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NFL Draft Big Board: Ranking Edge Prospects By Tier

As the NFL becomes more and more of a pass-first league, teams are always looking to build a defense that prevents opponents from letting it fly. A great way to do this is to stockpile Edge talent, and fortunately for teams that have a need at that position heading into the 2020 NFL Draft, they’ll have plenty of options.

The latest edition in our tiered Big Board series takes a look at some of our favorite Edge players available. There is a very obvious No. 1 player here — spoiler alert: it’s Chase Young — but heading into Days 2 and 3 of the draft, there are guys who have what it takes to make an impact at the next level, even if they’re not a finished product just yet.

Tier 1

Chase Young: Arguably the best prospect in the entire 2020 NFL Draft, Young is an absolute beast on the edge. He had a preposterous 21 tackles for loss with 16.5 sacks for Ohio State last year despite the entire world knowing they needed to send help his way if able. He has the measurables and the skillset to be a dominant edge rusher in the NFL for a decade-plus.

Tier 2

K’Lavon Chaisson: The second edge rusher expected to go in this year’s class is the LSU outside linebacker, who had 60 tackles, 13.5 TFLs and 6.5 sacks as he burst on the scene this season for the Tigers after missing most of the 2018 season with an ACL tear. He’s got tremendous get off on the edge and bounced back well from that injury to show that he’s worthy of a first-round pick. He’s a superb athlete and if he taps fully into his potential could be a serious problem at the NFL level.

Tier 3

A.J. Epenesa: Scary size and length — 6’5, 275 pounds — dude just looks like he should be an All-Pro defensive end. As technically sound as you’ll find coming out of college and quite powerful, Epenesa put up big numbers the last two years, racking up 86 tackles with 30.5 TFLs and 22 sacks. Is hardly the quickest guy at the position, nor is his bag of tricks on pass rushes all that deep. The power he is able to generate, though, is special, and he know how to use his hands. So smooth that you wonder if things just come easily to him or if he’s not trying, but man, he could be a load if properly coached up. Hey, on that note…

Yetur Gross-Matos: Another guy who passes the eye test: 6’5, 266 with arms that look more like helicopter propellers. Has some weird tape in that he struggled against a number of good teams Penn State played last year, but had his best games against bottom feeders and, for some reason, Ohio State. Good flexibility for a guy of his size, he’s still a bit of a work in progress in terms of diagnosing plays and having a plan beyond his initial plan — James Franklin has stressed that he believes Gross-Matos’ best football is ahead of him. Quite talented, though, and productive the last two years: 94 tackles, 34.5 TFLs, 17 sacks.

Zach Baun: Can just copy and paste everything that gets written about Wisconsin edge rushers and apply it to Baun. Not the most physically imposing guy — 6’2, 238 pounds — but his motor is startling, his football IQ is off the charts, and he puts himself in position to make plays. Was everywhere for the Badger defense his senior year, accruing 75 tackles, 19.5 TFLs, and 12.5 sacks. If he can overcome his merely ok athleticism, he can do some things in the league.

Marlon Davidson: The big Auburn defensive end had some wondering if he needed to move inside as he was up to 303 pounds at the Combine, but there’s some question about whether he has the size to stick as a tackle. We’re putting him with our Edge group because he’s a gifted pass rusher (7.5 sacks a year ago for Auburn) and most seem to peg him as an end in either a 3-4 or 4-3 scheme. There’s serious buzz about him cracking into the first round, as he’s a great athlete for his size and has tremendous burst off the ball to go with great strength.

Tier 4

Joshua Uche: A dynamite athlete, Uche is still a bit of a work in progress out of the University of Michigan. Hasn’t played a ton of football, seems like he could be the type of guy who gets molded into a pass rusher. Of his 33 tackles last year, 10.5 were for loss and 7.5 registered as sacks. A quick and twitchy rusher who lacks the size you might like (6’1, 245 pounds), Uche isn’t a plug-and-play guy, but you see the flashes of a potential situational nightmare.

Julian Okwara: Exciting prospect. Okwara mixes the physical profile you want from an NFL DE (6’4, 252 pounds) with the flexibility and burst to eat up opposing offensive tackles and a switch that never is flipped off. A broken left fibula prematurely ended last season, and as such, he had 19 tackles, seven TFLs, and five sacks in nine games. As long as he doesn’t consistently get overpowered by offensive linemen at the next level, he’s a guy who can stick around for some time.

Darrell Taylor: The Tennessee standout led the Vols in sacks and tackles for loss last season (8.5 and 10.5, respectively) and is a phenomenal athlete. He’s got the prototypical build with the mixture of speed and strength teams want out of a rush linebacker, and the big question for him is putting it all together. It wouldn’t be a surprise to hear his name called relatively early on Day 2 because his highs are very high and some defensive coach is going to be convinced they can tap into his full potential and make him a star.

Curtis Weaver: Weaver presents one of the Draft’s oldest conundrums, in that the Boise State end was highly productive at the college level thanks to a great motor and technique, but lacks the high-end athleticism desired by the NFL. He’ll likely be a later-round pick due to that, but based on college production, he absolutely belongs on the board.

Terrell Lewis: Lewis is red-flagged by some teams due to his medical history and that will push him down boards as he missed most of 2017 and 2018 due to injury (upper arm and ACL). However, he’s a terrific athlete and a great frame at 6’5, 262 with some room to fill that out if needed. Adding more strength would benefit him and some team in the mid-to-late rounds will be intrigued enough by the raw talent and potential to take a risk on his injury history and relatively low experience at Alabama.

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TDE’s Top Dawg Pays The Rent For 311 Senior Citizens In LA

Top Dawg Entertainment is the rare rap brand that is as closely connected with its origins as it is with the success of its respective pieces — pieces like Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, SZA, and more. The label holds an annual charity concert in Watts, the hometown of TDE founder Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith and rapper Jay Rock, giving away toys for the community’s kids while allowing residents the opportunity to see the sort of live show they might not ordinarily get the opportunity to.

During the ongoing coronavirus crisis, though, Top Dawg — the man and the label — stepped up big, announcing today that Tiffith has committed to covering a month’s rent for seniors residing in the city’s various housing projects, including Imperial Courts, Jordan Downs, and Nickerson Gardens, where Tiffith grew up. The donation totals around $86,000 and covers 311 units, ensuring that one of the most vulnerable groups in an already vulnerable area can stay safely at home.

Top Dawg Entertainment has also been holding a fan appreciation week, releasing a collection of new tracks since Monday, including the long-awaited returns of both Ab-Soul (with his “Dangerookipawaa Freestyle“) and Isaiah Rashad (with “Why Worry“), as well as tracks from Zacari (a cover of “This Woman’s Work“) and today’s releases from SiR (“Rapper Weed” featuring Boogie) and Kembe X, who is managed by TDE’s Moosa (“Off The Leash“).

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Jerry Seinfeld Channels James Bond In Netflix’s ’23 Hours To Kill’ Stand-Up Special Teaser

Amid the buckets of new Netflix offerings for May, multiple comedy specials will arrive to deliver some laughs during these difficult times. That line-up includes Jerry Seinfeld, who will drop his second (although still rare) stand-up special for the streaming giant on May 5. Expect him to keep mining everyday life for humor in the minutiae, while the title of this special, 23 Hours To Kill, and the teaser, suggest a diversion into James Bond-land. The villain who’s taunting Jerry in the above promo bears (what I assume is) an intentionally lukewarm resemblance to Christoph Waltz, who portrayed Blofeld in 2015’s Spectre, but the mood here is much more Austin Powers than anything serious.

Will the Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee host take on villains during this stand-up special? Netflix’s press materials don’t reveal the answer to that question while favoring a more straightforward description. That is, we’ll see Seinfeld offering his trademarked “sharp angles on everyday life, uncovering comedy in the commonplace” from NYC’s Beacon Theater, where he (obviously) filmed this special several months ago. Even though the promo shows him maneuvering to outsmart a villain, the onstage portion of this teaser moves to a bit that we’ve already seen associated with Jerry Seinfeld. He riffs on a subject — gaps underneath bathroom stalls — that previously surfaced (through the mouth of George Costanza) in a 1995 Seinfeld episode, “The Postponement.”

I’m choosing to believe that this subject’s repetition, which has been noted elsewhere and will be recognizable to die-hard Seinfeld fans, is meant to work some magic. There must be a reason why Netflix chose to highlight this bit from the special in a teaser, right? Maybe it’s a message that Jerry will insert some welcome nostalgia that might transport us all back to a simpler time. Clearly, this special was filmed before our current situation, but if there’s anything that Seinfeld’s talented at doing, it’s inviting us to fixate upon seemingly insignificant details to find humor in unexpected places. That’s comfort-comedy, and a meditation upon the absurd, if you will, but we’ll see how far into the past Jerry Seinfeld dives when this special arrives on May 5. For now, enjoy this spiffy poster.

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Khalid And Disclosure Tap Nigerian Artists Davido And Tems For A Rhythmic Remix Of ‘Know Your Worth’

Khalid has had his fair share of collaborations in the last year. In 2019, Khalid kicked off the year by teaming up with Disclosure for “Talk,” which earned the musicians a Grammy nomination. This February, the singer once again ushered in a new year by releasing a collaboration with Disclosure. The group worked together to share the buoyant track “Know Your Worth.” Now, Khalid has called upon the talents of Davido and Tems for a laid-back remix of the track.

The remix opens with Khalid’s swooning vocals over layered percussion. The rhythmic rework of the song breathes new energy into the already positive track. Atlanta-born, Nigerian-raised singer Davido comes in after just one minute, delivering lyrics about finding someone that makes you happy. Nigerian R&B crooner Tems arrives shortly after, using her stand-out voice to echo a similar message.

Ahead of the remix’s release, Davido spoke with Uproxx about his international success and working with the likes of Summer Walker. Davido detailed how his roots have influenced his sound, which can be recognized in the “Know Your Worth” remix. “My experience in Nigeria mostly shaped my music and then my experience in America helped me bridge the gap because I know how people think in Nigeria and I know how people think in America,” Davido said.

Listen to the “Know Your Worth” remix above.

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Post Malone’s Nirvana Tribute Livestream Has Courtney Love’s Approval

As a side-effect of the coronavirus pandemic, livestream concerts, performed by artists from their homes, have become as popular as they’ve ever been. Musicians from all genres and levels of popularity have taken to Instagram Live and other platforms to put on a virtual show for their fans, and Post Malone is up next: Yesterday, he announced he will be performing a Nirvana tribute set on Friday, April 24 (tomorrow). Now he has received a co-sign from one of the most significant Nirvana-related figures: Courtney Love, who was of course married to Kurt Cobain.

Love posted a screenshot of an article about Malone’s announcement and wrote, “Thank you @postmalone @who ( worldhealthorganization) & @google who will match 5 million $ in donations . Thank you beloved @coreresponse and the amazing @nhs ( profound to watch this amazing health care system working = inspiring ) thank you mighty kc for writing these songs with your elegant and monkeyed hands that the kids still want to sing and play and hear and use to fight and hunt and cure and heal and eradicate this f*cking covid19 virus. I approve the usage . Good luck mr malone.”

Malone’s Nirvana tribute livestream is set to kick off on Friday, April 24 at 6 p.m. ET on Malone’s YouTube channel.

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Italy is doing something every country should: Making climate change education mandatory in schools.

Kids today are growing up on a planet that is much different than the one their parents did. Unless humanity takes extremely bold steps in the next few years to combat climate change, Generation Z will live their entire lives dealing with a climate crisis.

Research shows that the younger someone is, the greater their concern about climate change, which makes sense because they’re going to have to live through it. As teenage environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, famously said, “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”

Italy has decided that the best way to help the future generations combat climate change is by educating them on the subject. So starting in September 2020, climate change education will be compulsory in its schools.


While this seems like a no-brainer, Italy is the first country in the world to do so. Its leaders hope that by making the subject mandatory, Italy will become a world leader in environmental education. The decision is also a way to eliminate climate change’s fiercest opponent, those who deny it is happening.

“The entire ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model,” Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti told Reuters.

“I want to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything we learn in school,” he continued.

via Times Higher Education

In the fall, students will receive 33 hours of climate change education throughout the year, and sustainability will be a theme that appears across subjects. “There will be more attention to climate change when teaching those traditional subjects,” Vincenzo Cramarossa, Fioramonti’s spokesman, told CNN.

“I want to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything we learn in school,” Fioramonti said.

A panel of scientific experts, including Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, and American economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin, will help the ministry redevelop the national curriculum.

The United States should take a page out of Italy’s book and implement a similar climate change mandate; however, the U.S. school system is so decentralized it’s difficult to implement such change.

via Jim Bowen / Flickr

In 2013, a group of states tried to implement a nationwide program that teaches a consistent science curriculum, called Next Generation Science Standards. The standards say that “human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels,” are remaking the planet hotter and less hospitable.

Only 36 states have adopted the idea or something similar.

In 2015, the NCSE surveyed 1,299 middle and high school science teachers and found that 71% taught about the warming climate and only 54% of teachers taught that it was accused by human activity.

If the United States is going to continue on its current path of releasing greenhouse gasses like nothing is happening, it should at least work to educate its children so they understand what the older generations did to them.

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Here’s to another unsung hero of the coronavirus pandemic—the midwife

Imagine being pregnant in the middle of a pandemic, when a hospital full of potentially contagious patients is the last place you want to set foot. Where and how are you going to bring your baby into the world?

Thousands of parents-to-be facing this question have scrambled to make a plan that keep them and their baby safe during the coronavirus outbreak. And many have turned to the experts in safe birthing in non-hospital settings—midwives.

Depending on where you live, midwife-assisted birth in a non-hospital setting may be seen as totally normal, or it may be viewed with suspicions about safety. In the U.S., midwife-attended births had seen an uptick even before the pandemic, but the vast majority of births still take place in hospitals. In other countries, home births attended by midwives is the norm for low-risk births.


With the new coronavirus likely not leaving anytime soon, folks in the U.S. might want to hop on the “this is normal” train. With restrictions on visitors and birth support people, as well as the risk of infection, more and more parents are opting for an out-of-hospital birth experience.

Despite being the first state hit hard by the virus, Washington state has had a “tremendous leg up” on this front, says Jen Segadelli, Co-President of the Midwives’ Association of Washington State and Clinical Education Supervisor of the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University. Decades of relationship-building between the midwives and OBs in Washington has created a strong culture of collaboration, she says, making childbirth care in a pandemic far easier than in states where midwives and OBs operate mostly in separate spheres.

However, even in a state where doctors and midwives work well together, the unique circumstances of a pandemic create an entirely new set of challenges and considerations. Coincidentally—and thankfully—a playbook for handling childbirth during a pandemic had already been partially written in Washington before the virus even hit.

Seattle-area midwife Tara Lawal, who runs Rainier Valley Community Clinic, had written her Masters thesis on developing a midwife-led community-based model of care, which includes midwife-physician collaboration—a vital piece of the pandemic birth equation. And Emily Jones, a current Bastyr University midwifery student, is nearly finished writing her Masters thesis on the role of midwives in disaster preparedness. The central question of her paper: “What happens when hospitals run out of beds?” Talk about good timing.

Sagadelli, Lawal, Jones, and other community birth providers in Washington have created a COVID-19 Response Coalition to address the needs of birthing families during the pandemic using the knowledge laid out in those midwives’ research. “The goal is to not get ourselves to a place where we are suddenly New York and like ‘Aw crap. We might have to divert two thousand births out of the hospital in two weeks, and where are we going to put them?'” says Sagadelii.

For midwives, the specifics of “where” aren’t as important as simply having a plan. “We can catch a baby anywhere,” says Sagadelli. “We would just prefer that there be four walls and running water and heat.”

Washington has dozens of licensed freestanding birth centers, which offers a degree of out-of-hospital infrastructure in addition to home birth options. But not all states have those facilities. New York, for example, has just two freestanding birth centers, both in Brooklyn. So creative solutions have to be found when hospitals get overrun and birth centers aren’t available.

Sagadelli says one option is setting up ad-hoc birth centers in hotels or Airbnbs in addition to home births. However, varying state laws and regulations make those options trickier in some states than others. For example, some states don’t allow midwives to carry certain life-saving medications, and some don’t even allow midwives to legally practice at all.

Sagadelli says differing state laws means a hyperlocal approach must be taken:

“This is the downside to the federalist legal system, right? We essentially have 50 different legal systems in this country. Our legality of practices are different state by state, and our scope of practice is different state by state. There are some states where you can’t carry anti-hemorrhagic medication. You can’t carry Pitocin to stop a postpartum hemorrhage. So the way that those midwives might be forced to manage this is going to look different than it’s going to look like for midwives in Washington, who enjoy a pretty liberal scope of practice and a pretty extensive drug legend for emergency management.”

Sagadelli says midwives has seen a 25% to 100% increase in demand across the state since the pandemic began. Some requests are from patients who are near their due date, which poses an extra challenge for midwives who are used to working closely with patients throughout their pregnancy. Late-term transfers don’t allow much time for relationship-building, and patients may not be prepared for the reality of an out-of-hospital birth without the option of an epidural. But in a crisis, people do what they have to do.

And problem-solving in real time is exactly what midwives do. “I think that’s what midwives do well,” says Sagadelli. “We innovate. We problem-solve. We always have.” Midwives also have valuable birth care expertise that traditional OBs don’t. Doctors have begun approaching midwives in Washington asking how to get patients out of the hospital after birth quickly, which is standard practice for most midwives. Sagadelli says that kind of knowledge sharing will serve birthing patients well, not only during this pandemic, but in any potential disaster situation.

“We are hopeful that we have somewhat managed to avert crisis in this state with early action with social distancing and preventative measures,” says Sagadelii. “But we are also hopeful that this has started a bigger conversation about when this happens again—I won’t even say ‘if,’ we’re way too connected as a global society for it not to happen again—or an earthquake or some other kind of crisis or disaster—when we’re faced with it, that we’ve started to lay some groundwork here with our colleagues and as a healthcare system that recognizes we’re going to have to have a plan. Because if we don’t have a plan, the people who fall through the cracks are the birthing people and the babies.”

While OBs are experts in surgical birth and high-risk birth situations, midwives are the experts in normal, low-risk birth. Both kinds of expertise are needed in a crisis, so the more birth care providers work in conjunction with one another, the better the outcome for all birthing families.

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Ariana Grande And Florence Pugh Got Into A Hilarious Exchange Over The “Midsommar” Flower Dress


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A New Jersey Benefit Livestream Featured Bruce Springsteen, SZA, And A Fountains Of Wayne Reunion

New Jersey has been tremendously impacted by the coronavirus pandemic: New York is the only state with more confirmed COVID-19 cases. In light of that, the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund was formed, and one of their first public efforts came to fruition last night: The “Jersey 4 Jersey” livestream benefit event was hosted last night, and it featured performances from some famous New Jersey natives.

Bruce Springsteen, perhaps the most famous Jersey hometown hero of the past half-century, was joined by his wife and E Street Band member Patti Scialfa for a performance of “Land Of Hope And Dreams,” as well as a cover of Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl.”

Fountains Of Wayne also staged a reunion, with Sharon Van Etten taking the place of the recently deceased Adam Schlesinger for a performance of “Hackensack.”

The star-studded lineup also featured SZA, Halsey, and Charlie Puth.

Jon Bon Jovi recently spoke with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about organizing the show and explained how he came to be involved, saying, “The governor is a local, he lives right near me here in Jersey. His wife had come to me and said, ‘We have to do something specific for New Jersey because it’s the second-hardest hit state in the nation, and a lot of small businesses and working people are wondering where that next paycheck’s coming from, because they’ve either been furloughed or laid off, and they’re not sure when they’ll get back to work.’ […] I was tasked with curating this show. The obvious and easiest first phone call was to the king of New Jersey, and he said yes. […] Bruce signed on quick.”

Check out highlights from the livestream above.

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Jpegmafia Tries His Hand At Making A Slow Jam In His Half-Satirical ‘Bodyguard!’ Video

Jpegmafia is likely best-known for his assertive scream-rap style, so his latest new single may come as a shock to longtime fans. “Bodyguard!” which Jpeg released today along with a low-budget, self-shot video, finds the eccentric Baltimore rapper switching lanes to deliver his take on an R&B slow jam. Peggy croons through an voice-changing filter, delivering typical syrup-y R&B lines like ““Why you wanna hurt me, babe?” and “I know you want the world.”

The video itself riffs on the fish-eye lens, bare-chested-with-a-jacket-on style of videos that was popular in the genre at the turn of the millennium — maybe Peggy had tickets to Lover And Friends Fest before the coronavirus hit. The song is halfway between an earnest attempt at making a bedroom bop and a parody of one, which fits right in line with Jpeg’s usual, self-deprecating sense of humor — which he last showed off with his previous self-released videos for “Bald!” and “Covered In Money!

“Bodyguard!” isn’t the first time the quirky rapper gave autotune crooning a go. In March, he delivered an a cappella cover of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” He also showed off that self-deprecating sense of humor when his appearance on People’s Party With Talib Kweli included an unfortunate moment that he gamely played off later in the interview.

Watch Jpegmafia’s “Bodyguard!” video above.