The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Divisional Round losers postmortem: What's next for Bills, 49ers, Texans and Bears?

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

When you're one of the last eight teams playing football in a season, that final loss is hard to swallow. No matter how bright the future appears, there's no guarantee you get another shot quite like the one you just had. And yet, there's plenty of reason for optimism in 2026 and beyond for the Bills, 49ers, Texans and Bears after their respective Divisional Round losses. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen consider what the offseason ahead looks like for each of those teams on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)3:00 Buffalo Bills33:57 San Francisco 49ers43:49 Houston Texans59:05 Chicago Bears1:17:20 Jeff Hafley to the DolphinsConnect with The Athletic Football ShowPlease take our listener survey: theathletic.com/survey26YT: https://www.youtube.com/@TAFootballShowPodcasts: https://podfollow.com/the-athletic-football-show/viewX: https://x.com/TA_FootballShowIG: https://www.instagram.com/tafootballshowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tafootballshowDiscord: http://discord.gg/theathleticfootballshowCall us: 847-448-0701Email us: [e-mail]: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerVideo Producer: Katy DuffyAudio Producer: Michael BellerSocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Spending the hangover shows during the playoffs this year, doing some post-mortem slash look-aheads for the teams that lost the previous weekend. That's exactly what we did today. Four teams, Buffalo Bills, San Francisco 49ers, Houston, Texans, Chicago Bears. What does their off-season outlook look like? What positions might they address? What are the biggest questions? And how can these rosters be better heading into next season than they will.

were this year when these teams fell short. One other thing to keep in mind, our annual listener survey is live, and you can participate by going to theathletic.com slash survey 26. Three lucky entries will win $100 worth of Amazon vouchers. So whether you're a longtime listener or a new one, we would love your feedback. So please go to theathletic.com slash survey 26. The link is also in our episode description below. Right now, let's get to those postmortems slash lookaheads with my buddy Derek.

class. Spending today digging into some divisional round post mortems. That's always what we've called them, but they're not really post mortems. It's not why did the team lose. We actually do that in the recap shows. They're mostly like what comes next for these teams, but I like post mortems as a way to explain them. So I'm just going to continue to call them that, even though that's wrong. It's the wrong term, but still feels like the right term. And I feel like anything, because I feel like postmortem does a good job of like, you're talking about something that has just been gone. Like they've been axed. It's over. It's over. And so I still feel like it's, even if it's the wrong term, it's the right term, if that makes sense. We did these last week in the order that the team's

lost. We're going to do that again. And I think today that's especially fitting because the biggest news of the day happened to the team that lost first. Sean McDermott fired this morning as the Buffalo Bills head coach. Me and Dave had an initial reaction to that. You can see that in the YouTube channel. You can listen to that in your podcast feed. I wanted to ask you, though, Sean McDermott out your initial reaction when you saw that news this morning, which I assume happened before you even woke up. So I assume you woke up to the Sean McDermott news this morning. I woke up to the Sean McDermott news. I was up by like 715 and I think he'd been fired like 30 minutes beforehand.

And so I woke up and that was the first thing I saw on the docket today. But I listen, I think there is part of me that when you lose in the playoffs so many different times in so many different ways. and then to have it happen this year when you feel like there's no Patrick Mahomes, no Lamar Jackson, no Joe Burrow, this should have been the year. I get why they go and fire him. However, I think only firing him and then keeping Brandon Bean to me was a little bit interesting. And then also firing him in this coaching cycle when there are so many spots open and it doesn't feel like that many guys. Like I think what is interesting to me is that for the last two or three years, there's been some bubbling, right, of like maybe they'll fire Sean. McDermott, all this stuff. And I think the thinking with that was always, well, then you can go and

hire one of these offensive wizards to pair with Josh Allen. Unless you really like Mike McDaniel, I don't know who you're really doing that with in this cycle. Like maybe you take the swing on Clint Kubiak, but it just doesn't feel like that. I feel like you're going to get more of like Jesse Minter or Chris Schuller and those guys. And those, I think, are good candidates. But then you're just doing the whole defensive thing again. So I just, the whole all of it I think was really weird to me. I still think Sean McDermott is a good coach. I'm not sure I would have fired him, but I get why they did after thinking that the playoff field should have been years.

It sounds like I was reading Connor Ward's response to it this morning, and Connor obviously does a great job with all the coaching stuff. There's a reason that we have him on all the time when we're talking about the coaching world. And it seems like based on his initial read on it and talking to people that they are going to seek out an offensive coach, which I understand. This happens all the time. You have a defensive coach.

You go the other way. I said this to Dave today, though. I feel like when I'm dealing with an elite quarterback, like an MVP caliber, top three quarterback, it changes my opinion about what you need to seek out with the coaching staff. Because if your quarterback, I always go back to this, winning in the NFL is winning with Ryan Tannehill. If your quarterback is Ryan Tannahill, I think it's really important to make sure that you have an elite play caller and it's easiest to have an elite play caller when you have an

offensive coach. I've said this stuff a million times. When you have Josh Allen, I think it frees you up a little bit. I don't think you necessarily have to ascribe to that level of thinking. And so this idea that, well, the defensive guy didn't work, so we have to go with an offensive guy. I understand why that happens in most situations. I don't think it has to happen here. But it does seem like they're potentially pushing in that direction.

And like you said, it's an interesting time to be doing that because there aren't that many candidates that are those offensive-minded guys in this cycle. So I don't know where you should or where you do land at the end of this process. I really don't either. I'm with you on like that when you have an elite quarterback thing, you just don't need to do this. like they've proven they can have elite offense and score 27 plus points a game with like Brian Dable. They did it with Ken Dorsey for a while. Now they've done it with Joe Brady. And those guys aren't like bad play callers. But I don't think that they're of the level of like the Ben Johnson's, the Sean McVeys or anything like that. Like you can kind of be able to pick in that middle

tier of play caller and still get elite offense when you have Josh Allen. And I feel like now that they're going to scuttle that in favor of getting an offensive head coach and then maybe having to cycle through defensive guys, I feel like that's tough. And I think the last thing that I would say about some of the team building specifically on defense. In my mind, the philosophy and like the build in terms of theory of having lighter bodies and safeties who really need to be smart and being like this four down front, that is all McDermott, right? Like the vision for what it's supposed to be is McDermott. But the player acquisition is Brandon Bean. Like you still have to pick part of the right players. And I think them both being culpable there is a little bit

tricky. I think that's hard though. So it's so funny. It is still both. Like McDermott is definitely in there a little bit in terms of what players you're picking. We can dig into this. But my first note when trying to figure this out in the roadmap for this conversation, where the roster fell short, body types on defense,

small, small, how much of that is McDermott? It's the first thing in my notes. And so I think trying to pull that apart is really hard. And so this is a very good example to me. And this speaks to the complexity of how you divvy up blame when it comes to these sorts of issues in the NFL. The bills signed Puna Ford for $2 million two off-season ago.

Look what Puna Ford has done since leaving Buffalo and how much money he cost this off-season for the Rams is like a priority-free agent. So whose fault is it that Puna Ford isn't a Buffalo bill making $18 million a year right now? Again, I just think it's hard. I think it's hard to untangle this stuff. And when you have one specific position group that consistently they've poured a lot of resources into

and it doesn't feel like you've ever really figured it out. And I think the defensive line in the front seven overall is probably a good place to point. At a certain point, you probably have to look at both parties and their culpability when it comes to the success of that group. And I do, I'm with you. Like, I think the roster is not good enough. And I think that Sean McDermott did pretty good work with the pieces he was given this year. but I also feel like he has to take some of the blame for why the pieces look the way that they do. He definitely has to take some of it.

I think that is why it gets complicated. Like he, in my mind, basically the way that it happens is like because McDermott is putting certain constraints on like what kinds of players he wants and what kind of bins you're picking from as a front office and as a GM, that is a little bit limiting for Brandon Bean. But then ultimately, like, they mostly swung and missed on a lot of the picks that they were getting. And a lot of those guys on defense aren't necessarily terrible. Like, AJ Epinessa is not a bad player. You just probably want more from like a second round pick. I think like Greg Rousseau is a pretty good player. Still not an ace for a guy that you probably wanted to be an ace.

Just a lot of like picks like that where it feels like not bad, but fell probably one level below what you would have wanted. And again, that is probably part Sean McDermott's fault for wanting the defense built a specific way, but them still not being able to find any sort of impact and like, high level pro bowl all pro level talents throughout any of that like their best draft pick on defense is probably ed oliver i would i would argue that in terms of investment plus return it's probably benford yeah i guess that's true that's a good point but in terms of needle movers like ed oliver's probably the best like pure player went healthy that they've drafted and he was their

top ten pick they haven't been picking in that range ever since that and it brings me back to like the bean stuff overall and i know that so many people today it's been like talking about the cloak and dagger type stuff he must be doing behind the scenes in order to keep his job as McDermott loses his. And I know that stuff is easy and fun to say in the moment, but it's always more complex than that. And I do think that there are a lot of reasons to believe that he's the right sort of person to have at the front of your franchise as you're seeing this transition period through. Everyone in Buffalo does watch the Pagulas make like really important decisions about some of their franchises. I don't think wants them to make another one. So Brandon Bean picking the coach and not Terry Pagula seems like it actually might be.

a good idea. But when you look at the fact that they have had some hits in the middle of the draft and they've really done a lot of swinging and missing with the early picks, like the first round pick or early second round pick in the situation like Keon Coleman or Boogie Basham, those sorts of guys, are we at a place where that's kind of just about variance? Like at some point, they will hit one of those and it will make a difference. I don't know if I necessarily believe that, but I'm open to that version of the argument when you look at whether Brandon Bean should or should not be in charge of building the football team. I might be too, but like it's been a long enough period of him drafting that the variance should have helped you out a little bit more by now. Like if this

was like a three year period, maybe I could buy that. But he's been the GM for a long time. And again, I don't think he's done like a negligence job. There aren't that many jobs so they've struck out either. Like I think that's it. Right. Because they found so many of these contributing pieces in the middle rounds, but the fact that they don't have star level talent, it's just it hits you in the face every time you think about this team and watch them play. Because at a certain point, you do need stars. Like, we've talked about this with so many of these other teams that have gotten close. The Packers, like the bills, it's like you, there is some value of like consistently

hitting some middle around picks and getting C minuses on your draft picks and not having them be complete waste for you. At the end of the day, though, you still need one or two of these guys to turn into something that can like scratch on the level of like consistent pro bowl or all pro. And they've just really struggled to do that. how about we tie these two things together? There are guys that, you know, obviously Leonard Williams is a big time acquisition, but Tank Lawrence, anybody could assign Tank Lawrence this offseason,

and he's played like a star in Seattle. How much of that is the right coach to get those guys to play like stars? And if you bring in a new, again, I keep coming back to this thing where I would be open to the idea if I were Buffalo. It doesn't sound like they are to hiring a defensive head coach, because I think that's the unit where you need. to maximize the talent more than you need to on offense because you have Josh Allen. So somebody, and I know schematically, this might be a square peg around whole thing,

but like thematically, somebody like Jesse Minter and bring somebody like that in and seeing what you get out of these defensive pieces or the ones that you start cycling in, do you get better returns if you change what the system looks like on defense? I think that's possible. And so when you're trying to figure out how much of this is the inputs with the players and how much of this is the outputs on the other end of coaching and development, I think sometimes that's hard to untangle and pull apart. It is hard to untangle and pull apart.

I still, I don't know, there was part of me that this is also almost like a Harbaugh situation too where like I still feel like even if I understand some of why Sean McDermott can be culpable in some of this, why you would be frustrated after five or six playoff losses in a row. I still feel like he's going to go get hired somewhere and still be a pretty good coach for someone and put together a good defense again, I just get why maybe they were tired of it. He absolutely should be. Yes.

If you look at, and Sean McDermott specifically, if you, and we talked about this with Dave, and we're spending a lot of time on this, but I think it's a worthwhile conversation. We talked about this with Dave. Sean McDermott's, I think, best period, as the Bill's head coach, was in the rebuilding period.

When they were trying to go from a team that hadn't played a playoff game in 18 years to a respectable NFL franchise, I think they did a fantastic job in that sort. stretch of things. So if you're the Raiders right now, I'm calling Sean McDermott. That's the type of job where I actually think he's well suited for it. And I would want somebody like him to oversee something like that. So I'm with you. I think that he absolutely could be the right choice for a different team that's

at a different point in the process, even if he was no longer the right choice in Buffalo. One more thing, and you might have some others, but one more area of the roster. We talked about the pass rush that just never got really got that right. you know, Bosa was good this year, but it's top to bottom. It's still not enough as a group. Next year, you get Michael Hoyt back. You get Landon Jackson back from injury. You know, maybe you try to add one more piece there.

I can understand them being fine in the long run. But when that team rushed for this year, they just didn't have enough. And I think that's something that needs to be addressed. The other thing, the past catchers. And the past catchers, to me, that is where I look at the acquisition process and the thought process behind it. And you can't lay that in McDermott's feet because, of what his purview is.

And I think so often when they've added these pieces and they've thought about how they all fit together, it's been things that sound good in theory, but the results never catch up to that. Like when they drafted Kincaid, the whole thought was, we're going to be this 12 personnel team that creates these mismatches. And the theory of that, I think, was good. But Kincaid was never really a tight end. He's still not really a tight end that allows you to create those mismatches. And so the theory never lined up with the results.

painting Keon Coleman as this outside the numbers true X receiver, like that's what he is going to give us when I think so many people in the evaluation of him doubted his ability to be that sort of player in the NFL,

that is again a disconnect between theory and results. And then a guy like Curtis Samuel, where you have this allure of positional flexibility, but it never really plays out that way. I think the bills, the past catching spots specifically,

very often, there were a lot of things that sound really, really good May through August. And then when you actually try to put them in practice, it never comes together. And that's how you end up taking all of these shots, some big, some small, on building out that past catching room and never really getting there over the course of three to four years. And it almost feels like the entire offensive build. It was like they tried to zag too hard from what they were when they were having failings in like 2021 and 2022.

like when they first got the Josh Allen offense off the ground, it was all gun, it was a lot of quarterback run game, we were spread and shred, it was a lot of smaller bodies. And they were still a really good offense that way, but they had certain failings in the playoffs because they couldn't run the ball. They spent the last two years really being like this more, okay, we're going to beef up even more on the offensive line. We're going to skirt having smaller guys who can separate a wide receiver in favor of these bigger guys like the Keon Coleman's, the signing Josh Palmer, we're going to try to dunk on people

and drafting of a tight end in the first, kind of a tight end in the first round in Daulding Kincaid and like really going all the way the other end and that worked to some degree. Like the run game did kick ass for a lot of that period and they were able to get under center and do a lot of the stuff they wanted. But it was almost like they kind of just traded one problem for the other and now they can't really be a gun spread and tread team with a quarterback who is awesome. And so I do wonder like part of them getting just new faces in the coaching staff and maybe some new ideas about what the offense could be.

maybe they find some balance there. I think that would obviously be the ideal outcome here for them. All right. So let's fix some of this stuff with the resources available to us. Isn't going to be easy. Currently $11.5 million over the cap per over the cap. And there are not that many financial levers for them to pull this off season specifically. They can move on from Curtis Samuel, potentially move on from Dawson Knox.

I think he has like a $17 million cap hit next year because they've kept moving his money around. They would save a decent chunk if they moved on from him. you'd hope that year two Jackson Hawes can give you some version of what Dawson Knox has been within the offense, even if he was not that kind of pass catcher this year. They can restructure Josh Allen. That's not a ton of money. I think he has like a $15 million based salary. I haven't looked at what his, if he has like an option bonus or anything like that,

some of these quarterback contracts, there's obviously like weird stuff kind of waiting there. Yeah, so that, the option bonuses are already prorated when you look at the cap numbers. And so, yeah, it's a $16.5 million. base salary, which they could easily restructure and get some money there, but it's not a ton. The other restructure candidates, I mean, you got guys like Dion Dawkins, who's 32 years old, I want to say this season, at Oliver, who's consistently hurt. And so there aren't that many ways, like obvious to somebody like Moos, not a cap expert, where they can create a decent amount of money this off season.

And so it's not like we're going to be walking into this year with $30 million in cap space to fix a lot of these problems. I think they're going to have to pinch pennies a little bit more than that. which I think because part of the problem that they're going to have to is why they've been so good as an offense generally over the last couple of years is the offensive line but they've got a couple of those interior pieces that are coming up Governor and Edwards are free agents both of them yeah like to lose to lose two of your interior players potentially is going to be a really

big issue I would probably prioritize trying to at least keep one of them because to me I think with Dawson Knox like he's a good player and I think if he if they let him go like he would be a nice contributing piece for somewhere else. I think letting him go is like a good, we can just become something different on offense type of move. Because you already have Kincaid. Jackson Hawes, I think, is not going to give you quite what Docks and Knox did,

but you know he's an awesome run blocker. And he can probably give you something more as a past catcher. Usually these tight ends, it takes a couple of years anyway. And so I have some of my faith. You know what reminds me of a little bit? This is a weird comparison, but the tight end room specifically,

it's kind of like Washington, where they have John Bates and, EARTS. Like those are, that's actually the two skill sets. Like Bates is probably more akin to what Hawes can become as a pass catcher than somebody like Doss and Knox. But like those, you can build a tight end room with like those two skill sets specifically. Teams have done it. A hundred percent. And like they would obviously have less flexibility and less firepower from that room. But if you are doing that in service of having more resources to either keep your offensive line intact or go spend on some sort of useful wide receiver two or wide receiver three and make

the offense feel a little bit different. I think that's a totally fine move to go and do. What do you thinking about with the past catchers? Like if you had to kind of remake this room, I have two kind of specific timelines or plans that I have in mind. One is the, all right, let's cut to the real problem here and let's leave no doubt when it comes to fixing this. And it's calling Jacksonville and seeing what Brian Thomas Jr. would cost.

That's something where I'm open to that idea. But my issue is they have so many other. holes that giving up draft capital to solve that problem, I think it gets kind of dicey. But if I'm Brandon B, I'm making the phone call at the very least because this team needs a vertical stretcher receiver. They do not have that right now. Think about how important Brandon Cooks felt at the end of this season and what going out and getting a 24-year-old field stretcher could mean.

So that's one guy that I thought about. And then this team specifically, I do think they tried to solve. their receiver issue and free agency in the wrong year to do it, which was last year. Like, Josh Palmer was the best free agent receiver available last year, and they signed him, and I know he was hurt, but even if he had been healthy, the two guys at the top of the free agent receiver pool this year, well, there are three. Romeo Dobbs, I think, Romo Dobbs is playing really, really good football by the end of the season.

Like, the bill's signing Romeo Dobbs and just adding him to whatever they have now, I think they would be much better off than they were. Alec Pierce on this team? Alec Pierce is the one because we're talking about field stretching. Like Romeo Does is a good player and will be good for somebody else. That's like not really where his value is. Like Romeo Dobbs is like a great chain mover. He can win you some like one-on-ones on the outside.

It would be, he's not one for one with Josh Palmer, but it would feel like there's a little bit more overlap there than you would want on the two guys that you just spent in free agency. Alec Pierce gives you some real like Josh can just chuck it again down the field type of juice. Last one. Mike Evans is a free agent. Man. It's a tough spot with 32-year-old free agents. But that's one where...

But he's still playing well when he was healthy this year. Like he doesn't feel like he really fell off. So I would be curious if how much you could solve some of your issues at receiver with this free agent pool. Because typically it's been hard to do that. This year specifically feels a little bit different and a little bit better. Even if there's a chance that Pierce never gets out there or all that. But I think there are more place. players available that you can spend on this year to help out a group that I think still desperately

needs it. And I think with Pierce, I do feel like if you spend on Pierce what he's going to get in this market, that's really about all you're going to be able to do in terms of spending this offseason. Like he's going to- You just have to play funny money with the contract. He'd have to have like a $6 million cap hit this year and there'd be a million void years on there. This is a team that's willing to do that, though. They have shown a willingness to spend a lot of cash when the situation calls for it. That's a good point. I just, I guess he is your fastest, and he's still a young player, and he would be like

your fastest way to fast tracking, making sure we get a good receiver core off the ground and not having to try to spend it on some draft picks again. But I almost think that whatever you're going to do with changing how the offense is going to function and get into a new world with the offense, it's going to take a little bit of some uptime anyway. So I actually don't hate the idea of like Band-Aid solution, Mike. Evans, you maybe spend one or two more draft picks that way and like kind of slow roll it into whatever it's going to be. Because the offense is still going to be good no matter what with

Josh Allen. Here's my problem though with like spending even more draft capital on receiver. You need so much help on defense. Yeah. You still. Joey Bose is hitting free agency. So again, now you're trying to paper that over with Michael Hoyton, Landon Jackson, some combination of that. You drafted a bunch of guys in the interior with that Oliver coming back. So you probably don't need to throw that many resources at that position specifically. But let's look at like safety and linebacker. Poir is a free agent. Rap is coming back next year.

Do you want to roll into the season with Taylor Rap and Cole Bishop as your starters? And at off ball linebacker, you still probably need another body with where Moano's at in his career. And so I just think that they need so much juice defensively still to say like, oh, we'll just spend another first round pick or another second round pick on a receiver. You probably need to do that. But this is a team that has a lot. a lot of holes.

And so if you can solve one of those problems with some sort of mid-tier for agent contract, I think that becomes really important. I guess they don't really have any... And you need two offensive linemen. But yeah, you potentially need two officers, especially if you sign Alec Pierce, then I, well, and don't do any funny money stuff. I don't know how much of those offensive linemen you're going to get back. They also don't have any extra picks, which does make it complicated.

They're going to have to take a loss somewhere and accept that something about this team is bad. And so I think it's just ultimately like where do you want that to be? And part of me thinks we make it on defense and we hire Jesse Minter to be the coach. Yes. Which I've been saying all day and it doesn't seem like they're going to do. I think I would probably rather do that too. Like kind of shirk on the defense a little bit and just see what Jesse Minter wants to put together.

Give him a year to see if, you know, maybe you hit on a couple of late round picks that he really likes and he can get a better idea of what he wants to do with some of those pieces there. Well, when Brian Daibble is the head coach, that's not going to be an option. I hate to break it too. No. The last thing I wanted to hit with this team, just because this is probably not even a conversation that's worth having, but I wanted to have it anyway.

Just the entire discourse around Josh Allen in the last 72 hours is just like, it's so funny to me. Like, my question, my main question with this is, when do you become a playoff choker? Like, is it between the wild card round and the divisional round? Like, because if he, the way that he played in the wild card round, And the fact that the only reason they were in the divisional round

is because of how well he played the week before. Is that when, like, you become a clutch or not is between the wildcard round and the divisional round? And if that's true, why has he played so well beyond the wild card round in the last couple years, including last year in the AFC championship game where if their kicker can make a field goal, they potentially beat a chief's team that they can't ever stop? In 2021, he was phenomenal in the 13 seconds divisional round game. I'm like, if you want to do this with Justin Herbert or Mar Jackson, where they do not show up with their best games in the playoffs, that is a problem.

We should be not talking about them as truly elite players because they have not done it in those moments. Fine. I don't ascribe to that necessarily, but fine. To do that with Josh Allen is just not correct. Like, he's played phenomenal playoff games consistently. They've won a playoff game each of the past five years. And this was the first time, like, in five years, they've lost a playoff game to not Patrick Mahomes. Like, like, the other times they are like, it just, to me, it is mind-blowing.

And also in this game, I know this sounds like we're going to be making excuses for a great quarterback, all that jazz. The fact that the bills got to the divisional round and had to rely on 30-something-year-old Brandon Cooks, who was cut by the Saints earlier this year. And then McColl Hardman in like the key moment of the game, like the fact that that's what it came down to against one of the best pure. coverage teams in the league and like that's what it came to. I just, the whole choking thing is ridiculous. I know it feels bad that like the other quarterbacks were out of it and they couldn't win this game. But this was not that good of a roster. And he dragged them all the way to this point. I don't even need. And okay, two things. The all he, it's not like Josh Allen is playing with a bunch of Walmart in place. The offensive line is very good. The one game is very good.

There is talent on the roster. And Josh now, I don't even care who he was throwing to. He could have been throwing to Walmart employees in the game against the Broncos, he still did not play well enough in that game. And he was one of the reasons that they lost the football game. That doesn't change so many of the things that have happened up to this point. Like it just, he wasn't good enough last week. Mahomes wasn't good enough against the Bengals in the AFC championship game that year. Mahomes has gotten destroyed in two Super Bowls. Does that mean that he wasn't good enough? Like, when is the line? When is the cut off in the calendar when it stops mattering. That's my question. Well, I think to me, like, to what end are we even having this

conversation? Like, let's say, let's say Josh Allen is a playoff joker. Let's just say that. Are they going to cut him? Are they going to trade him? Do you not want Josh Allen more than you want basically every quarterback that's not Patrick Mahomes? I just don't understand, like, to what point we would even have that conversation. Josh Allen has thrown 29 touchdowns and six interceptions in the playoffs. Lamar Jackson has thrown nine touchdowns and six interceptions in the playoffs. Like, if we want to have this discussion about some other quarter, that have not shown up in the postseason the way they show up in the regular season. Fine.

Josh Allen is not one of those quarterbacks. He's consistently had very good moments in the playoffs over and over and over again. And so just this idea that like it's the same every year. It's not the same every year. Well, he just turns the ball over all the time. He hadn't thrown an interception in six playoff games before the one that they just played. And so there's always this moving target for like why Josh Allen isn't good enough and why we shouldn't be considering this really good player.

With him specifically, sometimes you just get unlucky in the playoffs. You run into the wrong teams and the wrong moments and your team isn't good enough in some areas. And so with him specifically, I just find it so incredibly silly. And again, it probably wasn't even a discussion worth having, but I wish I was better than avoiding it and ignoring it, but I'm just not. I just think that if we're questioning Josh Allen and what he can do in December and January, then quarterback discourse is just like fully broken. Like what is the point of?

really good in December and January for the most part in his career. He's other than Patrick Mahomes. He's like the best quarterback. And he's already the best quarterback other than Patrick Mahomes, basically. But like he's been lights out in those two months. And it sometimes you just get unlucky. He has 15 playoff games, I think, at this point. And I believe in those playoff games, he's thrown for about 4,000 yards,

29 touchdowns and six interceptions. And you combine that with everything he's done on the ground. He's had like an MVP season in the playoff games that he's played. Point. It's the, the efficiency number, are not quite there. It's only 0.13 EPA per dropback. But that includes like his earlier playoff games.

But and that's also like 20, you're playing against the best teams in the playoffs. Like you're not getting to like boost those numbers by playing against a couple of shitty teams in week five or whatever. That's true. Yeah.

You don't get, he's been bad against the Jets, but you don't get your two games against the dolphins in the playoffs every single year. It doesn't feed into those numbers. All right. That's enough Josh Allen discourse talk.

We're going to take a quick break and then come back and chat about the San Francisco 49ers. Digging into the 2025 Niners and what comes next, when you think about the most important things the Niners can do this offseason and the most important additions the Niners can make this offseason, they're all already on the Niners. Yeah, they're just coming back. You just need to wait.

It's a waiting game. The best player who will join the San Francisco 49ers this spring is Nick Bosa. Or Fred Warner, whichever one you are. want to throw in there. So that's, you know, we injuries happen to every team, but to lose your two best defensive players when the rest of your defense was full of rookies and like super young guys, it just, that's, it's the reality of where they landed. It's not more complicated than that.

They lost in all, they lost the best linebacker in football. They lost a potential all pro pass rusher. And they lost their first round pick, Michael Williams. It's like, what, how do you field a front seven when that is the case? And then that doesn't even include all the other like depth pieces that went down for a lot of this season for them. I honestly, if I'm a 49ers fan, obviously it sucks to losing the playoffs, all that stuff. And especially the way you lost it stinks. If I'm a 49ers fan, I feel as good or I feel as good as you possibly can after having lost the game.

Like I feel great going into next season. This season went as well as you possibly getting blown out too. Yes. Like to lose a game like that, you feel probably as good as you can after losing a game like that. I'm sure 49ers fans don't want to hear that right now, but I completely understand where you're coming from. Right. In the moment, it feels like, yeah, when you lose a game 41 to 6, it feels terrible.

But then you can wake up the next day and be like, all right, we're going to get a lot of the offense back. Our two best players on defense are coming back. Mikel Williams is coming back. We have most of the picks that we want. We have a little bit of money that we can spend in free agency if we want. Like this, you have a lot of, the secondary is still good and wasn't really able to show it because of how bad the front was like, this is a roster and a team that,

and you know obviously Kyle Shanahan coming back with how good the offense can be like this, I still feel like this is, you probably feel as good as you possibly could have. Like them and the Bears, I think, are probably the only two teams that lost and still feel pretty good if that makes sense.

It's funny with the team like the Niners, they finish 28th at a weighted defensive DVOA, and typically if you're a playoff team, and you have a top 10 offense, and then you have a bottom five defense, and we have a conversation like this, you would immediately go to a place where you would say, well, these are all the things you need to do to improve the defense, right?

These are the players you need to add. These are the pieces you need to add. I honestly, when I'm looking at the Niners and like where they need to add guys this off season, I go to the offense before I go to the defense. Yes, because if so let's let's, I love that because let's do this. If you get Fred Warner back, then you have him in De Winters. Okay. That's a pretty good starting your two linebackers there.

You get Nick Bosa and Michael Williams back off the edge. Okay, that's pretty good. I think the defensive interior was not great this year, but you already spent a bunch of young picks. Yeah, it's all rookies. Yeah, it's all young guys. And so if any of those, you've kind of like committed there and you maybe you sign like a veteran to help out, but that's, you've kind of committed there. And then the secondary is like pretty good. Like I think Renardo Green is a solid outside corner. The Lenore is a good corner. I think both of your safeties have played pretty well. Like Malik Mustafa is a really good player. Upton Stout, like maybe you don't love him because of the

size. I think for where you got him as like a late round pick and as a rookie, he was really really good. Like, do you have reason to believe that this can be a pretty good defense? And I think Robert Sala, Robert Sala coached it really well. Obviously, at a certain point, you're just outgunned. But, like, they were playing incredibly hard. I thought they were doing some really interesting stuff in terms of, like, how they were using some of their safeties and some of their nickels.

Like, I just, this feels like the defense can be good again. The offense is more just like, you want to make sure you have a little bit more depth receiver. George Kittles getting a little bit older. You probably want to make sure that you can reload behind him. Trent Williams, same thing. load the offensive lineup a little bit, but like the defense, man,

this is probably about as good a turnaround as you can get without really having to add anything. I think they need depth along the defensive one. I think adding depth pieces. But the starters. Yeah, or you use the guy. I mean, let's let, CJ West is like a fourth round pick, right? Like the idea that like, oh, he's just going to be a starter for us,

you don't need to do that. If you want to sign somebody that you think is like a day one defensive tackle starter for next year, and then you use this year's rookies to, be your depth pieces moving forward, that's also an option. So I just think that some depth at both edge and along on the interior is probably stuff they need to add this year. And whether that's in free agency or it's in the draft, they have two extra fourth round

compics this year. And so that's like a perfect spot to be building out defensive line depth. We'll see what they do at edge. Bryce off, they can save some money if they move on from Bryce off. He has no guarantee money left on his deal. But it's only like $8 million. And if you're going to bring Michael Williams back and Bryce Huff is just like, a third DPR type that doesn't need to play on early downs, that's fine.

And so again, I just think that there is enough elements of the defensive roster that are probably set up to be okay. You look at the offense, I'm with you. Left tackle of the future probably needs to come at some point, right? Like, that's something I'd probably rather be a year ahead of that than a year behind that. And in an ideal world, is there any way you can draft somebody in the first round? And he can be your left guard this year and he can move to left tackle when Trent Williams moves on. Like is that is there any world where that can happen? Because I think that

would be ideal. Because I do think even if Trent Williams is going to be there, even if you're not accounting for the succession plan, the interior, let's do something here. Like if I say this for like the 20th year in a row, can we get one more like quality body on the interior of this offensive line? They absolutely have to. And I'm honestly even fine. Like the ideal scenario, obviously is if you can draft like a Tyler Smith situation where he's a tackling college, you move him to guard. And I think the theory there was like he could play left tackle if he wanted to. Obviously he becomes an incredible guard.

So you just keep him there. But like even if whoever you draft in the first round can't play guard for you, I'm totally fine taking a red shirt first round tackle. Like I actually think that that's fine because you know the offense for this year. It's going to be really good anyway. So long as a majority of the pieces are healthy and not completely broken. And then defensively, you should, just by getting guys back, be like a top half of the league defense probably

when you get guys like Fred Warner and Bosa back. So if you just take a redshirt year in favor of making sure that we have something behind Trent Williams, I'm totally okay with that. I think so too. I think you just, again, I want to be a year ahead of that, not a year late on it. The other spot on offense, they need another receiver.

Juan Jennings is a free agent. DeMarcus Robinson's 32 years old. They need one more receiver. And we'll see what happens. Pierceall is never healthy. but I just think one more like big body perimeter receiver is something that they need. Obviously, you never could have foreseen what happened with the IUC stuff. He'll likely be traded this off season.

I think you'll save a little bit of money there. I don't know exactly how much just because certain elements with the guarantees and all of that, but they need one more receiver. And even if no matter what happens with the IUC money and like they could restructure BOSA if they wanted to, it seems like they're going to have like $30-ish million in cap space either way. And so they will likely have some flexibility to make a move or two if they want to. See, they feel more like a Romeo Dobbs team to me in terms of like replacing Juan Jennings be like he can be our kind of bigger bodied guy, bully a little bit, just win at the sticks. Like that,

that to me feels more like the Romeo Dobbs team. I actually really like that. I think Romeo Dobbs is like an option for them on the outside to go along with Pierceall, Kittle, McCaffrey. Like I actually do think that makes a lot of sense. That's a fun one. But other than that, there wasn't that much other stuff that came to mind in terms of what I wanted to talk about with this team. You get blown out in the divisional round. And I think for a lot of different organizations, that would bring you to a place where, man, we got to ask some hard questions about where we're going. And maybe I'm being naive, but I just don't, it's not how I feel about this team right now. Like, for the second year in a row, they have a disappointing kind of end.

And I feel better about Brock Purdy today. than I did at the beginning of the season for the second year in a row. And you feel good that they'll be good next to you because you know Shanahan always gets them there. And like we like the defensive play caller now that Saul is back in the building. Like they just, I think with almost all of these,

the reason it doesn't take that long is we're looking at some of these teams and it's like, why did it go wrong for them? What could they have done differently? All this stuff. With the Niners, we're looking at them and we're like, it's kind of a miracle they got here. Like we don't have to really like pick apart what went wrong. Like it's a miracle they even got the team here.

We'll see how far they can take it next. when they get some guys back. All right, let me play devil's advocate. Is there something we're hand-waving here that we should be a little bit more worried about than we are? What is the element of this we're hand-waving that might come back and look really stupid in a year? To me, it's only if both sides of the interior, they can't do anything. Like, if they don't do enough to sign like a veteran stopgap guy to help them along the

defensive interior and neither of those rookies take a step, you will probably get run on. Even for as good as like the linebackers are, you're probably going to get run on, and that's going to be an issue. And then again, with the, with the offensive line, let's say Trent Williams takes a step back and whatever rookie they maybe take to help them there doesn't give them anything. Let's say maybe they try to make a move at center

or one of the guard spots and that guy isn't very good. Like I do think there is a world where maybe some of the offensive line stuff starts to fall apart if Trent takes a little bit of a step back because he did look a little bit slower to start this year. And then obviously he gets banged up a little bit. Like that's got to come at some point. But I think at least with the offensive side of the ball, I have so much institutional faith in Kyle Shanahan that, like, they'll figure something out.

Let's get to our next team here. The Houston Texans, they're in a fascinating spot. Like, when you think about where they are in, like, the building process and how a last offseason went compared to where they are right now, you know, the Texans have six picks in the first four rounds? That's pretty good. Because they, because the tonsill trade. Yeah. So they have an extra two.

they have an extra four. So they have six picks in the fourth four rounds. They have four picks in the top 100. And so they have this like cash of draft capital to build out certain parts of the roster, which that's really nice. They also are $11 million over the cap right now. Like what's going on with the quarterback almost makes everything else feel moot to an extent. And so this is a team where there's so much to really like about where they are.

But there also doesn't feel like there's a really. really clear roadmap to how this immediately gets better. And I think a large portion of that is the black cloud that kind of hangs over the way that the quarterback played over the last two weeks. And I think to me, this was like what happened to them over the last like six weeks of the season to me was like the worst case scenario for what you tried to do with the offensive line where you are scrapping everything. You're losing a really, really good left tackle.

You're putting in a lot of stopgap options, a lot of young players. And by the end of it, even if they had a call. couple of nice games like the Steelers game or whatever, they ultimately got the quarterback smashed and we're still a very bad offensive line. And I think now it's cool that they have all these picks that they're going to be able to potentially slow build this thing up. But it's going to take a couple of years. Like they scrapped this down. And I think they hoped that in the immediate future, it would be like we could be the 23rd, 24th best offensive line. And that would kind of like bridge us to getting this new era of the offensive line. That's not what happened. And now you're in a

spot where you really, really do have to go and spend all of these resources to me on the offensive line. Even if you do have some issues elsewhere, like there's going to be some defensive pieces that you maybe want to replace, especially like depth wise and you have a couple of older players like DeNeal Hunter that maybe they're going to have to start thinking about. But ultimately this to me is like they really went all out the last couple of years. They've scrapped it down. And now they're feeling it and they're going to have to, to me, fix the offensive line. Because that's, you know, we talked about it on the recap show, like what has gone wrong with CJ Stroud. And he's obviously very culpable.

a lot of this and some of the decisions that he's making some of the new mistakes. To me, it's ultimately like if we can fix the offensive line that gives it a lot more of a foundation that he can start to get his legs back under him again. They did get to a place by the end of the year where the last kind of iteration

that they had tinkered with where it was Titus Howard at left guard and Trent Brown at right tackle. It was working better than it had at earlier points in the season. Well, Ed Ingram and Trent Brown are both free agents. So now you're in a spot where... And Trump's pretty old. He's absolutely. Trent Brown being like their,

where them landing on him as their starting right tackle at the end of all of this experimentation is kind of a very strange and surprising place for them to have ended up. And the fact that he didn't play in that game and then now you get worse in two spots and you're moving Titus Howard around, it speaks to where that team was at

that when they didn't have Trent Brown in the divisional round, it was like, oh man, we're really noticing this. So they need two new starters, period. And so they have resources to go out and find those guys, but you still need your, replace two starters along the offensive line. Other than that, on offense,

I think you need some sort of innings eating early down running back, right? Like Woody Barks was never supposed to be that for you. My assumption is they move on from mixing this offseason. They'd save like $8 million if they did that. So you find that somewhere. But other than that, I mean, the pest catchers are in a spot that what else do they need?

Like Jalen Noel thinks in for what Kirk was giving you, hopefully, and it's Noel Higgins and Nico Collins, you know, plus some of the depth pieces that you have, it seems like that group overall is in a pretty decent spot. I 100% agree. Like, I actually really thought that, you know, Jaden Higgins was a guy that I think I was not as super high on coming into it, but I thought he actually played really well for them. Again, if Jalen Knoll can just be what Christian Kirk was, I'm fine with that.

I think because of some of the commitments they have at, at tight end, I would like a little bit more juice at that spot, I think even than running back truthfully, but I don't know how they would want to address that. I don't know if that would be like a draft pick. I don't know if they want to go sign somebody, but I would probably want a little bit more juice there just because especially how much of the passing offense tries to operate over the middle of the field. I think that that would be fun. But this to me is like the past catchers are fine. If we can fix the offensive line, I think that goes a long way in because to me the issue with the Houston, Texas offense and why you had CJ Stratt playing the way that he did where he's not letting plays die and he's getting

frantic in the pocket, the offense has zero easy. buttons. Like there's no, there's nothing they did that was like, we can just get our quarterback into second and one, or we can consistently scheme up X, Y, and Z. And it's because they can't pass protect when they want to and they can't run the ball. And so I think if they fix that, it really does, like, solve a lot of issues. Because I know there were certain points where it's like, Ed Ingram is kicking ass in the run game. But game to game, the run game was still really bad. And he still didn't help them at all really in pass protection. And so this to me is like center to right tackle. If they can upgrade that, that pretty much does everything they need on

offense. I think to me, like, what they do with CJ Stroud's contract is the most interesting part. Like, in terms of picking up his option, you have to pick up the option. I just wonder how much hemming and hauling they're going to do and how much like weird reporting we get out of it. I think you absolutely have to pick up the option. I think it's more about when you start the extension conversations because this is a team that has been very quick to extend its young players. Think about how early the Stingley extension happened. Moore Anderson is going to be extension eligible this offseason. I would bet pretty heavily. he gets one as soon as they can possibly give him one.

The fact that they're probably going to wait on Stroud tells you just how much things have changed since his rookie year. And we spent a lot of time talking about this last night. I want to revisit it just a little bit. Let's say the offensive line gets to a place where by the end of next season, they're the 16th best offensive line in the week. We have these past catchers that I think absolutely clear the bar, put this team in a pretty good spot.

How confident are you right? now that C.J. Stroud comes out on the other side of this. As like a long term, I'm paying him $50 million a year. I think we can be consistently competitive with him a quarterback guy. I think after his rookie year, I think we thought maybe there was a chance that he could be one of those guys who cracks into like top five or six. Like we really thought maybe he had like a Joe Burrow S. ceiling. I'm honestly probably like ship has sailed a little bit on that. But in terms of him being a guy who can consistently be like quarterback 10 in the league and give you like a really, really high powered offense, I'm pretty confident that he can still get there. Like seven out of,

I would say at least a seven out of 10 that he can get there. Because again, I do think a lot of this comes down to over the last two years, he has been literally like bad play has been beaten into him by what he's had to deal with with the offensive line and really carrying so much of the burden of the offense having to move the ball. And so I really do think if they can fix the offensive line, give him some more easy buns, take some of the burden off. I do think that he can be a pretty damn good quarterback again. You think some of these bad habits and these bad tendencies that have crept in, you think these are things that can get fixed?

I think so. Because they're frustrating, but they are not, to me, inherent to who he was as a quarterback. And so that makes them really frustrating now. And maybe there is scar tissue that he never gets over. but like when he came into the league and when he was good, he wasn't a guy who dropped his eyes and ran all over inside of the pocket. And he wasn't a guy who was so panicky and letting, like not letting plays die. He used to be willing to do that.

He used to be able to throw the ball away. He used to be able to stand in his spot on the pocket. And so I really do think if they fix the offensive infrastructure and make him feel a little bit more safe and not like every single play, we have to get 30 yards here. I actually, I do think that he can go back to playing pretty good football again. I hope that's true. I've done a lot of thinking about it over the last couple weeks as we've watched him play this way. And I mean, it's no secret. Like I loved him after his rookie year. How could you not? He was awesome. And I think I've tried to be better about this. And I've looked at some of the guys I've pushed very hard, very quickly and wondered, okay, like, what was wrong with that process? And maybe why did I fall in love with those guys and think that they belonged in a different conversation than they might have? And I think that often. And this is a whole different discussion, right? Like, I think it's a discussion I want to have about Bo Nix at some point and about some

of these other guys. Like, how aesthetics play into what people like us want out of quarterbacks is a really interesting discussion. And I think with Stroud specifically, when I watched him play as a rookie, there were a lot of things aesthetically about the way that he played the position that were really attractive. And I think that just he's a beautiful throw. of the football. And that still is true in some of these moments. He made a throw against the Steelers where he's just the touch and the placement on like an outside the numbers throw from

him. He's still, it's as pretty as it is with anybody. And I think sometimes, and I won't speak for other people, sometimes I can overrate how important that is to what it is to be, to be a good quarterback and to play quarterback in the NFL down to down. But even if I was over indexing for some of that stuff and just seeing these like flat-footed, changing arm-angle throws in the pocket in my sleep after his rookie year, I still think he has devolved as a player from what he was then. It's not as if I was, it was a total mirage of what was happening then. Maybe we accelerated the conversation about him, but that player is not the player that we watched yesterday.

And for that to be the case where it's not, it's not like he didn't just develop it. and progress from where he was as a rookie, is that he's actively worse. That's just a spot that, to me, I walk away from that being afraid at the trend of where this is going and whether or not he can pull out of it. It's concerning, but again, I just,

he's so young and the highs were so high. And for him to be making mistakes that, again, to me, were not inherent to who he was. We're like, I look at some of the ups and downs that Baker made feel his head. Doesn't that make it scarier, though? The fact that they weren't inherent into who he is and now they exist.

Doesn't that make it more worrying? I mean, maybe, but I just feel like, to me, like, that's just, again, not how he, I don't know, I don't think that that's as scary. Like, I think if this continues for multiple years, then yeah, you probably chalk it. But I just, I do not feel like he came into the league with these issues. And I feel like it's been beaten into him so bad that if you can, again, to me, just fix the offensive line and environment that he's working with. I really don't think it's that crazy to get back.

can get him back to the spot that he was early on in his career. I hope you're right. And I don't disagree with you. I think when you watch things materially change around a quarterback, we can see them operate differently within the pocket. I mean, like the progress that we've seen from Sam Arnold over the last few years, like it can happen when you're put into better circumstances. And so I hope you're right.

And I think there's a chance you are right. I just, I don't know. But what I watched over the last couple weeks, I just find really, really worrying. And if they don't fix what's happening, up front. I just am concerned that we see this kind of continue at the rate that it's going. The last thing, we didn't really talk about this, the defense overall, I mean, obviously it's one of the best defenses in the league. If you had to think about, and I've got a couple of examples here, but just some of the tweaks you would make to the defensive roster heading into next year with some

of those available resources, where do you think the defense can get a little bit better and maybe a little bit deeper moving forward? I think to me it's just making sure you have insurance primarily off the edge. Like again, DeNeal Hunter is getting, is getting a little bit older. And then I would say just making sure, to me it really is just like depth along the front four. Like actually,

I think at linebacker, you're totally fine. The cornerback room, you're obviously pretty fine. Like, I mostly think it is to me just like making sure, because again, their front for the most part this year was like pretty healthy.

And so I think just making sure you have insurance there. That to me is the biggest thing. And Rankins and Barnett are both free agents. And so even your depth pieces from this year are guys that probably need to be replaced. Safety, I would say is another area where like you could one, probably have a new starter there and beef up the there that I'm at least willing to like if they wanted to play the string out there.

Because what was it, Jalen Reed like missed a lot of the scene. And I know he wasn't like a first round pick or anything like that. But I do think that they were excited about him and wanted him to play. So at least at that spot, I'm like willing to let them play out the string there if they wanted to. It's, I think just a lot of depth across the board. And again, when you have six picks in the first four rounds, I think you're pretty well equipped to build up. the depth in some of those areas, and it seems like they'll have opportunities to do that. All right, let's take one more quick break and then come back and chat a little Chicago Bears.

All right, let's dig into this. Chicago Bears heading into the offseason. Currently $4 million over the cap per over the cap. There are some ways that they can get around that. But overall, I think it's a good reminder that this is a team that has spent and not necessarily in the best ways. Grady Jared has a $19 million cap hit next year that you can't really. really get out of. Dio Dengbo has a $20 plus million cap at next year that you can't really get out of.

The two moves that when you look at the cap numbers for the players that I'd be most interested in how they're going to handle that. The DJ Moore conversation will be one that starts immediately after that play last night, but that's also been something that I think people paying attention to this team have been thinking about for a while. They would save $16 million dollars if DJ Moore has traded this offseason. The acquiring team, he has a $23 million base salary. So I don't think you're going to get much for him. I think this would be like a late round whatever. It would mostly be as a team willing to take on that money.

But if they do, you save $16 million against the cap for a team that does need to find some cost cutting moves somewhere along the way. And I think that they should because I just think like to me what makes this Bears seat like season and then moving forward like they are into me a similar boat with the Niners where like you lose this game. It sucks. But like you still feel pretty good about how this thing is going to move forward. and I know next year there's a couple of like regression candidates, stuff like them,

obviously with all the turnovers and stuff like that. But when you look at the foundation of the head coach, the quarterback, Colston Loveland, the offensive line mostly coming back intact, like I just feel like you feel so good about things moving forward. I think letting DJ Moore go, even if he's still like, he was a capable player for them for a lot of stretches of the season. I know there's been a lot of frustrations, but he was a capable player for them. I would still be okay, them moving on.

kind of replacing him with a lower tier vet. You give Luther Burgeon some more of those snaps and like just moving the offense forward that way. I don't feel like they have to be tied to DJ more, even if they think he can still be like a pretty useful player in the offense. I'm with you. I just think that it's hard to justify what he's going to cost for what sort of role he has within the offense. It's difficult to do that. I mean, there were games where he's getting three or four targets when everybody's healthy. And even there were stretches where Rome wasn't even playing and he was getting three or four targets.

And it's just hard to do that for a guy that I think is going to cost, like $28 million against the cap this year. The other one, and you and I have talked about this, Tremaine Edmins is a $17 million cap at next year. They save $15 million if they decide to move on from Tremaine Edmonds. I don't think Tremendman is a bad player. $17 million is a lot to pay a non-like superstar offball linebacker. And so I think that's at least something you talk about

if you're a team that doesn't have an overwhelming amount of resources. I don't think it would be that crazy. And like, I guess it would be in a tricky spot, like T.J. Edwards is getting a little bit older and he's been banged up pretty consistently. Yeah, that's that's part of the issue. And so then if you have that issue and then Tramade Edmids is gone. And like even if when they paid them, they were probably overpaying for the quality of play overall that they got from them, it's still a steep drop off to go from those two to whatever

you would probably be replacing them with. I do think if they wanted to do that, I would get it. But I think I would be perfectly okay if they just kind of played the string out with Tramade Edmins. Even if he has like some really, really frustrating moments, I do at least think like what he can give you in terms of coverage and in terms of his size does actually work well in that defense in Dennis Allen's defense. And I do think if the front play ahead of him is a little bit better. We saw at times when he was in Buffalo, like when the front play was really good, he triggers

a little bit faster and he will get into the backfield. That just obviously wasn't really the case this year with Chicago. So let's dig into that. That's obviously in my mind. That is the area of the roster that needs addressing. The problem is you've committed so. many resources to that position group specifically that what can you really spend, especially like in free agency on a player at those positions.

Like, again, you have a combination of sweat and O'Dangbo that against the cap next year are going to make like $48 million or something like that. And you've already paid for Grady Jarrett. And so where they seek out help there, I feel like that's just something where you take a couple bites at the draft, especially high in the draft. and you see if you can stumble into like a true high-end pass rusher as part of that process. Because I don't think this is a situation where it's going to be tempting to, oh, can you sign Trey Hendrickson or can you trade for Max Crosby? I'm just not sure I think you should be in the market to do either of those things or even if you could be.

They can't over leverage like that. Like I just don't think there's any reason to. And I would understand why some people would think that like you get so close this year. Like let's just make the move. But that feels really dangerous to me. I agree. That feels really, really dangerous to me, whereas, like, I actually take the opposite end where, kind of like I said at the top, when you have what feels like such a clear foundation in the

offense with the quarterback, you have a star tight end, like Roma Dunez is a good player, Luther Burden, solid, and the play calling head coach. I actually feel like it's okay if you take a breath and take like a little bit more of the slow approach, like with trying to rebuild this roster. And so on the defense, yeah, we don't have to go out and get a Max Crosby. Let's take a couple of swings, especially to, I actually think. Dennis Allen having multiple times been a head coach and probably not going to get a head coaching job anytime soon because of that works in their favor where I think now they actually have time

to take some of these defensive resources that they have and some of the capital and take some of these young players and build a defense that is like clearly in his image, which I actually think like you have such a clear vision moving forward for what they want to do there and they have some resources to do it. So I actually hope they don't over leverage themselves too hard into this offseason. If you go into next year, let's say you, use your first round pick on an edge rusher, just hypothetically. So then you'd go into next year. You'd have sweat.

O'Dangbo coming off a serious injury. I think that's obviously something to think about. We'll see what his health outlook is. You have Austin Booker as like a third depth piece plus whoever you drafted in the first round. And so you could go four deep at that spot. And the hope is that guy you draft high can become like a real difference maker for you.

On the interior, Dexter, you have Shamar Turner, who you drafted in the second round last year was but hurt for like a good majority of this season. So you have that those two plus Grady Jarrett. I think that's an area where you could also justify like if you love a guy early in the draft, I don't think the current makeup of that room should prevent you from doing anything there. But one like very important investment along the defensive line with draft capital this year, I think is worth is worth making it one of those two spots. I have a question for you. Obviously, I agree. They should focus a lot of their resources primarily up front. I think a lot of the issues that they had on defense trickled down from the front not

being very good. What do you do at corner this offseason? I honestly think. At the outside corner spot. Do you do anything? I don't think you have to, really. Really? I mean, well, let's see. We'll see what it ends up happening at that second outside corner spot. Because Tyreeks Stevenson is still under contract. And so if the, and then Terrell Smith, who I think had shown some flashes for them, was hurt all

year this year. And so if you roll into the season with Jalen Johnson and some combination of like Terrell Smith and Tyree Stevenson at the outside corner spots with Kyler Gordon coming back healthy, I think corner is a place where you might be okay. Safety is the more concerning one because

Brisker and Kevin Byard are both free agents. So what you do at safety to me is a much more pressing question and conversation than it is a corner. Why? How do you feel about it? I would like competition. Like I think Terrell Smith has been fine off the bench for them at certain points. I think Stevenson a little bit earlier in his career showed some moments,

but that feels to me like I would still want one more body there to really push the issue because it does feel to me like if the turnovers really don't start coming the way that they did this year, you really, really start to feel how weak they were at that position. And I think you're making some low, low probability bets in hoping that a lot of those guys just come back or bounce back. I think that's reasonable. when you say competition, do you mean like a big swing or a big investment or is this like a day two pick? Yeah, it's like a day two pick.

Like just get a little bit more juice in there. Like it doesn't, they don't have to go sign the second highest cornerback whoever is going to be in this market. It doesn't have to be that. I just would like another guy in the mix. I think just refreshing all of the positions you have on defense with some sort of like safety linebacker like anything. I am not in a place and I don't think any team should ever be in this place where, well, the offense is set. We're not going to do anything there. There are two things that I think need to be addressed or need to be at front of mind. Interior offensive line depth. Like Luke Newman was a guy

that drafted this year, but we talked about this. Offensive line health is probably not going to be where it was last season, trying to insulate yourself from that as much as possible. So trying to build up depth on the offensive line, I think should be a priority. And then the big question, this is the unfortunate question. If Tripillo doesn't get hurt and he doesn't get the specific injury, that he gets, you're going to roll into next season, depending on how you want to designate DJ more, with all 11 of your offensive starters back. Now, you have to plan for what left tackle has to look like in a world where he does not come back healthy. And so does that mean you sign like some sort of stopgap? Like, I was looking at free agent options available today. Like,

do you go out and try to get like a swing guy like Josh Jones and just say, all right, if it takes a month and a half, can we live with Josh Jones at left tackle? Again, that's just like a placeholder name. Kieran Amagaji, who they drafted in the third round a couple years ago, he was hurt for most of this season. So if you're in a place where, and I think Theo Benedid is a restricted rights, or is an exclusive rights free agent?

So he can be back if they want him to be. So is that enough where you don't have to address that? And you can kind of bide your time until Tripolo gets back. Like that's really the only unfortunate consideration that they now have on offense because of what that injury is and when that injury happened. I'm okay with them just trying to get by. If they really liked the commitment with Tripillo and really want him to be the guy and thought that he could really develop into that role, I think it's totally fine to just like take one more year of like, okay, we're going to sign some sort of stopgap. Even if it's just bringing Benedet back, we're going to get by for a couple of months if we have to and give Tripillo like eight weeks to prove like, okay, do we feel like we can go into next off season feeling like that's okay?

Like I think if they give him a little bit more time and they have to reassess this next off season, I think that's a totally acceptable way to handle this to me. I'm overall, this is famous last words, but I am overall kind of with you on just the general vibe and feeling at the end of this season. So many fans of teams look at their team at the end and think like, oh, we'll be back. You know, like this is the start of something. And it just never happens that way. But I do feel like when you look at the complexion of the offense, how young everything is and the quarterback specifically, I don't know if I've said this on the podcast. You and I have said it to each other a thousand different times. When I look at his overall development, Caleb Williams,

and the arc of his development, the thing it most reminds me of is Josh Allen. And when you look at Josh Allen from year one to year two, there, 2019 Josh Allen, I went there. I went to Buffalo to write a story about him at that point. And he was so much better than he was as a rookie. But he still was not a finished product. His footwork was still terrible that year.

He was kind of all over the place. And the accuracy specifically, and I remember talking to him about this, the accuracy in like the short to intermediate area of the field improved dramatically. It was so much better than it was when he was a rookie. But his deep ball accuracy that that second season was awful. Like it was really, really bad. And then by 2020, they bring in Stefan Diggs.

It all comes together. He becomes one of the best players in the league. You know, everybody celebrates. Ascribing that sort of three-year timeline to a lot of quarterbacks is a fool's errand because most quarterbacks are not as talented as Josh Allen. Well, the Bears quarterback is as talented as Josh Allen. And so, like, that sort of layout and that sort of timeline, he is one of the very few guys where you can tell yourself that type of story.

And I think he was better this year than Josh Allen was in year two. Yes. So I just think, I don't think you're telling yourself a story to believe that by year three, he can become something really special, even if there are still some shortcomings to his game that are worth thinking about or worth acknowledging. And he's tied to an offensive play caller

who kicks ass. Like that was not the case with some of these other teams that we've gotten really excited about. Like obviously everyone's going to go to Houston and Washington. Bobby Sloak was okay as a play caller that first year, but that offense ultimately

was like a middle of the pack offense and it was still a team that was carried by the defense and some flashes from the quarterback. Last year with Washington, the Cliff Kingsbury offense did some stuff, but we've seen with Cliff before, it can get off the ground hot, and then they kind of run into a little bit of an issue.

Like Cliff Kingsbury, even if he had some moments and has some stuff that he does well, not the same caliber of play caller as Ben Johnson. And then even more specifically with the Washington thing, that was a really old team and roster. Like, they were the oldest in the league, and they got a little bit lucky. That, like, I know some of the guys on the bears are old,

especially along their interior, but like, when you look at some of the core pieces, the quarterback, again, the tight end, you have a young receiver room, you have a young head coach. It just feels like this is a pretty firm foundation to me, even if some of what got them here, this year is going to come back down to earth.

I said it last night. Ben Johnson has been the architect and play caller for a team that is finished in the top five by weighted offensive DVOA each of the last four seasons. It's hard to do that. It's really hard to do that year over year. And he has shown an ability to do that. And so I am tempted to see it the same way,

where I think there are elements of what this team is that make them a little bit less susceptible to that sort of fall back to earth that's happened with some of these other teams that have been surprises. It's going to happen on defense, right? Like the defense needs to be better for you to overcome the turnover regression,

but I think on offense specifically, you can really convince yourself that the arrow is pointing up in such a way that maybe, again, they win the same amount of games next year or they're a 10-7 team, but they're a much better team than they were this year.

Like, I do think that is a possibility. If they're 10 and 7 and you feel like Caleb Williams is like 8th in success rate instead of being like below average and you're still getting new explosive, that's what you want. That's what you want. That's the thing. And that's when you look at him, it's, I've used like very vague terminology as we've talked about this before. Like the calibration is a little bit off and like it's things like that.

To me, it's the offense has been explosive but not consistent. And like that's how you have these. moments where they look, it's like a rocket ship half the time. And then the other half the time, they can't even get the thing out of the driveway. Like, it's because they're inconsistent and young. Like the explosiveness and the EPA per play and all of those sorts of numbers, those are going to be where you want them to be. That's the nature of the offense. But there just isn't like a steady heartbeat to the offense with the passing game specifically because of some of his accuracy issues, because it's a young team, because receivers are struggling at the catch point.

like there Ben Johnson said like 12 weeks into the season openly at a press conference the passing game is not good enough right now like that moment happened in the back half of the year for this team and I do think it can get there but to pretend that there aren't things that need to improve on that side there absolutely are in order for them to just be more consistent down to down than they were this year yeah and I'm again I think I'm kind of with you on like the Josh Allen timeline again maybe he doesn't reach those peaks but like I just with some of the progress we already saw. with how talented he is, it's very easy to buy in why he would. And the thing is he doesn't, I think obviously the comparison is going to be like, oh, well, look at what Jared Goffin did in Ben Johnson's offense and look at how efficient some of the true best quarterbacks in the league. Again, I think if he's eighth or ninth in success rate next year, like he doesn't have to be Jared Goff where you're at like 54% a handful of time. If he can just be like in that range and keep the explosives, that gets you to a spot that

you want to be with a player like him. Jared Goff is also in year five. Right, exactly. By the time that offense was good in Detroit. Like it's this is year two of a guy that they had to like completely tear down and build back up from scratch. And I think by the end of the season, you could feel pretty good about where they were. Last thing before we get out of here, got some breaking news. Do we?

Jeff Halfley is the new head coach of the Miami Dolphins. I think my initial reaction is me. Like I don't think that he's a bad coach. I just did not to me feel like the caliber of play caller or some of the other defensive guys that I got really excited. about. But I totally under, it is funny that Miami is doing the thing of like, we have this young hot shot super offensive play caller and then they want to go the other way with a guy who is, even if at the college level, like been a head coach before, obviously called like a decent defense with the Packers. So I, I think this is fine, but I'm not like terribly jazzed about

it either way. I don't think he's the level of like defensive coach that maybe somebody like Jesse Minter has been, even though I do think that Jeff Hathley's done a good job. over the last couple years. I think that he's there, especially in 20, I think before the Parsons, like injury this year, I did like a lot of things

they were doing on defense. I thought he did a very good job in 2024, even with some of their personnel deficiencies. What I think makes Jeff Halfley well suited to this sort of gig is that you're overseeing, like, what is going to be a rebuild,

right? Like, this is a team that's going to take a, they're going to have to take a lot of medicine this year. We'll see what happens with two. I assume they move on from him. This is a roster that is very much in transition, very much in flux. They're going to have to do a very intentional job over the last couple years.

Going from the model that they had under Greer to a Packer-centric model is about as much of a left turn as you can take when it comes to a team-building philosophies in the NFL. The Dolphins made fewer draft picks or were in the bottom three than like any team in football over the last three to four years. the Packers are never going to be that sort of team. The Packers are like draft and develop organization. That is who they want to be. And so that's, I think, what you're going to see with the Dolphins, but that has not been the case. And so I think you're going to see like a pretty patient, methodical approach

to adding talent to the roster over the next couple years. It's not going to be some overnight fix. And I do think that Jeff Hathley, personality-wise, with a lot of the other kind of quieter elements of the job, I do think that he is potentially well suited for what is going to be kind of a rough start to this thing. And what I'll say too is like I think from our position, it's easy to get very caught up in like just the play calling stuff. One, that's not the entire position like you're talking about. Like there's a lot of other considerations.

And this to me feels actually a little bit like the Kellyn Moore higher last year where Kellyn Moore purely as a play caller is like a B minus to me. I don't think he's special, but I think he gets you over the line. And that to me is kind of how I felt about Halfle's time in Green Bay. But then if you are that on top of some of the other quieter stuff that we don't necessarily get to see on the field, I think if you can piece that stuff together, especially like you said, going into a rebuild, similar to what the Saints were going to have to do. I do think that he could be nice. This to me was just like, I think when I thought of all the like super defensive hires that could go in this cycle, he was not one of the first ones that I thought was going to go. And obviously there's a natural connection with Jeter, Xolvin, who's their head coach, who's their general manager now, was just in Greenback.

Right. And so those two guys know each other. You have alignment with those two sides of the building. I heard that he was impressive during their head coach interviews, like the new GM. Like this is somebody that inspires confidence for whoever was going to get that job. And so I think in a lot of ways, this was a pretty natural fit, even if it might not be the most exciting name, like from an X's and O's perspective of the guys available in this cycle. I'm sure we'll have plenty more time to dig into that. We're going to have another kind of coaching roundup show in the middle. of this week. We'll talk about Stefansky, Jeff Obrick staying there. Drew Petting is now the Lions Offensive Coordinator. This stuff is just going to keep rolling in over the next couple

days. And so we're going to spend an hour on Wednesday into Thursday just scooping up all of the coaching stuff that has come out really since the last time we hit it. So that is coming later in the week. Encourage you guys to check that out. For now, that is all we've got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.