Scouting Combine Week: DB Workout Recap | Dane Brugler's Most Athletic DBs

Published Mar 4, 2023, 2:38 PM

Fran Duffy is joined by Dane Brugler to list out the most athletic testers from the cornerback and safety positions at the National Scouting Combine before Ella DiGiovanni jumps in to break down the best positional workouts from Friday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Eagles Entertainment. We're the fifteen pick in the NFL Draft to Philadelphia Eagles Fleck. You're listening to the Journey to the Draft podcast. Welcome to the Journey of the Draft podcast presented by Life Brand. I'm your host Fran Duffy, and we are back here in Indianapolis for the twenty twenty three National Scouting Combine. Day two of drills is in the books. The defensive backs took the field at Lucasoil Stadium on Friday afternoon. We saw the cornerbacks first, the safety second, we're gonna break it all down everything we saw first from the athletic testing, myself and Dame Brugler pick six six players that stood out most too Dane in the athletic testing portion of those two workouts, and then we're gonna wrap things up with our Draft Buzz, where Gabriella Di Giovanni and I are gonna go through the big takeaways from the positional workouts, not just the guys who tested well and ran well in the forty, but who did best in all of the ball drills that those guys ran both groups. We're gonna go through side and really get a sense of the guys that did best in that form of the workout. As always, make sure you're head on over to our Apple podcast page. Leave us a rating, leave us a comment. If you've got questions, leave them there. We'll answer him here In an upcoming episode that said, let's get to pick six now with Dane Brugler. Now it's time for pick six. All right, that's gonna do some of the top athletic testers from Friday afternoon's action at Lucas Oil Stadium. As I welcome in the athletics Dane Brugler to go through everything that we saw here on Friday. The corners went first, the safeties went second. We've got a lot of athletic testing to get through. Dane. Oh, who's the top of your list? Who's the number one most impressive player just from the athletic testing portion of Friday, Well, I think we have to start with the guy that ran the fastest forty and look, he only did one drill tonight, And if you're only gonna do one drill, at least he made it count. That's DJ Turner in the Michigan corner, who ran a four to two six official forty year dash Uh it's a one four seven ten yards split. So he was the leader in the clubhouse in both of those categories. You know, he's a freaks list guy, someone who we expected to test well. Yeah, but you know, the fastest forty that's always a bar you want to aspire to reaching. And so, you know, a DJ turner. Even though that was the only drill that he did and I don't I'm guessing there might have been a tweak there or something. Uh, So we'll to find out more about that, but at least that that one drill that he did do is pretty impressive. Yeah, I would say, like, you know, we knew about the the what the testing was gonna look like coming in, but you know, even watching him on film that that speed and that quickness, that fluidity, those explosive bursts like one thousand percent show up on tape. He is, um, you know, very similar to you know a DRC uh you know CJ. Henderson as a player we've evaluated recently where it's like, yeah, like they have elite speed with that size, like that length, and that shows up on film just the recovery, uh, lateral and linear juice. He's he's a really impressive athlete. I think he's If you're looking for a Day two Nickel, I think that's your guy. Um. He was maybe around seventy in my pre combined top one hundred, but you know when and you know, I think that he was going to put on a show even you know, besides the forty yard dash. So somewhere second round, early third probably where he's gonna end up. But I think he's he might be a Day one nickel. All right, let's get to number two. Who's next up on your list? Gotta go with my guy, Christian Gonzalez. Um guy have been high on since the first saw him in the summer. Uh yeah, he was expected to test well again, and you know he didn't disappoint. Four three eight in the forty forty one and a half in the vert. What do you know, what do he weighed in at there, Dane? It was just under two hundred pounds. Okay, I got it. Oh that's I mean, that's impressive to go to go to jump the way he did and run the way he did it just about two hundred right exactly. So you know, and again this is another guy we expected to put up these types of numbers. But you know, it's another thing to actually go out and do it. So, um, you know if you can get uh, when we're talking about a long player, he was one ninety seven, um so six two or six one thirty two inch arms. Uh, really fluid player and you know the high numbers we expected to see. He reached those and so kind of checked those boxes for Christian Gonzalez. Yeah, the corners overall just like tore up the track the forty You know, we're I'm sure we'll continue to see this tomorrow. We saw it last year as a new turf field put in at Lucasoil Stadium just what was about like eighteen months ago now at this point maybe a little little bit less than that. Um and it's uh, it's showing up well here in these forty times to me, like if you were a prospect and you were here and you are, you could you can run like you gotta run. Yeah, you got you have to take advantage of this track while you've got it. Um. So yeah, Christian Gonzalez Turner definitely slam dunk names to start things off. Who would be named number three? Go with Maryland Corner Deontay Banks. You know a guy that I was probably on Thanksgiving. UM, I had not really watched him yet, and you know I heard from a scout saying, hey, you need to check this guy out. He's you know, we gave him a second round grade, he might go higher. UM. I checked him out, and I was like, okay, yeah, pencilomanto my next first round walk because this guy is really good. And he came in just over six foot and over twitter pounds, ran a four three five and the forty forty two inch FURTU and uh that that forty two is number one among corners. So this guy was you know, for a bigger corner who likes to play physical. Uh, you know, likes to match up with bigger wide receivers. He has the speed to match. He has that explosiveness as well. So Deontay Banks, I mean, if anybody's wondering why you're seeing him in first round mocks, uh, you know this is another example why he was he was listed. Let me just pull up his numbers real quick. He was listed by Maryland significantly bigger than what he came in at uh here today, which you know that was a little bit of a surprise. Uh. He was listed six two two oh five he came in under six foot he was I think it was five to eleven and was it six eighths or seven eighths h Dana and came in under two hundred um. So the size differential was was notable. But I thought he tested better than I expected coming in. I thought it was a little clunky on film at times. Uh, some wasted steps when making lateral cuts would stumble into breaks. Um. The size certainly there. The aggressiveness, especially early in the down and press coverage guy with a little of race players watching it Ohio State game, that certainly stood out. Um. But I think when when you watch him go through drills uh here today, that's gonna make me go back and maybe you know, double check my thinking there because Banks really did shine today. Yeah. And I think that there's a clump of those corners right in that late one early two window with Keiley Ringo who had a good workout, Emmanuel Forbes and uh, you know Clark Phillips probably in there there. There's there's just a group of those guys. And so for a guy like Dante Banks to go out there and test like he did, that's exactly what he needed to do to kind of help separate himself among the pack. All right, that's going number four Kansas State Corner Julius Brents, an Indianapolis native, sixty three, one hundred ninety eight pounds, thirty four inch arms, So his his forty was okay, four or five three, uh, but forty one and a half inch for eleven six broad And then he had the best three cone of the defensive backs today, six six three. Unreal number for a foreign athlete to do. Go out there and put a six sixty three, especially a guy his size. Yeah, yeah, that's it's a lot of guys, most guys that size are that you're all legs flailing and but no, I mean he was controlled and put up a six six three is just a fantastic number. So um no, I thought that just you know, some of his other stuff, you know, some of the positional stuff I thought was a little up and down. You know, the gauntlet was a little discombarbulated. I thought he looked good on some other positional stuff. But the testing, even though the forty is good, not great, the other stuff was just fantastic. You know who I thought of watching him go through all this was Benjamin Saint Juice a couple of years ago coming out of Michigan, who was like a tall, long, lanky corner and he ended up going around three and he got a shot this year start for Washington, and I was like, what he put out some good tape. This was his second year, was a backup a year ago, came into the season as a nickel and then started shifting outside as they got rid of William Jackson and Washington and really kind of settled in. And everybody keeps penciling in corner for Washington, and you know, I could see why we'll bring more, more, more action there, But Saint Juice is not a guy I want to send to the bench if I'm the commanders. And um Julius Brentz kind of reminded me a little bit of Saint Jews when you talk about like his size profile. Now you match that with the testing, because remember Saint Jews also was like a freak show in the three cone as well. For a guy that that's that's that's that big um Brents. I thought was really really impressive today. And the position work was really good too. Yeah, I mean that that that that's a good comp um. When you talk about body type and the way they move and UH with with Brents, I don't know. Sometimes I have a bias against corners that can struggle to find the football make plays in the football. And you know, watch the TCU, you know, the Big twelve Championship game, and you see that he will struggle at times a going and making plays in the football. But we're not talking about a first round pick here. We're talking about a guy that's you know, looking to cement himself as a as a Day two pick and to go out there and run the best. Uh had the best braun have the best three cone have? Oh he had? They also had the best short shuttle and uh the second best vertical jump behind only Deontay Banks. So that that's like you get it done. Yeah, if you call it. You know, if you want to factor in like all the interceptions and as break ups in his creer, you call those bald disruptions, right, you combine those together. He only had sixteen in his career in thirty two stocks. That is that is not very good. That's a poor number. Um, But the tools all there for Julius Prance UH to be an effective player who's number five on your list, So we're gonna do five and six here. You know, yesterday we finished with exactly so we'll do that again here with the two Illinois defensive backs. Uh, Devin Witherspoon, we did not get a chance to see him, but the two other Alni dbs did not disappoint Talking about Geortevous Martin, Quan Martin and Sydney Brown. And it's kind of funny. It was almost like these two were the only two guys out there in their minds. They kept battling back and forth. Uh, you look at the forty yard dash. Quan Martin four four six h Sydney Brown four four seven. So Quan just got him, uh ten yards split, same thing, one four seven four Quan one five one for Sydney the broad Uh, Quan Martin was eleven one, Sidney Brown ten ten the vertical. How about this for Quon Martin forty four inches in the vertical wild forty four. But Sydney Brown wasn't bad. He was forty and a half. Like that's an amazing number. So you know, both these guys kept going back and forth, back and forth and just really really impressed. I thought, and you know, I don't. When you watch him on film, you think they're like I don't. I don't think you think they're super athletes, but you think they're athletic the way they play, And these numbers just confirmed that. I thought Martin was pretty athletic, and honestly, I thought thought Brown was a solid athlete. I thought that he showed a little bit better than that today. I thought Kwon Martin was was an impressive mover though on tape, but honestly, he was one of those guys like I felt probably better athlete than football player watching him, like not like a complete finished product, even though he's been like a two and a half three year starter for the on line IM and he's played in a couple of different spots, but he was really I'm working. We're talking about him the next segment, so I don't want to, you know, spill my drink too much here, but Martin a really really impressive show here and Brown right there with them from the positional drill standpoint, and certainly, like you said, athletic testing. So uh, Dane, I appreciate it. Man. We are We're all done. We're halfway done, all done. The defensive side of the football from Athletic Testing. We've got quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends on Saturday. Thanks so much for doing us once again here on the Journey of the Draft podcast presented by Life Brand. Now it's time for draft buzz. All right, So good stuff there, as always from the great Dane Burgler from the Athletic As we welcome in, Ella, Ella. We've got day two in the books. You are halfway done your first combine trip. More than halfway done the trip, but halfway done workouts. The second day is done defensive backs. We were able to take in. We're done on the defensive side of the football. It's kind of hard to believe. Yeah, it goes fast, it does. The days go slow? Yeah, what is it? The hours go slow, the days go fast? Is that what it is? Something like that? I just thought of getting off the plane on Tuesday. Feels like a different life. Yes, right, exactly right. All right. So with that said, we've got a lot to it's to hit on here, because there were a bunch of dbs that really impressed us while we were watching them up close. For the positional workouts. We'll start with that first group, the group of corners and there was one player that was head and shoulders above the rest. Even though he was he was the shortest player out there, he was above everybody else when it came to this workout. Absolutely, are you just are you just reeling me right in with my real man? This was your favorite player? He was my favorite player. He has the NFL pedigree that is nephew of Ladany and Thomlinson, TCUs Trevious Hodges, Tomlinson. I'm right, very yep, you are correct, very undersized. Y I gotta see what the official measurement was this morning, but I know at the during the All Star Game process he came in As I pull up my notes here on him, U he came in here. He is under five foot eight, one hundred and right around one hundred and eighty pounds. I mean, he is tiny, but this is a guy that's been really productive, consistently productive. We knew he was gonna be a good athlete. But when you watch him go through the ball drills and just how silky smooth he is. Everything across the board was really good. Everything. And you know these players, no one's gonna have a perfect workout by any means. His was pretty close. I mean, rarely did you see him He certainly never lost focus. Yea, rarely did you see him slip up in any way. I mean he was like when he stepped up and it was his time to go, you're like, okay, Like that was the exciting the lightning rod in that group. You know the line drill, You knew he was going to excel there his back pedal, I wrote down he looked like a bowling ball that got shot out of a cannon, because when I think of a bowling ball, I think of something dense, but then to see it got get shot out of a cannon is the perfect way to visualize what he looked like on the field all night. The W drill, which as you know, friend, was my favorite, shined because he could stay so low to the ground for the for our listeners. A W drill essentially you see the defensive back go through a back pedal, stick his foot in the ground, close forward, then go back into a back pedal, basically tracing the design. Yes, the way he plants his feet, his strength and then his gauntlet was just phenomenal. Yeah. To finish up the drill, the finish up the day, it was it was really just from start to finish, one of the most complete workouts, not just that we've seen this year, but that I can remember. It was just a really, really sound workout. This is a guy that's been very productive, a lot of ball production over the course of his career. Here's a second team All American ELLA as a true sophomore back in twenty twenty, first team All Big Twelve that year. He's three time first team All Conference. He won the Thorpe Award this year as the top defensive back in college football. Now, one big thing. One big thing with him was obviously the size. He had fourteen penalties this year. That's gonna be a big thing moving forward. He had twenty penalties in his career, so only six in the previous three but fourteen penalties this year in TCU's championship game run. So something to watch there with Hodges Thomlason. Obviously the size is going to be an issue, but he's got outstanding athleticism, he's a fun player, so it was gonna we're able to give him a little bit of love here to start things off. Who next up on your list from the cornerback group. I'm gonna go with Brian Branch from Alabama, and I think it's important to note that Brian Branch is a safety, but he worked out with the cornerbacks ye and he really really shined. Um It's just smooth, fluid, really good cuts. His great balance and body control, so you know, he has a very strong core, nice hips. He kind of looked like this is just another day for him. He was He was out there like a professional athlete. I thought he had that type of demeanor, very confident, unfazed by kind of the bright lights and the pressure of the situation. And then again the gauntlet brand that was a work of pure art. I don't know if Nick Saban has these guys running gauntlet drills like in the middle of the Alabama kid just shined in the gauntlet like it was just no big deal. He looked like a bass catcher out there. Excellent hands. A nice day for Brian Branch. As a reminder for our listeners, the gauntlet drill as a drill that the wide receivers and tight ends will go through tomorrow at Lucas Soil Stadium. But essentially you catch two balls alone a sideline and then you run from one sideline across the field to the other and you catch a series of four or five balls in between, you try and make sure that you don't let any hit the ground, maintain top speed, and then you catch that last one. You turn up the sideline, you run to the end zone. Brian Branch round that drill better than some receivers are gonna run it tomorrow. It was It really was so impressive. I think you could kind of feel in the city. I'm like a little gasp that you couldn't believe this kid just just executed that in the way that he did. And again, it's one of those things where people look at that and saying, well, what does that mean? Like I does that translate to the game. It's just let's see these guys be athlete, right, Let's just go just go out be an athlete, look look comfortable doing something that is out of the ordinary. And here's what I would say too, if you're going to stick a kid in a secondary, you want to see that he has ball skills, Like do you want your guys in the secondary to make plays on the ball, to be able to you know, field interceptions, to be able to affect receivers. I think it's important for them to understand ball skills, because if they can get in the brain of a wide receiver and they can understand kind of how to read a quarterback, how a ball coming their way, I think it's an important skill to have. Can I throw a name at you? Yeah? Please? I really really enjoyed Clark Phillips today, junior corner who ironically enough, today we spoke to the wide receivers and I asked a lot of the wide receivers, who's the toughest corner that you faced. I asked all the quarterbacks that I spoke with, who's the best corner that you faced this year? Who's the guy that you were really impressed with on tape, the guy that came up most often. One of the guys that came up most often Clark Phillips. And they talked about his quickness, his acceleration, also his ability to finish on the ball, his instincts, and his toughness. Well, we couldn't see all of that on display in this ball drill and these ball drills, but you certainly saw his ability to finish. You saw his quickness in and out of breaks, and basically every single workout drill, every single drill that he did. The couple that stood out to me the back pedal drills where he had to break it Downes was really really strong. There are a couple of drills. They're referred to as Terrell Austin drills, who's been a long time defensive backs coach now the defensive He's been a defensive coordinator in the league for a long time as well, most recently in Pittsburgh. But when you look at Tarall Austin, one of the better dB coaches in football, he has a couple of drills that have been instituted here at the combine, it's just like, yeah, that's the Tarall Austin drill. And the one that he mosted out is you go into a back pedal, you make a cut at ninety degrees and then you have to make a complete one eighty turn, go back the other way, and then make a and then catch the football. So again, just putting these guys in awkward positions, have them make some movements that are out of the ordinary for them. And I thought Phillips was just super smooth, super quick, and was really impressive overall in the workout. I agree. I put very similar notes. I noted the back pedal. Uh, you know, his control, as you mentioned, was a big one for me, and that strong finish I wrote multiple times down in my notes. All right, so we've got Trevius Hodges Thomason from TCU, We've got Brian Brian Branch from from Alabama, and then we've got Phillips there from from Utah. Is there another corner that stands out to you, Christian guns All, Yes, he would be next up for me, absolutely. I mean, I think going into the combine, he was a player that you might have had circled ahead of time, hoping that he would have a good workout, expecting him to have a good workout. He had an excellent workout. I mean, great acceleration, good ball tracking skills, very strong. Another really solid finisher, Fluid, another guy who was out there looking like a pro. He really exemplified elite athleticism. How about his unofficial forty time huh four four to four and a four three eight. His vertical was forty one and a half in two pounds. Yeah, he showed up today. Yeah, everything looked easy. Nothing looked like he was like super stressed at any point throughout the course of the workout. I agree, Christian Gonzalez. He's another guy that I absolutely was put on this list. One guy who surprised me with his workout based off my film study, Deontay Banks, the Corner from Maryland. Now he was listed six to two hundred, came in significantly smaller than that. Came in sub six foot, so over a two inch discrepancy there between what the Maryland website listed him at and what he came in at here. But still I love a very solid workout from start to finish, and I didn't necessarily expect that based off what I saw on film. You know, when you watch Banks, his physicality, his size, certainly as a parent, he's a really aggressive press corner. But I didn't necessarily see the ease of movement that I thought was present really from start to finish. And I didn't really have I think I've got two reps here out of what did these guys do, like thirteen fourteen raps overall, I only have two that I said like a but were a bunch of bees and b pluses in there. I just thought it was a really solid workout from Deonte Banks. I wanted to give some love as well. Yeah, you should have a lot of explosiveness. He could really stay low, nice flip at the hips. Overall, just I think a good performance. And he was fast and he really was. Yeah, so he ran in the four threes as well as he talked about no big deal. Any any last names sit here in the corner. Um, I throw a Riley Moss. I liked his athleticism. Howdy, how fast he was. He is a hot motor, and I think in some of these exercises it kind of worked against him. If he could kind of slow down, reel it in a little bit, he would have had a flawless day. But but it was good. It was good. Tyreek Stevenson from Miami. I thought he was smoothed. Julius Prince, I thought a Soliday as well. The corner from Kansas State. Um, he's a big he's a big corner. He's sixty three, all of sixty three, two hundred pounds, and I thought he had a solid day. He was smooth in and out of cuts. Uh didn't really put a lot of balls on the ground. So gets some love there. Let's go to the safety group. And the safety group was fun. It was it. It was a fun. Yeah, this one kind of built up for me. I feel like the corners there were obvious top performances safety. It was for a while I was like, Okay, he's having a good day. He's having a good day. And then and then some some kind of came on as as the night continued. But definitely, definitely there were some safeties who helped themselves a lot tonight. It felt like there was one name that was above the rest. For me, I want to see if if we're on the same page, who was who was the you're gonna say Owens? Oh no, I had one other guy slightly ahead of him. Okay, Klon Martin, I thought you Tavis Martin from Illinois to me was I thought this the smoothest workout. Um, And he's an interesting player. He's got position flexibility. He's played both some corner some safeties, played a little bit in the slot as well. UM. I was really impressed with Martin and on film, I think the athleticism that was not a question for me. I'd like to see him get a little bit better as a football player across the board. But watching Kwon Martin here run tonight, go through these drills, I thought he was a really really strong workout. Everything looked really easy, effortless, and almost every drill I was like, man like that was really His feet was really really clean, very little wasted movement. I thought that Jotavious Martin from Illinois, who was down at the Senior Bowl five to eleven hundred and ninety pounds, you know the give or take. This was his first real year as a as a true impact player in that Illinois secondary. He plays with an edge. I love the way that he plays the game. Would just like to see him get a little bit more consistent with how he reads things in coverage, but again athletically looked the part tonight you mentioned his footwork. I wrote good plant foot which I feel like, if you watch the feet of these guys tonight, it's very telling about their body control, about their core strength, about how they hit, how fast they can change in direction. And I took a lot of notes about how strong his footwork was. Some guys who had lighter feet is the guys that got off balance or or things got a little out of control. He was very very strong and had control of his acceleration, strong finishes, made some nice plays on the ball too, good ball tracking skills. So then who was your your your top person. Then he was in it. I kind of tiered safeties like a Tier one and a tier two. He was in it as well as Antonio Johnson from Texas A and M. I thought he had a really good workout. I had him right behind Martin. He was my number two. And like, as I went back and looked through the notes, I was like, oh, yeah, this was a good one. Nice work you know. I wrote down ten names his guys like I thought, like, had pretty good workouts over many. I have four or five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. There we go. Yeah, we kind of saw this group the same. I thought that um overall at the end of the day, I'm kind of going through and I was like, you know what, this guy had a good workout. That guy had a good workout, sneaky. Yeah, we'll talk about Antonio Johnson. What did you see from him Texas A and M. Yeah, for him, I had a very athletic, a long stride. I mean when he would run down the sideline. You saw he was listed by an M at six three one ninety five. Yeah, he looked, Yeah, played a lot in slot. He was a big Nickel for the last two years and so for a safety at sixty three one ninety five to remove the way that he did was very impressive, very nice cuts, good footwork. Again, he was one where I wrote workout, workout, built up over time, and even when I look back at my notes in the beginning, I'm like, that was okay, that was okay, and then it starts to pick up and he comes on Andy and he stacks consistent exercises as as the night continued. But I thought it was it was a good night for Antonio Johnson. You mentioned your guest for me was Owens, and I did have Owens at number three for me. Um you know, listed six foot and a half, two hundred pounds, he's got long arms, he's got corner walk arm and safety in versatility. So this is guy that's played every position in the secondary, but worked out here with the safeties, did not run, didn't do the athletic testing portion of the workout. So it was kind of like under the radar. Moving into the position drills, it was like, all right, we saw all these other guys by the way, the corners like ripped up the track. As we talked about with Dan earlier we talked about the athletic testing portion, the looking at the safety spot. You know, with Owens going through the workout, it was like, oh yeah, oh Owens is going here. And almost every drill was really really clean, and he had one of the reps that like drew the biggest rise out of the entire group. I believe it was the first Terrell Austin drill where the guys start on the boundary in a pedal and then they opened up their hips to the field, They put their they plant their foot and then break forward towards the towards the line of scrimmage and make an interception along the sideline. First one, it was a really clean break on the ball, and then he went full extension and was able to pull the ball in with his fingertips along the sideline. A bunch of the dbs all went nuts and he took it back into the end zone for a touchdown. It was a really impressive rep. That was definitely a moment I think good to see his bend that situation control. Really she really stood out. At times he was a little off balance. Sometimes you would see him slip, but overall, I think his traits were positive more than they were in I thought he really impressed. Definitely a guy that going into it, I wasn't expecting him to be kind of the cream of the crop. Yeah, but I think in reflection he was one of the top players of the Shrine Bowl this year. Um, and again that that position flexibility is going to be really really big for him. I talked with him yesterday at the podiums and was really impressed with him. I really enjoyed my discussions with Javarius Owens and so, um, Yeah, he was an easy guy to root for going in. He came through with a really strong position workout. Who's the next name for you? Wait real quick? Did you expect him to do as well as he did? Because he did well well. So I didn't study him on tape yet and so but I knew the kind of the book on him. I knew he was a high school track guy, and so I knew like there was athleticism there, um, but yeah, there was. It was a I would say, since I didn't have expectations, I can't say he's surpassed them, but he definitely, I mean, to me, he was a top three workout for I was curious. Yeah, who would be next for you? So that was my top four Okay, Johnson, Johnson, Owens, Martin, and oh yeah, you're missing our fourth one here, Robinson, Jamie Robins State Okay and Robinson I thought had a good workout as well. Um tell us what you saw about from Jammie another one that got better over time. In the beginning, it was again some balance and body control issues, which I saw that more. With the safeties and those opening drills, you saw a little bit of stiffness. I think I looked over at one point, I'm like, they all look a little tight, you know what. And you know what I said to you was that it's tough to watching the safeties after the corners because we just watched all these corners go through, and now we're doing the safeties and they're doing all the same exact drills, and naturally, these guys are gonna look a little bit tighter. So it was a little bit of a slow burn for the end that way, for sure. Definitely he was strong in the Tara Austin drills. I marked them down specifically because I feel like that's where he shined, that's where his quickness. He's got really light feed. He's really smooth and transition that showed up. Yeah in the box. Drilli in a nice bend, but Gray finished in the gauntlet again. Um, I feel like I'm repetitive in the sense of that these all built up. But if you think about that's how it even felt at the end, right the tarall Austin drills all kind of built up, and you would see traits in each drill. But then they kind of started putting it all together as time. Mon On and the guys who are at the top all capped it off in a good way in that quanlintro. All Right, so I'm gonna give you a list of names. You tell me one final one that you want to give some love to. Okay, so the rest of the names on my list, and you were you had one more than me, so you're gonna have one extra. But Sidney Brown from Illinois, Jordan Battle from Alabama, Jordan Howden from Minnesota, Brandon Hill from pitt Shamari Connor from Virginia Tech, Cavon Merryweather from Iowa. Those were all the guy other guys I thought had really good workouts. Um, but we can't talk about all these guys because if we're talking about it, none of them special. So at least we're on the same all the same page in terms of who stood out. Um, you should have one extra because you had eleven names in your to market Oh DeMarco Helen Helms, Yeah, Hellams from Alabatta. Okay, so Helms Helms is in there as well. You get one pitt one name from that group that you want to shed some light on. Okay, I'm I'm going between Jordan Battle and Sidney Brown. Obviously talking about Sidney Brown. Yea, you want to talk about that's where my hardest Yes, Yeah, Sydney Brown was a good player to talk to. He is I talked to him at the podium. Was that just yesterday? I guess he was fabulous at the podium. Um, just a really really great kid. Amazing story, you know, moving to the United States with his twin brother who's also Canada. Yes, will Be will Be performing this weekend as a running back. Um, just so humble. You could see just like his pure joy playing football, his excitement and gratitude to be here. And he had a really great season. I mean this Illinois secondary in general, they're well represented here at the combine and the best player didn't work out, Devin Witherspoon did not work out. So we already talked about jar Tavious Martin. It feels only right that we talked about Sydney Brown. I mean, he he's great tape like he would have those plays you would see on Twitter, right right, those like little clips of just an amazing play he made on a Saturday. But and you could see why I mean him in person. His arms like his ten but he's two hundred and thirteen, like he is yoked up. Yeah, He's played a ton of football, fifty starts, over thirty one hundred snaps played in his career, and you know the production has been there. He is the twin brother of Chase Brown, who is the Illinois running back this year here at the Combine, and both guys are built very very similarly, you know, very powerful athletes that shut up Sidney Brown the better days of athletic testing. It was just a really good performance overall from I actually thought his finish was the best of any player, really, yes, because I even felt like some drills didn't go as he I'm sure wanted them too, but he always finished so strong with hustle. I mean the way he carried the football. You just saw that relentless effort, kind of that trait of playing through the whistle is what I saw from Sidney Brown. Again, started off a little stiff, ye, slipping here and there, but his strength, his effort really really impressed h I'm sure there's drills that maybe he would want back or what to redo, but all in all, he had a solid workout. I'm not writing him off as as like a combine flop by any means. Um Well, speaking of onbine flop, maybe my favorite moment so far happened at the very end of drills, and I felt terrible because they like showed it all the replay on. So it was. The gauntlet drill was the last drill of the night. The safeties go and particularly what happens on a drill is if let's say, um, there's a bad ball or you know, so a guy didn't have a chance to make a catch, or maybe he had like three drops or he fell, They'll give the guy the chance to redo the rep. And so they went back. After the final rep of the gauntlet drill, they went back to Boise States safety Tyreek Jones. He had chance to go back through the gauntlet. He did a solid job going through. He runs into the end zone. This has been a tradition with the Safeties. They end this way almost every year, where all of them running to the end zone. They all celebrate together. It's always fun. It's always good. They're all the guys are being goofy um. Well, uh, this did not go all the way. Great for Tyreek Jones who tried to do a standing back flip and face planet on the belly flop. Yeah it was thankfully did not fully face by. Yes it was. It was definitely a full belly flop. Uh. Work was watching replayed it immediately. But he had he had fun with it. It was It was a good way to end the day. Had fun with it. Thankfully, he's okay. His first second, I was worried and now I'm just worried for him that his agent is going to be really angry. I enjoy how much he embraced, how funny they all had. They all were having fun tonight. Wasn't super like juiced up the last night. I had a lot of juice. Yep, not through the workout of but the Safetyes kind of brought it towards the end and when it was all over, and they were very excited and encouraging and clapping and cheering each other on, and then it ended on that note. So I done. That was fun. We had our shortest workout session of the week here tonight with the DB's just two groups, just the defensive secondary. Tomorrow is the long one. Tomorrow, we've got your quarterbacks, the wide receivers, and the tight ends at Lucasoil Stadium. It starts one pm Eastern Time on NFL Network. You can follow along just with along with Us, with myself and with Ella, with Dane Brugler, with Greg Kosel, who will be on the show tomorrow. We'll have Greg here on the episode as well, so make sure stay tuned right here to the Journey of the Draft podcast presented by Life Friend. We'll talk to you tomorrow

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