The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - 2022 QB Tiers revisited, with Mike Sando

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

We see the light of the end of the tunnel that is the NFL season, which makes this a great time for a little perspective. On this episode of The Athletic Football Show, Robert Mays and Mike Sando hunt for that perspective at the quarterback position. The guys dig back into Sando's QB tiers from July and consider what has changed, how it changed, and where a handful of certain quarterbacks are headed in the future.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube4:10 Jalen Hurts16:20 Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen24:52 Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers36:22 Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert40:02 Matthew Stafford and Matt Ryan44:22 Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson53:21 Trevor Lawrence59:54 Jared Goff67:32 Tua Tagovailoa70:00 Justin Fields Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's the athletic zone, Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing, man? I am doing pretty well. I know I don't sound great, but I've got some energy.

I'm ready to go with a little bit of a cold here, but holding up. It's, what is it? It's December. This is the way it is. We got to play hurt. We got four or five days until Christmas. We're week 16. I appreciate you powering through.

It's got to be a strange week. Just to give you guys a heads up schedule-wise, we are not going to do a Sunday night recap on Christmas. We're going to do a two-part recap that we're going to release a week from today on Monday. We're going to do one about the Christmas Eve games, one about the Christmas games. So that means we will not be doing a Monday hangover next Monday, but we will have a two-parter coming to you that recaps week 16. So just be on the lookout for that. Wanting to give you guys a heads up. We're still going to have our normal schedule this week.

We're going to do a Thursday night recap on YouTube of Jets Jaguars. Prospects to Crote Pros will be back this week. Dane is feeling a little bit better, so that will be back in your feed. And obviously, Mike and Randy will have the football GM a little bit later this week. Just wanted to give you guys a heads up on the schedule. A lot of things to get into today. We're not going to talk about a lot of games from yesterday. We talked about a lot of games from yesterday in the nearly two-hour recap podcast that I did with me last night.

So if you want to hear about all of the craziness, please go back and listen to that. We're going to talk about one game in particular as we do the rest of this show today, which is going to be focused on revisiting Mike Sandoz's quarterback tiers. Talk about how things might have changed so far this season, some reframing of certain players. So we're going to talk all about that. But before we do any of that, breaking news hit the wire just before we started recording. Mike, it sounds like Jalen Hurts may miss the Eagles game on Saturday against the Cowboys. This has some downstream implications as far as the MVP race goes, the Eagles playoff chances. Watching the game, I was actually surprised that it wasn't a bigger deal during the game.

Gibson landed on him, and it was one of those, you know, when Rogers has broken his collarbone in the past, and it's just all of that weight coming down right on that area. That's what it looked like in real time. And obviously he finished the game. No one really knew anything was seriously wrong in the moment, but it comes out today that he has a brain shoulder, unlikely to play. Adam Schaefter reported that. And now it's a question of how much time he's going to miss, how much time should he miss,

and what does that mean for the playoff race and even for the MVP conversation? So, Robert in my column today, before I knew that he might miss time, I was setting up the scenario whereby they could clinch number one seed with two weeks to play, which is very unusual. It's more likely to happen now that the seasons are longer, but it would have set up this interesting weird week 17 game because they play new orleans and they own the saints number one pick next year so beating the saints would actually help howie roseman right uh and the draft team there Dave called well and all those guys that are there so uh I thought that was interesting

now now now what if you rest hurts now but then you have oh we just I guess we have to play them against new Orleans because we need this win and then we get we improve our draft status that's my conspiracy theory uh that I'm wink winking on with him hopefully he's okay you know the shoulder, that's not good. It's not good. If it's going to bother him or limit him or he's got to deal with it, he could be prone to aggravating it, that sort of a thing. He's just obviously such a huge part of everything that they do.

They're going to be completely different without him. So hopefully he's fine, maybe just a week off, comes back and finishes this thing out. I would err on the side of caution if I were that. I would keep him out for an extended period if there was any chance he wouldn't be close to 100%. I thought Sheel made a really good point on Twitter right before we started recording. The decision that they have to make, there's a chance they could shut them down for five weeks

and still win the division and still get the number one seed by New Year's Day. I mean, they could do it in week 17 still, but then you have a guy who hasn't played in five weeks coming back in the divisional round. And I think that's one other layer to this to consider. But hopefully they have enough time, enough of lead, enough of a cushion that on the football side of this, it doesn't really matter. It'll be completely dictated.

though by the medical timeline. It's not a matter of, oh, let's just take a month because we can do it. It'll be, hey, can he be ready to play? I think once you're cleared to play, you play. That's all there is to it. Unless you're resting starters in a week 18. But that's the problem is that, let's say he misses two games and they've won the division already with Gardner Minshew in week 17 and they have the number one seed.

So they shut him down in week 18. And now you have five weeks off. So that's maybe not the best case. area. But we'll see what happens with that. The other layer of this, I think, is the MVP conversation. He was, I think, the betting favorite or close to it when the day started today. And now, obviously, has fallen off. If he misses any sort of time, it was already a neck and neck race between him and Patrick Mahomes. It kind of feels like Mahomes is going to have this thing locked up. Yeah. And I wouldn't argue against Mahomes. I mean, he'd probably be my choice for the MVP. But what we've really lost here is, media fodder for the next three weeks is pretty much what's gone by the wayside if Hertz misses this time. Any arguments and fun arguments we could have about the MVP suddenly disappear? Yeah, yep. But I think they've got other hardware in mind for Philly and we'll take that happily. Yeah, it would have been cool. I mean, for a guy that we didn't know what his future

even looked like, this is a team of multiple first round picks next year. A lot of the conversation heading in the season was, well, we're going to find out if he's the guy. And if he's not the guy, they're going to have the ammunition to go find a guy. And then he's pretty damn close to winning the MVP and then kind of disappears. So as it was, and we are obviously talking about quarterback tiers revisited. I went back and just revisited the piece from the summer, okay? And so he was 20th in the quarterback tiers coming into this year. And that was after making the biggest jump from the year before. He moved up 10 spots. So this is. is a quarterback who all he does is make huge jumps and improve all the time. Isn't that amazing?

It is. He was already, he already moved up the most this year and was undervalued at 20. So what's he going to be, if you look at his vote distribution, okay, basically in 2021, which is his first year, he got 43 votes in tier four, and that's mostly, hey, we haven't seen enough. We don't know. It doesn't mean people don't like him. Well, then it shifted to 34 votes, this is out of 50, in tier three. next year you can see it's going to be 30 votes in tier two, right? Yeah. I mean, this is someone who's going to move up full tiers every year he's in this. That's really impressive.

Can you remember someone who's moved like that? Well, I think Mahomes went, him. Mahomes started in tier four because he only had the one start. And then after one year, he might have gone, I think he went to tier one right away. Because he was like MVP right away. He was the MVP in his first year. But I think this is a different type of case, Robert, because, you know, he wasn't a first-round pick.

The expectations were a little bit different. And I think that people did agree there were some concerns or there was some unknown about how good he was going to be, right? There was a reason why they were able to pick him where they did. And so to do that, to come in and make, I think, such solid deliberates. steps. I mean, just boom, moving a standard deviation every year. What was Josh Allen after? Yeah, I've got, I've got the all-time thing here. This is a good project for me to do. So Josh Allen was, so in 2019, he was 36 votes in Tier 4, 18 in Tier 3.

And then in 2020, it shifted into 40 votes in Tier 3. And then in 2021, it went 30 into Tier 2 and 20 into Tier 1. So that's pretty, that's somewhat similar. That's somewhat similar. It seems like Jamlin Hertz has just played a lot cleaner a lot earlier than Josh Allen did, wouldn't you say? I'd have to compare their stats. I was thinking of Russell Wilson. Yeah, even the Russell Wilson thing is

Russell Wilson's early career expectations and what was lumped on him within the offense was just so limited because they were so run heavy. I guess he did run the ball a lot. So that is a good comparison. But Russell Wilson kind of went straight to tier two. Yeah, because they had such success early on. It was his second year as a starter.

They went to the Super Bowl and won it. Yeah. So he didn't really have that first year of looking like a quality player, but not looking like an elite player that Jalen Hertz had last year. Whereas a guy who you could win with, but you had to build around in a specific way. Jaylen Hurts progress just seems so based on fun, it seems so sound, doesn't it? It just seems so, uh, uh, deliberate, but, but strong and unwavering. and just you just connect the dots on them.

That's why it kind of reminds me of Josh Allen. Because Josh Allen in 2019, they were very different players. Josh Allen in 2019 and J-1 Hertz from last year, what they were asked to do within their offenses is very different. But there was clear improvement from Josh Allen from his rookie year to his second year. I went to Buffalo and I wrote a story about it.

If you look at his intermediate accuracy specifically, that was the biggest area where he got much, much better in year two. the deep ball accuracy was still pretty concerning. And I think that hurts, even if the areas are different, same sort of conversation, where you have clear incremental improvement in some areas of his game into year two, but still big questions about what his ceiling would look like heading into year three. And I think in 2020, Josh Allen was an MVP candidate. And I think this year, Jalen Hertz is an MVP candidate.

So it's really in that third year that they take that big, big step. So someone else who is a different player, but was on a good team and made this type of a move was Jared Goff. Jared Goff went from a tier four, but it was a negative tier four. It was like, we don't like him. We think he's bad, remember with the Rams. He's one of the worst offenses for the last decade. Yeah, he went solidly from four to three to two.

And then, you know, whatever the offense, they got frustrated with the limitations of Goff is what they thought, right? Well, now you have the conversation about is J.O.N. Hertz going to be. a Josh Allen type player where he is on the brink of a tier one quarterback who is the reason that his team is successful or is he going to be a Jared Gough type player and we find out that everything else around him helped to prop him up and when you start to diminish what that system looks like he starts to fall apart. I just can't. I don't know.

I lean closer to the Josh Allen side of that. That becomes the question. Well, but certainly the thing that Jalen Hertz has that Gough doesn't have is the ability to run the ball. And that's what Josh Allen has. And you don't want to ever be that quarterback who can only do that and has to do that to be effective, right? You want to be able to have that on top of the developing in the passing game. And I think that obviously Josh Allen developed in the passing game.

And I think Jalen Hertz is too developing in the past game as a passer. So I would be more optimistic on Hertz. Certainly wouldn't see him as having necessarily. He doesn't have some of those physical. limitations of golf, right? I mean, we know golf has to play a certain way, and it's, it may never be that overly exciting. I think Hertz is pretty exciting. I, 100% agree. I lean closer to that, but when you have these guys that are getting better and we have to start separating the quarterback from everything else around him, I think that that's where you dig into

this a little bit deeper and you find some interesting answers. Okay. Speaking of Josh now, let's go through the quarterback tiers. If you guys are not familiar with the quarterback tiers process, You know, Mike does this every single year. Surveys 50 people in the NFL, has them give a tier 1, 2, 3, 4 vote for all of the starting quarterbacks. We did a show about this. Probably rather than start a training camp, right, Mike? Late July is typically when it comes out every year. So went through every single tier, every single starting quarterback where they fell within the league.

And then last week, you went back and kind of revisited those rankings. What might have changed during the season? how some of the perspective on these guys has shifted over the last few months, and that's what we're going to go through today. Yep, absolutely. Some of these guys have moved, and, you know, I didn't do a re-vote. We don't really do that. I think that's best.

It's best to wait until they're here. These guys go up and down, but it's fun to talk about, hey, what about this guy? You had them low. You had them high, right? Let's give it a look. So let's start at the top. Mahomes and Allen, tier one, no question. I think that this year they have kind of solidified themselves, really in their own group

there at the top. I've talked about this a lot over the last couple of weeks. I think Mahomes is kind of in his own zip code with what he's done this year, what he is every year. But him and Josh Allen are, to me, one, two at the top. Do you want to talk about that Texan Chief's game from yesterday a little bit? That is one game we didn't talk about it all last night that was particularly interesting. So I know you went back and rewatch that. What struck with you when you rewatch that game today?

I mean, I'm loving. I think everyone who is trying to get their team through the dog days of, December should put on that film and show how Levy Smith has the Texans playing. I just thought the Texans were a major pain in the butt the whole game. I was laughing today because Valdon scantling of the chiefs tweeted out this thing of someone clubbing Patrick Mahomes and look, they're throwing them, hitting him with a level. Look, they were complaining during the game the chiefs were. They're complaining after the game because they didn't really like the fact that the

the Texans were hitting them in the mouth every place. They were bringing the wood. These guys were like, hey, don't you know you're 111 and 1? Just roll over. And they played so tough and physical and were so into it. I think there's a level of admiration that is deserved for that. When you've got nothing, there's nothing to play for, people don't even think Lovie Smith's going to be back.

And these guys really played tough. A lot of pride shining. three yesterday from that entire group. And if you're the chiefs and you're going to Houston and the Cowboys ran into this same exact situation a week ago, it's a no win situation. There's nothing to be gained from playing the Texans right now. If you beat it by 30, you're supposed to. All you're trying to do is get out of there.

And when you're playing against a team like that, you don't want them to show the fight that the Texans showed yesterday. You want this to be an easy one where you get in, get out, get back on the plane and figure out your business. It was really cool to see. I'm sure the chief did. Did you see how hard they slammed Mahomes down on one of those plays? It was the one that he got slammed down.

The first Isaiah Pacheco, the Isaiah Pacheco fumble, he gets drilled by Mario Addison. The Juji Smith-Schuster fumble that got overturned, which is another weird call and a day full of weird calls. He gets absolutely, I mean, that was like a Goldberg spear. There's so many of those hits in that game. And again, you got to give them credit for playing as hard as they did yesterday. Bad intentions, man. Bad intentions, they were, and they took them to overtime. So, you know, from afar, I was a little, you know, you're just a little bit concerned about the chiefs here or there.

Are you concerned? I guess that's the last kind of put out here at the end of the sentence question. I'm only concerned at the absolute highest standards of expectations, which is that the chiefs should be winning multiple Lombardies with this quarterback and this coach. And I think we learned that it's hard. to do, right? And so, you know, they just, their margin for error is not very large when you look at the rest of the AFC and certainly Buffalo or Cincinnati could take them out. So that's the level of concern is that I think we felt like and Chiefs fans have felt like, hey, we wouldn't want to be anyone else. And there should be multiple championships, but I don't think it's that easy. And they're

obviously have some holes on their team too defensively. And they're different offensively. The production's unbelievable. But so, you know, the concerns that everyone else would like to have, 30 other teams would like to have, but this is a team that I think we felt like might have separation. Didn't you feel that two or three years ago? Like there'd be separation between the chiefs and everyone. Maybe two or three years ago, but not coming into this year.

Not coming into this year. And that's just sort of the reality now. It's sort of like, yeah, they might win the Super Bowl. I didn't think they were going to win the Super Bowl. I thought that the bills were better than them, top to bottom. And I thought that this was – I wouldn't admit it. I thought this was a year where they were going to take a step back.

You trade a guy like Tyree Kill, which in your – the scope of your team building process and the trajectory of your franchise, I think totally defensible. Let's get some pieces. Let's get younger on defense. You know, let's bet on the course. quarterback because we can bet on the quarterback. But I always thought that would come with a slight step back as other teams around the league were doing the opposite. The bills were doing the opposite of that.

Von Miller signing is as far away from trading Tyree Kill for pieces as you can get as far as mindset goes and what you're trying to accomplish. And that's why I thought that even if Mahomes is a superhero and he's the best player in the league, overall, they're just one step down from a team like Buffalo. And I don't think it in those stark of terms anymore just because the bills don't have Von Miller. You know, some of the bill's issues up front, I think, have come to light over the last few weeks. I think the bill's offense is kind of running to stumbling blocks over the last month or so where there's a tiny bit of concern here and there. I don't think they're the juggernaut week in and week out. I necessarily expect them to be. So I think that the chiefs can compete with this version of the bills and really everyone else in the AFC.

but I did not expect them to be a juggernaut this year. I really didn't. No, I didn't expect that either. But so, you know, when they did their contract with Patrick Mahomes, it was, you know, seen as a good one from the team standpoint, gave a flexibility to redo. They could have redone his deal and made the move for Von Miller. Now look, if he would have got hurt, whatever. I just, you know, when you're in this window, I think there's that push and pull in your mind. mind of how much are we trying to spread it out and keep this thing sustainable for the future,

but you can only win the championship in a given year. You have to go forward in that year. So I think they've done, well, they're last in the league right now and combined EPA on defense and special teams. I think that's not good. They're very young on defense. And that's part of my thought process here is that this is going to be a year where they were young on defense. And that's why a small stunt back might come. And maybe in 2023, they'll be ready to be like, yeah, we're the big boy again. We are the team to be not only in the AFC, but in the league. I think that might happen a year from now. I don't think they're there right now. Yeah, but in the meantime, they still might at all this year, right, Robert? And they absolutely might. Of course. I mean,

when you have him and you have that offense plan as well as it is, that's always on the table. All right. Let's keep going through tier one here. Brady and Rogers, both tier one quarterbacks coming into the year. Totally understand that. Rogers the MVP last year. Brady absolutely could have won the MVP last year. But now both of these guys kind of having their futures called into question, been really disappointing seasons, both from them and from the success of their teams. What did you really take away from the conversations that you had about Brady and Rogers as you revisited this with some people? I feel like a little bit, you know, for the tier one quarterbacks, people almost are making a little bit of excuses for them. Yeah.

And then for the guys that are in tier two and lower, they don't get that same benefit of the doubt. It feels like that a little bit. Now, that being said, do I think that Aaron Rogers is suddenly not Tier 1? No, I don't think that. I think there's definitely factors around these things. And I thought we've talked to this before. I thought Tom Brady's played pretty well a lot of this season too. And I went and watched all of this plays yesterday,

and it wasn't like he just looks terrible. So, you know, you have to evaluate what is going on with these guys because I think both of them would still upgrade, pick your number of teams, a high 20s in the league number of teams. But you can't look at the production and say that it's going well, and you have to call into question because of their age, because of their team situations, what's going to happen in the future? So, you know, it's interesting, though, if you look at the quarterback to you've visited,

there wasn't a lot of people saying this guy's shot. You know, I think there's an expectation that Brady could still play if you wanted to next year, and it just may be somewhere else, which I think is interesting. So I 100% agree. I think it's very interesting. The Brady thing, I hate psychoanalyzing these guys, but he seems extremely frustrated. we've seen him be visibly frustrated the entire year. I'm wondering, is that frustration with what's going on in Tampa, new coaching staff,

feels like things seem a little bit disjointed and strange there? Or is that just him kind of being over it? Because if he physically, he can still play. We've seen that. If he just needs a change of scenery, he's going to be a free agent this year. And there are logical destinations for Tom Brady next year. And the one I keep coming back to, just trying to connect all of the dots. is the Raiders.

The Raiders can move on from Derek Carr for nothing. But a lot of the teams that in the Raider situation, they have made moves to win now. The Devante Adams trade is something to win now. The Chandler-Jones signing is something to win now. The contract extensions they've handed out to Darren Waller and Hunter Renfro. They have a core that doesn't necessarily mesh with a young quarterback if they wanted to go that direction.

But it could mesh with a guy like Tom Brady if he were available. and obviously you have the Josh McDaniels connection. So if he still wants to play, that is the team that makes the most sense to me. It makes complete sense to me. It really does. I think Brady is at the point now after whatever three years in Tampa where it's time to pick the next best place. Don't you think he wants – I know we're guessing what he wants to do, but I just don't know why he would want to quit playing when he can still play.

I think he's frustrated by the situation. Obviously, he's had a lot of stuff off the field this year that's been frustrating and taxing would have anybody, you know, frazzled a little bit. And we've seen that frustration. And as one of the guys pointed out in my story, he's the most emotional guy ever anyway. He's always been frustrated when things go badly. So it's been that type of a year. I think he could use a reset in a new place, be able to pick that a little bit, be able to, you know, just, just, change your situation. And I think the Raiders are ripe for somebody like him to come in on offense with those weapons. I mean, that would be his best weaponry. That would be some of his best weaponry. I mean, it's not going to be as good as his best weaponry in New England, but it'd be pretty good. It's pretty good. But he also was doing pretty good in Tampa a couple of years ago. I mean, when Godwin and Evans were rolling and Gronk was there, I mean, they still had a lot of guys throw the ball to. But Devante Adams is a different sort of beast. So it does make sense to me. I just think the timeline.

the fit, the familiarity, all of those things. It would be an easy match. Isn't Vegas? I mean, he's got interest with his various companies and things. Isn't that a good place to go to? Yeah. And it's an emerging market. It's highly visible.

I could absolutely see that. What do you think about Rogers's future? Yeah. And playing indoors, you know, I mean, I think that's helpful. What do you think about Rogers's future? If you had to bet on it right now, where do you think he plays in 2020? I think he'll be with the Packers next year. I kind of feel like it's the Packers next year.

It almost feels like they've, that was sort of an agreement that, hey, we're in this for next year. I've gone back and forth in this. This is sort of where I'm at in my mind right now after just talking to a number of people that, hey, this was kind of a couple year commitment. And they'll try to get things better and right around him next season. It's a lot of, there's a lot of money involved. and I think it's probably still could be the best place for him. I wonder how well he transfers to somewhere else.

I think very. Depending on the coaching staff, depending on the players around him, I think he'd be very good no matter where you put him. Yeah. Maybe not no matter where you'd put him, but if it was a team that thought they were close enough

that they could justify trading a lot to go get Aaron Rogers. and they had a decent supporting cast already in place. As a hypothetical, the Jets. If you put him on the Jets right now, I think that he would still be pretty good at football. Oh, yeah. I don't think he'd be good anywhere.

One of the theories posited in your piece that I thought was, I wanted to ask you about, what do you think about this idea that brain drain on the Packers coaching staff has contributed to the season that we've seen from them so far? I think early in the year it was, the weaponry was really a huge, part of it, but I could see that being in tandem with it. That certainly they lost Nathaniel Hackett.

They lost Lute Getsy, and if you look at what they did. Justin Allen was their tight-dance coach. He's now the offensive coordinator for the Broncos. A lot of guys. Yeah. I put something into that. I think that's a factor. I don't think it's as extreme as like what's happened in New England.

You know, I think their brain dream is really, really affecting them some of the situational stuff that's going on. look at the number of people that have walked out of that building that had 10, 15, 20 years there. I think that's a much bigger deal. I think it's probably a small part of what's going on, what has happened in Green Bay this year, in what has sort of oddly become a transitional year on offense, maybe more than we thought it was going to be. I thought they would lean on the run game and it would kind of be okay.

That's what I thought coming into the year. So I'm wondering what their actual ranking is right now, like in this exact moment. Okay. We've spent all this time and done all this worrying about how good the Packers are on offense. What do you think the Packers weighted DVOA offensively is? I would say they're 20th. Ninth.

Okay. That's higher than I would have thought. They're ninth in weighted offensive DVOA. And they've, you can. see that, right? The Watson aspect of this, he's really given them an explosive element. They've run the ball really efficiently all year. The defense is what is really held them back and has been disappointing this year, especially when you consider everything they've invested on that side of the ball. Defensively, they're sitting at 24th in a weighted DVOA.

And that sounds right when you watch this team play. I think there are some tweaks on defense and maybe one more year, one more year of development for the past catchers, one more year for them to figure out that staff. I could absolutely see them being back to contender status next year with a couple of things going differently than they did this season. So I just dialed it up. So they are 19th in offensive EPA per game, but that's different. That's not weighted.

That's not DVOA. That's not looking at every single team they played and trying to adjust off of it. But that's about what their production's been if you just look at generically across the board. I don't think it's felt good. I don't think it's been anywhere close to what it's been in the past. And I think it would be interesting. I think it will be interesting next year if they bring him back and try to do it again. What if it doesn't work then?

Did you keep it together too long? And I think it's worth finding out. I think he's too good. I think it's a you'll get 30% worse to 50% worse at the position if you move on from him. So it doesn't feel like we've heard a lot of chatter about him going somewhere else. have we? No, not really. It seems like it's died down.

This has been a huge thing in the last couple of years. It doesn't feel like it's even percolating right now. If you had a bet right now, you do this exercise again next year. Are Brady and Rogers in Tier 1? Rogers is. Rogers has always been. He's been in Tier 1 every single year since you started doing this, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Rogers will be. I think Brady already had a good number of Tier 2 votes this year. I'm going to say he had 10, but I'm going to look right now. Tom Brady had in 22, eight, eight tier two votes. So I bet you that

he could be on the line, but still fall in the bottom of tier one. He may get the sort of Matt Ryan Grace, like Matt Ryan got to be at the bottom of tier two this year. It'll definitely be a shift, though. I think there's a lot of people who don't think he's quite tier one anymore.

If he lands in a place like Vegas with Adams and McDaniels again. And I would just be fascinated to see what he's still really like. Because it's the same thing that happened to New England. Same thing that happened after that 2019 season in New England. It's like, ah, you know, what's Brady anymore? You know, goes to the bucks. Even the contract was a contract for a guy that had lost a step and really wasn't there at the top of the league anymore. And then he was fantastic for two years. So it's, I've always hesitated to write off Tom Brady. Be like, yeah, you know what? Tom Brady is probably just a diminished version of himself now because I've gotten burned every single time I've done that in the past.

And when you just watch all of his throws, they don't look bad. No. Physically, he looks fine. He really does. Looks fine. It just looks a little off. Even yesterday, you know, he had, there was a throw that was almost picked off, but then you look at it and you realize that Mike Kevin slipped out of his break.

Been along the sideline. There's been a lot of that this year. Yeah, it just didn't work out. Nothing wrong with it. bottom of tier one after those two guys, Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert were both in tier one before the season. I know that I'm a parody of myself at this point by saying that still sounds right to me, but that still sounds right to me.

Even with struggles that the charges have had at times this season on offense, with most of their offensive lineback with their past catchers back over the last two weeks, I think that we've just been reminded about how good Justin Herbert is. And obviously Joe Burrow has been fantastic again this season. So if I'm drawing the lines, both of those guys still belong in the bottom of tier one. I'm wondering what the voting public or the voting private said about that when you ask them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

The basic theme on Herbert was, yeah, it hasn't looked as good as much this season. Some of that, the injuries, but they've had concerns about the scheme, just what they were doing. I think the last couple weeks. Ford knows I also have concerns about the scheme. Yeah, it's better. But I don't think anyone's changing what they think of Herbert. and then Burrow, I mean, obviously has played, has gotten the production too and the winning. And so I don't think, I wondered a little bit coming into this year if it was a little premature.

I thought they were both going there. It was a little premature where they were going to be cemented there. But I don't see that changing off of this year. And I think everybody would still love to have both of those guys. So I do think how this Charger season ends is going to be interesting. in terms of what changes there might be or where they think they are in terms of getting the most out of him,

what needs to happen for that to happen? Because there are some moving parts with the injuries they've had at wide receiver, with the whispers about the scheme, those sorts of things, and just where they're at in the whole everything. The voting distribution is what I'll be watching heading into next year,

because I wouldn't be surprised that both of them were still Tier 1. Burrow had 33 Tier 1 votes and 7. tier two votes heading into this season. I think that creeps up even higher in tier one. I think he probably gets ahead of Herbert because Herbert was just ahead of him this year. Yes. You think Burrow will go past Herbert? Yeah, I think he'll at Burrow will be like 38 tier one votes, 12 tier two votes, or 40 and 10.

And Herbert will go down to 28 and 22 or whatever. It'll go, yeah, it'll go Mahomes and then Rogers, probably be right there. I don't think people are going to take him down. And then I would probably go, it might go, Alan Burrow, Herbert, and then we get into Brady. Yeah, that, that sounds right. I think, I think all the guys in Tier 1 are still probably Tier 1, but the ordering might be a little bit different. And because Tier 2 is an absolute, well, we'll talk about that. It was my favorite part of this entire piece is reading it. And the first, the quote right underneath the list of Tier 2, as assistant GM says to you, that group is all jacked up, which is, it's so perfect because it's such a simple sentence, but there's so much going on in that sentence.

For people who can't see it, here are the two or two quarterbacks before the season. Matthew Stafford, Russell Wilson, Deshawn Watson, Lamar Jackson, Dag Prescott, Derek Carr, Kyler Murray, Matt Ryan. This is a rich text. There's a lot happening here. All right. I don't even know where we should start. Let's start with two guys that you could probably lump together, aging guys, veterans.

One was at the top of Tier 2 after winning the Super Bowl last year. One was at the bottom of Tier 2. And that's Matthew Stafford and Matt Ryan. These are two guys who were in Tier 2 last year for different reasons that might just not even play next year and have had disaster seasons to both of them. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Matt Ryan, we can see just we can question whether he can even play. play, right? I mean, I think he looks done. Matt Stafford, I think it's more of how much does he

want to play? He's won a Super Bowl. Physical deterioration has come for both of them. I think with Matthew Stafford, it's actual injury with Matthew, with Matt Ryan. It's just eroding over time. Yep, eroding over time, needs everything to be perfect. Who's going to want to, that's not what you're going to want to build around right now. So I think it's the end of the road for Matt Ryan, which is interesting because they owe him $18 million next year either way. If he's on the team, it's like $35 million. So I don't see how he could possibly be part of the mix. But he seems to be done.

And then Stafford is more of what are the Rams going to look like? What are they going to do? Baker Mayfield, man. Yeah. Yeah, Baker Mayfield. He's not in Tier 2. But Tier 2 is just a – it is just a mess. It really is.

for a bunch of different reasons. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of different reasons in there. The Ryan, I want to get into some of those other guys, is Russ and Kyler specifically. But I wanted to talk about this because I think both of us are of the opinion that Rogers and Brady are probably going to play next year.

At least Rogers. I would be surprised if Aaron Rogers was done playing football. Oh, yeah. But there is a potential timeline where Rogers and Brady both retire. I think there's an even more realistic timeline where Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford retire. So even if it's a far-off possibility, let's consider the hypothetical that all four of

those guys decide to retire after this season. How crazy is that just for the landscape of the position? Because Rogers and Brady, you have the two last guys in the golden era of quarterbacks with Breeze retiring obviously and then, you know, Manning and that entire group. Rathustberg is now gone. So when those guys leave and then even when Manning, excuse me, when. Matt Ryan and Matthew Stafford age out. Now the oldest quarterbacks in the league become that 2012 quarterback class.

Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, Ryan Tannenhill, those would be the oldest guys in the NFL. And it's not like those guys are at the top of the league anymore. So we are very close to turning the page to this new generation of Tier 1 guys. Completely. Yeah, you look at, I was just looking at the, you know, the guys as they came into league by their draft year. Okay, so Rogers is 2000, or Rogers is 2005 and Brady's 2000. Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan, Class of 08? Well, Joe Flacco might as well be out of the league. But this is it. He's not playing. Matt Ryan, we don't think is playing. So now we go to 2009, that's Stafford.

Okay, we think he might be back next year, but we're not sure. But it's near the end. It's the end of days, right? Colt McCoy, 2010. Well, he's not really. Andy Dalton, 2011, no. So, wow, yeah, all of those guys last legs or, you know, close to it. And then, yeah, Kirk Cousin, who would have thought Kirk Cousins would still be going strong? And Andrew Luck's not, you know, RG3 is not. Kirk Cousin's going, talking about cash and checks. Russell Wilson, we don't know which way he's going. Tannehill looks hurt and his situation is in question in Tennessee.

So there's, you're right, there's a lot of the old guard. that's being endangered right now. Tanna Hill, they're going to have a new GM there. And financially, they can move on from him after the season and turn the page if they want to. Cousins we can get into. I think that's a different kind of conversation. And then Russell Wilson obviously has fallen off a cliff.

And that brings me to just a consideration of Russell Wilson and Kyla Murray. I think two guys that have rightfully been linked a little bit over the course of this season just because both of those. teams gave massive extensions to these guys, tier one type of extensions to both of these quarterbacks that are contracts comparable to one that Josh Allen has, the one Patrick Mahomes has. Now these are guys who are in tier two who are paid like tier one quarterbacks who are playing like tier three quarterbacks. So when you surveyed people about where Kyler is right now, where Russell Wilson is right now, which reaction do you think was more concerning about kind of

the state of that situation? Probably Russell Wilson, because I think Russell Wilson, the narrative on him had gotten so out of whack at the end of Seattle to where people really did buy into the idea that Pete Carroll was holding him back and he needed to get somewhere else. It really became accepted by a lot of people, including some people in the league, were kind of thinking along those lines. And so to have to completely undo that narrative and now realize that, hey, he is a diminished, declining player is jarring. And I think also, remember, he had been a unanimous tier one.

It's not like Kyler Murray had ever been tier one. Everyone always had reservations about Kyler Murray. They've known what he is and they still know what he is. I think there was real uncertainty over what Russell Wilson was and what he was going to be and what a change would do for him. And so to have it go this bad, this fast, this convincingly really resets. It's a real reset with real ramifications for an entire franchise to franchises because Seattle's going to get a top pick. Maybe a top, you know, it was going to be the number two pick.

It was going to be a top five pick out of this trade. So I don't know how it can't be the Wilson thing because Kyler Murray is still going to come back at a certain point. And, you know, he's going to have to be in the right type of offense and all that. But no one was, he got one, he's gotten one tier one vote. Russell Wilson, even after a couple down years in Seattle, was getting 15 tier one votes. Where do you think Russell Wilson is next year when you do this? Tier three.

I would think he could go tier three. I wonder how far he could go in tier three. He may get some fours. In the time that you've done this, can you ever remember a situation where you had a mid-tier 3 to low-tier 3 quarterback who was one of the two or three highest-paid quarterbacks in the entire week? The name that came to my mind first was maybe Flacco. I think Flacco had gotten such a big deal from the Ravens, but then he might have lingered

in the bottom of tier 2 for a while after that. I think I started doing this in 2014. That type of money. Let me look here. Let me look on Joe. I can chop this up if we have to. Joe Flacco. Yeah, Joe Flacco was still getting some twos.

So 2017 is when it started to really shift towards Tier 3 for Flacco. So where can we look at over the cap, 2017 quarterbacks? Joe Flacco in 2014. 68.6 QBR, about pretty much 4,000 yards, 27 touchdowns, 12 interceptions. Pretty decent year for Joe Flack. I just remember the Super Bowl year and then everything else kind of being really down after that. But that one 2014 year, he had a pretty nice season. Yes, he did.

So let's just see here where Flacco was in this. Took 19 sacks and 16 games after getting sacked 48 times the year before. It's a wild number. So, okay. So Joe Flacco is a name that comes to mind. and Jason Fitzgerald from over the cap does a great job. And he usually, when my quarterback tiers come out, he'll take them and do a piece that looks at how the tier of performance compares to the tier of salary.

And so when he did that in 2017, he showed that Flacco was in tier three in my poll, but was in tier one in the salary. He was at $22 million per year, which was the fifth highest salary in the league at the time behind Derek Carr, Andrew Luck, Drew Brees, Kirk Cousins show Flacko. Wow. I guess Aaron Rogers maybe hadn't gotten his next deal yet. So that was a case of somebody who was in Tier 3, I think he was high Tier 3, getting the Tier 1 type money. I think Kirk Cousins at various points has certainly been up there for the salary part. and has always sort of been seen as the bottom of tier two, upper tier three, you know, type of quarterback.

And I think the other more recent guys, guys who've gotten huge extensions, and pretty quickly teams have realized that they probably weren't worthy of those extensions were Jared Gough and Carson wants. Both of those guys got huge contracts. And the way that those contracts were structured, though, those teams could move on after a year, two years, eating a huge amount of dead money, unprecedented amounts of dead money. But that's not even an option with Russell Wilson for the Broncos to reverse course the way that the Rams and the Eagles did with both of those guys. No, they need him to just reassess everything and come back in amazing condition and dedicated

to starting this thing over and getting it right with whatever coach that is. I mean, they have to try to get it right next year. And then they can, I guess, try to decide. I would also get another option and bring someone in some way or another. Whether you're drafting somebody or what are you're signing somebody, you've got to have something besides Russell Wilson because it just hasn't looked good. Heading into Tier 3, both Jalen Hertz, who we talked a lot about at the beginning of the show, and Trevor Lawrence were low Tier 3.

I'm with you. I think the Jalen Hertz is going to be firmly in Tier 2 after this season. I think he deserves it based on the way that he's played. Where do you think Trevor Lawrence ends up and what were kind of the reviews of Lawrence when you're asking people about him a couple weeks ago? Yeah, I think Lawrence may come into the bottom of tier two also. You know, and this is the risk of sort of doing this in the season is, you know, he's coming off of a great game. But I do think that. Now, the thing about Lawrence was for being a number one pick who was, you know, consensus number one overall choice that year,

there were people early on who questioned the ceiling, you know, that maybe thought Tier 2 was as high as he could go. Didn't see the, you know, didn't see maybe some of the special traits or instincts or whatever it is to go all the way to the top. I think he's had a really encouraging second season that should push him towards the, you know, the 2-3, Tier 2-3 border and maybe into, into tier two depending on how they finish. I think that's probably fair, but it's looked pretty good, probably better than, better than the vibe. He's one of those guys who, the vibe wasn't great for him,

even though he didn't have, no one was really trashing him, but just for a, for a young player that came in with so much fanfare, he wasn't getting like the benefit of the doubt with people, kind of like the way I felt some other quarterbacks did. the excitement over him sort of had a lower ceiling, it felt like.

And that was true coming into this year. So maybe he's going to change a little bit of that with the way he's played this year if he finishes strong. Where was Justin Herbert after Justin Herbert's rookie year? Here. So Justin Herbert after one year was solidly in tier two. He got four tier one votes. Wow. 37 in tier two and seven in tier three.

And then two in tier four, which is just, hey, need more information. Some people, tier four can be either you're bad or I haven't seen enough. So you talk to 50 people, two of them didn't study him or want to see another year, that sort of thing. But four tier ones is pretty good. Then the next year coming to this year, he's 36 tier ones. So it was pretty quickly identified. Once he started playing, you know, everybody loved what they saw with him. So it's funny that because it's Florence's second year.

So the comparison isn't a one-to-one comparison. But I feel the way about him and I think the general consensus about him, especially by the end of the season, Herbert after his rookie year is what it reminds me of most. Maybe that's just because play style and some of the things that he's doing remind me of that. But remember coming into the season, several people, I think, said anonymously or publicly, this is going to feel like his rookie year. after what last season was like.

So I kind of feel that way, is that this is really the first time we've seen Trevor Lawrence in even halfway decent circumstances, and he already looks like this guy. And I think he looks like, according to this exercise, firmly a tier two quarterback. So I wouldn't be surprised if his vote distribution, maybe minus some of the tier one votes, but maybe with a couple of them, if he keeps playing like this, looks like what Herbert got after his rookie year. Yes.

I think because Trevor Lawrence got 24 Tier 4 votes, which are we don't have enough information, those can go any number of different ways after he's had a year. Those could all go right to Tier 2. That's what happened with Patrick Mahomes after the first year. It was like he was ridiculously low because he'd started one game. He'd be like, oh, give him a four, I just need to see him. We'll really like him, but that sort of thing. Now, the vibe wasn't that as positive with Lawrence.

It was sort of unusually restrained, I thought. but there's no question. The tier four votes for him were not people saying that he sucks. It was people wanting to see more and saying, look, that Urban Meyer debacle, I don't want to hold that on the kid. They would say things like, but what I did watch, I did kind of, I was a little disappointed. I wanted to see a little bit more special plays from him as a rookie. And so, you know, is that concerning? I don't know.

Let's just set out. let's set aside last year. Let's get a more honest look this year. So some of those tier four votes are going straight to tier two, I would think, for Lawrence next year. Trevor Lawrence last year was in these horrible, horrible circumstances. And I think a lot of people would say the same about Justin Herbert his rookie year. I'm like, oh, he was just surrounded by absolutely nothing.

But Justin Herbert still had Keenan Allen that year. He still had Mike Williams that year. And now that we have the benefit of hindsight, the offensive coordinator for the chargers that year is a guy who's going to be a head coach here very soon and has done an incredible job as the offensive coordinator for the Eagles. So I think that there was more help at a better infrastructure for the 2020 Chargers than we thought in the moment, even though the offensive line was a disaster. I mean, the offensive line was very, very bad. So I think it's actually closer to what Herbert Lawrence is dealing with right now with Doug Peterson, imperfect weapons, a better

offensive line, but in overall, on the whole, I think it's actually a decent comparison. You're absolutely right. You just have to throw out the rookie year with Urban Meyer as the outlier non-counter year. Yes. And so you count this really as like you got a Mulligan, right? You're getting a do-over on your first year in the league. And I think that was such an outlier situation with Urban Meyer that's fair. That's not making excuses for Trevor Lawrence. That's just fair. They fired Urban Meyer one year and three days ago. I mean, just talk about lifting a metal steel blanket off of you. I mean, it's just brutal, just brutal.

So, yeah, there's almost no one has gone through what Trevor Lawrence went through that first year from a quarterback standpoint. Somebody else that you wrote about, she did this piece last week, just because obviously their team is having really good success. His numbers have been very good. Jared Goff, who was not only in tier three last year, but was at the bottom of tier three and got multiple tier four votes. And I think this year has been instructive about Jared Goff as a way to understand Jared Gough as kind of a quarterback Rochak test. Jared Gough is this type of guy that can be different things for different teams based on

where they're at in their team building process, what they need for their quarterback. When the Lions made this move and they were willing to pay Jared Gough with they were willing to pay, it was confusing to me. I didn't understand it. I was like, you're a rebuilding team. Why do you want to pay this guy, you know, $30 million a year, $20 million a year to be your quarterback. Wouldn't you rather just tear it down, have the money? And I think that was short-sighted and lacking imagination because what he has been for them as kind of a stabilizing force in somebody who can play quarterback in the league. Like we've seen him be successful.

we've seen him be solid, surrounded by the right pieces. I just, what's happened with Jared Goff in Detroit has really kind of made me take a step back and rethink how teams should approach the position when they're in the spot that the Lions were two years ago. Yeah, what he represented something totally different to the Lions than he did to the, than he did to the Rand. Exactly. time for because of the contract situation too. You know, they were unloading a bad contract for the rents, but that doesn't mean that you're absorbing a bad contract. It was a different contract for the team that didn't pay all the guaranteed money.

They got a quarterback. The Lions raised their floor at the position with somebody who I think is probably a solid tier three quarterback who wins with a great play collar and good weapons around him is going to look like a tier two. And we've seen that in the league. That was Andy Dalton. Andy Dalton, when he was with the Bengals and they had a stacked team around him, put up Pro Bowl numbers. Looked good.

He still was, then you put him in a bad situation. He looks bad. He doesn't elevate it. He is pulled down by it. So I think more things have changed around Jared Goff than Jared Goff has changed. And the Andy Dalton thing is such a good comparison because Andy Dalton's contract when he got it from the Bengals is a quarterback contract that does not exist anymore. Andy Dalton signed a six-year extension that kicked in in 2014. It's a six-year $96 million deal.

Only $17 million of that was guaranteed. The Bengals, when they signed that deal, had a trapdoor out of it. So they had a guy who was firmly in the middle of just the NFL quarterback hierarchy, but they didn't commit to him long term. And because the Lions have taken on that Jared Gough contract and not, not been the team that signed him to it, they have found themselves in a similar situation. They're paying him a lot of money, but they have the ultimate flexibility. They can move on from this whenever they want.

So they've almost stumbled into this old school quarterback contract where you're paying the guy like a starter, but you have a trapdoor waiting for you at the end of every single season, which I think is a pretty good place to be. Yeah, the thing that hurt Dalton and put him in that situation was that he was a second round pick. So there wasn't, he wasn't, he was starting with a lower floor. He needed the money as Kaepernick was in the same situation where you're, and they both got similar deals. Yeah, they had made, they had not made any money to that point in their career. So they, they had, it was worth it to them to do a quote unquote bad deal because, because it looked good

to them. It was, they hadn't made any money. So, uh, some of these other guys or if you get into the franchise tag, now you've made enough money that, uh, you don't have to settle, uh, as much. But when you acquire somebody else's contract, when you acquire somebody else's contract, When you acquire a quarterback's contract, it's way better for you flexibility-wise because you don't have all that bonus money and proration to deal with when it comes time to cut them. It's interesting. I was going to see, because I think the comparison some people have made is Alex Smith's contract, or Alex Smith just as a player and what Alex Smith was during the team building process for the Lions. Alex Smith had $45 million guaranteed for the contract that he signed with the chiefs started in 2014. So the Lions have even more flexibility with Gough than the Chiefs had with Alex Smith.

The Chiefs went out and purposely signed Alex Smith. They traded a second round pick for him. They gave him that contract right at the start of it. So it's a little bit of a different situation. But I think the Lions are in a pretty darn good spot for Jared Gough and what he's given them because they can move on when they want, but they're not, they don't have to be searching in desperation for a quarterback. It's really worked out well for them, Robert, because Matthew Stafford's time there was done anyway. He wasn't, they didn't need him to go through what they, what that teams had to go through.

a lot of pain to get to where they're at on the streak. Six weeks ago, we wondered if Dan Campbell was going to make it. I remember, you and I were talking about it. We were like, at some point, you got to start winning some games. At some point, you have to have some results, even if you sort of like what they're doing. It's like, you have to do it. Well, they're getting that, but that wasn't for Matthew Stafford. He would have retired by now, right?

He would have been done. So the Lions played that great, even though they had to watch the guy go win a Super Bowl. Hey, good for him. He got a Super Bowl. But they got these assets of the picks, and they got, like, we're learning in Jared Gough. A pretty good quarterback. I just, I struggle with what to do with quarterbacks like Jared Gough.

I, I will admit that I have a blind spot for it. And I think that's why Brad Holmes is an NFL general manager and I am not. Yeah. I think though, don't overthink it. Like, think what the 49ers have done because Jimmy Garapolo hasn't been good enough for them, right? Because you're, you're chasing this magic tier one. quarterback, but there's only four of them in the league ever anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, be a little bit careful because I just never want to be in that position as a team where I'm taking a quarterback second overall because I should. I want to be the team that was convicted on Josh Allen and maneuvered to get him because I thought he was special. not the team that says, well, God, we're in the top three, let's take golf. And the Niners thing was funny there because they weren't in the top three. They had to go get there.

They had to go get there. And maybe Trail Lenthal will be great, but they won 75% or 80% of their games when Groplow plays too. A couple guys in Tier 4 before the season started before we get out of here. Tool was a Tier 4 quarterback in this exercise, which I totally understand. The conversations you had, how have people, kind of sorted through the changes in Miami, the changes they've seen in him, and where do they think he falls? Yeah, he's definitely going to move up. I sort of feel like it's going to be to tier three, you know,

because of the extreme weaponry upgrade there and Tyree Kill and because of what Mike McDaniel has done, he will be, two will be praised for his accuracy. which people knew that he had, and he'll be given credit for the production. But I don't think that people just think he would be a good quarterback regardless. Yeah, it's interesting because the way... Tier two on his own, you know? The way that you've always described the tiers, tier three is reading it verbatim. A tier three quarterback is a legitimate starter, but needs a heavier run game

and or defensive component to win. A lower volume dropback passing offense suits him best. That's not what the dolphins are at all, but the dolphins, it's such an extreme case in how the passing game is built that I think some of the same questions and considerations go into how we view Tua that would go into a quarterback who throws the ball 20 times a game and it's 17 play action dropbacks. I think that's totally fair. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, he's certainly, I think Tua is a great example, though, of having been in a really bad situation and then going into a really good situation. I totally agree with that. And I think when you have some of these guys that are in the middle, even if they're upper middle or middle, I would put Jared Gough too. I think Jared Gough can make some great throws. He's a good quarterback. I think Tua can be a good quarterback. But they're guys that are going to look extremely different based on how you hold up to the sun, up to the light, right? whereas you hope with those real guys at the top that they don't have to necessarily be as dependent on what's around them.

The biggest lesson I have learned, biggest takeaway I've had from the 2022 NFL season is how different quarterbacks can look in different circumstances. Tua being the best example of that, but also Jalen Hertz. You trade for a guy like AJ Brown. you have one more year in the offense. You go from this team that was the run heaviest team in the NFL because you thought you needed to win that way to a team that's operating on offense like the Eagles are because you'll get one number one guy and you have one more offseason. And I think I've grasped onto that a little bit because it's what I've had to think about with Justin Fields, who was a tier four quarterback firmly when you did this, which I totally understand after what last season looked like. And now what's he going to look like next year in this exercise and what's he going to look like if, the bears can go use all the resources that they have to build a real offense with real

talent around him. It's not going to be what the Eagles or the dolphins have because they're starting from way further back. But even if it's their incremental steps toward that, I just, I've really kind of hesitated to make these declarative statements about these guys when we know the circumstances aren't good because we've had so many examples this year and even going back a couple more years that I've seen in a new light that really give us an understanding of how different it can be for these guys as things around them get better. It's so true. I mean, there's no more extreme example within a season than Justin Fields this year. Yeah. Just changing what you're doing. And I think Jalen Hertz even last year, you know, when they changed what they were doing.

and some of those guys, I think, with the unique abilities, you know, you really do have to need to cater to that, right? And then we can worry about later if did you develop the rest of the game and all those other things to ascend truly into tier two and all of that stuff. All right. That's all we got. So we got about what? Seven more months until we do this again? For the quarterback tiers? Yeah. Seven more months until we're back with quarterback tiers 2023. Well, let's make that. It's probably eight or nine. I think if it comes out late July, don't set the timetable too early. Yeah. We typically almost, that's how we get back.

Shoot, how late is it? I guess it's December 19th. Yeah, shoot, you're putting pressure on me, man. Seven months. You better get started. I love it. I love it, Robert. Though, I love the conversations. I learned so much. The opinions kind of form, you know, come together in my mind based on all those conversations. And then sometimes we get them shaken up during the year. This is the biggest shake up. year, that tier two that's all jacked up, I can't remember a little year like this that made you go, whoa, what the heck's going on here? So it has been a wild year. It's awesome. This is a good way to kind of understand how that movement has happened and how we've kind of shifted our scope of these guys. So please go check out Mike's piece revisiting his quarterback to you some early in the year. Please come back and listen to us later this week. We're going to do another sort of quarterback show on Wednesday with my buddy Fran Duffy, who covers the Eagles. We're going to talk about the different sort of quarterbacks who can win this. Super Bowl this year, what we can learn for them, how their teams have built around them, and what types of quarterbacks can actually win the Super Bowl. So excited to dig into that conversation with Fran.

If you have not listened to our recap podcast from this week, please go do that. You can watch it on YouTube. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you have not done that, you can do it in the description of this show below. Also, please subscribe to The Athletic. The athletic.com slash football show is where you can do that. You can read all of the work that Mike Sando and our wonderful writers do. we'll be back later this week.

In the meantime, I appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.