ROOKIE CONTRACTS: Finding the Best Young Nucleus Among the AFC West, NFC East & NFC South

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4.6 • 966 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2026

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

AFC West teams scramble for a strong rookie contract nucleus—are the Chiefs and Raiders falling behind in the NFL’s youth race? Joe Marino and Kyle Crabbs spotlight key young talents like Rashee Rice, Xavier Worthy, and Brock Bowers while pointing out glaring depth concerns and uncertain futures. The Chargers, Broncos, and Raiders juggle projections and hope, with names like Tuli Tuipulotu, Marvin Mims, and Tyree Wilson signaling both promise and peril. NFC East and South teams flex their emerging stars—can the Eagles' lineup with Jalen Carter, Quinyon Mitchell, and Cooper DeJean build dominance before payday dilemmas hit? Rookies like Malik Nabers (Giants), Bijan Robinson (Falcons), and Bryce Young (Panthers) feature in each franchise’s core group, but roster construction remains a high-wire act. Discussion includes franchise tag rumors, high-impact O-line prospects, and which squads have the most enviable young talent. Is this the dawn of a new contender era—or will veteran moves still rule?

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're continuing to explore which teams have the best nucleus of players on rookie contracts today, focusing on the AFC West, NFC East, and NFC South.
0:16.1	You are locked on NFL scouting with the draft dudes, your daily podcast for NFL and college football
0:24.1	scouting, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.
0:30.7	What's better than this?
0:32.3	It's guys, being dudes here on the Locked-on NFL Scouting podcast.
0:36.8	Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. We're the draft dudes. I'm Joe Marino from Lockdown Bills. He's Kyle Craves from Lockdown Dolphins. And we are your NFL experts here with you daily to talk team building across the league. We want to issue a big thank you. Shout out and welcome to our everydayers. Those of you who never miss a single episode, we appreciate y'all being here very, very much.
0:59.7	Joe, um, happy Tuesday to you and happy news week to Dolphins content creators and beat
1:10.6	reporters everywhere because yesterday was fun.
1:13.8	Yesterday was fun to have a whole new block.
1:17.3	Because next week's the combine, right?
1:19.9	So we had like everybody had their coaching hiring processes and the dolphins in particular
1:26.4	had a GM hiring stacked in there too.
1:29.0	This was like kind of a dead week.
1:33.1	So I felt very blessed to get news because you know how many stories you can build off of
1:39.1	Tyree kill being released and Bradley Chow being released and that whole nucleus of that 22
1:45.9	team where we just emptied the chamber and said here we're
1:47.9	going to give all our graphics for two years for these two guys
1:50.3	well the news this week was supposed to be
1:53.5	franchise tag right today is the
1:55.6	day you could start applying that
1:57.7	and what we'll get
1:59.9	to make this not a dolphin-centric cold open?
	...

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