We could go right to the ka Common Sparrel hotline and bring out our guy
Ryan Michael, Ryan, how's it going, Buddy? Doing well? Man?
Nick? How are you guys tonight? Doing pretty well? We had
an interesting start to the show. Presidential comments sort of derailed the beginning there
that we had going on. But we think we've hit our stride here and
it's good to hear your voice back to go a little bit inside the numbers.
And I want to know what you want to start with tonight. Well,
you know, I think we left off last week. We're just talking
about what the expectations should be for the twenty and twenty four draft class.
And I've said this number of times and I'll say it again. I'm very
high on the twenty twenty four draft class for two reasons. Essentially. The
first is given the salary cap fallout from letting Russell Wilson go, we're obviously
fighting with one arm tied behind our back and without having a second round draft
selection. You know, we went into the draft itself without a lot of
ammunition. And when I look at the players that we took in the draft,
for me, fit is always one of the most important things. I'm
not of the mindset to take a guy just for the sake of taking the
guy. You want to get somebody who shits your system and fits the need
that you have. So you know, bo Nicks was the second highest rated
quarterback on my board after Caleb Williams, and I understand that I was in
the minority for seeing him that way. But time will tell. We'll see
if that's a good caller or not. But what I especially appreciate about bow
is that his strengths fits on Peyton strength. We're coming in as a team
where under Russell Wilson, tintished twenty seventh in sack percentage. That seemed to
be one of the biggest points of contention, and so we draft the quarterback
who set the NCAA single season completion percentage mark, but he was also the
least side quarterback in college football at one point one percent of his dropbacks.
I looked at our defense as a unit that struggled to generate pressure, so
we bring in Joan Allis, who was seventh in all of college football in
zacks, a second amongst defensive players taken to the draft. I look at
our team. We finished twenty eighth in rushing touchdowns. Last year, we
didn't produce on the ground. So you get Audrick Estimat in the fifth round,
and he's a guy who rushed for eighteen touchdowns last year, eleven of
them. We're in the final five games. So if you look at the
players that we got at the spots that we got, not only do I
think that they were a fantastic fit for the systems that we're going to be
running on both offense and defense, but I think we got tremendous value because
we got the second best quarterback in the draft on paper, just my own
personal opinion, at the twelfth spot, and I think Joe Allis is easily
a second round caliber draft prospect, perhaps even first round. When helping you
can't really ask for anything better on paper than that then, and that's really
all that we can talk about until the preseason gets ripped up, all right,
right, I'm glad that you led off with that, because what we've
seen since George Paydon has been here as GM, a lot of his draft
picks play early, and they play in key rows and are very productive.
Of the guys you just listed right now, just doing a little forecasting,
I know we haven't seen, you know, any practices yet or any preseason
games. But who would you forecast is probably at the start of the season.
Let's go small samba size week four, right. That's enough one right
there that you think will make a larger impact with the Broncos early on in
the season. That's a great question. And when I look at the players
that we drafted, I'm still of the mindset that I feel bone Knicks will
start being one. I don't think it's a sure thing. I do think
he will be the eventual starter. So is it possible that Jared Sidham gets
us going week one? It's possible. I think Jared as a short term
solution. We all know what the future is going to be. So Bonnicks
if he does play Week one, and I don't expect for him to light
the league up. That's not his style of football. I think he's the
kind of player that once he gets acclimated to Sean's system, we're eventually going
to see that efficiency down the line, perhaps at the end of season one,
maybe towards the beginning of season two. I'll tell you, if Jonah
Ellis can be healthy, I think that he might be an early contender for
Defensive Lookie of the Year. I'm very excited to see what he's going to
be able to do in advanced Joseph system. And he was just one of
the most explosive edge rushers on tape of any player in the drop, one
of the most explosive players that we've seed in years. So if I had
to pick one specific player to make an early impact, I would go to
John Allis if he's healthy. One of the things that you brought up there,
I want to go back to with bo Nicks because what you described the
quarterback that's efficient doesn't necessarily like the World on Fire, gets in Sean Payton's
system and sort of succeeds, describes a quarterback that Broncos fans have already seen.
What's the difference between bo Nicks and Teddy bri The difference between Bonix and
Teddy Bridgewater is Teddy was very proficient at doing the simple things with consistency.
And I know that bow has been knocked quite a bit for his alleged lack
of ability to be proficient in the depassing game. And if you look at
a lot of the Pro Football focus marks that we've talked about, over the
past few weeks, you'll see that in the intermediate game, Bell is arguably
the most efficient quarterback in college football, and tearing him obviously with Troy Franklin,
I suspect to see them stretch the field, not down in, down
out, but I do see them connecting here and there in a way that
you wouldn't have seen out of Teddy Bridgewater. So Bridgewater brought the experience,
and you could make the argument that if we could take Teddy Bridgewater in a
time machine from his opening days as a Denver Bronco and paired him up with
Donicks, he might even get similar results in the first few games. Bownix
is a long term investment, now a short term investment. I believe his
ceiling was quite high. Well, Ryan, where did you stand on this
idea that a quarterback throwing the checkdown? Because the idea when I played was
you can't go broke taking a profit. But with the I guess everyone leaning
more towards exposed to plays. It just seems as though everyone has fallen away
from taking the six yard five yard checkdown and putting the ball in your best
player's hands. Once again, where do you come down on that? Viewpoint,
I would say that if you have a quarterback who is at the very
top of the league in terms of efficiency in executing the quick game, this
is what Drew Brees was the greatest of all time in doing so. If
he looked at his final season in twenty twenty, he had arguably the weakest
farm strength of any starting quarterback I've seen in over a decade. But he's
still completed routinely nearly seventy five percent of his passes. Now, I don't
believe that Bonix is Drew Brees. I've affectionately referred to him as as Drew
Brees white with a little bit of deals, But I do think that he
has the ceiling potential over time to develop in a similar in a similar vein
to what Drew Brees did the more time he had in Sean Payton's system.
So if he can reach even a poor man's version of that level, and
he can complete with any kind of regularity sixty nine to seventy seventy one percent
of his passes, it's a very different style of football than the quarterbacks who
are taking the checkdowns just because they're not capable of doing anything else. It's
a matter of muscle memory, and it's a matter of experience within the system.
And I think that if he starts week one or starts early by week
four, as you had mentioned, that that's going to give him a significant
advantage heading into the year two. That's when I think we're going to start
to see the biggest results coming out from his development. Talking with Ryan Michael
at the Ryan Michael on Twitter, everybody, fans are always excited about their
draft classes, a top to bottom. We got all our guys. These
guys are all going to be stars, are all going to be start You
know, there's been some recent articles about Aldic tom fifth round or one hundred
and forty seventh pick, that he could maybe even make a play for the
starting job, you know, things like that. But how realistic is that
when we look for when we look back at history, what are some historical
comps for players taking kind of at the same position in the same spot in
the draft. Well as high as I am on audrich Sma, I see
him as more of a red zone threat, a guy who may produce rushing
touchdowns similar to what Legarrett Blunt did in the Patriot system with Tom Brady.
Bear in mind, bone Nicks is not Tom Brady, and our system is
not exactly the system that New England ran with such efficiency for so long.
We have to work all way towards that. So when I look at a
number of the players taken in the draft this year, and we took Jay
Cutler at number eleven in two thousand and six, so that's the closest spot
in terms of a comparison to bone Nicks and Jake Cutler, for whatever happened
later in his career in Chicago, actually played fairly efficient football during his first
three years, and we started to see him take off in year three,
setting a Bronco's single season record for passing yards. While Alzado in terms of
an edge rusher, he has taken seventy nine in nineteen eighty five, so
we have join Alice taken at seventy six. If he can perform anywhere close
to the level that Alzato did, that would be a very nice ceiling.
The reality is, statistically, at all of the positions, especially quarterback,
a percentage of these draft picks are not going to work out. So as
much as it's easy to point to one specific statistic and say a running back
like audric estimate fills a hole here, let's just start him in RB one.
Is it possible. It's certainly possible, But history tells us that a
percentage of these draft picks are not going to be long term solutions. In
terms of starting players playing at a high level, it's just a matter of
who's going to be the boom, who's going to be the bust. Now,
you say boom and buzz is always high risk, high reward. But
when you look at the the idea of starting a rookie quarterback, what would
you say to the listening audience as far as what are your rewards or what
do you can see the risk might be at this time? And once again
speaking and say both Nicks is the starter for the Denver Broncos. That's a
great question. I would say. The benefits for starting early if you are
a quarterback who has it in your fabric to develop into the kind of quarterback
you hope to get. Taking a guy in the twelve spot, the benefits
are you have exposure to the system, You're acquiring knowledge, You're growing greater
familiarity, the muscle memory, even athletic muscle memory. In terms of getting
those game time reps, as you know, is very different from just the
reps in practice, the spatial awareness, the on field visual familiarity in terms
of what's happening at the next level, I think it would be impossible to
overstate just how important that is. The downside this double edged sword, the
risk that comes with that is if you're a team that isn't prepared to surround
your starting quarterbacks with success the way that the Chiefs did for Paunt Mahomes in
twenty eighteen, you're running the risk of your quarterback losing their confidence from on
field failure. I think of David Carr, I think of Josh Rosen as
two great examples of quarterbacks who on paper had the potential to be really good
quarterbacks in the NFL and never quite reach that potential, especially in the case
of Josh Rosen. And I also think that people sometimes underestimate just how much
of a step up it is. In terms of conditioning. You have to
bulk up and condition your body to take hits at the level. So if
you're not prepared and you're forced into the starting role too early, you're running
the risk of injury and the loss of confidence. So that's a decision that
I'm sure quick Stayton is going to make in the best interest of the team,
and I'm confident that Boonicks is the quarterback who is ready for that kind
of challenge. I'll think about quarterbacks in the NFL, we always talk about
developing them, but you can kind of tell pretty early if a guy sort
of got it or doesn't got it. You know, we look over the
history of the game in the modern era and we can sort of tell quarterbacks
tend to make a super Bowl pretty young when they win or to lose.
They tend to make a super Bowl pretty young if they're going to be if
they're going to be dominant, you know, down the line, and they
can continue to make them as they get older. But it's very rare that
someone comes in and is very old when they finally make their first super Bowl.
There are occasions of that, but it's really more rare than anything else,
especially the playoffs. Too young quarterbacks they make the playoffs quicker they tend
not to, and then they become sort of sort of journeyman. We look
at booms and busts among rookie quarterbacks who started early in recent years. Who
stands out to you in either one of those categories. Well, I would
say the two that stand out to me who would be the closest comps for
boneecks and they're not perfect comparisons, would be Peyton Manning and Matt Ryan.
Matt Ryan was excellent as a rookie quarterback in Atlanta. Peyton Manning. Everyone
talks about the twenty eight perceptions that he threw, but they talk a little
bit less about the fact that he led the as in passing, He was
top five in touchdown passes and really found his fitting towards the end of the
year. So I think for quarterbacks who are with their strengths are pocket presence,
quick release, information processing, accuracy, this certainly falls in line with
both mixes fields they can be positioned for success over the long run. And
then you also have quarterbacks who boomed early who are dual threats Russell Wilson RG
three and who look was a little bit of bolth Cam Newton, and so
quarterbacks like that give defensive coordinators nightmares when there isn't a lot of tape to
study on them, and they usually kind of come back down to earth in
the following years. What separates the good ones from the great ones or the
ones who can continue to reinvent themselves and succeed in spite of that. That's
really been the case for Russell Wilson for over a decade. When you look
at some of the boss do you see busts who are pocket pasthers. You
see busts who are dual threats like Zach Wilson and Justin Fields. What they
typically have in common, outside of a skill set that might not exactly cater
itself to the next level, is the fact that they were surrounded by very
tough situations. If you don't surround your quarterback that support early on, it's
going to be a nightmare for almost everybody. So with the Broncos, I
think need to focus on more than anything that's building the team around Box and
that's for Sean Payton to feel out whether or not it's the best move to
put him in week one, week four, or perhaps towards the end of
year one. Yeah. I was talking with Ryan Edwards yesterday and I said,
lok Bonux is either going to come out and take the job, or
it's going to be a situation where you're running with with Jared Stidham or or
Zach Wilson, whomever, until you're eliminating for the playoffs, and then you've
got to see which is This year is about finding out. What bot Nick
says as a first round of Ryan, we always appreciate the time, man.
Look forward to talking to you again next week. Sounds good, Ben,
Thanks for having me on. Take Care. That's Ryan Michael at the
Ryan Michael on Twitter