We had on Arif Hassa, and he thinks the Commanders would be in a "good spot" if they landed the DE from Boston College.
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00:00But let's go to the Rude Guest Hotline, Rude, the most reliable heating and air conditioning in the DMV and bring on to the show a draft expert who's going to give us some insight on what Washington's going to do at number 29.
00:11Arif Hassan joins us now.
00:13Thanks so much for a couple of minutes.
00:14We really appreciate it.
00:15We know you're busy.
00:16How are you?
00:17I'm good.
00:18I'm good.
00:18How are you?
00:19Doing very well.
00:20So what we were saying last hour is that Shador Sanders is kind of the pivot point right now.
00:27But it seems to be becoming increasingly obvious that he's going to fall a bunch.
00:31Is that how you see this?
00:32Or do you think he still could go 3 or 9 or 21?
00:36Yeah, I don't see him going around 3.
00:39I think there's an outside possibility that he goes 9.
00:42But certainly, you know, a lot of people are pinging him to the Steelers at 21.
00:46That's been like a conversation over the past week.
00:49And I'm a little bit surprised.
00:51I see him as a better quarterback prospect than that.
00:53But I know that a lot of people have been talking about the way the league has kind of interpreted him.
00:57And it doesn't have anything to do with the amount of attention he gets or Deion Sanders or anything like that.
01:02And they, in fact, like Shador a lot as a mature locker room leader and a hard worker.
01:07But it's just that there's not really a trump card for him.
01:10Like with Cam Ward, you have this outstanding arm and a lot of physical ability.
01:15But with Shador, you don't have as much in terms of his athleticism, in terms of his arm.
01:21And he's not quite accurate enough to just be kind of that pocket passer that everyone loves.
01:27Now, I think that he's a really good quarterback.
01:29He deserves to be kind of a top 10 pick.
01:31And I could still see it.
01:31But it very much seems like the rest of the league doesn't see him the same way.
01:36Still kind of just a tier below Cam Ward.
01:38Still a first-round guy.
01:40But closer to that 20s area.
01:41And certainly where he goes will kind of define the rest of the draft for a lot of people.
01:46Wide left football, Zarif Hassan.
01:48So to double-click on that, what's your reaction today to some of these betting markets who have him favored to go in round two?
01:54Like why is that happening?
01:57Betting markets are usually very good at identifying, you know, things where there's a lot of data and things where there's a lot of people betting.
02:06They're not really very good at this kind of specific, you know, who's going to go where in the draft, who's going to run what in the 40.
02:14They're notoriously bad at identifying trade targets in free agency.
02:19That's not a big deal to me.
02:21I know that betting markets, for example, had Will Levis going top 10, right?
02:24Like these are just – people are just responding.
02:27There's reasons that there are like strict limits on how much you can bet on these draft props and stuff like that.
02:33To me, it's not that big a deal.
02:35So, Arif, if it's not Shador Sanders, where's kind of the flashpoint or the fork in the road in this draft here for you?
02:42If things go more chalky than maybe some like me are anticipating.
02:47Yeah, I mean, it might even be as high as five.
02:50I know that for the past couple of days, a lot of people have been talking about identifying Mason Graham to the Jacksonville Jaguars,
02:56which certainly is a strong possibility that there's a good fit there.
03:00The team, it sounds like, does like him.
03:01But the more I'm hearing out of Jacksonville, the less it seems like they even want to pick there.
03:06They might want to trade down.
03:08And they're okay kind of losing a chance at grabbing Mason Graham if that happens.
03:14And that will change everything if they trade out, right?
03:16So, if you've got, you know, maybe say the Jets trade up to get Armand Membo or even possibly even Kelvin Banks.
03:24You know, it is possible that the rest of the draft looks completely different if you don't take that defensive tackle there.
03:32You could see, you know, players like cornerback Will Johnson get pushed down.
03:36Players that, you know, you would expect to go a little bit higher kind of moving into different areas.
03:40I ran a simulation where exactly that thing happened.
03:43And we saw, you know, luckily for Washington, we saw some edge rushers kind of fall down a little bit further than the draft than you'd expect.
03:48And so, that kind of area at number five is, I think, pretty big where Ashton Gentry goes is going to be big so that there's a lot of steam right now that the Bears might be trading up into the top ten.
03:59One of the few teams that's been rumored to actually want to trade up instead of down.
04:03And my estimate is that that would be for someone like an Ashton Gentry.
04:07And if they do that, that also alters the shape of the draft.
04:09But if they don't, then you've got some question marks like, is he going to go to the Raiders at seven or what's going to happen there?
04:15So, I think that's kind of where we start seeing the shape of the draft, you know, kind of take form.
04:21Who's the guy that's going to fall?
04:22I know that it's always such a subjective thing.
04:25I actually hate the term, just as a quick editorial, because no one's been selected yet.
04:29You see what I'm saying?
04:29Like, it's just based on prognostications and a couple guys mock drafts.
04:32And they know, you know, a little bit more than we do.
04:34But who's somebody that folks think is going to go high that isn't in your mind?
04:40To me, somebody like a Walter Nolan could be that kind of guy.
04:43I know that, you know, earlier in the year, he'd been projected as potentially top 10.
04:47I know that right now he's not necessarily projected top 10.
04:50But I think kind of the locker room-ish concerns about him, you know, he would quit practices when he's frustrated and leave.
04:57He had an opportunity to prove that that's not who he was at the senior bowl.
05:01He ended up leaving during practices then.
05:03He's not that great against the run.
05:05He's kind of a pure pass rusher.
05:07But his production wasn't really as high as you'd expect a pure pass rusher to be.
05:11And so he has all the athletic potential in the world.
05:14But, you know, there are a lot of athletes without a ton of production that people like, like Shamar Stewart.
05:19But I think in order for that kind of player to succeed, you need to be really assured that the kind of player that you're getting is one that's going to work hard to kind of fix their problems.
05:27And so while everyone knows about, like, legitimate off-field problems for, say, Isaiah Bond and Mike Green, there's these smaller concerns that don't rise to the level of, say, criminality that still impacts, you know, the way that people perceive these players just in terms of how much they can get out of them.
05:43So I think, you know, Walter Nolan could be that kind of guy.
05:45Certainly, I think Matthew Golden might be that kind of guy because, you know, a lot of people like his combine.
05:50But my understanding is that teams, their hand timing at his combine wasn't as good as the 4-2-9.
05:57And so they may not see him the same way that a lot of other people do.
06:01Arif Hassan on the NFL Draft, which gets underway tomorrow.
06:04Grant and Danny here on the fan from City Taphouse in D.C.
06:08Take us through the edges and where you could see them landing in the first round.
06:12Washington very much once won, it seems like, at 29.
06:15Who could be left for them?
06:17Yeah, I mean, you're probably not going to see Jalen Walker there, although I could potentially see him falling because a lot of people don't know what his NFL position is going to be.
06:25You're probably not going to see Shamar Stewart.
06:28A lot of people have connected him to San Francisco.
06:30That'll be kind of interesting.
06:31And so from there, you're kind of asking, is Mike Hill-Williams going to be there?
06:35Is Mike Glein somebody that you're comfortable grabbing, given kind of all the information out there about him?
06:40Certainly he's a very talented player.
06:42If you're comfortable, here's another player that you're concerned maybe about his practice habits, James Pierce.
06:46If you're comfortable with him, I know that Atlanta has been connected to him.
06:50So those are probably the guys that you're paying the most attention to.
06:54One of them could fall.
06:55Certainly Michael Williams is a good example of somebody that might fall a little bit because I heard somebody brought Jermaine Johnson comp for him.
07:02I don't fully agree with that, but I get where they're coming from.
07:05It's a run-first kind of defender that doesn't have as much production as a pass rusher.
07:10But I think some of that's just what Georgia asked him to do, and I think that he could be a pretty effective edge rusher.
07:16So that's somebody that you might want to identify.
07:19And if there are guys that might sneak into that first round, if Washington is taking a look at guys that on these big boards and mock drafts isn't necessarily always in the first round,
07:28but could turn out to be one of the better players in the class, the Boston College edge rusher, Donovan Isaraku, who is really, really talented, really talented and super athletic.
07:39And I think, personally, I think that he should be a little bit higher up in a lot of these boards, but sometimes you don't even see him in the first round.
07:44And I think some of those are size concerns.
07:45But to me, I think he overcomes them because he's gone up against competition against these really long, big tackles, and he's still produced.
07:51You mentioned if you are comfortable with that, that, that, with Green and Pierce.
07:56What's the baggage? Tell people about the backgrounds on those guys.
08:00Yeah, for sure. I'll start with Pierce because it's just a little bit easier to discuss.
08:03But Pierce is just, you know, the book on him is that he's kind of just a bad teammate.
08:07You know, just like with Walter Nolan, somebody that doesn't practice that hard, somebody that wasn't as serious about his development and his practice habits,
08:14somebody that didn't interact well in the locker room.
08:17Like, it's not just that, you know, he doesn't work as hard, but that he just didn't get, you know, the respect of his teammates just from the way that he's interacted with them and stuff like that.
08:26So that's somebody that, you know, you'll, you'll have to, you'll have to be convinced loves football.
08:31You have to be convinced is going to get along with his teammates and stuff like that.
08:35That's just kind of basic locker room stuff.
08:37Like maybe football is just not for him, even though he's got, you know, the kind of building body that you would hope that he'd be able to dedicate himself to football.
08:44With Mike Green, there have been a series of allegations, sexual assault allegations, once when he was in high school and then once when he was in college.
08:52He mentioned at the Combine, and he did take these allegations on head on.
08:55He talked about it directly at the Combine.
08:57I wonder, you know, whether or not, you know, his agent told him not to, but, you know, it sounds like some people were impressed with the way he handled it.
09:03Either way, he'd indicated that neither of those allegations had written to the level of a criminal charge or a civil suit.
09:11And so, you know, his argument, of course, is that, you know, both of these instances, you know, never happened and that they're inflated circumstances.
09:18And this is just something where it's really comfortable as an NFL team with your investigative unit, because they all have private investigation units nowadays, to kind of see what happened.
09:27But they did rise to the level of a campus complaint.
09:31There's a lot of uncertainty with what happened at Virginia with Mike Green and whether or not, you know, there was some kind of, like, at the time, a lot of people were convinced that maybe it was a false allegation.
09:44Now, people are maybe not so sure that it was as false as people initially thought.
09:47So there's a lot of uncertainty with that one.
09:49Arif Hasan with us here on G&D.
09:52Give me the position group where there might be some great value in the middle rounds.
09:56I mean, I think about this all the time, the scarcity of some of these elite guys, like, if you're drafting Ashton Genty in the top 10, you know, would you be better off, I'm just sort of making this up, with Caleb Johnson in the third round or something to that effect, that sort of gap between those two guys?
10:10Is it worth selecting someone, you know, 50, 60, 70 picks earlier?
10:14Give me a spot that you think there's good value in the mid-rounds here, Arif.
10:17Yeah, I think the defensive tackle group, like, once you get to the end of the third round, beginning of the fourth round, you're probably going to find some guys like Shamar Turner, you know, Shamar Stewart's teammate over at Texas A&M, Joshua Farmer from Florida State, Omar Norman Lott from Tennessee.
10:34These are all SEC pass rushing, you know, defensive tackles have done a really, really good job of, you know, producing in some ways that maybe a lot of people don't expect.
10:43Some of them don't have the athletic profile that you hope work in the NFL, but at some point, production kind of deserves a little bit of attention.
10:51And then at nose tackle, there are a lot of bodies there.
10:53Somebody like a Deion Walker, who is massive, he's like 6'7", he's a huge defensive tackle.
10:58Personally, I don't think that he loves football, I don't think that he adapts very well, I personally wouldn't draft him, but a lot of teams are in love with his size.
11:05But other nose tackles that are kind of interesting, and the complete opposite end is somebody like a C.J. West, who is barely six feet tall.
11:12So you've got the 6'7", nose tackle, the six foot tall nose tackle.
11:15D.J. West, I think, is a spark plug.
11:17He does a really, really good job of using his size and holding down the run.
11:20And then in between, you've got somebody like Jamari Caldwell, also at nose tackle.
11:24Ty Robinson, also a potential mid-rounder, pass rushing tackle.
11:27Jordan Phillips from Maryland had a good showing in the All-Star Struck at defensive tackle.
11:30These are all guys I would expect to go in the third and fourth round, and that is a pretty deep group.
11:35As always, wide receiver, you can always find, you know, some pretty good talent, depending on how good you are at evaluating.
11:40Some pretty good talent, people like Corey Horton.
11:44There's some talk that Isaiah Bond might fall all the way down to the third, fourth round.
11:48Kyle Williams from Washington State is a guy I really like a lot, depending on how comfortable you are only having, you know, him in the slot or something like that.
11:56But, yeah, the skill positions are areas where you always have some opportunities.
11:59But I think kind of uniquely the defensive tackle group in the middle rounds is something that you can get a lot of value out of.
12:05Arif Hassan is with us looking ahead to tomorrow night's first round in the NFL draft.
12:10So based on how you see things falling, walk us through Washington's options, what you like and don't like for them at 29.
12:16Yeah, I think grabbing the Boston College edge rusher Donovan I think would be a really good spot for them.
12:24But if we do end up in a scenario where because of trade downs and because, you know, people like these quarterbacks a lot,
12:30maybe somebody like a Jalen Miller or Jackson Dart, you know, gets snuck in the first round,
12:34you'll see some of these positions that Washington does need a little bit more investment in, you know, fall a little bit,
12:39whether that's edge rusher or cornerback or whatever, I think that you could end up in a situation
12:44where if you're comfortable with the off field for Mike Green, you'll end up with a really talented edge rusher.
12:49If you're comfortable with the practice habits for James Pierce, you'll end up with a really talented edge rusher.
12:53And maybe you don't want to answer those questions.
12:55Maybe you'll end up with Michael Williams, who's been pretty productive in his kind of six technique spot.
13:00I think that those are all scenarios where you can be pretty happy so long as you answer a couple of questions with who you have.
13:06But at cornerback, I think depending on how comfortable your medical team is with, like, say, Savon Revelle,
13:13who had an ACL tear last season, you know, I think he's a first round guy.
13:18I know a lot of people have him in the second round, but I think that's primarily injury concerns.
13:21And so if you've cleared him from an injury perspective, I think, you know, he could be, you know,
13:26I know he's a small school guy from East Carolina, but he could be as big of an impact as Quinion Mitchell was.
13:30Another small school guy was for Philadelphia, right?
13:32And I think that you'll end up in a situation where you've got a really aggressive corner
13:36that's willing to defend against the run.
13:38And I think Washington could really use somebody like that.
13:40So I think those are all pretty good scenarios.
13:42In my latest kind of, I was playing around with the experiments and mock drafts.
13:46I did match Amike Buka with Washington.
13:49I know that wide receiver is not the top need, but I think it would be kind of a fun pairing
13:52with Scary Terry and Jane Daniels and just get that offense really going.
13:57So you could go outside of the need profile and still grab a guy that's going to help the team out a lot.
14:02Reef, great info, man.
14:03Really appreciate it.
14:04Good content as well.
14:05And enjoy the draft tomorrow.
14:07Yeah, thanks for having me.
14:08Reef is on.
14:09Check him out.
14:10Wide left football on the NFL draft.