, trying to meet deadline or getting a podcast recorded and all that stuff.

So I am taking advantage, full advantage of this opportunity to unplug and do as little as possible. So this is right before all the 16 and 17 year olds,

forget the cover three that you taught them. One thousand percent. Okay. So just to kind of to lay

things out here a little bit for this show, we're talking about breakout defenders. And the way that

we kind of are framing this is there are two little buckets that we're going to have. We're going to have guys who are going from either solid to good contributors and jumping into the proble. That's the leap that we expecting to take or the even rarer type, the guys who are going from potential pro bowl level into maybe being elite you know and that's top three top four top

top five year position so we've got five in that first bucket we've got three at the end we're going to

start with those guys who are jumping from the solid to good into potentially the pro bowl category dante

you are our honored guest who are we starting with today so i'm going to do something that's

after your own heart and start out linebacker we haven't had a chance to talk backers in a little bit. I'm going with Dion Henley of the Chargers to be my guy that goes from good to Pro Bowl. And I think it might even be probably a bigger jump than that, right? Because he didn't get a ton of playing time when he was drafted in 2020. They had a not a deep linebacker room, but they had a lot of

moving parts when, you know, Staley and that in that regime drafted him. So it took him a little

bit of time. And I think that last year was a great kind of flash of just what he can be as a

linebacker, right? And the games I've tried to watch were, you know, a bunch of different things

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