4 Hard Downs: Great Burger, Combine Coming Weekend Loving

Had a ball at the wedding, readying you (and myself) for the NFL Combine plus love love love

If you listen to the podcast, then you know Thursday to Saturday I was in Roanoke, Virginia, a place I’ve never been, for a friend’s wedding. What a ball, I have not been to a wedding in awhile, my previous attempt was shut down by American Airlines for seemingly no reason (then they lost my luggage and threatened me with sending it to Atlanta even though it was already in Charlotte.)

Love a wedding. Love celebrating love. Love being together with friends.

The other thing I love is when my kid shows interest in sports. She went to a three hour long baseball clinic and was super enthusiastic and excited and wanted to be first in line and worked on catching, fielding, running bases and throwing the ball. It was a thing of beauty after the rough bout we had with basketball.

I loved it. After a Thursday to Saturday of celebrating my friends love, I got to spend Sunday watching my kid get baptized in the waters of a sport that I love.

So, since I’m in a good love mood on this President’s Day weekend, let’s go ahead and SPOT THE BALL!!!

1st Down: Bomb Ass Burger

Shout out to Jack Brown’s Beer and Burger Joint in Roanoke, I loved it.

Had it for lunch on Friday before the wedding and I did something I almost never do at home or in a restaurant, ate the whole burger. I had the Cobra Kai:

Burger topped with cream cheese, pickled Jalapeños and Jalapeño jelly.

Added bacon too.

That’s it, it slaps.

It is not often that I get a burger that combines everything I’m looking for: soft bun, spicy jalapeno, cream cheese, great quality beef and the sweet and spice of a pepper jelly. I usually have to make this at home and I don’t do it often enough because my wife and kid don’t want to eat all of that.

This spot was so good that after the wedding I went back, same day, with two of our friends to show them and make sure they got to taste it. They ordered something else, I got the exact same thing and absolutely smashed it.

That is correct, I loved the burger so much I broke my feeding window to eat it late night.

10 out of 10. No notes. Highly recommend if you’re in Roanoke or anyone that is near you, they seem to be mostly in college towns.

2nd Down: Preparing For The NFL Combine

This down is not about how to create the slingshot start to maximize your 40 time. Not about hip and knee bend and flex getting your shuttle down so you don’t have to cross the line with your feet.

This is about mentally preparing, as a media member and fan, for what the combine brings.

Let’s break it down:

The combine is a part of the “Holy Trinity” of evaluation.

Film. Interviews. Combine.

Film, for me, included production because your production also gets teams to watch you’re film. 4,000 yards passing isn’t the same in every system for every QB. 1,200 rushing yards are not the same for every running back. Hence why production comes under the film umbrella.

Film is first.

Interviews are next. Those happen at the combine and all throughout the pre-draft process. There are levels to interviews. It is not just the GM/Head Coach/Positional Coach/Scout talking to a player. Those are huge and you better not show up late, miss your flight or be underprepared.

However, it is also your college coaches (and with the portal, coaching carousel that’s a lot of legwork). It is your high school coach. It can be your family. It can be your teammates.

All that shit matters.

Do you fit with the culture they’re trying to build in the NFL. There’s a reason Brian Branch, Jack Campbell and Jahmyr Gibbs got picked by the Lions when other teams passed on them; they fit Dan Campbell’s culture. Other teams didn’t have Campbell or Gibbs going round one.

That’s why interviews matter.

Now, the combine.

The combine is to confirm or call into question everything that you’ve seen on film. You look fast but are you fast based on your 40 (for WRs or RBs or DBs and the rare EDGE or LB). You look strong as hell, but let’s check this out. You look slow, will you surprise us. Are you explosive? We will see what your broad and vertical jumps have to say about that.

That’s what the combine is for. This is not for making big jumps up the draft boards. This is taking your board confirming an athlete belongs where they sit. Moving them up over another player at the same position if they outperform players of similar slots. Going back to the film to see what you missed on why they weren’t as strong or fast or agile as you assumed they would be going into the combine.

The point here; let’s talk about it in a smart way, not like it is the end all be all.

3rd Down: Initial Combine Questions For Me

-Marvin Harrison Jr is number one with a bullet. How fast is this WR who has struggled to create separation but is a monster on contested catches? In the last few years we have seen Garrett Wilson (4.38), Chris Olave (4.39), Terry McLaurin (4.35) and Parris Campbell (4.31).

Figuring out where he fits in that hierarchy, as a guy who, on film, doesn’t break away a ton, is going to be very interesting.

Sidenote: Malik Nabers is going to be a problem in terms of WR1 vs WR2.

-Ja’Tavion Sanders, Jack Westover and Cade Stover, who comes off after Brock Bowers as a tight end? Speed? I’m betting on Sanders. Hands? I’m betting on Stover. Short area quickness? Feels like a Westover vs Sanders situation. Strength? Stover.

I thought Stover was underused, Westover was constantly “Johnny on the spot” and Sanders was a weapon with 14 catches in the last two games for 180 yards.

-Xavier Thomas and where he is at physically. This guy burst on the scene like gangbusters as a true freshman. Then got covid and strep and had a really rough time to get back to normal. So I want to hear about his medicals, want to watch him run and lift and figure out how close he is to being whole.

I had an NFL scout tell me, during Clemson’s Big Four DL class, that, “3 for Clemson might be better than all the older guys,” back in 2018 going into the 2019 draft. I hope he is close to that form because he can be a steal who ends up getting healthy.

-Who is the second CB off the board. In general, I love watching the DBs more than anything at the combine. This year it seems Terrion Arnold, from Alabama, is the consensus top CB. Then it is some hodgepodge of his teammate Kool-Aid McKinstry, Quinyon Mitchell from Toledo, Nate Wiggins from Clemson, Cooper DeJean from Iowa and Ennis Rakestraw from Mizzou.

There is no battle at the top it is a battle for who is next up, which leads us back to “scheme fit” and interviews for culture and mentality. So this will be a big day of jockeying for positioning in a group of guys that are all pretty much in the same world.

4th Down: Have You Ever Been In A Fight?

This is something I didn’t realize until maybe 2013, there a lot of people (men specifically) who are my age and have never been in a fight. They think fighting is just a thing from TV or movies. My wife worked with three guys, who we would hang out with as couples, who had never been in a fight and two of them were wildly disrespectful to the point I asked, “are you not worried I will strike you.”

It comes up because this weekend at the wedding some guy I don’t know tugged on my beard, twice. I did not fight him. I wanted to. But I also did not want to ruin the wedding for my dear friends.

But whew, I wanted to fight. I have been in fights. I am not good at it but I’ve done it. Does that make me weird?

I’m excited to get back into the Super Bowl for the fun play and we are going to get cooking on the combine as I do draft prep. Going to start off with the QBs and why I rank them a little different although I know Caleb Williams is going first. We’ll talk about that on the podcast on Wednesday.

Cheers!!!