“I looked at the tape and I was trying to see what everybody else is seeing. I was out of the country and I get back and turn on the internet on my iPad and boom let me watch. Then I’m like, ‘Okay… this is it?’, this is the first pick?”
A day after telling ESPN’s Adam Schefter that he didn’t understand the immense hype around nearly unanimous no. 1 projected pick Myles Garrett, Warren Sapp joined The Rich Eisen Show to reinforce his doubt in the Texas A&M defensive lineman’s outlook.
Sapp said for a guy who didn’t rank in the Top 50 in the NCAA in tackles for loss or sacks, it’s odd that people can’t stop raving over his dominance.
“Where is this game that this young man took over?” Sapp said. “Take it from someone who was considered for the no. 1 pick. They ask you, ‘Of the 12 games you played, which one would you want us to watch?’ I looked at them like they had lost their mind. I said you pick one because I know what’s on that tape. I want to know what his [Myles Garrett’s] answer is to that question.”
Sapp told a story of his experience at the Combine as a college prospect out of the University of Miami and how then-Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin was critical of Sapp’s results in the bench-press of only 16 reps before the 1995 NFL Draft. The strongest lineman at the combine that year, Sapp explained, was Brenden Stai of Nebraska, who played for four teams in eight rather forgettable seasons. Sapp would obviously take his 16 reps all the way to the Hall of Fame.
“I’ve never broad-jumped on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon to go make a play in a football game,” Sapp said when talking about Garrett’s dazzling combine measurable. “I’ve seen a lot of Tarzans that play like Jane.”
Sapp said he’s unsure of who Cleveland would take at no. 1 if they didn’t draft Garrett and that it’s not his expertise to evaluate other players who aren’t on the defense line, but insists Cleveland doesn’t have their man at no. 1 with Garrett.
“In college you have to take the game over, it’s just natural in you to do so because you’re that much better,” he said. “What I’m looking at is not a dominant no. 1 pick in my book.”