The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Chargers’ hype, Sam Darnold’s fit in Carolina, the Colts’ roster approach and more: Answering all of your NFL questions

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

Can the Chargers live up to the hype? How will Sam Darnold fit in Joe Brady’s offense? What price is too high for a proven QB? Robert Mays and Nate Tice answer your offseason questions. They also discuss long-shot MVP candidates, their biggest hits and misses on draft prospects and much more.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's my good friend Nate Tice. Nate, how you doing, buddy? Doing good. It's not only is it just me and you, it's our audience.

We got, wait, it's like me, you, and everybody else on this episode. It's going to be great. So we were going to have Lindsay Jones on today. Lindsay ran into some parenting stuff that she had to handle, which goes down when you have a young child, which she does. So we miss Lindsay. We're going to have her on a ton over the next couple months. Just wanted to lay this out in kind of a housekeeping way.

We're doing a mailbag show today. Thank you guys so much for the questions. I feel like I get emotional every time we do this because I sincerely appreciate the thoughtfulness that you guys put into them. It's why I don't mind leaning on them and doing them as often as we do just because I get so much out of them. I mean, a lot of these questions kind of push me to think about things in a different way, which I sincerely appreciate all the responses. I got a lot of them in my email that I will try to respond to just because they're really good. Some of them will hit in more considered ways as the offseason goes, which is kind of what I wanted to address. So we're going to do one show this week.

This is going to be it. This is going to run a Wednesday. Starting next week, we're doing our offseason program, I guess is what we'll call it. We're going to be doing two shows a week. One of them is going to involve the people that you know. Nate, Lindsay, rotating cast of guests. We're going to do some really fun, just kind of gimmicky ideas that we've been throwing around that I think are great and perfect for May and June when the offseason schedule opens up a little bit. The other show every week is going to be reserved for an interview.

We're going to have GMs, head coaches, players. I don't want to say any of the names yet because I don't want to jinx them before they happen. But the list and the growing list, I'm very excited about it. So that is going to start next week. Be on the lookout for that. two days a week, Wednesdays and Fridays. Before that, we're going to get into the mailbox. A lot of fun stuff.

We're going to start with a question that I got in various forms, like three or four different ones. So that's why I wanted to start with this one. Jake Russell is the one that I picked. He laid it out saying the Chargers destiny narrative. The Bucks in 2019 finished with seven wins, drafted an offensive tackle 13th overall, drafted a DB in the second round named after his all-pro father, then won the Super Bowl in their own stadium.

20-20 Chargers finished with seven wins drafted an offense tackle 13th overall drafted a DB in the second round named after his all-pro father and the Super Bowl will be held in Los Angeles next year. I was accused by multiple people of writing this Reddit entry that has since become viral. I did not write it, but I can understand why you think I would. So we have delved into Chargers hype a decent amount on this show over the last couple months. I think, Nate, you and I both like what they did in free agency. We like what they came away within the draft. Their plan and the talent they have on the roster, plus the coaching staff that's in place that we're excited about,

there's a lot of reason to get pumped up about this Chargers team. Shielded his power rankings this week. They were ninth. They were ahead of the Browns. I mean, if you put a team ninth in your power rankings, that's a legit contender. And this is a team that had a lot of holes last year. So this is what I want to ask you.

Instead of saying, is this a team of destiny or how far can they go? Because a lot of people do believe that they're a legitimate playoff team. I want to ask you, is there a reason we shouldn't be putting the chargers in this group? What are the reasons that maybe we should walk back this excitement a little bit before we get a little too ahead of ourselves? I love how we figured out, like, you might be football's version of Q, like your Q be a nod with like this like coincidence, conspiracy. all the correlation that people are fun. As the man who was driving the Chargers in Bucks bandwagons for most of the last seven years, I can understand why people thought this was me.

Your, your QBianon. But the, but yeah, this is like that. I will be the devil's advocate here because really with the Chargers, I mean, their offense is just so,

I mean, just fun. I mean, I'm just excited already thinking about it right now in May, thinking about their offense and steps Herbert can take. The thing with Herbert, he was a bit of an outlier in the kind of like high variance situations. Third down against pressure.

You know, the argument for him is that he will pick it up on all the other situations to kind of bounce out that regression, which I think he can do. Defensively, as, you know, we love Staley. I mean, both of us on the show. And really, though, that front seven is kind of Joey Bosa and the Bossettes. Like, you know, it kind of is right at this point in time. So if you are going to hedge against them is they have a lot of question marks up there. Are they going to be able to create a pass rush?

Or they could be able to even stop anybody in the run game. Those types of things. That is going to be concerning. I am a fan of Staley. And I know we saw what he could do with a guy named Aaron Donald. Joey Boast is a lot different Aaron Donald, different skill set, but he is a dynamic player. But they also just going to need help with those other six guys, whether it be the nickel, all three linebackers, but also up front. You know, that is going to be their main hang up.

And we'll know a lot more. I think with the charges is like really early on, we're going to be like, yeah, they can contend it or not. because they might, as much as we love the scheme and everything, and I think he is open enough to adapt to his personnel and what he has. It's just going to be, it's tough sledding for what they have up front right now. I think you have to really believe in his ability and guys like Ronaldo Hill and the rest of that defensive staff. The defensive staff is really exciting. Great.

Beyond Daly, the fact that they got Ronaldo Hill, who they're very excited about, Jay Rogers, who's done a fantastic job with the Bears front over the last five years. Think about guys like Roy Robertson Harris. getting paid and how many guys have come out of Chicago in the front four, in part because of the way that he's helped to develop them. But even if you're excited about it and optimistic about what the staff can do, you still, there's a lot of projection with this defensive personnel. The front seven has a huge question mark. I mean, outside of Bosi, you got a Chenna Nuwosu and Kyler Fekral as their edge players. On the interior, Jerry Tilleri, who has not come along in the way that they would like and

Linval Joseph. I mean, it is not a great group up front. And I think the depth on the back end is the other part of this. If guys stay healthy, they could be great. But even that, you guys like Chris Harris, Michael Davis, I mean, to see your Adderly, we are, that's projection for those guys. Even if they stayed healthy all year, I still feel like that's a tough needle to thread. So the best version of the Chargers, I think goes along with some of these other teams, with Cleveland, Buffalo, whoever else.

But I still think that other teams are better. set up for some attrition, right? They can lose players. They can deal with some health luck. The Browns, I think, are much deeper, especially in the back seven than this Chargers team is. That's my only concern is I just think that there are more timelines where the Browns and the bills are good than the Chargers.

That being said, at 30 to 1 to win the Super Bowl, I still think they're really interesting. And that's like a proper odd. We talk about the paths to success, not just for players, but teams and their windows. It's like for them to be a contender, health luck has to happen. And some of these guys have to ascend. The coaching comes in. They kind of utilize these guys exactly how they need to, but that's just such a narrow band of success. I do think they're going to be very, very competitive this year, no matter what, no matter how it shakes out for them, which I think is going to be really fun. That's what good coaching really does is even if you have, you know, shit out

there, they're at least going to make them competent where it's like not guys just tripping over themselves. It's just like they just give up 40 a week or 40 a game every week. So I think that's where it's like their bar has it's been raised up a little bit. It's just that it's a very, very narrow ban to maybe, uh, kind of do with this like, you know, this conspiracy that we have going with the with the box and stuff. I know even like rereading this stuff like even as I was talking to you right now, it's like, do I have to like start watching like Chargers film backwards to find the hidden message? Like that's like just what we have to do now.

But it's, it's exciting. That offense is just going to be so much fun. I love how they piece things together. We got to talk about it on the draft show. That's how excited we were. It's just that's really stuff is adding up there. And it makes sense, especially offensively. It's just defense can have those question marks.

And we'll see, we'll see very quickly where they have answers. I can't wait to see what it looks like on offense. Yeah. Because you think you have ideas. You look at what Joe Lombardi did in New Orleans. I think there's going to be a lot of mixed personnel packages and aspects of that New Orleans offense. older aspects of that New Orleans offense

when they were pushing the ball down the field a little bit more and it was a little more vertical. I can't wait to see what this version of it looks like around Herbert filtered through their offensive personnel. And on defense, it's not going to look the same as it did with the Rams last year because it's going to be informed by the players that they have and the players that they have,

the strengths are very different. They did everything they could last year to get their linebackers off the field. Now, you have a first round linebacker that traded up for it last year. year and now that position is almost a strength relative to the other position groups they have on defense so that to me is really exciting but that's what they are to me they're exciting i still think the way that you put it is right the narrow band exists for them in a way that it doesn't with some

of these other afc contenders okay i really like this one this is from chris was going deep on twitter if you guys had to choose only one who is your favorite non-quarterback player of all time he said that his was Ed Reed, which is a great answer. Ed Reed is probably up there for me. So those Ravens teams in general were awesome to watch. Like Chris McAllister, there were so many just fun players in that group that you forget about. Yeah. The role players are memorable.

That's when you know it's a fun team is when you remember the other guys on those teams. Everyone's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that guy was great. Yeah. So that's, that kind of applies to my, a couple of my answers. I have a lot of bears. Like Charles Tillman will just always have a place in my heart that you will never, be taken away. I loved watching Lance Briggs play.

Tommy Harris. People forget how incredible Tommy Harris was before he heard his niece. He was unbelievable. And that group in like 04 through 06 or like 05 through in 06, those teams were just amazing to watch defensively. Non-Bares the vision, I think we might have the same answer. Who's yours? Oh, Randy Moss.

It is like. So is my. Yeah. I mean, that was, it's pretty easy, right? For you, it's easy. Yeah, for even my Twitter profile. It says Randy ratio for life. I mean, that's how I'm going to live with that stuff. Randy's just, I got to see every day practice, not just games, just incredible human feats. Like, it's, it's hard to put into words when you see that tier of athlete and football player just every day. And because he was so healthy all the time, too. That was an understated thing with Randy. Well, he's not human. He's just doesn't. He's a highly different plane of existence. He's a super freak. That was his nickname, a super freak. And it makes sense.

If I'm going non-randy, yeah, there's going to be a lot of Vikings, like Kevin Williams. Oh, yeah. Love Kevin Williams. Mo Williams, who was a role-playing runback. I love because, you know, he just did everything, third down protection and Mue Lade Moore. Like those were like those were my favorite players as Vikings and they're just role-playing running backs. And if you ever hear me talk about running backs, it's you can see where I got my favorite type of guy.

It's Mo Williams and Molde Moore. If you want to know what type of running back I love. like, God, non-vikings, that would be really hard for me because, like, in my head, I was always just like, I don't like him. I don't like him. I don't like him. I mean, I really did like Fav, but that's quarterback. So do you.

I know. It's you appreciate them once you see him live and stuff. It's like, that guy's really dang good. I'm just actually, now I'm trying to think like non-vikings because I, my entire childhood was the Vikings. And then it's just hilarious after what happened with my dad at the end. I kind of was like, I disavowed the Vikings for five years. And then now it's back to, like, yeah, I kind of really like those teams back of the day.

Randy Moss is definitely mine. I mean, in the era before Sunday ticket, when you could only just watch the local games when I was younger, I watched a lot of NFC Central and NFC North games. I mean, those were, I got to watch Randy Moss twice a year. And I was always just blown away by him. I mean, those Colpoper Moss teams, for our younger listeners, for those people who never watched those teams, it was like a cause. event. I mean, it was like an out-of-body experience to watch those two guys play with one another.

And obviously, the 98 team with Randall was incredible. But Culpepper and Moss just together, just otherworldly levels of physical ability in one offensive huddle. That's like Chris Carter was there. It's just absolutely amazing. And that's the thing is, it was the perfect super skill of Dante, which was he threw the greatest deep ball ever. I mean, what off. And then also with Randy, who's the greatest deep threat, you know, ever to play the game. It was just that per, like you said, the cosmic event, like the sound that I hear. And it's, I'll never probably hear that.

I mean, you hear it a little bit, but there was no sound that has been burning my brain more than when you would start seeing Dante kind of raise his shoulder up. And the people that would go to the games at the Metrodome knew what that was about what that meant. So on the sideline, you know, because it's quiet on offense, you would just hear everyone standing up at the same time because you just knew everyone's going. Like a roller coaster. It's like, oh, like, everyone's standing up. And I remember reading a article years and years ago. They were talking about when, oh, when Moss went to the Patriots. And actually, it's one of your former bosses.

But he was talking about, oh, you know, that sound that ever that anticipate, everyone anticipating that deep throw sound from Tom Brady to Randy Moss. And I was just, I remember going like, oh, I know that sound. Like I, it's just, I hear it all the time. Or I don't hear it all the time, but I just want to hear that sound because there's just such a specific thing that would happen. And that's the only way to describe it. It was an event.

It was an event to see those deep balls thrown every Sunday or Monday nights. It was the coolest thing I think on a football, I've ever seen on a football field because it happened weekly. And I finally found a non-quarterback non-viking answer. And it was probably Julius Peppers. And Julius Peppers is on my list, too. I just because. Yeah, he's the dynamic force.

Those couple, I never understood. And again, this is before I started covering the league. I was still in college when Julius Pepper signed with the Bears. I had never watched him down in and down out just because how many nationally televised Panthers games were there. So when he got there, I just never knew how good he was. I mean, obviously you knew the past rushing stats and you knew the pedigree and where he was drafted and everything else. But every single player, he would just do something ridiculous. I remember I remember Erlacher that year, and I've talked to Brian Erlacher about this.

We've had like real conversations about what the best Bears defenses were when I was working on other stories. I would just go a total Chris Farley show and be like, what about that 05? team and we would just talk about it for 10 minutes and he was actually down to do it. You remember 2006 when you you drop back in Tampa coverage? It was really funny. And I remember him saying that it was at the end of that 2010 year, I think it was when they won the divisional game. And he was sitting at the table with like Terry Bradshaw and all of them after the game.

I was like, I don't know how you could say anyone else's defensive player of the year. That's the best football player on earth when he was talking about peppers. And that's how I felt watching him that year. But with Moss, it was a combination of childhood. And then the fall of 2007 is maybe my favorite fall I've ever had as a football fan because I was 19 years old. I was 20. I was 20 years old. And we found this incredible bar in Columbia, Missouri.

It was called the Coliseum. And they had this amazing football setup. We sat in the middle of the room. There were TVs all around. And the food was great. Like they had this amazing skillet cookie that you could eat all of when you were 20 and it didn't matter. And we would just sit there and watch football all Sunday. And the 07 paths were just this force of nature.

I just will never, ever forget that game against Miami where he had those two just ridiculous touchdown catches. And so that fall just burned into my brain. So there's really no other answer for me. Everyone remembers that Dolphins game. I remember what I was. I was a freshman at UCF at that time. And I remember because I wouldn't get to watch a ton of the Sunday games.

I could like watch one or two because we'd have stuff during the season. And, you know, we're in the middle of our college season. And I remember that Dolphins game vividly. And not just the highlights, but just every, I just remember the one lot bomb. And it was triple coverage. And you can tell Brady just said, all right, screw it. I'm tossing this thing up. We're on fire right.

Yeah, the one over. It was Cameron Worell right? Or was it? Yep. So it was over Cameron Worell. And then he had the one he caught with one hand on his hip. Yeah. He literally mossed him, you know.

Yes. It was just like, it was absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. 2007, that was a good year. That was the most talented football. He's the most talented football player I've ever seen. That is the biggest gap between one player and everyone else on the field to me is Randy Moss. There's just no other answer in my opinion.

All right. So second question from Chris, I very rarely do this, but I think this is a fun one. It's never too early to start talking about this. Ethan Wagner had a similar question. If you had to bet on one long shot plus 1,000 or higher for this year's MVP, where is your money going? It's a really interesting list. Yeah. My two favorites.

So some of the examples, Josh Allen's 11 to 1, Brady's 14 to 1, Stafford 14 to 1, DAC is 16 to 1. My two favorites are Baker at 33 to 1, simply because I think you, I like betting on teams that are going to be really good. You know, if the Browns are 13 and 3. Yeah, the Browns are 13 and 3, which I think that if you're a Super Bowl contender and you're the quarterback of a Super Bowl contender, 33 to 1 is pretty high for your MVP odds. and Justin Herbert at 20 to 1. Like there's just a chance that Justin Herbert owns this NFL season. And he's the next one to ascend into that tier.

In year two, which we've seen with several guys. And you could easily see it happening. I also had Baker as one. And I said the narrative swell if he has a good season. Yes. And I think Stafford at 14 to 1. It's fun.

Yeah. I could see that's the, if I were a betting man, which I am, I would probably, that's where I probably would lean towards. Um, because I, it's frowned upon for me to bet on the NFL. So I typically don't.

Exactly. And I can, I could just see that. I could see the kind of how that offense unlocks with him. They're adding the deep threats with the Sean Jackson to too too well. Can see this kind of new age thing that they try to do. And yeah, or not due age, but just new version of the McVeigh offense. So I'm really curious about that one because I, I think they could blitzkriek some people early on. And, and Stafford's arm's going to be sore from going bombs away.

Next one here. The real Vivek. I love this question. Who is the worst quarterback in the league capable of winning a Super Bowl without requiring the best surrounding talent? This is the best wrench in this. So as in who is the best quarterback who can win a Super Bowl with the fifth best roster in the league? And the reason this is great is that we have recent examples of guys that can win a Super Bowl or get very close with arguably the best roster in the league, right? Nick Foles won a Super Bowl.

But I think that the Eagles probably had the best talent in the NFL that year. year. Jared Gough and Jimmy Garoppolo almost won Super Bowls. But I think you could argue that the Rams and Niners might have been better than the fifth best roster in the league. So where are the lines here? Where are the dials? This is a great question, by the way. It's great.

I love this. This one was great because it's so much different than the usual. Can you win with him? Exactly. Or can you or what's the bar, the bar, you know, the Mendoza line, basically. What's your answer? Who did you go with? I went Kyler.

Really? Oh, I went lower than that. Okay. And then that's what got me really kind of like, I, man, I changed this answer a lot. Like Kyler and then like Derek Carr, I think is like that is where I'm at. That's the zip code I'm shopping in here. That's what, seventh, eighth best quarterback? You know, we're hunting around that range.

We're getting into, you know. You think Derek Carr is the seventh best quarterback in the NFL? Last season, you had decent year. But I, no, I would say he's more like 10th, 12th, 10th. I'll say 10th in a good year. So, but that's the zip code we're hunting in. Now I'm like, I'm sorry,

I'm answering slow because I'm counting in my brain. How many I have had? Because I had Rogers Mahomes, Allen, Russ, Brady, obviously, Stafford.

And then now we're getting into this next tier of guys. Well, Matt Ryan, I think Matt Ryan clearly does it. I think Dak clearly does it. Dak is clearly. Yeah, Dak's upper elite tier for me.

So I'm, yeah, that's why didn't even mention him. Sorry. Man, so yeah, I think Kyler, I want to hear what you.

you say now. So I'm in the Derek Carr-Kirk Cousins zone. That's where I sit right here because I think both of those guys have quarterbacked top 10 offenses in the last few years. And I think with the right help but not perfect help, both of those guys could win a Super Bowl. I can imagine that in my mind. I think that it's between like the 12th and 15th best quarterbacks in the NFL could

probably do it with the fifth best roster. If you look at some of the stats, Cousins is 13th in the, the, EPA completion percentage over expectation composite that Ben Baldwin does over the last five years, Carr is 17th. So those are like the types of guys I think could do it. The problem here is that those are the exact type of guys that can do it. So you pay them $27 million a year and say, oh, he's good enough to win with. So those are, they probably clear the bar, but you get into a real danger zone with those sorts of

quarterback. And I think that's why it's a fascinating question. And that's why I probably with that tier above that. Like I was like, man, because now you're getting into that above average to good range where it's like, yeah, I can squint and see that. But it was like, man, if I'm just like gone to head is I, am I putting money on Kirk Cousins? So lead me with an above average roster. It's like, but I could at least bet on Kyler because I know Kyler can create. You know, that's in my head, that's how that's the argument like I was going with. But man, that is just like, because the car rate, like car is a perfect example of this. we've seen

I totally agree roster around. Yeah. And you see it, but then you see when it's not as great and it's like, man,

you know, is he even average? And that's, that's, I know, that's a great question. I'm sticking with Kyler, but I can easily get down

to that Kirk and, the Kirk and Derek Carr range because it's like, that's kind of like, that's the line. Can we win a Super Bowl with this guy? And that's kind of the line

is usually drawn at. All right. So let's, how about we do this with Derek Carr? If you had had the, the 2017, or 2019, Raiders,

or 2020 Raiders, both, I think, borderline top 10 offenses with the eighth best defense in the NFL. Yeah. That team could possibly win a Super Bowl. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that would probably be like a top five to seven-ish roster. And that team could probably win a Super Bowl. So that's.

Yeah, I'm just going to be thinking about this for a while. All right. We have to move on and we're going to spend like 10 hours on this. So the juice on Twitter, this is a question. solely for you. He is a CFL season ticket holder. They haven't been able to play because of the pandemic. So he's been watching a little bit more of the NFL.

Former CFL MVP Henry Burris and former Chicago Bears quarterback Henry Burris is now in Chicago, he says, as a quality control coach. What is an NFL quality control coach? Because they do not have those in the CFL. I figured you were a perfect guy to answer this question. Yeah, because I might have had that role. You know, the job, I believe, was started like John Gruden was the first quality control coach. at least how my memory serves anyways with the Eagles. And but really you're just wearing every hat possible.

So every team will typically have, uh, you have your position coaches, you know, receiver coach, offensive line, quarterback, office coordinator, et cetera, et cetera. But then you will get into assistant receiver coach. And then below that, you'll get into quality control coach or offensive assistant. And really it's kind of what the title says is quality control. You kind of are just, you're wearing every hat possible. Um, so like a day to day life for me,

usually there's two of these guys, maybe three on each on each staff. You'll have the assistant offensive line coach and maybe two quality control type of coaches that kind of do all the grunt work. But like day to week to week like in the game or during the season, a lot of data entry for opponent breakdown. So if I were about to play the Eagles, I'd look at their previous three games and their previous four games actually. Maybe another game that the office coordinator wants to see and you break it down completely. Offensive formation, offensive down and distance, offense personnel, but then also defense. like what's the defensive front what's the defensive personnel what's the defensive coverage did they blitz all that kind of data that you know a lot of actually what kind of you know

companies like PFF have kind of like taken and so you can see it publicly but just think of each team having their own language for that most of it applies to all but you have your own version of that but you do that for other teams you do it for yourself it's for people to study um you know it's formation family stuff and then also you just have to office coordinator we have our base plays but then maybe we have to come up a new place for this game plan. You have to draw them on the computer. You use Vizio, use other software there. You have to work it digitally and draw it through that sense and either print or upload

them to everyone's iPad. That's what kind of what they would do now. We save the trees, which is very good, which I prefer. Because it used to be if you had to make one change, certain coaches would go, okay, so you're going to print out new copies for everybody? And you're like, that's like 92 copies I'm about to print out. Okay, you got that? Okay, yeah, I can do that for one change and change like a whole packet.

of stuff. But anyways, other things that practice, you have to do usually, okay, drills. You're kind of doing everything, holding bags, drills. You are coaching still. Like I say, I worked with quarterbacks. I'd still be, you know, talking to E.J. Manuel and Connor Cook and the backup quarterbacks with the Raiders. Also during the season, you're in charge of the scout team.

So I'm an offensive guy. I'd be working with the defensive scout team. Just like, I notice a look. What do you guys call this in your defense? Okay, you call this cloud, cloud. All right. Here we go. We're going cloud.

cloud, you know, trying to speak those language, which is great learning experience when you're a young coach. Don't give me right. I mean, yeah, and also talking to defensive guys and picking their brain and stuff. You just do anything needed. Like, in the off season, you get into, you know, get into scouting. You have to maybe do something on that aspect. And on game days, you know, I would chart plays.

So whatever the play call was, you know, Guntrier, right blue sword. Okay, boom, I'm writing that down. First and 10, what was that? We're at the 25-yard line. You have to write all that down because as the game goes on, that's where adjustments can come from. Hey, last four first downs, have it been run past? Oh, you've been run every four, last four first downs.

Okay. You know, you're just like trying to build your own like current game tendencies, basically hand cranking it without because you don't get computers up there. You know, what have they been running on third and long? Because you have to break down the defense as the game is going. So it's like, man, the last time it's been third and seven or more. They ran, you know, they ran two man, which we hadn't seen all week or the last, you know, from the opponent breakdown that I did for the previous games.

So that's the type of stuff on game day. You're really, you know, you just kind of have to be on your toes and keep charts and keeping details, anything you see. It's like, hey, man, every time we've been in 11 personnel, we see them running this coverage, you know, maybe giving ideas to the play caller, those types of things. You just have to do everything. Every team's going to be different. Some teams might have you do, you know, handle a certain type of down-and-distance situation.

Some might just go, no, you're just a data entry grunt. It just all depends on the offense coordinator with the head coach prefers. But yeah, long story short, you do everything. That's what a quality control coach is. my contributions to this conversation are just me and you over the shuffleboard table at Kilroy's in Indianapolis during the combine and you're just bitching about all the different things you'd have to do as a quality control coach. God, we do all the work.

They just, we do everything. I'm cutting together all this film. Just that's my contribution because I remembered you as a quality control coach and I remember those conversations vividly. Oh, it's just like, because there's sometimes you're just like, oh my God, I'm doing it. You do hours and hours of work so somebody can get one answer and go like, yes, yes. Oh, okay.

So we run the ball a lot? Cool. Like it's just like, okay, okay. And you just do that costly. It's part of the job. Everybody has to do it. But yeah, yeah, it's a lot of thankless work. But somebody's got to do it.

All right. So the juice, there's your answer. That's what the quality control coach is. All right. Next one here. John Lewis, I liked this question. I actually asked a couple people about it. If you could pick any coach in football to be.

the Ravens offensive coordinator play caller. Who would you pick and why? This is driven by, I think John doesn't think Greg Roman is doing the most with this or can evolve the passing game where they wanted to go. So he wants to know who the best person would be to develop this passing game while still taking advantage of what makes Lamar a Lamar.

My easy answer was Shanahan. You think about the personnel that you're swapping out. It's a run-heavy offense, very personnel packages, using a full-back, just the types of receivers, even especially now with Bateman. Bateman would be a really good Shanahan system receiver. The perfect decks for him. I also think that the Niners have folded a lot more gap runs over the last couple of years.

So there's more overlap between the structure of the run game than there would have been five years ago. The other one that a play caller that I asked about this brought up to me was McDaniels. Because you saw what they could do with the quarterback run game a little bit with Cam this year. and there's a lot more gap runs in New England's offense than some of the other offenses around the league. So there would be a lot that's translatable. And you have one of the best play callers of the last 10 years and the way that they've designed the passing game, everything else. I think the challenge with this question is that we just don't know how a lot of really good play callers in the league would handle or design the quarterback run game. Because they've never had someone that they've had to do this with.

And with Shanahan, we've at least seen RG3. They just drafted Tray Lance. We know that there's motivation there. And then again, with McDaniels, we just saw what they did with Cam. But with guys like Andy Reid or Sean Payton, people like that, it's much more of a mystery and much more of a question as to how they would handle that personnel. So who'd you go with? No, I love the McDaniels answer. And honestly, that's such a great point that you made real quick was the, hey, we don't know what these guys would look like until they get this type of personnel.

because the guy like Norv Turner, he never had a running quarterback. And also he gets camp for a year. And it was like, oh, okay, he's got some of those wrinkles in there. Okay,

with a modern passing game. Oh, cool. Norv was one of my answers. But, you know, I actually, I'm sticking with McVeigh.

And just because I, I know it's a zone scheme and everything, but just what he did with John Wolford last year, it was like, oh, I just saw those little hints that there's more there. There's more to the McVeigh brain, even more than,

what you have seen. And I was, that's the one. Because honestly, I think Lamar would finish games going seven for nine passing in the games. The game would finish in about two hours. Like it would be seven of nine for 200 yards and three touchdowns. I mean,

that's what it would be. And it would be overrouts, which Lamar could throw out. You know, I could so like that I could piece together. If I'm going any level of football, this is a little bit of biased answer. But I actually think it would be perfect as Paul Christ.

Um, because just the gap running scheme with Wisconsin. I know he's a head coach. So there's no way he's called off. to plays at the NFL level. But like honestly, I would love to see him calling plays for Lamar because I know he can do whenever Wisconsin doesn't really have quarterback that can run until other than Russell. And I saw what we could do with him.

And also just the passing. It's all play action heavy stuff. The dropback stuff's really easy read out. It's just there's a lot of it. But honestly, I would be really, that would be amazing to watch him operate with a guy like Lamar because he just probably has never had something like that. But I know he has the QB run game in there. But I'll say short answer is McVeigh.

I mean, there's just a lot of guys that, like you just said, you don't know what they can do until they get a guy that can do it. And I mean, that's why McDaniels would be really, really interesting too, because it's like, okay, oh, we've seen hints at it, and now he gets a totally different type of weapon. And this is just my lack of imagination. If the guy hasn't done it yet, I don't know what he can do, so it's not going to be one of my answers.

But the guys we've seen do it at least a little bit, I just think the projection is a lot easier. All right. William Aaron Clow, this is for you. This is all for you, buddy. He said he's interested in a discussion about Darnold and the Panthers, any insight into what they may see in him, something in his skill set that suits Joe Brady's offense.

He also asked, do we think there's buyers remorse now that they could have had fields? We won't get into that. But you are the perfect person to ask about this because you never got off Darnold Island. You were always Team Darnold. You never stopped believing. So you and I, I don't think, have talked about this on the show, actually, about how he fits them and what they do offensively. So when you're imagining the darn old Brady fit,

what do you think works? I think, well, one thing that Brady showed me last year is that he can adapt. We don't have much to go off of with Joe Brady's play calling career. We have one year at LSU and one year. And the year at LSU, we have to remember is that he had another offense coordinator there that was calling plays as well. He just handled a passing game. So you got to keep that in mind, too.

But then this past season, I was like, oh, there's more to you. you're you can adapt your stuff like he had robbie anderson working from the slot running all the he was dominating on underneath routes and it was like okay and that's totally different than what i saw at lSU and i think isn't that fun by the way at the idea of more anderson and marshal could all play inside and out in that offense this year there's a lot of fun stuff there i'm sorry to cut you off but it's no already thinking about that i mean and i'm going to answer joe brady first before i get to my my darnal love um but i i think with joe brady is just you know i think he is going to to be leaning towards more that bunch, that why off stuff.

I talked about when we were talking about Tommy Trembal with the Panthers draft, lots of 11 personnel. I do think he does adapt, but I think that's where he's going more and more towards. He's going to get to that preferred. I have these sets of formations and I run a couple things off of them very, very well that have answers. And I think with Darnold is that he's better on play action stuff because it makes

his read simpler. I think Darnold's another quarterback that less is more. Sneaky good athlete, too, moves. Sneaky good athlete, big, willing to keep his eyes downfields almost to his detriment. I still think, you know, Donald's younger. I'm always going to bring up the point that he's younger. I think he's still learning to be a QB. I know it's his fourth year in the NFL, but I just don't think that situation was very

conducive to be learning to be an NFL quarterback. So I think he struggles to get past his second read because he's just not comfortable with a ton of concepts. I think he is a very narrow band, a very narrow, you know, playbook like that he has to operate in. And guess what? I think Joe Brady is a guy that's fine with that. And it's just going to go, okay, where are the seven things that you're really good at? We're going to do nothing but those seven things.

Because that's what he did at LSU with Joe Burrow. He's like, okay, what are you good at? Okay, we have this RPO we really like. Okay, we're going to run this duo RPO. Spam the shit out of it. And spam the shit of it because we can throw it all day. And then we can go into empty because Burrow is a quick operator and he'd create with his leg. So that's what they did.

And this past year, they had Teddy Bridgewater. So what they do? A lot of stuff that was underneath. A lot of timing throws. A lot of underroutes. a lot of slant routes, a lot of high, low. Teddy can go one, two, three, and deliver a throw. So I think he's going to adapt a little bit more. So it's going to be kind of a new version of a Joe Brady scheme. But I do think it's going to be some of that we just talked about with Lombardi with the Saints, or the Saints influence. I think some of that older Saint stuff is going to come into play. Some of the more shoddy play action style, not Schottenheimer, but shot type plays with a lot of play action stuff with overs and posts. You hear me talk about that all the time because those are. are simpler reads for a quarterback.

And I think Darnold would benefit from that because he is an aggressive player who keeps his eyes downfield. And he can use his legs a little bit. So I think that's what we're going to see more of. And I think maybe that's what they see with him is that, yeah, we can maybe grow this guy even more. I mean, he's probably the worst starter in the league last year. And so there's only most combined.

Hopefully there's some room for growth there. Otherwise, yeah, they might have buyers remorse. I will say. And there are probably a couple teams that we're going to talk about the Colts a little but later in the show, but teams that might have buyers remorse. I think both the Colts and the Panthers, maybe there's a chance that Indy would have rather traded a future first round pick and gone to get Justin Fields

rather than going to get Wentz. Maybe the Panthers would have rather had Fields than Darnold. I do think that it's a long shot for those guys to resurrect their careers. If I could pick the two offenses where they would be able to resurrect their careers, I think it would be the respective offenses they landed in. I think Joe Brady has as good a chance as anybody to lift Sam Darnold, and I think that Frank Reich has the best chance of anyone to write the ship with Carson Wetz.

I really do. I don't know if that'll happen, but I think that these are the best places for them to have a real shot. I agree. I agree. Because if Darno ended up with the Broncos, it would just be messy, I think. Yeah, I agree. I think it's just been a messy situation.

It's just, yeah. So, yeah, I completely agree with what you said. All right. Anthony Beltrano asks, what price is too high for a proven quarterback in the league, especially for a team that can't draft quarterbacks? He said the bears in here, which is bullshit. I don't want to hear about that.

They bears up Justin Fields now. Broncos, Washington. Those are good examples. I feel like I've done this before because I think I'm on record saying Patrick Mahomes is worth like seven first round picks. But I want to kind of get into it in a more practical way. Michael Oroyo also asked a related question. So I'm curious what you think.

In the Mahomes-Wilson tier, what do you think a reasonable asking price would be? Base, base, base-based-base line would probably be four-first. And then you get into, what do you go off of that? Do you go, okay, what package of mid-picks and players that you go off of that? But I think if you're going, we're trained for Russell Wilson tomorrow. I think four first rounders is just that's where the baseline is. And then it's just whatever else you can throw in there. It has to be viable players.

It's probably four first rounders, a third and two starters or something of that sort. Probably helps make the money work and whatnot, too. But I think that's what you need. It's four first, two second or third rounders and a player or some combination of that. That's needed. That's even just to get the talks open. Because I think what is Stafford go for it? Two.

Yeah. It has to be another step above that. Because we're talking about it a little bit younger and a little bit more to him. I guess as a player. So I think that's where the baseline is is for first. All right. So let's think about this practically. Okay.

Let's say you're the Broncos, the team that needs a quarterback. Let's go back and get a time machine and go to 2017. And we'll go with the time machine in another direction. I can tell you for certain that Patrick Mahomes is going to be Patrick Mahomes. I can show you the future. And I can promise you before the 2017 draft, he is going to be the guy that we have seen. What would he then be worth? If the Broncos traded their next five first round picks to get Mahomes in that draft,

they would have traded Garrett Bowles, Bradley Chubb, Noah Fant, Jerry Judy, and Patrick Sartan for Patrick Mahomes. You would do that every time, wouldn't you? Yes. I think you would do that every single time. And I also think that's a fairly representative sample of how first round picks tend to go. You've got a couple of hits in there. Bulls turned his career around. Chubb is a good player.

Fantas will see. Judy wasn't very good, but is promising and Certan is totally unproven. Okay? Yep. So I think you make that trade if you're Denver. I think you probably give them even more if it, if you had to.

So that's five. So we could probably get to six or seven if we wanted to push it. I also think the chiefs are kind of an example of this, right? They deal a future first from a homes. They deal a future first to get Frank Clark plus more. They pay up for Sammy Walker. who doesn't play very well. They drafted a running back in the first round.

I'm not saying that the Clyde Edwards-Glaher pick is a total waste, but that's the chiefs in my opinion are a useful example of what the right quarterback covers up. And I think the Seahawks aren't even better example. This is almost an experimental conditions to do this. From 2015 through 2020, here are the Seahawks top 35 picks. Didn't have one in 2015 because of the Jimmy Graham trade. Germain Afetti in 2016.

Malik McDowell in 2017. Rashad Penny in 2018, L.J. Collier in 2019, and Jordan Brooks in 2020. They're perennally a preannily a playoff team. They're almost an example of this if you were to trade five first round picks for a guy like Russell Wilson.

I still think you're better off. So in my opinion, it's like five. And that's why when the idea of the Bears trading three, every time, you do it every single time because I just think that a team would never do five because a lot of this stuff is based on precedent and I think if you were having a conversation with the Russell Wilson situation, it would unfold exactly how you laid it out. What did Matthew Stafford go for?

We'll give you 50% more than that or twice as much as that, whatever. It would start from there and go. So I don't think you'd ever get to seven. But I just think that it's impossible to overstate what the right guy at that position does for you. Because the right guy at that position covers up for all of those whole. holes you're going to have by trading those guys. I think that realistically, I would trade six to seven first round picks for the right quarterback.

I think I would. Yeah, especially when you get like a mom. That's the joke we keep making is it makes everything else smell better. It doesn't matter what crap, crappy decision you make after that. It's like, hey, we still got 15 back there. And he's going to win us at least six games just by himself, just by lining up. The dearth of first round picks is just a different version of those crappy decisions. You're just wasting those same research.

sources. And that's why I think that some of the mistakes the chiefs have made, some of the mistakes the Seahawks have made are a useful way to kind of understand this practically rather than just listing off here's seven first round picks. By putting names to it and looking at some of those missteps and some of that process, I think you get a better understanding of it. All right. Matt Philbin asked, I like this one.

He's wondering if there's a football equivalence to the three true outcome problem that baseball is having in terms of the on the field product. So for example, if teams start going for forward down, more, they get to a place where the running game is practically eliminated, does the NFL products suffer from teams being too efficient? And I think this is an encouraging thing about football in that the most efficient things on a football field are also the most exciting. So the teams trending toward efficiency and better decision making is making the game better for television. Going forward on fourth down is exciting. Leads to more points. Throwing the ball more

is exciting. It leads to more points. Poorly designed runs and cowardly punts and that way of operating is a worse version of football on TV. So I almost think it's coming from two different directions. It's more efficient and it will drive interest in the sport. So I don't think the football is going to run into that problem at all.

And even defensively, I think teams are getting more and more aggressive or at least, you know, simulating it and whatnot as far as bringing pressures. and usually the philosophy behind blitzing is gash or be gashed, which leads to more exciting football and more points. It leads to gashes on either end, which is exciting. Sacks can be exciting. In a high-scoring game, the Chiefs-Rams game from two years ago. That's a perfect example.

Aaron Donald had a fumble return for a touchdown. That was so much fun. There were multiple defensive touchdowns in that game. Yeah. And it's so exciting because it's points. It's points. It's short fields and points. You know, so I'm fine with that.

What fascinates me is the progression of analytics, like in football because I think football is, you know, it's like a five year buffer behind basketball, which has a five year buffer behind baseball. You know, so you can almost see the path football is about to go on with this stuff is I still, there is value to running the ball. Don't get me wrong. And of course, I'm a football guy. So I'm going to have that philosophy. But it's when you watch baseball, if you read Moneyball, one of the things I was so I've always stuck out to me was. was that at the time it was creating runs and limiting outs, you know, working the count. And, you know, they're finding the inefficiencies, working the count, all that.

What they didn't care about was fielding or base running. And they're like, no, you don't steal bases because that's just losing it out. They were like, they were like 10% of what the next highest team was for steal attempts. What I found so fascinating with baseball is they realized over the years, fielding does matter. Base running does matter. And but also like catch framing for like a catcher. Yep. And how many runs that can save, how many.

outset creates, you know, and over a whole season, it's like, holy crap, catchers are extremely valuable with their framing. What I really want to see is if we get to that point with running the ball, where we find a way to analyze this and the human element that is in these games, like does. So in pitching, the human element is what? Working the umpire. That, that's a human element that is getting manipulated. And some guys are better at than others.

Running the ball is, it's, there's a human effect to it, not just the clock. Oh, you're controlling the clock. and, you know, I know that's an old adage, but it is true. But also just the human effects that running the ball can have. One of our first conversations on this podcast, we were talking about, you know, even though you know, Derek Henry is about to run the ball, like, why do teams like, you know, I'm sorry, no, why do teams still come up on the play action? It's because, yeah, probably because that guy who just tackled Derek Henry wasn't really happy

about working backwards. It's taking a need to the face. There's a human element to it. And I just do think there is some value to running the ball. We love the Shanahan offense. We love the McVeigh offense. That Rams team was super. exciting and they were predominantly running the ball from two years ago or three years ago now.

Oh my God. We're getting old. And it's just one of those things that I just, I'm curious. I'm very curious if there is going to be some study or some way, some way to break through of why running the ball does matter because I do truly do think it does, even though now I think that balance of what Andy Reid is finding. I think that's the extreme. But I think more teams are going to drift to that.

But I do think there's going to be some way to find the value of that, even if it's, yeah, we only average four and a half yards of carry. And when we throw it, it's seven and a half yards. Yeah, that's three extra yards. But finding just ways that like why that matters and why running the ball and why getting an advantage in the run game and controlling that way of winning football contributes to winning football. Like I've just very, very curious what steps come from that. And the analytical side of that, I think, is fascinating. But the questions for me with that is, are you protecting your quarterback?

Are you protecting your line? How often do you need to throw your line of bone to keep them engaged and just give them a playoff if you're dropping back? 65 times a game. How often do you need to run the ball and how well do you need to run the ball to give credence to play action? You don't need a good running game, but are your runs tied to your passes? If the runs look convincing and things like, I just think there's so many different factors.

It's not binary runs, bad, pass is good. It just can't be that way. And it shouldn't be that way. And I think that finding that balance is important. Even a team like the Browns, the Browns are one of the most analytically forward teams in the NFL. their running game was a huge part of their success last year. So a team like that that's trying to think about this stuff in an advanced way,

it's not let's not care about running the ball. It's how many times can we run the ball and still maximize our efficiency as an offense? If we're looking at the pie chart of plays, how much should be running, how much should be straight dropback pass, how much should be play action. And there are NFL teams that are thinking about it like this. They are looking at some of the percentages. There are teams looking at what the tight. have done.

And the Titans, I think, are a good example where it's a little too far. The dial on the runs is a little too high, but the dial on the play actions is higher than any other team in the NFL, and it allows them to be the most efficient offense in the league since Ryan Tanna Hill took over during the regular season. So teams are going to look at that and say, all right, how do we tick our play action up closer to 40 than it is right now? How do we get up there and figure out all of this stuff? I think that teams are thinking about stuff that way,

but I still believe that when in the end, when it all comes out in the wash, it's going to be more exciting by teams doing that. It's not going to be less exciting. The only kind of counter example of this is I think losing running backs and having those guys be marginalized makes the game less enjoyable. Because if you just think about how we grew up

and the players that kind of built the mythology of the NFL, whether it was Jim Brown or Walter Payton or Barry Sanders, Luthani and Tomlinson. Those guys being less important sucks just because those were the best athletes. The best player used to play running back. You'd give him the ball and you just let him see what he could do. Those days are over. But I think that losing those guys, that makes the game a little bit less fun.

But for the most part, I'm going to say that this is a net positive. Think about all the different ways teams are devising methods to get the balls to get the ball of their most exciting players. We had a 149 pound receiver drafted in the second round in this year's draft. Like there are just, even if we're losing running backs, I think that the pool of playmakers that has now started to exist because the way the game looks makes up for that to a certain extent. I completely agree.

I mean, that's the discussion we've had about the receiver size kind of seem like it's shrinking is we're getting more of these. Not only the quarterback positions get more athletic, all these positions are getting more athletic, which is fun. I mean, it's just fun. Speed is always going to be exciting. Yes. Someone can not watch a football game, but also, or never seen an NFL game, but if it's

42, 35 with a bunch of explosive touchdown, that's fun. And I think that it's kind of the irony is that we're kind of, even in the more efficient era and efficient era with analytically friendly stuff happening is that actually like explosive passing game is becoming more and more important. And that's actually I'm fine with. If we're getting rid of quick game and death by a million slants, like, that's fine with me because now RPO's are kind of replacing true quick game unless you're running stick or something like that where the ball just gets out right away. I think that's great for me. I think so many quarterbacks got ruined and offenses got so terrible because everybody was trying to run a version of a West Coast offense with timing, timing, timing, timing.

And now I think more it's becoming play action heavy, boot heavy, half roll heavy, deep play action, or I'm sorry, deep play action concepts, deep dropback concepts. And I like that type of football more. And that's gash or be gash. That is touchdown the checkdown offense. I am fine with that. So it's kind of funny is that the efficiency comes by being more explosive. Yes, that's what I'm saying. It's awesome.

It's awesome. Efficiency and excitement are overlapped. And I think that's what's really cool. All right. Great part of football. Let's get to our next one here. Cadman Schidler asks, if you had to choose one position to have the best unit in football, what would it be?

Also, if you had to choose one to have the worst unit, what would it be? So this is obviously non-quarterback division. You'd pick the best quarterback if you could. But it's a great question. And for me, I've thought about this a lot. And I think that the way that I've considered this is part of the coverage versus pass rush debate. Because five years ago, I would have not even blinked when you asked me this question. I would have said, I'll have the best front four.

I will pick the best defensive line every single time. That is what I will start with because I think that's the group that can impact the game, independent of other factors. in the most considerable way. I still believe that. I think it's closer. I think the secondary and the front four, the gap between them is smaller than it's ever been because of how fast the ball is getting out,

some of those other RPO concepts, everything else. And if you said the secondary, I would understand that. I still think having, and also with the great secondary, you can manufacture a pass rush if you need to, if you can blitz a little bit more, everything else. but I still think if you have the best four guys, if you have four unblockable guys up there,

it still has the greatest impact on the game. And I think if you asked offensive coordinators what they would rather face, they'd rather face a team with a good secondary than a good pass rush. They are able to tread water better against those teams than they are a team like the 2019 49ers. Yeah.

So that's where I tend to land. I mean, that originally I went D-Line. And in my head, I bet. And then my thing was, well, if you do have a good D-Line, you do have to worry about your D-Bs getting shredded. But coaches don't influence it. And I kind of like went back and forth. And I just went back to my original answer, which was offensive line.

And I was just like, oh, that's kind of my easy choice because a good old line just, it keeps you in games. It raises the bar for the whole team, I think, not just offensively. I just truly think a squint-proof offense aligned. If you have the best offensive line, it's unfuckable. them by a bad coach. And that they can like, that's a really good.

That's a great. They can be competent and make your shitty quarterback look decent because it's like, all right, at least yeah, okay, we have this play. Yeah, this guy can maybe get this ball off in a clean pocket.

Well, if we give him a clean pocket 80% of the time, that's really nice. So I think, I think the offense align just because it helps raise your bar. And then no matter what the other options are, are on your offense. You have an average quarterback,

average receivers. At least you can get to the pretty play that you drew up on Wednesday when you run on Sunday. because a bad offensive line could just absolutely thank you. I know we're just saying the best position, but I would say that would be the one for me. I've thought a lot about that. I've really reconsider just the offensive line versus the weapons

and which is more important. I understand the appeal of having just an offensive line that allows you to function and great, great weapons. And I think that I've trended more in that direction than, again, I would have been five years ago. But I'd have to interrogate it a little bit more. I still think my answer is defensive line, just because that group can wreck a game.

That group can destroy another offense, and I still truly believe that. Worst unit, it's pretty easy for me, is running backs. I mean, it's almost like a cheap answer. The other one would be a linebacker. I mean, if you look at it, you can get by in today's game

without great linebacker play. The Rams were the best defense in the NFL last year. They didn't have any linebackers. And so, yeah. Yeah, I still think that that is, that's the easiest one outside of running back for me. Yeah, I have run a back and linebacker for obvious reasons, is what I said.

And I'd say, if I want to change it up, I would say tight end. I think you can get by with a shitty tight end group. I do. It's not preferred. But yeah, I think you can get by in a modern offense without a decent tight end group. All right. Lawrence Sherfield asks, what is your biggest miss and biggest hit on a draft prospect? I'll let you go first.

Who's your biggest hit? We're going non-first rounders, right? Not first rounders, right? Because I keep both categories. Yes, yes. Okay. if we're going non first rounders, Trey Flowers easily mine,

the defensive line version of the edge player, not the DB, that's probably easily mine. He went in the fourth round. I even graded him at the time, had a high grade on them. I loved him. I could rattle off a whole bunch.

And it's mostly going to be the 2015, 16, 17 drafts. But, you know, Trey Flowers, Joe Thuny, David Johnson. I love David Johnson when he's coming out. And even see David Johnson coming out.

I'm going to give you credit for that one. David Johnson, go out. And even Zadarius Smith, I really liked. I did not think he was going to be this. Don't do not. I'm not going to take credit for that.

Yeah, that's why he went the fifth round. Yeah, I had to watch Bud Dupree. And I was like, you know, the other guy's not bad either. Like, I thought he would be a good, good pro, but I just didn't think he'd be that. Other guys I liked, I was high on Grady Jarrett, but he, I think everybody in the Atlanta Falcons room was. Michael Thomas, I was really high on when he came out. And then Chris Jones and Preston Smith or other two.

Those guys, I, I just really liked. If we're going first rounders, Aaron Donald, because I just got to the Falcons. right after I was with at Pitt. He was a top 14 pick, so it's not that crazy. But I was telling everyone there, he's the greatest player I've seen. He was unblockable in two years. I was with him. Justin Jefferson, as you know, T.J. Watt and Kenny Clark.

Those would be the other first rounders that are kind of my guys. I can get into misses in a sec, but. Aaron Donald is on my list just because, I mean, you were listening to our show back then. I was adamant that I would have taken him second overall in that draft. I still thought that Clownie and the bed on Clownie. Clowny with that physical profile was worth it. Even to this day, I don't think the Texans made a mistake by picking Clowny first overall in that draft.

But you can go back and listen to the shows. I don't even know if they're still available anymore. But Barnwell and I both were like, that's the second best guy. I mean, I just, it's ridiculous. I thought it even back then. There's no hindsight involved. The other guy recently that I loved coming out and wrote about it, there are receipts. I loved George Kittle.

I just remember. I remember watching him in the lead. up to that draft and the physical upside was outstanding. He ran a 452-98th percentile broad jump. And guys with that athletic profile and frame, he was like 6-4-250, they don't jump off the tape as blockers. And at Iowa, he was just fucking burying dudes. I mean, just destroying people.

So when I watched him, I was like, what do you want? Like the production isn't there, but who is going to get past catching production at Iowa? Yeah. So I loved him. Him going in the fifth round never made sense to me. And then Donald, I just, we were all over that. I mean, that's just something.

I obviously only fell to 14, but when I think the guy's the best player and now he's the best defense player of his generation and a Hall of Famer, like I felt pretty good about that one. My misses always receivers, always. That is just, I just have no idea what is going to be good, what is going to be bad. You and I have talked about this. I like Josh Doxon. Oh my God.

That's my number one. That's my number. It was Josh Toxin. Josh Dox is coming out of TCU, all like the acrobatic contested catch stuff. I was just like, oh, if you can do that, that translates. I don't think that at all anymore. And then my other guy, I loved Davon Austin. I thought Tavon Austin was just going to be incredible.

I wrote about him back then. It was like my second year covering the league. I didn't know shit. And I'm watching your play. I was like, oh, that guy's exciting. Greatest highlight tape ever on YouTube. But that's, I watched highlights when I was that age. I didn't know what I was watching.

And in my opinion, that guy was just. I wrote a big story about how he was like the future of position of like skill position players in the NFL. Honestly, my experience with Tavon Austin in that draft and getting burned by it has still scarred me. Like players of that profile I'm always a little bit apprehensive about, which anyone who listens to this show has probably picked up on. And it's partially because of what I went through with hyping up Tavon Austin and the results that came out of that. If anyone wants to know where my whole like quote unquote grudge against drafting receivers early, it's because of Troy Wood. Williamson in 2005. Yeah.

Yes. Everything. Everything comes from that. Like, and I could tell you right now. And I actually didn't even realize that until I was talking to some other people. I was like, oh my God, that's where it comes from. Josh Doxon, my missus, Josh Doxon, yeah, that's, I really liked him. That draft class, that receiver draft class wasn't great anyways.

I was actually high on Shane Ray, but it was a great lesson to learn about athletic thresholds and that type of thing. And that was, I was new to the scouting side of the NFL. We have talked about this. I was more like, hey, watch him on tape, dude. This guy's smart. This guy has a pass rushing technique. Oh, my God.

He's using, like, you know, he doesn't even have a change up. He has four pitches with his patch rushing move. Oh, my God. And then I realized, you know, when I met him in person, I was like, you wait 230 pounds. Yeah. I met him in person. I was like, man, I like, Dorf you. Like, that's not good.

I'm not spending a first round pick on you. So another one, I'll admit it. I was, I, this really taught me, too, especially with quarterbacks, how much the interview process is important. It's Paxon Lynch. I was high on Paxon Lynch. much. Yeah, you weren't. He went exactly kind of where I would have taken him. I didn't think he was a top 10 lottery pick quarterback, but I was high on him. I thought he just statistically also just watching my film. He's putting stuff on the money. Also, they just kind of got away with what he could do and they just kind of went with that. Also, that's where the interview process comes in because, you know, some more alarm bells would have cropped up with that about what he can learn and, you know, his commitment to the game and all that fun stuff, whatever scouting at it you want to say. Another one guy I was super high on.

And he kind of dropped out just more of injuries. It was a guy, he went into second round to the Saints. It was Heloickeha. Yes, we've talked about him. I loved him coming out. But he was like a medical, not even just a reject, like just off the board medically. And that was good lesson to learn about medicals and how that holds up. And the guy going to the NFL.

But I was super high on him. I had like a high first round grade on him or a good top 20 grade on him, basically. But yeah, that was another one that was like, that was a total miss. And that was other stuff, though. that was the 2015 draft. I wrote a big story about Danny Shelton before that draft. Yes. And they played together at Washington.

So I was watching a lot of Floyd Kaka. And I was like, that dude is awesome. Like, speaking of pass rush nuance, like that guy had 20 different things in his bag that he could throw at you. And just both the medicals and his athletic testing was night. It's bad,

right? He ran like a 4-9 something in the 40, I want to say. Oh, if we both remember that. We're both like, oh, yeah, I was about to say he probably ran like a 4-9-2.

I remember that. Yeah, it was, I think it might have been exactly 4-92. It was not a great situation. This is just like gambling, though. It's like you don't remember anything you win. You only remember the losses. That's the exact same equivalent to that. That's how I live my life.

All right. Ken Swanson, this is a long question. So he wanted to appeal to your board game sensibilities here. I loved it. So he said, we often hear about what the dominant strategy in the NFL is at any time. But it seems like the general strategy seemed to rise, fall and then come back. which makes me wonder if the dominant strategy in any one time is partially determined by the market for players needed for that strategy with their market prices, how many are available. So with this in mind, he asked, you know, is the Seattle cover three?

Did that fail or fall off a little bit because the players for it were so in demand? And the question is, do you think that scheme dominance is partially determined by the market and thus set to change as the market balances out? So I think this is a really interesting question. And it almost touches on what you were talking about before with the play action versus timing aspects of the passing game. So I don't think that the Seattle Covered 3 system has broken down because the players were so in demand. I think it broke down because you needed super talented players to run it. And there are only so many players. If you run the Seattle Baseline Cover 3 system with Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett, Bobby Wagner, Richard,

Sherman, Byron Maxwell, Earl Thomas, and Richard Sherman, or and Cam Chancellor, it's going to look pretty damn good. If you run it with the personnel that the Falcons had over the last five years, it's not going to look as good. So it's not that those guys are getting scooped up and there aren't enough of them. There's aren't enough of them, period. And I think what we've seen with the Shanahan offense tree, which is, which Ken alluded to, I think it's not as much about the market forces.

players getting scooped up. I think it's which offensive and defensive schemes allow you to succeed with lesser talent. And I think that's why this play action heavy type of offense has come into vogue in the NFL because if there's an offense that can make below average quarterbacks look average, above average quarterbacks look like really good, and good quarter and good quarterbacks look like MVP's, that offense is going to become more and more popular. And that's exactly what's happened. in my opinion, what's happened over the last five years or so,

is that, and I think the same is true for defense and the too high stuff that we may see coming now. If you can succeed without linebackers, with safeties that run a 4-6-5, with undersized defensive backs, all that kind of stuff, it's going to be more popular because you don't need it as good of players to succeed with that system. So I think that's what drives it, and that's what's driving it right now. Can you get by with lesser players at important positions? And I think that's what we're seeing. And to me, that is the most important factor.

Yeah. Yeah, just kind of nailed on the head. Yeah, good players kind of dictate what you do on offensive defense. And I think the Seahawks Legion of Boom Days was, I mean, just one of those rare, amazing, brilliant, you know, situation, scheme, players that they got. Like Richard Sherman, like, big long corners, like, is, they used to just kind of be frowned upon. They're like, oh, they're too stiff hip. They can't, you know, keep up with these guys. you can't work them from the slot.

And then they got into Vogue and it kind of like everyone's trying to run it, trying to run it. But it was just kind of like Richard Sherman was undervalued at the time because he was a converted receiver, all those types of things. And then also they, you know, Cam Chancellor, same thing. He was a tweener. And they found a use for him. They're like, hey, you're good at this. Hey, we'll just run this scheme. And let's keep it simple.

We only run these certain things. Like Seahawks were above in the trend. They did a couple, a couple interesting things. You know, they, the Leo position that everyone knows, which is hilarious, that it's just an edge player. But with that, they put a little bit. them on the right hand side because most quarterback's right-handed. Oh, wow. I know that's crazy revolutionary, but no one was really doing it until 10 years ago.

They put the best corner to the quarterback's right-handed side because it's easier to throw it to that side. Just little tweaks like that. So it's kind of just more like they just maximize what they had. I don't think there's much variance between what NFL teams really do run. I think there are tweaks where like you said with the Titans example, okay, the play action is cranked up to 12. we'll run it at nine.

But as far as like scheme wise, like everyone kind of runs a little bit of everything. It's just kind of what you emphasize. But I think it's just good players kind of dictate where you run. Offensively with the Shannon stuff, if that's the meta right now, I think it's so much easier to find athletic zone running offensive linemen now. Yep, that's another good example.

Yep. Any guard that can pull. You know, a pulling guard is a very difficult thing to find. That's actually athletic enough to hold up in the NFL and doesn't trip over them. themselves. Otherwise, there would just be nothing about Wisconsin linemen. But I think that the only scheme type that they have is, you know, they like their interior guys to be good athletes. And also like fullbacks might come back more in vogue because just the positional flexibility that

they allow. You can move them. It's a true move guy. They can really open up things for you offensively. So I think that's like one thing scheme wise that's like, okay, maybe those guys will crop up more and you see guys getting drafted in the fifth or six as opposed to just undrafted guys. But I really do think it's a chicken and the egg thing. It's, it's, you know, coaches spread throughout the league and they think that they we need this specific personnel when the falcon staff came or the seahawks staff came to the falcons dan quinn and all them they were like oh you know robert alfred's a better scheme fit for us and it's like well Desmond troupon's a better player so so what's what's it doesn't matter and trupon played very well for a couple years but they thought they needed the

specific guy we need long corners 32 inch minimum arms all that stuff but it's really it's more like hey just good players and then run the scheme well they'll figure it out and also it helps the seahawks had a football genius who's also a maniac playing safety. That also covered up a lot. I'll never forget Earl Thomas. They show this tape when he came in and he's covering numbers to numbers from the post. And on the next play, he's flying down and sweep tackling a running back eight yards down the field.

And it was just like, holy crap, that guy's amazing. So that's my perfect. That's the exact example to me of why there aren't more of those defenses because there aren't that many guys like that. There's very, very few players who can play in the post and cover that amount of ground. So why would you copy that defense when you need a player like that? Exactly. It's such a hard need.

Like there's not many, you know why there's not a lot of good tall corners? It's because usually they go in the top 10, the one. It's usually the big corners are going early. So that's maybe why we can't find these guys very undervalued anymore because there's not a lot of them and the ones that are good. You can find some six three guys with 35 inch arms.

He's going to run a four, six, five. But if you want that guy, you can't find him. Yeah. And he can't turn. and you can't like drop his hit you know drop his feet just step back and like turn the hips and all that stuff so yeah it's just one of those things where it's yeah you're going to emphasize certain guys but the best coaches kind of just go okay this is what we have i like my scheme will make it work and we'll go from there all right thomas barclay from australia asks a quarterback has a quarterback has a change if you were in charge of a rebuilding team would you draft a quarterback first or would you wait in until you're confident in the support structure in place and then go get your quarterback. Or to continue the tortured metaphor is the quarterback at the foundation or the roof of a rebuild. I love this question because I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.

And I don't know what the best answer is because we've seen recent success stories in both cases. But I'm curious what you think. I think it's just there's no perfect answer. Is that a cop-out? I just say just try and find whatever guy you can to tell you. take you over the top and go with it. It's curious to me, like, well, I'm going to knock him again, but the Lions of Broncos passing something like Fields because not all of first round quarterbacks are built the same.

So like, in theory, it's like, yeah, we're going to give ourselves the opportunity to pivot. And then this next draft will take our guy at quarterback. And it's kind of like, how do you know our guy is going to be in this next draft? Like, because Justin Fields doesn't come along at every draft, the guy that drops like him, you know, to 11. And like, you don't see, or, you know, whatever we went. but you don't see it go at that point. He went 11th.

He didn't go 11th. I, I don't remember that for a long, long time, I hope. I know, I know. It's,

he's wearing number one too, right? Oh, also. He's number one on the field and in my heart. That's amazing. I can't believe we did that live. That's awesome.

But it's, I just think that in theory, yeah, we build up ways to pivot and we do all that. But it's like, when you get a guy, just go with it and just, and then that dictates all,

everything else. Everything else will fall in place. as soon as you get your guy. I think we've seen again, examples on both sides. If you look at some of the best success stories in recent years, Mahomes' ultimate example of everything else is in place, you drop them in. Watson, they weren't as good. I think that there were questions about that infrastructure,

but they were still a borderline playoff team and had to trade up to go get him. So there were pieces in place. You had Hopkins there, stuff like that. Wentz, that's a team that had a lot of talent on it. You saw him succeed in his second year in part because of the strength of that. roster. Golf is an interesting one. They had to trade up to get him.

But a lot of the transformative pieces on that roster came in in the first McVeigh off season. So it's not really a situation where they had a lot of pieces in place, even though they weren't picking at the top of the draft. I think Lamar is another amazing example of this, obviously. Getting a quarterback without bottoming out, you have a strong, a healthy franchise, a healthy roster. They're never going to rebuild in Baltimore because they're too good to rebuild.

so they needed to come across a guy like Lamar and they just happened to hit it correctly. But there are also other examples of guys jump starting the rebuild. Cam Newton was just a from square one guy, Andrew Luck from square one. Josh Allen, they traded up to get him, but they rebuilt the entire offensive roster around him in the first year. Kyler Murray, square one. And I think the best recent examples of this, Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow were from Square 1 and both of them looked very good. So I don't know if there's a, I think ideally you'd have the team in place and you'd trade up to go get a guy. I think that's what the Colts have been trying to do is when we'll talk about the Colts in a second,

but they're building up the infrastructure and you just kind of get your guy and you figure it out. I think the most important thing, though, isn't the order of operations. It's the help you have in place beyond the roster. Yes. So when you look at some of these guys that have succeeded, whether the players were in place or not, It took McVeigh getting there for golf to look like a decent quarterback. If Josh Allen, without Brian Dable, does all of this come together, even if they found a couple useful receivers?

The Eagles offense was a revolutionary machine in 2017. It looked unlike any other RPO-based offense we'd seen in the NFL to that extent. Lamar is in perfect circumstances. You could say, we have a great team. Let's draft Lamar Jackson 30 second overall. If you don't have the plan for him, it doesn't end up, working. So I think that it's, again, it's a cop-out, like you said, but I don't know if there's a perfect way to do it. I just think that having all of the other secondary factors in place

to support and spur on your quarterback's development, that's as important to me as the overall roster health. Like with Herbert, for example, right? The offensive line was a nightmare. It was an absolute nightmare, but he's good. And now you bring in a new coaching staff. They rebuild the offensive line in a year. That's a difficult needle to thread, but that order is okay if you're going to put in the right people around him in short order. So again, it's difficult to say. I could see it any, I could see it both ways. All right. Speaking of the Colts, Brett Ungashick asks, on Twitter, do we overrate the Colts team building, patience and value? Because it reminds us of the Pats, who had Brady to cover some of it up. With Leonard and Nelson do their

money and then projected to have the least amount of draft capital next year. It feels like this middle way approach leads to a lot of 10 and seven years. Chris Romanow also asked a similar question about quitty pay and transitioning from read and react that I want to ask you about. But what do you think about that question about if we're overrating the Colts approach here? I want to talk about the Colts because there's been a lot of Colts discourse here in the last week that I want to dig through. Yeah, I don't think we overrated at all.

I think like we've talked about already on the show is I think what they're doing is they're trying to acquire a QB. I mean, they're, they're doing what the one question, the last question was, they're building up everything around just so they can figure out how to find a QB. I think this is a question about are they going, are they being aggressive enough in free agency along with this? I think that's the thing. But I, I'm fine with it because it's like, do you want to also get Carson Wentz and just

go, okay, let's blow our load on, on what we don't know. I get that. I think that's exactly it. That is exactly it. And it's those contracts, I mean, those contracts are coming up that he just brought, but they have the cap room. So I'm not worried about that. I mean, if they sell, I mean, what's this over? If they carry over $10 million, they might have $90 million in cap space next year.

And I know we keep saying this, you know, they have all this cap space they never use. I don't think they know that Carson Wentz is a guy worth going in for. Yeah. And if I, if you ask, he said this in February, but I think if you ask Chris Bauer right now, today, after the draft, after free agency, do you think this team is a Super Bowl team? He would say no. Oh. And I, because I think he's honest with himself. So I think that's part of it.

But also, let's look at the last four drafts, okay, since Ballard got there. Here are the players, some of the players, that the Colts have acquired with their draft capital. Grover Stewart, Quentin Nelson, Darius Leonard, Braden Smith, Neheem Hines, Kari Willis, Michael Pittman, Jr., Jonathan Taylor, Julian Blackman, and they used last year's first round pick on DeForest Buckner, which worked out. Mark Lewinsky and Kenny Moore were cut. Cutdown Day guys that they just signed. And they will tell you that was not luck. They do their homework on every single draft prospect just in case.

And they have gotten some guys on Cutdown Day as a result of that. This team has gone 18 and 14 over the last two seasons when their top five quarterback retired on the eve of the season. It does. I think we should take it easy here. I honestly. of this team. My second bullet point I had here, I said, if they still had Andrew Luck, we'd be tap dancing about what the Colts are doing and building around him.

It's like, the fact that they're even competent of what happened to them is like, okay, why can anyone get harsh on this team? They haven't had a top 10 pick. I mean, they had Nelson, don't be wrong, but it's not like they had that quarterback. I don't know, nothing lined up for them exactly how it should have and they're still competent. I'm fine with it. I really am. I just don't.

I think that like you said, the honest assessment of knowing, no, this is not a Super Bowl team right now. It's because if they said, if they were like typical team, like 80% of the other teams, they'll go, we got our guy now. Let's go all in. This is our window. And it's like, and then you're double screwed. And then it's like, okay, if we're wrong on a couple of this, we are. I mean, the whole that we build for ourselves is so rough. Because now it's the classic term, you're robbing Peter and pay Paul.

And that's literally in this sense because then the cap room gets different. You stretch out different. Your window changes. I'm fine with it. I don't see any causes of concern at this point in time. They, it's just so funny. I think when I think about this stuff and when people on the outside think about this stuff, they're looking at the whole left tackle they had coming into the draft and coming out of it.

Yeah. What are they going to do? They needed to draft the left tackle in the first two rounds. And they sign Eric Fisher. And if Eric Fisher is not ready until October 1st, they're going to play Sam Tebby for four games. They're going to help them out and they're going to survive. And that's why Chris Ballard is better. at this than us.

It's because he thinks about it that way. And he knows that he's going to be able to get guys that aren't on his roster today that are going to be able to contribute by the time the season is over. And that's why their roster is as healthy as it's been. They're going to wait to see what happens with Wentz. And even if they sign Nelson, Leonard, and Smith, the contract extensions are going to. Nelson's cap number is 13.8 next year. That could be lower if they sign him to an extension.

There's a chance they're going to have $85,000, $90 million in space next year. And if Wents hits, then maybe they make the push. Then maybe you go for it. You don't have a first round pick if he hits. But if he hits, who gives his shit if you don't have a first round pick? Then you use that money and say, we're going to finish this off now. But now that question of whether he's good or not, you open yourself to other avenues if he's not. If he sucks or gets hurt this year, you're out a second next year.

You cut him. He's a $15 million dead cap hit. You got $90 million in space. We're back to where we started. And I just think that they've set themselves up to make the move when they're ready to make the move. They're not ready yet. But if you look at this offense right now,

you have Eric Fisher possibly playing left tackle. You'd still have a top three offensive line if you get 12 games out of him at 80% of what he was. On the skill position side of this, Michael Pittman in year two, he came on really strong at the end of last season, Paris Campbell possibly coming back. Ty Wight Hilton's not the most exciting thing in the world,

but those three guys as your three receivers, if Campbell can stay healthy, and they like Desmond Patman, this is still an interesting team. They just are not ready to push all their chips into the table yet, and I understand that. I just, again, I don't understand the criticism of this. They lost Andrew Luck on the eve of the season,

and they've gone 18 and 14 over the last two years, including an 11 and 5 year. And maybe you can make an argument that they're not better now than they were at the end of last season. I think that's a realistic argument, but I still think that they're set up to be good for the next several years because they haven't committed to one version of this roster. And like even how, okay, after luck retired, like how they handled the Jacoby Burset situation.

And it was just like, that just shows how they kind of like, even I don't want to say like, always five steps ahead, but just a step ahead or always he like you mentioned thinks this things out, how Bauer thinks these things out. Transvert Jacob Burset, got rid of a reacher at Philip Dorset. But then the next year, he just signs him for like a, I think he just signed him for like a two year deal or might have been going in 2019. Yeah, going in 2019. They signed for a two year deal, $30 million contract because they're like, okay, at least we can just, this guy can make us look okay. And like, we know he's not a star.

Yeah, we probably overpaid for him. But it's like, hey, that's fine. We have the room to do this. And now we can pivot to getting a guy like Philip Rivers and, you know, who got him to the playoffs. And it's like, that's great. That's just good team building. It's like, I think we. Always always want the star quarterback.

We want the star that you can't win without the star. You need these stars at these positions. And it's like sometimes good team building is just getting a bunch of good players. And then like what they have all that cap room. And then the ability that he's trading all the time, he just has always gives himself opportunities to pivot, which I think is the best thing you can do as a GM. And right now he's just setting up and just going, okay, we're going to be confident. We're going to be probably really, you know, frisky with a lot of teams.

If Wentz hits, holy crap, watch out. But, you know, I could take frisky and maybe a playoff. appearance. And then you know what? If it doesn't work out, okay, we're back where we were. We lose that second round pick, like you just said, and now we can figure out the next way. We can pivot. And I'm fine with it. I just think that's good team building. I think so, too. I think that they have set themselves up well. And I know it can be frustrating. And I know that as you watch all these other teams go for it. It's going to be, it's, there's part of it's like, man, what are they doing? Like, why aren't they doing this? And I just think

that they understand this is not the time to do it. Also, they're a cash to cap team. Like, they're not going to be putting voidable years on contracts and doing all this other stuff. And I think that's another thing to consider. I mean, there are some teams just aren't going to operate that way financially with the way that the Saints do it with the way that, excuse me, the Bucks even did it this year. There's some teams that are not going to do that kind of stuff.

And the Colts are one of those teams. All right. Surrealism, Steve, similar conversation. How do you think teams who are more or less rebuilt but haven't won a title should handle short-term and long-term balance? This is a long way of asking if the bill should trade for Julio Jones. I'm curious with some of the best. worst examples of making these all-end decisions are going to be, and he brings up the

Colts as an example on the other side. So I think that this is about short-term bets that refresh areas of your roster. And I think the Browns are a good example of this. Betts like Mali Jackson, DeVee, and Clowny to kind of say, like, all right, this is the version of what our defense is going to look like this year. We have a chance to go in on it next year. So I would just try to make some short-term, Will Fuller with the Dolphins, I think is a good example,

where it's like, here's $9 million for a year. This is going to give us a really good chance. It's going to make us explosive in the short term. We have flexibility after this. So those are the types of dice rolls I would tend to take. Tyron Matthews signing with the Texans a couple years ago, I think is another really good example. Some of these one or two-year short-term deals

where you're making your team better in the short-term, you're giving yourself a different version, especially in defense, I think is a good way to think about this because I don't, I wouldn't build foundationally on defense. I would just try to spice it up every single year and make it slightly different versions of what it was to try to get myself over the top. And I think that's what some of these teams are doing. So that's what I would do. I would just, my all in moves would be short term moves to give myself flexibility in the long term. Yeah, we kind of touch on this with the last answer. But it's, yeah, I completely agree. Even with the Colts signing a guy like Justin Houston to a two-year deal, like stuff like that. Exactly. Exactly. It's the Falcons a few years ago signing Dwight Freeney. You know, like just I think that's such a great point about defensively is that I think the role players is just it's a rotating cast. It's like, okay, this year we had this guy in this role.

This year we have this guy. He's 80% is good. But our linebacker, our Mike that we signed for our two-year deal is just, okay, he's a little better than the mic we had last year. Okay. You know, that's what I think I'm in a complete agreement with you. I think we always categorize everything in the tidy boxes, but it's really every team's window is built and open a variety ways. So there's no real defined answer.

Of course, you want to accumulate picks, build slowly, but sometimes just that situation and your hand is forced based on what you have. So I just think the best way it's kind of obvious. And I would say it again is just give yourself opportunities to pivot. And I think that's the best way to look at it. I don't know if any best or worse examples I have because every team, you can knock every sign they have. It's like some work out, some don't work out. I think the best ones are the ones that we just brought up some of those pass rushers that teams get on one or two years deals.

Or maybe, you know, shit, the buck signing Antonio Brown to half a year contract. You know, that's great. Like that's a fun move. But it's like, I don't know. That's just, that's weird one-offs in situations. So it's so hard to really say, oh, I should do this or I shouldn't do this because every team's going to be so much different. I would handle it the way the bills are handling. it right now. Yeah. I would look for continuity offensively, which is what they did. They brought back everyone on their offense, especially the offensive line.

Emmanuel Sanders is the ultimate example of this guy. It's like, all right, we're going to drop Emmanuel Sanders in here as our second outside receiver. The Saints did it last year. The bills did it this year. Drop in Emmanuel Sanders, draft two pass rushers. That's our refresh. That's how I would do it.

Is it pretty much exactly how the bills have done it this year? I would look for swings at high value positions in the draft, and I would try to find one little different ingredient offensively that I didn't have the year before. And that's pretty much what Buffalo has done this spring. Yeah. All right. Guys, that's all we got.

We got so many more, but we're already at like 90 minutes here. We could do this for hours. We're not going to. That's all we got for today. We will be back next week starting the programming that we're doing in the offseason. Really, really excited about some of the names we're going to have on, some of the things that we're going to do. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice.

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