Speaker 1: We have joining us right now, Sam Brookhouse. Uh, he's
Speaker 1: with Sumer Sports. Of course, he was a two lane linebacker.
Speaker 1: Just got back from the NFL combine and we have
Speaker 1: severe hail outside as we as we were joined by Sam. Sam,
Speaker 1: how are you welcome to the program. I'm doing well.
Speaker 2: Thank you all for having me.
Speaker 1: Always always a pleasure to have you here on the drive.
Speaker 1: I I really want to start here with the with
Speaker 1: the combine, right, so you you just got back from
Speaker 1: the combine, and I have a couple of questions. But
Speaker 1: first of all, so so what because things kind of
Speaker 1: shift or they kind of solidify themselves after the combine,
Speaker 1: you get prod age, you have all this stuff. What
Speaker 1: what is kind of maybe moved on the needle about
Speaker 1: draft draft order players. What's kind of the big news
Speaker 1: after after the combine.
Speaker 2: I think the most interesting thing we've kind of seen
Speaker 2: is threefold. The first is the guys, particularly in the
Speaker 2: edge market, who had put up really big numbers, notably
Speaker 2: Schamar Stewart and James Pearce, kind of had interesting trajectory.
Speaker 2: Shamar Stewart has seen a shoot upwards given his size
Speaker 2: and his ability to show his athletic traits. On the
Speaker 2: field in Indianapolis. He's now about fifteenth on the consensus
Speaker 2: big board. Earlier on in the draft season, he was
Speaker 2: more in the twenties, late second round excuse me, late
Speaker 2: first round type guy. He shot up and then you
Speaker 2: look at James Pearce. It kind of shows the flip
Speaker 2: side of the combine. This is the time where everyone
Speaker 2: can interview. There were questions about teams asking him about
Speaker 2: character concerns, and that's a very key element of the
Speaker 2: combine is asking those types of questions. And he's kind
Speaker 2: of remained still despite having you know, an eightieth ninetieth
Speaker 2: percentile combine performance. So it's been interesting to see how
Speaker 2: it shakes out, especially given some teams don't even put
Speaker 2: any value in the combine anymore. In fact, the Los
Speaker 2: Angeles really didn't even send any of their executives this year.
Speaker 2: That's concurrent with a trend that they've been doing for
Speaker 2: the past couple of years. So it's interesting to see
Speaker 2: how it shakes out. It seems like it's more tied
Speaker 2: to the news and noise and rumors that are coming
Speaker 2: out of these team interviews than the actual showing on
Speaker 2: the field.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's interesting because when I played in
Speaker 1: the NFL, we like, I hated the combine. I'll just
Speaker 1: tell you right now, it is like the worst experience
Speaker 1: of my life. And uh and and every shop you know,
Speaker 1: so I was drafted by the Miami Dolphins, and and
Speaker 1: every year coach Shula had they called it the mini Olympics, right,
Speaker 1: And so you you went through and did all the
Speaker 1: combine tests that that so you did the bench press,
Speaker 1: you did the shuttles, you did the the forties, and
Speaker 1: then we ran for twelve minutes. And he just ran
Speaker 1: around the football fields for like twelve minutes. And and
Speaker 1: everyone said, like, what's the value in this? Like, like
Speaker 1: where where where? Because I'm fascinated by the rams and
Speaker 1: I know I know that they they're looking at different
Speaker 1: metrics here. Do you see that as a trend. That's
Speaker 1: kind of kind of moving because because I also hear, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: the combine marks all these like athletic traits, but they
Speaker 1: can't tell does the guy have a heart? Does the
Speaker 1: guy you know? Does the guy have a sense for football?
Speaker 1: Does he have a football like you? And you've seen
Speaker 1: great examples of this with players through the years. So
Speaker 1: is that a trend? That's changing, or you know what
Speaker 1: different types of things are teams specifically the rams looking
Speaker 1: at to gauge and evaluate players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're big in a data here at Suomer Sports,
Speaker 2: and what the data shows is that the correlation between
Speaker 2: these events and the actual production on field really is
Speaker 2: minimal at best. But on the flip side, as a
Speaker 2: data scientist, there's such few data points that we really
Speaker 2: do have to track these college players on their way
Speaker 2: to the pros. We can look at their production, but
Speaker 2: there's so much context. You know, did the player go
Speaker 2: to a place like Utah State or where they in
Speaker 2: the big leagues in the Pac twelve, in the Big
Speaker 2: twelve like Utah. There's there's so many questions that come
Speaker 2: along with production that it's kind of hard to look
Speaker 2: back in history and understand what was going on. We
Speaker 2: now have the tracking data, which is very key, but
Speaker 2: we only have a couple of years, given that the
Speaker 2: technology has just now evolved to that spot. The copline
Speaker 2: has been going on for decades and as a result,
Speaker 2: it has a very deep, rich and uniform backlog of
Speaker 2: data that is somewhat helpful. But as a result, because
Speaker 2: we have that big backlog, we've been able to find
Speaker 2: out that the numbers just don't mean that much except
Speaker 2: for you know, a few key items like tight ends.
Speaker 2: You know, they have to be a certain level of athlete,
Speaker 2: a certain threshold of athlete to be good at the
Speaker 2: next level. Makes sense because they have to receive and block.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of places where it's even close to
Speaker 2: like a fifty percent correlation, but that's very low in
Speaker 2: terms of correlation to begin with, pretty close to uncorrelated.
Speaker 2: And as a result, you know, we try to take
Speaker 2: what we can from it, but we all understand as
Speaker 2: data side scientist that it just is not something that
Speaker 2: you want to pin your whole evaluation on. That's why
Speaker 2: with these guys like Shamar Stewart and James Pierce and
Speaker 2: some of the other running backs in particular, when they
Speaker 2: shoot all the way up the board, I tend to
Speaker 2: be really, really skeptical of whether that's a good evaluation.
Speaker 1: Uh okay, I have I have a suggestion for some
Speaker 1: data analytics and maybe you do this, maybe you don't,
Speaker 1: and so maybe I'm going to give you an idea
Speaker 1: here because this was and again it wasn't scientific, It
Speaker 1: was just my observation from my time playing. And so
Speaker 1: I played in the NFL twelve years and every year,
Speaker 1: like new guys that come in and you always go, yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy can play. That you knew like very quickly
Speaker 1: whether guys were going to make it or not, and
Speaker 1: and not necessarily to what degree, but just that they
Speaker 1: were going to make the team or not. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I noticed through the years is there
Speaker 1: was a decent number of players from big time programs
Speaker 1: who were who were massively at who really struggled like
Speaker 1: they did like they didn't. It was almost like you go, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a surefire guy because he played here and
Speaker 1: he's this and he's all that. And I saw a
Speaker 1: decent number of those guys who didn't make it. I'm curious,
Speaker 1: do you do you track data like that or do you?
Speaker 1: Or am I? Am I throwing something new out at
Speaker 1: you that maybe you might might consider watching. And my
Speaker 1: theory before you answer is they were always just better
Speaker 1: athletes than than most of the people they were against,
Speaker 1: and so they never really learned like the the craft,
Speaker 1: they didn't learn the art of their position, they didn't
Speaker 1: learn and they didn't realize that like everybody at the
Speaker 1: NFL is really good and if if you're gonna succeed,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna have a you've got to you've got
Speaker 1: to really understand. You can't just out athlete lead people.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a couple, you know, Barry Sanders, maybe
Speaker 1: a Dion sand A few of these guys could do it,
Speaker 1: but most guys you had to really be a master
Speaker 1: of your craft. Is that something that you am I?
Speaker 1: Am I telling you something new? Or is this something
Speaker 1: you actually track? Or am I crazy? I think no.
Speaker 2: I think you hit the nail on the head here.
Speaker 2: It's it's never clean when it comes to the data.
Speaker 2: And that's why at Summer Sports we try to blend
Speaker 2: the subjectiveness. You know, you talked about the heart the IQ,
Speaker 2: the understanding of the game with the actual evaluation of
Speaker 2: the tracking data, how they're moving on the field and
Speaker 2: how fast they're moving and their production, which we can
Speaker 2: get down again to the tracking level. We can get
Speaker 2: down to how they finish after two seconds on a
Speaker 2: pass rush, you know when you really got to dig
Speaker 2: deep and try that second effort and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But I think you really nailed on the head looking
Speaker 2: at the data, typically the star system from the two
Speaker 2: four seven ratings typically is pretty good, but it's just
Speaker 2: that pretty good. There's probably like twenty five percent or
Speaker 2: more of those guys who are looked out at big
Speaker 2: time recruits who have immense athleticism and just can't make
Speaker 2: it at the next level. Because everyone at the next level,
Speaker 2: as you well know, and I'm sure you can talk
Speaker 2: about a lot better than me, just me being the
Speaker 2: college guy, has the athleticism to succeed at the college level,
Speaker 2: athleticism to succeed at the pro level, and the IQ
Speaker 2: to succeed at the pro level, which in my mind
Speaker 2: is like one hundred x what it is at the
Speaker 2: college level. You're dealing with guys who had been in
Speaker 2: the league for ten fifteen years. They've seen everything, they've
Speaker 2: done everything. I think about all those Patriots guys, or
Speaker 2: even Joe Tooney who just got traded, for example, from
Speaker 2: the Kansas City Chiefs, he's a Patriot guy too. Can
Speaker 2: you imagine all the things that that guy had seen
Speaker 2: that a young, strapping defensive tackle hasn't even a concept
Speaker 2: of when he's going up against him. And so that's
Speaker 2: really the difference and the guys who can kind of
Speaker 2: pick up on it quick. Jayden Daniels is a great
Speaker 2: example of this. He was able to use VR to
Speaker 2: kind of get himself up to speed at the next level.
Speaker 2: He used it like two x speed and that helped
Speaker 2: him out a little bit. But it's good to notate
Speaker 2: who the guys that can do that are. But it's
Speaker 2: really a crapshoot, and it's something that we like to
Speaker 2: use our subjective analysis coming from our scouts and general
Speaker 2: managers to get a better sense of. But it's really
Speaker 2: really difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it almost seems like if you you maybe don't
Speaker 1: get all the data right, but if you can figure
Speaker 1: out just just something like a little little tweak or
Speaker 1: something that just gives you a little bit of an
Speaker 1: advantage over over you know, other people like you could
Speaker 1: you can. You can look at the data and you
Speaker 1: can draw something out from it that maybe other people aren't.
Speaker 1: And just because I would imagine just a little bit
Speaker 1: of a of a bump, like you know, like the Rams,
Speaker 1: because they really bucked a trend. I remember them talking
Speaker 1: about this and it wasn't so much about someone's speed,
Speaker 1: it was about their speed on a football field, right
Speaker 1: that they could get and they use Cooper Cup as
Speaker 1: the example, like like what makes him so good as
Speaker 1: he gets from point A to point B as fast,
Speaker 1: if not faster than anyone around, and so evaluating those
Speaker 1: data points to prove to be more more valuable than
Speaker 1: maybe a traditional way of looking.
Speaker 2: At Yeah, here's an interesting ten trend just talking about
Speaker 2: the Rams, which I'm going to be deeply tracking in
Speaker 2: the next couple of years. Uh, given the rise of
Speaker 2: the transfer at the college level. The Rams have four
Speaker 2: guys on their defensive line, all four transferred up a
Speaker 2: level at the college level, and we're able to be
Speaker 2: really successful. We talk about Braden Fisk coming from I
Speaker 2: believe it was Western Michigan. He came from to Florida State,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, he's an All American level player.
Speaker 2: Jared Verse, who was, you know, a Rookie of the
Speaker 2: Year candidate this year. He transferred up to Florida State
Speaker 2: from Albany. And then you have guys like Brian Byron
Speaker 2: Young and Kobe Turner who transferred up from various different
Speaker 2: locations as well. I'm wondering if they picked up on
Speaker 2: something there. Maybe it was a little bit more subjective.
Speaker 2: They like guys who can overcome and succeed at the
Speaker 2: Power five level after doing it at a lower level.
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering if we're not going to see more
Speaker 2: than that, particularly at those offensive defensive line positions, which
Speaker 2: require such a high level of IQ at the NFL level,
Speaker 2: despite not necessarily needing it at the college level where
Speaker 2: you can kind of out athlete people.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting observation because I, you know, so I'm
Speaker 1: out here in Utah and and the color analysts for
Speaker 1: for Utah football, and and you know, been doing it
Speaker 1: for about eight years, and so I've had a chance
Speaker 1: to watch some of uh these players, specifically Shador Sanders
Speaker 1: and cam Ward and and even Jayden and Daniels. Jade
Speaker 1: Daniels was actually initially recruited and he committed to Utah
Speaker 1: and then and then he decided to go to Arizona State.
Speaker 1: And I remember watching Shad or not Chadur, but Jayden
Speaker 1: as a freshman, and he he looked terrible, Like I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not really all that impressed with him,
Speaker 1: and and he was just and and and you talk
Speaker 1: about he transferred to l s U and and he
Speaker 1: was really good in cam Ward, you know, came from
Speaker 1: Incarnate Ward and that word and and went to Washington
Speaker 1: State and what And I watched him at Washington say,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, you know, he's okay. I mean he's
Speaker 1: real raw and all this stuff. And then and then
Speaker 1: he went again to Miami and just you saw that
Speaker 1: that if it was part of transferring it because I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of my own experience, and I know, like when
Speaker 1: I went for high school to college, that transition going
Speaker 1: to a new program, boy, that was so hard, Like
Speaker 1: my freshman year of college was terrible, And it was
Speaker 1: actually easier transitioning the second time, you know, when I
Speaker 1: went into the NFL, even though it was harder, the
Speaker 1: transition to it was was actually a little bit easier.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if there's some of that involved where
Speaker 1: you get used to and kind of the mystery of
Speaker 1: new places kind of wears off, or you know, I
Speaker 1: think of you know, I went in the NFL and
Speaker 1: I was a quarterback, played behind Dan Marino for my
Speaker 1: first few years, and I went back, I went to
Speaker 1: the World League and played in an off season and
Speaker 1: came back so much better a player. And that's a
Speaker 1: fascinating thing you're looking at, and I think there's really
Speaker 1: something there, and it may be not just for you know,
Speaker 1: those offense defensive line positions, but maybe maybe even more
Speaker 1: for quarterbacks and others. Having to learn new systems and
Speaker 1: getting comfortable in new places might might have an impact.
Speaker 1: Who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's going to be an interesting test
Speaker 2: this year because we talk about the guys who have
Speaker 2: been highly drafted in past years, and we're talking about
Speaker 2: Jayden Daniels who transferred from P five school Ariasona State
Speaker 2: to P five school. Joe Burrow didn't really get a
Speaker 2: chance to play, but he was at Ohio State and
Speaker 2: then he went to LSU. Cam Moore and Shade or
Speaker 2: Sanders are going to be an interesting test case because,
Speaker 2: like you said, Ward succeeded at the FCS level, at
Speaker 2: the Pac twelve level, at the ACC level. This is
Speaker 2: a dude who has succeeded at the lowest rung of
Speaker 2: college or of major college football to the highest rung
Speaker 2: of the of major college football. And it's really the
Speaker 2: same thing with Shade Door Sanders at Jackson State. Immensely
Speaker 2: successful and again incarnate word. I'm from South Louisiana. I
Speaker 2: grew up in Southland Whack Country, and I grew up
Speaker 2: around all the HBCUs and Jackson State and Karnate Word
Speaker 2: are not the easiest places to win by any means.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's some powerhouses in those conference that bully
Speaker 2: those teams from year to year, and they were able
Speaker 2: to turn those programs around and really win. And then
Speaker 2: you look at Shade Door Sanders too. You know all
Speaker 2: the discussion of did he interview well, didn't he interview well? Well,
Speaker 2: I know one thing, he turned Jackson State around, It
Speaker 2: really turned the whole college around with his dad as well,
Speaker 2: and then he went to Colorado really off his poor
Speaker 2: team all of a sudden. Now they're in contention for
Speaker 2: a Big twelve title this year. I mean like, at
Speaker 2: some point we just got to look at the record
Speaker 2: and understand that this dude clearly has at least some
Speaker 2: ability to lead a program, given he's done it twice
Speaker 2: in two different pretty difficult scenarios.
Speaker 1: So I was going to ask you about Shadeur because
Speaker 1: I've also been around him a little bit and interviewed
Speaker 1: and I actually found him to be cocky, right I did.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, this, okay, this gets pretty brash,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like whatever, And I wasn't. I wasn't
Speaker 1: rubbed the wrong way and cam Ward very different, like
Speaker 1: very different personalities, different different mindsets. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: fun to be able to, you know, because you have
Speaker 1: a one on one personal interview with these guys for
Speaker 1: a decent amount of time. And and and Shadur was
Speaker 1: was pretty uh, you know, he's pretty arrogant. I'll just
Speaker 1: I'll leave it at that. How much of though, really
Speaker 1: do NFL teams buy into that? And and there you know,
Speaker 1: there's been some discussion about that maybe being a knock
Speaker 1: on him. You know, I'm just curious what your thoughts
Speaker 1: are about, you know, a player with a little bit
Speaker 1: of an attitude or or you know, or or confident
Speaker 1: what what kind of what kind of what? How do
Speaker 1: teams rate that? Or how do teams evaluate a person's
Speaker 1: confidence level or their personality for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So as a core data scientist, this is something
Speaker 2: that we can't really measure, and frankly, we like to
Speaker 2: stay out of a little bit because, as as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: it can kind of become he said, she said, or
Speaker 2: a team throwing smoke about something and and then a
Speaker 2: snowball falls and all of a sudden, the guys starts
Speaker 2: tumbling down draft boards or tumbling up draft boards, depending
Speaker 2: on how it goes. I just think it's it's it's
Speaker 2: interesting in general because a general manager is not just
Speaker 2: building a football team, he's building a culture. And Thomas
Speaker 2: de Menchrov talks about this all the time about how
Speaker 2: he learned the different types of culture from the Patriot
Speaker 2: paradigm when he was there and then his own attitudes,
Speaker 2: thoughts and believes. So when he went down to the
Speaker 2: Falcons are president here at Summer Sports and a close
Speaker 2: mentor of mine, and so you really have to build
Speaker 2: a culture in a workplace that allows a team to
Speaker 2: go well. And you know that well as a former quarterback,
Speaker 2: you've got to be able to command the huddle and
Speaker 2: have the respect of the guys around you, and I
Speaker 2: think that is key. I do wonder about how well
Speaker 2: we can predict at at any given point in time.
Speaker 2: And one thing I also note about schedule. You mentioned
Speaker 2: the arrogance, and maybe that comes from prime time baby,
Speaker 2: like you know, his dad was like that back in
Speaker 2: the eighties and nineties, and it brings a certain air
Speaker 2: of confidence. But I think something that people don't recognize
Speaker 2: now is all of these players coming in are professional athletes.
Speaker 2: They've had to deal with agent, they've had to deal
Speaker 2: with money, They've had to deal with all the noise
Speaker 2: that comes with those two things. And I think, you know,
Speaker 2: the hoop to jump through to being an NFL athlete
Speaker 2: with big money and a full schedule of football is
Speaker 2: a lot less than it used to be even four
Speaker 2: or five years ago, back when I was playing. Because
Speaker 2: now these guys are pretty much fully professional, jumping teams
Speaker 2: every year, agents going out and taking offers and having
Speaker 2: to negotiate for themselves and their value. I think it's
Speaker 2: just much less of a hoop to jump through, and
Speaker 2: I really think it's going to end up resembling more basketball,
Speaker 2: where maybe every once in a while we'll get a
Speaker 2: guy who is way off the reservation, but for the
Speaker 2: most part, they're pretty well media trained and pretty professional
Speaker 2: coming into the NBA. I think it's going to start
Speaker 2: resembling that a little bit more than the tales of
Speaker 2: your of the guys jumping to the NFL.
Speaker 1: Hey, Sam, I have really enjoyed this, I really have.
Speaker 1: It's given me a lot to think about it. I
Speaker 1: think it's really cool what you're doing, and I've just
Speaker 1: had a great time here thanks for coming on the
Speaker 1: show and have have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate it.