The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - How many star players do teams need to win the Super Bowl?

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Super Bowl Championships are often won at the top of the roster. But how many blue-chip players does a team need to win it all? How many very good players can stand in for one elite player? Robert Mays and Nate Tice dig into those 10 Super Bowl Champions and two runners-up over the last 12 years to draw some lessons from them, and apply them to this season, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeStay cool and dry all summer with Birddogs and get a FREE Yeti-style tumbler at birddogs.com/athletic use promo code ATHLETIC at checkout Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's my good friend Nate Tyson. How you doing, buddy? Doing very well. Feel so far away now.

Just so far away from you. You know, a couple days of meetings. You get spoiled. A live show, not a live show. Live for us show. Yeah. In person. In person.

Yeah, it's live and in the flesh. No, CGI needed. And yeah, no, it's a little, it's back in Vegas, had to reset everything. I was a little scared. My camera wasn't charging and it wasn't charging. So I had to like do those checkmarch. But doing very well, starting to get warm again in Vegas. I spoke too soon about maybe having a cooler summer here.

But overall, doing extremely great. We got a few more shows before you go on your well-deserved and long delayed paternity leave. This is one of them. We're going to do our offensive and defensive lessons shows next week. That is the plan. We love doing those every single offseason. We want to give ourselves as much time as possible. So be on the lookout for those.

Those would be kind of our two non-mailbag shows that are coming your way next week. Today, though, we're doing a show that's inspired by kind of a two-fold process. One, we got our mailbag question a couple weeks ago from Jorge D. Martinez Esteve that said, are all pros created the same? Does it matter which position they play? How many all pros does it take to make you a championship contender? And then I'm kind of combining that question with something we talked about in relation to the lions. a mailbag earlier this week, which was, do the lions have enough stars? So taking both of those

thoughts, I thought it would be fun to do a show in June here about what Super Bowl champions actually look like. Essentially, how many elite players does it take to win a Super Bowl? How many really good players do you need? And we're going to look back at really since two CBAs, the 2011 Giants is the first team we looked at. We're going to look at all the Super Bowl champions since then. we switched up repeat champions within a certain window, right? So like the Patriots won at 2014, then they won in 2016. Doing the Patriots twice in three years didn't really feel that useful. So we're doing the 2016 Falcons instead.

The same thing with the 2022 Chiefs. You know, it's only three years different. Tyree Kill is the player that's not really on that team anymore. So we did the Eagles because it was a five-year difference between 2017 and 2022, if that makes sense. So we're going to talk about like eight Super Bowl champions or nine Super Bowl champions and then two or three teams that didn't win the Super Bowl so we can talk about more teams and their makeup.

And the way that we're going to do this is kind of look at the elite players, so like blue chip players on each team, the very good players on each team, kind of one step down from that, and then the general kind of makeup and composition and takeaways of these teams. We thought this would be a useful exercise. Yeah. And doing it from 2011 is a great way how I even bucket the NFL in my mind.

I think we're going through a little. mini-era right now. We'll figure out when the turning point was, but that's the new CBA ushered a new era of the NFL. There's some other rule changes that came along. And then before that, really, the illegal contact rule was probably the other era change, era shift. And then before that, probably free agency to that point, or maybe the next expansion, I guess, Browns and Texans expansion in 2002. So it's kind of, those are kind of like the, in my brain, how I bucket the NFL and everything. That's why I think this is really cool. It was also great to look at some teams for about decade ago through the lens and the statistical abilities that I have now and having true media

to look at some things and maybe understanding football outsider stuff and maybe some other things, other components to maybe look through a lens in 2023 at some of these teams. And really, it's also great of, you know, knowing stuff in hindsight and knowing that maybe some player that at the time wasn't a star, quote unquote, was like, well, they became one. And that actually is something that's, I know it's as a theme. in a lot of this. It's kind of a no kidding. That's a lot of champions in any league and any sport. But I think that the terms that we're going to talk about it in and kind of some of the things I realized, I've never really thought about it in those terms before. Even teams that don't really jump out as

kind of paradigms of greatness. Like the 2012 Ravens have some qualities to them that I think are really work digging into in terms of the underlying talent that was on that roster. And I think that's going to come up a lot as we discuss some of these teams. So let's talk about the 2011 Giants. And I was going to ask you this before we started recording, but I'm going to save it for right now. Do you think there were any blue chip players in the 2011 Giants? Truly no. I had not a single one. And it was the only team I had bad for. I started how basically how I cheated or really started each team was I looked at the all pro teams and pro bowlers. And then I was like, okay, that's a good way to look at who nice remembering of like what was elite and everything. And that team was Victor Cruz and Jason

Pierre Paul, I believe were the two all pros for that team. And it was kind of, you know, it's Victor Cruz and Jason Pierre Paul. So that's kind of led me to... JP finished 19th in the NFL on pressures that year. Just to give you an indication of some of the underlying stats about who he was that season. He was good, but he wasn't like a super elite player. No. Yes.

So that's true. And I tweeted it this morning, but it was nice to... Not nice, but looking back at the career of Victor Cruz was definitely remember some guys. Because he's, I mean, he's vivid in my brain. It's not like, oh, I really think about about this. But when you look back at his career is undrafted, three agent didn't have a single target or catch his rookie year because he and they went on IR after three games and then so 2011 was his first year starting like first time you ever recorded a stat

and he goes for 1500 yards nine touchdowns of the second team all pro it's like Nate he had three yards per route run 3.0 do you know many guys crack three that's like one of the best marks of the last 10 years yeah so maybe he's the guy maybe he should be a blue chip player on this team that was the one actually I didn't go into this thinking that and then looking back I was like wow I remember you being good, but maybe not to that extent. And they even had like Hakeem Nix, who I'm not putting on this, but another guy that's, he was good for very good player that season. He had 1,200 yards. He was, I think, in the top like 15 yards per outrun that season.

And then you look at the playoffs. In the playoffs, he went six for 1.15 and two touchdowns, seven for 165 and two touchdowns, five for 55 and 10 for 110. Those were his four games in the playoffs that year. I looked it up. It turned out I had a cut up of that playoff rod. tweeted it out today. I found it from 2020. I tweeted out when I probably had like 1,500 followers, which is like, which is I feel

like I'm about to have it any day now again. But it's, but he had, I think it was the second most at that point in time. I did not update my stat from two years ago, but three years ago now is the 444 yards in the playoff run was the second most by any receiver ever in a playoff run. So it was like, he went gangbusters. He went nuts. And on top of that, of course, Victor Cruz. And then Eli Manning had a good year.

But even, you know, he was a. second tier quarterback in every metric. He got his Pro Bowl nod, but he was ninth and QBR, eighth and EPA per dropback that season. So it's kind of like that was, that's what he felt like. He was in that tier of quarterbacks, how we view quarterbacks. He wasn't elite. He was good, maybe very good.

So we've talked about this or hinted at it, a couple different shows we've done recently about how these crazy quarterback runs in the playoffs often lead to Super Bowl champions, and it makes them difficult to categorize. This is one of those examples. He was a second tier quarterback in the regular season. he averaged 0.25 EPA per dropback in the playoffs. That's like that would lead the league in a lot of seasons. It's what Mahomes did in the playoffs this year.

It's what Stafford did in the playoffs in 2021. So it was elite, like MVP caliber level for four game stretch. So that happens sometimes. So that's kind of a team building quirk that's hard to say like, well, you need this. You need your quarterback every once in a while, especially when you're not a very good team top to bottom to go on an insane run. Yep. So some of these teams that I don't want to get too far ahead.

I don't want to spoil it too much. I don't either because I have a point on that. Some of these teams that don't have the requisite number of blue and red ship players combined that we're talking about. The reason they won the Super Bowl is because their quarterback went on this sort of run. 2011 Giants, 2012 Ravens, 2017 Eagles kind of like, right? Like it's hard to know what to do with foals. So some of these examples, that's the reason. So I don't know where to place him as like a type of player or a captain.

category of player or level of player, but it is like part of the secret sauce here if we're trying to figure out the recipe. Yeah. And this would be a theme of stuff I mentioned because that was a point that it's going to come up from my notes as well is that kind of have to have a quarterback, kind of like in hockey. If you have a goal, goaltender getting hot in the playoffs, it's same thing. Having a quarterback get hot in the playoffs. And then on top of it, I'd say the other kind of recurring theme that might come up in the

show is you have to have a defense that can get hot. And that is something most of the time. But that was something that kind of came up was even some of these teams. The next year's team has got more of this point. But the Giants in the playoffs, they made it a slog to throw it against them. They held the Falcons who were awesome that year on offense to two points. And 183 yards passing and 64 yards rushing. They held 2011 Rogers, who had one of the best quarterback seasons ever, to 50,

a sub-60% completion percentage. They sack them four times. They held them to 20 points. The 49ers completed the ball under 50% of the time. I mean, they have that M.C. Championship game, by the way, which I remember watching. I was in New Orleans. I was in Vegas. Fottie.

Wow. Look at us. And really speaks to where we were at our point. I was 24 years old. Yep. I was just finishing out Wisconsin. It was before I started that pit. And it was like, okay, I'm going to enjoy a month or two before I start GA.

There was 22 combined punts of that game, which killed. One of them was dropped. Yeah. That one's burned in my brain, too. I remember. Yeah. But they made, and then they made a slog in the, in the Super Bowl.

And so that was it. The quarterback got hot. They had enough fine to good players. Like the offensive line was pretty decent. You know, they had some defensive line in their decent, like good. And this is probably the worst offensive line of all the offensive lines we're going to talk about, which is, I think it's definitely one of the three lines.

The offensive lines are definitely something I want to dig into. Maybe not elite players. Maybe that's not where the blue chip players come from. But we'll talk about what the offensive lines typically look like. And even this offensive line was worse than that. So this team is kind of an outlier in a lot of ways. And yeah, this, we start. And which is funny because this is still some, there's still some remnants of the old CBA and how you

structure teams. And the old way you could win. Yes. And you could start seeing the change. That's that's cool. That would say that was one of the cooler things about this exercise. We're on the first team. So we're kind of ruining some of this. But it's, uh, but as it goes along, you start to see the repercussions of the salary cap changes that happen. Yeah. But David Dio and Chris Ney at the guard spots and, uh, Kareem McKenzie at right tackle. All like good players. Like they had some there, maybe they're better years or a couple years before that, but still good, good solid players. So like you said, they're a solid offense aligned, but probably one of the lesser ones amongst this what dozen teams were about to talk about. So you talked about a defense getting hot.

In my opinion, one of my biggest takeaways, we might as well start rolling it out now. Yeah. This is a great example. You need one defensive alignment to be hot. You need one pass rusher to be a guy taking over games consistently throughout the playoffs to win the Super Bowl. I don't know if it's causation, but every single one of these teams essentially had one of those guys. There are going to be some surprising names as to who that was for some of these teams. But in this case, it was Justin Tuck for this Giants team.

Justin Tuck wasn't great all season. He wasn't like an elite player, even a very good player all season. But he had 20 pressures in four playoff games, according to PFF. And that is kind of the magic number. But when I look back at it, if you had five pressures a game or 20 pressures over the course of the playoffs, you needed like one guy to hit that level to win the Super Bowl. If four of those five pressures lead to, or on third down and then we two, not like an incomplete pass or a throwaway or a throw at ball quicker than you want to, it's like, those are drive enders. They can be, like even if it's not a sack.

So that's, that's good. Did you look up Ossie's number? He had four, he had about four pressures each over the course of that playoff run. So he had a good run at JPP. He was good in the playoffs as well. But yeah, but I mean, yeah, it's, yeah. If you can get multiple guys going, that certainly helps, but you need at least one guy who's like, this is a fucking problem. You need an ace. You need an ace. You need your clothes or whichever term you want to use, baseball term you want to use. But you need one of those dudes. That's something I kind of knows as well. It's like you need some guy that if they have a one-on-one, they can take advantage of it. And that's huge. All right, 2012 Ravens. This one's a fun one.

Who are your blue ship players on the 2012 Ravens? Like Marshall Yonda and like I said Jacoby Jones, the returner. He was an old pro returner. But he had three return touchdowns that year and one of the playoffs. So it's, yeah, that's a, yeah, that's a lot. elite, I guess. And this was the best special teams unit of any of these teams that we're going to talk about. Like if you looked at DVOA. I did because I was like, wow, they had three return touchdowns. And this team's a good thing to look at. It's a spot for me. I'm willing to admit it. This seems a, it's an odd team. So there's, there's, there's going to be a lot of kind of these weird notes with it. But it's the, but that was return touchdowns and then the special teams unit. But like this was the one that was like, they truly were exceptional in that area, as opposed to a lot of other teams were maybe good, very good. top five, but they were like far and away above the best special teams unit that year. I had Marshall Yondo is one of them. I said hello, Niana.

He was a second team all pro that year. He was seventh in pressures among interior defensive lineman, fourth and quarterback hits. So even if he wasn't that the best version of himself, he was still a very, very good player. Yeah. And then I still said Ed Reed. Ed Reed was second team all pro that year. He had 15 passes defense. He had four picks.

Ed Reed was a pro baller that year. He was 33 years old, but he had 15 passes defense. He had four picks. He was a year removed from being second team all pro. The cliff came pretty fast for Ed Reed. I think you forget that. But when he went, he changed teams. It fell really quickly.

But he was still really good on these Ravens teams. So I'm willing to give him the slight nudge there. Some of the other big named defensive players on that team were not contributors all season. They came back from injury in the second half of the year to Rall Suggs, Ray Lewis. But I think Ed Reed still deserves mention as like a borderline elite player still at that stage of his career. And I categorize him as very good. So I guy that's not no head read of course is an all-time. We're just saying at this stage and this year in his career.

So I had those guys as well, but just a tick down just because of where they were at in their careers. Guys that I think are still in that very good category that are worth mentioning. Inquam Bolden, he only had like 900 yards that year, but he had 2,000 yards seasons after leaving that Baltimore team. And again, in the playoffs, five for 145 in a touchdown, six for 71, five for 60 and two touchdowns, six for 104 on a touchdown. So when the quarterback gets super hot, somebody needed to do something catching the football. So somebody needs to be a beneficiary of that.

Yes. Yeah. So I still think Ancon Bolden was still a pretty darn good player. And then two more that are worth digging into. What do we do with Flacco again? It's kind of the same as the Eli question. It's like, these two are the same group for me.

He wasn't really good for most of the season, but then he goes on an absolute fucking heater for four games. Nuclear was a term I used. Nuclear. He played out of his mind on that stretch and got the, at the time, the richest contract ever for a quarterback. It got beaten right away. But it was deservedly so for how we play in those playoffs, apparently. And then Ray Rice was another very good player that year. Ray Rice is a good player. Yeah. 1500 total yards, 10 touchdowns was another one I mentioned. Oh, I also can't believe you're not going to mention in Vante Leach. Vante Leach was an all pro-fellback on those teams. See, there was one of those where I'm aware of my own branding. And I kind of was like, I'm not going to mess. to that one because I got just waiting for it. I got some other points. And then kind of get into the next category, the offensive line, again, was once they

reconfigured it, another kind of good, solid unit. Such a good point to reconfiguration, though. I remember this vividly. So this is the kind of the point I wanted to make about the offensive lines. Even if there aren't blue chip players all across the offensive line, which there aren't a lot of in these teams, very few of these teams have an offensive line with a significant weakness on it or a huge hole on it. And the 2012 Ravens were constructed in such a way that Coletio Semelay was their right tackle for most of the season.

They signed Brian McKinney somewhere along the way. They put Brian McKinney at left tackle, moved Michael O'Hawr to right tackle, and moved Coletio Semley to guard, which was his best position. And then it all kind of clicks into place. You have Osemelae and yonder at the guard spots. You have Matt Burke, and then you have the two tackles. So you have these five solid offensive linemen. That's going to continue to be a theme. A lot of these teams just have a solid offensive line from top to play.

bottom, even if there maybe aren't all pro-level players lining those offensive lines. Yeah. This was, and this is another great case, though, of the quarterback being like the goaltender and hockey. Just get hot in the playoffs and ride them. Flacco was like Aaron. Aaron Hill was the goalie this year for the Golden Knights and undrafted wasn't like he was like third string goalie.

And then he just got hot. And he was incredible in the playoffs where he's literally standing on his head. And but sometimes and I think, but that was the takeaway I've had about a lot of this. there's another quirk about this team that I can't wait to talk about, but I just want to get this out of the way before I ruin it is my own excitement ruins some points sometimes. So I want to get this talking point out of the way.

This is why we talk about why an elite quarterback is the best thing to have because they're the ones most likely to get hot in the playoffs. Exactly. And just like in hockey, you could have a Jonathan Quick for the Kings, who's one the best goals in the league. He gets hot in the playoffs. And just like in football, that's the same way. They are the best bets, a number one picket quarterback or in the first round,

the most likely to be stars, and then the stars are the ones that are most likely to get hot. But that doesn't mean that no one can get hot, but it's just a more likelihood of those results. And going back to the point about needing that hot pass rusher, this team had one of them, and it was not the guys you would expect. It wasn't. It was Paul Kruger. Just like we all expected.

Paul Kruger was 21st in the NFL in pressures during the regular season, but he was fifth in pass rush productivity, which is PFF per rate stat, per per snap stat. to rate stat. So he was good when given opportunities. And then in the playoffs, when he was like a full-time player, he had 20 pressures in four games and five sacks and five hits. And so that 20 pressures over the course of that four games comes up again. You need one guy that's like consistently causing that sort of disruption to win the Super Bowl.

Or, but I don't want to say you need one guy. A lot of the teams that have won the Super Bowl have had that one guy. I don't want to make it a causation thing. But it seems to come up consistently when you're looking at these teams. Yes. And another thing about this team. team and they fired their offensive coordinator after week 14 and hired and promoted Jim Caldwell. So they fired Cam Cameron.

That's right. Hired. I think they promoted him. I think he was like an analyst or senior analyst or whatever. Promoted Jim Caldwell and then proceeded in the playoffs to beat an Andrew Luck Colts team, a Peyton Manning Broncos team and a Tom Brady Patriots team in a row scoring 24, 38, 28, and 34 points. And this is what this is the point I want to make. anyone that predicted it after the regular season

that wants to go back and go, well, everyone knew that. Jim Caldwell would be better. It's bullshit because you even look at the stats, they got worse in those four seasons. Success rate, they went down. They went from 19th to 23rd in that stretch. And the playoffs, they were 18th. It wasn't like, you know, including the playoffs,

they were 18th. It wasn't like this overwhelming. Oh, they became a top five offense. The quarterback really just got fucking hot. That's what happened. Even DVOA, they were 20th and weighted defense. 19th overall. They were 15th and weighted defense. offense, 13th overall.

So they were getting worse at the end of the year. So this team is just like truly out of nowhere. And I know we considered that at the time, but it's like when you even look back, it's like, wow. Like if you predicted that, good for you because that there were been not a lot of underlying numbers that would have been maybe optimistic. And it's honestly, if you, that's why taking it just from the Super Bowl champions can be a little bit dangerous.

We didn't have time to look at 50 teams. If you're going to look back in a decade, you can't look at the final four every single year. 12, 14 teams here. Yes. That was enough. So the one other take. way I had to get about this Ravens team that I think again is going to come up with some of these other teams it was striking when I was looking at some of these names look at all the guys on

the Ravens that eventually signed big money contracts for other teams either in the year after or two years after this super ball. It comes up all the time with these teams. The names I can list off. Carrie Williams at corner, Corey Graham signed a big deal with the bills after this. Arthur Jones was a big money free agent with the Colts. Pernell McPhee, I know very well, signed a huge money deal with the Bears. A lot of these team, Michael had that contract that he signed with the Panthers was a pretty big deal.

A lot of guys, we talk about the importance of having a quarterback on a rookie contract. These cheap players that come along early in their careers, that you get them before they sign these, they don't have to be market setting deals, but five for 25. There's so many five for 25 million dollar contracts that come up when you're looking at the role players on some of these championship teams. You know, one of the worst things you do is overpaying free agency and overpay for a role player in free agency where you're paying a guy star money or very good money and they're above average. But when they're on rookie contracts, that's fantastic to have those guys on rookie contracts. And that's the difference with that. And that is a theme because I notice especially with defensive players or defensive units that we're going to talk about throughout the show is that's what it is.

There's a lot of young ascending talent in some way, shape, or form that turn out to be better players than maybe we initially thought they're rookie. or third years. So that's something that comes up a lot. Sometimes that comes from being on a winning team where dumb, dumb organizations go, oh, well, this guy, oh, he's this and yada, yada, yada. So there's some of that. But it is a prominent theme with this where there's a lot of kind of young names that are ascending players on these teams. I also didn't mention that Paul Kruger got a massive contract. He had a five-year, $40 million deal with the Browns after this. Browns, right? Yeah, I was trying to remember who he signed with. Yeah, the Browns. That's right. So there's a lot of those types of guys on these teams. And again, it might be because they had some success. But I do think, again,

cheaper talent, cheaper than they would eventually become lying teams that typically win the Super Bowl. And that's just one of the many factors that kind of contribute to this lightning and a bottle feeling. Yep. You know, you need all of these things to kind of come together. And if you have four or five players that are going to make a lot of money that are in their second, third year with you, that's hard to replicate over and over again. What have we thrown out so far? quarterback getting hot, a good-ish, good plus or in healthy offensive line. Yep. A pass rush.

Healthy is a very, very good. Oh, yeah. It's a very good observation. A pass rush of some way, shape, or form. Is it a couple guys or one dude, an ace with enough of other help? And like something we'll talk about later is maybe a schematic advantage. But like, getting one of those things is hard. And now you have to get all of those.

And that's why winning the Super Bowl is really hard because you have to go on a three or four game run with those things. usually checking all those boxes in some way, shape, or form. All right, 2013 Seahawks. This is all, I mean, it's, it is striking to do this exercise. And you look at the 2012 Ravens or the 2011 giants. And then you look at the 2013 Seahawks and you try to come to some sort of shared conclusions about the two teams. Other, you mean, just draft Hallfamer after Hallfamer on defense, one after another, have them on rookie deals. And a third round quarterback actually is like a very good starter.

I'm curious what's where you drew the lines. So if you're talking about elite players on the 2013 Seahawks, who did you consider elite that season at the time, which I think is an important distinction. Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman were at the time to be elite. And then Cam Chancellor and Bobby Wagner were elite, but I felt like that season,

especially Bobby Wagner was more very good. And Bobby Wagner in the very good category. And same with KJ. Wright. Same with Michael Bennett. This was Michael Bennett. started three games. I haven't very good and good or very good. But this is, this is not Michael Bennett, but this was like his first year of being Michael Bennett. He only straight. But he still had, he was still seventh in total pressures among edge players that season. No, don't give me wrong,

but he was, he only started three games. This was on a one year deal. He signed with the box where he's just some dude. And he had nine and a half sacks on 26 QB hits. It was like, oh, that that's nice. Finding a player like that is very nice. That should be another thing. It's like finding a gem somewhere. But that was Michael, but I had more in the very good category than maybe the elite category. I think it's right on the edge. I mean, yeah. Just same with Bobby Wagner.

Same with Cam Chancellor. Yeah, they were right on that edge. Russell Wilson, I said, was a very good player this season. So he was six in EPA per dropback, but he only had 400 pass attempts during the regular season. So, like, you can't be an elite quarterback when you're not driving the ship. When you're consistently put in like advantageous situations in my opinion. When you're not like a pass first team, you're like, because then it was a

motion almost, you're a piece. So Marchion Lynch is the other blue ship player that I had. Okay. I put him in very good that. that year. But again, another borderline one. He had 75 forced mistackles that season. That was 17 more than any other running back in the league. The gap between him and Adrian Peterson was bigger than the gap between Peterson and the guy in eighth place. Yeah. He was really fucking good that year. He was really fun. But the back to the Russell Wilson point, because I, excuse me, I put him in the same category, ninth and QBR and eighth in success rate. To me, it's like you, in one of those metrics, you got to be, you know, top three, top four, because that means you're, driving the ship as you put it. So like that's what I agree with that. Yeah, Marshaun,

Marcia and I struggled with because I didn't know what to put him on. I put him in very good, but that might this is peak Marchant. So it's like this is when he was true. He was the one driving the ship. This was the one. This was his offense basically and the rust was creating the explosive plays and the scrambles. So it was kind of a,

it's a fun missmash of talent and everything. I mean, Golden Tate and Doug Baldwin were a fun receiver pairing, but Golden Tate led the or led the team with 890. yards. Yeah, they were contributors. I had like a contributor category. I had them there.

I did the same with Cliff Averill because just over the course of the regular season, you know, he wasn't that dominant. I, KJ, right in that category? He's still young. You know, he came along, but later in his career. But I had Max Unger in the, like, the Red Ship, like, very good category. Max Unger is a great one. So that's eight. Yeah.

That's eight combined, like, even Bruce Irvin was a very good starter. Like Bruce Irvin was a good start who got paid by the Raiders a few years. He only had like two sacks that year. That was the year they started because this was the beginning of the Legion of Boom. This was the year he went from a pass rusher to what they called the Sam and where he's dropping a lot in coverage and he's really good at it. That was actually the thing that Bruce Irvin was actually really good at was dropping from the line of scrimmage. So it's funny watching a guy like that who had a 15 sacks season, I think, to his name, also became a coverage dropper, an auxiliary rusher for that team. So Cliff Averill though, even though, even though he maybe wasn't.

great during the regular season. I had a notable name. He had 40 pressures, okay, in the regular season. It was a top 20 pressure rate. Solid player. That's a good number. Yeah. He had 17 pressures in three games in the playoffs. Yeah. So again, it does that five mark. Just again, it says that five pressure a game mark that like one guy has to get to. And Michael Bennett was also very good in the playoffs. Yes. And the last point, again, consistent with some of the other things we talked about, this is a very solid, very healthy offensive line. Russell Okung, J.R. Sweezy, James Carpenter, Breno Jocomini, Max Unger all played like a thousand snaps that season. It's such a huge thing.

It comes up over and over and over again as you look at these teams all the time. It's guys playing a thousand snaps and solid players playing a thousand snaps for you. This is also the Percy Harvin in the playoffs. Yes. Yes, him coming in. And then this is just more of a personal anecdote was they had a defense of lineman named O'Brien Schofield, who's a badger. play with him at Wisconsin. He only had one sack and three QB hits for this team.

He was probably like their fifth or six best best pass rusher. We signed him with the Falcons that next year. And he was our second best pass rusher. It was just to go to show like the talent difference from what how loaded the Seahawks team was with good, very good, excellent players to like a team like that, the Falcons in 2015. Look at all the guys again that were cheap on this team. Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Cam Chancellor, all on their rookie deals.

Kedger, right on his rookie deal. Doug Baldwin, I believe on his rookie deal, he was undrafted, golden tape before he got his big deal with the lion. So we remember the Russell Wilson contract and how everything it allowed them to do, but all of these guys were at that level of their career

essentially when they won the Super Bowl. Michael Bennett making a couple million dollars. I think it was like seven million bucks. I will say that was a huge win for me because I thought Michael Bennett was awesome on the books. It is documented on the internet. I wrote about him. I'm like a secret Superstars series that we did on Grand London in like 2012.

And I was like, that guy's awesome. And I don't understand why people don't think that guy's awesome. And then he signed with the Seahawks and the rest of history. So that's a win for me. It's on the internet. Shaq Barrett version 0.5. That's kind of what it was. Shaq Barrett continued that trend of the secret superstars.

All right. 2014 Patriots. Okay. How many blue chip players do you think the 2014 Patriots had? I had three. I had three as well. Tom Brady, Gronk, and Dorel Revis. I think that's exactly right.

Yeah, I think it's pretty cut and dry right there. That was Gronk at the peak of his powers. Brady was, you know, Brady is going to be an elite player on all these lists, no matter how every time we mention him. It's, he deserves it. If you look at the numbers every single time, and then Revis was first team all pro. He was one of the best defense players that year.

So those are the three I had. They had several, though, very good defensive players. Yes. And this team, especially, that jumps out. So I had three that I had that kind of at the top of my list with a couple other like notable ones. So I cheated and just listed them all off because I was like, I don't want to. I just said like I go a very deep and interesting defense is how I kind of, you know, Nikovic, Rob Nickavich, Jamie Collins, Vince Wilfirk, Deontay High Tower, young Chandler Jones,

Devin McCordy, Patrick Chung. It's like all these good players one after another. Like even this is when I saw it. Chandler Jones here was when that thought started. It was like sometimes having those guys before their guys, it's like that's what leads to some of these successes because they start peaking late this season and into the playoffs because they're figuring out the NFL. And actually, I thought this team had more similar DNA to last year's chiefs than you'd

think at first, not just because the best past catcher was a tight end and the quarterback and everything, but just more of a ascending defense with a lot of young, interesting talent. Of course, Drell Revis being an all pro, the chiefs did not have a all pro corner, but something of that sort where it was like the received, the past catchers were interesting. They barely, the running game wasn't like, their leading rush there was Jones Gray with 412 yards. I know I'm mixing up the categories. I'm sorry, but it was just a really interesting team to look back at, especially knowing in

hindsight how the players became. I just think that they had so many really good players on defense that we forget were really good players. Devin McCordy, Dante High Tower, Jamie Collins. Jamie Collins is another, Jamie Collins was incredible that season. He was really good. He was a really good. He was a really good.

pass rusher that year. He was like a borderline elite linebacker that season. And again, got paid massive money right after this. Another example of this. And there's more of them coming down the line for the Patriots. So those are like the three defensive players. I didn't know what to do with Julian Edelman, the two times we're going to talk about the Patriots here because he's just like he's Julian Edelman.

But in both cases, both teams that we're going to discuss, he goes fucking off in the playoffs. I put him in the very good category. That's what I had him there as well. He was the other offensive player that I had. Yep, same. The same. Yeah, really, that was it. And then I started having a bunch of notes on how funny the rest of their offense was.

But yeah, no, that was the only other offense guy I had on the very good category. Good contributors, Patrick Chung, Vince, Wilfork, like you mentioned, their offensive line, top to bottom. It was not as good as other Patriots offensive lines with that, but solid tackles. Yeah. The Sebastian Bowmer had already gotten paid. Solder was about to get paid. So you had two solid guys there. And then you look at the pass rushers.

Rob Nankovic, 19 pressures in three games in the playoffs. Chandler Jones, 18 pressures and three games in the playoffs. Yes, and I remember that. So he had five quarterback hits in three games. So just guys, past rushers that can get hot and keep affecting the game, come up over and over again for these teams that end up pushing themselves over the finish line. How many yards that this team run for? What was their rushing total?

It's just the funniest stat. Over the course of the season? Yeah. Oh, man, I don't know. Not that many. 1727 yards for the entire season. That just cracked me up because their leading rusher had 400 yards, 412. So it was like just having a team.

Well, they signed the Garib Blount really late, right? Because he didn't get released. This was the weird. Wait, was this a weird blot? The big Blount years and a couple years. But this was the, this was just a weird rushing season for them. This was like when they, they, this is like a good instance of how the Patriots just build. They use their offense based on what they have, like in which we'll talk about several times.

this team. But it's just, this one was just cracked me up because I was like, Jonas Gray, 400 yards led the team in rushing. It's very rare you see that on a team that won so many games and won the Super Bowl because usually they're dominating. So this is the year he was released by the Steelers. Stilers. Okay. And then so he goes to the Patriots, but I, because I was surprised when you said that because in my mind, this Patriots team ran the ball a lot. And that's because this is one of those examples of them being hyper extreme in a playoff game. La Gariblon had 30 carries for a 148 yards against the Colts. Colts, right?

Yeah. Yep. When they were just like, we don't need to throw the ball. We're going to choose not to throw the ball and we're going to absolutely destroy. Tom Brady had 35 attempts in that game, but they gave the ball to like Garibor on 30 times in that game and just ran all over the Colts. Ability to pivot in the playoffs. That is, that is, that's another theme of this. But that's a great, great example of that.

All right. 2015 Broncos. How many elite players did the 2015 Broncos have? Okay. I had three. locks and then a couple kind of like borderline guys. But I'd say I'd say Von Miller, Chris Harris. I say I keep to leave.

And then it's like. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I had a keep to leave is very good. I had to Marcus Ware. And then DeMarcus Ware is my one where it's like I kind of, I want to say a leap, but I remembering him that year. It's like, okay, he was making it take a half step back that year.

He only played 11 games. Yeah. He got hurt. But he was the second most disruptive past Russia on a person at basis in the league over those 11 games. And then in the playoffs, he had 23. pressures in three games. Jesus.

Jesus. So I gave him the edge. I gave him the edge now. I gave him the nudge. And then I had Chris Harris as well. Chris Harris is second team all pro. And I think a keep to leave is right on the line. So you had three, I had three.

And then I had a keep to leave in very good. And I had three more like red ship very good players. Yeah. Malik Jackson. Yeah. I had T.J. Ward. I had T.J. Ward like right on the edge of the red chips and the contributors. But I had Malie Jackson who had 60 pressure.

in the regular season. That was tied for seventh among interior defensive linemen. He had seven sacks and he had 15 pressures in three playoff games. This team had four guys. I tweeted this today. Four guys that had at least 15 pressures over three playoff games. So that five number that we talked about, they had four guys do it. No one dropped back against them.

It was insane. I mean, I watched that, that, I was at the divisional game that year and I was just like, holy shit, this team is insane. I just don't know what to do with this. So, Malie Jackson. Derek Wolf also did it during the playoffs. He had 20 pressures and four sacks in three playoff games. And he only had 40 pressures in the regular season.

So I had him as a red ship player simply because of how he played during the playoffs and like right there. And then Danny Trevathan is the other one that I have. Okay. I had him notable. Him and Brandon Marshall is notable. Like kind of like that good to very good. So we swapped T.J. Ward and Trevathan. So we essentially had three elite and four very good each.

So seven total for the Broncos team. Have we mentioned any offensive players yet? So how do we think this team was built? It kind of shows you how this team won their games. Those guys were pretty. They had two receivers that were good players in the regular season. Marys Thomas had 1,300 yards on 105 catches. And Emmanuel Sanders had 76 catches for 1,100 yards with objectively bad quarterback play the entire year.

That's what, yeah, with the corpse of Peyton Manning back there. And Brock Osweller. And Brock Osweller. I can never get over how bad he was this year. Because Kubiak was the offense coordinator, and Kubiak was like, well, we got to do outside zone. And we got to do under center outside zone. And Peyton literally couldn't do it from under center. So they did the pistol.

So they went to the pistol. And it like limited the whole. It was such a funny thing because that defense was so freaking good. And but I had some stats from that too, was that we talk about quarterbacks getting hot. This was truly just the defense getting hot because I looked it up. There's 89 quarterbacks since 2011 in the playoffs had 50 or more pass attempts. Just kind of give me a nice ranking. It's, you know, it's a small sample size.

Payton ranked 87th in EPA per dropback, and you ranked dead last and success rate. 35.3% passing success rate. That's lower than Zach Wilson last year. That's lower than Baker Mayfield last year. It would have been dead last in 2022. And they won the Super Bowl with Bain Manning throwing like that because their defense was so, so good. A couple guys who were on the version of getting paid. Derek Wolf got paid after this.

Mali Jackson got paid after this by the Jaguars. Shaq Barrett was on this team. Sheck Barrett had five hundred steps. He had 30 pressures in the regular season playoffs combined. Bradley Robey was in his second season. Bradley Robey eventually got a huge contract from the Texans. So a lot of these guys get paid after this. Dan Jervathan goes and gets paid by the Bears shortly after this.

So again, similar sort of theme. Offensive line had several solid players on it again. Matt Paradise, Evan Mathis, Louis Vasquez. So again, not stars, but several solid players on that offensive line. This defense, the past defense is one of the best of all time. And they were very good against a run as well. Well, football outsiders, I think, said this was the best defense of the past decade, even over the Legion of Boom teams. They allowed 5.1 net yards per pass that they turned every quarterback they played that season into how Justin Fields threw the ball last year.

Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome. Basically, basically they turned every, they had Baker Mayfield playing quarterback for them, 22 Baker Mayfield, and they played against 2022 Baker Mayfield. That was every Broncos game in 2015, just statistically if you looked at that. So that defense of backfield was loaded. A keep to leave, Chris Harris, T.J. Ward. Darian Stewart. And a really good season.

And a Robby for Marshall. Yeah. Are kind of in that same category of me where it's just like they were solid for those teams. They didn't end up doing much after that. But they played well in the context of that defense. This is the one outlier in terms of passing success. Almost every other team you look at here, even if the reason they won the Super Bowl was a hot pass rusher or something like that, over the course of the regular season and

especially into the playoffs, you're looking at like a point. 0.2 EPA per dropback for almost every single one of these teams. And just put that in context, that is going to be like a top five passing unit in almost any given season. And almost every team we're going to talk about here fits that category except the 2015 Broncos. That is how good the defense was. Right. Right. And that's a, uh, that's, no, it's such a good point because you, I'm going to keep bringing.

I'm going to bring up those quarterback stats from the playoffs a few times. And that's what over and over and over. It's usually the best guys at the top or the guys that want to heat are at the top. for those EPA for drop back or success rates. It's funny. And it's like, oh, I can see why they won a Super Bowl that year because there it is. There it is. Their quarterback played like an exceptional MVP for a month.

And that'll help. Next thing we want to talk about here is the 2016 Falcons, not the 2016 Patriots, because we just talked about the 2014 Patriots like we mentioned at the top. I had three blue chip players in the 2016 Falcons. I have. I have three. I have Matt Ryan, Alex, Matt and Julio Jones. Those are the three that I have as well.

Boom. And I have those are the three blue chip players. Guess how this team was built. That's all you have to know. This team is also, it's so hard to learn something from this team because how many very good players did you have? So it's hard to get the Vic Beasley what he became out of my head. But I put him in here. I think he deserves mention here.

His first team all pro, but that was even like a fake first team all pro. He had a bunch of sacks. He was outside the top. 20 in pressure rate this year. Wasn't it like you like 14 sacks, but like 15 QB hits? It was something like. That was pretty much what it was like. It was like a one to one.

He was outside the top 20 in pressure rate. He finished 18th in the NFL in pressures, but he had 15 and a half sacks and six force fumbles. So he was a first team all pro, but he wasn't like an elite player. So if you give him the very good red ship sort of bump, that's it. Okay. I had, I had Jake Matthews because he was very good this year. And then I gave Devante Freeman, but I put question mark. Because he had a good year that year.

but it was more like him and Kevin Coleman. You know, so that, that, I know. So I gave him a, though that was a question mark, but that's borderline. So, but I'm with you. I'm kind of with you. I'm basically, two, two and a half, I would say, I'd put it at. So this is the hot quarterback taken to the furthest extreme because it was, he was the MVP quarterback. This is one of the best passing offenses.

Similar to how the best Broncos, that Broncos team had one of the best past defenses we ever seen. That's why they won the Super Bowl. this is one of the best past offenses we've ever seen, and that's why they almost won the Super Bowl. This is a very good quarterback who got hot, right? It was the MVP all year and just playing at a ridiculous clip. Because even some of the guys, like you mentioned, Jake Matthews, I had this is another like solid offensive line. Andy Levitre had a good year that year. This was just a good group.

But some of the defensive players like, yeah, I don't know, Neil was solid, but he was young, Jalen Collins. You know, Dwight Freeney had a good playoff run for them. Mosinu was like the number two receiver on this team. This is a Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Kyle Shanahan special. Like, that's exactly what this is. This was the schematic advantage example. Correct.

A good quarterback, schematic advantage, and getting hot. That's what this team was. That passing success rate in the playoffs, Matt Ryan success rate in the playoffs was 60.7%. To put that in perspective last year, Mahomes led the league in, I think, like, 51 or 52%. That it's a 60% is crazy. throwing the ball, two out of three times essentially is a good play for the offense.

They were hot during the season and they stayed hot during the playoffs. And again, that's why they should have won the Super Bowl and almost did because it was an exceptional offense and truly an all-time offense. We talked about so much, one of my favorite offenses of all time to watch. I was at the NFC championship game that year was the last game with the Georgia Dome. It was the game where Julio just absolutely shredded the Packers. I was like, I was like, God, they were watching something. This is absolutely insane.

Okay. So we had three blue chip players. maybe one very good player if you're given a big piece of that out. That's four. The teams we've talked about, the last two teams before this, we're talking about seven, eight guys. So again, this Falcons team is on the outside looking in in terms of, I think, the requisite number that you're looking for, which as we get toward the conclusions

will bring up again, 2017 Eagles. How many blue chip players do you have on the 2017 Eagles? I had, there we go. Oh, boy. I, okay, because I give once a nod. I have five. I have four and then what do you do with the quarterback in the Red Ship category. Okay.

Okay. So basically the same. Four plus wets. Wentz. Yeah. Wentz Foles. Yeah. Another example of a schematic advantage.

This is the quarterback in. This is a, again, 0.21 ePAP per dropback. That number we're getting to where it's like they were second in the NFL and ePaper drop back that year over the playoffs and regular season combined with two different quarterbacks. So it's just, what do you get? get out of your quarterback essentially becomes the question here, even if your quarterback isn't an elite player, which I think is kind of an entangled conclusion to have to come to. But not exactly the one we maybe thought coming into the process. But no, it's that's very true.

Even if you don't have an elite quarterback, you have to have an elite passing game, essentially outside of almost any team except for 2015. The Broncos. Yeah. Or have the Broncos that can snuff out your advantage of the passing game, which is extremely hard to do if you're going against the top tier of teams. By the way, file that away. That advantage in the passing game, even if you don't have a elite quarterback,

file that away from when we get to our conclusions here at the end. And what's our teams we're talking about? Okay. The blue chip players, I had Flasher Cox, second team all pro that year, 51 pressures, 16 pressures and three playoff games. Lane Johnson. Yep.

Jason Kelsey. Yep. And my fourth one was Brandon Brooks. Yeah. Those were the same four I had. So easy. Brandon Brooks is played guard for that team. But for those who don't remember.

Brandon Brooks was a. I'm talking about it was like 20 years ago and Brandon Brooks is dead. But Brandon Brooks was a, he was like a 340 pound free agent guard to the Eagle sign and just moved like nobody's business. He was incredible if you guys don't remember watching Brandon Brooks. I'm sure many of you do, but it's really fun when you have the underside center with the gigantic guard next to him. Like growing up, I had Jeff Christie next to David Dixon, who is a converted New Zealand or Australian. No, New Zealand rugby player that like was a developmental guy. Yeah, he was just ended up like a solid guard for the Vikings and he was like 340.

So I always had that guy. I love that little pairing next to each other. I had, if you include the quarterback in this, so as a great good player, I had three others. I had three others. So I had Malcolm Jenkins. Yep. Brandon Graham, I put it in there. And I had Zach Ertz is my third one.

I gave Alshon Jeffrey. Okay. That's fair. The not. Yeah. When I looked at some of the numbers, if they weren't good enough for me to put that in there, he had a good playoff run again. Yeah.

But it just, he didn't quite make it in there for me. He was like in the contributor category. He was the last one and kind of just no one can see my notes right now. But how I had him all, it was like, it was in descending order essentially. And so he's like essentially on the borderline for me. So Malcolm Jenkins was a pro baller that year. He played like five different positions essentially. He played like 200 snaps like five different positions.

He was incredibly valuable that season. Such a good player. That year especially, it was just like that that, the best use and like the best. version of him, I think, was that season. Him and Jim Schwartz, where it was like one of those where it's like perfect play caller for perfect player. Just, yeah, those two created magic together. Brandon Graham was fantastic that season on a per snap level and then obviously had a very

impactful playoffs. Over three playoff games, the combination of Brandon Graham, Vinny Curry, and Chris Long had 47 combined pressures. 47 divided by three. It's like more than five a game. Five a game for those three guys. That's funny. No, this is, though, the depth of the defense is just remarkable.

Yeah. team by Chris Long. We took us, what, four or five defenders before we got to Chris Long, who was a good player that year. So that was the key to this team, was they're so good in the trenches and they had so much other fun auxiliary talent. And then they, again, had the schematic advantage of the RPO's on offense. Like, it's just a fun, fun combination, a unique team.

But again, they checked the boxes that kind of like a lot of these other teams did check and they just did their own way. Zach Gert's two yards per route run, which is 12th at any. position that year. It's a very good number. He hit 824 yards and 74 catches. None of them came after the catch. Catch a fall down, Zach Ernst. He had 18 catches on 21 targets in the playoffs. And one other conclusion about this team, it is similar, in my opinion, to the offensive line conversation that we've had. Several of these teams, some of them have elite players. Like the Broncos had just a bunch of elite players, but their secondary still top to bottom was

very complete. They had no weak links in the secondary. That's what this Eagles team was. Ronald Darby, Rodney McCleys. Patrick Robinson, Malcolm Jenkins, just really solid players from top to bottom. And then speaking of a couple of those guys, many players who got paid after this. Patrick Robinson got a big deal with the Saints as kind of like a bounce back contract. Ronald Darby got paid after this by two different teams. And then Vinnie Curry also signed a big multi-year deal with the Bucks even after he had signed a deal with the Eagles. So several players on this team that eventually get paid elsewhere.

It's just unique when you see a Super Bowl champion, too, that only one player had more than 800 receipts. even were rushing yards. Just like this is a fun team. It really is a fun team. In the moment, because I was in the league still and we played against them on Christmas, I think we did was. And it was an ugly game. It was like 13.

6 or something. And we could not move the ball. That was bad, bad times around Christmas for the Tice family. But that was, uh, but now looking back, it's like, wow, that was, it was cool. Like it was a cool team. But also like, again, the quarterback getting hot, like Nick Foles, that passing success rate stat just said Matt Ryan was number one, 60.7 percent. Nick Foles was two at 60.

at 60.6%. So he basically played like MVP Matt Ryan during that Super Bowl, during that Super Bowl run for them. And if you look at like just, just that rate, I know it's just one advanced staff, but success rate is one I really like. But you just look at the playoff of all those 80-something quarterbacks that had 50 or more attempts.

These are the top names out there. So it's Matt Ryan, Nick Foles. That's Breeze, Russell, Wilson, Tom Brady, 2014, Josh Allen, 2021, Mahomes, 22, Matt Ryan, 2012, Mahomes, 21, Stafford, 21, Tom Brady, 2018, so what I'm saying is, just, Hall of Fame caliber quarterbacks and Nick Foles. So just to truly show you how unique this season was and how, or how this unique this team was and with the advantages that they had and the roster that they had.

It's such a team to talk about that we'll talk about for years. 2018 Patriots. How many elite players than 2018 Patriots? I had two. I had two. Tom Brady, Stefan Gilmore. That's it. And even very good players, making an argument for like three.

I don't know how you, it's hard to do because. There were a couple guys that were hurt and then came back. I said very good units as opposed. This is what I kind of cheated on because there was a very good offensive line with very good. Yet another just top to bottom solid offensive line. Joe Tuney, Shack Mason, Trent Brown, Marcus Can and David Andrews. Yes. Trent Brown got paid after this too.

Didn't work out well. But he came back. But before he got paid, they traded nothing for him. But I think it was like a nothing pick that they got from the Niners. And then he gets paid after this. To the church of Scarnakia. And then and then, but the good starters on defense everywhere. Van Newey, Tray Flowers.

Also got paid right after that, two years after this, but also. Yes. Oh, yeah. Trey flowers. Trey flowers. About to get paid. Yes. Yes.

By Patricia going over there. Yeah. Come on over. It's run the same defense. You got bringing everyone else there with you. Lawrence guy. Uh, High Tower, McCourtney, Chung. Young Dichaeli.

Chung. Two McCordy's. Yes. I just wrote down one, but I meant to say all both of them. I didn't even put the first name. Dietrich Weiss. Like they just. good team like and I mean or not good team it was a good team but obviously they won a

super bowl but just uh it's like a lot of like good starters with an elite quarterback and not that many elite players again and I keep coming back to that here as we move through these which I'm trying I'm trying to move up the clip here I know I'm sorry no you're fine I'll talk about the past catches real quick it's hilarious looking back Edelman James White and Josh Gordon and like a banged up grok and then grok and then came back but gronk had a nice playoffs you did six for 79 six for 87 but again, Julian Edelman in the playoffs. Nine for 151, 7 for 96, 10 for 141. I didn't remember that hot run.

God, that's. Yeah. And then, of course, James White. I forgot about the Josh Gordon. Like, Philip Dorset was on this team. Remember the guy traded with the Colts? Yep. Yeah.

So yeah. So yeah. So Kobe reset trade. Yeah, exactly. I, my own, my top note for this team, most people I just had the categories. I just said, strange team. And that's all I said, strange team. And then put all the rest of my notes in there.

2019. So that for them, it's like. combined blue and very good players, maybe four. Yeah. Right? Like maybe four. Still. Yeah.

Not to the degree of the other teams we're going to talk about. A lot of good. Like firmly, a lot of BB plus players, but maybe not like A, A minus players. 2019 chiefs. How many elite players? I had six. I had six as well. Okay.

Yeah. Mahomes, Kelsey, Tyree Kale, Chris Jones, Tyre Matthew, and Mitchell Schwartz. That's it. Yep. Yep. And then one more very good player in Frank Clark. And then, yeah. But so that's seven, right?

That's kind of been like the... Yes. The number we keep kind of... About seven to eight is the number we keep getting to a lot of the time. Yeah. And so, I mean, there's not a ton to say about those elite players. It's truly elite. Like, these are elite.

No, these are elite. A lot of them, I had like notes for the justification of them being in the blue chip category. I do not have a single word written down from a Holmes, Kelsey, Tyree, Kilchrist, or Mitchell Schwartz. You're right. There's no explanation for it. For Matthew, I was like, first team all pro.

He had 15 passes to defense that year. He was really, really good that season. But they had six truly elite players and then maybe one very good player in Frank Clark. Frank Clark while maybe on the borderline during the regular season, 17 pressures and five sacks in the playoffs. Yes. And Chris Jones actually was not dominant in the playoffs. No. So, but they had one guy.

They had one guy as a hot pass rusher in the playoffs. And then Jones went off in the Super Bowl, right? Because he had the PBIs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't all that stuff. But that's a, he affected the game, but then they had another one that was cleaning stuff up. So no, it's a great point, though.

One more example of the top to bottom quality secondary. Okay, remember Juan Thornhill tore his ACL in the regular season finale? And then Kendall Fuller came in to play safety for them and they already had Tyron Matthew. And then this is Rashat Fenton, Traverius Ward. Uh-huh. Traveris Ward, a guy eventually does get paid. Another secondary where it's like, yeah, Matthew was a star. No one else was.

But they had solid pieces. and they had depth at those positions. And that becomes really important. Even if you're not healthy because you lose a Thornhill who played well at the end of the regular season, do you have another piece that can come in and give you five capable players? And this is another example of that. And same conversation about the offensive line. Another good, solid offensive line.

And that had pretty good health that year, pretty good, I'll say. Some guys get banged up, but overall decently. But they still had Eric Fisher, a former number one overall pick at left tackle. Like, they were more built. it's kind of funny. They became the chiefs offensive line, became the inverse of itself. They had good tackles with,

uh, interior to an awesome interior and, eh, tackles. So funny how they kind of changed that up to. 2020 bucks. How many elite players did you have in the 2020 bucks? Because this is a tough one.

So I did three elite, but then my very good category is loaded. I think I have like eight of them. Yeah. Okay. So I had Tom Brady. Okay. It was one.

I had Shaq Barrett. Yeah. As two. Okay. He led the NFL. I didn't have check bear. I had him as very good. But yes, but keep going.

So who are your elite guys then? Levante David and Tristan Wharfs. Interesting. So I, Worf's was a rookie that year. I was kind of like, eh, like it,

maybe you could give him that notch. He was all pro. You could probably make the argument that he deserves to be up there. All right. So let's move him up there. So that means that. Because I,

I agree with you about, um, about Barrett, about Shaq Barrett. Yeah, I agree with that. I have him very good, but I,

I have him a very good. Yeah. Just, just, just, just perpetually underrated Levanti David. Let's put Levanti David up there. Remember how we played against Kelsey in the Super Bowl?

Yeah. So let's, all right. So let's say four. Okay. That's that's fair. You've swung me on the four. I had one, two, three, four, five, six more. Very good players.

I had seven more. Yes. That's insane. When you think about it in the same, including some of the young guys that became good players. Yes. Like that, this team was, this is one of the most loaded rosters I've ever seen. knowing it in the hindsight too. About some of the young players.

And I wrote about, again, I wrote about it in the moment, when they, when they draft, when they signed Brady and they drafted Tristan Words, I was like, we got it. Like, these are, these are the holes. Like, that team has a lot of talent on it. They can win the Super Bowl this year. And they ended up doing it. And I feel very good about it. So you look at it.

Oh, I, so I had, I had L.A. Marpet. Yep. Who plays guard, who played guard for that. Ryan Jensen. Yep. Chris Godwin. Yep. Mike Evans, who Mike Evans can be an elite player.

he was not that season. He did not, the way he played that year. He didn't need to be that. He did. He did. He did. I had Gronk who played very, very well that year. And I had Vida Vaya.

And you know, Vehaa. I forgot Vita Vaya. And he was amazing that year. So he was, he only played five games in the regular season, but he was very good in the playoffs. Yes. Okay.

I even included Antonio Brown. I didn't know what to do with Antonio Brown. But so there's even more than I even had originally. And then you can make an argument for right. Right. Alex, Capa. Like, you can make an argument for him.

Like, he was good that year. What about all the corners that have gotten paid? We didn't even mention Carlton Davis, Jamel Dean, Jordan Whitehead ended up getting paid. Rick and Antoine Winfield. Like, Infant Winfield Jr. His team was absolutely loaded. Loaded.

Loaded. Their worst week to week starter was Ronald Jones. And then other than that, it was all good or better players. Like I just did the football reference what the overall starters were. It's Tom Brady, Ronald Jones, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin. They have Scotty Miller. Antonio Brown. Gronk, Donovan Smith, who was good that year.

That was his best year as a pro. This is another very solid offensive line all the way across the board example with Donovan Smith and Alex Kappa. Yep, yep. Capa, Marpet, Jansen, Wurfs, and then a defense at Sue. Nunez Roches, who got paid this year. William Golson was a good solid starter. I would say more above average, but still a contributor.

Jason Pier, Paul, Devin White, we haven't even mentioned. And this is the unlocked Devin White year where they just kept having a blitz running backs over and over. I've never seen a team weaponized two man more than this Bucks team, which I should have noted before the Super Bowl that year. It was awesome to watch them play. I remember watching them play that exact coverage in person against the Packers that year and just watching them do it and having Carlton Davis just muscle people and the way that that unlocked Devin White is like, this is a beautiful version of this football team. It is because that's a quote unquote finesse defense two man. That's kind of a passive defense typically. And

They weaponized it and made it aggressive, physical. They had Devin White hug rushing, which means, you know, if the runback looks like he's blocking run, use that four three speed and go. And then Vante David could do things like man up on Travis Kelsey without, well, technically he has help, but truly no help. Yeah, but a lot of today is Shaq Barrett, Carlton Davis, Sean Murphy Bunting, Antoine Winfield and Jordan Whitehead. This team is loaded. It's one of the all-time rosters. How many pressures do you think Shaq Barrett had in four playoff games?

Over five? 21. Yeah, over five a game. Yeah, over five a game. That's the magic number. it's seven very good or better players and and having a pass pressure with five more and a hot ass quarterback and a hot ass quarterback and if you have a schematic advantage that's a nice little nice little feather in your cap as well 2021 Rams how many elite players in the 221

Rams I had four I had four as well four and a half if you include von Miller in the playoffs but oh I so I included von Miller and I did not include Stafford I said he was kind of on the border one I include Stafford this year because he five I mean this was his so let's there's five yeah so five I, so I almost forgot to put him on here. Andrew Whitworth should be in the very good category. Okay. And then they had a lot of contributors. Rob Habenstein was in,

your opinion, very good. I had Asian Robinson. Greg Gaines was good that year. Greg Gaines. Floyd. So they had some contributors. But so let's,

they had still like six to seven in, and their blue chip guys are the bluest chip guys. Purple chips. Yes. So that almost, and even though Von Miller was only there for, you know, a chunk of the season,

over that playoff. for a run. 45 pressures and 10 sacks combined by Aaron Donald and Bonnebiller. 45 pressures and 10 sacks combined in the playoffs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a fun winning formula. And then having, having an all-time corner to lock down and Joe and Mesa.

Yeah. That's a good problem. And then Cooper Cup that year. I mean, Cooper Cup all like broke records that season. So, yes. And then even like Tyler Higby had a solid year. And then OBJ played well down the stretch too. And then Ernest Jones comes in and play in the Super Bowl and stuff like that.

So like you said, it's they had a lot. of plus contributors. The interior offensive line was a good solid offensive line. And healthy. Yes. They were super healthy that. And even when they weren't, no boom comes in for Whitworth. When Woodworth was banged up and they ended up being fine in the playoffs. So depth and health and quality along the offensive line, talking about guys who got paid after this.

Cooper Cup got paid after this. Nick Scotchist got paid by the Bengals. Austin Corbett got paid by the Panthers. So guys even further down the list eventually getting their money. Yeah. And another team with a schematic advantage. And this one was originally McVeigh had the zone stuff and and making everything look the same. But with Stafford, they went to empty and they just let it grab. Bombs away.

You'll never see a team do that like, do it like that again because, wow. That's why it was so much fun to talk about the moment because someone that truly leaned into that stuff and attacked down the field like that, it was so, so cool to watch. So a little schematic advantage right there. How many elite players in the 2002 Eagles were doing the Eagles instead of the Chiefs because we just did the teams like two years earlier? But for the Eagles, I was like, I don't know where to start and stop. It's difficult. like five elite I had I had four and I think you can make an argument for

Javan Hargrave was kind of where I where I did it okay I included him so I had five elite I had AJ Brown Asan Redick Jason Kelsey Lane Johnson and then I think Javan Hargrave was on the border yeah and then I had the corners as the corners I didn't know what to do with I had red ship very good for the corners yeah I that's kind of what I kind of that's how I think of them anyway so kind of yeah I think James Bradbury deserved to be rewarded I put him as a second team all pro, but terms of like the quality of player that he is. Yeah, he's a very good player. We named both of them as our second. That's how low this roster was.

We named different corners as second team all pros. That's how low that this team was. And then, you know, and then offensive line has some other good players, you know, on top of it. My lot is absolutely on here. Miles Sanders had a good year. Devonte Smith. Dallas Goddard. There's somebody very good as well. Dallas Goddard, of course, like he just said. And then, of course, Jalen Hertz. Like, it's, it's a pretty damn good roster.

And that's why we talked about it like that. Hassan Reddick went on an absolute heater in the playoffs. You hit the benchmarks that we're talking about. And then you look at the total blue-red combined. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Like, you can make an argument for like 10 or 11. Yeah. And we're not even including the other, team was fucking loaded.

Not even including the other like defensive rotational guys. Like, yeah, it's a truly, true, true, truly loaded roster. Another very good top to bottom offensive line and secondary. C.J. Gardner Johnson, Avanti Maddox. It's just a very good group in, in totality in the same way that a lot of, these have been. Okay. So as we go through all of those and you think about your takeaways, your big picture of lessons from analyzing those rosters, how many elite to very good players do you need to win the Super Bowl? Originally, I was going to say half dozen. I'm going to bump it up

to seven. So I say seven's the magic number. That's where I'm at. So seven to eight guys typically. Yeah. And but those don't need to all be elite elite players. Nope. Okay. So you need, you can have two blue chip guys and six very good players. You can look at that Bucks team and say, okay, maybe they got three to four blue chip guys. They got so many red chip players. And there are a bunch of those guys. Okay. So that that's my conclusion.

And positionally, you know, you need the pass rusher that gets hot. Yeah. But then you need the passing game to be elite. That's where you get there. It's like, I know. That's actually like it was a fun takeaway, I think. It was like you have to be effective passing the ball. You have to.

But how you want to do, it's up to you. Because some teams are like Tom Brady and the whewvers. And Mahomes. But then, yeah, Mahomes. But even Mahomes, like, he had Tyree Kill and Travis Kelsey, you know, when they ended up doing that. And then this year's Eagles team, they go out and get A.J. Brown. They have Devante Smith.

They have Dallas Goddard. But you have other teams on here that they weren't built that way. You need a hyper-elite quarterback to not be built that way or you need your quarterback to go in an absolute heater. Like, for the most part, I still think you need an elite passing weapon to have an elite passing game, especially now. The examples you look at that are counter to that, we're talking about the 2013 Seahawks.

It's a decade ago. It's a different version of the league than it is right now. So I think the more recent examples, you, 2022 Eagles have AJ Brown and those other guys. 2021 Rams have Cooper Cup. 2020 bucks have both Mike Evans and Chris Gowen. The 2019 chiefs have Travis Kelsey and Patrick Mahomes. All of those teams have someone.

The 2021 Rams have, I said, Cooper Cup. Those are the most recent teams. So an elite passing team and a hot pass rusher, but positionally, I think it gets muddled after that. I think you need a healthy, complete offensive line more than elite players along the offensive line. I think you need a healthy, complete secondary more than necessarily having elite players in the secondary.

The game-changing player on defenses, you need up-pass rusher to get hot during the playoffs. Like my original knows before we started the show, and maybe I added something, but I said, I talked to your Q. or a QB that gets hot. And then I said an all pro on defense or like a game changer on defense. And but now I've kind of amend that to a past, an effective, highly effective pass rusher. I think it's just, yeah, a pass rusher that gets hot and be able to defend the

pass as well. And just overall, just the ability to pivot, which we've talked about before. That's nothing new. And I knew that coming in, what would be a takeaway, but the ability to win in different ways is very, it was cool looking at some of these teams and seeing a team that was like the number two pass offense that year. And then you look in one of their playoff games and they have a huge rushing game, you know, or vice versa.

A really good run team also is throwing the ball bunch. It's kind of cool. And having coaches, schematic stuff. And that's why coaches have so much of input on this and be able to lean that way. But you have to have a team that can lean in different ways when needed to. So one of the teams that inspired this conversation when we talked about the Lions a couple weeks ago, I think my conclusion was, yeah, they probably don't have enough elite players to do this.

But now, let's talk about the boxes that we just mentioned. Complete offensive line from top to bottom. Maybe not necessarily the best offensive line, but do you have five starters you feel good about? 100%. Oh, yeah. Do you have a complete secondary that doesn't have any obvious holes

maybe over having elite players? The best version of this Lions team, if they stay healthy, does. That's what they went out and got. Do you have a pass rusher that can dominate a playoff game or get hot near the playoffs? I would say the hope is, By the time we get to this year's playoffs,

that Aiden Hutchinson can be that sort of guy. So if you have one guy that can get the Mario flower and get there for four games, that is important. And is he one of those guys? And then even if you don't have an elite quarterback, can you create an elite passing game? The answer for the Detroit Lions is yes. We have seen them do it before.

And have the ability to pivot if needed on offense. that it's they this was a good exercise for the lines because it does make you feel a little bit better once you realize a true champion or at least make a run like that they're checking boxes and you know it's got golf could absolutely get hot like especially in that type of offense that's going to give them clean pockets so hell yeah this is this is uh I think this is exercise was a win for that question about the lines more so maybe than we did a week ago or two weeks ago wherever it was it is very it's informative though and I think it's good to go back and do this kind of stuff every once in a while.

How would these teams actually comprised and come into the conclusions of seven to eight, you know, good, it lead to very good players, dominant past rusher, elite pass offense through some way, shape, or form, quality complete offensive line, quality, complete secondary. Those are like the almost non-negotiables for you to actually get there. And then having an underlying level of young talent that is eventually going to get paid some money. And I think that that's another one of those because you need to save somewhere. Yeah. You know, like that's just a necessary component of this.

The snap, and that's the thing too is the snaps always have to go somewhere. Somebody has to play the snaps. And if you're playing a guy that you're like, oh, we're not building around this guy in the future that can leave you a little. You better have other guys that you're like, okay, they will overcome that weakness. But if you're giving snaps, so maybe that player isn't elite yet or even very good yet, but it's flashes of it. It's like, you never know whether you're going to get hot or that light bulb turns on for them. And so like that's what you just have to have it available. I think that was the defensive lesson on top of having a pass rush or didn't get hot and everything.

It's just guys that can step up. Some guys that can step up and go on tears and be schemed up to be good players. That was another thing that just knows. Some of those ascending young talents on a lot of these teams, especially on the defense, more than the offense, I thought. It was a lot of those kind of rookie contract defensive guys that ended up becoming good players or ended up getting paid later down in their career. 100%. That was really fun. I think that was an instructive exercise.

It was very fun. It was very informative. Whenever I'm looking up, 2012 football outsiders, DVOA special teams numbers, you know it's a very fun exercise for the athletic football show. All right. That is all we have for today. We will be back on Monday with another mailbag. The week of July 10th, just a reminder, we will not have a mailbag that Monday because

all five episodes of the play callers, Jordan Rod Riege's new narrative series about the Shanahan McVeigh coaching tree. She talked to all of these guys. McVeigh, Shanahan, Matt Willflor, Mike McDaniel. I mean, just insight that from these coaches that you have never heard before, versions of these coaches that you have never heard before, the story of this offensive system,

but also of the people who have created it and the people who have watched it evolve and push that evolution along. That is going to be fantastic. So just remember to be on the lookout for that. The week of July 10th, that will be coming in the athletic football show feed. Next week, we will have our. Offensive and Defensive Lessons Show. They'll be coming your way on Wednesday and Friday.

So remember to be on the lookout for those. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.