The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Lions-Chiefs thoughts, Joe Burrow's contract, future power rankings, Week 1 picks, and more

Episode Date: September 9, 2023

Mike Sando and Randy Mueller take you into the weekend with the Week 1 edition of The Football GM. The guys discuss the Lions' 21-20 win over the Chiefs, Chris Jones' ongoing holdout, and Joe Burrow's new contract. They unveil their future power rankings and make some picks for Week 1, as well.Follow Sando on X: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on X: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeThis episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/MAYS and get on your way to being your best self.This episode is sponsored by Sleep Number®: Save $400 on the New Sleep Number® c4 smart bed. Plus, special financing for a limited time. Only at Sleep Number® stores or sleepnumber.com. Sleep Number. The Official Sleep and Wellness Partner of the National Football League. See store for details.Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/mays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome everybody to the Football GM podcast, 2003. NFL regular season edition. Mike Sando here from The Athletic along with the GM, the athletics GM, Randy Mueller. Randy, we're one game in, Detroit Lions 1 and 0, Kansas City Chiefs, O and 1. Tons of stuff to talk about as the season gets going this weekend. Glad to be back, aren't we? Yeah, very glad, like I say all the time, the key still works.

And they've had us back for another season. This is season three for us, right? I think it is. Yeah, I think it really is. And we're in a new slot here recording this to go live on Saturdays, which is different for us, but good for us. Really, I like it. I like having a little more time to digest and think about things.

How about you? Yeah, I'm good with it. I think that during the week, a lot of things happen. And I don't think the folks will be surprised to know. We do record on Friday, depending on when and where the time. fits, but then it comes out on Saturday. So it's a pretty good download of a week's worth of information that I think people will find, you know, interesting and a little different than what they get around the dial. Absolutely. Some different perspectives, a little bit of time to

marinate. We're really close to the games, too, so we can look ahead to a couple of those. We will bring back the picks segment. People can hardly wait for that, Mike. They're just, they're not going to be able to, they're probably fast forwarding to the end of the show right now. No, I think what's happened is a lot of our listeners have done so well gambling off of our recommendations that they are now retired and have a lot of time to listen to podcasts. So we are, we should probably even have more people coming on board. I should go back and look and see just how many games above 500 we were against the spread. I mean, it had to be dozens and dozens of games.

I'll tell you what, we make fun of ourselves, but we've been on roles a time or two, maybe individually or like any other, you know, gaming. prediction, they're not going to all be right. But we've had our days, that's for sure. I always tell Randy, like, you know, Randy's a humble guy, when he writes his columns, he's got this self-deprecating way where he's like, yeah, you know,

this and such and such will get you a Starbucks at the corner. And I, like, Randy, the pennies that fell out of your pocket are gold to the rest of us, okay? Just remember that. All the little insights into the league, how it actually works, the little phrases, the phraseology.

That's the stuff that I eat up. It's not like talking to an executive in the NFL. It's actually talking to one. So I love that component of it. That's what I really love when I go to training camps, just talking to people that are in and around the game and have the type of experience that you can only get from being on the inside. So let's start, stop talking about ourselves.

Let's start talking about football. Lions 21, Chiefs 20, Chiefs Receivers, Zero. What do you think, Mueller? Well, obviously, that's the hot topic, right? And I heard Andy Reid, the coach of the chiefs last week, say, we need our no-name receivers to step up like they have in the past. And he referred to no-name guys two or three times in this interview. I think it was with Rich Eisen on NFL Network. And I was thinking this morning, those no-name guys might become new-name guys if this continues.

So, yeah, that was disappointing. I'll say this. The takeaway should be Detroit was up to the task. They handled the crowd. They handled the environment. You know, Mike. I mean, I spent 27 years in the AFC West. I know how hard it is to go to Kansas City.

Trust me. I don't care who's playing. I don't care who's playing. From the minute you get on the bus at the hotel. Yeah. And so it's a hard place to play. And I thought the Lions handled it. They handled it with expertise, with poise, with pressure not bothering them.

And then I was even impressed after the game with the way Dan Campbell handled the post game press conference. He was very matter of fact. He wasn't raw, raw, beating his chest. You know, we're coming, we're here, none of that. It was very professional. And I think he realizes this is one of 17. And his team, like he said, just confirmed validity as to what he thought they were.

So I was impressed with the Lions throughout the whole process. Now, having said that, obviously we know the Chiefs didn't have their best players. They didn't have their second best player, didn't have their third best player. And the game turned on one play. But that's the way the NFL is. It is always a do-without. We've got to make the best of it this week because injuries aren't, you know, it's not if it's just when they're going to happen.

And circumstances change your dynamics of your roster every week. So there was a lot of things to take away. I don't know what your thoughts were, but I'm trying to give the Lions as much credit as I can't. Well, it's a signature win under Dan Campbell. You know, and you look for those along the way. I don't care if about the receivers are hinged on this or that, a Kelsey didn't play. I mean, that stuff, of course. We don't think the Lions are better than the Chiefs, okay?

If everyone, if they play 10 times and the chiefs have all their guns, we're taking the chiefs to win eight times. That's fine. It's not what it's about. It's about the fact that they went on the road and controlled what they could control in a very difficult environment with the whole country watching after an off season of a lot of hype. And when there's expectations put upon you, how do you handle that, right? I thought everybody was poised. Jared Goff was poised. Campbell was poised.

this was Detroit's just statistically third best defensive game in 18 games dating with start of last season. I think that's significant because you can see. Patrick Mahomes is a magician. I mean, even being short-handed, he can just about win the game anyway, running around, making pinpoint passes. So that's a, to beat Mahomes, I don't care if there's no one else out there with them. That's something.

If you look at signature wins potentially in the past, yeah, they've, they've, The Lions have beat Green Bay a couple times, but I don't know. In the division, that's a little different. I don't know if you get signature wins in the division. Teams beat their division rivals. Campbell had been 4, 11, and 1 versus teams that went to the playoffs the previous year were coming off a playoff year. And all of the three previous wins against those playoff teams were against the Packers.

So this is different. This is going and beating Kansas City. on the road, I really like that. So I think you have to give them credit fully for the win. Now, as for the Chiefs, what I wanted to ask you was, you know, you're obviously they're not going to panic. But if you're the GM there, you've been dealt a couple things in the last few days. Number one, the Travis Kelsey injury changes the dynamic of your team. And he could miss weeks.

I mean, who knows? So if Kelsey had played and a ball went off of receiver's hands and was returned, I think he'd just go on to next week. And maybe that's what they do. But I was just thinking in the back line line, if you're going to miss Kelsey, hey, Mike Evans is out there complaining about his contract situation with the Bucks. Seems like he'd look pretty good in a Chiefs uniform if we're playing fantasy football.

At the same time, they probably have four or five weeks to assess where they're at at the position and maybe Cadarious Tony's going to be fine, maybe young guys are going to be fine. What's your thought on that in terms of, you know, adding to the group or feeling like you need to assess it? I think this is a great analysis of why we play the games, but also why we do things on paper and then adjust when the season starts. Every week, things change. Like you said, Kelsey gets hurt two days ago.

Nobody knows if he's going to play. Kelsey is the focal point of their offense. I understand Pat Mahom is the best player in the league. I get it. But Kelsey, you can call him a tight end if you want. He's really a receiver. And he's their most vital weapon and target and the guy that they go to all the time. They don't have a replacement for that.

So there's a lot of ways to do that. Now, the attention came to the receivers when they didn't step up. They've got several receivers that are pretty good B players or a C plus player. Nobody that's really going to jump and take Travis Kelsey's place. You can fill in with a bunch of those guys, but you bring up a great point. Now you have to assess where you're going for the next month. You can't have this kind of performance for a month. You can probably only have it maybe one more week and then your margin for error is gone.

So if I'm the chiefs now, I don't know about Mike Evans because they assessed their team and they weren't willing to pay, say for DeAndre Hopkins or somebody like that who was available. Now, that changes because Kelsey's not in the mix, but I don't know that they would have money to pay for a Mike Evans or something like that. Mike Evans is 30, and I understand he would be a rental, but you'd have to give compensation and then probably give him something to make him happy. I don't know that that's going to happen. But I could see them kind of reassessing now and finding a veteran who is maybe on another team's practice squad. You know, maybe it's a Marquez Callaway who was with Denver Allcamp and now on the Raiders practice squad or a Jameson Crowder who's. now with the commanders or even somebody they've had in a past.

And I even thought about a guy like Josh Gordon, who was there a couple years ago, who played in the XFL, was very productive in the XFL, who we had in Seattle. I'd have no problem bringing Josh Gordon in because I know he can do some of the things those guys were missing last night. And what I think they were missing was, maybe you're going to ask me this, but Tony, Skymore, Those guys are explosive athletes really fast, can stretch the defense and make you miss with the ball in their hands all the time. The problem is their catching radius doesn't match up. And we saw that last night. They aren't guys that can catch outside of their frame.

They aren't guys that can make the adjustments per se or catch when they're covered. I feel like Kelsey gives them an option that even when he's covered, he's open. So they might need a, and you mentioned it, Mike Evans might be a bigger option. Hopkins, a bigger body, somebody like Josh Gordon, a bigger body who can catch when he's covered, and that way Mahomes always knows where they're at and can throw it even when there's little dbs on them. I find that is probably the one missing link for people when they look at receiving skills and when you build your team. Everybody looks for fast guys. Nobody loves fast guys more than I do. I get it. But the art of catching when you're covered is something that I think is under the radar

are and should be part of everybody's criteria because guess what happens in the NFL? They cover you. The defensive backs are good. Defensive coaches are good. They cover you. And what can you do when you when you're covered? You can't. And again, we had drops last night. Well, guys weren't even covered. But still, I think the point is when we're trying to replace Kelsey, that is a guy who catches when he's covered, gets all the 50-50 balls, no problem at all, having confidence that he's going to come down with the ball. That's the element I could see them. adjusting. I don't know that they're going to get a veteran off another team at this point or make a trade, but I could see them adding somebody to the mix from another team's practice squad or adding

a veteran who has not signed somewhere to their practice squad. Yeah, it's interesting what you said made me think about, you know, having different types of wide receivers on your roster. And obviously, they didn't know they're going to lose Kelsey, but, you know, it gets serious in a hurry here. They're playing at Jacksonville next week. So, yeah, that's a game that could have implications for playoff seating. Who knows. I mean, Jacksville could have a really good year. And they do get extra time. You better have a security blanket from homes, Mike, because they're going to come after you. And we've said, they're going to come hard. They've got really good rushers. And they need a Kelsey option for sure, more than they had last night.

Not to interrupt. I apologize. Yeah, no, I want to hear it. A couple tied-ins that they played last night, I just don't know if they're good enough. That was a part to me that they kind of, they really fell off. And you're going to always fall off from a pro-bowl guy like Kelsey, but they may have to look there as a replacement or like I say a bigger slot guy or somebody that fits the bill there. So it's a different type of criteria you're filling to replace a Kelsey than you were when you were building the team. And that's what I think makes good GMs, good head coaches, because they can fix stuff that happens during the season. And I'll be honest with you. Shit happens every week.

You've got to fix it. Hey, do you think the Jaguars will have a good bead, a good read on Jamon Taylor, the tackle for the chief who was lining up all over the place except on the line of scrimmage last night? because he came from there. I bet you they got a good plan for him. Yep. We're getting ahead of ourselves, but you're right. That game's already got me a little bit intrigued. And you bring up the point of Juan Taylor and what he was allowed to get away with last night. That's embarrassing for the league. I'll be honest with. That's disappointing for the league to allow that. And I know we talked about it before the show, the officials that they use in the box upstairs to analyze the rules and all that. Even they thought it was a bad job last night of allowing that to happen. So that stuff,

shouldn't happen. You've got to cut that off right away. And it involves the integrity of the game when he allowed to go four quarters. And then they call it in the fourth quarter, of course. I mean, hilarious how much. You always see guys cheat back, but I mean, I thought, geez, was this a running back there? You know, someone, I think they joked. Do they joke on the broadcast? He was lining up in the slot. Did somebody say that? Well, it's funny. He said his helmet has to be in the midline of the center. He wasn't even in the midline of the guard, who was two feet behind him. I think I saw his right leg one time three and a half yards off the ball. I mean, that's crazy. I bet you we could go into the NGS tracking thing and see where his thing was. If it's precise

enough, you would say how far this guy's lined up behind the ball. I mean, it had to be unbelievable. Yeah. Messed up. Anyway, we got sidetracked. Sorry. No, that's great. But so before, I know you wanted to talk about Chris Jones, too, which I think I do too. But, you know, the thing that I think what we saw last night. And like we said, that they were really surprised two days before the game to lose Kelsey. It's hard to change your whole game plan. With 10 days, they're going to be much better prepared. Those guys will play better.

They'll have a better plan. I think Andy Reed with time to prepare is the best. That's why we always hear about his record starting the year, his record coming off bys, but at the last minute to lose the one guy you had to have, other than Mahomes, on offense, you know, and then to have the brakes go, the absolute worst possible thing,

to have it not only guys dropping the ball, but have it be picked sixth. That really changed the game. I think the Chiefs win the game without the pick six. Yeah. Probably just hold on and grind it out. But these quarterbacks, even when they're great, they do need a baseline level of weaponry to play well.

And I think for Tom Brady, we used to see that with Grunkowski. You know, when Rob Grankowski would go out of the game sometimes, unless they really had a high level, Edelman, or somebody else who was really kind of a blue-type receiver, it could look bad, surprisingly bad for being Tom Brady. So Mahomes gives you the ability to scramble for eight yards on third and seven and drive you crazy with incredible throws. Yeah, but we saw how hard it can get if you don't have a certain level at that. Now, Chris Jones, I think you put in our notes here, elephant in the room.

Chris Jones, pretty good performance by the chiefs on defense, but what do you want to talk about there? Well, I just, you know, I heard some of the reaction or saw some of the reaction on Twitter last night. You know how the chiefs are desperate now and they're going to have to change their plan with what to do with Chris Jones. And I even get asked this on radio shows sometimes throughout the week. And I know you chuckle at this as well where they just got to pay them. That's what the host would say. They just got to pay them. Hey, we all want paid more money.

That doesn't mean our boss is going to just pay us whatever we want. And so I guarantee you the chiefs aren't going to do an about face just because they lost one game. I expect them to give him the same offer that they gave him last week. If you were going to up your offer, you would have done that already so that he doesn't miss games. The hard part about these, and I've been through them, you've covered some of them. These holdouts that go into the season, they get really nasty because there's not a lot of ways to save the day. There's not a lot of ways to throw a life preserver because you've spent everything you can in hope that this guy won't miss time. his leverage is not going to change. No matter what happens to the chiefs, the leverage is not going to

change and all of a sudden favor Chris Jones and that they're going to pay him. I just think he's going to have to eventually take what they offer and I don't know why you'd want to reset the market. But here's the key that we have to keep in mind as fans. We don't really know what they've offered. We don't know the exact numbers. We think where this deal should come in is at an average of 26, 27 million, something like that, just behind Aaron Donald. I haven't heard any numbers that exceed that and all I heard is rumors about how he wants to reset the market. So I think we need to be fair to the process. But at some point, Chris asked to understand as well, Pat Mahomes is playing for a little less than market. Kelsey's playing for a little less than market so that they can

acquire more players. It's going to be really hard for the chiefs to acquiesce and pay this guy north of 30 million. So I just don't see that happening. And he lost real money last night for the first time. Obviously, his fines totaled over $2 million. We've figured that out on the show in the past, but he lost over a million dollars in salary last night. It's not coming back. He's not going to get that back. How about the fact, too, that he's under contract next season to the team, right? So that's a big component of this, too. How do you feel about that as a GM, you know, when obviously guys are going to come to when their contract gets out of whack with the market. But when you have a whole year left, and we're not talking about a quarterback, I think a quarterback has a different level.

of planning needed. But how would that factor in for you with a player like this, who is important to your defense? He's a great player. He really is a great player. Would you be reluctant to go down that road? We've talked about that a little bit with Jonathan Taylor. He's got time left on his deal. He's not a franchise player. No. And this guy, it totally sets kind of where we're willing to go because the fact that he does have another year. I think if it were different, if he was entering the last year of a deal. You could understand some of the leverage points that I'm sure his camp is using. But you're not going to take this guy having a year left and a franchise tag and reset the market with him. It's just not going to happen. But I say that. And the chiefs value Chris Jones. They want to

pay him. They're just not going to pay him what he wants. So there has to be a settling point in between. I know this. If you ask, and it took forever, but Levion Bell finally came out and expressed regret. You remember the Joey Galloway long holdout we had in Seattle, late 90s. We ended up at some point trading him to Dallas. I bet he has the same regret. Everybody that goes through these holdouts that extend into the season have regret. And it's just a matter of when you want to call off the jam to use the old roller derby term. At some point, the jam has to be called off.

And we have to take what we can get because this is the system we're using. It's not always fair. But I know this. The chiefs are offering a lot of money. It is a giant raise for him. And it should make sense at some point. The money's just not going to change. They're not going to all of a sudden wake up week seven and say, gosh, Chris lost $7 million. Let's tax seven more million dollars on to our offer. I know. That's a hard thing to make up. It really is a hard thing to make up. That's why I'm saying these things get ugly and then they get personal and then all of a sudden there's a regret. And it's just a matter of how long this is going to go before everybody regrets it. And really it's on Chris. aside because he has time left on his deal and the chiefs don't have to extend now, but they're doing this because of all the value they see with Chris Jones. You know, not to steal from the Gionopacro, I would say this even sucks, and we'll get to that a little bit later.

Yeah, we'll get to that. Teasing to that a little bit later. Hey, speaking of big money and taking care of a great player, a really great player, Joe Burrow and the Bengals reached agreement last night kind of when we were putting the final touches on our little future franchise power rankings, which we'll talk about next. What do you think of that? Joe Burrow. Well, it wasn't if, it was just when. I'm not surprised by any of it. I mean, they, I think even the Bengals who are known for being frugal knew they were going to have to pay Joe. Everybody knew he was going to be the highest paid in the history of the league just because the way timing works out with these things.

I'll say this, Joe Burrow has changed the way we all view the Bengals. So he is a one-man rebranding in my opinion. They were nowhere before. They'd probably be not nearly as far surely without. So I just think it was going to happen. Success and prosperity are the thing though, right? When they come, they're expensive and everybody deals with them different. It's going to be interesting for me how they handle this semi-newfound love that they get now because they've won a lot of games and deservingly so, but the spotlight is eventually going to shift to them building out the rest of their team. I love the fact that they rewarded Joe, Ohio guy. Talk about a match made in heaven. I mean, there's really no reason not to. Nobody has questions about this kid's skill set now. So to me,

it sounds like a no-brainer that just happened to get done before he ever laced them up again, which I think is smart on his part. Yeah, you know, the Bengals do get really tired of hearing about their cheap legacy. It's there. I mean, we're not going to be. We're not. going to say it's not, but I do give them, you know, some credit here, not just on this deal, but in recent years. I think they have gotten a little defiant about, you know, hearing about it, hey, we don't need the largest staff, that sort of thing. And they have added some really good value pieces in free agency lately. I think they've done a really good job of, hey, you don't have to sign the highest-priced guy, but sign guys, Trey Hendrickson, some of the DBs they've gotten

over those recent years who really fit what you want to do and then maximize them. on the field, coach them, develop them. I think they've done a really nice job. Now the borough one is done and let's face it. I mean, we say we knew it was going to get done and all of that, but this could have gotten sideways too. If his agent or had tried to really hold them over a barrel more and try to get some sort of, you know, watershed contract that was the first to do this or that, because it would be really easy to paint the Bengals as a team unwilling to take care of him. If you were the for him, you could really turn to screws on this thing. Agents have tried to do that for years with Cincinnati by just all of a sudden

blaming him without even negotiating. He had that even negotiating. So I think it's really good that that didn't happen. And I do like, you know, Katie Blackburn and, you know, being, being sort of the, Mike Brown's obviously there, but Katie Blackburn. Katie's Mike's daughter, his daughter is basically running the team. And I think doing a good job with it. And so this is, I think, just a really good sign that there's a great partnership between the two now.

And now we'll see. They have Jamar Chase coming up next two. And he's going to have a case probably to go to the top or, you know, very near or at the top of the wide receiver market. And that will be interesting because you can only have so many of those guys at the top. And it gets harder as you go along, not just from a cash standpoint, but from a cap standpoint as well. I guess the cash standpoint we should mention here, Randy, because we always hear about these teams having to take the guaranteed money and put it in escrow. You know, and that becomes a sort of an excuse or a deterrent to signing too many guys to

deals with fully guaranteed money. But that's the deal. If you have full guarantees, the player's going to get the money no matter what, you have to put that in the bank. You have to put that in escrow. That costs you real cash now, even if the payment isn't going to the player until years down the road. So that's kind of an interesting part of this, too, that affects all the teams.

And I think we've seen it affects maybe these family run teams more than others. The Brown family is, I'm sure, well off. But they didn't come into this with, you know, David Tepper money or Walmart money. They're in a little bit of a different category. We've seen them sell the naming rights to Paul Brown Stadium. You know, that was something that they kind of resisted for a long time. But they're in this world now where everyone, who buys into the league now is buying teams for $5 billion, $6 billion.

And so the cash component of this is a factor. And that's a big chunk of cash for Joe Burrow. And it's going to be big for Jamar Chase. And this is a little bit of a evolving world. Yeah, there's no doubt. You mentioned the, and I think others I've heard call the funding of these guaranteed contracts archaic. And that they speak out like that should change. so it doesn't cause owners to have to do this, but I got news for you.

Owners aren't going to change that. They like the idea of this being a deterrent. They want that to still be there because that is a great reason to push back on guarantees. Hey, we can't give guarantees because we've got to fund all these guarantees. It's like money out of our pocket right now, even though it's not paid for five years. So I don't think that rule is going to change. But in this case, I think it's well worth it. here's the more of a feel-good spin even as we've already said it's a feel-good story isn't joe

bro the perfect guy to partner with and you just said it they've got a partnership with him now he's the perfect guy right because he's not going to he's not going to be on mackafee every tuesday he's not going to restate the the uh the whole team's needs the whole team's position on everything in the media he's matter of fact he's a man of few words he's going to be a great team's team guy for a messenger for the narrative that the club wants going forward. So I think it's an easy partnership to make without a lot of risk. Now, the medical part is always an issue, right? Like you said, the guarantees have to be funded if they're guaranteed for skill and injury. And in Joe's case, the risk is injury. Some of that is self-inflicted because they haven't protected him the best.

But that would be my only concern with this is we've got to find a way and keep finding ways to keep him upright. That is the only concern. You know, when I talk to people around the league about Joe Burrow, that's the only thing they really have a concern about is I'm afraid is, you know, his career is going to be a little bit shorter because of the hits he takes. And he should be fine through the length of this deal, but that is a consideration to watch for them, not just for a protection standpoint, but how he protects himself. He will stand in there. That too. Yep. He's tough. To a fault. He's not the biggest guy. You know, he's not undersized. His height, weights fine, but he just, some guys are.

built a little differently than others and he's not true blood so standing back there, you know? Right. No, I agree. And I think the more his body matures, he's going to add some meat to those bones per se. But yeah, they still have to always have on the front burner tackles, especially that can keep people off this guy's back because he is the franchise. All right. Speaking of franchises, the future power rankings debuted for, uh, are.

collaboration. I think I did this with a different crew at the athletic maybe about three years ago, where you try to look at kind of the fundamentals of each franchise, maybe having somebody like Joe Burrow, you know, maybe having, you know, taking into consideration who the head coach is, the GM ownership, that sort of a thing, to kind of project how good we feel about teams, not just this season, but more like three years from now. So today, we published that future power rankings at The Athletic, Randy Mueller and I, you know, worked on that the last several days. And basically, things can change really quick in the league, right, Randy, over a three-year period, Jacksonville's gone from promising to Urban Meyer to back to life,

looking like a, you know, if you would have said, tried to guess three years ago where Jacksonville would be, it would be different than where it is now. So things, some of these things are going to change, but we do the best we can to look at these teams and say, hey, how do the fundamentals line up? So in talking to you and just talking this through, we looked at quarterback head coach, front office, and ownership in that order. That was kind of the order, and I think it makes sense. Yeah, it was a fun exercise, to be honest with you. I think what I would beg our readers to do is read the criteria first before you criticize too much of what we did. And we're not saying that we aren't without approach.

I mean, we thought through these. And I think the good thing we were able to do is we spent a lot of time breaking down those categories. that you just mentioned, Mike, what makes a good owner, what makes a quarterback, what the contract value is and how long will he play? Can front offices evaluate and value players, which are totally different as you and I both know? I would just like for the readers to understand the criteria, and this is a three-year window. It's going to have some recency bias. There's no doubt we're all human. But it's supposed to be a look over the next three years as to where we're going to be and where we're going to go. And sometimes, as we all know, the best predictor of the future is history.

And sometimes we're a little skeptical because of that. And sometimes we're overly, you know, optimistic because of that. But there's a lot of things that we took into account. It'd be interesting to see what people say. And I'm sure we'll hear about it. Probably more negative than positive. But that's all. I know. Well, I think people enjoy. of these types of things through, of course, fans who, you know, sometimes few things through the lens of being a fan of the team, and that's fine. I mean, I'm glad everybody's engaged. I think it was a fun project, you know, it was fun to, I liked, to me, these are learning exercises for me. Like, you were higher than I was on the Giants, for example, because your evaluation

in Daniel Jones is more positive than it is than a lot of others are, which is helpful for me to know. I take that into consideration because you have got great admiration for your evaluation of quarterbacks. The track record speaks for itself. There were some teams that just didn't fit into a category that well. I mean, we talked a lot about Cleveland, Washington, the Chargers. Think of a team like the Chargers who have this really good quarterback, but we have concerns about the rest of the organization. Just looking at the track record, I pointed out in the piece, Chargers haven't won a division title since 2009, and they've had Philip Rivers and Justin Herbert like the whole time. So that's, doesn't, there's not a lot of teams like

that fits in a different spot. So in the end, I think Randy came up with, you know, maybe the stock market type language to where we had three teams we put in the blue chip category, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Buffalo, sort of checking the most important boxes. Had some concerns about, I'm sorry, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and Buffalo. We had some little bit of, I wouldn't say concerns on Buffalo, but some things we discussed there. we thought about putting Cincinnati in there because we do like Joe Burrow. We do like what they're really doing with their franchise. We just wanted to see a little bit more time go by in terms of their organization

handling all of this business. It's a prosperity, yeah. Yeah, handling the prosperity. But we put them in a category by themselves, kind of the next level, which is to use a stock terminology, kind of a value stock. Maybe they're a little bit more valuable than where we're putting them, and we'll see where that goes. We created a category called preferred stock. You see some sort of stalwart teams in there like Pittsburgh and Seattle, a few others.

Green Bay is one of those we're going to talk about. We really debated where to put them, and we ended up putting them in the preferred category, despite Aaron Rogers leaving. I'm going to ask you about that in a minute. We had a growth stock category. We ended up putting Detroit in there. Jacksonville, Giants are in there. I think the interesting category was a cyclical.

teams. So, you know, there's some teams in there like the Rams or Miami, the Jets, Cleveland, Tampa. These teams have some high highs and low lows. Maybe their highs are higher than some of the teams in the common stock category that's next. But their lows might be lower too. So those are interesting teams. They might win a Super Bowl or go bust trying. And we're seeing that. And are willing to do that. Yeah, are willing to do that. Like the Rams. Not everybody's willing to do that. Tampa Bay has been. terrible and they've won the Super Bowl. So I think those are some interesting teams. The common stock category had a little bit of a bigger bucket. We did put Dallas in there, New England, some others, you can read the piece to see that. I thought the IPO category was interesting. Teams, largely teams with, you know, rookie quarterbacks that are speculative in nature. And so we debated who to put in there. Ended up throwing Washington in there. I don't know if the fit was exactly right on that. But you can read the explanation.

We also put in the records, one-lost records for the quarterback, or for the head coach, the owner, the GM. It's kind of fun to look at that. We had a penny stock category at the bottom, and, you know, there's some teams in there that have been struggling. I noticed afterwards, Randall we put Houston in there with Arizona and even the Raiders. Raiders, by the way, two winning seasons in the last 20 years. But Houston could be maybe in that IPO category, too, with the young quarterback ready to go. So we'll see if they can overcome a lot of the turmoil. they've had there.

Might I just add the IPO category is fascinating because it is betting on some initial stock offerings, but the fans of those teams might end up getting an IPA category from watching these guys before they get there. That's pretty good. There's a little difference there. When I see IPO, all of a sudden think, they could be IPA teams as well. I was taking a sip at that time. I drink here is not an IPA.

I've got my standard diet, Dr. Pepper going right now. But yeah, if you watch a lot of these rookie quarterbacks, you'll be having a couple IPAs too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More of a locker guy myself. I would have an IPA. So let's hit on a few of the teams we differ on a little here or discuss the most.

I did not really know what to do with Green Bay post Aaron Rogers. And maybe I overvalue how much Favre and Rogers, Brett Favrevin Rogers, have met and played into the winning equation there for decades. I've been a little cynical about. Green Bay, just, hey, you guys have been living a life that no one else lives because you have these magic quarterbacks for all this time. It's charmed. There's no doubt. They've been charmed.

Yeah. So it seemed natural to me, at least, to think, hey, the Packers now are going to go the way of the Patriots. They're going to be just another team, common stock Patriots 500 ball club since Tom Brady retired, even with Bill Belichick. But you advocated for keeping Green Bay higher than that and made a case for keeping them in the preferred stock category with teams like Pittsburgh, Seattle that just keep winning, almost no matter what. What makes you so confident in Green Bay? Well, a couple things.

And let me just make one point before I answer the Green Bay part of it. This exercise was as much about putting teams in buckets and groups as it was in ranking them. So it may not be the same as a ranking per se, but we put these teams in these groups because of the definition of what we had used with these stock terms. So there's more to it. It's not really a one through 32 list. Having said that, I think, and it's just my opinion, I think Green Bay has a really talented roster. I think the only thing holding them back on defense is maybe Joe Barry, the defense coordinator, putting it all together for those guys. I think they have depth. I think they've got a lot of rushers. I think they've got guys that are hard to block up front. And I actually

You think offensively, they have a better chance with Matt Lefleur to run his system now than they did when Aaron Rogers was there. And I always go back to the fact that they would not have drafted Jordan Love had they had a warm and fuzzy feeling about Rogers. Because you remember, he had a couple off years, and I felt like he was kind of mailing him in. They celebrated to get Jordan Love. So I think they handpicked this guy for a reason. Now, having said that, he's still got to play. He's got a really good baseline, though, of three years of service in kind of as an apprentice. And now he's behind the driver's wheel where he'd been riding passengers.

So, yes, it is connecting dots. It is moving them up. I just like the, I think Brian Goodikist is a good evaluator, and I think he's got some pretty good team-building principles. And so I felt better about them than I did the exit of Aaron Rogers. That would be very good news for Packers fans, who I think are excited. to have the recent Rogers drama behind them. It's got tiresome. I mean, it's just...

And maybe I'm biased because I've run teams before, and that would drive me nuts. Yes. No, yeah. Well, that's a component of it, though. I mean, it does affect your organization. No doubt. And it wasn't like, you know, hey, when he won the two MVPs, you just ride with it, but it didn't look that good last year for whatever reason.

And at a certain point, he is going to decline. I mean, maybe he already has some. Certainly in the quarterback tiers, think 20 of the 50 voters put them in tier two. So they see decline. A lot of people do. So we'll see about that. Good news for the Packers. Can I just make one point, Mike?

If they thought that he was going to run off two MVP seasons in a row, do you think they would have even considered drafting Jordan Love? Well, that's what made me question their evaluation of him, because one of the things that I did, Randy, there was a point there where Rogers had quote unquote a couple of down years. And I, you know, talking to all the people I do in the league about, you know, hey, is Rogers done declining? He was still getting almost all tier one vote. So I did do a study with a coach in the league helping me where we looked at all of the incomplete passes of, we broke down all of the incomplete passes Rogers through over those couple years. And then we went back and compared it to like a 2014 year when he was had like it was near MVP level or whatever. And what we noticed was, you know, that the, his incomplete passes looked better than most guys.

complete passes. And what was happening during those down years was guys weren't making plays on the ball, wide open, dropping 50-yard touchdown passes. There was a lot of things that probably led to Rogers' attitude being bad and his head down and his bad body language and making it clear it wasn't his fault and all those things that drive us crazy. But as they came back during these MVP years, guys were making more catches for him and more plays for him. Well, then last year they don't have Devonte Adams. Well, that's taken away Kelsey. You know, so I questioned a little bit their ability to evaluate what makes the quarterback to be great. Because I didn't necessarily think, even though I understand the mailing and component of it through his body language and all of that.

I just don't think he was necessarily diminished as a player during that time as much as people thought. I think, yeah, and I think those are valid points. And obviously the detail you guys spent on it makes you knowledgeable on everything you're saying. And I agree. I think the thing that probably stands out to me as a former GM is the fact that the lesson is you can't really evaluate all of the intangible stuff in a vacuum. You've got to actually see the throws, do what you did to go back and look at every detail of on the field action. And then maybe you are a little more tolerable of the intangibles and these other body language things that he had given negativity throughout the whole organization too. Now, they did that the last couple years because clearly they put up with all of his stuff the last two years there because he played like an MVP player.

So they kind of circled back around to that type of thinking. I just think there's a lesson there at some point. You've got to always go back to the fact that, hey, what's happening on the field should be the most important thing. It's a tough. It's a narrow bridge to cross because you've always got to go back to the film, in my opinion. So kudos to you guys for doing that. Yeah, it's interesting for sure. I think one of the things you said earlier about this project, Randy, that I think people should keep in mind is while the teams are in order, and generally the order does, there is some correlation to what we think a ranking is. Some of these categories are a little different. I thought you had some interesting points to make, for example, on the cyclical category where there's more volatility. The volatility part is good and bad. It kind of depends.

on, I guess the good part of the cyclical part to me means that the owner is willing. Their cash is not a problem. And I go back to the Rams, for example. You can't question the ownership's ability to financially back every decision made because they went through more cash in a two or three year period than any team in the history of the league with players that they paid and then moved on from. I mean, I could name you 10 years of my career where I don't think we flushed $10 million, in those 10 years.

They fleshed 10 million in two weeks. Yeah. It looks like pocket change to them. So times have changed. There's no doubt. But the mercurial part of that is there are great ups and there are great downs. And that's why that cyclical part, I mean, Tampa was awful until they got Tom Brady. They win a Super Bowl.

Now they're kind of rebuilding again. They're willing to do things. It's like you could put the Florida Marlins in there in baseball. Same thing. One two World Series. So you can't say they don't know what they're doing. But every time they did, they tear it all down to the studs and start over again.

You can't do that dramatic of moves in the NFL because of the cap and some other reasons. But that's all I'm saying is these cyclical teams are very capable, but they could go either way. So that's why if you go to the stock market, those cyclical stocks, they can make you a lot of money. They can also lose you a lot of money. So there's just up and down that some might prefer. I don't know. Well, when somebody sees, I think the point you were making, somebody looks at this and say, wait a minute, Tampa's listed before Dallas?

That's weird, right? Yeah. Right. Well, who's won the Super Bowl most recently? And why? And my point is, Dallas never changes anything. They just keep doing things the same. I think we may have said this in the article.

What's the definition of insanity? Just keep doing it the same way, the same structure, the same ideas. But they're good. I mean, they do have a winning record, but you're right. Yeah. But like a Tampa team. They would rather lose, they would rather lose doing it their way than change and win it all.

And that's how you let coaches walk out the door like Parcells and like some of these other guys. I guarantee you, and nobody ever says this, but they probably, Bill said, wait a second, I just can't run a team like this. And we're referring to Jerry and the way he does things. I couldn't do that either, even as a GM. That'd be hard. It'd be really hard because you have this giant that's stirring the pot all the time that makes it really hard to do your job as a football guy. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought of Tampa too over the years, not only just the, you know, getting time ready. Remember, they traded for John Gruden. I mean, that's one of the biggest move that's been made. And they won the Super Bowl. And, you know, hey, Tony Dungey gets a lot of credit for building that team. But they made a dramatic move that, like, nobody would make. I mean, who would get rid of Tony Dungey? You know, when you were that good and that close, you're going to get rid of them for, you know, an alter ego.

Totally different. I mean, you can't get more different in Grudon. And so I thought that, yeah, that's interesting. And just how these teams operate. That's really one of the things I appreciate about our conversations and doing this type of exercises. You really get a window into, hey, it's more than just the roster. It's more than just what's happened this Sunday. It's really how you operate and what you're willing to do, how you're willing to shake it up.

So check that out. Future Power Rankings on The Athletic. It was a fun exercise to put together. I sure appreciate Randy coming up with the stock market template because I was struggling to find the right categories for each of these teams. But I think it works pretty well. I think it's an interesting read. I think you'll enjoy it. Let's hit the GM Notebook here and see what you got.

Well, I had a couple things. One fairly pointed in GM Notebook. Another one kind of shirt sleeves into a GM notebook, but more of a fandom. You referred to this earlier when Chris Ballard spoke to the media a week ago. or so and his frustrations showed with the Jonathan Taylor situation and and his hold out or hold in or being in. It sucks. He said it sucks.

Yes. He said this loud and clear, what we all probably agreed with is he said it sucks. He said it sucks for the Coles. It sucks for JT. It sucks for our fans. And you could tell he was frustrated for a lot of reasons. But here's why I think he was really frustrated because he knows he can't solve this. He knows he can't pay him.

He knows that he can't. reward what is being asked. And he also has an owner that's probably not going to allow him to. He's not going to allow him to fix it or the latitude to fix it because everybody always says, oh, money solves everything. Well, money might solve a little bit of this, but there's not going to be enough money available to solve this. So the reason it's not solved is because I think his hands are tied. The truth is, I think Jonathan Taylor is about two seats away from the adult table. He's coming off a inconsistent year, which he missed a bunch of time. He's only got three years in the league. So he's got another year on a contract. Plus he's got a franchise tag available.

He's not as accomplished as Sequin Barclay. I hear people comparing him, well, Seaquin Barclay's this or Josh Jacobs is this. He's not as accomplished as those guys. In fact, I would say this about J.T. And I like the guy as a player. He's not as good as Dalvin Cook. And Dalvin Cook spent two months on the street trying to get $7 million and had no compensation attached to it and has been to four Pro Bowls. So my point is JT has picked a time. And, and I, and I, I don't know how much of this is JT. I'm going to put some of this blame on the agent. Probably most of this on the agent.

Because he's on a rookie deal. He knows he's got the franchise tag staring him in the face. It's not a fight the Colts can not only not win. It's not a fight they can even participate in. And that's why Chris Ballard is so frustrated by saying it sucks. His demands are ill-timed. They're poorly planned. It puts him in bad light because he said in February he's going to honor his contract.

Here's the other note to this. we know as an agent you only get paid on the deals that you negotiate. So guess he changed agents and guess what? This agent wants to be paid. So he's going to roll this out there and convinced him this is a great time to do this. It's just a miscalculation of the whole market and his philosophy is flawed in that he's not going to get paid. This is not going to happen for it. It might not be fixable. It is totally different his dialogue that we heard him say in February as to how he's going to honor this. So the new agent is pushing this, in my opinion, get a new deal, so he gets paid. I just think he's getting bad advice here. And that's why I think

the frustration we saw on Chris Ballard is real, because he knows he might not be able to fix this. And not only that, top it off with the fact that the kid hurt or not hurt, is he, now he's kind of punted for four weeks because he's going to miss four more weeks, but they're paying him. So they're really doing him a disservice. Is it okay for the GM? I mean, they're really doing him a service for paying him during this whole process. So I think the thing is ugly. I don't like any part of it. I think this is one of those deals where it doesn't make sense for the Colts to reward it. It doesn't make sense for Taylor to even ask for this. And the only one that we're helping here is the agent. And I don't think that's something that is even going to be fought that battle. So let's do

a little bit of a parallel here. You brought up this before. And I don't know, I can't remember if it was on the podcast or we were just talking about it. The contrast between Ballard and his it sucks comment, kind of letting them see a sweat a little bit, versus Andy Reid, who, you know, is the forward face, the public voice. Brett Veach is the GM of the chiefs, but Andy Reid is the voice of the team on personnel matters, especially during the season, really not, he's not saying it sucks with Chris Jones. He's just going on to on the Jacksonville this week. So the contrast there, what does that say to you? It says that the chiefs know they're willing and want to to pay Chris Jones. They want to. They understand they can solve this. They can do this in a

professional way. I just think the Colts are stuck. They can't do anything. Everybody says, well, let's just pay him some money. And I even thought that initially. But I've kind of come about face on this to where I don't know that they can do anything about it. So the other thing is, Andy's about three steps removed from any contract speak at all. So he knows, even though he might be the boss, I think he does allocate most of that authority to Brett Veach and the staff there. So they do some of that. But like I say, they're willing to pay. They've offered him.

They think this thing will be solved and I do too. I just don't think there's been any negotiation in the Jonathan Taylor deal. There's been no talk of money at all because guess what? The Colts aren't going to budge. They're not going to pay. And that's why Chris is so frustrated. Second item in the GM notebook. Second item was, and this is the one that's kind of shirttailed.

into what our weekend is going to be like. It's the first weekend for YouTube TV. It's YouTube streaming platform that's going to have Red Zone. It's going to have all of the NFL ticket stuff. It's different than where we've been housing these things before, which was really DISH TV and DirecTV, a satellite service. I just wonder, are we going to have, is this going to be a tough weekend? Because as we all know, and I've had YouTube TV for several years,

I stream a lot of things, but we know there's glitches. We know there's issues with streams. Get you, me there, man. You're just like the young kids, man. We know Wi-Fi enters into the equation here. And is that going to throw off the timing of some games? Are you going to be on your phone and get a score? And wait, you're not up to date on the NFL ticket stuff because the streaming has been developed.

You tell me, Mike. Well, I want to know this for me. I can foresee the problem. You tell me how to fix it. Because my setup here, so I've got my laptop with a screen and then I got two big screens on my desk. So I've got three screens running off my computer. Then I've got two TVs separately on the wall, and usually during the season I'm going to put on the games.

I would have it coming through direct TV on the TVs. And even on my computer, I would stream another screen that could put four games on. So I might have Red Zone on the big TV. I might have one of the local games, whatever we're getting locally, on a secondary TV. Then I'll have one of my three computers. computer screens will have a browser open with like four games on it, you know,

but so I can kind of just, if I need to watch one or watch one, I can, but it's a little bit off to the side because you can't watch everything. So this is going to be a whole, and I've been doing this, I've been doing that for five, this will be my fifth season because I used to go to all the games, but since I've come to the athletic, I'm writing more on Sunday for Monday, and I need, it doesn't do me good to be at a press box somewhere on a game I might not even be writing about, depending on what we're writing about. So the office set up, like I haven't even, I have to call and sign up for YouTube TV. We've got, I can't believe we don't have it.

We got every other freaking streaming thing here. I think, I mean, it's a good thing. Well, you need to make that happen, buddy. I got news for you. It's a good thing my youngest son got some scholarship help for college because we couldn't pay with all the, all we got going out. I mean, it seems like we got everything up there. Streaming apps are, for sure.

It's unbelievable. how many of them we got. It seems like to me. But I need to get into this thing for YouTube and figure it out. So the one thing that was a little bit bulky for me watching the Amazon Primes on Thursday night is I did not find it to be as seamless, rewinding to watch the plays and that type of stuff. I like to do that. Oh, you missed it.

You looked down. Well, what just happened? Well, I like to just take my remote and go back and it behaves in a predictable manner. and then I can catch up right after that if I want to. I've been trying to have a positive attitude on that, but to me, the Thursday night game made that. It was like you're rewinding 10 seconds at a time. It's choppy.

What did I do? It just didn't seem as seamless. So what do you say about YouTube TV? It's pretty good. Well, YouTube is an experienced, I think, more so than Amazon is, and actually more than Apple is. I find live sports. I think they're better on YouTube.

I think they've ironed out a few of the, the kinks, but that's not to say that you're not at the mercy of some Wi-Fi now. And depending on where you live, I just, I don't know. I mean, I only bring it up because it could be a little hiccupy. I know that's not a word, but this first weekend. Like, I've got great Wi-Fi. You have great Wi-Fi till you don't, till it goes down for 15 minutes one time or something. You know, that'll happen every once in a while. Could it create some X? Now, is the rewind experience the same as watching a video on YouTube? You just tap the arrow if you're on your keyboard or tap back on it if you're on a on a device and you can go back because that's easy for me.

I got no problem with that. Hey, I'm from Idaho and I can figure that out. So I don't think you'll have a problem there. We'll report back next week after I've missed all the games and have no idea what happened. I'll tell you what happened on Monday. We got our picks. Let's wrap this thing up before we go into overtime. There's good games this week.

I'll go with the Sando pick. I'm going to go. Pittsburgh take two and a half points at home against the 49ers. Am I crazy? You're drinking the Pittsburgh Kool-Aid. Well, I've been coached up by you on Kenny Pick. It's good. There are personnel moves this off-season have been good.

And then we've been a little bit big picture questioning San Francisco. Still a really good team. They got Bosa back. They're going to have some juice from that. We like the 49ers. We have some. It's a little bit of concern. So I don't know.

Just to me, Pittsburgh is a pretty good team. Like, it wouldn't surprise. surprised me if Pittsburgh was in the mix at the end of the year. I agree with you. I like your pick. My question is now, how many snaps is Bosa going to get? Having just signed his deal, will he get to play a lot? Because, I mean, he's the game changer, right? He can change. He can make you not feel so good about Kenny Pickett in about two plays, right? So that's a concern for me. I'm with you on the pick. I always try to look for a home underdog or two. and there are some this week.

I just didn't like the options, so that didn't do it. Are you going to take Pittsburgh then, too? Are you on that one? No, I'm going to let you have your day. I'm going to let you have your day. You can credit yourself. I put it, I wrote it in there quick. You can still have it if you want.

No, no, I'm good. I got a couple other teams that I'm going to pick. I'm going to let you have that. Okay, what do you got? I'm going to take two other teams that I am bullish on, much like the Steelers. Like I say, you pick Pittsburgh. I'm going to take Jacksonville, given five points at Indy. I think Anthony Richardson is going to struggle against this defense.

I think his education is going to be a roller coaster ride. I think Jacksonville's solid on both sides. I like Doug Peterson versus Gus Bradley in the matchup on that side of the ball of the minds. So I like Jacksonville going into indie. I feel good about where Jacksonville's at right now. So I'm going to pick them. And my other game is, which we kind of talked about, I'm going to go with Green Bay. They're going to Chicago.

I think they win the game. They're a one-point underdog, but Chicago won their first pick in last year's college draft. Just I'm going to keep reminding you that until I see something different. Wow, the Bears are favored? One point. I just don't see their roster and all the optimism that I'm hearing off what was the worst team in the league last year. They'll be better. I think the Packers roster is just too deep for them.

I didn't see that one. I'm going to piggy. I got no problem taking one of your games. I'll piggyback on that one. If we both need to pick two, I would do that one too. I'm on with that one. I do see that. The Bears.

Jacksonville and Green. Bay or mine, and it looks like we're kind of in agreement with Pittsburgh. Hey, this Green Bay game is so fun, Green Bay, Chicago, because there's so much focus. I mean, because Justin Fields is further down this road, okay, even though they've both been in the league quite a while, a little bit, you know. He's, the Fields is entering through year three. Jordan hasn't, Jordan Love really hasn't played much, so. Not near as much as Fields.

There's probably a, you know, a little bit of a great spirit. I feel like with fields, we're going to be analyzing every game and every play. And we just haven't seen the passing game development. And look, I don't know that they gave them that many chances in the preseason. But I think until we see some of that evidence, that's going to be like that. Two test tubes on how to develop quarterbacks. Totally different, different processes, different everything. It'll be interesting to see.

You know, nobody wants to sit a quarterback like the Packers have been able to do. So let's just see. Like you say, these two teams are doing things totally different. Quarterbacks were managed totally different. I mean, Justin Fields is entering year three as a starter. Jordan loves entering game three as a starter. So there's a giant difference in where these guys have and how they've traveled to get to this point. Well, yeah, yeah.

The Bears had probably no choice. They didn't have a veteran quarterback. They could set them behind and win any games with. There's some other games on here. I don't know that we're going to pick, but I'm very interested to see Miami at the Chargers. I think that's fun because two of was 10 of 28 passing against the Chargers. Chargers defense last season. Chargers D has been under a lot of scrutiny. I mean, they haven't ranked very high. They have a defensive head coach in Brandon Staley. There's been a lot of, you know,

talk this offseason out of Chargerville, you know, about how they got to improve this and that. But they set a really high bar against Miami last season. So now Miami gets to go back in and, you know, it's going to be as healthy as two as going to be all year is going to be in this first game. If we have some concerns about his durability. And you're going to get Mike McDaniel you know, took his lumps against that defense last year. So you think he, you know, is going to have some wrinkles and answers. They've got to be able to have a much more representative showing than 10 of, it's hard to go 10 of 28, you know, when you've got a, in the NFL.

So I think that's just a fun one to circle with some charger narratives. I think the charger narrative needs to change quick. Remember, the chargers had the terrible comeback loss they allowed to Jacksonville in the playoffs. They had actually finished the season strong. I think they won maybe their last four games to get into playoffs, 10 and 6, something like that, a good record. Obviously, it was 17 games, but had a good record at the end to get in. But if they fall flat or just get rolled by Miami, that is a headline.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that will be a fun game to watch. I'm not one to want to pick that game, but I will watch it because I think it's a cool matchup. The other games for me were division matchups. Dallas getting three and a half at the Giants, who the Giants aren't going to be afraid of Dallas. That's one that might be worth. I thought you might take the Giants on that.

Yeah, a nickel or two. Yeah, I agree with you. That would have been next. And then Buffalo going to the hype machine, the Jets. I mean, we'll see. I think Buffalo has benefited a lot the last few months in all the attention the Jets have gotten. And Buffalo has benefited in a lot of different ways. Now we'll see if they can put some of that to use by playing the jets.

Okay, so how so? How do you benefit from that? Well, the jets have gotten every bit of oxygen in the room since summer has started. Obviously, Aaron Rogers has garnered them the attention of all the national media. Buffalo has been riding, I think, under the radar and made some moves to be a little better, I think, and give Josh, you know, Alan, some weapons that are a little bit of an upgrade. I just think they're just sitting there eating their pie, just kind of putting along and letting the jets take all the attention. And then all of a sudden, they got to punch them in the face and then we'll see what happens. With the perception that we even have shared, they talked about some, perception that, you know, the bills have squandered some opportunities and they may be not necessarily in decline, but maybe they're maybe a little bit.

We have a little bit of concerns about them. And you forget, they were 13 and 3 last year, right? If that's declining, they lost three games a whole year. Yeah, sorry me up for that decline. Yeah, they got a great record. You know, and you look at, I know, schedule some of that with where your defense ranks and all that. And I don't know that their defense is going to be quite as good,

but they've been ranking in the top five in like everything for a while. So I think you're right that, you know, I'm sure they watched the Kansas City game last night and thought, oh, you know, maybe we would have won that game too. So we'll see what Buffalo has going to make a statement in the Monday night game against the hyped up jets. I wonder if the jets are going to be, you know, just continue to have on the microphone so they can be recorded while they're talking about talking about.

So they can feel at home with making up stories and all kinds of stuff about eagles and Hawks and all right. Yeah, we could be commentarying, commentary. Oh, geez, this quarterback, some magic. This guy's unbelievable. This is your quarterback. This is your quarterback. Have you ever seen a narrative that is so fictitious to prop up your own people with

false chatter? I've never seen that before. It's like they are begging their team. The coaches want it more than the players. They want to build up that team more than anybody even wants it. And I'm not sure that feeling is from the inside out the same, if that makes any sense. Well, it would be very interesting because if they, you know, if they win and beat the bills, I mean, then you can lean into it.

I mean, then it becomes true. Yeah. If the bills go out and win by 17 and Rogers would limp up the field in the fourth quarter and receivers have a day like the chiefs did or, you know, that sort of a thing, the press conference get prickly real quick. That's what we got this week, everybody. You can find Randy and you can find me on The Athletic. I'm sure you got the athletic app.

You can find Randy on Twitter, on X, Twitter, X, at Randy Mueller underscore. I'm Mike Sando at Sando NFL. We will talk to you next week. Enjoy the rest of week one. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.