The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: Giants keeping Joe Judge & Daniel Jones, trading Sean Payton, Cowboys’ draft success, active player Hall of Famers & more

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

The Super Bowl Champion Mitchell Schwartz returns to the Mailbag portion of the show to dig into some of your best week 16-17 questions, voicemails and emails like what we think of the Giants apparently sticking by Joe Judge and Daniel Jones, what the Jaguars would have to trade to acquire a Sean Payton, the Cowboys' recent draft history, rebooting the Bears and Washington Football Team, which coach-QB relationships are intriguing to think about and more with Robert Mays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Today's Tuesday, December 28th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today is my good friend Metro Schwartz. Mitch, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing pretty good. How about you?

I'm doing well. We're doing another mailbag today coming off of the Christmas weekend. Were you at home? Were you in Kansas City this weekend? No, we went down to Miami-Kee-West area. We're supposed to be there for a few days, and things didn't quite work out. out. So we ended up actually coming back and flying on Christmas morning to get back to Kansas City so we could spend the rest of the day here and with our dog. So a little bit of a lot of travel

going on, but happy to be back home. We were going to go to New Jersey. It's flying on Christmas night to go see my fiance's family. And we did none doing it. And it was nice to be able to just kind of chill out, even though I did miss seeing them, missed out on seeing them. So I think it's been a strange year for everyone. Hopefully if you guys have been alone throughout the holidays or haven't been able to travel. We've been able to give you guys a little bit of comfort and a little bit of company over this stretch. I really appreciate you guys sending in questions today, as I always do, especially this time of year when everyone's a little bit distracted. People have things going on. They're out of their normal routine. So the fact that we

still got a ton of questions means a ton. So thank you guys very much for sending those along. Kent, let's get to our first voicemail here. Hi, Robert. This is Jeff. I'm a wife, Warren, Giant fan. I remember Bill Parcells and Lauren Taylor, winning Super Bowls with Phil Sims and Eli Manning. Even getting to the Super Bowl with Carrie Collins wasn't that bad. Now we're announcing that we're keeping Joe Judge and Daniel Joe's for one more season. Why now? Why?

What has these guys done to make anyone think that things will get better? We've gone from beating Tom Brady's Patriots twice in the Super Bowl to being the worst franchise in the NFL in 10 years. Where do we go from here? Awful. Thanks for listening. Best wishes for a great new year. It's a great question. We have not discussed this at all since the report leaked.

I think it was last week about Joe Judge and Daniel Jones coming back. I'm curious what you think about this. What is the outside opinion of where the giants are as a franchise right now? Because like Jeff alludes to, it's been a pretty precipitous fall here over the last decade or so. When you look at their record over that, time when you just think about the way that we discussed them, just kind of how they're viewed. I mean, they're closer to a punchline than they are one of the model franchises at the NFL. And that's a pretty recent development.

Yeah, it's a little bit funny because we, like said for forever that they were a model franchise, the ownership. You know, they let their coaches coach. They trusted them. They, you know, didn't make, you know, rash decisions. They hired the guys that they wanted and let them, you know, do their jobs. And, you know, now they're kind of in that cycle where they're churning through. everybody and it's still the same ownership. So, you know, if you were going to say, you know,

15, 20 years ago, oh, great ownership, that's what's leading to success. Well, you know, still the same family owning it. So, yeah, they are mired in this kind of rut right now where it's, you know, mediocrity or a little bit worse. And I mean, Daniel Jones is coming back next year. Like, he's got guaranteed money and he's relatively cheap quarterback on the whole of it. And, you know, a lot of franchises want to upgrade their quarterbacks, but it's not that easy to do it. you know, this year doesn't look like it's going to be the greatest, you know, draft for quarterbacks either. So it's not like, oh, let's just clean house and we'll rebuild around someone in the draft because as of now, like, there's not even a guy that's really a consensus

like top five pick. So it's a little bit tough to do that. It would make more sense, I think, to move on from the judge side of things than maybe Daniel Jones, because again, it's easier to probably replace that coach than it is the quarterback at the specific moment. I would just say, like it seems like from all indications, you know, Belichick was kind of grooming, judge to be this head coach, and, you know, Belichick really liked him and thought he had great potential and all the stuff. And I think the mayor of family, you know, is trusting of Belichick's recommendation. I know that was part of the hiring process. So it seems like he still has that trust. You know, for whatever reason, it doesn't seem like that's eroded. You know, we've talked about before of coaches being able to, you know, shift blame onto a lot of other people and a lot of other things. I don't know if that's specifically the case, you know, from the outside in. It sure looks like it's not the greatest coach team. But again, are they necessarily going to get someone better next year? I don't know.

So it seems to make a little bit of sense to kind of pair those two together and, you know, hope for the best. I'm not sure anyone sitting here saying like, oh, if they just go get the next hot, you know, offensive coordinator to be the head coach, like he's going to transform Daniel Jones. Like that's not necessarily a thing we're saying. So I think maybe, you know, the idea behind it is running back for another year. here, you know, see if Jones makes a jump, see if, you know, Joe Judge can improve the team. And, you know, for the most part, you know, coaches you'd like to think it better as the years go on. So it'll be interesting, you know, from the outside in, again, don't really love either of those options.

So I don't know what to think if I were a Giants fan. My take on this is that their priority here is to seem like a model franchise, sometimes to their own detriment, right? So when they move on from Pat Schumer, they keep Dave Gettlement. And it's like, all right, we're going to have him here. this is a sign of stability. It's a projection of stability. We're going to have this guy who's been a part of this franchise at various times in his career for a very long time. And as we get our new coach, the GM is going to stay. Despite the fact that we'd had many indications that he was not properly equipped to be a GM in the modern era with some of the decisions that they made, whether it's

drafting Sequin number two overall, some of the other moves that they made. I feel like there were definitely there were a decent amount of missteps with his tenure. And there was really no upside to keeping him while bringing Joe Judge on to be the new head coach. It feels like Jason Garrett as a decision, as an offensive coordinator, was a projection of stability. This is a guy who's been a head coach.

He's going to be another voice in the building that you know. The messaging on that is pretty easy. I feel like all of those things, combined with a guy like Joe Judge, who is supposed to be the perfect encapsulation of stability, right? He's this special teams coordinator, CEO type head coach. He is supposed to be the ultimate keep the train on the tracks type of coach. And they do none of it.

None of that stuff ends up working. And I think even what happened with Eli Manning toward the end was another example of them trying to project this respect and stability onto the franchise that isn't necessarily in their best interest. So I feel like by trying to hang on to that stability, they're doing it again here. By saying he's coming back, by saying both of those guys are coming back, you're just kind of being like, nothing to see here. Everything is going okay. Believe in what we got going on. There is no reason to leak that Daniel Jones will be the quarterback next year.

Zero. There is no upside to doing it outside of you thinking you need to project to the world that everything that's happening and this house is burning down, they're not actually seeing it happening. That's what this feels like to me. It feels like the mayor is being like, guys, don't worry about it. everything is okay these guys are still here why would we fire another coach things are going fine in reality that doesn't matter hanging on to something that's not going in the right direction is not a sign of stability it's a sign of delusion and i think that's the problem i think that is at the core of it well i'd say for one that's excellently said so well done um the interesting

thing is it's almost like you know when gms get these like say fourth through seventh round draft picks or even like a free agent find and they're like decent players not great players but they sign them to like top of the market deals sometimes as like a patting themselves on the back deal to be like hey look see i found this guy in the sixth round and you know now he's top five paid at his position or whatever i feel like this is kind of like the ownership version of it but i would say like you're saying oh it shows stability and promotes all these things but it's like to who because everyone's making fun of them everyone thinks it's a crap situation so it's like i suppose it's to the people who also think that taunting is an issue.

So it's like, I don't know who they're, you know, really portraying this to other than themselves. It's just interesting to, it does make a lot of sense, like, you know, show stability and show that, you're on the right track and there's hope for the future. But it's like everyone who's talking about you, your fans, social media, Twitter, NFL writers, everyone's saying this is a disaster. You know, Gettleman has been widely panned for a very long time. And you could probably say last year was probably his best drafting just because he traded down and, you know, kind of got. got some more capital there. Although, of course, he think he traded down and skipped out on a quarterback that's markedly better than his own quarterback.

So who knows there. But, yeah, it's, you know, everyone that they're, you know, promoting this stability, too, is kind of making fun of them and thinks that they're dumb for keeping the stability. So that's an interesting, you know, kind of juxtaposition. And I think the way they've spent money is another example of this, right? They've thrown around money in finances, especially when it comes to free agents and saying, all right, well, we have solved these problems, right? You can point to the Nate Soulder deal.

You can talk about what happened with Dory Jackson this offseason, the Kenny Goliday deal that they just signed, what they gave to Leonard Williams after making that trade when they were kind of sitting there in no man's land. I mean, think about how many sticker price players they have on this team and think about how many true difference-making players they have on this team. Those things are incongruous. Like, there is a big separation between those two. You can't really make that conversion because you can't divide by zero. So, you know. And you look at it. I mean, that's the thing with this team is that there's nowhere to go.

They have an extra first round pick next year. Well done by you. It was a great move at the time. It was very smart. The Bears were absolutely a contender to be one of the five worst teams in the NFL this year. Getting their first round pick, pat yourself on the back, wonderfully done. But this is a team that has $978,000 in cap room next year. Think about how hard it is to do that.

To be one of the worst teams in the NFL and also have no financial flexibility. and there aren't that many deals that they can easily move on from, right? Sequan's deal has, there's no savings on Sequan's deal. The Leonard Williams deal, they just handed out. He's making $27.3 million next year. James Bradbury is going to cost them $22 million

against the cap next year. Adori Jackson is going to cost them $15.5 million. Sterling Shepard has $7.9 million in dead money left on his deal next year. Kenny Gallaudet has a $21.1 million cap hit next season. geez they went with like the rams stars model except they just got star money without the stars it's rough and you try to do that in order to stabilize things that's what you're trying to do it's like all right let's hand out these deals let's give out this money because we need to fill these holes at

these positions but this is where you find yourself when your offensive line is rotting when you are cycling between offensive line coaches it's that's the thing they project the stability when in all reality, the things that really stabilize you as a franchise, really good assistant coaches, a very well-coordinated offense that consistently puts its players in positions to succeed. Those are the things that weren't stable. So all of this projection and all of this posturing is for not. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just thinking at it from the Giants fan perspective. I suppose you could take solace that the Jets are still a little bit more of a mess than you are. Maybe. I don't know if you can necessarily argue that. No, I think on the whole, you'd probably say at this moment, the Jets have a little

more projection, but also, like, at this moment, the Giants still have a better record. Zach Wilson's looked much worse than you would have expected. Their left tackle has been out for the whole year where the Giants left tackle is, you know, finally look like he's getting a little bit better. Obviously, head coach you'd give to the Jets and, you know, GM. So it's an interesting one, but you can always go back to scoreboard and look at the wins and losses. And, you know, It's not the greatest. I'm just trying to find silver linings. You know, it's pretty difficult to do, and I'm doing my best.

All right. Well, after I just gave the Giants Bones of shit here for the last 10 minutes, it's time for me to take one on the chin. Can you play our next one here? Good morning, Robert, belated Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year's to your family. This is Mike, a transplanted Giants fan in Miami. And I have a question about the upcoming tilts between the Giants and Bears and their family.

and how both have been kind of run into the ground by the McCaskys and the Maras. And the fact that their fathers were Titans and then in the league. And then, of course, they went through their own wilderness years in the mid-60s, the 80s, and just the parallels between these two organizations. And basically the really terrible football that they put on the field during the tenures of the McCaskies and John K. Mara Esquire. I'd like you take on it what you think should be done to remedy the situation with both franchises. Thank you very much and have a great day. So we just talked about the Giants for a while and we can, I think, apply similar thinking to the Bears and what they need to do.

The Bears, thankfully, does not seem like they're going to be hanging on to whoever's in charge. At least the coach is probably going to be gone this year. It feels like a real... Was any part of you disappointed with the victory from this past weekend? Yes. Yeah, I saw that little smirk. You didn't want to say it out loud. It's because it's what twofold, right?

You wanted the draft pick and then you also didn't want anything. Well, draft pick doesn't matter. They're trading away the draft pick. They're trading away their first round pick. So, but to me, it was if they would have had a clean break today and they would have started looking for a coach while no one else was looking for their coach, I think that would have been fine. Okay.

That to me is not a bad outcome. But it doesn't really matter, right? It doesn't really matter. In the grand scheme of things, if this is going to make a difference in who's making the decisions, then. we're so far gone that none of this matters. Then we're way too far past being saved. I feel like, I talked about this on Barnwell show a little bit, having them really look at

everything, having this be kind of an existential moment where they think, all right, we need to really evaluate how all of this works. Our Adam Johnson, the athletic sense from reporting on this, other people have talked about it, really does feel like the organization is considering kind of a top-down restructure about how they're going to do this. For the people who don't know, the bear's power structure, the way that it works is George McCasky is, I believe the chairman is his actual title, and then Ted Phillips is under him as the president. Ted Phillips has been on the business side of the organization for a long, long time.

My understanding and the way that is presented is that they kind of leave the football side alone. They hired those people, but Ryan Pace has a lot of control over what the football side of things looks like. I feel like they need someone. And that's kind of the argument about, well, if they fire Ryan Pace and they fire Matt Nage, it's still the same people making these decisions. and the people that have made these hires in the past, Ted Phillips and the McCaskys, if you look at the way that this is gone, you go from Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo, which was a pretty solid decade of stability. They were consistently relevant.

They were the precipice of winning a championship. They went to two NFC championship games. I went to a Super Bowl. They were a pretty good team. For that era, I thought that they were well constructed. I thought they did a really good job. Then they go from that to the Mark Trussman-Fill-Emory era, which is just a very strange blip in history. right. I mean, it was a disaster for a couple of years, and it was an outside the box hire to go get Mark Trussman from the CFL. He didn't have a ton of recent NFL experience. It did not go well. Then they overcorrect from that by going to the most establishment hire you probably can by hiring John Fox as the head coach. And that's when they go get Ryan Pace. After they fire John Fox, they go get a new kind of chic coach. They go get an offensive coordinator from the most exciting offense in the league in Mat Nagy. And then,

We start with this niggie pace partnership. So now the question is, why is the next hire going to be different than the ones that have come before? And that's why I think kind of reevaluating how the power structure of the organization works and asking yourself, do we need someone in the building who is a football person, who understands this world, who understands the people in it, who isn't somebody like Ted Phillips on the business side of this? Is that going to help? And I think the answer is probably yes. I think considering someone like a Trace Armstrong that's been rumored who was a CIA agent for a very long time for coaches, understands that world, that to me is interesting thinking. And going with something like that where you bring in someone at the top, kind of oversees the football side of this, and then you think about what type of coach in GM you want. And we've talked about this in the past.

I don't know who good coaching candidates are necessarily all the time. I don't know how the best coordinator is going to translate into that job. But I think in terms of GMs, looking at someone who comes from a place that has solid process, right? Looking at somebody from the Colts, for example, like Ed Dodds, who's their assistant GM, someone that is patient, that builds a certain way, the exact opposite of the way the Bears have built and the way that Ryan Pace's Saints built when he was there. That's kind of my thought here, is that bring someone in that's kind of an overseer of what the franchise is supposed to be, and bring in a GM who is going to try to build this in the right way,

on the right timeline, all of that kind of stuff. It's easier said than done, but that to me is where I would start. Yeah, it's tough because, you know, as you were saying that, I was thinking of the Mike Holmgren, Cleveland Brown stint, where he gets brought in as, you know, a football guy, and, you know, kind of gets carte blanche to run the organization because the ownership just doesn't really want to run the team. And, hey, you've, you're a football guy.

You've had a lot of success. You know, you go ahead and hire everybody. your plan makes a little bit more sense than that worked out for us back in the day. But yeah, it's just one of those things that it just seems like until they make those decisions, it's going to be tough to kind of formulate it. But as you said, I mean, it's been essentially a decade of, you know, mired in this kind of rut as well. So they definitely need to do something a little bit different.

And, you know, kind of get back to Jacksonville, too. Like, Shad Khan has made all these decisions for a decade. and they had the one good year other than that. It's been pretty poor. And so if it's the same person going through the same process, making these decisions, and they keep coming up fruitless, like at some point that process needs to be broken up and maybe looked at in a different manner. So hopefully they're able to realize that themselves and not just hire whatever, you know,

firm is in charge of leading the coaching search this year and really get some, you know, new direction and some new blood in there. Well, you talk about the Jags, but what they did with Tom Coughlin, I think, is similar to the Holmgren thinking, right? Let's bring in someone who's done this before, who's a lifer, who's been around. I don't necessarily think that gives you stability. I think hiring someone who's near the tail end of his career isn't necessarily the way to do this.

I would much rather try to go a little bit further outside the box with someone who understands that world, but isn't somebody coming off a 25-year stretch as a head coach who's in his 70s and maybe isn't necessarily as plugged. in with the current climate of the sport, the coaching world, all of that stuff. That to me is not a way to go with this. No, not at all, because you're asking them to do basically three roles, kind of like oversee player personnel, oversee coaching, and also like oversee the business side of what the head coach has to do.

And for the most part, like, obviously those guys have dabbled in and have experience with it. But like, they haven't been that head decision maker who just runs the entire football side from top down. Like there's so few of those that exist. I don't know, Belichick might be like the only one right now that, you know, you can go find, you know, Pete Carroll in five years, you know, just because he was a really good coach and a culture center and all this stuff doesn't mean he's going to be a great GM and a great, you know, business guy who then hires a coach and, you know, runs an organization. So I think it's a flawed system. I mean, I kind of brought up Holmgren tongue and cheek because obviously that didn't quite work out. I can't remember the last, you know, quote unquote football guy head coach to come in and have that role that was, you know, super successful. Obviously, I would say, Elway was probably the most recent one. And aside from Peyton Manning, I'm not sure, you know, how much you can really attribute to him.

And as you said, he built that defense. I mean, they built that defense that was essentially won them a Super Bowl in 2015. Like that free agent class they had in 20, I think it was 2013, where they brought in like Talib and DeMarcus Ware and all those guys. Like that was a nice little flourish of team building that eventually won them a championship. I think that's probably where it ends, though. Yeah. I mean, I still think it's really just the Peyton Manning.

Manning piece that brought it all together because, I mean, Chicago's had a few pretty awesome defenses that you could probably put up player by player with Denver back then and they had Mitch Trubiskey a quarterback or they had, you know, whoever else a quarterback. And that can get you into the first round of the playoffs and a pretty ugly exit, but not much past that. So yeah, it's, again, it's going to be interesting. I'm glad that's not the team I'm rooting for. I'm sure my time will come as a Chiefs fan. But for now, best head coach, best quarterback. it's a pretty awesome situation to be in. What do you think about the Vic Fangio future in Denver?

Do you feel like that they should keep running this back? And I want you to say this as an impartial observer, as an impartial observer, not as somebody rooting for the chiefs. Do you think that that would be in their best interest as a franchise to keep this thing together coaching staff-wise for another year? I would lean towards yes at the moment just because it seems like quarterback has been what's holding them back. And that's obviously not Fangio's, you know,

expertise and we've talked enough about wanting to get that offensive piece and that's the most important part and that if you're building a football team and no matter the level of your quarterback, accentuating that guy's strengths and making him the focal part of your team or the focal point of your team is really the most important part. And so you could look at Fangio and say he's not the one to make that happen because he's defense ahead coach. He's a little more conservative in in terms of play calling and relying on the defense and punting and field position. But on the flip side, he's not really the one that drafted Drew Lock or that brought Bridgewater in or that had these other decisions that he's been stuck with these subparred quarterback.

So they still play hard. I mean, the defense had a pretty good game yesterday against the Raiders on the whole. And I wouldn't say that that game came down to anything more than the offensive line. I think there's a stat that they gave of the most pressures of any team this year in a football game. you know, Drew Locke in combination with that didn't look so hot. So it seems like they're still playing hard. That's one of the key indicators. When you look at the Lions this year, they've played hard pretty much every game. And you look at the Giants and what we were just talking about, it doesn't seem like they're necessarily, you know, having these games where they're, you know,

into it for all four quarters and, you know, continuing to improve as the season progresses, even despite the record. So, yeah, I would probably lean towards running it back. Again, I don't know that this year's crop of coaches are particularly exciting at this point as well. So you run into the situation of who do you replace them with. We've seen certain teams that lose their defensive mind and they regress a little bit as well. So taking the head coach away from the strength of your team and now substituting an offensive piece without the quarterback to really run that thing and then making your defense worse, I'm not sure that's a net upgrade on the whole.

do you feel like going to get an offensive-minded head coach and kind of changing the overall personality of the franchise would be a point toward getting a quarterback well i think you float those things towards aaron rogers camp as early as you can and see if they'll hire i don't know van pelt or whatever guy he likes at the moment yeah it's an interesting situation i would almost kind of my thing is that i i Vince what fict fangio was done he probably deserved to keep his job. But is that how you should dictate your decision making? Right.

You know, I don't know that. I'm torn on it. I don't know that Rogers is going to go there like gung-ho about Pat Schumer's offense. Now, the offense has shown some cool things. They have some good run schemes. You know, they got a great offense line coach and Munchak. So they have a few pieces there.

In a weird way, it might be easier to replace the offensive coordinator than the head coach in terms of like, oh, Rogers wants this guy. or if the Watson thing clears up and he's acquitted and everything, who does he want or who does this guy want? You can find that quarterback coach of the guy likes or the co-coordinator who can take the lateral job or a certain situation where a team lets a guy out to take a lateral job to be with the quarterback. I feel like that's almost more malleable because changing the entire face of the franchise

for one specific guy to then maybe have enough draft capital and have a team agree to trade you there guy. I'm not sure that's the right process either. So it's a really tough situation leaving that spot quasi open to let the quarterback of your choosing, you know, fill the role if he's on your team. I don't think that's the weirdest decision, although it's tough to do that in, I don't know, February or once the draft rolls around in May even. But again, if the draft rolls around in May and all of a sudden Rogers is available and you trade for him and he says, oh, I don't want Shermer's coordinator, I want this guy. I feel like that's easier than saying. saying, oh, I don't want Fangio as head coach.

I want this guy. You know, I feel like that's an easier switch to switch out the OC later on. I don't know. I go back and forth about it. I don't know what the answer is because I don't want to be that guy who's just like, oh, just fire him. Just start over. I mean, why would you keep up?

Because that probably isn't the answer either. I think it's somewhere in between and I'm just not sure where I land on the whole thing. Yeah. Is there any element as well that once you fire Fangio, you hire, you know, the hot shot offensive coordinator to be the head coach. Nathaniel Hackett, whoever it is. Like, give me ex-offensive coordinator. Right.

So are you, do you lose a little bit of leverage in the quarterback game? Because now, you know, the Packers are looking at you saying like, oh, I know you hired that guy so that, you know, he can groom whoever, you know, we want an extra second rounder out of you or whatever. Or is it just the quarterback has a certain price and it's going to be four ones and you've got to meet it regardless? I feel like it's the latter, right? I'm not sure that who the coach is going to have a huge impact on what those conversations

look like. Yeah. I mean, I agree with that too, but I just wanted to, even if there was a 10% chance that maybe teams think like that, I don't know. I mean, I'm pretty sure for Rogers and the Broncos and where they are right now, you're going to be able to get whatever you want. If a team's going to want them, they're going to go get them. All right.

Next question here from Andrew and Austin, talking about the Washington football team game from last night. So as much as that sucked, I still believe the general direction of the team under Rivera. Given where they were when he was hired, if you told me they were a seven-ish-win team at the end of his second year, I would have taken that, given how desolate things felt at the end of the 2019 season. I do believe the culture is shifted, and they generally have some idea of what they're doing in this organization.

Tonight, they've been a team that plays hard and doesn't embarrass themselves, even when undermanned. There's a lot of hope that they could build on the 2020 success. While the end result has been disappointing, much of why it happened is understandable and explainable. Success in NFL rebuild is not always linear, at least in terms of wins year to year. I look at these first years that Rivera regime is success, even if not a resounding one. Now, the question is, how can they move on to phase two, which is building a contender?

My question is, what does the ideal path look like from here, specifically this offseason. Obviously, quarterback is number one on the list of priorities. However, I don't necessarily see this team as a quarterback away. It keeps going a couple other things. I feel like this is something we have not really talked about. We have not really talked about the dip that this team has taken in this second year on Rivera where they were supposed to be headed and now kind of how they can redirect course toward where they want to go. I'm curious what you think about this. What do you think they need to focus on this offseason to kind of get this thing going back in the direction they wanted to go? I mean, it's easy to start with quarterback.

I would say the first like month, month and a half of the season, especially when Chase Young was healthy, their D-line not taking over games like we expect them to and not making the leap that we expected was probably the most important aspect because we went into the year and we talked about their top three defensive line already. And this is a, you know, defense-al line that can take over a game. I remember the very first game of the year, Pittsburgh against Buffalo. Pittsburgh D-Line doesn't even have to it. And Watt and Hayward. Highsmith just entirely took over the game. And that's what we thought, you know, Washington could do this year. It didn't really happen. It seems like they're rounding into form a little bit. Jonathan Allen is a beast on the inside. Ionitis has always been great. You know, sweat flashes.

We thought Chase Young would be a top five guy this year. So figuring out why that didn't progress the way it needed to, I think would be the key to it. You look at, say, the chiefs the past two months, what's changed? Their front four is the best in football over the last two months. that's what changed. Why did the 49ers get to the Super Bowl a couple years ago? Because they had the best front eight in football with the two deep on their defense line, really the front four.

But I'm just making a joke how they had eight guys deep. So for the most part, figuring out how to make those guys the dominant force of your team, the way they should be, the way we expect them to be, that's going to be the focal point. Now, number two would probably be offensive line. You know, those kind of go in tandem. You want your front four to be dominant. You also want your offense line to be dominant. and we've seen even despite injuries this year with Philly is a great example of a pretty awesome offensive line,

really being able to take over a team and, you know, lead for success and allow the quarterback to do what needs to do. So those two pieces, you know, as the guy said, obviously quarterback's number one. That's always number one. But aside from that, it's why didn't the D-line progress the way we expected and can we get them back on track and progressing? And then number two, fix that offensive line. I don't think it's necessarily bad per se. I think it's better than everyone expected. Leno's plugged in well.

Cosmey's does some good stuff. Obviously, Shurf's kind of always got those few injuries every now and again. But really making those two things, the strength of your team, that allows you to not necessarily need the greatest quarterback as well. You know, Heineke, we talk about, we like him. He's a little bit like a little Fitzpatrick in terms of the variability. Well, how do you make a guy like that less variable? You strengthen his offensive line.

You don't make him make these decisions on the run. or under pressure or things of that nature. And as you're looking at it now, you've got to face Dallas twice a year. Good luck with that defensive line. You know, Philly's always got guys on their defensive line. The Giants, not quite as much, but we'll say four out of the six games, you've got to go against, you know, pretty awesome defensive line. So definitely want to invest in the offensive line.

I feel like that's a very good answer. I think that that's one area where they have to do some thinking this offseason. Lano is a free agent. Shurf is a free agent. they could save $10 million by moving on from flowers. They can kind of remake this thing. They've got like $80 million in cap space. It's not as if they're locked into this version of the team.

It feels like they got aggressive with some of the moves they made this off season. I don't blame them. I celebrated the idea of like, oh, man, what can Curtis Samuel and Terry McCoran look like with Ryan Fitzpatrick? That's going to be a fun, entertaining offense. I was excited about that idea. I thought the offensive line overall could be functional, which went healthy. It kind of was. But this is a team that can go a few different directions.

I'm curious what the quarterback conversation will look like and what the options are going to look like, how they see some of the candidates. Like Jimmy Garapolo, for example, is Jimmy Garapolo a worthwhile pursuit for a team like this? What does he give you outside of that Shanahan offense? Do you want a quarterback like that? How much of an upgrade is it over Taylor Heineke? Do you need a more aggressive move than that in the trademark? market. Is there a more aggressive move than that to be had? These are the questions they're going to have to answer here over the next year. And I don't know exactly how that's going to

unfold. That's the number one question. Outside of that, I feel like the other two things are, what are you going to do with that offensive line? Because I think that the skill position, talent, when healthy, is fine. I think that they can probably survive with McCorren. If Curtis Samuel gets back, what Logan Thomas is, Antonio Gibson, all those guys. I think the offensive line is definitely the focus on offense. On defense, I would consider figuring out a new person to coach the defense. Like what they were on defense this year, considering how much talent they have, especially up front,

I don't think you can justify bringing that back and just saying, well, we'll figure it out. Like them ranking 28th in defensive DVOA or whatever they do, that is a massive disappointment. There is too much talent on that side of the ball for them to look like they have on defense this year. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, I don't watch them quite enough to know whether it's,

you know, defensive coaching scheme, whatever. else. Obviously, you have guys that don't progress and you kind of go to coaching is the reason that that's not happening. So here's a question for you. I feel like we don't really talk about this team as not having their starting quarterback. Is it because Fitzpatrick just isn't seen as like a top 15 or 20 guy? Is it because we see Heineke as kind of like low level starter, really high level backup? Or is it? I think it's because we see Heineke as Fitzpatrick adjacent. I think that's why. Essentially like the jump between number one and number two is like three quarterback levels of like or three quarterback rankings on like you know the first 45 guys you're

going to so you're saying basically you're going from like number 22 to number 25 and it's not that big of a decline yes i think that's why we talk about it this way yeah because i feel like any other team for the most part it's like well they've been out with they've been with how their starting quarterback the entire season so maybe that explains why they're not having quite the success but but with washington we don't really mention that their quarterback has been out the whole year so yeah it's uh defensively again maybe uh Fangio slides in there after, you know, never access him. See, that's like, that's exactly what I want.

Like, if they can go out and get somebody like that, Jack Del Rio was out of the league for three years. We don't necessarily have this recent track record of Jack Del Rio being this great defensive coach. I think going out and getting somebody like that, that might be available in this off season, that to me is way more interesting than running this back with Jack Del Rio for another year. I don't need to see that again.

Offensively, this team is like a functional NFL all. offense with a guy who was playing in the XFL a year ago and an offensive line that's been kind of banged up there on like their sixth center. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way they've played offense this season. But the direction of the defense is troubling to me. So I think, and I don't know if Ron Rivera will necessarily do this. I feel like him moving on from a former head coach, it feels like a move that might be a little bit too rash for somebody like him. But I do think that they might be well served by considering that and seeing if they can go a different direction defensively next year. He also seems like a guy who takes everything into account

and wouldn't be afraid to make those types of decisions. So I would imagine that's on the table, especially if, you know, again, we keep talking about guys getting fired, well, who you're replacing them with. Well, all of a sudden, Fangio is on the table. That's a pretty good jump. So if you do have that market upgrade. There's also a chance Mike Zimmer is not going to be a head coach in the NFL next year. Yeah, that's true. I feel like his star has, you know, kind of waned a little bit. bit. I don't know. He just seems like a weird one because he's, we talked about it. He's been a head coach for so long that you kind of don't think of him as like a true defensive coordinator anymore. So where he lands and what he's able to do would be interesting. But it just seems like it's been so long. It's been so long. It's been so long. It's been so long. It's been so long, like, think about it in those terms, at least to me. All right, Ken, can you play us on our next voicemail? I have a feeling you're going to like this one. Hey Robert. I love the show. I'm calling from outside Kilgore, Texas. I just wanted to know it seems like the Cowboys personnel department has been really good at finding talent, not only in free agency, cheap deals on guys that are lesser known, not big names, but also like racking up talent in the draft. But it seems like they don't seem to get credit for that. Even if you account for the fact that they kind of got lucky with finding Prescott in the fourth round.

William McLean, and even Jerry and Stephen Jones, just seem like they don't get their credit. It seems like the national perception continues to be that Jerry Jones just throws money around, tries to find big names, even amongst the smarter writers. Can you explain to me why that is? I love to hear your answer and your thoughts. Thanks.

I don't know how you feel about this. I have long thought that the Cowboys did a really good job of assembling talent. It's why I thought the last few years of the Jason Garrett era were so frustrating because when you looked at their team, they had stars all over the place. I mean, you look at that team in like 2019, 2018 in the kind of the meat of that Dak Prescott rookie contract. I was always so bewildered at them ruining and throwing away all of those cheap years of DAC when they had all of those other good players on the roster because I thought they

were so good at finding people. So I've thought that they've been really good at assembling talent for a while. My concern has been them utilizing that talent. I really think you're both right. As I was listening to that message, I thought, huh, you know, you don't necessarily think, oh, the Cowboys are a top five drafting team. I don't know if it's because they don't have, you know, that one central GM that's separate from the owner and the owner's son.

I think that's definitely part of it. Yeah, because you can't go there and say, oh, it's, you know, Ozzie Newsome and he's a top five drafter. It's this guy or it's that guy. So I think that is part of it, and that's maybe why you don't see like, oh, Cowboys is the top five drafting team. I'm also with you. I would imagine that most people agree with you and think the way I do that they get great talent. They've had the best offensive line for a few years, and most of those were homegrown guys.

I mean, in the past decade, they've drafted two Hall of Famers in Tyrant Smith and Zach Martin. Travis Frederick would have been if he had kept playing. That's a good point. So three, essentially, they got. Ronald Leary, who is a lower round draft pick who's been awesome. I mean, Lael, weird situation, but he's been a good player for him as well. So they have drafted well. They found guys in all rounds, too.

It's not like they're just using these first and second round picks to acquire guys. To the caller's point, again, and to your point, yeah, it's what they've done with the talent once they've gotten it there. It's coaching and also the extensions. I think the Zieg one stands out in particular, but the Jalen Smith deal as well, people kind of pan that from the get, go and no one thought that that was going to be a deal that panned out for him and it didn't. So, yeah, they're able to get the talent. They don't get the credit because there's not one central figure we can point to and say, oh, that's the bona fide GM.

And once they have the talent, they, until the past couple of years, have not been able to capitalize on it. So, I mean, kudos to them. It is true. We don't necessarily sit here and say, oh, yeah, Cowboys, top five drafted team. Let's go through all the drafts and, you know, show off how awesome they've been. I mean, Barnwell and I did a show around the draft last year about the top 10 drafting teams of the last decade. And the Cowboys were right there.

And that was not surprising to me when you look at the amount of talent that they've had. Look at if we went back through. Okay. So I think Will McClay's first year there was 24. His first year is like a vice president of player personnel or whatever his title was. He was, I think the director of football research for a few years. I think his first year is vice president of player personnel. So let's put an arbitrary endpoint on that was 2014.

The 2014 draft. They drafted Zach Martin in the first round into Marcus Lawrence in the second round. 2015, Byron Jones in the first round, Randy Gregory in the second round. 2016, Ezekiel Meelea Collins, Dack Prescott. 2017 is the bad year, right? It's tackle Charlton in the first round, the year that T.J. Watt was available. Cowboys fans are still upset about that despite having a defensive line full of aliens. They're still really pissed off about not getting T.J. Watt that year.

That's fine. That tends to happen. You have down years. The Chiodo Buzé was still in that draft. Jordan Lewis was in that draft. Players that have played for that team and they have actually gotten some use out of. 2018, Leighton Van Derrash in the first round, obviously that has gone a certain way.

But Connor Williams, Michael Gallup, Dalton Schultz, all in that draft. Contributors to this team. 2019, Tristan Hill in the second round, they traded the first round pick for Murray Cooper. Connor McGovern, Tony Pollard, also in that draft. 2020. C.D. Lamb in the first round. Trayvon Diggs in the second round. Neville Gallmore in the third round.

Tyler Beiotish in the fourth round. and then this year they go get Michael Parsons, 12th overall. Every single year they have added depth pieces, stars consistently. And the moves they've made, even guys like somebody, I think it was Matt Bowen pointed this out. And I think it's a great point. What they did this off season to go remake the defense, not only with obviously drafting Prescott, but going to get a guy like J. Ron Curse, who just plays a very specific role within that defense. they've done such a good job of building not only the star level of their roster,

but the connective tissue of their roster, whether it's guys like Blake Jarwin or Dalton Schultz, just the way that they've kind of constructed this thing. It's been really, really well done. And I have thought this for a few years. That's why watching that team, I will never, ever, ever forget being at that game between the Seahawks and the Cowboys in the playoffs. I think it was after the 2018 season, the 2019 Wildcar Rounder,

division around, whatever it was. I was in Dallas watching that game. And I just remember sitting there thinking, how can you waste these teams and these quarterbacks? As somebody who roots for a team who's been desperate for a quarterback for 20 years, watching teams with those two guys and that level of talent on them just slam their heads against the wall, I just couldn't deal with it anymore. And that to me has been the shortcoming of this Dallas team. I feel like they deserve a ton of credit for the talent that they have accrued and assembled over the last five to ten years. Yeah, you're reading that list. That was nuts because, oh, they had like one and a half bad years of drafting over a seven-year stretch. You know, the first round, you're only hitting 50%

of the time, let alone as you go down and they're hitting superstars and potential Hall of Famers with at least 50% of their drafts and if not multiple guys in a single draft. So, yeah, that's a pretty nutty stretch. Obviously, they've been able to accumulate talent. talent has not translated into Super Bowl success, much to Jerry Chagrin. Luckily for us, we get all his good quotes every year, so it's kind of a win-win for all of us, and he gets to go buy another $400 million mega yacht and cry away Asaras with his Johnny Walker. So it kind of works out for all of us. It does seem like this year, especially coming off, quite a dominating performance against Washington,

could be the year, and they are starting to figure things out. and that defense man, just being able to line up guys, I mean, we've talked about it, but being able to line up that amount of talent and guys who can play different spots and try to confuse, you know, offensive lines and running backs and quarterbacks and get certain matchups, it's really fun, it's really special, and they're playing at such a high level. And, you know, even though I'm obviously an offensive line guy, I do like to see a dominant defense of line and I enjoy watching, you know, a defense line takeover game. So it's been fun and can't wait to see what they do.

in the playoffs. And I think one other aspect of this that's absolutely worth mentioning. We give other teams that do this a ton of credit. And I don't think the Cowboys get nearly enough credit for this. They don't spend money in free agency. So all of these guys that they've drafted, when they move on, they are on this comp pick merry-go-round in the same way that a team like the Ravens is. And we give the Ravens a ton of credit for that.

Tyler Beaudish was a comp pick in the fourth round in 2020. Okay, they had a compick in the fourth round that year and a compick in the fifth round. In this most recent draft in 2021, they had a compick in the third round, they had a compick in the fourth round, and they had a compick in the fifth round. They're just getting these guys. This is how you replenish the machine over and over and over again. This is how you stay a really good drafting team all the time is by having a ton of draft picks, and they've managed to continue to do that.

You know who else was a compick? deck Prescott yep I wonder what that was from Kent do you remember what that who signed away to give them a fourth round compact that year it was round four

Jeremy Parnell and DeMarco Murray I think it was Jeremy Parnell but it was either one of those two guys he went to the Jags his offensive alignment yeah I mean he got a really nice deal again that's just

it really helps when you can kind of replenish this thing over and over again all right next one here from round ball rock He said coaches and GMs are linked together for obvious reasons. So let's rank them on how the coaches feel about their quarterbacks from I can't live without this guy to I have his face on my dartboard.

For podcast purposes, you don't have to do all of them, but top three and bottom three. This is really fun. I was thinking about this and it was hard for me to do. I wanted to ask you just right off the bat. How much do you think Andy loves Patrick? Like, do you think he views him as like, I'm so glad I have this guy? Like I put my head on my pillow every night. just thrilled to death that this guy is my quarterback?

Or is it I've had some success with other guys, but this is nice? There's the quote floating around about the prime rib. I would say he thinks Pat is A5 Wagyu, just the absolute best he can do. You know, money, no option. You know, just slather that baby and go from there. You know, I think he's very obviously fortunate to have Pat, and he's a big part of why Pat has had the success he has.

I don't think he is a guy. it's like, oh, I could do this with the 12th best quarterback and turn him into it. It's like, no, they know what they have in Pat. The other thing is Pat is so special and he's so fun and he's brought this youthful enthusiasm to coach that I didn't see my first couple years there. So Pat has brought more than just success on the field. It's also this energy, this youthfulness, this fun, you know, all these crazy plays that we're seeing.

You know, we weren't necessarily running all of those in 2016 and 2017. You know, the quarterback wasn't going in motion as he was catching the snap. and we weren't running every variation of shovel pass and all these fun things. Pat has definitely helped on the field and off the field. So I'd say A5 YU for the comparison. So he's probably up there then. The other guys that I had, and this is just from conversations I've had, I think Brandon Staley and Justin Herbert is an underrated one.

I think that is, there's an affection there for what Justin Herbert's talents are as a quarterback. And also I think that some of these younger guys, like younger quarterback, with these head coaches. It's like, oh, this is a huge part of what we're building here. Like, I'm so glad this guy is part of it. Taylorboro is my second one. Like, I absolutely think that Zach Taylor is going to bed every, his drives home and his

drives. I always think about it this way. Like, when you have one of those guys, just what it does to your day, when you're waking up, when you're driving to the facility, when you're sitting down, digging into work, just that peace of mind of knowing you have one of those guys and the way it changes everything about what you are as an organization. But that's what Zach Taylor has now. It changes everything about his job.

And I think he probably knows that. And the other guy I had kind of in that same mold is Kingsbury and Kyler Murray. Those three guys to me is like, I feel like they know exactly what they have in those young quarterbacks. I would love to know the honest answer to McVeigh Stafford right about now. Yeah, that's so I would have put that if before the year, before the year, I would have put that way at the top. because of how he was talking about him. I think it's still one of those things where that honeymoon is not totally worn off. I think some of the things that they can do, it's such a change from what it was like near the end of the golf era.

It's not at the top anymore, but I think it's in there. The one that I would be fascinated if you injected some truth serum is the Fluor and Rogers. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, I think everyone wants some true serum into that relationship. And got anything about inject. Yeah, that's one. So my bottom ones were this year, Sean Payton, just whatever guy. You can't do that, though, because of Taseom.

He loves Taseom. He went and asked Drew Brees and Phil Rivers if they could quarterback the team at Christmas. No. No, you cannot say that he does not, no. We're doing this right now. We're not doing this in September. as of this exact moment. If you created the situation for yourself, you cannot, you can't do this.

Those weren't the stipulations. It was as we talk, which head coach is looking at his quarterback. All right. All right, fine. Okay. Here's a good one. Floris and Tua. I think that's near the top.

Of like the quote unquote worst, right? The guy looks at his quarterback and says, yeah, not so good. Even despite the way the Tua has played this year, I feel like, and how he's kind of performed within that offense, I think that's probably closer to the top than other people might think. My number one, which is also something. Roundball suggested this one,

and I think this is right, Zimmer and Cousins is definitely near the top. That one absolutely has to be near the top. And I think the other one that's creeping in right now is the Browns and Baker Mayfield. Yeah, that's a good one too. I mean, Fangio's got to be there too, right? Who? Fangio, because it's literally costing him a job.

Yeah. Do you just do like the half and half? You know how like parents do the split jerseys? This Fangio just have like a half lock, a half teddy. Lock water. Yeah. Those are the ones I had in the top. I didn't have that many other ones that I thought were like really bad.

But I thought Lefleur Rogers would be fascinating. Yeah. Just to hear like because Rogers does so much for them. But I'm it's also he's a very specific kind of quarterback, the control that he has. I think earlier in their time together. there was more of attention than there is now in terms of how they kind of constructed it, how they would assemble the offense.

I feel like now it's really rolling. But I'd be curious what they would say about one another. And I wonder what the Ariens and Brady. Like, I'm sure Ariens is happy that Brady's just kind of there keeping everything going. Like, that's a really nice thing to have. The other one, I feel like McDermott is probably very happy about Josh Allen.

Like the way that they've built that thing over there and he's at the center of it. And Lamar and John Harbaugh is. another one. I was like, I wonder what that one is what feels like right now. Harbaugh, I feel like is so established that it almost like doesn't count because he was already awesome and they knew what they were getting in Lamar and that's the reason they sought him out. And McDermott in a similar vein like they were building that thing with two pretty mediocre at best Josh Allen ears. And so McDermott kind of laid the foundation before the quarterback took off. So I don't think it's like

making him the way, you know, Kingsbury per se would be. Um, But yeah, it's really interesting. To the Rogers LaFleur thing, I feel like we haven't talked about offensive control in a while, I don't watch them and think, oh, Rogers has so much freedom to do what he wants. You know, I think part of that was at the time he came from McCarthy and probably had a little bit more of the Peyton Manning influence and being able to get to the line, be in a two-by-two formation,

be in a three-by-one, you know, call the play that's called, get to the line of scrimmage, fake the cadence, see what the defense is doing and be like, okay, I have five plays I can check to right now. And for Rogers, we know he loves that kind of stuff. And that was really fun for him and being able to be the quarterback on the field and choose the play. And the floor system is very much, you know, you can have two plays in the huddle and you kill one and go to the other base on the look. But everything is tied to the other thing. It's not just, all right, roll out the two by two formation.

No one's moving. No one's in motion. So when's the last time you've really seen Rogers go up to the line and just completely change a play and call something totally different. You don't really see it. So that control thing, I think LaFleur has proven himself to allow Rogers to not say, oh, well, if the two plays you don't call, I don't like, I'm just going to kill it and completely come up with something else. You don't really see that happening. So I think that's worked itself out. They have a certain level of trust with each other. But yeah, the truth serum and getting their honest thoughts on each other and the whole situation,

I think we'd all love that. I think that's exactly right. And if you look at it, their offense has been really well served by him playing more in rhythm within the structure of the offense, on time, all of that stuff. And I think that's why Lafleur deserves more credit for the success that they've had than he probably has gotten. But I also think that when you look at the way he can kind of control the game with RPO's, some of the ways that they just have the quick game aspect to their offense because of him, right? I mean, that offense is not built with those sorts of route concepts with other quarterbacks because they're not as adept at playing that way. way as he is. So I think that's kind of the thing is that it's such an amalgamation of the two

styles that they both want, that it's hard to understand how much Lafouro would say, well, if I could do it my way, this is how great it would be, because Rogers solves so many problems inherent to that style of offense that they don't have to deal with because he's the quarterback. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you're going to default to having Rogers and dealing with all the other things and trying to make it work. So I think, Yeah, there's a reason he's not in our top or bottom list. He's more in the middle, figuring out whether it's 5 through 8 or 25 through 27, that'll be the interesting thing.

All right. Speaking of the Packers, very quickly, Jeff and Green Bay asks, Packers' offensive line has been hit hard by injuries. Many other teams of the injury books, I'm well aware of this, and I'm not feeling sorry for them. Jenkins turning his ACL has been the worst. Myers going out early in the year in the absence of Bokhtiaria just to name a few. As the regos season comes to an end, I'm worried we aren't going to see Bacteri at all.

We thought he'd return after the by week, but then learned he had a knee scoped, cleaned up during that time. Should we be worried that we're not going to see him at all? Rego season game reps would be ideal probably going into playoffs, in my opinion, wanted to get your thoughts. I wanted to talk to you about this because we haven't discussed this at all. And now that we're getting toward week 17, week 18, they're going to be the number one seat in the NFC. Everyone sees them as this true Super Bowl contender, which I think they are. Should we be worried about this? Is this going to show up in the playoffs against a really good team in a way that it hasn't all year?

Because we've given them credit for overcoming the injuries they've had along the offensive line, which has been undeniably impressive. But I feel like we should be talking about it more as potential Achilles heel when they're trying to win a Super Bowl. We absolutely should. They're going to have to play Dallas's D-Line, the Rams D-Line, the 49ers D-Line. The Bucs? And I know the Bucks have been dinged up a little bit, but think about that NFC championship. championship game last year when they didn't have Bacchiori. Right. Yeah. Bucks are coming to find out what a few

injuries at a certain position can mean to your team. So, you know, I'm not better at all about last year. Yeah, I think we should be talking about Green Bay's O-line a little bit more and the downside to it because we were just talking about styles. Roger still likes getting the ball and shotgun, holding onto it for six seconds, kind of making something happen, floating around in the pocket. He was able to do that for so long because the O-line was healthy and had good players. You know, they're currently playing at a pretty good level despite the injuries, but that's going to rear its head. All these things tend to. You just don't really see teams win the Super Bowl with some consider the best left tackle

and football out and then an all-pro left guard out. So it's going to be tough if most teams, if you take their best two offense alignment off the field, pretty bad things happen from there. The Packers have been able to mask that with defense, quarterback play, scheme, all these other factors. but when you go up against the best teams in the NFL, you know, back-to-back weeks, assuming they get the one seed,

and then, you know, into the Super Bowl potentially, typically it tends to show itself. So it is concerning. We'll see how that shakes out. But obviously they've been coping for a bit, and they'll continue to, you know, help those guys out as much as they can. Yeah, I just, it's definitely something that I feel like

should be getting more attention. And I'm guilty of it because, again, I think we've given them credit for overcoming it, but it's like, oh man, the Cowboys one is a great point. I think we will once we have time to talk about only two games a week or only four games a week. Because right now, I know. Because right now, I mean, there's 16 games and it's a little bit more surface-level stuff. And then you analyze after the fact, it's a lot less, oh, these are the specific things going into a week.

And they're facing this team that has this dominant force and blah, blah, blah. But once you get into Green Bay is playing the Cowboys, and all week you're talking about, Cowboys defensive line against Green Bay's O line, yeah, it'll get the attention at serves. All right, very quickly here, Paul and DCS, with the recent snub of Lane Johnson to the Pro Bowl, I was wondering which players on this year's Eagles team are destined for the Hall of Fame or Hall of Very Good. He lists off a bunch of guys.

I want to focus on a couple specifically. Jason Kelsey, do you think Jason Kelsey is a hallfamer? See, off the top of my head, I'd say, yeah. I just don't know about the process, but he's had a 12-plus year career and a bunch of accolades. So I'd lean, yeah. He is the most first team all pros of any center over the last decade. He has three.

And I think he's second among all interior offensive linemen. I think the only person with more first team all pros among interior offensive linemen since 2010 than Jason Kelsey is Zach Martin. Yeah. So it feels like he should get in. I mean, he's been arguably the best center of his entire era. Yeah, I mean, he'll go down as one of the best centers of the decade. Super Bowl champion. All pros. Pro Bowls. Personality. Yeah. He's kind of got everything you're looking for. or so yeah, good decision by him to hang on for the last three years.

Don't know about his brother, though. The chiefs are clearly better without him on offense, so it feels like that might be a ding to his Hall Fame candidacy. Maybe they can trade him to the Eagles and convert him to center. All right. Lane Johnson. I would lean towards yes because he's getting older without any dip in athleticism or any of those things. He has the accolades as a right tackle that you typically.

don't have, so he'll get some extra love that he's got in his whole career that most right tackles don't get. Right now, Willie Anderson's kind of the test case for that. But it seems like Lane has transcended the position a little bit, and he's always been, you know, kind of that in between that, hey, this is a left tackle playing right tackle. It seems like, I mean, he just signed another deal, so it seems like he's going to play well into his 30s. Again, Pro Bowls, all pros, considered, I think he was the tackle of the decade for the 2010s at right tackle. So he's got all those accolades in the Super Bowl and now he has a touchdown catch. So that's what they'll show for every highlight.

So I'm going to go yes on that one as well. I do think he is ultimately going to get there. And I think it's for exactly the reasons you said. I'm so glad you said that about him kind of transcending the position because so he is, he was not on the all decade team. The all decade for the 2010s was Jason Peters. It's all left tackles. Jason Peters,

Tyrone Smith, Joe Staley, Joe Thomas. So I think that there is an argument to be made that he has transcended the right tackle spot because even like the contract, even like him kind of resetting what those deals look like. Twice.

Twice. I think should be taken into account. Like the fact that we saw him as somebody who was kind of pushing that position forward, he probably needs some more accolades. I think the injuries have hurt him when it comes to year-end awards and stuff like that. But I do think he's trending in the right direction. Another one that Paul asked about was Brandon Graham. Brandon Graham is like a perfect hall, very good player to me.

Like he is a hall of very good player. Somebody I liked watching for a really long time is not a hall fair. No. And as much as he has, you know, the PFF accolades, you have to have like normal accolades and no one's going to look back and say, oh yeah, he was a top 10 guy. And really any year, like you just don't think of him as like a top five or top 10 guy in a specific year. So unfortunately, he just doesn't have those, you know, specific things. that the Hall of Fame looks for. Getting two Hall of Fame offensive linemen on the same team, though.

That's pretty good. It's a pretty good bit of team building there. We've talked a lot about Hall of Famers on offensive lines today with the Cowboys and the Eagles. All right. Final question here. This one comes from Mitch S from Kansas City. You wanted to ask me this, and it's a great question, and I'm excited to dig into it. Let me hear it.

Okay, so I've been thinking about some, we've talked a lot about head coaches, and, you know, we've talked about trades and stuff. Jacksonville say they have the number one overall pick they pick up the phone call New Orleans ask for Sean Payton Jacksonville sends a number on overall pick plus what to New Orleans for Sean Payton and what because in my mind there's a couple ways to go you could do like the number of number one picks like three number one picks over three years you could do two ones and a two or you could just do the one number one overall pick and New Orleans sends back some guys, they're always in, you know, cap hell.

They send back a couple guys, get them off the cap. And it turns into a little bit of like an NBA salary dump as well. So curious where you're going to go with this. But I've been mulling that in my head for the past few days and I wanted to talk to someone about it. So I feel like my first response to this would be why would the Saints do this? Like, what would the price have to be in order to justify moving on from a coach like Sean Payton at this stage of your franchise?

Because I think you can make an argument that they are kind of a real. tooling a little bit and that time of transition might be the time to do something like this. I got the answer. You need a quarterback. It's not in this year's draft. Yes. You get two number ones to add to your draft picks and then you package all those for ex-quarterback.

Now, obviously, you don't have Sean Payton to coach him, but you could probably find a guy who's pretty good. But this is the only way to get the franchise quarterback. And I'd say, you know, Sean Payton is in his late 50s and potentially you'd prefer to have a franchise quarterback of some sort. You know, obviously you prefer to be a young guy over doing all this just to get a couple more years of Rogers. But if this gets you the draft capital to then get the franchise quarterback, that could end up

being worth it. So you look at it, all the cap stuff is very confusing because they're like bonuses and roster bonuses and all that kind of stuff. Quadruple level deal. Yeah, the Taysan Hill stuff. Like Michael Thomas is a $24.7 million cap next year. I want to say that there's some sort of roster. bonus involved where if he's traded before a certain time or a cup before a certain time they

could save some money. So if you wanted to like unload his deal, because right now if you look at it, they have $2.69 million in cap liabilities next year. The cap is a $208 million. Yes. So that is, it's a consideration. I think Jacksonville sends the number one overall pick plus Tim Tebow to New Orleans for Sean Payton and Drew Breeze. I think it's hard for this. Saints to justify. In a draft without a quarterback, even with some of the naughtiness of what their roster looks like right now and the fact that they are in a time of transition, I just think that having a top five arguably head coach is way too valuable of an asset. Like it would, to me, it would have to be multiple first round picks. Like the number one overall pick this year,

plus a first round pick over the next like two years, at least. And then if you want to shed some salary too. I just think the price would be way too high. Because for the New Orleans, it's just hard to justify. It's hard to justify moving out from a guy like that. The defense is like just quite too good to make that happen because if they were not this good, you could say, all right, we need a hard reset. It's going to be a three to four year process. You know, Sean's going to be in his early 60s. We're not sure how many more years he's going to have. We know he doesn't want to go through this. You know, maybe there is that path that you just kind of hit the reset button. Obviously, you don't want to go full sashi but uh you know go three-quarter sashi and um turn that thing over and

on the back end you know you either found the right coach who said you do through the the storm or in four years there's you know Sean McPay's kid is finally able to coach and you know you can hire him as the head coach so I agree I think it doesn't make sense for new orleans but I kept thinking like if Jacksonville has an number one pick and they make that call like I'd love to see that for Jacksonville New Orleans I could see just being like all right we need an absolute hard reset. But it just doesn't make sense to get rid of that coach. The Saints are a lot older than you think they are.

I know. That's the thing. They're ready for it. I thought they would have done this year, honestly. But they're ready to do that, which is the wild thing. It's just like the defense is still playing well. The single year that they stop playing well, they're going to go from like an awesome defense to like a bottom third defense because all the age is going to show all at once. and then they're going to be stuck with these cap hits and guys they can't get rid of.

And like, it's going to get really ugly. So to have foresight and just be like, you know what, this might not make the most sense for just next year. But for our franchise for the next five to 10 years, like, this is what we need to do. I don't think it's that inconceivable to say, like, this is what we should do. I just think it's inconceivable to actually put that in motion and, you know, hear about it from everybody for the next five years. If you look at it next year, Michael Thomas can be 29, Cam Jordan's 33, Toronto, Toronto, says it's going to be 31, on Taysam Hills is going to be 32. DeMario Davis is going to be 33, Andres P. 29, Anyamata's going to be 30.

Ryan Ramchak's going to be 28. Malcolm Jenkins is 35. Even Camara is going to be 27. I know. That's why I thought they should have reset this year, honestly, because the quarterback situation, now, James did play better than we expected him. And if he had stayed healthy, that probably would be a playoff team. But this is a team that's kind of in need of that reset because they're old and they're more than super expensive.

So it needs to happen at some point. Running the string out just kind of delays the process. And again, who knows how many years Payton has if you're spending three years kind of stuck in this mediocrity of being a 500 team that really doesn't have a chance of winning at all. And you're wasting three years of, you know, Payton's career just to do that. I don't know that that makes sense either. So it's an interesting one. I don't know. Okay, what about first overall pick for Dennis Allen?

I probably wouldn't do that. Yeah. I feel like you could go get a Dennis Allen adjacent coach, even though he's been very good. I think he's been very good as a defensive coordinator, but I think that probably isn't worth it. I agree. But I just wanted to see a reaction. I cannot wait to see how they try to dig out of this financial hole. It's awful.

I mean, they always do it. They always manage to do it. But you look at it. And there is every single guy that they could potentially cut costs with their base salary or their cap it. What it's set to be in 2022 is essentially what the dead money is. Like Cam Jordan, 21 million in dead money. to Mario Davis, 10.5 million in dead money. Is Toronto a free agent?

No. Yes. Yes, he is. Okay. Yeah, they move money around. So it's like they're taking the cap hit next. They're taking the hit next year. I thought in my head too, what about, you know, if they weren't going to resign Tehran

and he wasn't a free agent, you know, Payton and Tehran come back and he's got one more year left and New Orleans wanted to move on anyway and get the money out. But he's a free agent, so that didn't work out in my head. God, it's it. they'll somehow we'll do this again, but it's going to involve pushing a lot more money until a lot more future years, which... And you don't have the quarterback that can make it all right, unless you think James is that guy, but I don't think he's the guy that can transcend a team and have a $150 million

cap around him when the cap's 208. Like, I don't know. It's going to be interesting. Oh, boy. All right. That's all we got. Thank you very much for doing this. Appreciate doing it during the holidays.

Appreciate you guys sending in all of your questions. seriously, the fact that you guys do this every single week it makes our jobs a lot easier, makes my life a lot more fun. So thank you very much for doing that. We'll be back next week doing the same thing. We will be back tomorrow with Meena Kimes. We're going to talk about the last decade of Seahawks football.

And if this is the end of the Carol Wilson Arrow, whether it should be how we'll remember those teams or dig into all of that with one of my favorite Seahawks fans. So really excited about that conversation. please come back and check that out. Please rate interview the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. I sincerely appreciate that. Please subscribe to the athletic.

Theath.com slash football show. If you have not, you should definitely grab a subscription before the playoffs. We'll be back tomorrow. Until then, talk to you guys later. This was The Athletic Football Show.