The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Monday Mailbag: Best second sports for NFL players, the meaning of 'scheme,' BYO team brain trust, and more

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Ever wonder what would be the most beneficial second sport for a future NFL player to play on their way to the league? Ever think about how you'd build your own team brain trust if you couldn't poach anyone currently in the job? Ever consider which current coach could've gotten the most out of Jay Cutler? Good news, this edition of the TAFS mailbag is for you! Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen answer each of those questions, and a whole bunch more.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. I'm Robert Mays. It's Mailbag Monday. As always, sincerely appreciate all of you guys who sent in questions. They were great. We always have more of them than we could possibly get to. Michael Beller is back to help us read these questions today. So let's get to today's Mailbag with me, Michael Beller, and Derek Classen, right now.

All right, digging into another Mailbag Monday. Always enjoy doing these. Excited to dig into it. Bell are glad you're back doing this with us. I know you're here doing it last week, but it's nice to have a little bit of help with these. We got another great batch of questions, and I'm very excited to dig into them. Let's get to it.

All right, let's get to it, you guys. John Russell with the first question here. John says during the draft process, we heard a lot about Tetaroa McMillan being a former basketball and volleyball player. The volleyball part piqued my interest, as I couldn't recall a wide receiver prospect that was a former volleyball player. I'll pause here, Alec Pierce. Shout out, Alec Pierce.

What's up? And also Mike Gisicki was an incredible. volleyball player when he was young. Interesting. That actually tracks with how he plays, too. That's a good one. It's built a volleyball team on of NFL players. Skill set wise, it made sense for the type of receiver that McMillan is. And this got me thinking about draft prospects and remote support athletes at some point leading up to the NFL.

What second sport do you think boost a draft prospects evaluation the most by position or position archetype? John threw in some of his thoughts for an X wide receiver. He's thinking basketball volleyball, a slot receiver, lacrosse, DB, soccer, offensive line, wrestling interior defensive line, track and field, most likely shot put. So those are some of John's thoughts. Robert, why do you get us off, started off with some of your thoughts on this one? I like a lot of these. I think that lacrosse for a slot receiver is perfect.

Also, a lot of white guys playing slot receivers. So I assume there's a little bit of a crossover there. The second thing I'll say, the volleyball part of this, one of the reasons I know that my Kisiki was a volleyball player. Indoor volleyball is like my favorite sport to watch. It's awesome. I've ever made this point public on the podcast before. Indoor volleyball rules.

And so my best friend was a, I don't know if he was an All-American, but he was certainly like first team All-State and like went to college on a scholarship to play volleyball and won a national championship at Penn State. And so I watched a ton of high school volleyball at a high level when I was younger. And it was not long after they changed to rally scoring, which completely like changed the way that volleyball feels and works. And so I have a lot of respect for volleyball players because it's, to me, it is still like my favorite spectator sport because of how fast-paced it is.

It's absolutely incredible. The one I feel most strong about here, I think all of the other ones that John said are great. My only answer is, I want my quarterback to have been a former point guard. That's it. Like if you look at the guys who can really hoop and then are good quarterbacks like Joe Burrow, Tony Romo, guys like that, I do think that there is a lot of overlap between the feel and vision necessary to be a good point guard and a good distributor of the ball and basketball and what is being asked of you as a quarterback. I don't want my quarterbacks to be these robot guys who've been

going to a private teacher since they were eight years old. I don't either. I think that's the biggest one is I don't want them to be the seven on seven camp gurus and all that. Point guard is probably the best for like getting mental reps for a quarterback. Like that's probably the closest that you can get in terms of that and like team dynamic and all that stuff. I think if you have a my second sport for quarterbacks as if they're not too tall. Like I think this can be an issue if you're too big, like the six five, sixes. I would like them to play middle infield. Like just you teach yourself how to throw from these weird platforms and generate torque

from different places and all that stuff. So I think that was certainly one. John here mentioned. Who else for baseball players? Mahomes, Russell Wilson. Russ. I mean, so not not middle infield, but Stafford played catcher, which you can actually kind of see in the way that he throws where he was just like feet are locked in.

and he just like rips it like that. Like he's trying to throw somebody out at second. So those are definitely a few. And then I think you have a bunch of like outfielders, like your Kyler Murray's and stuff, which actually my other one is if you're a receiver and not like the big X Mike Evans types, but I'm thinking like the Garrett Wilson,

Oddo Beckham, DeVontas Smith, like that body type, play outfield. Like it's going to teach you ball tracking, range, you know, flexibility, like you got to dive, all that stuff. So I think those would probably be, those would probably be my picks. I would absolutely love seeing like Stefan Diggs as a center fielder. It would be awesome, dude.

Yes. It would be so good. Or we just get big good base runners. We just get Pete Crow Armstrong to come play wide receiver for one of these teams. Maybe that's another answer. Yeah, maybe we just have to flip it. Maybe we were thinking about this question in the wrong way. Who can we steal to come play our sport?

Bellar, is PCA the most important thing that's happened in your life since your two daughters were born since like 2016? Like, where does he rank for you? especially with the fact that the cubs are not going to get anything done with Kyle Tucker. I have no hope of them getting anything done long term with Kyle Tucker. So he's going to walk. So the fact that he's going to be here, PCA is going to be here for a while and that they robbed the Mets blind by trading them Javi Baez to get PCA whenever no one wanted

them to trade anyone from that 2016 core and they got PCA as part of that. I mean, it's probably he's probably in the top three or top five if we're being perfectly honest here. I don't watch hockey. And so the kind of a dart part of. this, it doesn't really enter my world. But in terms of the Chicago sports, I watch,

PCA is my favorite and most fun Chicago athlete legitimately since, like, those young Cubs guys came on the scene like almost 10 years ago. Yeah. Right? Who else were going to be? I don't know. I mean, Caleb Williams, I guess.

But even that, but even that potential PCA is like fully, it's like, he's like, he's already doing it. So I have one to throw in here and this is actually baseball related. And this is, I was telling Derek, before we get going, this is admittedly stupid because it's not actually a problem. But I always thought it would be a fun experiment to get a like quad A sort of infielder, someone who can't break into the majors, bring him onto your football team and have him field

on sidekicks. Like brown ball on side kicks. He's going to be good at, he's got good hands. He's going to be good at like adjusting to quick bounces. There is no way that roster spot is worth it for a guy where that's his only skill. But as a general idea, yes, I can see where you're going with it. If we could also get him to be like a pretty good gunner or something, I can see it. I think this is a fun.

If he could just be like our special team's ace and that's his thing, I kind of love this actually. Yeah. Yeah, it's a non-problem, but a fun thing to think about. Another fun thing to think about is our next question from Connor McCorm. Connor says, let's say you are given the ownership of an expansion franchise in the NFL. The league is allowing you to pick anyone in the NFL or outside it to fill the following position. GM, head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and starting QB. However, you cannot choose anyone who is currently serving in one of those roles to serve in that same capacity. He's got some rules here.

Your GM must be a new GM, a first time GM. Your head coach can be an OC, DC assistant, college head coach, but cannot have ever been an NFL head coach. No retreads, no one who's currently a head coach. No demotions. For example, you can't make Andy Reid your offensive coordinator. The starting QB cannot be a rookie and needs to be an established backup, not someone competing for a starting job. know Aaron Rogers, Daniel Jones, Joe Flacco, et cetera. Your staff and QB are locked in for a minimum of two years and the goal is to make the

playoffs at least once. Let's start building some groups here. Robert, take this one first. GM is hard. I don't know the guys a little bit further down those lists. I would probably say like somebody like Al Calby is the assistant GM for the Eagles or Ian Cunningham is assistant GM for the Bears. Just guys who have been garnering a lot of interest in interviews over the last couple

years. Both of those guys did work for the Eagles. It's probably where I would look for. first and foremost. Head coach is a really interesting one. Again, I've been very open about this. Like, I'm an offensive-minded play calling head coach person. I just think it's the cleanest path to consistent success.

So with, in that, if that was the bucket that I was choosing from, I'd probably say Todd Monkin or Joe Brady. Like, those would be the guys I think I'd go with first. I think, I think it's probably Monkin. If I was just saying, you had him as your head coach. One of mine, yes. So Monkin as the head coach. Quarterback, I think, is the hardest one.

because who are you going to choose? The three guys I threw out, just again, these are probably the most valuable backups in the league currently were Marcus Mario, Jacobi Perci, Tyra Taylor. So I think it might be Marioada

based on like the way that we've seen him play and the stretches over the last couple years. So I think there's a reason he's the highest paid backup in the league. Like I think so Mario dao is probably my answer to that. Maybe you can talk yourself into a reclamation project of some kind like you think Zach Wilson

has a little bit of juice. whatever, but if the goal is just to make the playoffs in one of these two years, I think I'd probably go with one of those guys. Defensive coordinator, I've said this a lot. I think Christian Parker, who's the passing game coordinator for the Eagles is like a young ascending coach. I'm very excited to see where he goes. I think he's still

only like 32 or 33. I think he will be a DC at some point here soon. An offensive coordinator, again, just a little bit harder as you go further down some of these staffs. The two guys I would throw out because, again, I think that this is a different sort of, this is a different sort of set of considerations with their offense coordinator

when he's not the play caller. So I would want somebody who comes from a staff where they've had to support the play caller. And the two guys that I landed on were Israel Wolfork, who is the quarterback's coach for the Cardinals? I just think that he's somebody that has a little bit of a runway moving forward. And then Nathan Shieldhouse, who is the passing game coordinator now for the Rams, he's somebody that's pretty well regarded in the coaching community right now. And so those are the two guys that landed on for that.

because again, that's like a support staff role. That's interesting. You made it like that. You went that many layers deep where you're like trying to think of like, how does this actually piece together instead of just like who is interesting candidate for this. Because these guys, yeah. I mean,

I guess none of them have already been play caller. So it's hard to know who would be the best one anyway. But if my head coach is calling plays, it is a different role in a different skill set. And see, I actually approached my options a little bit differently here. I didn't go for as many of the younger guys. Like I kind of went if the,

if the intent is to. get to the playoffs the next few years. I went to guys that I think are a little bit more proven commodity is maybe the wrong word, but just guys who have kind of done it. So for head coach, I did have Todd Monkin. After I just said a bunch of guys who have done it before,

my other head coach option was actually Dan Laning from the Oregon head coach. That's a creative answer. I like that a lot, actually. I just love the way that he puts it together. He had come from that Georgia program that was obviously incredible. The way that they've put their defenses together,

I think is really interesting. So if I was picking a college guy, who is a head coach like Monkin's not a head coach right now and really hasn't been for a long time so it might be landing. Quarterback, I also landed on Tyrod but I also think that Marriota is probably

it's one of those two I think it's Marriota or Tyrod Taylor probably. I think that's right. They're just going to be guys who theoretically aren't going to turn over the ball. They're accurate. They can move. You're just checking boxes at this point

with what you're going to get out of a backup who's going to start. Offensive coordinator. Like I said, I didn't actually go the Young Rout. I went guys who have done it before. So Darrell Bevel has actually put together some really interesting offenses. So if we need to win like tomorrow. It can't be somebody who has been an offensive coordinator

already. I thought it was currently serving, which he is not. Oh, I didn't do that. I did guys who have never been offensive coordinators. Because I think that's retread in the way that you're not allowed to do that in this exercise. I do have another one. Mike Denbrock is, he's an offensive coordinator in college. But he's, he's gotten a lot of guys to the NFL quarterback wise. He was there for Deshaun Kaiser at Notre Dame. He was there for Desmond Ritter in Cincinnati. He was there for Jaden Daniels at LSU. And then most recently last year with Riley Leonard at Notre Dame.

So he's worked around and put a lot of quarterbacks into the NFL and gotten them prepped. So I figured I was like, if I need to get ready to go in these next two years, he's a good option. And then defensive coordinator, I just said Dave Merritt, Chiefs defensive back coach, just because I think he's done a really good job pumping a lot of those guys up the past five years. That's a good one.

The other two defense coroners had Chris Harris, who's now the, I believe the passing game coordinator for the Jets. He was the Titans last year. And then Carl Scott, who's the past game coordinator for the Seahawks, was the other guy that I wanted to throw out. So those are my three DC options, potentially. All right, guys. Let's get to our next question.

Connor Genty says, I feel like scheme can be oversimplified into plays that are called. But outside of some random gadget plays, most NFL teams are utilizing all the same concepts, right? So if everyone has duo outside zone and 989 play sheets in May, what aspects of play personnel and sequencing make the Reed-Shanahan McVey types elite and Ryan Grubb out of the NFL in nine months. Derek, can you take this one first? It's, I mean, everyone does have access to the same place, right? Like there aren't really many secrets in the NFL.

It's kind of like you're alluding to. It's about how do you piece these things together and what knobs do you want to turn? And I think the best example of what I'm talking about is to look at what the McVeigh offense was when he got there in L.A. and then what it is now. Whereas when he got there, it was a lot of, okay, we're spamming outside zone. we're booting off of all of it. Because our aggression in the passing game has to be off of play action, we want this one speedster, whether it's your Brandon Cooks or Sammy Watkins,

whoever it is, we need someone to get down the field. And so that was the way that the offense was pieced together. Obviously, they throw all the goss stuff away. They bring in Matthew Stafford. They have since become a passing offense that wants their aggression to be more from the outside and from the middle of the field. That's why they wanted their Odell Beckham's in the 2021 run. It's why they want Devante Adams now because their aggression in the passing game has to be in the dropback game, not necessarily in the play action stuff.

And then even the run game, the way that it's all tied together with them being more of a duo team, more of a windback team, which is honestly kind of functions very similar to duo. They're more downhill runs. So you kind of want your play action set up to just be straight deep in the pocket as opposed to all the boot stuff. And the reason it's worked for him is that he's done such an incredible job of marrying. his motions and formations to look like all of these different things over the course of the game and baiting the defense into like, oh, we think this is going to be this. And then it's not. And you get beat over the top for whatever. It's like they just do an incredible job of dressing it up in a way that to your point, Ryan Grubb, I think, did a very poor job of last year in

Seattle. There's just a lot of piecing together offensive concepts. The idea of the Shanahan McVeigh and Grub, to me, that's the biggest difference, right? And I think it was one of the concerns coming into last season for the Seahawks is with Shanahan and McVeigh, you have this perfect marriage between run and pass always. It's always how it's been going back. It's literally the foundation of that offensive system since 1995, right? Like when they started incorporating it in Denver. With Ryan Grubb, that marriage just didn't exist, right? It was all completely different. It was all completely separated. Just answering this question in general, I think you did a very good job. My response would be just Lester Freeman playing the wire hits. Like, all the pieces matter.

Like every single detail of this matters and how it all builds on itself matters. And so can you make things that are different look the same? And can you make things that are the same look different? Like how do you make things hard for your opponent that are easy for you? And there's a bunch of different ways to do that. Formations, alignments, personnel groupings, motion, tempo, all of it. Like, why do the Shanahan teams use a fullback? Because it makes them harder to play against.

you have certain defensive packages that against 21 personnel we can only do this many things against 21 personnel we know we have to put this defensive personnel on the field so it's a way for them to be able to just dictate on offense without sacrificing anything but you have to sacrifice the menu you're pulling forward defensively and that that's not the only way like why do the rams only play an 11 personnel essentially well for them it makes it easier to do some of the things they want to do it literally all looks the same there are no tells person personnel-wise with the Rams because it's always the same 11 players and it allows them to use tempo in a way that benefits them. Like you look at Washington last year, the way that they use

tempo. So I think that's it. It's like whatever they're doing, how are they making it harder for you to do your job on defense? And there are a bunch of different ways that teams do that. But I think the packaging, how it's dressed up, how it's presented is ultimately what changes for teams. And that that even gets beyond like play sequencing, which is an entirely different conversation. But in terms of structure, that's where I would land. Well,

and I did have one small point to add with play sequencing, and this is kind of like a no shit observation, but winning on first down allows you to get into the plays that you want to. So it's easier to put together an offense that feels cohesive and stuff like that. And so the offenses that have such a clear identity in terms of like series play calling where this sets up this and this sets up that. When they are teams that consistently get into second and sixes, second and fives,

they are really, really good offense and you can feel how put together they are. Like, for as maybe not explosive as the Rams were last year, they were still first in the league in first down success, like on, they were in success rate on first downs. So they were in offense that consistently like,

okay, we can call what we want to call here. And so that matters a lot. And that's why we've gone back a lot. There are a lot of ways to win on first down, but in theory, though, the one that you can run.

eye on the most is running the ball. And that's why that has been something that's important to me is because it just allows you to get into this flow as a play caller. All right. We're going to take our first break and then we'll be back with some more of your questions. All right guys. Next question is from Justin Kelly. He says as a Bucks fan, I was initially

expecting they would target off ball linebacker in this year's class. But after watching some of the prospects, I felt like the draft class was extremely weak at the position. They ended up not taking one at all in the draft. And the NFL as a whole seemed to be quite down in the group as well. Only four linebackers. I'm counting Jalen Walker as an edge here.

We're selected on days one and two, with two of them being large reaches versus the consensus big board. The five draft classes before 2020 to five produced six of these in 2024, seven and 23, 10, 11, and 10 in 22, 21, and 20. So with the evolution of college defensive schemes changing where NFL offball linebackers are being deployed, overhang defenders, etc., is this a sign of things to come? Or is this more of an aberration like the 2017 tackle draft class

where no tackles went into the 20th pick? Derek, you're the linebacker guy. You take this one first. The answer, unfortunately, is both. I think it's pretty undeniable that we are in a different spot linebacker-wise now compared to even 10 years ago. And that's for a number of reasons that we've talked about. One, just way more RPO's. And the way that formationally you're seeing offenses operate at the college level, where it's so spread out to the sideline, you just literally can't do some of that stuff in the NFL with the way that the field is.

structured compared to college. And because of that, you're seeing more three safety looks and you're seeing more three-down lineman looks in college than you are ever going to get into the NFL. So the run fits look different and all that jazz. Like you mentioned, more guys playing in the overhang. And because more guys are playing in the overhang and because there's more space to cover, we're getting smaller bodies. And those smaller bodies don't hold up as well in the NFL.

And I think the NFL typically wants these guys to be at least $2.35 if you can get there and we just don't produce as many of those guys as we as I think that we used to all of that being said this class was not a good linebacker class it just wasn't it had jihad campbell and cars and swaysinger were your top two guys and campbell was a former defensive end and schwessinger like walked on to UCLA and only really started for a year and so if that's what it required to even get your top guys in the class i think it was just generally not good what i will say is i think we have some hope for next year t j allen from georgia is awesome anthony hill at texas is really good Ole Miss has another guy.

Oregon has a guy who was playing really well next to Jeffrey Bossa this year. That might be interesting. So I think next year will be better, but I think it's consistently true that the linebacker position is not what it used to be 10 years ago. It's harder to find.

I also just think that we're going to have these guys push down the board because the hit rate when you draft them high has just been so low. I think this and safety, I think that we've seen the impact of that start to creep up. Like even this year where there were a couple safety prospects who people liked in a down draft. Malachi's dark went 27th overall. Nicomahari went 35th overall. And I think that's going to continue happening because we just have

so many examples of that not being a position you need to draft very high because traits at that position only go so far. And I think that linebacker is a very similar conversation. So if we're going to find as many all pro linebackers in the third round as we do in the first round, why are we drafting linebackers in the first round? And that's the thing is that traits at those positions, I would say is probably slightly less true of linebacker than it is of safety just because you're having to hit people more often. But it does, it's more of a mental position than I think people realize.

And then because the college game is like not asking them to do any of the NFL stuff, it's just, it makes those positions incredibly hard to draft. So I think that's why they are getting pushed down the board is, yeah, that about 10 years ago, teams started. getting scared of like we're taking these guys high and since Roquan we're just not getting a whole lot out of a lot of them. You'd be better off throwing

darts at this point when it comes to figuring out first round linebackers. Just go look back and look at the history. Like just even anecdotally off the top of my head, you're Devin Lloyds, your Devin Bush's, Devin White, a lot of Devin's, Jesus. All the Devons. Well, they both went top five back last.

Yes. Maybe that's it. Just don't draft linebackers name Devin is the problem. There are a lot. The road, the history of the modern history of linebackers drafted high is a road paved with like broken dreams. It is not a good situation. I mean, and like since Roquan Smith, who is the best one?

Like it's, it's probably Jordan Brooks, who I think is pretty good, but not in that. Did not receive a second contract with his team. We got paid nothing. Which, to be clear, was a mistake. But it's still, that's where they arrived with him. And then even Patrick Queen is kind of. in the same boat, right, where he just wasn't good for three years, has one good year next to one of the five actual elite linebackers. And then he was like, fine with the Steelers. If you look at linebacker

contracts, like off ball linebacker contracts right now, I mean, it's a fascinating collection of players. But a good amount of them, you know, obviously, Roquant Smith was a top 10 pick. Like, that's, he's the outlier here. But Freda Warner was a third round pick, I believe. Zach Vaughn was available for 17 cents on the dollar last offseason and he signed a $17 million year deal. Nick Bolton was, I think, a second round pick. Jamie and Sherwood would not a high draft pick. Patrick Queen's second round pick, but a similar sort of development plan that we're

talking about here. Robert Spillane, Terrell Bernard, Zaire, Franklin, Frankie Louvo. Like, there just aren't a lot of guys who are high draft picks that are making up the biggest contracts at the position. Like you compare it to some of these other spots, like offensive tackle, edge rush wide receiver, quarterback, even defensive tackle now. It's just a completely different conversation. And even if we think of some of the one of the best linebacker duos recently, and this is a while

back now, Bobby Wagner and KJ. Wright, neither of them were first round picks. Bobby Wagner was the second round pick and KJ. Wright was like a fifth round pick or something like that. And they turned into one of the best, and they turned into one of the best duos of my lifetime, at least. Like they were incredible. Yeah. So I think that is traditionally, and,

especially over the last like five to 10 years what we have learned about the opposition. And I think that we're still feeling the impact of that. Okay, guys, Kyle Williams brings us the next question. Assume this is not the new Patriots receiver or the former Bill's defensive tackle. Just a different. Maybe it is. He says, big fan at the show. This guy's a big fan of the show.

It's what he said to start off his email. He also said that he recently reread Mesa's story detailing what would have happened if the Bears didn't complete the J. Cutler trade. I was only nine when he was traded. So I didn't truly understand the magnitude of the trade at the time. God bless you. The color seemed, I understood it. I mean, you don't want to hear how, like, deeply I remember exactly where I was when that happened.

Culler seemed like a talented quarterback who just couldn't get over back breaking mistakes or get himself into the right situation. So if you placed Cutler in today's NFL, which offensive play caller would you pair him with to get the best out of him? Robert, obviously, you got to take this one first. I'll talk about the J. Color trade first because I'm sure I've told the story before, but I remember exactly where I was. I was in the newsroom at the Columbia, Missouri. It was my junior year of college. I was working at the paper. I saw the news come across the ticker on ESPN.com.

I immediately called my dad, and I said, Dad, we finally got a quarterback. And my father, which is so, so typical of him, his response was, I'm not sure we did. That's a Chicago man through that stuff. He was correct. And he was right. He ultimately was correct.

But I was 21. Right. And so I was so over the moon excited and so happy. I went out that night. It was like just like having a great time. We were out so late. I was flying to the final four the next day. My buddy like won tickets in the final four lottery. It was in Detroit that year. I almost missed my flight. That's like how happy I was after the J. Cutler trade. Again, my father, as he often was in matters related to the ineptness of the Chicago Bears was correct in this exact scenario. My answer here, it's not today's NFL, but this is the one I felt best about going back and just like watching some Jake Collar this morning is just him in a Bruce Ariens offense.

Like you let him spread it out and let him just rip it down the field because I think you could probably, you know, talk about some of the other big armed quarterbacks in the league and how they've been successful. But like Jay Collar wasn't throwing like dig routes to the middle of the field. Like his best moments were attacking outside of the numbers vertically to some of those big receivers. The other one I would throw out, put him in like the Todd Monkin 2017 offense with Mike Evans. Like just allowing him to just really spread things out and chuck it all around the yard. That would probably be my answer. So my answer actually, so if we're just keeping it to scheme stuff, my answer was going to be probably Bruce Ariens. But I actually love the 2017

like era Todd Monkin thing. The thing with Cutler to me is that it wasn't ever about him not having the right environment to play. It was like, can you just get him to give a shit on the level that he needed to to be the quarterback that he could be? So my answer was actually like a Mike Tomlin, a Pete Carroll, one of the hard boss, like a guy who's going to get everyone in the building to play their best ball and to be the best versions of themselves. Because I think Cutler, even though he wanted to be a vertical pastor, I think at times he was actually kind of good at a lot of stuff. And he was, I think, a better athlete than people remember him being? Like, he was a phenomenal athlete. Like, I just don't think like scheme is really the important part here. I think it was just like,

can we get him to want to be a top eight quarterback? And so that's why to me those would be the answers. The reason I wouldn't entertain that is that I'm not sure like Vince Lombardi at his peak could have made Jayco or gave a shit. We're living in fantasy land here already. So I can hope. Yeah. I'm not sure there's any coach in any sport in the history. of American professional organized sports that could have gotten Jay Cutler to give a shit. Worst thing happened to Jake Ler was when he did give a shit and he tried to chase down that pick six and broke his thumb

when the Bears were like 8 and 3 or something. The team was legitimately good. It was a legitimately good team and I'm still upset about it. You might be right. Maybe getting him to care actually would make him worse. I don't know. All right, guys. Fun trip down memory lane with Jake Cutler there.

Let's get back to the modern day NFL with Kevin Vananzi. says an idea an idea i hear you guys or maybe just derrick discuss on the show quite a bit is that certain play styles or strategies in the NFL are honorable i was curious if there are specific things you find particularly honorable but even more curious about the things that we that we'd be considered dishonorable or trends you just don't really want to see continue derrick you're the honorability scale guy you take this one i sure am so there is a pretty easy way to actually figure out what is in is not honorable or at least in my mind it's the things that are are hard or require you to be very brave in doing it.

Which, like, throwing a seam ball. Okay, man, that's tough. You throwing a backside dig through the car wash? That's really hard. So that to me is honorable. Setting the edge. That's why I love like Clil Mack, the Max Crosby, these guys where it's like the way that they set the edge and throw a shoulder, that is honorable football.

Same thing with like linebackers taken on guards, the Donta High Tower is Juan Bentley's like those guys who will do it. KJ. Right. It was incredible at this. For DBs, it's like, will you, tackle. That is honorable DB play to me, especially corners, right? Like, obviously, safety's they're expected to do it, but corners is like, you better throw your body around,

man. Like, like, let's get to it. Um, so that is honorable. It's the stuff where you're pretty much willing to throw your body on the line. Dishonorable to me, the RPO quarterback merchants. Don't love that. That is not my favorite way to play football. Whatever Aaron Rogers was doing last year, the, his mode of operation was dishonorable football. Like, just everything. about what was going on. The throwing away, the only running like four concepts, like that is dishonorable football. The running backs who bounce too much, that to me is dishonorable. And that can work.

So like, I want to be clear that dishonorable for honorable doesn't mean good or bad. It's just like, what is not good to me? Like, what is not honorable to me? I was going to ask you this. Who are the best dishonorable players at their position would be a really fun exercise? Like when thinking about linebackers, immediately, my mind goes to like Trinnell Bernard. Yes. in your mind is dishonorable, but he is a good player.

Dishonorable. Yes, dishonorable. And like a tricky one that's actually a very hard one for me to figure out was for the longest time, David Long, the linebacker, he's honorable in that he'll run through people, right? He's dishonorable in the fact that he's just like, he's just doing shit half the time. Like, he's just guessing. He's completely throwing out out the structure of the play. So he was a tough one to get by.

I think the hardest one for me to get over for a while was Tony Pollard. in Dallas, very dishonorable runner. I mean, he wanted to bounce everything, but they clearly needed a player who was explosive as he was. So it was good. So like those are the players that I actually struggle with the most where they do this thing I don't love, but they're so obviously good at it that it's like, okay, I got to hand it to you.

You get to do it. We will be doing more honorable and dishonorable content this year. I'm just letting you know right now. You're going to have to put some lists together. I'm going to have like a guide. Like I'm going to make you do more honorability scale stuff. I have one for offensive line, actually. The offensive linemen who do like a shitty, lazy job on combo blocks, that's dishonorable

football. Help your guy out. Like, I just, I can't deal with that. That's like my one pet. Just coming off of them too early? It's coming off too early, not really throwing the shoulder as hard as you should. Like, help this guy out. He's your teammate.

Come on. Yeah, I'm, I'm, we need to explore this more. I do, I do like this. I like, I think having like an honorability rubric for pretty much every single position and having like a very set set of standards that people can follow and understand. I think that's worthwhile. I'll make an all honorability team this offseason maybe or something. I was already going to make you do that.

So you don't have to worry about that. Or we're just going to sit there and I'm going to go through 10 players, and you just have to do honorable or dishonorable for every single one of them. That is going to happen. I like that. We need to do it like the college football and basketball, All-American teams. So we have a preseason All-America, All-O-honorable, and then a post-season. like an ad of the season, see how it changes.

Let's do that. Content ideas flowing in the middle of May here. Got to love that. Will McGowan brings us our next question. He says, how do you analyze and revise your old opinions based on actual outcomes and then feed that analysis

back into your views going forward? Robert has talked about his changing opinions on edge rushing styles, but in addition to specific examples, I'm interested in your process in staying open to change and being wrong at the same time as giving strong personal opinions on a daily base.

It's a good balance. It's a hard thing to do. You guys do it well. We talked a little bit about it earlier this week, but let's hear some more for Will. What do you got here, Robert? Yeah, I think when we talked about the Coltakes Revisited, we kind of explored this in a less specific way. But we can talk through it.

I'll say this. When I was like 27, I thought I knew everything. I talked with a lot of certainty about what I saw. And I think this is just the natural ebbs and flows of like the Dunning-Cruger curve. As I got older, I think I realized all the things I didn't really. understand. I think that also coincided with being a more consistent reporter around the league, like spending more time with people in the NFL and kind of seeing their perspective on things. So by the time I got to like 35, I was at a point where I was questioning everything that

I thought I knew to the point that I actually was a little bit too reactionary and a little bit too fixated on things that felt trendy and new. And so I think as you get a little bit older than that, the benefit is you have more experience and you have a wider scope of knowledge. So then you can think back to examples where you actually saw the cycle come all the way back around. So you understand the actual endpoints of it where it's like, all right, if we're halfway up the ladder or halfway around the circle with what's new and trendy, we'll come back around to something else eventually.

So don't get swept up in that. And so I think my answer is the goal is to be curious and open to change but also still grounded where anything that feels new and shiny is not pulling you away. And so there's a balance in our world, especially to be found with that, right? Like, we're trying to be fun and we're trying to be entertaining. Like, no one wants to turn on a podcast and hear people say, I don't know for an hour. I think that you have to be willing to put yourself out there a little bit and have

opinions because that's what the job is. But I also think it's really, really important to offset that by consistently asking yourself, how could I be wrong about this? or after the fact, how was I wrong about this? Because I think that's where you maintain trust with the people that are listening. I don't think they want you to hedge and waffle all the time because no one wants to listen to that. But after the fact or even in the moment, I think it is important to acknowledge or acknowledge where your blind spots are or have been. And that's a good way to frame it because I think it's important to have principles as an evaluator, right?

Like the things that you believe, the challenge that I've had, especially over the last handful of years, is like, how far do I pull myself off of that? Like for running backs for the longest time, it was like, I love the guys who are just not going to mess this up for me. We're blocking five. He's getting five. Like I just, I was too obsessed with those. And that's why to bring back Tony Pollard again, the Zeke Elliott versus Tony Pollard wars were like nonsense to me. Because I just thought Zeke was a significantly better player because of what I believed. Looking back on it now, it's like they probably neither of them work in the way that they work without each other.

Like they probably truly did need each other. And so getting myself to open myself up to players that are good but might not be of the particular style that I like is important. Especially because my style tends to be like very coach-brained. Like again, I want the guys who are like, I tell you do this, we do this. And so sometimes I've struggled seeing what is the vision with like weird high upside players? Like another example of this in scouting, I really didn't like Garrett Wilson that much. I mean, not like I thought he was going to bust, but I thought he was more like a day two pick because just the weirdness of how he moved.

Some of his route running was up and down. Like I thought he was a little bit too small. But then you watch it. It's just like he is so explosive that none of the concerns that I had in terms of stability mattered. And that was something I had to get better at. And then with quarterback, when I was coming up, all of the guys were super smart, stood in the pocket and were accurate.

And so those were the guys that I was looking for. Like up until like Jake From, I was still falling for those guys. And then I had to hit a point with understanding how the league was moving is like, you kind of just have to be creative and a good athlete to really make it work. Or at least cross certain bars that 20 years ago, maybe you didn't. And so I think that was another one where I had to really shift my perspective. I think my, the way that I approach this is just that I'd rather be curious than right. Like I just, it's not important to me to be right.

And if that's important to you as a listener, to somebody who is consistently right in predictions, things like that, I totally understand that. And if that's an issue that you have, there's plenty of other products out there for you, but that's just never been a priority of mine. Like I would much rather talk about why something happened than talk about whether or not it's going to happen. Or as you sit there and be like, it's not important enough to me to be correct to be steadfast in my opinion about something.

Like I think that there are things I'll defend because I believe in them. but I don't think that, again, that's not rooted in like the need to be correct about this sort of stuff. It's, it's never been a priority of mine. I used to be really bad at that in terms of like I need to be right. And I think, and I'm still steadfast on some of the things I believe. Like, the Trevor thing is a good example, right? I'm not defending him because I want to be right. I'm defending him because I truly believe he's a really good player.

But I think the point where that really broke me in terms of like I need to be right was actually Josh Allen being good. I thought he was horrendous in college, like fourth round pick, like just bad. And then I thought he was bad as a rookie. And then even his second year when he started to develop a little bit, I was like, man, he saw us the worst footwork in the league. Like, what are we doing here? And then he became incredible. And I was like, I even fought it for the first like six weeks of that first really,

really good season. And then at a certain point, it was just like, what am I doing here? Like, this guy clearly has something that that I just didn't think he had. It's okay for me to be wrong. If that guy is that cool and good, who cares? Yeah, and I think it's just, it's important to lay out what your process is with this kind of stuff, talk through it. Why am I not being pushed off on my spot? Why am I being pushed off of my spot?

Again, it's never something that I've thought that diagnostically about or prescriptively about. Like, it's like, oh, I have to think this way because it's the best way to have a podcast. I think I've always just tried to listen to myself and my instincts when it comes to things like this. And again, it's not important enough for me to be right for me to like, stick to priors in that way. Like I just don't give a shit really. Like I think the best recent example of it is I probably held on to certain Purdy thoughts longer than I should have.

But that was more based in who he was as a prospect and the archetype of player rather than me needing to be right about Brock Purdy because I didn't have any Brock Purdy thoughts. I didn't even scout him that. Yeah. Yeah. This is like I don't, that didn't matter to me. And so I think that's part of it. And the same was like true of Bo Nix last year.

Like we talked a lot about this where it's like, you just can't get off of your takes about Bo Nix. And like you said he wasn't even a first round pick. The reason we didn't talk about Bo Nix in our quarterback preview show last year is because on the consensus board he was not a first round pick. And we only talked about the quarterbacks who were first round picks on the consensus board. I had no thoughts.

So again, I don't need to be right about this because I had not. I wasn't tied to any pre-draft. opinions that would require me to be right or wrong. That is important to bring up with the Purdy thing, though, is like, if a first round pick played as well as Purdy did, it probably would have been easier to buy it because we had the preconceived idea of like, oh, well, he's good. And he was supposed to be good and now he's good. But the guy who is a seventh round pick and has like one insane year, you're like, well,

I guess we've kind of seen stuff like this before, but I don't know if that's really sustainable. And so I do think that's another important thing is that sometimes like the target that you're trying to hit with like, how long does a player need to be? be good before you buy it is actually kind of important. Yes. And I think sometimes it's important to not get swept away by what a guy does over a month or half a season, whatever, because that can be a little bit misleading.

So I think being grounded as part of this is important. Grounded but not stubborn, I guess, is the place where I would probably land. And that's good because I will get stubborn sometimes. And I think where I get most stubborn is to, in my mind, there is a right way to play football, which is dumb, right? and I sometimes struggles with the players that don't necessarily fit into that bucket. That's fair.

And I guess there are, we all have priorities. We all have preferences for how we want certain positions to play. And I think backing off of those can occasionally be hard. I think that my preferences have softened over time is probably what I would say. All right, guys, we have a couple more questions here, but we are going to take our last break and then we'll get to them.

Next question comes to us from Alex Cooley. Alex says, now that the draft has come and gone, teams are looking at their rosters and figuring out how it all comes together. This got me thinking. I'm a Packers fan. The team just went out and got some beef on the line and making it clear who they want to be in the trenches. They have a starting caliber player and Rashid Walker at left tackle, but clearly they see Jordan Morgan as a guy for the future. So hypothetically, what's the average trade value of a starting left tackle? Let's say a team like Miami calls. What could Green Bay get in

return? Day two picks, a player. Miami does have some depth at edge. Robert, what do you got here? I think the quick answer for this is that we don't see many starting caliber left tackles traded because teams hang on to those players. So my guess is just based on the lack of precedent and the current market, that it probably wouldn't be worth it for the Packers to trade Rashid Walker right now unless somebody gets hurt going into training camp. Because it's funny, we talk all the time about the value for these left tackles. But right now, if you look at the entire NFL, there's really only one team that either doesn't have. a guy they're financially committed to or a guy that they've taken in the first two rounds in the past couple drafts. I'm going to run through all of the teams right now and with their left tackles. Dion Dawkins, Patrick Paul, Will Campbell, Olufashanu, Ronnie Stanley, Orlando Brown

Jr., DeWan Jones, who's the exception, Ursary, Bernard Raymond, who's probably going to get paid, Walker Little, Dan Moore, Garrett Bowles, Jalen Moore, Josh Simmons, Colton Miller, Rayshon Slater, Tyler, Gighton, Andrew Thomas, Jordan Milata, Laramie Tunsell. I'm saying, Ozzie Trapio for the Bears, he was a second round pick. Taylor Decker, Christian Derisaw, Jake Matthews, Iki, Aquano, Kelvin Banks, or Twis, Vowaga, Tristan Worf's, Paris Johnson, Alaric Jackson, Trent Williams, Charles Cross. Which of those teams is trading for Rashid Walker because they don't have a starting left tackle? Maybe the Browns?

So that was basically the answer. I was like, if you look at it, I don't know who would trade for one now. It might be the Browns. If they really don't think Dewan Jones is a left tackle, and like, that's a reasonable thought, right? Like he's mostly been a right tackle. He's probably, he might be a little bit too big to play left tackle the way that they want to do.

Well, maybe in Stefansky's system. That's actually fine. But still, he probably is the one where it's competition. I think if they want to trade him, it's going to have to be like you said, later in camp when somebody gets hurt.

Like, that's really probably going to be your best bet. I will say, too, I'm not 100% convinced that they want Jordan Morgan to play left tackle. I'm not either. Curate. Like,

they just drafted Belton out of NC State. Morgan, they were trying to play his. met guard beforehand when even last year it's not like the competition at left tackle was stiff. If Walker was the only competition for left tackle last year, like Morgan could have theoretically just won the job then. So I really don't know who or what they want. And so if they don't actually have intentions of moving Morgan, then they might just want

to keep Walker around so they don't have to play Belton right now. The Packers are a specifically frustrating team for this sort of stuff because somebody like in my position that I'm coming to the draft from an NFL perspective where I'm not as knee-deep into the prospects as Dane or even you are. I'm trying to figure out how all the pieces fit when you draft certain guys. The Packers, essentially Brian Koon-Kunis is like, tell me to fuck off whenever I'm trying to do that based on the way their drafts have gone. The offensive line, their plan along the offensive line, the secondary and even the receiving core to an extent, is we are going to have enough players to make this work. No matter what happens, we are going to have enough options to make this work.

and I think their offensive line currently as constructed is another very good example of that. Right. But the order of it, how it's getting put together, who's filling in for who, where, what guys get hurt. You never know. Elton Jenkins has played like every spot on that offensive line. They were talking about moving Tom to center, pretty much all of their guards are guys who have played tackle before. It's just just get the best. They are the most just get the best five out their team, probably ever. At multiple position groups. Yes. Like multiple different position groups. And so when you look at that market for left tackles, I just think that it's probably worth hanging on to Rashid Walker for depth if you're the Packers rather than trading him for a day three pick. Especially with them being a team that wants to make a deep playoff run.

Correct. Have as many quality offensive linemen as you can get because inevitably two of them will not be there by the end of December. Yes. I think that's the right way to think about it and to approach it. All right, fellas, last question. This one is from Steve Ubelhor. Steve says, I keep hearing the idea. that teams need to be high in the draft to take a shot on a franchise quarterback,

and I think this applies NBA draft logic to the NFL. We have zero evidence that drafting a QB high is the way to get an elite QB. In total, how many playoff teams or teams with elite quarterbacks drafted them as the first QB in their draft? By my count, it's Burrow, and that's it. Otherwise, none of Mahomes, Alan, Lamar, Strout, Herbert, Dak, Hertz, Love, Daniels, or Purdy were the first QB taken in their drafts. Stafford, Goff, and Darnold are all on their second teams, and the latter two were essentially

castoffs. Even if you want to say you need a top 10 pick, six of these QBs were top 10 for their teams and seven were outside the top 10 or on their second team. The idea of, we'll be bad enough to get a top five pick, draft our QB, and be set is an urban legend. Teams would be far better off pouring resources into making their teams better elsewhere and being and betting every year on a long shot QB prospect and or a reclamation project. Tell me I'm wrong. He's wrong. I don't, they may have not been the first quarterbacks taken, but others in Dak Hertz or Purdy, all of those guys are first round picks take,

and most of them were taken in the top 10. That's where it's cheating is that, oh, not the first quarterback off the board and you say Stroud is second. It's like, well, yeah, he went like third or second or third overall. He was the second pick in the drafts, yes. Or third, depending on what you do with Will Anderson, whatever.

Like you are still, so I think it's fair to say that drafting the first quarterback in a class is not guaranteed way to get the best quarterback in the class or even an elite quarterback. But picking in the top half of the first round, I think that pretty definitively is the best way to get a good quarterback. And so again, that might be the third best quarterback in a given class in theory. Like Mahomes was, I think was the third or second best quarterback in his class or off the board. He was second. He was actually, like right after each other. He was picked ahead of Watson.

Okay. Because when Mahomes went 10th, Watson. It was like he 10 and then like 11. Yeah. Okay. But either way, like you can, you still, in a majority of cases, need to draft your guy in the first half of the first round. And this kind of plays into what he's saying of like, just build up a really good team and then you can find other quarterbacks later. But the only guys who are success cases outside of the top half were guys that were walking into elite teams already. It's your, it's your Dax. It's your Lamar Jackson's. Jordan Love got time because he was in an incubator.

Brock Purdy. And so like, I just, I understand. to an extent. Yeah, it hurts to an extent. He's another one. Like, you got to be in the incubator. Like, I understand the thinking of just have a good team, but for the most part, I think your best bet is to get a top half of the first round pick and get as good a guy as you

can. I don't think you have to walk into the draft with the top half of the first round pick. And I think that's where this conversation actually gets interesting, right? And so the two best examples to me are Lamar and Mahomes. Lamar, that's a situation where I'm not sure we ever see that again. A guy who was that explosive, that dynamic, that successful as a college player, is not going 30 second ever again. Because I think even at that point in 2018, our brains had not shifted based on where the position was going. And I think now we are post-Josh Allen, we are post-Lamar, and I think we understand that physical traits and talent at the position is something that's worth chasing.

So somebody that is that talented. And Lamar wasn't a project. He won the fucking Heisman trophy. He was really, really good. He won a Heisman trophy as a sophomore. He got better than next year in terms of like pro stuff. And he was playing in a Bobby Petrino offense, which up until Lamar Jackson, everyone said was an NFL offense.

So it was like, how did he not go in the top five? It was crazy. So that feels like an outlier to me. But even if we're going to kind of use Lamar as like a back half of the first round type player, I think the fact that the Bills, Chiefs, and Ravens have the three best quarterbacks in the league and all of those teams walked into those respective drafts without a pick in the top half of the first round is something to pay attention to because to me this is the sweet spot where you are having to get yourself into the top half of the first round because that's where you have to trade these players

or draft these players. But the rest of your roster is not a top half of the first round roster. That is the ideal situation to me. because even we talked about this on the last mailbox. You get Joe Burrow picking first overall. I think there are two reasons in my opinion, speaking in a blanket way, why quarterbacks drafted first overall or even high in the draft, like in the top three, often fail.

One, you're dropping them into a shitty situation roster rise almost by definition because you were picking first in the draft. Two, even beyond the specific players on the roster, if you are ever bad enough to pick in the, to pick the, number one overall. The health of your organization is probably so poor that even beyond the players you're surrounding him with, the organizational health is so bad that you're going to be setting that guy up to fail. So you need to get into the first half, the top half of the first round to find these guys almost exclusively. But coming from outside of that point to do it feels like

the best route because I think it's an indication of overall competency in the rest of your building. I love the organizational health point because that's really what a lot of it is. Like we can say, oh, you know, Hertz was able to succeed because the roster was good. And I guess that's true. But it's more because you are in an organization that you know is going to be good and is giving you the right support. Same thing with Jordan Love being able to come along the way that he did. Lamar Jackson developing the way that he did. Like these are guys that were dropped into organizations that we know can do this.

And so you could even have those same Ravens rosters and put it on like, I don't know, the Jets as an organization, and then draft Lamar into that. Does he become Lamar Jackson? I don't know. Like, does Jordan Love become Jordan Love if you insert those Packers rosters onto like, I don't know, some other team that has failed to develop their quarterbacks for a long time, like the Panthers or whatever? Maybe they just never becomes that.

It's these teams that it's not that the roster was good when the quarterback got there. It's that the overall organizational structure is unbelievably healthy around these guys. Yeah. The idea of we need to totally bottom out to find our guy, I think that can be misguided. I think that's something that, you know, I would say when I was looking at spreadsheets in 2012, and I don't really believe that anymore. But you better have a plan for how you're going to get into the top half of the first round if you were ultimately going to find a guy because history, percentages, hit rate,

all that stuff would tell you that even if he's not the first quarterback drafted, he's going to be one of the first 10 to 12 players drafted in that class. All right. That is all we've got for this week. Last thing I'll say, Sean Watson was the 12th overall pick in the 2017 draft. I'm sure someone was going to point it out, but he was the third quarterback draft. I knew it was like, right. They were at that like 10 turn. I remember that. Just I'm sure someone would say something. There's a lot of that recently on the show. This is me complaining because we've been doing this for two hours. Is it the idea of like, I'll say so and so is a second round pick. It's like, so and so is actually a third round pick.

It's like, okay. It's a day two pill. Yeah, that's sounds good. I'm not sure the material. difference exists there. All right. That is all we've got for today. As always, guys, sincerely appreciate you listening. We will be back next week with our next mailbag. Until then, appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon.