The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Aaron Rodgers news, Deshaun Watson update, QB battles for the Saints & Broncos, Rams offense & more camp kickoff

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones return as training camps arrive with a fresh dose of Aaron Rodgers news in Green Bay, the Deshaun Watson situation taking a turn in Houston, QB battles taking shape in New Orleans and Denver, plus Robert and Lindsay dive into their individual under-the-radar players they're watching, biggest storylines around the NFL and more on a NEW Athletic Football Show.Discount link - theathletic.com/footballshow 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 my good friend Lindsay Jones. Lindsay, how you doing? I'm great. I'm glad to be back. I know we both took a little bit of downtime in July,

and now we are ready to go for training camp. We did all that off-season content. Now it's like, it's real. Let's go. If I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't take vacation last week because the ramp up over the last 24 hours has been intense, not only because of how many things I've had to get in a row before I start

traveling this week, because both of us are starting to head to training camps in the next couple days, but also it's been a big change in mindset from sitting on the beach to Aaron Rogers News. But that's where we are right now. The timing on this actually worked out pretty well because the show we were going to do today was the biggest questions as training camp is about to kick off. Some of those are going to be bigger league-wide overarching questions. Obviously vaccinations have been a huge topic of conversation over the last week or so. You've written about that. We're going to talk about that.

Some of there are going to be positional questions. There's some quarterback uncertainty in a couple different places. A couple other more granular spots that I think could be big when you're talking about some contenders or some teams that are really trying to make some pushes and taking next couple steps on offense or defense. But we wanted to start by talking about the Packers. And thankfully, we've gotten a lot of clarity on that situation. Not total clarity, but a lot of clarity on that situation here in the last few hours.

Yeah. And it's, I think what a lot of us really expected that Aaron Rogers and the Packers, when a deadline hits and the deadline is reporting day to training camp, they would figure something out. And the best solution for everybody involved here, unless you're the Denver Broncos, and we'll get into that, is Aaron Rogers returning to Green Bay. It's best for Rogers. It's best for the Packers. And if they could work out some sort of situation where, you know, Rogers's, you know, Rogers. will have more flexibility to leave without it being this contentious offseason battle after 2021, then that's great. And all of those last dance pictures that Devante Adams and Aaron Rogers

were posting, you know, maybe in 20 years we'll get to watch a documentary about the 2021 Packers and while I'll really enjoy it. So let's just go through the timeline of today's news because a lot of stuff has happened. So I think it's worth unpacking. Ian Rappaport earlier today tweets out that Rogers has told people close to him that he will be back this season. Again, like you mentioned, not surprising news to a lot of us. Anytime I was asked about it over the last five or six months, I said, I thought he'd be back. I just thought, like you said, it made the most sense. The way I always talked about it was unprecedented situations are unprecedented for a reason, right?

Like, what does logic dictate? The money, every other mechanism in place pointed to the idea that he would be back. The PR battle on both sides, I think, is easily won with him being back, better one with him being back. So not shocking. But then, now we have a couple more things rolling out. Adam Schaefter has written about and tweeted about some of the concessions and conversation points that have been going on between Rogers' camp and the Packers. Right now, it feels like they're working on an agreement where the 2023 year and his contract would void. So he'd still be under contract for next year.

which would allow the Packers to potentially trade him if he is not happy with the way this unfolds. So now you have a few more things trickling out, right? Trey Wingo said that Rogers wants Randall Cobb back in Green Bay. Now Devante Adams' contract negotiations are apparently back open, which making Devante Adams the highest paid receiver in the league are giving him a huge contract. Maybe that is a sign of loyalty from the Packers toward Aaron Rogers. Now there are so many different things in play here. But I think the key takeaway is they're playing this season out and now they're going to reevaluate it. But they're not renegotiating his contract and restructuring his contract as such that will make him a free agent after this season.

I think that was probably a non-starter from Green Bay side of it because at the very least, they need the opportunity and the chance to trade him after this year to get something for him if they can't convince him to stay after this season. nuts. Yeah, and the timeline of how this whole offseason stuff played out. I mean, I don't think anybody in Green Bay or who covers the Packers was surprised that this stuff was all simmering, you know, dating back months even into 2020. But, you know, the trade stuff really heated up right before the draft. And that's not really the timing of when this should happen. When you look at the big quarterback moves, the big trades, these are things that are happening in like late January, February, March. Before the off season. Before the draft. Before free agents. Poor free agency.

Yeah. So that's what we should now be looking for for 2020, for that to happen. I mean, it's hard for me to see that even if they're bringing back these guys and making some of these concessions, that all of a sudden, Aaron Rogers, the guy who probably holds, like, the biggest grudges of anybody who I know who's played in the NFL is suddenly going to be, like, cool with everything and want to play here or stay in 2022. But at least, you know, we'll get one season. and then they can really start working out something that will make everybody happy.

And that's really all you could ask for at this point, right? How far are we away from Jake Kumero getting thrown into the deal? So that's my thing here is that like you talked about with the timeline. This comes out in his first reported in April. Nothing can happen then. Free agents are signed, moves have been made for the most part of rosters are static. Now it feels like he's going to try to push. as far as he can and see how much he can get away with when it comes to this.

The Cobb thing almost feels like a test balloon of, what are you willing to do for me? Like, can Jordy Nelson get new legs? Can we go to some lab? That's the kind of stuff we're talking about here. And so I feel like there's going to be this feeling out process about how much say he's going to have because what is the Randall Cobb thing? It's a version of the Antonio Brown signing in Tampa Bay with Tom Brady, right? It's feeling out how much control and power you have as a quarterback because I think that's always what he's wanted.

He's wanted to be treated like those other guys. He wants the Packers to go all in financially, which they've done a little bit more than they would have in years past, right? There have been some conversions of bonuses and they've kicked the financial can down the road a little bit. But I think he's going to keep pushing and pushing a little bit to see what he can get. Do you think Brady gave him some advice on this while they were playing golf when they were in their foresum about what you should ask for, how to get more power, how to use your leverage. I would love to have heard those conversations. That's certainly possible.

I think that Air Roders had designs on this long before playing golf with Tom Brady. So I think there are two things I would think about now. One, what does this mean for the Packers in 2021? Because now this team is really good. This team has a ton of talent. We've talked about that on a couple different shows. Over the last three or four months here, when we were talking about the non-quarterback draft or some of the guys we were excited to watch this year, you think about some of the names, whether it's Darnell Savage as a young player, Jai or Alexander, with Devante Adams now being back.

David Bacciar is on this team. They still have a ton of talent. And I would say they have the best team in the NFC outside of Tampa Bay. This team has real Super Bowl aspirations. And now those aspirations crystallize with Rogers being back in place. Who knows what happens after this year? But right now, this team is really set up to win a championship. And I think it kind of changes the complexion of the NFC as it existed 48 hours ago, even if we all suspected he'd be back.

Now that we know, you can talk about this team in slightly different terms. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that they are very clearly the second best team in the NFC. And I might even put it like a 1A, 1B with the bucks. I mean, we've gone through how good the Bucks roster is and they peaked at the right time last year. But let's not forget how close the Packers were a worse Packers team than as it is constructed today, assuming Aaron Rogers is fully back. That team was basically a kind of a chicken coaching decision late in the game from beating the Packers in the NFC championship game. I mean, that was a close game.

I think if a lot of a couple things would have broken right for the Packers in that game, if they would have had David Bactiari. you know, a little bit more depth the receiver. Now you've got a Mari Rogers. You've just got some more weapons there. So, you know, I don't want to get too far down the road and forecast things. But look, give me Brady and Rogers in the NFC championship game again. That'd be great. Like sign me up for that.

I think their defense can be better. Yeah. They brought back all the main component parts. They drafted a cornerback in the first round. They have a new defensive coordinator. I'm very excited to see what that side of the ball looks like. So I agree with you. I think it's a 1A, 1B situation.

And then the. The biggest question after that is, what happens after this year? Do we have a scenario where they did not do enough? And this really is the last dance. And they say, all right, it's time to trade him now. Then what happens with everything else? Do we see a little bit of like a mini rebuild or a reset where Devante walks, Rogers gets traded? And now they have some young core pieces, whether it's Alexander, Kenny Clark, Donald Savage, who we mentioned, Elton Jenkins.

And then Bakhtiari, and that's kind of the core you move up. on with the three first-round picks you get for Rogers? Is that what we're staring at? Or do they really ride this out? Rogers decides it's worth me staying here and we get this group together for the next three or four years because there are some questions financially, right? Zadarius Smith was unhappy when his, apparently was reportedly unhappy when his contract was converted into signing bonus, which he doesn't have any control over. But now he has a $28 million cap at next year, which there's a chance he's not there. Devante Adams apparently wants DeAndre Hopkins money, which the Hopkins contract is wild.

He's making $27 million a year. No other receivers above 22. And part of the reason that was possible is that he had three years left on his Texans contract, and they did some wonky stuff with the numbers. There's, you know, the deal voids in 2024 if he's hit certain benchmarks, there was an option bonus, there was a roster bonus. So I'm sure that the Packers are sitting there thinking, that's a fake contract. But Delante Adams's people are thinking, he deserves to be the highest paid receiver.

Like we don't care if that contract is a complete outlier compared to the rest of the position. So all of these questions are still looming. None of this is going away. But at least for the time being, we have some answers that we didn't have before. Yeah. And then with the 2022 stuff, which, you know, I think we're going to get into it. We'll probably talk about elements of this as this podcast goes along. But then you start thinking, okay, well, who's going to be in position for Rogers in 2020?

Who are the teams that have shaky quarterback situations this year or the way that this year plays out? Maybe they're going to want to move on. you know, Broncos, Eagles, Colts, you know, I mean, if situations don't work out. So I think there's just going to be a lot of fun. I know Broncos fans are very sad. If you want to go to my Twitter account, I ask them how they're doing. And there's a very long thread of gifts that you can sympathize with them. But look, they're going to be right back in this next year. And they're going to be talking about this. So the Rogers drama is not gone. That is good news for podcasters like us, but certainly for all of our friends in sports media because this Rogers stuff is going to be fun this year because they're going to be really freaking good.

He's probably going to be pissed off Aaron Rogers once again. And that turned into an MVP last year. And then the drama is not going away. So I'm excited. I'm also really excited that we're not going to have like the Aaron Rogers, will he show up? Will he not show up? I feel so happy for Matt Schneidman. The fact that it happened today and not like on a Saturday at midnight two weeks ago.

I thought you were going to say Matt LaFleurr, but yeah. Matt Schneidman is the big winner here. Yes. And Maliflu are also a winner here because, I mean, we talk about, I don't want to get too far down this right. I'm sure we have this conversation a lot. But that offense is very good. That offense puts so much on Rogers. All of the stuff he does the line of scrimmage, all of the RPO elements to it.

It has his imprint on it. And it would have been so hard to imagine what they would have been offensively without him and the version that it would have looked like without him. And now we don't have to do any of that. There's no speculation. This team is back in the way that we saw them at the end of last season. And like you mentioned, they were a couple plays away from going to the Super Bowl. So we'll talk a lot about that, I'm sure, over the next few months here, as we get more and more details about what it would really take for him to stay and what sort of things he needs to see and the change in their behavior, all of that stuff.

So another quarterback situation I wanted to talk about here is what's going on with Deshaun Watson. Because obviously the news came out this weekend that he reported to training camp in order to avoid the $50,000 a day fines was a lot. I'm sure played a role in the Rogers decision as well. I want to just kind of lay out what's going on with that right now as we both understand it. Because it's kind of an awkward situation with him being there and all of the questions that are going to be asked of David Cully now, of Nick Asario, if he's going to sit there and talk of teammates in Houston every single time practice ends, they're going to be asked about it. This thing is hanging over them now because the league chose not to put him on the commissioner example. list, which some people with contacts in the league that are in the know suspected might happen

in order for the Texans and the league to avoid this. But that did not happen. So what is your current read on why the league decided to not go that route and where everything sits with the Watson situation, how the NFL and the Texans have handled it? Yeah. So it's incredibly complicated and complex. And I think it's even more so complicated than it is. Here we are now in. the verge of August right about training camp. It's more complicated than it was three or four months ago because, you know, it was kind of this nebulous thing where it's like, oh, he's got time to figure this out or let the legal system play out. He could have stayed away. There was nothing pressing. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, so it was not a big deal that he didn't show up for OTAs. Look, he wasn't

going to show up for OTAs anyways. And now it was even more pressing for him not to be there. There was a lot of like potential options, but none of them were simple. I've done a ton of very close reading of the personal conduct policy and reporting about it over the last really, you know, I guess 2014 was the first year that they updated the personal conduct policy. It has been an evolving document that has been updated multiple times, including in 2020. And the commissioner exemplist is very oddly written. And it's very, it is narrowly tailored to fit, to fit some very specific circumstances. And this Deshaun Watson case is really, really complex.

And it's more than, it's 22 civil cases. There is no precedent for a player who is facing civil allegations to go on the commissioner's exemplist. The closest comparison is the Antonio Brown situation. He never went on the commissioner's exemplist. He played in the Super Bowl, caught a touchdown in the Super Bowl last year while a civil case was still pending. It has since been settled. And he has not faced any discipline based off of that. There are now, I believe, at least 10 women who have have filed criminal complaints that are being investigated by the Houston police. That was additional news that came out today on Monday. But there's no charges that have been filed.

So the things that would spur the NFL into action and to put Deshaun Watson on the commissioner's exemplist are one criminal charges. And these are really complicated allegations. And there's so many of them that that has not happened yet in Houston. The other thing that would trigger that is if the NFL's own investigation would have given them reason to believe that a violation of the personal conduct policy had been committed. Watson's lawyer spoke to ESPN, I believe, and then was confirmed by our beatwriter Aaron Reese in Houston, that the NFL has not yet talked to Deshawn Watson, which that to me tells me that the NFL's investigation is not very far along.

I was going to ask you that. You feel like they haven't gotten far down the road, and that's why nothing within their investigation has triggered this. I think that's, it's just, it's a lot of like procedural logistical red tape kind of stuff. The problem is, is that they could be following the letter of their policy and sticking to precedent and all of these sorts of things. But there has never been a case like this where it's one of the faces of the NFL, one of your premier players at the premier position. And this is also high profile. So it's, you know, well, technically they're kind of within,

they're following the procedures. It just feels really bad. It looks really bad. It looks bad for the Texans. It looks bad for the NFL. It looks bad for Watson. But is it going to look worse if we're week one and he's playing or he's not play? I mean, it's just really complicated. That's why I just felt like the commissioner's exemplist, even if it doesn't follow, because they're still within their rights to put him on that based on what has happened.

I mean, Roger Goodell can do literally whatever he wants. He's been granted that power in the CBA and courts have multiple times reinforced his power to do whatever he wants. They've been very cautious about, you know, trying to do due process and not punish players before they've had their due process and all these sorts of things. But this is an unprecedented situation and it's putting everybody in a really difficult situation.

So the league could say he will be placed on it or the expectation is that he will and that he will not be eligible to play in the regular season. The Texans could just tell him not to participate. like you've shown up if you want to go to some meetings but like we're not going to put you out on the field. We're not going to have you be part of this. You need to go and deal with your stuff. That's also a possibility.

We will hear from Nick Casario, I believe on Wednesday. He's doing his start of training camp press conference. Given what his previous media availability have been like this year, I wouldn't expect too much out of that. But all this is to say is it is really complicated and you can't just take like a football look at this. You can't just say, oh, well, look at what the trade value is. And this is what teams are considering trading for him.

Because while that stuff is out, fine, it's out there. And you have to consider where it's coming from and the motivations and all of those sorts of things. You just can't separate the two. You can't separate what's going on in the Houston, Texas court system with what's going on with the Texans and what's going on with his football situation. And I think it's just better for everybody involved if he's just not part of this 2020. one season, but it seems like he and the Texans and the league kind of want him to be, and I don't know why. That's my biggest question is who has the least incentive for him to be on the exemplist?

Does he feel like it's an admission of guilt if he's on there? Or in a conversation with the league, it's like, just put me on there. Is that just something where it, because of other people that have been on there and the precedent, doesn't look good? Does the league have that thought about putting him on there because of what's happened with that list before? I have no idea. It just felt to me like that would have probably been the easiest solution for everyone

involved because then we're not, it's not the most pressing thing at Texans camp every single day. And it's just something that we can put on the back burner a little bit. But now it's at the forefront because they've decided to do nothing. And because the Texans are waiting for the league to do something, it's just this holding pattern that doesn't seem to benefit anyone. Yeah. And it's really tough because the, you know, the background of history of the commissioner is

exemplist was to take the decision out of teams' hands of whether or not a guy is going to play. Yes. Play in regular season or postseason games. So it's a paid suspension. So it just says we don't want the team who obviously has a rooting interest and having a guy on the field while he's dealing with whatever might be. We don't want them to be making the decision because they shouldn't be the ones who's deciding between winning a game and, you know, doing morally the right thing. So the NFL took that on. But then because it's a paid suspension, there really isn't a mechanism for offseason stuff and the country, you know, they're not being paid in training camp.

So I think that's a misstep. And that's a hole in this process that the NFL needs to figure out. They need to have something codified. And they do not. If he was on that list, would he be fined for not showing up to training camp? Because that, to me, is one of the things because he's probably there in part because he doesn't want to get fined $50,000 a day. If he was put on the list, would he be fined? I don't know the answer to that.

I doubt it because. If you're on the commissioner as an exemplist, you're not allowed to practice, there can be exemptions to potentially be in the building to attend some sorts of meetings and rehab and therapy and those sorts of, you know, those sorts of things. I don't 100% know the answer to that, only because it hasn't really happened. Like you said, this is complicated and not something we've ever had to deal with before. Yeah, I mean, Kareem Hunt, when he was picked up by the Browns, it was kind of said he would be on, he would be on the commissioner's exempt. list once he had signed with another team, but they announced his eight game suspension, like right before training camp started. So he was able to participate in all of training camp because he was like had a pending suspension. He was no longer on the exempt list. So it's,

there's just, it's all really complicated. And I just, it would be helpful if the NFL could have some sort of public guidance other than we're investigating because that doesn't help anybody. That doesn't help Watson. It doesn't help the Texans. It doesn't help. the public perception, it doesn't make them look good. I think they're the ones who are most wary of what to say because they don't want to, you know, punish somebody before all the information is out there. But something has to change. It's not a punishment.

By putting them on that list, it's not a punishment. I think it's just a mechanism to make things a little bit easier for everyone. And that's why I'm surprised they didn't do it. When does the NFL ever do something that's easy? Or before they have to do it, right? I mean, I think that's part of it. don't have to do anything, so they often don't. The last thing I want to talk about, I don't want to get too far down this road because

I just don't think it's appropriate. But when talking about him getting traded, Chris Mortensen reported today that he's heard it's going to take five high picks and players to do this. The only thing I think is that's worth saying about this right now, because, again, there's so much that's unknown, is the Texans aren't in a hurry reportedly and shouldn't be in a hurry to trade him. Because this is not something that's going to get fixed on the football side for them in a year. They don't have to get a bunch of picks for him now, whatever. This is a long rebuild.

And the one thing, the one chip that Nick Casario has is Deshaun Watson. And I think holding on as long as he can to figure out more clarity with this situation, everything is probably in everyone's best interest. So I don't think teams trading for him right now seems realistic on multiple different levels because I just don't think the Texans have any incentive to do that at this very moment as opposed to waiting until next spring. Yeah. And why should any team be, any other team be motivated to do it right now? I mean, I think there's a couple teams who, if you could pull all of the legal stuff out,

would say absolutely give me Dev Sean Watson in a heartbeat over whatever their current quarterback situation is. But that's just not the reality. And if any team thinks that they could bring him in and everything, all the off-field stuff would be gone or not an issue, that's extremely naive. And with the amount of capital that would potentially take, it would be a, death sentence for a GM to try to make that move right now given exactly where all of these, all the situations are. I totally agree. And if you're saying, well, maybe we can get them a

little bit cheaper as a result. Well, in that case, the Texans aren't incentivized to do that because they don't need to do this right now. Because again, this is going to be a deep hole that they're digging out of in a long process for fixing what's going on there. So it just seems like, again, we're in a holding pattern that is going to continue. The only thing that's really changed is that he showed up because he's incentivized to show up. All right. Let's move on here to another topic that feels like we have to talk about it based on everything that's happened in the last couple weeks.

And again, a lot of the reporting that you have done recently. And that's where the NFL stands with vaccinations. You wrote about this late last week, but the numbers right now, it seems like 80% of all players have at least begun the vaccination process, according to Alan Sills. Nine teams are at 90% or higher. Five teams are at less than 70%. Yeah, I actually have updates on those numbers as about an hour ago. As of today, we're recording this Monday afternoon.

It's now almost 84% of players. So that means the protocols that went out last week, the stuff about like the reality sitting in. So about 84% of players have now had at least one shot. I would have to do the math in my head of like how many more players. That means had gotten their first shot from Friday to Monday. It's a lot. It's a lot of people.

It's a non-zero number, right? I mean, look, Emmanuel Sanders is a good example. of this wide receiver now with the Buffalo Bills. He posted a picture of his brand new vaccine card on Friday, said accountability, availability, no time for BS in the regular season. And said, all right, here we go. So that's a guy who would gladly take Cole Beasley's reps away as somebody who's not getting vaccinated. So 84% of players, and I now believe it is 10 teams that have reached that 90% threshold. And there are no teams below 60%. So there's still a couple teams that are lagging number numbers wise, but the numbers are certainly getting better and honestly we're at a higher

vaccination rate here on July 26th than I thought we were going to be at. I mean, when I was doing a lot of reporting on this in May and June, I mean, the numbers were real low. It was like less than 50% of the league and to be, you know, at almost, you know, 84% at this point here on the Virga training camp is not bad. And it shows that the kind of their process has worked. They went from education to incentivization to threats. And that's kind of what's gotten them here. And they're not going to get everybody, but they're basically standing it up to make life miserable for people who are not vaccinated.

And here we are. I'll say this. The league has done a very good job of putting those mechanisms in place to make sure that this happens. Because like Sills mentioned, the percentages for NFL players are significantly higher than the population at large. and I think that's at least in part because of the reasons they've given players to do this. And like you said, there are several different layers that have been in place.

So the only other real part of this is that we had a couple coaches that will not be coaching this year. But those seem like isolated incidents. For the most part, it does feel like on the coaching side and on the personnel side, you need to have a vaccination to pretty much work. And that's why most of the guys on that side of it have decided it's worth. me keeping my job. Yeah. And so the NFL didn't mandate the vaccine for anybody, but they, in essence, made it required for all tier one and tier two personnel. So those are anybody whose job description requires you to have interaction with players. So obviously that includes coaches. So they basically,

and they told everybody back in May, it was late May, they said, if you are not vaccinated and you do not have a religious or a medical exemption, you will not be allowed to have any in-person contact with your players. So imagine you're an offensive line coach and you're not allowed to actually be on the field with your players or in a meeting. It's impossible to do your job. You can't do it. So there were some holdouts last week. Dr. Allen Sills said that the tier one and tier two were virtually 100 percent.

And then about an hour later, Courtney Cronin of ESPN in Minnesota, broke the news about Rick Denison, their offensive line coach being out. He might technically end up being kind of reassigned, but he is not going to be their offensive line coach this year because he is, he does not. meet the vaccine requirements. So that happened. So it was not a non-zero number, but it was, you know, it was a low number. We might see a couple of more of those cases, those incidents happening. But look, coaches do not have a union. They don't have somebody, a seat at the table when it comes to these protocols. I know there were a lot of assistant coaches around there who were unhappy about this. You know, they're generally unhappy because they feel like their voices aren't heard or represented in most decisions that go on at the NFL level from rules,

changes, practice, practice requirements, all these sorts of things. But, you know, they didn't have a say in this. And the NFL basically said, do this or you can't do your job. And 99.5% of the guys said, okay, fine, I'll do it. And a couple others are going to be doing something different in 2021. Any aspect of this you feel like is crucial information before we change gears here a little bit. No, I mean, I think, you know, I think we've covered it pretty, you know, pretty good. I would not get too, like, worked up when you see guys going on the COVID exempt list.

It's going to happen. Frank Reich is on it now. He is, and he is a breakthrough case where he was vaccinated. So if you were vaccinated, you test positive. You just have to return two negative tests within 24 hours apart and then you can go back to work. And this is expected. And, you know, Chris Ballard spoke about this on Monday that there are going to be breakthrough cases. and it's a sign that vaccination is working because then you're asymptomatic and then you can go right

back to work and everything kind of keeps on functioning. And that's what we've seen in a major league baseball. That's what we've seen in a lot of other elements of society. So there are going to be breakthrough cases. There are going to be unvaccinated players testing positive. Tuesday is going to be the day to watch because that's the day that most players report and are going to be tested. And players are going to end up on the list.

So far, I think, believe there's 10 players so far. But this time last year, it was more than 200 players. So the numbers are going to be way less. The season's going to start. They're going to get the games done. If they got the games, if they got the whole season done last year without any cancellations, they're absolutely going to make sure it happens this year. All right.

So let's get to some position-specific questions that we have heading into training camp. Now that we've kind of covered some of the big picture stuff. I want to start with what I think is, maybe the most interesting positional question in the entire league heading his training camp. And that's the Saints quarterback situation because you can argue Denver, which we'll get to in a second. But I think this is arguably the most important quarterback battle, let's say, in the league, just because this is a team that has a contending roster otherwise, right? Like, this is a team with playoff aspirations that at this moment has not named the starting quarterback.

And I think that's rare. We could talk about some of the decline in other areas of their roster over the last year or so, just financial considerations, everything else. This team isn't as good or as deep as it was two years ago because it can't be. But at the same time, there's still a lot of talent on that Saints team. And we do not know who the quarterback is going to be. Do you have any feel for what you think is going to happen there? Do you have somebody you would prefer to watch as the Saints quarterback this year,

the guy that you think gives them the best chance? Yeah. I mean, I think it's Jameson, Winston, is who I want to win that battle. a little bit like saying I really want to watch James Winston feels kind of weird. But to me, what makes this this quarterback situation so interesting is that if you're strictly looking at resume at passing skill sets, you know, at scheme flexibility, all of these sorts of things, like it's James Winston, right? I mean, he was the number one overall pick in the draft a few years ago for a reason.

James Winston is a quarterback. That is the most important part of this. I mean, two years ago, he threw 30 touchdowns. He also threw 30 interceptions. But like, he's legit qualified NFL quarterback who is a human quarterback. That is a very important part of this. So in any other, you drop Taysam Hill and James Winston into a quarterback competition in 31 other teams. And it is not a competition, right?

But you put him in New Orleans with Sean Payton, who clearly has this vision about who Taysam Hill can be and what an offense could look like with him and what maybe his potential is as a passer that maybe some of the rest. rest of us don't see and I don't need all the Taysom Hill stands up in my mentions, but hello, welcome, glad to have you here. That makes us such a wild card because, you know, while I think you could just say the conventional wisdom is that James Winston should win this court about competition, you just don't know what Sean Payton is going to do and what he's thinking and what he might come up with. And if he sees something in Tassam Hill that the rest of us don't, he might be willing to ride with it, especially if James Winston, you know, has a couple of those five pick practices or, you know, some of those where he's not making good decisions and

that's probably going to happen. So that's what makes this really wild to me. And, yeah, I am, I'm really interested to watch it because a lot of the, I mean, there are some other fragile things going on with with the Saints roster. I mean, their defense now they have some questions. I think cornerback is still a big issue. They lost one of their nose tackles to a suspension. Michael Thomas is now going to miss potentially six weeks. he might actually go on the like reserve pup list after having surgery. I think he already is officially. I think he's going to miss the first six weeks of the season.

Well, so they put him on the active pup and then they'll move into the official pup. But like the expectation is is that it would be, I think they have a week seven by. So that would the timing would make sense there. So yeah, it's going to, it's going to be really interesting. And I, you know, this is going to be a really big challenge and a test of kind of who who Sean Peyton is. And I think we all know he's an offensive genius and one of the most creative play collars. But this is going to be interesting with these two guys and how they're going to put

this whole thing together. It's so funny because I was actually just finished Jeff Duncan's book about Sean Payton and Drew Breeze, which was excellent. And it's illuminating in a lot of different ways. I wrote a story about those two a couple of years ago. And Jeff's book was essentially just like a 300 page version of what I did in a week, which made it much, much better. And if you think about some of the things in that story about the Drew Brie, Sean Payton partnership and what that Saints' offenses looked like, there are a half a dozen versions of the Saints offense just buried in those binders that Sean Payton and Pete Carmichael have in Mettery. They've had to go to different versions of it for different reasons, and they've also built upon it, right? I mean, they've just been

able to constantly build on the foundation because they've had the same quarterback. So even independent of who's going to be the answer to a quarterback, the fact that it's not Drew Breeze takes us down to a level of the Saints offense that we haven't seen in a very long time. But it's still feels like the playbook and the options are wider and more varied with James Winston than they are with Taysam Hill. If you look at the offense, they ran for Taysam Hill last year. I think they used play action like 33% of Taysam Hill's dropbacks, which was twice as many as Drew Brees. And it was a completely different offense. It was a simplified offense. And I just feel like with

Winston, we could see some of the more aggressive downfield type of concepts we saw early in Breeze's career and just have it more have it be a more fully fledged fleshed out NFL offense in the passing game. But maybe there's a world where without Michael Thomas and with their offensive line and with their running backs, Sean Payton sits there and says, we're going to run the ball 58% of the time and have Tayson Hill be our quarterback. Or it's more of an even split than it would have been with Drew Breeze and Sean and Taysam Hill last year. I just think there's so many things to watch because like you said, there are big questions. with Michael Thomas missing time, with David Anayama suspended.

This is a team in serious transition. And I think the biggest question, obviously, about them and about that entire transition, is who's going to end up playing quarterback. The next one that is a fairly pressing quarterback question is in your hometown, where the Broncos have two quarterbacks, neither of which are overly exciting, but they're going to have to pick between them. What is your current feel on the Broncos' quarterback situation and how they're that ends up playing out.

Yes. This is like a true true quarterback competition where they're going to split up the reps 50-50. It's like there'll be a Teddy Bridgewater first team day and then a Drew Locke first team day. So basically what I'm preparing for and what anybody in Denver who especially listens to Denver Sports Radio should be preparing for is like who won the day. It's going to be this constant barrage of like Teddy Bridgewater through, you know, went 18 for 22 and three interceptions. and you know, you're going to get the nitty gritty and it's going to be like a who won each day.

I think this is going to go for a couple weeks. Lord knows I'm familiar with that. I know how those work. I mean, a couple of years ago, the summer of 2017, I believe, was the team Paxton versus team Trevor, which is so depressing to think about. But it was, I mean, that's what it was. It was really, really rough. And it's going to continue to continue to be rough.

But, you know, I think when you look at the Broncos quarterback competition, the way you have to, the view it is, like, okay, what's Vic Van Gio going to want for his team? Is he going to want the guy who's safe, who doesn't commit a lot of turnovers? And that should be Teddy Bridgewater. Although I'm not sure how entirely like safe Teddy Bridgewater necessarily is. I think he's safe. Yes. I'm not sure if he's safe in a vacuum. Exactly. So that's, I think that's going to be interesting. Like, what does he look like when you're actually in like live? you know, 11 and 11 drills, what sort of decision making is he, you know, does he have when he's got Von Miller and Bradley Chubb rushing him in a, in a full team drill, you know, Kyle Fuller on one side and Ronald Darby on, you know, when you're facing kind of the really good defense on the other side. So do you want this, does he want kind of the, the guy who might have a higher floor, lower ceiling?

Drew Locke's ceiling is probably higher, athletically, kind of like the oomph, the swagger. stuff that Drew Locke is going to bring. But his floor is pretty low. We saw his floor last year. Hopefully his floor doesn't go any lower than it was last season when he was statistically one of the very worst quarterbacks in the NFL. So how much better did Drew Locke get this offseason? His first time in the same system with the same coordinator, you know, he spent a lot of

time with his teammates in the offseason throwing, working out. He was basically spent the whole offseason here in Denver and was around the facility doing all that sort of stuff. So it's going to be interesting. It's going to go. It's not going to be decided week one. If you hear that there's a leader after a couple of days, just wait a couple more days and it's probably going to completely flip. It'll be the first camp I go to and see in person.

I will be out there Tuesday for their kind of media day. And then I'm going to watch them on Thursday. And I don't know if Thursday is going to be a Drew Locke day or Teddy Bridgewater day, but goodness knows I will be tracking all of the passes. It feels to me, and this is just based. on nothing but precedent in some of the ways we've seen these situations play out in the past. This could be a scenario where lock starts week one because they need to see it through. It's like this guy is a little bit more of an unknown. We spent draft capital on him, all that stuff.

His first three-pick game that they lose 17 to 13 in week two or whatever, that's when we see Teddy Bridgewater. That to me feels like the most logical outcome of this is that. Even if Teddy Bridgewater doesn't start the season as the starting quarterback, we see him sooner rather than later. Because like you alluded to, I think Vic Fangio wants that type of guy over the uncertainty that Drew Locke is going to bring you. Yeah. And then Teddy will get hurt or the offense will struggle and they'll bring Drew Locke back in and it's going to be a vicious cycle. And Denver Sports Radio will just be spending all the time talking about Aaron Rogers. So that'll be fine.

It'll be really fun. So I imagine that neither of these guys is the long term. answer and the Broncos are going to be right back in the quarterback market come January, February, March, April of next year. It's frustrating because it does feel like this year is a holding pattern for them. And when you have so much talent, especially on defense, but also young, exciting talent on offense, it's frustrating to go into the year knowing that you're in a holding pattern, knowing that your ceiling is limited.

Again, an experience I know extremely well, but that doesn't make it any more appealing. Yeah, and then there's like ownership drama. I mean, like the team could get sold at any day now. I mean, there's just, it's not a great time to be a Broncos fan. There's a lot of angst going on. And look, it'd be fun if this Broncos defense is really good. And the offense is whichever quarterback wins makes them competent enough that they can compete with, just compete with the chiefs, not get your ass handed to you by the chiefs twice a year. Compete with the, you know, split with the chargers, make it interesting.

but God, I don't know. It's rough. It's a really tough time, I think, to be a Broncos fan. They're looking for any glimmer of hope. And you see it. You see those pieces, right? The quarterback uncertainty just is this dark cloud over everything else. Here's what I would say is the glimmer of hope.

And I know it's the fact that we're doing this in July 26 feels wrong. But I think the glimmer of hope is you give yourself options to pivot. And I think the options to pivot are next year, if we live in a world where Russell Wilson or Aaron Rogers or whoever is available, and you have a roster and an organization that is attractive to somebody like that, can you go out and get somebody like that? And if you move on from your coach, if they ended up moving on from Vic Fangio after this season,

and an up-and-coming offensive coach is sitting there looking at the town on the roster and saying, I can do something with this right now. I think that is the glimmer of hope, is that even if it's, not perfect. And even if they do have a limited ceiling in 2021, it's an appealing group of players and there is a chance with a couple small tweaks, one of which is a quarterback, which is not a small tweak, but there's a chance with a couple tweaks they can get where they want to go. That's what I would be holding on to if I were a Broncos fan. I appreciate your optimism. I'll pass it along to my friends and family. All right. Let's stick with a couple other

quarterback situations here because I think we have to talk about the rookie quarterbacks. and what their timelines might look like in places like Chicago, New England, and San Francisco. I'll ask you this. I'm asking you this on the spot. If you had to handicap when those three guys will play, and you had to order them from first to last in terms of when we'd see them, one through three,

what would you say? Okay. Is it fair to say Tray Lance first because Jimmy Garoppolo will probably get hurt? Not for injury. If everyone involved is healthy, yes, because that's a very good point. If everyone involved is healthy, I would say Fields first, Lance, second, Mac Jones third. And I don't feel good about that. So mine is Mac Jones first, Fields second, Tray Lance third.

So I want to hear the rationale on Mac Jones. So let me walk you. Here's the rationale. I'm following the money. Because if you look at the contracts handed out and some of the, I think, Dan Graziano reported today that it's pretty much an open competition or close to it in New England where the veterans, based on what he had heard in the veteran situations in Chicago and San Francisco are a little bit more entrenched. And if you look at the financial aspect of it, the Niners didn't

pay Jimmy Garapolo $25 million this year so they could replace him in week one. I think that they're going to try to ride it out as long as possible with him this year. And I think that That situation is the closest one to what was happening in Kansas City in 2017, because they are paying a true amount for their quarterback. And I think their offense can be pretty good if Jimmy Garapolo is healthy. We've seen them be successful. So that's why I would put Lance last, just because I think that what they're paying Garapolo and with how successful they could be with Garapolo, maybe we'll wait an entire year before we see him. And I think if you look at with Dalton, it's not even that they're paying him. million dollars. I do think that they're going to try to keep him on the field for as long as

they can. I think the barrier, they're going to need a jump start faster than the Niners offense is going to. I wouldn't be surprised at all. If the Bears are one and two, they get beat up by the Browns in week three, and they'd say, it's over. We have no reason not to put him in. We need this. We need this shot in the arm. That would not surprise me. Their buy isn't until week 10. That's why I have fields first. I have that makes a total sense. Because I think the bears will find themselves in the desperate situation soonest, potentially because they're bad, or because, you know, this is a coach and a GM on the hot seat and you just got to do something, right? So that was why, that was really my reasoning there, putting them first.

I think that makes sense. I also think that Newton making $3 million or whatever it is this year, and based on what other people have reported about how much of a true competition that is, I just think the Patriots aren't really motivated to keep Cam Newton in there if they think that Mac Jones can be better and Mac Jones is their future. I just don't think there are many barriers to Mac Jones getting in into the lineup like there are with a couple of those other guys. So I think Fields and Jones are probably 1A, 1B to me, but I think Lance is a distant third. Yeah, I think Mac Jones and the Patriot situation is so interesting because I think he's either going to start like all 16 games. Like they're going to say he's the guy or he's just not. Or he won't play at all.

Neither of those would surprise me. I think that that makes total sense to me. But yeah, that's the one I think that's hardest to get a read on, but that's kind of why I put him at number one. Yeah, it's going to be really fun to follow all of Jeff Howes. He'll have like 74 thoughts from every training camp practice, and like 72 of them are going to be about the quarterbacks, and I can't wait to read it.

It's going to be really good stuff. It's going to be something we monitor throughout this entire process. Okay, a couple others that not quarterback related, but that we wanted to dig into here, you wanted to talk about some of the questions involving the Rams offense. This is a team that the athletic writers put as the number one team in the NFC West in their power rankings earlier this week. But I think there are some pretty big questions facing their offense even after trading for Matthew Stafford. Yeah. So we did our pre-training camp power rankings. They published on Monday. We had

more than 30 members of our NFL staff reporters and editors who voted on this. And everybody is really high on the Rams, I was really curious to see kind of how the NFC West would shake out because I think it's going to be the most interesting division in football. Once again, it was last year just in terms of how competitive all of those games were. And the Rams were basically unanimously first voted by our staff. And I think a lot of that is look, they have ridiculously good defensive talent, but just some optimism about what this offense is going to look like with this quarterback switch. And I don't know exactly what it's going to look like. I'm just really excited to see Matthew Stafford kind of in a fresh spot. It's going to be rejuvenating for him in his career.

And it's been kind of percolating a little bit on the internet where like people are going, oh my God, Matthew Stafford's really good. And it's like, yeah, Matthew Stafford is really freaking good. And like he's been good for a very long time. He's had to play through a lot of crap in Detroit, bad teams, injuries. He's tough as hell. And it's just going to be kind of fun to see him and John McVay together and kind of like their brains working together. But I'm just, I'm just excited about kind of these new possibilities. And yeah, I mean, I think the Rams should be a really good team and they're going to be really fun. I know you have some other bits of their roster that you are especially interested to see what's going to happen in camp.

So I think if you're talking about the questions relating to their roster, obviously the biggest one now is what's going to happen at running back. It's unfortunate that Cam Acres was coming into the season. Everyone was very excited about what he was going to be. like what their offense was going to look like with him as their full-time guy. He tears his Achilles. Now we're starting over at running back. And I think that leads into some of the other questions about their offense because they made some changes along the offensive line. And I think Jordan Roderick, who covers the Rams for us, was a little bit surprised. They didn't fortify their offensive line a little bit more this offseason. So now you have a lot of in-house options filling

some of those roles. They moved Austin Corbett from guard to center. And now Bobby Evans is apparently going to be their starting right guard. We know the tackles are in place, right? Wentworths on one side, having signs on the other, but the interior of their offensive line is a little bit more in flux. And then you combine that with the fact that they have a new offensive line coach now. They hired Kevin Carberry from Stanford to replace Aaron Cromer. And I think that is an indication that we might be seeing more gap scheme power runs from the Rams this year, which aligned with Cam Acres as the running back and Corbett switching to center. But now that Cam Acres is her, and you have Darrell Henderson back in there,

I just have a ton of questions about how that running game is going to shake out and really what it means for their offensive ceiling. Obviously, Matthew Stafford is a better quarterback than Jared Goff. They're going to have more of a downfield element than they've had the last couple years. But I still think there are big questions about what the rest of that offense looks like. And to me, the reason those questions are important is because of the expectations that people are putting on this team. If we're going to say this is the best team in the NFC West or this is a really,

real true contender in the NFC, these are the sort of nitpicky digging down questions that you're going to need to ask because those answers are going to matter when you're deciding whether to put this team on the same plane or close to the same plane as an Aaron Rogers led Packers team or a buck's team that brought back every single one of its starters. Yeah, I mean, I think they're kind of a they could potentially be a real high variance team. Like you can make the argument that their ceiling should be as high as anybody. in the NFC, right? I mean, they went into Tampa and they beat the Bucks last year. That was when

the Bucks was still kind of, we're still trying to figure out exactly who they are. But you can see the potential for when they're playing their best, why they're good, who their star players are going to be. But yeah, I mean, those holes that you talked about, those situations, I mean, they could be make or break type of things. And, you know, we learned today, Daryl Henderson is not going to play in the preseason. We're not going to learn a ton about the Rams from watching preseason games because that's just not how Sean McVeigh rolls. So it's going to be really important to pay attention to the actual reps in practice. And then I believe they're doing joint practices with the Cowboys.

And those are going to be really fun because that's what Sean McVay is really going to treat as like their game reps. So when we get to see them, I believe those are going to be in Oxnard, those joint practices, that's going to be the real time where we're going to learn a lot about what the Rams offense looks like, this kind of new iteration of it. I'm very excited to go to Rams camp. I'll be there for two days because L.A. is my favorite place to go during training camp because the Chargers and the ramps practice at different times, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and they practice 10 minutes away from each other. So you can do both of those in the same day, which it's a little inside baseball, but it's one of my favorite places to go every single summer because you can just watch a lot of football and spend multiple days with each team, which it's always better when you can be there for two days. Like the things you're going to pick up, it's always so helpful, but it's hard to justify when there's so many teams you want to get to.

That's kind of the push and the pull of the travel schedule this time of year every single year. It'll be fun starting next week when we're seeing teams. Yeah, because I do the same thing where you want to be with a team two days in row because a quarterback could have a really bad day and you don't want to rush to make these really broad conclusions after something that happens just once. So when you get a couple days at a team, you really can guide it, get a sense of what a roster looks like, what the energy around a team is like. And I'm just excited that you and I are going to start to.

We're going to be seeing these guys up in person. All right. Before we get out of here, why don't we each do one more big question that we have heading into training camp? What is yours? All right. So this is a little more broad. This is not one team specific.

But, you know, this is the time where we can kind of start our, you know, handicapping the comeback player the year race because there's a lot of guys that we didn't get to see at all in 2020 or very limited action in 2020 who are now going to be back healthy. And last year is really brutal for some injuries. And we've already seen Dak Prescott back on the practice field. you know, looks great so far fully cleared. Joe Burrow has been fully cleared to practice. You know, at some point we're going to see Nick Bosa,

Derwin James, Von Miller, Christian McCaffrey, Sequin Berkeley. I mean, some of the games like best stars, their best young players, we're going to have back. And any one of those players, I think you could make an argument to be, you know, the comeback player of the year. Some of those guys might be defensive player of the year candidates. You know, Christian McCaffrey,

sake on Barclay could lead the NFL in rushing. Doc Prescott now has, what, $40 million a year? So I'm just really excited to see some of these guys that we missed so much in 2020, back healthy and back looking like themselves. I can't wait to watch Joe Burrow again just because I want to see what that offense looks like because that to me is one of the bigger storylines associated with the entire season is he was the number one pick in the draft last year. They picked a receiver in the top five.

Like what does that offense look like? Do they take steps forward? what does it mean for the leadership there if they don't take steps forward? We're going to do a couple shows here in the next week or so about some of the coaches and the players that have a lot on the line this year. And I think a lot of that is concentrated in Cincinnati and what Zach Teller does here in year three because now it's time. They got to show something.

And I'm sure we'll be talking a lot about that. I also cannot wait to watch Dak Prescott play again with the amount of talent on that Cowboys offense. Again, something that we will certainly be hitting over the next few weeks. here. Mine is the opposite of that. You were talking about some of the bigger name players in the entire league. The last big question I have may seem very random. I'm really curious to see how the...

You know. I'm very curious to see how the Panthers' offensive line is going to shake out. And the reason I say that is this. I think they showed so much promise on offense last year. I love the past catchers. Obviously, you have DJ Moore, Robbie Anderson, Terest Marshall there is now their third receiver, Christian McCaffrey coming back. I think it's two different things.

one, is that line going to end up kind of torpedoing or sabotaging some of that potential? And two, what does it mean for Sam Darnold? Because that was one of the biggest questions about him with the Jets is that the line was always so bad. And it was a huge part of his lack of development. Now are we going to run into the same issue? Because from everything that we've heard so far, it seems like Cam Irving, who they signed this off season, has the inside track to play left tackle, which that's interesting. and they drafted Brady Christensen in the third round.

From what I've heard, he's been working on the right side and then even at guard some. So how does that five shake out? Is it Moton at right tackle who they just resign? And then Christensen at Guard, one of Pat Offliner, one of Pat Offliner John Miller, and then Irving on the left side. That is a group that I think how that shakes out is going to be big for whether San Bernard succeeds, for what they, what sort of steps Joe Brady and Matt Rule take in a year two. Again, those are the things that may not seem important on the surface, but I think our big, big questions as practices start, as we see what first team reps start looking like, all of that.

And that starts tomorrow. No more big questions, no more uncertainty about what teams are going to look like, all that other stuff. We're going to see teams on the field. We're going to see players actually doing things. Both of us very soon are going to be watching. I will be at Colts camp tomorrow. and I will be on the road for the next two weeks. And I could not be more excited about that.

We're going to be talking to people in person. I know. I'm very excited. It is going to be great. I cannot wait to hit the road. We're going to be talking to each other in person. Spoiler alert for next week. One day, you and I ships in the night for the most part,

but one day we are going to overlap on the East Coast and we will be sitting together doing a podcast. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to getting back to football. We're going to be coming to you guys three days a week for all of training. camp. It's obviously Tuesday. We're going to have a show tomorrow on Wednesday and then on Friday. That is going to be the cadence we have all the way through August. And then starting in early September, we're going to do the division previews we did last year. And we'll have four of those

a week, four straight days for two straight weeks right before the season. So that's what you guys can be expecting. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all the way through August. We will be having check-ins from every single camp I visit. I'm planning on going to 16 of them. over the next month or so. Lindsay is also doing some traveling. So we'll have a lot of boots on the ground reporting. We're going to be talking to the team writer at every single stop that I'm going to. So we're going to have a ton of insider perspective on what's going on in those individual places.

We're going to try to fold in some conversations that I'm going to have with coaches, with players, really give you guys a feel for what it's like to be at camp the best that we can. We have our access back. We're going to try to use it to the best of. our ability and really have it inform the way the show looks here over the next month or so before we kick off. So that's what you guys can expect. In the meantime, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice.

I would sincerely appreciate that. Please subscribe to The Athletic. It's time. Football season is here. I'm not kidding. You guys cannot follow training camp and the sport at this time of year without an athletic subscription. Theathletic.com slash football show.

I am going to have a ton of stuff coming in August and up toward the season, things that I'm working on now that I'm very excited about. Lindsay is already writing. You guys cannot follow the NFL without one of these subscriptions. Please pick yours up before the season if you have not. We will be back tomorrow. Me and Mike Sando are talking all things quarterback tears. That piece runs tomorrow. It is one of the biggest things we do at the athletic on the NFL side every single year.

I have read it for as many years as he's been publishing it. I'm very excited to dig into that with him. Please come back for that. Until then, thank you guys so much for listening. I'm very happy to be back, and I'm excited to keep talking with you guys over the next few weeks here. This was The Athletic Football Show.