About Her Voice A conversation on Mariah Carey with author and critic Andrew Chan BY DANIELLE AMIR JACKSON DECEMBER 21, 2023
Photo by Raph_PH via Flickr. Artistic rendering by Oxford American. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons This exclusive feature is an online extension of the OA’s annual music issue. Order the Ballads Issue and companion CD here.
Singing is “the most enigmatic of performing arts,” the author, editor, critic, and self-professed “diva lover” Andrew Chan writes. It’s a simple matter of air and anatomy: breath moves through closed vocal folds which then vibrate and resound throughout the throat, chest, head, or sinuses. But when we listen intently, transcendence is available to us. Raised hairs on the upper arm, a tingle on the back of the neck. The irrepressible urge to tap one’s toes. Transcendence is something we can feel–a physical sensation that unleashes the emotions and connects us to the divine. That’s why a host of spiritual traditions embrace the human voice as a conduit for worship, and in secular music, many of the most popular traditions–r&b and its variants, country, even rap—foreground some sort of vocal virtuosity. A skilled vocalist can “seduce us, haunt us, heal us regardless of the text they’re delivering or even the culture that surrounds them,” Chan writes.
In his first book, published just this past fall, Chan highlights the thirty-plus year career of Mariah Carey, whose five-octave vocal range; agile, multisyllabic melisma; and well-honed aptitude for catchy hooks and witty wordplay turned her into one of the most successful pop singer-songwriters of all time. Carey has earned five Grammys and nineteen number ones on the Billboard pop chart—the highest of any act besides the Beatles, surpassing Elvis. Two of her fifteen full-length albums are certified diamond, with sales of ten million or more in the United States alone. Why Mariah Carey Matters, part of the University of Texas Press’s Music Matters series, is the first book-length critical assessment of the artist’s wide-ranging career.
Chan makes the case that from the beginning, Carey’s vocal dexterity and range set her apart—her mastery at blending piercing whistle tones, fluttery, feminine whispers, muscular belts, and “leathery low” notes, often within the same song. “There’s something irrational, bizarre, and hazardous-sounding about the way Mariah hopscotches over and across vocal registers without warning or transition,” Chan writes. She also blended and mixed styles of singing, infusing both big, sentimental ballads and buoyant, weightless bops alike with gospel fervor; in the ’90s, alongside artists like Mary J. Blige and Jodeci, she contributed to the creation and commercial dominance of “hip-hop soul.” In her house remixes, often painstakingly re-recorded versions of her mainstream pop hits, she frequently scatted and improvised in the tradition of Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan. Equally impressive, and critical in understanding Carey, Chan says, is her “artistry outside the vocal booth.” She wrote or co-wrote all of her most enduring hits, including “Vision of Love,” “We Belong Together,” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” She’s produced herself and other artists, and is one of few women nominated for the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year (Non-Classical). It was an early honor, from 1992, for work on her second LP, Emotions.
Chan is one of my favorite writers and an important voice in contemporary music and film criticism. He’s vivid in his assessment of Carey’s musical gifts. He layers in details of his own upbringing to help us understand why certain songs and singers turned him into a student of the art. I love the way he brings the reader along with him—we’re watching and listening together as Carey delivers her gospel-drenched rendition of “America the Beautiful” on the NBA Finals in 1990, hearing her sing the climactic sea-ahhh as she “evokes rolling vistas and open water.” He acknowledges the blemishes on Carey’s career and the unpredictability of her voice, which he insists is not a recent phenomenon. He situates Carey in refreshing context: with Black singers of the ’80s who influenced her sound, and with other female songwriter-producers like Patrice Rushen, Teena Marie, and Angela Winbush, who don’t often receive credit for their prowess behind the boards.
“So much of the culture and money created during this era is the product of Black female creative energy,” writes Danyel Smith, another of my favorite music writers, in Shine Bright, her sweeping history of Black women in American pop. She’s talking about the middle of the twentieth century, when recordings like the Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love” achieved mammoth success that the performers—who came up with the arrangement we all know and love—were not credited for. Carey has received commercial rewards, and, as of late, critical adoration from outlets such as Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
But Chan suggests we still haven’t absorbed the magnitude of Carey’s genius, that our cultural blinders have hindered our ability to understand the breadth of her labor and mastery. Carey’s upbringing as a biracial daughter of a white mom who raised her largely on her own; her sense of not fully belonging among Black or white people; her insistence on femininity in an industry that privileges masculine presentation when it doles out points for credibility. She used it all in her art—especially in her ballads. Over a long and wide-ranging conversation, Chan and I discussed Carey’s melancholy, artistic lineage, the feeling of singing, r&b, gospel, and transcendence.
Courtesy University of Texas Press Danielle Amir Jackson: Can we start with your background? I know you grew up in some American suburbs and in Malaysia. When did you begin to pay so much attention to Mariah Carey?
Andrew Chan: I moved around quite a bit as a kid. I was born in Minneapolis, in a great music city, but I didn’t live there long. My family moved to Tampa, Florida and then to Malaysia. After moving back to the States, I lived in Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina—the metropolitan New South.
In the nineties.
In the nineties. I moved to Atlanta… I think in ’97. I remember Butterfly had just come out. And I remember Usher was number one on the charts with “You Make Me Wanna…” Living in Atlanta and Charlotte in the nineties, I was one of the few Chinese Americans in school. For much of middle school and early high school, half of my friends were Black. So, there was a lot of exposure to the music that they were listening to. Hip-hop and r&b were becoming mainstream and dominating the charts. Having friends who were Black exposed me to more than just what was crossing over.
I also felt connected emotionally to Malaysian culture. My parents exposed me to some of the great Asian divas of the eighties and nineties. Mandarin and Cantonese pop were important for me until, maybe, first grade. So, I was listening to people like Anita Mui, Priscilla Chan, and Teresa Teng and was completely obsessed with them before I had much knowledge of American pop music. Even then my ear was attuned to how different they sounded. Anita Mui had this beautiful contralto voice. Teresa Teng was more of a mezzo soprano. And they had different vocal approaches. Even if I didn’t have the language to analyze that or express that at that age, I was really drawn to the variety of women’s singing. That fascination carried over to the period when I started becoming obsessed with American pop music and American divas, mainly through Whitney and Mariah. When I heard “I Will Always Love You” and the whole Bodyguard era, I’d never heard something like that before. That drew me to the soul tradition of American singing.
I don’t often hear people discuss Carey in the lineage of great American interpreters of ballads like Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra, and I really appreciate that it’s the note you lead with in your book—which parallels the way that Carey started her career. The OA’s annual music issue is a dive into ballads and the elasticity of the form. What’s special about ballads? Why might an artist like Carey launch her career with ballads?
Even though she became frustrated with Tommy Mottola molding her into an adult contemporary ballad singer, the demo was full of ballads. She co-wrote all those songs. She found different ways of making the ballad fresh and interesting for herself.
The ballad has always meant different things across time. If you were to compare Sinatra, singing an old jazz standard ballad like “Angel Eyes” or “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” what does that have in common with Mariah Carey’s “Can’t Let Go?” They’re slow. They’re about passionate love. This does a couple of things for a singer: It gives you space to really milk every note and moment; the listener is drawn into the space of the ballad and is invited to listen very closely in a way that you just aren’t if you’re competing with an up-tempo beat behind you or if you’re singing fast. The feat is more about rhythm than it is about holding out long notes. The ballad accentuates the tone of the singer’s voice. It creates an intimate connection with the listener. It also puts the singer at risk of being uncool because ballads are kind of forbidden. And that is why we love them. They can be uncool. They almost feel like something that we shouldn’t admit we listen to or respect because they, especially the sad ones allow us to wallow, which we’re not supposed to do if we’re grownups and we want to be serious and mature. We’re not supposed to sink into our feelings of longing and despair. But this is one of the places in our culture where we get access to that intensity of emotion, and the slowness of the music mimics the infatuated person’s inability to let go of love or inability to stop thinking about the beloved.
Mariah is an unabashedly sentimental singer, and that’s why it took so long for her to garner any kind of critical respect. She is in that tradition of musical wallowers. She loves her heartache. She loves to long and pine. She’s a bit of a masochist.
Many interesting people are.
Yeah. Ballads can be transportive to sing. The tempos are slower; you can really get your mouth around the words and feel each one of them. Because the song isn’t whizzing by at a crazy pace, you can build to a satisfying climax. You can go from low to high in this drawn-out, dramatic way. That shows the full capabilities of your voice.
When you say ballads are transportive, are you talking about a transcendent experience? The Holy Ghost?
A little bit. It’s to the point where you’re moving with your own performance, which is why singers sometimes get choked up when they’re singing their ballads, because it is such a vulnerable place to be. In karaoke, which most people don’t take seriously, if I’m singing a particular song and I’m really feeling it, I can get so lost in it.
“She loves her heartache. She loves to long and pine. She’s a bit of a masochist.”
ANDREW CHAN
I like what you said about ballads being almost contraband. I remember when people realized Beyoncé was starting the Renaissance tour with slow songs. It seemed almost like an anachronism.
Yeah, for her big house record. She’s a great ballad girl too. In terms of them being contraband, back in the Maoist era in China, love ballads were banned because they were seen as counterrevolutionary. If you were part of the revolution, you wouldn’t indulge in these individualistic displays of your own personal emotions. I do get into that a little bit in the book where I even had a moment in my teenage years where I was just like, These are pathetic. They’re a distraction from the real business of politics and liberation and revolution, you know?
We include a song by Fannie Lou Hamer on our compilation accompanying the issue. You made me think of Elaine Brown, who was chair of the Black Panther party and recorded songs and some of them are balladlike. They’re propagandist, one-note songs.
There is the political ballad too. I think there’s something about love ballads where it’s like surrendering and succumbing to feelings of longing, loss, yearning, desire. Of course, there’s misogyny involved in that too, because these are “feminized” emotions. Ideas about feminine hysteria are built into this hyperbolic style of singing as well. People forget that Whitney was booed and disrespected for much of her career. It’s funny that she and Mariah had a reappraisal where they’re legends now, but at the beginning of their careers, they were criticized for over-singing and being excessive.
I wonder why people didn’t say that about Luther Vandross. He’s super indulgent.
He’s so indulgent. “A House is Not a Home” or “Superstar”—those songs are seven minutes long or something. He had some pop crossover appeal, but he never hit it as big as Whitney and Mariah. But also, there’s a bit of misogyny in that, the difference between women doing it and men doing it. I mean, Al Green is a show-off. They’re all show-offs.
Let’s talk about the eighties. You say that “Can’t Let Go,” is a revision of “Make It Last Forever” by Keith Sweat and Jacci McGhee and compare Carey’s work as a songwriter-singer-producer to Teena Marie and Angela Winbush. And you go into quite a bit of depth into all her references and homages in Glitter: Indeep, Zapp, Cherrelle. I’m having a moment right now—perhaps I’m where Mariah was back in ’99 and 2000—but I’m so obsessed with the sounds and sights of the Black ’80s. Miki Howard, whom you also mention, has been heavy on my mind, alongside Anita Baker, Patrice Rushen, Regina Belle. In your opinion, what was special about that era in music, particularly in Black pop, and how was it connected to Carey’s debut?
I didn’t come into writing this book as an expert in eighties Black music. That is one of the areas where I felt a bit insecure because I felt I knew sixties and seventies r&b and nineties onward in terms of r&b, but for some reason the eighties were an area that I hadn’t explored sufficiently. I knew the major names and their works, but it is a decade that, when it comes to Black popular music, it’s so defined by one-hit wonders. Aside from the Whitneys and the Michael and Janet Jacksons and Lionel Richies, there weren’t a lot of a long-lasting careers that crossed over to non-Black audiences in a major way. Sometimes, DeBarge would have a pop hit, but for most of their significant catalog, mostly Black listeners were listening. I had to do a lot of catching up to get those sounds into my ears and really hear how they influenced Mariah. I think part of it is because eighties r&b is less canonized than the seventies and nineties. Even the nineties have experienced this resurgence of critical interest, but the eighties are almost like a blip. Part of it is where it came in the history of popular music—after the demise of disco, which really was a shaming of Black music by the white rock establishment. I’m sure it’s more complex than that, but that was certainly a dimension to that whole culture war. In the eighties, you have r&b coming out of the ashes of disco and utilizing the electronic elements that disco had been criticized or seen as superficial for. You get a lot of experimentation like Zapp—so kooky and goofy. The use of the talk box to manipulate vocals. You get club music, like Cherrelle, a sort of post-disco dance music, people having a lot of fun. Just like really deep grooves that went on for like six minutes. Gap Band, all that kind of stuff.
There’s the kind of fun side of eighties r&b, but then on the other side you have this luxuriousness, the plush textures of Quiet Storm, which began in the seventies, but really came into its own commercially in the eighties with people like Luther, Anita Baker—who sort of took the slow-roasted, slow-jam, boudoir sound of Isaac Hayes and Al Green and Smokey Robinson—and pushed it to a whole new level. Even when they were singing at the tops of their lungs, it was still smooth.
I hesitate to just generalize all eighties r&b, but I see those as the two parallel tracks. I think they both deeply informed Mariah’s aesthetic. I think Aretha is a huge influence on pretty much all r&b women singers. I think Mariah would cite her as the ultimate female influence, but I think when it comes to sonics, the luxuriousness, the Quiet Storm sound is so evident in songs like “Underneath the Stars” and “Fourth of July.” Those are what you would think of as Quiet-Storm Mariah, but you [also] hear it in the stuff that’s more hip-hop like “The Roof.” The way she’s stacking her vocals, the way she’s creating texture with her voice. It’s very Luther. The way she is manipulating her voice, the way she’s showing it off but not for its own sake, but to create an environment that you sort of wrap yourself in. When I think of Luther showcases like “Superstar” or “Forever, for Always, for Love,” it’s very much like some kind of texture that you can wrap yourself.
This is quite different from the approach of the belters of the sixties and seventies, like Aretha or even Gladys or Chaka, powerful singers who really prioritized the belt. Mariah is a phenomenal belter—one of the greatest. Where she really distinguishes herself from other divas of her time is the subtler parts of her voice. I think a lot of that is influenced by Quiet Storm. When it comes to the zanier side of eighties r&b, you hear it in her sense of humor, her effervescence, especially as she became more of a jokester lyrically in her later years. You can sort of hear the lyrical experimentation and the kind of devil-may-care attitude of eighties Black music.
One of my favorite live performances of Carey’s is where she sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “If Only You Knew,” her Patti Labelle homage. I love that era in her voice where there is that level of rasp.
That performance—it’s very eighties Patti. “If Only You Knew” is so eighties. I think Mariah’s samples, too, are so interesting and root her in the time of her youth. She’s such a radio-head, the way she talks about listening to the radio in her memoir and her devotion to soaking up all those sounds. That was before streaming, where you really had to be glued to the radio. I don’t know if she had MTV back in the day, but the radio was the thing. And she wasn’t just listening to r&b. She was listening to Pat Benatar. The range of her musical references is so fascinating.
I’d love to discuss Carey’s gospel moments. You spend a great deal of time on her rendition of Dottie Peoples’ “Jesus, Oh What a Wonderful Child” and note that while Carey didn’t grow up in the Black church, she joined one as an adult. What’s Mariah’s connection to the gospel of the ’90s? I’m thinking of artists like BeBe and CeCe Winans or Commissioned?
I love gospel music, but I would never claim to know it. I love gospel music because that’s where r&b comes from. R&b is my portal into gospel music. It remains the source of so much great singing, even today. Le’Andria Johnson is one of my favorite singers alive. In terms of Mariah and gospel, I think it is so interesting to me that she didn’t grow up in a Black church and yet was so committed to singing in a gospel style, even from the beginning. There may not be songs that feel explicitly gospel on the debut album, but you do have moments. “There’s Got to Be a Way” has a gospel choir that feels kind of in the style of BeBe and CeCe Winans. That pop, commercial gospel that was happening in the late eighties and nineties—the kind of gospel that you would hear in Sister Act 2. Then she employs background singers like Kelly Price and Melonie Daniels—virtuosos of that sound.
In the book, you note that Kelly Price had been trained by Mattie Moss Clark.
Yes, I found that in a video of Kelly Price. She talked about doing some kind of workshop with Mattie Moss Clark when she was younger. [Carey’s] commitment to surrounding herself with not just skilled r&b background vocalists, who could do a commercial sound, but vocalists like Kelly Price and Melonie Daniels, who could bring a church sound, specifically a COGIC sound to her music is completely fascinating to me. The Clark Sisters were playing on r&b radio back in the seventies. Gospel had been having these kinds of crossover moments, but Mariah’s knowledge of the music surpasses just knowing “Oh, Happy Day” or “You Brought the Sunshine.” She was listening to Vanessa Bell Armstrong. From the very first album in interviews, she is citing Vanessa Bell Armstrong and the Clark Sisters as influences.
I have to think that in her teens, she had been exposed to gospel music. I’m fascinated that she came to the music and absorbed its influence without having a longstanding background in the Black church. I bring this up, not so much as a point about appropriation, but more as another example of Mariah being someone obsessed with records and listening to music and soaking up any influence she could find, whether it was Journey—when she covers “Open Arms”—or gospel or hip-hop or what have you.
To go back to gospel and “Jesus, Oh What a Wonderful Child,” she has moments where she wears her gospel influence on her sleeve even before that. “Anytime You Need a Friend” was one of the most significant gospel moments; she’s singing with a choir behind her and doing a lot of riffing and running and belting in the way of the great COGIC singers. “Jesus, Oh What a Wonderful Child” is significant because it sounds live. I read somewhere that it was recorded live in a church. The vamp is unlike anything that had come in her discography before. It is a gesture toward a kind of gospel authenticity. It’s no longer just gospel-pop. It’s going there and trying to recreate the spirit and the atmosphere and the feeling of a live gospel setting.
I’m interested in her study of gospel as an example of her being a constant and abiding student of different forms of Black music. I love her later gospel songs like “Fly like a Bird,” “I Wish You Well,” and “Heavenly” where she combines a James Cleveland song with a Mary Mary song. There is a song called “I Understand” that’s one of those multi-megastar performances. There’s Rance Allen, Kim Burrell, and Mariah does just whistle at the very end.
Do you think Mariah is fundamentally an r&b artist?
We first have to acknowledge that genres are constructs. These terms have historical origins that are usually rooted in marketing and promotion. Most people track [r&b] to the 1940s. It replaced race music as the designation or the category for whatever African Americans listened to that was popular music. It’s a shifting signifier. The idea that there is a commonality between the music of Ray Charles and Lavern Baker and Fats Domino and Mariah and SZA—all these artists sound so different. I think there is something a little bit unhelpful about these genre markers.
That being said, constructs take on their own reality for people who engage with them. For Mariah, and her listeners who gravitate to the r&b side of her catalog, r&b represents something. It’s as different as the music has become over the decades. There are still certain stylistic and sonic continuities. It’s very improvisational. There is melisma, runs. In classical music, you perform it as its notated. Melisma defies notation. You can sing so many notes so fast that you can’t really even transcribe it. It’s rooted in gospel. It’s rooted in a certain passion for delivery, a centrality of the voice and individual expression. An idea about struggle and transcendence, because it’s rooted in the Black experience and an acknowledgement that life is sometimes totally unbearable, and music is a vehicle to help you get over, to get through. People who gravitate to r&b are connecting with that.
Of course, not every r&b song is about that. But even in a slow jam, you can hear that whining, that struggle, that tension. You hear all these elements in Mariah’s discography. For her, r&b became, at a certain point in her life, a way of expressing her Black identity, which had been dismissed or misrepresented or misunderstood. She was constantly asked about her race in interviews, constantly having to remind people of what she had said from the very beginning, that her father was Black and Venezuelan, and her mother was Irish American. Embracing r&b as her heritage was an important part of her owning her identity as a Black woman. R&b is so interesting as a cultural and political marker, because now we’re in an age where white artists like Justin Bieber or Justin Timberlake, or whoever, say that they’re r&b. I’m less interested in saying, “This person’s not r&b; this person is,” and more interested in what is it that makes people so desperate to align themselves with this genre. I think it’s the historical lineage—the gravity of the heritage. It’s the connection to the idea of soul, which is a spiritual idea.
I’m not sure if any artist can be definitively anything when it comes to genre. But I think certainly Mariah perceives herself as an r&b artist and has conducted her artistic life in a way that shows that she’s committed to a certain ideal of what r&b is—passionate, soulful singing; a connection to music as a form of spirituality.
“Even in a slow jam, you can hear that whining, that struggle, that tension.”
ANDREW CHAN
You have this part of the book where you’re talking about her covers of power rock anthems. You don’t say that she’s reappropriating, but you say she’s showing how permeable rock and r&b boundaries are. They have a shared origin, and they come together in her choices of what to cover and what to sing and how to sing them and her arrangements.
For sure. If you think about Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” that she covers, that’s an instance of a white band bringing gospel influence into a rock song. These boundaries are always permeable. Rock at one point was called r&b when it was sung by Black artists. What she demonstrates with her music is the variety within r&b and that the music is not a monolith. She’s giving you quiet storm. She’s giving you girl-group songs. She’s giving you New Jack Swing. She’s giving you hip-hop soul. She’s giving you power ballads. She’s giving you deep soul, in the tradition of Aretha with “Mine Again.” She is committed to a vision of herself as an r&b artist, but for her it is many things.
All the things you were saying about the struggle and resilience r&b signifies—I think that’s also reflective of the queerness that many sense in a lot of Mariah’s songs.
Absolutely. One song I want to write about is “Ain’t No Way.” Carolyn Franklin wrote that. I don’t know if we know definitively if she was queer, but I think all the history kind of shows that she was. There’s definitely a [queer] reading of that song. You have Luther as a queer artist and Sylvester, so many of the pioneers of the r&b. Little Richard. It makes sense because gospel was pioneered by queer people. Otherness and survival, the longing for transcendence is something so baked into the music. That’s certainly what I was responding to as a young closeted gay child, who’s experiencing racial otherness in the American South as well. Obviously, my experience is very different from Mariah’s, but I think there’s a longing to transcend the arbitrariness of what oppresses us through sound.
And she does transcend and break through.
She achieves it. What is beautiful about a Mariah Carey ballad is that she takes you into the depths of despair, sorrow, but through the sheer beauty and power and mastery of her voice, she is carrying us over. No matter how sorrowful or despairing it gets—and some of them really are quite dark and fatalistic—there’s something about the voice. The voice can be the vehicle that carries you over.

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Chapter 1, part 1: A Dysfunctional Team
It is the 5 pointed by the hour hand of the Bugaria clock, it is very early in the morning, basically everyone is asleep, even the famously hardworking ants and bees are still taking their time in their hive, with only some night-owls and Termites awake on the time.
Many places are quiet as the gust of wind passing through Ant City, hitting the quest board of the main plaza and blowing off some badly pinned untaken quest request- wait someone is coming, everyone hide.
A tall figure goes to the sign board, he reattaches some of the fallen quest boards and adds one big request...
The Westland Expedition
An expedition going out of Bugaria of its southwest border. This expedition is only for the people who have the strength to do so, both in skill, strength,
moral and motivation. It is recommended for anyone to join this expedition to be an officially licensed Explorer Team™ along with their partner or partners.
Our goal is to reach the unheard Westland Kingdom, somewhere far off to the southwest of Bugaria, out to the Deadlands and also collect a powerful substance, capable of magic for the magicless.
If you are interested, meet me at the ancient settlement in the Forsaken Land, getting there safely will be a subtle skill test for consideration. Only 10 7 people are able to join.
Now sponsored by Queen Elizant II
He then left the town unseen, he seems to came from the ant kingdom palace, perhaps to get the queen's seal of approval, regardless of what happen, the sun has come up, and it has strike six on the hour hand and most of Bugaria wake up to an early morning.
At team Snakemouth's abode, it has been a quiet night for the entire team, everyone was sleeping soundly after yesterday's work, nothing can break this sile-
Riiiiiiiiiiiiing!!! Riiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!
"Ugh… can the alarm be louder than this"
Vi then threw her Beemerang at the alarm, it missed by three points of accuracy
"COME ON NOW, can someone turn this annoying alarm off"
"I'll... turn it off"
Luckily for Vi, her bottom bunk and more wakeful teammate Kabbu went and turn off the alarm for her, he then went outside to do morning stretches.
"Ahh, it’s nice to have a warm sunny day, what kind of journey awaits us"
"Well morning Kabbu"
"Oh, morning Sir Maki, how is your team going"
"They are doing well. Also, the Queen is requesting your presence, she wants to talk to all three of you about a new expedition, out of Bugaria, there is more info about it posted on the quest board in the plaza."
"Alright, I'll go inform the team about this"
"Great, no need to be very early this time, I'll be waiting at the palace"
Maki then left Kabbu, meanwhile back at their abode, Vi is heating a Crisbee Donut in a microwave and Leif is still sleeping,
"Team, we got a request by the Queen"
"Kabbu, I am heating a Crisbee donut and Leif is still asleep"
"Well you could eat a Crisbee donut anytime, Leif wake up"
As Kabbu panics to Leif, he tries to wake him up to no avail
"Leif, this is important the queen is requesting-"
"Kabbu I doubt Leif be awake with that kind of attempt, watch this"
"LEIF WAKE UP ALREADY THIS IS YOUR WIFE MUSE WE ARE IN BIG TROUBLE AND... and uhh..."
"Vi, Leif isn't going to wake up"
"HOW IS HE NOT WAKING UP- Oh, a heavy sleeper badge, welp he is not going to wake up"
“I have an idea”
Kabbu then pulls Leif out the bed and carry him in the back, the entire team then went to the ant palace in the hopes Leif would wake up sooner or later.
“So why is the queen want to see us”
“Something about an expedition, Maki says more info on the quest board”
The team then check the quest board, they quickly skim through the posted quest request
“Huh, an expedition out of Bugaria”
“We probably should go now”
“Kay”
After a bit of struggle to the Ant Kingdom Palace of keeping the facade of wakefulness to everyone around them, they reach the ant palace and Maki
"Well team Snakemouth, you were early, the Queen is having an important meeting with some business bugs currently"
"Well, Kabbu..."
"Better early than not"
“Also why is Leif being carried”
“Heavy sleeper badge… we can’t wake him up for Venus’s sake”
“Should we just let him sleep somewhere”
“You should just carry him and explain your situation”
A bit after the conversation, a pair of business bugs went out, commenting about “how this deal with the queen would help their business” and “we be richer than kings”, not important enough to warrant a dialogue by the author’s standards, everyone else then went in and meet up with Elizant
"Well hello there team Snakemouth, and Maki"
"Hi Lisa"
“Vi, not the right time”
“What? We’re friends”
“Still, it isn’t the right time to be so informal”
“What you mean, she doesn’t mind”
“Well then, should we go back to business? Also why is Leif being carried”
"Heavy sleeper badge”
“Well your highness, why do you ask us here”
"Team Snakemouth and Maki, I am sending you into the Westland Expedition"
"What is this about the Westland expedition"
"Oh, Leif you are finally awake"
"The Westland expedition is an expedition out of Bugaria from the Southwest borden, passing through and out of the Forsaken Land, the expedition's has many goals including setting up a path to expand Bugaria and also to contact the Westland Kingdom"
"What is this Westland Kingdom"
"Not much is known about the kingdom, the only thing of importance is that they live far from Bugaria and are likely to have minimal contact with outsiders, they have different culture and speak a completely different language, or at least what the expedition organizer said”
“I am hoping to make first contact with them and to be able to establish a diplomatic relationship with them."
“Wait, you didn’t set the expedition?”
“No, I only sponsored the expedition in exchange for some information and other things”
"So when does this expedition start"
"The expedition is currently waiting new members to join, its meetup spot is set at the old Ant Kingdom settlement in the Forsaken Land, you should check them out tomorrow"
"We will"
"Nice, a new adventure"
"We'll check them out"
"Well then, here is some funds to help with the preparation"
Team Snakemouth got 150 berries
"Well, I'll be off to start preparations, you should too, the Westland's have many dangers within them and we will be relying on our supplies for many days and won't be able to restock after we finish"
"Also, I was given an advice by him that you should have at least have 50 berries each person on hand"
“Don’t worry, we will”
"Well, good luck Team Snakemouth"
Everyone then left the Throne Room
"Kabbu, Leif, a new adventure awaits"
"Well, this should be exciting"
"We should probably get to preparations, we won't be able to restock till we came back to Bugaria"
"Right"
Team Snakemouth then went on with preparations, going out to shops, finish some quest, forage for ingredients, and cooking them. They also train a bit to get their skill hone and end the day with a lot of sweat and a general sense of fatigue.

Joy of Life: Who are your favourite characters and how would you describe them?
What I love about Joy of Life is that almost every character is memorable. PS Am not sure if I got every character right, but if I'm wrong let me know.
1- Wu Zhu 2- Emperor of Qing 3 - Princess Royal 4 - Haitang Duo Duo 5 - Fan Xian 6 - Li Wan Er 7 - 2nd Prince 8 - Crown Prince 9 - ?? The Prime Minister Li Run Fu? 10 - The head of the secret service of the kingdom (I think lol) 11 - Fan Xian's "dad" 12 - Fan Ruo Ruo 13 - Wang Qi Nian
Here are my favourites, arranged by descending order (most favourite at the top)
Uncle Wu Zhu - Everyone's favourite killing machine uncle.
Emperor of Qing - the emperor who is always in his loungewear but is probably planning your assassination while pouring you a nice cup of tea
Cheng Ping Ping - My second favourite uncle. Looks like a nice uncle but is a murderous bastard with a nice smile.
Princess Royal- Otherwise known as batshit crazy future mother-in-law from hell
Haitang Duo Duo - will beat up all the men without breaking a sweat and has surprisingly not done so with Fan Xian yet. But it's coming, pretty sure of it.
Fan Xian - Gary Stu and terroriser of chief eunuchs. Admittedly, due to his Gary-Stu-ness, it took me awhile not to feel like slapping his face each time I see him.
Wang Qi Nian - he made lying such a cute, loveable thing to do. Also, did you lose weight too??
Fan Si Zhe - All his brain cells have been trained to enhance his money acquisition skills
My least favourite: Li Wan Er - a character so bland, I only remember her as "Chicken drumstick girl"

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The 2024 NFL Draft has come and gone, as we wrap up our extensive coverage of this stage of the league calendar. Before we sort of transition over into the final stages of discussing how teams have built up their rosters, discussing how the new additions fit in across my divisional draft and roster review series starting next week, I wanted to show some love to a few players who didn’t actually hear their names called over the course of the weekend in Detroit.
Just last year, I called out Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent, who ended up starting four games, Vikings linebacker Ivan Pace Jr., who was a borderline Pro Bowl performer, and Buccaneers defensive back Christian Izien, who was their quasi-starter in the slot. So there’s always still talent to be found once the draft is wrapped up and while opportunity has to be taken into account here, in the right situation there are UDFAs that could play significant roles as early as this season, even if it’s not in a starting capacity necessarily.
Here are some names, who I believe are capable of contributing and are in a situation where they could get a chance to do so:
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RB DeShaun Fenwick, Oregon State – New England Patriots

This was actually one of the first players I wrote about during this pre-draft process, when I outlined him as one of the biggest standouts from the 2024 college all-star events, having watched him consistency showing up in positive ways during East-West Shrine Bowl practices. Funnily enough, I talked a lot about what Fenwick did during one-on-ones as a receiver in that piece, considering he only hauled in 30 passes across 50 career games between South Carolina and Oregon State. You saw him detach from guys down the field on corner and streak routes, but really what stood out was his attention to detail in that regard, altering tempo, throwing in rocker-steps and freezing the feet of guys covering him. Along with that, he has clearly worked on his technique as a pass-protector, erasing the space to blitzer and striking them with a tight punch. As a runner, he plays up to his size at 6’1”, 220 pounds as a battering ram RB2 for the Beavers paired up with what could be a top-ten back in next year’s class in Damien Martinez. However, while the ran a lot inside and outside zone there, I also really like Fenwick’s projection into more of a gap-scheme oriented approach, thanks to how well he can press creases vertically, make subtle adjustments to get to the opposite edge after blockers after forcing guys on the second level to commit and get skinny through tight creases despite his size.
So as I consider what this Patriots offense could look like under their new leadership, I think this is a back that could fit very well. Coming over from Cleveland, I expect offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt to re-commit to a more downhill-oriented approach, considering the pieces they have on the O-line outside of maybe former first-round pick left guard Cole Strange, when they seemingly wanted to dabble more in the wide zone meta we saw across the NFL. While they did bring in Antonio Gibson as more of a receiving option and someone who can provide some big-play potential, I think he’s someone you want to take mental processing off the table as more of a one-cut-and-go zone runner. Yet, Rhamondre Stevenson for as an even slightly bigger back then Fenwick, has some pretty sweet feet to navigate around points of pressure and pace himself as he sets up pulling linemen. As a fifth-year player, I think the former Oregon State RB can operate in a similar mold, even though I don’t like him as much when he gets out to the perimeter and utilizes blockers in space, while lacking that extra gear to pull away from the pursuit. However, he can take some of the load off the starter with his willingness to drop his pads and have a cumulative effect on the defense taking those kinds of blows. Paired with that, for a rookie he can also be useful taking on pass-pro reps and only dropped two of 32 catchable targets in his career with consistent overhand technique. Neither JaMychal Hasty nor Ke’Shawn Vaugh have really established themselves as committee options and Kevin Harris, who the Pats drafted two years ago with a similar profile, has only been active in nine games and touched the ball 37 times.
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WR Isaiah Williams, Illinois – Detroit Lions

Someone I didn’t bring up as a player who emerged from the college all-star circuit but had a solid Shrine Bowl week himself, was Isaiah Williams. Formerly recruited as a four-star dual-threat quarterback, he made the transition to catching passes three years ago and while Illinois put the ball in his hands to hit his fellow receivers a few times during stretch, he put up just under 1100 yards and five touchdowns on 94 touches this past season, earning himself first-team All-Big Ten accolades. However, the reason not him but teammate Casey Washington actually got drafted is that Williams that he’s on the smaller end at 5’9”, 180 pounds and ran a 4.63 at the combine. To me, unless you look at the former as a pure special teamer, the NFL clearly took the wrong guy here. Wiliams is highly elusive off the line with subtle shifts or more violent sticks to gain positioning on the release, putting the defender in trail technique off the snap pretty much and then he plays so much faster than hos 40-time would indicate, to where you see him rapidly get on top of guys with that burst in slot fades. He can accelerate through his cuts, packs some effective swipe-moves to create separation against tighter coverage at the break-point and consistently was friendly to his quarterback. His drop rate is a little higher (7.0%) than you’d like to see and his contested-catch rate (35.3%) lower, but he shows no hesitation of extending for the ball in traffic and you love what he provides after the catch. He already has that lower center of gravity to be efficient with his transitions and make more dramatic moves in the open field, but he also shows the balance to pull through wraps, forcing 51 missed tackles across 164 combined catches over the last two seasons.
So I look at this Lions depth chart, they just locked up Amon-Ra St. Brown as their “power slot extraordinaire”, they hope former first-round pick Jameson Williams can build on some of the flashes late last season as a field-stretcher and Kalif Raymond is back for a fourth season in Detroit as someone who’s averaged 560 yards per year with them and has been their designated punt returner. However, beyond that, you’re looking at Donovan Peoples-Jones, who they traded a sixth-round pick to Cleveland for, but only averaged just over six offensive snaps outside of a meaningless week 18 game. I kind of liked Antoine Green as a seventh-round pick for them last year, who was this vertical ball-winner for North Carolina, because they didn’t really have that skill-set outside of maybe Marvin Jones Jr. – who’s now off the roster – but the then-rookie only caught one pass for two yards. The only other receiver currently on the roster anybody would even recognize by name is former Saint Tre’Quan Smith, who was bouncing between practice squads and was only active for one game last year. So there’s a pretty good chance Isaiah Williams makes it through final cuts as this team’s WR5 at least. He provides the YAC skills that this team is somewhat lacking and can be an extension of this run game, just like he was for the Fighting Illini, being a fly sweep threats, running backside bubbles or just creating microwave offense on screens.
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WR Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, Georgia – Washington Commanders

Sticking with the wide receiver position, we’re looking at quite a different profile to Isaiah Williams with this 6’1”, 205-pound Georgia wideout. Rosemy-Jacksaint was four-star recruit in 2020, who struggled to work his way onto the field for a deep Bulldogs receiving corp, with just 11 catches over his first two years. He became a bigger part of the rotation in 2022 (29-337-two touchdowns), but really established himself as a senior, turning 34 grabs into 535 yards and four TDs. I first became aware of this player during Senior Bowl practices, but I actually didn’t love what I saw there. In a setting that favors shifty separators, who can take advantage of the extended space provided to them during one-on-ones, his routes became somewhat predictable with no deceptive speed and footwork alternations. That’s not saying I didn’t also see him come out of his front-loaded staggered stance without any wasted movement and didn’t like how he was able to violently stick his foot in the ground for sharp transitions as a bigger body-type, along with catching the first touchdown on gameday through contact. Going to the tape, I thought he was very disciplined with his route-stems, snapped off curls well and I really appreciated his play-strength, battling for positioning, defeating leverage of defenders and nudging them off at the top of routes. You combine that with big, natural hands (zero drops on 98 targets over the past two seasons), large catch-radius with those 33-inch arms and competitiveness with the ball in air, hauling in seven of 11 contested targets last year.
However, what really made me buy in with Rosemy-Jacksaint and what I think the Commander coaching staff will fall in love with is what he provides as a blocker. Works up to off-corners under good control and is able to latch his hands inside their frame at a high rate. You can deploy him in closer splits, cracking back on safeties, getting a tight grip on the point-man of bunches or even pinning edge defenders inside on plays out to the perimeter. And you see this guy’s hands stay attached until the echo of the whistle a lot of times to take defenders for a ride. Is there anybody this profile reminds you of, thinking about what new GM Adam Peters had in San Francisco? – Jauan Jennings is who came to mind for me. Just like the Niner’s dirty-work receiver and chain-mover, the question with the former Bulldog is the long speed, backed up by running an abysmal 4.81 at Georgia’s pro day. I’m not aware of any off-field concerns, which led to Jennings going undrafted, who I believe offered more after the catch. Washington’s offense will have a much more spread-out look than San Francisco of course with the combination of OC Kliff Kingsbury and second overall pick Jayden Daniels, but to complement a smaller receiving corp that will likely rely on the guy they selected 100^th overall in Luke McCaffrey – who I believe is still learning the intricacies of the position – I think as a big slot and role player to help get the run game off the ground, I think Rosemy-Jacksaint has a good chance to make the roster. Assuming they’re looking at different options for the return game, this guy offers more on offense than Dax Milne.
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TE Dallin Holker, Colorado State – New Orleans Saints

One of the more surprising players from this list who ultimately didn’t get picked as part of a fairly underwhelming tight-end class is Dallin Holker. There were only 12 guys who got selected altogether, but I had him just inside my personal top-ten. That was more of a reflection of the quality of the group overall, as I only saw five TEs inside my top-100 while everybody else had some clear warts. For Holker, he wasn’t asked to line up next to the tackle or would create displacement in the run game, while as a receiver he would tip off defenders by drifting during his route stems, he ran a 4.78 at 241 pounds at the combine and he’s not the most natural at contorting his body for off-target grabs. With that being said, there is plenty of good with the second-team All-American, who just put up career-highs across the board in catches (64), yards (767) and touchdowns (six). I thought his actual game speed was a lot better than what he was timed up, watching him gain a step on guys up the seams or racking up yards after the catch when hauling in passes on the run. Holker can also drop his hips and create space for himself and generally navigates well around ancillary zone defenders to find openings. He tracks the deep ball well over either shoulder, not losing focus with someone on his hip, and generally does a good job taking advantage of his large frame to shield the ball and absorb contact, as well as being flexible enough to pluck passes below his knees. As a blocker, you’re best served to utilize him on the move, whether that’s sifting across the formation, inserting against linebackers or covering up bodies in space when you try to get the ball out towards the sideline.
One of the keys to Holker not at least getting a call late on day three is that he didn’t leave the greatest impression during Shrine Bowl week, with a couple of semi-drops with contact and not approaching the ball optimally. However, I didn’t notice that as a general issue for him and as he acclimates to a higher level of competition, I think he has a place on an NFL roster as someone who can earn opportunities by being a reliable target who will fight for extra yardage, and he even lined up some at fullback during team sessions of those aforementioned practices. As I consider how he might fit in with the Saints specifically, I’m looking at a fantasy sleeper from a year ago in Juwan Johnson who didn’t match his prior production in a more prominent role, Foster Moreau as someone who they limited to an underneath option in terms of the pass game and whatever you want to define Taysom Hill as. Whether the latter is on the roster or not, with Klint Kubiak now taking over play-calling duties I’m expecting a fair share of multi-TE sets and could see Holker earn a role as an H-back on early downs and someone with alignment versatility in defined dropback settings.
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IOL Drake Nugent, Michigan – San Francisco 49ers

Moving on to the offensive line now, I saw a path where teams would pass on Drake Nugent compared to see more impressive physical profiles on day three, but I was still shocked to see him go undrafted entirely. Depending on what you count some of these tackle/guard flex options as, there were between 25 and 30 interior O-linemen selected overall. For me, Nugent was IOL18, even though I acknowledge that he may be considered a center only at 6’1”, right around 300 pounds with pretty small hands. After barely seeing the field his first two years in college, he started all 39 games between Stanford and Michigan over the past three years, earning first-team All-Big Ten accolades and helping pave the way for a national championship as the replacement for another highly-regarded transfer at the pivot in Olu Oluwatimi. Nugent definitely lacks some size and length, to where you don’t see him just overwhelming nose-tackles at the point of attack or stun interior rushers with his punch. However, he wins as a run-blocker with great technique and naturally built-in leverage, being able to execute down- and back-blocks as part of the Wolverines’ gap schemes where they pulled their guards a lot, but he’s also very capable of getting his hips around to reach-block first-level defenders or secure moving targets climbing off combos. As a pass-protector, he operates with good flexion at his hips, knees and ankles in order to protect a firm interior of the pocket despite only being around 300 pounds. He consistently fits his hands underneath the chest of rushers, showcases impressive reactionary quicks to mirror active movers and is able to guide crossing linebackers or loopers off track at a high rate.
Considering what Kyle Shanahan and company value in terms of the offensive line – particularly at the center position – I think Nugent fits those qualifications very well. While the rest of the measurements aren’t as intriguing, he put up borderline elite agility numbers at the combine and you see that short-area quickness on tape as well. Michigan didn’t run a whole lot of outside zone, because the guys around the pivot were much more power-based and they’d mash people inside, creating extra gaps with their guards being used as pullers. However, I think Nugent can absolutely get to the play-side shoulder of shades and 2i-technique, wall off bodies on the second level and then has the lateral movement skills to slide in front of blitzers with how much 5-0 protections San Francisco runs, because they want to get five eligibles out in the pattern. Outside of their starter Jake Brendel, the only guy under contract who has really snapped the ball in the NFL is Jon Feliciano, who they brought in third-round pick Dominick Puni (Kansas) to compete for the starting gig at right guard for most likely. So I’m not sure if the Michigan standout makes the active roster week one, but if Brendel misses any time and Feliciano wins that position battle, he may end up starting at center or at least be your primary backup. And I can see a world where Puni starts a few contests at right tackle as well (after he played on the blindside for the Jayhawks), which would open up further opportunities.
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IOL Kinglsey Eguakun, Florida – Detroit Lions

You’ll see a couple of other teams make the list with two potential impact UDFAs, but Detroit is the only one with multiple guys on one side of the ball, as I could see both wide receiver Isaiah Williams and Florida’s starting center over the last three years make the cut. What probably hurt him in this process is the fact that he was lost a month into the 2023 season with an ankle injury and he also didn’t work out at the combine due to tight hamstrings. However, we did see him perform at the Senior Bowl and I thought he had a really nice week. What stands out right away as we compare him to Michigan’s Drake Nugent for example is that he may not even be a full ten pounds heavier, but Eguakun presents a much denser build. Thanks to that, combined with throwing out a nice snatch-trap move a couple of times, his ability to anchor against power-rushers and put people on the ground when they get off balance, made him a very effective pass-protector. On 145 pass-blocking snaps last season, he was only charged with one sack and five additional pressures. In the run game, he has some impressive reps on tape executing different assignment on zone concepts, whether he’s latching and sustaining against D-linemen deep into the play-clock, overtaking/folding underneath on combos or shove scraping linebackers past the target. And for what that more squatty build might suggest, he’s pretty effective with getting to further extended landmarks and secure bodies in space.
With that being said, I did have a few other names ahead of Eguakun in my IOL rankings and he certainly has his flaws. Whether that’s not always bending at his knees and bringing his feet along as a run-blocker, his hands generally sliding to high in both facets and needing to gear up the level of activity in his hand-usage to battle interior pass-rushers. Combining those issues, he was penalized an insane 31(!) times across 1029 total snaps these last three years combined. Nevertheless, not only do I believe those issues are fixable down the road with the right coaching, but I also look at a pretty clear path to earn the backup center job and provide value as someone who can probably jump in at guard as well. Right now, with Graham Glasgow expected to jump in at left guard for Jonah Jackson, who just left in free agency, the only other O-linemen on this roster currently are Colby Sorsdal, who they selected in the fifth round as a developmental tackle out of William & Mary last year, the guy they surprised us with in the fourth round of this draft out of the University of British Columbia, who is also looked at as a guy who isn’t NFL-ready but has intriguing athletic tools, and former Boston College guard Christian Mahogany, who went a good 100 picks later than I expected late in the sixth round due to some medical concerns. None of those have experience at the pivot and otherwise there’s no other drafted player on this roster. Depending on if Detroit signs another free agent on the tertiary market, I see a good chance for Eguakun to make it through cuts.
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EDGE Gabriel Murphy, UCLA – Minnesota Vikings

Nobody hit a bigger homerun on the undrafted free agent market last year than the Vikings. I heard the concerns around linebacker Ivan Pace Jr. coming out of Cincinnati and thought he’d go later than where I valued him, considering he was my 90th overall prospect, but when he landed with defensive coordinator Brian Flores in Minnesota, I immediately thought he’d be an impact starter, and he ended up playing at a fringe Pro Bowl level. This time around, they brought in a player I considered a fourth-round prospect but had some similar concerns based on length. His 30.5-inch arms place him in the sixth-percentile, although the rest of his measurables and athletic testing all basically were in the upper third for the position. Now, that does create some issues when he’s in those close combats against offensive tackles in both facets and you didn’t really see him be asked to stack-and-shed on the edge in the run game, as he was more so allowed to “make plays”. However, there are flashes of him even lining up at three-technique and anchoring against down-block, plus he just has a knack for swiping away the hands of offensive linemen and disrupting the backfield. What you really bring him in for however is that he can probably contribute early on already as a pass-rusher. He effectively sets up cross-chops and beats guys laterally with almost “euro-step”-like footwork. Murphy shows a great feel for the weight-distribution of blockers and has the versatility to move along the front, creating issues on the interior with his quickness. Playing along a loaded D-line at UCLA last season certainly helped, but he racked up 62 QB pressures across 355 pass-rush snaps last season.
Looking at Minnesota’s EDGE situation, they basically swapped out long-time veteran Danielle Hunter for a younger version in Jonathan Greenard coming off a career-year at the end of his rookie deal in Houston. Unlike many suspected them having to trade away both their first-round picks for a quarterback in the top-five, they were able to move up to 17^th overall to pair quarterback J.J. McCarthy with what many regarded as EDGE1 in Alabama’s Dallas Turner. And they did sign former Dolphin Andrew Van Ginkel to a back-loaded two-year, 20-million-dollar contract, in part due to DC Brian Flores’ familiarity with him. However, while Jihad Ward is currently listed as an outside linebacker, at 290 pounds you’re not really going to ask him to drop into coverage, which they do a lot in a system that either brings six or only three, being very extreme-oriented. Other than that, it’s down to Pat Jones, who just played a career-high in snaps but more out of necessity and he didn’t grade out particularly well, and a developmental guy in Andre Carter who they picked up as a UDFA from Army last year and primarily was used on special teams. As I consider who can give you the most production on passing downs right now, Murphy at the very least comes in fifth in that pecking order. So I think he could be used as a spinner over the center and be valued due to his sudden hands to quickly win those one-on-ones Flores generates.
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IDL Fabien Lovett, Florida State – Kansas City Chiefs

While they’ve made more investments recently, the Chiefs have a history of finding quality contributors on the defensive line late in the draft and as part of the UDFA market. They signed an edge rusher that I think could give them some snaps as part of the rotation with his urgent, violent style of play in Charlotte’s Eyabi Okie-Anoma. Yet, I want to focus on the big bear they added in the middle from Florida State. Lovett was tied for tenth in my interior D-line rankings and I thought his skill-set was worthy of investing an early day three pick in him. In terms of owning his space and sliding off blocks in run defense, he was up there with anybody outside of Texas’ massive T’Vondre Sweat as a guy playing between the guard. What I always said about him was that he had an innate feel for where pressure was being applied from and how to counter it, as he dealt with double-teams. Yet, his ability to lock out against soloes and then how slippery he is at disengaging and eating up the ball-carrier is equally impressive. Now, he doesn’t offer a whole lot of pop out of his stance and short-area twitchiness to be a legit part of a third-down package in the NFL, but he does have some dominant snaps of putting guards or centers on skates when left one-on-one and his level of activity with his hands is commendable for a guy at 6’4”, nearly 320 pounds.
As a sixth-year senior who some people may look like as a two-down player, it’s understandable that the league may value other guys above him, but there’s no way he should’ve gone undrafted entirely. Considering how Kansas City has treated their defensive front, these types of players like Derrick Nnadi, Mike Pennel and others have been valuable contributors. Especially this past season, we saw them run the second-highest rate of base defense and generally they go fairly depth into their depth chart with that position group, to keep guys healthy and give them quality snaps. So while those names I mentioned are still under contract, I think there’s definitely a path to playing time for Lovett since they value those early-phase run stoppers. This guy can occupy bodies to allow their linebackers to run freely, as they just some speed with the departure of Willie Gay Jr., but when they mug someone like Leo Chenal up and create even numbers up front, his ability to work off blockers and create quick stops allows them to get to longer downs and be aggressive in their pressure-packages. Yet, when they run more stop-drop coverages, Lovett can stay on the field and contribute as a pocket-pusher or someone who frees up lanes by pulling multiple bodies with him. I think he makes that roster or at the very least is one of the first call-ups from the practice squad, and he stands out as people watch the All-22 in DecembeJanuary.
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LB Easton Gibbs, Wyoming – Seattle Seahawks

Moving on to the second level of the defense, there wasn’t as obvious a choice at linebacker as last year, but there still a few guys I could see making rosters, at least if they are significant contributors on special teams. One of those names become keen of was the last in line of some quality Wyoming LBs in Easton Gibbs. I first laid my eyes on him during Shrine Bowl week, especially in terms one-on-one reps vs. the running backs in coverage. He displayed quick feet to redirect with opponents and kept them in front of him, to where even if he did surrender catches, he would’ve been right there to set the tackle for minimal yardage. He was asked to move over the slot quite a bit during team drills, where he showed the ability to read the eyes of the quarterback as a quasi-overhang, yet he’d toggle back to targets in his vicinity and his play of the week came at the goal-line, undercutting a slant route, where he would’ve been off to the races for a pick-six. On tape, his closing burst as a delayed blitzer or taking off as a spy popped a few tomes, as well as the force to plow through running backs in protection. At 6’1”, 230 pounds, Gibbs presents a pretty dense build, with a wide chest, strong arms and a powerful lower half. He excels at creating leverage and stepping past the hips of linemen in order to circle around for the tackle when the ball is going his way, yet his lateral mobility to track (wide) zone concepts from the backside is equally strong.
Now, Gibbs can be overly concerned with beating blockers to the spot and loses vision on the ball at times, where he runs himself out of the picture. His transitions as a zone-defender and in open field tackling situations can be a little heavy-legged, leading to a missed-tackle rate of 11.6% across three seasons as a starter. So I thought he projected best as a SAM in a defense that utilizes his edge-setting skills and ability to cover tight-ends. That role doesn’t necessarily exist in Mike Macdonald’s system, but I think if paired with more of a rangy player on the second level, he can be a useful piece. That’s where the pairing with former Dolphin Jerome Baker makes a lot of sense, who can be the one that drops out of mugged-up looks and match up with guys out of the backfield as Gibbs is used as a pressure player. As I look at what else they have on the roster, there’s really only Tyrel Dodson in terms of guys with legit NFL experience, who logged two third of his career starts last season (10). Otherwise, they only have 23 total defensive snaps to show for at off-ball backer. Seattle did draft Tyrice Knight out of UTEP in the fourth round, who is a fun player in terms of the violence he plays with, but it also leads to him running himself out of trouble quite regularly at this point. I think there’s an outside chance Gibbs actually wins that second starting gig at inside linebacker and unless they love what one of those other guys provides on teams, he’s at least LB4 for this group.
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CB Josh Wallace, Michigan – Los Angeles Rams

This was an insanely deep corner class and it would surprise a lot of people probably to hear there was actual one more selected (36 total) than at wide receiver, which was the topic of discussion alongside the quarterback all draft season. However, there were still a couple left who didn’t end up hearing their names called, who I expect to battle for roster spots. Josh Wallace is one of those, as someone who spent the first four years of his collegiate career at UMass before transferring to Michigan for his final season of eligibility, where he didn’t intercept any passes but did start 11 of 15 contests, with four PBUs, one fumble forced and two recovered. He’s more so average-sized at 5’11”, 185 pounds, but he plays above that weight-class, where he can bother receivers at the line. When he’s playing straight-up press-technique, Wallace does well to deny receivers to get to the edges of his frame, when he’s allowed to shade inside, he can ride guys into the sideline and then he can stop his momentum pretty well. As a zone defender, he showcases impressive recognition for route combinations, is forceful with his hands to funnel targets towards the safety to his side and generally his awareness for down-and-distance and game situations is excellent. On the negative side, he lacks great twitch at the break-point to erase that window of separation receivers are able to create on him, flipping with vertical releases a step early raises concerns around Wallace’s long speed – backed up by running in the high 4.6s at his pro day – and he’s not really a play-maker with the ball in the air, only intercepting three of 32 total passes defensed in his career.
Having said that, he did have an impressive Shrine Bowl week, stacking over top of routes, forcing guys to widen their stem, without allowing guys to detach on him, at one point coming up with an awesome interception in the end-zone during red-zone one-on-ones, walling off his man, getting his eyes back on the quarterback and diving for the ball. And the big case for him is the physical presence he provides out on the perimeter. This guy steps downhill vs. the run with a purpose and is looking to be the one initiating contact with blockers, then aims low as a tackler and significantly cut down his miss rate this past season against top competition, only missing two of 42 attempts. So while we don’t fully know what the structure of the Rams D will look like under new coordinator Chris Shula, taking over the principles and largely personnel of the previous iteration under Raheem Morris, there’s a pretty clear differentiation between the bigger, more hands-on boundary corners like Tre’Davious White and Derion Kendrick, and the quicker field-side options such as Darious Williams and Cobie Durant. White and Williams coming in as free agents, with Williams having familiarity with L.A. already, are slated to start week one, but I think Wallace could battle Kendrick – who had similar speed concerns, which were even more prevalent on tape – for the backup role on the short side of the field, where he’s asked to disrupt receivers early but doesn’t necessarily stick with them all the way across the field, while having help over the top or inside.
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CB Chigozie Anusiem, Colorado State – Washington Commanders

The other top-30 corner for me who didn’t end up getting selected is someone else I saw early on at Shrine Bowl week but didn’t get to study fully until late in the process. For reference, there were eight guys at that position who got drafted – a couple as early as the fourth round – who I had ranked below Anusiem. Unlike Josh Wallace, I really don’t understand why he ended up not getting taken, since he has even better size at 6’1”, 200 pounds and ran a 4.39 at the Colorado State pro day. A former three-star safety recruit for Cal back in 2018, it took this guy a little bit to find his footing and it took until the final two of his six seasons in college for him to become a fixture in the lineup, once he had transferred to the Rams, where he logged a pick and 12 PBUs across 23 total games. Anusiem operates with good balance and his eyes locked in on the belt of his man from soft-press alignment. He shows the football IQ for what routes to anticipate based on splits and formations, slightly adjusting his technique, and then has 32-and-¼-inch arms to impede to progress of the guy across from him as he commits to the release. He has the wheels to run with just about anybody, his closing burst once receivers try to separate on secondary routes is excellent and then his length allows him to bat down targets others would settle for the tackle on. On 228 snaps in man-coverage over the past two years combined, Anusiem allowed just 12 of 36 targets his way (33.3%) to be completed for 157 yards and one touchdown, while actively forcing nine incompletions. In reality, he might be at his best however playing top-down in quarters and closing on stuff in the flats, where he looks comfortable peaking back at the quarterback, mid-pointing routes and passing along or falling off for targets in his vicinity.
He can definitely get a little too aggressive with wanting to dictate the route development and gets turned the wrong way, leading to some wasted movement – which you saw during Shrine Bowl week against more skilled route-runners – he’s quick to get into that three-quarter turn in deep zone assignments and lose vision of the wideout at times and when he’s attacking downhill against the run, he’s more so just catching ball-carrier, allowing them to drive through him for additional yardage due to his high center of gravity. However, it’s not like he’s missing tackles (just 5.2% of his attempts last season, compared to 6.3% for his entire career) and he’s generally a strong edge-setter, where he’s sliding inside of receivers to create early stops when the ball bounces his way or he punches off receivers with those long limbs, not shying away from sticking his nose in the fan against bigger bodies out on the perimeter. That’s why I thought someone would bet on his traits, teaching him how to hone in his aggressiveness in man-coverage, since he’s pretty reliable against the run from day one. And looking at what new Commanders head coach values from that position, it aligns with a lot that he brings to the table in terms of dictating terms to receivers with a high rate of man-coverage. That’s why they brought in Michael Davis from the Chargers to pair with Benjamin St. Juste, while drafting Mike Sainristil to start in the nickel for the them, but I’m a lot more concerned about last year’s first-rounder Emmanuel Forbes, who was over-drafted based on speed and having a nose for coming up with interceptions. This new front-office isn’t as invested in him to succeed and I could see Anusiem end up as their primary backup on the outside, since he’s a good 20 pounds heavier and fits more with their mantra.
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SAF Millard “Nook” Bradford, TCU – New Orleans Saints

Finally, I want to discuss one safety here. This is a class that receive a whole lot of publicity, but taking my top-100 big board and the guys I listed as “the next 30 names”, I had 11 names up there and depending on how you want to define a couple of them who ultimately got picked, there were are 20 selected total.
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The rest of the analysis can be found here!

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One more UDFA to keep track of for each team:

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Arizona Cardinals – Xavier Weaver, WR, Colorado
Atlanta Falcons – Austin Stogner, TE, Oklahoma
Baltimore Ravens – Beau Brade, SAF, Maryland
Buffalo Bills – Frank Gore Jr., RB, Southern Miss
Carolina Panthers – Jalen Coker, WR, Holy Cross
Chicago Bears – Keith Randolph Jr., IDL, Illinois
Cincinnati Bengals – Aaron Casey, LB, Indiana
Cleveland Browns – Javion Cohen, IOL, Miami
Dallas Cowboys – Brevyn Spann-Ford, TE, Minnesota
Denver Broncos – Thomas Yassmin, TE, Utah
Detroit Lions – Steele Chambers, LB, Ohio State
Green Bay Packers – Donovan Jennings, OT/IOL, USF
Houston Texans – Jadon OR Jaxon Janke, WR, South Dakota State
Indianapolis Colts – Kedon Slovis, QB, USC
Jacksonville Jaguars – Josh Proctor, SAF, Ohio State
Kansas City Chiefs – Eyabi Okie-Anoma, EDGE, Charlotte
Las Vegas Raiders – Lideatrick “Tulu” Griffin, WR, Mississippi State
Los Angeles Chargers – Zach Heins, TE, South Dakota State
Los Angeles Rams – Kenny Logan Jr., SAF, Kansas
Miami Dolphins – Storm Duck, CB, Louisville
Minnesota Vikings – Dallas Gant, LB, Toledo
New England Patriots – Charles Turner III, IOL, LSU
New Orleans Saints – Sincere Haynesworth, IOL, Tulane
New York Giants – Alex Johnson, CB, UCLA
New York Jets – Leonard Taylor III, IDL, Miami
Philadelphia Eagles – Gabe Hall, IDL, Baylor
Pittsburgh Steelers – Dajuan Edwards, RB, Georgia
San Francisco 49ers – Evan Anderson, IDL, FAU
Seattle Seahawks – Garrett Greenfield, OT, South Dakota State
Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Kalen DeLoach, LB, FSU
Tennessee Titans – Dillon Johnson, RB, Washington
Washington Commanders – Tyler Owens, SAF, Texas Tech .
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