The Ryen Russillo Podcast
Part 2: Todd McShay on Shedeur and Cam's Landing Spots, WR and RB Debates, NFL Combine Takeaways, Plus Life Advice!
Tue, 04 Mar 2025
Russillo is joined by Todd McShay to break down the risers and fallers after the NFL combine, what made Shedeur Sanders’s interviews so newsworthy, and why quarterbacks are so hard to project (0:34). Plus, it’s time for Life Advice with Ceruti and Kyle (48:57) ! Do I respond to my neighbor who texts too much or continue to ignore him? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Todd McShay Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, Mike Wargon, and Jonathan Frias Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What were the biggest takeaways from the NFL Combine?
Part two, Todd McShay, fresh off a trip to Indianapolis for the Combine, the most impressive player of the week. We're going to get into some of the buzz that he's hearing from teams, deep dives into the receiver, running back, tight end class. Also, what is going on with Shador Sanders at the top, and life advice. He's fresh off the Combine. friend of the show, the host of The McShay Show.
I hope you subscribe to check out all of his draft coverage. It is Todd McShay. What's up, man? Good to see you. How we doing, Ryan? I'm good, man. The content was great. You guys are putting out awesome, awesome stuff. Really impressed. Yeah, so let's just kind of start. You were there. It's kind of a home base for you this time of year.
Let's just run through the top headlines and we'll get into some of the minutiae later on. What's the biggest thing?
I would say the biggest thing probably was Nick Imanwari's workout. Safety from South Carolina. I mean, obviously, we can get into the quarterbacks. We can get into all the buzz. We can get into wide receivers. The running back class is as good as advertised. But there's only a few times that you can legitimately say a human being shouldn't be able to do this.
And Eamon Worry was one of those times. I think back to Calvin Johnson, right? DK Metcalf. Just look at him pulling up the numbers right now. He is a massive safety, right? He's 6'3", 220 pounds, right? No one has ever done what he's done before. With the vertical jump that he was able to put, or sorry, the broad jump of 11.6 at 220 pounds to run as fast as Imanwari did at 4.38.
I just think, you know, he's a player that was always kind of in that late first round discussion. I think the way the NFL is now, with looking for long safeties, chess pieces, guys that can cover. We've seen what Hamilton's done in Baltimore. Just that versatility as an athlete. For me, he stole the show. You just don't see guys like that move and jump and participate in the way he did.
Yeah, and I would say, because I think people are always a little... Like, ooh, somebody lit it up at the Combine. Like, when are you guys going to learn? And I usually argue, like, okay, but for the failures, there's also guys that put on a show there, and it totally works out, and the boosted draft profile and all that stuff.
But anybody that watched South Carolina this year, I would say the game tape has to back it all up, too. Like, this is an added – The physical part of this, the testing part of it, is just another bonus on top of a dude that was a game-wrecking safety. I loved watching South Carolina this year. You and I talked about it all season long.
But there are just all these times you're like, there's seven again. So I imagine that this isn't out of nowhere because he looked like he made a big impact on Saturdays anyway.
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Chapter 2: Which players stood out at the Combine?
I know we're going to see two running backs taken this year in the first round. It's going to be absolutely Gentee and Hampton. Maybe that flip-flops, but my guess is it will be Gentee first and Hampton second. maybe a third and Trey beyond Henderson sneaks in there. But, but I think like fan dual is going to set it too, is my guess or two and a half.
And then, but after that, when we get into like that, that early mid second round range, you're going to start to see backs come off the board a lot in that second, third, and even fourth round.
I love that you brought up Jameer Gibbs because he's exactly who I was thinking about. Because you're right. Go back to the 23 draft when Detroit takes him 12th. And look, he was a stud. He was a stud at Georgia Tech. He felt like he could do all these different things with him. When I think about a running back in today's game being a difference maker,
Sometimes I just still think, like, I don't know that it's ever going to be the way that it used to be where you could just build a team around that first because the running back had all this game-breaking ability because I just think the defenders are so fast now that I don't know that that stuff is there.
Like, I don't know if the real estate is as available to a running back the way it was for all the decades that we grew up watching this sport. But Gibbs is certainly in that class of guys, like, you give him some space, like, he can flip the field for you. Mm-hmm.
So when I think about Gibbs and it being this pick, and look, on top of everything else, it wasn't like they were only handing it off to him. They were kind of using him strategically when Montgomery is healthy. So it wasn't like, hey, we're just going to give it to Gibbs 25 times, and that's going to provide the value of the resource that they put in, taking him that high.
But in a vacuum, is Gibbs more valuable to a football team than Christian Gonzalez? Is he more valuable than Skowronski, a tackle who's taken a spot ahead of him?
if you have the other parts, then the answer is yes. They've got Panay Sewell, right? When healthy, they've got a pretty good defense. Um, They have to be explosive offensively, and they've got to be able to counter. They've got to be able to run play action. I mean, that's what Jared Goff feeds off of, right? Play action, working the middle of the field. That's what makes him great.
And so if play action is critical, you better have not just one but two backs that put fear in those linebackers and safeties. You've got to respect that. Right. So it's not I wouldn't say every every organization is the same. But I think for them specifically, they recognize that's where I give Brad Holmes a lot of credit and his staff in Detroit.
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Chapter 3: How has the quarterback landscape changed this draft season?
Yeah, look, I mean, I love him because from the jump, it was like, are you serious with this dude? You know, 6'4", 220, and I know he didn't run, which everybody was kind of like wondering. And then it starts to become kind of like your original point of this whole thing is this turning into kind of the NBA combine.
which is different because, you know, the agents will tell you in the NBA, like we don't have these guys work out because if my guy goes against this other guy that's supposed to be second round or undrafted, then all the teams freak out. And then you morons in the media start shitting on my guy. And so like the risk reward, and then there's the,
the oddity of human nature of like, I might still like something I don't get to see as much. And I'm wondering if that is that, that approach is infiltrating the NFL combine where we're just more and more people be like, well, if that guy's not running, then I'm not running. And then the, the agent, the parents are like, well, that guy's supposed to go behind our guys.
So if he's not, to your point, there were a lot of last minute decisions made. Guys that we thought were going to work out, I think they got there to Indy. They're in that position group being carted around from interviews to financial meetings to the hospital for medicals. And I think it's like, yeah, well, pick up the speed dial to your agent. So-and-so is not running.
I think that started to happen this year more so than I can remember.
Yeah, and the frustrating part about this is this isn't like it's a one-on-one or a two-on-two. I've gone to some of the draft workouts way back in the day, the private ones that the Celtics would let us into, a few of us towards my early days back in Boston, and you could see the setting where you could see how an agent would be like, well, this is ridiculous.
My 6'9 guy is playing two-on-two, and he's guarding a 6'2 guy, so now all of a sudden if he gets... Like, if he goes past him, now my guy isn't as good. It's like, this is not something that's controlled. But it's just the straight running of a 40. Like, eventually, dude, you're going to have to run your 40.
Like, I guess, unless now we're just in the future going to have waves of players without that having, like, an official number. Because it's like, no, I'm just not going to have my guy run and go to the tape. Because I think the Teterota tape is... is incredible.
Now, if you're going to get me on details that I don't know, because I don't study it the way that you study it, then I can't have the debate with you. Like I'm already taking a knee on the whole thing, but I think back to the DK Metcalf evaluation where it was okay, big physical presence.
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