BackDraft Episode 0 - Intro

Co-hosts Chris Bengel and Ryan Struve introduce the listeners to this exciting upcoming weekly podcast. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

What's going on, draft junkies? Are you hanging out with your friends and just can't help but breaking down draft classes of the past? Well, you've come to the right place. My name is Chris Bangle. I'm joined by my co-host, Ryan Shrove, and we wanted to start the back draft podcast to, you know, just kind of talk about draft classes of the past more in the modern age in the NBA and NFL. And, you know, just kind of give our expertise and our personal thoughts of, you know, how these draft classes have gone over the years, some pretty historic ones, some absolute dumpster fires. So we wanted to start this and just have a little bit of fun breaking down draft classes of the past. And I'll toss it over to my co-host.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

Yeah, hi, I'm I'm Ryan Struve. And this where this podcast really came from, and you can give our wives either credit or blame. Absolutely. Um Chris and I are related to each other by double marriage. So our wives are sisters of each other. And occasionally, I mean, we both like sports, and I think we both like drafts. Um and uh far too often we would just sit in the living room at night after the kids had gone to bed and just start talking about a random, you know, NBA or NFL draft, uh, sometimes uh hockey or or baseball, but mostly uh basketball or football. And um we just found it really interesting. And so that you know, our wives said, hey, you should you should try recording these because we think people would would enjoy them. Um so that's what we're doing now. And no better time to start than after week 11 of the NFL season. Um uh but but uh you know, Chris, why do you like why do you like talking about drafts?

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

I've always been a draft junkie going back to growing up. I feel like you know, whenever the NFL draft would come around, especially when it was a Saturday and Sunday thing. Obviously, now it's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and maybe took a little bit of the uh allure away, but um used to love just sitting on the couch for those 12 hours, and you know, back then the teams got 15 seconds per pick and it seemed like it took forever. The first round was like five hours long and it was you know beyond ridiculous. But still, you know, I've always enjoyed breaking down the draft. Um you know, kind of what I watch college football a lot, so you know, seeing the prospects go through the process and you know some guys that you know their draft stock goes through the roof as you know you're getting close to draft season into the combine, I just always found that super interesting. So just being an Abbott football and basketball fan, I you know always gravitated towards the draft process and you know, kind of seeing how it changed from you know when college football season's going on to when you get to April when the draft occurs.

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

Yeah, I mean I uh I would say uh a couple reasons why I like drafts. You know, I grew up in the middle of Iowa and my father didn't watch a lot of professional sports. We actually didn't have cable in my house until I was in high school. Um, and being born in the late 70s, you know, I didn't watch a lot of professional sports. Uh, so I don't have a particular team allegiance. Uh, I know Chris, you're a huge Eagles fan, uh, having grown up in Jersey. Um, but I was kind of surrounded in Iowa by you know Bears fans and Chiefs fans, and the Rams were in St. Louis at the time, and Vikings fans, Packers fans. Like it was sort of a halo around that state, and I never really gravitated towards any of them because you know my my father, who was in charge of the television on the weekends, um, you know, he would watch Nebraska Corn Huskers football, but he never really watched the pro games. You know, we'd watch the Super Bowl, but we wouldn't really watch any other games. Um, and as a result, I think the draft is really fun because I don't I don't have a particular team. I mean, I uh as you know, Chris, I'm married into a Steelers family, um, and I root for them, obviously. Um, but no matter what happens with the Steelers, I'm never going to root for them in the same way that somebody who grew up in Pittsburgh will. And so um I can look at it a little bit more objectively. The draft is a lot of fun. Um, and I also think that you know drafts are interesting because these teams have better information than anybody else. They you know they've got better information than the pre-draft scouts that work for ESPN or CBS or or Fox or whatever, they're putting out you know lists of potential uh picks. Um they're able to scout these players for years. They're able they they go to the combine, they they have all of the best information imaginable and the best personnel on the planet to make this uh evaluation, and they just get it wrong so often. I find that so interesting. Um, that they can have this this great information, see these players play against their peers, and still, you know, a 50% hit rate in the NFL draft is remarkable, uh remarkably good. Um, and so I I think that's that's interesting to watch um as everybody is so confident before the draft, and then you know, after the draft, we see that so often these these picks are just wrong. Um so you know that's that's why I like drafts. Um I hope that we can share some of our draft knowledge uh with you going forward.

SPEAKER_01: 5:49

You know, some personal stories, thing, you know, things if you know we've attended a draft or just watching it on TV, just kind of the ins and outs of it. Um I I really think that this is gonna be a lot of fun to deep dive into some some of these first rounds. Obviously, we're not keeping it only to the first round, but it's gonna be very interesting to see how the top ten went in some of these drafts. Uh, and you know, just seeing diving into maybe what a team's thought process was at that pick and you know how everything turned out. Uh I'm really looking forward to diving into this, and I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00: 6:26

Yeah, me too. And and we'll cover some current events and stuff that's going on at the time or when drafts are approaching, um, and everybody's optimistic about their team in April. Um I'm sure we'll we'll do some discussion around that as well. Um, but for now, that's that was uh hopefully that teased you into wanting to catch our next episodes. We hope to drop our episodes on Thursdays going forward so you have our thoughts heading into the weekend uh before you watch whatever games you're gonna watch.

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

Yeah, we're really excited about it. We're gonna get into everything. I think we're gonna alternate probably between NBA and NFL, kind of give, you know, bounce around, not necessarily go in numerical year order, just kind of, you know, drafts that we find the most interesting and kind of go from there.