'You’ve got to be a psycho:' Chris Simms on the 2026 draft, and more
Transcript from our wide-ranking chat with the former NFL quarterback who's all over the draft today. He sees some Micah Parsons in Arvell Reese and a dash of Joe Burrow in Fernando Mendoza.
Right about now, NFL teams are zeroing in.
Scouts are banging the table for prospects they believe in. Some GMs are listening. Others are not. Coaches certainly are chiming in, too.
Decisions made this month will shape franchises.
Bob McGinn’s draft series is now complete. Subscribers can read all 12 parts.
This week, I chatted with one of the best former players breaking down the draft: Chris Simms. Audio and video of our conversation is here.
For those who prefer, our conversation is transcribed below.
Topics include:
Not giving a damn what people think.
Why he believed in Patrick Mahomes before anyone else.
Fernando Mendoza = Joe Burrow?!
His favorite player in the draft? Georgia WR Zachariah Branch is up there.
Why Arvell Reese would be his pick at No. 2 overall if he’s running the New York Jets. He sees the next Micah Parsons.
“Psychos.” You’ve got to have ‘em in today’s NFL. What are the telltale signs for scouts?
Buffalo Bills’ 2026 offseason. Simms weighs in on Sean McDermott’s firing, the changes on defense and the addition of DJ Moore.
Most of the world knows Chris Simms dissecting football. I go back to 2005, that Tampa Bay team that could have won it all. And you opened up on your life, your career on this show a few years back. Which, my God, you talked about almost bleeding out on a football field. But I know that Chris, the football player, which shouldn’t get lost. And then as a human being, you are an absolute mench. I remember hanging out in New York City in our B/R days. As down to earth as it gets in a business full of egos.
Simms: I appreciate that. Yeah. It’s something, again, it’s actually part of the struggle of sometimes fighting in this business because, as you know, I’m opinionated, too. And I work hard at it and love at it. Love the sport. And watch film and draft and free agency and all of that, but it can lead to unpopular opinions at times. And then people then go, “Wait, I don’t like him as a person just because of a football thought.” And we’ve crossed that line too much. And it’s a tough part of the business at times because you do feel like people sometimes judge you for, “Yeah, I said something unpopular and you don’t like it because it doesn’t match up with your private logic and now you’re going to attack me as a person?” So it is nice to have some people defend me that way at times. I appreciate you saying that, man.
For whatever reason, the masses, the mobs treat pro football like life and death more than actual life and death. We run into it at Go Long with our reporting from time to time. I guess it’s what makes us viable. That’s why people watch and read and subscribe — they care deeply about the NFL. But it can get a little nutty out there. You’re not persuaded by the mob.
Simms: I don’t give a shit about it. If you’re going to be good at the business, you can’t care about that. One, I always tell people, you’ve got to work, you’ve got to study it, you’ve got to love it, right? You’ve got to form your own opinions. And you’ve got to have your own knowledge. And then when you have your own knowledge, you can let your personality come out because you’re not bullshitting. So you’re not going, “Oh, wait, let me think of the next BS line I can throw out there that makes sense of the BS I’m spewing.” So it allows me to be free that way. I care to a degree, right? When someone starts going, “Oh, you’re a racist just because you say something about football.” I’m like, “What? We’re going to go that crazy on this right here.” OK, yeah, to that degree, I care at times. Because I certainly don’t want to be viewed as that or that negatively.
But when it comes to football and all that, definitely not. I’m confident in my knowledge of the game. I know a lot of people in the sport. I’ve got some friends that are very high up in the NFL world. I’ve been around it my whole life. I’ve seen it and all that to where, yeah, I can feel good and confident about what I said. I’m not always right, but not going to worry about what Joe the Plumber on Twitter says from his Mom’s basement. I can block that noise out.
Take us into your process. When you transition into draft season — to get a handle of this class — where do you begin?
Simms: It’s always one of the most stressful times of the year. My regular season’s crazy. I’m breaking down games all year long. I do a college football show on Saturday because the NBC has the Big Ten and Notre Dame. So I’m on a pregame show there. Super Bowl happens, and the week after the Super Bowl is reaction to the Super Bowl. Then I actually get four or five days off and then it’s like right back to the NFL Combine. And it’s like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I’ve got to start diving in on the draft. I’m behind on the draft guys compared to most of the people that live in that genre.” If you’re going to listen to me on the draft, I’m really more about like the top 150 and then some. If you want to know who’s the hidden gem in the sixth round, that’s really not going to be where I’m going to be.
But here’s my process. I get a list from three different teams and I ask them to give me their Top 20 at each position and they give to me in alphabetical order. I don’t see grades or anything like that. No team’s going to just give me their grades and free information and go, “Hey, here’s our scouting chart. Go ahead and feel free to talk on TV.” So within that, yeah, Top 20 at each position, three different teams. Their lists are very similar. There might be one to two, maybe three guys that are like, “Oh, this team has this guy on there and this team didn’t have them on there.” So I can generally anywhere between 20 and 25 guys per position and then I go through it. Now, it depends how NBC lays it out as far as the positions I need to rank first and go through it there, but that’s kind of how I start my process. And then as I watch film and I go through notebooks and I’m a writer, I write about a page at least on each player that I evaluate. And I go through games and I watch some cut-ups. I don’t think that’s a crazy process. I think sometimes maybe the way I see and evaluate things might be a little different than maybe some of the other draft pundits that are out there.
It’s kind of a blend of you’re talking to people in the NFL, you’re watching the film, and you played the game, you played the position, so you’re able to tap into everything.
Simms: I’ll stop you there. I don’t talk to people in the NFL until after my thoughts are made. Even my best friends, they’re not going to go, “Hey, we were watching today. I think the top five guys are this, this, and this.” No, usually you know how secretive these teams are and how quiet. I have to kind of put myself out there and then that lends it to conversations with my other friends that are out there. But I don’t ever tinker with my rankings. I leave them. And then as we go here — because I’m just off of film. I don’t know about injury, I don’t know about off the field, I’m not at that point. I’m just about what I see on film. And as I get closer, I’ll give people like, “Hey, the NFL likes this guy more than I do.” Or, “Hey, I’m hearing my No. 2 receiver has got some off the field issues, so that’s going to hurt him a little bit.” But that’s not what I do. So yeah, generally with my draft stuff, no, it is all me. It’s not hearsay, it’s nothing. And then that kind of strikes conversations from there with the people I’m closer to in the NFL.
That’s interesting. Well, I mean, maybe your buddy Kyle Shanahan should have listened to you a few years back. You were on this show dissecting Trey Lance. You were the skeptic.
Simms: I thought you were going to talk about Patrick Mahomes. That was really my first one. That year, I going “Patrick Mahomes…” — I was working at Bleacher Report. I thought he’s the best player in the draft. If you gave me the No. 1 pick, I’m taking Patrick Mahomes, which was not a popular talking point at the time. During those times, I even had people in the NFL like, “You’re crazy. Patrick Mahomes, the No. 1 pick?” So yeah, that’s the way it goes. With Trey Lance, that was a hit-and-miss draft. I liked Zach Wilson, of course. That was the draft I had him as the No. 1 guy over Trevor Lawrence. So I get dragged for that. But I also remind people like Zach Wilson was No. 2 on everybody’s board. It wasn’t that crazy. But yeah, within that draft too. Trey Lance, Justin Fields, I worried about their ability to be high-level throwers of the football. And I think that’s come out to be pretty true from that standpoint and the Trey Lance thing especially, yes.
I almost forgot about how you were really on Patrick Mahomes.
Simms: That was my first thing. There’s two things that happened in our early days of Bleacher Report. The first draft I was a little bit a part of was the Teddy Bridgewater, Johnny Manziel, Blake Bortles draft (in 2014). And that was one of my first ones to be like, “What? Derek Carr is better than those three. I know that.” So that’s what I was like, “This is a little overrated, this group.” So that was one of my first. But then the Mahomes one a few years later, I almost feel indebted to him. And he’ll say that. We have kind of a relationship because he’ll say like, “Hey, you were the first one in the media to talk about me that way.” And I go, “Yeah. And the fact that you proved me right has helped me out a lot in my career.” So with that — and then Josh Allen to follow it up — those are two that those are my buddies. I feel like they’re like my kids to a degree for what they’ve done to my career there.
Have you talked to Terry Pegula about it? He loved Mahomes, gosh, back to that October of his last year at Tech.
Simms: I never did, no. I did not. And even through that where, my Mahomes thing and when I first said it, I had people in scouting departments like, “What? Mahomes one? You’re crazy.” After the fact, I find out, of course, Sean Payton was about to trade for Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs one-upped him and traded in front of them. And I had heard through that process, after I had made those comments, I had somebody from the Saints go like, “Hey, our coach likes Mahomes a whole lot, too.” And then after the draft, the Chiefs told me one of the things that kind of got them and got everybody — not that I was the selling point — but a little bit of just like, “Hey, look Simms thinks he’s really damn good, too.” For the people that were maybe questioning it a little bit in the organization. So yeah, it was definitely a cool moment in my life and thank God to my homie, Patrick Mahomie for being such a baller.
Andy Reid saw some Brett Favre in him, but there’s probably some thought in the back of even his mind, “I’m not going crazy, am I? What am I missing here? This is what my eyes tell me. Am I losing my mind because everybody else doesn’t see him this way?”
Simms: Exactly right. And then with quarterbacks and where we misevaluate a whole lot — and you talk about the process — is we draft the team or we draft the emblem on the helmet. And that’s usually when you have your busts. Because one of the things about Mahomes was, “He’s not a winner. He’s 4-7.” Well, damn, I didn’t know he had to play defense, block, run the ball, get down on special teams. Shit, I didn’t realize he had to do it all. Yeah, you need some help. And then people would go, “Well, what about this game?” The big game with Mahomes that year was TCU. And here’s some of my evaluation, too. OK, yeah, it wasn’t a great game. But when you watch not a great game, you’ve got to be realistic about it. You’ve got to go, “Wait, was there plays to be had? Were there people open that he missed? Were there reads that he missed? Oh, no. Oh, no. Then they got their ass whooped and that defense was all over them.”
Instead, sometimes we’ll look at a guy and go, “Whoa, look at those stats. He threw for 300 yards today.” And I could turn on a film and go, “Yeah, he threw for 300, they lost and he should have thrown for 450 and had three more touchdowns, but he underthrew this guy and missed this guy.” And so that’s where I think evaluators miss at times. The wins, the losses, we draft the school instead of just a player itself. And that’s where Tua happens or a Matt Leinart or a Tim Tebow where we go, “Wait, are we drafting the whole team of Florida and Alabama or are we just drafting the quarterback?” Because what I see there is not all that special. But when I see him throw it four feet into the flat to Reggie Bush and he runs for 90 yards, I go, “Wow, that’s a great play by Reggie Bush.” But a lot of the public’s like, “Look at Matt Leinart dicing ‘em up.” That’s how a bust can happen in the first round.
I’ve got to think that’s the feather in the cap of Fernando Mendoza. Where was Indiana Football before his arrival? What do you see in the player who’s going to go No. 1 overall?
Simms: He’s one of the cleanest quarterback prospects to come out in a long time. He’s slam dunk. He’s pro ready. He played in a pro offense. He was coached by a pro in Cignetti. He plays pro-style football within the pocket and then he can get out and make plays outside the pocket much more than people give him credit for it. That’s what I would say. And then his arm. His arm is big time. I’m not going to say it’s Mahomes or Josh Allen, but he can make big-time power throws with great ease. Size is a skill. You like Josh Allen. His size affords him the luxury to do things that Kyler Murray can’t. Josh Allen could have somebody grabbing his shoulder and he could still throw a 20-yard out route and put pace on it. Tua and Kyler Murray can’t do that. They’re going to fall to the ground and get sacked. So the size is a part of it. And Mendoza — with people around him or hitting him — he’s phenomenal. He can throw off his back foot as he’s about to be hit and still throw a 20-yard out route strike right on the money.
So yeah, I’m a big fan of Mendoza. Mendoza’s like, to me, it’s almost like Joe Burrow where you’re like, “Whoa, it’s just incredible.” The reads, the knowledge and how he sees defenses, it’s very next level for a college guy and clearly the No. 1 quarterback in this class for me.
Joe Burrow in the same sentence as Fernando Mendoza. High praise.
Simms: Yeah, the processing. He’s got some of that. And I think you probably know this, too. Mendoza’s got a little of that Peyton Manning too. He’s prepared for everything. I did an interview with him. I feel like he did research on me the night before, wrote a few notes and he acts like, “Hey, Chris Simms,” and he probably knew my whole family history and everything about that. But I don’t hold that against him. That to me is being prepared. That’s why he is who he is. And then yeah, the processing, like I used to say about Burrow, I’d be like, “Damn, he looked at one, it wasn’t open. He looked at two, it wasn’t open.” And he’d be starting to throw to three and you’d be like, “Wait, wait, you barely have looked there.” But he was right every time. And that’s to me what some of Mendoza has.
I watched the playoff run and saw clips and loved the Heisman speech and all of that. But I almost feel like that Shaquille O’Neal meme: I was not familiar with your game. He’s a got a gun. The deep outs. A+ arm. They did a lot of RPO stuff, which you wonder how that will translate. If there’s a Ty Simpson army that would rather have him as a quarterback, they see more of a pro-style offense and he did a little bit more of that than Fernando Mendoza. But his arm would be applicable to any scheme and he seems smart enough to handle it all.
Simms: Right, right. Exactly. He’s a nerd. And I say that in the most glowing way possible. That’s what’s amazing about him and Kirk Cousins together on the Raiders. It’s like they’re the same human except Mendoza’s bigger and has more physical talent. But they know who they are, they own it. And within that funky nerdiness, they’re extremely charismatic and awesome to be around. Guys where I’d go, “Yeah, you might not smokey, smokey, drinky, drinky with Chris, but I think we’d have a lot of fun and have a lot of laughs together that way.” And that’s what’s cool about them. And yeah, you bring up the RPOs, a lot of RPOs. But I think where that is conducive is it is somewhat of a play-action pass. And Klint Kubiak coming from that Shanahan system is all about that. And then the ability to do that and read it and process it and then throw those tight window throws and be on the money in the short passing game the way he is, he’s special in that department. And that’s where I think that the transition will be quite easy for him.
Personality-wise, Kenny Stabler, this is not. I just laugh. Fernando Mendoza as a Raider, how does that really play in the locker room? Russell Wilson wasn’t beloved by all. It’s different in there. It’s a different ecosystem.
Simms: As long as you’re yourself. And I think that’s where Russell Wilson hit some troubles at times because I think people up in Seattle back in the heyday, they just thought, “Hey, this doesn’t seem real. It seems kind of Fugazi and he’s trying to play a part.” …You have to own who you are. And that to me is what Kirk Cousins, again, yeah, he’s not going to be going to the club with the guys on a Friday night. No, he’s not going to do that. But they know who he is and they trust him to lead their football team and he owns who he is. And then still has enough personality to go around and talk and be personable and be one of the guys, especially on a day-to-day basis. And that’s where meeting the guy helps out. And that’s where you watched Mendoza all year, and there was all this good stuff, but then meeting him in person and just how natural and easy and nice and he just owns who he is all the way, you just go, “This is going to translate just fine in the locker room.” And not everybody wants their quarterback to be best buddies and hanging out, drinking beers with the rest of the team.
Sometimes the guys in the locker room are like, “No, you’re the quarterback. You need to go in there and study some film and be a nerd!” And so there’s that aspect too that I think a lot of people admire about him.
I love that point. Josh Allen is one of the guys. You want to run through a wall for Josh Allen. He treats it like his backyard, all that. But every team is different. Every situation is different. And at the end of the day, if he’s throwing for 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns and winning games.
Simms: Nobody gives a damn.
Who’s your favorite prospect in this whole draft? It could be a highly touted guy, a hidden gem. You just can’t get enough of this prospect, any position.
Simms: That’s a good one right there. So let’s see. I love the Rueben Bain down in Miami. I love Rueben Bain. To me, Rueben Bain’s one of the best pass rushers in the draft. The guy, to me, who’s the No. 2 pick, slam dunk, is Arvell Reese. I’m blown away. I know everybody knew about Arve;l Reese. I didn’t really realize how awesome of a football player he was until I really broke it down. The way he plays middle linebacker, he’s unbelievable in the scrum between the tackles. He’s physical as hell, He’s twitchy as hell. And then when you watch his pass rush stuff, there might not be a lot of it, but there’s enough on there to go, “Whoa, that’s like next level, special right there.” So those would be the star ones that I love.
If I gave you some that are under the radar a little bit, all right. I love Zachariah Branch from Georgia. He was one of my top five receivers. He’s not known to be in a lot of people’s top five, but the Saints last week, they worked him out. So I think he’s going to be maybe somewhere in the second, maybe third round. But he’s one of the guys I look at where, again, we talked about earlier the evaluation process, you put Zachariah Branch of Georgia in some of these more high-flying offenses? I know he was at USC before. You put him at USC with that quarterback in that offense and let him have the touches that Makai Lemon had, I think we’d be talking about, “Oh, Zachariah Branch is very Jaylen Waddle-like. Is he a first- round pick?” He’s special. So he’d be one of those guys I’d look at to go, “Yeah, I kind of got a man crush on him and what he does.” That’s certainly one of them right there.
Cliff Branch’s nephew. That’s got to mean something.
Simms: This is where you look at it and you just go, “Wait, the stats are pretty good.” But we know Georgia, they’re not about high-flying offense. They play defense. They like to run the ball. They’re balanced that way. So you watch it and he doesn’t get afforded some of the opportunities some of the other guys do. But he’s made for the NFL. And like I said, the guy I kind of came back to a few times when I watched him, I went like, “Hey, if he was at Alabama with Jerry Jeudy and some of those other receivers and Tua and the running game they had and all that, the field would be a lot more open.” I think we’d be going, “Ooh, he’s very Jaylen Waddle-like.” And so that’s sometimes where I feel like we miss on the draft and he’s a guy that I certainly love a whole lot in this process.
Keep an eye on him everyone. 4.39 in the 40. He ran the 100 back in high school, 10.33. Had 24 in the long jump. He’s an athlete.
Simms: Quick as hell. Tough as hell. Really quick. I mean, jitterbug type where he’s going to make his living in the slot for the most part. But he’s got enough speed and plays bigger than his size to win on the outside, too.
Arvell Reese, who’s a comp for him? It sounds like you really love his game because he’s built a little differently. How does he project?
Simms: When I watch him and watch him move — and the explosiveness and ferociousness in which he plays — I have a hard time not thinking Micah Parsons, Abdul Carter. It’s that type of guy. Now, he’s young. He’s 241 pounds. But if you met him, you’d go, “Oh my gosh, first off, you’re an Adonis.” He’s still a growing boy. In another year, he’s going to be 6-4, 252. We’re going to go, “Oh, that’s exactly how we want him to look.” He’s one of those guys where he just looks at weights and his biceps get bigger, let alone you’re going to have to lift him. So the body type doesn’t scare me just because I know that he’s going to continue to grow into being a man. And then also what doesn’t scare you is his unbelievable play strength at 242 pounds. So when you see all of that and then the explosion and the first step off the edge. And he told me firsthand that most of the league kind of views him as an edge guy, I think it’ll be a lot like we saw with Micah Parsons. A stand-up linebacker with just a dabble of pass rusher at the start and it’ll slowly start to go more and more towards pass rusher as the years go by to where it wouldn’t shock me if he becomes one of the best pass rushers in the NFL.
And Micah Parsons, you watch him and you could feel it when he wasn’t out there, that relentlessness through the echo of the whistle. He never quits. As physically dominant as he can be and quick and we can break down underwear Olympics, whatever. It’s just that hustle that he has.
Simms: You’ve got to be a psycho. The good ones in the sport are psychos. Josh Allen’s a psycho. He’s a psycho. You say what you want, but he’s hurdling over people, diving into the end zone. Only psychos do that. And him getting up and be like, “That’s awesome! I’m going to go do that again next series!” That’s what you need. Micah, yes, it’s more than the stats. I always had that phrase and I’m sorry to swear. But I always use the phrase: “Fuck the play up.” That was something I invented with Lefko at Bleacher Report because I kept going, “I don’t give a damn what the stats say. Michael Bennett on the Seahawks is as good as any defensive tackle in football. He disrupts the game every play and Micah’s the same way. And Micah got one of my five MVP votes for the reasons you talked about last year. He got hurt, the team fell apart. They were never the same after that. And I think that says something about the quality of the player, the leader, and what he brings to the team.
That is a scouting sixth sense. Who is a psycho? What are those psycho tendencies? And are there any other psychos that you see in this draft, either side of the ball that kind of bring that element?
Simms: Definitely, definitely. There’s some other linebackers that certainly bring that element. Jacob Rodriguez, right? The middle linebacker for Texas Tech. He’s got psycho in him for sure. There’s a bunch of safeties. Caleb Downs, as we know, has got psycho. But it’s a good group of safeties. I’m big with linebacker play, safety play, running back play. The phrase I use is no hesitation. No hesitation. You can’t think. You’ve got to play in a physical way. Fred Warner embodies it for the 49ers. “What’d you say, Coach? Run through the wall?” He’s running through the wall before you even finish the sentence. OK, that’s what it takes. With those positions, I do look at it that way. They’re important to me. Let’s take an example. The running back out of Iowa who went to Pittsburgh. He’s a big-play guy. Kaleb Johnson. You remember him a few years ago? He had all these long touchdowns and all that, but the thing that I watched on coming out in the draft, I went, “Yeah, but if the hole’s not wide open, he doesn’t hit the hole with the aggression and intensity, you need to.” Yeah, you get away with that in college. But in the NFL, that hole closes in a hurry. And sometimes when it closes, you need to just lower your head and drive the pile down for three or four yards. Psycho is part of that position. I love Kaytron Allen of Penn State because he runs like a psycho at running back. The running back from Kentucky, Seth McGowan. He runs like a psycho. He’s better than what the stats say and all of that. He’s made for the NFL that way. So with that and linebacker, safety, you’ve got to play with that style to me to be one of the great ones in the NFL.
Last thought. Buffalo Bills offseason. Like it? Don’t like it? Let’s hear it.
Simms: I like it. So Buffalo, I think anybody that listens to me thinks I have a love-hate relationship with Buffalo because I really love Buffalo. I respect everything about them. I really do. From Brandon Beane down, they’ve done a lot of good. I didn’t agree with Sean McDermott getting fired. I’ll say that right off the bat. I did not. I’m a big Sean McDermott fan. I love Josh Allen, as you know. I don’t hide that. But also, back to what we started, I’m honest. And just because I like those guys doesn’t mean I’m just going to go, “Oh, everything’s perfect in Buffalo. They’re so awesome.” I’ve complained for years that they don’t have enough blue-chip players. Guys that can make big plays and big moments that help them out. Patrick Mahomes has had Chris Jones and Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill. And I would argue that Josh Allen hasn’t necessarily had some of those people around him to make a big play in a big moment. So he didn’t have a Trent McDuffie or L’Jarius Sneed who was a top corner in football at the time.
And so that’s something I’ve been critical about. It’s got to be more than just like, “Hey, we hope Josh Allen makes a big play in a big moment.” The Chiefs turned to a defensive team the last three or four years. So it hasn’t been all about Mahomes. It’s just been Mahomes clutch at the end of the game, keep it close and that’s it. With Buffalo, it’s been too much on Josh Allen all the time. And that’s where I do love the DJ Moore signing. I like some of the signings on the defensive side of the ball, too. Bradley Chubb has some potential. He definitely can be a double-digit sack guy there. I like CJ Gardner’s attitude in the secondary. I do like that. Maxwell Hairston being in second year, I think is going to show people there.
So yeah, I have liked it. But DJ Moore, finally we’ve got a guy for the first time since the early Stefon Diggs days to where you go, “Wait, we could throw him a screen and he might be able to score a 60-yarder.” Instead of like, the only way we score a 60-yarder is, “OK, James Cook.” Or Josh Allen has to make magic happen and throw some laser down the field that we all just go, “Holy shit, what a play!” And that’s just not conducive to getting to the Super Bowl or winning the Super Bowl. Think about the teams that have been in the Super Bowl. The Eagles are an All-Star team. It’s a list of All Pro’ish special players. The Niners and the years they lost in the Super Bowl, think about it. It’s Bosa, it’s DeForest Buckner, it’s Arik Armstead, it’s Fred Warner, it’s Deebo Samuel. It’s Brandon Aiyuk. It’s Christian McCaffrey. You can name difference-makers and that doesn’t even stop. The list just keeps going. The Rams had it. The Bengals had it in the Super Bowl. The Bucs had it. And that’s to me just where Buffalo needs to get to. And between that and Joe Brady and a few additions, hopefully they can get there.
I love the DJ Moore move, too. Unconventional receiver for an unconventional quarterback. I think that could mix really well in this Joe Brady offense.
Simms: Exactly. He can open the offense up one because you have to worry about him running by you deep down the field. And we know with Mr. Bazooka Arm Josh Allen, you better respect that. And then, yeah, you’ve got too many people in the box to stop James Cook? Oh, boom, zoom. Little screen out there to the receiver. Now, DJ Moore makes a move and we go, “Whoa, there’s 40 yards. We just ripped off 40 yards with a -1 yard pass.” And that’s where I love the value of DJ Moore. You’ve got to have guys like that in the NFL. Right now, the biggest stat in the game dictating wins or losses is not turnovers. It stopped. It’s ended. It’s about explosive plays and the teams that are winning can make big-time explosive plays. And that’s what I’m hoping for, for Buffalo and Josh Allen and company.
All links to Bob McGinn’s draft series:
Part 2, TE: Kenyon Sadiq and the hunt for matchup nightmares
Part 3, T: Why Francis Mauigoa ‘n co. may define the 2026 NFL Draft
Part 6, RB: Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love? ‘The best NFL prospect in this draft
Part 8, Edge: Deep 2026 class promises to torment quarterbacks
Part 10, CB: McCoy? Delane? Hood? Inside the debate at the top...
Part 11, S: Why Caleb Downs, a ‘slam dunk,’ is one of the best players in the NFL Draft