Why we're planting our flags for these day 2 & 3 prospects
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jalon Kilgore, Riley Nowakowski, Reggie Virgil, Peter Woods...what do these guys have in common? They're OUR guys. A week ahead of the draft, we're officially planting the flags for our favorite players in the 2026 NFL Draft. Dave Helman, Dane Brugler, and Derrik Klassen call their shot on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Host: Dave Helman
Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dane Brugler
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Senior Producer: Katy Duffy
Social Producer: Scott Krinch
Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
Follow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.social
Follow Dane on X: @DPBrugler
Follow Derrik on X: @QBKlass
Follow Dave on X: @DaveHelman_
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
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the athletic football show. |
| 0:01.7 | I am Dave Helman. |
| 0:02.7 | Robert Mays is out today, but never fear. |
| 0:05.0 | We've got a loaded draft show for y'all today. |
| 0:07.3 | I'm usually joined to talk draft by the one and only Dane Bruegler, and he joins me today. |
| 0:12.8 | But in addition, we're bringing in Derek Classen to round out the crew. |
| 0:16.4 | An episode I'm really excited about. |
| 0:18.9 | I think it fits Derek's skill set very, very well because we wanted to talk about our guys in this 2026 draft class, not the best players, not the players that'll be taken first or at the top of the draft order. We just wanted to talk about the guys that we really love. And we figured, you know, we could probably bypass the top 10, the top 15 types of prospects. Let's get into the little, the nitty gritty of it a little bit more. Talk about some day two prospects, some back of the draft prospects, not the best players, not the players that are going to land in a specific place, just the guys that we love. |
| 0:57.0 | An opportunity for us one week before the NFL draft to plant our flag on the guys that we just enjoy the most. |
| 1:04.8 | Really fun conversation, myself, Dane Bruegler, Derek Classen, talking football players. |
| 1:10.6 | Let's get to it. |
| 1:20.9 | Well, fellas, I'm really excited for this show because at this point, Dane and I have been talking prospects since August. |
| 1:27.5 | Dane, obviously, the amount of man hours are incredible, what you've put into the beast. |
| 1:33.5 | And what you've been doing from a publicity standpoint, going on to shows and talking about it over the last two weeks. |
| 1:40.2 | I'm sure you're ready for this thing to start next week. |
| 1:44.4 | But until then... |
| 1:45.9 | The draft was tomorrow. |
| 1:47.0 | We mean next week. |
| 1:48.0 | No, it's next week. |
| 1:49.3 | You're not quite over the finish line yet. |
| 1:51.8 | But that's why I'm happy for a little bit of a curveball because we've been doing this so long. |
| 1:56.9 | I'm always, I always want to guard against groupthink because you do such a good job of this. |
... |
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