NFL: Move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah & Bucky BrooksOn this episode of Move the Sticks, Bucky Brooks, Rhett Lewis, and Lance Zierlein check in from the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis to break down the top defensive linemen and linebackers who took center stage during Thursday’s drills and testing.
Move the Sticks is a part of the NFL Podcasts Network.
And now Move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
From Indianapolis, home of the NFL Scouting Combine, we begin a three episode series of Move the Sticks.
What's up, everybody. Great to be back here with you, Ret.
Lewis, Bucky Brooks, Lanzerline, like we have been for the last couple of years, bringing you the biggest and best info from.
The day's workouts.
As everything got started on Thursday with the defensive line, defensive tackles, edge defenders, and linebackers. So that's what our focus is today looking back at Thursday. I'll also have a little brief preview of what's to come here on Friday. But guys, I mean, we are in the Hoosier State, so it just makes sense that we talk about the heaviest guy that ran the fastest forty, you know, talking about the heaviest guy that ran a sub five forty from that defensive tackle class.
Since we're in the Hoosier state.
Talking about the college football Playoff participant in Indiana Hoosiers and CJ.
West right, I mean, like that's where you guys lead. That's what we wanted to talk about. So the algorithm is going to say move. The Sick podcast talks about CJ. West being a big CJ.
Wes stuff in my timeline and rightly so.
So I thought that was, by the way, a really impressive time. Ran four nine to five at three hundred and sixteen pounds. He can move, and so I think that's, you know, it was a really important thing for him to showcase, to put all that into his draft profile. But look, I mean we saw some incredible times, some incredible jumps.
Out of this group.
What we're going to get to all of those numbers here, but let's start with the big guys who hit the field and hit the turf first. Look, I think one of the hot one of the headlines was, all right, we didn't see Mason Graham, we didn't see Kenneth Grant or Walter Nolan, you know, three guys that are that are first round pick type of players at that position. But from the d tackles, Bucky, what kind of stood out to you from that group?
Well, and you're just seeing big guys who can run fast, are always gonna get paid, and seeing so many athletic big bodies, to me, it just tells you where the league is going. And we'll eventually get to the part where we start talking about these players. But when I look at a big guy like a Derek Harmon that can move like that, and then the computer spits out his comp is Chris Jones, that kind of tells you what we're dealing.
With on the front line.
And as everybody is still trying to process what the Philadelphia Eagles have done and what they become by investing in the front lines, you just know that we're gonna have a run early on big body defenders at the point of attack. And a lot of those guys really acquitted themselves well in terms of making a case to come off the board early.
You know, I went down there because I wanted to see I just watch guys on tape, like I want to go see what they look like. And there's some guys that don't look great. Honestly, I mean, hey, I'm with you. But at the same time, what I'm saying is, you know, if you want to be a first, second, third round pick, a lot of times some teams want you to look a certain kind of web they're going to push it down. But then you see a joker like t J. Sanders, and that guy looks good. And I ain't even work out, but I just look at it and I'm like, man, this looks like the real deal.
Josh Farmer.
Josh Farmer looked great, ran well, thirty five auche charge out. I thought, really good workout, and I think Josh Farmer to me, I went back to my hotel, looked at my grades. I'm like, Okay, he's in the same category, but I'm gonna stack him higher than I had him before. And that's some of the things you do, like the traits of thirty five inch arms. That's a big deal to me. How he moved out here, that's a big deal because I know he's got that in him.
I already thought he was a good player regardless.
You know those are and you know. But on the flip side, I do want to mention because I mentioned it on Twitter. You know, Alfred Collins, I kind of had him locked into the second round, set it and forget it. But he came into three hundred and thirty four pounds, which was which was like fourteen pounds heavier than what he was in the spring. He's got good length, he's good height. He jumped really low. So Bucky as a as a scout, you know, twenty six inch vertical eight broad and I'm looking for an explosive player.
Those aren't explosive numbers.
No, those aren't explosive numbers, and normally correlates with how fast they run and those things in it's not the tail all. But it does worry a little bit when you don't see those explosive jumps because we always talk about a checks and balance the system in the evaluation and how certain exercises and drills that we do allow us to cross reference see what the guy's athleticism meant. When they don't jump high, it kind of tends to let you know that they're not going to be as explosive as it may think.
But it's just a battery things that we see.
On and we're going to get to the ed rushers in the second.
But I feel like this conversation begs the discussion point about James Pearce, who runs the fastest forty time of anybody competed yesterday, right at four four seven. Yeah, but only jump thirty one in the verb.
That doesn't just didn't. That's a little unusual, that doesn't that normally doesn't go.
Was good like he had he had a good like ten seven broad jump something like that.
That that that normally it matches. If you're running four fourds, you should be high thirties.
Yeah, Pierce goes four to four seven thirty one inch vert but yeah ten foot three broad maybe, Okay, Yeah.
You think maybe he actually reaches high as he actually could. Maybe there's a technique thing you gotta see. I've never seen this before. Red down there, I watched them measure the arms. You know, you have to do it drinking. I mean, they've got two guys there and it's and it is literally a tug of war trying to get their arms. It is a battle over there to get the real arm for folks at home.
Right, So they set the bar for the vertical at the tip of your finger right where, and so like they're trying to get you to reach as high as possible to set the baseline for your vert And so if you can kind of find a way to keep that arm a little bit lower, you're gonna have.
A stout on a on like a stool or a ladder, pulling upwards on the arm. The other guy's holding onto the player trying to keep his arm, and I just thought, man, maybe Pierce just actually reached as high as he could, right, That's just what it was, Okay.
So I thought Josh Farmer had a real nice workout from the interior group.
He was kind of a spelt three h.
Five, you know, ran a little over five on the forty yard dash, But overall I thought his workout was really good, looked really fluid. Biggest hands of the defensive line group, Omar Norman Lot nearly eleven inches, ten and three quarters big. There we had our buddy from Georgia Tech Biggers eighty five inch wingspan, a little over eighty five inches on the wingspan, you knew Dion Walker was going to be the tallest at nearly six's eight six seven and a half about on east Peeples was the shortest at just over six feet, but ran really well. Jay Toya, who is a just an eater of double teams at UCLA, was the heaviest of three hundred and forty two pounds. The lightest was Steve Lynn and that just two forty two. Mentioned Pierce running the fast forty and then as we get to some of the other let's get to some of the other d tackles close the book on that group. I thought the duo from Ohio State looked pretty good. Yes, talking about Tyleek and Tie both kind of played next to each other. Tyleek in particular moved really well around that the figure eight drill.
Yeah. No, you know, it's funny because we talk about all these drills.
The one thing that I do love to see is when they run the figure eight drill and being able to pick up the towel place it back down. So much of what we will talk about is always the numbers, but a lot of it is what you see with your eyes. Can I got bend and burst? Can he turn the corner? Can he do those little things? We saw Chuck Smift down there running that drill, trying to get them going.
Try. Chuck was great, trying to get it feisty.
But those things matter because when you see guys come around the corner, I just have these vivid images of even though he's not a d tackle, but von Miller, the way he's able to dip and get up under people. Yeah, you see guys execute those maneuvers a lot of times.
Before they do it in games, they got to be able to do it in practice. This allows us to see if they're gonna be able to I want to shout out Alfred Colin.
So I just had concerns about because when I watch him run the hoop, I'm glad you're reminded me of the hoop drill.
He looked great on.
That, like really had good beIN great body control. He's one of the ones who actually put the towel back down, picks the towel up like they want you to put it down, pick it up, so you know they want you get to set it down because they want to see, you know, once again, the bend, the body control. There's a lot of guys to just throw it down because they're in a race. But you know there's there's a method to that madness of running around those circles, and some of it is they want the control. And al Ford Collins I think was one of the better ones in terms of benning and he has that in them, you know, I mean, let me big up.
Them a little bit here.
I have concerns that I want to vet, but I also know that this guy can play, he can bend, he can move, He's played at lighter weights. I just have some questions, but that's one of the drills that I like a lot. And you know, Tyleek was bigger than I thought he was gonna be, but he moved really well. That's important to see the smaller guys really moved really well.
If you're gonna be smaller, you better move well.
And yeah, you know it's interesting to see the space eaters that are in this draft.
Elijah Simmons. You mentioned the l A kid.
There's a few different guys who their job is just to make it to where it's not comfortable for you to run between the guards.
Another guy will talk about when we need to the linebacker group, like you know, Jay Toya is a big reason why Carson Swessinger was rolling through the line of scrimmage. Absolutely a bunch in that for that UCLA defense. Okay, those are some of the defensive tacks. Any of the names that stood out that we need that we're missing on on your front?
I thought Terry and Ingram Dawkins.
Uh, yeah, he's somebody that I really think has great tape. You see him out here now, he doesn't look like the rest of those guys. He looks more like an edge, an edge. Yeah, he looks like a big bass edge and he could be that because he's that kind of athlete, or he could play in an odd front the three four end because he's tough, he's got good needs get a little stronger, but he's got good techniques. So he's just one of those guys bodytop wise, bucket. We're talking about the three forty guys, three thirty eight guys. We sometimes you're gonna have a two eighty guy and and you got to figure out how you're going to use it.
You'll figure can.
Move freakiest of the defensive tackles.
He went four eight six on the forty yard gash, one six nine on the ten thirty six on the vert and then over ten ten to four.
On the bra. That's those pretty good numbers.
For really good numbers.
And that's why if you can play him inside, you'd love to if you can get them a little bigger, you love to have him inside, which that kind of at four eighty, at a four eight six, it's not as great when you put him out on the edge.
Right inside, it's like this guy can roll roll.
Yeah, okay, let's move to the edge rushers. So and that's where we saw the freaks.
Shamar Stewart and James Pierce, I think kind of stole it, And let's start Landon Jackson in there as well.
Stole the show.
Stuart and Landon Jackson both jumping forty plus inches in the vert Yeah, so.
Let's start with Let's start with Stuart first, because I think Stuart is the one that we knew he was going to be the most debated guy in meeting rooms after he did the workout. We can talk about one thing, like he didn't have production. He has all these tools. When those tools are documented, When we have these times four five, nine, sixty five and sixty seven pounds forty inch vertical ten eleven broad jump eleven broad, it's real when it comes to being a freak athlete. And a lot of people were talking about, yeah, but the production doesn't matter the physical tools.
But then you look up the pressure rate and how the.
Pressure pressures are there, and some guys will say, like, the pressures matter more than the sacks. And I heard this it was floating around. They were like, remember Trayvon Walker was Trayvon overall pick Traitz had tools, didn't have a lot of production that went with it. And we've seen them have two seasons with double digits SATs for the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm not saying that it can be taught, but I am saying when you see Trayvon Walker have that success is a scout, you can start building a case that hey, maybe the next level he can develop and get back.
I'll tell you what, you know. I have the same questions.
But luckily I was down there with Greg Kosal from NFL Films. He had walked up. We were talking about Stewart versus Nick Courton. Scrton is the more talent, is a more skilled player. He's got better tape this year. But the other guys were and Chuck Smith was walking off, as you guys said, one of the great you know he was. He's a guy who was teaching guys rush before he was hired by an NFL team. He's with the Raves, you guys mentioned, and Greg asked him the very question, can you teach a guy how to rush? And Chuck Smith's answer was so illuminating. He said, yes, I started at the beginning. And he said, if I've got the Stuart, we're talking Stuart specifically, he said, I'm going to start him in his stance. This is how I want you to stand, and this is how I want you to get off your first step. He said, Then I'm going to add the second step and we're going to do that forty times.
If we need to.
Then I'm going to get to the third step. We're going to go speed to power.
I'm going to teach him how to tee his foot and how to turn, and I'm going to make him do it until he does it. And it's like a golf swing. It was just muscle memory stuff. And he said, you do it over and over and over. Now, instincts, of course, play a part. You may not have instincts when the bullets are flying, and can you remember can you see exactly you know? You don't know that it's going to hit. But he's a big believer in you can teach guys how to rush. And this guy did it in the NFL. He's taught others to do it.
He's doing it.
He's going it now half production in Baltimore at JABO.
And this was the argument with Ohway is the guy that I gave a higher projection to just because of traits. It's the ballad, you know, it's my mentor, and so I just said, Okay, I believe in it.
I believe in that.
I posted I was down there for Shamar Stewart's broad jump. I said, oh, let me get a let me get a video of this. I videoed it. That sucker went ten feet eleven inches.
It's long. I posted it. I posted it on my Twitter account.
Immediately the fights began in my comments section about no production.
This guy's a free no production four point.
Five Trayvon Walker.
He's going to have to deal with that the entire process. Now.
The interesting thing is like when you compare his numbers and his measurables to Miles Garrett, very favorable, Like he's actually even got some better testing numbers than Miles did.
But when you go all the way down on.
Ourfl research comparisons, the sack numbers in college are incredibly uh uh you.
Know contrasted, right.
I think it was like thirty sacks for Miles in college and what four and a half for Shamar. So yeah, it's just something that you know, obviously the Jaguars got real comfortable with it with Trayvon Walker and it paid off.
But you know, you got to have the development process in there.
Too, do you got to have deveil the process.
The last thing I'll say about using Trayvon Walker as kind of the muse, he's also playing the complimentary role, not the lead role. So when we think about Shamar Stewart, if you're going to do that, hopefully you haven't established DPR in place, designated pass rush in place to.
Allow him to be the confident he is Robin not Batman.
But Trayvon also would rattle your pads like he was a tough, physical, heavy handed run defender.
Chamar's not that right now. So there's some other goodie.
You know, there's some other aggression pieces that were in place for Trayvon.
So a couple other things that kind of stick out to me about saying, I think we thought Chamar Stewart might be close to two hundred and eighty pounds, and instead he ends up at two sixty seven.
He's listed it to ninety. He played up there.
Yeah, so you know you also wonder at this time of year, are we shedding weight to run faster? That's online and then we're putting like Ty Robinson from Nebraska played at over three hundred pounds, he was too eighty eight and ran a really good time, So you.
Have to be able to You got to be able to figure out what that is.
But I'll say this is funny because Stephen Ridley was on Julian Edelman's podcast talking about things and talking about Bill Belichick making him get way below the weight that he played it when it was at LSU.
So that weight matters.
And when you go to a team, they're gonna have a prescribed weight for you. So they may look at these numbers and say, oh, yeah, we like how fast you ran it. To come on, this needs to be the weight that you play it because we may get better production and better juice an impact from you.
So that bod pod is they throw you into bod Pod, the Dexa scan and then they get the lean mass numbers and they determine where your where your weight should be. Some players, they'll find a guy with two hundred forty pounds a lean mass or two hundred thirty eight pounds a lean mass who's three eighteen. They're like, that's bad weight. That's a lot of bad way that could end up being joint problems. But let's also remember Shamar Stewart. Yeah, he did play in the two eighties, I believe, But maybe he's better to seventy two.
Maybe you know, maybe he's better two seventy five, maybe finishing two sixty five to ninety.
He could probably play anywhere in between.
He probably can't.
All right, Lance, give us the definitive word here on what James Pierce's times do for you, because look, we're gonna learn more about these prospects. Teams are learning more about a player like Pierce, who you know, has some stuff in his background that teams are gonna have to get comfortable with off the field. But like you know, out here, you see why he's so well thought of.
It's not even really his time, rat I mean, in fact, he ran in a hoodie and ran that fast is a show WHOA and when he's running and they got it in slow motion and then the hoodies just bouncing in the background. Now, honestly, what blew me away with him was how smooth he was. I thought he was very linear a little bit, you know, didn't look his as as bendy and fluid on tape, right, Yeah, and then he's out here and he looks good like he's bending and moving and so bucky, I'm having to deal with the fact that, Okay, I knew he would be explosed, I knew he would run fast all that, but in the drills he looks like he's got more of that bending move.
See.
I felt like he was bendy and moving like that when I watched him on tape, because that his fanessability to be.
He was beating people one on one without getting.
Touched like he has to subtenly too, crossover move that enables him to get there. Yeah, And when I watched him run the four four seven and then I saw him running around the bags, I didn't tweet that, but I wrote in my nose, Oh, it's a lot of conflict.
There's a lot of people dealing with conflict and consciousness.
Yeah, because what you have to do is you got to figure out like people talk about reports on the character and those things, but when you see the talent, everyone can put a value on a pass run. And what that does is it changes because look, I've gone through these mock draft and I've seen people exclude him from the mod drafts even though we know he's one of the more complete pass versus in the draft. It changes the conversation and I could hear when I met with some buddies after the event, I can hear guys trying.
To walk back. I heard the drip beep, beep peep people walking back.
Some of those opinions or whether they could touch him, so makes interesting fodder in those meetings.
It's the Jalen Carter stuff right where some teams don't have the room to take on Jalen Carter. They just say we can't. Jalen's got too much stuff in his background. We're not sure. So the best player in the draft falls was a nine or ten? Right ten, it's ten. Philadelphia moves up and says, oh, we got a room. We've got Georgia Bulldogs in here. We got a room full of full of leaders we have we've got We've got his big man to play next to him, Davis, Jordan Davis next.
So we're not good over here.
And look what they do because they know they have the room that can handle them. And as far as I know, he hadn't been a problem. You just want a super Bowl.
All I know is late my latest mind Draft thirty two, James Fears was going to the Philadelphia was because I can't imagine any scenario.
Just get you better keep them. And it's not just that Ravens Chiefs. There's teams with strong locker rooms who need rush. I mean, he's not getting passing, all right.
Those are the D line guys. We're gonna step aside here briefly. When we come back, we'll get to the lead block with the LB's the linebackers who had some serious athleticism out on display Lucas Oil Stadium.
That's next year.
And move the sticks.
All right, back hered move the sticks. Time for the lead block presented by T Mobile for Business. Football needs a network willing to go the extra yard. So do you go further with T Mobile for Business Lead Block LB linebackers. Now, the interesting part of this is some of these linebackers, like the guy who ended up winning the Buckets Award this year, Jalen Walker, might project better for many teams as an ed rusher. It might be one of the top three edge rushers in this draft. So we're going to talk about that here a little bit. Maybe the same thing with Jihadd Campbell who came into Alabama as an edge rusher but had Will Anderson and Dallas Turner sitting there.
They move him off the ball. He can still rush.
That does feel like one of the big conversation pieces with these off ball linebackers today is what kind of playmaker can you be rushing the pass or too?
Yeah, so I had a conversation with a couple of defensive coaches who talked about the league is morphing to a league that is almost like college football, where you're going to run variations of a three three five defense where you have three D linemen, you have a mic linebacker that's a true mic, and you have two guys playing alongside of that mike that are hybrid pass.
Rushers off the ball linebackers.
So when you speak to Jehad Campbell, a Jalen Walker, those guys who you do see consistently play up, play down, attack from various points at the line of scrimmage.
That is going to be a part of the plan.
And that is how we're going to have to create another category when we talk about these top fives and positions where those those second level hyperds have to come into play.
Yeah, you know, there's more and more categories being created.
It used to be easy, and it's in every sport, right, I mean, every sport is going through change. Baseball has got massive change where your best hitters are hitting one or two. You know, in basketball, we don't have positions anymore. So you're a wing, you know, you're a wing, You're a stretch for you're a lead guard, you're a you're there's there's fewer static definitions.
It's much more fluid.
Now we have the nickel position, which used to be a guy who was smaller and could run around with other smaller slots. That's that's more and more because it came from college. That's more and more your run stopper. That guy is a big like, he's an athletic safety, and you just think, well, he didn't have the speed to match up whether or not half, No, they're not. It's almost more important for them in three wide receiver sets to make sure that they don't get bullied out there. They want to run supporter by the line of scrimmage so they can sit in their base is a five dB base, but they're not giving up the run offense. And so there's just so many changes coming into new one that you're mentioned, but linebacker on first and second, pass rusher on third, or blitzer on first and second. It's changing the game and changing how teams But then pastra, I mean, yeah, but then read the pass catching tied end is forcing an NFL teams to look at the safety position to Yeah.
By the way, another name that that kind of speaks to this this this kind of you know position is yet kind of you know variation here with the linebackers. You know, was Femi Oladejo, who started as a linebacker, moved down to edge, actually competed really well. It was actually one of the one of the more fun, energetic, fun guys to watch throughout He was I don't know if anybody's enjoyed the combine drills more than Femi.
Olda da show yesterday.
You did a nice job at the edge spot now where which is where he'll he'll call home in the league. But how about a couple of names from the linebacker group that stood out to you?
Okay, so this has got surprised, but I love this tape. I just didn't think you would run this fast. Danny Stussman from Oklahoma, Yeah, four or five two, And when you watch him play, he is a tack the machine all over the place at Oklahom. You see the nastiness, you see the run defense. You see him play as a downhill player, tackling machine with range. The coverage is going to be limited, but the fact that he ran that certainly helps him.
He's one of the guys that stood out to me as a true.
Mic linebacker, and he did like he made himself money, he helped himself. I thought he was like a third fourth. I think he's in the top one hundred now. Is a linebacker. Demetrius Knight from South Carolina stood out to me, and it was really because I wanted to see that.
I wanted him to break four six as a forty he did.
Boom. He's locked in.
Might even be you know, could be linebacker one as an inside linebacker.
He's big, he's tough, he's.
Physical, he's a good athlete as we saw, you know, an above average athlete. And then he has just elite football character and leadership in the locker room. So he's a guy that really cemented who he was teams who like him, which I think there's going to be a lot of teams that like him. He really just cemented himself. And here's an example. I mean, I'm gonna bring this guy up. No one's going to be talking about it. He played two games this year and got hurt. And it's Colin Oliver from Oklahoma State. Two hundred and forty pounds. He is six one and three quarters, right.
So he's more of an edge, right.
Well, they have him at linebacker. Yeah, so he may be one of these. He's played both. Okay, he's played both.
Nick Martin was here from Oklahoma State too, right.
Right right, Nick Martin's here, So Colin may be doing both. They may want to give him a look at both. He ran a four five six, he jumped thirty nine inches and a ten to six. Now, he only played two games this year on tape. You only have two games to look at, and in twenty three his tape is a little it's raw, like he still needs development and he only got two games, so he still needs development. But you put numbers up like this and okay, we can work with this. This is one hundred percent when we can work with you go back and look at the tape and you start looking from a more positive lens.
Possibly, sure.
Yeah, So those are some good names there from the linebacker group. Carson Schwestinger, as I mentioned, is one. He didn't do a whole lot here but he had the second best vertical.
Did he get hurt or anything?
You know, he was a show to this.
Really he's supposed to go to the Senior Bowl too, but but you know, wasn't able to make that happen. So yeah, I don't know the full story on that one, but it's one of those things we'll watch obviously. Jaalen Walker didn't do anything here. Michael Williams didn't do anything.
Mention one more guy Caine Medrano.
There's a there's a hybrid dude. So he was two oh six in the spring. He came into twenty two yesterday and ran like a four to four six. Yeah, jumped high, look good in the field by the time in the lineback. So I went from undrafted on him to drafted like love that yesterday yesterday the combine right, he ran fast, he carne weight. I already liked him as a player. I just thought he's too small. Yeah, and if he gains weight, he's going to lose his speed. Well, no, and no, he can gain weight and he didn't.
Lose his speed, and he's got great ball skills. He came into the wide receiver.
You tea.
We forgot to mention that I forgot to mention him doing the defensive telerible guy.
Yeah, did the hybrid JJ Pgee, I forgot, I forget you. Gota mentioned.
Everyone's going crazy like, oh we never seen a two way player Jefferson.
I'm like, hold on, big, big, big.
Guy stud right, yeah, try and bull stud Big got seven offensive touchdowns. And when I think about what the Baltimore Ravens have done, we're recorded. Some of those other big guys I forgot to mention had him.
This year.
Yeah, he had twenty six carries. I watched them all.
They're just as soon as they got Instead of toush push, they just said bring him in. We're direct snap. Yeah, and we're just running forward with Piggy. There's only I think there's only one team I saw stop him. Only one time he got stopped.
Well, look, you know on Friday, and we'll talk about this on Saturday. But the DB's and the tight ends are out here. But we've already had the first catches from a tight end thanks to JJ Piggy Slash, full back, slash, whatever.
You want to call them.
So yeah, a lot of fun here on day one of the combine. We're getting ready for Day two with the dbs and the line packers will bring you that recap coming up on Saturday's episode. So that's a wrap for the lead block presented by T Mobile for Business. Football needs a network willing to go the extra yard, So do you go further? With T Mobile for Business? From Lancer Line Buckey Broke, I'm Red Lewis. Thanks for being with us here. I'll move the six. We'll be right back here with you tomorrow, wrapping up those dbs and tight ends.
