Joining us now though, a guy that we can't talk to enough. He's
a rising star every single day. The guy is going to be running the
planet in about ten years, but for right now he is one of the
lead analyst at PFF dot Com. Does way too much that I even squeeze
into this intro. We'll ahead and do that in a little bit. It's
Trevor Sikham on the line. Trevor, how you'd been brother, Guys.
I am doing fantastic and as always appreciate you having me on the show.
Man. I'm just appreciating the fact that every time I turn on the TV
or I put on Twitter, your front page news. Trevor, you really
are and your little old Clemson his debo said, little old game on little
old John and Trey. You hadn't forgotten about us, man. Congrats all
your success. Man. I love talking about with you guys, So I
appreciate the kind words. That has been really cool, especially since taking the
lead draft analyst gig at PFF. But always got time to chat ball with
you guys because I always really enjoy it. Well, draft season never stops,
man, I means you know, I mean, you've been doing the
work during the summer, and it'll be here before you know it, where
we'll be talking about, hey, eight seven, six months out, who's
gonna be in the running for these quarterbacks? And you got another crop of
quarterbacks that need to prove their metal first. And I'm not just talking about
the ones that were just drafted. Let's go back two years now and look
back at what happened. Bryce Young number one overall. I think a lot
of people thought that was the sensible pick, but some disagreed. CJ.
Stroud a lot of upside with those mechanics being so clean, comes right in,
has great success with Bobby slowecan company of course, Tomiko Ryans, Anthony
Richardson, interesting case study. And then you got Will Levis and a host
of others from that class that were non quarterbacks. If we can just steal
a minute of your time, what did you make of their initial seasons?
And is the table already set for those first two guys? Do we know
that Bryce will struggle? Do we know Stroud won't have struggles? And what's
up with anything Richardson's elbow or shoulder? I should say, what's going on
there? Yeah? So look, I mean you could you could talk a
while about a lot of these guys, because I think there's a lot of
things to go into it. Ultimately, you know, this is a massive
year for Bryce, and it's you know, sort of unfair to him because
Carolina's situation was even worse than we thought it was going to be, right.
I mean, when Bryce gets out there, very clearly he I don't
think anybody would have told you in his scouting report that he was going to
be able to, you know, PLoP down in the NFL and just win
physically. For him, it was always it was a mental thing, you
know, when he had so much success in Alabama, whether it was team
success or individual success, he came through his football IQ, right, it
was it was between the years, as they say, under the helmet,
right, it was so he saw the game and the pre snap and the
post snap. It was how he dealt with pressure. It was what he
was when his back was against the wall was so impressive. And in Carolina,
he just it was so overwhelming, like he had not had that time
at the NFL level to be able to develop that kind of anticipation, recognition
and wisdom for the game, if he will, And so it was hard
to really find any sort of success with him or the team last year.
Now, I think they're going to be a little bit better this year.
But you know, again, like I think a lot of people are excited
about Dave Canalis as the offensive mine now in the building, but let's face
it, I mean Canas it's not like he was lighting the world on fire
to the first half of the season last year. Yeah, Caampa's offense kind
of caught fire towards the last five six games of the year, but you
don't know if that was just a hot streak with the team or if it
was really Canala's kind of figuring things out and they end up giving him a
head coaching gig, and that was his first year as a play caller last
year, so there is a there is a big risk there as well.
I know it's kind of tough because you want to be optimistic about these teams,
but it's it's just tough and bright the situation to think, Okay,
well, yeah, I think it's going to look better next year, but
how much better? I think the team has gotten better, and I hope
it looks better for him. I think he's got a better supporting cast that
I certainly hope he does. Drought unbelievable, man. And I think that
Houston Texans had one of the best offseasons of any team in the league,
just improving. You know, not only their their their their passing weapons.
You know, they've got you a Mixon, now, they've got Stefan Diggs.
You know you'll get Tank Dell back and he'll be healthy. But also
right, nobody talks about that, But you're one of the first people we've
had on this show at your level to even bring up the fact that Houston
they got better. They didn't stand pat they added pieces. It's not just
Diggs mix and I forgot all about that. It's been so much going on.
And you bring in Slowick back for year two. That's huge to retain
him, Yes, I mean completely, And like you go to the defensive
side of the football too. I mean I think they drafted well. They
bring in Danielle Hunter, who I think you know, I know, Jonathan
Grinard had a really good year opposite Will Anderson last year at the edge spot,
but I'd take Danielle Hunter over Jonathan Grinard. So I think they even
upgraded there as well. So the team just got way better this offseason.
So I think that Stroud is going to continue to evolve. You've seen so
much confidence that he has had both in the season last year and throughout the
offseason this year. So it's been a lot of fun to see. He's
going to be great. For Richardson, it really just is all about staying
healthy, right. I think I liked what I saw last year from him,
the connection that he had with Shane Stike and the head coach there,
who's also the offensive mine in Indianapolis. And you could see a lot of
how Steike and already very well understood what Richardson brought to the table, not
only his strengths but also his weaknesses and a rookie as well, So he
was mitigating a lot of those weaknesses. He wasn't forcing Richardson to, you
know, go through full field reads or make all these calls to the line
of scrimmage. You know, he was leaning on the offensive line, that
veteran offensive line to be able to do that, and he was making a
lot of half field reads for him. You know a lot of a lot
of concepts like smash concepts or sale concepts where you're just kind of putting one
defender in conflict and you're saying, hey, read the safety or read the
corner. If he drops, you throw it underneath it. If he stays
shallow, you pop it over his head. And so I think he already
saw that last year and what they were trying to design. And so a
fully healthy yeer from Ansthey and Richardson at least gives them the opportunity to evolve
their game plan as Richardson gets better and gets more acclimated to the pros.
I'm also excited to see Will Levis as well, right, I mean,
Levice is some guy who I mean, he's got all the confidence in the
world. Looked very fearless last year when Tennessee was not a very good football
team. And look, I don't know how much better of a football team
they're going to be this year. But they went out and the you know,
they added Calvin Ridley, and they've got a good wide receiver room.
They've got Tyler Boyder as well. You know, I have Derrick Henry,
but you substitute a guy who can help out in the path and game,
like Tony Pollard. You pair him with Taja Spears, and so hopefully the
offensive line is a little bit better because Brian Callahan takes over as the head
coach. But the big X factor there is his dad, longtime NFL coach
and offensive line guru, Bill Callahan, who was with the Cleveland Browns over
the last four years to develop one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.
He comes over to now beyond his son's coaching staff in Tennessee, so
you're hoping the offensive line gets a boost there. So don't forget about Will
Levis E. There is a guy who I'm also very excited about to see
what year two is like for him. Again, this is why we love
Trevor Sickham on this show because he's always bringing up things that no other analyst
is. I've been talking for weeks to the point where Trey Falco here wants
me to shut up about it about Bill Callahan and the effect that could have
on Tennessee positively and even maybe negatively on Cleveland. Who will lose most notably
No Callahan, who is the probably other than Stoutlan, the best at what
he does in this league. And that's even the debate this year's quarterback class.
Look, we've exhausted all the takes, so far on that if you
had to kind of look into that second wave there you're talking about. Of
course, the Michael Pennock's decision. We've talked about that. I'm looking at
two guys in particular, JJ McCarthy and bow Nick. Size those situations up
and where you see them being in the course of this season, whether they're
in the lineup, starting on the bench. What's you read on that.
No, I think that both of these guys, at the very least the
second half of the season, both of them are starting quarterbacks. You know,
when I look at McCarthy, I actually think that the Sam Donold's dining
was one of the more underrated free agency moves that we had this offseason because
it allowed them to have flexibility to go about the draft the way that they
wanted to and also not have to start whoever their rookie quarterback was going to
be right away. We now know that' JJ McCarthy And for McCarthy, I
think that it's paramount. It's very important because you don't want to throw a
quarterback out there when they are not confident in themselves enough to learn from failure,
right And that's the way that I answer all of these questions when somebody
goes, well, how early is too early to throw out a starting quarterback?
When would you put a starting quarterback out there? And to me the
answer is always well, first and foremost, I can't answer this question on
the outside of the building. And two, if I was inside the building,
the way that I would answer it that's different for everybody, is is
your quarterback, your young quarterback confident within themselves to where when they fail,
which is inevitable, they do not doubt their own abilities and instead are able
to learn from those failures and get back out there and try to not repeat
what they have failed on. So that is a big question mark to me.
And with McCarthy, you know, coming from a very run heavy system,
from the hard bio system when he was in Michigan, being one of
the younger quarterbacks in the class, it's a good thing that they don't have
to throw him out there right away. I think that Donald will probably start.
The way that I look at it, I target that week seven date
for JJ McCarthy because I believe week six is there bye week and then they
are at home against the Detroit Lions in week seven. So to me,
five weeks of Sam Darnold's the starting quarterback, but a month and a half
into the season, that's when you can then probably make the switch over to
JJ McCarthy, depending on how the team is doing. So I do think
that he becomes a starter eventually. Nicks I think could very well start even
before then, right because next you look at him one of the older quarterback
prospects, a guy with a ton of experience most starts in college football history,
got a lot of wisdom to his game already. You know, certainly
he needs to acclimate the NFL speed, NFL defenses, his own NFL offense
is who he is throwing to, all of that, but you know,
it's not like things should really rattle him too much. It's going to take
him a little bit to get comfortable. But I think Sean Payton's going to
want to put that guy out there sooner rather than later. Trevor, as
John said earlier, Draft season never really ends, and so I kind of
want to look ahead because I saw an article last week posted on PFF talking
about your twenty twenty five NFL draft offensive players to look out for, and
interestingly enough, I saw for the Pittsburgh Steelers, you have Carson Beck with
Georgia. Now, I think it's it's it's obviously no surprise that we have
question marks at the quarterback position here in Pittsburgh. Why Carson Beck? And
how realistic do you see that going into the twenty twenty five season. What
does Pittsburgh like? I guess what has to go right or wrong this season
for Pittsburgh to land a player like Carson Beck. Well, there's kind of
a lot of factors there. Right. It's I'm not picking Beck necessarily because
I look at Pittsburgh and say like, oh, great schem fit or anything.
It's really just, hey, if they have a quarterback, need you
know Carson Beck, shod or Standers? Maybe you know Connor Wigman from Texas
A and m maybe Quinn Ears. Although I'm not as high on Yours or
Standers as a lot of other people are. You're just kind of looking at
that quarterback situation and you say, Okay, how hot If Pittsburgh is looking
for a quarterback, right, because what r Wilson's on a one year deal
justin Fields on the last year of his Jorgy contract. There is a reality
where they try out both those guys that don't work very well. I know
it's sack relgious to say this at this point, but maybe Pittsburgh finishes below
five hundred with Mike Tomlin. Although I feel like I would bet on the
world to end before I would bet on that half, right, But you
know, it's just sort of a where are they going to be picking if
they need a quarterback? And who are you selecting there? And I pick
Carson Beck because a lot of people have him as a potential QB one going
into the season, but he's not necessarily like Caleb Williams type of QB one
where you go, Okay, well you got to be picking number one overall
or you don't have a chance. I think we're going to go into this
quarterback class and until one of these guys really stands out, which I think
these guys could be NFL starters, but maybe not necessarily this consensus they're going
to take over the franchise Tase to players think he's a little bit more question
marks. Although I was impressed with Beck last year, certainly towards the end
of the season how well he played, But to me, it's more of
just how high is Pittsburgh going to be selecting a quarterback, and if they're
really going to be moving on from Russ, I feel like that means that
they're probably only going to win about sixty seven games this season. And if
that's the case, maybe you're within Carson Beck range tacking somewhere around the top
ten now going into this obviously this season it's it's a quarterback competition between looks
like Russell Wilson Justin Fields. Obviously it seems to be Russell Wilson's job right
now. Justin could come along and, you know, show up and maybe
do something and be the guy that we want him to be. Let's say,
at the end of the year or at the end of the season we're
done. Both Russell and Justin have kind of shown that they're pretty good kind
of long term, I guess medium term as you can. If you don't,
you dare bring up Carolina into this conversation, mister Fitterer is now with
Washington. We're not doing that. I'm going with this is who do you
retain at the end of this season, between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields.
Do you go with someone like a veteran like Russell Wilson And obviously this all
depends on how are they going to play. We have no idea what they
look like here in this ARTI Smith system. But do you stick with a
veteran like Russell Wilson that could potentially mentor a young up and quartering up and
coming quarterback that they may draft, or do you go with someone younger like
Justin Fields that can maybe play a little bit longer and give that quarterback time
to adjust to the NFL. Yeah, I mean, there's so many factors
there at play there, and I think the question that immediately comes to my
mind is you got to understand probably where you are as a team, right,
because when I look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, I think that you look
at the defense side of the ball and there's some veterans that are still kind
of holding their end of things right. You know, TJ. Watt is
there, Cam Hayward is there? Those the pillar players, you know,
Mega Fitzpatrick as well, like those to me are sort of like the pillar
veteran players that you have on the defensive side of the ball. If you
think you are still a team that with those guys, you're in a winning
window both in twenty twenty five and probably twenty twenty six, you probably rather
go with an experienced quarterback really like Russell Wilson. But when I look at
the Steelers, they're very close to turning the page on a lot of those
guys that they're going to be out of the building. I'm not trying to
say that they're like wash up or anything like that, But you look at
the rest of the roster, I think it's probably the better way that I
say that. Well, it's like George Pickens, Roman Wilson. Now you
look at the offensive line, it's Zach Frazier, scrog Faltanu, It's Mason
McCormick, it's Roger Jones, who you drafted last year. You know,
you got Jalen Warren as well. You know, Nagie Harris is still a
younger guy. You've got guys like on the defensive side of things, keanum
Benton, you got Joey Porter Junior. You just drafted some guys as well
in the secondary and so like you've got Alex Tyson at too, Peyton Wilson.
So like you've just got such a I think when people think about the
Steelers, they think the roster is more of a veteran led roster than it
really is, and it's not. There's much more younger rookie contract players on
the team, And if you're sort of trying to go with the youth movement,
if it's all the same, you're probably gonna go with Justin Fields because
he kind of fits that mold a little bit more and he's a little bit
younger. You might get even more contracts out of him, and he's just
going to a much younger team. But if you're trying to kind of like
win for the short term, I'd probably go with Russell Wilson. But there's
so many factors and how these guys played that would go into that, right.
I was thinking about you earlier this week, Trevor Sikima PFF dot com.
Trevor, we've been friends for a while and I know your roots are
very much in Tampa Bay. Monte Kiffin passed away, as you well know,
eighty four years old, and many was such a great gentleman of the
game, but more so than that, he was a great teacher, great
schematic mind. Of course, with Tony Dungee Tampa to Defense, part of
the creation of that was the brain power of one Montey Kiffin and I just
thought of you earlier, and I'm glad we've got you here because I know
that, you know, our teams squared off a lot in that era,
Montic Kiff and Derek Brooks along with John Lynch, and then you had Smith
the Lome, Stephen Davis, and boy, those were some battles and nothing
but respect. But your perspective on certainly somebody I know you looked up to
greatly Monti Kiffin. Yeah, just a legend man. You know. I
never had the opportunity to meet him in person, but you know, just
listening to a lot of people and reading a lot of people talk about their
accounts of getting to meet him, whether it was Buff Stands that I know,
or you know, coaches, you know, but whatever, it just
felt like he was he was a godfather of the godfather to the game in
so many ways, not only schematically and kind of his brilliance of how he
and Tony Dungee were able to put together the Tampa two with that Tampa defense
and all those Hall of famers that were on that defense, but just also
the kind of person that he was and how generous he was with his time
and his wisdom, and his knowledge, and you know, I think the
not just the game of the world, I think lost a great person in
the passing of money Kiffen, and he's somebody who you know, I tweeted
this out. His innovation and his impact on defense is a big reason why
I became such a big Bucks fan when I was growing up, because it
was so much fun to watch that team and to really get behind a team
that played such great defense. And you know, defense can oftentimes be more
of the team togetherness, part of the two sides of the ball. You
know, we're offense, you can have a couple of people dominate and you
know, you can have your stars on there. But for defense, you
know, it takes a whole unit. Six guys are working together. And
you know, fortunately for Tampa they were terrible for so long that they were
able to draft a lot of really good players. And you know, they
had a lot of really great players on the team. But when when when
Monte Kiffin and Tony done, you were there. So I just huge impact
guys within the Tampa community, within the Tampa organization, and their work really
did inspire a generation of Bucks fans in Tampa. Bay Well said Trevor Sikom
at PFF dot com, who is just doing a tremendous job on so many
levels. I know you have a lot of projects, but one of my
favorites is the NFL Stock Exchange podcast with Connor Rogers. And today, as
we all are are most of us at least and my son at home right
now, is I'm going to be speeding home to this playing the first peak
at what is going to be many many hours in front of the television with
the A's twenty five game. You guys put out a top one hundred players
for this season's game. Talk about that and promote what else you got going
on here. Yeah, so you know, we're right in the middle of
summer scouting. This is for our NFL Stockey Change show that we do on
YouTube, and we just finished up the offensive side of the ball, so
we got all the way quarterbacks through the offensive line, and we've gone through
our summer scouting for the twenty twenty five NFL Draft going into the season,
and we kind of had this free week here in between the week before we
started the defensive side of the ball, and it was perfect timing with college
football coming out in college football released the game release their top one hundred ranked
players, and so myself and my coast Connor Rodgers, we went over those
top one hundred rated players and we talked about, you know, from our
scouting eye, what we have watched from a lot of the offensive players who
we think is a little too high, a little too low, who we
think are going to be the cheat codes in the games that they're going to
either make you pull your hair out or make your friends lives miserable because you're
beating the crap out of them with spamming one play in one player. Soe
No, it was a great conversation. It was a lot of the NFL
stock exchange on YouTube. Can you reveal the team you're going to lead to
glory here? What is the team of choice for Trevor Sikaman in this game?
I was thinking about this and I think I might pick Vanderbilt. Right.
When you think about Vanderbilt, it's like a true challenge. You know,
you're facing SEC team every single week. You know it's a true uphill
battle. Now you gotta face Texas and Oklahoma. Well, like bringing Vanderbilt
to glory would truly be just an incredible you know, a display of coaching
and program building, and you know, maybe stealing one recruit that you know
it. Want to be a cheekos and you had to you, I'm actually
going to Nebraska to replace Matt Rule tonight. It's going to be a three
year process, not seven trade. We got to seal the store with mister
Rule. You're the best man. Enjoy the game tonight and we'll catch up
with you, all right. Yeah, I appreciate it. Guys anytime,