Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Bill Barnwell Joins The Show

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Geoff Schwartz sits down with Bill Barnwell to discuss NFL and college football headlines. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code GEOFF to get $200 in free bonus bets when you bet just $5. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is Tuesday, February 17th. I am Jeff Schwartz. This Jeff Schwartz is smarter to you. Presented by Drafking's, Draft Kings. The Crown is yours. We're doing this very special today, guys. It's the offseason. We're going to expand some interviews.

We're going to start with interview today. Bill Barnwell of ESPN. I love Bill. Glad to have them on. My video is a little messed up. So if you're watching on YouTube, the audio is great. Bill's great. There might just be a picture of me.

So bear with us on the video side. The audio side. The audio is perfect. Great conversation with Bill. We're starting to do an interview series. for most of the offseason. We'll do some draft content as usual, some phraged content,

and we'll head into our summer previews as usual. But let's stick it with the interview. Here is Bill Barnwell with ESPN. Bill, welcome the program. Glad to have you, buddy. Jeff, my friend, it is true. You are smarter than me, which is why I'm so often coming to you being like,

can you explain what happened on this play? Happens a fair amount, and it is always a great resource. Always happy to have you on my show. So happy to do it. return the favor and do kind of a home and home here. You, though, don't know this, but you for a long time were the unofficial researcher of this podcast because I did not know how to use pro football references game finder and be

able to search things. And I would often send you a DM on social media asking you to look something up for me. And you were very gracious in doing that. AI has taken over that job, unfortunately. We lost another job to AI. But, Bill, I want to thank you. We have talking about this for a long time on this show. they're like, I'm going to ask Bill.

I'm just going to ask Bill. I just send you a little message. You get back to me eventually. I could never figure out to use GameFinder on Pro Football Reference. Yeah, I, it's a little disconcerting to hear that my job is being lost to AI. I'm not worried that may happen with other elements of my, maybe more better compensated elements of my job as well. But it's such a good tool. I mean, it's so crazy to think, Jeff, like when you were in the league and I was just starting out my writing career, pro football reference existed.

but there was no game finder, there was no stathead. There was no PFF. There was no next gen. There was no All-22 at all. Like literally, if I wanted to break down what happened on a play, I had to watch the TV angle. And remember, this is a time where not every game is an HD,

not every game is accessible to people who are not living in that area. It's not like I can just call up, you know, random play. It's grown so much over the course of the last 15 years. And I've had to adapt Like, you know, you have to be much smarter. Like, you cannot come with the level of analysis. People had 15, 20 years ago because people are smarter.

There's just so much information out there, so much stuff to work with. And it makes for much cooler stuff from I am. Like, I get to read smart people like yourself, like Nate Tice, Ted Wynn, you know, talk about the game in a really smart way. And I just have to try and keep up because I feel like every year stuff gets really more impressive and have to kind of match the level of stuff going out there. It is a, it's great that everyone has access now. I learn a lot from the people that you mentioned from yourself as well. You know, just listening to people talking about the game.

There are some bad actors, unfortunately, that are in the space that frustrate me post-super Bowl posting screenshots of things. And they know better. But I think for the most part, people have access to the film has been fantastic. You have watched a Super Bowl. I've watched a Super Bowl. We're now obviously post a week. What's one thing that kind of struck you watching the film?

Maybe you didn't think about going into. into the game or that sort of you didn't think was going to happen that happened on Super Bowl Sunday. Yeah, that's a great question. And I really think it was the thing that came back to me as like a key story of that game. And that was the Devin Wetherspoon blitz stuff where they blitzed him seven times off the slot. And it created a sack, the defensive touchdown, which should have been a strip sack, but it was an interception instead. A bunch of havoc threw Drake May off.

And it's not like they had never shown that blitz before, but showing it. on the first third down, I think that was right, the second third down of the game, showing it repeatedly throughout the contest. They had not blitzed Stephen Witherspoon in a month before that point. And it felt like it was this, and he asked the game said, like, we had kind of a tell on their offensive linemen and sort of we had a tell on what their protections were going to be. And so we had a lot of faith that was going to come through.

It wasn't always the same blitz. It was different blitz passed. Sometimes he came with him linebacker. Sometimes they dropped guys off. Sometimes it was a sim. Sometimes it was a straight-up blitz. But like that idea of him being a weapon as a blitzer, knew he had that in his bag.

I just didn't know that it was going to be such a key component of the game. And then I'll flip it, too, to the Patriots side of things. And I want to ask you, because you're someone who thinks about this stuff in a really smart way. The Patriots, it felt like they never really seem to have counters for what the Seahawks were doing in defense. Like, I came into the game, say, okay, Seahawks are going to play their nickel defense the entire game. They're going to play light boxes the entire game. I'm sure we're going to talk about some of this stuff as kind of league-wide trends later on in the show. But, like, one of the things that the Patriots were going to do was lean into bigger

personnel groupings lean into 12. We didn't even 13 if they wanted to, but then play Thayer Munford as their sixth offensive linemen. Something they had done a bunch during the regular season down in the stretch from that second Bill's game on and into the postseason. Early in that game, Thayer Munford comes on the field coming out of commercial. They even showed him on the broadcast like coming out of commercial, which I was like, man, how often does the sixth offensive linemen get like an ISO camera in the Super Bowl? I felt good for him. They run play action. They pick up 21 yards. they are Munford does not play another offensive snap the rest of the game and it was just like I'm not saying you make that your entire offense I'm not saying like you could build the entire

game plan around that and win but I was just surprised that they didn't go back to that even one snap the rest of the way so just felt like I was sort of waiting for Josh McDaniels to have these counterpunches with two weeks in the game there was no trick play I was like sure the Patriots were going to have a trick play in this game especially when they were struggling but it just felt like a very vanilla game plan and that was kind of frustrating for me but you know Seahawks defense obviously dominated. So I was watching the NFL films. It's like 40 minutes of them liked up after the game.

I love watching those things. And my answer is going to be in this, in this about what I thought about New England's offense. When you watch them miced up, you could tell one team thought they were going to kick ass, Seattle, one team thought they were just sort of happy to be there, in my opinion. Right now, of course,

doing not prepared like they were going to win. But even Drake made before the game, very clearly was not, I mean, Mike Vibald told him the smiles. I do just kind of like, have fun. Like enjoy the, I think New England knew they were going to get their butts kicked. And I don't know what the game. They had no answers for pressure, Bill.

They didn't one time, like, adjust to protection. And that offense is supposed to be allowed to do that. Like, we'll talk about this later on. Shane had an offensive question for you. But, like, they're supposed to be able to, Drake was supposed to be able to do things in this offense. And there were no checks whatsoever. They'd made no adjustments to pressure.

There were free runners everywhere. The screen game in the NFL was gone, by the way. There's many reasons for that. But, like, there were no screens, not enough screens in this. game. They did run an under center full back run. I think for seven or eight yards to your point. Never went back to that again. And the one play should pass, Mumford got beat immediately. Maybe they were worried about past protection and didn't want to go back to that. But I was just surprised that they didn't make any address. And maybe they spent all week on the basis.

I knew they were to get their butts kicked. I mean, do we do we overthink the game? I mean, I know that through two weeks you want to come up with something new to say and freshest say. but oftentimes the better team just kicks ass and I feel like Seattle in the end was just so much better all over the field. I agree. I mean, you know, I think I said 2010 Seahawks or 2013 Seahawks maybe.

I kind of a low-scoring game, Seahawks winning pretty comfortably. So I felt okay with what I found, but I guess my thing is in like a straight-up fight, Seattle was going to win that game. It felt like the way the Patriots were going to win was not, we're going to beat them snap after snap, but just can we get two or three turnovers?

Can we get a couple short fields from takeaways and win that game? And I think you saw Patriots defense early in that game. They were jumping everything. They were trying to jump every hour. They were playing tight covers. They played zero a bunch in the second half of that game. I think they were very comfortable saying if we're going to win, sort of to your point, like we can't win a straight up game.

We don't have the horses to do that. If we're going to win this game, it has to be by creating a pick six, creating a defensive touchdown, creating a couple short. fields for our offense, off to takeaways from Sam Darnold. And I think the Seahawks, to their credit, like, didn't take the bait. Like, they ran a gameplay where they said, in the long run, we're going to be able to, um, you know, physically overwhelm you. If there's going to be takeaways, we're going to get them and they did.

And so, you know, if a couple balls bounce here, there, maybe it's different. But I do think like, you're right in that this was a, the game of the Seahawks were better on paper. They were better. Um, in the actual game we saw. And then some of the bounces, some of the luck that might have helped the Patriots ended going the Seahawks way and there was just no way

the Patriots are going to win with that kind of game script. I was finally right about New England. It took me four games. I got it right. I'm going to pat myself in the back. I finally got it right.

There's that clip going around because of Olympics right now where a speed skater is way behind the pack of three. The pack of three wipes out and the speed skaters, I think it was from 2004 in Salt Lake City and everyone was saying like,

well, that's New England in the Super Bowl. Like the three teams in front of them sort of just fell out. But look, They get credit for getting there. The winner was Seattle. Go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, the thing that reminds me of when you say that is last year's chiefs, right? Where all year, we're sitting here saying, man, they can't keep winning games this way. All year, Juanio Morris, their left tackle situation is a disaster. Like, but every week, they pull something out and we're like, well, maybe it's just destiny. And then they got to the Super Bowl and they faced a team that was better than them. And they couldn't pull it out. And they got their ass kicked. And like, that's not, you know, it's like two things can be true, right?

You can say, hey, this was true for the entire year. Credit to the chiefs for pulling it out and overcoming that. Credit to the Patriots. I mean, they were playing weak competition, but they were stomping week competition. You know, it wasn't like they were super lucky in terms of what they happened on a week-to-week basis. They were lucky to have an easy schedule. Maybe they were lucky a little bit in the postseason. But, you know, it just sort of felt like we were sitting here all year saying, well, this is why this is not real or not sustainable.

It's still good, but it's just not as good as it looks. And then we got to the Super Bowl and they got to a team that was much better than them and they got stopped. This is why PICS Seattle was looking back to the Chief Super Bowl and just like, I got it totally wrong.

I was like, oh, the Chiefs can pace together. It's like, no, the team with the better defensive line is going to win. You know, when a Super Bowl champion wins, people want to take away lessons from that season, right? And other than drafting and developing very well, which Seattle has done, like, what's an NFL trend

that people can take away from how Seattle built their team or how they operated. Yeah. I'll stretch this to league-wide. I think Seattle is a good example. I would say the Rams, to me, who I think were the, to me they were the two best teams in football.

Seahawks Rams was the Super Bowl, even though it was the NFC championship game. The thing that stood out to me, and it's not new, it's not like the Rams invented this, but the way they leaned into what was so fascinating to me is bigger personnel groupings,

12, 13 personnel. Rams, so for the un-initiated, Rams have always been an 11 team, one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers. There was one year they leaned a little bit into 12 personnel and played two tight ends more often. But like going back to sort of the early Jared Gosshoa McVeigh days, not only were they 11 personnel. They were 11 personnel with the same dudes on the field in 10 spots. Like Todd Gurley would play 96% of the offensive snaps. Their receivers would be on the field, 96, 97% of the snaps.

Like that just doesn't happen in the vast majority of NFL building. Teams rotate their guys out. They play different personnel groupings. And so, Sean McFay, I think in 20203 and 2024, it played like five snaps total of 13 personnel. So they get to that Jaguars game in Europe, in London, I think, or in Europe somewhere. Pooka Nakuwa can't play. Sean McFey plays 13 personnel 40 plus percent of the time. And it stuck. They played 13 personnel a ton throughout the entire year, maybe a couple games here or

there where they took it off the playbook a bit. But even in that Seahawks game, that was their answer to the light boxes, to the lighter personnel is we're going to go 13. We're going to beat you up. We're going to play a lot of 12. We're going to beat you up. And we're going to hit explosives off of that. And I think, Jeff, that's the real takeaway from this to me. No, beyond the big picture of just we're playing 13, we're playing three tight-ons. We're playing a sixth offensive of linemen, both of which happened at the highest rate we've seen in the decade. But this battle in the NFL of you have defenses, daring offenses, to run the ball.

We're going to play with light boxes. We're going to play with two deep safeties. We don't want Josh Allen, Patrick Gahoms, to hit those explosives on us. It's okay. Get your four and a half yards to carry and we're going to stop you either with the sack or a penalty

or we're going to stop the run once and then you're going to be stuck in second and third and long and taken out of the run game. Like that has been the meta in the NFL. And so for your Shaw McPhase, for your Clint Kubiaks, one of the ways to counteract that is, okay, how can we get the explosives?

How can we get, you know, the personnel we want on the field because teams are going to play nickel as their base defense. And so we've seen teams lean into bigger personnel groupings as a way to do that. The Seahawks this year, like by EPA per play, number one defense in offense and football by a significant margin when defenses matched them with base defense. They were 19th in EPA per play when teams played nickel. And yet teams would play base 75% of the time against them. And the Super Bowl Patriots, I think, were over 80% base against 12 personnel.

they were averaging like 15 yards per pass out of 12 personnel. And it's just this thing where, like, yes, you can add that bigger body, that six linemen, that second tight end, that very tight end. Yes, you can use that to run the football. That's a positive thing you can do. But it's really about getting the other team to put three linebackers on the field, getting the opposing team to put a safety in the box to stop the run. You're not going to get those huge chunk plays here and there, but you are going to get explosives over the top in the passing game. And this is just a way for offenses to try and unlock that.

And I think, you know, that sort of idea of what can we do to get defenses to do the things we want them to do is how offenses are operating in the modern NFL. Yeah, I think, and here's the thing. So 13 person, obviously, one running back, three tight ends. You got to figure out defensively what you want to do, right? Do you want to stop the pass? And I have a thing that your point, we've seen a resonance and sort of wanting to run the football in the NFL, which is kind of nice. Teams are going back to understanding that there is a value in run the football. So do you think teams are just going to start loading up on tight ends?

Like this is obviously more of a Shanahan offense thing that we've seen more often. There's actually not many other offenses now. We'll save that for a second. Do you think teams are going to, I mean, there's not enough tight ends for every team to have three of them. But do you think that more teams, no, if you go back to like the Aaron Hernandez and Grom Kasson, they were like the first sort of modern offense to try to have two tight ends, right? I think I'm sort of right on that time. Now we're going to three times.

But do you think teams actually try to, let me pull into this strategy now, or there's just not enough tenants to go around? It's going to be a mix. And I think going back to the Patriots team, remember, that 12 personnel grouping was the Patriots response to, we're going to play the spread offense. We have Moss and Welker and Dante Stallworth and Jabar Gaffney, and we're going to play four wide all the time.

Maybe we'll play empty, but we'll play four wide a fair amount of the time, and we're going to stretch you out and go deep on you. And so the team's response to that with, you know, taking away the big plays with the Patriots said, okay, we're going to play Grok, we're going to play Aaron Hernandez. as we're going to have that sort of, you know, we can play it, we can live in that personnel grouping and we could still hit explosives because those guys are freaks. You're right in that teams, there aren't enough good tight ends to pay 310 in groupings all

the time. And I don't think it's going to work that way. I think the Rams sort of anticipated this by taking Terrence Ferguson in the second round where, you know, that was a, okay, we're going to shift our offense, especially after Duante Adams leaves. What can we do to make that happen? But I do think you can get to that same concept in different ways. I go back to the bill. and Joe Brady. So, 24, they play Alec Anderson as their sixth offensive lineman. They play him at one of the highest rates in the league. And they are using that to create explosives in the passing game. That is like we are going to average 10 yards of pass because you are going to be concerned about a six offensive linemen. 2025 they draft Jackson Hollis, who's a really good blocking tight end on day three of the draft. Alec Anderson barely played an offense this year. Like their alternative was now that we have three tight ends we feel good about, we can play 12, we can play 13, and that's not going to be a problem. So, do think you're going to see teams either lean into 12 personnel groupings, leading into 13 here and there. If they have tight ends, they can do it with. But we'll also see teams lean into six

offensive linemen because it's not the same level of efficiency. Those guys, that's not true because we did see some offensive linemen running like vertical routes this year, which was fun to watch. The barriers, I feel like came to mind for me. But like this idea of like whether it's the six linemen, whether it's a third tight end or a second tight end, but this idea of we have bigger bodies out there. And so I think depending on what personnel you have to work with, we're going I see teams do that. But I do think, sort of to roundabout answer your point, I do think we're going to see tight ends get more money and teams invest more in tight ends because the other thing that comes to mind, Jeff, is how underpaid tight ends are relative to the wide receiver

market. You know, you talk about the top tier tight ends outside of maybe the top one or two guys. You're looking at $13, $14, $15 million a year. No disrespect to these guys, but I think about Diami Brown. I think about Tutu Atwell with the Rams. Those guys were getting $10 million a year. the difference between a tight end one and like a wide receiver three, four that's going to be just kind of a win sprint guy for you, if that difference is only a couple million dollars a year and a 300 million dollar cap, you should be investing in tight ends. Look at Josh Oliver on the Vikings, really good blocking tight end, useful player. Not going to be a guy who catches 60 passes a year for you, but he's making less than those wide receiver three. And he's a really useful player. And so I think teams are saying, okay, like what's the better use of our resources, spending, $15 million a year on kind of an average second wide receiver or spending that money to get a really good tight ends.

And the tight ends can do special teams too. So you get kind of a boost if you want for special teams, right? That guy can probably do all four special teams units where a wide receiver can't do that. So you add an extra guy in your roster who's going to do more things for you as well, which makes a lot of sense. What are some other lead trends you saw in 2025 that you expect to see more in 2026 as well?

I'll give you one more offensive one. And the Seahawks really sat up to me in terms of what they did here. But the usage of the things to try and get the defense to reveal what they were going to do pre-snap. And that's not like a new thing by any means, but it is something they leaned into. So a couple of things. Nub-tight end. So the idea that you have all your eligibles to one side of the field, except for the tight end who's on the other side of the offensive line by himself. Seahawks were, I think, top three in nub-tight-end usage.

Formation into boundary. more relevant in college than pro football, but this idea of we're going to have all of our guys, the majority of our playmakers are eligible, to the near side of the field if we're on the same hash mark there, and then kind of leave a lot of open space on the other side of the field. Maybe we have one guy on that side of the field. And like, it's not like if you just install an uptight end

or if you just install information on the boundary, you have a good offense, but it's these things Clint Kubiak was doing of, what can I do to limit what the defense is showing me? And I think because defenses have grown so much over the last few years in terms of hiding what they want to do pre-snap, changing what they do post-snap, all these fan geo concepts, like disguising what your responsibilities are even as the play is going on a safety. The man zone zone's own indicators kind of being muddled a bit. We saw on the Super Bowl. The Seahawks showed a bunch of manned indicators.

I put a video out. I put a video out. I mean, it was third down. I think it was the strip sack. The motion we got across. Seattle follows. I mean, looks, all the man indicators are there. and they play two behind it and May like look, he's like, ah, shit, fumble.

Yeah. They just, that's, I mean, 95% of the time, that is what the team is doing. They're playing man when you motion a guy across and guy follows. Yeah. And the first, uh, weather spruce brits of the game was they showed zone. They showed too deep and then they play zero after the snap. And whether spring comes in untouched for a pressure and a throwaway. Right.

But I think like in maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you know better than I would. we were out on the field, but like it felt like you might play a defense or two that had stuff like that dialed up and it would be kind of an exotic thing, but it wouldn't be like a regular thing. Now so many defenses around the NFL have that built into their game plan. And so as an offensive coordinator, you can account for every single exotic, every single thing you haven't seen, every single blitz, every single sim pressure. But what you can do is try and limit what the defense can do by sort of defining or limiting what their playbook looks like. And so you can do it with 13 personnel or six offensive line because now they're going to play their base defense.

They can have as many exotics with as many defensive backs on the field. You put the nut tight on in the field. There's only so many answers teams have to having a bunch of eligibles in the same place. Their stack rules, their motion rules, their their trips rules. And so if you can sort of define what those rules are for an opposing team, you can break them. And so that's sort of the big thing I'm cutting to is this idea of like what can we do as an offense to understand what the defense's rules are going to be on a given play, and then how reliable are those rules, and how can we break them?

And the way to do that is to limit the just range of possibilities they can throw at you from the defensive side of the football. So two things. I remember the exact game where one of the games were a new defense was unveiled against us, and we were screwed and the rest of the NFL eventually did it. 2009, we opened with Philly. So Jim Johnson was their defensive coordinator. Yeah.

and they took Trent Cole, I figure who the other defensive end was, and put them in the A-gaps, 40 yards off the ball, put the D-Dadeck, and just ran them right in the middle of the A-gap. And that had not been done before. And the problem with that, obviously,

is that you put a running back just by nature on the Mike linebacker, who's now Trent Cole. Well, good luck on that, right? But the first thing, they slaughtered us. Like, we had no answer. Now, eventually you have an answer.

And then remember with the Vikings with Mike Zimmer, maybe it was that year, the year after, they started bringing the double A, gap where they brought A pressure, B pressure, wrap the defensive end around into back to the A gap. And so like that was, we called that the Zimmerblitz. Like that was what it was. So you go in these sort of trends and then obviously you try to break the trend by, you figure out an offense, it may take a cycle or two. So defensively, what are teams doing to stop these shenan offenses?

Yeah, that's a good question. It's not like, I don't know that it's really one specific thing. And like the simplest one is like the thing that works against everything, beat the hell out of him front. Like have dudes who can hold up against the run schemes, have linebackers who can stretch against play action. And I think you're seeing defenses really get better at handling some of the crossers. Like I think you're seeing teams a lot more consistently have linebackers, have safeties, have cornerbacks on the interior of the field who just are better. at passing off stuff, at communicating, at having rules that work out together. We're seeing fanciot teams where they have that, they're playing too deep and that backside safety is poaching, you know, the crossing routes over the middle

of the field. And so you can exploit that still. There are still ways to beat that. But that idea of we have safeties who have eyes on stuff coming over the middle of the field and taking away those throwing lands. And I think you're also seeing defenses, again, going back to the run idea, saying, hey, if you want to run for four and a half yards of carry, go nuts. Like, we'll survive that.

But, like, we'd rather you run for four or five yards of carry that give up an 18-yard dig and to Debo Samuel and have him run away from us for a 30-yard game. Like, that is, I think, just the math teams are willing to do on defense to say, hey, like, we're just going to avoid the explosive plays and we're going to make that work otherwise. And like Shanahan's had answers, Kubiak had answers this year, McVeyas answers. But it does feel like you're seeing, you know, teams have been getting beat on that stuff for so long that inevitably you were going to see defenses kind of rise up that we're just better at handling all that stuff and communicating and all of it in real time and running with guys well and playing with, you know, faster guys. Like Nickyman Worry for the Seahawks is, like, he's like a really valuable player because he's physical enough to hold up against the run, but he's also ranging enough to run with a lot of those crossers and has enough awareness to, you know, take some of them away.

the way the Eagles rushed the passer two years ago, the way Seattle rushed the passer this season, obviously we've always had emphasis on defensive alignment, but it does feel like it's made more of a presence the last couple of years. The best defense just do that. And obviously, Eagles had a good secondary, said out a good secondary.

I don't know how teams sort of fixed their pass rush that quickly, but it does feel like the pass rush is more important in the secondary. I think we've known that for a while now. Is that a trend we'll see? Would teams just say, you know what? We'd rather just spend all our money in defense of wine-wise. I mean, I'm a chief's guy. I pray they get someone in nine to rush the pastor, but it does feel like that's sort of overtaking the idea of having good secondary

players. You want both, obviously. I mean, maybe it's more about having a dude as opposed to four dudes or five dudes. Like I think about those, the Seahawks and the Eagles, and to a lesser extent, the Chiefs were like, they had a nickel or they had a slot or a star they felt really good about where Chiefs have tried McDuffie, Eagles had Cooper DeGene, where they're doing. defense transformed the moment he came into the lineup after thereby. Seahawks have to have Evan Witherspoon, who's a monster. Like Josh Joe, Reek-Wolen, they're okay. Like, they're NFL corners, too. They're not like superstars. Kobe Bryant, they move to free safety. He's a good free safety, but not like a superstar.

Julian loves a good player. Like, like, no one in that secondary really scares you except for Witherspoon, I think has that, you know, elite ability. But like, if you have that one guy, to me, that's enough to maybe, if you just have guys you can trust another. spots that's going to be okay. And I do agree with you in that all things to me come back to the line of scrimmage, right? Like, you know, if you can control the line of scrimmage, it's the oldest school, like, you know, most distinct way of looking at football possible, but I go back to the Chief Super Bowl wins. How many times in those games did Chris Jones make a big play at the right time? Every time. And like that, if anything, like teams are spending right now a ton of

defensive linemen. I mean, Edge is the second highest paid position of football at the top of the market. Defensive tackle, I think, is fourth behind wide receiver. Sorry, left tackle, I think is fourth and then defense tackle is fifth. But like the tippy top guys are getting edge rush or money are pretty close. Like, put it this way. You can win with a great secondary and a pretty good defensive line. I can't think of an NFL team that has won a Super Bowl with a defensive line that was

even average, let alone below average. And then when I think about the teams who surprised, who impressed, who impressed, upset teams so often it's oh my god they got a great defense line and they took over the game go back to the bucks against the chiefs go back to the patriots losing to the giants both times that that is like it's a great neutralizer it can take over games and then it allows you to do whatever you want on defense like I talked about all those things you can do to mitigate the sim pressures and mitigate the rushes yeah if you just have dues or the team can't block there's no solution there's no way to win we see the Texans win games because they're a defensive

line is so dominant that they can't be stopped. And we've seen them lose games in the postseason because they don't have dudes who can block anybody. And so, like, it is the oldest thing in the book, but it is so true. And I think, you know, teams, whether they get excited about, you know, players around the NFL, they're excited about skill position players, they look past it, they think the game's different now. Like, the game is still the game and the game is still won at the line of scrimmage.

So, um, even yori had incredible rookie season, right? He was great. and they list him as a nickel, but he's kind of a safety nickel sort of hybrid. We've seen those players have such a big impact on defenses, and yet for some reason they're not valued in the draft still. We have one coming in and Caleb Downs potentially sort of do the same exact thing. Do you think his play this season has changed the value of that position in the draft? It should.

I mean, I do think it's a super underrated position, and I'll go back, Jeff, to remember Derwin James. Like, heading into that draft cycle, Derwin James was like, man, This is one of the five best players in the draft. And he fell to the bottom half of the first round, if I'm not mistaken. I think the Chargers took him at 19 maybe. I don't remember exactly where he fell, but it was in that ballpark. And that was because teams didn't see him as the great safety. Go to Kyle Hamilton, where Kyle Hamilton was, oh, we ran a 40 is too slow,

and we don't know any position he was going to play. He fell to the middle of the first round. Remember the Eagles? I think Jordan Davis is a good player, but the Eagles traded up ahead of the Ravens to draft Jordan Davis, and everyone said, oh, I mean, Jordan Davis, like would have been perfect for the ravens. What a great move by Howie Roseman. Howie Roseman is still a really good GM.

Jordan Davis is a good player. Kyle Hamilton is a freak. You watch Carl Hamilton in the NFL. Like I watched some clips of him earlier this year. He's like taken on tackles in the run game and make him play. He's bending past Andrewsman. He is a fit. Like he is just a absolute other rolely football player.

And so I sort of wonder if this stuff comes in cycles. You know, like I feel like safety when you were in college, when I was in college as well, although I just didn't graduate to the NFL like you did. But like, you know, talking about the Ed Reeves, the Troy Polamalu's, like those guys were a different kind of player, but we saw them as superstars and the guys who were these like, oh, if you have one of those guys that totally transforms what you do on defense,

I do think that's coming up now with a Durbin James, with a Cowell Hamilton, with an even worry, because of how defenses are playing, because defenses want to live in nickel. They want to live in light boxes. And so when you have a guy who's capable not only of covering at a reasonably high level, only capable of matching to routes

and taking away throwing lanes at a high level, but also playing well against the run, playing well at the line of scrimmage, there's just not a lot of dudes who can do that. And so having a player who can do that, I think Fred Warner's kind of the opposite example where it's like, if you have a linebacker who's just a freaking coverage,

like there's just not many guys who have that. Right. So like I think those guys as an archetype are underrated, but you have to have a coach who gets the most, of them and like coaches unfortunately some of them are really good jeff you know this some of them are not all that good no um i go back to the story i always tell about coaches and and defensive coaches are the raiders and sorry with the marcus joiner who was remember correctly we're early in his career rams drafted him in the second round they used him kind of like free safety slot corned

him around a bit never really found a spot wade phillips comes in with show mc fay they put the marcus shorter at free safety you're done you're staying there he's awesome has like a pro bowl caliber season. The Raiders sign him. You know what they do, Jeff? Move him. Move on the slot corner. Like, hey, you can play slot. Great. Move there. Guess what happened? Lamarcus Jordan was a disaster. And it's just like, sometimes teams do make it more complicated than it needs to be. They don't respect what actually works. And so they think they're smarter. It doesn't work out. Or they sign a guy or draft a guy. Don't put him into the spot he needs to be in. I do think that role is undervalued.

I think Caleb Downs is going to be a player who I would be very comfortable taking anywhere in the draft because he can fill that role for teams. But I do think you have to have that guy in the right place and the right role and with the right coach is going to maximize that skill set. Yeah, the moving players to wrong position. I mean, you know, how many spots do you play on the offensive line during your career? I mean, just I was better on the right side. The Giants signed me after playing, I played right guard.

And they're like, you're playing left guard. I'm not good at left guard. Like, why would you, I was terrible left guard. I mean, I didn't understand why they just decided to move me after I played my entire career on one side of the line of the line scrimmage that's what they paid me to do and they're like oh no no no you're actually left guard now and it's just like no it seems silly to me but teams are not always the the bright and playing right guard I played well I played right guard I'm what a surprise um you wrote a column on 11 NFL trades that makes sense I love these because

you put a lot of time and effort into these and you find you always do the one um are you doing the NFL the mock draft for the 32 trades again this year I am yeah okay so he does puts one up where he does 32 trades, which is a beastly thing to do. He's so dumb. Dude, I say this all the time. I read every single mock draft. I love them. I'm doing one this year again.

I did one for Fox last year. I'm doing it again. I love them. I love them. I read them all. I read them all, Bill. Friday morning I wake up. I read everyone I could see.

I read them all. To me, it's either an A or an F for draft. I mean, essentially, like, I gave one F last year. It was James Pierce. I mean, I don't know, end up being right. I feel like in the end. Yeah, it's weird. You know, like, you know, you trade up for a questionable prospect,

and now you don't have a first round pick, and you don't have a James Pierce. So I won it. I don't feel. Out of all these trades, do you have a favorite one that you wrote up? Ooh. Okay. I have one that I feel good about.

I don't know if you feel good about it. I don't know if it's fair. I feel like it's fair. But maybe Raiders fans might not feel like it. And part of it is just, like, Like, whether the dude is out the door or not. And that's Max Crosby, where for years, I've been trying to trade this guy. I wanted them on the Lions for years.

Like, imagine if Max Crosby and Aiden Hutchinson were on the same team together with those Lions teams that have a ton of guys on rookie contracts when they were competing for a Super Bowl, I was just like, man, it just makes so much sense. Imagine Max Crosby with Dan Campbell. Like, just a dream fit for me. So it didn't happen. Didn't happen. I'm moving them to a different NFC North team. I said Max Crosby and I think a fifth round pick to the Bears for DJ Moore and a first round pick. And it's a lot to give up.

I mean, first time picks are hard to come by. You don't really see guys this late in their careers dealt for first round picks. Max Crosby is making a lot of money. But the Quinn and Lilliams thing kind of changed things a little bit. Like we saw teams get more aggressive trading first and second round picks for defensive tackles in the middle of their second contract heading for a third deal. And so I think the Raiders are going to have to hold out for that kind of trade if they're going to trade Max Crosby. it might be a thing where ownership just says, hey, like, you've done your time.

If you want to leave, we're going to do anything and let you go. We're going to have Mendoza coming in. That's going to change. He's going to be the face of the franchise. I don't need you to beat the face of the franchise anymore. They might say, listen, we think we can win with you. And they, frankly, could get a lot better if they have better quarterback play and better coaching. So it could happen.

I can say them holding on to Crosby. But, like, the Bears need pass rush help. Montes Swett is a really good, like, number two edge rusher. I don't think he's a number one guy. They were bottom five in pressure rate this year. defense was not good enough. They created a ton of turnovers, which is great, but they did nothing else on defense besides create turnovers.

I can't think. Who's their second edge rusher? He just got hurt. Dio or Dangbo? Torres Achilles midseason. Don't know if he's going to be healthy in 2026. So a dangbo is going to maybe open up a spot for them. And DJ Moore kind of doesn't really fit in their offense.

Like he never really seemed to get that kind of consistent thing. Numbers are way down. Had some big plays for them. question but you saw in the postseason that third interception from Caleb Williams in overtime he and did you more on the wrong page um you watch the tape for the bears over the past couple years a lot of plays or maybe he wasn't running at 100% yeah yeah and like not saying that you can't make that guy work there are some great receivers don't always have 100% effort but um they have lutherbergin say those are their top two wide receivers have colson level who's going to be a big target for them at tight end

I think Ben Johnson, you know, could lean into 12. They could play more. Colomet. They could bring another tight end and play more 12. As kind of their base offense more often. They could like, oh, me, he's a keyist. I think if DJ Moore is going to be your third wide receiver and you're paying him 24 and a half million a year for the next two years,

just not a good use of your resources. So you trade DJ Moore. You get off that contract. You add Crosby, you improve your pass rush. Get a first round pick, which is not ideal. But if you're the Raiders, then you flip it. Well, we need a number one receiver. We have Brock Bowers, who's great.

and, you know, a valuable tight end, but their top wide receivers, Trey Tucker, like, they don't have a guy who's going to catch, you know, going to be targeted 10 times a game at wide receiver in that offense. And so you're bringing a DJ Moore, you're helping Mendoza, you're getting a first-round pick, another young player for your roster. They need first-round picks. They need young talent. They just do not have very much of it after the John Grunanera after the Devonty Adams trade.

They lift on some picks with McDaniels. They have some pieces I think I'm excited about, but they need young talent. And so Moore is, you know, on the other side, but he's kind of that reasonable wide receiver one, wide receiver two, who fits your offense, going to get a ton more targets in Vegas than he will in Chicago, get a first-round pick. We want from Crosby, which is a bummer, but if Crosby once out the door and you're moving on from him, I think getting a receiver who you feel good about right now and a first-jump pick is a pretty good return for the Raiders. Okay. So I can't make up my mind if they should trade him or not. because one part of me thinks,

okay, you have a new coach coming in and you want a guy like Crosby on your team, right? Culture center plays every snap possible,

physical, like good leader. Everything who heard about him is great, right? No negative things about him and it's productive still, right? Yeah. But I can also make the case that

Kubiak's in now just get as many assets as possible, right? Like you're basically starting from scratch with a new quarterback. I think if you get a first round, but you got to train him. I think you kind of have to, right?

Yeah, It's not even just adding assets. It's just kind of reorganizing what you need to focus on. The breeders are not, as good as Max Crosby is, they are not a Max Crosby away from competing for a Super Bowl. Their role right now, the thing they have to do over the next 12 months, 12 months, ideally, 24 months realistically, is make Mendoza's life as easy as possible.

Yes. Whether that is adding wide receivers, adding offensive line, because that line was a disaster last year. They need multiple starters up front. adding wide receivers you feel good about, adding tight ends you feel good about next to Bowers, maybe with Michael Mayer's not your guy. You have gentia running back who you're going to still plug

at running back for the next couple of years. Like, it's not, let's build the best roster to win. It's let's build an offense that's going to make our quarterback comfortable. And then if we feel good about that, then we start building the rest of the team. Then we start building the defense. I always start building the defensive line. Like, it's going to suck.

It's not half Max Crosby. But their priority right now has to be we can head to week one of 20, 2026 and feel like we have enough around Mendoza to win. And if they don't, like, it's a wasted season. We saw it Caleb Williams. We saw with some of these other quarterbacks saw it, Drake Megan his first year.

Like, that was a waste of a season because they did not have anything to make that quarterback look good on offense. This is why they should have drafted an officer line. We're not asking Juryd. But we don't have to re-legate that. That is a, yes, I agree. They're probably going to spend as much money as possible for Lunderbomb, who will probably reset the market, either him or the Chargers.

We're going to be bidding what he's going to make as much money. like as as humanly possible for that position. So good for him for doing that. A discussion bill that we had on social media about pass protection, I'd like to bring here because it's very interesting. So Nate Tice was talking about past protecting the Super Bowl. We sort of went back and forth on social media about it. And the conclusion that we all have is that offenses aren't doing enough

to put their protection units in the best place now. Defenses are exploiting that. And I have a theory on this. The Shanahan offense is now. Now, what, 75% of the NFL? I mean, I'm trying to think of who's not, right? I mean, Andy Reid's not. Harbaugh's not, right?

Yeah. You know, the Patriots aren't. Of that offense. Yeah, the Patriots are not. So there's like three teams come to tell my head that are not. But there's a big version of that offense around most of the NFL. And that offense does not allow quarterbacks to change a lot of protections. It's a set it and forget it offense.

I think that's a major problem right now with past production, is that there are not enough quarterbacks going on the line and screen. and changing protections. But do you notice that as well? Because I see that a lot with young guys, especially. They're just not doing anything. And famously caught the, it got the Nars of Super Bowl two years ago.

I think that's a Shan offense problem right now. Yeah, I do think, I talked earlier, you know, Jeff about this idea of like offenses wanting to limit the answers defenses have and then knowing what those answers are going to be and then picking apart those answers. The same thing is true on the defensive side of the football. You watch. So there's a McDonnell Clinic where he goes into detail about like,

this is what my philosophy is on offense. Like, his philosophy is there's only so many past protections team have out there. And if it's a Shanahan offense or which offense where you can't change your protection, like if you can present a certain look on defense, you know what you're getting from pass pro on the offensive line. And like, yes, like, you know this. Like teams can, like if you call Larry on the line of screen,

which is, okay, it's going to be a full side to the left. Like, it's not like that's a secret necessarily. but just we're seeing defenses say, okay, if we present an overload look, if we present a 5-0 look, if we present a look that is going to have a defined answer in pass protection that we feel really likely we're going to get from the opposing team, that's giving you the answers to the question. You know exactly what you want to throw in terms of a pass pressure in terms of a blitz that they're not going to have answers for.

And you don't even need to blitz. You can send a sim pressure and drop three guys off and send two guys the other way. and know, okay, they're sliding to that overload in a very specific way, and we're going to have an unblocked guy. And if you can do that consistently on defense, like your offense, your quarterback is sitting there as a lame duck running for his life. And Jeff, what did we see the entire postseason? We saw Brock Purdy running for his life.

We saw Matthew Stafford, who was an experienced quarterback, who was a lot better at this, not run for his life and exploit them because they were in 13 personnel a ton of time. And we saw Drake May running for his life and taking socks and losing the ball throughout that game. And so that to me is sort of like the weakest thing for offenses that defenses can take advantage of because there's so many advantages offenses have.

There's so many creative things. We still see offenses coming up with concepts that defenses have to adjust for, but if you know what the past protection is gonna be and you can exploit that consistently, that is an incredible neutralizer for defenses. And so I do believe that it is a, problem but I have to ask you Jeff.

Do you think it's as simple as just having a quarterback or a center or having an infrastructure to chase it up the line? Is there any solution anything that comes to mind here? There's a couple things. One is that I do think running the ball on third and medium.

Medium, yep. Gets people out of that. Eagles have done a great job of this. I love it. I think it's a great way to attack a defense. Oh, you want to stand guys up and move around? Okay, fine. You want a 5-0 us? Okay, fine. We have a one-on-ones. We'll find our best matchup and run to that side. Look,

here's my screen game take, because the screen game eliminates a lot of these problems, is that there's been two rule changes, I think, that have really hurt the screen game, right? One is you can't cut in space anymore, so you used to be able to get out in space, right, and cut a defensive alignment.

I had a coach, Andy Hackett, that she's on a dog. She said, on a screen, if you just throw your body, so you throw at someone, right? You try to cut them down, and you miss, you get a plus. I do not care.

have to throw because think about I'm six, seven, three, to 40. If I throw myself in front of you, at the minimum, your feet have to stop, right? You have to stop and brace or stop and jump. Something you have to do to get on my way. And then two, less practice time, right? Screens take practice. It takes knowing where you're supposed to be. And those things are gone now. So defense's aren't worried about screen passes.

They don't happen, Bill, anymore. I mean, they happen. Of course, they happen. But like, they happen, but in different ways. Correct. It used to be. Yeah, it's more tunnels. It's more, you know, bubbles. It's more just let's get a screen to the boundary. Not like let's get screens working out on the back. Man, a beautiful screen eliminates a lot of those issues, right? Because, oh, you want to bring pressure to us?

I also think sim pressures are tough. They're tough to run screens against, right? Because you have to be able to find the guys they drop out, who's dropping out. And then not enough offenses to me, Bill, have worked in enough hots and sights. Like, New England had zero on the Super Bowl. I was shocked. They had zero answers for anything. That's, you know, do you know, do you just know that, by the way?

They dropped guys out into certain areas. but I do feel like offenses have not really figured out a way to counter some of those pressures with easy throws for the quarterback. Yeah, and again, that's a quarterback, a quarterback comfort level, right? Like, you know, is your quarterback confident enough to throw the hot? We see quarterbacks turn out of because they're a little nervous about the guy being in a place they're not expecting. And like you said, defenses know, okay, we can play certain coverages. We're going to be sending a pressure. We're going to be sending a blitz.

We can sit at the sticks. There's only so many things you can do, only so many throws you can make. I think about in the Super Bowl, the Seahawks had a snap, I think Ted Win wrote about it, where they showed a man before the snap. Josh Job was the outside corner.

He played, he was playing a man, and he passed off a slant and played zone and May threw a swing pass to a running back, and Job was a cloud corner. He was right there to make the tackle for no game. You know. Yeah, it was Henderson, I think, right?

It was early on the game, yeah. Yeah. Again, you know, if you have a power, rush or a past protection scheme or past past rush scheme that teams are scared of it makes life easier for your defensive backs they can sit on stuff they don't have to worry about you know stuff getting past them and so we see a lot of the stuff with the Vikings where they're you know a different way but they're showing a lot of pressure at the snap they're playing zero behind they're playing some kind of match behind they're playing Tampa two behind but this idea of like if we heat you up

you're only going to have certain answers and what was it the it was Aaron Rogers right Aaron Rogers against the Vikings last year where they Jets only had a couple answers to pressure and the first time the Jets got a play out of it, second time Rogers threw a pick six. You know, again, like these are the weakest things the offense has. And if they're not doing it in the ball, like you said, if they're not changing their past protection at all, if they don't have hot, they don't have screens, like those are the answers to deal with that stuff. And it's sort of a lost start in some ways in the NFL that teams had 20 years ago.

It doesn't mean that like there are still things in the NFL that are great. It's not like the NFL offenses suck now. I'm not going to do the, I'm not going to name names, Jeff. I'm not going to say people in the NFL media universe who think offenses suck now because they don't have these things. But like two things can be true. Like there are lots of flourishes and touches and creative things in modern offenses. And there's also some stuff from the past that if teams, you know, lived in more often would get them out of these problems. I do the West Coast offense has more answers for that.

They're just not allowed to the teams do it. Yeah. And, you know, then I actually think one of the home's best qualities and what? thing you can never replicate is how they have answers to pressure, where the wide receivers just literally stop and just like, he knows where to go with the ball exactly when the pressure is coming. And you need time and rhythm for that. And to be honest, like, you know, when we were growing up and even in the early days of sort of me playing and you covering, there were a lot of older quarterbacks. We don't really have a ton of those guys anymore. So I think with how young the

league feels a quarterback, it takes time to learn how to have those hots, have those sites, know where people are coming from. Again, less practice time, less film time, probably a little bit as well. More coordinator changes too. What? More coordinator changes. I know. Like, how many times in the past, like, was it, was it Baker, who's had a different

coordinator every year he's been in the NFL? Like, there were, there were quarterbacks, bad quarterbacks who would have the same coordinator like four years in a row in the NFL and get 64 games to prove themselves. And, you know, like a guy like Trent Delfare doesn't have a career if he doesn't get multiple years to prove himself and play as well. out of playing some bad football. It's just, we're a lot more aggressive and that process has been accelerated

on the coaching side and on the player side as well. I think about the Eagles right now, right? So you have a third year coach, Sean Man's own coach, three, this is his third year in the NFL. He's got the primary play caller for that offense and the running, you know, the Shanahan McVeigh offense, right?

Like, how much has he really been able to diagnose and have answers for pressures over his, I mean, he's played. He played enough football, obviously. But, like, they probably aren't going to be great at that this season, right? Bill, that would be kind of a shock to me if they were great in year one with this offense at, like, pressure answers, right? Especially with how Hertz holds a ball so long.

Yeah. And then going back to years past, that was the knock on the offense when Brian Johnson was there. It was the benefit when Kellynne Moore was there. They did not have answers. Like, their answer to blitzes, and even this year you saw, their answer to blitzes, their answer to pressures were chuck up. a 50-50 ball. We got dudes on the outside we feel good about. Like it wasn't like, hey,

side adjust. It wasn't, hey, you know, uh, let's sometimes I would run the ball into it, which is fine. Nothing wrong with that as a solution. But a lot of it was just let's, if it's third and three, we get, let's chuck up a ball to AJ Brown. We'll get a P.I. We'll get a catch. Um, we probably won't throw an interception, but like, let's give that a shot. And so that's an okay answer, but like, it's not the only answer you want for your offense. All right, Bill. We'll let you go on on this. Um, I know it's, it's early. And, I've got an early Super Bowl prediction, but I really don't even have one yet.

I haven't got that far. I think Niners might be much better this year if they don't get hurt. That's kind of my sort of like, oh, my NFC team. The AFC to me feels really solely on if Mahomes is healthy or not. I just, you know, the AFC is to me not very scary right now.

There's a lot of change in that conference. Do you have a couple of teams you like to watch early on as far as teams you think could make a Super Bowl? I, hmm. They burn me every year, Jeff. I'm always higher on them. You see the Chargers?

No, that's true, but not the Chargers. The Packers. I can't do it, Biddle. Biddle. Everyone's doing the Packers. I can't do it. Here's my Packers thing, okay? I'm going to ask you this question about the Packers.

So when you watch their offense, does a single thing scare you about that offense? No. But then I look at the numbers, and it's like, oh, they're in top three offense by all these metrics. I'm just like, oh. They create a ton of explosives, even though they have a running back,

who's good at creating explosives and that's it. Like, he's very inefficient, fumbles too much. The receivers, they don't scare you a ton, but like a dude gets open every week. Jordan Love isn't makes mistakes, but like he doesn't turn the ball over a ton and he hits some big plays. Like, like, it never feels the way it feels with good offenses. Like, it's never a fun walk. Correct.

But the numbers say it is much better than it feels. And so maybe that's my naivete. Jeff, but I just like, they're always young. They get Micah back. They get the line's going to be healthier. I just, I always get fooled back. This, you brought up one more thing. I'm sorry.

I have one more thing. Okay. Go for it. I don't know if I sent this the message, Jeff. I know I, I talked to Aaron Chats about this. Um, I love the DVOA, EPA. I love, like Bill Conley's SP Plus on the college. I talked to Bill about this too.

It does feel like this year was the first in a long time where the numbers did not kind of match the play on the field. There were a lot of teams I was like The Chiefs were good for in DPA for I mean in D-D-Way forever They stink they came with a football game The college numbers were low wonkier this year than usual Is that a thing or maybe a one-year thing? Did you notice that this year as well?

Because like the Packers like, yeah, great EPA One trust them a second to make a play in a big playoff game Is that? What do you make of that? I can't speak to the college stuff But on the pro side, I think what happened was There were no great teams Like there was no team we felt really good about.

And so I think someone has to be first, someone has to be second, someone has to be third. That's fair. Even the best teams were so inconsistent. They'd have rock games. Like it felt like every week. I was doing Dominique Foxwood show on Sundays every year, every week this year. And every Sunday, it'd be like, okay, we trust X. We trust the bills.

We trust the Rams. And that was the kiss of death. The Father Meek, like I remember like the Rams. Like, okay, we are good. The Rams are great. I think it was right after they beat the Seahawks, like pretty common. Although obviously it was a close game by the end, but Rams were physically impressive in that game. It's like, okay, we're good.

The Rams are the one team you can trust. And then they lose to Caroline in the following week. And it's like, I believed in you. The numbers say you're good. That's the part I think I find tough this year is that it felt like there were no great teams. And so because there was teams that still had to be number one, number two, number three, those teams were not as good as your typical number one, number two, number three. The chiefs were not a team that felt good to me at any point this year outside of like, you know, playing

the giants. But like the numbers I think said they were good because they're just foreign a lot of other good teams. So I think that's the tough part to me. And I think why maybe this year felt so wonky. We'll see what happens in future years, but like it's not like, the numbers aren't perfect. Like they're reflecting what we see for better or worse and I use numbers as much as anybody. I think they're really valuable. When I believe something and numbers say otherwise, I don't necessarily just ignore what I say. I try to say, okay, what's the context? Why? What am I missing? I try to dig a little deeper and that usually to me to something that I end up feeling better or worse about when it comes to my e-val

on a team or what the numbers might say. All right, Bill. I appreciate you joining us. This was fantastic. Go check out Bill stuff at ESPN.com on social media as well. We're back next week. Have a good week, everyone. Talk to you guys then.