The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: The most star heavy teams, Jaguars coaching swings, the myth of "too tall" QBs, how Bengals fans should feel & more

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

Our own Senior Writer and Pro Football Hall of Fame Voter Mike Sando returns for this week's mailbag, diving into your voicemails and emails coming out of week 15. How should Bengals fans feel right now? What makes a coaching "rerun candidate" like Dennis Allen a good one? What's the deal with "too tall" QBs with guys like Justin Herbert out there? Who are the most star-heavy teams in today's NFL aside from QB? If the Jaguars swung for the fences, which head coach would be the most intriguing for them to hire? These questions and more on deck from YOU on this Athletic Football Show. 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 21st. I'm Robert Mays. Very excited to welcome. The Athletic Zone. Mike Sandow, Mike, how you doing that? I'm doing well.

Good morning. Good afternoon. Wherever you are. It's afternoon here. It's even afternoon where I am. Okay. So we're recording this a little bit earlier than we typically would on a Monday because there's football at 4 p.m. central time today, 5 p.m. Eastern.

We were back in that swing of things after the mess that last year was. I don't really want to talk about any of that. I'm sure we'll get to the competitive balance issues. You talked with Lindsay about that on the football GM on Saturday. If you guys want to hear about updated COVID protocols, everything going on with that, that's available to you. You can go listen to that over there. It's a great show. I highly encourage you to check it out.

We're going to keep things a little bit breezier today with the questions that you guys sent in. Sincerely appreciate all of you sent out. the questions in like I do every single week, you make this easy on me. It's truly a pleasure to dig through them and find the ones we want to answer because they're thoughtful, they get my gears turning, and they make this a very fun show every single week. So I appreciate you guys doing that. And let's get to our first voicemail. All right. My question is, as a Niners fan, is what they would look like if you had competent quarterback. Been listening to your show, watching the game to still be trying to read where the receiver is,

not really reading the defenses. And when I look at stuff like Aaron Rogers doing what he does and all the other greats doing what they do, I think about the fact that, man, could you imagine Matt Stafford on the Niners and what that landscape looks like now and how much better they look, especially when they would have assets like? Very to the point, which I appreciate. I think this is the million-dollar question about the Niners.

I think it's why they made the Trey Lance trade before the season because they know that with Jimi Garoppolo it can look pretty good, but they feel like there's still meat on the bone. So how would you answer this question? Because I think it's difficult because it requires some imagination. And I'll explain what I mean there in a second. Well, when people say Aaron Rogers and all the other great quarterbacks, there's one Aaron Rogers. I mean, he's better than everybody else.

He makes incredible throws. He fixes a ton of things for their offense. And even then you win a championship every 10 years. or maybe every five if you're lucky. It's really hard. I think having a consistent player that lets you, that you're not trying to protect, put it that way, that the defense is always more afraid of him

than you are as a fan of him playing for the other team. I don't put Stafford in that group at all. I mean, I think Stafford's a nice player who opens the playbook compared to Jared Goff, but still is going to make some poor decisions in critical times that if you're the 49ers might cost you in the NFC championship game. I just don't think there's that many guys. This year there's almost been two tier one quarterbacks,

and then Brady had zero points in the Sunday night game. So, yes, I think if you put Aaron Rogers on the 49ers, they would be like the Packers, right? I think it'd look a lot like the Packers. Yeah, they'd just be a better. team. If you look at it, the Niners are second in EPA per play. I think Garplo's third. I think he's behind Aaron Rogers and Matthew Stafford this season among all quarterbacks. So what the Niners offense looks like in its current form, Jimmy Garoppolo is running it extremely well, about as well

as you can run that offense. For me, it's what would the offense look like if you could open it up a little bit more? If when you had to play left-handed, when you had to, when the defense was dictating to you rather than the other way around. How many answers would you have? How much could you open the playbook up and how much could you change the structure of it? That to me is the question. And I think that is what they're going to look to do when Tray Lance eventually takes over this thing. To me, just picture this, those critical moments in the Super Bowl where they said, ah, we know what you think about Garoppolo now, end of half or different plays in there. With the Rogers, which is a short list that Tray Lance ain't going to be doing this, just by the way,

49er fans. Aaron Rogers will take the ball. down the field. He can have, in the Raven game, they play that way partly because with whatever, 40 seconds or a minute, Rogers will have you in field goal range. That's just how good he is. So it really opens up a level of aggressiveness to you that even the Staffords don't give you. That's what the really great one does. I think what we're talking about with Gropolo is just maybe a little bit more ability to do stuff on his own, right? That's what we're talking about, just a little bit more talent. And I also think just the area is the field he can attack.

You know, when he made that throw against the Bengals outside the numbers in a clutch moment, he's like, oh, man, look at that. They made a play outside the numbers in a clutch moment. He's very, very good at operating this offense that asks him to attack the intermediate and middle of the field, right? That is an area where the Niners crush people. And then if they're going to be throwing the ball outside the numbers and they're going to be attacking the perimeter.

It's screens. It's getting the ball, the guys, hands and yak opportunities. So just the types of throws that are available to you. Jimmy Garoppolo is fantastic at running this machine that the Niners' offense is when he's healthy. I just tweeted it out before the show started. You look at the leaders in yards per attempt from 2013 to right now. I know yards per attempt isn't a perfect stat.

But you look at it. Deshaun Watson's first. Jimmy Garoppolo is second. He's ahead of everyone. He's ahead of Patrick Mahomes. He's head of Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rogers, all those guys. He's second. Nick Mullins is eighth.

Nick Mullins is eighth on that list. And C.J. Bethard is 20th. The guys just below C.J. Beatherd, or Lamar Jackson, Matt Ryan, Justin Herbert. Like, what the Niners have built is incredibly impressive when it's able to function the way it wants to. When they have to do something else, what happens? That's the question. And when you put on, like this morning, I put on all of Garplo's throws, there's one throw where you go, oh, wow, that was a great throw.

There's dump-offs in the flat, and the guy goes up the sideline. for 30 yards. That's yards per attempt. Exactly. That's why it's a flawed number. Yeah, yeah. And you're not saying it's not, but the way you're getting that is not putting stress on the quarterback. It's not requiring a ton of the quarterback.

So, you know, it's kind of like Kirk Cousins. You can go by the numbers on Kirk Cousins. But when you watch the games, you can see the difference. Let's stick with the Niners real quick here. It's questions from Brian Massey. So as a Niners fan, this has been madden and confusing season to cheer for them, I honestly haven't been sure what to want. I'm pretty clear-eyed on Jimmy, good but not great, capable of solid stretches,

needs everything around to be working well, but madingly inconsistent. I think their roster has holes that will ultimately doom them. But after dominating the Falcons to get to 8 and 6, I got thinking, do the Niners have the most non-quarterback blue chip players of any team in the league? I count as legit stars Trent Williams, George Kittle, Debo Samuel, Nick Bosa, and Fred Warner. Throwing Kyle Shanahan as a star coach as well if you'd like. If it's not the Niners, then who is. is it. And if you don't have a top five or top 10 quarterback, how many stars do you need to be a real contender? I mean, this is a great question. Yeah. What's a real contender team? I guess your old bear team with Rex Grossman, you could have that many. Is that the number of stars or how great you have to be on defense? That's how I think. And even that is 15 years ago. I'm not sure you could play that way anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Just be completely dominant on defense and special teams and have a chance to do it. You know, I think there's a tendency as fans to,

sometimes overrate the players on our teams. I can remember being a Raider fan 30 years ago and calling in, you know, radio shows and saying, this offensive line with Gerald Perry and Steve Wisniewski and Don Mosbar. I mean, this has got to be the best line in the league, right? And then no one agreed with me. These guys are stars. I mean, I agree with that. I think it's interesting is you have a left tackle and a pass rusher who clearly are stars.

Trent Williams and Nick Bosa. That's a great, those are two great places to have them. But as I look, like if you were a Rams fan answering this, and they're a little bit of an extreme case given the nature of the roster, but you would say Cooper Cup, Andrew Whitworth, Aaron Darnold, Jalen Ramsey, you could put in that star category. And you might make a case for Leonard Floyd or maybe on their best day now Von Miller and OBJ could still be in there. And look, they may not make it all the way. So I don't know that there's a number of stars you have to have in the absence of having a top quarterback. You're just trying to get as many as you can. with no guarantees in any year. Like we said, the Packers have had 30 years of Farvin Rogers, and people say, oh, they only have X number of Super Bowls. Well, yeah, they're hard to win. I think the other teams you could make a case for, I think the chiefs are probably in

the conversation with Hill and Kelsey and Chris Jones. And, you know, you could, other guys are probably right on the edge there. The Niners probably have more than them. I think the Cowboys absolutely have a case, right? Yeah. Tyron Smith, Zach Martin. Micah Parsons, Tank Lawrence. I think you can make a case for C.D. Lamb.

Tony Pollard is one of the most efficient running backs in the league right now. Randy Gregory on the best day is good. Randy Gregory is playing that way this year for sure. So I think the Cowboys are right in there. I think the Rams are another good answer. The Packers went healthy, I think undeniably. That might be the best example, right? When they're healthy and they have Bactiari, Devante Adams, Jaya Alexander, Zadarius, Smith.

I think both of their running backs are probably in that conversation. Alton Jenkins at his own position. They're dinged up this year, which I think is a testament to just how much Rogers covers up when you think about how good that they've been. But I think those are the teams I would think about would be the Cowboys, the Packers, and the Rams. And I would probably be my answers. Yeah, I thought of Tampa initially too, but they're, I mean, with their best weapons at their best and a, you know, a couple of guys on defense. But, yeah, I don't know what the numbers. have in the absence. Those teams still have the top quarterbacks too. I think that it's more important

rather than how many stars you have. How complete is one unit of your team, one unit of your team, your offense or your defense, right? When you think about the Bucks, that was the most impressive thing to me about the roster they constructed last year is that it's very, very good all over the place, even if the top, top end guys aren't similar to a team like the Rams of the Packers. I mean, if you did the exercise for the Bucks, I think Godwin is a yes, which we could talk about in a second. I think Mike Evans is a yes. I think Tristan Worf's is probably in that. Yeah, the Bucks might be the answer. Tristan Wurfs, Ali Marpet, both of the receivers, Levanti David David, you could probably maybe put Shaq Barrett in there, especially, I mean last year the way that he was playing, you could put him in there. Vaya, your nose tackles in there. Vita Vaya is in there. Nobody on the defensive back end. That's another example where they're just good.

They have solid players everywhere and no defined weaknesses, which I think in that area of your team, it almost might be more important. So I think the Bucks are in the same conversation with those other teams. Chris Godwin out for the year, just awful. I mean, awful if you like football, awful. The fact that this guy, I wrote a story about Chris Godwin before the Super Bowl last year. I've talked to a lot of people about a lot of players in the 10 or 15 years that I've done this. I don't think I have ever gotten the reactions that I did about Chris Godwin in the conversations that I had about him.

Just the dude he is, the mindset he has, everything about him. And for him to tear his ACL while playing on the franchise tag, having the season that he's having, it's awful. I mean, these are just the worst kinds of breaks for NFL players. I mean, you wish him the best. But, I mean, this is a huge deal for the bucks. And hopefully it's not a huge deal for him, but it's hard not to feel for him in this moment.

Absolutely. I think he still will get good money, and fortunately he has a Super Bowl ring. But, yeah, and I've read your piece, and I've heard you for so long be so high on him that I actually thought of you when I saw that news. I was like, oh. It's one of those guys you don't.

You don't want to see that happen to anybody, but I mean, he's just such a good player. Absolutely. And he's a huge part of what they do offensively. And this is now one of those moments where, the moral hedging that they've done with Antonio Brown might ultimately play in their favor. Absolutely. Just saying, we need this guy.

Yeah, I don't give a shit what anybody else thinks. We need him right now, which that's fine. At least you're laying it on the table. All right, Kent, let's get to our next voice mail here. Hey, Robert. It's Jack from Dayton, Ohio, here with a Bengals question for you. So yesterday, the Bengals go into Denver, today, I guess, calling on Sunday night. Bengals go into Denver and win this gritty, tough kind of defensive

matchup. And we've seen them throughout this year, whether it be against the Ravens or against the Steelers, sort of against the Chargers. They've played deep high scoring games and they've been able to sort of enforce their will on offense. Does winning a game like the one they did against Denver, give you more hope for them going forward potentially in this AFC playoff race, or are you more concerned now that their offense wasn't able to sort of flip the switch against what a lot of people think is a good defense, but by DVOA standards is not one of these elite defenses in the NFL. Look forward to hearing your answer.

Just curious about kind of what you think about the Bengals in general. Appreciate it. Love the work. Bye. What do you think about this one, Mike? I think Denver's defense is really good. I think so, too. I think their numbers are not necessarily indicative of how good of a defense they are in this moment. They've had some injuries.

They've had some moving pieces. I think they're definitely on the rise, and I think that in any given game, they can be a pain in the ass to deal with. And absolutely, they had Justin Herbert in that offense to 13 points, a really, really good EPA numbers. They've done it against Dallas. They were up 30-0 on Dallas. They did it against Kansas City.

They had a pretty good game defensively. So I don't, watching the game, I don't, I can't say that I feel better about the Bengals after that game. I feel like they did exactly what they should have done defensively to that offense, given the quarterbacks they had. I mean, taking the ball away from Drewlock, that was school recess lunch money. You know, and I was like, okay, that's what you should do. That's, that was good.

offensively, I just love Joe Burroughs so much that I'm not really worried, but I did notice that maybe you have a perspective on this, Robert. If you were to look just statistically at their worst offensive days, they've had four pretty bad ones, and three of them were against the Fangio-type defense, certainly against Denver, certainly against Chargers, even early in the season against Chicago. There was another one against Cleveland. So I don't know if,

haven't watched those close enough to know if there's a common thread through them. I just feel like the Bengals are, have already sort of made their progress this year. They're a better team. They're respectable. The defense is probably better than I expected. We feel great about Burrow.

We know what they kind of need to do. And I don't think they're going to be making a ton of noise in the playoffs and going deep, based on what we've seen either in that game or any of them. What do you think, Robert? It's taken a while to get here, but the Bengals of the team, I thought they might be coming into the season.

The defense is much better than I thought it would be, right? There is Borderline Top 10 defense. They are definitely better than I thought they would be. I thought that when the dust settled, the goal for this Bengal season should be, man, this is going the right way. Like our young core that we've built looks really exciting. Like Burrow is a star.

Let's see what we can get from Jamar Chase. We have some young pieces, but in a single offseason, it's really hard to put all this together, especially when you have one of the most expensive defenses in the league. They spent a lot of their effort this offseason and their finances on plugging holes defensively. And it worked. I don't know what it's going to look like moving forward. We've seen these one-year blips with defensive free agent halls where it doesn't necessarily hold.

But right now, that has been successful. But on offense, the only real moves they made was signing Riley, reef to a one-year contract and going to get Jamar Chase in the first round of the draft. The Chase thing, he's falling off a little bit, which is not necessarily surprising. You see that with rookie players all the time. He's undeniably exciting. Nice addition. Yeah.

Yes. And I think that next year, this could be great, right? You got T. Higgins, you got Chase, you got Mixing, you got Joe Burrow, you got Jonah Williams, and that's really all you have. And I think that is the biggest concern here is that they've really relied in some of their bigger moments this year on some fluky, plays offensively, some great individual efforts from Burrow and from Chase. And they have struggled to sustain offense in some of these moments. And I think it's because their offense is not complete.

Their offensive line is still a big concern. I know it's dinged up now, so it looks even worse, but that is now the next step for me. It's like, okay, we are a team that is absolutely headed in the right direction. We have solved the most important problem you can possibly solve in professional football. Our quarterback is a star. Just point blank, end of conversation. he is a star. Now what? And I think that was always what I figured this season would look like for the Bengals. And I think that's where we are. I feel like their line could hold them back ultimately when it comes to playing against the really good teams in the AFC in the playoffs. But after this season ends, you think, okay, now we have another off season, another off season to compile some resources here to build up that group and let's see what we look like in 2022. And that's kind of always what I thought was going to happen. from a spot before where it was like, can you believe how bad Zach Taylor's record is? Do we need a new coach? Yeah. You know, those types of things. Hey, who's this defensive coordinator? I mean, it wasn't one of the hot candidates where they trying to save money or something. Those types of things aren't the questions we're asking. So I'm with you, I'm in a position where, hey, you know what? I want to see more. I want Brewer to make it through this season, not get hurt again. And let's move on knowing what we have to do. Now, you're right. You can assume that defense. Okay, we pick up where we left. off on defense, and we've seen that story go south before for every team. So you've got to stay on that

and get better defensively, too. But I think we know offensively that you're going to be good at quarterback and you're going to be good at receiver and you've got to help that offensive line and let's go. That is not a bad place to be. Being good at quarterback and having a potential number one receiver and a 1B with Higgins for the next however long. This plan that they followed and the guys that they drafted has worked out. Yep. Now what happens? And it's a worthwhile question, But if I were a Bengals fan right now, I feel pretty damn good about the position I was in because the most important queries that you could possibly have as an organization, you have solved them. And that is a huge, huge thing. We don't have not spent a ton of time on this one, but I did want to address it very quickly because it's not come up at other times this year so far, thankfully.

Jonathan Munchu says, I've been following your works since the Grantland days. And one of my favorite bits you've ever done was the take workshop you did on your ringer days. At one point, you posited that Justin Herbert was too tall to play quarterback while he was in college. otherwise his pro career is already far better than many people expected. But I think this point is still interesting. He's taller than any other quarterback who ranks top 20 all time and passing touchdowns. As someone who's rooted for Baker Mayfield for years now, I can certainly see how a quarterback being too short is an issue.

So my question is, what is the tallest do you think a quarterback can be and still be successful in the NFL? Is it Herbert at 6'6? This was always like half a take, right? And it's partially rooted in the history of it, like he mentions. You think of Dan McGuire or someone? of these guys. Yes. So this is a true story. Last spring after I wrote it, an NFL general manager reached out to me about it and was like, hey, this is a real thing. Like, there has never been a

quarterback who's been 6'6 or taller and been successful. So it is, it's not just this crazy idea, but the reason that I think that you hadn't seen a guy, especially in the modern NFL, succeed at the position with that sort of height, is because they're wooden. They cannot move. Those guys are stiff. They're not athletes. And when you watch Herbert play, he's so fluid. Like, his ability to make plays happen with his feet, how quickly he can reset, how explosive and twitchy he is for being a 6-6-6-guy, I don't think we've ever seen anyone like that at the position. You know, Cam 6-5, Brady 6-5, a lot of guys in that range. But 6-6 and taller, we've never seen someone like him. So I think he is just a physical outlier.

That's why he's been able to be this successful. Theoretically, you could have a 610 guy that moves the same way. It's just more difficult. So that's why I think he's kind of just a freak. And think of this way if we had pulled NBA general managers in a certain year, hey, how come there's the 611 guys can't hit three pointers? Well, guess what? They weren't practicing them.

I don't think there's necessarily a limit. that most of the quarterbacks that are extra, extra tall just weren't, didn't correlate athletically. I think it's still rare, but I'm with you. I think it's totally possible. You know, Bill Wallace used to say 6-2 is the ideal height. Well, it probably was to get the guy who's tall enough to see and quick enough to move. But if you're quick enough to move and have the athleticism and you're fluid and don't look

like you're tall, then you can do it. Like when you said Herbert 6,6, like I don't think of Herbert is unusually tall because I don't even think of him as 66. You just watch him play and he's an athlete. He's also, when you see him in person, when I talk to them, this might get a little creepy. But when I talked to them and talked to him in preseason when I was at there at training camp, I talked to him after practice and he had his pads off. And he had like an underarm or shirt on. That dude is assembled. Like that, he is shredded up.

He is an incredibly put together athlete. He's huge. and he has definitely worked on getting to that place. I think a lot of bigger quarterbacks don't necessarily have that sort of commitment to being in really, really great shape. So the fact that he combines that with the frame, this is what you see, right? If you can be a great athlete at 6-6, 6.

And then you can combine that potentially with... I'm going to say something here. I think the best arm I've ever seen. In terms of the way the ball explodes out of his hand, I honestly don't know if I've ever seen someone throw a football like that. And that ideally is the package, right? If you have that physical ability to throw the ball at that height, which is the benefit of that frame, and you can still move, that's why it's worth betting on a guy like that. Absolutely.

They used to take the tallest kid and put him at center, and then in the NBA, you'd have Mark Eaton. That's what a center looked like. Well, guess what? Now Kevin Durant exists. Yeah, exactly. Kevin Durant exists and you would have blown my mind at one time. So, you know, I don't know if we're going to see all. It's still going to be rare.

Shoot, it's rare to have anyone who can throw it like Justin Herbert at any height. So he's a rarity in all ways to be that tall, to be that athletic to throw it that well. I will put a little vote for John Elway exploding off of the arm. I'll put him out there in the quarterback challenge. This is fair. I am too young for John Elway. John Elway was drafted when I was negative four years old. So people that I have watched in my adult life, I will say that.

that about Justin Herbert. You were born in 87? Yes. It's my senior year of high school. Wow. 87, 88. Yeah, Elway was in the Super Bowl that year. So, yeah.

I did not watch that game. Or if I did, I certainly do not remember it. The Doug Williams game. Yeah, I remember that watching at my friend Jim's house. There you go. All I got is what I've been able to see. So that's what I'm sticking with right now. All right.

Our next one here from Will Reagan. He says, should we be paying more attention to Dennis Allen as a head coach candidate? His defenses have been stellar since he joined the St. Staff. He's always had that Mark Davis-era Raiders stink on him, so I never really considered him as a viable rerun candidate. Could he actually be a decent rerun candidate? In your eyes, what makes a potential rerun candidate a good one?

I love calling them rerun candidates instead of retreads. It's like a Seinfeld episode on at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, which I'm totally fine with. I've never heard someone call it that before, but I'm okay with it. So how do you feel about this? How do you think about Dennis Allen as a possible retread among all of the other potential retread candidates that we've seen in the NFL, especially on the defensive side here over the last couple years? Yeah, it looks like he can scheme a good defense. We know that, which isn't usually, I mean, that's important.

I think to be a head coach, you have to be credible in some area of making the football team better schematically or coaching the team. So if he's really good at that, that's a part of it. As far as a rerun candidate, I feel like, you know, they don't say used cars anymore, you know. Certified pre-owned, certified pre-owned. That's what we're talking about. These coaches are certified, pre-employed, okay? I do like that somebody's been a head coach before. I don't know if there was any fatal flaws with him and with the Raiders because they were such a flawed organization. If you remember at that time, they were a couple years out of Al Davis-Dung. He'd kind of run the organization, into the ground late in his tenure there. And then Mark Davis was new. And I think Mark Davis is a better owner now than then.

That was a very difficult, tough situation. I like the fact that he's been a head coach before. I like that there's been time in between the tenures. I'll give you an example. Adam Gase had a tough run in Miami. Now, they had an okay record better than you think, but it wasn't good. He needed three years in between to really reconsider his process. and grow as a coach. Instead, he gets thrown right into the next job. And it was exposed as a bad.

He never, he didn't get that chance to really think it through. So I like that about Dennis Down. He's been with Sean Payton. So it checks a lot of boxes there. I guess I would probably, like a team would do a little more investigation and okay, was there anything that didn't like? Was there anything with dealing with players? Is there anything more to know about him? But just on the surface, I kind of like him being in the mix. If we're doing this the same way we often will measure up head coach candidates by looking at their resumes as coordinators, undeniably he is in the conversation. What he's done with that Saints team over the last, I guess, four or five years, however long he's been there, they've consistently had a really good defense. And I think some of the stuff that they've done schematically is kind of interesting. so many aspects to what they've been, I think gives him credence as an option. It gives him, puts him in the conversation. I will say this, on the other side of it, like the personality aspects of it, how he handles

the job, all that stuff, zero idea, have never had a conversation with Dennis Allen, know very little about him. Can you remember a Dennis Allen press conference in the last like five years? I just feels like I've had very little exposure to like Dennis Allen, the personal. or communicator. Here's my Dennis Allen interaction story. So I got to know Cortez Kennedy really well when he was going through the Hall of Fame process. I used to cover him when he played. So I went down to Orlando one time and I visited Cortez at his house. And he lived in this community where they had a golf country club type thing. And he said, hey, let's go to dinner. I'll invite a

couple friends. So we go to dinner. I got no idea he was coming. It was Dennis Allen and Charles Woodson. Those were his neighbors. And we had dinner. And it was the cool. I was just sitting there the whole time going, who doesn't belong at this table? You know, me, me, Dennis, and Charles Wilson. No, it's tough of Charles Woodson. It's that man out there. It was just totally awesome, though. So I had dinner with Dennis Allen, but I wasn't taking notes. He seemed like a great guy. But yeah, he's somebody who we should be asking those questions, right? I mean, we need to be gearing up for this next run of candidates. And I, you know, I'm biased in the sense that I've had conversations with a lot of the other candidates.

And it's part of why I enjoy just having random conversations with assistant coaches. You know, during training camp, it's one of my favorite things. It's can I get 20 minutes with whoever and both to pick their brain about some ideas? But it's also good to get exposure to these guys because who knows where they're going to go. And it's fun to be able to say like, oh, I think he's a good communicator. I think he translates this idea well. And I just sat down for a while with Vance Joseph. And when you sit, I sat down with Vance Joseph and I was like, I absolutely could see him getting another

chance at this, right? The way he explains his ideas, how clearly he can articulate some of this stuff, the distillation of this is why I play this way. This is how I interact with my players. This is how I solicit feedback from them. It's much, much easier for me as someone who talks about this all the time to have an idea of what he would look like in that chair. I just, and the same was with Brandon Staley last year. There are two coaches in the last three or four hiring cycles where when they got the job, I said confidently, I said that person, I think we'll be good at this. And the two guys that I felt that way about were Brandon Staley and Kevin Stifansky. And it's because of conversations I had had with them for stories that I had written. And I just was confident with their backgrounds, the way they handled themselves, what their

temperaments were like, that they had as good a chance as anybody, in my opinion, to be good at at being a head coach. But you don't know that about everyone. So it's hard to say. That's why when these conversations come up, it's always like, I don't know. I don't know that person at all. I have no idea. I have no idea what he'll be at this.

So it's very, my scope of knowledge here is very, very limited in being able to talk about these guys with any authority, you know? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's get to our next one here.

This was also is coach-centric. C.J. Sheffler asks, now that the Jags have finally fired NFL loser, Urban Meyer, I started wondering which NFL coach would have the highest transfer market cash value if the Jags could just buy a coach from another club. I have to imagine that CFA. DJ is a soccer fan.

As with all hypotheticals about coaching, Bill Belichick is not included because he is the largest outlier of all the time. I think the most expensive coach would be Mike Tomlin. He has the resume, the reputation, and is in a situation with the Steelers where ownership places an incredibly high value

on the head coach. So who do you think would be the hottest coach on the head coach transfer market, Mike Sando? That's interesting. The hottest coach, like for me, I would also be the thing,

who would be the best for Jacksonville? Like, who could go in there and do that? That's for maybe a set. a separate thing because I think when you don't have, when you don't have great ownership or great leadership, I think it takes a powerful personality probably too in the right ways. Urban Hump was probably in the wrong ways. But I would probably,

my list, my short list would be John Harbaugh, Mike Vrabel, Sean Payton, Sean McVeigh, and Andy Reed as guys that would be really, really expensive to go in there. But there's,

you know, Vrable doesn't have the skins on the wall, but I think he's got a real strong person. personality that can, I don't know, drive, kind of drive a building, if you know what I mean. Sean Payton might be the top of my list because I think he went into New Orleans and I don't know that it was absolutely the best situation and he has just taken firm command of that. So those would be some guys there. Would you put him at the top of the list?

I mean, maybe Mike Tomlin's in there too. I think Sean Peyton for the, if we're talking purely about Jacksonville, like best fit, if I could just in a fantasy world pick one of these guys, it would be Sean Peyton for the exact reasons that you mentioned. The Saints, think about where the Saints were when Sean Peyton took over the Saints. And not only just in the aftermath of Katrina, but also just the status of the organization. I remember reading Jeff Duncan's book. And some of the things that Sean Peyton had to ask for where it's like coaches don't have to share rooms on the road. You know, guys get this little thing, just a little tiny.

quality of life things that he had to think about when you're rebuilding the bedrock of an organization. And I think that having done that before, we'll put him in a really good position to do that in Jacksonville. But if we're talking about who would cost the most in this particular situation, I think it'd be McVeigh, right? Because he's 35 years old. Like potentially, don't you have to think about that? And also, ownership, like, how easy it is to sell an owner on like a young energetic guy. I just feel like he would have the highest price tag, even if he wouldn't be the most in-demand or best option.

Yeah, so Sean Payton's 57 years old. You figure he's got, what, 15 years left at most? That's still a long time. I mean, Sean Payton is not necessarily a easy living guy. I feel like Sean Payton's 57. He's had a hard 57 years as an NFL head coach. He's got a couple. He's skipped a few L changes and he's got to,

some high in-city miles, you know, on him. Yes, yes, that's absolutely right. You're right. He may not have the highest price. McVeigh might be the shiniest car in the lot, but Sean Payton's going to get you to the top of the mountain. And I don't care what the conditions are for those reasons. So I think he would be great in Jacksonville. And Vrable would be my choice of the unprovens. We're not really sure, but I'd like to see someone get in his way.

Let's try to stop it. All right. Next question here from Thaddeus Wassowitz. I believe that's how you pronounce that. If I'm not, I apologize. I know Zatheifer came on to do a deep dive with the Colts with you, Robert. But I want to touch on one piece. What comes next? First, are the Colts number one on your rankings of a team from the top down being able to execute a plan. I think they are. And if they aren't, they're close. In a salary cap league, it's very hard to go out on both sides of the ball. And the Colts have accomplished that. Now the question is, how can they become great on one side of the ball? I think they're one elite playmaker. her away on either side from being elite. They're so solid across the board, but I think that one superstar vaults them into elite status. To steal from Nate, they're so solid, but they need an elite guy who would be a force multiplier. He mentions guys like Chris Godwin, Darren Waller. So I think there are a couple different things to consider here, Mike. I want to ask you his first question, which is, do you feel better about the Colts than almost any other organization when it comes to executing a plan and the guys who were in charge of this from the top down?

Where would you put them in the hierarchy of those conversations? I put in my top five. I think there's a couple of other organizations where maybe even it's very cohesive there. But you talk about stream. There's no place more streamlined than New England because Bill Belichick's the same. He does both jobs or even Andy Reid to some degree. Obviously they have.

And Peyton is another example, right, where those guys have such autonomy and the personnel side of it that, which is hard to do well. But I think they've done it well in all of those places. Yes. I do really like the setup and everything in, uh, in any. But think of this. If Frank Reich really wants to have Carson Wentz and it's not really the best move for the long-term organization, as a GM, you sort of have to do it. I said that to someone on Saturday night.

I said that, I don't even know if I want to say this. I guess I will. It feels like we're headed toward that, right? Like it almost feels like that is, if you just played this out, like 18 months from now, I guess less than 18 months from now. next March after the 2020 Colts do whatever they do. Let's say in this hypothetical, they lose in the AFC championship game to the Chiefs or something. And they're sitting there and they go get a couple more pieces this year and they get a couple free agents and talk about what could put them over. An elite corner, a pass catcher or playmaker somewhere on the offense at the tight ender receiver to pair with Pittman and Taylor in that offensive line.

And Wence just has like a couple moments in the AFC championship. game where you're like, oh, man, it just feels like he can't get us there. And now you have this situation where you have a head coach and offensive play caller who is tied to this quarterback, who is invested in this quarterback, who's gotten a lot out of him. But maybe this guy isn't the person to take them the rest of the way. And you have a GM who has to look at the interests of his coach, how well his coach has done at developing quarterbacks, how much he's trusted him and how much that trust

has paid off in the past, but also, do I need to kind of take the controller away from this guy and say, we need to go get someone else? It feels like that might be on the horizon. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but that eventuality is very much on the table. I agree. And how about Frank Reich after the game? I got no concern with our past game. This is about proving we can run with defense. I was in that room. I was like, oh, okay. I'm like, I have real concerns. I'm not even a Colts fan, you know, I'm just watching the game going. And, go, if these teams switched quarterbacks and it was Mack Jones being asked to manage that lead, I feel like the Colts would have won by 17 points. Am I wrong?

I know. And I think that that feeling about, man, they just have it right. And that's kind of what we talked about with Zach on Saturday night. When I watched that game, it just felt like a proof of concept, right? It just felt like this is what we're here to do. right? Like this is what we've tried to build over the last three years. This is the identity we want.

This is, and the word I use was incubator. This is the incubator of talent and the vision that we've had for this organization. To me, it was on full display on Saturday night. How far can you take that vision now becomes the next question. And I think the quarterback is a huge consideration in that. And he may be able to. I mean, the talent, he does have the talent. Absolutely. So it's year one.

and maybe our goal for year one is, hey, he's got to stop sucking, which was the year before. He hasn't. Reasonable goal, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this was a salvage thing. This was the, you know, a ship that was on the rocks and had a couple holes in it and had to be dry docked. So maybe in the big picture, this is a successful season already, especially if he makes it through, especially if they're in the playoffs and maybe win a playoff game. then you didn't go backwards.

And they overcame a lot this year. They've had guys in and out. A lot of teams have, but they lost some games that they really should have won. So do you springboard off of that next year and or better? I think you can convince yourself to do that. I'm not just,

I'm not a hundred percent all in on the quarterback. And that's easy to say too, because who else you want? Who else are you going to go get? You can't just go get anybody. If you look at it next year, his cap, his base salary next season is $22 million. His cap hit is $28.

Totally reasonable for a capable starting quarterback in the NFL. After next year, his base salaries, his cap hits over 2023 and 224, $26,000, $27,000. As the cap explodes in 2023, that $26 million is going to be peanuts. You're not even going to think about that as it compares to most quarterback salaries. The 40s are going to be the norm, and he's sitting there at 20. and there's no dead money left on that deal. So theoretically, they could get to a place where they say, we need to be better here. And they have the flexibility to do that. I'm not writing off Carson Wentz, but it just feels like that dynamic is going to be worth watching here over the

next year or so, Nandi. And he is probably, unless things really go sideways, good enough to keep as your guy and you don't have to defend it to everybody because you're on the lookout. Isn't that a great spot to be? Yeah, well, but you're on the lookout only if something better. You don't ditch Jared Gough just because you're tired of Jared Gough. You have to feel like, oh, we can get Stafford and he's better. Let's do that. So maybe they're in, maybe they're a competitive playoff team with a chance to go deep in the playoffs with Carson Wentz. And you, you don't stop looking. I mean, it's one of those situations where I'm so intrigued by it. Like, the way they've built this thing, how successful they've been. And people that listen to the show know that I'm a big fan of

the work that they have done there. I hold Frank Reich and Chris Ballard and very, very much. very high esteem. Yep. And I feel like what they have done this season is another example of that. The question now, and is the eternal question, can you take the next step? I was on Lindsay Rhodes's podcast today. We're talking about the Lions. It's like, I think you can feel really, really good about what the Lions have done this

year and what they look like on the field every single week. This is a really good staff to take over a group of practice squad, fringe players, and get them moving in the right direction. Is it going to be the right staff to put better players around them and go from, we have fielded an NFL team to we can start to win six to seven games. It's always that question about your staff. This version of it, this is great, right? Like, we've really found, we figured this out.

But can you go from being a 10-win team to a 12-win team? Can you go from being a 12-win team to a championship team? That's always the question about this stuff. And I feel like that's exactly where the Colts are going to find themselves next spring. Let's do the last voicemail here, Kat. And then we'll get out of here. Hey, this is Eric from North Carolina. Question from Mike.

I know you talk to a lot of people in coaching front offices. This time of year is when you'll have teams that are out of the playoffs, and sometimes they'll have a really inspired run at the end of the season or the tail off. And we always talk about how that's creating momentum or they have no momentum going into the next season. And I was just wondering with all the turnover that happens with players and coaches in the off season, Does that actually matter? Do teams go into the next training camp? Is there any hangover, positive, or negative from how the last season ended?

Or is that just something we tell ourselves at the end of the season just to have something to say? Great show, guys. Thanks for all the hard work. How do you feel about this? I'm not a huge believer in momentum carrying over in that way. I think if you have good people, you've got a good thing going and you're making decisions for the right reasons. That becomes its momentum. I do think every team at the end of every year that doesn't win it all does sort of convince itself that, okay, if we do these two things, then we've addressed our issues.

That's kind of fun to watch and see what they do. But I don't think, like, for example, a hot finish is huge. I mean, could give somebody confidence or you feel better about your quarterback or those types of things. I don't know how tangible that really is. I don't think you can carry it over. I don't think you can ride momentum. I don't think that's real. But I think that there are things you can learn about your team over the course of the back half of season.

If your quarterback does something well, there are areas of his game, he improves. I don't necessarily think the statistical outcomes over the back half of the season are indicative of what's going to come compared to what made have happened in week eight. Stuff like that, I feel like is probably overblown. But I think it's more about like, is the stuff we're doing working? Like is our system that we have in place? Is that something we can continue to rely on moving forward? But for the most part, I've always, like the Belichick thing, where he is steadfast in this messaging about how every year is a new year,

where it's nothing that happened before matters. This is a new year. It's a new team. We're going to treat it like this. That used to be something where I kind of just rolled my eyes. It's like, all right, man, just to answer the question about the 2018 season and what you guys did in this way. and why it matters now.

But he just refuses. And it's, I do think that there is value in that. I think that looking and kind of cracking open what you were each off season and saying, all right, this is maybe one thing we did well. Let's take that. Let's take this. Let's take that. And using it to create a new vision for what the next season is, to me, there is a ton

of value in that. And I just, I wouldn't have thought that five years ago. But when you just see what it's like and how hard it is, especially in defense, to carry over success and how the teams that don't make massive adjustments on offense and try to be a little bit something different, inevitably run into holes. Like the Bills, for example, right? I think the Bills are the perfect example. You watch what the Bills offense was at the end of last season, and you thought, man, this is

going to be a rocket ship. They are going to be so, so good again. They're a top five offense. They have this young, exciting quarterback. This is it. We're ready for liftoff here. and then they kind of hit a wall this year because they're very much a similar version

of what they were last year. And I think that consciously trying to make sure you evolve and you change and you're presenting something an entirely different picture to an offense or a defense, I've really bought into how important that is.

And I think that's why in some ways, whatever momentum of you've gained toward the end of the previous season may not be as important. No, I think those things are important for the narrative so that GMs can get renewed or the media gets off their back. And teams are embracing that all the time. They just, oh, if we can get quarterback to have four good games down the stretch, then they're not going to be bugging me about a quarterback all year,

all offseason or whatever. So, yeah, those narratives are used conveniently, but probably not effectively. All right, guys, that's all we got because there's a football game kicking off right now as we finish recording this. As always, sincerely appreciate you guys sending in the questions. Mike sincerely appreciate your time. We will be back later this week. Mitchell will be back on tomorrow's show. Tomorrow we're going to dig into the place the modern run game has in the NFL.

We've kind of tiptoed around it on a lot of shows this year, but we're really going to sink into this. I've had some conversations with people lately about it, and I really want to dig into it with Mitch because he has some really cool thoughts about it. So please check back for it. that. We'll be back with our regularly scheduled programming for the rest of the week, even though it's a holiday. Mike, I know you guys are going to still have your, the football GM come out on

Saturday. So you let people know where they can find that and what should they, what they should be looking out for? Absolutely. Right on, right on the athletic football show feed on Saturday, me and Randy Mueller, the GM. And you can find me on Twitter at Sando NFL and of course on the athletic. So please check that out, guys. And just kind of a quick programming heads up. Last week, Saturday into Sunday, we had a show from the Colts game. We are going to do some Sunday morning shows when it is appropriate over the next month or so. Obviously, this week is Christmas. We're not going to have anything on Christmas night.

But in week 18, they're flexing some games onto Saturday. We're going to record a show on Saturday night. We're going to have something about those games for you on Sunday morning. Wild Card weekend, obviously there are Saturday games. We're going to have a show on that Saturday for Sunday morning. So just be ready to check that stuff out. We thought it worked out well this week. And there's no downside to having some reactions in real time rather than waiting until Monday morning.

The divisional round is going to be an exception. I have to go to a wedding. And Nate also has something to do. Unfortunately, Saturdays are time for family and friends and things of that nature. But we are definitely going to have some more Saturday into Sunday programming for you guys that you can check out here throughout the playoffs. For now, appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.