Fantasy Football Daily - Champs and Chumps Championship Round Review + What's Next For New Hires | NFL First Read

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Welcome to First Read, your go-to podcast for the latest in NFL analysis and insights. Join hosts Brett Whitefield and Joe Marino as they break down "Champs and Chumps Championship Round Review + What's Next For New Hires ." Whether you're a fantasy football enthusiast, a die-hard fan, or just looking to stay informed on all things NFL, "First Read" has you covered. Tune in for expert opinions, detailed breakdowns, and engaging discussions every week. Don't miss out on the ultimate NFL podcast experience! Where to find us: http://twitter.com/Callmesteveo7 http://twitter.com/TheJoeMarino Find Our Podcasts Here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts#/ Use promo code - SCOREMORE for 10% off of your subscriptions Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ Check out The Waiver Wire - https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2024/the-waiver-wire-week-5#/ FantasyPoints Website - https://www.fantasypoints.com NEW! Data Suite - https://data.fantasypoints.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FantasyPts Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FantasyPts Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/FantasyPts TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@fantasypts #fantasypoints #nfl #fantasyfootball #dynastyfantasyfootball #FantasyFootballAdvice #dynastypoints #dynasty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and prepay a celebration of life with us, every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace of mind that you've done all you can today to remove any burden from your loved ones tomorrow. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.ca. The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. First read, we are your first read, the film and analytics podcast featuring myself, Joe Marino of locked on, usually Brett Whitefield, the C.OO of Fantasy Points, but we have Stephen O'Rourke lined up today. This podcast is powered by the Fantasy Points Data Suite. Let's get after it.

All right, Stephen, welcome in, my guy, Brett Whitefield, traveling, senior bowl, logistics, all the problems in the world. but I'm excited to talk to you today. We got a lot to get into. We got champs and jumps. We got some conference championship games to reflect upon. And the NFL coaching carousel maybe has stopped spinning, not sure. Well, certainly gives our reaction to the latest on that front. Stephen, my guy, welcome in.

Hey, doing, Joe. It's crazy that we're here. I mean, it's crazy that it's senior bowl week. It's crazy. It's the week before the Super Bowl. I mean, it's one of those things where when you're in the middle of the season, it feels like it's kind of going slow, like middle of the season. Then all of a sudden it's here. And it's like, oh, my gosh, we are two weeks away from no more football games until next September.

It's like hard to wrap your mind around sometimes. And as somebody who lives in the charting world, I am sure your workflow is so different as the games diminish and you don't have like, I don't know, 16 games to deal with. it's like suddenly it's eight and then it's four and then it's two and it's like my goodness i'm sure it's nice to breathe yeah playoffs are always kind of a nice little break because i think i get to like digest the football a little bit more and like sit with it whereas like obviously midseason like you said it's just like go go go and my sleep schedule is probably the most thankful for all of this where you know now i'm able to kind of get to sleep and go to bed at a normal time rather than pulling my consistent 3.30, 4.30 a.m.

and then up at 7.30 to get things up on the site. So it has been kind of a nice reprieve there, but it is, it's kind of a bittersweet where I love charting. So I kind of like that. There are times where I'm like, I kind of love this schedule. I like doing this. So it's a, you know, it's a bittersweet feeling getting towards the end of the season. I enjoy going to bed early. I'm going to wake up no matter what. I'm going to wake up between 4.30 and 5.

That's going to happen. But now I don't have the necessity to, like, stay up late. Then I went to sleep at 8.30 last night, man. It was a beautiful thing on a Monday. I went to sleep at 8.30. It was like, this is wonderful. I woke up at 4.30 completely refreshed as opposed to, I don't know, Mondays with the games, Monday night football.

I'm not getting to sleep till midnight. Still waking up at 4.30. I felt a lot different on this Tuesday compared to last. And so that's nice to have a little extra juice here. But obviously I will miss all the football. All right, we got champs and chumps. That's what we like to do here to open up the week here on First Read. Stephen, you are the guest, I suppose.

I mean, you're a familiar voice, of course, with fantasy points. And you've been on this podcast before. But as the guest today, if you will, I'll give you honors. You can lead with your champ, your chump, whatever you want to start with. Yeah, so my first champ, the first guy that came to my mind was Xavier worthy, actually. I think that on Sunday was kind of the culmination of what has been pretty impressive back half of the year for him, back even like third, I would say. Just his involvement in the offense and how heavily they use him to kind of just use him as an extension of the

run game in screens and design throws. And he's starting to show a little bit more work in his downfield routes and, you know, winning downfield. I just think that, you know, there was so much talk at the beginning of the year of like, uh-oh, here we go. Another, you know, small fast guy that's not going to like turn out very well. There was a lot of, you know, debate on what he was going to be. But I really think that in the playoffs, in the last couple weeks of the season, he's really kind of been the one of the, one of the straws that stirs the Kansas City drink. And, you know, he has been, you know, have like, I think since week 16 he has the highest target share on the chiefs.

And I mean, it's crazy. His design rate the last few weeks has been up at like 35%. So I think that him being able to operate within the offense and knowing his role and, you know, kind of working off of what his defined role was, which is being kind of a design guy, I think that you're starting to just see his growth into, you know, what he can potentially be down the road outside of just the screen throws and everything like. that kind of goes hand in hand, right? As you develop a role in a manufactured capacity and teams start to think of you as that type of player, it's like, okay, thank you. That's exactly

what we wanted. Now we can unleash some of the down the field stuff and obviously made a couple of huge plays. And even if, even if you're a Bill's fan and you're listening to this and you're like, he didn't catch that ball. The fact that he even came close, you know what I mean? Like when Bishop was the guy that had the leverage to the ball and he's the guy that won the ball. Like, even if you want to debate that it wasn't a catch because it touched the ground, I'm not sure that the ball really moved once it touched the ground. That was my thing, too. That was a big moment, right? That was a big moment in the game and worthy. I mean, I don't want to admit it, but he was obviously a big part of the Chief's recipe to win and

get back to the Super Bowl. Yeah. I'll start with my champ as well since we're starting with champs. I'm going to take the low-hanging fruit and I want to mention say Juan Barclay, three rushing touchdowns, 15 carries 118 yards in their 55 to 23 NFC championship game win over the commanders. And I expected him to have a big game against Washington. I thought there was some issues that Washington would have with their front and matching up with the Eagles. And I thought Philly was pretty choosy with how they started that game, trying to get Jalen Hertz in some rhythm, working the ball to A.J. Brown, which is a good idea. And then kind of selective with Saquan Barkley. I mean, he has 16 touches in the game in a game where

they score 55 points. But you know that there's that home run ability that exists. And I thought they unleashed it at all the right times. I think with Seacuan, there's always going to be some dirty runs that you have to live with. But the reward is that he's going to bust some runs. And he certainly did against Washington. And I thought it was just kind of an icing on the cake moment for, you know, what's really allowed this Philly team to take what I would feel is a major step forward compared to what we saw last year. And the complimenting Jalen Hertz's mobility with the offensive line with the back like Sakelon gives that offense a lot of firepower, even if

there's issue with Jalen Hertz and managing the pocket and being under pressure and some of those decisions and what it looks like, having that to lean on has been so important. And, And we'll talk about the Super Bowl when it's appropriate. But for now, Sequin winning this, being on this team, helping this team kind of get to where they are, being the definitive class of the NFC, in my opinion, I think they kind of leave no doubt here. With a convincing win, Detroit obviously couldn't beat this team in Detroit, not really a super competitive game either. I think it was a statement on this season for Philadelphia.

and I think they're the rightful NFC champions. And I think certainly Saquan Barkley is a big part of that story. Yeah, totally. And it's funny if you go back and look at how the Saquan signing was received and how much of it was kind of like, oh, this is not really like going to impact the bottom line that much. Like, yeah, he's a great back, but they have an awesome offensive line. Why would you go off and need to invest in a guy like that when you could get, you know,

the classic, like you could go for the third rounder, you could go for the, you know, the middle of the road guy because your offensive line is so good. But they're really just showing everyone why they went after this and why it was so important to get such a good back behind that offensive line because throughout this entire year, you know, Jalen Hertz hasn't had to be that guy that often, you know, and when he, you know, when he's been called upon, he's been able to do it. But there's just so much to be said about how much weight, uh, Sequin has taken off of Jalen hurts his shoulders and how, you know, how much more seamless he makes that offense move.

And, you know, it just, it feels so inevitable at times when you're watching it, where, you know, every time, every other, or every Sequin carry, it's like, all right, when's the big run coming? When's the big run coming? Because, I mean, it happens nearly every game now. And so it's, it's cool to see the Eagles reap the benefits of that and to really be able to shove it down everyone's throat that like, hey, no, this, you know, you guys, running backs matter to.

us and it matters to our offense. And, you know, here's living proof of why we went and made this signing and why it was important to go get him and not go for the middle of the road guy, the, you know, the retread guy who's been decent at every stop. Yeah, and look, I think that there's a lot of merit to all the different ideas. I mean, I don't think the chiefs are wrong for Kareem Hunt off the couch to be their lead back and sprinkling in Azaa Pacheco, who is what, a seventh round pick or something like that. For the Eagles to say, hey, you know what? Yeah, I think it would make sense at this point in our life cycle as a team based on how

we're constructed to, you know, pay a running back and it be this guy and him to make the impact that he did. Or if you look at Buffalo, who had a great rushing offense this year, it's, you know, it's a second round pick and James Cook. They did, oh, we'll get somebody on day two, right? I think there's a lot of different ways to get there and they can all be true. They can all be true. And so I don't think you have to be so, you know, dug in.

you know, heels dug in on whatever you're running back ideology is because I think you've seen so many different models work. And for the Eagles, obviously paying Sequin Barclay is not anything that a single person is going to gripe about right now. They maximize the investment. It was the right player for their team. You got a chance to go win the Super Bowl. All right. Coming up on the other side of it, we are going to give our chumps of the week.

So we start on a high note, but we have some shade to cast here on the other side of it. Folks, be sure to stick with us. All right, Stephen. your chump of the week. Yeah, I, so I went away from the conference championships, and I just went the chump of the week is the Jacksonville Jaguars ownership. I love it. I mean, what a complete and utter fumbling of the entire head coaching hire process.

They ended up, they obviously ended up getting Liam Cohen, but I think there's something to be said that they probably had a lot of other opportunities with other coaches if they had handled the GM situation, if they had handled a lot of other situations better because Trevor Lawrence is a huge draw for a coach. And it just the way they handled everything, the way they handled it with Trent Volki and keeping him and then deciding to fire him. It just, I, you know, it's, I think Jacksonville has a chance to be a good team, but there's just so many things hanging over the heads of the players and the coach and Liam Cohen now that he's coming in.

that it's just you just have to really if you're a Jacksonville fan, you have to be upset about it. If you're a football fan watching, it's just this continuous thing that's been happening in Jacksonville since, you know, even before Urban Meyer got hired. And just their flip-flopping and not being able to make the right decision was just kind of, it could be and looked to be detrimental to at least some effect because they missed out on so many of the other, you know, premier coaching candidates just because of shot cons called indecisiveness, call it, you know, stubbornness, whatever it was. It just, I, it's just a mess over there. And you kind of feel bad for Liam Cohen for the situation that he got involved in with all

of that. And I just, I, I feel bad for Trevor Lawrence, too, because he signed a big contract and he has to sit and deal with all of this around him while trying to focus on, you know, getting the team better. Yeah, it's like. everybody knew that Trent Balke was what made this job not attractive. Yeah. You have an intriguing young quarterback. You're not lacking talent to the point where you feel like this is a massive job to get the roster really in a position where it can compete.

Yeah. You got the new stadium going in. It looks awesome. You've got resources. You've got a division that's not overly intimidating. there's a lot of good here, but Trent Balke was the problem there. And I think you certainly go a step up the ladder and you look at Shot Khan. And I think there's plenty to be concerned about. But I do think that if Khan gets the right general manager in place, he will get out of the way and just let him go to work. We'll get the right freaking general manager in place to do that. So I think that they landed at a decent spot. But boy, what an embarrassing story to get there.

and then of course the whole Cohen verbally commits to Tampa doesn't sign the deal, kind of like a shady second interview that he wasn't supposed to go on. Like a whole lot of came out of this that was probably very unnecessary. And, you know, some bridges certainly burned across the way. But I think I think calling out that situation as a chump is, is perfect. Yeah, because I mean, it just, it's not like it was a secret. It's not like shot con and everybody else in Jacksonville was like, what is going on? Why are people coming here? It was pretty explicitly said to them,

like a few times that, hey, I don't want to be here if bulky's here. And yet they continued to double down and be like, no, we're keeping bulky. And then when, you know, they finally came to their senses and realized like, oh my gosh, how are we going to find a head coach? They finally pulled the trigger. And it's like, you just can't be celebrated and you can't be like talked about in a good light just because you made the decision that was supposed to happen. I mean, arguably right at the end of the season, I think that like firing bulky should have, it should have happened right at the end of the season because, I mean, it's been clear. Look at what they've done.

They had the one playoff appearance. They had the one playoff win outside of that. It's been really not great. Free agent signings have been way over, way over spent on players that haven't been, you know, healthy or massively impactful. And so it just, they stuck their heads in the sand on it. And it was kind of just embarrassing to watch the whole thing happen. I think what even makes it more embarrassing is that Doug Peterson was a fired head coach.

I don't know, after 0 and 4, after 2 and 5, whatever, like 2 and 9. He's been a fired coach for a long, long time. Yeah. And the whole, you kind of strung it out or whatever, you didn't do it until after the season. But the whole thing was that you should have been planning. Yeah. You had the opportunity to really get ahead of everything. Yeah.

And you had to get pinned into a corner to make the smart, right decision that everybody knew you had to make all along. And you ruined your opportunity to take advantage of that runway that was built in after you started 0 and 4 or 2 and 5 or whatever. You realize a defense didn't have a pulse all season long. You know, I mean, there was so many obvious indicators there that just it strung out way more, strung out way longer than it had to. Stephen, I don't have any choice with my chump after last week going in on Mark Andrews.

I could not sit here and be not criticized or intellectually honest or whatever you want to say and not throw Dalton Kincaid under the bus as the chump of the week. And I think there's a lot to get into with his role this year and how it started with a lot of gravity towards him and then him and Josh just really never got on the same page. A lot of just uncatchable balls thrown to him, wondering why this is happening. And certainly there's injuries he played through a torn PCL. And apparently the other knee had fluid buildup and they didn't even have

imaging on it yet. He doesn't even know what's wrong with it. So there's a lot to consider. But here's the deal. None of that matters. None of anything that matters before the fourth and five. The debates on the fourth and five, whether it's the orbit return motion, throw the ball to Shakir, getting fooled in past protection.

None of it matters. The ball was catchable for Dalton Kincaid. Hit him in both hands. Josh Allen, an unbelievable throw that he made to give Dalton the chance. Catch the ball. Like catch the ball. It's first in 10 from the 35. You have a chance to go score a game-winning touchdown and slay the dragon.

And again, there's so much that's baked into that moment. And it's an oversimplification probably to say, just catch the ball. But I'm saying just catch the ball. Just, just, there's so many unnecessary conversations that we have to have because he just didn't catch the ball in that moment. And you never know what could have happened from that point forward. But yeah, I couldn't sit here and have Mark Andrews as the chump of the week last week and it not beat Dalton Kincaid this week when he had that opportunity that, I get it.

It's hung up in the air. He's kind of moving one direction. It hits you in both hands, dude. Catch the ball. I'm sure you chart you chart data it's a drop right yeah i mean i the way he attacked the ball to catch it i mean i it's a podcast so i'm not going to go and like do the motion but like watching it it was like why like that's such a weird way to attack the ball he kind of like had wanted to like corral it but it was coming straight forward it went right through it's just like the hole was

there and as an offense as a team i you have to know in that situation it's not it's going to be muddy picture spags is going to come with something it's going to have to be a quick play and you're going to it's not going to be this it's probably not going to be a pitch and catch and the whole opened up yeah it was a tight window and yeah it was a little bit shorter than you wanted but you know that those are the plays that define the teams that go home and the teams that say and go to the super bowl like those are the game changing plays the turning points that are you know crucial to the game And yeah, I just think that it is kind of a microcosm of what that, you know, relationship through in the passing game was this year where it just felt like there was so

much left on the table with Kincaid and Josh Allen. And it just, you know, it did feel kind of like the, like, you know, you always kind of had it in the back of a hat in your, in the back of your head of like, Kincaid either needs to make a play or something's going to happen with him at some point. And it's going to be important. And are they going to be able to get on the same page? and it just kind of felt like all year, like you said, that there was ups and downs with that. And it was never really as pretty as you wanted it to be.

He was never as heavily involved and, you know, really a key cog in that offense as you, as you wanted him to be throughout this season. And it just all kind of came down to that. And yeah, I agree. It sucks. You hate to pin it on him, I, you know, with that orbit motion thing and everything, I agree that Josh Allen made the right, kind of the right and really only call based on what the defense gave the defensive look they gave them and everything.

And he made an incredible play to even get the ball to that point. And, you know, he does all that. You got, I mean, as a receiver, as a teammate, like, that's just a play that you have to make to, to reward what is truly an insane throw from Josh Allen. I mean, to have two guys running right through the barrel into your face and being able to fade off the back foot, but like 17 yards behind the line of scrimmage and make that and put it in a spot to get. for your receiver to get to it in the hole of the zone. You just, yeah, you have to make that catch. And it just, it stinks. It stinks because, you know, you hate when it comes down to something like that.

It's the extremes of the conversation. The result leads us to a conversation that's about, well, you know, the bills got out coached. They didn't slide the protection the right way. They didn't have the right idea in the moment. Was it the right decision, et cetera? to the other side of it as well, oh my goodness, they overcame, not having the right protection call.

And Josh Allen made a historically great throw. And they were able to score a touchdown and win the game, right? Yeah. Streams are just crazy. Yeah. If you just catch the ball. And look, Kincaid had a great rookie season, man. Like legitimately a top 10 rookie season in the history of the NFL,

overshadowed by what Samuel Porter did. Yeah. I mean, to go. from catching 80% of your targets to 58.7 is insane. Yeah. And obviously there's a lot baked into that. And I don't want to like, there's so much context that you have to apply. But the disappointment of what the season was to kind of culminate in that moment is,

it's tough, man. It's tough. Yeah. That's why he's the chump of the week. Yeah. Okay. That was, that was sad. Let's get even more sad on the other side of it when we talk about these conference

championship games and kind of focus in mostly on the commanders and bills and kind of where they go from here folks be sure to stick with us all right stephen it's time to to look at these conference championship games and what we've tried to do here is we acknowledge the saying in the NFL that your strengths get you to the playoffs your weaknesses get you eliminated and the commanders and the bills are both eliminated so let's focus in on kind of what went wrong and um you know why they weren't able to go any further. We'll start with the Washington commanders. That was the early game.

And obviously a game that winds up not having a very close score at the end of it. Was it 55 to 23? Certainly a lopsided game. I think that Washington had their chances to be competitive in the game. They couldn't execute. They certainly had fumbles that lead to a lopsided game. but I think when I consider why the commanders are eliminated, it's just that they didn't have it in the trenches.

They didn't have it on either side of the football. Certainly the Sam Cosmy injury hurts, the Doron Payne injury hurts, but this is a team that all season long struggled to stop the run. They give up the second most rushing yards in the league, the fourth most yards per attempt. And it's not surprising to me that they couldn't go into Philly and stop the run against Sakelon Barkley.

I think to me that's the leading variable as to why the commanders are at home right now. Yeah, and the writing had been kind of there for in both the wild card and the divisional game for them, where a lot of how they got the ball back, a lot of how their defense got stops, it was turnovers. I mean, they forced five turnovers against the lions. They forced a couple of turnovers against the Buccaneers, forced a couple, like one or two fourth down stops against the Buccaneers.

That all came to a stop against the Eagles. And it just, their defense was always kind of there where it's like, man, teams are really just going up and down the field when they want to. But, you know, timely turnovers are making up for it. What happens if those turnovers go away? Well, we saw what happens when those turnovers go away is that teams can go up and down the field, do whatever they want and score kind of at will. And I think that this is, you know, as opposed to the AFC championship, but I think that this is an exciting period for the commanders. and I think that they can walk away knowing that, like, you know, they, I don't, nobody expected them to be here. But, and that I think overall is just kind of the story of both the difference in both the

AFC and NFC playoffs in general is that the NFC really did come down to which team made the fewest turnover mistakes. Almost every game, if you look at the Rams Eagles game, if you look at the Lions Commander's game, you look at all of these different games. A lot of it came down to which team played the cleanest game. from a turnover standpoint, who mitigated turnover is the best. Whereas I think on the AFC side, it was more of which quarterback performed better in the biggest moment

and just kind of the dichotomy of both conferences. But for the commanders, it really just came down to that they couldn't make, they couldn't make timely plays because they were constantly pretty overmatched on defense compared to other teams' offenses. And the, the shoe finally fell off for Cinderella. for him that's just kind of what it comes down to they you know they Dan Quinn has always been kind of has been always been always been predicated on causing chaos and creating turnovers and even in dallas when he was there you saw at times when they stopped forcing turnovers the defense could and would

give up a lot of yards and so it just it you know it was a great story and they did they did have their chances there were you know i think it was it was you know 14 to 12 it was 23 it was like 23 25 or 26 I can't remember the exact score, but it was close at times. But I think the, you know, just overall have the need to keep up, the need and importance of every single offensive drive for them to have to score or not make a mistake. It just caught up to him finally. Yeah.

What's interesting about Dan Quinn and this is year one of this build is I kind of felt like in Dallas with those defenses, I thought they struggled to stop the run too. And so like I don't want to make it a. personnel thing because I don't think he's had a real opportunity to necessarily get everybody that he wants in place to optimize the defense. But when I do go back to Dallas, I do think a lot about kind of their personnel decisions and being a little bit lighter up front and playing, you know, hybrid safeties as linebackers. And you just kind of wonder is like, hey, when you got to play big boy ball, can you do it? And whenever they got turnovers and stuff, it was great. But,

you know, there were certainly games where I think teams would show up and snatch the soul of the Dallas because they couldn't stop the run. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm interested to see how he evolves from this. And again, I don't, I don't think you can put anything into the personnel here. I think they did everything that they could to try to assemble this roster. Certainly, I don't know if this is true or not, but to me it feels this way. That was the roster with the most turnover year over year than any other team.

And for them to kind of piece it together and get to a 12 and five season and an NFC championship game is nothing short of spectacular. I'm curious, though, what decisions are made here moving forward? to adjust maybe some personnel ideology that's going to put them in a better position to play the run because this Eagles team is not going. This is going to be the story

in the East, right? Yeah. Dallas feels like they got a lot of work to do. We'll get there later on today. The Giants have a lot of work to do. It feels like like this is going to be a two team race for a while. And I mean, the Eagles won three games this year against Washington. And if they can't stop the run,

I mean, it's great that you got Vladimir is your guy that's potentially going to match up with A.J. Brown, although that didn't go that great, how are you going to defend Saquan Barkley? I think that's the riddle they have to solve this offseason. Yeah, and they're at an interesting inflection point. You know, it was a full rebuild. Obviously, the Washington franchise had been kind of in the doltrums of the NFL for a while. And now you're at an inflection point where you're like, all right, our quarterback is,

you can pretty confidently say a bona fide superstar and will probably. and most likely continue to be a factor the rest of the way. And, you know, where at the beginning of the year, it's like, all right, let's see what we got and we're going to build the, you know, kind of the thought process that I think every coach and GM when they come in, it's like we're going to slow build this. We're going to get up to relevance. And we're going to, you know, it's going to be a step by step season by season

until, you know, the goal of we're going to be in the Super Bowl. But now with Washington, that timeline gets sped up really fast. Because now you have to make a lot of decisions and you have to, have to say do we you know not that you have to sacrifice the long term or everything but it but it is it's like okay do we go all in for these next three four years on the rookie contract and really make a push go heavy free agent go you know heavy into acquiring uh you know veteran talent veteran proven talent rather than you know continue rather than you know huge focus on the draft not that you have to choose one or the other but it seems to tend to go that way and um it's

just it'll be really interesting to see what they do because yeah, that defense, it's not it's a, it they have talent. There's some guys that you, you do like on their defense, but then there's a lot of, you know, pieces in between there where it's like that, you know, defensive tackle needs to be shorted up because.

Duron Payne is good. Jonathan, Jonathan Allen is good, but they're both not amazing and run defenses, specifically Jonathan Allen and, you know, trying to figure out more consistent pass rush. You got a lot out of Dante Fowler,

junior, but there's, you know, historically that's not a guarantee that you're going to get the same production next year. It's just, I think that they do have to shift a lot of focus into how do we get this defense up to a, you know, 15th ranked defense. How do we get it to where we're not giving up 160 yards a game on the ground? We're giving up 110, 120. And, you know, just because the offense is going to keep going. And I think there, you know, there's some stuff they could shore up on the offensive line. But I think that it's really the inflection point is like we need, they need to shore up that defense because you just want to be able to put

Jaden Daniels in as much as best a position possible. He's shown you that if you give him a chance to win, he's probably going to go win it. It's just that, you know, can the defense hold up long enough against the better teams? I agree with all that. I think that there is room, of course, offensively to build around Jaden Daniels in significant ways, not only with the. offensive line talent. But I mean, this supporting cast is certainly upgradable. I mean,

Terry McCorn is an absolute star. But then your next leading receiver is Zach Ertz, a 34-year-old tight end that, you know, look, I mean, he can run those bench routes and find space and catch the ball, but there's not a whole lot of dynamic skill in Zach Ertz. Your next leading receiver is Lomede Zakiaz. He's been on 75 teams already in the NFL. I mean, Noah Brown's your fourth leading receiver. He's a classic number four, height weight speed. special teams guy that can occasionally catch a deep ball. Then your next leading receiver is Austin Eccler, who's an old running back. Like, we have room here to build up this supporting cast.

I know Luke McCaffrey was a draft pick last year at a pretty quiet rookie season. But, you know, there's a lot of opportunity, in my opinion, to really get some new skill sets around Jaden Daniels and help unlock even more of what he has to offer. Because obviously he's exciting, but, dude, what makes him even more exciting is the fact that He did this as a rookie with an offensive line that I think is certainly upgradable and the supporting gas of skill players that I just talked about. That's why it's amazing. This team is 12 and 5. We just talked about defensive issues.

I just said all that about the offense. They're freaking 12 and 5 and played in the NFC championship game and beat the Lions and the Bucks two season playoff teams to get there. And they did it all virtually without a run game, you know? I mean, towards the lions and Eagles, it's not like they had a running. back who was tearing the other team on the ground, it was all J. it was almost all Jaden Daniels, which to get that far. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy.

And so there, yeah, there's just so much room for growth. And it's exciting to see where they go from here. Jeremy McNichols getting high leverage carries. I mean, like, what are we doing? You know, we all thought he would. 2017, he's played on seven, I mean, literally like seven teams has not done a meaningful thing in the NFL in his life. It's crazy to me.

A lot of room to get better in Washington, but my God, what a great season for Dan Quinn and company to really set the path forward and they're going to be around for a while. Okay, the bill's loss to the chiefs and other news, water is wet in the postseason. It doesn't matter that they've won the last four

in the regular season. Two of them by two scores. The problem is they just keep losing narrowly in the postseason. And the last three losses, Well, I guess let's go on the journey of all four. The first one was the AFC championship game. The Bills had a two-score lead that they couldn't hold on to and wind up losing pretty convincingly. Then the next three have been extremely competitive.

And overtime loss, the 13 seconds game, right? And you have two, three-point losses for the bills where they had the ball at the end with a chance to go win the game and they couldn't do it. So while we let's, I'm happy to talk about the issues that the bills have. their biggest problem is that the Kansas City Chiefs exist, right? The bills are absolutely a Super Bowl caliber team in the NFC where Jalen Hertz is about to play in a second Super Bowl and Brock Purdy is played in a Super Bowl. And Jimmy Garoppolo has been a Super Bowl quarterback recently. The fact, the biggest problem, we can get into all kinds of stuff with the bills.

The biggest problem is that the Chiefs exist. And it's not a David versus Goliath. These have been very tight games, very tight games. And despite all the advantages that the Chiefs, have in what I would say is potentially the greatest collection of quarterback play caller offensively and defensive play caller that's ever been assembled at the same time, the bills have been very, very close. And so I would like to start the conversation by just acknowledging that the biggest problem for the bills is that the chiefs exist. Yeah,

I mean, the chiefs have a cheat code in spags. It's, I mean, no one wants to hire him as a head coach. He's not a threat to leave as a head coach. And so you just have that continuity every year. And then Andy Reid is there. But yeah, I, you know, if you're a Bill's fan, it really, it really just has to feel gutting because, I mean, yeah, you can keep changing up the personnel every year and, you know, seem to shore up different positions and all that. But I, you know, it really just comes down to they've made the play or they've made the play at the time it needed to happen.

I mean, this is just like, We talk about one score games all the time. It's kind of like an anomaly at this point where you've lost four one score games in a row to the same team. I would venture a guess that there haven't been many instances of that in the NFL, you know, through its history. It's just, it's hard because, yeah, you've, you know, you could talk about how they need to add receiving help. And it would have helped if they had more of a bona fide number one. and, you know, their cornerbacks, they dealt with injuries all year, and Kyir Elam's out there and didn't look really that comfortable a lot on Sunday.

And, you know, there are some sore spots, but you have the quarterback. You have a really good head coach. And it just, it just feels like it's a luck thing at this point, I'm sure, where it's like I, you just can't, you just get the short end of the stick. And there's just no other way to put it other than that. And, you know, because it's just been the same thing every. four years. You're paying Josh Allen a ton of money. It limits your ability to build out around them. So you have to make choices on which position groups, which players you're going to focus on.

And that, you know, that cycle is going to change. And it's, you know, one position is going to get better. One position is inevitably going to get worse because they don't have the insane financial flexibility of having a young rookie quarterback or anything like that or, you know, a middle of the road quarterback. It's just, it just comes down to they, they got to find a way to win at some point. Yeah. So, yeah, there's more specific things to get into, but yeah, make the play. You know, make the freaking play when it's there to be made. And you could talk about getting out coach and all those types of things. But at the end of the day, they've been in position to do it. They've been in position to make the play. They have to make the play. I do think the bills have problems on defense and for a team that has been so close.

And there has been a lot of transition, particularly on the defensive side of the football, it's the first year of, Bobby Babbage is a defensive coordinator. And yeah, there's a lot of realness to losing the defensive talent that the bills did year over year. And there's a lot of young players that are going to mature and get better. But at the end of the day, the Chiefs came in. They scored the first time they've hung third, season high, 32 points.

They put a season high, 28 first downs on the board. And the bill's third down defense ranked 29th in the NFL this year, allowing a conversion rate of 44%. They gave up the most first downs, 356. or the, excuse me, the fourth most fourth downs of any, first downs of any team. And so I'm not surprised that Kansas City goes in there and has a conversion rate of 36% and has a season high 28 first downs. Like they just couldn't get stops.

All that to say that they couldn't get stops. We're talking about a bottom five defense and third down rate, bottom five defense in giving up first downs. And that showed up against Kansas City. They couldn't get critical stops, particularly earlier in the game. and pass coverage was not good enough. The bill is 23rd, an EPA per dropback defending the past this year. Oh, well, I'm not surprised that Patrick Mahomes comes in and has a 64.7% success rate on his dropbacks,

the best game of his freaking career, a 99th percentile dropback success rate for any quarterback in the history of the game. You know, like, so yeah, you're just defenses wasn't good enough. And so it's everything. It's your pass rush has got to be better. Your coverage has to be better. Your play calling has to be better to give yourself a better. to give yourself a better chance to win these games.

And so, yeah, it does come down to, hey, make the play, but also maybe it doesn't have to be as difficult if you can play defense a little bit better. And you're not down into a 21 to 10 hole because, you know, they go nine plays 90 yards. You get lucky that there's an unforced fumble. They're about to score another touchdown. You know, like you have to be a more limiting defense than what the bills showed in this game. And I think throughout the course of the season, of course,

they were able to overcome it against other teams, not against Kansas City. Yeah, yeah. It's not great when you do have to, I mean, when you have to go up against the best performance of a quarterback who's arguably the best quarterback of all time, that's going to be hard to overcome. And just not being able to cause chaos, not being able to muddy the picture as much for him, not being able to limit the, limit the scrambling. I mean, that was, there were so many scrambles throughout the game where, you know, you felt like the, the, the bills had him hemmed in and then boom, there's a, there's a first down rush and we're back to square one. It just, he's otherworldly and that's just the reality of it. He's never going away. And now, in my personal opinion, I think this is one of the better iterations of the chief's offense in their three, four, five year run of being one of the best, like one of, if not

the best team in the NFL. I think that this is one of the best iterations from a weapon standpoint. And they, yeah, they just didn't have the horses on. defense to go toe to toe to with them. And, you know, they're, I call it the pass rush. I think it's more they need to really, really, really, really revamp that secondary and work on the cornerback room. I think that that's a huge part of it, in my opinion. But yeah, yeah, I just, I just walk away from the game just feeling gutted because I like don't know other than switching up schemes, muddying the picture. I don't like, just like from a personnel standpoint, I don't know what you can

do massively differently that doesn't like take away from different position groups like I said and where you aren't just kind of doing the same thing but it's going to you'd like to believe it has to happen at some point and there is a lot of room for growth on that defense and so you just hope that they can find the pieces in the you know the impact players whether it be through the draft and I think that is a big part of it is they do need to start they do need to get impactful players in that in those first second rounds of those drafts because if you're looking at Keon Coleman, if you're looking at Kaiy or Elam, those are guys who have, did not show up in, in ways that you would like to see first round, first second round draft picks show up and perform

in those big moments. So I think, you know, drafting really well is a big part of it. And, you know, just short, you know, finding replacements for guys like Von Miller. I think, you know, you want to get another guy. Rousseau is really emerging and wanting to get a really impactful, you know, young guy who, you know, you can be out there down in, down out is going to be helpful. helpful. It just, I just, it feels as some, you know, as another person who did not want to see the chiefs in the Super Bowl. It's, you know, it just feels gutting because it, it just, it's the same story, slightly different script every time. Yeah. I want to bring up one more talking point here for the

bills and where they go from here. They got to find a vertical passing game. And I want to bring in some data, courtesy of the fantasy points data suite. I will first start by acknowledging that against Kansas City, the bills only completed two passes that were 15 air yards or more, only one that was 20 yards or more. And it was a sobering reminder of Buffalo's vertical passing offense and how non-existent and ineffective it's been all season long, especially when you can run the ball like the bills can, when you can have a quarterback like Josh Allen. You need to have more of a vertical element to your passing game. Here's the data that I want to bring up. Josh Allen among the 2024 quarterbacks, the top 32 quarterbacks with the most dropbacks. And you can find this all in the fantasy points data suite.

Josh Allen ranks 24th in completion percentage on deep throws, which is 20 yards or more, 30.1 percent. Yards per attempt, 9.74, that's 26th. Passing touchdowns, two, that's 31st. Passer rating on deep throws, 65.5, that's 28th. Catchable throw rate, 46.6%. that's 25th. I mean, you're talking about bottom tier metrics, bottom 25% of the league metrics on deep

throws. And I think some of that is Josh Allen and ball placement. I think some of that is a new supporting cast of receivers around him this year. But these are bad metrics, man. And I do think that they lack down the field receiving talent. I mean, who's your best deep threat? Mack Collins? I mean, it can't be it. Right. Like, it just can't be your best vertical receiver. And he was. He was the one guy that caught a deep pass. against Kansas City. I mean, Keon Coleman, he's, what is he going to be a 50-50 ball winner down the field? Well, he didn't prove to be that this year. Cooper, he's, I mean, if he can stack a bad corner, you know, he can certainly win, win that fight in the air, but he's not separating vertically.

He's got to have to play with, you know, with, with contact on him. So the bills need some type of field stretching element and some type of ability to attack defenses down the field to really compliment what they have with the rest of this offense, which is very, very efficient. It's extremely efficient. They run the ball well. They have a short passing game. But all of that should lead to some more opportunities down the field and better results. And here's the kicker.

Like Josh Allen's like fifth in deep throw percentage. So they're doing this a lot with those results. Yeah. And this was the story at the beginning of the year for the bills. This was the one of the biggest questions coming into the year is who is Josh Allen going to throw the ball to? Josh Allen is incredibly good and he can do so much on his own. and James Cook is really good. But the question going into the year was who's going to make the impact catches,

who's going to be the impact receiver and what's going to happen when it comes crunch time? And they tried to do something. They went and got Amari Cooper midseason. But that just reigned true in the most important moments of this game that Josh Allen didn't have a reliable number one that he can, no matter what, turn to when he's in trouble. and they got away with it for all for the entire year Josh Allen played you know really well and he got the most out of Khalil Shakir and you know he got the most out of Mack Hollins who is on his fourth team in four years and is you know I think becoming a household name because of it you know he did have

a good year with the bills but you know there's room for growth from Mac Hollins and from an aging Amari Cooper and from Curtis Samuel and just like all these guys that we knew at the beginning of the year, it was going to be kind of a struggle. And I think that because at times you forget that Josh Allen is there, and he elevates them so much, you forget that it's like, oh, yeah, this was an issue right at the forefront of the year. And it's, it reared its head in the worst moment. Yeah.

And it could have been a completely unconcerning issue. Absolutely. If you win the game, you're in the Super Bowl, we're not even having this conversation. Yeah. But because this is where they are, and this is a different conversation than other teams, right? This is a team that took the chiefs to the brink in the AFC championship game, right?

They were able to do that despite what we're talking about. And that's why it goes back to the initial point. The biggest problem with the Buffalo Bills is that the Kansas City Chiefs exist. Yep. All right. We're going to talk coaching stuff here on the other side of it. folks, be sure to stick with us. All right, Stephen, we've got head coaches for every team, but the Saints. So what I'd love to do here is let's just kind of get some like prevailing

thoughts, high level conversation on, you know, these decisions that have been made across the league. We hadn't had much of an opportunity to talk about any of this yet on the podcast. So let's kind of talk about it. We'll go alphabetical by team mascot. We'll start with the Bears. The Bears get Ben Johnson. I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts on that. And Brent, I touched on this a little bit. I know that Ben was always going to be choosy. And it felt like maybe the Jags were in play, but that was before they fired bulky. It felt like maybe the Raiders were in play.

And, you know, they, maybe there's just too many concerns about, you know, what is the direction at quarterback and whatever their idea is, does he like it? He winds up going to Chicago. And he's got a big task ahead of him to, to help Caleb Williams. Obviously, Caleb Williams is extremely talented, extremely talented. that I make no, you know, I don't want to get a twist of here, but he's got a lot of work to do in terms of running an offense. And I know that there's a lot of criticism for the offensive line.

And I think that's true. The offensive line wasn't good enough. But I think Caleb Williams made that offensive line worse. And I watched Drake May and I watched Jaden Daniels also have bad offensive lines that he was able to operate behind and run the offense and look a lot better than Caleb Williams. So, I mean, not to steal all the talking points here, but it feels like Ben Johnson's got to come to town and get Caleb Williams playing winning football.

Yeah, I mean, from the start of it, hey, the Chicago Bears won. They won the coaching hiring cycle. From, you know, take away what's going to happen in the future, they got the number one guy. And I think that's the biggest part of it. And that's super exciting for the Bears fans and for the Bears franchise. I think that what Ben Johnson offers is that he shows he can build a malleable offense that works around the talent that you have. you know, if you look back at the tail end of the 2021 season with the Lions in 2022 and Ben Johnson had more influence in the offense,

he was able to mitigate and help Jared Gough, you know, produce a really effective offense with not, with not a lot of very effective players and guys that aren't, you know, household names anymore. And so I think that I don't know what's going to happen on the grander schemes of him as a head coach. can't speak to what he's like in the building, what he's like as a, you know, camaraderie with players. But what you do know about him is he's going to build an efficient offense. He knows how to build a team correctly. He just came from Detroit where they focused on the trenches and they built out from there and looked how awesome it's been for Jared Gough. And I think that that's going to be a huge part of it for, at least that's my guess for

Ben Johnson is sure, making sure that offensive line is a massive, massive improvement this year because, you know, I think if you can take away all of the quick pressures and take away the, you know, the indecisiveness that comes with getting quick pressured for Caleb Williams and have him make more firm quick decisions and build off of a quick passing game, which Ben Johnson has shown he can do with Jared Gough and, you know, introduce Caleb's mobility. That's a whole new weapon that Ben Johnson gets to work with. Overall, I think it's a home run higher.

It's a win. it's the best they could have possibly done from an outside standpoint, you know, and overall, I really think it is. I think Ben Johnson can build a very good offense for Caleb. I just think it's going to come down to what is, you know, what is he as a culture as a, you know, overall team head coach? But I feel really, I feel very confident that he's going to get that offense humming right away. Well, and look, I'm glad you just mentioned that. We're going to talk about these hires.

And in reality, nobody knows today, man. man, nobody knows. And unfortunately, most of them don't work. Most, I mean, these, these most coaching hires just don't work out. And I do think so much of their success will be defined by leadership and ability to establish culture, which is not really the stuff we're going to talk about because what do we actually know about these people is that, you know, what schemes did they run and what type of success did they have where they were? And you try to apply that. But the most important piece of the conversation is not anything that we can, know today in terms of are they culture builders are they leaders of men that's what's going to decide these these 10 years and so it's it's kind of an interesting thing to reflect on these because

nobody's wrong today but you can certainly have a vibe right about what you think's going to happen speaking of vibes and bad vibes potentially it doesn't feel like there's a lot of love in Dallas for their decision to hire brian schottenheimer as the head coach obviously it gets its chance to play out. And Jerry Jones was, I don't even know what the adjective is to describe emotional, interesting. I don't know. However, he felt some type of way in that introductory press conference. But this is, this is one of the more unpopular head coaching hires that I've seen in terms of the aftermath and reaction from media and a lot of the fans as well. Yeah. I mean, it feels like the most cowboys hire. I mean, it is, can you, I think everybody can kind of say that they're disappointed,

but it's exactly what you kind of expected them to do, unfortunately. Schottinheimer's been around the league for a long time. His last iterations as an offensive coordinator haven't yielded the most incredible results. I think most of the offenses he's been around and helped command since like 2020 have all kind of sat around 20, 21st, 22nd. In rankings, it's just, yeah, you just would like to see a team that, you know, is going through a kind of a moment of flux in their roster and their goals for the immediate

and for the immediate future and just what needs to happen. And I just, you would have liked to see him go with a guy that's going to provide a little bit more excitement, a little bit more intrigue and, you know, that has shown that he does things a little bit differently because I think that's what you're seeing with a lot of the head coaches that are succeeding right now. It's, you know, you have your group of like old heads that have been good forever and they're staying in and they're, and, you know, they're doing what they're doing because they've been good at it forever.

And then you have the, you have the guys like, you know, Dan Campbell, who are coming into doing things a little bit differently, providing a different vibe and, you know, being a little bit more creative in a sense. And I think that just Schaunheimer is just nothing in both respects. He's not this long story. I mean, he's a Nepo baby. you know, he's in a family that has a long story to history in the NFL. And he isn't this massively new, exciting, creative guy. It's just, it's, it's boring. It's not, it isn't

exciting in any respect. And I just don't know how you can look at it today and say like, definitively that this makes the team better than Mike McCarthy. And that's the whole point of hiring and hiring a new coach or firing a coach and then hiring a new one is that you're supposed, I think you want to and should be able to look and say, no matter what, I feel more confident about this guy than I did the guy before. And I don't think you can say that about Dallas. And so that's where it feels like a failure because you're walking away with a feeling of arguably more, you know, anger and morose than you did when McCarthy was actually there. I love that you said that this shouldn't surprise us because if you look at the head coach hiring history of Jerry Jones, it's exactly what he does.

I mean, this is just like the Mike McCarthy hire. I think we also like the same exact way after the McCarthy if I hire where it's like it's not inspiring. I guess it's fine. But like, are you really going to, is he going to be the guy to get you to the Super Bowl? And he didn't. And now I like, I don't feel better about Schaunheimer than McCarthy. At least McCarthy showed he could get up to and close to the door. I don't think as I as a head coach too, Schottenheimer hasn't necessarily shown that.

So it just it's, it's, um, yeah. It's just not exciting. Jason Garrett for 10 years before that. Wade Phillips, Bill Parcells, that was fun. Dave Campo, Chan Galey. And then, of course, he hires Jimmy Johnson. They win three Super Bowls or whatever,

and he can't get the relationship right. He gets him out of town and hires Barry Switzer. I don't know, man. I think you're right about that. I think expecting something other than something like this was probably a poor place to have your expectations for what they were going to do. Yeah. Kind of touched already on Liam Cohen to the Jaguars and the champs situation.

What's interesting to me about Liam Cohen is just he's very inexperienced. You know, like pretty much one year as the play caller in Tampa, a couple of years is like an assistant under Sean McVeigh wearing some different whole different hats and time in Kentucky. But you love what he did with Baker this year. I mean, I certainly love that. but, you know, this is, I think the most important thing for Philly, or excuse me, not Philly, for Jacksonville was like really getting a culture builder. Because Doug Peterson had the pedigree, offensive background, Super Bowl winning coach in Philly, but, you know, could he build culture? And I think we've learned throughout his time in Philly that kind of extended the longer he was there, his time in Jacksonville, that that's not what he really does.

and I mean, this is probably as Rob a higher as you can make in Liam Cohen. Again, if you want to talk about his offense, what it meant for Baker Mayfield, applying that to Jacksonville, I love it, love it. Is he going to be the guy that's going to create the foundation necessary for sustained success in Jacksonville? I think there's enough to be concerned about that being true. Yeah, I mean, one, you've seen so many offensive coordinators flame out after one year of success throughout the NFL.

And so to make the big leap to have him go from, you know, not having to prove it for another year and bringing him right into the head coaching job, it is scary. It was kind of, I mean, listen, they forced their own hand on this. This is what this is, this is, they did this to themselves. And so they kind of have to deal with it now. But I agree. Baker Mayfield was, was and always will be kind of a turnover prone gunslinger. And Trevor Lawrence is kind of the same way. So at least from a quarterback play standpoint, I think.

that there's some continuity just from how he'll build out the offense. And you do have good receiving weapons there, just like he did in Tampa. So like from a, yeah, from a scheme pan standpoint, this transition shouldn't be that difficult. He can kind of just implement what he wants and use the guys that he has there and go from there. But it just, there's not a lot of proof. There's not a lot of proof there.

And, you know, it is when you're, when you're insulated in an office. offense that has Tristan Worf's, it has Mike Evans, it has Chris Godwin for part of the year. It's just, that's a lot of insulation. That's a lot of, you know, things going your way. And now you're solely responsible for things going your way. You don't have the Todd Bulls above you to kind of protect you from anything and all of this now. And so it's just, it's just going to come down to how can he, how does he handle the, all of this responsibility on top of having to build a competent and high-flying offense.

Meanwhile, the Raiders in need of a culture builder hires the exact opposite. The exact opposite. Pete Carroll. So you get 30-something-year-old offensive coordinator with very little experience to come over and establish culture in Jacksonville. And the Raiders said, give me the 73-year-old defensive-minded guy that was in Seattle for 100 years, won a Super Bowl. that's the guy that we want to help establish culture.

I mean, I'm not overly through the moon about Pete Carroll as a head coach, but at least you can kind of look at the situation that the team is in and say, yeah, you know what, maybe that's exactly the kind of coach that they need right now. Yeah, and that's, I think that's exactly it is it's, you know, you almost, you know that Pete Carroll can get you to middle of the road. He can get your team from a talent standpoint and everything. and the way the team plays for Pete Carroll, he can get them to 9 and 8, 10, 7,

you know, wild card, you know, friskey in the division, things like that. And, you know, he's shown he can get it above that, granted, you know, 10 years ago at this point. But I really think that this is, you know, a long-term move. I think that this is like the Raiders need to reestablish a culture. There's been so much flux between Antonio Pierce, the exit of John Gruden was it was Rich Bessaccia was the interim over there right like

just so much flux and turmoil at the head coaching position this gets you you know continuity and this gets you you know a safeguard and then from there I think the goal is to get coaches under him who you who can kind of succeed him when his time inevitably comes up because it's I mean, he's 73. It's coming at some point. And it's coming at some point, Sue. And there's not, it's not like you're looking at a 10-year runway. I don't think with Pete Carroll.

And so I think it's just like, let's start from square one. Tom Brady's in. Let's bring him Pete Carroll. Get these guys that can establish a winning mindset, a, you know, not, we're a dumpster fire and everything feels like everything's chaos around us. Let's, you know, firm it up with Pete Carroll. get us back to relevancy and then we'll look at it of how to take the next step to going from like being relevant being a wildcard team to being a legitimate contender.

And so I think that this, it feels like a transitional move to me. Yeah. And I think I think part of the job of Pete Carroll is to steady the ship and establish culture. But surely there's some assistant coach hires that could be a head coach in waiting. I think you're, I think you hire Pete Carroll with the anticipate, I think it was a three year deal. That's not normal. It's normal. five-year deals right for new head coaches. I think there's a lot of intent that's like, hey, this is your last arrive, kind of have a job, very specific job to do here.

And then there's a grooming element that needs to happen along the way here. If this is going to be, you know, more than, okay, three years and we got to go back to the drawing board. There should be a transition plan. You know, there's got to be a Will Must champ in place for the Mac Brown, even though it didn't really come together. But remember for a hundred years there, we was just waiting for Will Muschamp to take over for a Mac Brown.

And then, boy, none of that happens. So that's got to be part of the thought process here. The Jets get the other Lions coordinator, Aaron Glenn, going back to the team where he had a lot of success as a player. And I'll tell you what, dude, like I think I've been all over the place with Aaron Glenn. And I started off thinking, my goodness, Aaron Glenn is the coach that I think should be the number one guy that people should want to go get. I think he falls in line with the player coach trend that's been really good. You look at Dan Campbell and Kevin O'Connell and D'Amico Ryan's and the success that they've had. Like there's a kind of love that idea, right?

Leadership, certainly I don't think there's any questions about the type of dude he is, the leader of men, all that looks really good. And then I watch this lion's season move along and I find myself a little frustrated with Aaron Glenn because they had so many defensive injuries and I don't hold him against that. But I don't think, I didn't feel like he did enough schematically to help overcome that. It's like, no, we're going to run three linebackers. We're going to run man coverage. And it doesn't matter if it's Ezekiel Turner, Kwan Alexander and David Long,

who played for other teams last week. They're going to play because this is what we do it. I was like, man, I don't know about that. I feel like you're maybe not doing your best by these players. But then I kind of came back to what I remember is the most important thing. And it's leadership and, you know, style and culture building. And I feel really good about Aaron Glenn being able to do that. And boy, I mean, the Jets have been just at the bottom of the AFC.

for a number of years. They haven't had a winning season in a long time. The playoff drought is extremely long. It kind of feels like maybe this is exactly who they need. And for me, kind of coming full circle was reminding myself about what I think are the most important qualities and a head coach. And I think that Aaron Glenn is a slam dunk higher for the Jets. Yeah. And I think it's a slam dunk hire for the Jets specifically because of the New York market and everything. I think that Aaron Glenn is going to be incredibly good at getting the team and everybody to block out the noise and focus on what's going on. I, you know, this was not a, I don't think this was a schematic hire by any means.

It is purely because you know he's going to get the most out of his players. And like you said, it is a double-edged sword with the, you know, everything that happened on the stretch with the lines because on one hand, there were 30 starters on that defense over the course of the season. And he got, you know, they went 15 and 3. that's incredible like you know the defense obviously had its ups and downs but you still had a team that went out played their asses off every single week no matter who was in and you got performances out of them almost every single week and there and so that's awesome but yeah there is the like he was

always truly committed to what he was doing he was never going to come off of it what's exciting is that i love the personnel in new york on their defense and And I think that that has got to be really exciting for Aaron Glenn getting to work with the defensive backfield talent they have. They've got some mallers at linebacker. They've got good interior defensive linemen. They've got some fun pieces at edge. So I think that this is exciting from the standpoint that I think that the talent-wise, they're better than Detroit.

And he'll really get to kind of flexes chops as a defensive coordinator because I don't think, you know, it was almost there at the beginning of the year there for Detroit, but then the injuries started piling up. And I think you were about to see Aaron Glenn hit his stride as a defensive play caller. And so, you know, as long as they stay healthy over there in New York, he's got a lot of talent to work with. And that defense is going to be nasty because he is going to get the most out of his players. I mean, you've seen a lot of the clips going around of him talking about what he prides himself in. I think, you know, he told the story about Tracy Walker coming over to his house and how he values his relationship with his players.

And I think that is massively important because of because of the market, because of all the noise that comes around New York and everything that goes along with it. He, I think, is going to be, he just feels like the perfect guy to get in there, silence the noise from the outside and have the team focused on football, which at times throughout this Robert Sala and Aaron Rogers, it has not felt like the focus has been on the football. So I think, like, again, it's similar with Ben Johnson to the Bears. they got the best candidate for them. And so, like, you can't feel anything but, but that they won this, this coaching higher situation. I think the AFC East got two good new head coaches. Aaron Glenn to the Jets and Mike Frable goes to the Patriots.

Yeah. Maybe that was destiny or whatnot. And what I, part of me is like, get away from the quote unquote Patriot way, which Bill Belichick acknowledged, he doesn't even know what that means. I think we all know exactly what it means. but I don't think it really works unless Tom Brady's your quarterback. But I don't really put Mike Vrable under that umbrella. You know, he's certainly a former player and all that,

but he didn't really coach, you know, with, with Belichick. I think he's kind of wrote his own legacy here as a coach. And I really, I do, I do like the higher, the Josh McDaniels piece of it makes me say, okay, all right, well, there, there it is. But I don't think it's hard to find yourself pretty excited about Frable. And this situation, they have cap space, they have draft capital, they got a quarterback that looks intriguing. Obviously, a lot of room to work on this roster, but this feels like a really, really solid fit that I anticipate being pretty successful.

Yeah. And I think that the strength that Vrable has is that he did the Patriot Way. He played in the Patriot Way. So he knows the pitfalls of the Patriot Way. and I think he coaches around the way. He is good at taking the good from that, rooting out the bad and filling that in with what he feels would have been better about it.

I mean, listen, the whole tenure of his time in Tennessee was all about getting the absolute most out of those teams and getting them to what is probably, what was probably their absolute peak performance given the roster that they had. And so you have to feel good about that. And you have to feel excited about that. that, you know, even if you aren't, even if the Patriots aren't going to be the most talented team, which they definitively are not going to be next year, most likely.

He's going to get the most out of them. The players are going to play hard. And they're going to win a lot of those nitty gritty one score, you know, flip of the coin games. That's kind of what he prides himself on and what he had been good at in Tennessee. So I think being able to have a coach like that and being able to have a coach that, you know, knows what he's coming into and understands what had what just left and what just happened with Jared Mayo and everything. I think it's it does. It's another guy who feels like he really studies that ship and can get them kind of focused on the future rather than, you know, this constant state

of turmoil where it's like we can't even can't even think about next year. There's so much crap going on right now. It kind of does just like steady the waters. All right. Let's start looking toward the future, building toward the future. The one team left is the Saints. They haven't hired a coach and look, good. The NFL needed to say, we're tired of this. You know, your never-ending cycle of capel, your inability to solve the quarterback position, it's just not an attractive spot.

And look, this is a situation where Mickey Loomis is the GM, but it's not like Jacksonville. It's not like they can just fire Mickey Loomis. Mickey Loomis is entrenched in the leadership of the organization. I mean, Mrs. Benson, the Seastoner's widow, she's in control. Loomis is like tied to like being basically the number two in the organization. And I don't anticipate her saying goodbye to the most steady relationship that she has in football. And so Loomis isn't going anywhere. So that's, you got to, you have got to accept that if you're going to take this job.

And Loomis has been in putting this team in hard. horrible cap positions, not really doing anything to help it. You know, they won't ever just take their medicine and reset. They just keep putting band-aids on. They're limited with resources. They don't have a direction at quarterback. And that's why Joe Brady said kick rocks. That's why Aaron Glenn said kick rocks.

And so I don't know what they're going to do. Last time they just put the defensive coordinator as the head coach. Certainly that didn't work out. I don't know if they're just going to put the special teams coordinator as the head coach. Now they might not have any choices. This feels like Jim Tom Soule when he was hired for the nine. This feels like David Cully when he was hired to be the head coach of the Texans. Like you got to get through it. But more than getting through it is you've got to finally admit what

you're doing in terms of roster construction is wrong. And I'm not sure that's going to happen. Mickey Loomis has come out and openly said that we don't believe in trading back because then you're admitting to taking lesser players. What if there ever was a team based on the situation that they're in that should be trading back all the time. It should be the saints. He came out and said that look just because you're not getting the results that you want doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. What? He just said that. He just said that. Like, what are we doing here in New Orleans? Like, this is exactly what they deserve. And at the end of the day, they're going to, there's going to be a 20, 25 season. Someone's going to be the head coach of the New Orleans Saints. And by golly,

they certainly didn't deserve to get their top candidates. And I'm glad that they did. Yeah, it would, it would have felt really, it would have felt really gross if like Aaron Glenn. And then, up choosing the Saints job. That would have felt like, how do they get, how do they get that? But yeah, they're the, it's the, they're the definition of insanity. Ever since Drew Breeze is left, they're this definition of insanity of like, if we just keep retooling, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. But they keep retooling with guys that are less than what they had before. So like, what's the difference? At least with, at least with like, you know, acquiring more draft picks, you're getting like, I guess, unknown quantities. And, you know, you can

work with them that way. But yeah, I completely agree. They had finished a in-person interview with Kellen Moore last night. So it looks like Kellen Moore might be on the table for them. But it starts with they have to admit that it's just not there. They're not that good. Like, I don't know if someone needs to just go into Mickey Loomis's office and just shake him and just be like, you're not that good of a team. And you're not that close to being that good of a team. what because like you know there's obviously some players but as a whole you can't look at new Orleans and say like well do you know they had that two and oh start and they were really close to continuing that but then you know injuries happen no it was always kind of fools gold

Derek Carr does this all the time where he has a couple games where he you know throws the lights out and it looks amazing and it's like okay well maybe there's something here this could go on for a season. And then, you know, three weeks later, he turns into a pumpkin for a couple weeks in a row and you and everybody remembers, oh, yeah, that's right. It's, you know, this is just what he is. And until they admit that they have to do a pretty complete tear down and rebuild and re-figure out the cap situation, they're just going to continue doing this. I mean, truly they're the definition of insanity. And it worked great when you had one of the best quarterbacks of all time and one of the most efficient quarterbacks of all time,

you don't have that anymore. They don't. And he's not walking through the door tomorrow. And he's not, you know, none of that stuff is happening. And so like at what point do they finally admit that that needs to happen? And they're showing no signs of doing that. So until they show signs of doing that, they are going to continue missing out on the top head coaching candidates. And they're going to have to take the unproven quantities, the guys like Kellyn Moore, who I don't, I don't think is a very inspired. hearing head coach, head, head, uh, head coaching option by any means. Um, and it just, yeah, they're just, they're the definition of insanity. Does that feel good? It felt good after I said,

all I had to say about the saints. It's like, this seems so freaking obvious. We're just going to keep spinning the tires. Just going to keep spinning the tires. Yeah. Like take your medicine for like three years and get back to playing in the NFL, you know, like you're an unsurious operation. Yeah. And also like, you haven't been that great at drafting. Anyway, get more. You need more, you need more chances because you're not that good with the chances you take right now. So, you know, if you're not hitting on your draft picks and you're not signing players that are making massive impacts, you're left with a team that finishes five and 12 in the NFC South.

That's it. I mean, that's exactly what's coming for you. They are reaping exactly what they're sewing. Okay. All right. That's it. We've had a heck of a conversation. champs, jumps, conference championships, reflecting on all of these coaching decisions.

It's been a great conversation. Stephen, thanks for doing a tremendous job filling in for Brett Whitefield and always enjoy any time that we get to hook up and share the mic and talk ball. Absolutely, man. It is a blast. It's sad the season is coming to an end, but it, and it is funny because it feels like we're doing the thing again where it was this long march and there's all this turmoil and look at all the parody.

And then here we are again. we're at the same Super Bowl matchup that it was two years ago. And that's, I mean, shout out to howie Roseman, because it's not the same team that it was two years ago. But, yeah, it's just it's, you got to laugh a little bit because, you know, here we are. As much as things change, things stay the same. Well, the bills let the world down.

They did. You know, hey, we'll just, if this is the way it's going to be, just why do we even have the regular season? Chiefs don't care about it. They're going to be in the same spot. You know, let's just. fast forward and the NFC can play. I mean, they got to do their part.

We got to figure out who it's going to do the end of the end of the put the chiefs in there and, uh, you know, stop wasting everyone's time, I guess. All right, folks, remember no matter what develops, we will always be your first read. Thanks for listening. We are out.