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Learn more at vertexinck.com. This is the Athletic Football Show.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show.

I'm Robert Mays.

Great show for you guys today.

It's Tight Ends Day here at the Athletic Football Show. We're going to chat about. It's tight ends day here at the athletic football show.

We're going to chat about this year's class.

We're also going to talk with former NFL tight end, Jack Doyle, about the development curve at that position.

And maybe why it's a little bit slower than it might be at some other spots?

Because I think that this class has to have so many highly drafted guys, the teams are just going to expect these

dudes to be Gronk and Travis Kelsey on day one. And that's not typically how it works. So I wanted to chat

with Jack about some of the nuances of the position and maybe why it's a little bit slower that it

might be at other spots. But to dig in to this year's class, I am joined by two guys who I could

not picture two better people with whom to have this conversation. First of all, our draft guru at The Athletic. It's Dan Bruegler. Dan, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. This is a fun position to talk about, so I can't wait to get into this conversation. And again, somebody I know is going to have a good time today. It's Nate Tice. Nate, how you doing,

bud? Having a great time already. Yeah, usually tight ends. It's like there's one guy to talk about and a couple of middle round, late round guys. Oh, and we group it together with like running backs, like a different position to talk about. Nope. This year gets its own show. Last year is like that, right? I mean last year we have not done tight ends.

We've never done tight ends on their own,

but I think this year warrants it. And Nate, the reason I know you're going to love this is because every time we do a wide receiver show, you're always trying to sneak in what kind of blockers they are at the receivers when no one gives a shit. And here it actually does matter. So congratulations. I'm very happy for you.

You're going to hear some repeated phrases here about bend and technique and hand usage. It's going to be great. That's a needle moving conversation that I'm sure everybody can't wait to listen to it. Big time. Right. We're just crack in audience record numbers over here at the athletic football show. All right. Before we take into the tight ends, though, I wanted to take a step back and kind of address the rumor mill around the NFL draft this week, because we haven't really talked about the quarterbacks or the ordering of the quarterbacks for any of that in a while because, again, we're really giving people the red meat here at the podcast. So, Dane, I wanted to chat with you about some of the stuff you've either seen publicly reported or even some of the stuff that you've been hearing about this week. It really does seem like, according to all the rumblings out there, that Bryce Young is probably going to be the number one pick in the draft or it seems like it's trending in that direction. Do you feel like we're getting to a place where it seems like Bryce Young to Carolina is probably going to be the answer here? Closer we get, the more confident I think we become. That will be the pick. And I can't tell you what the Panthers are going to do, but I can tell you what I think other teams believe the Panthers are going to do. And that's take Bryce Young. So,, and obviously he's my top quarterback. He's my top player in the draft. I'm on board with that. It makes perfect sense to me. The intrigue starts at two. It sure does. Yeah. And that's where, you know, credit to, you know, Lance Surline, he's, we've been talking about on Prospects of Prosks of Pros, for a while now.

And even, Robert, going back to that Combine episode we did, the episode right out of the Combine,

...