The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Monday Mailbag: The dustbin of history, coaches getting over the hump, and the idea of identity

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

We've got ourselves another loaded mailbag episode of The Athletic Football Show. Among the questions answered by Robert Mays, Dave Helman and Derrik Klassen: Which potentially great teams from previous seasons have been forgotten due to nothing more than bad luck? How do coaches break through after spending six-plus years with one team? Can we really define team identity? And more!Host: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerSenior Producer: Katy DuffySocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @RobertMaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @DaveHelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. It's another mailbag Monday here in the offseason. Sincerely appreciate, as always, everyone who sent in their questions, whether it be, be it the Discord, whether it is to our email address, athletic football show at gmail.com, if you want to keep sending in those questions, we're going to be doing these pretty much every single week other than draft Monday. It's really the only time over the course of the off season.

We won't be doing it. So if you got them, just keep sending them in because we're still going to check them. Today, it's me, Dave Helman, Derek Klasson, and our producer, Michael Beller, reading the questions. So let's get to it right now. It's another mailbag Monday here on the athletic football show. We got the whole crew ready to roll today. So Michael Beller is back reading us the questions. It's not wasting any time, I'll just get into it.

All right, let's get into it with a question that was almost in last week's mailbag. And was such a good one. We brought it back for this week. Ross Schiller. where Ross says, the Lions have suffered some terrible injury luck, particularly on the defensive side of the ball over the last two seasons, causing them to fall short of their potential. Obviously, the Lions aren't alone in this. I feel like luck plays a bigger role in season-long outcomes than is often discussed, and teams on the wrong side of that luck are frequently

forgotten about. I imagine the number of coaching and playing careers that have been altered because a team was just unlucky. With that in mind, what is the best team we never talk about because they got unlucky injuries retirement refereeing decisions whatever it might be plenty of bad luck to choose from what teams might have been great but are now forgotten because of their bad luck robert take us away here i have two answers to this on the injury front the nineers multiple different times over the last like seven or so years just to have had entire seasons wiped out and then moments wiped out i was going back through the injuries for the 2029ers the 2019 nineers were like two plays away from winning the Super Bowl. It's an incredible football team.

In 2020, they come back. Joey Bosa gets hurt in the third game of the season. D. Ford got hurt in the second game of the season. George Kittle missed like 10 games that year. Debo got hurt in the, was out like for the first month and then for most of the second half of the season. Jimmy Groplo missed half of that season. Like they were just decimated. If you look at it like we just the games lost, salary loss to injuries, that 20-29ers team is up there. And then there was a game where they were down to like their fifth quarterback in the NFC championship game.

Like that everything about the way we talk about the Niners could be different based on some injury stuff. And the other one I'll throw out. It's not injury base, but just like sheer luck of the draw. The idea that the New Orleans Saints from like 2017 through 2020 never won anything because of the Nikkel Roby Coleman pass interference, the Minneapolis miracle, like that's a team that just is just going to be completely lost to history because of some of the weird shit that happened to them.

It's funny you say, and you're right to point out multiple instances for the Saints, because I have the 2018 no call on mine because it's just so infamous. I mean, Saints fans still dress up like blind referees for holidays to this day. But you're so right. Like the Minneapolis Miracles right there as well. Like they just had, it's just a string of catastrophic outcomes in the playoffs for a few years there that, you know, at some point, like the Peyton Breeze Saints should have appeared in at least two Super Bowls.

And it's mainly catastrophically bad luck or bad outcomes that prevented it from happening. And the Breeze like Saints years once, I mean, how long did they go before that where it was like, God, they're the best offense in the league and then they're seven to nine because they have the worst defense. And they'd finally figured it out and Breeze was playing as efficient as ever. And then it was just like kind of one thing or the other that they couldn't get it over the hump. those are such interesting teams we're going to talk about this a little bit later just the how long tenured coaches

like what needs to change for you to kind of come back and I guess and the one of the things we're going to hit is like the idea of needing a transformational moment to be different in the back half of like a 15 year tenure than you were in the front half and I guess for the Saints it kind of was the 2017 draft right

like that's what allowed them to be a different sort of team even if the quarterback the coach even like offensive system, those were the same. And those are typically the transformational things that breathe life into a coach's tenure, like 10 years into his time there. I don't think there's any maybe about it. Like that was a transformational draft class. And they were, they were kind of listless like, yeah, three straight losing seasons in a row.

And it just kind of felt like the classic case of playing out the string and you've got your spread too thin because you've got money committed places. and then you have a draft class like that and it can change everything. Derek, what was yours? I mean, 2015 alone actually had a couple. That was the year that the Dalton and the Bengals were like insane. And then obviously he gets hurt. That's right.

And that same year was, we're going to talk about them a number of times in the show, or at least I am, the 2015 Cardinals were only by point differential that year. They were only 16 points worse than the Panthers that year. And they played a much tougher schedule. That Cardinals team was sick. And then Parcum Palmer gets that index finger injury never really is able to play down the stretch and they end up losing and they kind of fizzle out. But that team was incredible. One of the more disappointing live games I've ever been to when it came to my expectations for what I wanted the game to be based on who the teams were and what the game ended up being was the 2015 NFC championship game.

Because that Cardinals team and that Panthers team all year, they were such weird, great teams. like kind of out of nowhere. There were so many interesting kind of strange components to them, but they were fantastically entertaining the entire year. And then that game was a bloodbath. It was just over immediately. And I was like, that sucks.

Like I would have loved for this to have been a real game between these two teams that were awesome all season. I hadn't thought about that, but that's such a great point. I feel like those, that Bruce Ariens, Cardinals era never really got to have its crowning moment. What were yours, Dave? This is, I, I love this question so much and I just, I don't know, it's right in my wheelhouse to think about missed opportunities like this. Nobody outside of New

England is going to feel bad for them. The 2008 Patriots got seven and a half minutes of Tom Brady and still managed to go 11 and 5. Like, that's crazy. What missed opportunities were there? They realized all of the opportunities eventually. I guess that group of players never really. year could have done it again. Yeah. That team did not get to do it. Like they didn't even make the playoffs. And like to go 11 and 5 without Tom Brady is wild.

And I mean, that was the year the Kerry Collins Titans had the one seat in the AFC. Like they absolutely could have gotten back to the Super Bowl with a healthy Tom Brady. Even that Patriots era, that Patriots era, those guys never won championships because there was a 10-year gap between 2004 and 2014. So like that makeup of those Patriots teams, They never won a Super Bowl.

I always think about this. It's Logan Menkens. Logan Menkins is the guy who like 10 years on the Patriots never won a Super Bowl. It's funny that like that is kind of the most productive stretch of Brady's career as an individual. And that's the stretch where like they never did it. It's just really funny. It worked out that way. It pains me.

Like I'm I didn't grow up a Vikings fan. I didn't have any like attachment to Randy Moss. But like it hurts me that Randy Moss never got his ring. And so like that matters to Randy Moss that he only got Tom Brady for seven minutes of that season. I also think people forget that in 2016, Derek Carr finished third in the MVP voting and the Raiders could have been the two seed in the AFC. Like he breaks his leg on, I think, Christmas Eve. And all they have to do is beat an OK Denver team in week 17. And the Raiders get the two seat in the AFC.

And you got like like the playoffs are going through the black hole. whole. Like how cool would that have been? And instead... The 2015 Bengals and the 2016 Raiders are very similar in this way, where it felt like they had really caught lightning in a bottle. And because of the quarterback injuries late in the season, we don't get to see it through. It's so sad that that Raiders team wrapped up its year with Connor Cook losing to the Brock Osweiler Texans. Just like the most... That was a nasty playoff game. The most nothing playoff game. Yeah. All right, Bell. What's the next?

one. Okay, Tommy Evans Barton asks us, asks you guys so often you hear quarterbacks talked about as whether or not they can make full field progressions, one to two to three to four, good, or if there are a two read and then scramble type of quarterback, bad. However, since Ben Zolak wrote an article in 2022 about how scrambling generates better EPA per play than all but one or two quarterbacks dropbacks, I've wondered if perhaps a one to two read QB with wheels, a la Malik Willis, might actually be a good thing. As in, how? often is the third or fourth read on a given play, considering the increased chance of taking a sack for those longer dropbacks, generating a good play rather than just scrambling before getting

there? Derek, take this one first. I think this one has a lot of different ways that you can untangle it. So it's like, yes, the numbers bear out that a scramble is more valuable than a pass. I think that there are a couple of complicating factors, though. One of them is that it's like, it's kind of a survivor bias thing, where it's like the plays that count as scrambles are the ones where they don't get sacked. But there are plenty of those guys who are running around and getting sacked. And so I think that you have kind of that element of it. I also think that we've seen plenty of these quarterbacks who are very good scramblers. Maybe these one or two read guys like Daniel Jones's stretch with the Giants, I think was like this. Colin Kaepernick, I think was like this. There

are like a handful of guys that fit into this. And then at some point, it fizzles out because to me, what separates the best quarterbacks from everybody else is not that they are really good at one or two things. It's that eventually you become pretty good at everything and you force the defense to respect every level of the field, every type of concept, every part of the pocket, inside the pocket, outside the pocket, all of that stuff. And if you are limited to only being like one, two, done, I'm scrambling, I think that that hurts you a little bit. And the last thing that I would say, the best scrambling quarterbacks in the league right now, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, even Brock Purdy, I would say to this extent,

What makes their scrambling valuable is that they do exhaust all of their options before they scramble. It's not one to two and go most of the time. It's one, two, three, four, okay, now I'm going to go. And that's what makes it valuable is that they are stressing the defense in every possible way. I think the other thing that I think of when thinking about this question is, like, what is the quarterback actually see? Like, I was thinking about this just abstractly. And I was like, you know, if you could promise me that the quarterback confidently was looking through his first two reads and going after that, I'd be interested to see how well that would work. But beat late.

And it's something that we can't always evaluate, at least not without a lot of tape study. But typically when a guy is pulling it down and scrambling on a quickly like that on a regular basis, it's because he's not seeing it well or he's not confident or he doesn't trust his protection or he's getting. confused by what the defense is presenting in coverage. And so I think a lot of times a guy bailing early is a guy that's not confident in what he's seeing. And so I think if you're bailing that quickly most of the time, are you trusting what you're seeing? Are you seeing things as well as you need to? And if you aren't, are you leaving meat on the bone by scrambling on a play that could have worked? That's what I think of. this is such an interesting question and like push-pull because I do think that there is some validity to this just in the sense of the guys I think of and Purdy's kind of a weird one because he will scramble but I also think of Purdy is somebody that does just click through his options and his progression very often and get to deeper options within the play and so but those guys I actually think the part of this question that's most incorrect and I think needs context

The guys who play like that aren't the guys who get sacked very often. Those are the guys who don't get sacked very often. Like, Stafford and Purdy are the two guys I would go to that are getting to the backside of a lot of these plays. They have two of the lowest sack rates in the league. Most of the guys who are scramblers are the guys who are going to get sacked more often. And if you look at the numbers, the scrambles do offset the sacks. Like if you look at Drake May, if you look at Caleb Williams, even if they're getting sacked, and Caleb was kind of an oddity last year.

but a guy like Drake May, he's getting sacked more, but the scrambles, if you look at a total EPA combined between scrambles and sacks, that number is higher in a positive way for Drake May than it is for a guy like Matthew Stafford. And so in an ideal world, I do think you want somebody that can scramble a little bit. The Mahomes thing is interesting

because I've never really thought of Mahomes as like a one, two, three, four guy. He does so much work pre-snap and understands how to get through like those first two options so quickly and then scramble that he's just very rarely putting himself in harm's way. Like, I actually think that might be the right answer, where these guys who are so good pre-snap understand where they want to go. And as soon as they know that those are options are dead very quick in the play, they're

often taking off or this is actually the best answer. They're creators even beyond the scrambling. Like, guys that know exactly how quickly they need to get to creation mode and they get their for the right reasons, those are still the highest upside quarterbacks, even more so than the guys who are going to be the one, two, three, four guys. I think it gets down to a level of when, how creative are you and are you creating in the right moments when you actually need to be doing it? That's a good point because that goes to what Dave said of like, what are you actually seeing on one and two? You know what I mean? Which is, I think a really good point. Whereas,

yeah, I think we all trust that Mahomes gets there. I think probably the best like, median outcome for the type of player we're potentially talking about here is like I think Bo Nicks probably where like I don't imagine him as like some super processor the way that like Mahomes or whatever is but he generally is kind of like one to two if I don't like it I'm going to bail outside of the pocket and like that can be viable I think we still have questions about like what does that actually look like long term if he doesn't build the rest of his profile out a little bit more another point that I wanted to make and it's a very it's like a cliche kind of point but I think the longer you go and the deeper you get in like if you're good enough to make a run through the postseason,

it's a good bet you'll run into a defense that would be happy to let you scramble if that's what you want to do. Like if you don't want to hang in the pocket and get creative and wait for something to come open. You know, like I mean, Bo Nix is a great example. If the, um, which by the way, speaking of shit luck, we're going to think back in a decade on the 2025. That's a good one. Yeah. But like if the Broncos had gotten to the Super Bowl, I would have loved to have seen Bo Nix go against a defense like that.

I mean, Bo Nix is a very dangerous quarterback for that reason. I think the Seahawks, I think they probably would have been happy to let him scramble in a lot of those sorts of situations because they're talented enough and fast enough to deal with it. And so I think to the point of the question, I think you could probably get pretty far doing it that way if your quarterback was good enough. But eventually I think you would run.

run into a defense that would say, absolutely, by all means do that. And we will just, we will keep you from breaking our backs. I think Bo Nix is such a perfect line to draw here. Because Bo Nix is absolutely a guy who is a one, two, scramble guy. And the scrambles are very positive plays. But Bo Nix is not a creative player. Right. And so I think that's where the line gets drawn, where I think just being that one to two

to scramble guy, that has inherently way less. upside than somebody who is a one to two either scramble or start to create a play that's not there because that's not what Bo Nix is. He is exactly as described in the question. And I think that has limitations that some of the other more creative scrambling quarterbacks aren't necessarily reined in by. What's next one, Bauer? Max Docherty's got the next one.

He says this season, I've seen a lot of discussion on social media about Super Bowl windows for head coaches since 1977. only two head coaches, Bill Cower and Andy Reid, have won their first Super Bowl in their sixth season or later with that team. As a Vikings fan, seeing the pressure mount on Kevin O'Connell, whom I believe is still a top-8 coach in the league, I'm worried impatience will kill the Vikings' best chance for success long-term. With the firing of Sean McDermott this offseason, who had much more playoff success than KOC has had, is it impatience on the owner's part or something more significant that leads to competent, long-tenured coaches never getting over the hump? To play off what KOC said, are organizations failing these coaches?

And how long does Kyle Shannon have before he has to win a Super Bowl? Dave, you're up first on this one. I love this question a lot. Incredible question. I, it's, it's tough to answer. It was tough for me to come up with a concrete answer to this question because I think it depends so heavily on intrepersonal relationships and dynamics within a building to which we'll just never be completely privy to. You know, like thinking back to this year, Max brought up Sean McDermott. I mean, Terry Pagula, if you listen to him, said he felt compelled to make that decision based on the reaction in the Bill's locker room after they lost to the Broncos.

And it was it was his breaking point. Would that be the case for every owner in the league or even like a majority of owners in the league? Like would the breaking point for a different owner have been different than it was for Terry Bagula? Maybe a different owner would have fired John McDermott two or three years ago because of a different player. off failure. So it's tough to know 100%. I also, I think about ironically, a guy who did get over the hump, Doug Peterson got fired not long after winning a Super Bowl in Philadelphia. And if you try to parse through the tea leaves there, it was a matter of like improving after a bad season and how to freshen up the coaching staff. And it sounded like Doug Peterson didn't really want to do

that, didn't really want to bring in new blood. And so that that was it for Jeff Lurie and Howie Roseman like, all right, then you're out. How many ownerships would have done that? Or would a different coach been more willing to be like, you know what? I care more about my job security than anything else. Let's do whatever you say. And maybe Doug Peterson would still be the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. So it's, it's hard to come to a concrete answer about something that depends so heavily on relationships. I'm starting to sense a theme for this show, but I do think a lot of it is luck.

and I want to get into more of that, but I want to give y'all a chance to weigh in before I do that. I would say, like, the relationships and the power dynamics are pretty important because, like, let's take the bills and then also the Ravens, both hired their head coach because I think they're getting to a stage where the quarterback is obviously the most important guy in the building, and they're thinking, okay, if we're going to try to give this one last run in the last five years, how can we change things up?

You don't change the quarterback. The most important guy in the building, you keep him there. And so they change the head coach. the Niners are a fascinating discussion on the other end where it's like Brock Purdy's a good quarterback the most important man in the building is obviously Kyle Shanahan so you keep him there and you're probably a little bit more willing to be flexible at quarterback if you need to I do think the Kevin O'Connell one is like specifically I think is very interesting because if you look at it like beat for beat it is very similar to

the Andy Reid chief's thing where it's like we get this like quality like the 12th best starter in the league we kind of run out the string for a little bit we end up wanting to move on from him. We have this pick where we take a quarterback. And I think they did they, didn't they both go exactly? It was 10th. Yeah, it was exactly. And it's supposed to be this idea of like, okay, they end up sitting for a year. They're going to take over. Obviously with the Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes becomes the best quarterback of a generation. And J.J. McCarthy is immediately moved on from. So I think like that to me is not like a, are the owners doing anything different or like all that stuff. But I think at the end of the day, whether right or wrong, whether fair or not,

the buck is going to stop at the head coach. And when you, swing and miss on a quarterback that badly, yeah, there's going to be more pressure on you than, then, you know, obviously what the Chiefs looked into with Mooms. It's funny that you would bring up Reed there because Reed is also an example of the other type of coach we're talking about where he was as successful as you can be in Philadelphia without winning a Super Bowl, like very 49ers-esque where you lose a ton of NFC title games, you lose a Super Bowl by one possession. And finally, it gets to a point where the Eagles bottom out and it's like, all right, maybe it's time for a change.

But Andy Reid was that guy in Philadelphia for so long before his Kansas City trajectory. But anyway, I digress. Go ahead, Robert. It's such a good question. And it really made me start thinking about it because the first place my mind goes is, ah, it's all just chance, right? But then you look at the history of it. The fact that it's 1997.

That's like the whole NFL, like actual history of the league. And so it's like, okay. if there's something to this, what is it? And when I started really thinking about it, six years is, to me, a noteworthy amount of time. Because I kind of do think that six years is like the lifespan of a team. That is kind of like the lifespan of one era of a team. So for COC, this year, 20207th will be KOC,

2027 will be KOC's sixth season. Okay. By the time you get to 2027, Kyler Murray at that point hopefully will be in his second year as a starter for you but then Jason Jefferson will be 28 Brian O'Neill will be like 32 and a free agent Christian Derisol will be 28 like that version of the Vikings will kind of be like winding down at that point and so if you haven't done it with that version are you going to do it and I look at other like six year chunks of teams and I think at the end of those five to six year chunks

you need something that completely reshapes what you were in order to change the trajectory. Mahomes going to Kansas City is what changes that trajectory. It's like a transformative thing from Alex Smith. Stafford going to the Rams is a transformative thing from Jared Gough. For Shanahan, it's McCaffrey and Brock Purdy. By the time Brock Purdy and McCaffrey got there, that version of the Niners with Jimmy, they were playing out the string. Like that thing was over, but you re-inject it with something new.

The Ravens did the exact same thing. You win the Super Bowl in 2012. You get Lamar in 2018. So that's like a six-year chunk. Now it's been six years of Lamar Jackson as a starter. It's time to refresh. And with the bills, I kind of think it's the same thing. Like, I think they probably went two years longer than normal.

But 2021 was the bill's best chance, right? And so by the time you get to like 2022, that's six seasons of McDermott. And it's like, all right. at that point you're kind of still just you're just tinkering with little things and i think tinkering with those little things it's harder to get over the top than we probably make it out to be so in the question i think it's framed as this are the bills failing sean mcdermott by doing this and it's kind of like i don't really think so like i understand the bills moving on because in their mind i think the thing that has a chance to be transformative for the bills is the jim leonard defense

like that's the thing that can make the bills feel different than they have felt in the Sean McDermott era. And so if you get to season seven, season eight at the edge of that six years, and you feel like you need that transformative thing and you can't get it with the current head coach or quarterback, that's when you have to seek it out elsewhere. And I think there's probably some validity when you look at the history for teams feeling the heat in those time increments. Because I think that the history, the league will tell you, that's when you have to do it. And I think it's just like a, even if Leonard is, let's say the exact same quality of head coach,

or not head coach, obviously, but defensive mind as Sean McDermott, there is something to like fresh perspective. Because like you're talking about, once you're six, seven years into it with the same team, the same defense, the same problems, it can get a little difficult for you to like really realize and dig in like what are the problems here. Whereas Jim Leonard comes in and he just looks, he's like, I don't know why we did that. that player needs to go. We need to change that. Like it's, it's just a lot easier to see what needs freshening up. And I've never thought about it this way. I've always been the guy that was like,

ah, come on. Like, you're going to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. Like, they're so close. And when you actually look at it and when you actually look at the changes that happen every six years or so in some of these places, I do think that you can get there with talking yourself into needing a change. And what's so interesting is, like Mahomes was that transformative thing for Reed. Lamar was that transformative thing for John Harbaugh. Tomlin never got one. Like some of these guys just never get one. And so the question really did make me rethink a lot of this stuff.

And I honestly think it will make me rethink how I consider these things moving forward. Because I do think there's something there. I'm fascinated by the Kyle Shanahan aspect of it as well. And it makes me think of pre-Kansas City Andy Reid, too, where I'm sitting here right now. and I'm like, I would have voted for Kyle Shanahan for coach of the year last year. I think he's incredible. I think San Francisco would be silly to let him go. But he's two seasons removed from losing a Super Bowl.

He's been to two. And I can't help but think about the fact that, I mean, Andy Reid coached in Philly for eight more years after losing that Super Bowl to the Patriots. Like Kyle Shanahan, I would guess, is going to continue to work in San Francisco for quite some time. when this core eventually ages out and it's already kind of starting to happen. I mean, you know, Trent Williams has to retire one of these days, even if it's not in 2026. And some of these guys, some of these other guys are getting longer in the tooth. It's, I can imagine a world where the Niners have one of their implosion years, three, four, five, six years from now. And everybody says, all right, it's, it's, we love you,

Kyle, but it's time for a change. The same way has happened to plenty of other successful coaches. I mean, I think that's, that's completely reasonable, although I would guess if that were to happen and Kyle Shanahan wants to keep coaching, he'll get another job immediately the same way John Harbaugh did. Like, that's if the Niners don't ever get over the hump, that's how I would imagine this ending. There's also a chance that if you bottom out and you have Kyle Shanahan, but you're in a position draft another quarterback. I could understand being in that place and being like Kyle Shanahan is the right person for that quarterback. Like, you talk about survivor bias. Like I think some of this is that there aren't that many coaches who are so good. that it's worth keeping them around as you cycle between these different lifespans of your franchise.

And I think that there might be an argument to be made with Kyle Shanahan and San Francisco that he is the rare example where it might be worth doing that. Where it's like we've run out a road with this version of the roster, but I legitimately think if we cycle through a different version of this thing, he would be the right guy to oversee whatever that transition looks like. That just doesn't happen very often. And another thing I've thought about while I was digging through this question, And I mean, I hear you, Robert, and I think it's a really good point.

I do still think luck of the draw is a huge part of this because I think a lot of the coaches that buy themselves the leeway to fight through these problems are wildly successful, like right off the bat. You know, I think like if you can give your ownership group or your owner a reason to believe in what you're doing quickly, I think it just gives you more longevity and more time to sort of. sort through this stuff. 100% agree with that. And I do think that we're in a place that this idea of like, well, you kind of need like three years to get, understand how good a coach is. There are some examples of that.

Like the Dan Quinn Lions are a good example of that. But for the most part, Dan Campbell. Or excuse me, the Dan Campbell Lions are an example of that. For the most part, though, we know pretty fast who the difference makers are with the coaches. And I think some of that is that there's so many of these play calling offensive head coaches that that element you need that to be a needle mover

right away. And I think part of the reason that it maybe took a little bit longer for the Dan Campbell Lions is that Ben Johnson wasn't the play caller until like year two and a half for the lions, right? Like the second season is when he took over starting to do this. And so, but with a lot of these guys, they're calling plays immediately. And there's really not a lot of ambiguity about how good they are at maximizing those pieces. And so I'm with you. I think that in this era, you kind of know how impactful a head coach is going to be pretty damn fast. That doesn't mean you have to win 10 or 12 games in year one, but you need to make sure, like, whatever our talent is, this guy is 2xing it from day one, because I do think a lot

of the difference making coaches are doing that. All right, we're going to take our first quick break and then come back and hit some more of your questions. All right, Bellar, what's our next one here? Okay, before we get to the next one, actually, I want to give a shout to Thadius Wazzowitz, who had a great question. It was about reputation versus results, specifically through the filter of the Baltimore Ravens. We're going to hit that as an episode right before the draft.

So Thaddeus, great question if you're listening. Wanted to give you the love for that. Be on the lookout for that episode coming in a couple of weeks. The next question in this mailbag comes to us from Sean Higgins, who says NFL roster construction is complicated. However, the teams that win consistently have a mix of star talent and high impact non-star players. Players who would be on a fourth or fifth all pro team are a candidate for the hall of very good, Robert, we need to talk about bringing back the Hall of Very Good this offseason.

I'm down to do it. I'm down to do it. It's such a fun show. And we get to talk about guys like Peter Bolwer, which I really miss doing. Let's get back to the question. The first example that popped into my head, Sean's head, was Chauncey Gardner Johnson. Never been an all pro or the best of his position, but on Sundays he has a real presence in the game. Who are some other players in the recent history of the league that didn't receive these accolates but had a big impact on the win column?

Robert, why don't you take this one first? I have 20 names. I had quite a few. I don't know if I got the 20, but I had at least a dozen. All right. So my qualifications for this were you can never have been on an all pro team, first team all pro.

So that's like, I think any of mine have been either. You can't filter by a number of pro bowls when you're looking up stuff like this, but I think use your best discretion. Like you've had to make like fewer than four pro bowls to be on a list like this and probably even fewer than that. Some of the guys I wanted to throw out,

you could mention 20 Seahawks from 2010 to 2020. Like they were made up of these guys. Three guys I threw out there, Brandon Mebain, Michael Bennett, Doug Baldwin are all guys like this. You didn't even get my favorite. And there are so many Seahawks that you could throw in there. Like KJ. Wright is definitely like one of those sorts of players. That's the one, dude.

KJ. Wright was sensational. It's just like when you're standing next to Bobby Wagner, it's like, yeah, of course the other linebacker gets more pub. It is so telling that the Seahawks have so many of these guys because this is what sustained greatness is made of is players like this. And the Seahawks were the best team in the NFL for five years because they had so many of these players.

A couple others, like in more recently that I just think are exactly like this. Jordan Poir is this sort of player. Rob Havenstein, to me, is this sort of player. Like, you need a certain baseline level of tackle play to be really good for a long time. Josh Sweat. is this type of guy, like having past rushers that are consistently like eight-sat guys, they're going to show up in playoff games.

Corey Lindley, Shaq Mason, just quality interior offensive lineman of that caliber. And then a couple others I had, Vincent Jackson is this type of guy to me. And then Chris Long. I've got a ton of long. Long's a good one. Those are the sorts of players. I was going to do long. That was good.

He was so instrumental for the. for that Patriots team and that Eagles team. That's a good shout. Our colleague now. Those are the types of guys that I had in mind, whereas just like they're never going to be even like top 15 players at their position or top 12 players at their position. But like, and I honestly think the fact that I'm going to guys that are parts of units,

it really speaks to you need the worst player in your unit or like the second best receiver in your unit or the second best tackle on your team. team to be a certain baseline level for you to be successful. And so I think a lot of these players are representative of that idea. I had a couple of guys that were maybe one rung above that, but I had a number of safeties like Justin Reed for the 2020. He's on my list too. I mean, he's on my list.

Awesome player. Because very much like maybe third or fourth best guy on the defense, but like he let Spags do what he wanted to do. I think John Johnson for the 2018 Rams was like in a very similar. where he was the guy like that. And then one more safety, 20-21 Jesse Bates was like, that dude was a fire eraser.

Like he's too good. He's too good for this list. But he's never made an all-pro. That's stupid, though. Jesse Bates has never been all-pro? He's never made all-part. He's made one Pro Bowl. Which is crazy because he's obviously an excellent player.

Yes, exactly. He does feel too good for it, but I went to this kind of the same criteria, Robert, where I was like, Can't made an all-pro. And he never did. I you're not you're not wrong but you're kind of wrong like he's been second team three times yeah that's that's too yeah he never did it yeah all if you have if you have ever been this is

this is a pet take that I feel very strongly about second team all pro should count the same as first like if you were one of the best four to six players at your position you were an all pro anyway but j jesse bates is still criminally underrated like the fact that he's never been first team all pro is pretty wild. Actually, Corey Lindley did make an all pro team. That was a holdover from, I made two versions of this list. It was one on the couch on my phone last night because I was excited about the question and then one today when I was actually answering it.

So he does not abide by the criteria I had previously set. I feel like this guy is becoming the unofficial mascot of the athletic football show because we just, I feel like we talk about him every episode. I cannot believe that Devante Smith has no postseason accolades. None. That's crazy. He doesn't even have a pro bowl. He doesn't even have a frickin pro bowl. It's ridiculous. It almost seems unfair for that though because like DeVante Smith is such a unique figure in football history that I almost feel like he can't apply to this conversation. I disagree. I mean, he's he's never, he doesn't have any postseason accolades. I mean,

he won the Heisman. That was in college. That was quite a while ago at this point. I think like, like all-time most productive college receiver who was a top 10 pick? What pick was he? Six or something? 10, I think. No, it was later. The Eagles traded down. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. I thought the Eagles traded up with Dallas. Maybe that was there. I'm sorry. I think he went to like six or seven. He was the 10th. He was the 10th overall pick, which is what I thought. I'm thinking of Waddle.

Sorry. Wrong Alabama. Yeah, Waddle was sixth. Top 10 pick that's the most productive college receiver of all time. I'm not, I don't, it almost feel. too good for this conversation. Top 10 pick that people were terrified of because he weighs 95 pounds. I don't know.

That is true. He doesn't have any postseason accolades despite being one of the best members of that team. Whatever. Justice for Devante. Another guy, he's actually, he's been second team all pro one time. But if you were to make a list of

the most definitive patriots of the dynasty, Dante Hightower's name would not get said quickly enough. Yeah, he's incredible. Dante High Tower rules. They could have 20 guys that you could throw out there. He's the perfect one. I had Doug Baldwin, too, and I would throw in Jermaine Curse, even though the stats weren't

as gaudy for Jermaine Curse, like just a hell of a football player. Got a shout out my guy, Marcus Colston, never selected to a Pro Bowl, never made all pro in his entire career, absolutely ridiculous. Eric Armstead never, ever got enough credit for what he was for the 2019 to 2023, 49. A good one. And then I, this is another just guy I love, my guy, Leonard Floyd. You realize Leonard Floyd has 70 career sacks. And like, I know.

He's just always around getting six or seven or eight. He's just always doing it. $10 million a year. I know he didn't live up to where the Bears drafted him, but just a very nice career. He was a meaningful piece of a Super Bowl team. I love Leonard Floyd. I have a couple more. Keep going.

I'm going. Jack Barrett. talk about some guys. Shaq Barrett's a good one. Shack Barrett. John Sullivan, the center from the Vikings and the Rams. Yeah, yeah.

A guy who was just like on good teams consistently. Charles Robinson, the guy playing opposite Julius Peppers on those Panthers teams. And then who else did that? Oh, David Harris, the linebacker for the Jets. David Harris was just like

such a good player for those crazy good Jets defenses. So this was a really good chance to remember some guys. What's our next one, better? Next one is from Sean Pico. Sean asks, whenever I'm watching a game or listening to podcast the day after, we always hear Josh Allen, Caleb Williams, etc.

is one of only four people who can make that throw. But it seems like pundits say that for more than four guys. So what are some of the throws and the actual four of five guys who can actually make those throws? Derek, this feels like it's right in your wheelhouse. Why don't you take it first? So I'll admit we do do that. We always

say it's like four or five. The answer is usually probably closer to like eight or nine or ten. Tushay. I don't I don't think that's right though. I think it depends on the throw. That's exactly what I said. I was like, it depends on the throw. Because if I like a very specific example I brought up, guys rolling to their left, the way that Trevor Lawrence and Prime Russell Wilson can do it is just like those guys could get to that spot in a way that I think is pretty, pretty rare. And then opposite of that, think of like, how many times does Josh Allen sprint to the sideline tiptoe on it and just like throw back across his body in a way that nobody else does like I don't remember the number but next gen has posted stats where they're like Josh Allen has six throws within one yard of the sideline nobody else has more than one it's like he does that like he's really the only guy who does it um and then I think like just sometimes when you watch it mechanically there sometimes things that only a guy can do like Matthew Stafford I think a great example he can be he can be kind of set up like down the middle or even to his left and then just have his feet anchored and

rip it out to the right sideline like he can do that josh allen can do that mohomes maybe caleb but like even some of the other like great super talented arm guys don't necessarily do that all that often even if like in theory they have the velocity to do something like that depends on the type of throw like it's the the throw i have in mind when we say this and i actually did a story it was the Justin Herbert draft. I don't know if you guys remember this, but I used to have a bit the quarterbacks could be too tall. I remember talking to you about this at the combine, yes.

I was out. I was like fake out on Justin Herbert because I was like 6-6 too tall. If you look at all the 6-6 quarterbacks of all time, they just can't play. And it led me, it was definitely ingest, but it actually led me to write a story about a real story about whether quarterbacks could be too tall. And so I talked to a lot of like quarterback,

training experts and people that were like very into the idea of like movement training and kinesiology and things like that. And so we were talking about this like difference between like distal and proximal movements and like how some athletes and the way that they're shaped allows them to do things that a taller player might not be able to because of the length of their limbs. And so when I think of only four or five guys can make that throw, the plays that I'm thinking about are plays. where quarterbacks create a lot of torque

in off-platform ways. And I do think that list is fairly limited because it requires a certain body type to do it. And if I think about the guys who are capable of making these sorts of plays, it's a lot of the quarterbacks

who are like 6-3 and under. Like Mahomes, Caleb Williams, Prime Aaron Rogers, Lamar Jackson, where the way they can create torque and the way their bodies are shaped, the quickness and flexibility plus the power that they can get on some of these throws that Caleb Williams touchdown throw to DJ Moore in the back of the end zone rolling to his right is an example of like an example of this.

A lot of bigger quarterbacks would have trouble doing that because of how quick the motion needs to happen. And so I think there are only a small group of guys who can make those sorts of plays. Josh Allen is kind of the exception to this where he's such a freak that even in a slightly bigger body, the way that he moves, he's still able to get that quick torque through the middle of his trunk to make these sorts of throws. But for the most part, I think there is a specific kind of player that can make the plays that I'm talking about when I say that. And I think the other side of this is like pure arm strength plays. Like being able to place the ball in a certain area

with almost zero loft. Like the idea of being able to place the ball on the opposite side of the field without putting any error under it. That's another category where it's like Stafford, Justin Herbert, Allen, they're only a certain number of players who can make those throws. So those are the two different types of buckets I'm thinking about. And I legitimately do think in those types of buckets, there are only like four to five guys who can make the plays I'm talking about. This is all very smart and nerdy and worthy of the athletic football show.

But do you all have a short list? Like if I was like, hey, what's your, what's your like, like Mount Rushmore of just the most ridiculous arms in the NFL today. What like do you have a list? But that's what I'm saying is it's two different types of arms. And so it's it's not just one list. Like in the in what I'm talking about with those types of like off platform moving type of plays, I think Rogers, Mahomes, Caleb, Josh Allen are probably the guys that I

would put in there. Even Lamar doesn't do as much of that. I've always said this. Lamar reminds me more of a thrower like more of Matthew Stafford as a thrower. than he does like some of these other guys with like the core strength that I'm thinking about. I shit you not. I had that same thought where it's funny. Like for for all the running and as amazing an athlete as he is, Lamar,

all of the Lamar throws that are in my head are shit that he's, that he does damn near standing still where he just. Because of how explosive of a thrower he is. That he's just for the, there's like a very, the weird nuance with his athleticism. and his gifts compared to some of these other guys when it comes to like the highlight plays that we think about.

And with Caleb, it's, I was talking to Will Hewitt about this who trains Caleb. And the idea of like shoulder hip separation, like how far your left hip can be moving away from your right shoulder. It's something that they measure. And Mahomes's is crazy. And Caleb's is crazy. Like there are similarities in how these players move. And I always think that Rogers to me is like the archetype of this type.

type of quarterback and Mahomes and Caleb are if you did like a evolutionary shirt, they're like extensions away from what 2011 Aaron Rogers was. Rogers is the gold standard for me. I've said on the show. I've said on the show before just how good I thought he was in his prime. And not only could he do all that shit, it looked so effortless. Like it looked like a wrist flick and he would be able to put it wherever he wanted to. I get your point, Robert.

and I think it's right. And I'd like I would put Stafford's pure arm strength and ability to throw it through a keyhole 45 yards away up against anyone. But if we're just talking about the Gumby, elasticity, slingshot, holy shit, what the hell just happened type of throw, I'm going Mahomes, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert and Caleb Williams. Like the most likely players to make a throw that breaks my brain. That's where I came down. Herbert is also one of those guys that what he can do in that frame doesn't make sense. Like his ability to do some of this off platform stuff on the move. And again, it's just like the way you watch the middle of his body move on some of these plays,

he shouldn't be able to do it based on how big he is. It's actually funny. In that story, I had one of the guys I talked to, he was adamant that he's like, six, six guys can do this if they're trained correctly. This is not, it's harder to do, but you can do it. And I honestly think Herbert might be the best example of a guy who actually can pull some of it off. He's the exception. Like, it's that throw he had against Denver in like week two or week three where he's like rolling to his left.

Like his core is like all out of sorts. And he just like whips his arm up and does it. And it's just like the guys who are six two like Aaron Rogers, like it's a it's a miracle they can do that. Let alone a guy who is 6566 being able to do that. What's so interesting about this, the moving to the left, I think, is a really good example of this because if you, the very like small difference that I think is important here. And Trevor is a perfect example of this. In order for Trevor to really get oomf on the ball moving to his left, he needs to flip his hips and be lined up to do it. And he's incredible at doing that.

But some of these smaller guys don't need to do that, right? They don't need to get fully turned around in order to make some of those plays and get some umph on the ball. And I think that's like the very key difference that I'm talking about when I'm like trying to bucket the types of players and the types of throws that are available to them. No, I think that's a really good point. Like the smaller guys can kind of just like they can hop in weird ways if they need to. Like Trevor does need to get lined up a little bit. And he's incredible at doing it like you said. But some of the other guys can just like whatever the platform is, they can make it happen.

Even Allen when he's moving to his left does like again, because he's just a bigger player and often like tries to get. all the way around. And those guys who can do that that are sprinting full speed to their left can flip their hips and throw the ball like that, that on its own is an incredible physical act. It just the flexibility necessary to not have to do that is just harder when you're a bigger person. I guess. Thanks question here.

Matt Srogs. He says, I'm really interested in the idea of identity, but it seems like a very squishy concept at times. So what does identity mean to you? as an example, the Rams are mentioned as having had their offensive identity change when they shifted from 11 personnel to more 13 personnel. But does that really mean their identity changed or just their tactics in service of an identity that has remained the same, i.e. Stafford and McVe., make offense go burr. Are there different identity archetypes or buckets?

Can it be boiled down to a single dimension like physicality versus speed? Or is it based on a couple of categories like a graph with two axes? Help me better understand this, please. Dave, take this one first. I love the word squishy to define something like this. And I think it's so true and I think it's such a good point. And I think I come down on identity in a similar way to how I feel about momentum. And I hate the way people talk about momentum as if it's just a weight that swings back and forth during the course of a game.

I think of momentum more as being confidence. and like the confidence that you like that a team has in itself to do something and the confidence that a team has to to stop the other team like is is momentum building behind the other team or are they just doing something you can't figure out and you're freaking out about it I think something similar about identity where do like do you have do you have an identity or you just good at something like like and when you think of teams with really strong identities like Yeah, we're going to run the Buffalo Bills. We're going to run the shit out of the football.

James Cook's going to do this, and we got Josh Allen to compliment it, and Josh Allen can get us out of the holes when we want to, or even on defense. Like, think about the Seattle Seahawks, and they just won the Super Bowl. They have all these suffocating pass rushers. They've got eight of them coming at any given time. And the way that Mike McDonald pulls all the levers is really masterful. That is your identity. Everybody wants to do that shit.

Isn't it just a matter of being good at it? Like every single team wants to do that stuff. And you can sit there right now. And I mean, the person asking the question brought up the L.A. Rams. All that shit sounds really good. Don't the Rams always want to do that? And when it falls apart, is it because that like they got away from their identity? Or is it because they're not doing it because their offensive lines not as good or their quarterback got hurt?

So I think Squishy is an excellent. term for this because I think every NFL team comes into a season with an idea of what they want their identity to be. It's the teams that are good enough to implement them that we talk about and fixate on what their identity is. I think that would be my answer to the question. I kind of took it in a not in a different way, but I think my favorite part of the way that the question was framed was like based on categories or like axes, like, you know, having like a square chart. I actually really, I thought that that was a question. a good way to do it because I think a really good example of that is think of Todd Bulls, Jim Schwartz,

and then like Brian Flores and Steve Spagnolo. All four of those guys want to blitz the shit out of you. So that can be your X axis, right? Like that's your X, like they're all trying to bring five and six pressure, all that stuff. But Schwartz, his Y axis, loves to play a ton of man coverage. It's all man free. It's all like we're just going to play man and do it that way. Flores and Steve Spagnolo, it's a lot of your split safety. We're doing cover two pressures, cover four, pressures. We're spinning guys from who knows where, all that stuff. And then Todd Bowles, while a little bit more of a Rolodex, is still a lot of single high. It's a lot of cover three pressures. He'll sprinkle in cover one. And so the X axis is all the same. And so you have

some underlying foundation of shared identity. And then the thing that separates them is like, what is the like multiplier on top of whatever that is? So I'm, I love this question. I love this idea. I will say right now, I'm thinking we're chipping away at something about this because I do think that finding a cool way to distill this information leads to a better understanding of what teams are and how they operate. I'll just say that.

I think you can't boil it down to two axes for a lot of the reasons that Derek is saying. Defensively, I actually think this is easier than it is offensively. Offense is hard. Defense is easy, yes. Defense, I would say, how are you at what fronts are you playing and how are you asking them to play is it like a two gap

gaping situation is it a one gap penetrating front so like what types of fronts are you playing and how are you asking the front to play what coverages are you playing behind it how often are you blitzing what type of blitzes are you using right like those are like they think that to me with defense is kind of easy like if you can explain all those buckets I think you have a good understanding what the defense is harder and I think if I was starting with offensive identity part of me was like, is it personnel based? But then I don't really think so. No, because that's based on like availability.

That's just like who did we find in the draft? Who turned out good? What free agent could be signed? And it's also like you could have teams that are 12 person. The 12 personnel Philadelphia Eagles in 2017 are very different than the 12 personnel Seattle Seahawks in 2015. Right. And so personnel probably isn't the best answer. I think the number one thing for offenses is probably under center versus shotgun.

I think that's where it has to start because that bleeds into everything else. Because I think for offenses, how much you tie the run in the past together to me becomes the foundation of your identity on offense and it all kind of stems out from there. Like the Rams identity isn't 11 personnel and 13 personnel. The identity is the same. It's just dressed up in those two different ways. So I think with offense, it's much squishier and much blurrier. What Dave is saying to me is so interesting, though, because that to me, that's a binary of do you have an identity or not.

And I think as I'm trying to figure out that version of it, I think it boils down on offense to a very specific thing, which is, do you have clarity and cohesion in why the elements of your offense are tied together? beyond whether you run the ball a lot or whether you throw the ball a lot, that to me is having an offensive identity. That goes back to what is your offense built on, the foundational principles of how you start building the house from day one and how everything becomes tied to everything else. That to me is having an offensive identity. If you have that at the beginning, you could do anything off of it. But that to me is what really having an identity offensively is made up of, and that's where it starts. I think that I mean, I think that's completely right. I still think the foundation has to be solid.

Like you have to be working with something. And so like, and ultimately, I just. When it's not, that's how you tell. That's where identity becomes lip service, where it's like, we want to be this sort of team and we want to do this and that. Well, it's like, well, if the, if the, I, the Seahawks to me are such a great example of this, like the Seahawks offensive identity between 2024 and 2025 and the 2024 offense, the identity is like, oh, we're going to spread it out, we're going to throw it around. That's not an identity.

That's like a style of play that you want to have. Yes. The identity of your offense, watching the 2025 offense and just how cohesive the entire structure of the offense was, that's identity. whether or not you throw it or run it a lot away from that doesn't really matter. It's like rooted in a very cohesive, clear set of principles that all bleed into one another. I also kind of think what Dave was saying earlier where it's like where sometimes some of these teams falters, you know, the Rams have had their down years and all that stuff.

It's like, did they get away from their identity and oh, they're changing stuff? Are they getting away from it? I go back to the Eagles. The Eagles from 2021 to 2025, it's all been the same shit more or less. It's just that some years they are very, very good at it. But it's all in theory the same identity. You just have guys like Kellynne Moore and Shane Steichen who were able to pull from it a little bit better than some of the other guys were.

Going back to the, and I love the points y'all made on the defensive side of the ball as well. But I think the bucks are a great illustration of what I'm talking about. From 2019 to 2022, like Todd Bowles has one of the clearest ideas. identities in the NFL. Like when you're thinking about what he does, it's just, it's so clear, it's so obvious how he wants to play. The Bucks just haven't been as good at it over the last two or three years. And I would put most of that on the lack of personnel.

Like they just like the defensive personnel has gone down a few notches since the heyday of when they were competing and winning a Super Bowl. And so like, yeah, like I said, every single team puts this stuff in play. place. And coaching does matter. But I think ultimately for me, it comes down to how good is the personnel that's implementing it. And people like us are only going to notice if you're good enough to stand out. And like Todd Bowles does stuff mostly the same as he always has. But it's nowhere near as fun to watch over the last two or three years as it was at the peak of that Tampa Bay defense. All right. Before we move on, let's take one more quick break.

Okay, last question here. This one comes to us from Jason, and Jason says one thing both age and games played signal for a quarterback draft prospect is that he was good enough to beat the player in front of him, with exceptions like Cam and Kyler having identifiable reasons they didn't start. Should the fact that Ty Simpson couldn't beat out Jalen Milrow scare us? Dave, this is right up your alley. Why don't you take this one first? I think several things about Ty Simpson should scare you, from the 15 college starts to the size. to the second half of the season. This one in particular for me doesn't worry me so much.

And I'll point out, I will point out one exception to this rule I think qualifies that I'm highly commented to talk about. Do not forget, just because of everything that came after, at the age of 21, three years into college, Joe Burrow lost a quarterback competition to Dwayne Haskins and had to transfer to a more empty quarterback room to get his shot. It's a little bit different, but like Joe Burrow could not beat out. And I mean, Dwayne Haskins was a first round pick. He was a talented player.

But that, like, he had to leave to get a better shot to get onto the field because Ohio State's quarterback room was too talented. So it doesn't worry me that much. In addition, the other thing, we're certainly, even if you like Ty Simpson, which I do, we're not talking about taking him first in the draft. Ideally, you're not even taking him first in the draft. you're not even taking Ty Simpson in the first round. Like I think Ty Simpson fits perfectly somewhere between pick 33 and pick 65.

And so when you're talking about that far back in the draft, I think it's a sliding scale. Guys are getting picked there for obvious reasons. And so I think you just have to make peace with more things. And like I said, I think the sample size is much more concerning to me than what he did before he got on the field. And I would also say this, college football teams don't give a shit about maximizing the pro value of their prospects. I mean, that's certainly part of it. And you want guys to go pro and make your program look good. So more guys go to your program.

But Jala Milro as a flawed prospect gives you a hell of a chance to win games with his athleticism and his ability to extend plays. And all like, you know, talking about scrambling quarterbacks earlier in this episode. All that shit that can be a problem in the NFL is a lot easier to get away with due to raw athleticism in college football. And Jalen Milro gave Alabama a fantastic opportunity to win a shitload of football games, even though nobody saw him as a top tier prospect. So not really, I guess, would be my answer. There are reasons to be concerned about Ty Simpson. This one for me is not very high on the list. It terrifies me.

because it reminds me the most of Mitch Trubisky not being able to beat out Marquise Williams because Marquise Williams was a pretty good college quarterback. Ms. Trubisky went two overall. We're not talking about the same caliber of prospect. I do agree that it's like a sliding scale and you can change it a little bit based off that. But I do think even if you are more willing to take on the risk at pick 50, I don't think that that means that he is any more or less likely to be a good player. You know what I mean?

It also doesn't mean the 15 starts as any less worrying. That's what I mean. Right. You're just more willing to take that risk at 50 than three or whatever it is. And I get that. But I still think it does make him a very risky prospect for that reason. Because I think, and Jalen Miller is a good example. Jaron Miller went what, like 92nd overall.

So an NFL prospect. But to me, if you are like clearly a starting caliber NFL quarterback, you beat that guy out every time. like that's just my opinion and there are very like the other i think dain actually tweeted out the list of the guys who started fewer than 15 games like recently it was it's yeah it was mr bischie anthony new richardson was on there he couldn't beat out emory jones which obviously in hindsight that's pretty bad and then the other one funny enough you just mentioned him was dwayne haskins but dwayne haskins was behind j t barrett who his team won the college football national championship his

freshman year and then he was like a four year starter that to me is a little bit more of like a different consideration. And then the Joe Burrow one is actually interesting, too, because yeah, he loses to Haskins. I think even that's a little bit different because he was a first round pick in his own right. And then Burrow also led like the best college football offense ever, whereas like Ty Simpson was okay. Okay. See if you follow me here though. And I mean, it's not going to happen. And selfishly, I kind of wish that it was because I like Ty Simpson. I'll go to the mat about his first six games. Like Ty Simpson up until Halloween was awesome and we're here now. And so that's kind of irrelevant. But I kind of wish Ty Simpson had gone back to school. And I think it,

not to say that he was going to be as amazing as Joe was, but I think it could have been very similar where I doubt he would have stayed at Alabama because Alabama's got some studs in that program that they're interested in getting on the field. But Ty Simpson absolutely could have transferred to a different team with 15 starts under his belt and put together a much more consistent final season in college where he got to, you know, what, if he played 12 to 15 games, now you're talking about 28, 30 starts. And I think even if he doesn't have a first number one overall pick type of season, and I would bet maybe some of Ty Simpson's calculus is that next year's quarterback class looks very, very crowded.

And so maybe you'd rather be doing it in a year right now where you're the unquestioned number two as opposed to fighting against the Archmannings and Lenora Sellers of the world. But I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a much more favorable opinion of him a year from now if he had transferred to another SEC program or a Big Ten program or whatever. But that ultimately wasn't his decision. And I think that is fair.

I think that's a question, though. Right. And I think that's a little bit fair in the sense of like, Joe Burrough's first year at LSU was like, okay, that's an NFL quarterback, but he was not obviously Joe Burrow. But it's like, y'all all hated my guy, Joe after 2018. Nobody liked him. I think Joe Burrow is the exception here, though. Right.

I think if we're trying to use Joe Burrow as the example here, you're going to be let astray. If you look at almost every other, like, productive, good NFL quarterback, they were the sure-fire starter for their college team by their second year in college. Almost every single one at every level of college football. And so this is just how the cookie, this is how the cookie crumbles. And I'm not trying to bring up my alma mater all the time. But Jaden Daniels had a similar college experience. They were pumped. He started as a freshman. But he started though. He played. They were pumped when he left Arizona State. Like they were happy about it. They wanted him gone. And then he was, Alabama, the J.T. Barrett comp is very interesting to me because like J.T. Barrett was never going to be some major NFL prospect.

But again, in college, when the goal is to win the national championship, he was good enough to keep eventual NFL prospects off the field. And so like Jalen Milrow is good enough to keep a guy off the field unless he is like, like Trevor Lawrence comes to mind where like halfway through Trevor Lawrence's whatever it was, like freshman season. And Davosweeney was like, we can't do this anymore. We have to get Trevor Lawrence on the field. Ty Simpson's not that overpowering of a prospect. But that doesn't mean he couldn't have developed into a better college player. Obviously, like the quality of competition and the quality of the roster where you are is going to play into this. If you go to a place like Alabama, it's more likely that you're going to have to sit for a little while.

But I still feel like for the most part, if you look at the vast majority of NFL quarterbacks, if it took you. And even if Ty Simpson goes back to school, and I think that's what I was saying with, this isn't the question. If Ty Simpson goes back to school and he gets to 25 starts, it still took him to his age 24 season to get to those 25 starts. It's not really changing materially what we're discussing here. Almost every other one of these guys. I'm looking at the list right now.

I'm just looking up as you guys are talking. Matthew Stafford, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence, Drake May, Sam Darnold, Justin Herbert, Herbert, Jared Gough, Bo, Nicks, Caleb Williams, Patrick Mahomes, every single one of those guys, even if it was slightly lower levels of competition and not quite as good of programs for some of them, every single one of them was the defined starter

by their second season in college. And I do think there is something to that. If it takes you into year four for you to be the best college quarterback on your roster, even at a place like Alabama, maybe we raise some eyebrows. And I will specifically say for the first round, kind of like Dave mentions,

once you get into pick 40, like I probably do care about that a little bit less. But if we're talking about like, I'm going to take, that guy at 12th overall, that's where it scares me. But even like Dak, even Dak started a shitload of games at Mississippi State. You know, Russell Wilson started a shitload of games in college. How did did Kirk start in college?

I feel like he started for a few years. Who? Kirk cousins. Oh, yeah, Kirk. But I think Kirk is closer to the Mac Jones conversation. Right. That's fair. Right?

Like, these guys who aren't overwhelmingly talented, you're threading a needle with these players. Kirk started for three years, by the way. So there you go. But I think you're threading a needle with those players. And even Burroughs kind of like this, right? Like Burroughs succeeds in a very specific way that is a product of things that maybe aren't going to be overly obvious to you immediately when you watch him. But I think for most quarterbacks like that it isn't new. It isn't that nuanced.

Like you see it pretty quickly whether that guy can be a capable starter in the NFL before we get to his fourth year in college. Would you? And I guess, I mean, I, I, I. I think I know the answer. Like, would you feel differently about Ty Simpson if he had transferred out of Alabama very quickly? Like, all right. If it's not happening here, I'm going to go. I don't want to say a school and piss somebody off.

But he's just going to transfer to like a lesser program than Alabama. Yeah, he started Vanderbilt for like four years. It's like, yeah, I. To me, there is something of like proving you can do it. Like that does matter. I think the answer is yes, right? Like, I think the answer is yes because you no longer become a historical outlier. even if it took going to a lower level of competition to do it,

I think, yes, you were the best quarterback on your college team. And I think being the best quarterback on your college team for multiple years is a proven track record of guys defining their NFL success. As somebody who wants Ty Simpson to succeed, like I said, I wish he had gone back to school, but it's not my career. And I'll go back to the point of saying, and I guess I can't rule this out completely. I guess I don't know how every team in the league feels about Ty.

Maybe he could still be a first round pick. But I think we're talking about a guy that's going to get drafted on day two. And on day two, I'm just a little less nervous about all of this. Like if I was making a franchise altering pick and he was about to be a top five guy for me, then yes, I'd be scared shitless. But if he's going to be a mid-40s, mid-60s pick and it's like, well, if he doesn't, you know, if we don't feel good about this in a year and a half, so what? But people screw up picks in the 40s all the time. I just, I'm not going to lose as much sleep about that. I think that's fine.

I don't think it plays into whether or not he can be a good NFL draft pick based on where he's selected. I think it should be a considerable data point when you're thinking about his ability to become a good NFL starter. Yeah, to me it's just like risk appetite versus like what is the percentage chance he is good. Which I think like risk appetite, we can talk about a bunch of different factors with him. It's just like starting that many games, it to me does lower the like percentage chance he will be a good player. He is ice skating uphill in a lot of ways. Like he's he's going to be a huge outlier if he has a really good NFL career. All right.

That is all we've got for today. We will be back tomorrow with a little bit more on the clock. We are doing picks 13 through 18. I think that's what we're doing. Look at me. Look at me. 13 to 18. I love the confidence there.

After that is 7.7. We nailed it. After that is 7.7. I have no idea how my podcast operates. All right. 13 to 18 tomorrow with our guy, Lance Zerline. Very much looking forward to that. So please check that out.

We will continue building the beast. We're going to get more day in here very soon because the beast comes out on Wednesday. So very much looking forward to that. For now. that is all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in.

Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating. We'll see you next time.