The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Monday Mailbag: Frankenstein's NFL team owner, the Colts' path at quarterback, Jonathan Gannon's Cardinals, and more

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

How does one determine what is or isn't a successful move in free agency? Which teams could surprise us this year by ending up with top-10 play callers on both sides of the ball? How should we feel about the Jonathan Gannon era in Arizona thus far? Those are just three of the questions Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen get into on this episode of The Athletic Football Show. Plus, the guys answer an email of the year candidate weighing the pros and cons of potential fictitious owners.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 another Mailbag Monday here on the Athletic Football Show. We've been rolling with these all offseason, have thoroughly enjoyed doing them. Joining me this week yet again, it is my partner, Derek Classen, and our producer, Michael Bauer, who has done an excellent job of reading these things off. So let's get to this week's mailbag right now. All right, it's another Mailbag Monday here on the Athletic Football Show. As always, I'm joined by my co-host here at the Athletic Football Show.

producer Michael Beller, who does just a wonderful job of reading us the questions. This is a much better setup. I'm glad we landed on it. Another great collection of questions today. Very excited to dig into them. Beller, let's get to it. I love being complimented for my reading. It feels good.

I've been watching that John Hamm Show. Every time he's not on screen talking, it feels like an ad. And so, you know, it's nice. It's nice to do some voice work in all of this. And so let's get into it. Let's do it. Brett Sillard has the first question for us. He says, when assessing free H.

in signings, how do you measure success? Do you place more weight on the process and potential at the time of the signing? How do you wait injury sidelining a player, for example, Jason Verrett? And do you wait until the end of the contract to accurately grade the signing? What do you got here, Robert? The way I've always done it is essentially how far do you get into the contract before I want the contract to no longer exist, right? Like that to me is what success or failure feels like.

And so I was looking at the 2022 free agent class recently because they would have gone through the first three seasons of those contracts. So I think this is a good time to look back and be like, all right, which of these were successful and which ones weren't? Vaughn Miller at the top of that class, miss. I think immediately after year one, it was like, this is going to be an albatross. This was a mistake.

Christian Kirk, that's probably like a hit to me. Like the amount of years you got out of Christian Kirk, like those two full seasons and like, you know, it was probably on the board. They traded him away at this offseason. And one wasn't even released. Another team actively took on that contract. That one I think is fine.

A couple others from that class. Like J.C. Jackson and Alan Robinson both immediately were mistakes. Teams are trying to move off of those before the first season was almost over. Hassan Reddick feels like a hit. And then three that I think are very good examples of this. And probably some of the better examples of how free agency can work for you in recent years, DJ Reed, Justin Reed, Charverius Ward. They all played out the entirety of those deals in that and hit free agency again.

Those are the best free agent contracts. ones where guys are going to see every single year, every single dollar, and you're not going to think twice about it as a team. Yeah, I think this is a fascinating question because I think it's okay to say that we're going to put two different grades on a free agency signing. We're going to put a grade on it based on what we know at the time of the signing and was it good process? Did this team need that? What did this player make sense for them? All of that jazz. And then I think we can evaluate like you said.

To me, I got into a similar bucket of like, okay, how long do you get into the contract before? before we want out of it. To me, it's kind of of the same line of thinking, how far do we get us into the contract before we need to sign another free agent at the position? Yeah, to kind of do the thing that you're doing. Because if,

if the guy is who you think he is, you know, if Justin Reed turns out to be what you want him to be at safety, okay, well, we don't have to go sign another one. If he bombs his first year, it's like, well, shit,

a year or two from now we're going to have to sign another one, or now we're going to have to go spend a first round pick at safety or whatever it is. So it's kind of like, is this still a problem? before we get to the end of the contract is, I think we both arrived at kind of the same, at the same spot.

And I also think it does play into the process of it a little bit because who are the players who are less likely to see out every year of a free agent contract, the ones who get paid an astronomical amount of money? And so I think, and I believe this to be true, I think it's just harder for those signings to be good. It's harder for you to extract the right value from those signings, and that's why, for the most part,

taking those sorts of swings in free agency is probably a mistake. And the signing's more in the mid-tier where it's like, all right, this guy is a starter-level player. Like, this isn't a cheap acquisition, but it's not near the top of the market. Like, when DJ Reid signed that deal with the Jets, like, what was he an Aavie among corners? I bet it was outside of like the top 15 and maybe even the top 20. I think those typically are the sorts of free agent signings that work out more often than

not. Right. Or work out more often than others, I guess, would be more actually. And I think the last point of it was a little bit of like the injury thing is like, how do you handle that with like how things turned out? I think if you are signing a guy who has an injury history and then he remains injured, it's like, well, yeah, I can hit you for that being part of your process. Like if Tolano Hufanga does nothing for the Broncos, it's like, okay, well, we kind of baked that into the way that we talked about that. And if it goes wrong, we all know that's how that's going to go wrong. But to bring up Christian Kirk again, him getting hurt at the end of year three on like a flu, kind of a fluke play.

all that stuff when he didn't really have much of an injury history beforehand. I'm not going to hit you for that being the case. Like that sometimes shit just happens. I feel very good about this. Where do you think DJ Reed was an A.A.V. in 2022 when he signed that contract. If you're saying that, I'm going to say like 18th. It was 18th. He was 18th among quarters when he signed that deal.

That's a pretty good poll. I feel pretty solid about that. That was a nail on the head there. All right, guys. Kyle Contini comes to us with the. next question he says, is there such a thing as too much draft capital and or players to trade up to move up for a franchise quarterback? I'm a Steelers fan and this year seems like a throwaway with a plan to address quarterback in the 2026 draft. Assuming they finish, you know, mid-pack where

we expect the Steelers to finish seems like they're always there. And them having 12 picks next year, that is how many they are currently slated to have 12 picks next year. Is there an amount that's too much to trade up into the top two for a franchise quarterback? Or would you be fine with even a Ricky Williams package to go get your guy. Derek, you take this one first. I think when it's a rookie quarterbacks, the number is smaller. Like, if it's a veteran who I know is already good, like, if we're just saying, like, what would Justin Herbert cost you?

Justin Herbert will cost you six first round picks because we know how good he is and we know what the value that he's bringing into your team. I think when you start talking about a rookie, I think it's, I know we've seen trades where it's three first round picks. I think when you're doing that, you're inviting a lot of risk. I think probably two in change is anything after two in change is probably where you're starting to get a little bit dangerous

and like hurting yourself, even if that guy is good. Like you're just kind of hurting yourself in terms of the draft capital that you have left. It's about where I landed as well. And I think the best recent example of this is let's just play out a different version of the Trey Lance trade to the Niners.

Let's say Trey Lance was really good. Okay. Let's say Tray Lance was good enough that the Niners had the best offense in the league over the last couple years. You'd still have the issues talent-wise they have on defense because of what you would have given away in the Tray Lance trade. So giving away and, you know, the first round pick in that year, obviously that's, you're just moving up. So that's, I'm not even counting that. Like, that's just the pick you would have had. But so that's one. Okay.

But then two additional ones, first round picks two years past the year where you're drafting the quarterback, that to me it gets dicey. Because I think at that point, you're the atrophy of talent and other areas of the roster and missing out on two full years of being able to chase those sorts of prospects. I think you start to feel that really quickly. It's funny you say that with the Niners too, because like the thing about the NFL is you just don't know anything two or three years from now. And Kyle Shanahan is the guy who famously was like, I don't know if we're going to be here tomorrow. So the fact that he was willing to trade picks that were two or three years in advance for the quarterback that a lot of us didn't know anything about because he had only

played the one year is very funny and I think speaks to otherwise a reasonable people may be doing some insane things at the position other than that though like other than two first round picks in like the next two years of first round picks ultimately three and all to go up and get one of these guys then I after that I'm not sure there is a price like if you try to keep it limited to either two years or two years worth of first let's say in the third year of that deal. And I think the Eagles did this in the Wendst deal. They like two years into the future gave up a second and got a fourth back or something like that. That's fine. I think you can do that. But even if we're containing it to the first two years, if you wanted to give up this year's one,

next year's one. The Steelers is an example here. This year's one, next year's one. Two of the thirds they're going to have next year. And then like a two in 2027 and you get a fourth back, that doesn't feel like too much for me. Like I think that that's, the sort of haul and that's the sort of package that would still be worth it. That's essentially, that's not far off from like what the Rams gave up to go get golf in 2016. And they were in the Super Bowl two years later. So I think it's probably more than you think it is when it comes to like the picks in a two year stretch. But I wouldn't give up three first round picks and all, I think is where I land.

I think that's the thing is that and it's funny because for as much as we've talked about is you want as many dart throws as possible, especially in the top 100. It's just first round picks still are the best way to find pro bowlers, and it's hard to give up that many of them. And a lot of this, I think, we've talked about this a little bit this offseason when it comes to how teams are approaching draft trades. Teams are just doing it differently now, where you're not just giving away, like, if you look at each side of the ledger in a draft trade,

it's not just Team X gives up six picks and gets back one pick. That's just not happening that much anymore. I think teams are really starting to be more proactive about making sure, all right, if we're going to give you a one, I want a three back. Or if we're going to give you a two, I want a four back. Because most front offices now have enough of an analytics inclination that we want to make sure we're leaving each individual draft with a certain number of picks, even if we're going to have to compromise on where those picks are happening.

So I think that also changes the calculus a tiny bit. Okay, guys. Our next question is from Riley Graepner. He says, what new coordinators will have the biggest impact on their teams most interested? This is important in teams that have not had a change at head coach. Robert, what do you got here? There are a lot of those. There really just aren't that many of them. For offensive coordinators, I think there are only two, right?

Teams that have new offensive coordinators but don't have new staffs. Isn't it just Nick Cayley and Clint Kubiak? Those are the only two guys. John Morton with the Lions. Well, okay, teams that they were not, they weren't trying to upgrade. Those are guys that were hired away. Obviously, there are a bunch of guys that were hired away. Like the Bucks have a new offensive coordinator, John Morton is,

but that's not a situation where I don't think you want, well, yeah, you don't want a different sort of impact. Like the best case scenario for both the Bucks and the Lions is that the other guys do the exact same job that their predecessors did. And so I think the pool of offensive guys here is pretty limited. But I think Kaylee and Kubiak are both examples of how the offenses could feel very different. There's a reason they're in those jobs. On the defensive side, it's only Al Golden, Luana Rumo, Jeff Obrick, and Robert Sala.

And I think the latter three, I'm excited to see what those guys can do. Like Sala getting back in the saddle with the Niners and what that's going to look like, Luana Rumo with some of the defensive talent that the Colts have and just how. that's going to feel like a more dynamic defense than it's felt over the last couple years. And then I do think I'm curious to see what Jeff Oldbrook's defense looks like in Atlanta, given his history and given some of their personnel. But I think he's somebody that's worth getting excited about as a defensive coordinator overall. If that's the pool we're picking from, I think Anaruma is probably the most interesting to me,

because the Colts have had the most boring defense in the NFL for, it might be a decade now. Because Matt Eberflus was there for a while. and then after that it was it was Gus Bradley and those guys they run what they run like it is what it is and it's not very fun and Arumo the whole thing was that in Cincinnati he was running a defense that was a little bit too complicated had a little a few too many layers for how many young players they had and I think with this Colts team they still have some young players but they do have a lot of veterans and they go and you know sign a safety like Cambinam who can really put this stuff together so I'm probably the most interested

to see how that's supposed to come together for them. Because they also, they have some good players up front. Like, they really do the front. The edge room is deep. And then obviously the defensive tackle room, I think, is one of the better ones in the NFL. So pretty fascinated to see what Ander Rumo can do there. I think you still got it. Yeah, I think that's a good one.

I think on defense, that's probably the one I'm most excited to see, just because we've seen him really get the most out of, like, a veteran-laden unit. And that is, for the most part, what the Colts are. They've got some younger edge players. But, you know, they went out and signed Chargarious Ward and Cambinem, I think, for this exact reason. Those are the types of players who I think have been successful when Lou Ann Rumo has been at his best as a coordinator and they've got some veteran linebackers, all that stuff. On the offensive side, I think the reason I'm so excited to see the Kubiak part of this and the reason

I wish Gino just would have been there is that it would have been a pretty fascinating comparison between what last year's offense felt like and what this year's offense felt like. And so swapping out Darnold for Gino is just a complicating factor in being able to measure the differences. As like an experiment, it's a little bit of a bummer to me, independent of what I think about the individual quality of the quarterbacks. Yeah, we don't get to see the control anymore. We took it out and it's all different.

And it might be better, it might be worse, but it's like we just, it's such a different thing where it would have been a fun experiment to brush it up against that. And then with the Texans, like, I'm excited about Nickaley. I don't even know what that offense is going to look like, though. Because we always just assume that these coordinators are going to come over to new, from new places and they're just going to bring whatever they had. Like that's just going to be a Xerox copy of the offense where they were to the offense where they are now.

And, you know, Nick Galey's background, New England's offense is very different than what the Rams are. And so he's got like diversity of experience. And I do think that there's probably going to be a few tweaks with what the Texans are compared to what the Rams have been just because you have a different person in charge of it with a different personality. And even if he's learned a lot working with. made the last couple years.

It's still a different set of like football beliefs that he's carrying with him. And that's always going to be the case for these guys. And it's just such a different personnel set with the offensive line there in Houston. One, it's not good. But also too, like they're just a little bit smaller. And that might be less true like if Ursary has to play or if Ingram ends up playing. But like if Drew Scruggs is playing again, he's not a very big guy. Blake Fisher is like kind of big, but I don't think of him as as much of a power player.

I think he's just a decent mover for that size. So I think it's a very different thing that he's going to have to put together there. All right, guys. Let's get to our next question. Sam Winkler asks, what are your thoughts on building a roster that centers around one true strength and really leaning into that? Examples that come to mind would be the pass rushing units of the Giants or the Legion of Boom with Seattle. Looking across the landscape of the league, it feels like that is one viable path if you don't have a top five quarterback. Derek, when do you take this one first?

I think that is a fine approach. I think that there are a couple of things here. First of all, in a majority of cases, you still need the quarterback to get over a certain bar. And so even if they're not a top five guy, you still probably need the quarterback to get over a certain bar. I would say the other thing is that in a majority of cases when we have like, wow, this one unit really turned things up a notch. It's usually not like one specific unit where it's just like, oh, it's just the secondary or it's just the past rush. And you can have these moments where it's like the Giants, but in a lot more cases,

you're needing to build something like the 2015 Broncos, where it's like the entire defense is the best thing we've ever seen. And like technically you can do that. But that also takes like two years of incredible free Asian investments at a really good draft class beforehand to put all that stuff together. So I think ultimately to win a Super Bowl, you need, it's not just one unit to be elite. You need one side of the ball to be fully elite.

And that can be by virtue of having an elite offensive line and then what we do off of that. But it has to be like the entire thing. It can't be elite offensive line, okay quarterback, and the receivers aren't good enough. Like that's not going to get you over the line. The entire side of the ball has to be special. I 100% agree with that. If you look back at the 2013 Seahawks, that team that won the Super Bowl, what was the most dominant unit in that game? There was Cliff Averill and Michael Bennett.

Those are the two guys. And Cam Chancellor was. of this world good in that game. And obviously Malcolm Smith won the MVP. I still think Camp Chancellor should have. But top to bottom, that unit dismantled the Broncos. And Cliff Avro and Michael Bennett were huge parts of that. And you can go even further.

Like Red Bryant was really important on those teams. Chris Clemens was a good player. And so that was a top. You don't have historically good offenses built on one unit. Like that just doesn't really happen. And so I think the 2015 Broncos are the best possible example of this where you're not getting anything from the offense relatively. Like when it comes to playoff standards, you're getting almost nothing from the offense

and you still win the Super Bowl because of how good the defense is. The Giants example of this, we're going to think about those teams and be like, oh, the front is what got them there. What do you think Eli Manning's EPA per dropback was in 2011 when the Giants won the Super Bowl? See, that one's one. It was a different era of football kind of. And also it's Eli Manning. So it could be anything.

I actually don't know. I'm fascinated by the answer. It's 0.29. That is pretty, that's pretty close to MVP levels. Point, excuse me, 0.27 in 2011. And then if you go back to 2007, okay, it's 0.29. That was the point 29. Josh Allen last year, who won the MVP, was at 0.26.

So Eli Manning during both of those Super Bowl runs, was playing quarterback at an MVP level. when you look at the efficiency numbers. So we can conceive of it as the defense and the defense is what pushed them there. And to an extent that's true. Like you need the defense to play well to get to Tom Brady in those moments and kind of turn those games in your favor.

But Eli Manning for those two seasons in the playoffs was Josh Allen, like on a per dropback level. And so it's always coming from more than one direction. And if it is only one side of the ball, I do think it needs to be a unit top to bottom. Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that about the Seahawks front though. The Legion of Boom worked for a lot of reasons and the secondary was obviously incredible,

but you're able to do what they were able to do coverage-wise because you could get home with four all of the time. Like that's why it worked the way that it worked. And so I think that's when we conceive of the Legion of Boom as a secondary unit, it was the whole thing. And you had linebackers that could cover in a way that like other than Luke Keekely and Thomas Davis, nobody else was doing at the time. Yeah, that's 100% true. I remember where I was in, I think it was 2013 when they signed him. It might have been 2012.

When Michael Bennett signed with the Seahawks, I remember I was in L.A., I was driving home from the USC gym. That's where I was. I was like driving, because that's where I used to work out. And so I was like driving down that street, I can't remember it's named after a president of some kind. I was driving down that street and had looked at my phone before I left and saw the contract. It was for one year $4.8 million. And I was like, this is a mistake for everybody else.

The fact that the Seahawks were allowed to do this with this player is going to be a really big problem. And then they also signed Cliff Averill to a very reasonable deal, either that offseason or one of the off seasons right around it. So yeah, so Cliff Aver also signed the Seahawks that offseason two years, 13 million. And so even at the time, that was 13 million was like, not that much. Six million was still not that much. It was only like five and a half percent of the salary cap. And then Michael Bennett signed for even less. And those two players were extremely important in them winning that Super Bowl. Yeah, they absolutely were. I mean, that goes back to one of the shows we did a few months ago where it's just like, what are the little signings that

they get a team over the edge? It's stuff like that. Michael Bennett on those bucks teams. I loved Michael Bennett on that, like, 2012 bucks team. And that's why I was really excited when that Seahawks team got him because I thought he was a very underrated. player and turned out to be correct. All right, guys. We are going to get to our first break and then we'll be back with some more questions. Okay, Toby Howitt has the next question. This is just an awesome email.

Toby built this whole world for us and then brought us his question. He says, you are sitting at home one day and the news hits that your franchise is being sold. As the news develops, there are four billionaires that are in the running for buying your team. You, by some miracle, are making the choice. Each has a strong positive, but also a crippling weakness. rank these four candidates in your order of preference to take your team to glory in perpetuity. Toby then lists these out with like long descriptions of what the positives and negatives are.

I'm going to give them. Just read them. Yeah. Just read them. Yeah. All right. We'll hear the whole thing. We'll hear the. All right.

Here we go. Canada today. His positives. A knack for hiring good coaches and letting the GM work uninterrupted. Gives both plenty of leeway and time to enact their vision without worrying about getting fired if they don't get it right immediately. Head coach and GM always in train and hired fired together. Negative?

incredibly tight-fisted. Never invests in anything they don't explicitly have to. Never pays players unless the market is dead or their certified stars. FAA is something they've never heard of. Always behind the market so when they do pay, they're forced to overpay. Candidate B, positive, aggressive investor. Forward-thinking wants his team to be on the cutting edge and invest in analytics and all of the peripheral parts of the organization that supplement success. Pays players early and gets ahead of the market, always wants to compete. Negative? Terrible judge of character and hires people that are complete con artists. They flip from concept to concept.

They never settle on an identity or philosophy never hires a GM and a head coach as a pair. Candidates C, positive, visionary. Strong vision for what the team should be, both on offense and defense, which reduces turbulence in the long term. The team has a definite identity and the expectations are clear. Strong culture permeates the franchise. Negative, zero cool under pressure. Unbelievably fickle and inconsistent.

This shows up in the draft a lot with highly emotional decision-making and high tolerance for risk. Caves to fan and media. pressure easily so head coaches and GMs are sweating their jobs. Lots of short-term mindsets and key positions as a result. Finally, we get to candidate D, positive, incisive. Great sense of where the team is and what they need. Prioritizes high leverage positions, takes calculated risks well, the kind of owner prepared to take a Julio Jones-sized swing to get a quarterback to break a cycle of mediocrity.

Negative? Egotomaniac. When something goes right, it's proof of their genius. When something goes wrong, it's someone else's fault. Pits the GM and head coach against each other, perpetual. and toxic work environment is an understatement. So those are the four candidates. Robert, who do you like here?

Incredible work. That's why I wanted you to read the whole thing. I do think that it's worth laying them all out. This is a really hard thing because the drawbacks for all of them are significant. I still think in this scenario, and this might be wrong, I'd probably go with option A. I still think I would rather have the right people in place and a little bit less of a spending mindset. That's not on like an extreme level, right? I think that if you're not, we talked about this with the Bengals last week. If you're not willing to do anything,

in terms of pulling the financial levers, I think it's going to put you in a difficult position. But if you're just like relatively cheap, I think you'll still probably be okay. The best possible example of this for me is the chiefs. Like the chiefs are relatively cheap. Like the chiefs aren't stretching themselves financially. They're not the Bengals, but they're also not the Eagles or the Browns in terms of how much cash they're throwing around. And because they have Patrick Mahomes and because they have Andy Reid and Brett Veach does a good job, they're consistently right there at the end almost every single year. So I still think option A is my favorite.

Option C, which is the visionary, strong vision, offense and defense, but is just very fickle. The only part of that discussion and profile that was laid out that really gave me pause was the GMs, the head coaches and the GMs are sweating for their jobs all the time. Because I think if you remove that part of it where they can be incredibly fickle and you can chase the shiny object every once in a while, that's the Rams. Like the Rams are that. But because those guys aren't afraid to lose their jobs and they're taking those big swings, that can ultimately be a good thing.

So I think it's A and then C, if we could soften an element of C just a tiny, tiny bit, I think you could make an argument that it jumps above A. See, yeah, that's the thing is that with C, the fact that everyone is sweating for their jobs because the owner seemingly doesn't trust them, I think is a bad place for everybody to be. And then B, where you have terrible judge of character and hires con artists, that to me just feels like you're kind of D-O-A. Like, if you're hiring people like that, you're just, that's a non-starter. Where I think the negatives for C is different than D.

Because so in C, everyone is sweating for their jobs because it seems like the GM or the owner is just a little bit fickle. In D, they're an egomaniac and are potentially pitting the GM and head coach against each other. Even though the GM and head coach in that scenario are obviously sweating for their jobs, there's at least like an air of competition to it that is toxic and bad. but if you're winning can actually like not be that deterrent to continuing success. So for me it creates urgency. It creates urgency. Exactly.

So it's which again, if it starts to go awry, goes awry pretty quickly. But it can also get this sense of like, okay, we're all competing against each other and we need to win. So to me it's probably comes down to A or D actually. And it's hard for me to pick which one. Yeah. I still think I'd rather have the best people in place. If my one issues, and I'm not willing to spend money in the same way that other teams aren't, I think I'd still rather have that.

But again, I think see, if you can cave to fan of media pressure and do some things that are occasionally a little bit wild and a little bit misguided and a little bit overaggressive, but I think that you need to ensure that the people in charge will still be in charge if they get those things wrong or they won't do them. You know, like I think the Eagles are another good example of this where they're just going to do stuff because what's the worst case scenario? Like the worst case scenario for Howie Roseman is if he wins four games in a season, which has happened, right? If they win four games in a season, all he does in that scenario is get a top 10 pick.

Yep. And then he'll take the best guy. That's what happens there. Yes. They get a top 10 pick. And when that happened, they traded out of that top 10 pick and got an extra first round pick as part of the package. The coach got fired.

The GM got to keep his job. So I think those sets of circumstances. is when it comes to encouraging an aggressive mindset, making sure you're telling your people, hey, if this fails, don't worry. Like, we're, this is part of a larger plan. I got your back. I think that can be a healthy way to create like a culture and a mindset

around your organization. That's a good one. And on the flip side to like counter my own argument for D, it feels like you could end up like what the Titans were with Frabel, where I don't know if the owner was necessarily an egomaniac, but like the head coach of the GM were clearly. fighting each other. And I don't know if they like really did a good job of trying to bridge that gap. And so even though the Titans did have some success there for a minute, that's the particular way in

which it can fall apart. But that's why I like see more than D. Because I think guys feeling like, all right, there's some urgency here is different than a perpetually toxic work environment, which is what this was described as D. It is bad. I just feel like with the way that they're framing D, there's like an air of competition. to it, which with certain personalities in those positions might actually be okay. Whereas like with C, I don't think anyone feels good about walking into their job being like, I don't know if I'm going to have it a year from now. That's interesting.

We're making bad arguments for like bad things here, but that's where I got. Yeah, I still, I still think Atlanta is the best answer. All right. What's your next one, Bauer? John Lucero says, I am a 31 year old Colts fan, which means you know, what's always on my mind, the quarterback position. I don't want to ask about the Richardson Jones competition. We already know that's all we're going to hear about in regards to the team for the next

calendar year. What I wanted to ask you was what you think the team should have done at the position over the past five seasons post Andrew Luck. A quick rundown. 2020, signed Philip Rivers, traded the 13th pick for Buckner, lose to Buffalo in the playoffs. 2021. Colts trade for Wentz over Stafford, although he says probably not beating the Rams trade package.

Give up the 16th pick and a third round pick in the next draft, miss playoffs after losing to the Jaguars. 2022. Trade for Matt Ryan, give up a third round pick, collapse spectacularly in a Jeff Saturday fever dream. 2023, stay put at four in draft Richardson, flash is real promise before the shoulder entry. 2024, first season with the same starter,

Richardson is much less consistent and the season is yet again a QB roller coaster. With the power of hindsight, how do you feel about these decisions with the options that were on the table? What would you have done differently to escape the quarterback wilderness? Derek, why do you take this one first? So I think with actually a majority of these, I did like them at the time. The river signing, it was a success. Like, he was good for them.

The rest of the roster probably wasn't good enough for them to get where they wanted to go. But he gave them everything they would have wanted for the caliber of quarterback they were signing at the time. Like, that team was fun to watch. The Matt Ryan one, obviously that went significantly worse. But that was because Matt Ryan was still pretty good at the end of his time. with the Falcons, his arm was starting to fall off a little bit, and the thinking was, if it doesn't fall off again, then we'll be okay and he'll give us what Rivers gave us.

The problem was his arm fell off again, and he was a really bad athlete, and it just, that all fell apart. But I was okay with that signing. And then drafting Richardson at four, that was something I was totally okay with. The one that was bad at the time and after the fact was the Carson Went's trade. Like, I would have to probably dig into like what the other options were and remember who the quarterbacks were in that draft and all that.

that stuff, but I think we knew Wentz had been playing worse over the past couple of years with the Eagles to begin with, and then also had an injury history already. So he just didn't seem like the type of quarterback that they should have traded up for. So even though none of these have worked as long-term answers, I actually liked a lot of what they did for most of these, except for the Wentz one. Yeah, the real mistake here, like the one that's completely indefensible is trading away a first round pick for Carson Wentz. And so they traded him before the 2021 draft, but it was the 2022 first round pick that they traded

away. So it was a third rounder in 2021 was part of the deal and then a 22 first round pick. So in that draft, your alternative in the 21 draft would have been moving up from, I think they picked at 21 in that draft. They picked Quitty Pay. What you could have done is you could have tried to maneuver for Justin Fields or Mac Jones. And I know they liked Justin Fields heading into that draft. So that would have been your alternative play.

I know those did neither of those guys turned out well but I still think even as a process those would have been significantly better like to take the swings on the young guys and like honestly you can Justin Fields I think I think is what he is at this point he's the 25th best quarterback in the NFL and he gives you something as a runner whatever mac Jones I do think that you could make an argument that like with the right fostering and not having how toxic and discombobulated the end of that new england thing was like he could have just been a perfectly functional starter for them and better than what what wents was yeah i think that's fair so i think trying to maneuver a little bit more in the 2021 draft when you had two guys picked outside of the top 10

that in theory you probably could have taken shots at that probably would have been worth doing so that that to me is the biggest mistake 22 the trade for matt ryan it doesn't look great 22 is like the quarterback pit year right that was the picket draft and then even if you go beyond that and you look at the veteran options available that offseason. You know who the highest paid veteran free agent quarterback was in the 2022 offseason? I'm going to blindly. I was going to say James Winston. I was going to blindly guess James Winston.

That's so funny. It was James. And so you could have gone with James, I guess. I'm not sure how much better that out could have been. It would have got you in the same spot, just cheaper. The best thing I would say that they could have done 2022 specifically is you wait out Baker. and you make the Panthers trade to go get Baker. And I think that Baker still would have struggled in that offensive ecosystem

because the 2022 Colts just collapsed. Like they absolutely collapsed. But I do think Baker moves, his movement skills are enough of an upgrade over Matt Ryan where I don't think it's quite as ugly if Baker is your quarterback. The one that I think is, to me, kind of in hindsight, the biggest thing they could have done differently. In 2020, them trading that 13th picker, for Buckner is a very good thing to point out here.

Because if they had kept that pick and even moved back a little bit in that draft, the two guys drafted after the 13th pick in 2021, a quarterback are Jordan Love and Jalen Hertz. Even if you didn't love either of those guys, I think you should have probably known, even in the moment, or could have been more attuned to the idea that Rivers was going to be a one-year solution,

and we have to take a shot somewhere so we're not in the wilderness. after this single year. So I think that's the other thing I would potentially change is in the back half of that first round, maybe because you don't have a quarterback in the future, you don't trade away a future first round pick, even though DeForest Buckner is good. And maybe you try to take a swing in the back half of that first round because you know you need a long-term solution.

And Hertz would have made sense, even in hindsight, not even thinking about what he's become, but because Ballard loves traits. And that was kind of like the whole sell with Jalen Hertz. Is that okay, he's played a lot? he's pretty accurate and he's just a really good athlete and his arm is good like those that was the selling point it was like okay this might take a year or two

but he's got enough of the right stuff and so that would have made sense and then like you said the would they have wanted to trade the 13th pick for Buckner and then also maybe spend a high second round pick on a quarterback who's not going to play for them immediately like that probably would have felt weird to them the only thing I'm gonna maybe

they took Jacob Easton in the fourth round in 2020 that was the swing that they took in the 2020 never mind they don't talking about a pass for that now. That's, that's gross. They don't get a pass anymore. That's disgusting. The only like half defense I'll give them for the 2021 thing of not trading for Wence, but maybe not thinking they could maneuver in the draft. I don't know if we thought Justin Fields or Mac Jones were going to fall that far. I think there was a shot that like all of the quarterbacks went like top eight. And I could see why they didn't think they would want to go up that high in

the draft. Yeah. And I think that the Wence thing, that's a moment in time. Like that is, is Frank rec had a lot of heat coming off of that 2020 season because of what he did with Rivers. So I think that was a moment where Frank was like, I can make this work. No matter how ugly last year was. And you really had to tell yourself a story after the 2020 season that Carson once was savable and salvageable because that 2020 Eagle season was disgusting. I mean, that was a hard team to watch offensively. And so I think that there was a little bit of Frank was bought in on Carson because he had

worked with Carson. and coming off of that 2020 season, he had a lot of sway when it came to the quarterback direction for the team because of how well Rivers had played. And I think that got them into a pretty bad spot when it came to the final decision. It's a really good point. I forgot that the political aspect of it, if you will. And then the Richardson part of it,

I'd be a hypocrite if I said they should do that differently. Like I fully supported it at the time and I'm never going to, I'm not going to back off of that. I'm happy to own that one if it doesn't work out. Same here, brother. All right, guys. Next question comes to us from Greg Feltus. Greg says Jonathan Gannon seems like a real outlier

in that he's getting three years to build a program despite not having a winning season in the first two, which is theoretically a good idea since that's a fair result given the talent on the roster. But does the bar need to be higher for a culture-building defensive-minded head coach? Robert often talks about the most reliable paths to success being taking a shot on finding the next McFeyer, Shanahan,

that can build great offenses. And that seems even more important when you're actually in a division with those two guys. what level of a success do the Cardinals need to achieve this season for you to feel good about moving forward with Gannon? If they finish an extremely plausible 9 and 8 with average injury luck but missed the playoffs, would that be enough? Or would that level of good not be good enough, especially for a defensive head coach? Robert, you take this one first. This is an interesting question.

I think the Cardinals have been fine. I think the first two years of the Gannon experience has been fine. I've always said their best model was the Dan Campbell Alliance, right? if you're trying to talk yourself into what the Cardinals could be, where year one, you can win two games. As long as you're playing hard and you clearly have like a vision and all of that stuff, it's fine. And I think that for the most part, the Cardinals were that in year one under Jonathan Gannon. In year two, Cardinals went eight and nine. The year two Lions went nine and eight.

They didn't make the playoffs. They had a winning record, but it's still in the same general vein. And so I think they're kind of on that path before the Lions went 12 and 5. in year three. If that sort of step doesn't happen, maybe we can start having a discussion. But for the most part, as a defensive-minded head coach or a CEO type of head coach, to me, here are the things that the boxes you need to check. And I think a lot of it is in place for the Cardinals. You have to have a good difference-making offensive play call. And we can discuss some of the limitations of what that Cardinals offense has been. But I do think that Drew Petsing has done

a really solid job. Like, he has justifiably gotten head coach interviews based on what he is done with the Cardinals offense. Two, your team has to have like a certain mindset, play style, attitude, all of that stuff. The Cardinals do that. The Cardinals play a certain way. I think they're really unique and interesting on both sides of the ball.

I enjoy the plans they've had for those individual units, even if the talent hasn't necessarily been there. And I think you have to make sure, for the most part, you are maximizing whatever talent you have, considering those deficiencies. And I think that the Cardinals have mostly done that, And I think you could make an argument that they started with less talent than those Lions teams did. The Lions had the offensive line, at least a couple pieces of it.

Decker and Ragnow were there. And the Cardinals didn't even really have that in any area of the roster. So I think so far, like what the trajectory has looked like, I'm not really disappointed in what this has been. I just think at a certain point, we have to have a conversation about whether or not this is the group to make it realize they're sealing. And I think this is the year where we can start having that discussion in earnest because now they've started being really aggressive in how they've tried to add talent to the roster. So that's why I think the nine and eight thing in the question is is the perfect way to put this because like you mentioned, they go from year one where they just, I mean, nothing doing in terms of talent on the roster. Kyler Murray wasn't even playing for a lot of that season. Like it was a very, very difficult year.

Josh Dobbs, Sieverdream. Josh Jobs, like I think Clayton Tune had a couple of snaps. like just just not good for anybody. Like you just weren't going to win games. But they got guys to play hard. Like the way their front plays, getting Baron Browning to do what he's been doing, saving Collins moving from like actual linebacker to more on the edge. Like they just get these guys to play with a really good energy.

They had for a while there like, where all of their defensive interior players were all guys that should be on the bench, like decent bench players for other teams. And that's all they were. But they were playing hard as hell and they made it work. And so again, you check that box. But them going from year one to year two,

okay, they went eight games, felt a little bit disappointing at the end because they had some highs, whatever. But eight and nine was still an improvement. The thing is that going from eight and nine to nine and eight, you're stagnating. Like it's effectively the same thing. And that's where it would become a concern.

But if they get to 10, 11 wins and they do make the wild card, even if that's not quite the jump that the Lions made where they immediately became one of the better teams in the NFC, that's still enough to me to justify like, okay, this is all headed in the right direction. And if they're playing, if they win 11 games, that says to me, okay, the defense was probably at least average and the quarterback play was probably even better and the offense is better.

That all to me says that everything's in the right direction. So I think the nine and eight thing is perfect because if that's where they are, they're stagnating. And that does mean that this maybe isn't where they wanted to be going. Let's say they go nine and eight and let's say they fall short of the wild card. And for the most part, it's hard to, it's hard to make. this is like hypothetical because it's not just about the record it's how the season feels it's like are you did you get hurt at any point did you start off nine and three and then lose your last five games but let's just say they end up nine and eight it's a solid season like they're there for the most

part doing some of the same things they've already done and they get to nine and eight and they miss the playoffs do you think you'd want them fired no so that's probably not i think it would just be and unenthusiastic, you get one more year. Okay, I think, all right. That's probably where I would like. I'm fine landing there. I'm fine landing there. Yeah, stagnating wouldn't be like, we have to fire them now.

Oh my God, this is bad. Because we all knew this was going to take a lot of time. But I do think stagnating would be, the seat would start to get a little bit hotter. Whereas like, if you, obviously, if you win 11 games, like, you're not going into 2026 being like, man, I'm really coaching for my job. It's like, no, you probably feel pretty good. about the way that things are going. And I also think that actually lines up well if your ownership with the Kyra contract.

With the Kyla. Because you can get out from under the Kyler contract after the 2026 season. So I kind of think it's a natural endpoint and a natural clean break if you want to start moving in a different direction as a franchise if this iteration of it can't get you where you want to go. That's exactly perfect. Because why would you want to go into Year 1 of another regime in 2026 where you're going to have to ask the whole Kyler question?

again and you for the third time potentially might have a pretty unambiguous answer at the end of that. And then it's like, do we want to keep him? Does the coaching staff want him? Is he, are we going to find something better? How good is this quarterback class? Like you just, there's so many different variables that it's like you might as well play it out to its end. All right, guys, we are going to take one final break in this episode and then we'll be back to answer a couple more questions. William Bailey with the next question here. William says the last few weeks I have been trying to work out my biggest misses when predicting records. Teams like the 2020. 24 Vikings, 24 Broncos, 23 Lions have been some of my recent ones.

It seems to always be underrating elite coaching. If the team has two top 10 play callers on either side of the ball, he should never bet against them despite glaring questions on their team. For example, Sam Darnold being the quarterback of the 2024 Vikings. With that being said, are there any teams not projected to win 10 games that fall into this category of having two top 10 play callers? Robert, you got this one first. I think you have to project a little bit, but I think there are pads. for a lot of these teams to potentially land there, right?

Like the Raiders. Patrick Graham, I think, has done a good job as the defensive coordinator for the Raiders. And then Chip Kelly, like, there's a chance Chip Kelly is just awesome. There's a real potential chance that Chip Kelly is like a difference making offensive coordinator in year one. Maybe they're not, right? But I do think that that's potentially on the table. So if you're trying to figure out a team that can be way better than Vegas projections

or just than conventional wisdom expectations, a team with a new quarterback, and a play caller we've never seen. We've had plenty of examples of that in the last few years where those teams have outperform what we expected. So I think that's one. The Jags, we've already seen Liam Colum be a top five-ish defensive play caller and who knows what Anthony Campanile is going to be. So maybe they get there, but it's probably a little bit more of a projection.

The Bears, Ben Johnson and Dennis Allen are the play callers on either side of the ball there. They absolutely could have two top ten play callers and be better than expected. and then the other one I would throw out, we know Mike McDonald is really, really good. And Clint Kubiak, we had those couple games last year before the Saints got completely decimated. So if you told me, and again, it's hard to figure out how you would tier rank these guys,

but that Clint Kubiak was the ninth best offensive play caller in terms of maximizing his talent this year in Seattle, I don't think that's crazy. So I think there are a few different possibilities here for teams that could be accelerated by the coaching quality on both sides of the ball combined. I think I struggle a little bit with the Kubiak thing, which I don't think we have to rehash for like the 800th time.

But I think I'm not against it. I think I'm just more like wait and see there. The Raiders though, I'm all in. I chip Kelly Patrick Graham, Pete Carroll running the whole show. They'll figure it out, man. So I believe in that one. The Bears, you know, Ben Johnson, we've never seen him as a head coach. But I think we all thought he was a top five play caller.

And then Dennis Allen has put together some of the best. defenses over the last decade. So he's, he's really good. Jaguars is tough because I think that you have a lot of projection there with, with the defense. And I think they were really bad last year, but I do have some faith in Cohen.

I think the other one that I would, I would maybe throw in there. And maybe this is just because we just talked about it and I've done a bunch of research on it and stuff. But you could maybe get me there on, on the Titans. Like, I don't know about them winning 10 games.

This is just your Dernard Wilson love. That's exactly what's. is you just being the king of the Dernard Wilson hive. I love what Dernard Wilson did last year. And the more I looked at Callahan's offense, I was like, hey, man, this is, he was not the problem. Brian Callahan innocent. It was just the players.

And now they got better players. So I don't know about them winning like 10 games, but could this be a team that because of their two play callers out shoots their win total by one or two? And a new quarterback. Again, if you're looking for all of the, all the ingredients that can go into this formula, I I do like that. You, this would be an awesome bit this summer if you were like the national media guy who was really high on the Titans. Like that became your corner.

I mean, listen, man, when you draft Cam Ward, it's an easy way to get me there. That would be really, really funny. Because obviously we've had our like pet teams on this show over the last four or five years. The track record of that is mixed. I mean, that's the way it goes. The track record of that is mixed. I'm not going to mention the specific cases. because there's just no reason to further tie my reputation to those examples.

You can go back and find them if you want. But we've always had some weird pet teams on this show as a general habit since we started doing it. The 2020 Colts are a perfect example. Team we just talked about. And me doing it, that's the thing. I've done it with the Colts before. I did it with the Jags last year. Do I want to do it with another AFC South team?

I don't know. But it's calling me. It's calling it. I honestly think that's a good place to hunt though. Because the general. In most of those franchises, you can have chances to break through. Exactly. You just need the other guys to be bad, which is always on the table.

If you're looking for a cheat sheet to find one of those, go to the 2023 predictions episode. That'll be early September, 2023. Don't do that. Go to the end. See what the division championship picks are in some of those. You're going to find. You're going to find a fun one there. Why would you do that?

Why would you do that? It's May 2015. I'm leaving on vacation in like three days. Why would you do that? Now I'm just going to have to deal with that. We got it to get it in before you leave. You're going on vacation. Just turn off the phone, forget about it.

By the time you get back, it'll all wash it. It'll be done. It'll all be done. It's so beautiful that you think that's possible for me. I really appreciate that you think I'm that kind of person. Oh, bad. All right, guys, here we go. Last question.

John Warren says that he has a question for us about the value of college experience for rookie quarterbacks. I remember Bill Parcells used to have a rule or at least a guideline that a quarterback should have a certain level of college experience in order to be drafted. intuitively this makes sense to me. The more you playing college, they're better prepared you should be for the pros. Also, there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that when your college starters don't do as well on the pros,

Trey Lance, Mitch Trubisky. But there have also been exceptions to that, Cam Newton, Tyler. Anyway, I was recently reading a story by the athletics, Alec Lewis, about J.J. McCarthy, in which he noticed that McCarthy hadn't thrown as many college passes as guys like C.J. Strowd, Jaden Daniels, and Bownex. I don't know if anyone threw as many college passes as Boe Nix. This jumped out to me because I'd always assumed the value of college experience. was more about how many reps you took as a quarterback rather than how many passes you through.

Obviously both matter, but to me, when you talk about valuing college experience, you're mostly talking about seeing defenses, making checks, being in the huddle, leading a team generally playing football. Maybe I'm off about that, though. So here's the end of my long-winded question. In terms of college experience, what do you think is more valuable? The number of snaps a guy has played or the number of passes he has thrown. Thanks. Derek, you take this one first. It's a really good question because there are different ways to gauge what is experience, right? It could be years. It could be number of games.

Like you said, past attempts. To me, it is years started. And the reason I say years started is like if a guy was given the job at 18 and then starts for three years, like, that probably is a nice little indicator of something. Yeah, that's interesting when I think about it. And then I think there's also the element of like, okay, if you stuck around in college for five years but only started the last two, you're getting. some degree of experience learning the offense and all that. But there's a different kind of experience of a guy who's like a four-year starter of going into the week, okay, I'm the starter, I'm getting all the reps, I'm leading the team. This is what it feels like to walk into game day,

all that. So like there is an air of this is what it feels like. So to me, it's mostly like the year started time on task. And then it helps a little bit if you were able to do that a little bit earlier in your career. Those are the things that matter most to me, I think. the Parcells thing was always starts. Like that was the numbers. And I think there was a, God, I can't remember. It's going to drive me crazy. But the model that football outsiders used to do to project college quarterbacks,

and this was a while ago. And I think some of the inputs are probably not quite as useful or relevant as they were 15 years ago when I started reading football outsiders. But starts was the thing that they would always use as an input as well. And I think that was pretty important back then. So I think starts is probably where I would land more than pass attempts. When looking at these guys specifically, I don't know if you threw out the numbers better when you're reading the question,

but he mentioned that those guys Stroud Daniels, Bo Nix threw more than 800 passes. JJ through about 700. Jane Daniels threw 1,400 passes in college. He started as a freshman. He threw 1900 passes in college. So it's not just more than J.J. McCarthy.

It's twice as much and almost three times as much. The Stroud one, I think, is a more interesting comparison. Because Stroud threw about 800 passes in his two years at Ohio State. And if you look at their biggest seasons when it comes to passes per game, Stroud threw about 37 passes per game and J.J. McCarthy threw about 22 passes per game

during his final year at Michigan. And why I do think that's kind of important is that if you're going to throw more passes, that means that more is being put on you as a passer. You're having to make plays and make throws in a larger variety of situations. and I think that's telling about who you are as a prospect. And I think that it's a good experience because in the NFL,

you are very likely going to be thrown into disadvantageous situations when you're having to throw the ball. And so I think having some experience with that is probably a good thing. And I think that's where the pass attempts thing may play into this conversation. I couldn't agree with that more. And I don't think everyone needs to throw 50 times a game. Like it's more just you should probably get to it. some sort of threshold and then anything after that, you're fine.

But I think that's exactly it, is that the guys who, the offense is obviously running through them at the college level. Yeah. I do think that that is important. Like, that was part of my struggle with J.J. McCarthy as a prospect is you could see some of the flashes and he was a good athlete and stuff, but when I watched full games of Michigan's offense, there was no point where I thought this is running through the quarterback. The quarterback is facilitating some stuff pretty well, but it's not running through him.

Whereas you watch some of the other high-level prospects, and it's like, oh, they can't do anything if that guy's not on the field. Like Drake May at UNC, that offense doesn't work if he's not doing what he was doing. And so that's kind of where I do think the past attempt stuff matters a little bit. It's more about, again, getting to a threshold instead of not everyone needs to be at 1900, but it's probably like a thousand is probably a good place to start. I think attempts per game is potentially something to look at. Because what were you asked in any given game as part of the overall approach on offense is probably worthwhile. question even if it's not causal or the most important characteristic for a quarterback. And I think this plays back into something that we should probably mention more is that J.J.

McCarthy was not going to play last season for the Vikings, even if J.J. McCarthy was healthy. And I think it's because he didn't play a lot of football and he was 21 years old. Like there just hadn't been a lot of exposure for J.J. McCarthy as a quarterback. And you talking about how he wasn't in charge of the offense necessarily and you just didn't get a lot of evidence about what he was. That's why sitting him for a year and giving him a little bit more quiet experience, I think was a worthwhile plan for him specifically even compared to some of these other guys who come out three years into their college career.

I agree. And I think some people are probably going to hear that and say, oh, well, J.J. McCarthy was getting under center and he was making some checks and all that stuff. And that is true. But that is a different burden than can you three? us 35 times can you throw us into the game like that it's just a different eight look like is very different it's just exactly it's just a different ask um and that's not to say that he can't do it or that he's never going to do it it's just you're you have to project a little bit more and i think

you know that that certainly plays into it and like also the thing with you know michigan and all them they just didn't have to score as much because they had one of the best defenses in college football whereas you look at some of the other good things that these guys are playing with uh whether it's Caleb Williams, you know, Jaden Daniels at LSU, that defense was not very good that year. They have to throw because they have to score. And so I do think that adds another element of it. All right.

That's all we got. As always, guys, sincerely appreciate you listening. Sincerely appreciate everyone who sent in the questions. They're great every week. I love doing these. We've had a blast doing them all offseason. And so thank you for your participation. We wouldn't be able to do them without you.

We will continue to do them as the offseason rolls along for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you listen. I'll talk to you very soon.