Move The Line - Everything You NEED to Know About the AFC North

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Dive deep into the heart of the AFC North with our comprehensive breakdown, covering everything you NEED to know for the upcoming season. From team-by-team analyses to the hottest predictions, we've got you covered. Get the edge on your bets with our expert insights on the best odds for each team, top players to watch, and game outcomes. Whether you're a seasoned sports bettor or just looking for insights on the AFC North's dynamics, this video is your one-stop resource. Stay informed and make smarter betting decisions with our detailed guide. Subscribe to 4for4's Betting Package 👉🏼  https://www.4for4.com/plansFollow 4for4 on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/4for4footballFollow 4for4 Bets on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/4for4betsFollow Move the Line on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/MoveTheLineNFLFollow Connor on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/ConnorAllenNFLFollow Ryan on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/RyNoonanFollow Sharp on Twitter 👉🏼  https://twitter.com/SharpClarkeNFLVisit our Website 👉🏼  https://www.4for4.com/Join our Discord 👉🏼  http://discord.gg/4for4Subscribe to our YouTube Channel 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3OupraJ4for4 Betting Strategy Hub 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3hm39cw4for4 Betting Picks 👉🏼  https://4for4.co/3LUp0EaNFL Betting Odds & Predictions 👉🏼 https://4for4.co/3nsW9QU

and welcome to the blue line i'm ryan noonan joined here as always by my friends connor allen sharp clark to get close to the regular season and nearly put a bow here on our divisional preview series. We're all excited to jump in this week to talk about the AFC North. I'll start with Connor. How are we doing today, buddy? Good. On the final leg of my bachelor party tour in August, and very thankful to be done. My liver is hurting. But we're going to Vegas in a couple of weeks to draft some fantasy teams as well. So I'm sure that won't help, but I'm really excited for the season. And this division is incredible.

It has a ton of good teams. And the more that I dug in, the more it became more difficult for me to find a clear winner here. You should be able to survive Vegas. Not going to do any golf out there this year. I nearly lost my friends to heat stroke last time when we decided to go out there this year um i nearly uh lost my friends to uh heat stroke last time we decided to go out there even in the first week of september decided we wanted to navigate some of the local courses

and uh yeah connor nearly died um also tried to play basically still drunk um on like two hours of sleep which is probably a sub-optimal way to play desert golf but uh yeah just gonna skip that this time and it was like 100 something right it was like 100 something it was thick man it was it was seriously i sat in the clubhouse for the last eight holes i think uh because i just was like about to pass out like ice on my neck and everything it was wild wild ride it was not great uh joining us again as always sharp clark how are we doing buddy good i'm excited about this weekend because uh it's my home league's annual draft we've been going 16 years and we don't even play for money and yet every year it's the most competitive difficult league that i play in 14 teams auction draft in person it's it's a blast and i'm pretty

pumped shout out to the phl love it yeah sometimes that's just the homely nature right like it doesn't even really matter definitely always playing for more than than any cash prize it's definitely bragging rights especially if you have a long standing home league so good luck hopefully you're uh using some of our internal auction uh pricing rankings and stuff like that so auction is definitely the way to go to a whole different beast and whole different strategy. So good stuff. All right.

Yeah. We're going to do AFC North today. We have six in the books. We only have two left. We have the AFC North here this week. We're going to do the AFC West next week. So we have a handful of Superbowl contenders still to unpack. You can,

again, if you're hanging out with us on YouTube, I appreciate that. Thumbs up, subscribe, all those things, comments, let us know who you like here in the, the AFC North. We appreciate all those things. Again, if you're

still listening and hanging out podcast form, we're there as well. Five stars again, free content, all those things, little things seem small, but they go a long way in helping support the stuff that we're doing here. We're going to continue as we get into the season. We're going to be doing more shows. We're going to be here, move the line with the three of us, talking game breakdowns, sides and totals every Wednesday during the season. We have some news coming out in terms of what we're doing with the prop drop, which is Connor, myself, and we have a third this year. We will soon be announcing that information.

That will be on third this year. We will soon be announcing that information. That'll be on Fridays this season. So still once a week now in season, we'd love to move line episodes per week. So again, a podcast form, YouTube, subscribe, and you won't miss a show. Also great time to scoop up a betting sub. If you want to get it, you have your own auction league, your own home league this week, like Clark does. the betting sub gets you access to everything. So rankings, tools, projections, any article, basically anything you want to do in terms of like speculation on football, we have it covered. The discord is really where you want to be in terms of betting subs, because that's where all of the bets are pushed through first into our

subscriber discord. That's coming before any article. Oftentimes, even when it gets under the site into an article form, it's often dead. We have a pretty sizable discord crowd that is oftentimes frothing in the mouth for bets and very, very active and quick to operate. So you want to get in there so you don't miss those things. And that comes with the betting sub. It's the place to go. Some cheap ways to get it. You can find that on the site. If you go on to 444.com slash plans, or you go into the betting sub, you's the place to go. Some cheap ways to get it. You can find that on the site. If you go on to four for four.com slash plans, or you go into the betting sub, you can find ways to get free subscriptions, cheap subscriptions. If you have not taken advantage of bet MGM yet, you can use our promo code. There's all that information here in the show notes. You can get a betting sub essentially for $10, which is wild. I mean, it, it, I think we should

be priced over $300. We're not, we're a little shy of that. So being able to get access to all the things that we do at 444 for $10 is kind of insane to me. We also have some other partners in the Pick'em space like Vivid Picks, where you can play and deposit $5 and get a two-month betting sub. You can each one of you dip your toes and get a taste of what we do. That's available for five bucks. So again, insane deals. We've been talking about it for

a while but i know a lot of people wait until we get really close to the season and want to start to like jump in now like these deals are wild guys take advantage you can check again like i said again in the show notes you can find where all of those are so all right uh afc north um AFC North. Again, four very, very, very strong football teams. We'll start at the very top with the Cincinnati Bengals, who are 11-1 to win the Super Bowl. That number's on both MGM and on DraftKings. Plus 550 on FanDuel and DraftKings to win the AFC. They are plus 160 on Caesars to win the division.

Their win total is out to 11 and a half juiced to the under um 10 and a half that was out there originally is cooked and that's why we're seeing a little bit of the juice here but uh you know this is a football team that look got really close they were a like again 2021 really surprising to see them in the super bowl everyone thought that they were a great regression candidate heading into the 2022 season, partially because the schedule was brutal and they got off to a slow start, 4-4. But in that back half of the schedule, it looked like they were staring down the barrel and they absolutely rolled here.

Connor, I'll let you get started here with the Bengals. Yeah, this is tough because the more I dug into the Beng bangles it's hard to poke too many holes here so they lost both their starting safeties from last season replaced one with nick scott from the rams who uh you know wasn't all that good last year they also but they added you know left tackle orlando brown the editor of smith to kind of supplement their loss of hayden hurst the old line as a whole probably projects to be uh about league average but really with this team here when you have a guy like jo Burrow, Jamar Chase, you know, T Higgins, it's really tough to poke too many holes here on the offense.

They're favoring six straight games hitting into their buy and their underdogs just, you know, at San Francisco, at Kansas city. I would say that there's a couple of tough games, but when you're looking at a team like the Bengals caliber, it's really hard to say, oh, well, these tough games, these are definitely losses. Like they have, they're capable of beating anyone. And so for me, it's just kind of a stay away because I think they're very properly priced. And as we'll get to in the rest of the show, I think the division is really strong. So yeah, they're capable of beating anyone, but inevitably they're going to slip up along the way. So for me, it's kind of just a stay away. Like I think that they're strong, strong contender,

but there isn't a reason for me to be overly bullish or overly down on them this year. So I think that it's just properly priced in the market. Clark, you did a really good job in our AFC East pod when we were talking about how we really feel like we have probably at least minimally nine true playoff contenders here in the AFC. You can make the case that there are some teams that are in the mix and towards the tail end of that. And we're going to have some attrition. We're going to have some variance that comes in, typically in the form of injuries. And it's really hard to take a stance where some of these teams could be on the wrong side of it for a reason that we can't foresee currently in the preseason.

Now, in the bull case for the 2022 Bengals was the improvement along the offensive line. And it worked until the playoffs where they had cluster injuries late in the season, especially heading into that Kansas City game. But basically poaching one of Kansas City's top offensive linemen, Orlando Brown, I think helps. It kicks other guys to other sides. There's just even more depth to kind of solidify everything that they want to do. And I loved what they did last year where they saw significantly more cover too. They knew that right there.

Teams are going to take away Jamar chase over the top. They're going to take away T Higgins over the top. How can we adjust? And they did. They were significantly quicker in the ball out. They allowed chase and Higgins and some of the other guys, even Hayden Hurst and Samaj P Ryan, two guys that aren't there anymore to kind of win after the catch and do some different stuff.

So I love seeing them be able to adjust on the fly. And I'm bullish on them this season. I'd love to get your thoughts on the Bengals here. There's something about the Bengals, metrically or in the way they do things, that bettors don't like, at least bettors with a lot of influence that bet later in the week. If you noticed last week with the Lions,

they kept getting steamed against late in the week. Like they played the Patriots, and I think that got steamed to three. They played the Bucks, that got steamed to three. In the playoffs, they played the Bills, and the Bills steamed out to minus five and a half. And it seemed like everyone wanted to fade the Bengals, and yet they kept covering.

I mean, they covered something like eight straight at the end of the year. I don't know the exact numbers, depends on what number you got um and so there's there's something about this team that it's just not impressing the people that really pay attention and I'm one of those people like I I watch the way that they play and and it's like they consistently pull out things that are uh low low probability propositions I mean, a lot of people say like Joe Burrow is just clutch, like he gets it done when it matters. And that is the thing that I think is an element of sports. Like I don't think the numbers capture everything. And so I'm willing

to recognize that I could be wrong about the Bengals. That could be something that my approach misses. But in the past, when there's been a gap between what I'm expecting and what happens, sticking to my guns has typically been a good thing. Like I remember last year with the Jaguars, I was really optimistic on them and they started the year really poorly. They had some really rough losses in the middle of the season, but my numbers were saying, no, this is a really good team. The results don't indicate what might happen in the future. And sure enough, consistently being bullish on the Jags paid off in the long run. So I think I'm with the betters that are fading the Bengals.

I think they're a good team. They obviously have a great quarterback. The offensive line, I would say, even is above average, Connor. I think that their offensive line is near the top of the league. Their defense is decent. Lou Anarumo is a great coordinator who somehow never gets hired as a head coach. But they've kept that consistency on the coaching staff. They've got a good offensive line. They are incredibly good receivers, at least for this year. So I think they're going to be a really good

team, but I don't put them in the same tier as Kansas City. I don't even put them in the same tier as Buffalo. I think they're a feisty contender, but generally lacking in sort of the high-end upside that they're going to have to get lucky in order to win the Superbowl, in my opinion. I disagree. I like them a lot. I love the Lou Amarillo call-outs because I think that they,

I think he is, like you said, you know, should probably be in consideration annually for, you know, head coaching job. And I think his ability you know we talked about this a few times this previous series like we've done do a lot of work we try

to find any edge we can through charting defensive tendencies the bangles are a team that are very difficult to draw any conclusions from because they are probably the best in-game adjustment defensively in the league right that was a title that the Patriots and Belichick had for years. I would say that they probably still are really good at that and why they're able to sometimes punch above their weight because Belichick is really good in-game. Luan Murillo is really good at that as well. Their ability to just see what's happening and be able to just schematically make changes defensively based off of what they're seeing. Football Outsiders has them.

They noted that they didn't score a second half touchdown or didn't allow a second half touchdown until late in October. They finished with the best second half scoring differential in the league. So just shows again, in-game adjustments. That can be on the offensive side too, where the offense also is able to kind of outscore teams once they get a sense of what's going on. I love their offseason. I thought they did a great job.

I know that they lost some key safeties, and safety is losing Jesse Bates is a big loss, Vaughn Bell as well. But they did a really good job last year drafting ahead. So they drafted Dax Hill the year before late in the first round they had another early second round pick they added cam taylor brett who played more than they were expecting last year at corner you know dax hill slides in um this year could play nickel corner um with mike hilton goes down um you know chigga wuzie they're like best corner basically missed the entire second half of the season last year he's back this year they have more depth they added miles murphy as another body along the you know defensive front to you know add edge rushers

like they just don't have any holes they have great linebacker depth uh really really and again you mentioned the offensive line is even better so i get like the magic bean stuff with joe burrow may be a little hard uh for some people but man i just think that we've seen it for basically two and a half years, three, you know, three seasons that he's played, that he's been a talent elevator, incredibly accurate, quick decision makers, the ability to adapt. I was really impressed with, like I said, early at the top, like the short, quick hitting passing stuff. So yeah, I'm very bullish on this team. You know, you look and there's playing a first-place schedule, but they're also like those teams have to play the Bengals,

and they've shown the ability to go into Buffalo in weather and win. They've shown the ability to go into Kansas City and win. Like that was kind of a – I mean, it was a really great game last year in the AFC Championship game. It was hard for it to kind of end that way on a late hit from Joe Asai. Like, you know, again, another guy that like he's 23 has played two really good seasons. Like there's just a lot of depth on this team. You know, we were kind of all like Zach Taylor's kind of a donkey,

but he seems to have maybe matured in his role as well. I don't know. I don't think there's a lot of value in a lot of the stuff that's out there now in terms of betting them. Like you got the 10 and a half, good for you. You know, it's tough to chase 12 wins in that market uh i you know i'd like them to win the division so like if you wanted to make a bet i don't know that plus 160 is a great number uh but i like them to win this division i do think they are the best team in this division i know you guys feel strongly about

some of the others and we'll get to that as well but um yeah this team is in the mix again for the super bowl um after you know back-to-back AFC championship game appearances. To Clark's point about Burrow, the clutch factor and all those things, I don't know what it was, but one of the highlight reels of their fourth and sixth play against Kansas City resurfaced on Twitter the other day. And I just remember watching that. So it was like a fourth and sixth from midfield, 15 minutes left like the start of the fourth quarter he just throws like a double covered jump ball like deep ball jump jump ball to jamar chase who somehow comes down with it like on fourth and six like obviously you know this is like 30 yards down field and he throws that instead of like basically anything else and then he catches it

obviously they keep keep going they didn't end up winning the game but like it put them in a great position to end up winning and it's just one one of those things that something like that doesn't seem sustainable, yet it keeps happening. And so I totally understand that. It's just not something... Again, I think they're a good team. I think that they have a well-rounded, I guess, overall team, and they have Burrow and they have Chase, but it's just not something that... I don't want to lay minus 130 on 10 and a half. I don't want to lay bet over 11 and a half. Um, but that being said, borrowing a burrow injury, like I can't really see them winning less than nine games or like eight games in this like absolute disaster. So for me, it's like a team where I don't even want to bet the extreme

downside because you're just basically betting on a burrow injury. So, uh, for me, it's just a stay away. Clark, how would you bet the bangles of it?? Well, first, I want to push back on what you said, Noonan, about the defense. A lot of those numbers, especially second half numbers, are impacted by the quarterbacks they faced last year. A lot of quarterbacks left mid-game. They put a lot of backups. I read somewhere that the number of snaps, the percentage of snaps they played on the season against backup quarterbacks was one of the highest in NFL history. They opened the season against Trubisky. Then they played the Cowboys with Cooper Rush. They played the Jets with Joe Flacco. In that Dolphins game, Tua got hurt mid-game. They played the Ravens with both of their backup quarterbacks in back-to-back games and were probably set to

lose a playoff game against Tyler Huntley until the Tyler Huntley fumbled on the goal line and it was returned for a touchdown. I think a lot of those defensive numbers are a little bit noisy. And I think that's one of the reasons why people anticipate some regression. And then on offense, like the clutch thing, Joe Burrow hasn't been clutch in late games in the playoffs. Like he's made specific plays in specific moments, but on a play to play basis, he's not been that good. So I think a lot of that is just sort of, you know, we have a small sample size to work with and our bias becomes built around those things that we remember in those high leverage moments. So I expect both of those things to

regress. The way I play it is just, if you like another team in the division, I think you could bet that other team to win the division. If you like other teams to win the AFC or the Super Bowl, like the Bills or the Chiefs or, you know, even the Chargers or someone, I think the Bengals taking so much of that market share, I think is incorrect. So I think that provides some value to some potential other competitors. The Bengals win total was one I bet earlier, but I think it's been steamed down because people agree with me and Burrow has that calf injury lingering um so i think the value's kind of gone from that i would i would lean towards the other markets yeah the out of uh you know unique three in terms of what we're looking at schedule wise this is tough right buffalo kansas city san francisco that's a that's a tough stretch uh without a doubt but again like

they kind of didn't you know lean into that last year too so yeah i mean i think you make really good points you know really got games against pj walker cooper rush mr travisky um that helps for sure i just i like what they did to add to the depth and some of the spots last year where maybe they had question marks um you know they missed time for both trey hendricks and sam hubbard missed time last year well they went out and added miles murphy in the first round. Now they have even more depth up front. Yeah, they might have questions about Nick Scott. He wasn't really good last year. He needs to play a key role. Well, they added Jordan Battle, who played under Nick Saban, and a lot of teams loved him coming out of the draft in the second round. So they have some question marks in terms of, or maybe some answers in terms of figuring out the question marks that they have. So yeah, I'm excited about him. I figured that I liked them more than Clark for sure.

You know, that's typically been, you know, the MO, you know, didn't want to come out here and, and dunk on him very much enjoyed the Bengals, Bill's game last year, but again, lots of fluke stuff. I think those teams are right there again. I don't think that that final score or the way that game played is indicative of how those two teams are. That'd be a coin flip on a neutral field for sure. I just think the Bengals are in the mix with the Chiefs and the Bills. And I get why you guys might think that they're maybe in the next tier. They're going to be an exciting football team to watch.

All these teams are. And this one, I'm really excited to watch this season season especially the offense uh let's talk about the ravens the ravens are uh let's see 18 to 1 everywhere for the most part to win the super bowl you can catch a 20 on points bet if you happen to have the ability to get down there they are 11 to 1 on caesars to win the afc uh best division price is plus 235 on draft kings winings. Win total has climbed up quite a bit. There is a juiced under on the 10.5. Caesars has a 9.5. If you want to get in on the over, you got to lay minus 170.

They are also minus 160 on the yes side to make the playoffs. So again, kind of a tale of two seasons. Really good start. They were kind of cruising 8-4 before Lamar Jackson went down to an injury um so they kind of backed into the playoffs there someone had to take that last seed and they did have a good game against cincinnati um kind of evident there was going to be some change weren't sure if that was going to be the quarterback or the offensive coordinator or both because it looked like for a little bit lamar was uh ready to go elsewhere but they were able to come to the table um i think long term there's some here. Now you have to navigate roster construction with a big quarterback contract,

but that's probably, you know, that's a future conversation. It doesn't really impact what we're going to see here, 2023. Clark, I'm really excited about this Todd Munkin offense. I'm really excited about moving forward from the Greg Roman offense, which I thought was really stale, but I'll give you the floor here to talk about the ratingss. Yeah, I don't know. I don't really know much about Todd Munkin. I don't watch college football. I know that he was in the NFL before that. I know that he's not worked with a quarterback of Lamar Jackson's caliber and style.

So that's exciting to kind of see that partnership work out. I'm not sure that I buy the idea that this is like the best set of weapons Lamar Jackson's ever worked with. It's possible. But like OBJ, you know, hasn't hasn't really made an impact in a while. I'm not sure that I buy the idea that this is like the best set of weapons Lamar Jackson's ever worked with. It's possible, but like OBJ, you know, hasn't, hasn't really made an impact in a while.

Like he was pretty good for the Rams at spots, but he wasn't really a consistent contributor. And that was an injury. And years ago, you know, Zay Flowers is a, is a rookie. Like maybe he's good.

He looked like he had some good agility in that preseason game, but we'll see how, you know, that turns into route running, et cetera. And then Rashad Bateman, like is still a question mark. He looked like he had some good agility in that preseason game, but we'll see how, you know, that turns into route running, et cetera. Um, and then Rashad Bateman, like it's still a question mark. He hasn't, he hasn't really proven anything, let alone whether he can stay healthy. So it's possible. This is the best situation Lamar Jackson's ever been in. Um, it's also possible that Lamar Jackson's not a great pocket passer. Like maybe like the reason why he's so good

as a quarterback is because of that threat to run. And if the offensive scheme is going to take that away from him, I wonder how much that eats into his efficiency. These are all question marks. I don't know the answers. What I do know is that last year the Ravens were very good and underrated. Let me tell you about 12 weeks into the season, the Ravens had lost four games. This was with Lamar Jackson.

Those four games, Miami, 42- 42 38 after leading by 21 points in the fourth they just blew a fourth quarter lead with terrible injured secondary play against Tua who completed some big plays okay Buffalo 23 20 after they were up 20 to 3 another you know brutal comeback they had second and goal on the one down three and they threw an interception third one was the Giants they were up in the fourth quarter with three minutes left and had the ball and Lamar, they fumbled the snap and then Lamar Jackson kind of panicked and threw a pick. Giants had a 13 yard field to score a touchdown to win. And then the Jaguars 28, 27 on a miracle fourth, a fourth quarter comeback by Trevor Lawrence. They had third and 21 on the game winning drive and Lawrence converted that. He got to fourth and

five and then, and then a first down and then went down to score. They still missed a field goal at expiration to win the game. Granted it was 67 yards, but it's Justin Tucker, right? So, so that was it. That was their only losses against, you know, pretty good teams in situations where they had strangleholds over every game at some point. Like this was a very good team. And yes, like those blown leads matter, right? Like they did blow those leads and that's part of who they are as a team. But to me, it's like, it also signals what their potential is. And so if all these people who are excited about the offense are correct, if Todd Munkin and these receivers are a big step up for

Lamar Jackson, like this team has a very, you know, very high ceiling on offense. And on defense, they're just kind of always good every year. Like, I mean, they don't have, they have some question marks and some holes and we'll see how it plays out. Like, like you said, they blew those leads. Right. So there's something not working right. Which might limit how good they can be in the long run. But, but I think that they're going to be a competitive team. And I think they're coming off an underrated year where people aren't giving them credit for who they were before the Lamar injury. I think it's fair to question the receivers in a little bit in terms of like, you know, who are these guys?

Where is Odell at this point in his career? We haven't really seen Rashad Bateman stay healthy, Zay Flowers as a rookie. But what we're talking about and what we're going up against is like Devin Duvernay and James Proch and like Moore over the last handful of years. A lot, a lot of Patrick Ricard. Just way more Patrick Ricard than you should ever have in terms of snaps. And it was just very predictable in terms of these jumbo sets running into loaded boxes, not really using the entirety in terms of the width of the fields. And we're going to see the good thing about Tom Malk monken at least what we've seen is he's bounced back and forth right he was at oklahoma state and he came into um you know with tampa bay spent some time

in cleveland went back to georgia and we've seen him it's not like this is a todd monken style offense we've seen todd monken like look at what do I have talent wise and adjust. In Tampa, it was that like, look, we can get vertical and we have quarterbacks that like to throw vertical. Ryan Fitzpatrick, James Winston. We're just going to kind of like de-gaff it down the field, contest the catches, let those guys win at the, you know, the point of catch.

And then last year in Georgia, it was a lot of like, almost Greg Roman style stuff. It was a lot of like 12. It was a lot of RPOs. There was a lot of RPOs. It was, well, even more so like pre-snap motion, a lot of stuff to like, they ran RPOs with Stenson Bennett and let him kind of do stuff. And now he's got Lamar Jackson. Either way, regardless of what we think of receiver, I love the duo at tight end with Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely Connor. I think that there's a lot of upside here. I think you probably see one of those receivers at least out of the three emerge and not alone. I think again, Nelson Aguilar, Nelson Aguilar

is not a guy that we should be like talking about extensively, but like in comparison to what they've had historically there, this is a massive upgrade in terms of talent. It's a great offensive line. You're going to allow Lamar and JK Dobbins to run against soft fronts more often because you're not going to be jam packed with everyone in the line of scrimmage. I think it's going to be an exciting offense. I'm going to poke holes in the defense, but I'm going to give you the floor first. Yeah, they also last year, as a function of the Greg Roman offense, were running just two wide receivers on the field a bunch,

and like you said, a lot of jumbo sets. Now you have the option and the optionality to have Zay Flowers, Odell, and Rashad Bateman all out there, along with Mark Andrews, along with Zay Likely in the slot. I would push back. I would say that even if it's maybe not very clearly the best wide receivers that he's had, I think that it is, and I don't really think it's close when looking at things because, like you said, we're mentioning the guys that you said there, Noonan. Demarcus Robinson was their number one wide receiver.

I mean, Nelson Aguilar would have been their number one wide receiver last year, you know, and he's their wide receiver five, you know, like, or like fifth wide receiver, six wide receiver pass catcher at this point. So I would push back on that a little bit. Um, I also think that, but I don't think that this is like a guarantee to work. Like, I think that that's the other thing too, is the more that I thought about that is that people were really excited about Greg Roman when he came in because he worked with Colin Kaepernick because he worked in that like kind of like offense that we've seen work now we're seeing Todd Monkett who like you said it doesn't necessarily he doesn't have a system but everything we've heard has been that they're going to spread the ball out a little bit more they're going to be playing a lot more 11 personnel they're going

to have all the receivers maybe as they're likely playing you know running more routes is that who Lamar Jackson is? Can he do that? I'm bullish. I think that he can. And I think that if he can do that, this offense is going to be probably a top three unit. Like we're going to see outrageous scoring from this unit because the more you spread out the field, the more you spread out the field, Lamar Jackson has more holes to run. We saw it at Louisville.

He doesn't need designed runs to be a great effective runner. He can scramble and he can make people miss in the open field. And I think that that adds to the potential here for this offense. Now, does the running game get dinged a little bit? Probably. I mean, almost certainly they're not going to be quite as efficient running the ball. But I mean, they could be. I think you're going to have softer fronts.

You've got Rodney Stanley a year back from the knee injury. Yeah, I mean, I think that they could be have softer fronts. You got Rodney Stanley a year back from the knee injury. Yeah, I mean, I think that they could be just as efficient on the ground. Georgia's offense last year was one of the best in the nation with Stetson Bennett, like a mid-round quarterback. They have Brock Bowers, who's obviously an elite tight end prospect. He's going to be like a top five, top ten pick next year. But then they have like Ladd, McConkie, and wide receiver. Like they have a bunch of just nobodies out there who are like fine,

but I mean there's no one that noteweworthy and they were just shelling teams. Like, I mean like 60, 70 points in the national championship game. So I don't know. I I'm, I'm pretty confident that they can make it work, but, but I, that being said, I don't think it's a guarantee. Noonan, I'd love to hear your take on the defense though, because I originally was a little bit more bullish. Now Marlon Humphrey suffered an injury. He's kind of like iffy for week one, it was already a little bit bit thin there so i'd love to get your take on the defense at this point real quick we've seen market improvement on lamar jackson from a uh passer in terms of like intermediate like 10 to 19 yards down the field um he's improved massively last year while he was on the field he was second in passing dv away from 10 to 19 yards. He's made like small incremental improvements

every single year. So yeah, do I think that there are still some limitations? Yeah, but like he's also just a significantly better athlete than almost everyone else playing the position and that's still going to be advantageous for him as well. Real quick, before you adopt it in defense, real quick, I heard this on the athletic pod and I thought it rang home really well.

On in- breaking routes, which is apparently what they're going to be doing a lot of. He has the same EPA per play as Patrick Mahomes on 11 personnel last year. He had the same EPA per play also with Patrick Mahomes. So again, reasons to be bullish on them transitioning maybe out of like their jumbo fronts and like, you know,

run first offense compared to this. Yeah. I have questions about Odell and I have questions about bayman but like zay flowers is a rookie but i say where zay flowers is going to operate is where lamar wins up and down the seam it's where mark andrews is going to run and where isaiah likely plays so while those two kind of figure their stuff out on the outside you throw an else nagalore in the mix there as well where i think they're going to be able to hit the ground running is where some of like the best talent is in my opinion in terms of this offense defensively I have massive concerns I like that they signed Jadeveon Clowney um they added a little bit of pass rush I was it was interesting

to see that they really kind of let that go this offseason they were kind of banking on some of the younger guys stepping up because they look I I mean, Calais Campbell, uh, was getting up there, but had a pretty good year. Um, Justin Houston, who was their best pass rusher, uh, Jason Pierre Paul again, limited snaps, but you know, get to the quarterback, Chuck Clark at safety, Marcus Peters. Those are all guys that are gone from last year's defense. Um, now the, I have massive concerns at corner. You mentioned already we have some injuries with what's going on there with Marlon Humphrey. Rakisen is okay, but he never is healthy. He plays 11, 13 games a season.

Everyone behind him is really young, super inexperienced. And we've seen this with the Ravens in the Harbaugh era. There's some bottom out, bottom five in the league defensive seasons. And it's all come because the secondary kind of collapses. So not a good start that Humphrey is already dealing with some stuff. They also, again, like the sign Clowney, but Clowney was kind of a disappointment last year.

You know, they need like David Ajobo and Adolf Ayoa like to kind of step in and be those guys. Like that puts a lot of pressure on them to be those guys guys they also were near the bottom in pressure rate last year 25.4 percent ranked 24th in the league they were sixth in adjusted sack rate that doesn't happen over and over again so kudos to Mike McDonald or some really well-timed blitzes but like you're telling me that you have to generate pressure and you got home a lot more often than you would expect based off of your pressure rate. So like that pressure to sacrate is massively unsustainable. And if you don't have guys in the backend that can hold it

down, that becomes a big time problem. Kyle Hamilton had a really nice second half of the season. They moved them into the box and let them play nickel. When they put him back at safety, it was kind of a disaster they need him to play safety this year with chuck clark gone um so that makes me a little bit nervous um they might even need his services to play nickel again like there's just there's a lot of it feels kind of like a house of cards uh that could really collapse in a bad bad way i think this team early or maybe even later and maybe before books adjust it could be a massive over team um because i really am bullish on the offense. And I think the defense is going to be

susceptible to a lot of things. Now, Roquan Smith was awesome when he came in last year. He also allowed like Patrick Queen to play his role better. Patrick Queen is like just a guy that can fly sideline to sideline, can cover, can cover your tight ends as a guy that you can blitz off the ends. That helped a lot. He didn't have to play him in the traditional linebacker role so like roquan is great maybe a guy that's a rarity in terms of like just you know he's in the team picture of like overall best linebackers in the league it's great but is that enough like do we really want to lean on you know inside the middle linebacker to like anchor the defense i think they're gonna have trouble getting pressure and i think they're gonna have a hard time holding up in the backend.

So yeah, I don't, I think this is a below average defense that could be really, really bad. And for them to be average to above average, they need a lot of things to go well, especially health and we're not off to a good start. Yeah. I remember last off season,

the football owners were super excited about the secondary, like all the, all the different positions they could play and how they were going to do it. Like, I remember Mina Kimes talking about how exciting the secondary was going to be. And then it just kind of fell flat on its face, like injuries and guys not being as good as they hoped they were or good at. They had a hard time figuring out what everybody's role was going to be. And so some of that might have been growing pains, but some of that might be signal, especially with Marlon Humphrey starting the season out and then losing Jason Peters, et cetera.

So yeah, I got some concerns as well. Connor, how are we betting on the, on the Ravens? I think originally when we talked, I was like, Oh, they could win the division, you know? And I, I still feel that way, but I also feel that way about the next few teams. And so, you know, and, and now that like, we bring up more concerns about the defense, teams uh and so you know and and now that like we bring on more concerns about the defense because i think everything you said is completely valid too we look at the corners so behind marlon humphrey looking at i mean maybe ronald darby or demarian williams i mean there's just a lot of question marks here a lot of reps there man i mean yeah brandon stevens and arthur mullett were 90th out of 118 and 107th out of 118 in pro football

focuses, cornerback grades, just, just not great. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's really thin in the back. And so, yeah, like you said, it's probably just an over team to start if you believe in their offense, which I do. I think it's going to become, I mean, matchup dependent obviously as well. So I kind of like, we'll see, I don't know. I mean, that's kind of like, but I don't think the offense is guaranteed to work either. Like I'm excited and I think it's going to be, could be awesome. Like it could be sick,

but it could also just be, what if Lamar can't do it? I mean, it's very possible. Yeah. Over team is kind of how I'm in on this team early. I think we could see some pretty high point totals. You know, even the first week they play in houston that could be an interesting one i wish the number was a little bit lower it's kind of sitting on a key number i'd love to see some uh maybe some positive maybe clark can get down i know he's flirting with houston maybe clark can get down we can uh manipulate that uh that baltimore team total to be an overplay if clark ends up deciding to pull the trigger on houston i'm waiting for him to kind of do that for me. So,

but yeah, no, no interest in any of the other future numbers. What's the total in the game right now is Houston, Baltimore 44. Oh, that could be hot. You never know.

That could, that could be hot. I mean, Baltimore could put up 30 themselves. It just, it involves CJ Stroud. So I'd rather isolate Baltimore. If it looks better. And we, preseason week two, he had like a drive that he looked competent. Yeah.J. Stroud, so I'd rather isolate Baltimore. It looked better in preseason week two.

He had like a drive that he looked competent. Yeah, for sure. It just early in the season against Harbaugh and having the ability to game plan for that for a couple extra weeks, that makes me have a little bit of pause. But hey, Clark is interested, and I don't hate it. I mean, we I think said some nice things about the Texans last week. My,

my number is actually like the Ravens with, with Stroud at quarterback. Yeah. That's right. Too much, too much uncertainty for me for a week, one game on both sides. So it's going to be a wait and observe,

but my number is for what it's worth. Like the Ravens. Okay. Yeah. It was a Davis Mills play. That's right. I don't want to box. Yeah.

I do like, I do like Mills. That changes it a little bit. And they haven't announced stroud yet like i i'm on record saying that i think they should start mills and we'll see if the texans listen to me or not they keep rolling out stroud for every preseason start but uh yeah they're trying to get in that experience it's important but they should still start mills what are you going it's true we're waiting for that one as soon as that news comes through uh you got to download the fantasy life app you get that information first there uh you know clark will have access to that right away and then he'll make a quick move on davis mills led texans so all right

interesting teams continue we will move on to the cleveland browns uh i'm really excited to get your guys thoughts here browns 35 uh basically everywhere to win the super bowl the afc price is 20 on caesars a division four to one best number there on fan duel we have a nine and a half win total which is slightly juiced to the over uh and you're getting plus money to back them to make the playoffs they are plus 115 on draft kinks on the no side best number there is minus 120 on FanDuel. This one's interesting, guys. I mean, it comes down to, I think there's a lot of things here, but it's basically a Deshaun Watson conversation.

It was bad from a wins-loss standpoint. It was 3-3, clearly outplayed by Jacoby Brissett, who was starting holding down the fort while Watson served his suspension. And I just, it's like, what do we do with that six game sample? And that really shapes your feeling on the Browns. His first meaningful snap since 2020. Meaningful is not really how I would describe how he played, but when you compare it to the 2020 stuff, and again, Clark has talked about this, like know i think he's gonna maybe poke some holes on some long-term watts and stuff massive dips and basically anything that was meaningful adjusted completion percentage

you know big time throw rate turnover where he plays uh time to throw which has always kind of been long um was even higher pressure to sack rates basically anything took a massive dip depends on what you think of like the nfl like passer rating it's like half of what he had in 2020 it was it was not great um now again there was a bad weather game in there there's some other stuff if you want to be pro watson that's probably how you kind of shape that but you know conor i'll kick it you let you get started with the browns yeah this is tough i mean initially I wanted to buy the dip on Watson because I, you know, contrary to Clark,

I do think that he was a good player at one point in his career, you know, led the league in yards per attempt in 2020. Now, obviously he had Will Fuller, he had DeAndre Hopkins, but now at this point he has Amari Cooper. He has Elijah Moore.

Donovan Peoples-Jones is a solid stretch outside as well. On top of a significantly better offensive line that he's ever played with in his entire career. And I think that that allows him a little bit more flexibility in terms of doing what he does, which is kind of, maybe he's a little bit of a slow processor, I would say, but I think that he is able to make plays downfield if he's able to get time. And I think that this Cleveland line, we able to do that for him and the running game is elite, you know, absolutely with Nick Chubb and the run blocking offensive line. So. So I think that's kind of the bull outlook there.

But the negative is that, and something that I'm trying to actually probably change pretty quickly here, is that if it's not happening early in the season, I think it's time to jump ship pretty quick. Because we got six games last year. We got a full offseason this year. We have basically not everything you'd ask for around him, but pretty close in terms of above-average supporting cast and a good offensive line and a relatively good system. I mean, if he's still not looking good, like, I don't know. I think it's time to jump ship here pretty quick.

And the reports out of training camp, you know, whatever it was like a couple of days ago that he hadn't completed more than two passes in a row and only 11 and 11 were not great. You know, so like it definitely makes me a little bit more concerned about the upside of this team. Now that being said, they had a couple of good defensive players that had Dalvin Tomlinson to prove their run D, which is a major hole last year that had one Thornhill at safety plus another edge rusher. And I'm going to butcher it, but it's two O's in a row. Um, so you know, we're looking at their front here, their front four all rank in the top 17 of pro football focuses, ranks at edge and interior defensive line out of like 100 plus qualifiers. Like their front is really strong.

They have some good players in the secondary. Like the team and the roster as a whole, I think is one of the strongest in the division. But obviously if Deshaun Watson isn't who he was, or even isn't like 90% of who he was in Houston, like there's no shot that the Browns hit their ceiling because we haven't really seen Deshaun Watson be able to manage a game like, and like kind of take a step back and just not screw things up.

And if he can do that, then maybe they could still hit their ceiling or like come close. But I don't know. I have some concerns. I think part of the point that you've made Clark in the past is I think completely valid. Like where like Amari Cooper Cooper where Elijah Moore win it's really early in the snap they win they get off the line quick they get separation um and that is not does not line up with the skill set of Deshaun

Watson so and that kind of is what I think we're getting from some of those camp reports maybe not specifically that piece but but like the, you know, in the accurate, the inaccurate performances, the infrequency of completions, all those things. We need to see a maturation in terms of Deshaun Watson, the processor. And maybe that's like him leaning on athleticism and saying like, look, I can hold the ball long enough and let Will Fuller run deep down the field. And I even have the option to tuck it and run.

I'm just going to throw it, you know, deep one to Fuller and he's going to win. Well, now that's Donovan Peoples-Jones. That's not super sticky. And again, I want to give him credit. He was more than that type of guy. But when you look at – it's basically time to throw rate is always like right around three seconds. It's significantly longer than most league average in terms of like

how often the quarterbacks throw the ball. So, yeah, the offensive line is great is great yeah the running game is great um nick chubb is a stud but like if they're going to reach their ceiling and again if he is that guy that we saw in houston that's why we're talking about a ceiling that's why we're talking about them being in the mix to win this division because the defense is going to be exciting but i want to give it to clark and let him get started on deshaun watson here in the ins. Look, if you are a believer in Deshaun Watson, then you should be overweight Browns futures right now at current prices, because they have arguably the best trenches set up in the NFL. When you look at offensive and defensive line, which is crucially important.

They have a schedule that is outside the division pretty easy. Like, you know, the divisions they match up against are fairly doable. Their unique three are the Bears, the Broncos, and the Jets. Whereas, you know, the Bengals and the Ravens have much tougher sets of three in those divisions. Things are set up for them to do well if they can put it all together. But me, I do not believe in Deshaun Watson. So I'm not, I'm staying away. The thing about Watson is he has like, you know, the numbers are the numbers, right? But even before anything happened off the field,

like I remember watching him and just being like, he's not inspiring his teammates. He doesn't seem engaged. Like when bad things happen, he doesn't really seem to care. He just kind of has bad body language. And it's like, of things are like you know analytics people hate like relying on those things because they're not quantifiable but like that's an element of football right and and the counter example i want to use and the one i wrote about is jalen hurts like last year jalen hurts won his

team over with the way that he carried himself on and off the field like he's just a guy that the team wanted to fight for. And so Deshaun Watson, even before anything off field happened, lacked those qualities. And then he had the whole off field stuff and like, hasn't really done very well, you know, publicly and handling that. Like he keeps coming out and just kind of being like, well, the media is just like painting me as bad guy or whatever. And, and I just don't see a team being inspired by their leadership. And when you combine that with the fact that I have some cultural questions about the Browns in general, like, you know,

the way Baker Mayfield kind of failed after a promising start, like points to, I think, some problems within the structure of leadership there, especially Stefanski. And so like adding in Deshaun Watson is not the Saab that's going to fix the problems in the locker room, right? So all of that is like non-analytical and I'm not betting it. These aren't things I'm like, oh, because of this, I'm going to fade the Browns. These are things that are keeping me off being optimistic because

if things don't work out, I won't be surprised. And then on the field, like you said, Watson is not the kind of player who hits timing routes with accuracy and precision. And Elijah Moore, like you said, is the kind of guy who gets open quickly, needs a quick decision maker at quarterback. It's not a coincidence that when he was with the Jets, his best games came when Joe Flacco and Mike White were at quarterback and his worst games came when Zach Wilson was at quarterback because Wilson is the same way as Watson. He wants to run around and make plays, you know, out of structure, make things happen

downfield. And he can, he can make that 60 yard pass downfield when the play breaks down, but that's not a consistent way to win in today's NFL. And that's not a way to use an effective offensive line, which is what the Browns have. So I just think it's sort of like a mess on offense until I see evidence that Watson has changed as a quarterback, or until I see evidence that they're going to use RPOs and read options and things to kind of make it easier for him to hit those layups. If one of those two things happens, I think this Browns team can be pretty good, but I'm,

I'm not betting on it. We did see a late spike in design rush rate from Watson late in the season last year. So that would be something I would want to watch early. There might be a prop opportunity for us to get in on Watson's rushing yards and early season games. he also scrambled more too but that actually speaks to the negatives in terms of what we're expecting him you know how he operates uh within the framework of the system so defensively we've touched on it and I'm with you guys like it's almost good enough to sustain a average Watson right if we get 85 90 percent of what we saw in Houston, the defense is just

really, really solid. Miles Garrett is like the dude, but he's kind of been flying solo for the most part, especially up front since he's been there. But now like it's just significantly better. Like, you know, Connor mentioned Zedaria Smithith uh okarola the kid from tech the texans really good and it's jim schwartz coming in um replacing joe wood and schwartz is the opposite of luan marilla who we talked about earlier like schwartz has his system he runs that wide nine front um he likes to play a lot of man on the outside um he likes to win pressure wise with his front four they have the horses to do that up front, and they have great depth in the secondary and guys who can lock down and win. So they're really

good where it matters in terms of being able to run single high safety press man stuff, because the trio of Denzel Ward, Martin Emerson, and Greg Newsom is maybe the best three corners in the league. So if they're able to stay healthy that's a really really really good unit they also had really poor turnover luck last year and they forced us 20 total turnovers they recovered um six of the 19 fumbles against them that's unsustainable as well so they should have some positive regression there uh and again like all these this ability to like allow miles garrett to win and do some things differently where he's not going to be, you know, he's still going to get double teamed at a massively high rate, but like they do have other guys on the other side that can win as well. Like Dalvin

Tomlinson is Connor mentioned, like they needed something, they needed some mass interior wise to like eat up something, um, to stop the run. Cause you could just run all over them, no matter down or distance early, late. late um so dalvin tomlinson helps a lot he's not like an elite winner in terms of like you know run stop win rate but he helps and they had massive turnover uh at linebacker last year they used like seven eight guys at times like it was an impossible like books never posted any linebackers into the rounds to bet because they never knew who was going to play because there was massive injuries and they were just rotating guys. Grant Delpit's going to play a lot of box safety role

and he adds to almost the depth of the linebacker position. So Juan Thornton Hill comes over from Kansas City. He'll play more of a free safety role. It's a really good defense if they can stay healthy. So this is why they're an interesting team at plus money to make the playoffs. Like Clark said, if you are bullish on Watson, maybe taking a step forward. So Connor, how are we betting on the Browns?

Yeah, that's probably, I think that this is a team where you could play the high-end outcomes, maybe even in the AFC, because if they do hit that, if Watson is who he is, I mean, they very much can compete. Now, that being said, there's a lot of ifs that go along with that. Their defensive metrics last year were pretty bad, to be honest. I mean, 29th in pressure rate, 30th in rushing EPA per play. We're not only on paper, their team is really good, but that doesn't always happen. It's like one of those things where we're like, oh, this guy's good, this guy's good, this guy's good. It doesn't always mean that as a unit, they're going to be good. And they have a

pretty wide step that they have to take forward now that being said on paper it's pretty easy to project them to be like a you know top 10 unit in my opinion so i think this can change very quickly on defense too we've noticed you know obviously it's one of the least sticky uh stats like year to year so i'm not too worried about that but yeah personally i would just kind of shoot for the high-end outcomes for the browns here and i think that their defense and running game can keep them in play for, like, all of these teams, I think, are pretty high-floor teams. They're going to, like, seven, eight wins here,

even if things are not going all that well for a team like the Browns. Clark, I know you're not pro-Browns. Are you looking to actively fade them, or is this kind of a wait-and-see based off of what we see from Watson early? Yeah, hands-off. Let's see how it goes.

Too good on paper to fade. Yeah, makes sense. All right, last team in the division, Pittsburgh Steelers. Again, if this is your last team in the division, your division is pretty damn good. 60-1 to win the Super Bowl on Caesars. Caesars has best prices across the board for the most part. 35 to win the AFC.

They are plus 475 to win the division. There's 8.5 juiced over for their win total is a flat nine on Caesars at minus 115. You can get plus money on them as well at plus 140 on rivers to make the playoffs. No on the playoff side is minus one 54 Pittsburgh. Again, if you're looking to fade the 2023 Steelers,

you are stepping up against one of maybe the strongest trends in pro sports, Mike Tomlin, 16 consecutive seasons of eight or more victories. That, to me, has been increasingly impressive over the last couple of years, basically with the ghost of Ben Roethlisberger. And then last year was a mix of Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett. So to continue to do it was super impressive. They had a ton of Mitch Trubisky and Kenny Pickett. So to continue to do it was super impressive. They had a ton of injury luck. They had the fewest adjusted games lost due to injury in the league last season,

really outside of TJ Watt defensively. They didn't really miss anyone. Their offensive line had, like, historic continuity. And then they went out and added both, you know, Isaac Simul, one of the best free agent guards out there, stealing him from Philadelphia. And then they added Broderick Jones from Georgia in the draft. So they said, hey, we got a little bit lucky last year. Even though everyone played, they weren't great.

And now they've added some talent there as well. This, again, comes down to the quarterback, Clark. What do we expect from Kenny Pickett in year two? There was some good. There was some bad. If you want just, hey, wins and losses, that group really likes Kenny Pickett because it looked good down the stretch. I have some questions.

I think you might as well, but you know, talk to me about the Steelers. Yeah, I think that's the question. And I do have questions and it's not just Kenny Pickett. It's Matt Canada too. I think they were, they were good on offense down the stretch last year between the twenties in part because they had a fabulous run game. And that was in part because their offensive line was, like you said, historically healthy. I think the same five guys played every game.

Anytime you have that kind of injury luck on the offensive line, you're going to have a good year. And then you have to follow that up with a question of like, okay, what are the odds a lineman gets hurt? Now what are the odds that one of five linemen get hurt, right? Like the odds that they're going to be as good up front as they were last year aren't very high. The other question I have is they struggled in the red zone. And that is usually

a problem of two things. One is play calling, right? Like the most effective red zone teams are ones that can use creativity to open up options in the, in the, when, when the field is tight and they have, you know, they have to win up front or they have to win on, on deception. Like the chiefs do that really well, the Eagles do that really well, they did not do well. And the other reason that teams struggle in the red zone is because the quarterback isn't very good at anticipating timing and anticipating when guys are going to be open.

The windows when you're down in the red area are so small and they open for such a small amount of time that you have to be ready to pull the trigger before it even opens and kenny pickett was really really good when george pickens was beating his man or even if he didn't beat his man he could put the ball in a place where george pickens could go get it in coverage and make the catch and it was great highlights it's awesome fun whatever but what kenny pickett was not good at was like seeing all the routes develop and hitting them in time.

And so he struggled against the zone relative to against man, because against man, it's just you and your guy trying to beat the defender. And they were good at that. Against zone, it's much more about scheme and timing. And I think both he and Matt Canada struggled last year with that. Now, I don't want to write him off because he was a rookie. And it's possible that they just had a vanilla offense because they didn't want to put too much on his plate

and overwhelm him knowing that they weren't really a Super Bowl team. So there's a window here. They kept Matt Canada, which I thought was a bit weird. But if the plan is let's take it a step further in complexity, let's make Pickett take a step forward in year two, then I can understand that. They wanted some continuity to build off. It's possible that's the way they go. But I'm skeptical.

I think, I think pick it needs to prove to me that he's the kind of guy that can, you know, stay in the pocket. He bailed a lot of pockets too early. I want him to stay in the pocket and make those reads and make those timing throws. Once he can do that, I think he has a potential to be a really complete quarterback and a quarterback that can take this offense to the next level without this offense going to the next level. The Steelers are going to be a very limited team you can't win in today's

NFL on defense and relying on a run game behind a good offensive line like that's just not a way to win sustainably so they need to take that step and I need to see it first yeah I mean you lay that out perfectly in my opinion I mean that's kind of the opposite of what he was built in terms of coming in as a quarterback and you know people didn't love him he had limitations but he won the first round it was like hey this guy's a little bit older than your average first round quarterback he's a really good processor or quick decision maker uh you know limited athleticism we saw like the complete opposite we saw a guy who like first read yeah it was okay anything that needed to develop it was not good and that led to him tucking and

running way more than anyone thought in terms of like his scramble rate and like everyone was we're banking on like these can you pick it unders and rushing it's like what what is happening he just kept like tucking and running every week because he couldn't get off of the first read and that actually translated to the opposite of what we saw with lamar who continues to improve in terms of intermittent uh you know 10 to 19 yards in terms of you know distance wise he was second lowest in dvoa kenny pickett was um last season so anything they needed to him to kind of get to the second read second level anything outside of like just hitting you know dante johnson on a slant or um you just kind of a

dgaf ball to the pickens became a problem that's why you know a lot of good like quick early stuff to fryer mooth um that's not necessarily leading to anything else so um i have some questions here on the defensive side is again too but uh carl let you get started on on the steelers yeah i think i'm a little bit more bullish than you guys one initially like i think that the offensive line i kind of the opposite take so i come in in the last season they're rejected to be one of the worst offensive lines in the league uh and then i wound up you know out of continuity and just overall they outperformed expectations but then you add in isaac samalo's 10th out of 77 guards last year according to profile focus you draft the left tackle and broderick jones you know like you're adding more beef to an offensive line that already

had pretty good continuity and that like you're giving it a little bit more depth so like i think that you're not maybe last year is the floor but i think that their range of outcomes are a lot higher this year than we were looking at like literally the worst offensive line in the league last year so i think that gives them more optionality offensively um and defensively here we look at tj watt who missed half last season uh you know obviously the splits are a little bit noisy considering they played a lot of pretty bad teams in this in the those splits with tj watt but they allowed more than 20 points once in the 10 games that he played last year um and their their efficiency metrics were not again not necessarily great but then they went out and they added joey porter jr they signed two new linebackers

um they still have you know tj watt minka uh patrick peterson like i i think their defense is actually going to be good. And so that, I think, changes things. TJ Watt, I think, really changes things for them. Now the final question is, can he pick it? I don't know if he's good. I'm not going to tell you that I think that he's awesome. But all we've seen from him so far in the preseason has been electric.

I mean, 9 of 13 for 100-something yards, ripping the ball, making good decisions, just like looks different. And so again, it's not a team that not a player that I'm like, oh, this is for sure it, but you know, early return so far are significantly better when we compare it to guys like, you know, Bryce Young and CJ Stroud who look like absolute piss through two games and the preseason. So, you know, like, I don't think that's worth knocking them on. And if they can get anything remotely interesting out of Pickett, I think that they can be a competitive team. Now, if they can't,

then it kind of lowers their ceiling significantly, I think. But if they can, like, I think they're interesting. Now, Nuno, I'm curious to hear your holds on the defense, because I didn't go as thorough into each and every position.

But I think they could be good. Their metrics last year were not good. But I think that they could be all right this year um i think they could be good their metrics last year were not good but i think that they could be all right this year i think they could be all right and then you mentioned like tj watt changes you know the calculus of all of it and they have some continuity in terms of their stars still have cam hayward um you still have micka fitzpatrick and you have tj watt now that helps a lot but you're going to be rolling out like six new starters i think the upgrades there's upgrades at the linebacker position comparison to like so last year miles jack um devin bush those are really like elite athletes in terms of linebacker position they're good at coverage you can allow them maybe in times to travel in the slot do some different stuff um when you look

some of like second level yard stuff um and you know open field rush rate stuff a lot like those guys are out of position a lot um and were great so they added some like boring uh not great athletes but like solid like cole holcomb from washington is going to be a nice linebacker for them elon roberts is going to be a good linebacker for them my questions are in the secondary a little bit so like patrick peterson was we'd already like buried patrick peterson he came back had a really nice year in minnesota who played almost every snap in just zone and patrick peterson played really well that's not really what pittsburgh likes to do as much and their other top corner levi wallace is almost exclusively good in man coverage in press man because he's

kind of big um not really quick, not fast. So he needs to get his hands on you to win. And so they need him to be set up that way. And they need Peterson in zone. Otherwise you're going to have a problem because they don't really gel very well. They play very different styles. We've seen Patrick Peterson be forced at this stage in his career to play a lot of man, and it did not go very well. So what are you gonna do like you're gonna then tell me that you're gonna get into like sub packages where you're taking your best guys off the field that to me is is a problem so um that's my biggest concern um they have some other issues and turnover at safety i think they could be okay i don't think this is a bad defense i think they are minimally league average with some upside because of a lot

um but again like the defensive front has some turnover and i just worry again about the you know the corners and how that's going to work because someone's going to be a mismatch for one of the teams like in terms of where you see wallace has been like repeatedly despite having like some good grades in terms of like explosive play rate average depth of target um if he can't win the line of scrimmage guys get by him and he loses. He gives up last in the league again on 10-plus yard receptions allowed. So I'm worried about that marriage between Patrick Peterson and Levi Wallace because you need both of those guys on the field at the same time.

Yeah, that's fair. I think I'm a little more bullish on the front with TJ Watt, Larry Ogunjobi, Cam Hayward, Highsmith. I think there's a couple of good on the, on the front with, you know, TJ Watt, Larry Ogunjobi, Cam Hayward, you know, Highsmith. I think there's like a couple of good guys that the linebackers would upgrade, you know? Yeah. Benton, they drafted Benton in the draft. I think that kid's going to be good too. So yeah.

Right. But yeah, the scheme wise, it definitely is really interesting. Now, that being said, I think that having a good pass rush can obviously mask coverage issues if you're able to scheme that. And, you know, I hate to be the the the trends guy of mike tomlin always has winning seasons but some coaches are just good coaches they find a way to get the most out of their guys like it just is what it is like i don't i don't know i mean no it was they were so lucky to win it i mean the down the street like 20 years though we have like 20 years yeah but who cares they don't

have ben rothsberger anymore this is a completely different team. Last year, they beat the Ravens by three with, I don't know if it was Huntley or Brown playing quarterback. They beat the Raiders by three in Carr's last game. They beat the Panthers. Who knows who's playing quarterback for them? They beat the Falcons by three with Mariota. They beat the Colts when they were playing I think Sam Ellinger. Like down the stretch,

they played some really easy teams. And the TJ Watt splits are like heavily skewed. They got absolutely destroyed by the Eagles and the Bills and the Bengals. They all put up like 35, 40 points on them. So I just don't really see this as a good defense. I don't think T.J. Watt is one player who can turn a defense that's allowing 40 points into a good defense. I think it was just coincidence they played a bunch of bad teams

when T.J. Watt was back, and I think people read too much into that. They get some really nice games though, against Texans, Cardinals, Rams, Patriots, Titans, Raiders. I mean, I mean, some of those teams are okay. I mean, I think you, you guys are a little higher on the Patriots and maybe Titans than I am, but I don't know. I think that those are at least a couple of those are pretty easy games comparatively. So I can understand, I can understand that, but I don't know. I think that those are at least a couple of those are pretty easy games comparatively. So I can understand, I can understand that, but I don't know,

maybe I'm, I'm buying too much sipping the Tomlin Kool-Aid after my entire lifetime of him just winning, you know? Yeah. I mean, because so combination of, you know,

Tomlin being the coach of a defense that we have concerns about. Again, even the concerns, I think they're still going to be fine. But, you know, Kenny Pickett is also in the second year is okay to assume that uh there's a possibility that he could take a step forward i just think that there are questions and like for the first time it's been like wide receiver university basically like they just they produce and just churn out these guys that they pick late in drafts and they have a little less depth in terms of what

is going on they're like they need alan robinson in the slot to be really good or like to be serviceable. And I don't know that should concern all of us after last year's abysmal season. So I don't know. I've I've I'm staying away in terms of anything in the future market to wait and see, because I want to see what happens with with Kenny Pickett.

But again, I just don't want to take, I don't want to run head on into the Mike Tomlin stuff and maybe some potential growth from Pickett. But yeah, I mean, it's a good, it's a decent football team. So anyone want to have any bets? Clark, do you have any bets currently on the, on the Steelers? I will say at a boy JM made a comment earlier about, you know, is this the most competitive division in the league top to bottom? I, yes,

absolutely. In my opinion, I think the Steelers are the best fourth best team in, in their division in the NFL. Right. So yes, the Steelers are a good team. And I think if they were in a different division, I might be more optimistic. Caesar's released a bad line on them that I took on, on my playoffs, but nothing at current prices for me on the Steelers. I think they've gotten a lot of steam and I am not joining that steam. I think that's what I'll say. This is an egregious comment from you, by the way, that I posted from the chat earlier

that I want to get Connor's takes on. Although this is the NFC. I read this quickly. That's the AFC East. Oh, okay. I thought it was the AFC East at first. I'm like, okay, I'm okay with the NFC East having two good teams.

I agree with that. I thought this was an anti-Dolphins take that the Ac's only has good teams so i read that quickly during the show and i'm like i know i gotta break it breaks my heart that i didn't get to do that show with you guys by the way that was gonna you know i was i was very excited to tee up some some dolphins and bill belichick you know burying himself this year in the grave uh i'm very excited to watch that happen i i am getting more skeptical about the dolphins but we'll see we'll see what happens honestly i kind of am too but it's all right yeah i'm not as bullish as i was for sure

little bull said we on that plus 475 division i think that's steelers he's talking about or she um i think i think if you are bullish steelers i think the way to play it is some of those higher odds bets because it's sort of like our blind spots as NFL analysts and fans is we don't often see how big a quarterback's leap can be between year one and year two. And we're so anchored to what we've seen on the field. And so, like, while I'm not necessarily expecting it, like, the range of outcomes for Pickett is very wide. And he looked very sharp in the preseason. So if that is an indication of something that's going to come on the field later, then I think the Steelers are going to be

a very competitive team. It's just too close to me to the Browns price. I was looking at plus 135 to make the playoffs, but I mean, the AFC is so hard to make the playoffs. So like, it's not really a good price. Like, I don't know. I mean, I think that they could very, honestly, very reasonably finish for Brown,

finish above the Browns, flirt with the Ravens. And I wouldn't, I don't think anyone I mean, I think that they could very, honestly, very reasonably finish a Brown, finish above the Browns, flirt with the Ravens. And I wouldn't, I don't think anyone would bat an eye, but like second best in the division, nine wins. I mean, you're probably getting in, but maybe not. I mean, I don't know. It's like, it's going to be, you're going to be close. You're going to be in on tiebreakers or, you know, like something like that.

And I don't know if that's really what I love to bet on. The other thing about Pickett is like, he, he won two games last year on last second plays that where he just, they, they were low percentage plays, but he made them happen. You know, it kind of like the Patrick, my home's type plays where you're just like,

okay, that like that, that's not going to work again. But if he has that, you know, like step it up in the highest moments kind of mentality, like he could win a couple of those games that could go either way. And that goes a long way in a tough AFC.

To be clear too. I was not necessarily very impressed with him last year. I just thought he was below average. Like, and it was, was fine. Like, yeah,

he wasn't great, but he delivered in two moments that people remember. Connor's big quarterback wins guy. So I, I agree with you guys. I think this is the best division in football for sure just because I feel really strongly. I like the Bengals quite a bit. I think the Ravens offense is going to be great.

Browns defense is good enough to solidify whatever happens there with Watson and the Steelers are, I think, a team that has, like Clark said, more range of outcomes than maybe we should expect. So, yeah, good football teams. Fun talking about good football teams. One more left, AFC West, which also has at least two good football teams. I don't know. It would be interesting to see if anyone wants to make a case

for a third good football team there, but we'll unpack that next week. So head over to 4. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see if anyone wants to get, make a case for a third good football team there, but we'll unpack that next week. So I don't know. Oh, go ahead. Jerry duty. Might've got carted off during this podcast. Yeah.

Mid show. He got, he pulled up with a hammy. I think he might've popped some there. Yeah. Not good. Go get those Marvin men and shares, but you know,

when talking about another quarterback who may be not good at processing quickly and getting the ball out. Come back for next week's show and we'll talk more about some of that. Head over to 444.com. You can read Clark's preview of this AFC North that we just talked about. By the time you're listening to this, you'll be able to read mine as well. Those are free content there for you at 444. Get in the show notes. Take advantage, guys. you'll be able to read mine as well. Those are free content there for you at 444. Get in the show notes.

Take advantage, guys. $10 with a deposit at BetMGM for a new account to get a betting stump for the full year. $10. It's an insane deal. Again, even if you're just playing fantasy and you want it for your draft this weekend, take advantage of the $10. Use our rankings, projections, all those things

to get yourself helped out. So we'll be back next week. AFC West for Connor and Clark. I'm Ryan. We'll see you next time. Thanks everybody.