The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - New deals for Tua and Jordan Love, a new season for second-year quarterbacks, and a new co-host for TAFS

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

We at The Athletic Football Show are turning the page in more ways than one on this episode. Not only are we now firmly pointed toward the start of the 2024 NFL season, we are welcoming our new co-host. Derrik Klassen joins The Athletic Football Show as a permanent member of the cast, so it's only fitting that we focus on quarterbacks on this episode. The guys discuss the Tua Tagovailoa extension, welcome The Athletic Packers beat reporter Matt Schneidman to break down Jordan Love's, and break down what success looks like for this season's second-year quarterbacks—C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Bryce Young and Will Levis.Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenWith: Matt SchneidmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Matt on X: @mattschneidmanTheme 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.

To The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. A historic show for you guys today. This is our 1,000th episode of the Athletic Football Show, which could not come at a better time because we've got some exciting stuff to announce today. You guys probably already noticed if you listen to the show. We got some new intro music from my buddies from Spanish love songs, which we'll chat

a little bit more about. But more importantly than that, we have a new co-host joining us today. Derek Klaassen, formerly ever see. perception, perception, bleach your report. He's done phenomenal work in a bunch of different places. Derek is going to be in that other chair throughout this season. Twice a week. We're going to be doing the show three times a week.

Coming your way on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Derek is going to be joining us every Monday and Friday as the other person in that seat. And I could not be more excited about it. We'll talk a little bit more when Derek joins us about some of the things that I think he brings to the table. But I love talking about football with Derek. I think he has a point of view. I think he just is somebody that you guys are really going to. enjoy talking about players,

quarterbacks. He just goes at this in a way that I've always respected, and I cannot wait to have him be a part of what we're doing every single day. On a big picture level, we're heading into year five of the athletic football show, and it's crazy to think about. Doing this show and getting it to this place has been the most rewarding thing I've ever gotten to do in my career. And as I've gotten older, I think the thing I've realized more than anything is that, it time is the most precious thing that we have.

Time, energy, focus. And for you guys to spend it with us and for you to carve out time in your week and your day to listen to us, talk about football, it means the world to me. It truly is humbling and so incredibly gratifying. And I'm really excited to keep this thing rolling and to bring you guys what is the fifth season of us getting to do this show. And I could not be more excited about getting to do it with Derek. So we're going to get to Derek today.

we're going to talk about second year quarterbacks today. Derek did a ton of quarterback charting for reception, digging into really the granularity of these guys on a play-by-play basis. I think he charted something like 20, 25 quarterbacks. All of the second-year guys were a part of that. So we're going to talk about those guys. Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis. What did their rookie years look like?

And what should we be looking for them as we turn the page into year two? We also had to hit some quarterback contract news, which trickled out over the last few days. Derek and I talked about the Tuatanga Vaila Extension, what that means for the dolphins, how we feel about it and the outlook here over the next couple years. And then also Matt Schneidman,

our Packers writer from The Athletic, joined me at the end of the show to chat about Jordan Love's massive contract extension, how the Packers arrived at this moment, and what this means for the Packers' outlook and their team-building process over the next couple years. So that's what we've got today. Incredibly excited to bring that show to you guys

and incredibly excited to bring another season full of the athletic football show your guys's way. Let's just get to it. Joining me now, it is the new co-host of the athletic football show. And damn, does that feel good to say? It's Derek Klausen.

Derek, really, really good to have you, man. Feels good to hear, man. Because, like, listen, I've been on this show, what, a dozen times? Maybe not that many, but I've been on it a lot quite a few times. but it's different being a guest than stepping into, you know, somebody else's world as opposed to like, this is, this is part of mine now. I need to go. I need to get cozy. I need to settle in. This is,

this is going to be part of mine. It feels good. It feels good to say it, and we're thrilled to have you. You know, I've told you this privately. I'll say it for everybody listening. You're one of my favorite people to talk about football with and even getting to spend some time together over the last week and some of the discussions we had. It just got really got me going. And also, I just feel like you have a really uncanny ability to watch players identify what makes them special and communicate that to people. I think that you do that with quarterbacks as well as anybody, but it extends beyond quarterbacks. And I'm really excited for the listeners to get a sense of that as we go through the season.

And you can really hone in on just a specific linebacker for a team and what he does well and why that that unit becomes an expression of those ideas. So very, very excited for everyone else to get more of a window into your ability to do that because I think it's truly special. And I'm excited for people to hear what you can bring to the table here over the next year. I appreciate that, man. I'm glad you brought up the linebackers because trust me, there will be a lot more linebacker talk than this show is what's maybe used to or any show should probably be used

to. What you have done as part of your work over the last couple of years is you've done a phenomenal job at really taking a granular look at quarterbacks. And you were working with Matt Harmon and the reception guys over the last year or so. And you were charting these guys on a play by. play basis. And we're going to dig into a little bit of that today because we're going to talk about the second year guys.

We're going to talk about C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young, Will Levis, Anthony Richardson, kind of highly drafted second year quarterbacks. What happened as rookies and maybe what we should be looking forward to as they head into their second year? But before we do that, there is news that we have to hit. Shortly before we started recording this, monster news from Miami, Tua, Tua, it gets a four-year, $53 million a year extension, $167 million guaranteed.

Part of me is glad that there's something for us to react to on this show. Part of me is not glad that it's the two of contracts, because this puts you in a pretty precarious spot. As somebody who I don't think loves this, it's not the note I necessarily wanted to start this show on, but here we are. I mean, of all the things, right? Of all the things that could have happened on my first episode, of course it was it to a Tunga Lai Lua, contract extension.

But I mean, you know that I'm, I think Dolphins fans by now probably know. I'm not the biggest fan of just what he is relative to maybe some other quarterbacks that get talked about in his vein. And then you look at some of the quarterbacks out of got paid around or even a little bit above what he got paid. To me, it's, I mean, we're going to dive into it a little bit here. But I'm not the biggest fan is probably the easiest way to set the table here. First thing I want to say, before we get into anything else, congratulations.

to Tua. This is a guy who had a catastrophic injury, his final year in college, and then has been banged up over his first couple years in the NFL, has dealt with some really scary stuff, and he just got a life-changing amount of money. This was never a foregone conclusion based on how the last few years have gone, so very happy for him and impressed at a lot of the things that he's been able to endure. That being said... His head coach hated him when he walked into the league. He didn't want to play him. He didn't really know what they wanted to do with the offense. Like there were reports by the time all of that broke up that that was very clearly a conflict within the building that, you know, maybe he didn't want to play to a. And so to go from

catastrophic injury that maybe dropped him in that draft. It probably did a little bit because he went like fifth or sixth or something like that. He could have gone maybe right behind Burrow or something for him to fall, end up in the situation that he was in, for it to be as turbulent as it was or the first year or two, and then to become one of the most productive quarterbacks, even if I'm not the biggest fan of what I watch on film, it's a pretty ridiculous story when you just kind of piece it together that way. There's no doubt. But when you actually dig into the tape, I think that there are reasons to be skeptical about

how this might go. And the way that I would frame this is I'm looking at Tua and I'm looking at all the other guys who have been paid $50 million plus over the last year or so. You can go down the list. Burrow, Justin Herbert, Jalen Hertz, Trevor Lawrence, Jordan Love Now, even Jared Gough. And I think that he is kind of definitively the most limited quarterback of all of the guys who have been paid in that range. And I think he's probably the most limited quarterback of an elite offense in the NFL. And because of that, I think the ramifications that are going to be coming potentially over the next two or three years,

as the dolphins have to plan around this contract and maybe skimp in some other areas because of it, I'm a little bit more worried about that looks like in Miami compared to some of these other situations because I do feel like he's contributing and lifting this team in fewer spots than almost any of the other quarterbacks who have gotten paid in this range. I 100% agree. And if you even just look at that specific range of quarterbacks that just got paid that you just listed, Jared Goff is probably the next most limited. But even he's got a lot more, I think, you know, tools in the box at this point, especially

in his career, maybe not so much in L.A. And maybe that's the better comparison point. But certainly at this point in his career, I think he does. Like, golf is a better thrower outside the numbers, even though that's still not his best thing. He's grown as a dropback pastor compared to certainly what he was in L.A. And I, in my opinion, what Tua is at this point. And I think his like pocket toughness, his pocket understand.

his ability to get the ball out when things are getting a little bit hot is a lot better than Tuos as well. So like if golf is the next most limited guy and Tua is still three or four clear ticks below him in terms of some of these other traits, it's so hard for me to understand how the Miami offense is supposed to continue to develop the way that we've seen from Jared Goff to some degree and then certainly all these other quarterbacks that have gotten paid, whether it's pro or whoever. I don't want this to be a binary where it's either a physically gifted quarterback or you're not. I think that can be a trope that us football nerds on the internet have gone to a little

bit too often over the last few years as we've evaluated guys at this position. That's not what this is because I've kind of gotten there with Jared Gough and even somebody like Brock Purdy, I think doesn't present the same sort of limitations and the same sort of concerns that two of them might. I'm sure we'll talk about Purdy as we get closer to the season. I've kind of come around in several different areas and I'm definitely more of a believer than I used to be. I can't get there with Tua because I do think there are deficiencies about his game that some of these other pocket-specific players that aren't necessarily the most physically gifted

don't have. Three areas that I would go to. When you look at Jared Gough, there are no negative plays with Jared Gough, for the most part, from a sack-taking perspective. He's not a negative in the pocket. Gough had the fifth lowest pressure to sack rate of any full-time quarterback in the NFL last season. Brock Purdy's right in that same range as well. I mean, these guys are in the same boat as a Mahomes, as an Allen, when you're looking at negative play mitigation. Tool had the seventh highest. He doesn't take a lot of sacks because of the structure of the offense, but when you try to isolate his play from things that are inherent to the way that they play, that's where

you can find some of these deficiencies. Two, the way that Gough and Purdy check the ball down is just so much better than Tua does. So these are some of these issues. Again, we're trying to take away and separate. is he from what is the rest of the offense? And the answers when it comes to Tua are just less exciting and a little bit more concerning than most of these other guys. He needs to be put in a position to succeed. He needs quality around him, the personnel, the scheme, all of that stuff. And when you're paying your quarterback, $40, $50 million against the cap the way they're

going to over the next couple of years, it's harder to build that environment. And I think that's what we're potentially going to see as little stuff about where he is and what the dolphins are erodes because they have less financial flexibility. Where is that going to leave them? And that's why I'm a little bit concerned about how this is all going to go. That's exactly where I would go to. With some of these other teams, because the quarterback themselves has been able to unlock a few things as they as they've developed because they've had some sort of physical tool that they can tap into like Jared Goff getting a little bit better outside the numbers, drop back, all that stuff. It's just so hard to see with Tua. And so when you start

to think about, oh, maybe they have to pay this guy, or maybe they're not able to pay this guy in free agency. Maybe they're not able to get this deal done. Maybe this and that. It just becomes really hard to see how this version of what the dolphins are kick into the next year. Like maybe to a dozen, two years somehow become a different player. It's just that based on who he is and who he's been, it's really hard for me to get there at this point. So I still think for the next year or two, this doesn't matter. Like, they're still going to be, they're still going to light the world on fire this year, right? They still have all the pieces they probably need. It's just that when you start

to look at towards maybe the back half of this contract, that's where it probably starts to get sticky. And the back half of the season. If you're going to get paid at this level, you need to be a quarterback who can provide your team answers in these high leverage moments because when you play these really good defenses

in the playoffs, they're going to force you out of what you're comfortable doing. And the quarterbacks who are the best in the league, can play in a bunch of different ways, can find answers in a bunch of different ways. And I just don't think Tua has shown the ability to do that. He plays in a very small box right now,

and the walls of the box start to get torn down when you can't pay Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle, when you can't have a really good defense. So I think that's the concern here. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to say, well, what's the alternative? Are you just not going to pay him? I get that.

I get, if you're Miami with some of the aging players on your roster, you're between a rock and a hard place because you probably have to give him a deal like this because you don't want to start a lot. over. The idea of quarterback wilderness is scarier than paying two of $53 million a year. But that doesn't mean that I have to ignore the practical realities of this as they start to come into play. He has a $59 million cap hit in 2025. There's a chance that they just keep zeroing this thing out and they try to outrun the bill while they keep the core together. But this still,

objectively, makes it hard to build a really good team around him. And I think he's the type of quarterback that needs a really good team around him to succeed. 100%. And even with a lot of quarterbacks that have been in his range, you get one or two of these years. Like I guess they've gotten the past couple of years. Like a what, Derek Carr, 2016, Andy Dalton, 2015. You can get these runs or the Jared golf, what was it, 2017, 2018. You can get these runs. But to sustain it, the quarterback has to become something other than what he's been. And again, you know, we said it a billion times at this point. It's harder to see it with Tua than maybe some of these other quarterbacks in this

pay range. Yeah, this is where Mike McDaniel makes his money, potentially, and Tyree killed does the same. So we'll see what happens. But not, again, not the note I necessarily wanted to start this off on. Let's go to the second year quarterbacks. We were going to start with Bryce Young, but I don't want to do that because I feel like it might be too much negativity baked into the first 20 minutes of your first show because you're not one of these guys who immediately and inherently wants to shit on these quarterbacks. Like, you really do have an ability to see the silver lining and see the path forward for a lot of these guys. So I don't want to have that be the tone that we really get going on. So instead of starting with Bryce Young, I actually think it

might be best to shift our gaze to what C.J. Stroud's rookie year would look like because I feel like that really lets us embrace some positivity here early in the show. It was, dude, this is probably about as far as you could go in terms of like hopelessness versus hopefulness in terms of the quarterback situation. As CJ Stroud met, like, I think there's probably some people who are going to walk into the show coming in for like some sort of, you know, was it not as good as I thought it was or, you know, talk me down from. That's what I was going to ask you. Listen, it was as good as you thought it was, man. Like there are a couple of things we can nitpick and we'll get into that. But like, CJ Stroud is very, very real and there's almost no doubt about it for me. He's incredible.

So as you look at the stuff that made up that case and made up that concreferral conclusion where he really was as good as we thought. What are the areas of his game specifically as you drill down on it, play by play when you were doing the charting that really stood out to you about Stroud? I would say the first one is something that we knew coming in, which is that dude is a really damn good thrower of the football. Like he is just, his arm is very good. He's very accurate. He's very just kind of flexible and just feels like a very natural thrower. He can access every single part of the field. Like when I did my charting, I got to, I think for reception, perception 22 quarterbacks this summer.

He got into the 73.5% adjusted accuracy range, which was like comfortably in the top half and closer to like top eight, which for a rookie is insane because every other rookie I've charted is like well below 70% and just not cutting it. And they'll have like very particular parts of the field where they can't throw and all this other jazz. That was not really a problem with DJ Stroud. Like all of the charting checks out in terms of how accurate he is to every level, every down doesn't matter.

The other thing that stands out with C.J. Stroud, that dude, it's phenomenal how good of a processor he is for a rookie. Or not even for a rookie. Like already as a processor, he looks like a veteran out there. And for him to do that as a rookie, there's really not many other guys that I can even think of that processed on that level in their first year.

It's like, Dak, Herbert, obviously Andrew Luck. Outside of that, man, like you're really looking for other examples. that stack up to this. And I think you're not going to find them because even a guy like, you know, Russell Wilson's rookie year was incredible, right? I don't think he had as much on his shoulders as a processor, the way that CJ Stroud was asked to, especially with some of the stuff they were doing out of empty every now and then,

like just what Stroud was able to handle, how fast it all happens, how rarely he gets fooled. Like, you know, he'll have two times a game where it looks like he gets put in a blender. But yeah, he's a rookie. That's going to happen to anybody, even the best guys. But it happens so much less frequently than it did for, every other first year player you'll see. So for him to be as young as he is as inexperienced

and to walk in and immediately look like, oh, he already knows what's going on on every snap. It's just really rare, man. Like you just don't get guys like this. Coming in as a prospect, I think we all knew what to sort of throw where he was, right? Like that was the selling point. The accuracy, the accuracy to all levels of the field.

It was special. I mean, he can just put the ball where he wants to put it. What was so encouraging about his rookie year, though, is answering questions in areas, where we had them. Processing is a really good one. If you go back and listen to the episode I did with Sean McVeigh, I even tweeted out the clip of it, him talking about what elite quarterbacking looks like in the NFL in 2024. And he said two things essentially. He said, how quickly can you cycle through every eligible receiver? And this is, you know, not to use like jargon here,

but like we've gone to a pure progression world in the NFL for the most part where you're just sweeping the board as you won through your eligible receivers. You're not really looking at coverage is as much or, you know, is it man or zone? It's more like, how can I cycle through these things? He does an incredible job at that, and he showed a real ability to eliminate options quickly as he did that. And that's really all you could want from a quarterback as a processor in the modern NFL when he was doing it as a rookie.

And the other side of this is his and the other thing that McVeigh said, the other part of this is how do you deal with muddy pockets? How do you deal when things get dirty in there? How are you navigating that space? that's something that we sort of had a question about with Stroudi, Ohio State, because they played an all-world team. Almost everyone he played against, he never had to worry about it. The Georgia game, we got glimpses of it, but there weren't that many examples.

And then you watch what he did last year. The pocket navigation and the pocket feel is exceptional. Their creativity is a thrower when he has to be popping the ball over guys or changing an arm angle or getting the ball away without stepping. That was exceptional. So you look at who he is as a player, and I'm just running out of re-executive. reasons to not think that he's going to be fast-tracked to be elite because he's checking every single box that you could possibly want for what makes a really good quarterback in 2024.

That is the perfect way to put it, because mentally he's already so far ahead of where you need to be as a rookie. And even if you get into the real nitty-gritty of ball placement, which to me also kind of comes back to processing, like understanding where the ball needs to be, there's so many instances of like him throwing against the grain on a route because he knows a safety is pinning, you know, down in front of it. Or he knows exactly how to fit it in between linebackers. Or he knows exactly how to pop the ball over, you know, maybe a hook defender or something like that. Like he just gets where the ball needs to be and he's able to do it so quickly and be so flexible and have like, you know, not a superstar arm, but like B plus A minus level arm talent.

The fact that he has all of that and he's a pretty good athlete, even if, you know, he's not a runner really, but like he's consistently able to get himself free, almost in the Joe Burrow-esque type of type of way, right? Where he's not running, but he's always able to get himself free. And that's just a huge thing that he's been able to showcase. So I think that's a great point. The fact that he immediately walked in, and we had some questions about what he could do in muddy pockets, creating all that stuff, it felt like by week one, even some of the place he made

against the Ravens. I was like, oh, he might have more here than maybe we thought. So let's try to throw some cold water on this. If you were looking at some of the areas that maybe weren't as good or caused some concern as we head into year two, what would those be about Stroud and the Texans offense? I would say the first one is when I did my charting, his success rate versus man coverage was not very good. It was 55.9% his accuracy rate, which is like comfortably below average, which again, he's a rookie. There's probably going to be somewhere where you mess up, right?

but this was the one area where he just did not throw the ball very well. One thing you have to keep in mind, though, is he didn't throw against man coverage, like, at all. I forget exactly what the, like, how often he threw relative to other quarterbacks, but they were at a bottom five rate. So if you look at the amount of man that these teams see, especially in the Shanahan tree, teams don't love playing a lot of man coverage against them because of how condensed the formations are. And also, especially the Niners and the dolphins, like the matchups that you can create through man. So a lot of the ways that teams play Shanahan teams obviously applied to what they were doing against the Texans because the baseline ideas are the same. So I'm pretty sure independent of situation just overall, he saw man coverage at like the 27th or 28th highest rate in the league.

Right. And if you're a rookie and you don't see something a lot, even if you're this superstar that CJ Shout already seems to be, it's completely reasonable to assume that like, okay, maybe this isn't going to be your strength right away. So I'm, even though he wasn't that good at it, I'm not that worried about it. You would like to see him get better at it. And that's where the silver lining is. Stefan Diggs is coming to town. And that man is very good at beating man coverage. He maybe has taken a step back from what he used to be, you know, at the peak of his days with the bills and stuff like that. But I think he is still a very good man coverage beater.

And that's going to help him a lot. For a lot of these guys, we're going to ask what success looks like heading into year two. That question isn't as applicable to C.J. Straub because he's already. been successful. But in your mind, what does a successful second season look like for C.J. Stroud in this offense? Yeah, I mean, do it again. Like, he's already a top 10 quarterback. There's not a whole lot to add. What I would say is if there's anything to add on top of, you know, like we just talked about beating man coverage a little bit better, I would say a little bit more dropback game. Because I did look this up on on true media. If you take out all screens,

you take out all play action. In terms of volume, C.J. Stroud was 16th in terms of. of dropbacks with, you know, that are basically just pure dropback. Almost everybody below him, like, didn't finish the season. It's guys like Joe Burrow, he didn't play the entire time. Joshua Dobbs is up there, like, or you get some other very obviously limited quarterbacks like Russell Wilson, who was just behind him. So you're kind of in that range of quarterback where he just wasn't asked to do this a lot. I think he can do it.

I think when you, to your point that you were making earlier, where he cycles through things really fast, even in this pure progression world, he absolutely can do it. And some of the ways that he was, even on his third or fourth progression, understanding where defenders were and throwing away from them was phenomenal. It's just that this wasn't the biggest part of their offense. And it makes sense, right? They had a first year Shanahan play caller. So yeah, man, he's going to lean on the hits.

They're going to run the ball a lot. They're going to try to do play action. And they were damn good at it. So, well, the play action part of it, not the running the ball part they were not so good at. But the play action. The overall formula was very successful. And whatever the component parts, the overall formula was very successful. successful. And in fairness to them, you have a rookie quarterback. There's no way for you to know,

even if you were excited about him, that he was going to become this guy as a rookie. So if you're Bobby Slowick and you're Damiko Ryan, so I'm sure there's part of you that's like, all right, we're going to have to protect him a little bit, we're going to run the ball a lot, we're going to use a lot of play action. And you can't really change that midstream. Understanding what he is and allowing that to inform how you build your offense, that's a year two. That's a season two sort of thing that hopefully we're going to see folded in. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if after seeing what he is and what he's capable of, the dropback game starts to become more voluminous, the scope of it grows because you can really ask him to do some things that not every Shanahan quarterback,

and especially not every Shanahan quarterback in the year two, has even been close to capable of doing. I think that's absolutely right. I think he's going to look at the quarterback he has now and look at what Kyle has been able to do with a quarterback who can actually do some real dropback game and be like, hmm, I have some new ideas now. I think we're going to change the offense a little bit. And Sloke specifically, I think he had a huge role in them expanding that when they got Purdy and what they've done over the last couple of years. I mean, if you look at play action rates alone for the Niners' offense over the last two

or three seasons, it's vastly different than what they were doing early on in Kyle's tenure and they were able to build on it and evolve a little bit. It felt like last year with Sloick, it was kind of season one of a Shanahan offense. for better or and for worse. And I'm excited to see where they potentially take it from here. I'm actually really looking forward to visiting with the Texans next week when I get up there because these are a lot of the questions that I have. So not a lot to say more than that about C.J. Stroud and his first year, again,

this conversation applies a little bit less to Stroud than it might for some of these other guys. All right, let's get to our next one here. Let's talk about Bryce Young. So as you dug into the Bryce Young rookie year and you actually looked at the details of it, play by play, what did Bryce Young's rookie season actually look like in Carolina last year? So on one hand, obviously, you look at the numbers, you look at some of the high, like low lights, I should say. It looks terrible, right? When you actually watch him on film, there is stuff that you want to cling to and stuff that is actually nice. I think as a processor, he was pretty good as a rookie.

He is able to go one to two to three, generally stay on time, that sort of thing. He kind of had some problems seeing the middle of the field, especially like later coverage rotations. the Falcons got him on this both times they played him. So I think that was kind of a big issue for him. I think because he's a smaller quarterback and doesn't have the best arm, he kind of has to guess a lot. I think that's where he can get beat. And so you could say maybe in two, three,

four years he gets better at guessing. And I think that's possible. But I think- He was like that. He had to make decisions based on what he thought the defense was going to do, not what he saw because he literally couldn't see it. But that was with 10 years time on task. Exactly.

The time between now and now. and for Bryce Young, it could get a little hairy in the meantime. Exactly. And even just, there's not a whole lot of Drew Breezes. Like, it's just not. There's one. Yeah, exactly. There's one guy.

And so I think that was the thing is that when you watch him, it feels like he gets how to play the position. And that's why he's almost such a frustrating player to talk about because I think if you could just insert his brain into like C.J. Stroud, for example, it would look pretty good. Like, I really think he has what you need mentally as a player. And honestly, his accuracy when he was kept clean, I thought was actually pretty good. There are a couple throws again where maybe the arm loses a little bit outside the numbers,

especially if he's throwing from the far hash, that sort of thing. But I don't think his arm is like as bad as Tua, for example. Like I think he gets to right to closer to the threshold for what you need to be good. So like there is some stuff that I thought that you could cling to. At the same time, you saw none of the traits that make a top 10 quarterback. And I think that's what's frustrating when you take a guy first overall. If they took him, you know, late in the first round or something like that or early in the second, it's like, like Andy, like Andy Dalton was never a guy who was going to be in the top 10 ranges because he didn't have that type of talent.

But he was like a functional good NFL starter for certain stretches. And obviously that, what was it, 2015 when they were like the best offense in the league. It's a very good point to bring up, though, because when you can, when you can weaponize the rookie quarterback contract to build around that guy and the way that the Bengals were able to in the first. three or four years of Andy Dalton's career, if you have the 12th to 16th best quarterback in the NFL, that's a pathway to victory. The problem is when you get beyond that rookie quarterback deal, having the 12th to 16th best quarterback in the NFL becomes an issue. And that becomes the concern with Bryce Young is even if you can cling to some bright spots and some silver linings in his game, I think what we saw is in the best case scenario, in the best rosiest timeline,

his ceiling is probably more limited than you really wanted to be 100%. And I think, you know, what's funny about that, I think when people talk about what his ceiling could be and what it could look on his best day, people bring up the Packers game, right? Because statistically it's like his best game. And I think he did have a couple of really good plays. He made like three, four really good plays.

He still made a lot of bad plays in that game. And they were stuff that like, oh, he didn't have the arm to throw that dig route. Like just certain stuff like that where it's like, I don't know if that can get any better. And that's what is so frustrating. about him is because it just the stuff that he can't get like the stuff that he needs to get better at you can't get better at but he's already actually kind of good at some of the stuff that you can get better at and it just makes him like where is the ceiling really i think it's it's it's hard for him

when i watched some of the things they did well last year when you can kind of let him sit back and play point guard he was good at and they didn't use as much empty as i think they should have and if you look at canales and what he did with baker last year i actually think that formula lends well to what Bryce Young can be. So we'll talk about the pathway forward in a second. The thing that concerns me the most is that what really made him stand out in college is those second reaction plays and those outside of structure plays that he was able to make in the pocket feel and the pocket movement.

When we were discussing him as a prospect, I remember talking about Joe Burrow compared to him because if you're looking at it in a vacuum, pocket movement and some of those more intangible aspects and feel for the position are the superpowers that both of those guys have. The difference is Joe Burrow is 6.3-225. He has the requisite physical ability and stature to make that stuff translatable against NFL athletes. My concern with Bryce Young is even if the talent, you could put it in the same bucket, I'm not sure he's going to have the physical ability to weaponize that skill against

NFL athletes. And if you watched him last year, I think that's the answer that we can. came to and that to me is one of the most troubling parts of his rookie year. 100%. Like I think he is at the point where it's like, okay, this is a moderately useful part of his game. But the cell coming in was that like, oh, that he can make magic like five times a game and he just like that's Caleb.

Caleb has the requisite talent. Look at what Caleb's build like. Look at Caleb's lower half. Look how he is. Like I hate talking about players that way, boy. No, but he's put together. And that you, that's why threat. thresholds for size exist because it's only about crossing the threshold.

And because he's so far under it, some of the other elements of who he is matter less and are less impactful because we're not checking certain physical boxes. Exactly. And like, I'm going to do my propaganda again. If you're going to be that small, that skinny, you have to be like really, really fast. You have to be Kyler. And if you're not Kyler, I can't wait for you to just try. Every conversation we have about quarterbacks is going to be used to try to see.

Eakin, Kyler propaganda here. For people who don't know, Derek is a big Kyler guy, and I don't think I'm totally sold, and I think it's going to be a consistent sticking point as we do the show this year. I'll get you there by November. So as we look forward and we think about how this can get better, what in your mind does a successful second season look like for Bryce Young and Carolina? You know, so we'll talk about the other two quarterbacks we haven't gotten to yet. I think the four quarterbacks kind of split into two categories where with Strau,

and Richardson, it's like stuff that I want to see from them get better. With Young and Levis, it's more like I just need the things around them to be better so I can properly see what's going on here. And I think with Bryce Young, it's really going to come down to receiver talent. I'm very glad they went and got a guy like Deonté Johnson. For a long time, I haven't even been a very huge Deontay Johnson fan. I think he's a guy who doesn't have a lot of juice, but he will get open. He will get open.

That's what he does. And nobody else in that offense was able to. get open last year. They were relying on rookies like Jonathan Mingo, who is not a very good right runner to begin with, and then was a rookie. Like, Adam Thielen is kind of reliable in the, you know, one to 10 yard area, but he's, he's, he's an older guy. He doesn't have as much juice as he used to. So the fact that they just got a guy that Bryce can be like, I think this guy can win one on one against man coverage. I think that could be huge in terms of, let's see what kinds of throws Bryce can really make because he was throwing into a lot of tight windows last year,

throwing against a lot of, you know, from really crowded pockets, which I think is always going to be tough for him. That's the other point. They went out and signed two guards. Did they overpay for them? Absolutely. But when you have a quarterback who is 510 on a good day and really doesn't have the physical, like the arm to just rip it through that kind of garbage in the pocket, you kind of need to buy them a little bit more space. And they literally went out and bought it. So I do think they took the right steps to see what we can actually get from Bryce in a more stable environment. I just think he has to go out and prove it. So I think a lot of it's just going to come down to like, can he actually make the throws that are going to be there? Because just you didn't see them there a lot of the time last year.

I can get on board with pretty much everything they did from a personnel perspective. The Damien Lewis thing is he is not a great past protector. He's a frustrating player because you see the physicality in the run game, but he's way more inconsistent in past protection. I think Robert Hunt's probably the same thing, even if he's a little bit better in both of those areas. They're kind of similar players. It's just better at it. So I do think that they probably overpaid for the skill sets, but trying to go out and get those body types. I understand it is an abstract idea, like trying to go out and get those sorts of things. Deante Johnson is the exact same way. Even Xavier Liget. Like, even if we have concerns about how long he was productive in college, why it took that long,

all those kinds of things, this team had no juice whatsoever on yak opportunities last year. None. and they look at it. Bryce was 29th of 32 quarterbacks on EPA for dropback on wide receiver and tight end screens. It was like essentially half a sack every time they threw a wide receiver or tight end screen. If they have a guy that you can just spit the ball out to and potential good things that can happen, that's a huge step forward from where they were a year ago. 100%. And even with the guards, even if they're not the best past protectors and they're not, I think there is something about having the attitude of like we're going to kick ass in the run game now. There's no doubt.

We're going to get to more second and fours. And do you know how many like second and nine pluses that Bryce Young had to throw? And it was a lot, man. You watch those offenses and it's like, wow, he is constantly behind the sticks. And when you're a rookie constantly behind the sticks, your receivers aren't getting open, it's like I think like even CJ like CJ Stroud would have looked, we would have recognized that he was going to be a very good NFL quarterback in Carolina. He would not have been like, oh, this is one of the best rookies.

Like they just, this team was not ever built for that. So I'm hoping we can just see a more consistent price down. Because I think my thing with him is, I think he can get to that point where he's quarterback 14, 15, 16, giving you solid play. You just have to set up the environment a little bit around him. It's just, again, the thing with him is always going to come down to what is the ceiling. And he probably can't really improve on any of the stuff that would dictate that. And the Connell is part of this, I think, is worth mentioning to. I mean, what he's done the last couple years from a putting quarterback in the right positions to succeed.

But also, I don't know what the secret sauce is. We've talked about this a lot where he had two guys with Baker and Gino who took a lot of sacks at other points in their careers when given opportunities to start. And it wasn't a problem for either of them when they were playing for Canales. So that's a good thing for Bryce to potentially improve. And it's not, we requires no imagination. We've seen it happen each of the last two seasons, three seasons with the quarterbacks that Canales has been around. He must be doing something insane because Gino is truly one of the most baffling cases I've ever seen in terms of a guy who fixed how to stop taking sacks. dude, when he was in New York, it was stunning, like, how numb to pressure he was, which, like,

could be good in certain sense. He's almost, we'll talk about we'll love us in a second. Just, like, almost oblivious to everything that's happening around him in the pocket, to what Gino is now, where he's like, truthfully, one of the best pocket managers in the league. And I have to imagine Canales had some sort of hand in that. It's just, if he can do any amount of that with Bryce Young, it would be just phenomenal. It's been fun watching teams over the last year or so. add that level of beef to the interior of the offensive line and reap some of the benefits.

And I'm not saying that the Panthers are going to be the bills or the Rams, but if you look at the additions the bills and the Rams made, both of those teams made those moves for pocket integrity and then the benefits in the run game were almost like a secondary benefit where it's like, oh, now we can run the ball like this. But one fuels the other. And I feel like for Carolina, it could maybe go in the opposite way. We're like, you're going to have the run game first and then maybe it kind of fuels. some more downstream effects that benefit the rest of the offense.

And it's a bet that's worked consistently over the last couple years. The chiefs, I think, are another good example, right? They go get Tuny. They have Trey Smith. And shoring up that area of your roster, it's going to bring good things. And I think that Carolina going that same route, you hope that the actual end results are similar, but it's worked out well for some of these other teams. Right.

If nothing else, they're following the right template. Let's get to our next one here. Let's talk about Will Levis. because Will Levis is somebody that has a much better situation now than he had at the end of his rookie year. We talk about the additions that the Panthers have made for Bryce Young. The Titans went out, added multiple offensive linemen, multiple receiving options, a play-calling offensive head coach. So as you go back and you watch Will Levis' rookie year,

what did it actually look like as you dug into the tape and dug into the numbers? It was as weird as it seemed by the numbers. because I think we all remember some of the games that he had where he just was incredible one half and terrible, the other, that sort of stuff. I think it generally looked like that when you went back and watched every single game that he had. What was so annoying about watching him is

he almost was in like the worst kind of bad offense for who he is because his worst trait, his most toxic trait is that dude will hold on to the ball and he will try to make the coolest throw on the field, which is like admirable, right? Like I love watching it. Buddy, you're playing behind the worst offensive line. in the NFL. Neither of your tackles can play. Your interior is like all undersized except for Skoronski

who probably didn't play as well as he could have because he was injured. Like it's just this team was not very good and almost like the Bryce Young thing. They weren't a lot of like third and eight plus like second and 11 because the run game was terrible because the offensive line was terrible. So you didn't even get value out of having Derek Henry outside of nuke. The receiving core was was pretty desolate. Like even Chig Oconco was I think not the player. that people thought he was going to be. Definitely not. I was excited about him heading into year two.

And there was just there was nothing there. Just non-factor. Like, I think he might just be stuck as a guy who's like a cool idea, but might not ever get into that like is a functionally really good player. He just kind of has that skill set. So I think Will Levis again was kind of in that perfect situation to make all of his worst traits look really bad. And I'm really glad that they went out and tried to fix the offensive line because I think

that's going to be the best way to unlock him. I don't think he's a guy where you need to necessarily have the best receiver talent. They kind of needed to just get to average it. They went above average as what they did. But because I think he can throw into tight windows and he's very willing to give his his guys chances no matter what, no matter who they are, I think you just need to protect him and protect him from himself. So the fact that they went out and did that, I'm very glad.

Is there something that you maybe thought about him or thought about the season that he had that when you actually dug into the details was different than you had expected? it was a little bit surprising. 100%. And actually what Dan Pizuda from 33rd team kind of pointed this out before I even started charting Will Levis. When we think of Will Levis, we think of him in like the under center play action. I mean, I called him Ryan Tannihil before he came out into the draft.

Like that's just the archetype of quarterback that he is. He was actually really good out of empty last year, shockingly. Like he was really, really good out of empty. I don't remember exactly what his production numbers were, but he was one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL out of empty, even mine. numbers. He had like a 65% accuracy rate, which doesn't sound crazy. But when they were getting into empty, they weren't like, oh, we're getting into empty to throw to the flat or throw a screen. They were like, real deal. They were trying to throw 10 plus yards because a lot of them would be like,

this is their third and seven call. It's like, we're just going to pray that we can hold up for two seconds and this guy will get the ball to side. We can't pass protect and it's third and seven. And and you can't add more bodies to the formation. Our only chance is to get five out immediately. Yes, 100%. And he did a shockingly good job at it. Because even even going back to college, I was like, I think the longer he has the ball, the better a thrower he is, which is perfect because that's what he wants to do anyway. But he was actually really good at throwing from empty. And that was something that I was surprised.

I didn't think he had that like, year one, I didn't think he would have that pre-snap acumen to just be like, this is exactly where I need to go with ball. I'm going to make the throw. He doesn't do some of the like, you know, I mentioned the example of CJ's job before where he's like there in empty. He's throwing into the flat, but he's like throwing away from the flat defender, like all that stuff. He, Levis doesn't have that like next level where to put the ball. But in terms of knowing who it needs to go to, I think he actually did a much better job than I anticipated than that. So you still didn't get to see a lot of like true dropback where it's, you know, not empty but not play action. But the fact that he could go out year one and do some of the hard stuff from empty, I was like, hey man, that's a pretty good thing to stand on.

You sound pretty optimistic about him. Am I wrong about that? He's, I want to see where this is going. He's, I'm cautiously optimistic because he checks a lot of the boxes for stuff that, for the type of quarterback I'm willing to bet on. He's big, has a huge arm. He's a better athlete than like his play style leads on, which again, is kind of funny with the Ryan Tannihill thing because I think he's actually a much better, he was a much better athlete than his play style let on. But he also just has this kind of like we were talking about with Stroud, where it's not as refined, but he truly believes he can make every throw on the field. Like you have to have to have that. if you are an NFL quarterback. Like, again, does he have the nuance and the understanding yet of how NFL defenses are working and when he can actually try these things? No, absolutely not.

He's kind of a meathead. Like, that's just the way that he plays the game. But it's very admirable. Like, he just has these traits that I think are just, like, literally admirable is the word, where it's just like, that is how the quarterback game should be played. It's funny. I was talking to someone before the draft, and they were like, are the Matthew Stafford comparisons good?

Like, does that make sense? I was like, it's one of those things where, like, Matthew Stafford is the dinosaur, and Will Levis is like a dino chicken nugget where it's like, in theory, this represents it. But he's still like eight steps away from actually being the thing. But it kind of connects. And so it's maybe in two or three years he can get closer to being a fully fledged dinosaur. And if we wanted to play that game, like the animorph side of this. Like, Ryan Tannahill is like some evolutionary path off of Matthew Stafford. Like they share DNA somewhere along the way.

If you're thinking about the flaws and the flaws that could potentially become fatal, what would prevent him from getting where he wants to go? What are the stumbling blocks for you? I would say the biggest one is he might just have Daniel Jones syndrome where he's just completely oblivious to everything in the pocket because like it's that double-edged sword where on one hand, it can unlock these plays from the pocket that are incredible. Like if you are willing to stand in there and take a hit, it's again, Matthew Stafford. It unlocks these throws that some quarterbacks, like a Derek car, are just never going to get to. And that's cool. It also leads you exposed to a lot more sacks that other quarterbacks might not take. And if he's not going to be a quarterback who's willing to break the pocket and he's really not, that becomes a huge problem. So I think that would be my biggest sticking point. The other one is, I don't think he's necessarily inaccurate, but he's definitely more of like a line drive to a spot thrower. He's not a very good. I'm going to put.

some feathery touch on a corner route. Like that's just not something he has in his bag. And I think with the particular type of way that he throws where kind of a low release, it's a little bit like T-Rex, gator arm, just kind of a short, weird release. I just think that that's probably something that he's not ever going to fix just because you typically see the guys with touch have very just smooth over the top motions. Like it's very fluid. He's a lot more of a rigid thrower.

And so that touch is maybe just never. This is my theory about being too jacked as a quarterback. Literally too Jack to have touch as a pastor. And so those would probably be my two sticking points if I was like, he can't figure this out. What does success look like in year two for Will Levis in Brian Callahan's offense? I think if, again, it goes back to Ryan Tannenhill. Like if they can get back into that, we're going to run the ball a little bit better, we're going to unlock this play action stuff. We're actually going to be good at it.

Because last year, that was all they could kind of do, but they just weren't any good at it. They were terrible. I'm looking at the numbers. he was dead last in the NFL Levis was on success rate off of play action. I bet. It's just we remember the 50-yard bombs that he threw a couple of times. He was 17th in EPA for dropback. So all it is is terrible plays and hugely explosive plays with nothing in between.

To be 17th in EPA and dead last in success rate, you can't be further away in the distribution of just decent plays. They did not exist. They did not. The middle ground did not exist in Tennessee. It was completely, completely out of there. So that's what I want to see from him. It's just like the ability to have consistency in the offense.

And I think really this was even an issue kind of with him in college, especially his senior year. He was hurt a little bit and the team was a little bit worse. But like sometimes drive to drive game to game, he could just be not all the way there. And so I think you just kind of want to see him lock in a little bit. And I think with the receiver talent that they have, I think Callahan coming in is going to be huge. The offensive line being fixed. He should have a better situation where it's like, all right, man, you don't have to make this boneheaded throw right at a defender because you think this is the only way that we can get past

the sticks. We can think about this a little bit more. You can progress a little bit more. You can take some time to actually do some stuff. So I'm hoping that he can iron that out, but we'll see. You're saying that leaning into the run game and the play action stuff, the Jake Browning offense in the second half of the year for the Bengals, that's what this is going to look like. Because you're trying to help the quarterback, put guard rails on the quarterback as much as you possibly can, in the same way they were with Browning. That's the way that Brian Kellan is very comfortable playing. The only reason they didn't play like that with Burrow

is because of Burrow and his preferences. So you think that that sort of deployment, what we saw the Bengals post-Joe Burrow offense with Jake Browning look like is the right approach with a guy like Levis. 100%. I think if you did that... Because that's what it's probably going to look like. I think if you added a little bit more QB run game,

a little more boot, like I actually, because again, he's not a bad athlete. You just have to make him an athlete. That's what's Ryan Tamm. Exactly. You had the force him to do it. The scrambles and a lot of the rushing damage he did in the Arthur Smith world was him just taking off on keepers. He would just there would be grass and he would take grass.

So it is really funny that so much of the Ryan Tanohill playbook applies to Will Levis and the fact they played on the same team last year. Yeah, it really does. And again, that is where it gets tricky though because it took it took Tana Hill what, five, six years for him to get to that level. We don't know if Levis is going to get that kind of leash. But I do think that like that type of avenue is totally on the board. for him. And I think they should lean into that, especially in the red zone with some of the run game stuff. Like, especially because he's, I mean, he's jacked. Like, he's kind of can hit like a hammer. Like, Dak Prescott early in his career was like, I mean, dude was like 240 for a quarterback. But

when you have that kind of guy, like bang between the tackles a little bit, like, let this guy go get you a few tough yards. I think he could absolutely do that. So you have faith in this working, like to an extent. I think, I don't know if I would like bet on it working, but I probably have more faith in it than the average person. And more faith than you start. with before you charted him. Yes. That's a good way to put it. As you, this is just a bigger picture question.

When you go back and you watch guys, do you find yourself typically, and I know it's case-by-case basis, but do you find yourself more or less optimistic on average when you actually dig into all of the place? I think it definitely depends on the quarterback for sure. I think it also depends very much on how it felt in the season. Because like I think sometimes during the season stuff can kind of just get away from you. It does. And Bryce Young was, I think, a perfect case of that where, like, when you're watching him

by week 14 or just like, holy shit, this offense sucks, I don't even want to be here. I don't want to watch this, yada, yada, yada, yada. You step back three, four months later. You watch him again. And it's like, this is still not good. But there is probably more here than I had thought at the time. And I think that that was definitely true of Will Elvis. Whereas, like, when you were watching it at the time, it just felt like, oh, he's going to

make three cool plays a game and that's going to be it. But there was a little bit more beaten potatoes than I thought to his game. And I thought that was encouraging. With him and Bryce, yeah, the, we're going to see, it's an experiment

about how important a situation, how important supporting personnel matters, right? Like when the improvements that they've made, you would hope and play caller 2. Like every aspect of what is around them in both of those spots

is going to change from year 1 to year 2 in the right direction. Yeah. With the last guy here, it was already good and it is going to stay good. And let's talk about Anthony Richardson. Not as many games to worry about. So when you dug into the body of work from Anthony Richardson as a rookie, what did it actually look like down in and down out?

I mean, it was it was kind of exactly what I thought it was going to be in the sense of they actually had a little bit more on the passing menu than I think people thought they were going to. I think people thought they were going to be purely RPO, purely screens, purely just like run game. Like we're going to completely game this thing up. They had a little bit more like real dropback stuff in there than I think people might have imagined. and he was good at it. Like he knows where to go with the football. Like he can go one, two, three. He can work to the backside.

He's very willing to, you know, get immediately to the backside and throw without having to see it open. Like, I think that's another thing. Like, you have to have the confidence to be like, I don't know if this is open yet, but I know it should be open and I trust my guy. I'm just going to make the throw. He obviously has the arm to do it. So he kind of trust himself in that sense.

But you can have the arm and not play like that. Justin Fields didn't play like that. 100%. 100%. Like, you, that's a great point. is like you have to have it mentally too, where you are letting yourself unlock your own arm. And I think Anthony Richards absolutely has that. The other part where it looked exactly where I thought it would, he's just not that accurate

right now. He's just not really to any level of the field when I charted him. Like he was bad to basically every level. In terms of like, his best throws obviously look unbelievable. Like you could pick three out of a game and it's just like this is the best thing that I've ever seen. I would wonder if we're too attached to those though. When I went back and I read your write-up on reception, it was like a cold shower.

Because I think I'm excited about this team because I believe in Stuyken and I think that some of the component pieces are intriguing combined with his upside cases. But part of me thinks that we have to like reel ourselves back in a little bit about how much of a potential issue this accuracy stuff is because it was as bad as you thought it was going to be. And why I have a little bit of hope for it is I don't think it's just a. he can't throw a problem. I think there are basically two ways a quarterback will learn, which is I'm going to just run myself into a brick wall and see if I can get through it, or guys that are just like taking things very slowly, like, okay, what is the easiest thing I can to get away with? And I'm going to build myself up from there. Anthony Richardson will run into the brick wall and see what he can get away with. And obviously when you have that kind of arm talent, you probably should be

playing that way. But when you are constantly trying to do some of the hard stuff and you are already a quarterback who is not all that accurate and you're a rookie like it's just it's probably going to look inconsistent on a down to down basis and so that's why with him I'm a little bit more comfortable just being like okay the good is so insanely good that this is a player that I want to bet on especially when you it's the bet on anthony richardson is not just on anthony richardson right and I know we're going to talk about this it's on Shane Steichen it's it's on the offensive line it's on some of the skill players that they have like this is the environment is so good that it would be really hard for Anthony Richardson to not be some kind of good.

This brings me back to a lot of the conversations we had about him as a prospect and which elements of quarterback player are improvable and which are just you either have it or you don't. It's an innate part of who you are as a player. And I don't want to continue to use Josh Allen as the example because I think Josh Allen is enough of an outlier where if you start chasing that, you're going to make mistakes. But if you look at the trajectory of Josh Allen's career, he obviously had the physical talent from a toolbox perspective from the start. But when you watched him play, he had a feel for this space and he knew where his eyes were supposed to go. Like exactly what you're saying

with Anthony Richardson. They're smart and they're unbelievably physically gifted. You can work on the mechanical stuff that improves accuracy. It's all about putting in the time and being around the right people. There's been a million stories about Josh Allen going out to work with Jordan Palmer and some of like the kinetic testing they did about how his body has to move. Well, Anthony Richardson's doing that. Like, he's working with Will Hewitt and those guys who've rebuilt the way the guys can throw the football. They're doing all of that, like, advanced mechanical study

of how he's supposed to throw. So if you want to get better, you're really smart and you have unbelievable physical upside. We've had enough examples of that. I think with Allen and Hearst to a little bit of an extent, that that combination of stuff can get you where you want to go. And that's why I still believe it, because I think that he's doing the right things,

and he has enough of the stuff that you can't teach, that I still feel like it's worth making that bet. 100%. Like, you can figure out how to get a guy to be on time footwork-wise. Like, Alan really is the best example. I wrote probably three, four different articles during his first two years in the league. Some of the worst footwork I've truly ever seen.

Like, just looked like a baby giraffe out of the womb, dude. Like, just did not know what he needed to do. And think about some of the sprays. Like, we forget it. now because he's a profoundly accurate. Now he's insanely accurate. He's like top five. Which is so crazy.

But like you go back and you remember what it was like in 2018 and 2019. And again, I don't want to be swayed too much by this because maybe that's just the exception to the rule. But it feels to me still like Richardson is made of enough of the right stuff that that sort of improvement or a version of that sort of improvement can still be in the cards. Definitely. Yeah. Like he'll never be as good.

Alan probably like that's just such a high bar but like I just I watch what Richardson is capable of and then I watch what the Eagles offense was with Jalen Hertz and I'm like I just don't see why he can't at least be that like I just don't see why it's accurate Jalen is more accurate for all of Jaylon's deficiencies and I think that there are enough of them accuracy is one of his strong points where he wants to go with the football it goes there and so maybe maybe that's not the right way to think about it. Maybe if this, maybe the actually the most important trait within this sort of system is, I just need you to get the ball where I want you to get the ball. And if he can't get there, maybe that's not the right comparison to a guy like Jalen Hertz. That's a really good point, actually,

because I was kind of just thinking like what they are physically, obviously just in terms of some of the throws that like every, like you said, every throw is on the board for Jalen Hertz. Every throw and more is on the table for Anthony Richardson. But that might be a good point where like he just, Richardson right now doesn't have some of the consistent touch that a guy like Jalenhurst. I mean, some of the Jalen hurts is best throws or some of those like sailor outs. He'll throw to Dallas God. They're beautiful. He's one of the best outside the numbers.

He's one of the best outside the numbers down the field throwers in the NFL. Yes. He doesn't have Richardson's pocket field, I don't think. He's not as creative as a thrower. But at a certain point, like, is that stuff enough? Like the upside cases and the upside traits are we forgetting the actual building blocks of what we need to play the position? and if he can't establish those,

is it betraying some of those more advanced skills that we're excited about? I mean, I think it's a really good point. I guess the argument is always like you can fix some of the... You can fix accuracy. We have examples of being able to fix accuracy. The mindset on that has changed. I was just going to say that's like a new thing where I think five, six years ago, even we were just like guys coming out of college,

if they're inaccurate, they're inaccurate. And that's just the way that it is. But like, I just, that's not really the case anymore. Like, I think we've gotten so much better about quarterback coaching and understanding how to get guys where they need to be mentally in the first place so that they're not late and their footwork isn't bad. I think we've gotten so much better about that type of stuff. We have. And I think the football community now believes that. From a scouting perspective, I mean, Anthony Richardson would not have been the fourth overall pick in the draft 10 years ago.

He just wouldn't have been because we wouldn't have had examples of guys improving that. I mean, I remember when I first started covering the league and you would talk to coaches or just read about the non-negotiable aspects of the position when we talked about prospects. And that was always the thing. You don't get more accurate. It was one of the cardinal rules of quarterback evaluation from college to the NFL. And it's just not true anymore. Think about some of the best quarterbacks we've seen recently.

Lamar Jackson, he got more accurate in the NFL. Josh Allen got more accurate in the NFL. Jordan Love came out of college. Not a consistently accurate player, terrible footwork. Much cleaner now. Like so many of the guys who are in even the top 10, like even the top five are guys who came into the league with not even Patrick mohomes obviously you can't make any case for him for anything but like he had weird

unconventional footwork coming into the league it didn't matter because he's just so insanely talented but like I'm glad that as a football community we're past like getting so hung up on like how footwork works like it's just the guys who are talented and the guys who have it they will figure it out and that's why I think there's so many people who have probably listened to the collective chorus about anthony richardson excitement at this offseason and been like, you guys are fucking crazy. Like, what are you talking about? But that's why he's one of those guys where I don't need to see it.

Like, I understand the pathway, and I can predict the pathway enough that I'm willing to get excited about it before I actually see it because we've seen this road walked before by other guys. Yeah, 100%. All right. Those are the four guys we got. Do you have any Aidan O'Connell thoughts that you want to throw out here if we're talking about second year quarterback?

So we might as well hit that before we go. I mean, I think we covered most of it when we did what the AFC West show. That's right. You guys should go back and listen to that. I don't think I have a whole lot new to say about Aden O'Connell. I saw him throw two touchdowns in the Red Zone period of Jacobi Myers earlier today. Really? Yeah.

So that may say more about Jacobi Myers and it does about Aiden O'Connell. That's the only thing I think I might say about Aiden O'Connell's. I'll double down on like they should let him start week one. That's all I've got. Like, I don't know if it'll be good. I don't know if he'll be the quarterback in 2025, but they should at least see what's going on there. Joining us now to discuss the big Jordan Love News from last week, late last week, is our Packers writer here at the Athletic Match Diamond.

Matt, thank you for joining us, sir. Oh, it's always a pleasure to come on. It was funny, since I did not go to any of the three Packers practices this weekend since I was at one of my best friends' weddings in Denver. And I was, let's say several drinks deep at the welcome party on Friday night when the Jordan love news broke. I knew it was going to happen once I, flew out to Denver and he hadn't signed the extension yet. And I was texting with Diana

Rusini earlier on Friday and we kind of had a feeling that it was coming. I was like, oh, there's nothing you can do about it now. I had already pre-written something. But yeah, Jordan Love locked up for the next couple years at least. And what a road it's been. I remember sitting on my couch at home during COVID in 2020 watching them draft him. And I was stunned, I think, just like everybody else. But here we are. Yeah, I had a similar kind of thing. I'm on the road. And so I'm interacting with the news differently than I would. Typically, I'm just like catching random snippets when I like check Twitter every like a few hours because I'm on the move. And we had already recorded something on a Friday. And it's just like, you know what? I'm not

going to worry about that for like 24 hours. We'll figure out what the plan for that is a little bit deeper into the weekend. And this is where we landed. And I'm happy that we did. I understand why the Packers felt like they had to do this based on the movement in the market this off season. And if I'm Jordan loves people, and I'm David Muggetta, I'm looking at the contract that Trevor Lawrence got and said, our guy's done more in high leverage moments, even if it's only been half a season than Trevor Lawrence has done in his career. Whether or not you believe that in terms of how the quality of the quarterbacks, you could make that argument. So it felt like the Packers were in kind of a tough spot based on the way the quarterback market has unfolded

this year and what Jordan Love did in the back half of the year. So did you feel like this sort of conclusion where it's really the best quarterback contract that we've seen because it's only a four-year deal. I mean, it's a really, really strong contract. Is this where you kind of expected this thing to land ultimately as you saw the chessboard as the season unfolded? Or did you feel like there were some other pads that the Packers were either hoping to take or that this might have gone that ultimately didn't unfold? Yeah, I think as the season unfolded, I started to say, okay, this is probably getting into the 40s. And it went from, okay, Daniel Jones, type contract to, okay, this might start with a five. And then once we saw the Jared Gough and

Trevor Lawrence contracts, it's, okay, this might, you know, be 56. And I was actually a little surprised he wasn't the standalone number one in average annual value. You know, he's obviously tied with Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence. But we all know this. These contracts are not based on what you've done, but also what you're projected to do. And I can't count the number of people I've He's, oh, but he's only played eight games. Let him play the first half of next season. Well, you can't do that because if he plays really well, the price only goes up. And the Packers don't want to pigeonhole themselves into that conundrum.

And also, this could seem like a bargain in a couple years. I mean, the first extension that Packers gave Devante Adams was by the time they were up for another one. He was like the 14th highest paid receiver in the league. And he was the best receiver in football. So that's just the way things work. It's a big risk. but the Packers are no stranger to taking a big risk with this guy. They drafted him with four years left on Aaron Rogers' contract.

And like you just said, let's say there's someone out there who says Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love are of equal talent right now. Jordan Love only has one full season starting. So you could argue that, you know, he has a higher ceiling because he's accomplished talent based alone what Trevor has in, what is it, three years that he started now. Yeah. So I think Jordan's a really good player. And you have to keep in mind this.

While we have only seen him for one season, this team and these people giving him this money have seen him every single day for four years. They know what he brings to the table. They have a better sample size to project what he's going to become than we do. So I think people on the outside have learned to maybe trust Brian Gutakunz that maybe he knows what he's doing more so than it once seemed. But I think this is a really talented kid. And is he going to play as well as he did the second half of last season, which was, you know, right there with Purdy and Prescott for the best QBs in football? I don't know. But even if he's slightly below that, I think it's still a good deal.

Talking to people in the building, was there any sort of hesitance or trust? trepidation, like, man, we are taking a pretty big risk here based on the sample size, or do you think that the people making these decisions actually feel pretty good about them? I think they feel pretty good because something Brian Gutikun said on Saturday morning, he said, yeah, there's going to be some challenges down the road, and we can get into those later with kind of the structure of this contract. But he said I'd much rather have this quote-unquote problem than the problem of not having a franchise quarterback. Even before they paid him, Goudicund said, we have our franchise quarterback.

We know he's our franchise quarterback. The deal not being done and Jordan not practicing is not a result of us deciding if we're going to pay him. It was just kind of fine-tuning the details of this contract. So I don't think there was any hesitancy. They've known for quite some time now, at least since probably the end of last season, maybe even earlier than that, that he was going to be their franchise guy that they were going to pay this money. The only problem with this, and again, like, like Gudku said, and this organization is used to it, it's a good problem to have. By doing it this way, you have such a small window,

one, to decide whether you're going to pay the guy, because he's not playing very often, and two, you don't really get to wield the advantages of a rookie quarterback contract. Like, that lasted for essentially one year. And you'd much rather have this set of circumstances we're like, oh, the guy's already expensive and we didn't have a huge timeline to decide how much we wanted to pay our really good quarterback rather than not having one at all. Like, this is definitely the beneficial path, but there are still realities that come along with it. And, I mean, he's going from making essentially nothing to having a $29 million cap hit in 2025

on a roster that's already full of like pretty expensive guys. You know, for the most part, I mean, this team is pretty much what it's going to be now that they've made the Xavier McKinney signing. There aren't going to be many splashy outside signings for the most part over the next couple years. I would guess now that this is in place. And that's fine. They've got a ton of guys on rookie control contracts, especially at skill position players,

etc. But that's the difference between this and a normal runway with a rookie quarterback before you decide whether you're going to pay him. You have more time to do that. And they really just didn't at all. The entire thing is just fast-tracked for them in a way we've done. do not typically see. Right.

Like, ideally you would have kind of a C.J. Stroud situation where he's on his rookie contract for another couple of years and you know what you have. You know you're going to eventually pay him, but you don't have to yet. What the Packers would say is, well, yeah, ideally that's what you want. But Jordan wouldn't be the guy he is today, the guy that earned this contract if he hadn't sat for three years behind Aaron. Jordan said it himself the other day. He didn't feel he was ready until probably his third season, 20, 20,

too. But Aaron was coming off back-to-back MVPs. They couldn't move on from him, even if they wanted to. You know, Aaron has told me way back when that he thought he maybe had won two years left, but he kind of extended his timeline because he won those back-to-back MVP. So it was kind of extended in the Packers where pigeonholed into, you know, really only having one year, like you said, on that rookie deal to figure out if he was the guy. And part of that is because of Aaron. Part of that is because Jordan just, you know, came into a situation where he wasn't going to be the guy right away. They got, I don't want to say lucky, but they got fortunate that they got that definitive

answer the second half of last season because the first half of the season, Packers were two and five, they were three and six. It's like, okay, well, if they kind of keep middling this year, do you give him another year not knowing what he's got? It was going to be really complicated there for a second. So the way Jordan played the second half of last season made it. it like we just talked about really easy for them to decide. And now they go right back into a world where they have one of the highest paid

quarterbacks in the league like they did with Aaron. But I will say the advantageous thing about this is they're wide receivers and tight ends, really, because you mentioned Xavier McKinney, Josh Jacobs. You got Kenny Clark, Jaya Alexander. Like, there are high paid players on either side of the ball. But you got Christian Watson, Romeo, Dantavian Wicks, Jaden Reed, Luke Musgrave, Tucker Kraft. Those are your top six pass catchers all still on their rookie contracts.

So I don't want to say the Packers window is the next two years or whatever. But before they start to get in some cap trouble, because Jordan's cap numbers, the next three seasons, yeah, next two seasons. It goes from about $20.2 million to about 30 to 36 to 42 to 74. So, you know, the next two years, they're pretty darn manageable. And then that's when guys like Watson and Dobbs and Reed and Wicks are going to start wanting to get paid. So might as well win a Super Bowl this year, right? And that's, you always have to offset these huge deals with a bunch of rookie contract players.

Like, you have to have the balance. And I think them approaching it the way that they had with so many picks over the last two years, they've set themselves up well to do this. And you allude to this. if you look at the structure of it, it's kind of halfway between some of these pay-as-you-go contracts and some of the fake money deals that are pre-pro-rated, like the J-1-Herts contract. Like, it's not all the way there. Jordan's cap-hits are a little bit bigger than that, but there's still three void years tacked on

to the end of this. He still has a massive cap-hit in 2028 that has a $44 million-dollar-based salary. He'll never play on that. Like, if we get to that point, they'll just convert that thing and just keep kicking it down the road. And when I'd say, when I'm... talking about the financial realities of this, it's not that this is a bad thing. It's just unique. We're not used to dealing with this truncated of a timeline with quarterbacks in the NFL, and it's forced them to have to consider some stuff and build things in a certain way.

But you would deal with this problem 100 times out of 100 if you were any organization in the league. And like you alluded to, they're used to this. They've had to build around Rogers and figure out, when do we restructure? How do we move some money around? here. This is not new territory for this team, and I think it leaves them well equipped to navigate this in a way that maybe some other front offices wouldn't be as adept at doing. Yeah, and even this year, I'm looking at over the cap right now. I think the Packers are 1, 2, 3, 456, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12th in cap space right now. And that's factoring in Jordan's cap charge this year. They still have over 22 million in cap to spend this year. So, you know,

they're in a solid spot. They're out of the cap hell, if you will, that they were in the final years of the Aaron Rogers era. And last season was kind of all about getting out of that. And now I wouldn't say they're right back in it yet. But it would be advantageous, like I was saying, if they win now before they, you know, get back in it in a couple of years. Because the cycle comes for everybody.

And like I said, Brian Gutikens would much rather this than having plenty of cap space. and not a good quarterback. Looking at it right now, this shouldn't probably be surprising, but the Packers are dead last in the NFL in cap spending at wide receiver, which when your entire group is made up of rookie contract players,

that makes total sense. They're slated to be 30th in 2025. And if you look at the offensive line, the offensive line this year is 30th, and next year, I believe, they're 27th. So this is how you survive. If you're going to pay your quarterback this, you have to offset it by not spending a ton in other places.

The Chiefs are like this. If you look at the Chief's offensive line spending before last season when they signed Juan Taylor, Crete Humphrey was on a rookie deal, Trace Smith was on a rookie deal. Even with Joe Tooney, similar to the Packers, they had one expensive guard. And other than that, it was a lot of cheap players. And then they've restocked their receiver room with a bunch of cheap guys. So it's just about finding balance somewhere on the roster. And again, not surprisingly, the way that Brian Coon Coos has done this,

the holistic view of it and the holistic approach, the Packers have that. And I think it sets them up to really weather this in a really good way. Yeah. And at the end of the day, this comes down to, like you just said, finding ways to replenish your roster with young talent. And Brian Gutakunz hasn't been great at drafting wide receivers until the last couple of years. You know, Watson, Dobbs, Wicks, and Reed seem pretty solid. But before that, it was like equanimous St. MVS. Like Jemann Moore, it wasn't great. But, But historically, Brian Gutakunz, obviously, a Ted Thompson disciple. They got Randall Cobb, James Jones, Jordy Nelson, Devante Adams, Greg Jennings.

You know, all those guys were Ted Thompson draft picks in the second or third round. And then offensive line two. Corey Lindley, David Bactiari, Josh Sit and T.J. Lang, Zach Tom, all day three picks. Elton Jenkins is a multi-time pro bowler. But you were talking about the offensive line right now. They're starting left tackles at 22, 730. round pick. Their left guard's Jenkins, so he already got his big money extension. Their center, Josh Meyer is still on his rookie deal. And I would imagine he's probably not going to get a second

contract. Their right guard is either their first round rookie this year or their 2022 third round pick. And then their right tackles, Zach Tom, is still on his rookie deal. So like you said, that's how you make it work with a high-price quarterback is you are good at drafting and developing at multiple positions on that side of the ball. And the Packers just so happen to be one of the best at doing it at those two positions. And sometimes it has to come after you give the quarterback the contract, like the Bengals a little bit. It's like, okay, we, especially on defense, it's a week, we microwave this.

Now we really have to rely on our draft picks. The Packers thankfully got ahead of that problem. Like, it's already been proven that they have some of these guys who are going to be pretty foundational pieces for them. If we're looking at Jordan Love's season specifically, talking about on-field stuff, as you've watched him over the first week of training camp or so, as you've talked to people there. Are there areas of his game or that apply to this offense as a whole where you see a little bit more upside and a little bit of progress from where this group was a year ago?

Yeah, you know, we were talking to Tom Clements this off season and he's been the quarterback coach in Green Bay for Farr, Rogers, and now Love. Since I cared about football. Yeah, still doing it. And I think him still being here is a testament to the promise he's. season love in a way. And something he told us this offseason was one specific area he saw improvement in Jordan last season was Jordan is so athletic. Like he can make throws off platform. He can run around. But earlier in the season, Jordan would take off from the pocket and just

put his head down and run. And Tom Clemens said as the season went on, Jordan would learn to take off from the pocket and keep his head up and still look for plays downfield. because once the quarterback leaves the pocket, the defense maybe has a tendency to collapse on the quarterback, and that opens things up downfield behind defenders. And Jordan and Tom Clements have realized that, you know, when you take off, there are massive plays to be had if you just keep your head up instead of putting your head down and running.

And, you know, that's probably an area they'd like to continue to grow in. Now, he still has to work on Tom Clements' three mortal sins of the position, which I believe are no blind throws, no predetermined reads, and no throwing across your body over the middle. And Jordan did, I think, all three of those on one play on his last throw of the season against the 49ers and that game in the divisional round. So obviously you got to rid yourself of that.

But I mean, when you throw 18 touchdowns and one interception over the last, I don't know what it was, seven games of the regular season or whatever it was, there's not much to improve upon. they really like where he's at in this offense. He has complete command of it. Matt Lafleur said the other day. I think it's just about finding ways to keep defenses off balance and feeding all the mouths that are going to want to be fed in this offense this year.

It's a real bummer as someone who's from where I'm from and roots for the team that I've always rooted for it, that the Packers can make another quarterback the highest paid player in the league. And it is not an objectively like shit upon decision. But people are just like, yeah, that's the level that he played at last year. This is the world that we live in, unfortunately. And thankfully for me, I've gotten very, very used to it. Matt Schneidman, always great to chat with you, sir.

I'm looking forward to seeing you up in Green Bay in like two-ish weeks. So I will see you then and be good to see you. And good luck with the rest of the camp and good luck as we get toward the season here. Appreciate it, brother. See you soon. All right, guys. That's all we got for today. Thank you so much to Derek.

Thank you so much to Matt, Matt Schneidman. for those guys, for me, for our producer, Michael Beller. Thank you for listening. We will be back on Thursday with our next episode. Until then, I appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.