Just before the 2017 season, (Pack-ers CEO) “Easy” Eric Tigers and Panthers Owner Paul Jukem were sitting at a table just outside of the NFL Owners meetings. Eric asked Paul if he would share who he was picking, and Paul laughed and said he couldn’t do that.

Paul returned the question to Eric since the Packers had the 2nd pick in the draft. Eric smiled and said he was go-ing to take Texas CB Julius Scott. Scott was projected in the 2nd round, but had Superstar num-bers coming out of college and great combine numbers. Jukem thought he had a good shot at Scott. Turns out he was wrong.

Jukem tried to get (Now San Diego Chargers) CB Jimmy Hendrix the year be-fore, and it hadn’t worked either. This was when Jukem had ownership in the Tampa Bay Buc-caneers. After the 2018 season, and a bad contract dispute with QB Jameis Win-ston, Jukem left the team and joined rival Carolina Panthers where he found his next young shutdown CB DeSean Rucker who was taken in the

same draft as Scott with the 30th pick.

With that, we bring you the top three young corner-backs in the NFL. To be considered in this group you must have the awareness, speed, athleticism, and know how to keep up with the elite receivers in this league.

This young new group of shutdown corners consists of Julius Scott, DeSean Rucker, and Jimmy Hendrix. Hendrix and Rucker fly under the radar and have managed to pick off a combined 26 pass-es since being draft-ed. Scott’s numbers don’t show up as well but nonetheless he’s still every bit of trouble, as no QB wants to throw near him. Scouting re-ports for these three young ball hawks are as follows:

DeSean Rucker

Very physical corner, often overshadowed by Josh Norman. De-Sean is an acrobatic phenom, and at-tacks the ball at the highest point. Ruck-er is a monster cor-ner with good speed. Possesses terrific footwork and the hip fluidity to mirror in man coverage. Dis-plays a strong press and uses his hands to effectively reroute receivers. Smooth athlete that tracks the ball well in the air and has the body control and hands to make interceptions. Willing tackler with sound technique.

Julius Scott

Good height, weight and arm length com-bination. Clean foot-work in transition with natural ability to mirror and match from press coverage. Won't open hips ear-ly and rarely turned around off line of scrimmage. Has foot

quickness in short spaces to maintain feel for his man. Ex-tremely competitive when ball is in the air. Has play strength to redirect receivers from their routes. Aggressive hands in coverage and fights hard to disrupt the catch by any means necessary.

Jimmy Hendrix

Premier, quick twitch athlete with explo-sion pulsing through his hips and feet. In-stant click-and-close action to explode forward and attack the throw. Vertical springs to go up and over receivers at the high point. Smooth, controlled backpedal with ability to weave and mirror route pro-gressions. Plays with outstanding body control and balance. Feet are electric. Can overwhelm lesser op-ponents across from him. Instinctive and urgent in his play. Ex-cels from press, off or zone coverage. Fi-ery competitor with a strong desire to own the pass.

These corner-backs have a long way to go if they want to be consid-ered with greats like Prime Time, Revis Is-land, Sherman, and Patrick Peterson, but they are on their way.

by Paul Jukem @KeepPoundingPX1

W hat is a cham-pionship team? That's a great

question. There are so many factors that go into building a champi-onship. It all starts with ownership and holding coaches accountable. From there, it's the coaching staff putting the right players in po-sition, using them to the best of their abilities, all while developing their weaknesses. This is ex-actly what owner Chris Bigtex and the Cleve-land Browns have been able to do.

On the field, you need a good field gen-eral at QB when trying to build a champion. For the first two seasons the Browns ran with QB Johnny Manziel. Bigtex and Head Coach Mike Pettine set the expecta-tions straight for Johnny. They wanted a playoff team by Season 3 or they would find some-one to take them there.

After the first two seasons, Johnny had led the team to consec-utive 9-7 records but no playoff apperances. In week 5 of Season 3 Johnny and the Browns were 2-3 and it was time for a change.

The Browns traded a third round draft pick for Brett Hundley, who was buried on Green Bay's depth chart. Once the buzz was hot enough around the league, and knowing Johnny's spot could be in trouble, the Redskins called up the Browns and proposed a trade for Johnny. They would give a 2nd round pick and a up and com-ing young guard for Johnny. Manziel would end his career in Cleve-

land with a stat line of 459/735 62% 6,751 yards, 53 TD and 39 INT.

Now it was Hund-ley's turn. Hundley took over immediately play-ing against the team that just traded him. Hundley threw for 4 TD and 0 INT and earned Player of the Week hon-ors in his first NFL game against Green Bay.

From week 6 to week 17, he threw for 24 TD 16 INT 2,170 yards while completing 62% of his passes. The big-gest accomplishment for Hundley was that he finally led the Browns to a 10-6 record and to the playoffs for the first time since 2002 and first playoff win since 1994. The Browns would end up losing to the Raiders in the divisional round that year after Hundley got hurt in the wildcard game vs Pittsburgh.

Hundley broke out during the 2018 sea-son. He recorded a stat line of 171/270, 63%, 2,781 yards, 23 TD and 13 INT with a 107.8 QB rating. He also led his team to a 15-1 record, #1 seed in the AFC and a first round bye. But he wasn't alone...

HB CJ Anderson finally had a breakout year. The Browns signed Anderson in free agency at the start of the 2016 season. In 2018 he ran the ball 285 times for 1,662 yards and 12 TD. Having production from CJ really took pressure off of Hundley. That combined with a Top 5 defense and a defense that was #1 in take-aways all came together to lead the Browns to the playoffs.

The Browns eased by the Broncos in the divisional round, and would go on to play the Bills in the AFC Cham-pionship game. The game came down to the wire, but in the end, the defense stood up and made a crucial pass de-flection on a 4th down pass attempt to the end-zone and would hang on to go to the Super Bowl.

Cleveland had so much swagger and confidence at this point that they would not be stopped, and they blew out the Cowboys in the Super Bowl for the first football championship victory since 1964. Big-tex was able to take a struggling organization and lead them to a Su-per Bowl victory in just 4 years. That is a mighty accomplishment.

Again, it takes build-ing a team and putting the right people in the right position to make it happen. Let's take a look at what the Browns were able to do through the draft and FA to put together this champion-ship team:

• QB Brett Hundley Acquired trade 2017 Starting QB

• HB CJ Anderson Acquired FA '16 Starting HB

• WR Brandin Cooks Aquired FA '18. #2 WR

• WR Antonio Reddick. Aquired '18 Draft, 2nd Round. #3 WR

• TE Ladarius Green Acquired FA '16 Starting TE

• RG Trai Turner Acquired FA '18 Starting RG

• LE Nick Jackson Acquired '18 Draft, 3rd Round. #1 LE

• RE Shane Ray Acquired trade '18 Starting RE

• DT Taz Brandon Acquired '16 Draft, 2nd Round. #1 DT

• DT Markus Cole Acquired '17 Draft, 2nd Round. #2 DT

• MLB Denzel Perry-man. Acquired trade '18. Starting MLB

• ROLB Chet Fields Acquired '17 Draft, 2nd Round. #1 ROLB

• CB Shakiel Gray Acquired '16 Draft, 1st Round. #2 CB

• FS Ha Ha Clinton-Dix Acquired trade '16 Starting FS

• SS Antone Exum Jr. Acquiredn trade '15 Starting SS

The run for the Browns may not be over yet either. In 2019, the Browns are 8-1 heading into a week 10 bye. Hun-dley is sporting a 108.9 QB rating while going 134/205, 65%, 1,897 yards, 16 TD and only 6 INT. He is also currently leading the league MVP race.

At the beginning of this year, the Browns added a couple more components to the team. They signed WR Nelson Agholor who is playing the slot, draft-ed SS VJ Garrett in the 2nd round of the draft, and they got lucky on a HB they drafted in the 5th round, Azaveus Brandon, who has been nothing short of explo-sive. Yes, it looks like after the 2017 season, the Browns are now a household name in the NFL.

Building a Champion

by Chris BigTex @PX1Browns

1. Russell Wilson, SEA

Career Stats93.6 Rtg, 26,314 yds, 195 TD, 111 INT

Has won 2 Super Bowls and consistently has one of the best TD-Int ratio in the NFL.

2.Jameis Winston, NYG

Career Stats99.4 Rtg, 17,523 yds, 132 TD, 81 INT

If he had won a Super Bowl he would have been #1 at only 25 years old.

3. Aaron Rodgers, JAX

Career Stats101.1 Rtg, 44,443 yds, 348 TD, 253 INT

Has bounced back after two sub-par sea-sons for the Packers and is playing well in Jacksonville.

4. Max Jeter, CHI

Career Stats95.4 Rtg, 14,040 yds, 112 TD, 69 INT

Former league MVP who is having a bit of down year. An argument could be made for Jeter being ranked higher.

5. Ted Brewster, ATL

Career Stats101.8 Rtg, 8,477 yds, 73 TD, 45 INT

A close battle for the 5th spot among young QB's. Brewster gets the edge with a career 73 TD's to only 45 interceptions.

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Lamarcus McBride picks off an errant pass from Rams' QB Sean Mannion in Atlanta's 19-14 win.