This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. And now, Move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks. What's up, everybody? Welcome to Move the Sticks. DJ Buck with you. Buck, what is going on, man? Man, not too much. Just trying to get it all done. DJ, a littleats the draft. Got a little writing to do.

We got the pot. It's all good though. You know what time of you year it is? Oh, yeah. I've got one week till I've got a little over a week until I have to have my 150 done. So that's, you know, my final project there. So I've been working on that, getting stuff organized. I still watching some pop-up guys, some workout guys, which has been a fun exercise. But it's exciting. You know, looking at the teams more now this time, too, just kind of dialing in on teams, talking to people. And some things start to crystallize a little bit, Buck, as you get towards the end. You kind of think, like, man, this is just a big mushroom cloud. I have no idea what's going to go on here. And then at the end, start hearing, okay, man, they're off this guy. They're on that guy. You know, stuff like that. Yeah, it's, it's funny when we get to it because I feel like we go on this big old journey, right? We start where we think about players, then we kind of go around and we look at tape and we get this and buddy started chiming in and then you kind of get back to where you started at the end of the process. And we've talked about this a few different times. I feel like that also happens in front office. I think as you kind of sit down and you get quiet, you get away from like the group think and you start like, wait, wait, wait, who are the guys that we really like? Like, who are the guys that we go back with this check out notes? Who are the ones that we absolutely like that we can fall in love with? I think that's when you do your best job. Those are the guys that you really want on the team. You can't be swayed by. I would say like some of the outside opinions that are kind of buzzing and circulating as we get closer to the draft.

No. guys that you really want on the team. You can't be swayed by. I would say like somebody outside opinions that are kind of buzzing and circulating as we get closer to the draft. No doubt. That's 100% true. I've got a couple things I want to hit on today. I'm going to get to some underrated players, some polarizing players. I've got three this guy, that guy conversations I want to have with you on day two.

Like I think these are day two discussions that are fun ones.

I want to get to that first, though I want to hit this.

It's time for hot or not.

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Buck, I was thinking of the themes of this draft.

Like, let's just, we'll get into some individual stuff here, but I wanted to get the 30,000 foot view. And so these are the three that I came up with. And I'll be curious to see if you think there's other themes that kind of summarize this draft or what kind of encapsulates this draft. So the three themes I had, and I've been hitting on a couple of these throughout. Starters, not stars, right? I was talking to a GM the other day a person a buddy of both of ours and he was talking about we feel like we can upgrade the bottom of our roster and and fortify and strengthen the middle of our roster maybe not our top guys maybe these aren't going to be our key core stud guys but we're going to get better in the back end and in the middle of our roster in this draft. So starters, not stars. Traits versus production. You've got to figure out which side of the aisle you fall on that topic, especially you think about these past rushers. And lastly, Buck, I wrote down positional value versus quality of player. Like,

these are the three themes that I came up with for this draft. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I've

heard people talk about the level of draft a few different ways and talked about like really good,

not great. Like you have a lot of really good players, only a handful of great players, and so you need

to pick accordingly. So I believe you can get solid starters, maybe even high-end starters, but in terms

of the game changer, difference maker, transcendent talents, not as many as we've seen in some drafts.

When it comes down to positional value and player, I think evaluators

have to be really, really careful to not get so caught up in positional value that you elevate

a guy at a position that is important over top of someone who is a better player. And I think you just

have to keep that in mind. I think that happens all the time.

And then the last thing is so many of these guys have bounced around, transfers, you're trying

to follow the Odyssey and those things. I think it's really important to understand what did they

learn along the way. We've talked about that quarterbacks, we kind of like our quarterbacks that have a little scuff on them to have gone through some adversity and come on the other side. Well, with these other players, what have they learned on their journeys where they had to mouse and ride and find the right spot for them? I think all those things are important, but from a whatever, 30,000 point perspective, yeah, I mean, you have to

certainly understand like where these guys are, what the class is, and make sure that you make

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