The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Part 2: Fixing the Rams, Colts and other teams that fell apart in 2022 with Jourdan Rodrigue

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

The Rams' Super Bowl championship reign didn't go as planned. Neither did the Colts' latest play for a veteran quarterback. The Athletic's Jourdan Rodrigue joins Robert Mays to break down where things went wrong, and how things get fixed, for those two, and three other teams that crashed and burned in 2022 on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube2:30 Los Angeles Rams24:22 Detroit Lions37:13 Indianapolis Colts52:01 Pittsburgh Steelers63:12 Houston Texans Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Great show for you guys today. Just past Thanksgiving. It's week 13. There are plenty of teams in the NFL who just fell short this year. Crashed and burned didn't hit the expectations we thought they were going to coming into the year.

And when we get to this point in the season, it's easy to forget about those teams. We get totally enthralled with a playoff picture and who's going to make the way. wild card and what do the Super Bowl contenders look like. So I wanted to take a step back today and look at 10 teams that ultimately fell short this season. Why that happened and how they might pick up the pieces. A few teams were not going to talk about as part of this exercise. The Packers, we just had a conversation about that with Mike Sando earlier this week.

If you want some Packers talk, go check it out there. We did a big dive on the Saints on the Monday hangover a couple weeks ago, so we were not going to talk about the Saints. The bears get plenty of oxygen on this show. Also, the bears were supposed to be bad. So the fact that they are bad should not be a surprise to anyone. But we've got 10 other teams that we're going to chat about and dig into on this show. We talked for so long that we're going to split this into two parts.

This is part two of our two-part podcast about teams that crashed and burned in 2022 and how they are going to potentially pick up the pieces. We're going to chat with Jordan about the Los Angeles Rams. the team that she covers along with a handful of other teams. Let's get into that chat with Jordan right now. All right. I am thrilled now to welcome our Rams writer here at the Athletic, someone I definitely wanted to have this conversation with about the Rams, but also the other teams that we're going to dig into in the second half of this show today.

Jordan Roderick, it's great to have you back on the show. Great to be back. We were talking off air. We always got the hat connection going, man. We are always good for a good hat. It is pure laziness. It's the only way that I can pull. put it. I flew back from Miami today

finishing up my Thanksgiving trip, not vacation. Obviously working the whole time. It's the middle of the football season, but got back today and I was like, you know what? Just throwing on the hat. That's the amount of effort that I'm willing to put into getting myself prepared and in some sort of working shape for this show. So

we're going to dig into five more teams. We talked about five with Daniel earlier. And we're going to talk about five more as part of these 10 teams that kind of crashed and burned here in the 2022 season and how they're going to pick up. up the pieces. Some don't really apply. Some do. Some are in here just because I wanted to talk about

them. But one team at the top is kind of the epitome of this because when you win a Super Bowl and now a year later, you're giving away a top five pick. And also, I can't even keep track of who's still playing and who's going to be in the actual starting lineup here over the last six weeks based on how many guys are hurt and who's getting shut down. We're going to dig into the team you cover, and that is the Los Angeles Rams. So I'm going to let you carry a good portion of this conversation. We've been starting all of these with a simple question of how did we get here? And the answer to that with the Rams, I don't even know where you want to start here. The Rams are three and eight. They are about to give away the third overall pick if the season ended today to the

Treet Roins. How did we get here, Jordan? Yeah, it's hard to know where to start. I guess I'll start here. Monday mornings, very early into the Rams 2022 season, where they usually have the personnel meetings and the gatherings of executives and kind of an all staff situation, but they look at the week ahead. And pro personnel is in there as well. Monday mornings became less about having an all staff and more about, okay, who knows a lineman. So scroll through your contacts, who's got to who's got an o lineman for us? It's been a strain. The Rams have, we're heading into week 13.

The Rams have started a different offensive line combination in every single one of their games so far this season. They've gone through four left tackles, four left guards, three centers, five right guards, and one right tackle, Rob Havenstein, holding it down. Every time I interview him, he makes me literally knock on the wood of the locker, just to make sure we're not inviting any bad karma or bad vibes in there. You know, all kidding aside, this has been an absolute catastrophe of a season for the Rams, and it's really started with the overall health of the team. That's where the dominoes started falling.

Not only did they come into the season without Van Jefferson, so the combination of not having Van Jefferson healthy to stretch the field for them and then do a lot of the WR3 things that he does really well, but also onboarding a new passing game with Alan Robinson, also not having any sort of protection right out of the gate against a couple of the best defenses in the league. I mean, the Rams just got beat to hell just early on in the season, physically, mentally, emotionally.

Matthew Stafford having no protection, a record number of hits on a quarterback in the Sean McVeigh era because, like I said, they're just rotating through, including in-game, just more offensive linemen than I've ever seen in one building in my entire life or over the course of multiple years combined. And it's been an absolute, like one of those like barrel or like snowballs rolling down a hill that's like full of rocks that you're just trying to get out of the way of it. And that's what this year has been.

One thing after another, after another, Cooper Cup goes down. Aaron Donald is definitely, you know, week to week is a generous way to describe where he's at right now. you know, Alan Robinson out for the season, Ashon Robinson out for the season. Matthew Stafford, Concussion Protocol, exits the Concussion Protocol, back in the concussion protocol, also as a neck injury, all of these things that have sort of just combined all at the same time. Robert, you know that we have talked so much about the absolute fragility and interdependence of the ecosystem that the Rams built in order to win the Super Bowl. That was the bet they made because they understood that if they were going to push as hard

is they push their team building model that if they didn't have one or more of the phases in complete lockstep with the other, like I said, very interdependent system and operation, if one of those implodes, the whole thing goes. And that was the agreement that they made with themselves in order to push that model to its limit. And the one thing, you know, I've seen the take pieces. I've seen the, you know, the hot, you know, the columns and all that stuff. I've seen the memes and everything. And I just think we're forgetting the one thing that was this entire balance was cosmically dependent on was the health of the team. They've been one of the healthiest teams in the league for the last four years. They were not operating in any sort of outlier

in terms of their health. And so that allowed them to push as hard as they did. And I think people broadly are sort of forgetting how dependent on repeated years of being the team that loses among the least amount of meaningful games to injury in the league over the last half decade, how important and crucial that's been to their entire model. They were bottom five in the league and adjusted games lost for a majority of Sean McVeigh's time there. And I think that that was, they'll tell you, I would say, a product of how much time, effort, and resources they put into their conditioning, their medical staff. I mean, that was a huge focus of what the building looked like, as far as I understand it,

since McVeigh got there and, you know, they made sort of staffing changes and decisions around that. So you look at it, I mean, some of the guys that have played on the offensive line this year, I'm going to list off some of these games, okay? I haven't even, I don't, I couldn't, like, honestly, I haven't even met some of them. Like, I'm in an open locker room every day. And they've been there so briefly, I haven't even met some of them. So here's a couple guys who have played at least 50 snaps for the Rams in the offensive line this year. AJ R. Curry.

Seventh round rookie. Okay. I appreciate you being able to give me context this. Started at left tackle last week, by the way. AJ R. Curry. I did see play last week, so I knew that he got some time. Tynaseki is on this team. Tynaseki career swing tackle has been at a bunch of different places.

Tremaine Ancrum played two snaps at one point. He's a guard. Broke his fibula on it. The first snap of his first start, then played another snap with a broken fibula before they pulled him off the field. That's not funny, but that's kind of where we are right now. Obviously, Coleman Shelton has been hurt this year. Jeremiah Colonie?

Colon? How do you pronounce that? Colone. Colone. He was about to enroll in the police academy before they brought him back. He took the first snaps that he took with Matthew Stafford ever were when he came into the game because their first two centers had gotten injured. So here's what we have to do now. And this is very difficult to do.

It's about trying to figure out over the next year which of this stuff is solvable to get this team back just to a competitive level in 2023 and which of this stuff may linger even when the health of the team improves. So to do that, I want to take a step back to pre-week one. If we could get in a time machine and just say, you know what, the offensive line is going to stay relatively healthy this year. What else would you do differently? If you gave Sean McVeigh and Lesneed some truth serum and said, all right, what else would you change about the way that you built this team independent of the health of the offensive line that may have led or may have contributed to what's happened so far this season? What do you think their answer would be? Do we have the benefit of foresight now? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. So understanding where this group would be at, independent of the health of the line, I don't think. they make the move for Alan Robinson. And it's not like they're sitting there regretting it. There's a lot of factors that are in place in terms of why he hasn't been, you know,

the game-changing player that they expected him to be. And it's one of those things where we have to always accept many things are true at the same time. And I say this all the time. It's, you know, like my slogan over in Ramsland over here right now. Because, you know, when you saw where he was aligning and what the plan was. was for him in training camp and Robert, you saw it too when we were there a couple days. You saw him doing so many different types of things. And, you know, obviously the nature of

the credential when we're there on site, you can't report exactly what you're seeing schematically. But none of those things are happening in the games. And in part, because they're so embattled up front that now your entire playbook changes, not just because of the historic pressure they were seeing right out of the gate, but also when you start changing your linemen, you start changing and limiting the language of the playbook itself. That's how a Sean McVeigh, Kyle Shanahan, any of these system teams work. And so you saw as a result of that, his entire plan just starts to shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink. Well, in a two-part situation, if you have the foresight of knowing which you know now about the way your season was going to be going,

and also the direction the league went this year, the Rams believed that they were going to be seeing Cooper Cup bracket, ISO coverage. John Allen right out of the gate. What they've been seeing, what they saw instead was Matthew Stafford just getting fire zone to death. And teams playing with the shell and teams saying, we don't think you can throw past us and we're going to rush with four all day long and send some weird pressures at your rotating core of offensive linemen who don't even know, you know, what the call is. And that's how we're going to beat you.

And that's how teams did beat them. And that went completely counter to what the Rams and Sean McVey thought because he and Matthew Stafford pushed for this trade, or excuse me, pushed for. this signing for Alan Robinson. They're the ones who brought up all the film, who got on the phone, who convinced him while he was on the precipice of signing with another team to come to Los Angeles because this was the vision that they sold to him. The vision that we saw standing on the sidelines in training camp when both of us have random executives for no other reason other than they were so excited coming up to us, telling us how special of a season Alan Robinson's going to have.

And it's not to say that that still isn't possible. It's just that in hindsight, if you see the way that teams, and if you know in advance the way teams are actually playing them, and then you also know the way that the league is sort of experiencing its outlier year, and I know you guys have talked about this really well on here, in terms of enjoying the run game in a way that they never have before, you know, in years, and in terms of those teams being very productive and efficient and steady. And then you think, wow, a guy like Robert Woods really would have helped out in that regard. And a guy like Robert Woods, really, when Cooper Cup goes down, can step in and

understands the language. You don't have to reassign all of Cooper Cup's responsibilities to five different receivers, including, again, read through the list of names, like, including guys that you just don't even, you don't even expect to factor in at any point. And, you know, you're, you're looking at now dividing all of his assignments among those players instead. and you still have never formulated or executed the cohesive plan that you communicated to Alan when you signed him and you communicated all through training camp that you worked on. They're basically having to reset on the fly every single week. And a guy, you know, in hindsight, that's a move that I think looms large, not just because of the move itself in a vacuum. And I think that's where people get caught up is saying this was bad or this was good.

In the context of how the season unfolded, you look at this and you think, man, they probably want that one back. but not for the reasons that anyone would assume in terms of the production or lack thereof, more so all of the reasons that I just illustrated. Also, just a lack of resources, period. They didn't have that many ways they could have gone with that money. And their cash strap, they've devoted a lot to building this version of the team. They only had a couple different ways they could go with free agency and the guys that they could bring in. And that was one of the big swings that they made.

So now, the big question for me is, what does this look like next year? And that question starts with, who's a round? round next year. I know that that hasn't been answered yet. There probably isn't any way to know that for sure yet. But your gut feeling right now, which of the major pieces associated with this franchise, the quarterback, the coach, the greatest defensive player of his generation, all of those guys, do you think are back to go at this again in 2023? Well, I don't think it's going to be that straightforward in terms of they're all back or none of them are back. Right out of the gate, I don't think it's going to be that straightforward. And I also don't think normally, like, I generally have a pretty good feel of where

the emotions are at and where the energy is at with this group. And it just feels like almost like waiting right now. I think people are unsure themselves. I think that the team, I know for a fact that the team does not really know what the future is going to look like. But I also know that they've been in conversations about what happens either way in a variety of different scenarios. and possibilities. And so, and we'll get to that in a minute. But in terms of where they're at right now, there's no way that that Cooper Cup isn't back, first and foremost. I mean, I feel like, you know, that guy is going to do the entire career arc that you'd see in like some sort of a Benjamin Button movie with the Rams all the way up to the point where, you know, 75 years from now,

someone will be walking through the hallway and hear the squeaky wheel of like a janitor's bucket and look around. And it's an old. man pushing a bucket and suddenly it dawns on that person that that's Cooper Cup, right? Still in the building. And so I think that's what you're looking at with Cooper. In terms of Aaron, the retirement stuff was real before and it probably will be a real conversation again. Matthew Stafford, you know, Kelly Stafford has been really outspoken on her podcast the morning after with Kelly Stafford about how, how passionate she's felt about this situation. You know, Matthew Stafford did not sign up to come to Los Angeles and take a bunch of hits. He left Detroit in part.

because of the physical toll that it was taking on him. And he won a Super Bowl and all of that. And Matthew Stafford and Sean McVeigh are very much tied together. Sean McVe almost looks at Matthew as like a sibling at this point in terms of someone who is so collaborative with and someone who has helped him grow as a person. And probably they've taught each other a lot over this last year and a half. Sean McVeigh is very much tied to Matthew Stafford. And so I think there's sort of a situation there where you're waiting to see collectively

the nuance of this conversation and how it plays out between players and their families, players and their own personal feelings about all of this. And my gut on this, the biggest X factor that I don't think many people are talking about right now is nobody wants to go out this way. This is an historic outlier that they've experienced. If you think, and these injuries too, if you think there's a chance that you don't have to go out on an injury, maybe not the, you know, maybe you don't reach the, the football mountain top again in your last career season.

But if you cannot leave with this type of taste in your mouth or this sort of shot to your pride, I think that a lot of those guys in the locker room would 10 out of 10 say, yeah, I want to try it one more time. I want to see what we can do. And as a staff collectively, there's going to be contingency plans. I don't think anyone will ever be surprised to know that, you know, Sean McVeigh at some point will take a break. don't know when, you know, but at some point he will.

And in that regard, I don't think the Rams would sit there and change everything they do. I think they would sort of expect that at some point he'd be back as well. But when you're a head coach and you go to the Super Bowl and you win the Super Bowl, you go to it twice in five years and then you win one of them. And then the next year you have your first real dose of adversity. And then you walk away after that. I don't know that as a person, Sean McVeigh wants that kind of line within the rundown of what his legacy will eventually be, even if it means he will be back at some point.

So it's an ongoing, very nuanced conversation. I'm sort of factoring in the very real, like, human emotion that goes into this as well. And I think that with the Rams, what had really helped them was, okay, you're not getting, in terms of making sure everyone's on the same page and getting them back was, here's a clear plan for the contract extensions post Super Bowl. Aaron, here's a clear plan for what we're going to try and free agency. We want to make sure that you have a pass rusher. hey also by the way Aaron if we don't get when we don't get von Miller back we're going to get Bobby

Wagner we're going to still try to put a pass rusher around you guys around you at the deadline you know all of these things communicating that clear plan and I think this team if if they can get these guys back and they do decide they want to be back and want to give it another shot through the ends of these contracts which very much illustrate their window quote unquote then I think the Rams go out swinging frankly I think that they do some crazy shit and The Brian Burns trade or the lack thereof, I think, is very indicative of that. But that was so interesting. That's what told me where this team was at more than anything else.

And I'm so glad you brought it up because I saw everyone like roasting that one, right? But think about it in the context of the Jalen Ramsey trade instead. It's a huge amount of capital for a player who they've decided is an elite, you know, member of a premium position who in an Aaron Donald contention window, we refer to it over on the Rams beat as ADCW. Within the ADCW, you know, you have a guy who can immediately come in and help you remain in contention through that window, right? Because this defense works the best when you can rush for consistently and you have a speed power combo and all these things we've talked about at nauseam, right? And then you also have a guy who in a post ADCW, you can then continue to build your defensive scheme around, similar to when they sort of half blew up their defense and then completely change. the scheme after they traded a huge amount of capital for Jalen Ramsey as a core player who they

built a major part of their scheme and ultimately between him and Aaron shifted their philosophy to be built around. So I looked at it like that. I was like, okay, no, you're bringing him in to remain in contention. You're pushing like that. And when you look at it through that lens, I think it was a pretty good, like I wouldn't have minded it if they ended up executing that trade because you're pushing in that amount of capital, not just for a player who you believe can help you can remain, keep that ADCW open and also who you can, when it's closed, you can continue to build around so you're not just completely depleted because players like that just don't come along very often.

All right. Let's move on, chat about a team that is very happy that the ramps have crashed and burned in 2022. And that is the Detroit Lions. It's just delicious, right? I mean, just think about all the potential timelines. when they make that Matthew Stafford trade. The idea that, and when they did that, the thought, I think, just conventional wisdom.

All right. This may be the time when the Lions need a quarterback. So the Lions will likely be drafting, I don't know, somewhere near the top 10 or in the top 10, even if we're bullish on their general trajectory in 2022. That second pick from the Rams, which will probably end up somewhere in the 20s, will act as extra ammunition. if they in fact need to go get a quarterback. Instead, the pick they got from the Rams is the one that theoretically could put them within shouting distance of going to get that quarterback next year, which we will get into. First things first with the Lions as part of this general discussion.

They don't really belong here. This one has a very different vibe to me than some of the other teams that we talk about because there, again, the arrow was pointed in the right direction. I think there are a lot of good feelings about this team, especially over the last month or so. You know, the offense is playing very well. You have young pieces that are playing well in the guy like Gottman Ross St. Brown, the offensive lion, Jameson Williams is coming back.

So I do think that the overall tone and framing of the lions part of this discussion is different than most of the other teams that we're talking about. But I just wanted to talk about the lions because I think they're a fascinating team right now. I this is also delicious in my mind just as like an odd biased you know third party like lurker who just is enjoying all of seeing how all of this is happening okay so Brad Holmes looks like a freaking genius he really does right and someone who I know there are M Smith you know in their building I think that my opinion of where the lions are at right now I have good I feel you know good vibes are on this team I think a lot of people do and when I

I think it's going to be really interesting is because the Ram season went the way it did, and because they're going to be in prime picking position for any position of their choosing, including quarterback, by the time the draft rolls around, I think now not only are you going to start seeing Brad Holmes really show kind of like what his overall ethos is, they've done the slow build, the quiet build for a couple of years, the picks build. Now I think you're going to start to see him getting more aggressive in terms of, of what he's going to do and how to get this team to the next level of contention.

The James trade is already an example of that, right? That's kind of the first shot across the bow and that we're getting here now. The timeline has been accelerated. We're turning this thing over a little bit quicker than we had before, which is fun. It's a fun place to be. And I think the big question, and I'm very interested in how this turns out, is now because you have a lot of young pieces who are on the right path, right trajectory, You've got a really good offensive line.

The defense, you probably are going to pick and pull at some of the threads there and make maybe some personnel changes. I know they got to replace like the DBs situation. But the defense, you think, okay, you can do something with that trajectory moving forward. And then you've got young players who now you have to decide whether you're going to let them grow up with a quarterback. And I think that's going to be really important. If you're going to draft a quarterback, you have to do it like now, in my opinion. if you're the lions. If you're going to stick with Jared Goff, who I think has played admirably

this season, he's done, I think he's been above expectation in some ways. He's been around at, you know, his ceiling and at expectation in other ways. And I think if you're going to make the decision to go for a quarterback, you should do it now because then you aren't wasting time developing a young player as the rest of your talented players age out. And so I think that this is where you've got to hit that window really carefully. And in my opinion, this would be the time to do it. And it's no shade to Jared, who I think, like I said, I think he's done a great job being in the role that they wanted and needed him to be in.

But now you've got to go see if you can push your team a step further into, like I said, into that level of contention with at the most important position on the team, while also doing it in a way where this quarterback grows with the players you have. maybe you hold on to the coordinator for one more year and grows with all of those people at the same time in a truly pivotal year where you still have the flexibility of being on that rookie contract. Because if you start aging out these young skill players and the linemen and now you start having to pay people, right? And you still don't have the quarterback question answered because you either you haven't drafted one or, you know, they held the ball a little bit and decided to go defense or whatever. now you're going to when you have these players playing in their prime who are this great talented young core of this roster and you're also paying them now you're you're sort of limited in what you could do you got to go out and pay for a veteran quarterback you got to go out and find a guy who may or may not be tradable and so I think this is the window where you can get a young player find the right young player to grow up with these core players to really build that that sort of cohesion and that bond that you get when you're you get when you're. And you're all, like I said, growing at the same time, essentially on those young deals.

Yeah. It's one of the finishing touches on the offense is the biggest question and what those end up looking like is going to be the number one thing that they have to answer here over the next few months. Ben Johnson, their offensive coordinator has done a fantastic job. You know, their 10th in EPA per dropback with Jared Goff. I think they're 12th, 13th in EPA to play DVO. Any single stat that you look at there and above upper half of the league offense this season. I think he's done a really good job in helping Bill. that. So him staying is, I think, a big part of this and makes it the right time to potentially

go out and get that guy. Also, Jared's contract makes it the right time to go out and get that guy. They can move on from him for next to nothing this off season. They can save about $20 million against the cap if they release him. They also can trade him, which he has a $20 million based salary next year. There's going to be some team in the NFL that's sitting there in early 20, 23, that says, Jared Goff is our best option at quarterback at $20 million. That is going to happen if they decide to move on from him. So they can probably recoup something for him when you think about what other quarterbacks have been traded recently.

So there's that consideration. Let me troll for like 30 seconds. Like picture this. Carolina Panthers quarterback. Oh God. Jared God. No, no. Because with a great offensive line with a great offensive line and probably a new

offensive coordinator, a really, really good defense. Hang on. I don't hate it, actually. I don't hate it. But I'm saying they should draft a quarterback. But what I'm saying is they maybe now are going to play themselves out of a spot in drafting the quarterback that they want. And because they turn down the Brian Burns trade,

they don't have that back end capital to package together on the front end to move up to get the guy. I mean, they still could move up fine. But like they couldn't for sure maybe move up with some of that back end capital they would have gotten from the Rams. And so now you're looking at, you know, maybe Panthers are looking at who do you trade for versus who do you draft. Anyway, it's only hypothetical Panthers fans. I love you. Please don't get mad at me.

But also, like a really good offensive line, a good coordinator, a really, really good run game. I mean, the Panthers are right there. A really good run game. All the things Jared Goff went to a Super Bowl with Carolina has. So, I mean, I'm just saying. If you want Panthers fans to storm the building, you should ask them to go after another time. three pick from another team that's a veteran quarterback. I feel like they would absolutely mutiny if that ends up happening. But there may be a spot where they don't have a lot of other

options. Those other guys, they were, there was never any real tangible proof that they could get a team where it needed to be. Jared Goff, this last year and the year before that even, has showed that he can be stable. He can be solid. If he has the right, like we've always said about Jared Goff, if he has the right environment around him. And, you know, this is, I'm not going to get on this tangent. I'm just saying, Panthers fans, I love you. Don't look at it through the terms of that lens that Robert just said. Look at it through the lens that everything I just said. And maybe we'll see. For a lot of teams, I think Jared Gough is a more than reasonable answer. For the Carolina Panthers, after everything that they've been through, I think it would

be a recipe for people being really upset. But so, all right, let's say they do pick the quarterback of this year. Either they have the, they're in a spot to pick him with a third overall pick or they can move up ahead of a team like Chicago. By the way, the bears are picking second right now, open for business for that pick. If you're a team that needs a quarterback, I'm listening to offers right now. Give me a ring. I'll talk to Ryan Poles about it. So however they end up doing it, do they find a CJ Stroud in the top five and kind of, again, start that next timeline? Because everything else, like you said, is very well set up here. The offensive line, four out of those five guys are likely coming back next year. Vaitai is even

under contract. They could save some money if they move on from him. I have to assume they'll try to start saving some money at that position group at some point. So I wouldn't be surprised if they saved a little bit there. Amon Ross St. Brown is back. Jameson Williams is there. This team, potentially with a couple fairly easy cuts, including moving on from Jared Goff, can have like $60 million in cap space fairly easily to start rebuilding other areas of the roster.

And like you mentioned, the defense is why they're four and seven. If the defense was just bad over the first half of this season, season, this team would probably be pushing to be a wildcard team in the way that some people predicted before the year. But they're dead last an EPA per play on defense over the course of the year. They are eighth in past defense DVOA over the past month. So you're seeing what this team can be with just respectable defense of play. And now you have a decent amount of resources, including an extra second round pick from the Hawkinson trade, to kind of start rebuilding those weaknesses on your roster. And if you drop a top five quarterback into the equineering.

plus all of that, you can absolutely talk yourself into what this team can look like over the next year. And again, that's why I don't really think they apply to this conversation, but I just want to talk about them because I think that what Brand Holmes has done and how all of these pieces are kind of just in a place where you can drop it in and kind of keep moving is really impressive. And as somebody who likes this stuff and all of the machinations of it, whenever I get a chance to talk about this team, I'm going to take it because I really enjoy the sequencing of it all and how it's worked out. I respect it. I agree with you 100%. I think they're doing it right over there. I think they're building correctly. They hired the right offensive personnel to, like I said, set up a really good

situation for a quarterback to be successful in sort of a higher probability situations. And, you know, I agree with everything you said. It's going to be really interesting what they, this is a pivotal, I think a pivotal moment in their build. We always talk about, Robert, you and I always talk about levels of contention as almost like a set of stairs or a last. matter. And they're on one rung and they've got their foot right about to hit either they're going to stay where they are or they're going to hit the next step. And the, you know, the decision they they make at the quarterback position is going to ultimately depend on whether they have one of those moments where they accidentally miss the step and fall or whether they, you know, they firmly plant

themselves and can sort of start to move up. Yeah, there's really no one-to-one comparison in my mind when you look at success stories in recent years. You know, I think that, you know, the bills were probably one step before this when they got Josh Allen. They were the 222 lions instead of the 2023 lions when they eventually drafted him. So that's a little bit of a misalignment. Obviously, the chiefs were much more put together and ready to win right now than this lion's team is. So it's hard to find an exact comparison for when in the sequencing they're going to drop

this quarterback in and what sort of team they're going to look like. But I do feel pretty good about it, even if there's not a one-to-one comparison, and how they've done this, the timeline that they've done it on, I think makes a ton of sense. And I think they've done a very good job in building it. I think if you put the patient build of the bills and you mash it together with the aggressive ethos of the Rams, that's what the 2023 and beyond lions are going to look like. I think that makes a ton of sense. All right.

Next one here, not as good of feelings for this next one. The Indianapolis Colts are sitting here at four, seven, and one. And again, the question that we've asked with most of these so far, how did we get here with an Indianapolis Colts team that was supposed to win the AFC South in 2022 and is now potentially staring at a top 10 pick and just fired their coach? This is another interesting quarterback discussion because it also shows you what happens when over and over and over again. You make the wrong decision at quarterback or the environment around the quarterback is completely unexpected. I think that, you know, those headlines earlier in the year that our colleagues, Zach Kiefer, was writing about was, were stunning to me, where it was kind of like, we didn't hold up our end of the bargain in terms of the offensive line, in terms of some of the

production that they expected to get in the offense in general. But when I go back to the conversation about growing a quarterback with a young core, I think the Colts have already aged out. I mean, I'm not saying their defense is old. What I'm saying is I think they've already aged out their prime players in terms of you're not going to waste now more time drafting and developing if you're going to keep the rest of this roster intact. So they're kind of

at that crossroads to me where either you go out and trade for a long-term guy. I hear Jared Goff might be coming along. Just trolling at this point. I mean, this is the type of team, though, where it actually starts to make sense. Where if he's the type of guy that's available, you'd have to consider it. And the question

of how did we get here with the Colts is very simple, right? You have a team with a play call head coach, a veteran quarterback, and the league's most expensive offensive line, they are dead even with the Texans to be the worst offense in football. When you stack up all of those factors and you end up with the worst offense in the league, that's how you arrive at this moment. No team has lost more EPA from sacks this year than the Indianapolis Colts with the most expensive offensive line in football. They are 27th in EPA per attempt when pressured. They're fourth in the amount of pressure dropbacks that they've had.

This one is the most shocking to me. The Colts led the league in EPA per rush the last season. They led the league. Yeah. They are dead last this year. They went from being the most efficient running team in the NFL to the least efficient rushing team in the NFL. In a year where it's great to rush.

It's wild. And the Rams are bad at running the ball. I could have predicted the Rams would be bad at running the ball. They weren't good at it last year. It's not who they are. their bones. This is who the Colts were supposed to be. And that's again how you arrive here. Everything the Colts were supposed to be, there's a disconnect between that and who they are. So now we're left with the big questions. And you bringing up the core of the roster and where

you get the quarterback and all of this becomes really interesting because I'm wondering who's going to be in charge of this team going into next season. Who's the GM going to be? Who's the coach going to be. And depending on the answer to that, the guy tasked with figuring out the next stage of this, I think he has two pets. One, you can tear this thing down if you want to. They are not far away from tearing it down. The only guys that they really can't move on from in 2023 contract-wise are Quentin Nelson, Shaq Leonard, and Braden Smith. They're all on big recent extensions. You'd have to do some weird post-June first cut type of stuff to actually save some money against the cap. That's really it.

Other than that, the financial reset button is right there if they ultimately want to hit it and just blow this thing up and start from scratch. I don't know if that's the most prudent option here, but it is on the table depending on who's in charge. Yeah, I think what's complicated here is you have to do. decide if you're going to blow it up, then that you probably also at the same time have to draft a rookie quarterback. If you're not going to blow it up and you're going to try the same thing that you've done over and over and over again, that has not worked out for them, which is bring in a guy who they think will be the guy. And then it just is a complete disaster.

For one way or another, I wouldn't put it, certainly would not put it all in Matt Ryan in terms of what the environment around him has been in a complete, unexpected implosion of the offensive line and the run game and those types of things. But if you're going to once again try out a picks for players trade at quarterback or a player for players, if you're going to trade for a veteran quarterback at this point, and I expect there to be a couple of guys who could have that option, you're probably not blowing up the rest of the roster in the process

because you're aligning a guy who is at that point in his career. with the rest of a roster that is at that point in their career and a defense that, you know, in a lot of cases this year has looked pretty good and kind of held it down when their offense has just been completely atrocious. And so you're making that decision, just like you said, you've got one of two paths and you can't do any of them halfway because I'd argue that the half measures the Colts have taken over the last couple of years have just been a disaster for them. And I think that if you're going to decide you want to draft a rookie quarterback, there isn't a lot of reason to have some of your best players, like I said, age out as that quarterback

develops early on. So you then can maybe blow up the parts that you can and bring in other young core guys and then just sort of rebuild on the fly as you hire a new head coach, as you hire a new GM. That's what I think maybe the Colts more realistic scenario is because they've got a track record of proof that the other way has not worked. It just feels like the owner is not going to let the blow up option happen. And that would be where I would land on this just because I think the most reasonable and the most logical outcome here is that they do try to keep tinkering and figure it out and see where that takes them. And I can understand that because if you look at this team, I think you can talk yourself into some of the pieces that they have. But I also, like you just said, I think that's potentially a dicey route to take.

part of this is ultimately going to be determined by where they end up picking in the first round. Right now they're picking 14th. But if you look at the teams from 2 to 14, there's a game, a game and a half that separates all of that. I mean, if the Colts continue to play this way on offense, they absolutely could have a top five pick and be in position to draft a quarterback. But there is another timeline and another path here where you still have Quentin Nelson, you still have Brayton Smith under contract. Bernard Raymond has looked better in his last few starts at left tackle if you wanted to keep him as a third round pick. You still have Michael Pittman, Jonathan Taylor, and you have the bones of an offense that

you could drop a quarterback into. And if you upgrade at right guard, if you don't, I mean, part of their issue at the beginning of the season is that one spot on the offensive line was a disaster, pretty much in each and every game that they played. It was left tackle for a while Matt Pryor was there. Ryman's first couple starts were awful. They moved prior to right guard. That didn't go any better.

So if you try to say, all right, we're going to maybe try to save some money and start over at center because Ryan Kelly hasn't had a great season. We feel like Ryman's gotten better at left tackle. You can piece together the offensive line. And then you have Pittman, Taylor, whoever the quarterback is, and then some of the pieces that you have on defense, I think the team can be solid again fairly quickly. But I don't know if doing all of that simply to get to another solid team when the blowup option is on the table is the right way to do this. And that would be my concern. I'm so glad you said that because that's the thing that keeps matriculating in my brain is like, okay, so you have, first you have to decide whether this year is an outlier for you

because coming into the season, much like the Rams actually, coming into the season, the expectations on the Coltsworth, they're going to be because they've, they've got the line and they've got the run game and the defense looks like it could be pretty good and drop in a quarterback and they're going to contend. And that was generally the sense that the excitement surrounding this team. And it was so far, it's so far from that that you have to decide, is this an outlier? Or is our process that we've continued to try and that has failed to get us to where we believe we should have been?

Is that what the outlier? Is that, excuse me, is that the mean? And so if you come to a conclusion that that entire build and the entire process and all of that is the mean versus this last year being the outlier, and you take into consideration, that, you know, like I said, your run game, you know, your running back has has taken a lot of physical carries and is, you know, moving through that part of his career where he's, you know, you think he still could be in his prime, but you know how it happens with running back. Sometimes you wake up one day and, you know, they fall off a cliff production wise.

And you're looking at the linemen. And you're kind of asking yourself, is this an owner who is going to say, okay, I still have the, and I don't want to seem harsh here, but like, I still. have the hubris to think that we're one player away, we're a quarterback away, and then you drop in a new quarterback and you drop in, you start, like you said, you tinker with certain things because you think you're one or two items away. Or are you going to reset the entire process behind people that he's handpicked and hired on an executive and coaching level and say, okay, build this thing out? And I think it's, I'm super glad I'm not making the decision, but there are certain parts

of this process that they've gone through that do reflect a certain hubris in my mind about where they, you always hear about guys, you know, team builders saying like, it's less important to know what you are. It's more important to know what you are not. And that's, that's the avenue that I think this Colts team has to start really looking carefully at in a very realistic and logical way. It's funny because even guys that have played well for them this year where you're trying to build the optimistic case of, man, you know, the defense has been better than expected.

like Bobby O'Caricay and Rodney McLeod, been really good for them, especially against the run, like splash plays from those guys, both are free agents. Yadikin Gakwe, who has potentially doubled its sax again by the end of this season, he's a free agent. So even the pieces that feel like, man, this has been promising and this has been a silver lining in an otherwise dreadful season, even those are things that you can't necessarily rely on moving forward. So it's funny. I mean, I didn't think that we would be at a place after the 2022 season where we could be talking

ourselves into a complete nut or tear down from this team. But it honestly feels like a very realistic path when you consider the alternatives. All right. Let's get to our next one here. The Pittsburgh Steelers are four and seven. How do we get here with the Steelers? Again, doesn't feel that complicated to me. Like, the Steelers are 26th and EPA per play on offense and 14th on defense. That's a bad team. Like, that's how you get here. If you're, you're a bottom third of the league offense and merely an average defense, you're typically going to be hovering somewhere right under 500 in the way that the Steelers are. And the offense, even if you had the most optimistic view of it possible coming into the season, you have a

rookie first round pick quarterback that was drafted in the middle of the first round that clearly the league did not love and was the best option available in an awful quarterback class. you have an offensive line that is pieced together with forgetable options at the very best. You have an offensive coordinator that kind of stumbled into this job. So even if what is the best case scenario for the 22 Steelers offense? Like the 24th best offense in the league? They're not that far off from it. Like it hasn't actually been that bad on that side of the ball.

And then on defense, you have a defense that is built around three star level players, paid like star level players and you remove one of them for half of the season and you get the 2022 Steelers. So it's not shocking to me that they're four and seven. The question now becomes, what do you have to do to work through this little dip that you've experienced as a franchise to make sure that this version of the Steelers doesn't happen again? Yeah, I'd almost argue too, that I don't think they're sitting at 14th in defensive EPA if T.J. Watts healthy, the whole year and certainly I'd argue that if they had a little bit more compliment to the offense defense sort of tandem, then they'd probably be, you know, somewhere around the top

10, even if their offense was completely sinking them on every opposite drive. Because that's just the way that Mike Tomlin likes to have the balance of his teams. And it's been that way over the last couple years. That's how they've been able to kind of hover around 500 when the offense has been borderline on watchable. Exactly. And so this is another, I mean, it's like, I feel like a broken record at this point because it's another situation where you're in that window. You have to, if you, if you want to stay in this place and try to tinker with things and, and pull it different threads, and, you know, if you think this quarterback is your guy, okay, he's your guy, go all in on that, okay? Because you, you have this defense that could be very, very, very, very good, including

if you have, you know, the health that they need to have. And so you can always rely on that piece of it. But to me, they feel like almost two separate teams right now. You have a defense that you know what the potential can be. And then you have an offense that is full of question marks in my mind, not the least from whether they're going to make some staff changes or things like that. And certainly at quarterback as well. And I think that, you know, if you're going to decide, you know, that Pickett is your guy and you got some really, really bright talent.

Like I was watching the, I think it sort of sums up where this offense is at. I was watching the game. We're recording this on Tuesday. I was watching the Monday night football game, which, by the way, I knew we were talking about these teams today, so I probably would have skipped that game, if not for knowing that we were talking about these teams today. And at one point, it was that really amazing sideline toe tap catch by George Pickens. And one of the broadcasters was like gushing about the catch. And then all of a sudden, through in this little comment about Pickett, it was like, I don't know

if he meant to throw it there, but George Pickens made the catch. And I was kind of like, this sort of sums up where they're at right now. To me, it's he, you don't really quite know yet what you have and, but you're in a, in a window right now where you have to make a catalytic decision because delaying this, you know, what the full potential of this defense led by a defensive head coach can be, but nobody is going to want to sit there and, and hover in the middle ground, sort of that purgatory that they find themselves in. Even when their offense, you know, has been less of a question mark, they've just been in this purgatory. And so, you, You either have to decide, okay, this is going to be the guy that we are going to continue to build around and maybe put him in high probability situations and build an environment and ecosystem around him that makes it sets him up for this type of success. I'm not saying he doesn't have that now, but doing so. He doesn't have that now. Right. I'm just not trying to insult anybody. But like, go ahead. Yeah.

But I think like you're going to have to make that decision. And it comes down to conversations that I'm not privy to about what. what they really think of picket because that's your option, right? That's your option, either that or again, you go out and you try to find a quarterback to drop into this thing. But I could also argue that the quarterbacks who are probably going to be available this year also not great to just drop them into this type of situation. Also quarterbacks who do need systems around them to be functional and to thrive.

So you've got to make that decision and you've got to bring the two sides together a little bit more because like I said, right now these feel like two completely different teams to me, a defense that knows its identity that knows what it's about. Injuries aside, new personnel aside, knows who they are and an offense that's really trying to figure out outside of the little outlier plays and the splash plays that they have with George Pickens, who I think is going to be a superstar in this league for a long time. You know, they don't have an identity to me. Think about these success stories we've seen with highly drafted quarterbacks over the last couple years and what they've looked like. You need pass catchers. You need playmakers around those guys.

That's what the dolphins have done. It's what the Eagles have done. It's the Bengals have done. Steers already have that. They have Deontay Johnson. They have George Pickens. They have built that sign of it. They've always done that.

They're so good at receivers. In fact that they could trade chase Claypool away because they felt good enough about the guys they had in-house to play with their young quarterback says a lot. They have that already. The offensive line needs reworking. This is a team that's going to be drafting potentially in the top 10. There may be some real options available for them to go find a left tackle

in the top 10. You go find one more building block cornerstone piece for your line in the first round of this year's draft because you need one. I think that makes total sense. And then you think about what Mike McDaniel has been for the Dolphins, what Shane Steichen and Nick Siriani have been for the Eagles. That's what you need. You need somebody who can be the guy who oversees the plan, the strategy, the vision

for what you're going to be on offense. You need to bring some intentionality. to who you want to be on that side of the ball. And I would argue that that goes beyond Kenny Pickett. Because I think with both the Eagles and the dolphins, they'd be lying if they said that the guys they had in-house when they made those hires are the guys that they knew in their bones would be their quarterbacks two years from now. You need somebody who can oversee that side of the ball independent of whether or not you

think Kenny Pickett is going to be a star. Because if he's not, then you figure out what type of move you need to make a quarterback in 2024. It can't just be like the scraps of whatever your former quarterback coach was to hire him as your offensive coordinator and just say, yeah, we'll figure this out. I just think you need to look around and say, what can we do to maximize this side of the ball? Because it's 2022. If we're not maximizing that side of the ball, there is no way for us to actually be competitive with some of the other teams that we're having to go toe to toe with every single week in the AFC. That's the biggest question to me. Yeah, you look at some of these really good teams that have certain phases that have emerged.

Like you can find an identity, even if the coach, like, Siriani being kind of an offensive guy and Siriani being like the guy who builds the offensive identity in the ecosystem and oversees all the things. And there's space underneath for the defense to have a hell of a personality. Right. And for that to also exist not just independently, but as, as each one a function of each other, but with its own identity at the same time. I have always heard that Mike Tomlin is also a coach who is so good at giving his coaches the tools

to build that type of identity autonomously. But you've got to find the right person to do that who has a vision. You got to find your Brian Dayball. That's what you have to do. Because it's not just a defensive-minded head coach. It's not just offensive-minded head coaches. You don't need to do that. You need to find a guy who can oversee that side of the ball

and kind of be a shepherd for your young quarterback. quarterback. And I think that's the biggest question. And then on defense, you got resources to play with. They move on from Mitchell Chubisky, William Jackson this offseason. They can be at about $40 million in cap space. You know, they have some places where they need to do some tinkering. Terrell Edmonds and DeMonte Casey are both free agents, almost their entire interior defensive line rotation other than Cam Hayward also set to hit free agency. Larry Ogun Joby, Chris Wormley, Tyson, Al-Lawaloo. They have some moves they need to make to shore up other aspects of that defense, but they have some resources to do it. This is life on the rookie quarterback contract. It's very new to them, but every year now,

while he's on it, they're going to be able to do some tinkering and do a little bit of, ah, we need a piece there, we need a piece here in a way they couldn't afford to do for 10 years while Ben Rathesberger was in the top five in quarterback's salary. So this is a new place for the Steelers, and I think they have to understand that they're in a new place. When they were with Rathlisberger and they had that staff and all that continuity for so long, it could be these little tweaks and tinkers and just say, you know, we're going to make this little shift and kind of move into a new era, but we don't have to do it in a holistic way. Now you do.

Now you have to look at every single aspect of the offense foundationally to decide what is the best way to move forward. And I don't think that they have had that tough conversation with themselves yet. It has to happen now. Yeah. It's got to go quick. And to your point, I know we've got to get to the Houston Texans here. But I just wanted to say, too, like, if what a lot of times what kills these teams is waiting a year too long on the quarterback.

We think we can fix. We think we can make this guy into what we believed when we were assessing him, when our scouts were, you know, projecting what he could be. They get too tied into what they think something should have been versus what something is. And I think that if you are a team that has the potential in terms of the people at the top, the head coach, some of the people, in the front office, if you are a team that knows what it feels like to be an elite NFL team and you are also a team that knows what it feels like to have a strong identity, you're also going to have to make sure that you're making that decision quickly on Kenny Pickett. If you are, what you can do in the short term is build, like you said, that environment around

him, figure that identity out. You will know very quickly whether if you have all of those things around him, you'll know very quickly whether he's right for that or not. And if he's not, you have to move quickly. All right. Very quickly here. Let's talk about the Houston Texans. A team that doesn't really apply to this conversation.

We expected them to crash and burn, but we just never talk about them. So I feel like we needed to include them here in some way. When I look at how the Texans got here, the Texans are a year and a half into one of the most intensive rebuilds you could possibly imagine. You know, so that's part of the concern here. They're the worst team in the league, which we probably could. have anticipated. And it seems like we're going to hit the reset button again. I don't really know what else to say outside of they're going to probably have a new head coach. They're going to

take a quarterback with the number one overall pick. They're going to have Laramie Tunsell, Brandon Cooks, and essentially the guys that they have drafted over the last two years, plus another top 10 pick that they're going to get from the Browns. Like, I don't know what the Texans want to be. It's too early to understand what they want to be. And without that knowledge, it's really hard to project the moves they're going to make or the moves they should make moving forward because I know so little about them. I do love that they got your pity invite for this segment.

But by the way, Brandon Cooks who doesn't... We just never talk about them. And Brandon Cooks, who does not want to be there, by the way. I know. And the only reason he's still there is because the team would not eat his salary. Seriously, that's it. That's literally the reason because it was very real that, you know, there were a couple of teams that were interested,

including the Rams. And that the salary was a non-starter. The Texans refused to eat the salary, and he's still, that's why he's still there, or even part of the salary, and that's why he's still there, and he does not want to be there. And whether that changes or not over the next couple of months probably depends on the types of changes they make and the types of decisions they make. But I just don't have any faith right now in this organization that it's even going to make those types of decisions.

And you also, you don't base them around what Brandon Cooks wants or doesn't want, but you at least, if you have a player who doesn't want to be there and all you have to do is eat the salary, eat the dang salary, like, and then figure out what you're going to do next and the core leader pieces. Part of the reason why I don't think they wanted to was because he is a leader. He's a really great guy to have in a locker room, especially with a lot of inexperienced and younger players. But if he's made it clear that he's not, that he did through this trade deadline situation, that he doesn't want to be there, you can't force him to be the guy that you need him to be. if he's made it clear that he doesn't want to be that guy for you in a totally terrible situation to be in in the first place.

And I think, and I just, I don't trust the Texans to make, take the steps that they need to take to get on the right trajectory because it's almost like chance after chance after chance of being able to, to rebuild and go out and try to start this thing over. Maybe not having Easter be in there helps. I don't know. I don't know much about what the internal politics and workings without building are. but at the same time, you know, it's a lack, it's a total lack of identity, not just on the team itself and what they're doing schematically, but it's a total lack of identity of the direction they want to build. I have no idea what direction they're even viewing for what they want to build. I mean, they took this little side ramp into the Lovie Smith era for nine months, so however it's going to last. And now I have no idea what the next one's going to look like. You look at their cap for 2023. It's fascinating. Okay. Laramie Tunsell has a $35 million cap hit. Brandon Cooks has a $27 million cap hit. So you're paying $62 million combined to those two guys. Other than that, it's really just the guys they drafted and then a bunch of players

who are essentially veterans that have been on every team. Like guys that are avatars for just aging players who are stand-ins that are like 72 overall in Madden. Here are the names, okay? Eric Murray, Christian Kirksey, Jerry Hughes, Stephen Nelson. Mario Addison, Justin Britt, Desmond King. These are all guys who have just been role players on teams you've watched over the last five to seven seasons. And if the Texans want to move on from every single one of those guys this off season, they essentially all of the same contract where they're making like five million bucks and they have a dead cap hit of about one to two million.

So they can just start over again with the two guys they're paying a lot of money, Titus Howard, who is on an extent. and all of the young guys that they draft in, whoever the quarterback is. It is a total blank slate, and that's why it's hard to understand where they're going to go or where they want to go because I know nothing about them. Well, they've stayed a blank slate. That's the problem, because they've been in similar situations where you don't really know what they think they are versus and what they think they're moving toward. Are they moving toward being okay? Do they want to go out and actually be an aggressive building team? You just don't know.

You have no idea. And I think that's part of the problem. Then you hit on it too. Kind of a huge thing, whoever the quarterback is going to be. I mean, who do you? Like, I'm genuinely curious. What do they do at quarterback? It's going to be somebody with the number one overall pick, whoever they end up liking.

Right. I mean, I think that's all but a given at this point is that they will get the number one pick and they will draft the quarterback. who they draft and then who they hire to oversee the early career of that quarterback are the two biggest conversations and discussions. I have to imagine, if you're the Texans, and you look at everything else that's happened around the league, you want to make sure that if it's a defensive-minded head coach,

I know exactly what the offensive infrastructure he's bringing with him looks like because this quarterback is all that matters now. His success or failure becomes the central part of the Nick Casario era. So if it's a defensive-minded head coach, who's the offensive-minded head coach? If it's an offensive-minded head coach, I need you to have a plan for this guy. Because that pairing, the offensive infrastructure and the head coach and the quarterback is all that's going to matter for this team. Because it is a blank slate, and that is the place where they're starting. Exactly.

And I think, too, you hit on such an important point where it's like you have to be able to fully illustrate the entirety of the ecosystem that you want to create. We've talked this entire episode about teams that feel disconnected from themselves, right? If you're going to, you know, if you were going to decide you're going to go hire a new head coach, you and you're going to draft a quarterback and you're going to do these things where you're going to start building what you want to be in identity after this sort of like gap year or like purgatorial year that they've been in, you're, you have to be able to, if you're that person and you're looking at those personnel, it's,

What will more likely happen is one of the people who are always sort of recycled in this whole entire process who have had, you know, they know the right things to say and they've been through the interviews before and you'll hear their names emerge as candidates for this job. And it's going to be like, well, you know, they had success at this place and then totally forget about a complete implosion elsewhere. But they have had coaching experience and they know what to do. And with teams like this that have struggled like this, it seems to always sort of happen in that way where that's the type of conversation you start to hear as the hiring cycles continue.

But if you're going to really commit to getting out of this doldrums that you've been in as a franchise, as a team, again, you've moved out some of the personnel in that building and you've sort of started to move toward a clean break in a sense. I think that you're also, you also have to make sure you're going out and finding and really digging deep candidates who, like you said, they can illustrate the entirety of the ecosystem. They have ideas about how to develop a quarterback in the modern NFL, not the version of the NFL in which you could develop, not five years ago, not even four years ago.

The NFL, the league's changing faster than it ever has. We talk about this all the time. It's like catalyst after catalyst for this league happens, and all of a sudden, completely different things are unfolding and completely different philosophies. and things are changing and cycling and battling against each other and shaping itself, it's faster than ever. And I think that if you have somebody who is dynamic in that regard, who can illustrate

what their immediate plan is for every part of this team, every part of this roster that can let the GM just go be a GM. And then you also have someone who can illustrate a plan or a plan for the people who you're going to bring in to develop what I would imagine would be a quarterback with the first overall pick, that's going to be absolutely crucial. And you can't just stand there and say, you can't, you can't just stick with the same, right? You can't. You cannot do that. You can't get away with that in this league anymore. You could be consistent. You could be okay. But as we've seen this last offseason, teams are doing more than ever before to make sure that they're pushing themselves

into not just playoff contention, but Super Bowl contention. You're either going to be one of those teams at some point or you're not. It's okay if you have to build in the middle. But if you're going to push toward just being okay, you are not going to last long in this league. We'll see which direction the Texans ultimately push because we have no evidence either way at this point. All right, Jordan Roderick, always great to chat with you. Please, people, if you have not checked out Jordan's work on the Rams and really the NFL at large. A lot of the stuff that Jordan writes about the Rams, I think is indicative of larger trends, you know, the direction of the NFL where it's going. Please go check out her work at the athletic.

If you have not, Jordan really appreciate that time. Always good to chat with you. Thanks so much for having me, Robert. Always a pleasure. And thank you for sitting patiently through my wild arm gestures that when I start to get really fired up, always to have it. It was great. I have to do plenty of my own, so you're good.

All right, guys, that's all we got. Thank you so much to Jordan. Thank you to Daniel Jeremiah. If you have not listened to Part 1 of this show, encourage you to go check that out. It is available in your feed right now. Daniel and I talked about the Broncos, the Raiders, the Jags, a lot of other teams that were really fun to dig into.

We will be back. tomorrow with Mike Sando and Randy Mule doing the football GM on Thursday. Prospects to Prospects with Dave Bruegler and Andy Staples should be available on your feet on Wednesday afternoon. So please go listen to those if you have not. Really appreciate you guys. Listen.

We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.