The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Buying or Selling NFL Offseasons: Teams in Transition

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Robert Mays continues our “Buying or Selling” series with Conor Orr of Sports Illustrated as they examine how teams in transition fared this offseason. Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube 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. Fun show for you guys today. Our friend from Sports Illustrated, the NOQB, Connor, or is going to join us to do the last entry in our buying or selling every NFL offseason. We're going to do the teams in transition today.

That's how we're framing it. It's a little bit kinder than some of the other markers we could have used to describe this group. So excited to dig into that. out with Connor. One quick housekeeping thing to dig into, I am back from vacation, so I will be coming to you guys in real time moving forward. No more banked shows. This will be coming to you guys on Tuesday. We're on a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday schedule all the way through the start of NFL training camp at the end of July. So just be on the lookout for that. Very excited about some of the things that we have coming your guys's way. But for now, let's chat with Connor about some teams that are in a moment of transition. here in the NFL. And joining me now to help us round out our series about buying or selling NFL off seasons. It's our good friend from Sports Illustrated in the MMQB.

It's Connor Orr. Kind of how are you? Hi, Robert. I'm doing good. How are you? I'm doing okay. My body thinks it's 5 a.m. right now. So other than that, I'm doing great.

But if I say anything weird or if I just trail off randomly at the end of a sentence, I'm dealing with some pretty serious jet lag right now. I'm happy to be back to it. I woke up this morning at like 5 a.m. And I was just getting going. I was just, I'm back. I'm working. I'm excited.

I feel refreshed. And then I just hit a wall in the middle of the day. So it's going to be an interesting experience over the first few days of this week. But we're going to be okay. It's going to be all right. It's good. If you like feeling that way, I highly recommend multiple children under the age of five.

That'll give you a promo. That's why I can't complain. Because for the most part, I get to operate it a decently high. capacity all the time. And this is an outwire for me, but I'm excited to dig into this. We're going to talk about eight teams that are in transition, is how we're phrasing this and how I'm lumping these teams together for multiple different reasons. One, it feels nicer than framing them as the worst teams in the league. And two, there is a team we threw into this group because it felt right, even though we've done most of this off of Super Bowl odds and it doesn't really apply to

them and that'll be one of the first teams that we talk about here. But before we dig into those eight teams, some pretty big kind of seismic NFL news came down earlier this morning. And it's news we all expected to happen sooner rather than later as we marched toward training camp. But it is official. The Justin Jefferson deal has arrived four years, $140 million, $35 million a year, $110 million in guarantees and practical guarantees, a lot of other monster.

numbers involved in this one. But when you saw the deal come down for Justin Jefferson, when you saw the details come down for the Justin Jefferson deal, what was your first reaction this morning? It's funny. I texted a couple of agents who have been involved in some pretty high profile receiver negotiations, and I got two completely divergent answers. The first was, Justin Jefferson had their back against the wall twist the screws. The Vikings have already set the precedent for a fully guaranteed contract. Don't stay. step a foot on that field unless $125 million is in your bank account the day that you sign that deal. And then another agent said, you're an idiot. He's getting an $88 million cash flow over two years.

That is phenomenal. Justin Jefferson's agents knocked it out of the park. So I think it just depends on how cynical you want to be. But I'm happy. It makes all the sense in the world for the Vikings. You cannot let J.J. McCarthy go into his first camp without Justin Jefferson. And the draft has past. You missed your opportunity to choose a successor if you wanted to. And, you know, so this was the best that you could do. I think not handing over a fully guaranteed contract represented a pretty massive victory for the Vikings. Yeah. If we're operating in a traditional structure here with traditional expectations, I think it's about what you would have expected. If that 35 a year number, I think I said it when the BOSA deal happened. I said, okay, if I'm Justin Jefferson's people and

they're represented by the same agency, I want the biggest contract ever for a non-quarterback. And that's exactly what happened. And then you saw some of the intermediate steps happen with the wide receiver market over the last couple months. If I'm on Ross St. Brown's get $32 million a year and AJ Brown's get what AJ Brown's getting, this is about where we expected to land. And with the growing cap, I don't think these numbers are shocking. I don't think they're surprising.

You mentioned the two-year cash flow. The three-year cash flow is $95.7 million, which tops Chris Jones is kind of. contract for the biggest number ever. And it's just a little bit above that, which I assume isn't an accident. So Justice Jefferson, to me, is the most valuable non-quarterback in the NFL. And now he is the richest non-quarterback in the history of the NFL. And I don't think there are that many more complicating factors than that. Yeah.

The only person who I would be nervous, and this has sort of been an outlier take of mine, so C.D. Lam cash is in because he has to get his deal soon, right? and this benefits him because even though statistically he's comparable to Justin Jefferson, I would say if you pulled probably 10 wide receiver coaches in the NFL, 10 of them would want Justin Jefferson over CELA. That said, C.E.Land will get a little bit more money than he would have gotten before. This is good for him. A rising tide lifts all boats sort of situation.

Except if you're, so if you're Jamar Chase, aren't you a little bit nervous? And here's why. Because that $35 million year threshold, Justin Jefferson's the greatest wide receiver in the NFL. That number now is set in stone, right? That is you can't go above this unless you are the greatest wide receiver in the NFL. If you're Jamar Chase, does this cause the Bengals now to say, okay, well, now we can wait. Like, you know, we can wait and see if he holds up. You know, we can wait and see if he diminishes in productivity.

We can play the game a little bit because you already know what you're going to have to hand him best case scenario, right? you already, the number's already there. The framework for your deal is already done. So what is the disadvantage outside of making your second best player really mad in waiting at this point, you know? Yeah, it's a good point. I wonder if you're Chase's people, can you make an argument as the cap goes up that you deserve a percentage of the cap that's in line with the Jefferson deal, even if it's more than 35 million? But that's not typically how this has worked in years past. So I actually I think that's a pretty good point. It just seems like you know what the number is going to be.

The framework is in place unless you have issues with the structure, which that's the only really thing that's held the Bengals back in previous years. Maybe then in that case you wait a little bit. But it just seems like getting it done now and making everyone happy when you know it's an inevitability is probably worth for both sides. I mean, that's always, it blows my mind that it's always the right thing to do. Like what the Lions have done is the right thing to do. What the Eagles traditionally do is the right thing to do.

Why do we only talk about like four teams doing this? You should pay your young players early. Any NFL player that I've ever talked to, and you and I've been in locker rooms for a long time, Robert, what motivates you? It's a sense of competitiveness, but it's also a sense of appreciation and security. And this is the same in business.

It's the same anywhere. Paying guys early is such a win. And to me, it drives me absolutely crazy when teams decide to make this go to the last minute, just like the Vikings to this Justin Jefferson deal. And when it's unprecedented, I think you can understand that. But now that the precedent has been set, I think it should grease the wheels for some of these other contracts.

The other number that I saw today that I thought was interesting is that Barnwell threw this out. It's about 13.7% of the cap, which is a little bit less than what T.J. Watt got and what Nick Bosa got. So if you want to look at it in those terms, it's not quite the record-setting deal that it's being made out to be. And it's actually in line cap-wise with what Larry Fitzgerald and Megatron got paid about 10 to 12 years ago, that 13.7%. I think an important point there, though, is that those guys were both operating off of extensions that they had received as top three picks in the old CBA.

So if you keep that in mind because of that starting point, those are massive contracts that they were given from the jump. I think with that in mind, this is still a representation of the huge jump, just in terms of conventional wisdom that wide receiver value has taken over the last three to four years. Because the difference between this deal at 35 and what Tyree Kil got at 30, there's nothing fake about this. There's no huge number at the end of the road that's pumping up that A.A.V. This is a very real $35 million a year deal. And I do think it is a representation, as we always knew that it was.

would be about where wide receiver value exists right now compared to where it existed five, 10 years ago. Speaking of Tyreek Hill, how much of the dolphins kind of freaking out right now a little bit, right? Because the word is out on Tyreek Hill's contract. I mean, it always was. But I think that our knowledge of sort of the Fugazi back end of that deal and Tyreek saying a couple times this off season, hey, pay me, pay me, is an acknowledgement that, you know,

they're going to have to pay him a lot of money to come back this year. because outside of Justin Jefferson to the Vikings, what other wide receiver is so intimately important to the success of his team that Tyree Kill? Absolutely. And now you're also staring down at two-extension this off-season. Things are going to get pretty complicated and pretty hairy financially for the Dolphins over the next couple of years.

All right, let's dig into these teams. And let's start with that team that doesn't really belong in this group if you look at some of the other markers that we've used. But because they have a first-year head coach because I had to do eight teams a show. It felt natural to put them here. And that is the Los Angeles Chargers. Are you buying or selling the Los Angeles Chargers offseason to this point?

I can't cop out and say I'm holding. So I will say that I'm buying with the caveat that I think an interesting conversation with an offensive line coach before the draft. And he had wondered how we got to the point where we assumed that, tackles were very safe picks and that these guys translate really well to the NFL. And the person is saying that that's not true, A, and B, that Joe Alt is interesting because he's very tall. There are some things that happen in the way that he works mechanically that are slightly different than other offensive tackles. He's going to have to learn things,

almost like a quarterback maybe slightly changing their arm angle or something like that. He's going to have to fix things that he's been doing for a very long time. And, you know, we just don't know how he fits into that Harbaughian ethos that, you know, we're going to punish you, we're going to be tougher than you, we're just going to mall everybody. And, you know, you bring in Greg Roman and you bring in the Ravens backfield, you know, on paper it all works. Like, I love it. In theory, I need to see this for a couple of weeks. You know, I need to be. You know, I need to be. You know, I need to see people stay healthy. I need to see people make the right adjustments. And, you know, so, but it's hard to sell on, on Harbaugh. I mean, I really, I think he's one of the great

coaches. You know what I mean? That's where I'm at. This is a team that just needed a foundation. And I think that they have gotten it with Jim Harbaugh. You can hem and hall about some of the details. You have this run heavy scheme with a quarterback. You're paying $55 million a year. How does this all come together? The Greg Roman of all of it and what it looked like near the end with the Ravens and what it looks like projected forward. I can get some of the reservations there. But I think that landing Jim Harbaugh in this coaching cycle is a win for the Chargers. Everything else is just details at this point.

Ultimately, that makes the soft season a win. The Joe Alt part of it, I think that's a good point about his frame and some of the things he's going to have to adjust to. But I understood going that direction if you were the Chargers. It was one of those things where when you look at the depth chart, just the text of it, It's like, all right, Tray Pipkins played solid over the last couple years. He was dealing with a couple injuries. And then I went back and really watched the tape from the back half of last season.

If you want to be a run-first team, this team needed a new right tackle. And it makes all the sense in the world to pick Joe All with a fifth pick in the way that they did. And be able to get the Lad Mokke in the second round, I get how it all came together for them, even if some people are going to look at that set of weapons and just say there's no way that they have close to enough. I'll concede that. but I think this was always going to be a multi-year thing, and the first steps of it made sense to me. From a 30,000-foot overarching perspective, too,

I do think that Brandon Staley almost crawled so that Harbaugh could run, and I'll say it because of this, the end of the Brandon Staley era was ugly enough that people started legitimately criticizing the Chargers operating procedures, So not just what they would spend in free agency or what they would do, but legitimately, like, how this team travels, you know, what kind of money they spend on recovery, on nutrition, on all that kind of stuff. And so that got personal to the point where the Spanos family is shelling out tens of millions of dollars for a head coach instead of hiring the cheapest head coach in the NFL, I think each of the last three times before that, two of their last three times before that.

So there is a fundamental change in organizational ethos, or at least there is a firelit under the charges where it's like, okay, we got to start acting like a real NFL franchise. I totally agree with that. And even bringing Michigan Strength Coach in and having that be the foundation of how they're going to approach that, I think that signals a change. If you look at the moves they made in free agency, the veteran moves, this team really needed to kind of blow things up financially and clear the decks moving forward. That's exactly what they did. I mean, the only real money they spent in free agency was on Will Disley. Other than that, we have a lot of stopgap one-year deals. Bradley Bozeman, like you mentioned, the Ravens Backfield, Christian Fulton.

All of those things, I think, track with where this team is right now. They just needed, and they moved down from Kenanow, and they move on from Mike Williams. And they were in a really rough spot heading into this offseason. But it was always going to be something financially where they could fix it in one year if they wanted to. And that's what they did. I mean, they're going to have $55, $60 million. in Capspace next year, even with that Justin Herbert contract. And I think that gives them the flexibility to remake this team however they want to.

So this feels like a pit stop team building-wise on the way to whatever they're going to be moving forward. But that was always going to be the case. So that combined with the Harbaugh stuff, I'm just saying that it's a win for me. Yeah, almost reminds me a little bit of an accelerated version of with the one-year deals, the vets. It's sort of an accelerated version of what Nick Casario was doing. So that's easy to buy it for me. Yeah, and you already have the good, if expensive quarterback with the Chargers. So I think that's all right.

All right, let's get to the Washington football franchise. Are you buying or selling what Washington did this off season? Here's why I'm buying it, and this is going to be oddly specific, bringing in Austin Echler for Jaden Daniels in particular. I think that I like Jaden Daniels better than any other player in this draft personally. I thought he was the best quarterback in this draft. And the one rub, I think that you could legitimately have on him, is his inability to protect himself when he leaves the pocket, which, as we saw with Anthony Richardson,

can be possibly devastating to a season. So when you bring in Austin Echler, when you bring in someone like Cliff Kingsbury, I don't think you necessarily have to be sold on the scheme right away, but you have to be sold on the idea that we are going to teach Jaden Daniels to get rid of the football on time. we are going to place him there with a running back who is going to facilitate very easy completions and easy yardage out of the backfield.

And that is one of the number one facilitators for confidence, for steady growth. You look back at Drew Breeze, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, all these guys. It was the number of checkdowns equates to higher efficiency numbers, better completion percentage, all that sort of stuff. So I thought it was smart. I don't know what I think about Cliff Kingsbury and that. Jane Daniels fit necessarily, but I think that at least the fundamental pieces are there for him to be comfortable and to have success early. I like the past catching group a lot. I mean,

obviously they've spent big at receiver. Having Terry McClellan is the sort of number one option. A rookie wide receiver doesn't typically have when drafted with a second overall pick. Hopefully you get more from Jahan Dotson in year three than you got from him in year two. Here's why I'm selling it, though. I can't get behind the overall plan for quarterback development based on the pieces that they got this offseason. And that starts with Cliff Kingsbury. Like, if you're looking at this, let's be honest about what happened with Washington's offseason.

They wanted Ben Johnson, and then they wanted Mike McDonald, and they ended up with Dan Quinn. This was the third choice. And the third choice, not only with the offensive, with the head coach, but now you have an offensive coordinator that probably wasn't the hottest candidate out there, struggled a lot the last time we saw him constructing an offense in Arizona. I think that there really wasn't a lot.

lot of, there wasn't a strong foundation for what that offense was built. I think that there weren't a lot of answers, you know, talking to people around the league. We just did the NFC West lingering questions for, or excuse me, we did the NFC East lingering questions a couple weeks ago, and Cliff was mine. And so going back and studying what that offense looked like at the end in Arizona, I just don't know that this is the best position to drop a rookie quarterback into. And that's what this offseason was supposed to be. This off season was supposed to be this transformative time for this franchise. And I'm just, I'm not selling everything they did.

It's not like I hate it. It's just hard for me to get overly excited about what they landed on, considering what the promise of this offseason had the chance to be for Washington. Right. I mean, if you look at the absolute ceiling for the commanders this off season, I mean, they're nowhere close. And I understand getting big mad about Ben Johnson changing his mind. I think if you had done your due diligence in the first place, you would know that, I mean,

Ben was like David Tapper essentially was like standing outside of his house with a bouquet of flowers two years ago. And he's from that area of the country, right? And he said, I wanted to come back to Detroit last year to learn about how to be a head coach. I need to learn how to get better. That should have been your first indication that you're not necessarily going to just tap this one in because you have the money. I mean, this guy thinks about things differently. And I thought his answer the other day when he talked about it on the podium was pretty good. But, you know, if we're doing your, for doing our research, if we're doing our due diligence, we got to understand that that was part of the part of the thing. And, you know, we can go down this coordinator,

rabbit hole all we want. But there were a lot of good offensive play callers, available this off season. Like half of Sean McVeigh's staff, which last year I think was probably as good in terms of brainpower as he's ever had on offense. I think you'd tell you that too. I think you'd tell you that too. You could have had like any of those guys

and some of them left like, you know, just at the top of my head, right? Like Jake Peets is the passing game coordinator now in Seattle. Like you could have had a guy like that. So, right. It could have gone either way. But I do think that that is still,

the offensive room that I am buying highest on. And, you know, Cliff and Sean know each other well. I mean, this is well documented. But, you know, you have to go back to Arizona and think, is this what I want to hinge my immediate future on? I'm not 100% sure. So I agree. I think it's a good point. And even this isn't just about Ben Johnson. Let's play this hypothetical. Let's say it's Mike McDonald. Just you take the Seahawks current staff. It's Mike McDonald, Grubb and Jake Peets, instead of Cliff Kingsbury and the other guys they have on that Washington staff right now. I'm more excited about that. Maybe that's just me being enticed by something I've never seen at the NFL level.

But I think what Ryan Grub did in Washington last year has me a lot more excited about than what Cliff Kingsbury did with USC last year. Well, you know, you did. You bypass the Tesla cyber truck, which could be cool or it could be a complete disaster. And you got the Honda pilot, you know, like Dan Quinn is going to keep this thing on the road, And he's got two hands on the wheel. He knows how to do this. Every time this was like a rite of passage at the MMQB

when we used to go down and visit him in Flowery Branch. And I used to look forward to those trips. He has the whole place just, it is like a circus of culture. It's just wonderful. It is a fun place to go to work. And so I do think at the very least, you made it a fun intolerable place to work after a decade more of like melting hell. I'm with you when that one 100%.

And I think that is important. To me, it's more about the offensive infrastructure part of it than it is about the culture part of it or even the defense part of it. It's not about Mike McDonald over Dan Quinn. It's about what Mike McDonald would have brought with him on the other side of the ball versus what Dan Quinn did. In terms of veteran additions, I think it all makes sense.

They didn't get crazy in a free agency. It was a lot of mid-tier deals. Tyler Beaudish, Doran's Armstrong, Frankie Louvre. All of those makes sense. I kind of like the swing on a guy like Jeremy. me chin, you know, what he could be in this defense, considering what Dan Quinn did with similar tweeners when he was in Dallas over the last couple years. Outside of Daniels in the draft, I get what they were doing. You know, Jerry Newton was probably the best player available

at that spot. You're a rebuilding team. Mike Ysaintiff still, you know, brings a certain type of attitude. Now, Ben Sinait is such a great athlete. You're dropping him into that offense when you don't really have any options at tight end. So I understand and like a lot of the things that they did, but it's just hard for me not to be left a little bit unmoved by the final results with the coaching staff, considering all of the resources and all of the promise they came into the offseason with. I'm always nervous when a team does exactly what I would have done in the draft because there's a reason why I'm not an NFL general manager. But, you know, in just talking to a bunch of GMs, like everyone is saying, yo, there is a talent cliff in this draft. Like after, and I heard people say as low as 88.

I heard people say, and not very high, like 115, right? And what the commanders did was they hammered like every last little bit of that. And I do think they tried to maximize this draft right away in acknowledgement of their deficiencies. So you're still getting that cost-controlled contract. You're still getting that possible foundation of players at a good price. And you're showcasing at least some understanding of the fact that like this was not a good draft. beyond the top, you know, 125 or 130.

The other thing that still won an answer on is who's playing a left tackle for this team in week one. Because they moved on from Charles Leno. Now you're looking at Cornelius, Lucas.

They drafted Brandon Coleman in the third round. Jaden Daniels is going to play. We know Jaden Daniels is going to play. So that's the one thing where I thought that they would be a little bit more aggressive with some of those resources

that they had in the second round, maybe trying to move back into round one. Even though there weren't that many guys available after 25, So that's the one spot that I just thought they would be a little bit more urgent about how they'd ultimately address it. And they haven't been to this point. I agree. I mean, and then the only thing I will say is that was a very similar fear of mine for like year two or year three, maybe Justin Fields.

Right. And I mean, it ended up working out, okay. But the sample size is not with you in terms of that. I mean, maybe Brandon Coleman just wins that job. And ultimately, he's a passable option in year one. I mean, that's what happened with Braxton Jones in Chicago. So that is an option. I think that there's just a decent amount of risk that you run with that.

For whatever Charles Leno's deficiencies were, that guy mostly started 17 games a year and was a passable left tackle for almost his entire career. And there's a certain amount of comfort that comes with that level of certainty at that position specifically. And when you have a rookie quarterback who, like you mentioned, has struggled to keep himself out of harm's way, I guess we'll say, during his college career. All right, let's get to our next one here. The Carolina Panthers. I know that you are a Dave Canales guy, so I'm curious how you feel about this.

Buying or selling the Carolina Panthers offseason. I'm buying. I like the approach. I mean, to invest that heavily in guard play shows a willingness to meet Bryce Young at his level. I mean, short quarterbacks and guard play go hand in hand. I mean, the New Orleans Saints always. had the best guards in the NFL and Drew Breeze was there. There is a, there's a reason for that, certainly.

And so to kind of kick the off season off that way and say, hey, this is exactly what we want to do. And then to invest in guys in the very early rounds of the draft who I see not only as good offensive players, but good intermediate targets who are going to facilitate easier completions, almost a little bit like Jaden Daniels and Austin Eckler, right, but different, different players, and guys who are going to push piles against loaded boxes, I think that you're at least thinking the right way, right? This is going to be hard.

It's going to be a little bit of a slog. But I'm buying because I like Dave Canales. And what I like about Dave Canales is everywhere he's gone, he has taken the absolute best out of a quarterback and designed something around him that has made a whole lot of sense. And, you know, Smith's rise started when he started getting more involved in the Seahawks passing game, and then Baker Mayfield. obviously last year. And sort of a revival, the way that he ran that offense was really,

really interesting, basically treating Mike Evans and Chris Godwin as if they were bad wide receivers and forcing them to. And what I mean by that is forcing them, you know, he has a great analytics background and basically saying, you need to be able to run every single at the cut point. in every single play, you need to have cut every single way so that every single time we run a play, there is a moment of hesitation, which is what you do with really bad teams and really bad wide receivers. But if I'm doing it with Mike Evans and I get a moment of hesitation, now I have a gargantuan gap with which to throw the football, which is amazing.

And so I like the idea. He doesn't have those guys in Carolina, but he has a good attitude. And I mean, this thing is going to grow. I like Bryce. We're forgetting about Price Hill. I think he's still very good. You wrote a big story about Dave last year, and so you spent some time with him,

and there's always a question when you're going from being a coordinator to being somebody who is in charge of setting the vision for an entire building. How do you feel like he is prepared for that sort of jump in the scope and just the demands of the job? I mean, it was interesting to me,

and this is not something that he and I discussed, but I mean, if you think about it, like week, day two, I mean, everyone found his confessional book on Amazon about like his, you know, all of the, you know, and the book was very honest. I mean, and he's just, he's one of those guys that just strikes me as like, okay, this is it, man. Like, you know, I, like, I've already laid it all out there. Like, I literally wrote a book about the worst thing that I've ever done in my life. And so what more can you do? And so, I think from that aspect of it, the job's not going to be too big for him. I think he's really close with the GM. And he brought over, you know, you can go back and forth over the years on whether it's better to build the best staff or to bring the people you're more comfortable with. I mean, bringing Idzik with him from Tampa, it's a guy that he's intimately comfortable with. It's a guy who knows him really well. It's a guy who's going to facilitate this as a play caller.

So I'm willing to give it a chance. You know, David Tepper doesn't have a phenomenal track record at this so far. But I'm hoping in this case a blind scroll finds a nut. Yeah, I can get on board with all of that. And I'm buying it. I'm not overwhelmed by it. But ultimately, I am buying it. Six wins is good.

Like, if this team wins six games, like great, you know? Okay. Our quarterback struggled last year. We gave up the farm to go get this guy. All that matters is his success. And if you look at what they did this offseason, pretty much every single decision they made, even if the value on some of them

was questionable, was in pursuit of fixing what was happening with Bryce Young. That starts with the guards. Robert Hunt for $20 million, he is not a $20 million player. But they pretty much said, come hell or high water, we are going to have better pocket integrity when we come out of this offseason. And that's what they did. And the same thing goes through the wide receiver options. Ultimately, for me, I think the Deontay Johnson trade is what swings this to me.

To get Deontay Johnson for whatever, you know, for Dante Jackson, who you weren't going to resign anyway, and to give Bryce Young a guy who really thrives on separation, that's who he is as a player, and you didn't have any of that last year, it makes perfect sense. It's the type of player that you needed. So having him, Xavier Leggett, and Adam Thielen,

compared to what you had last year, as an idea, I just think it has a chance to be so much better than what they were dealing with. And that Dave Connell is part of this, hiring a head coach who has fixed quarterbacks as a practice, and that's what he's known for, when all that matters is whether or you can fix your quarterback, I can get behind that.

I'm totally fine with that. Yeah, it makes me think of last year, just in general, and, like, how did we, how were we not appalled at Carolina going into the season in the first place? Like, I really do think that maybe it's a smaller market or whatever it is, but, like, in hindsight, we should have been totally horrified by the prospect of Price Young going into his first season, behind that offensive line, and with Adam Thielen being your number one option, you know? Well, the line played so much worse than they did the year before.

That was the strangest part of it, is that they regressed. And I don't know if this is something, it's something I probably have to study a little bit more, and we haven't done our NFC Southlingering question show yet, but looking at what happened when Frank Reich was an indie in 2022, and then how much better the same group of players played last year for the Coltsla on the offensive line, and then flipping that for Carolina,

where the offensive line coach was the same, the players were pretty much the same, and the group played demonstrably worse for the Panthers last year than they did the year before. I don't know how much is there and his role in all of that, but I don't think it's a coincidence that we've seen an improvement and then a decline from that group specifically when Reich was there over the last couple years.

I think there will be, there could be a good book written on the complete and total breakdown of that coaching staff last year. That was one of the highest expectations I've ever had for a staff as constructed. And just a complete masterclass in mismanagement from every level, starting at the top, obviously. But, I mean, you know, you hear from some people that are like, there are people that are calling plays who don't see the quarterback until Sunday. in this build, like during that season. That is crazy.

And that was happening last year. So anything that isn't that is good. So let's go that, you know? Yeah. And if you're ever a part of this, I think is worth mentioning the fact that they kept him and they can kind of contract the defense out to him. I think he is one of the best defense coordinators in the league probably, you know, in the conversation probably in like the top five to seven.

And as a first year head coach, who's probably going to be calling plays, being able to just have that side of the ball taking care of is massive. So I can get on board with everything that they did and, you know, see what ultimately happens. But I like the plan overall from the Panthers this off season. Let's keep going here. The New England Patriots. Are you buying or selling the New England Patriots off season?

I'm selling because I think they should have moved the pick. I don't really care what they think of Drake May, to be honest. I think that if we're looking at predictors of quarterback success, I think that the model is very clear, and that is that the roster needs to be prebate to some degree in order for this to work. And I understand your desire to get the guy because maybe 2025 is not what you're looking for, and you don't want to jump in to bed with, you know, Shadur Sanders or whoever it is that might be at the top of next year's draft. But I think that the bears have shown us, and I don't know if this is a sore spot or not, but I do think that the bears have shown us, like, there's this, there's a goodness to

passing, taking some of that equity in building, and allowing yourself as a head coach some time. There's a lot on Gerard Mayo's plate right now. You're replacing Bill Belichick. You have no weapons. Your offensive line is bad. And you're kind of just hoping that I didn't love the offensive. some coordinator hire. And you're hoping that all this works and that your rookie quarterback doesn't pick up a lot

of bad habits in a division where there's some, you know, two, one really good pass rush, one okay pass rush. And, you know, I don't know. To me, that that is a recipe for not good. Yeah, I was on team trade the pick for a long time because I just think that what you could have gotten for that pick specifically and where you were at in your team building process. There's multiple suitors. Yeah.

You could have, I mean, you could have gotten an amount of draft capital that could, you could have rebuilt the supporting cast before you drop the quarterback into it. I think so highly of Drake May, though, that it's hard for me to blame a team drafting Drake May and not wanting to go into the quarterback unknown in 2025 and beyond. I want to see this. I would like to see them slow play the Drake May part of this, because I do have enough questions about the supporting cast where I, I think dropping Drake May behind that offensive line and with those receivers for 17 games as a rookie

would ultimately be detrimental to Drake May's development. I would not mind seeing Jacoby Percette for half or maybe even more of this season. I think that would be totally fine for where the Patriots are at. So if they do that, if Jacoby Percett starts 10 to 12 games this year and we just see a little bit of Drake May to get him on the field, but they don't risk kind of creating scar tissue with him in year one. I think I'm fine with this offseason and that quarterback development plan overall. Sure. If you almost pull a reverse Browns, you don't play the quarterback, you take your lumps, you go, whatever it is, two and 15, three and, I can't do math anymore, three and 14, and then,

you know, you get a top five pick next year in a class that may not be necessarily quarterback heavy, but really talented with, you know, other players of positions you might need. And then you start Drake May. I'm okay with that if that's the express plan. And to your point, I think that if the two people who are calling me on draft day and saying,

I want Drake May are Brian Dable and Kevin O'Connell, I'd be like, oh, if these guys really like them, then, you know, I probably shouldn't give them up. I just think it's going to be hard to find a guy who's that talented down the road. And I don't love Jane Daniels the same way that you did. If Jane Daniels is the third of, overall pick, I would have traded that pick and moved on to the next quarterback class.

Because guess what? We didn't know Jane Daniels was going to be a part of this one. There are guys like Jayden Daniels pretty much every single year. I don't think Drake May is in that group of quarterbacks or in that conversation. And that's why I'm okay with it. The thing that I is the reason I'm tepidly buying it. It's mostly, when I say typically buying it, I don't have a huge problem with it the same way that other people do. And that's the lack of aggression overall. I'm fine with them not spending what is. it would have taken to get Calvin Ridley and kind of leaving yourself open to other options moving forward. Let's say you have a top five pick next year and you want a draft receiver. Great.

Let's say you have an ocean of cap space next year, which they're going to, and T. Higgins becomes a free agent. Would you rather have T. Higgins at the Calvin Ridley price or Calvin Ridley, who's going to be 30? So this team is so early in the development process for me or so early in the steps needed to get toward contention that I don't mind them being very patient in the way that they spent their money this offseason. The only exception to that is that I'm a little bit worried about the state of this offensive line.

But this is one of those things. I think it's important to play this game. Okay, what should they have done? Who should they have signed that they didn't with all of that cap space? There are no tackles, right? So if you look at left tackle specifically, there weren't any guys that came off,

like, oh, this team definitely needed to go get Tyron Smith. There are guys out there right now. They can still get Charles Leno. know, they can still get Donovan Smith that they wanted to. And at the other guard spots, it's like, did you really want them to spend $15 million on a mid-tier guard like some of these other teams did? Or is it better to just roll with a mid-round pick that they had last year? I think you could make an argument on both sides.

So overall, I'm just not as worried about the lack of urgency they showed and throwing some of that money around the same way that some other people are. Yeah, to me, I mean, this is boring, but the most important thing about this off-season was winning the Christian Barmore negotiation, which you did, knocked it out of the park. That's a hugely team-friendly contract, and he's a great player. And so you do what all good new regimes do, which is that you award a player for tone-setting play,

and you set the example. But in this case, they didn't overpay. And this was an off-season with really good defensive tackles that got paid, and that, for some reason, rising tide didn't lift the boat of that extension really much at all. And so I think you've won. all the wins so far at this point. But where we, you know, it's just can you manage to save Drake May in the process? And the extending multiple draft picks to me is one of the reasons that I like this offseason because that you look at it. That stat about them not resigning a player that

they drafted in the first three rounds since 2013 is one of the wildest stats I've ever come across. Before they re-signed, Kyle Dugger, I guess Kyle Dugger was probably the first one, right? He signed before Barmore did. So before they re-sign Kyle Dugger, they had not re-signed a player. They drafted in the first three rounds since Duran Harmon, who they drafted in 2013. That's insane. And that was one of my biggest questions coming into this off-season. It's like, why don't you want Unwenu and Kyle Dugger and all these guys who played well for you?

Do you think you're going to find better players than them out there in free agency over the last couple of years? So the fact that they did decide to bring all those guys back and you can throw Barmore into that conversation as well, I think that ultimately is a good note for this regime to start on. That is one of the most devastating statistics. I just remember the Giants and Jerry Reese had a similar run. And when I used to cover the team, that was like the question that you would ask at a press conference that like push the red button on the mood in the room. And you're just like, you're just like, let me ruin everybody's day.

It's been a long time since you've re-signed a draft pick. It's like, you know, but yes, not resigning your draft pick. absolutely sucks the lifeblood out of your organization. Why are you maybe a little bit lukewarm on the Alex Van Pelt hire as the offensive coordinator? Again, I think that you had options to do better. I mean, Van Pelt was certainly scapegoated in Cleveland. There is some familiarity with Jacoby Brissette. But to me, if I were Gerard Mayer,

I think what I would have wanted is either someone way younger and someone who's going to blow you out of the water with the way that he creates matchups, does all sorts of stuff like that, or someone who can better assist you with the gargantuan task that you are taking on. Because, you know, if you talk to people in New England, like, there are some things about the way that Bill Belichick operated. Like, there's going to be a lot of stuff that has to be brought into the 21st century, you know, a lot of stuff. And so, you know, you're going to be preoccupied to some degree with a lot of things that maybe other coaches wouldn't have to deal with. And I think that having somebody who's been in the chair, who's had some experience, who can take some of the heat for you would be valuable, you know. And so I just think that you probably could have gone in some other directions. that said, I don't, it's not the worst, you know. You know, they didn't pluck Jason Garrett out of the Notre Dame booth, you know.

I mean, you could have done that and you didn't. Speaking of the moves the giants have made in the last few years, I think it's a great point. When we see these offensive coordinator hires, I think you can go typically one of two directions, right? You can sign, I went through this with the Bears. You can sign somebody, you can hire somebody who is the young hotshot option who's the unknown, let's say Zach Robinson in Atlanta. Like that's how I would frame him. Or you can sign somebody who has done a solid job

as an offensive coordinator in the past and you know what you're getting, aka Shane Waldron. Alex Van Pelt is neither of those. He's been in the league forever, but he's never been a play caller before. So you don't have certainty and you don't really have that much upside.

So I totally get that because he falls in this weird third bucket that's kind of hard to get excited. about. And I do understand from, you know, there's a lot of things involved here. I mean, you know, you understand, and I think most fans have come to understand. There's deep connections here. Guys know guys. Guys have been referred guys. Guys work for the same agency. There are guys who want a certain temperament from their offensive coordinator because they want everybody out of the way, because they want their voice to be the loudest. Like, there's a lot of, you know, and I think

certainly with Mayo, right? Like, you know, you could have had Mike Frable. Like, there's some sensitivity to all this, right? This is a big, massive undertaking by Robert Kraft. You are calling your shot and you're saying, I identified this guy and I'm sticking with him despite the fact that there may have been some better, immediate options available to us. So maybe that's what it is.

It's like, hey, we got to lead one foot forward. Alex Van Pelt's kind of a bad guy and it's going to be in the background. Cool. Like, not worried about him running out and getting a head coaching job. job, that could have been part of the consideration. I don't know. But yeah, I just, I just wasn't totally blown away by it. I mean, that staff to me isn't one where I'm like, well, baby, you know, yeah, it's hard to get excited about it. I mean, there's a lot of unknowns. Like Scott Peters is their offensive line coach, who's the assistant offensive line coach for the Browns. He's never

done this before. So it's this weird combination of not young and exciting, but also unproven. And I think it's hard to get really, it's hard to get worked up about that. Let's get to our next one here. The New York Giants, are you buying or selling the New York Giants offseason? I'm buying New York Giants off season because I have already convinced myself that Drew Locke is at some point going to assume the starting quarterback job. And not only is he going to do that, but he's going to play extraordinarily well with Brian Dable.

I think this is Gino Smithian. And the reason why I think that way is because. The Giants were still plucky and borderline competitive last year. I'm a Brian Dable guy. In Drew Locke's two-game sample size last year, if you take a composite of those two games, Daniel Jones only had a better pass rating in one of his eight starts last year. So, you know, Drewlock, I think, could be a quick RPO kind of guy.

I think you can manufacture, you know, he manned, Brian Dable manufactured touches with Stefan Diggs, when he was literally the only offensive threat on the field outside of Josh Allen running, which is a big threat. I'm not trying to take anything away from that. I think he's very good at that. I think Locke oddly gets this team to like eight or nine wins. And I know that sounds crazy, but I am buying that vision.

I absolutely have fallen in love with it and no one can convince me that anything else is going to happen. I love that so much. I love that of all the moves they made this offseason, it's the Drew Locke signing and Drew Locke taking over as the quarterback that ultimately is getting you there with the Giants. I mean, as somebody who is just not a Daniel Jones person, I'd be totally fine if that ends up happening. And that's what's difficult with this, is that I think it's hard to separate what they did this offseason from the looming Daniel Jones situation. But if we are separating those things, I'm kind of buying it. I think it all makes sense. They needed severe upgrades along

the offensive line. And John Runny to $10 million a year is probably pretty rich, but they really just needed starting caliber players. And the germane Illumina signing, I don't think it's not the most exciting thing in the world. This is a guy who's been like a swing player for huge chunks of his career and was a solid tackle for the

Raiders over the last couple years. But what they did with him, the fact that he can play guard right now and if the Evan Neal thing goes south, he could potentially bump out to tackle. The price they paid for that level of flexibility and that sort of contingency plan, that makes a lot of sense.

to me. So I feel like them getting to a starting offensive line that is a passable starting offensive line is the most important thing for this team this year. And I do think there are pathways with the players that they signed and bringing over Carmen Bersillo who is with the Raiders over the last couple of years. And I think got much better play from that group than the pieces would lead you to believe. Ultimately, I think that that's going to be just fine compared to what they had last year. And then you can, oh, go ahead. No, no, no. Well, I was just going to say, too, I'm not I'm not ready to give up on Evan Neal. I think situationally, and I also thought that he was one of the best players in that draft, and I advocated for the Jaguar's taking him number one overall.

So I'm in deep here. We go back to this idea of tackles being safe picks in the top 10 and how it's selective memory that would lead us to believe that. Correct. Yeah. So I'm in deep here. I'm compromised. I get that. I have a reason to need this to work out. But I do think that he played something. of his best football in the weeks leading up to the sort of derailing injuries. And so, you know, and it can't get worse, right? I've never seen a team.

And, you know, you could say what you want about pro football focus grades. And I try not to, you know, you go on what you see. But I've never seen a team start for 16 games, the worst offensive linemen at two different positions, you know, in Evan Neal, I think was the 81st best offensive tackle in the NFL. and John Michael Schmitz was the worst center in the NFL last year. And that's even before you start talking about the guys they had to try out of guard. I mean, it is one of the worst collective offensive lines I have ever seen. There were multiple games last year at any stretch of the season where they could not function as an offense

because you had three guys. If it's one guy and you can protect him, fine. There were games last year where they had two to three starters who were consistently getting beat almost every single play. There's very little you can do if you're Mike Kafka and Brian Daibald to salvage that situation. And with that,

they won games with Tommy Cuddlets. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I live in this area. And so the anti-Dable sentiment is incomprehensible to me. I'm just like, how are you guys not? He's the best offensive coach that you guys have had since

Kevin Gilbride? Like, I mean, you won a two Super Bowls with Kevin Gilbride. Like, so you had to be okay at some point, you know, but this team was a barren wasteland of, that's not fair to Ben McAdoo. Ben McAdo did some good things. But I mean, Jason Garrett, Pat Schumer. Over the last couple regimes, it was rough. How is this not?

It was rough. How are we not building statues to this guy? Like, and just based on recent sample size. like, this is good. And that's why when Drew Locke wins comeback player of the year, I will come back on this podcast. I will tell everybody that I was right all along. I love that that's what's driving this.

A couple other things I think were worth mentioning. They hired Shane Bowen as a defense coordinator. I think Shane Bowen did a really solid job in Tennessee over the last few years. And I think there's going to be a soundness to the way that they play defense. Again, not the sexiest hire in the world, not the biggest name in the world. But I like going that direction. I like the Brian Burns trade. You trade a second round pick for a 26-year-old pass rusher.

You're never going to be able to find in free agency. So I can get on board with a lot of the stuff that they did. And again, I want to try to separate my lack of excitement about a Daniel Jones at $40 million a year-led football team with the moves that Joe Shane and Brian Dable made this offseason. Right. You're not going to have to worry about Daniel Jones. And Brian Burns makes Kavon Tibido better. and I think a less taxing,

I mean, I loved a winked martinel defense just from a sheer, like, you know, there's a reason that you go see an M. Night Shyamalan movie, right? Like, you know that it's going to be wild, you know? And so you go into it being like, yes, you know. But, you know, there obviously were some drawbacks,

and he is very intimately close with his style of defense. I think that we will be able to see a different way of situational rushing. And now that you have strength coming off of both sides, takes a little bit of pressure off Tibido, who I do think played well at times last year. So, yeah, there's nothing to dislike about that. Feels like it's worth mentioning Malik

Neighbors' name. It's, it's, it's, they needed that guy. Like, they needed that type of presence within this offense. They've desperately needed one for the last couple years and drafting one in the top five, probably the right move. So absolutely can get on board with that. Let's keep

moving here. The Tennessee Titans, this is an interesting, what, are you buying or selling a very aggressive offseason from the Tennessee Titans? I'm selling. So is it weird? Like, can I separately, I don't know anything about stocks, but like, can I separately buy Calahan as a human and as an eventual good head coach and be completely disgusted with the way that they have allocated funds and believe that this team is going to be a, what? At best, you're going to get. blown out in the first round of the playoffs?

Like, is that the plan here? You know? I hope you could do that because I'm doing the exact same thing. If you look at the way that they spend money this offseason and the collection of moves that they made, when has this ever worked? When has a collection of moves with this feeling ever worked where you spend this level of money in free agency? It's not just the level of money that they spent.

Chidobio Wuse is 29. He's on a third deal and he's recently been injured. Ligerius Sneed, they bought at the peak of Lageria's. that are the peak of his value and corners are so volatile historically that buying at the peak it comes with a lot of drawbacks and this guy is going to be 29 with huge guarantee in year three of his deal he's going to be 29 and there are huge guarantees all the way into year three of that deal Calvin Ridley again you won the bidding war for Calvin Ridley Calvin Ridley is going to be 30 spending money in free agency on players with their track records collectively

and those collective ages, that has never traditionally worked out. And those are the good players. That's before we even get to what they spent to get Kenneth Murray. So I have a lot of questions about how this team allocated their resources this offseason.

They're going to be better this year. They're going to be significantly better. But it's about what you're doing two, three years down the road when you're trying to ultimately be a contender. And I think the way they spent money this spring is going to ultimately hinder as they try to get there.

I asked one agent, before free agency, what would represent totally off the rails to you? And the agent said, if Calvin Ridley makes more than $18 million per year, you got 23. And so. With a decent chunk guaranteed. I mean, that's a strong contract. And so, okay, him and, Audrey Hopkins ages beautifully. I mean, but it's, and then Will Levin. I don't know, man.

Like, this is a tough one for me. This is a tough one for me. I get wanting to get an answer on Will Levis and leverage some of that cast space that you had in order to make that happen. I'm on board with stuff like the Lloyd Cushenberry move. You have a young center. You're pairing a young center with a young quarterback,

a smart center that can give that guy some answers as he moves into year two. There are elements of this that I liked, but I think that there are a lot of downside. There's a lot of downside to the way that they threw money around and the types of players that they spent it on. But I do like the Brian Callahan part of this. I mean, I just did it, you know, had a conversation with Brian that's on our YouTube channel and was on one of the shows recently. If you want to go, you know, take a listen to it, I think he has the right mentality for this job.

I think he has the right temperament for the job. I understand and appreciate the approach they've taken to kind of building this offense. But the way they've built the roster and the depth chart, this offseason specifically, it's just hard for me to ultimate. we get behind. They were sold on him. I mean, the sense that I got was that Brian was going to get on a plane to meet with Arthur Blank the same day, and the Titans basically like jigsawed the building so that he couldn't get out without signing a contract. And so, I mean, okay, good for you, calling your shots. Brable is a big personality. He was all controlling, all assuming, you know, there's going to be an extraction period there where there are guys who have been there

who are used to a very certain style of person and play of intimacy and involvement. And Brian is very much the opposite kind of guy and not in a bad way. Like opposite personalities work all the time in the NFL. But we make jokes about, you know, hiring the guy who's going to put the ping pong table in the locker room and then firing him and hiring the guy who's going to take the ping pong table out of the locker room and so on and so on. this is one of those situations. And who knows whether or not it's going to work. I like the way they built the rest of the staff.

I mean, specifically, I think getting Bill Callahan is a coup for a team that needed better offensive line play. And I like the Dernard Wilson higher. I think the Eagles are probably kicking themselves that they let him leave the building two off seasons ago. Bringing that Ravens system and a guy with his background, I'm betting on that working. So there are a lot of elements to this offseason that I liked from them.

But again, I just think that if you look at it, the moves in totality, good teams and teams that ultimately are happy with the way that they spent money in free agency, the halls and the approach traditionally do not look like this. As a quick aside, why did it take like 14 years for teams to start hiring Ravens coaches? Some of the best coaches in the NFL and they're like, oh yeah, those guys are pretty good. It was probably a wave. And I'm trying to remember this anecdotally. Like obviously Rex Ryan was a Ravens guy. And so there are

guys being plucked off that tree more often, you know, probably maybe 10 years ago than there have been recently. And maybe it's, they ran a very specific

kind of defense over the last several years, you know, like that wink way of playing is not the way that a lot of teams would have wanted to live. It was actually kind of

anti the defensive meta that had been evolving and kind of rising in the NFL and watching Mike McDonald build his version of it that is the same defensive system, quote unquote, but has a level of flexibility built into it that the Ravens never really had under Wink Martindale. I think that's opened a lot of people's eyes into what sort of

system this defense could be and the benefits of it around the league. Chris Horton is still there, by the way, everybody. So you can go hire him at any time. Let's get to our next one. The Denver Broncos, are you buying or selling the Denver Broncos offseason? I think having seen what Atlanta had to go through post Matt Ryan and the suffer. nature of a large amount of dead money, plus the fact that we really don't know how Sean Payton is going to do with a rookie quarterback, leads me to sell it in the immediate.

I'm obviously in awe of some of the things that Sean Payton has done offensively over the years, especially there was that year where it was Teddy Bridgewater and Taysam Hill alternating games when Drew Breeze was hurt, and that was some of the best offensive football that I've ever seen. But I don't know, man. This is tough.

You're low on weapons. The core of your defense is hollow. And, you know, I don't know. We don't know. Like, Sean Payton has always attached himself or has tried to historically attach himself with finished products, you know? And this is far from a finished product.

And it's getting even less finished because of how they've had to approach this off-season. And I'm selling it, and I don't want this to be a multi-year exercise, but with the Broncos specifically, it's hard for it not to be. Because them taking a breath this off season, not spending any money, eating $67 million in dead money, giving themselves, hopefully, some flexibility into 2025. I think that makes sense. But how do you square that with what they did last off season? Because if you look at the resources for this team in 2025, there's a lot of expensive. players. Mike McGlenshy is expensive. Zach Allen is expensive. So I just don't really know what to

make of the roster overall, even if I think them taking a step back, pressing pause and not spending any money this off season is really the only thing they possibly could have done, given the state of things and given what they're having to deal with with Russell Wilson. The George Payton thing is fairly amazing to me. And now I know that there were some stronger voices in the room on the Russell Wilson deal. And so you can't pin that one specifically on him. But imagine having that feather in your cap along with some of the other massive swings and misses that you've already taken in free agency or players who haven't lived up to their contracts and not walking around on eggshells this year and thinking, whoa. Like, I mean, you know, is Sean Peyton just going to put this on me now

at some point when this doesn't work? Probably, you know. So I don't know. This is tough. The one thing I do What's your sense of whether that's why he still has this job? Right. I mean, maybe. You know, I mean, there's probably an inherent value in that, for sure. But if we're just talking about the value, so I had the Broncos taking Bonix, which is like the one smart thing I did in my mock draft. And the reason why is, you know, I do think that above anything else,

there are coaches, Andy Reid, among them, who do value the NIL land. as it is because it is creating a ton of situations where these guys are getting more repetitions at the college level. I talked to Bo Nix's dad and he's like, listen, Bo is 24 and he's married and he owns a house. And those aren't clearly I'm married and own a house and I dress like a child and act like a child. And that's not a biomarker for maturity necessarily. But you know, you're going into a situation where you're probably going to be able to handle

this a little bit better and a little bit differently than some other guys. Could I see him playing as a top, like maybe like the 20th best quarterback in the NFL, 18, 19, 20? Yeah, like I don't think it's going to be a disaster. It's not going to be Zach Wilson. So, you know, there is that. Like, it's not going to look awful is what I think. For me, though, when you're spending a first round pick out of quarterback,

shooting for the middle with that pick is just difficult for me to get behind. Put that driver back in your bag. Let's say, all right. let's say you're in a situation where like the Vikings are. And I think that JJ McCarthy physically has more upside than Bo Nix does. But let's say it's a similar situation. You can talk yourself into that. Dropping a mid-tier quarterback into a spot where he has Justin Jefferson and two very good tackles,

that's different to me than dropping Bo Nix into whatever this Broncos situation is and seeing what you can get out of these cheap ears. I mean, you're probably going to be in year three before you even have a shot to, wield the advantages of that contract with the pieces that you can put around Bo Nix. And that's why I think a mid-tier option for them is different than it would be for a team like Minnesota. And your three for Bo Nix is when he's 28. Yeah, exactly. So you have a 24-year-old quarterback who doesn't have high physical upside that you're

drafting with the 12th overall pick. And no one would have blame them if they just punt it on the quarterback this year. If it was like, all right, we're going to have Jared Stidham or whoever played this season because this is a reset year, and we can figure out what we're doing a quarterback next year. So it's just a confusing team to me. I just don't really know what to make of them, and maybe that's a cop-out as to why I'm selling it, but that's where I landed on it. So I thought, I did the same thought exercise with the New York Giants, right?

And I was trying to explain this to people who were melting down in this area about why they didn't draft a quarterback. And, you know, I might be higher on Drew Locke than others, but let's just plug Daniel Jones in here. Would you rather Brian Dable plus Daniel Jones slash Drewlock plus Malik neighbors? Or would you rather Brian Dable plus Bonix slash J.J. McCarthy plus nothing? You know, and in the Broncos case, would you rather have had, you know, a first round pick, you know, Sean Payton and Jared Stidham, who Sean Payton signed immediately? I think that was the first thing that he did when he became the head coach of the team last year in Free Agency.

Clearly you like the guy. So would you rather that or would you rather Bo Nix plus nothing? And right now you have Bo Nix plus nothing. I think the Giants approach to quarterback in this draft was the correct approach. We are going to try to move up in the draft and draft Drake May because that's the sort of

quarterback when you look at him and what he brings to the table that you're not going to be able to find in future draft. Bo Nix is going to be available next year. I hate to say it, but Bo Nix is going to be available. next year, if you're the Denver Broncos, Drake May might not be. So coming into a draft and saying, we're taking a quarterback no matter what, I think that ultimately is a failure and a mistake.

That's not what the Giants did. That ultimately is what the Broncos did. And that's why it's just hard for me to get behind. Yeah, I'm selling this, which feels crazy, right? It feels crazy that we're going into Sean Payton year two with and really struggling to figure out how this is going to work. And carmically, it does make a little bit of sense, though, because you essentially left the New Orleans Saints

like a, just like a crumbling business, you know, that was so crippled financially due to years of irresponsible maneuverings. And now you've inherited that mess again. You can't get out of it. And there is something satisfying about that. I think if we went back a year and we, let's say we go back and we play a little Christmas caro

with Sean Payton and the ghost of Dept Sharts future. and we tell him what this team would look like after the 2023 season. You think they would have spent on the guys that they spent on last year if they knew that this was going to happen? Absolutely not. So them taking a beat and taking a breath

makes sense, but what they should have done is they should have taken a beat and taking a breath last year, but that never was going to be the way that Sean Peyton was going to handle it. He wanted to compete right away. He wanted to put his mark on it. And ultimately, I think that that is going to cost them

in the long run. I also think he was probably imagining himself working for the Chargers, which unfortunately was not the case. Last one here, Arizona Cardinals, are you buying or selling the Arizona Cardinals offseason? I'm buying the Arizona Cardinals off season. I look back at some of the better wide receivers who were drafted over the last, like, decade plus, let's just say. And you look at even quarterbacks like Drew Breeze, completion percentage, down by, down success rate. A lot of those, you know, kind of, you know, completion percentage is a phenomenal

biomarker, but some of these other biomarkers went up fairly significantly when you draft a great wide receiver. So in that case, Mike, you know, Michael Thomas, Eli Manning's comp percentage went up six points. Derek Carr, up three with Amari Cooper. His down-by-down success rate went up 5%. And this is a team that was 14th in first downs. They were a top five rushing team last year.

I think a top three team in net rushing yards per attempt. All right, you throw Marvin Harrison in there. You know, we got some developing guys on the O line that are going to be playing better. You would guess some sort of an ascension. Love Drew Petzing. Like, he was very fun to watch last year. Let's get him in there with Kyler Murray for a full off season and see what the heck happens. Yeah, I'm buying it.

They had so many resources and I don't mind the way that they spent them at all. Obviously, you need a top-tier weapon at some point. in the process. They ended up getting one. The Jonah Williams contract, I think, is fine. He's the starting caliber offensive linemen. They don't happen. They don't come along that often in free agency. So even if you have to overpay to get that and drop him in next to Paris Johnson, I'm fine with that.

Isaiah Adams, who they drafted in the third round, I think Profiles is a day one starter along the interior. So now you have hopefully a slightly improved offensive line. He dropped Marvin Harrison in there. You can argue that the Williams contract, the Justin Jones contract, Sean Murphy, bunting. Those are all a little bit rich, but it's hard to get worked up over any of them. And what they did in the draft, I think a lot of it makes sense. Tip Ryman with Trey McBride, those are complimentary skill sets. Trey Benson with James Connor, you needed to remake your entire defensive line this

offseason, your entire cornerback group. And they did that. They at least tried to do that. So with what they started with resource-wise and where they ended up in the roster that they built. I am totally fine with pretty much the entire set of moves from Monty Alston Ford and from this group overall. Yeah. And dating back to last year, I mean, when we were all expecting the Cardinals to completely flame out and to get the number one pick and there would be all sorts of strangers that would happen there with Kyler Murray and Cliff Kingsbury and Caleb

Williams and all that kind of stuff from day one. I mean, everyone who I would talk to would be like, you don't understand. Jonathan Gannon loves Kyler Murray. And I'd be like, yeah, okay, whatever. But everything that he has done to this point, like we've talked about with some of the other quarterbacks in the show, has been to help and legitimize and to make life easier for Kyler Murray. So let's see what happens, you know. Yeah. And I remember being in Arizona last year was the first place I went on my training camp tour and talking to the people there, whether it was Gannon, whether it was Drew Petzing and asking them about Kyleor Murray. And that's what they were trying to sell you in July of last year. and I was definitely skeptical about it

because I expected that team to win two games and if you have the number one overall pick and what we all expected in July of last year to be a historic quarterback draft with Caleb Williams and Drake May, the idea of passing on those guys on rookie contracts in favor of Kyle or Murray based on the way he had played in the injury history,

that was hard for me to imagine. But you land at four, they did like working with Kyler and this is where we ultimately land. You get Marvin Harrison Jr. instead in an offensive ecosystem that I'm with you is easy to get excited about based on what we saw last year. And I think it all makes sense. And I'm looking forward to watching it this year. Could you get yourself to the point where you could see them competing for not second,

well, maybe not second place, but third place in that division? Yes, because I think there's enough question marks about what the Seahawks are going to be this year. What do you think about the 24 Seattle Seahawks. I'm not optimistic, and that, again, is not a reflection on Mike McDonald, but I don't think you make a move like that and blow things up if you didn't think that you were fundamentally fairly far down the wrong path. You know, I do think that there's going to have to be some turnaround there. And I think that's why McDonald was the hire, because everyone I talked to during the

coaching search process was saying, whoever they're going to replace Pete Carroll with, it's not going to be Dan Quinn. Everyone is saying, Dan Quinn's going to get the Seattle job. Dan Quinn is going to get the Seattle job. And everyone was like, no, dude, Dan Quinn is not going to get the Seattle job because you're in a division with Sean McVeigh and Kyle Shanahan, and you have to swing for the fences. Like, this has to be far bigger and far bolder of a plan than younger Pete Carroll.

You know, like it has to be different. Why would you go down the same road? Why would you just have a slightly younger Pete Carroll and a guy who has been, if you look at the history, the Kyle Shanahan, has against those defenses. Sliced and diced is the way that I would describe it. And then if you look at what Mike McDonald did to the Niners last year, and the Rams did just fine, but I'll tell you what,

Sean McVeigh worked to move the ball the way that he did against that Ravens defense last year. So I'm with you that it makes way more sense for them to go the route that they did. And so maybe this year is bad, but you have upside. And I'm excited about guys like Ryan Grub. Like I think that this is going to be fun. it's going to work. It's also going to take time. And it might be a couple Sam Howell games this year where we're like, my God, what are we doing? But ultimately, it's for the greater good, right?

I totally agree with you. And if you look at what Arizona did, just one last kind of point here about the way that they approached the draft, they had so many picks. And it was volume shooting. They spent a second and third round pick on guys in the secondary with Max Melton and Elijah Jones. They spent a fourth round pick on Dr. Darry and Taylor Demerson. And they spent, you know, a third round pick on Trey Bents, a third round pick on Tipper Iman. These are a connective tissue of the roster sort of picks. That's the hope.

And I think ultimately this draft will go a long way in shaping what the future of the Jonathan Gannon tenure ultimately looks like in Arizona. And when you have that many picks, it's a big help in ensuring that that ends up looking pretty good. I think five in the top 104. So again, I mean, I think that there's a lot of, there is a lot of potential for some value there, for sure.

all right Connor or that is all we got as always man sincerely appreciate you taking the chime chat with us tell people where they can read you listen to you what do you have on top here as we get a little bit deeper into the offseason yeah i mean s i'mcumcobb podcast

and uh the magazine go out and like you know read read a hard copy of something you know put your phone down go to the park and it's i will say this I'm very, very excited. Knowing what I know about our football preview issue coming up later this summer, knowing what I know about some of the new plans. I don't know if people may have heard, we've changed ownership at SI.

It's so exciting. I'm very, very energized, and I think everyone should be too. I'm excited for you and happy for you because you deserve it and you guys over there deserve it. So that's wonderful to hear. All right, guys, that is all we've got. Sincerely appreciate Connor and his time. we will be back a little bit later this week with two more shows.

We're back on a normal schedule. I'm back in the United States of America. I am coming to you guys on the way I typically would. We're recording the show on Monday. It's going to be out on Tuesday. I am here. I'm not speaking from you in the distant past like I have been over the last couple of weeks. So we are back on a three times a week schedule.

So we will have shows Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for you guys all the way up through training camp. Excented to get back into it. Hopefully you guys are happy to have us back. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.