The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Monday Mailbag: The Dolphins' speed, preseason darlings, fast-food rankings, and more

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Robert Mays and Nate Tice are back for another session of the Monday Mailbag on this episode of The Athletic Football Show. The guys discuss the Dolphins' team speed, previous preseason darlings and offensive coaching changes. They also rank fast-food joints and wonder how many bad teams you'd have to combine to get a team as good as the Chiefs.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. It's the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Before we jump in today, I want to tell you about New York Times Audio, a new iOS app for the New York Times, all access and new subscribers. It's got our show, plus all the other podcasts from The Athletic, exclusive shows, narrated articles, and more. New York Times Audio. Download it now at NYTimes.com slash audio app. Joining me today, it is my good friend, Nate Tice.

Nate, how you doing, buddy? Doing very well. I put on my podcast uniform on again. It's so frustrating when we both have the backwards hats on. I know. I was going to do my hair, but we had like a call with our wedding planner this morning. And I got to do a bunch of stuff before I disappear for a little while. So I'm like cramming a bunch of stuff in.

I didn't have time to shower. And I never know if you're going to show up with the backwards hat on. And then you did it. I'm like, God damn it. I just. But we had to change shirts because our shirts were way too similar. We can only go so far. Gray shirts, backwards hat.

I know. There's a lot of times where it's a good reminder. It's like, oh, yeah, we're both from the Midwest. Like, it's just, it's my staple outfit is like, I've worn a hat almost like every day since like junior of high school. And my wife was the one. She like made me change my shampoo because she's like, hey, you know, like you're losing your hair because you like, don't let your hair breathe. And it's like, anyone that's ever seen my dad, that's my fear of my life is like, oh, I'm going to lose my hair. I'm okay. I'm okay now. But it's like, yeah, I wear a hat every day. It's just, it's habit. I worked at a profession that let me wear a hat coaching and scouting. I could just wear a hat every day. It was great.

So, yeah, but now it hasn't changed. It hasn't changed at all. My thing is that the hair is either done or it's not. There's no way I can just let it go. So part of my plan is, and I floated this to Casey many different times, is that after we get back from the honeymoon, I kind of just want to buzz my head just so I don't have to deal with it. She is vehemently against.

So I've had to try to slowly convince her that it's not a bad idea. but every time I bring it up, she's not happy about it. I go to the same, like, stylist, barber, whoever she's great. I've gone to her for a while, like multiple different places.

And I've gotten her on board. So I feel like I'm slowly starting to recruit the right people that will allow me to do this and not care about my hair for like six straight months. But I'm not sure I'm going to be able to sell. We'll soon be my wife. I'm not sure I'll be able to sell my wife on this idea when it comes time. I lost that battle because I used to just always shave my head.

Number two all the way around. It was great. And then my wife, because she's from Southern California, the same high school that C.J. Stroud went to, Rancho Cucumaga, but way different part of age. She, okay, hair had to grow out. And the pandemic kind of helped with that because I didn't see anybody for like seven months. So I just threw the hair out. And then I trimmed it off and then now it's kind of medium length. But then the other thing was, I have no more plaid clothes in my collection.

No more plaid button downs. I only had a couple. I wasn't like a staple. But it's like, that's gone. because my wife is like she is trying to just go like you're not from the Midwest like she's trying to like no one wants she doesn't want people to guess that so it's like that's those are two things I've got my hair got longer and no more plaid clothes in my my outfits so I am horrified by the amount of my friends who's significant others slash wives pick out their clothes it's truly shocking to me every single time I hear about it's like what you don't dress yourself and it happens way more often than you think it does my wife's quality control it's more like hey I pick out the outfit and I go okay and then And it's like kind of just she's the check. She's the filter just in case if something's not looking right. But we got a lot of, what we call there?

We're kind of like, you just have like the pockets of like, so like three shirts that go with the three pants. You're supposed to do that. Yeah, you mix and match it. I'm there now. I'm 33. I'm there now. It only took me a while.

It took me a while to get there, but we're there. All right. If you guys can pick up on the tone of what the show is going to be, we're doing a melt bag today as we are doing every Monday throughout the off season. Just wanted to say, again, thank you so much for. all the questions. I'm not even going to solicit questions next week when we're doing this because we have so many that I haven't even been able to read a lot of good voicemails this week, more voicemails than we could even use. So we're going to be using a ton of them here over the next couple

shows. Sincerely appreciate you guys taking the time to send them in. It always means a lot. So again, I think it goes without saying very grateful how engaged all of you are with what we're trying to do here. And starts with the first question here. This is the first one I opened, by the way. John Truxas says, I was listening to the discussion about Miami's draft picks and the assembly of so many players with explosive speed made me think about parallels in other sports. The idea they're similar to the five-out offense

we're shooting all over the floor opens up so much extra space for each individual player to work in. What would the limitations be for an offense designed like that? Are there just not enough singularly exclusive skill players available to build a whole team on the idea? Or is it a situation where the defense can take away those short passes with big yak unless the quarterback running the offense has the full set of skills to keep them honest. Great question.

Love it. Great way to start. Yeah. And a cross sports reference. So right up my alley. I think when I think of the football version of five out offense, I get the idea of this speed being three point shooting. I think of a five out offense in football being like with the 49ers are doing, where

everybody has versatile skill sets as opposed to just speed. Interesting. Yeah. I sort of understand. that. That's kind of what I look at it as. Like, that they're like, to me, that's the equivalent. Because in a five out offensive basketball is everyone can shoot, everyone can dribble and drive. And everyone has that skill set. And then if you want to post it. Interchangeable, right? Interchangeable. Okay. That's where my brain went. So I think the alignment of skill sets,

that's a very good comparison where it's interchangeable skills sets. You could switch everything on defense. Like, that's exactly what the Niners are trying to do. But I think the idea of space as currency is why this is comparable. And we've heard so much over the last decade about the gravity that someone like Steph Curry has when he's playing. Tyree Kill has gravity. That's the change. And the other reason that I think this is particularly interesting in the context of the dolphins is the dolphins aren't a yak offense.

It's a misconception. People think that dolphins are this yak offense because the Niners are and there's the overlap with Michael Daniel. The dolphins were near the bottom of the league or way closer to the bottom than you think. There's a chucket off it. Yes. So the way that they create space is that they can work underneath. Right.

So they're creating so much space and the gravity is so pronounced that you're creating this ocean of space in which to throw the ball. It's not get the ball in the guy's hands and let him go. So we saw what the limits of this are, right? It's don't let them have the space. I think the Chargers were the team that starts to introduce where the limitations of this are. Everyone is so terrified to play man coverage against the dolphins because they didn't want to just be burned down. But if you don't let fast guys run fast, if you jam them at the line of street, skirmage, if you be physical with them, that's where you can start to do a little bit of damage.

And that's where the dolphins, the next stage of this, on some level, you have to match the physicality of the teams that you're playing against, either with the running game or with some receivers who can bring some physicality to what you're doing. And that's funny, because I was, my second part for this was talking about the downsides of going with speed or why doesn't everyone do this? Well, usually a lot of the fast guys are small. Yes. And usually, because if they're big and fast, you're probably not going to get your hands on

them. Like as far as drafting and acquiring them because there's only so many that can actually do that. There's one Jamar Chase every five years in the draft. Right. And yeah, lecture, there's going to be a Marvin Harrison. And like that there's not a lot of those guys walking around the earth. And usually if a guy just is winning with speed, they don't have skills. They don't have catching ability. They're just to take the top off guy. That's why Tyree Kiel and Jay and Waddle are so incredible because they actually are receivers. Tyree Kills rocked up. Tire Kiel is five, ten. But Tyrakeel was built in a way that very few players in NFL history are built and he has to stop and start. If you're a lot of teams, a lot of the guys that are speed guys in the NFL, they're take the

top off guys. They're wiry. They're straight line guys. They don't have the change of direction. They can throttle down. Yes. Or like even Jaylon Hyatt, right? It's just the guy that you're about how they're built. They got a little bit longer strides. And you're not worried about them throttling down in front of you. That's why the dolphins are so terrifying because they can throttle down in front of you. If you're playing over the top, they're going. to make you pay underneath. So I think there are limitations of it, but I think that we've seen that idea that you would explore with creating more space on offense expressed in what the dolphins are trying to be.

And a lot of offenses too. And this is what we talk about ability to pivot or have answers to. We talk about the chiefs. We talked about the bills. And this is where it's nice having that ability to pivot and have that size that you refer to, either through the run game or having a ball winner on the outside, a thumper or a ball winner because sometimes you need it. And that's what the best offenses do is just, oh, you're taking away this.

Well, we're going to go to this. And that is where some, it's not a limitation, but it's just like, you just have to have that in your back. Like we see in like the NBA in the playoffs, it's the benches get shorter where the teams are only playing six, seven guys sometimes. And they just go, oh, oh, they're taking away this. They're taking away the pick and roll. Well, we got to do this now. And that's where you see. It's just that ability to pivot.

Same thing with football. And sometimes you just need those different skill sets at different times based on what defenses are doing. I thought that was one of the coolest things. And it's so funny because it technically was the worst part of their season for the Dolphins in December was that that's second half of the Chargers game and then the Bills game the next week or a couple of weeks after where all of a sudden they just went to, they changed their offense to an under center run game. And that was really cool. Maybe appreciate Mike McDaniel even more to do that in real time. So that ability to pivot is something that's always needed. And sometimes that's a

limitation when you are built around 5-9 to 180 pounds speed guys. That can be that can happen. All right, Bella. Let's get to our first voice, Bell. Hey, Robert. And Nate, this is Brian from Alaska, hardcore Eagles fan. Wanted to let you guys know how much I love the show, as everyone says, because we have to, because you're the best football podcast in the country. But after that, obligatory statement, my question is a fun one for you guys. You do a lot of serious questions on this pod that are great and insightful.

But I was hoping you could take maybe the top five or eight fast food chains throughout the country and determine which teams or quarterbacks, your choice, are those five or eight fast food chains. So, for example, who would McDonald's be? Who would Burger King be? Chick-fil-A, Hardee's, In and out, so on and so forth. I think it would be a really fun exercise. Thanks for all you do.

Bye-bye. All right. So I struggled with this because I think that this is also dependent on how you view the fast food chains. Right. So the only, like, for me, the best fast food chain would be Patrick Mahomes, but like my opinion of the best fast food chain is different than what a lot of other people's are. So we are going to rank the fast food chains, your first, your favorite five. That's how we're going to answer this question. I like that. The only, the only answer I had that was in line with the question is the Patriots are McDonald's.

For me. Yeah. Because they're the most successful, but not for me. Like I, I, just just, just, just for me. I don't, I understand it. I respect the, the, the, the, the, the most. monolith that has been created there. Yeah. But I'm going to go to 10 different places before I'm going to choose McDonald's. In McDonald's, you know what you're getting. Like that's, that's kind of what it is. Is it good? Is it bad?

You know what you're getting. There have been two times in my life where I frequented McDonald's. The first was when I lived in Los Angeles, California. I lived at Crescent Heights and Fountain in West Hollywood. And there was a McDonald's essentially at a little strip mall at Crescent Heights and Fountain. So there were times where it was the only fast food that was open and within walking distance or whatever.

So every once in a while I would get McDonald's. The other time, is my first apartment in Chicago after I moved back was in like near North, River North, like Chicago and Clark. And the only thing that was open at like four o'clock in the morning was the 24-hour McDonald's that is at Chicago and State. So that I was right by my old department. It was open 24 hours.

And I was 27 years old. There were plenty of nights at that stretch of my life where I was walking home from old town. And I needed McDonald's at 5 o'clock in the morning. Those are the two options. It was when there was literally nothing else. And that is when I will tap into McDonald's. But let's hear your top five. Because this is a very big question.

It is. Number one for me, and part of it is the experience of not knowing what you're getting every time. Number one for me is Popeyes with a, and I love Popeyes. Is that my top five? I'm a huge fan of Popeyes. Good. I mean, even just talked about my Southern California wife, I've introduced her to Popeyes

and that hasn't been the best thing for her because she's just like she loves it. the biscuits, the spicy chicken sandwich was incredible when that came out. Anything spicy there, I love the mashed potatoes with gravy. Now I'm starving and want Popeye. So that's one for me. And two, and this is kind of a cop-out, but two for me is Chick-fil-A. I love Chick-fil-A, especially their breakfast. I love their chicken biscuits.

That's what makes their rating so high for me is the breakfast. It's very funny that I also have something out there solely because of the chicken biscuit, but it is not Chick-fil-A. Okay. Well, I might have that one, too. I love chicken. Like, so when I go to a fast food place, I defer to the chicken selection. So obviously, I'm going to like the chicken-based fast food joints.

But having said that, number three for me is In-N-N-Out. So love In-N-Out, love being that I have access to that in Las Vegas. It's been a blessing. My first exposure to In-N-N-N-Out was at the Rose Bowl, a tradition for the Thursday practice, is that they, or the equivalent to a Thursday practice because they put on New Year's Day, is that they bring an in-and-out truck. And the team gets everybody on the team gets two double-double burgers. So our, we got to Pridiam.

I'll just tell a quick story real quick because it's just reminded me. We have per diem every day. It's great. So we're in L.A. Because it's the cost of living for the bowl game. So when you're in L.A., that per diem is pretty nice. But the offense alignment, we'd have van access. The offensive alignment for Wisconsin, the freshman offense alignment were kind of,

they're the grunts of the team. You might use a different word, but it starts with a B. But it's like they're kind of, hey, you do this. You got that. It's kind of the initiation. The offense align runs a team, but when you're a freshman, you're at the lowest on the totem pole. So the senior offense lineman, the elder offense alim, would make them use their predium to go get everybody else in and out. I was the backup quarterback.

So I was the honorary offense alignment because I did a blitz pickup and all the inside run and all that. So I got the advantage of having in and out paid for me by the freshman offense line with a per diem. But anyways, that was our hazing at Wisconsin. Go get us in and out. Anyway, so that's three. Four is McDonald's. And I hate it, but I hate that this is in my top five, but it is. I like it a little more than.

you do, but every time I eat it, I feel bad afterwards. But those first couple nuggets and those first couple bunches of fries, I'm like, yes, this is so worth it. And then afterwards, I can't do it. I'm fine. I totally get it. I just, again, there's so many things. I totally get it before I had McDonald's. So, totally get it. I know it's not for everybody. It's so maybe I'm part of the Patriot way. I think, and then five, this is hard. So maybe I should drop McDonald's out because I actually do like these places better, but it would be Bojangles or Jack in the Box. And Jack in the Box only because those tiny tacos are freaking amazing. And I love those tiny tacos and the Corley Fries.

So that would be my- Curly fries are great. To me, it is the only redeemable part of- Have you had the tiny tacos? I have had the tiny tacos. I'm not a huge fan of Jack in the Box. I have, again, proximity. The old, the ringer offices were in Hollywood.

And the only thing that was opened at a certain point that I could get, or maybe not the only thing, but it was just like right there. There's a jack in the box on sunset right across the street, essentially, from the dark light. And it was right where the hotel was that they would put us up in. So there have been times where it was like late at night and I was there over the course the weekend that I would occasionally a jack in the box and I would not feel good about it. It's sad. But I've come around on it.

I've liked it more and more, especially the tiny tacos. That's it. We have some overlap here. Yay. So my number one with a bullet, not even close, not a conversation. It's Taco Bell, obviously. I knew that. And I knew that.

I've had this conversation a hundred times. I could do an entire treatise on why the Cheesy Gordita Crunch is the perfect fast food item. It is. It is like the way it was built. And I was going to make the Chief's Taco Bell because they're constantly innovating with the same ingredients. So that was my extension of this. And I truly believe that the Cheesy Gordita Crunch is the greatest fast food item ever created. It's chewy.

It's cheesy. It's got all the textures in it. It's exactly what you want late at night. It's like a one handheld thing. You can eat it in the car. It is the greatest fast food item ever created. And there's a bunch of other really good stuff on the Taco One menu.

Always. Can I pause you real quick because not pause the show. Kent Garrison, our other producer, has done great content for us. He just texted me because he's a Dallas Stars fan. They're playing the Golden Knights tonight, game one that we're recording this. He just texted me unprompted a picture of Popeyes because he said, it's game day. And he just showed me his food. He's not on this show where we're recording right now.

But the fact that he literally, I mean, I swear to God, 9.29 a.m. It's 935 right now. Like that, that, that's ridiculous. Sorry, I just had to bring that up on the show. Sorry to interrupt your, your Taco Bell praise. This is all what I want to eat. Like, if I'm stacking up, like, if I want fast food, these are the things I go to first. Taco Bell is number one.

The amount of times I've gotten Taco Bell with someone who's never seen me eat it before and like, I can't believe you're about to eat all that. It's like, yeah, I fucking am. Like, don't worry about it. I've seen me eat. I'm not shocked. Number two, number two on my list is Bojangles. Nice.

I love the Bojangles chicken biscuit. There are very few things in my life are as automatic as when I am in the American South and I am moving quickly. Like I just need fast breakfast when I'm on the move, training camp tour in the Charlotte airport, whatever. The spicy chicken biscuit from Bojangles and the Boer rounds and everything else. I love Bojangles. It is my favorite. So that's why I had that over Chick-fil-A. I love it, though.

Number three for me is Culver's. Oh, yeah, yeah. I love me at Culver's. I love the butter burgers at Culver's. I love the fact that you can get a side of cheese curds with your burger at Culver's. And then the ice cream options are just so good all the time. So a burger, a side of cheese curds and a cup of whatever the scoop of the day is at Colvers, that is like the perfect summer fast food meal to me.

I discovered Culver's too late at my Wisconsin experience. So I didn't get much exposure to it. So, but it's fantastic. That's a great call, though. Popeyes is number four for me. I just think Popeyes is awesome. It's awesome. The blackened ranch at Popeyes that you dip the chicken in is my, I might be my favorite sauce.

Chick-fil-A has really good sauces. I love the honey roasted barbecue. I love the Chick-fil-A sauce. But the Black and Ranch at Popeyes just does something to my soul. And the biscuit, like the biscuit plus the chicken. Sometimes I'll just open the biscuit, put the strips on the biscuit. I'm just a huge fan of Popeye's. Love the fries.

So big fan of that. All their sides are top-notch. All of them. So Popeyes is four. And I love Wendy's. I just, the combination of stuff at Wendy's, like a spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy's plus like,

like a son of baconator or just like a normal cheeseburger that they have. Like the combination of those two, I like the nuggets at Wendy's, like the spicy nuggets. Spicey nuggets are good. And I enjoy. So that's, those are my five.

Like I, but I feel very, very strongly about Taco Bell and Bojankles. Like those are two places that even as I, my food tastes. has become, you know, a little bit more elevated. Those two things, like if I pantheon of all-time foods for me, no matter how many two-star Michelin restaurants I've eaten at, like a cheesy gourdy to crunch and the pot or the Bojangles

chicken biscuit, they're still in that conversation for me. I totally get it. Bojangles is so good. That's why I had to include it. That's why it was a 5A, 5B. I don't have a lot of access to Bojangles right now. So that's what's always. Same.

I mean, either. That's when I travel. I know. That's what kills me. Vegas is nice because we get a lot of different regional flare, too. We get all of it. We get in and out. We get some other spots that are usually only regional.

So that's what's nice, but Bojangles, yeah. Bojangles is kind of hard. It's kind of hard to get access to, but great, great call. Love Bo Jails. All right. Let's get to our next voice mail here. Hi, Robert and Nate. Patrick from Houston here.

I'm calling with a question about preseason hype teams. Seems like this year's offseason darlings are the lions, understandably so. They ended last year really well. and, you know, seems we've had a pretty good offseason, the drafts being an exception. But every year it also seems like we have these upseason darlings that falter when the actual season happens. So I'm curious what to make of teams like the Lions going into the upcoming season. If you have any thoughts about kind of how to temper expectations, and if there's any, like, stats that we might be able to look at on these kind of preseason teams

that have a bunch of hype and how they do in the actual season. Love the show. Thanks a lot. Looking forward to the answer. Bye. It's a great question. Here's my initial read on this. It's hard to get actual numbers on it because it's hard to define what the preseason

hype team was. Right. You know, there was the year where the Browns were really exciting and that was just like a total miss with the Freddie Kitchens era. So I think that's some of it is that, okay, two different things. I think one thing that we do as a mistake is we ascribe a late season success as a predictor of what is going to happen into the next season. We do this for teams.

We do this for quarterbacks. It is not always the case because that's not how development of trajectory works. It's not always linear like that. So I think that's a mistake. One of the reasons I think the Lions are a little bit different than some of the other preseason hype teams that we often fall in love with is that a lot of that preseason hype is typically derived from star power and skill position players. The Lions hype is derived from the opposite of that.

They don't have any star power or skill position players. That's not why people are excited about them. So I think they're just a very different version of what this preseason darling sort of looks like. And that's why I think there's such an interesting entry into the history of these. No, it is. And also, for me, it's focusing. I think we all do. And I'm part of this way guilty of this sometimes, especially with my Mariners and Territory Wolves fandom, is you only focus on what could go right.

And as opposed to what could go wrong. What are the weaknesses that could go wrong? It's not everything is the disco stew meme. Like, everything, not everyone's going to just keep going up, up, up, up, up, up. Like, even a successful year for the Lions this year might include seven losses. Like, they might go 10 and 7, and I would say that's a good year for the lines. And I think that's what during the moment of the team of the hype is that in the middle of the season, it might not feel that way. Like it just, you know, the preseason and the postseason, yeah, oh, yeah, well, they actually had a good year.

But like, they might lose three in a row. We go, man, this is a failure of a year. So just saying that sometimes that human element is a big. big part of this. But they had a lot of hype last year of the Lions specifically, the hard knock stuff, the overall friskiness of the team, Dan Campbell. Dan Campbell was the favorite for coach of the year because probably a lot of that preseason hype.

That was they're going to be better than we expect them to be. This is they're playing the Chiefs in the first game of the season on national television. I know. That's an entirely different conversation. And I do think, again, they're a little bit different though. Because a couple other, all the examples I could think of that have been bad, right? the Chargers have been super hyped up over the last couple of years. Last year's Broncos had a 10.5 win over under before the season started.

The second highest total in the NFL after the bills and the bucks. There's Super Bowl odds. The Broncos last season, their Super Bowl odds were one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teams had better Super Bowl odds than the Broncos. That's it last year. They had better Super Bowl odds than the Bengals. They had better Super Bowl odds than the Eagles. The Broncos last year. And then going back to those Freddie Kitchens, Browns teams, the three through line things with that, we underrated the potential failure of the offensive play caller dynamic and how it would play into the success of the team.

Nathaniel Hackett last year with the Broncos, Freddie Kitchens with the Browns teams, and what the Joe Lombardi experience was like with the Chargers. That's an aspect of the Lions that you feel best about. Yep. So that, again, they're just a very different version than we're used to seeing with these teams who get a lot of publicity and a lot of excitement around them heading into a season. There are plenty of downsides, though. They don't find weapons, the offense stagnates, that the structure of it can't carry it to the same degree it did before. Jameson Williams doesn't click into place. I did mean a show this week talking about the pivot players and X factors on all the NFC teams as non-quarterbacks.

Jameson Williams was mine for the Lions for this exact reason. And who knows what's going to happen? with the secondary and the defense. In the front seven. They don't find another, they didn't find another pass rusher. They get hurt at corner and suddenly they get really thin there. So I think that it's similar like you're saying where we have to explore where the downsides are, but they do feel like a slightly different version of this kind of team for a couple

different reasons. Yeah, even like the dream team Eagles team, that's the year that Andy Reid moved his offensive line coach to defense coordinator. You know what I mean? So let's just say like, whoa, like, oh, it doesn't matter. We call all the put town, all the players. and that's, you know, we're talking about offense play caller, but even defensive play caller as well.

But yeah, for the Lions, I think everything you just laid out would be my quote unquote, this is what could go wrong. Do they have enough pass catchers to scare people? Do they have a front seven that could hold up for 60 plays a game? I think you're speaking of secondary depth as well. So those are just for that specific case. But I love that points you're making is that the usual downfalls, you know, the head coach gets guys to play hard for them.

That's one good thing. You know, that's another thing that sometimes is like, a guy like Freddy Kitchens, a couple of weeks in. Also, everyone's like, oh, this isn't the guy. We're out. You know, so you get that kind of human element apart. Players like them. Okay.

Then offense coordinator, great point. Offensive line is the one of the strengths of the team. So that's usually another downfall of this team. We always forget the lions when we're doing these teams. And the lions are not like that. The lion's best position group, arguably, is their offensive line. Right. So, no, all good points.

But it's, it's, I think for me, if you're just talking in general, general talking about teams that are hyped up teams, it is focusing on what could go wrong or what is new. or what is expected to be better? What if it does not exceed or go upwards? So that's what you just have to focus on overall when you talk about these teams. All right. Next question. This was great.

As I described it in our document, simple yet effective. Ethan Siegel says, I'm curious if you think from a team building and roster construction perspective, if there are any teams that stand out as good process but bad results or vice versa, bad process but good results. I like this one. It's a great question. It was. I actually had, I'm going to start with the bad process good results.

I think the 49ers might be the best one for it. 100% on my list. First thing that came to mind when I was talking about this or thinking about this. I mean, not much to lay out. The Trey Lance trade is just a good kind of like snapshot of everything. They traded four first round picks, essentially, the equivalent of four first round picks for a quarterback who doesn't play for them and a running back in the middle of last season. They've traded an amount of first round picks as has many starts as they've gotten out of them for first rounders for four starts. so far.

So that's, and then the CMC trade, which worked out great for them. Shereck McKinnon contract. McKinnon contract. Trading up for Tray Sermon. Like, the amount of, they have done a fantastic job building the defense. They've gotten so many guys who are trading nothing for Charles Amehahoo and getting

having him be a rotational piece for you, going to get Charverius Ward. They've done such a great job of building that side of the ball. They deserve so much credit. The offense is, what do you got for me, Kyle? They've in the skill position players, obviously. But I still think that there are so many different things that other teams would not be able to overcome. My exact line, I had my bullet point because I didn't need anything else. I just said, I wouldn't exactly be copying how the foreign Iers built their team.

But it works for them. So good for them. But I wouldn't be doing that. The Rams, by the way, also a bad process, good results team last year, two years ago. They, they, at least they got the ring out of it. And so it's like, now they can just go, whatever. Like, that's how, I mean, that's how I look at it. I still think McVeigh, she just rode off into the sunset.

But I would say the other one, and this is maybe because I can't help myself, is the Jaguars have had a little bit of nut process I would follow. Investing a ton of money into offball linebackers and draft capital and off ball linebackers overpaying for slot only receiver, taking a runoffback in the first round, Travis Etyn, who has been a dynamic player. Don't get me wrong, but still, let's be honest here. So not exactly what I would follow, but Doug Peterson and Trevor Lawrence have kind of washed a while that away. It's very funny you say that. That's a much better one than the one that I was going to say that's similar. This is the Bengals to an extent. The Bengals rebuild is driven by the fact that they got Joe Burrow in a year where they were the worst team in the NFL. And then they were so bad the following year that they got to pick Jamar Chase the following year.

The way they built the defense and how thoughtful they've been about those pieces has been excellent. I think that their front office has done a really good job over the last couple years. Their pro scouting should get a lot of like big thumbs. Absolutely a shit. Big two thumbs up. But the match that lit the fuse is just, we were really bad. And now Joe Burrow is our quarterback. So that's not the greatest process.

The process has been improved. All right. So the Niners and the bank, the Niners and a team that lucked into the number one pick when a franchise change and quarterback were available. those are the two types of teams I was thinking about. What about on the flip side? A good process, bad results. I'm going to be a caricature myself.

But the Colts, maybe not being, I would say the lack of aggression at quarterback. I mean, but they did still trade for stuff was maybe one thing I wouldn't say as good process, but I understood some arguments for it. But I think a lot of the other stuff trade back, trying to get a lot of bites at the apple as far as draft-wise. Even a trade for like DeForest Buckner, I actually like that because you got like a real needle mover and you had the cap space to do it. So I know. I've kind of been a Bowered Apologist and last year kind of got me off of the train and then they try now they draft

Anthony Richardson. I'm like, I'm back baby. So it's, I don't know, that's a team that maybe the results haven't always been there, but I understand their process. Maybe is the best way I can put it. Yeah, that would be the one that comes to mind at first. And then the other one I had was the Ravens do a lot of good things. And sometimes the results are just, are they this, are they the two same? Sacks same teams I had. So we had three. three of the four of these answers. But who else? I mean, I went through each team and I was kind of like, those are the ones I got.

Because usually good process leads to the good results. So with the Colts, and I think that this is a good exercise, is where have we been a little bit misguided about our appreciation for how the Colts do things? And I do think that I've kind of changed my tune about this a little bit over the last couple of years. I think that being a good general manager is about being proactive more than it's about anything else. It's about saying how many different avenues do I have to improve my team and how many of those avenues do I explore? Okay. Yeah. A traditionally valuable process and mindset to

have it as a general manager is I know less than I think I do in the draft. So let's trade down. Let's be patient. Let's not overrate my ability to scout these players because I probably don't know that much more than everyone else. The Colts have done that. Okay. Don't overspend in free agency on mediocre players. The Colts have also done that. But the other avenues that we're talking about, the Colts don't do as much of. They don't turn over every rock

when it comes to saying, like, let's make sure we're getting every single hole filled on the roster with low-cost moves. Okay, the Zedarius Smith, I think, by the way, I think Andrew Barry has done a very good job with this over the last couple years.

He's had, saying it again, I know I've already said it's like three straight pods. They're having a good off-season. They really are. The Browns have hit at least a lot of doubles. like this off season. I'm, yeah, I mean, I'm very curious to watch Browns. And where Andrew Barry comes from or the last stop you had before he was in Cleveland, was

Philadelphia. And this is exactly what the Eagles do all the time. The Eagle, it's, it's contract structures that are beneficial to them. It's low-cost trades that are beneficial to them. It's trades down in the draft that are useful to them. It just consistently, every single place. There's aggression, but it's well-targeted aggression. And I think that is the part of the process that the Colts are,

missing. I want to see a little bit more well-targeted aggression. And I think that the Anthony Richardson draft pick is a version of this. But I think that's my issue. With the Ravens, they've had that. The Ravens have picked their spots where they've been a little bit proactive to try to make some splash additions with Tal. Odell Beckham. Odell. But even like Marcus, Peters, Strait and signing Marcus Williams. And they've done, they've done a lot of this. But I think that they just haven't gotten needle movers in the draft. Again, same sort of issue. we talk about with the bills. And I think that they ran out a road with the version of the offense that they were running.

But on a team building level, and I think that the team building shortcomings with the Ravens are fueled by the mindset that they had an offense. We have this hyper-specific way that we play, and it has allowed us to de-emphasize the need for outside past catchers. And I think that that kind of ran them into a dead end. But I don't think that's necessarily bad team-building process. I think that's bad structural process for how we should build. our offense around our quarterback.

But I think, and how they added talents, I think there's a lot of good things going there for the Ravens. And that's, it's, they've set themselves up to never kind of like, the bottom doesn't really fall out for them because they've kind of like built up so many just other singles and stuff like that, other just minor moves. Even something like what the Eagles do, or you're talking about turning over every stone to find talent or accumulate talent, like the Jordan Milata through the international pathway program.

Like, that's another way that they got, they got creative. they probably got Jeff Stoutland's advice and just were, hey, let's take a chance on a seventh rounder. They got a left tackle who's a good left tackle in the seventh round. Like that's remarkable. And they did it by getting creative and finding a different avenue. So churning the bottom of the roster, finding cheap vets and trades, you know, that or teams are just trying to save cap space or, you know, the CJ Gardner Johnson for the Eagles last year. You know, just finding ways to patch those holes, finding guys on the cheap, James Bradbury on the cheap.

You know, I think just Hassan Reddick, you know, speaking, just all these Eagles, these minor moves, quote unquote, minor moves, they're not the splashiest things in the world. But if you just got a lot of pebbles going into water, it turns into a big splash. And you see what the Eagles do when you hit all these singles and doubles and they work out. But I think what the Ravens do, I understand.

They also try to find stuff through analytics and through other studies. They try to turn over those stones. So I just think that is just finding everything. You get so many weapons and so. much in a toolbox to build a team. Let's use all of it. Like, what's not just be focused on what the traditional ways are. And I think the teams were talking about, they do a pretty good job.

Mostly Eagles, Ravens, and like you mentioned the Browns a little bit now. They were trying to find different ways to build a team than just the traditional means. Here's some first and second round picks from the Ravens since 2015. Rashad Perriman, Max Williams, Kamalae Correa, Tyos Bowser, Hayden Hurst, Marquise Brown, J.K. Dobbins, Patrick Queen, Rashad Bateman, O'Dhafe, O'Way. And then that leads us to the 22 draft. Those are all first or second round picks.

I mean, there just aren't that many. I mean, Lamar, obviously, and then they got Mark Andrews in the third round, Marlon Humphrey, Ronnie Stanley. It's like they have a bad hit rate, but they don't have a great hit rate. For early picks, and you can argue with the process for those picks. You can argue against Patrick Queen is a high pick.

J.K. Dobbins is a high pick. Like, those aren't high value positions necessarily. and that's where they've run into some issues, but like, oh, it was a first round pick. You know, they've had guys, Rashad Bateman was a first round pick, premium positions early in the draft that just haven't developed into star level players.

The Ravens have a lot of good players. The Ravens don't have that many great players. And I think that is where the process has fallen short for them a little bit. The results have fallen short for them a little bit. And injuries, you know, Ronnie Stanley gets banged up. Yeah, totally. And everything. So you can't control that.

But no, I totally agree with you. It's just, even when you look at their defense, I'm always like, yeah, they came on last year, too, especially after the trade. a linebacker for for Roquan Smith. But it's just, yeah, you just don't feel like there's that guy, the game changer types. I think Calhampton can be that. And I think the move to the slot was inspired.

And I think that he's going to be a dynamic player from that position. But it's an entire Lindelbaum too at center. And again, non-premium spots. But those guys will be good players. And I think good players are they needle movers. And I think that's what they just need. They need more star tower, star talent, star power. All right.

Let's get your next voice, my borer. Gentlemen, how's it going? This is JR in Seattle. So we know that if the Cardinals played the Chiefs 100 times, that the Chiefs would probably win, like, honestly, 80% of the time. I don't know. It might be a little bit less, but they win the majority of the time. But what if you combine, like, the Cardinals and the Texans?

Would they beat the Chiefs, the Cardinals, the Texans, the Titans? Basically, what I'm asking is, how many of the bottom-tier teams would you have to combine until you've got a team that you could comfortably say would be 50-50 or 51-49 against the Chief. I thank you guys so much. This is a great question. I know. I didn't take two teams.

I had to take about three teams units and a 5-10 quarterback to kind of build my patchwork team, which is the Raiders weapons, the Titans defense, the Texans O line, plus Kyler. I think that's a lot of teams. I don't think you need that many teams. But I'm not like going like, like Raiders offense, Titans defense might be one. That would one that I think that could be a 50-50 shot.

But then it's just like, man, that Raiders are a line. I'm going to be a little worried. I'm out on that. Well, so Jimmy. I'm definitely out on that. So what do you have?

I have the Texans, the Cardinals, and the Titans. Okay. So I went three teams plus Kyle or QB. Oh, that's four teams, though. That's a lot of teams. It's three in a short man. He asked how many teams.

You use four teams. I'll use three. I'll use three and Tana Hill. So, Tana is a quarterback that I landed. Yeah. Yeah. And here's the reasoning for those three specifically.

Okay. Well, I started with the Texans and the Titans. That was just like where I started, right? Me too. And so the Titans, you get the whole defense. Yep. And that's very important. The Texans, you get some offensive line pieces.

You get Laramie Tunsell. You get Shaq Mason. You get Derek Stingley. You get Will Anderson. You get some young pieces on defense. And then the Cardinals, I needed the receivers. Because even if you combine the Texans and the Titans, you have no pass catchers. You have no firepower to kind of go at those teams.

So that's why I think I needed the Cardinals in this. And then it's, do you want Tanna Hill or Kyler? Yeah. I like that. And I picked Tannenhill. I like that. What's the Raiders? Raiders are at six and a half, so they're one of the lesser teams.

So I want the Raiders weapons. That's just what, because I thought that was just easy to just go, okay. That's definitely a good way to do it. But I just, I picked three teams as a whole. Yeah. And then you get Skoranski on that offensive line. So your offensive line is Tunsel, Skoronski, Paris Johnson, Shaq Mason, that's, Kenyon Green.

So like, you could do a lot of damage with that. And then we'll see, one of those guys has to play center. We'll figure it out. And then the Cardinals honestly might have the. best two receivers of those two teams with Hopkins and Marquis Brown. And then Trelon Burks can be your number three receiver, which feels a little bit better. Right. And then honestly, from those three teams, it's mostly the Titans defense.

Yeah. Oh, no. It's maybe you add Derek Stingley is like one of the other outside corners. And again, you drop Will Anderson in there. DeNico Autry becomes like an inside player in this conversation. But those are the three teams that I went with. But it took those three teams. It took three.

It wasn't two. I think that's the moral of the story. It wasn't two of them. It was three for both of us in some way, shape, or four. So that, I know, because at first said, too, I was like, Titans defense. Okay, okay. All right. Now, what offense?

And I'm looking at the Texans' offense. Not quite. You know, Raiders offense? Not quite. You know, Titans' offense, no. So that was the harder part was patching together that offense. I love, this is a fun exercise. This is great.

I love being able to just look at those couple teams and try to patch it together. Next one here. Phil Goad says, Hey, Robert Nate, loving the show, especially during the offseason, when you could do some more nuanced dives rather than being in the heat of the moment. Artist's dad that made me think about the value of a number one quarterback, especially with teams already talking about teams like Arizona waiting for Caleb Williams next year. In the common draft era, only four number one overall quarterbacks have won a Super Bowl

with the team that drafted them. Terry Bradshaw, who did a completely different league, Troy Aikman, who won his three, the dawn of free agency, Drew Bledso, who wasn't even starting, both still on the Patriots roster, and Peyton Manning, who won the same Super Bowl record in four Csies. seasons in Denver as he did in 15 with the Colts. Is there anything to be learned from this, or is the draft such a crapshoot that these

teams just get luckier than everyone else? Thanks for the content getting me through the week. What do you think about this? Okay. Other thing is that little piece of trivia, it always leaves out because it's the technicality, Eli and John Elway, because they were traded. So that's the other thing with them. But I think just overall, my longer answer in the outlook at specific cases, but it's

just, I think what the star quarterback is, is it gives you a chance. It gives you a chance to find the. hardest position to find in sports. And it's any given Sunday, anything can happen always, but at least having the star quarterback, the chance at the chance that, whew, we check that box at least. So that's what it's about. It's getting to the dance. And then it's a crapshoot.

NFL is a crapshoot overall. But having a top tier quarterback is the best thing you can have. So that's what that's what it's doing. But if you look at like number of quarterbacks, even I always try to look at like kind of modern NFL since 2002 when it went to eight divisions. That's kind of just how my brain works. And, you know, Burrow, it's gone to the Super Bowl. a UFC championship games. Cam Newton went to the Super Bowl, one MVP, golf went to the Super Bowl

with his same team. Stafford won with the Rams, so that's kind of, eh, so it's not with the original team. Carson Palmer had a lot of success with the Bengals until it kind of got messy, and then luck with the Colts. They were winning 10, 12 games. You know, that division, the battle those injuries and the lack of team help, then it didn't help them out, of course, but generally it's going to work out where these guys are going to hit, and when they do hit, it really helps your team. You know, the ones that have kind of quote unquote missed, maybe or haven't had the team success or Baker, Kyler, James, you know, Sam Bradford as well, Alex Smith kind of, you know, go with that.

But even Kyler's had some success, you know, and like him specifically, and also with the team, Baker, they had a quick run and Baker became Baker. And then James is James is James. But it's, I think that's what it is when you're taking these guys to see. Yeah, you might not win the grand prize, but you're giving yourself a chance because it's the hardest position to find. We have a lot of evidence that it's easier to find top quarterbacks to the top of the draft. It's just that's where you're going to find. find them.

Even if the hit rate isn't fantastic, it still is easier to find them at the top of the draft. Yes. I think the argument against this is that there have been times Alex Smith being the perfect example. The Niners were a fucking disaster. Terrible. When Alex Smith was drafted, they were a disaster.

Like for the first three, four years of his career, they fielded the worst offenses in football. It was an absolute nightmare. His rookie years, like, one of the worst years in, like, quarterback history. street. If you look back at the guys that have been bad for a certain number of seasons and eventually got good, it is a very small list. Alex Smith is the best example of that. He went from the terrible situation he had early in his career to getting to John, to Jim Harbaugh and then to Andy Reed. It's a study in how much situation matters. And that is what I think is

changing. I think that teams are recognizing that you can't thrust these guys into horrendous situations, right? Like the Carolina goes from nine to one, so they already have more pieces than a team typically picking number one overall, but the offensive line coaches there, the offensive line coaches intact, they went out and got a couple past catchers. They have a decent play caller and Frank Gregg. It's the show we did about what you need in place to be a successful young quarterback. I think teams are more in tune with what that looks like. I think the quarterbacks are cheaper than they have ever been at the top of the draft

within the new CBA. So I think it allows you flexibility to build around those guys. What was Sam Bradford making when he was drafted? I mean, it was an insane amount of money. It's a record. set the record, I think. I think that has changed. And I think that I believe this.

Coaches and front office people are better at their jobs than they used to be. Yes. They're just better at their jobs. Without a doubt, they are. Without a doubt. The flexibility, the open-mindedness, the mindset of these guys has shifted. So I think that you're going to have more quarterbacks that are drafted number one overall put in circumstances that are going to allow them to succeed.

I just believe that because I think that the organizations are, the people running them have just gotten a little bit smarter even if they were bad enough to get the number one pick, right? Like the cold, like the bears with Ryan Poles. I think that Ryan Poles knows what he's doing. Yeah. I think that he has a sense of like the right ways to go about building this team. They were just so bad in year one that they happened to have the number one overall pick.

Right. So, and I, that's, I believe all of that stuff. And I also think, like you said, just because Andrew Luck never won a Super Bowl, Andrew Luck was the right pick and a very good pick for the Indianapolis Colts. He made them relevant immediately. Immediately. They were 12 minutes. They were 12 for his rookie year.

Joe Burrow has transformed the Cincinnati Bengals. Trevor Lawrence, being in Jacksonville, it makes all of the difference. And there's only the best way to get that type of guy is to have the number one pick in the draft. That's just how it is. Mm-hmm. It absolutely is. I know we're talking about the number one pick. But even last year's draft, and you had a great kind of talk, we were talking to this out,

and Ritter and Malik Willis went to third, Sam, Sam Howl won the fifth, Matt Corral went in third. And it was, why aren't these guys second round quarterbacks? And it's like, because coaches even got smart and personnel members have gotten smart about, well, that still puts pressure on the quarterback. Because to fans, that's still a high pick for a quarterback. That's still the Drew Locke situation, the Brock Oswalders of the world, where it's like, oh, well, we got to play this young guy. He's just a second round pick.

We got to play. Second round picks or starters. Yeah. And added position. And so I think a lot of those, the teams that go, well, let's just wait around and take them into third. And that kind of just changes perception of these guys. So I think that's just an overall, again, snapshot that these coaches and personnel members have gone. They're a little bit more patient.

They're a little more understanding of situations, understanding like all of that stuff. Like they just have more, you said open mind and I think that's a great phrase for it. But just understanding of how the week actually operates as. opposed to maybe some old adages. They're updating the adages and updating how the modern NFL lens through the modern NFL lens. And I think it's league wide. Like I can count on my hand the ones that I would be like, I don't know what they're doing. And those guys are trying to get weaned out, it seems like, where there's a lot more of these patient guys understanding draft capital.

There's different systems. Now everyone are using the Jimmy Johnson trade chart. Everyone's changing their trade charts. Just a lot of small things like that where it is a lot more just flexibility and creativity from these guys, which I think is awesome. I think there are a lot of teams that are just being driven by an organizational curiosity that didn't exist in previous iterations of the NFL. And I think it's going to force us to update our long-held beliefs about certain stuff. You know, the one I keep coming back to and comes up in every conversation I have with personnel people or coaches or whoever recently and we're just like bullshitting is quarterback accuracy and like the Anthony Richardson thing. And just how is it really a skill that is just crystallized when you're a young player?

Is it more valuable than we think? Can you get better at it? Can you improve in ways that we didn't previously anticipate? What is the most important skill set that you can have as a quarterback coming into the NFL? All of these things, I think, the dialogue about them, if you go back 10 years, fuck, if you go back five years, if you go back to when Baker was coming out, it's like, well, he's the most accurate quarterback in the league. So that's what is going to matter the most because he's the most accurate. That's the skill that translates.

That's the one that doesn't change. So I think that it's really important for us to keep updating. this stuff because I also think the teams are updating it more often than they might have been in years past because of the data and because of who's in charge and all of those different factors. There's so much information out there, even just so you can scour football Twitter and I learn things, especially on the defensive side all the time, even just through Twitter. That's what I'm talking about. That's just Twitter.

That's not conversations. That's not clinics. That's not these guys' personal dialogues that they have with each other. I also think that kind of, you know, coaches are still paranoid to a sense, but I do think they're willing to share more information and there's more stuff out there. And these guys are smarter about it using technology and all that and using the data that they're presented. And I think that's why things happen so quickly now. And I think these guys are so much, they're way more better at using the information and be able to take advantage of it than like you said, even five

years ago. I mean, you should see how many old coaches that couldn't even operate a computer. And now you got, I wish I was joking. But no, correct. So my dad. My, okay, quick, this all end with this. Quick little side story about my dad and what helped him out when he first started coaching. He taught himself how to use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint when I was learning it in second grade computer class. He took my notes and taught himself. That's how he learned Excel and Microsoft Word was using a second grade computer class. But in 1996, that was like, holy shit.

I don't know how to use Excel. It's 2023. You can use computers because he got lucky. He worked under Brian Billick. who is really on the forefront of technology and all that. So he got lucky that Brian Bill was like, hey, this isn't going away. Like technology is not going to get easier. Like, there's going to be more of it.

It's like, you're going to have to know this stuff. So my dad took that to heart. But more of these coaches, a lot of them grew up as quality control coaches using this technology. They're only 30s and early 40s. They use this stuff. They're Gen X and millennials and zoomers now. So I think that's a part of it. And I really like that.

I think it's been a lot more fun to cover the league where it's not just like, oh, look at this idiot. Look at this idiot. And this guy's talking about grit and a hard, hard nose stuff, even though I talk about that stuff sometimes too. But I think that I love it. It does. But I think it's about being open to other things. Creativity. Also have value.

Yeah. The accuracy stuff is interesting. I've always thought you only can bump it once one point on the scale. So you could go from above average to good or average to above average. And usually that to me, accuracy ties in not really mechanics throwing wise. I think you throw how you throw, but footwork and mental side. And I think people are learning. that too. So that's been fascinating to me is looking at mechanic stuff and what actually

matters because I think people think of a throwing motion like, oh, just throwing it with your arm. No one's seeing this right now, but I'm just talking about, but throwing it right there. But I think it's more tied to your footwork and your mental side. And I think people understand that as well. Guess what? I think that we're going to have a large conversation about that at some point this summer. Okay. That is all that we have for today. As always, guys, sincerely appreciate you sending in the questions. Again, we'll be doing the mailbags every week. until the end of the offseason, including when I'm on my honeymoon.

We may be recording a couple of these early. Don't worry about it. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to send it in. Please remember to check out the football GM on Thursdays. Just one more note. I just wanted to keep reminding people about that. And if you could, this off season, things are a little bit quieter. Subscribe to the YouTube channel.

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