Ryan Riddle and I love watching football together and it shines through in our examination of two prospects: Washington linebacker Shaq Thompson and Boise State running back Jay Ajayi. Riddle does a fantastic job of noting that Thompson might be a player without a position at this stage of his career and in the process, educates us on the differences between a player with a linebacker’s mentality and a safety’s mentality.

Before we watch the Ayaji tape, we get into a wilder conversation about describing football players based on the four elements of fire, air, water, and earth and how it relates to running backs. Ajayi is a unique prospect with a running style that is difficult to categorize with a predominant player comparison. Riddle saw elements of Arian Foster, while I saw traces of Ahmad Bradshaw mixed with a style that I haven’t seen from runners since the late 1970s: Greg Pruitt and Billy Sims.

The episode is a couple of hours, so I encourage you to bookmark this page and watch it as you have time. You’ll learn a ton about defensive play from Riddle and the Ajayi’s tape is just as entertaining.

For analysis of skill players in this year’s draft class, download the 2014 Rookie Scouting Portfolio – available now. Better yet, if you’re a fantasy owner the 56-page Post-Draft Add-on comes with the 2012 – 2014 RSPs at no additional charge. Best, yet, 10 percent of every sale is donated to Darkness to Light to combat sexual abuse. You can purchase past editions of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio for just $9.95 apiece.

You can begin placing orders for the 2015 RSP in January.