The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Monday Mailbag: Head coach trades, the case against Travis Hunter, the most fun trade-up scenarios in the first round, and more

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

The TAFS mailbag is once again chock full of great questions from all of you out there. This time around, the mail carrier brought us questions on head coach trades, GM job security, the Lions' approach to the regular season, the most fun trade-ups that could happen in this year's draft, and a whole lot more.Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.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. Another Mailbag Monday is here. Had a couple quick news things off the top. They're pretty stale at this point, but we wanted to talk about them. We recorded this on Friday. Gino Smith and Tray McBride, both getting contract extensions. Feels like there's some stuff to dive into with each of those.

So chat about that with Derek before Beller joined us to read a great set of mailbag questions. As always, sincerely appreciate you guys sending them in. It's one of the reasons we do this is the quality of the questions. So let's get to those right now. All right, Derek, it's another mailbag Monday. But before we dug you into the questions, I wanted to hit a couple bits of news that came out on Thursday. It's going to be several days since this happened when you guys are listening to this. But I wanted to respond to it anyway because I thought there was some interesting moments.

And I thought it was stuff that was worth at least touching on before we got into the mailbag questions. We're recording this on Friday when we typically record the mailback. So that is why there's a little bit of a gap here. But we had two bits of contract news that came out. yesterday afternoon after Umi and Dane finished recording. First off, Trey McBride gets a monster deal from the Arizona Cardinals. Four years, $76,000, $43 million guaranteed. Makes him the highest paid tight end in the league.

By a lot, tight end market's kind of weird. Travis Kelsey was the highest paid tight end, which is, it's always interesting when you have these guys at the end of their careers where they're like tack-on contracts that kind of raise the level a little bit. They're different than multi-year extensions for younger players. And there really haven't been those sorts of kids. tight ends that have come into the league in a little while. There aren't second contract guys that are 25, 26 years old that we've been paying at the top

of the market. I mean, for the most part, it's been Kittal, Kelsey, and then T.J. Hawkinson is the other guy that's at the top here. And T.J. Hawkinson isn't really a star player. So the tight end market quietly, I think, had been waiting for a little bit of a reset. And it does feel right that Trey McBride, who is a very good player, is the guy who is ready to give it that. And even with Hawkinson, it's like the Vikings have.

had zero leverage in the contract negotiations because they traded for him. It's like, well, if you're going to trade for him, you kind of have to pay him. And so even that one is probably marked up a little bit. Even though he is pretty comfortably the most, like the highest paid tight end at this point, I think it's kind of warranted because like you said, there really aren't any other like superstar tight ends left. And he is probably outside of, you know, obviously the kiddles and the Kelsey's, they're older guys.

But in this, you know, next generation, in terms of the guys who are up to get paid, now he's probably the best one. Like last year, how many tight ends were better than Trey McBride last year? Like, you could, I think Kittle was the best tight end in the league. So he's probably the easy one. And then after that, it's maybe Brock Bowers. And that was probably it. Like, Trey McBride was fantastic.

And so if you think he is now entering the prime of his career, I think you absolutely go and pay him $19 million a year. If you're looking at this, so Kelsey, when he signed his deal, and I'm not sure if McBride's contract is in here as I look at it on Spottrack. Oh, it is. Okay, okay. So, Trey McBride, his new deal, that 19 million a year, is 6.81% of the salary cap. Here are the guys just ahead of Trey McBride in that metric for current contracts, directly above him on this list. Taylor Moten, Jerry Judy, Aaron Banks, Spencer Brown, Quinn Miners, Creed Humphrey, Orlando Brown, Ronnie Stanley, Justin Fields, Sam Cosmy, Terrant. steal. Those are like the 10 guys just ahead of Trey McBride. So even at 19 million a year, and that's not even considering what we're talking about with receiver contracts, T. Higgins is at

10.3% of the salary cap. T. McBride is down at 6.8%. When you can get a tight end that is truly a legitimate difference maker as a receiver, there still is sort of a discount to be had when you compare it to other past catchers in the hierarchy of the NFL. Absolutely. Like it's a lot for a tight end. But if you're telling me, I can get a top five tight end who is entering. For Jerry Judy money. Yes, for a Jerry Judy money.

Dude, I do that 100% of the time. Like, I can go find receivers who can give me Jerry Judy like quality. It's a little bit harder to find tight ends who can play the way that Tray McBride can at his position. And is like, you could make the argument is still an ascending player. Like he, he's gotten better every year he's been in the league. And he's like I said, entering his athletic. Athletic Prime. Now, this is, I mean, in two years, it might be one of those things when Kittle is maybe aging out and Kelsey is aging out. It's like, they have a guy on a pretty decent deal who is now arguably the best tight end in the league. It's a fascinating market. I really hadn't thought about it in these terms until I looked at the rankings of the salaries and just it's laid bare out in front of you. Where do you think Cole commit ranks an average salary among tightens? Like, eight. Eighth. Oh, really? He's eighth. Pat Friarmooth is knife. Like, these are guys in the top ten.

of these rankings. And the Colcomette deal wasn't cheap at the time, but $12,000. I'll be curious to see what Colquette does in this version of the Bears' offense. But those sorts of contracts, it's like those are probably slightly, slight overpays. But I think it really does speak to just the nature of the market right now and how few difference making players we have at that position, where you have those sorts of guys ranking in the top 10 and Trey McBride pretty easily resetting the market where there just aren't that many guys that are pushing it forward. Like Dallas Goddard is fifth on this list. Dallas Goddard might not be on the Eagles next year. It's a very confusing market because it's almost like, you know, kind of like we were talking

with corners, like maybe a month ago. It's just the market got really weird for a minute because there just weren't that many like young shut down corners that deserve to get paid. And that's kind of where we've arrived with the tight end market. And even Dallas Goddard, he's an older guy. He's 30. Lino, like we already talked about with Kittal, he's over 30. Travis Kelsey's over 30. Mark Andrews is getting up there in terms of age. Like all of the guys that we consider the top five or six tight ends, they already got paid a couple of years ago, and they're probably not going to get paid again because they're older.

So Trey McBride is kind of like on the forefront here in terms of what the tight end markets might start to look like. The next contract to talk about here, Gino Smith, two years, $75 million was $66 million guaranteed from the Las Vegas Raiders. What are your thoughts about this? That's a steal, bro. like why did the Seahawks not do this? Like I don't understand like for this money,

why would you not keep a player like Gino around? And I certainly thought the number was going to come in higher, which is maybe why I feel even better about it. But for the Raiders to get him at this number and have like a slight more degree of flexibility moving forward than I thought maybe they're going to have, it's a home run, man. So if you stack them up next to each other,

Sam is at like three years, a little over 100 with 52-ish guaranteed over that. time. Gino, two years, 75 million, 66 million guaranteed. The contracts aren't that different. There's more guarantees on the Gino front, but they're pretty similar. And I think part of the justification for moving on to Darnold was that there would be a decent gap between what Gino was going to get on this contract and what Darnold got on his. So now, that argument that I've been laying out for really the last three weeks, where it's like, okay, you know, you can kind of talk yourself into this where he's eight years young.

younger, he's $10 million cheaper when we thought $45 would be the Gino number, and you get the third round pick. Well, now he's not really $10 million cheaper. So you got younger and you have the third round pick. I'm just not sure that's enough to justify what I think is a downgrade, even if maybe we're overrating how much of it is, even if you can see that it's only a slight step down, I still think that you could have done all the other things with the Seahawks off season, where you said, D.K. isn't worth it.

We're not going to throw a ton of money at the offensive line because we feel like the ecosystem changes that we're making are going to improve that group. All the other things that they did, I think you could still get behind them and land in a place where you thought Gino was still the better quarterback. Gino plus that third round pick or Gino minus that third round pick is still your best option for the next couple years as you're trying to compete. And this number coming in where it did, I think just leads me to that place. That is exactly where I am. The only Seahawks' cope angle I can arrive at is that they wanted to move into a new era no matter what. Like it almost wasn't even about Gino. And like this, them also shipping off DK.

Medcaf kind of speaks to that. Like maybe they were just ready for whatever the next thing was regardless of what they thought of Gino. And so if that was going to be the case, maybe the contract numbers don't matter. But yeah, if they wanted to be competitive at all next year, then yeah, signing Gino for this number over what they ended up giving Donald. I think would have made a lot more sense. Also, I guess the other consideration is you've got a little bit more guaranteed money with Gino over the next two years. Whereas with Darnold, it's kind of more of a one-year commitment. But again, even then, I just, I don't care.

Yeah, there's more flexibility with the Darnal deal. And that's fine. I guess you can convince yourself that's more important than whatever the gap is between Gino and Darnold. I'm just not sure that I'm there. And it really does feel like they might have just wanted to tweak things because they thought they had fallen into a rut. We don't know what the dynamics were. We're behind the scenes. We don't know how badly Gino wanted out of there, et cetera.

I'm willing to concede that I don't know everything that fed into this decision. But just looking at the numbers stacked up next to each other, it becomes a little bit harder to get excited about the set of decisions that they made. The further we get from the Gino thing, like the less I see the Seahawks vision. You know what I mean? Like when it first happened and all the trades happened, it's like, okay, reset, they're going to do this and this in free agency, maybe they've got all this flexibility. And then now with them doing like nothing along the interior.

you're in free agency and I still don't know like the numbers coming in with the quarterback thing looking even worse than they might have at the time. It's just all of it is is even harder for me to understand. All right. Let's dig into the mailbag like we did last week. Belor is going to join us to read the questions. Enjoyed how that went. So that's how we're going to roll again this week. But what do you got for us to kick it off? All right. Here we go guys. Ben Hawksworth is going to bring us our first question. Ben says trade up scenarios for quarterbacks have been fruitful over the past couple of months in the NFL media community and the relevant fan bases, fan bases that could be trading for quarterbacks or wanting to move up for quarterbacks. But this is cooled over the past couple of weeks after

free agency. Are we neglecting the possibility of a Will Anderson or Julio Jones style trade, though, for a team in the 8 to 18 range of the draft for one of those consensus blue chip prospects, excuse me, like Abdul Carter or Travis Hunter. Robert, what do you got here? My framing of this question is what is the most potential fun trade-up scenario that you can come up with for this year's draft. That's how I decided to answer this. And I had two that immediately came to mind. We talked about this a little bit when discussing which teams had a lot of stake in this

year's draft. You mentioned the Falcons, Derek, is in your conversation. And we talked about how the Bucks were kind of in a similar position. They actually were in pretty similar spots and what they needed and what could potentially take them over the top in the division. So either the Bucks or Falcons trading off for Abdul-Carter, I think, is fun when you look at the rest of the needs on their roster. And then the other one that I had, and just because,

because I've tried to throw difference-making players at these positions onto this roster for the last two months is what if the bills just traded up for Travis Hunter? And so Travis Hunter was just the other cornerback on the bills. That's another one that I can get very excited about. The bills I also had on my list because they actually, they have an extra second round pick that they can wield potentially in a trade. So they've got the resources to go up and do this. And Brandon Bean has said before, oh, you know, it's hard to find superstar players when you're

picking later in the draft. It's like, let's jump up a little bit. This is your shot, man. Yeah, this is your chance. And so I think they're an interesting team. Bucks versus Falcons is a funny one because I think both of them, they are probably in the top five in terms of teams that desperately need edge help. So if it would be to go up and get Carter, I think that would be a good one.

One that I kind of came to not necessarily because I think it makes sense for them to jump up, but they do have a lot of picks is the San Francisco 49ers. This is a team that like they probably need most of their picks to try to reload on depth and stuff like that. but I could see them wanting to jump up going from I think like 11 or 12 up into maybe three or four maybe they want to go get a guy like Travis Hunter. I could see Shanahan being obsessed with getting 15 snaps out of him in a given game. So they were one that I thought would be pretty fun if they wanted to do it.

When we did our show with DK earlier this week, we did have the Niners trading up in the draft. They traded up from 11 to 8 to go get Armand Membu, I believe it was, or Will Campbell. I can't remember which tackle it was, but one of the tackles was on the board, and they traded up with the Panthers. The Panthers moved down. I haven't really thought about this consciously until this week, but I guess this is where I'm at. I think I just really want the Panthers to trade down in the draft. We tried to do it with them trading down from 8 to 20 to get Ashton Dente when we talked to Day in yesterday, and then I tried to have them trade down with DK earlier.

So I just feel like that's where the Panthers are. It hadn't really clicked until this moment, but I guess that's what I want the Panthers to do in the first round, because I've tried to do it like four different times. Honestly, unless they are obsessed with Ted McMillan, they probably should, right? Because they could probably trade down and still get ex-defender that is probably like relatively of the same quality that they would get at eight or nine.

And that's what they need. They need ex-defender of whatever quality. That's the most important thing on their board at multiple positions. So I think that you could easily justify it for that team specifically. The other ones, the Raiders are in a spot where they'll probably get a high quality player at six. The Jets, I think that because they need tackles and those tackles might still be around,

I could understand sticking there. But the Panthers, the tackles are the guys that might fall. Genty might be there. It seems like neither of those are needs for them. And so they're the team specifically because of what they need on defense that I think trying to trade down does make sense for them compared to some of the other teams picking in that range. The Saints, too, but that will never happen.

That will never happen as long as we're doing. doing this. All right, guys. Here's our next question. It comes to us from Nate Lewin. Nate says, I have a question I'm pondering as a Giants fan right now. It's looking likely that they will not be picking a quarterback at three. So I am wondering if they stay and take Abdul Carter or Travis Hunter, who both seem to be

considered far and above the rest of the class or trade back to acquire much needed draft capital to help rebuild, potentially with an eye on getting their quarterback later in the draft or next year. Broadly, how do you weigh the options of picking time? prospects versus acquiring capital. And do you have any thoughts on how the giant should approach the situation this year, assuming they can't or don't take one of the top quarterbacks? Mason Herman had a similar question about how much of the draft is luck.

They both kind of fit in here. Robert, why do you go with this one first? My general takeaway and my general thought about this is that we are not good enough at identifying talent in the draft to turn down significant capital to move down in most situations. in most situations. I mean, there's, because it's so easy to tell yourself, you know what, like, we're in range to take a blue chip guy here. Like, we have to do that.

Why wouldn't we do that? Brian Thomas was better than Marvin Harrison Jr. Last year, like, better than him. He might just be a better player for their entire careers. Justin Jefferson was taking one pick behind Jalen Rager. Tristan Worf's was the fourth offensive tackles drafted in his own draft class. Like, we're just not good enough at this to say, and you know what, I know that's a lot.

I don't really want to trade down. I feel so confident that this guy is so much better than the other guys. We are good at directionally understanding the arc of the draft. If you look at the consensus board, it will tell you we have a general sense of where the talent flows. But within those tiers and within those rounds, we're not really as good at this as I think a lot of people want to believe. And so I think being willing to trade down more often than not is worth.

while. I'm not saying that scouting is irrelevant, right? And that the draft is all luck like Mason was asking. We can still understand who's good and what quality prospects, things of that nature. Like the Lions taking Penteau in 2021, I thought they were a team theoretically could have traded down because of where they were in their situation. But you still need blue chip players. You still need really good players. I just think that we overrate our ability to identify those guys a little but too often to just ignore a potential trade like this out of hand. I think as a guiding principle, I generally agree with all of that. Like if you can get significant capital, you're probably better off doing it,

acquiring an extra first round pick, whatever it is to go to go make and do stuff like that. My caveat is that I think it really depends on like where you're at in terms of like your build as a team, but also like what is your job security level? like can the can joe Shane and brain Brian Dable really sit there and say oh we're gonna we're gonna pass on taking a guy like abdul harder uh Abdul Carter or Travis Hunter acquire all these extra picks and like oh for the long term this will be good you might not have a long term so you are almost for them it's a unique example it's a good point to bring up this I'm mostly talking about this theoretically right and I well and I think that's what's interesting though is I think Cleveland is actually is is closer to the New York bucket where they kind of got a win now so taking one of those guys makes more sense but then you look at teams and right after them in New England and Jacksonville. And so even let's just say we live in a world where Travis Hunter and or Abdul Carter are there for the Patriots or the Jaguars, even though they could take those guys and it would be a good pick.

I think it makes more sense for them to trade down and get significant capital because their first year head coaches, you already have the quarterback situations figured out. You have a little bit more leeway to do some other stuff and do some maneuvering and play for the long term. whereas I think teams like the Giants and Browns, you just are not afforded that level of freedom right now. I think that makes sense. The other thing I would throw out there,

and again, maybe I'm just cherry picking here, and this is unfair, guys like Pene Soule and Will Anderson, they were such rock solid prospects that I think the floor was so high that it's like, ah, we're willing to trade up for Will Anderson or we're not willing to trade down off of a Peney Soule,

things like that. I think those are the arguments where it's like, okay, maybe I can justify this. I think those examples are fewer, and further between, then we probably want to admit. Again, the one I would go back to is Marvin Harrison Jr. and Brian Thomas last year. Pete, I think going into that draft, everyone would have said, how could you possibly trade out of the top five in this year's draft?

Look at the players who are available. And the Cardinals, if they would have traded from four where they were picking, down to the teens to get Brian Thomas and get an extra first round pick in the process of that, they would be better off than they are right now. So I just think those situations are probably more prevalent than we think. but I understand that there are classes, there are examples where these are blue chip guys, you just want to stick and pick those blue chip guys because you do need them somewhere along the way. And who knows what those future fix are going to ultimately turn into.

And the Cardinals one is a good example because if the Cardinals had been like, you know, won five games last year. Was Jonathan Gannon going to get fired? Like probably not. Like they probably were in a situation where they could have traded and done all this stuff and been like, no, we're playing for one more year and stuff. So that's another really good example. example of how it could have gone for a team like that.

What's next one, Bar? All right, this one comes to us from Ben Bronstein. Ben says, I'm fascinated, as I think we all are, with Travis Hunter as a prospect. My question, is there something in his profile as a prospect that could keep him from being a star in the NFL? I'm not talking about a coaching staff, screwing up how to use him. I mean something in his measurable, his level of competition,

that sort of thing. Because of how unique of a player he is, I feel like most of the talk about him is about how incredible his tape is, how hard it is to play both sides of the ball, how unique he is. But what I haven't heard much about is the actual measurables in his athletic profile and all those other pieces we hear about with other prospects. Derek, what do you think on this one? I would like to start off by saying Travis Hunter is an amazing prospect and everything I say

here would not deter me from taking him in the top three. He's an incredible player. But I think if you had to make the case against him, for a guy that we generally consider to be like an elite elite special player. He's not very big. He's like barely over six foot. He's 188 pounds. He's a little bit more slight.

And I think for corner, that probably matters a little bit less. But if he's going to be this receiver who's like a little bit built after yards after the catch, really winning the ball in the air, for him to only be 188 is not disqualifying by any means. But typically you would like a guy who can take a little bit more of a punishment

if he's going to be that much of like a run after catch type of threat. And then I think the other thing would be as a receiver right now, he does a lot of things really well. Like we talked about it on one of the other shows, he comes back to the football really well. His hands are incredible. His ball tracking is insane.

Right now as a route runner, I don't think he's bad. He's incredibly explosive so he can get away with stuff, but he's a little bit raw. Because again, he's just never focused on offense full time. And so you could sell me that like, yeah, with a year of him just playing offense, he could go be a really good route runner.

But right now I think he's like a little bit further away than people would like to realize. So I still think he's an amazing prospect, but if I had to make the case about why it might not look as special as we want, that would probably be it. I love this question because it is a way of thinking about this that challenges how we've talked about it for the entire process so far. And I tend to agree with you.

And my entry point into this is my understanding of him and based on what I've watched of him is that the wide receiver tape is intriguing and it's very good. But when we take receivers in the top 10 that don't necessarily, fit the normal size profile. They have to be so exceptional in some other area. Like the two guys that come to mind immediately, same draft. Jalen Waddle, Devante Smith.

Jalen Waddle was a game-changing speed prospect that would change the complexion of your offense if you dropped him into it. Devante Smith is literally the most productive college receiver of all time. And that's why he was drafted in the top 10 as a smallerish player. I know Travis Hunter isn't that small. But based on my understanding of his bona fides as a receiver, it's a lot of projection. And it's more like, oh, he's really good at this, but he's never done it full time. So if you're going to draft him and play him at receiver, then you're going to draft him in the top five.

I don't think he really checks as many boxes as a top five receiving prospect as most of the guys drafted in that range. Like he's not Jamar Chase. Like that's not the type of Malik neighbors. Like that's not what we're talking about here. As a corner, my understanding is that's what's different. about him is that he has special, special cornerback traits. So I think the path here where he maybe is a little bit disappointing is a team drafting him to play a receiver and him never really turning into that level of receiver and us pumping him

up as a prospect because he was unique. And that's why I like the way that Ben phrased this question because I think that may be a little bit of where the disconnect is. We're so enamored with him because he's so special, but is the receiver stuff actually what's making him a special prospect? That's exactly it. I think with the receiver stuff, he is a great receiver prospect, but he gets a little bit of a bump for the novelty of it.

Whereas I actually think, I agree with you, if a team just purely drafted him to play corner and said, you are not playing receiver outside of maybe a couple of gadget snaps and just said you are playing cornerback, I don't think there is an argument against him as an elite prospect. Like he checks every single box. He is a really, really special corner. It's just like you said,

some of the receiver stuff isn't bad, but requires a little bit more imagination than you would probably. probably want for like a top five picket receiver. And that's okay, right? Because he's so good at, he's so good at what he's been asked to do. And it's so early in his development at that position, I think it's worth building in a little bit of development, but you still have to close that gap somewhere. You still have to see that development to make good on how we're talking about him as a

prospect if you're only going to play him at receiver. And I think that's what makes it an interesting question. Before we get to our next one here, we're going to take a quick break. All right, Beller, what do you got for me? Okay, guys, Jonathan Shaw's got a question for us. Jonathan is a big Niners fan, and he says, based on all the outgoing players from last year and the lack of incoming free agents, it looks like the Niners are potentially going to be replacing two or three of their four starting defensive linemen via the draft. My question is, do you know of other examples where one positional unit was rebuilt with 50% or more rookies and how often is that strategy successful? I can think of a couple offhand, both in the secondary.

Eagles last year with Quinion Mitchell and Cooper DeGine. and going way back, the Niners in 1981 with Ronnie Lott and Eric Wright. Can you think of any other examples and what do you think of the approach of replacing half or more of a positional group with rookies all in one year? Robert, why don't you take this one away? This is a fun list here. Yeah, I decided that I was going to hate myself this morning, and I literally went back through every single draft since 2011 and tried to see where this has happened. Big picture answer, there are more of them than you think. this has happened more often than you might believe.

I didn't count these up, but there are probably 25 examples in here. Let's run through some of them. Bengals in 2012 drafted Mohammed Sanoo and Marvin Jones in the same year, a year after drafting AJ Green. That's a good one. 2012, again, Kobe Fleener, Dwayne Allen, T.Y. Hilton, all come in to transform the Colts pass catching group the same year they draft Andrew Luck. Also 2012.

Derek Wolf and Malik Jackson, both land in Denver. That's a really fun one. Derek Wolf is the second round pick. Bleley Jackson was drafted in the fifth. They also drafted Danny Trevathan that year in the sixth round. We probably don't talk about that draft for the Broncos as much as we should because Von Miller was drafted a year before that. And then their free agent class in 2014 really took it over the top with guys like DeMarcus Ware.

And so I don't think we've acknowledged the drafts role in building that 2015 Broncos team. Nick Perry and Mike Daniels were drafted in the same year. Nick Perry had that one really good season. for the Packers. As I kept doing these, I realized there were more of them than I thought, and so a couple of these are not quite to the same level. 2012, Fletcher Cox and Vinnie Curry get drafted by the Eagles in the same year. David Castro and Kelvin Beecham were drafted in the same year.

Beecham didn't start until his second year, but he was a contributor for those CELA team for a while. Desmond Truffat and Robert Alfred were drafted in back-to-backgrounds in 2013 for the Falcons. This one's a really good one. This is kind of the best example, I think, or one of the best examples on this list. Star Latulet and Kaywan Short getting drafted in the same draft by the Panthers in 2013. Like those guys...

They were so sick. They were so good. Their skill sets were different. Like they were... Kwan Short was a very cool player for people who did not watch Kwan Short play in Carolina. But that one to me is like one of the best examples. Drafted in the first and second round and truly move the needle for both of those guys.

Alan Robinson and Alan Hearns joined the Jags in 2014 in the same year. Alan Hearns was undrafted. The only reason I even remember. that is because I remember talking to Barnwell just very specifically about how Marquise Lee didn't work out for that team, but Alan Hearns did. And so they found two receivers in that same draft. Vic Beasley and Grady Jarrett in 2015, you know, we can go back and forth about Big Vic Beasley's career, but for a couple of years, he was pretty good.

Cedricabooey and Jake Fisher by the Bengals is the opposite of this, where they drafted two guys in the same round or the same draft and neither of them worked out. Marcus Peters and Stephen Nelson, 2015 for the Chiefs. Stephen Nelson wasn't a star until a second season, but another really, really good one. Donovan Smith and Allie Marpet in 2015 by the Bucks. They were both drafted in the second round. That's a really good one.

They got those guys at 34 and 61. A few more here. James Bradbury and Daryl Worley, both got drafted by the Panthers in 2016. They were starters pretty immediately. Taylor Decker and Graham Glasgow for the 2016 Lions. This one's not the same position group, but just in terms of transforming your defense in a single year,

Jalen Ramsey, Miles Jack, and Yankeg and Gokwe, were all drafted back to back to back by the Jags. And that really fueled their 2017 defense along with the free agent class. Miles Garrett and Larry Ogun Joby in 2017. Sheldon Rankin's and David Anumata in 2016. Both of those, the defensive tackles didn't really play until their second year. So you can fudge that a little bit. Chidobie, Jordan Lewis, and Xavier Woods were drafted in 2017 by the Cowboys.

All of them played as rookies. That one's pretty good. Marshawn Latimore and Marcus Williams in 2017 by the Saints. That's a pretty good one. And then a few more. Quentin Nelson and Braden Smith in 2018 for the Colts. Carlton Davis and Jordan Whitehead in 2018 for the Bucks. Chris Littstrom and Caleb McGarry is a very good one in 2019.

McGarry had a longer development path, but both of those guys got second contracts. Michael Parsons and Osse de Guizua in the same year in 2021. Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith in 2021. Derek Stingley and Jalen Petrie in 2022. And there are a few more. But last year, I think there were several good examples. Kalen Bullock and Kamari Laster drafted in the same draft

The Steelers drafted three offensive linemen Only two of them played But McCormick and Zach Frazier Are a long time hopeful building blocks for them And then the best example from last year Is Jared Verst and Brayton Fisk In the first and second round Really doing a lot to kickstart that Rams defensive line

So there's a bunch of examples in there So if my first thought was I'm sure it doesn't happen that often It probably happens more often than you think it does that was kind of my experience with it and I actually went I went backwards so instead of going from 2011 up

I just went from last year to kind of went down the list a little bit but it does happen way more often than you think the Steelers one is the biggest one but we've even seen this with the way that the Packers were trying to retool their past catching core

they drafted Christian Watson and Romeo dubs in the same year I think in 2022 and then 23 it was Reed and Wicks and they got the two tight ends Tucker Craft and Luke Musgrave together so like they were double up on those positions. And they did Bullard and Williams last year.

That's right. That's right. That's another one I was going to throw in there before I skipped a couple. Yeah. And then you mentioned the Cowboys with Parsons and Odiggy Zuwa. They also drafted Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe last year together to like re-tool and move into there. I wasn't sure about Guyton's play and like whether it justifies mention on that list.

But I almost threw them on here. Yes. But it was in a attempt. It was an attempt. Right. And I think that that matters like. And I think another one to me that was an attempt. And you already mentioned the Bengals.

But the Bengals tried to read. retool their defensive tackle room last year by drafting Chris Jenkins and McKinley Jackson. And I think the jury is still out on those players. But that is another example of like, teams do try to do this a lot. And then I think the last one I think I wanted to throw in here that did work out fairly well was the Bears in 2020 drafted Jaquan Brisker and Kyler Gordon in the second round to like completely change their secondary. So I thought that was another good one. I didn't want to throw that in there because I thought it might be a little bit Homerish. But yes, that one was one that I also noticed.

The Britsker thing is, you know, it's been a little bit hit or miss. Obviously, he's missed a ton of time with the concussions. But when those guys are healthy, absolutely, those are two quality starters. What's the next one, Baller? Wait, let me throw one in here. It didn't necessarily work out with both guys, but the second guy worked out very well that the double dip made a lot of sense. Hayden Hurst and Mark Andrews. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, I also noticed that one, but I was, again, I was like, I don't know about Hayden Hearst rolling all of this. But I think the Ravens were happy. with the double dip, right? Going back for Mark and Mark Andrews was the second one drafted out of those two guys.

If you flipped them and said Mark Andrews was the first round pick and Hayden Hurst was the third round pick, you'd be like, I'm pretty happy with Hayden Hurst was a third round pick. It was a useful player. Listen, that first round for the Ravens in 2018, I think they're playing with house money based on how that went for them. I think so. A couple of VPs in there. I guess two-time MVP with the last pick in the first round.

It's typically pretty good business. Indeed, it is. This is a great question. This comes to us from Brian Markle. My dad recently passed away. Condolences, Brian. We were watching old VHS home videos, and I saw my childhood self running around in an old Detroit Lions Herman Moore 84 jersey. This jersey was my first ever won.

It was given to me by my dad. My first thought was, I wish I still had it. So my question is, what is the first jersey you ever wore? And is there one jersey you wish you still had? Doesn't have to be an NFL jersey. I was also seen in a teal pistons jerry stack. I mean, unbelievable. Teal Pistons Jerry Stackhouse jersey.

Those were so good. by the way. Those deal mid-90s pistons jerseys were so good. And Grant Hill got there as they were doing the rebrand. So for a kid in that era, it was an incredibly cool team. I just remember that happening. Like it was one of the only things in that moment that could kind of grab my gaze away from those Bulls teams. Derek, did you even wear jerseys as a kid? Like, you didn't really grow up with teams in a way where I feel like this would be a big part of your childhood. Maybe I'm wrong. No, I really didn't have jersey. The only jersey I had as a kid, somebody, I don't even remember how I got it, but I got my hands on a Larry Fitzgerald jersey for some reason. And it wasn't like I liked the Cardinals or anything. I think it was just

maybe like one of my parents wanted it work. Like I literally don't understand how I got this Larry Fitzgerald jersey, but that was the only jersey I had until I was an adult. And then all the jerseys I bought as an adult are all Eastports jerseys. So it's again, very different, very different here in terms of how I've handled the jerseys thing. I can't remember what jerseys I had when I was really, really young. I'm sure I had some of them. I remember having a Walter Payton, like, t-shirt jersey that might, it was my dad's. And so I wore that around.

But in terms of real jerseys, I don't think my parents were buying a lot of those for me when I was a really young kid. The one that I vividly remember, Bellar, you'll remember this, in 95, was the fall of 95, I think it was like November when they debuted these. The Bulls debuted their black jerseys with the red pinstripes on them. and it was the hottest thing in town. It was impossible to find a Michael Jordan black and red pinstripe jersey that year for Christmas. And my mother, God bless her soul.

I still, as I get older, I am in awe every single day of like what my mom was able to achieve as like a full-time working mother and raising three children at the same time. I loved my dad. My dad was not a big time contributor to what was going on in the house. So her somehow, she managed to track down one of these Michael Jordan, black pinstripe jerseys for me. And it is still like one of the greatest moments I've ever had at a Christmas is opening that jersey because of how badly I wanted it. I wanted it and how known it was that they were like hard to find and get. I bet she went to every champ sports in the

Chicago land area to find that thing. And somehow she did. So that's definitely the one that sticks with me. I had some fun ones. I had a shack magic jersey growing up. I had a Kevin Garnett with Timberwolves jersey that I really liked. I loved those Timberwolves teams with him and Sam Cassell and LaTrells will be well. So there's a bunch of them. But that black and red pinstripe, Michael Jordan jersey from 95 is definitely at the top of the list. You know what's funny about that it being a black and red pinstripe is the first Eastports jersey I bought was 100 thieves.

They had like, for whatever reason in their inaugural split, they wore like baseball jerseys. So it was like the button up and all that. But they did like a black and red pinstripe. And I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. Nobody's done this in e-sports. I got to buy this. And so it's funny that we've kind of both arrived on. some of our favorite jerseys being a black and red pinstripe.

Yours makes more sense being in Chicago with the Bulls Jordan. Mine's a little bit more random. I mean, those Bulls teams, man, like it's hard to explain to somebody who didn't grow up in that time, just how central it was to your day-to-day life. It's just, you just, everyone was watching those games. I remember just family events we'd have the games on, like Christmas. The Bulls would play on Christmas all the time.

Think about how many Bulls' Knicks Christmas games there were, Beller, when we were growing up. Like those games, Scotty Pippen, John Stark's just in the background at every family function around the holidays, just burned into my brain. And I vividly remember, I don't know why I remember this, we used to camp a lot when we were kids. That was like what we did for vacation. It's still like staying in a hotel was a luxury to make because we just didn't do it a lot when we were growing up.

We used to go camping. And we over time, we leveled up. Like we started with a tent. And I vividly remember my dad throwing away the tent on the way out of the campground one year after it rained. He was like, I'm fucking done with this. And then we bought like a pop-up camper and then like a hard side one. So one year, it was the year where they lost to the bull, they lost to the magical Michael came back.

And I vividly remember listening to that game on the radio. Like just that's how long ago it was where we were just listening to Bulls games on the radio because in June or whenever it was, May, we were camping on the weekends and there was no TV. So we were just listening to these Bulls games on the radio. It just, I don't know why that just came flooding back to me today. But thinking about that black and red pinstripe, Michael Jordan, Jersey brought me back to that moment of just listening to Bulls games on the radio with my dad. around the campfire, which seems like such an analog thing at this stage and the way that we live. Yeah, that is serious dedication. I don't know if I've ever listened to a game on the radio.

I mean, maybe like every now and then on accident or something, but not like fully sat down to listen to a game on the radio. The amount of Pat Hughes-Ran Santo Cubs games that we listened to driving around when I was a kid, those were the sounds in the car as we drove around to various baseball and basketball tournaments in my childhood. Same here as we diverge a little bit into the Chicago version of the athletic football show podcast. Mark Grace is my kid's jersey. The jersey I remember as a kid so much was Mark Grace for sure. It's like the one thing I think of myself happened. Have I told you my Mark Grace story, Beller? No, but I would love to hear it. When I was, even when I was younger, when I was like 22, 23, there weren't a lot of moments where I was like starstruck doing this job.

My second day at the Boston Globe, I interviewed Paul Gasol and because I was covering the final. And that was like talking to NBA players when you're in your second day of a job was like that was kind of crazy. But it was still like, I'm a professional. I can do this. The one time that summer, my first time as a sports reporter that I was like truly starstruck and like embarrassed myself, the diamond backs were playing the red socks. And Mark Grace is the color guy for the diamond backs. And so Mark Grace was in the press box. And I was just like, oh my God, it's Mark Grace.

And I talked to Kobe Bryant like two days earlier and it wasn't that big of a deal. But Mark Grace was one where we're out. I just completely embarrassed myself because that's what my childhood was. My childhood was watching Mark Grace play baseball. That number 17's got to go up on the left or right field foul pole in Wrigley one of these days. You can even do it for Grace and Bryant's, but 17, that can't be worn again for the Cubs. All right, guys, let's get back to the show here. This question comes to us from Ben Driver.

He says afternoon from across the pond. Ben love to have our international fans write in. Listening back to a recent episode, there was some concern expressed. over trading two first round picks and giving Miles Garrett a rich new contract. So trading those picks to get Garrett and then give him the big deal. I was thinking, could you find two consecutive first round picks outside the top five, say, a team has made that you wouldn't trade for Miles Garrett, perhaps excluding quarterbacks? I guess my contention is that if first round picks are, say, a 50-50 proposition,

you bet only hit on one of them. And Garrett is a known commodity and perennial defensive player of the year candidate. Robert, let's hear from you on this one. I understand Ben's question, and I get it. I think there are a lot of layers to this. First of all, it's not just the two players. It's the two players making combined about a third of what Miles Garrett is going to make on this contract. So that's something to keep in mind.

But you don't really have to go back that far to find an example of this. The Vikings in the 20s drafted Justin Jefferson and Christian Derisaw in the been back-to-back seasons. Michael Parsons and Tyler Smith is a recent example of this. Jalen Carter and Quinnion, Mitchell were drafted in back-to-back years. Miles Garrett is a very, very good player. My conclusion when it comes to this, first round picks are really, really, really, really valuable.

You mentioned Michael Parsons and Tyler Smith. You remember who the Cowboys drafted before Michael Parsons? CD Lamb. They had a three-year run of getting these guys who were in there. But yeah, I do think there are a few other ones. Like, the Falcons getting Drake London and then into Bejohn Robinson. Like, that's a pretty insane. Those are two top 10 picks.

So that's a little bit easy. It is easier, but like those are still two really good players. The Ravens drafting Kyle Hamilton and Tyler Linderbaum in the same year is one. And then even after that, they get Zay Flowers, which is probably less convincing for me, but still a good player. And then even if you go back a little bit further, the Niners had a stretch there where they drafted Eric Armstead into DeForest Buckner, which is like a pretty insane back to back. So like it, I don't think it happens every year or like every, you know, where if you look at every two year span, there's going to be a team that's done this. but it happens often enough that if you were to hit on the right picks, you can convince yourself,

especially again with the money consideration that, like, you can get by with playing this way. Yeah. To me, it was just how quickly, how fast would I find an example of it? And it was helped that I had just looked at all 15 drafts in the last 15 years, but you can find them pretty quickly.

The Vikings one is the most impressive because that was like second half of the first round for those guys. Like that's a really, really impressive streak for them to have done it on. Yeah. Finding a top of the market left tackle and the best. receiver in the league and one of the best receivers we'll probably ever see in back-to-back years is a pretty good stretch.

All right, guys, here's our next question. Yoni Loderstein says, hey guys, long time listener. At this week's NFL coaches meetings, Ben Johnson spoke about how EPA is now a better indicator of wins and losses than turnovers. As someone who works as a data analyst, NFL analytics fascinate me. Specifically, I was curious about your thoughts on how many NFL head coaches actually understand the inputs that are behind stats like EPA per play. The second part of my question is, what kind of advantage might it give a coach who actually

has a deep level of understanding of statistics and analytics in terms of being able to sort through the noise of various analytic models in order to find the most important data points. Derek, let's throw this one to you. What do you got for us? So I think Ben Johnson and other coaches, because he's not the first one to do, you know, be this aware of EPA and all that stuff. I think it's a good indicator that clearly this guy is trying to think in modern terms about the game.

And I think that that is good directionally. I just think that something like this where you're saying, you know, X EPA is better, and more indicative of wins. It's just something like EPA is an end. It's not a means to an end. And so you can't just say like higher EPA good. Like that's the same to me as saying the teams that throw more touchdowns are going to win more games. Like, yeah, like if you can tell me for sure you're a more productive team, you're probably

a more successful team. And so again, I think it's probably good that he is clearly. trying to think on the forefront of these things. And, you know, he probably is diving layers deep in terms of like what are the things that are actually impacting our EPA as much and how do I apply that to my game planning. But that's really what it's about is like what are the things that are actually affecting this and how would that shape my game plan, which again, if he's thinking about this stuff, he probably is going three layers deep like that. That is what I think is important. In talking to head coaches about this stuff, I think that there are coaches who are aware of it.

but I think for the most part, in my experience, it's if we are good at this, that is a good thing. If we're in the top five in offensive DVOA, that's where we should be trying to be, but not necessarily thinking that deeply about the inputs. Here's why I think the Ben Johnson part of this is interesting, and it's on a couple different levels. One, I think him understanding and him trying to communicate that, I think what he's trying to do here, at least a little bit, is he's trying to frame this as those turnovers that we avoided last year, but all those sacks we took, not a good thing. In the end, that's ultimately not a good thing.

Sacks are very, very bad for passing EPA, and turnovers are less detrimental compared to sacks than probably a lot of people think. That's my kind of back read on what he's trying to say with some of this. But what you said, Derek, about the inputs and how I can try to do this to fuel better ways to throw the football, that's what I'm taking from this. It's not we need to pump up our EPA number

because I think you're right. That's the end point of it. It's what are efficient passes, right? Which passes lead to more efficiency? And am I actually building the passing game the right way? So I think for some people, there would be this kind of obsession with like explosives, right? Like we'd have to throw the ball down the field in order to create that value. I think if you look at the way that the lion's offense has been built over the last few years,

that's not the way that their offense is built. And he said this in the answer. It's like it's a lot of run after catch opportunities. If you look at attacking the middle of the field, etc. Like there are ways you can build the passing game that lead to more efficient plays that go beyond the conventional wisdom of what is efficient and what is valuable. So I think trying to dig into those layers, that's where there's something to be found here. And it sounds like he has tried to do some of that work. I think so too.

And like what, again, when he is clearly talking about it in these terms and like really trying to show. that this is something he thinks about on top of watching what he has done as a game planner where there are some weeks where they're willing to, you know, slam their head into a wall as a running game to make sure that they can open up the play action game. But there are other weeks where he's just like, you know what, this is not going to be our most efficient pass. Our most efficient pass is we're going to get an empty 12 times and let Jared Gough just throw all these underneath stuff.

Like so pairing the way that he's talking about this stuff with what you see from him as an individual like game by game planner or even quarter by quarter if it needs to be that. There's a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the way that Johnson is thinking about these things. Yeah, it's not a light bulb moment to understand that efficient passing is good and you want to be an efficient passing team. But what passes are efficient and trying to do a little bit more homework on that, I think that is very valuable as you try to put together an offense. And again, it does sound like he has done some work to get there. A lot of this is going to be based on what sort of communication you have with your analytics department. what information are they presenting to you?

It kind of reminds me sort of of like politicians, right? Where you have these kind of catchphrases that just click because somebody showed you a chart once that actually makes sense. That's kind of my understanding of the relationship between analytics departments and people in like a head coaching position where it's like I'm going to show you a note card or like a slide and this is one nugget I want you to take away from this slide. I think that generally is what the relationship looks like with a lot of analytics departments and coaching staffs. And I think the last thing I'll say there too is I think we've seen sometimes like certain coaches and play callers can lean too much into like, oh, graph said play action good, so just spam play action.

I don't think Ben Johnson is like that. Like I said, Ben Johnson very clearly thinks about each game and each approach to things very differently. And it's not just the bar is going to keep going up for, you know, the graph's going to keep going up for much. ocean or play action or whatever. I think he very much is intentionally thinking about understanding that these things are efficient, but not like over indexing into them way too much to where you just become an

inefficient offense. The last thing I'll say about this, Belor, it's just something I was sitting with a couple nights ago. I was watching that clip and seeing some of the reaction to it. If this doesn't work, I don't know what the people in this city are going to do. Because with so many of the other decisions that they've made, you're going to, you can understand why it didn't work where it's like, ah, that's not really what you should be chasing. That's not efficient team building.

That's not the smart way to do this. By going out and getting somebody like this who has had the level of success that he's had and is clearly thinking about things at this sort of level and building up the offensive line and trying to do everything for your young quarterback to succeed, if this doesn't work, I don't know what I'm going to do and I don't know what everybody who roots for this team is going to do. people are going to take a long, long walk in the woods if this goes south because at least they're trying to do the things that we think are the correct things to chase. And so if that falls short, I'm just going to throw in my hands.

And it might. Like I think that we're probably not acknowledging that this might not work often enough as a fan base. And somebody who like pays attention to the sports radio dialogue here. But that's kind of something I was kicking around this week when the reaction to that clip started making the rounds. I'm at peace with it, honestly, because I feel like there's one of two outcomes. Either it works, and that's ideal, and that's awesome, and it's finally happening, or it doesn't work. And I can just say, all right, it's never happening. The bears have never really been anything in my 40 years of life.

They did this perfectly. It didn't work. It's okay. That's probably true. That's probably true. Maybe I don't have enough other things. That's what I have to start a family. Is this going to be the time where if it doesn't work, you start believing like curses and witches?

That was the other thing I was going to say is that there might be something cosmic happening here. If this will be what pushes me to have kids to find purpose in life, or I'll start believing in religion. Like those are one of the two outcomes here if the Ben Johnson experiment fails. Having a ton of fun on a Friday mailbag episode. We got a good one here from Alex Bartnick. Alex says when a GM is fired, a common scenario is, well, they just never got quarterback, right? And this can often be after a first round pickflops. This reasoning is patently insane to me.

That's one decision. and in many years, like this one, many draft years, it's really not much of a decision at all. GMs make a very small number of impactful choices on which they are judged, a lot of which are draft picks and therefore, basically, coin flips. Variance is a massive factor in their performance because the sample size is relatively small. So here's the question. How long do you think is needed to get a solid read on a general manager? I think they deserve a lot more patience than a head coach, partly because of what I laid out above, but also because I think a GM on the hot seat is a lot more dangerous than a head coach on the hot seat.

I'm not advocating for the full Trent bulky experience, but I do think it's better to be too slow in firing a GM than too fast. Robert, what do you think here? This is going to be a cop-up, but I think it's really dependent on the situation. You know, Joe Douglas is a good example where you miss out on Zach Wilson, but by everything they had to do to try to scramble and make up for that, the Rogers move, hiring certain coaches to go along with Rogers,

everything they had to put in the Rogers basket. When that ran out of road, what were you really hanging on to? You might as well start over again because that version of how you built the team had just completely run out of space. So I think that one, and then the other one we talked about when it comes to missing out on first round picks or not giving them second contracts, Jason Light kept his job when they got Tom Brady after the James Winston part of this. Light's a good example of, you know, they didn't get the coaching staff right. He was there through some bad drafts. So I do think that if you're comfortable with, here's where I land on this. You have to be comfortable with the process of how you're trying to build the team.

and how you're trying to seek out talent. If you can get behind the process where it's like, okay, I think that how they arrived at this decision was correct, even if it was the incorrect decision, especially about individual draft picks or classes, that's where I think you can keep a general manager, where it's how they're arriving at these moments and how they're trying to put this together,

I can get behind this, even if the results haven't necessarily been there. I know that's kind of a murky answer. I tend to agree with the question here from Alex and that GMs probably deserve a little bit more leeway in a little bit more time than we give them though. I think logically it does make sense. Like if you just told me, you know, if you just gave ex head coach six years no matter what and ex general manager six years no matter what, I think with the head coach, you would have a quicker answer about like

by year six, we're screwed. Whereas with a general manager, you could convince me that like over the course of, you know, just certain draft classes hitting or not hitting and the way that free agency can ebb and flow, you could convince me that maybe year two we hate this GM by year six, he's started to figure it out. Like, you could convince me of that. The other part of the question, though, is about the quarterback decision and, like, that being so skewed to, like, how these guys get fired. It is deeply unfair that just missing on a quarterback can get you fired.

But that's the reality of it. It's the most important position in sports. Like, if you mess it up, sorry, your ass is grass. And again, that is deeply unfair with, like, you might have built a very good roster. Otherwise, kind of like, you know, Joe Douglas is a great example, right? Like, the rest of that, Jets roster was a really good outside of the quarter. quarterback, but you drafts a bad quarterback second overall. And it all just goes to not. And you have to again, scramble like you said, to figure it out and sign 40 year old Aaron Rogers. Like, the reality

is just that when there are only a dozen or so difference making quarterbacks, if you make the swing to miss on one of those guys, like, yeah, you probably are going to get fired, even if that's unfair. Yeah, I think that's right. And I don't have really an issue with guys who get fired because of those decisions. But we probably probably do weigh it a little bit too much, considering they are 50-50 coin flips and it is one decision. So I think Alex's framing can be right while also conceding that. That's just how it goes and I don't really have a problem with it. All right.

We're going to take one more quick break and then we're going to come back and hit a couple more of your guys' questions. All right. What's the next one, Barr? All right, this is a fun one. It comes to us from Charles Scholl. Shout out Peanut, shout out Charlie Brown. Before this year, I thought the bills and Giants should trade their head coaches. Brian Dable could make the most out of a really well-constructed roster and Sean McDermott

would help build the culture of a rebuilding. team. So can you construct a one-for-one trade of head coaches or coordinators that would be better suited on one another's teams and beneficial for everyone involved? This is super fun. Derek, what do you got for us on this one? I thought this would be easier to answer when I went in. It's really hard. It's actually really hard because the way I was doing it, I actually didn't do coordinators. I was just looking at head coaches. But for one, like a lot of them were just knocked off the list immediately if you were a first year guy. Like, I don't want to move Aaron Glenn off the Jets, because we just don't know what Aaron Glenn as a head coach is. Like, I like him,

but we just have no idea there. And then the other thing is I also wanted to make sure it was offensive coach for a defensive coach. Or generally, that was the framing I was looking for. So I actually found it hard. But one I kind of landed on, and these are already both good teams, and this is not necessarily a criticism of the job these coaches have done. But I think if you flipped Matt Lafleur and D'Amico Ryan's, you could get some pretty impressive benefits for both of those teams. Like you would have Lafleur fixing what is a pretty bad offense around a very good young quarterback with Nico and wide receiver and Nico Collins. And then like the defense wouldn't probably be as good as it is under Ryan's, but it's talented enough, especially with the

pass rushers that it would still be good. And then with DeMico Ryan's in Green Bay, you could convince me that he could light a fire under the ass of a lot of those young talented players and really get them to start playing at a high level. So that was one that I thought both sides could maybe benefit. I like that one a lot actually. I think. think the Texans are chasing Matt Will Fleur. They literally hired Nick Cayley who was on the RAM staff. So they're trying to get their version of that this year with their offensive coordinator. This was really difficult.

The one that I landed on, just because I feel like both of these teams are just at interesting intersection points. What if you traded Mike Tomlin and Kevin Stefansky? And so you had Mike Tomlin coming in to like rebuild the Browns who are probably closer to square one than they are to contention. So you're just trying to establish, like, this is the bones of the organization. This is what we want to put together. And for the Steelers, part of my issue with the Steelers is they're just so stuck in the Stone Age in so many ways. And Stefansky is like a modern kind of forward thinking coach, again, talking about some of these coaches who understand analytics and their role, etc. I would just love a little bit of that sprinkled into the way that the Steelers operate.

And I feel like Mike Tom would be a good candidate to just kind of pull a Steeler, our Bravins team that just really needs to be rebuilt and lifted up to a certain floor again. I like this one a lot because when I was doing this, I was trying to put Tomlin somewhere, but I couldn't figure out exactly where I wanted it to be. But Cleveland actually makes a lot of sense. And like even for Cleveland or for Stefansky going to Pittsburgh, like Arthur Smith is a nice coordinator. But Stefansky is legitimately like a top eight play call it to me.

Like he is still fantastic. It's just he's been hamstrung by his quarterback play. And so again, if you could modernize their office. offense a little bit with this young offensive line that they have got a little bit more firepower with DK Medcalf now like yeah you could convince me that for both teams this would be pretty good I like that one a lot yeah it's a good question that's a fun one that's a really good one okay and rike here andrique is a titans fan getting ready for them to be the first team on the clock in a couple of weeks here he says assuming the titans select cam ward to kick off the rebuilding process

what do you think is the best route for them in the second round wide receiver edge best player available. I feel like getting him as much help as possible on the offensive side of the ball is the way to go, but can understand trying to draft a premium position player at Edge to build through the trenches. My preferred action would be to move back slightly in the second, hopefully pick up a third rounder in the process and address both wide receiver and edge, but that could result in a downgrade at the wide receiver edge player that you would in this case if you don't trade down, be taking at 35. Derek, what are your thoughts on this? I love the idea of building around Cam Ward and giving him potentially a little bit more help.

And I do think that there will probably be some decent options at receiver at the top of the second round. But it has to be an edge. They just do not have pass rushers on this team. You're betting on Dremont Jones, who wasn't very good last year. Arden Key, who is like, if Arden Key is your first guy off the bench, that's cool. They're role players. Dreymont Jones and Arden Key are role players. Dreymont Jones is a big edge setting like tweener that I think when, if that's what you're trying to do with him

where he's a run defender, that makes sense. If Arden Key is a situational pass rusher, that makes sense. They cannot be your top two guys. So you need to do something there. I think the presence of Calvin Ridley just existing allows you to bypass that for at least a little bit in the draft. So I think ideally I would like to see them try to find an edge player in the second round and then try to find a capable receiver that you can at least play in the fourth round. That's where I said with us. All right, guys, Gabriel Adler, come and do us here with the next question with thinking about the lion's approach to football, full speed, full intensity.

all the time. I can't help but compare him with another head coach in another sport known for a similar attitude. That's Tom Thibito. The Chicago stuff keeps rolling here. The parallels between the Lions and Tibado's teams are many. They're high-octane, well-coached, good fundamentals, and their players play with intensity, and they play a lot. The recent parallels also include struggling with long seasons, inevitable injuries, piling up come playoff time, and the intensity petering out deep in the playoffs when it matters most. Compare the Lions to recently successful coaches and teams like the Belichick Patriots, Reachie, who went out of their way to treat September as extended preseason, safe players, schemes, plays, what have you for the playoffs, and focus on surviving a long season and then peaking in those playoffs.

Do you think the Lions were just unlucky with injuries, or do you think it was the inevitable outcome of a fundamentally flawed approach if you want to optimize for winning a Super Bowl, not just regular season games? Robert, what do you got here? This is a great Zag question, where it's like we just assume that the Lions are great and the Lions are just going to keep doing this,

and everything is great with Dan Campbell and this. And I tend to think that's just, true. But I love this as like a, what if this is going to be continuing to be a problem? What if that's just going to be kind of the state of affairs for the lions moving forward? We were going to say, oh, they'll just not, they won't be that hurt again. Like there's no way, though, they'll be this hurt again. Everything's going to be okay. Maybe not.

I tend to think injuries are a little bit more random than that. And if you look back at the last three years, they were, I think, in the top two or three and adjusted games lost this year, which is not surprising. they were 18th in 2020. So middle of the pack. And then they were sixth, I believe, in 2022. So there have been a couple years where they've sustained a lot of injuries. I still think that it's probably random enough where I would rather,

I would prefer the play style and just hope that there's a season where you stay healthy rather than saying let's let our foot off the gas here because we're worried about guys getting hurt. Maybe that's wrong, but that's how I see it. I mostly agree to. And last year for it to be that bad, I think even if this is a consideration with them, like them going a little bit too hard, you have to be some degree of unlucky for it to be as bad as it was last year. So that is certainly a part of it. But I do think there probably is something to the idea that maybe they go a little bit too hard. Like we talked about this with the San Francisco 49ers offense, like with all of their guys just being run after catch battering rams.

There probably is something to the idea that that's why those guys get hurt a little bit more often than others. But I think where I ultimately landed on this was, yes, you could say that some of them going a little bit too hard and too early with some of this stuff is going to hurt them in the long run. I think that mentality was absolutely necessary to the lions getting out of the muck from where they were four years ago. Like buying into this. And what I think is interesting is like now that they have proof of concept that they can be a 15 win team, maybe now you can take the foot off the gas a little bit and start to approach it. in more of a long-term get-to-January type of way. But I think until they had that proof of concept, you had to be pedal to the metal the entire time

because that's just what Dan Campbell was all about. So I'll be interested to see if they pivot, but I think mostly it's been good, and then last year was just a little bit unlucky. I'd be curious how you can potentially find a middle ground here. Can you play guys a few less snaps, you know, keeping with the Tibado conversation? Is that the answer rather than asking guys to play less hard?

I think that's probably the right place to land. But overall, I think the benefits of how the lions approach it far outweigh the downside. We have one more here, Beller. We can answer this pretty quickly. My answer is also lion-centric for this one. So what do you got for me? Yeah, this is a hell of a capstone. I'm what was a great set of questions.

It's from Chris Smoke. And he says, when considering a first-time general manager, is it actually instructive to look at the way the team he came from was built? I'm a Jets fan and journalists and fans talking about Darren Moogie will reference how the Broncos were built, decisions their front office made when he was there, but is it actually relevant? Isn't it possible he was just helping to execute someone else's vision? I think sometimes people talk about where executives came from as though they will just try to replicate the philosophy of that previous stop.

Can you think of examples where an executive built a team in a very different way than where he came from? So how's your, what's your Lions tie in here then, Robert? I mean, think about the way that the Rams operated when Brad Holmes was in Los Angeles and think about how the Lions have built. It's very, very, very different. So I think that's the best possible example here. I mean, you go through the other ones.

So many of these guys have been in these jobs for long enough where it's hard to like make a comparison. Some guys have been elevated while working for that organization. Like, you know, Omar Khan was with the Steelers for forever before he got promoted. George Payton, it's kind of a weird one because now Sean Peyton's there, you know, pulling some of those strings. I think Andrew Barry probably operates in a similar way to the way that the Eagles have based on his time there. So I think the best example, Eric DeCost, another very good example.

He was promoted one within. Brian Gunkunz was promoted from within. So I think that in my opinion, Brad Holmes is the best possible example. But yeah, I don't think you're beholden to what those previous organizations did. Sometimes we see through lines, right? I think Joe Hortiz has approached this similarly with the Chargers that he did with the Ravens, but I don't think it's necessarily a guarantee. So I was going to bring up Hortiz because I think my answer to this was it kind of just depends on where you're coming from.

like some organizations have like such an institutional structure to the way that they build these things and Baltimore is a good way of framing it Baltimore is a great example of that green bay for a really long time was this like this is probably slightly less true now but like you know 20 30 years ago in the ted thompson era and stuff like it was certainly true of them New Orleans, I think, could be like if somebody came from the New Orleans front office, I would probably believe they might start to do things a different way. But if you, to, you know, to the question, like, if you come from the Broncos front office, am I really going to like, you know, make sure that you're, oh, every decision is going to be through what the Broncos did, your lens. It's like, probably not.

Like, I'll give a guy like Moogie a bit of a clean slate. Whereas like, for Hortiz going to the Chargers, I immediately thought like, yeah, he's probably going to try to do a lot of the stuff that the Ravens did. because that's just so when you grow up in one of those systems, so to say, yeah, you probably are going to be a little bit different than maybe a guy who's bounced around or just not at a place who's had that much stability for that long. I'm trying to find some examples here. Like the Falcons is a good one because Terry Fontno obviously was with the Saints

when they were doing a lot of hyper-aggressive things. And the Falcons have had their trades up. They traded up in the second round for Rukororoa last year. But even what the Falcons did in year one where they stripped it down financially, and just didn't spend any cash that year, that is something we wouldn't see the Saints typically do. So I think it depends on what sort of owner you have now, what sort of roster you're inheriting.

But for the most part, I mean, think about any job. If you're the number two or number three in a place, even if you believe in the process of where you used to work, you're still probably going to put your own spin on things when you get a chance to do it. It's honestly a question that I ask coaches all the time. When I have a sit down with a quarter, or a position coach, passing him coordinator, quarterback's coach, I always like asking them

in order to try to project what they'll do at that next stop. All right, when you get to run an offense, how will things be different for you? What do you believe that maybe is outside of the scheme that you guys are typically running? And there's always some sort of answer. Very rarely is that I would just do everything the same way that we're doing right now. A lot of guys will take the language and they'll take the bones of the system that they're running because the way that it's been described to me, it's the language they've spoken most recently.

So it's the language they understand the best. And it's the language they can communicate in the best. But that doesn't necessarily mean that everything they're teaching in that language is going to be a copy of what they were doing at their previous stop. And I would have to assume that the way that you're building a team, there are some similarities to that. I think that's all we got. As always, guys, sincerely appreciate you listening.

We'll be back tomorrow with our next. installment of on the clock. We have done the first 12 picks in the draft. If you have not gone back and listened to those shows, encourage you to do so. Picks one through six was with Jordan Reed at ESPN. We had a pick seven through 12 last week with Danny Kelly, had a fun little trade in that show with the Panthers and the Niners, some spicy Ashton Genti takes. D.K did some weird stuff with the Panthers and I'm not sure Panthers fans are going to love. So please go check that out. Tomorrow, it's our buddy Ben Solock hitting the next six picks in the draft. So please come and listen to that. We'll be back a little bit later this week with two more shows. Until then,

appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.