The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Biggest questions of the 2025 offseason

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Where will the on-the-move quarterbacks get off the carousel? How will the Bengals address their defense? Will the Rams turn the page to a new era? Where will the big-name free agents land. Those are just four of the offseason questions Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen addressed on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. We are fully in off-season mode now here at the Athletic Football Show. And we're kicking that off in a big way with a show that we do most years at this point and really do it at the same time every year. It's the Friday after the Super Bowl. We kind of set the stage for what the off-season can potentially look like by asking the biggest questions we have, heading into free agency season, heading into draft season. What do these teams need to do to catch the teams that we're playing?

in the Super Bowl last weekend. Me and Derek Classen asked all of the big offseason questions that we have. Where do the quarterbacks go? Where do some of the free agents go? Derek's wondering how the Bengals add some physicality to their defense. What does Kansas City do along the offensive line? So we got some team specific stuff in there. We got some bigger picture stuff in there. Either way, I love doing the show every year. I think it's a really good way to kind of clear the decks before we really get into the offseason in earnest. So let's get to that conversation. with Derek Klazan right now. All right, Derek, this show means that the offseason is officially here.

We've done this podcast in some capacity. I don't know, Beller, but the last like three or four years, right? I mean, it's become a staple of our early offseason programming. And it means that the bowl is over. This means that we are officially turning the page to combine talk, free agency talk, whatever comes next this spring. So welcome. Welcome to your first athletic football show offseason.

We're officially here. It's fun. You know, when we had this on. the schedule. We had scheduled this before the Super Bowl, but it wasn't something I thought about at all until after the Super Bowl. So I was kind of scrambling like Tuesday. Like, what are my biggest questions of this off season? So this was a really good exercise. This was fun. I'm glad that you actually put a ton of thought into this. And you had like specific teams and like what is so and so going to do? I have some of that. Mine are much more big picture than the ones that

you came with. I like sometimes just giving you like an open ended prompt and just seeing what you come back with. It's a good mix of stuff here as a result. So we're going to go high and we're going to go low when it comes to the vantage point that we're looking at some of these questions with. I want to start with really the question that every kind of offseason starts with. And that is what the quarterback carousel for 2025 is going to look like. It's a boring one. There's no way around it.

It is a boring potential quarterback carousel. I think it was like two years ago where it seemed like 20 guys were going to change teams and we were trying to figure out who those guys were and where they would end up. There are some years that are way more exciting than others. This one is objectively boring. Like if we're going through the three, let's call it five veteran names that potentially could be on other teams next year. I think a couple of them are likely, a couple of them are probable.

Matthew Stafford is the biggest domino to potentially fall in terms of the impact he can have in 2025. We'll talk about that. We know Sam Donald is probably going to be on a different team if he is coaxed away with the right amount of money. Aaron Rogers is not going to be back with the Jets next year. Kirk Cousins is probably going to be available when the Falcons decide to move on from him. And we'll see what the Saints do with Derek Carr. Like those are the five names. Carr may be back in New Orleans, but they are incentivized to potentially trade him if they can.

Not really getting you out of your chair. If you're a team that needs a quarterback right now, this is not the year to get overly excited about what the potential veteran options are going to be. We might as well just start there. Stafford is the only guy. on this list that I think can raise your level from wherever you think you are to wherever you want to go. And even that is like maybe a one year bet, maybe a two year bet. Like even that is like a little bit scary to me. And like even then, like it could go a little bit like Kirk did last year where it's like,

okay, we know how good he's been at his peak when he has the infrastructure around him, but the injury stuff. And Matthew Stafford isn't coming off of like one big injury, but he's coming off of like six years of constantly being banged up. And so you wonder. thousand nagging injuries is what he's coming off of. He's the thousand paper cuts type of quarterback.

And eventually those are all going to add up. And so maybe it's next year. But he's the only guy where I could sell myself on the idea of he raises your level. But we'll talk about what I think about the whole Stafford thing in a minute. Let's discuss potential Stafford landing spots now because we might as well just take into these guys individually. If he's going to be the potential need to mover and all of this, some people have thrown out the idea of him going to a place like the Raiders or a place like the Giants. I don't know how much that makes sense for the exact reason that you just said.

If this is a one-year bet probably and a two-year bet potentially, do we think either of those teams is close enough to contention to warrant something like this? I'm just not sure they are. There are some building blocks on each of those rosters. You know, if you can talk yourself into what the Raiders' offensive line is going to look like in year two after adding some of those guys. You know, you have Brock Bowers. you have an edge rusher.

You know, Patrick, Patrick Graham is back to oversee the defense. Can you be competitive quickly? I think that's a tough story to sell yourself. With the Giants is kind of a similar deal. You have neighbors. You have a left tackle. You've got some pieces on defense. With the right quarterback, can you be competitive quickly?

The Giants, I feel like I could push myself there because we're not operating in a vacuum. Like, there are guys trying to save jobs. And the idea of Matthew Stafford, potentially getting you to 10 wins in a wildcard birth is more attractive for those guys than it might be if you were trying to optimize your Super Bowl chances over a three-year period. But I still don't feel like either of those makes the most sense. The team I consistently come back to that has a short-term window with enough pieces where like with the right quarterback, a couple other smaller moves, we can potentially do this over a two-year stretch is the Steelers. I think that it is the team that makes the most sense

and I don't even know if there's another one that really comes close, given need and window for competing. Like the Jets financially, it's probably, I don't know how, I don't know how that's going to work with it. It's still having to pay Rogers some of his money, but they will actually have a lot of space. If the Jets move on for Rogers and Devante,

they'll have like $60 million in cap space. You think the rest of the Jets roster is close enough to justify that? To me, and sometimes I, this is a problem for me, where I'm kind of in all or nothing mode. Like you're either in reset mode or you're in go for it mode. And teams don't necessarily think like that. And I've had to rewire my brain to make sure that I'm more flexible when it comes to how I'm bucketing this stuff.

But with the Jets specifically, I'm kind of in a spot where it's like, you're in year one of a new regime. Just take your medicine for a second. You have some young pieces. You build around those young pieces. Don't get ahead of yourself. But you actually think that it might make more sense than I do. I mean, I mostly agree with that.

I just do think there's a chance that like, this Jets roster is as good as the Steelers is. Like a lot of, I think, what we think being a little bit down on the Jets defense was like, when they fired solid, they kind of just gave up a little bit. They lost their will to live. Yeah, they just lost their will to live. And Aaron Rogers was worse than Zach Wilson. And I think they all saw that.

And so I think with that not being in the equation anymore, Aaron Glenn being a really good. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean statistically or you mean like as an NFL quarterback, Aaron Rogers is worse than Zach Wilson? The record-wise, they were worse. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Sorry. I don't think they. He was, he individually was not that bad. I don't know. I don't think he was individually worse than Zach Wilson last year. No, that's not what I was trying to say. But as a record, they were worse.

And so once all that was happened, they couldn't win. They fired Sala as like, all right, I don't know why we're trying anymore. And so I do think, though, if you look at all the individual pieces. And then even on the offense, it's like both of these offensive lines probably underplayed what they could have been last year. Obviously, with the Steelers, some of that was injury. And then you look at both. of these receiver cores and now with Adams presumably being gone, they both have one guy.

Garrett Wilson's a hell of a lot better than George Pickens to me. And so like I think, I don't know if this is the best course of action for the Jets, but I could see themselves convincing convincing themselves of it. That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about that. But as I went through this exercise and I was going to hit this when we actually talked about the Roger stuff, but I actually feel more optimistic about the Jets current team building situation than I thought I was going to. When we were trying to frame how to consider the Jets job. There's the head coaching job.

To me, it was never about the traditional things we look at. Even with a quarterback vacuum, they have young pieces. Again, if they make some certain moves here, they'll have $60, $65 million in cap space. You've guys to build around. I actually think that the roster and the two to three year outlook of the roster is pretty decent. And adding a quarterback to that, like Matthew Stafford,

kind of accelerates that process. I don't hate it. But it's just not where. my mindset was when I was thinking about what the 2025, 2026 jets were going to look like. But they don't really have another option at quarter. That's what I was going to say. Who are they going to draft? They're almost certainly not going to get one of the top two guys in Cam Ward and Shadurr Sanders.

So then you're kind of left picking from. And you can't go back to Sam Darnold. Don't even say it. Don't even do it. That wasn't what I was going to say. It's just that every single, every single offseason, there's a team that has Tyrod Taylor as their backup quarterback. And then they do something drastic to replace. Tyrod Taylor or theoretically upgrade on him.

And the better course of action would have just been to stick with Tyrod Taylor. Like that's the big that's the giants like the giants in the Daniel Jones year. Everyone was like, well, what else would they do? You probably would have just been better sticking with Tyrod as your starter. And I think you can make an argument that the Jets just starting Tyrod Taylor next year in a vacuum is not the worst potential outcome. It's just hard to sell that to a fan base, especially in year one of a new regime. I know that.

I'm willing to acknowledge that there are outside forces at play here. But I think more often than not, teams would just be better off punting on the position for a year than overcommitting to something that's not going to move the needle for them anyway. As a longtime tire out guy, I would be totally fine with this. I don't know how you're going to sell the hundreds of thousands and millions of Jets fans, but me personally on this show, I'll be good with it. Donald, we've talked about ad nauseum, just where he could potentially wind up, you know, which team thinks that he is their best path forward at quarterback, you know,

all the usual suspects. The Titans are going to have a ton of money. The Raiders have a ton of money. If the Rams move on from Stafford or they, they a team that could kind of dig into the Darnold sweepstakes. We'll talk about that a lot at the combine, I assume, because we'll start to have the breadcrumbs about what's actually going to happen and what the Darnold market is going to look like.

Talk about Rogers a little bit. Here's my question about Rogers for you. Jets have already said they're moving on. The whole thing with this where I think it was Jake, Glazer reported it on Super Bowl Sunday. And then today the Jets come out and put out a tweet saying that they've agreed to move on from Aaron Rogers. Like what an absolute fucking mess this whole thing has been.

But if you're another team, is there another team that in your mind makes sense for Aaron Rogers in 2025? Because I think the Jets were right to move on in the sense that what's really happening here? Your team in reset mode, even if he's theoretically better than some of your other 2025 options could be, are you willing to deal with the headache? with a otherwise young roster where you're trying to reset everything about the organization. No, it's just easier to move on from him and just have a hard reset and a clean break

from whatever this previous regime looked like. Okay, if you're the Tennessee Titans and now you're in like a soft reset area and you're trying to potentially get a little bit younger, do you want Aaron Rogers to come in and be your starter for a year and have to deal with all of the baggage that comes with Aaron Rogers at this stage of his career, I think a lot of teams, as they weigh that, are going to potentially land on no as the answer. I would land on no for all 32 teams. Like, I just, like, somebody will sign him, right? And like, there's only so many chairs and somebody has to go play starting quarterback. But I just, it's for all the stuff that you said. Like, this is,

no matter who signs Aaron Rogers, it becomes his team, which yes, can be good if he was still playing at an MVP level the way that he was five years ago. But we haven't seen that in ages. If you're willing to make the Faustian bargain and sign away a portion of your soul, hoping to win some football games, that I can get behind. But I just don't think he's good enough at this stage to justify something like that. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's got one more f-you year left in him because he doesn't like how it ended with the Jets.

But at a certain point, that FU energy runs out no matter how strong it is. Like your body starts to betray you and he's going to be 41 years old. I'm just not sure there is a logical landing spot. I'm sure someone will come to the conclusion that it's worth it for them. Some owner will be like, oh, of course we want Aaron Rogers. He's the first ballot Hall of Famer. Like, whatever the nonsense is that we have to live with, I'm willing to endure that because he's Aaron Rogers.

But it's a hard sell to me for a lot of potential landing places just because of where those teams are in their timeline. The last thing I wanted to hit here because it trickled out today, and I just feel like we should address it in some capacity, was the idea of the Jags trading Trevor Lawrence. Oh, get out of here. The Steelers potentially calling about Trevor Lawrence. Okay, well, now I'm reinterested.

Okay, well, so that, apparently that did not happen. Tom Palisero came out today and said that the Steelers did not call about Trevor Lawrence. It would only be $30 million in dead money because of an option bonus that kicks in in March if the Jags were to move on from Trevor Lawrence. So just as an exercise, if you were the Jaguars and you wanted to say, listen, we have a little bit of buyer's remorse. We think we could get something for him. we have an entirely new regime we could move on and live with it i just don't what to what end i guess is my question like he's 27 years old right 26 years old the way that his contract is structured

it's not really a team building impediment for each of the next three seasons he's making 17 million against the cap this year and then i think goes to like 30 million and then i think goes to like 38 or 40 million as the cap goes up that's not a ton to pay your quarterback if you look at the way they've structured the deal. It's super backloaded. So I'm just not sure the resources you would free up, even if you throw a pick into that equation, plus the cap savings you're going to get from moving on from Trevor Lawrence, are beneficial to you when you have to go find another quarterback as part of that equation. Even as a thought exercise, I just don't think it makes a lot of sense for Jacksonville.

Yeah, I just don't think it's worth it. I know I'm much higher on Lawrence than a lot of other people, but I think at the very least, he is competent. And I think if we get competent plus Liam Cohen. It's like, okay, we can start to build something here. The other thing is, too, like when is the last time this happened with a quarterback like this where it's like he's clearly above the line for fine and maybe they just didn't get to the potential with him? Like, is it the Cutler trade? Like, that's the last time I think. The exact example I was going to say, but that was they didn't pay Jay Cutler. That was before Jay Cutler got a contract extension. That was two, three years into his rookie deal. Right. I think it was after his third season.

I think he was after six. And so he was drafted. He was traded in the spring of 2009. Yeah. And so a moment I remember very well. I'm sure. And so that's kind of the thing is there's just like not a whole lot of precedent for a deal like this. So I just don't even understand.

It's hard for me to imagine what it would even look like. I can't imagine what it would look like. And the whole selling point of the Liam Cohen hire is that if you can fix Trevor Lawrence into the right offense, then you could get better results from Trevor Lawrence. I think he's absolutely been good enough to warrant that path forward for the Jags, even if you have some lingering questions about how good he is. All right, let's get to your first one here. Your number one lingering question that you wanted to talk about as we hit the 2025 offseason is what? Yeah, so when I approached this question, it was like, okay, who are the teams that are kind of good,

not great and need to get into the next, like, how can they take the swing to get to whatever the next level is for them? And for me, I thought a lot about the Rams. And they're kind of entering this era now where it's like, okay, do we want to give up on the Stafford thing? Because he's kind of asking for more money. He's very expensive. He's very old. He's banged up consistently. Or, and they've already like floated the idea of moving on from Cooper Cup.

Or do you want to say, okay, we got two more years with this thing with Sean McVeigh, Matthew Stafford. Let's try to take the swing. I've consistently landed on the side of take the swing. Like I think having Pooka Nakuwa alone, losing cup is going to hurt, but having Puka be what he is, I think, is going to go a long way for keeping the floor of the offense really high. I think that's true of Matthew Stafford. I think that's true of Kairn Williams. They can add one or two more pieces there and then continue to let the young guys on the defense grow.

We already saw that this team can win the division. Obviously, a couple of things needed to go their way. But if they take that, if they take a step that is worth one or two more wins, they can win the division again. And so to me, that is probably the best path forward for them, even if you, you, understand that by 2027 this is all gone. I tend to agree with that. I just think if you are looking at the horizon and you think it's going to get messy this time around with Stafford because it wasn't clean last summer.

And now we're a year later. He's a year older. A year of, I think erratic is strong, but more inconsistent play than we had seen from him in the previous season. I think there are more points in favor of potentially moving on from him than there were a year ago. And so if that becomes real and you decide to move on from cup as well, you'd be looking at like $55 million in cap space. And this team with sort of a blank slate, I don't know if it's the best path forward, but it interests me.

It's something where I'm like, okay, as an exercise, them deciding what the pivot point looks like and how to move on to the next phase of this, I'm intrigued by it. Because you look at it from last year, they were like one of the top 10 oldest offenses in the league last. year by snapweight at age. I think it was like seventh or eighth in the NFL. They were one of the youngest defenses. If you move on from Stafford and Cup, suddenly you become very young on offense. I mean, your oldest starter at that point then is what, Rob Havenstein, who's 32 years old, maybe DeMarcus Robinson is in that same range. You get very young in a hurry. So them going full youth movement and then figuring out, okay, rather than trying to compete in 2025, How do we set ourselves up to compete in 2026 or 2027?

I'm interested in that. I just am interested in it as like an exercise and how they would go about that. But the number one question then becomes who is your quarterback and how do you find that person? And if it's not Sam Darnold in this particular cycle, then I'm not sure who else I would get excited by. Maybe you go for like one of the reclamation projects. Maybe it's like a Justin Fields and you see how that goes for a year. And then you see what the 2026 spring brings you. you. I don't know if that's a good idea, but that sort of path I at least find interesting.

If we're talking about thought experiments, I don't know if Justin Fields with Sean McVeigh is a good idea necessarily, but it is something that I want to see. So if that was specifically the angle, then you could probably convince me. But other than that, and even that is very like you're trying to thread a very fine needle. And then the other thing is, I think if it was last year's quarterback class and you could not guarantee, but have a pretty good chance that if you trade it, up to nine that you could get somebody, then fine, that you could sell me on that. This year is just not that class. And so that is kind of the issue I have, too. It's like, who are you going to get

if it's not darn old outside of obviously keeping Stafford? All right. So let's do this. Okay, you move on from Stafford. You get a two and change in the Stafford trade. You get a three in the cup trade. So now you've got some extra draft capital work with. You got $60 million in cap space. We talked about teams that didn't have a quarterback solution, not wanting to make the bargain. and with Rogers because it becomes his organization. Well, in L.A., it's Sean McVeigh's team, and it's going to be Sean McVeigh's team. So is one year of Rogers with this core where you can remain competitive and then open yourself up to whatever the 2026 quarterback options look like, is that potentially worth

it to you? I think it took Rogers too long to accept the Matt Lefleur offense that I just don't know if you would get off the ground fast enough getting him into the Sean McVeigh offense. I'm just trying to figure out who plays quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams next year if it's not Sam Donald. And I don't want it to be Jamaica Copla. No, no, no, no, we can't do that. I don't think Sean wants to do that either. What else they do this offseason? Do they move on from Jonah Jackson, right? Because he was the odd man out after they figured out the offensive line. They paid him a lot of money. They can save some against the cap if they do that, but not a ton. But just how the

Rams see themselves and where they want to go. I'm very interested to see what that looks like here over the next month or so. My next one here, do we get a massive edge rush or trade at some point this spring? Obviously, the Miles Garrett one is the headline grabbing one. We've talked a lot about that on the shows that we did last week. I'm interested in which teams could potentially take a huge swing for somebody like Miles Garrett. Does Washington feel like that's worth it at this stage? I still am in the camp where I don't think the Browns want to do this. I think that they're going to wait as long as they possibly can. I think they're going to dig in because they don't have to trade him if they don't want to.

And if he's not going to show up, that's an entirely different conversation. But who blinks first as part of this? That's going to be what's worth watching. The Browns on so many different levels are not incentivized to do this. But maybe there's a team that blows them away so completely that

they feel like they have to entertain it. The one that I think is more realistic and the one that I find myself thinking about is the Trey Hendrickson one. Because while the Browns, through back channels, have made it very clear they have no interest in trading Miles Garrett. Duke Tobin came out after the season and explicitly said,

we can't pay everyone at the top of the market at all of these positions, thus pissing off Trey Hendrickson in the process. Even if that's true, you can't say it. Not handled well. Everything the Bengals have done here when it comes to these high value players and these high profile players, I think probably could have been done a little bit better and massaged a little bit more. But if I'm a team that theoretically would be involved in the Miles Garrett,

sweepstakes, but doesn't want to give up what I would need to to pry him away from Cleveland who doesn't want to trade him. I'm at least thinking about the Trey Hendrickson trade. The team I keep coming back to is Buffalo. If I'm Buffalo, I'm calling the Bengals tomorrow with the extra two I got from the digs trade and the extra four I got for the Bears moving up for Austin Booker in last year's draft and saying, here you go. Here's a second and a fourth. Let's make this happen right now. I'm rolling into next season feeling exponentially better about my front four. Do you think there's any part of the Bengals that because it is specifically Josh Allen and the bills would ask for a little bit more. I absolutely think that's the case. And listen, they've taken they've taken shots at each

other across the bow and press conferences over the last few years. I mean, think about that moment a couple years ago where Bean was talking about the Bengals and them finding difference makers like, yeah, when you're picking in the top five, it's easy to find those guys. I don't get to pick in the top five. So no, I would not be surprised at all if the Bengals were willing to twist the knife a little bit and ask for a little bit more. Yeah, and they should. If it's going to be your conference rival, you absolutely should. But I do think Hendrickson is more on the table because I think the more we talked about

the Miles Garrett thing during Super Bowl week, you did convince me a little bit that for a number of reasons he's probably a little bit more untradable, both because of the cap reasons and also like why would Cleveland give up the best defensive player in the league, all that other stuff. But Hendrickson is like a tiered down from that. And the Bengals defense is not close to competing with or without Trey Hendrickson. So it doesn't really matter. I mean, it does matter if he is or isn't on the roster. But like they are so far away anyway that they would still need six different starters.

You might as well go out and get some extra resources and throw a bunch of draft picks at the defense, even though you tried doing that for four years and it didn't work. Eventually, your luck has to turn around. I mean, if you need, if you're going to have a good defense and you need seven new players on defense, making it eight by trading away, Trey Hendrickson, maybe isn't the best team building move. But the fact that there's clearly smoke here with how the Bengals are seeing it and how Trey Hendrickson is reacting to it. And this is now a multi-off season conversation because he's been pissed off about the money and the way that they've structured his deal. I just feel like there's a cleaner path to finding the right price for Trey Hendrickson than

there is for Miles Garrett. And that's why if I were a team that was in need of somebody like this, that's probably the phone call that I would be making. And I think, too, it probably depends on if and when. They signed T. Higgins. If they signed T early on, Hendrickson is gone. Like, it just feels like they would not have all the resources to keep him together. If they wait on the T thing, I would be more open to see if they could keep him around. Well, let's continue this Bengals discussion. But before we do, let's take a quick break.

All right. So your next question here is that you have a Bengals-specific one that you wanted to ask. So what is your Bengals-centric question as we head into this off-season? How do they fix the defense? The side of the ball that we just spent five minutes talking about with Trey Hendon. And obviously keeping Trey Hendrickson would go a long way there. But they are still so far away. And to me, it's, we talked about this a little bit on one of the shows during the season. But when they fired Lou Anorumo, it's like he was still a good defensive mind. It's just that the cupboard was so bare that they ended up so bad that somebody had to fall on the sword.

It ended up being him. So I think just off that alone, them losing a defensive coordinator of that caliber, I'm already a little bit skeptical. But then you look at the depth chart, outside of Hendrickson and like, maybe if you think that Logan Wilson can play better, they need like eight starters probably. Like where they're at in terms of who is coming back and because I know people are going to bring up Mike Hilton, Mike Hilton's a free agent.

So they just have a lot of guys here that even some of their best players are potentially going to, they're potentially going to move on from them. Sheldon Rankins is going to be 32. Would it actually behoove you to cut? I almost guarantee they're going to cut Sheldon. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. As I was doing this math,

Sheldon Rankins and Sam Hubbard were just gone when I was doing this exercise. Rankins was the first one I cut. If you do that, they get to $70 million pretty quickly. But with that $70 million, they have like eight holes to fill. Even if you wanted to see this optimistically, you could say, all right, Dax Hill looked better at corner before he got hurt. So maybe by next year, all right, you can slot Dax Hill in one of the outside corner spots. Camteller, it's a roller coaster. But between him and DJ Turner, can you find solid enough outside corner?

cornerback play between those two and Dax Hill to keep rolling with that. With Jordan Battle coming in and Gino Stone still being there at safety, is that good enough where if you can spend most of the resources in the front seven, can you get this back to a workable place? Or even if you're not a top 10 defense, can you not be a bottom five defense? I could at least see that argument starting to take shape. But even in that reality, you probably have to replace seven of the, or six of the seven front seven players on your team in order to get there.

And that's kind of the issue is like where do you actually want to start throwing the resources? To me, I came down to a number of names. And if they could land two of... I wanted you to build your own, your perfect Bengals off season. So let's do this. With the 70 million in Cap Space and their draft capital, what in your mind is like the perfect Bengals off season? The perfect Bengals off season starts with keeping tea.

But that is going to be a significant portion of your money. and you're already going to start to lose there. And so T is going to be a lot of money. You can cut Sheldon Rankins for about $9 million. That gets you to a decent spot. To me, I landed on a number of names to fix the defense. They need to sign two out of these three players. DJ Jones to fill the interior,

Charverius Ward at Corner, or Chase Young on the outside. Like, they need to get what... I would probably lean towards the front players, truthfully, because their run defense. We talked about this coming into this season, and then it didn't get any better. They were one of the worst.

run defenses in the league. And I think you saw what they were like without DJ Reader. So if they could go get DJ Jones, I know it's like a very unsexy signing for how bad the defense was. That's what we need though. We need unsexy signings for this team. Eat your vegetables. Exactly.

And so I think he would be perfect for them. And then to me, it's not obviously just about the defense. Like you look at the roster top to bottom. I still think their interior offensive line is mostly terrible. And like I think they would kind of be behooved to spend their first round pick on the offensive line and protect Burrow and make sure that he can do what he needs to do with Chase because this seems to be a very good offensive line class. I know Dane likes a lot of these guys and even some of the tackles have people are talking about them as if they could move into guard,

which is obviously what the Bengals need. So I think if you get hit on two of those three names on defense, maybe you still have a little bit money left over to go get any linebacker, especially if you end up trading Jermaine Pratt who asked for a trade, and then go spend your first round pick on an offensive lineman. And then you're, other six or seven picks on defense yeah i'm looking at it right now a guy like dj jones is is very interesting right so like guys like dj jones um other players who are available in this free agent cycle like i i think levi owns rike is very interesting oh yeah because we get to a place where we're just looking for these like long pocket pusher types i'm looking at the pff free agent rankings

right now their projected contract for him is like two years eight million a year just trying to rebuild your front seven out of those sorts of players, right? It's funny that BJ Hill is ranked right behind him on that list as we talk about Bengals' interior players. But just trying to build it out of those types of guys where it's like $7 million here, $8 million there, that's what they did the first time around when they successfully built this entire team through free agency on that side of the ball. So it's a tough needle to thread with only $70 million, especially if you're going to move on from T and you really need to make the most out of this reshaping makeover, however, going to put it on defense. But I think those are the types of bets that are probably worth making

rather than one or two big splashy things that you could do. Yeah, absolutely. Like they just, they are so far away. You got to get guys. It's honestly what Washington did this offseason, right? We're like, obviously the front, their interior was already pretty settled. But they went out and signed a bunch of guys who were making four and a half million here, seven million here, nine million here, just to be competent. And it still wasn't a great defense by the end of the season. But it was enough to let the offense carry them all the way into the championship game, which is kind of been the Bengals formula anyway and it's probably going to be moving forward. I'm looking at this linebacker list.

We're going to talk about linebackers later, but like, Drey Greenlaw coming off an injury, is like, is trade Greenlaw worth, you know, taking a dice roll on? Even somebody like Robert Spillane, right? Robert Spillane has a very specific skill set, but that specific skill set is something that Bengals desperately need. Like a thumping downhill linebacker to play the run. it was not present in this defense last year, that's a guy looking at that projected contract,

three years, $8 million a year. If we can just get like eight guys, make it $8 million a year, and that's where the 70 million goes, that's probably the direction that this thing needs to go for the Bengals. It would solve a lot of problems really fast.

All right. Mine kind of similar zip code we're talking here, just teams that we think are talented, playoff worthy, but need to figure out what those three, four moves are to get them over the top. I want to know what teams like the bills and Packers are going to do to get over the hump this off season.

Like where are the needle movers coming from for each of those teams? You look at the bills, where I talked about the Trey Hendricks and thing, I think they could use a piece at safety and you could argue because Russell Douglas is hitting free agency, they need another corner. So does a guy like Javon Holland make sense for the bills?

Does a guy like Traverius Ward makes sense for the bills? Carlton Davis is a free agent. DJ Reed is a free agent. So how are you going to get a couple difference makers on the market this year if you're a team like Buffalo? And then the Packers, similar question. Like where do they think the swings are work taking? If they move on from Jayaeer Alexander, are they a team that could use one of those corners that we just talked about? Do they feel like they need a receiver as part of this overall equation?

Like the Devante Adams thing is, I understand why people are doing it because you're connecting dots and it's a cool story and whatever. but like, does Devante Adams actually make sense for the Packers? I think you could make an argument that he might, right? The one that I first thought about today just for the first time. And I don't think it makes sense because I think there are going to be too many other teams that need him and have more money than the Packers. What if we just dropped T. Higgins onto the Packers offense? I would do anything for it. I would do anything.

Think about, it's not even just that they need a receiver. Think about specifically the way that Jordan Love plays where he just chuck it off his back foot. like, my guy will be down there. That's not as cool when it's Christian Watson. It's very cool when it's T. Higgins. I don't think they'll be able to do it because, again, I think that some team like whether it's the Patriots or some other team that's a wide receiver, needy team is probably going to be able to offer T. Higgins like $30 million a year in the way that

the packers aren't. But if we're trying to think outside of the box here, and we're trying to conceive of ways that they can close the gap with the players who are available this spring, like those are the type. of options that I would at least consider if I were Green Bay, even if you'd be leveraging yourself a little bit to get there. Yeah. And like maybe they think, you know, obviously Josh Jacobs ended up saying pretty openly that they do need a number one receiver. I do think it would go a long way for them. But to me, I kind of lean towards a side of corner. Like if you move on from

Jayir Alexander, who's only played, I think, seven games apiece in each of the last two seasons, that has been a problem for them. Eric Stokes has not been what they wanted. Like they were moving Keishon Nixon outside last year, and that was like kind of up and down. So to me, I think if you could solidify the corner spot and open up Halfley's coverage menu just a little bit more to where you don't have to do as much of the weird simulated stuff that they were doing. Obviously, they were good at it, but I think it would like to have it in their bag that they could just run with people if they wanted to.

It's what he did for all of his time in college. And so I'm sure that is something he wants to do. And then for the bills, I actually wrote a piece for the athletic. Like, what are all the teams that made the playoffs? what can they do to make sure they get back here? Because not every team gets back to the playoffs this year. And for the bills, I wrote, anybody at safety. Like, anybody.

If it's Javan Holland, fine. If you want to take, you know, get one or two years out of Justin Reed, who is a free agent from the Kansas City Chiefs, perfectly fine. Go and do that. Even if it's spending a first round pick. I actually like that one a lot. All of like, you know, three years ago when the, when the bill's defense was really, really good and early in Sean McDermen's tenure, It was because those two safeties were so smart and so movable. It's exactly what Justin Reed gives you.

It's exactly what he's given Steve Spagnolo. So if they could get a guy like that. He's also a good tackler. And that was like one of the biggest issues with that position for them last year is that the tackling on the third level of the defense when it came to pursuit angles. We talked about this all year. They just felt so slow on the back end. And when you compare the tackling quality for that defense compared to the best

defenses in the league last season, that gap is pretty big. And I just think he's a very good option for something like. that. Yeah. So if they could fix the safety room with somebody like that and then maybe bring in some other guy or maybe you just hope Cole, Colbishop takes a step, whatever it is, fixing the safety room lets them, I think, get back to the type of defense that Sean McDermey wants to run. You would hope that Cole Bishop becomes like a starting caliber player last next year. He was a second round pick. Like, if that's something that you're having to try to upgrade from in year two and you're going into this offseason being like, we can't have him as a starter,

then we're having an entirely different conversation about what the 2024 draft look like for the Buffalo bills. All right. So the bills are chasing the chiefs in the AFC, obviously. Your next question is Kansas City centric here. What is the Kansas City offense question that you have coming into the offseason? This was the first one I wrote down. We were doing this exercise because Super Bowl is fresh from my mind. It's just how is Kansas City going to retool the offensive line? And this is where we've been here, what was it, four years ago with the Kansas City Chiefs already, where this was the absolute thing that they needed to fix. And we're kind of here again. The differences, four years ago, they weren't super committed to a lot of those pieces. That's the difference. That's the difference.

They're committed to this offensive line the way that it's constructed. They've got about $60 million into Juan Taylor, who has been fine, but probably not up to, I think he's making near 27 million. That's probably pretty expensive for what you're getting out of him. And then Creed Humphrey and Joe Tuny. So like between those three players, it's about $60 million. Probably not going to to be able to pay Trace Smith, which is, one, a problem just from the standpoint of, okay, one of our best five is gone. But it's also the part of your offensive line that was good was your interior. And so the fact that you can't bring back one of your guards who really allowed you to win in that sense, I think it's pretty troubling. And then they've still got

huge issues at left tackle. There are actually a couple of decent left tackle options on the market this year, but they're probably going to be expensive. And then you already spent a day two pick last year on a left tackle with Kingsley Sua Mataya and gave up on it by like week three. And so I just don't understand or I don't really know how they want to go attack it this off season, even though it's very obviously the part of the roster they need to fix first. We talked about this after the game immediately after the game. You would hope that with another off season, they get Sua Matai to a place where he can be playable for you.

Throwing him into the fire in year one and week one was always going to be a risk. You know, with these guys who are more projecty tackles, you're asking a lot for them to start from day one in the NFL on a contending team. You would hope with a year of development, a second offseason heading into year two, you have an offensive line coach you feel good about, that you can get to a spot where he can be your starting left tackle next year. If not, and again, we're having a very different conversation about what the 2024 draft looked like for the chiefs. But either way, you do have to figure out what your right guard situation looks like because they're not going to. going to be in a spot where they can pay Trace him at $20 million a year. They're not going to be in a spot where they can pay. They're going to have to be doing their best bet next year is like you do what the Bucks

did with a Ben Bredesen, where you just sign a guy for $3 million and you hope you get something out of him. But they're not going to be able to be digging at the, you know, top of the bin here with some of these other interior offensive linemen. And then I know it's a good offensive line class, but you're the chief. So you're constantly picking it 31 the way that you're going to this year. is there a chance that all of the guys who deserve to go top 20 all go before you're on the board? And now you don't even necessarily have an immediate answer there.

So they're just kind of in a tricky spot with where they are in the draft, where they are financially, and just the fact that the interior needed to kind of be the part of this that really makes the thing go. And now you're losing one of those three guys. So for them specifically, I think there are two names that I would throw out. If we just concede that they're going to try Sumantai at left tackle, And maybe you have a swing tackle that you feel like in a pinch you can play. I think that's a reasonable place to land given what they invested in him. Kevin Zitler, Zach Martin, right?

For some teams, that may not make sense to sign a guy that's 34, 35 years old. When your team like the Chiefs, where every year is the championship window, does somebody like that makes sense as a short-term solution if you have to move on from Trace Smith? I say the answer is yes. Absolutely, yes. Martin, I wonder what the money would look like. just because obviously he's been one of the best in the league for a very, very long time, whereas Zytler has probably been more recently a level below that.

But Zytler, I think, would actually be a good one. You've kind of convinced me on that. I think that would be a really good one. You can afford that, right? It's just as a short-term free agent bet if you just need to fill that spot. Similar to what the Lions did last year when they had to move on from Jonah Jackson. Like those types of players, if the rest of your offensive line is a solid unit, you can get by with that.

And I feel like that might be the bin that they're having to shop in, because if you have questions about Sue Matai'ia, you're starting left tackle. I think not having significant questions about a development project at right guard and having a plug-and-play veteran that you at least know is a known quantity, that feels like the right collection of pieces

if we're talking about the best version of that line next year. All right, we're going to take one more quick break. Before we do, I want to tell you guys about Connections Sports Edition, a new game for sports fans from the athletic. It's basically a daily dose of trivia and so satisfying to solve. I have to say, I've done a few puzzles already,

and I'm already hooked on it. Play now at theathletic.com slash connections. All right, speaking of Tray Smith, we already mentioned a couple of the other names on this list. I'm wondering, where do the big free agents land when the league year opens about a month from now? The fact the free agency is a month away is absolutely crazy. Time does not exist.

So we have T. Higgins. What happens there? Do the Patriots break the bank for a guy like T. Higgins? Where does T. Smith land, as the next potential $20 million guard in the league. Chris Godwin. I love the idea of Chris Godwin and so many of these offenses around the league.

I think that they have too many other holes to warrant something like this, but Chris Godwin's skill set with DJ Moore and Roma Dunzee. It's just like, all right, like please give me something like that. But I feel like because of where he plays and how he plays, he's a useful ingredient to a bunch of offenses around the NFL.

DJ Reed is to me a really good option. in a corner. We talked about some of the other ones, Carlton Davis, their Charvarius Ward. If you need a free agent corner at a reasonable price in this class, there are a lot of options. And then the other position that I absolutely think is worth mentioning, you alluded to this, tackle is typically, right, left tackle specifically is often a wasteland in free agency. Like very rarely do we have a class where you have multiple potential starters at left tackle of any sort of quality. The best guys are never going to hit free agency. But when you're looking at free agent tackles most years.

There are swing tackles and swing tackle pluses. That's what you're looking at. This year, Ronnie Stanley is hitting free agency at age 31 after a bounce back season. O'Learick Jackson, who was the ramp starting left tackle for the last couple of years. Again, not like an elite player by any means, but more than possible is a left tackle option. And I feel like the way he played last year, Dan Moore of the Steelers is that. Like the Steelers drafted Triftonu to move on from Dan Moore, eventually, knowing he was hitting free agency, but he had to start all of this year because of injuries,

and he actually played okay. So if you're a team that's looking to spend between like $12 and $15 million on a starting left tackle that at least gets you passable play, this is actually a pretty good year to be looking for that type of player, and that's not always the case. I want to ask you, of this group that you listed, who is the most interesting to you? I think T. Higgins, we can just set him aside. He is very obviously the most interesting because he's the best player. but other than that, who is your favorite here?

I'm probably going to stay Ronnie Stanley, actually. Because I don't think these guys are often available in free agency, right? Like Tyron Smith was available last year, but Tyrant Smith was significantly older than Ronnie Stanley. Even when you consider Ronnie Stanley's injury history, Tyron Smith's was more checkered than Ronnie Stanley's has been. So the idea that you could get a 31-year-old starting caliber left tackle, it's just a different sort of proposition than we typically see in a free agency. And if you're a team that has a hole there

but otherwise feels pretty good about your offense, if you can get from Ronnie Stanley what he gave the Ravens last year at a reasonable price, that potentially supercharges like an otherwise decent offense. So I think that type of bet to me is particularly interesting. What's your answer? Jacksonville potentially for Ronnie Stanley?

Well, Jacksonville just gave, Walker Little that extension. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I'm still like iffy on him, but if you're, if you're already committed to it financially, then I guess there's not a whole lot you can do. The other one that came to mind to me for Ronnie Stanley was like, dude, the Patriots have infinite money. And you have a quarterback that you very obviously know is good. Go make sure he doesn't die next year. And obviously, they need a couple of things on the offensive line. But a left tackle like that, that to me, I think goes a really long way. Like when you know that we have the guy. Let's go make sure that he's going to be good. I think if I had to pick my favorite player

here, though, to me it's probably Godwin because kind of like what you said, I think there's a good chance that you could just plop him onto any number of contenders or like semi-contender teams and he would instantly level up their offense. It's interesting. If you look at the list of teams, there aren't that many teams actually that have like a super glaring need at left tackle. Most teams at least have an option. they at least have somebody they've committed to, right? Dionne Dawkins, Tehran Arnestead, the Patriotsy of the exception here,

the Jets have Fashano stepping into that role, the Ravens, the Bengals have Orlando Brown. The Browns need a left tackle. So that one is particularly interesting if you're Cleveland with Ronnie Stanley because Jedrick Wills is hitting free agency. Fetano, Broderick Jones in Pittsburgh, Laramie Tunsells in Houston,

Bernard Raymond's in Indianapolis, the Jags just paid Walker Little, J.C. Latham and Tennessee, Garrett Bowles, we just had the Chiefs Left Tackle conversation, Colton Miller, Rayshon Slater, Tyler Geithens in Dallas, Andrew Thomas, Jordan Milata, Brandon Coleman and Washington. We'll see what the Bears do with Braxton Jones.

That to me is an interesting one. He's hitting free agency next year. So what the Bears do and how they retool the offensive line, whether or not do you move Jones inside to guard if you draft the tackle? Do you have an era parent that you feel like you want to replace Jones with next year? How the Bears conceive their offensive line is worth watching to me. And then the Packers are actually an interesting. one because Rashid Walker has been solid for them, but do they feel like that's one of the areas where

we can upgrade? If we go get a Ronnie Stanley at left tackle and then we have Elton Jenkins at left guard, I think Myers is a free agent actually. So, but then you'd have Jordan Morgan at right guard. You drafted him in the first round. You have Zach Tom. Is that the correct set of upgrades for your offensive line? It was a solid but kind of unspectacular unit over the last couple years. I actually really like that one. And I think it would probably upset a lot of fans because they want probably a little bit more juice on the offensive side of the ball. But man, Ronnie Stanley, I would be pretty vaunted on that. Like Stanley and Tom is pretty instantly one of the better tackle duos in the league.

And then if you get anything from Morgan, like Jenkins plays ball again next year, like this could pretty quickly return to being one of the better offensive lines in the NFL. And then the other team, like, again, because they're going to be losing their left tackle, are the Rams of potentially a potential landing spot for somebody like Ronnie Stanley. if they need a starter for the next couple years. If they really do go the, we want to do this right now, timeline, where they bring Stafford back. And they need an answer to kind of justify that move and go forward again in 2025.

Is Ronnie Stanley somebody that makes sense for them? My question for you there, because I think both of these players actually fit them, would you pay Ronnie Stanley and make sure that Stafford is going to be able to stay upright? Or with Cooper Cup going out the door, is this first Godwin team? Yeah. He's like the perfect player for them. I think what we've learned is if the Rams have good pass protection with Matthew Stafford, their offense is good, right?

It's like a one for one thing. If the offensive line plays well for the Rams, the offense has been good and Matthew Stafford has been good. So I think making sure you're shoring up that group. And I also think that if you bring Ronnie Stanley in and you want to go forward for a year or another two years with Stafford, that timeline makes sense. He's 31 years old. You give him the sort of deal where you're committing to him for each of the

the next two years. And then you could potentially move on from both of those guys if you want to turn the page after the 2026 season, let's say, or after this season. So I think that one makes sense if they go the Stafford route. If they don't and you're slow playing it a little bit, it becomes more of a two to three year build. You go a slightly different direction there. You could draft one if you wanted to.

I mean, that's, you can go a bunch of different directions. But those are the names that really jumped out to me. And again, the left tackle group being as intriguing as it is, I think is worth paying attention to because we don't normally see that. you also had a position that you were paying attention to in free agency. What is your big position-centric free agent question? Mine is, and you talked about this a little bit, I forget what section, maybe it was with the Bengals.

It's like a surprisingly decent linebacker class, both in free agency and in the draft. So I'm actually just very curious, like, how teams approached that this offseason. If you look at the draft, Jihad Campbell to me is like a top 20 player, and I think Dane has him just outside of that. Carson Schwessinger, who is the UCLA linebacker. He's also a top 50 player. These are guys that, like, I just wonder if they get pushed into the first round. So that is very interesting to me.

And then in free agency, you mentioned it earlier. Drey Greenlaw, like, can you maybe get him to get back to whatever his best level is? Kaiser White is a free agent this offseason. I think he's been playing better. Nick Bolton is going to be a free agent this off season. Zach Bond is obviously a free agent because he signed the one-year deal as an outside backer and wasn't supposed to be playing inside backer. And then Ernest Jones.

And Ernest Jones is a little bit trickier because of some of the knee health stuff. but there are a lot of like not just passable starters, but guys who are above average and can kind of shape the way that you play defense, both in the draft and free agency. So I'm just very curious about which teams think that that's something that can actually take them to the next level. Who among that group is the most interesting to you? And you can consider price in this.

So like, Drey Greenlaw, one year and seven million, is that more interesting to you than Nick Bolton on a multi-year deal at twice that much considering what Drake? Greenlaw is dealing with health-wise, all of that stuff. So on a sliding scale of impact and price, who do you find yourself paying attention to here? I think individually, like, based on price, the best you can probably get return for your money is drag Greenlaw. Like if he plays the way that we've seen him play like two years ago, you're probably going to get a discount, discount because some of the injury stuff, that to me is probably the highest reward swing that you can

make. But I actually think if your defensive interior is set up the right way and you have some bigger bodies there who do a really good job. Kaiser White is probably not going to command a lot of money and is a very good run and hit type of player who has some good coverage skills. So those are kind of the two that I'm looking at. The idea, I just keep coming back to the Bengals here, the idea of the Bengals going out and getting DJ Jones and Dre Greenlaw and just trying to get some of the heat off of like the 2020 and 20-201 Niners front and just playing like 10% more like that group played. I'm very into that. I fully support that as a pivot point. for this Bengals defense. We need to see more of that type of player here.

There are way worse ways to build a defense than, hey, who was a really good defense two years ago? Let's go get some of that action, some of that violence. And it's not even just the quality. Exactly. It's the play style of what those defenses felt like. I want a little bit more of that from the 2025 Bengals defense. I feel like that unit overall, there's a reason we're paying as much attention to it as we are, like what it can be and how they need to build it because I just want something on that side that just to what's happening on the offense. So I'm just rooting for just a side of the ball that holds up its end of the bargain

in this whole thing because that was definitively not the case last year. Right. And we have proof of concept that that's all they need to be. That year they made the Super Bowl. They were like the 18th best defense. That's all we need to be. Just don't be an embarrassment. Just have some dudes that like have the two ass kickers and play hard.

That's truly all I ask of that unit after the way the last season went. My last one here, what are the teams that are flushed? with cap space do this spring. And there are a bunch of different ways that you could go with this question. Washington has an obnoxious amount of cap space. After the season that they just had, how aggressive are they? Is this going to be a redux to like the 2024 Texans off season? Should it be considering how the 2024 Texan season went?

Did they go a little bit too hard in trying to add to some of those spots with the digs trade? The Hunter signing obviously was great, but the digs trade was at one step over the lines. They're a middle ground to be found here if you're Adam Peters where you want to show a little urgency to build around your really good young quarterback, but you don't necessarily want to leverage yourself in future years for whatever 2025 is going to feel like. So how does Washington spend? What do the Patriots do with the ocean of money that they have? Are we going to see some really splashy moves? Are they going to spread a lot of that money around to try to find maybe four or five starters in free agency the way that Washington actually did last year, are they a T. Higgins team? What does the Raiders offseason

look like with this regime? They have a lot of money to spend. What messages are they going to spend or send in year one of John SpyTech and kind of how they want to build this team under Pete Carroll? What do the Chargers do now that they have some money? If they move on from Joey Bosa, there's a chance the Chargers have like $90 million to spend. What does that look like with Joe Hortiz and after the season that they had going to the playoffs? And then the last two that I wanted to mention, I kind of lumping these teams together because they're in a decently similar spot. What do the Niners and the Lions do? Because both of those teams, you could probably lump these in with the Bangle, or excuse me, with the Packers and the

bills in the conversation we had earlier, but both of those teams have like 50-ish million dollars in cap space this year, but a lot of their bills come due in 2026. That's when golf's contract number shoots up, some of those extensions for the Lions start to kick in. And the Niners are in a very similar spot. They've got money to play with this offseason, but into 2026, that's when some of those cap numbers for those extensions get really big. You're folding in the early part of a purdy extension into that.

The number for that will probably be pretty low, but you have to at least bring that into the calculus. So how aggressive do those teams want to be in 2025 to potentially push them over the hump while also understanding that they already have very expensive rosters in 2026? I am fascinated by what the chargers might do. Just because I think of all of the quarterbacks here on all of these teams, Justin Herbert is the best one. And I think we saw some proof of concept last year that, okay, the tackles are good.

We have one pass catcher. We can at least make the offense look functional. So if we can add a little bit to there. And then, too, I brought up Chase Young earlier with the Bengals. If they're going to move on from Joey Bosa, Chase Young is like probably their best bet to replacing that style of defensive. Evan, or he's a little bit longer, physical, like, really wants to, so I don't know. I'm very fascinated by what the charges could do, because you've talked about this a number of times on the show.

They didn't spend, like, any money last off season. Yeah, they couldn't. There's just, there was nothing to do. Their biggest signing was Will Disley. And so I think it's going to be a very different offseason. And I am fascinated to see by how aggressive they get with it, because they should be aggressive. I'm looking at guys like Josh sweat, you know, guys that, you know, could play the edge for

them. The name that makes the most sense, not even makes the most sense, but as I think about it, I get excited about it, even if, obviously, he's in a different stage of his career. Putting Devante Adams in that offense with Ladd-McConkie, where you have like a true X receiver, and then you have a number two receiver who's a slot option and 11 personnel, but obviously was excellent as a rookie. Paring that with what you have along the offensive line already, you add another piece on the interior. year, I could start to get excited about that. That one actually has juice to me. I'm very much into that. And like, yeah, Devante Adams probably is not the player that he was two years ago,

but that's fine. He is certainly better than Quentin Johnston or even Josh Palmer or wherever else they were putting out there last year. Yeah. And I just think that positionally, what his role is within an offense makes sense for what you have with Ladman-Konkey. So that one, and there's already been some rumblings that he potentially wants to play on the West Coast.

going to be a free agent. So that's one that I would at least be looking into if I were the Chargers. And then the last team I wanted to throw out because they have a lot of money now is the Minnesota Vikings. So if the Vikings don't bring Darnold back and they have $50, $60 million in cap space to play

with, they have most of their secondary hitting free agency. They probably need a couple pieces on the interior of the offensive line. So how the Vikings decide they have to close the gap with the other really good teams in the league, that is the other one I'm paying attention to. And then your last question was also Viking Sutrick.

It was. And this, to me, goes into exactly how do they want to spend their money this off season. A few years ago, Sean McFay had a come-to-Jesus moment about how the run game worked, where obviously with Todd Gurley, it was all weak zone and they were incredible at it. Some of that started to fall away and they had to realize, okay, we have to do this a little bit differently now. I think we've seen over the years with Kevin O'Connell for as good as his passing game stuff is, the run game has not been very good in Minnesota for a majority of his time.

It was pretty, it was solid early this year before some things fell away. But for the most part, it's not been something that they can rely on. I really just want to see if he has a very similar moment to where Sean McVeigh had where he's like, all right, we're going to get a little bit heavier. We're going to run a little bit more duo. A little bit more of this Gapskin stuff is going to be part of our offense instead of being pretty reliant on some of the zone stuff. So I already think Kevin O'Connell is a great coach, but to me, even the great ones,

obviously are trying to look for what is next for them and next for their offense. I think now that you're already kind of entering a period of change, you know, obviously at quarterback things are going to be different. This to me does feel like the time to like, all right, let's shake up the run game a little bit and try to be something different than we have been before. I think that every team kind of reaches this phase where what we're doing is working in the regular season, right? We are optimizing our offense for the regular season.

We are consistently getting the most out of the talent that we have on the roster. I think that is undeniably true about what the Minnesota Vikings offense has looked like over the last couple years and certainly this year. But it's a different question when you're trying to figure out what sort of stuff do we need to tap into when we get into the playoffs. We're playing against the best teams in the league. Then it becomes about flexibility and pivot points more than, okay, in October, this is how we can get the most out of our quarterback. And so being able to tap into that physical brand of football where if we need to run the ball 30 times in this game, we can run the ball 30 times in this game. That is not a gear that this team has right now. And I think that's how you level up and start to compete with the teams that are trying to play for Super Bowls.

That's what it is. It's the pivot point stuff. Like, look, find Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison is a great offense for just about anybody. But at a certain point when you start to face the best defenses in the league or even just like, like, listen, they lost that Rams game. The Rams defense was solid, but that secondary was not very good. And you saw just like them immediately getting beat up in the run game in that game, kind of hamstrung what they were able to do as an offense. And you saw it immediately fall away from them there. So yeah, just being able to have some sort of flexibility when you get into big games like

this to where you don't immediately start getting where you feel like the defense has the upper hand as opposed to you being on the back foot. All right. That's all we've got. for today on Monday. We'll be coming to you guys with our first off-season mailbag of this spring. Like we said on the show we did with Dana earlier this week, the mailbags are going to be coming mostly every week. There are going to be some exceptions to this. When we're at the combine, we're going to be having a podcast every single day so there will

be no mailback. The week of free agency, we're going to be doing a podcast every day, so there will be no mailback. But other than those couple exceptions, we're going to be trying to do these every single Monday throughout the offseason. And that's in part because of how good of a job you guys do and asking the right source of questions and making these things worthwhile.

So continue to send those in. We'll be getting to them regularly all throughout the offseason. Athletic Football Show at gmail.com. For now, that's all we've got. Please enjoy your weekend. We'll talk to you guys later.