The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag Monday: Worst QB rooms of the past decade, Protector of the Year Award, which low-expectations teams can make the playoffs, and more

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Our fine listeners once again did not disappoint when we opened the mail over the weekend. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen tackle questions on evaluating play callers based on the talent at their disposal, the worst QB rooms of the past decade, the new Protector of the Year Award, current players becoming coaches, low-expectations teams that can make the playoffs, and a whole lot more on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Hosts: Robert Mays and Derrik KlassenWith: Michael BellerExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Beller on Bluesky: @mbeller.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. It's Mailbag Monday here on the Athletic Football Show. Sincerely appreciate everyone who took the time to send in questions. So many good ones. This is a fun one. It's a little bit looser. I think we're getting a little bit deeper into the off season. We talked a little bit about movies.

We talked about fandom. So a lot of fun ones on this show. Really enjoy digging into this with Derek Classen and our producer Michael Bell are reading the questions yet again. So let's get to that conversation with both of those guys right now. It's another mailbag. Monday here on the athletic football show. I've had such a blast doing these over the course of the off season. We're keeping it rolling today here to help me dig through your mailbag questions.

A sincere thank you to everyone who sent those in again. We had so many good ones that we could not get to them all the same way we pretty much have every single week. It is my producer here at the athletic football show, Michael Beller, and my co-host here at the athletic football show, Derek Klesson. Derek, how you doing, man? I'm doing really good. this uh i think sometimes the mail bags are fun to put together like notes wise because they make me think about things in a different way i think this bag of questions was more just like fun to go through than anything like i just enjoyed digging through some of this so i think it's

going to be a good one to let you behind the curtain a little bit i put these together very early this morning and i hadn't eaten breakfast yet and i had just dropped our foster dog off and a little event for the day and I ducked into the Starbucks next to the PetSmart in order to get this done before I drove home. And so I drank a venty cold brew without eating anything. And so I truly felt like I had taken meth and my arms were like shaking. And so I may have picked a few more like, this will be fun to answer. I don't have to think about it that much questions than I might have in another mailback to just just letting you behind the curtain a tiny bit. That's a great one because when I opened this up, I was like super pumped to see some of these.

Like having getting a first view of this two hours ago, it was like, oh man, this is going to be a fun one. Yeah, there was a couple questions that were good questions. But I was kind of like, I can't think about that right now. I go, let's talk about movies for a second. So this one might have a slightly different, slightly looser feel than a couple of the other ones we've done this offseason. And that's 100% a product of just the extreme caffeine intake I had for about an hour there

this morning. I love it. Hell yeah, well let's get into it, guys. Dennis on brings us the first question and says, just got around to listening to this week's mailbag, so I guess last weeks, and specifically your conversation about Todd Munkin, when it comes to evaluating how good a play caller is, is it more important for you to see what they can do with lesser talent than the heights they can reach with elite talent? For example, how much of what you think of Munkin currently is informed by what he did with Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2018 and how much of it is what he's doing with Lamar Jackson.

I feel like the current perception of Munkin is mostly driven by his recent work with Baltimore, but at the same time, valuing a play caller can be difficult when they are working with elite talent. Brandon Staley was widely considered a defensive genius after the Rams had the best defense defense in the league. But his accomplishment is difficult to disentangle from the fact that he had Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey. So in short, are you more impressed with how much a play caller can squeeze out of lesser talent or what heights they can reach with elite talent? And is it necessary to see what a play caller can do with lesser talent before you can comfortably project how good they are going to be? Robert, why don't you take this one first? It's a great question just because I think it's at the heart of what we try to do almost every single day

is try to separate the factors at play and why teams are successful and why they're not. And I think absolutely, like if you can have a guy, let's throw Ben Johnson out there, right? Jared Goff is a good quarterback. Jared Goff is not an elite quarterback. He's not one of those guys that are the core four or has a seat at the table type of players. I think it's easy to understand the value Ben Johnson brought to the lion's offense, even with good supporting cast players than it is to understand what Joe Brady is for the bills if you're just trying to stack up those two situations next to one another. I do think that you can see a difference between play callers, though. I think that's where the control starts to come in a little bit.

And, you know, we can talk about Zay Flowers being a piece of this Ravens offense where he wasn't from Greg Roman. I totally understand that. But for the most part, you have the same quarterback, you have a lot of the same infrastructure for Todd Monkin that you did for Greg Roman, and now the Ravens are the best offense in the league and one of the best offenses ever last year and have stacked that up for two straight years and I think are just a little bit more well-rounded and a little bit more dynamic than they were in the previous version of this offense. So it's never going to be perfect. And absolutely, it's easier to understand a play caller when they don't have an elite quarterback. But sometimes we don't have the luxury. We have

to figure out how much is the coach doing and how much is the quarterback doing. And that's in part because of hiring cycles. Like when a team's going to figure out whether they want to hire Joe Brady as their head coach next spring, the answer to that question is going to matter. Like, how much of this do you think is Joe Brady and how much do you think is Josh Allen, the same thing for Brian Daible. Like, I think ultimately that's where this stuff becomes important as these guys that are offensive coordinators are likely going to be elevated to different jobs.

And on the flip side with the quarterbacks, you have to figure out how much is this guy worth? Like, if we remove some of the component parts here, is this guy worth $55 million a year, or is his success being driven by some of the people behind the scenes? So it's not just a frivolous exercise. Like the answers to these questions do matter in some way. I think what's fun about this question is I, to me, I almost have two separate answers. I have the Monkin answer and then I have the wider answer about like all other play callers. I think we're talking about all the other play callers. It's like, yeah, I kind of want to see what you

can do with mediocreish talent to see if like you can make it better than it is. And that is, and that is going to what is going to make me want to be excited about you. Like, I remember watching Kyle Shanahan's Browns offenses outside of Josh Gordon. Not a whole lot of talent going on there. The line was good. The line was good. The line was very, very good. The skill players, it was a lot of like Andrew Hawkins, who was a fine player, but there

weren't that many stars outside of Gordon, but he really made those offenses go. And that was when it was like, okay, this guy could really be something. And so I think to get your foot in the door and hold consistent jobs, you have to prove that you can make mediocre-ish talent better than it is. And then I think to crack the Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVeatier, you do kind of have to prove it with elite talent and have those Super Bowl runs and all that. The Monkin thing, I think, is a little bit separate because to me, he gets hired to the Ravens to do a specific thing, which to me was to expand the dropback

passing game and really bridged Lamar into being a different style of quarterback. And the reason Monkin was a perfect guy for that is, yes, you think about all the downfield passing that he did with Ryan Fitzpatrick and stuff in Tampa Bay. You go back even a little bit before that. He was at Oklahoma State with Mike Gundy. They are a very vertical like spread style passing offense. But then you look at like what he was doing. He had a year with Stefansky, who was very much not like that.

His year at Georgia was a little bit more 12 personnel under center. I think the fact that Monkin kind of had clearly shown some degree of success in a million different offenses and was able to bring that to Lamar Jackson. I think that is more why he got hired. And that's obviously proving to it. have been a very good choice by the Ravens. Absolutely. And I think that John Harbaugh has done a really good job of this over the last four,

five, ten years where they've cycled between offensive play callers and offensive styles. And I think that he's having a Super Bowl run. Yes. And I think his ability to kind of have his finger on the pulse of what his offensive personnel needed from an architect and a play caller and being able to consistently evolve like that, I think that's what has separated him from C.E. type of head coaches like Mike Tomlin, even Pete Carroll, where you've seen them fall off a little bit

because they've struggled to keep up in that area specifically. You know, with Pete Carroll, I think the offense was actually kind of okay. For the most part, they were able to move between one version of Rust to another. And obviously, they cycle between Daryl and then Brian Schottenheimer. And even when they went to Gino with Shane Waldron, like the offense was always kind of a consistent top 12 unit. They just never found their versions of Wink Martindale and Mike McDonald in the way that John Harbaal was able to. And that's a really key part of being that CEO type of head coach.

It's like, yeah, if you can find your version of Josh McDaniels and Tom Brady, if you're Bill Belichick, and they're never going to leave because they have lifetime appointments at that spot, that's helpful. But when you have to kind of cycle between these options and being able to find the right ones consistently, a missteps every once in a while. But for the most part, having the right people in those roles at the right time, it's a huge hugely important factor as a head coach. And I think that John has done that as well or better than anybody over the last 15 years. Exactly. Because it's not just finding good play callers. There's

a lot of good play callers. It's finding like the right guy we need for this moment. And like the way that they moved from McDonald or to McDonald's from Martindale knowing that like, okay, being a little bit of the psycho defenses, we've probably had enough of that. It's time to move into something else. They just have very good foresight. And so, uh, yeah. The 2014 Browns, I'm very glad that you mentioned that team because is one of my like perverse curiosities in my entire time doing this. If you look at the numbers, so the 2014 is the year that the Packers were really, really good once the NFC championship game. Aaron Rogers won the MVP, fantastic offensive line.

Devonte was like fully formed as a superstar by that point. They averaged 0.15 EPA per play that season before losing to the Seahawks and NFC championship game. With Alex Mack on the field for the 2014 Browns, there was the first five. games of the year with Brian Hoyer at quarterback. The Browns average 0.17 EPA per play before Alex Mac got hurt. So just a little bit of context for how good that Browns team was before they lost their all pro center and things started to fall apart a little bit. That season, I think, is what made me so excited about the prospect of Kyle Shanahan landing in Atlanta. And we obviously know how that went.

Me too, man. That was, so 2014, I think was the second year I was like really covering the league and stuff. And that was the first time where I watched, where I looked at a depth chart on paper. And then I watched what they were actually doing on the field and was like, holy shit, there is no way they are getting away with that. And it was like a truly like watershed moment. It was awesome. That team was cool. I wrote a story. I think it was after the 2016 season. Or it was at the tail end of the 2016 season right before that Super Bowl about Kyle Shanahan and how I thought that he was like the next guy up when it came to the great coaches in the league. And part of me is glad that I wrote it then when I was a little bit less afraid and uninhibited and willing to say stuff like that. And I hadn't been burned by other approximate predictions when it comes to coaches. But as part of reporting that story, I remember talking to Andrew Hawkins.

And he told me about working with Mike McDaniel that year as the wide receivers coach. And just how Andrew Hawkins had prided himself on being somebody that he was really interested in like the minutia of receiver play and learning about it. and route running tendencies and techniques. And, you know, he was seeking out all of these different resources about learning about the position. And then he's like, yeah, then Mike McDaniel came in and just, I really realized how little I knew about the position I actually wanted to play. And so you just, even back then, even almost 15 years ago, 10 years ago, you had an understanding of how special this group of coaches were and how they could reshape the context around football for guys who had been doing it for years and thought. that they were really invested in like the minutia of their individual position. And that that story in particular is so funny.

Like 10 years later we're still getting the like ripple effects from that. It's crazy. Yes. All right guys. Here's our next question. It comes to us from Mikey McGuire and he says, Hey gang, been thinking a lot recently about how certain NFL journalists and personalities,

specifically national ones, are openly supportive of their personal favorite team while still covering the league as a whole. I wonder if we have someone like that on this very show. my question is do you think it diminishes a general NFL reporter or personality's work if they are openly a fan of a specific team? And what do you think of the recent trend in the industry of league reporters reppping their own teams out in the open? I think you guys do a great job balancing this on the show and show both sides of the dynamic with Mays being a proud Bears fan and Klaassen being a more general fan of the sport. Robert, I know you did the first one, but you got to take this one first, too.

What do you got for us? It's an interesting question just because I do think it really points to how the overall infrastructure and feel around sports. journalism has changed in the last 15 years. When I was in college, I had a professor at Mazoo, his name was Greg Bowers. I love Greg deeply. He had a huge influence on my work and my overall career and just like my sensibilities in this job. And Greg's thing was just like zero fandom, like just like completely unacceptable. You can't do it. Even if you are a student at the school, you are not openly rooting for the teams that you're covering when you're working at this newspaper. and I completely understood that.

But then I think that the way things have drifted now is just an indication and a reminder that the lines between content and journalism have really started to blur over the last five or so years in a way that I think has become a little bit more accepted. Obviously, like Bill Simmons was at the forefront of this. Like Bill was a hugely influential media figure in 2005 who was a fan before he was a journalist. And I think that that's just become a little bit more prevalent. obviously I come from that world and so that's just how I understand working as a professional sports writer but I also think that it's just different with different jobs like I think it's different

with Diana that it is for me when it comes to the nuts and bolts of what we're doing every single day if Diana was like an out and out Jets fan or whatever team she would follow like living in New Jersey I think that it would color her work in a different way than it colors my work like we're just trying to have a little bit of fun and learn some stuff on this show. Like for the most part, I don't think I'm doing like deep important work where we're calling truth to power. So I think that the demands of the job and what your requirements are and what you're doing day to day, I think that also has a huge part in this.

Yeah, there aren't any like serious conflicts of interest if all we're doing is podcasting. Like at that point, it's mostly fine. I also think the people that are like higher up in the media space, like, I almost never even if I know what team they are a fan of, feel like that is coloring their analysis. Like obviously, I think you do a really good job with bears. If anything, like sometimes you're too pessimistic and too ready to get hurt instead of like blinded by how good they might be.

But I think of like Ben Solac, Shil Kapadia, Deonté Lee. They're all Eagles fans. I have never at any point been like, man, they are blinded by their Eagles fans. And I think what they just said is crazy. But they'll be fun and enthusiastic with the team when the team is good. But it's not like blinding any of.

their analysis when it comes to good or bad. And so, like, I think people that take the job seriously, they can absolutely be a fan and show it and still be very, very good analysts regardless of that. So it's never bothered me. And I think sports are supposed to be fun. And if we can get to a world where people who are analysts can still interface with the game in a way that is fun for them, that's how it should be. It's interesting.

I don't think I would consider Sheel a fan of the Eagles. I think he's a fan of the other Philadelphia sports teams. but maybe that's kind of what you're saying. Like I've never listened to Shield and be like, oh, he's an Eagles fan. And I think that even if he were, I think that speaks to his ability to kind of balance those two things. I think, I don't know, I probably go too far the other way, but there's also part of me that when you start doing the job, the way that I've done it over the past 10 years. And people, I think what I've always said is I still love the bears a lot. I don't hate other teams.

You know, like that stuff falls away. Like I've been in those locker rooms. I've talked to those guys, like those little petty rivalries no longer exist in the same way. And I think that some of the emotional aspects that direction fall off when you're just more of a creature of this world and the way that we've had to be over the last decade or so. And that's a really good point to. I've never thought like, oh, you or anyone else's, they hate their division rivals and that's coloring how they're viewing that team. Like the way you talk about the Packers would seem like you're almost a Packers fan, if anything. Yeah, it pisses people off.

And I think, and I get that. And I, but it's always funny to me when you'll see somebody commenting on something somewhere and they'll be like, oh, Maze is a Bears fan. That's why he wouldn't give the Lions credit. And then there's somebody else that I come in and be like, that's just not how this goes at all. Like, if anything, it's too far the other way. And to be honest, I'd rather have that be the problem. I'd rather have Bears fans be upset with me than I'm a little bit too skeptical rather than the other way around because I think it's more important to maintain the credibility. that you have the other 31 fan bases,

I think I can take a little bit of heat from Bears fans. We think that I'm probably a little bit too down on what happens. Okay, guys, we have a question here from Joe Gorkchika. I'm going to guess is how this is pronounced. I think it's a Polish name. So Polish speakers in the chat, let me know if I'm saying that right. He says,

even though he was the seventh of seven players drafted by the Browns this year, all the talking Cleveland has been about Shadur Sanders. That got me thinking about what type of expectations we should have for rookies, based on pre-draft evaluation versus actual draft position. Sanders is a late day one, early day two range prospect on consensus boards, but ended up drafted three rounds later. When a guy goes earlier than consensus, that can be chalked up to one team or GM just liking a guy much more,

a la all the first round picks, the Gruden Mayock Braintrust, lit on fire. But when a guy falls, it is required that all 32 teams agree that that's where he was valued. My question is, when this kind of fall does occur, should you alter your expectations even though you as an evaluator might have thought he should have been drafted higher. Derek, you take this one first. I kind of think you have to, because even if you just take it like in a very broad sense, the way that we've talked about, like the consensus boards that people put together.

Like that board is better at predicting NFL success than any one individual person is. And so if we, if a lot of people for whatever reason, like, think that a guy is, I don't know, the 70th, 70th best player on the board, but the entire NFL tells us he's actually worse than that. That is probably a little bit concerning. And so I do think that with Sanders, it changes that a little bit. I think there was a long time that we thought Sanders was going to be a top 20 pick, and that was probably always wrong. But I do think it is like extra, you have to think about what his actual prospects are, the fact that he's fallen to 144. The thing, though, is that I think with Sanders

and what we saw that this was not clearly just an on-field thing, I think there was just like some of how they thought he was going to handle going from being the guy in college to being in the NFL and all that was going to come with that. And again, that doesn't make him a bad person. It's just that if they didn't think that he was a top 40 talent, was that even worth investing in at your quarterback room? And I think he fell to a point where at that point in the fourth or fifth round, all that stuff gets washed away by the fact that you're a fourth or fifth round pick anyway. If you're not a top 40 talent, a quarterback,

we're having a different sort of conversation about you, period. And so I think that's part of the consideration here. I think it does, I think it should, you know. And I think there are examples of this where I'm not even meaning to pick on this person, but it just came up when we were doing the supporting. cast things earlier this week, like Tori Horton, right? So there are people who thought Tori Horton might be a day two pick and Tori Horton falls to the fifth round.

Well, that doesn't mean that Tori Horton is the value of a second round pick now. Like when that happens, there's typically a reason that it happens that we don't fully understand as fans and people on the outside looking into the draft evaluation process. And guys that fall for reasons that essentially outside or even for whatever, for whatever, a reason. But guys that fall that far, like multiple rounds, I think there's a reason that that happens and there's a reason that they never really live up to the expectations we had for them as prospects. Every once in a while, you're going to have those like Pukunakua, right, fell because he had an injury history. And that, I think injury history is part of it. If you can

stay healthy and you can kind of prove people wrong on that front, I think that's a way to overplay your draft status. But for the most part, I do think that if you're slipping multiple rounds, it's probably an indication that there was something wrong with the pre-draft evaluation, and we should reframe it. On the other side, and I also think it's how far you fall, right? Because I do think that the consensus boards can be informative when it comes to, like, the first two rounds. Like the perfect example for me is like Cooper DeGine, right?

So Cooper DeGine falling into the 40s or Brian Branch falling into the 40s because there are some positional concerns and we're just not sure how he fits. that's different than, okay, you were a top 100 prospect and you got picked in the middle of the fifth round. Like, that to me is a different sort of fall than you got picked a little bit later than consensus because they got picked a little bit later than consensus guys. I think we do have a lot of evidence

that those picks do end up working out more for teams than not working out. Yeah, if you still get picked within like the general spectrum of where you were on the board, then that's probably fine. Like there's going to be variance in anything. The last thing I'll say about this to the point of the question where it's like you know all we're talking about

even though he was their seventh pick all we're talking about is Shudder Sanders he could have been the first pick in the draft or the last pick in the draft that was all any team was going to talk about for whoever picked him anyway so that's like a self-fulfilling prophecy in that particular case

all right guys we are going to take our first break and then we will be back to answer some more questions Bill Jolly gets us rolling again and Bill has a wonderfully simple question. Bill says which preseason quarterback depth chart is the all time worst. Here are two candidates from Bill 2025 Saints, Tyler Shuck, Spencer, Rattler,

J. Kainer, 2017 Browns, Deschon, Cajor, Cody Kessler, Kevin Hogan. Robert has a good note here. Let's do the worst ones of the past decade. Robert, take it away. I think the 2017 Browns have a very real case for this. And part of the reason I think it's easy to pencil them in is that team was trying to be bad. Yes. There's a reason that the quarterback room looks like that.

That team was trying to be bad. And so I think they probably are the frontrunner. There are two more that I'll throw out. Just when it comes to, we've made this decision on this guy as our starter for reasons that are either beyond our control or are purposeful in a bad way. The 2021 Houston Texans rolling into the season with Davis Mills, even though Tyrod Taylor was there, I think that that's one that you should absolutely point out. like Davis Mills was fine in stretches, but I think the idea of Davis Mills is purposefully our starting quarterback. That should probably raise some alarm bells.

And the other one I would throw out is the 2017 Broncos with Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, and their starter heading into that year. The guy that they like, this is our guy was Trevor Simeon. Trevor Simeon, dude. So those are the two I would say. That one might be,

that one might be it because of because Paxton Lynch, turned into one of the worst quarterback busts of like my lifetime, I would say. And then Trevor Simeon was the guy who it was like, it seems like once every five years, there's a guy who starts a few games and like plays okay. And then you're like, wow, he got another starting job. And Trevor Simeon was very much that guy. So that's a good one. 2021 with Mills was my best answer outside of that 2017 season with the Browns. Like that Brown season. And that one's hard for me to talk about because I thought Deshaun Kaiser was going to be a really good player coming out of college and then I remember he did an interview

I forget who but it was like a few years later he was like yeah I just never really cared about football like that I was like well that that kind of explains a lot doesn't it but I think that 2017 remodestly takes the cake those players were not good we have another question a little bit later that's going to hit on some other horrible quarterback situations I think it might be on the next mailbag but there's another one that it hits on just like terrible starting quarterback play and upgrades at quarterback that's digging it's gonna dig

into a couple for me that are just behind this time frame. So in the last 20 years. So we will be hitting that in a slightly different manner at some point, either on this show or the next one. I can't remember where the question falls. Yeah. If you jump a few years after this, it gets real ugly, real fast.

Yes, a few years before this. Before, yeah, before like 2015. If you start looking in like the 2010 to 2015 range, there are some absolutely brutal collective and aggregate quarterback production years for some of these teams that we'll be talking about soon. Can't wait until we get to that. But in the meantime, Anch Cooler is going to bring us around to something a little bit more positive. He says regarding the new Protector of the Year Award, who do you guys think the last three to five winners of this award would have been? How does a non-tackle win this award? Given that offensive linemen don't really have flashy stats or narratives that voters can easily grab onto, what kind of season would a guard or center have to have to get this kind of shine and has there been one in recent memory? He says maybe Jason Kelsey because the tush push was such a famous niche play. But given the strength of the rest of that line and the kinds of seasons Trent Williams had in 22 and 23,

anxious, he has a hard time seeing it. So Derek, what do you think? Who's the most recent winners of this award had it existed then? And also, does a tackle have a big time inside track to getting it? I think the tackles do. I think especially left tackles, right? Like it's as sexy as offensive line gets is protecting the quarterback's blind side. So I think they're always going to have the easiest track.

Last year, I think Tristan Wurst probably has a really good case for winning it last year. The year before that is probably Trent Williams probably would have won at that 2023. Niners line was insane. The year before that, I think, was probably Kelsey's best bet in 2022, right? The Eagles go to the Super Bowl. He was a big part of that. So I think that was probably the best bet. Once you start to go further than that, I think it starts to get a little bit trickier.

But like, I'm thinking of like that 2016 Dallas team. Like, who would you even have picked on that? line. That was the name I was going to throw out when it came to guards winning it. Like Zach Martin. Yeah. And this is a scenario. Absolutely.

Those are probably the two best guard options. I think for centers, it would be more difficult to win it if you're thinking purely about pass protection. I think that we should just look at it holistically for like what you're contributing as an offensive lineman. But I think those are the winners I probably would have chosen. 2022, the other guy out throughout, Andrew Thomas was so good in 2022. I think we forget that because it's been he's been banged up a little bit over the last couple years.

And it's partially why that seems like such a tragedy because him at his best as an ascending player was so, so good. But I think those are probably the names I would throw out. I think Zach Martin is definitely a guard that would have wanted at some point. When it comes to figuring out who should win it, this is a scenario that I think is like if I had an all pro vote, right? Like I would do some work talking to people in the league about who they would pick to win it. When we're just doing our like silly little podcast version of it, the stakes are not that high. But I think if you have a vote and a lot of the people who have votes, they have them because they're journalists, right? They're like members of the football media in a very traditional way.

I think that for two reasons, you should tap into people in the league because of that. You're probably not a film analyst first and foremost. And two, you have those connections. So I think you have an obligation when you're picking your all pro team. All right, I'm trying to figure out a guard. you know, that should, who's going to be the first all pro guard? Let me talk to a couple offensive line coaches. Let me talk to a couple defensive line coaches.

Like, what does the league think about who the best players in the league were this year? And the same goes for Hall of Fame voting. Like, if you're a Hall of Fame voter, other than looking at number of all pros, if you don't talk to anybody in the league, how are you going to figure out, like, who the best offensive linemen from 2003 was? There's no way to do it. So I think this is one where if you are going to be a voter for this award, do some homework.

Like take it seriously. Like let's make this something where we actually put a little bit of thought into who should win this stuff and why. And like a really good one for the past couple of years would have been like, I want to talk to some defensive players about Dion Dawkins. Like, because he plays with some really, really wide pass pro splits.

How does that change when you're playing against, you know, some of your standard left tackles and like what is actually the value of that when you're playing against it? That is something I would love to dig into for an award like this. It's going to require that. You know, I think with some awards, Like with Sequin this year, it's easy to pick him as the offensive player of the year. But I think with offensive linemen in general, it's just going to be more difficult

because you're going to have to dig in to the layers of it a little bit more than you would have positions that have traditional counting stats. Randall Fowler has our next question, fellas, and he says, what current NFL players do you think would make the best future head coaches? I'm biased because I played high school football with him, but I'm pretty bullish on Case Keenham, since he fits the backup quarterback archetype comes from a coaching family and has seen a wide variety of organizational structures in his career. Three good boxes to check.

Derek, what do you got for this one? Yeah, I mean, Kienom kind of checks all the, you know, and he's like bounced around. It has clearly been in some points signed to be like a little bit of a mentor for some younger guys. And so I kind of looked at it through that lens for some of the quarterbacks like Jacoby Brissette, I think kind of fits into a lot of that Tyrod Taylor has been around a lot of rooms for that exact reason.

So those are two guys I would have my eye on. And then we were actually talking about him the other day. so he kind of popped into my brain. T.J. Edwards, honestly, I think could be like a really good coach because like his whole thing is like he's not that athletically gifted compared to the other insane athletes playing the sport. He's just really, really smart about the way that he goes about it. And he's tough. And it's like that's kind of the exact kind of defensive player. I think you would want coaching other defensive guys. That's a great answer. I wouldn't have thought defensive players first,

but if you're going to pick one, that's a really good answer. Demico Ryans was a more talented player than T.J. Edwards is. But again, getting back to those sort of cerebral linebackers, like, you think Luke Keeckley would be a good football coach? I think, yes, I think Luke Keeakley would be a good football coach. The only problem I have with Case Keenum, I think Case Keenum's made too much money to coach. That is actually an incredible consideration. I mean, that's real. Like, a lot of the time, I mean, unless, you know, like, all right, let's, let's make this comparison. Okay. How much money do you think D'Amico Ryan's made playing professional football? I mean, as a linebacker at that time, it can't be even half of what Keenham has made, probably.

No, no, no, it's closer than you think. Is it? So D'Miko Ryans in his career, and D'Miko Ryans was a really good play. D'Amico Ryans was like a starter his entire career. D'Miko Ryans went to two Pro Bowls. He was the defensive rookie of the year. D'emico Ryans made $48 million in the NFL. Case Keenham has been a team starting quarterback on purpose, like three times in his career,

he has made $55 million playing professional football. I'm surprised his number is that low, actually. We only really got that one contract. Yeah, I guess that's true. The one he got from the Broncos is the only big time deal he ever got. But he's been playing for 12 years and he's made 50, or, you know, tennis years, he's made $55 million. You invest that in the right way.

I don't think you need the day-to-day grind of being a head football coach in the NFL anymore. No, absolutely not. But some guys are addicted to it. You never know. Again, I think Damico is that way. I don't think D'Amico needs to coach, but obviously he's very good at it and all that. To me, my favorite part of this question is just thinking about the guys who are a little bit surprising. I think that's probably why I put it on there.

And I've said this before, and it's funny that it happened now, there was a head coach in the NFL that told me that the moment that Sean Mannion retired. he would hire Sean Mannion to be on his staff and potentially be his quarterbacks coach. Sean Mannion has been out of the league for two years. He is the Green Bay Packers quarterback's coach. He spent one year as like an offensive assistant, QC guy, whatever, and then now he is the quarterback's coach. So I think sometimes it's hard to know which guys are going to be suited to the role. But I think your point, Derek, about seeing a lot of different offenses,

I think that's really useful. A guy that comes to mind for me, T.J. Yates, who was the quarterback's coach for the Falcons, is actually now their passing game coordinator. I didn't see that he had been promoted, but he had been. So if you look at T.J. Yates' history as a player in the league, so he played for Kyle Shanahan like multiple times. And then he played for Bill O'Brien when he was with the Bills. And so the Bill O'Brien stint, I think quarterbacks that went through that Texans office, offense, it's had an underrated impression on their like football brains because that offensive system is very, very different when it comes to the demands at places on the quarterback

compared to like especially the Shanahan type system. And not that many teams are running that Patriots tinged Earhart Perkins offense anymore. But I remember talking to Ryan Fitzpatrick about this and he was like, this is the first time in my career where you were in charge of everything. everything was the quarterback's responsibility. So when you've done that and you've played for the Shanahan offense where they're trying to take as much off the quarterback's plate as possible, I think that's helpful because now you've seen various ways that you can skin the cat and then you get to decide at the end of

the road, which of this do I want to pull from, which of this do I want to pull from? And I think it makes you just a little bit more nimble when it comes to problem solving. And that's honestly such a good example because like the whole issue with the bill Brian and I think why he started to fall out a little bit was like he is putting too much on the quarterback but that's all he's known like would you would you would you've worked with tom before like why would yeah he can handle it like just let him do it like the quarterback will figure it out he'll make me right but that's there's only so many guys they can actually handle that and they're funny the shanahan thing is almost the opposite it's like they've ran into issues where they're not

letting the quarterback do enough and I think now they're kind of finding themselves in a little bit of a different light because the quarterback can do a little bit more it's an interesting question And it actually makes me want to go ask coaches now. Like, all right, who on your team do you think would be a good coach? Like, who do you think would be a good position coach? Who do you think would be a good coordinator? And see what their answers would be because I wonder if they'd be looking at it from a slightly different perspective than the one that we are. Well, Robert, I think you've got a training camp tour that's going to take you to like 20 teams coming up in the next month or so.

I've already got way I'm going to be able to execute all the ones I already have. I'm trying to stop myself from putting more onto my plate. It's going to be a thing where I come into it with like, I want to do these 10 projects. And then I ask questions about all 10 projects and then never finish the projects. It's like creamer with the levels. All right. Next question here, guys.

Babiš Riguhramon says, not football related. Important right up front. Not football related. I have noticed that you, Robert, often make a movie analogy because you love them. and typically in previous versions of the athletic football show,

Nate Tice would pick up on them and riff and often make it even more obscure reference. Now, Derek will often pivot and make a more general analogy that still fits, but isn't necessarily related to the movie. So this one puts you on the spot. Derek Vibish wants to know, does Derek watch movies? Does he understand the references and just pivots so it makes more sense to more people? Or does he not get them and pivots for that reason? Derek, what's up, man?

You like movies? I don't get them and that is why I pivot. I really don't watch that many. movies. I think part of it is there's something about it that to me that like sitting down knowing for the next two hours that's what I'm going to watch and it not being like a live event. I just don't care for it, which is dumb because I'll sit and watch. That's the best part. That's the word. I don't like being locked in. What if it sucks 20 minutes in? Like I don't want to be locked into that. I just, I don't know. I don't like that for whatever reason. So I watch maybe like

a couple movies a year. And even then, I think probably the biggest difference too is a lot of the stuff I watch like to me entertainment movies TV shows all that stuff if I'm going to watch something with like a real people in it it should just be sports and it should be a live entertainment event if it's not if it's going to be like a story I kind of prefer stuff that is like animated or a video game because to me entertainment is like an escapism thing it's not a like I need to find meaning in real life thing so it's just a very different like how I interact with it I don't even know where to start in responding to that. I think you're on the complete other end of the spectrum.

Well, I just, the idea that if it has real people, it's no longer escapism is just like, no. It could absolutely still be escapist. It definitely can be, but for whatever reason for me, I struggle getting there as consistently. I love movies. I see a ton of movies. I've watched like five movies this week. And I still feel like I'm behind on all the movies.

I want to see. There was part of me this morning that saw the early reviews for 28 years later and was like, son of a fucking damn it. 20 years later is good. Now I got to go see that. There's already like, I haven't seen materialists yet. I haven't seen the Phoenician scheme yet. And we watched friendship at home, which I typically wouldn't have done.

But I couldn't go to the movies and my wife wanted to watch it. And so I was like, all right, let's check this off the list. I think that this goes back to, I think, a slight divide in like when we grew up and what was available. to us. Like for me, movies were a huge part of my childhood because the internet wasn't a huge part of my childhood. By the time, when I was like 10 years old and you wanted to do something at night, we mostly watched movies because we didn't watch a lot of TV shows in my house because TV options even then, Beller, were limited. Like, I wasn't watching NYPD Blue with my parents. Like, sports and movies were our outlets other than playing video games, but playing video games back

then was a very isolated act. You did it alone in your room for the most part. And so I just think I grew up on movies. And movies to me, I love a good TV show. I love the potential payoff when a TV show is really well done. Like when I got to the end of Andor and the feeling I had watching the end of Andor, there's something really, really satisfying about that or like Station 11 is the other one. I would compare it to that where you get to the end.

And like I'm just overwhelmed by how satisfying and enriching that experience was. But for me, an hour and 54 minutes, what can you do with a story in that amount of time? It's perfect. It's the same way how football is the perfect TV product. Like, it's just made for this. I think the idea of film and like what you're trying to do in that exact amount of time, the fact that you remove yourself for that exact amount of time, you have to get it done in that amount of time. To me, it is like the perfect medium for visual storytelling because it's condensed. But at the same time, you have to get it. And it's condensed. But at the same there's still enough room in there where you can accomplish something remarkable.

See, I think I view stuff the other way. I like sitting with a show for like three weeks and just like kind of the slow burn of like, you watch one or two episodes a day. You kind of just, it's the thing you're doing as your nightcap. Like that to me is more rewarding. But then you bring up a good point about like the age thing too. Like by the time I was 11, all of my friends could play Xbox over the internet.

So we just did a lot. Like we didn't have to watch movies by ourselves or anything like that. we would just play Call of Duty or whatever the hell it was. And so like I've always had that. And I've generally spent, you know, if we divide all of this entertainment into like, quote, entertainment time, I probably spend a majority of mine playing games instead of watching stuff anyway. So that already cuts out movie time, let alone the other hurdles that I have with it.

To date myself here, when we wanted to play video games with other people, even when I was in like middle school and high school, we did it where you had to have several Xboxes in the same place in order to connect them to the same network. And so we would, the football guys, like our football team would just go to one of our buddy's houses and all 16 of us would play Halo together. But in order to do that, we had to be in the same physical place to do it. So that's how old I am. See, that's funny because we, I used to do that a little bit in high school, but it wasn't

because we had to, right? Like we, we have the internet by then. There's no reason that we all have to be in the same spot. But I remember it was like junior, maybe like junior year, senior year, a bunch of us would like bring like five TVs over to one of our friends' house and we would just sit and play online together. So there was no reason to do this, but it was just kind of fun to have everyone in the same room. So even though I didn't have to have that experience, I did. In person interaction is good. We should have more in person interactions. Yes. When my friend grieves me, instead of yelling

him over the mic, he's two feet away from me. That's, that's way better. It's a lot more fun. I'm so old that I just learned that griefs can be used in that sort of context. So there you go. So we're going to let the listeners sit with that. We're going to take one more quick break and then we'll be back to answer a couple more questions. Okay, Carl Johnson has our next question and he says on the show a week or two ago when discussing the Steelers in some context it was mentioned, even if things don't go smoothly in some area of the season, they'll still be okay or finish middle of the pack because they're the Steelers. It got me thinking about team reputation and the assumption of performance associated with that reputation. I'm in my mid-30s and during my lifetime, teams like the Steelers,

Ravens and Patriots have been consistently good and considered model teams. The Packers have never really dipped into the basement other than the odd 2005 and 2018 seasons. These teams seem to be gifted the benefit of the doubt when it comes to seasonal expectations, immediate draft grades, and reactions and overall view. On the flip side, the Browns, Jags, and Jets seem to be criticized and ridiculed based upon their operations over the last 30 years. My question is, do you feel these reputations are earned? And as such, the analysis and predictions that go along with them are also earned.

Or is there some level of hive mind and bias that keeps these as, assumptions in place. Robert, what do you think on this one? I think it depends on how many of the component parts are still part of the organization when we're coming to these conclusions. With the Steelers, I feel comfortable saying that because for the most part, the guys who have made the Steelers, the Steelers over the last five to 10 years are still there. Mike Tomlin's still there. T.J. Watts's still there. Cam Hayward is still there. And so I do think enough of the DNA is still in place that you can say stuff like that. Well, with Washington, right, if you're going to have a new owner, a new GM, a new head coach, and a new quarterback, whatever organizational stink previously

hovered over you doesn't matter anymore. And the Lions are a good example of this. The Lions, they hired Chris Spielman to come in and sort of be like that president of football operations oversee things. A lot of teams are starting to do that now. Tony Besselli is doing that with the Jags. And so if your ownership stays the same, but you handle the different layers to the organization differently and different people are in decision-making roles, then things can start to feel pretty different pretty quickly. But if the same people are overseeing all of the big decisions, both good or bad, I think that's where you can get into saying, well, why would I expect something different from this team?

They're giving me the same people that have been either driving their success or holding them back for the last 10 years. Yeah. And like, to me, the biggest difference between a lot of these organizations and a lot of the other ones is that the good ones like the Ravens, the Packers, teams like, that the Steelers, this is tricky to say now with the Steelers, but they so rarely operate based on desperation. And I know very recently the Steelers just have, but for decades, they really didn't. They operated on a very kind of to their own timeline.

They were able to move on and pivot to stuff in a way that always felt like they were making a forward-thinking decision rather than like, oh my God, this was so bad. We have to try something else and be crazy. Whereas you look at teams like the Jags, the Jets, the Browns. They're so often like over leveraging themselves into something they think is exciting or it's going to be so different than what they had the last time. That means it has to be good, all that other stuff. Like it just feels like they do stuff that is a little bit more on a whim.

Whereas teams like the Packers, Ravens, stuff like that, there's clearly long term thinking. And I will say part of that is they're more resilient. They're more resilient. And like part of that too is they're just hitting on the quarterback. Right. And that allows you some degree of freedom with teams like the Ravens, the Packers and stuff like that. but teams like the Ravens and Packers were also, again, forward thinking with how they took quarterbacks. Like, do it, the Ravens taking Lamar Jackson when and where they did and taking him in a year where, you know, people thought he was just this runner and all this stuff and they clearly had a vision for him.

That is good team foresight. And then the Packers taking Jordan Love a couple of years before Aaron Rogers was ready to go. Like them operating that way instead of the Jets kind of being stuck having to take Zach Wilson, for example. Like it's just they're operating in very different ways. Okay, our last question in this mailbag comes to us from Forrest Brewston. This is something I think about a lot, so I love this question from Forrest. He says, every year, there are a couple of teams that surprise us and massively outperform expectations. I used an ESPN preseason power rankings as a guide for this question.

Not an exact science, but for consistency purposes, I looked at their preseason power rankings list from 2022 to 2024. Below are the teams that were ranked in the bottom six preseason and found success. 22, the Jaguress are 27th, the Giants are 28th. they both made the playoffs. They both won games in the playoffs. In 2023, the Texan's 31st. Same deal.

Both made the playoffs and won games in the playoffs. In 2024, commanders were 28th. The Broncos were 31st. They both made the playoffs. And as we all know, of course, famously, commanders go to the NFC championship game, upsetting the number one seed lions along the way. The current bottom six in 2025, Panthers, Saints, Browns, Jets, Titans, and Giants. So the question from Forest is, which two of those six teams do you think have the best

to make the playoffs. Derek, take this one away first. Yeah, my inclination is to pick one team from each conference, obviously, because two bad teams making the wild card, I think would be kind of crazy. I think the best of the AFC bunch is, I would want to bet on the Titans, but I think just based on who they're going to have to play in their division, I actually think it might be easier for the Jets to do it, especially if the defense really plays at a high level again.

So I actually think I might go with the Jets in the AFC. the NFC is oh god it's bleak dude it's not the giants to me it's not the giants why isn't it the giants though I still think the offensive line is

really bad and I think the defense is overrated I think we look at the front the talent up front and think man this could really be something that secondary and linebacker core really has to prove it to me because I just don't see it right now.

And especially in that division, right? Like those are three really good teams in the East with the Eagles, the Cowboys, and the Commanders. Whereas the NFC South, man, some of those teams are going to be bad. My team in the AFC is definitely the Titans. It's definitely the Titans. Just because think about the makeup and the reasons

that these teams often overachieve compared to preseason expectations. A quarterback difference and a quarterback that plays better than a rookie quarterback should. that to me is the quickest path to you being a much different team than you were expected to be. And I just think that the number one overall pick has a better chance of doing that than Tyler Shuck, who was taken at 40. I just,

I think that's much more realistic. And the Titans are the one that I want to root for the most out of this bunch. I think to me the way I was conceiving of it with Denver's the Jets is like which side of the ball between those two teams has the potential to be elite. And to me, the only answer is the Jets defense. And so that's kind of why I lean that way. I think the Titans offense has a chance to be solid enough, and I think the defense has a chance to be solid enough for them to be like a wild card contender.

Like if I told you that the Titans had the 15th best offense and the 15th best defense in the league this year, I don't think that's crazy. Like I think that they could do something like that. And I think that would make them a competitive team in the wild card race. I think they can too. I just think other than the quarterback being great, the fastest way to be the surprise team is like one of your sides of the ball is randomly elite. For the Jets, it's not going to be their offense, obviously.

But the defense could be like a top six unit again, and I don't think that that would be that crazy. I still think there are enough holes where I have some questions about that. But I understand where you're coming from with that. I think the Browns, you could make the case that their defense could be really, really good again, considering what they did two years ago. But I have so many questions about the offense that it still feels like an uphill battle for me. To me, I think the Titans are easily number one for me.

Again, just based on how this normally happens. I think the Titans are number one for me. The two I'd be picking between other than that are probably the Panthers and the Giants. I think that there is a path for the Panthers' offense to be pretty good. I think that that's on the table for them. And if the defense can get microwaved with some of the talent,

if a couple of the rookies can hit, can they go from being the worst defense in the league to the 20th best defense in the league? Maybe that's enough to be a wildcard team in the NFC. I'm with you on some of the aspects of the Giants. I think that the defense, we're just penciling this. as a really good unit is probably getting ahead of ourselves.

But at the same time, I'm open to the idea that I could be wrong about that. Like, there is a potential chance that Abdul Carter is so good, so quickly, that now Brian Burns is the third best player on your defensive front, and Kavon Tibado is the fourth best player on your defensive front. Even with some question marks elsewhere, whether that be Deonté Banks or whoever, I still think that there's a path for the Giants defense to be really, really good. So for me, it's probably a coin flip between Carolina and the Giants, even if I'm probably less optimistic about the Giants than some other people are.

That is a good point, because the Giants Back 7 scares me a little bit. But if the pass rush, like Abdul Carter kicks them up into being like a top five unit, it's the same argument I was trying to make with the Jets more or less. So I actually totally get it. Yeah, I think that we'll talk about this a lot over the last, over the next three months, I'm sure. but just expectations for the Giants offense based on Russell Wilson compared to Daniel Jones. I think it's going to be an ongoing conversation.

If the Giants make the playoffs, in my opinion, it will be driven by their defense living up to the pretty lofty expectations that I think a decent amount of people currently have for them based on reactions to social media clips. All right. That is all we've got for this iteration of the Athletic Football Show mailbag. we will be back with our normal slate of shows later this week. For now, that's all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.