The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Players with most at stake in 2021, Carson Wentz’s injury and Dolphins & Bills team visits

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

Which players have the most at stake in 2021? Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones are together in Miami to examine who has the most on the line this season. They also discuss their impressions from Dolphins camp, Carson Wentz’s foot injury and what the Colts will do at QB. Finally, The Athletic’s Bills reporter Matthew Fairburn joins the show to talk about Josh Allen, Buffalo’s questions at CB and much more.  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. Joining me today is my good friend Lindsay Jones. How are you? I think we need to point out to everybody, Robert. But not only am I joining you today, I am sitting just a couple feet away from you in person. A couple feet away from me at the new beautiful Dolphins facility just outside of Hard Rock Stadium.

I want people to know that this is a better setup than some of the other. other ones that we've had over the last couple of weeks because we're inside, which is very nice. I want to thank the dolphins are giving us this space. But it is raining so hard outside Miami right now that we can hear it on the roof. I'm wondering if people are going to be able to hear it when they listen to this podcast. But that is Florida in early August. That's what you're getting. One of the features of this beautiful building is that it has a metal roof. And I was just over in a different part of the facility. And it is very loud. So if you do hear the rain, just pretend you're in Florida. It's remarkable. So here's what I want to lay out for everyone. I've been a bunch

of different places. Okay. I have been, since the last time we recorded, I visited the Bills, I visited the Jets, the Bucks, and today we were at the Dolphins. We are going to hit the Bucks on the next show, and I'm actually going to talk to Nate about Jets practice on the next show. So if you're looking for check-ins from those spots, that is coming, but it is coming a little bit later. Today, we're going to meet with Matt Fairburn, who is our Bill's writer. He and I had a great conversation. We're going to play that for you guys a little bit later. But we're going to be talking about the players that we feel have the most at stake in the NFL this season. It's the start of training camp, pretty much the start of training camp. I feel like it's a good time to

remind people what is hanging in the balance for some of these guys. Yeah, I think so. And in training camp especially because this is a time where a lot of guys are either going to make the team. They're not going to make the team. Most of the guys we're going to talk to talk about today are star players. They're guys that you know, but they're guys that are coming into a contract year, a guys that are potentially in a position battle or a guy that are really setting themselves up for the future. And there's a couple big ones that we watched here today. So I want to start, though, with a guy that would have been at the top of this list because inevitably during this time of year, we're going to have to catch up on news.

That's going to be something we didn't have to worry about. in June and July, but now it's going to be constant. And I want to start with Carson Wentz because that has been the biggest piece of NFL news that has come out here over the last week. Carson Wentz injures his foot, I want to say on the second or third day of training camp. It's Thursday, so the second day that they practiced, he injures his foot. Initial reports were that he was not going to get surgery. He was going to see if he could rest, rehab.

That is always a terrible idea. That's never worked out well. Yeah. It's a recipe for that to linger forever. And it seems like now they have changed gears in Indianapolis. He's going to get surgery. That's what Frank Reich said today. And there's now a five to 12 week timetable for him to return.

Five to 12 weeks. That's a long window. There's a real big difference between five to 12. And coming back from foot surgery, I would air probably on the longer side. I'm not a podiatrist. So really, okay. Thank you. I appreciate you going that up. But I've covered a lot of guys who have had surgeries, and five seems way too optimistic.

Twelve might be the most conservative side of that. But look, he's a guy who needs his mobility. He's not just a statue of a quarterback. It was so interesting. You mentioned that because when talking to people there last week, that was a big part of the differentiations in their mind between him and Philip Rivers, right? He's not going to have some of that precision that Philip Rivers bought to that offense. But even when I was there, there was an out of structure play he made down the field of Zach

Pascoe. It's like, that was not available to them last year. So his mobility was a selling point for how that offense could have a different dimension this year. And now who knows what's going to happen with that? Yeah, because we don't know one, how mobile he'll be when he comes back and when he comes back. And then they're just not in a great situation because, I mean, how many minutes, hours did

you and I and Nate and everybody on this podcast and our. Poor beatwriters, Stephen Holder and Zach Heber to vote. I mean, thousands and thousands of words over this off season about how much of what's going to happen to the Colts this year is completely tied to who Carson Wentz is and if Frank Reich is able to fix him. And now all of a sudden, you don't even have Carson Once in the equation for all of training camp and potentially the first several weeks of the regular season. And there's not great options behind him. I mean, this is Jacob Eason's team right now. And we're all going to learn a lot about who Jacob Eason is. It's such a weird transition to go from the conversation I had was at Kiefer last week,

where we're sitting there saying, this is all that matters. This was the all-in move. This is them pushing their chips in. Now we're just not there. Yeah, where did your chips go? And it's really strange. It's almost like a whip-wash thing getting ready to talk about it in these terms. So let's step back for a second.

What does this mean for the Colts? Do you feel like they're going to play this slow, let him come back, give Jacob Isson those reps? Do they go out and get somebody? Like, what is your feel on what the Colts should be doing now that this is unfolded this way? Well, when we talk about going and getting somebody, the problem is there is that there's not a ton of great options, right? You mean early August quarterbacks? Yeah, I mean, not a lot of guys that are just hanging around. Yeah, there's not a lot of guys that are just, you're able to sign off the street.

Who's the top guy you can sign up the street is what Blake Bordels, right? Who was kind of the Aaron Rogers contingency plan in Green Bay. He was cut as soon as Aaron Rogers showed up to camp last week. Or you look at who is available for a trade. And obviously Nick Foles is the guy whose name is going to come up a ton because he's completely expendable in Chicago in terms of a football guy. Like he's a guy that the Bears would love probably to unload and unload his salary. Obviously he has the deep history with Frank Reich.

He's replaced Carson once before. to great success. But then it's can the Colts trade for him? Salary-wise would have to get into all of those sorts of ramifications. I think the answer to that is yes. I think they could. He has a $4 million-dollar base salary. It is not prohibitive from them doing this.

The Colts almost traded for Nick Foles last year. He was definitely a guy that would have been in their plans if the Philip Rivers thing had not unfolded in the way that it did. I don't think they wanted to. I don't think they were want to give him a fourth-round pick for Nick Foles's contract in the same way that the Bears were. But this is somebody who has been... Are you saying that was a bad decision? This has been on their. radar before. And there's a reason that it's been on their radar. It's because of his history

with Frank Gregg. So are they willing to give up another bit of draft capital after trading for Carson Wenz in order to stop the bleeding here for a little bit? My hunch is it wouldn't go any further than that. Jimmy Garoppolo, in my opinion, non-starter. I don't think there is a world, any world where they trade for Jimmy Garapolo and that kind of contract. Other options on the potential table, as who've been there, speaking of familiarity, Jacoby Percette, the Donald The Dolphins went out and signed him to a real backup quarterback contract. There aren't that many guys just hanging around. Foles would make sense if they think that Wentz is going to be out for a really long time.

But I think that there is a world where they just let this play out. Because I truly believe that they wanted to see how this season went with Carson Wentz before they started making aggressive new jerk moves. This is a part of that, right? They're not going to have to give up a first round pick. for Carson Wentz. I think that there is a scenario here. There's an outcome here.

Where Carson Wentz missing two months, two months of the season, the first half of the season, Jacob Eason playing those games, them going three and five in those games, is not the worst thing in the world for this team. I'm pulling up looking at the start of their schedule. It's not an easy start.

They were not guaranteed to win probably any of these games even with Carson Went. They opened with the Seahawks. They've got the Rams. and the Titans and then the Dolphins or their first four weeks, Ravens, their five weeks. I mean, there's not a game, I think, on the first month or two of their schedule that I would say they were going to be favored in until you get to the Texans on October 17th.

So, I mean, maybe you do let it ride. And Frank Wright surely knows more about Jacobeson than you or I do. I'm sure when you were out there last week in Carmel or wherever it is exactly that they practice. Westfield, Indiana. The field, Indiana, excuse me. How many, how closely you were watching Jacob Eason's reps, but. I wasn't because I was watching Carson Wentz's reps because he's getting a lot of them. But look, Frank Reich, great quarterbacks coach, has a really good track record of getting a lot out of his quarterback.

So, yeah, maybe you just let this ride and not give up something. I mean, Nick Foles is the name to watch until it's a done. But other than that. That's the price range for me, though. It's the Nick Foles price range, $4 million bucks and a seventh round pick or whatever. it's going to take to take the Nick Foles off of the bear's hands. Yeah. So the other thing involved here is what this means for the Eagles.

Because they made this trade. And if Carson Wentz played 75% of the snaps, Carson Wentz, they would have gotten a first round pick. They're trying to stock up their war chest here next year to potentially go trade for a quarterback. If they have to trade up for a quarterback, this changes those plans at least a little bit. I don't think it's not monumental, right? It goes from maybe a low first round pick to a mid-second round pick.

if Carson Wentz misses half the season, but it still hurts them in their long-term plan if they were really hoping to get that first round pick for Carson-Wilts. Yeah, and this is a team where he wasn't specifically, I think, on our list of guys that we were going to talk about later, but this is a really big year for Jalen Hertz. I mean, the Eagles are very clearly unsettled at quarterback for the long-term. They have been one of the teams that explored very heavily Deshawn Watson,

who should not be traded for a lot of reasons that we've talked about. about and we're not going to get into here today. But next spring, maybe there's clarity there. That's the whole thing. I wrote a story last week about the teams that should be positioning themselves to make a run at Aaron Rogers in 2022. And the Eagles are one of those teams. If Jalen Hertz does not clearly establish himself as their long-term guy right now.

So if you're a team that is going to have to answer their long-term quarterback question next off season, having another first-round pick is huge because either you use it on a quarterback or you have the capital to move up or to trade for a guy that you wanted. And that's going to hurt their long-term plans. All right. So let's stick for right now with some big quarterback questions. We're doing check-ins with the athletic writers at these various stops. We didn't do with the Jets because Connor Hughes was off.

I was the Jets writer for the day. I really enjoyed it, actually. It was very fun to watch practice through that lens. I really got a kick out of it. I wrote a practice report about that Jets practice on Saturday. If you guys haven't gone and checked it out, I would encourage you to. It just, it's my thoughts about the Jets practice. So we don't have a Dolphins writer at the moment.

That's you today and tomorrow. It's us. So that's what we're going to do. Before we get into the players of the most at stake here, let's talk about today's dolphins practice about just the conversations around this team. Obviously, there's one big question. It is the question you asked of Brian Flores this morning during his media availability. How does the quarterback look?

And you can feel that question hanging in the air as you sit here. Yeah, and I tried to frame it in a way when I was talking to Brian Flores this morning that it wasn't just like, you know, not as simple as like how does he look? No, no, no, no. Your question was much better than that. I would guess. I would give you credit for that. But because the question about Tua is, and we'll get into all this, is that he is very clearly the guy here for right now. But for how long?

We know that they have been a team that's been rumored to be in the quarterback market that if Dishan Watson had actually been available or a viable option, that they could have been in that market. they were potentially looking at options in the draft, that they've invested some draft capital into it at this point. But now it's the question of who is he going to be once he is the starter, once he is the guy who has a better group of wide receivers around him where he has a new play caller, new scheme designers. They're making some changes on their offensive line. So this team is right now set up to see who Tua is.

And we're going to find out if he's a legitimate NFL starter, a guy who's going to be the quarterback here for a long time, or if the dolphins are going to be a team in the quarterback market, like next off season. I heard a couple interesting things that stuck out to me. Eric Rowe, he was getting asked a couple questions, and he was talking about it. And he said, last year, you look at his playbook and it was all slants. I mean, it was a rookie training wheels playbook. This year, it's expanded. I also think this is interesting. And I wish I would have gotten a chance to ask somebody this today, but I didn't. How is it different when you're the

starting quarterback getting reps in an offense designed for you, right? When Ryan Fitzpatrick is nominally the starter all through training camp and a truncated training camp nonetheless, what sort of stuff is two is seeing? Is he getting to rep those RPO? Is he getting to sit in an offense specifically tailored to his strengths? Now he is. You look at some of the stuff they're running out there today. There are a lot of RPAs. There is a lot of him getting the ball out quickly. They're spreading it out. They're letting him see things unfold. So it's, and that's a lot of the stuff we saw with Chan Galee over the last five or six years, but now Tua is getting every single one of those snaps with the ones. So what does that look like now that the offense is being

shaped around him? I think that's going to be one of the core questions here. Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot was made this offseason. I guess it was back in May, maybe June, about to his quote where he said that he didn't paraphrasing right now that he didn't really know the playbook last year. And a lot of that was like, oh my God, what do you mean? He didn't know the playbook. And part of that was like it wasn't a playbook that was designed for him. He spent most of the year as the backup quarterback. And it was probably also very slim down to, you know, make it manageable for a rookie. And now, like you said, it's expanding probably practice by practice. They're going to put their pads on for the first time on Tuesday. So it'll be his first time facing, you know, I'm going to do a live,

say live with air quotes around it, like a live rush where there'll be a little bit more push up front and doing a little bit more in front of him. And obviously they don't want anybody anywhere near Tua, but like, the intensity will ramp up on Tuesday once they're all in pads. So we just want to see more of like, how is he handling all this? And I thought it was also kind of telling that Flores today talked about how, you know, what they really want to see from, you know, May and June when they're in the offseason program to the summer is communication, running the huddle, getting in and out of plays. And that's stuff that is really-

Especially with the new coordinator. New coordinators. Yeah, so probably some new language. There's also a lot of new bodies in there. and that's been changing a lot over the course of the first week of Dolphins practice. You know, Devante Parker was back for the first time today. He was just cleared off of the Pup list. He didn't have any of his normal tight ends available today because of COVID issues that have been very timely.

And it's a big news thing that's going on around the NFL. He didn't have George Godsey at practice today. They're one of the co-offensive coordinators. So, yeah, I mean, they're just dealing with, he's dealing with a lot and a lot of adversity and a lot of things that he's kind of having to deal with on the fly. And, you know, I spoke with Jay, Jason McCordy, their new safety, he's listed on the roster as a defensive back, which is accurate. We'll get into that because I think that's really interesting.

But so, you know, he was with the Patriots last year. And so, you know, he got to, you know, face to it. He got to study to a, from, you know, an opposition standpoint. And he just said he sees tremendous development. And he's seen that, you know, he's not paying attention to how the offense is getting in and out of the huddle when he's back on the defensive huddle when they're facing them. But he just said it's very clear that right now the offense looks like, They know what they're doing more so now than they did a couple months ago. And that's really all you can ask for at this point is progress and development, stacking good days.

You know, a lot also got made this offseason when Tua had a practice where he threw five interceptions in a rainstorm similar, I think, to the rainstorm that's happening right now. But he can't do that over and over. You can have that practice in a vacuum. You can't have multi-pick days over and over and over. And what we saw today was pretty clean practice from Tua. I was impressed. Like I left going, okay, but now I do what I'm going to be back again tomorrow. I want to see how he looks a couple days in a row because that's the danger with what you

and I do is when we're dropping in in camps is if you see one day drawing really broad conclusions based off of one practice. It's why I don't. It's just why I don't do it. Yeah. He looked fine. I mean, it's a training camp practice with no pads. Like I just don't, there isn't.

And you can't clean that much from these things. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, look, the other, I've only, this is the start of my travels. I was at Broncos camp last week where they're obviously having, I think the actual actually only open training camp competition in the NFL or quarterback competition in the NFL. And you can get really caught up on like who won the day and who had the best day and drawing these really broad conclusions after three or four practices. The thing is, the coaches wouldn't be able to do that.

Off of watching it live, they wouldn't draw those conclusions. I was reading a lot of tweets heading into today because the Broncos were off on Sunday about who is winning and how there's going to be separation today. And then Vic Banjou gets up at the practice and he's like, there's absolutely no separation. like they're not scoring it the way that we do it's not a boxing map they're also watching it again they're watching it with a better angle than what you saw from the sideline and then who is supposed to be doing what yes what the receiver's responsibilities are so it's kind of silly when you get into that but look it fuels a ton of sports talk radio and you know the daily beat and people are

interested in it but you know but here from a dolphin's perspective is like i just there isn't a competition jacobi preset is not coming to take to his job as the starter we're not going to be seeing the same thing we saw last year with the dolphins where, you know, Tua is in and then he was out. And it was almost like a relief pitcher kind of situation where Ryan Fitzpatrick comes in late in a game. Very weird. That's not going to happen this year. You know, two is going to sink or swim. And, you know, there's going to be rough days for him. It's going to happen. But they just want to see, can he continually get better day by day, put more on his plate, let him be the guy in this building, which he didn't have to be last year. And that's probably good for him.

he didn't have to be, but now he has to be. It was interesting. It was a moment that I took notice of they were doing, I think it was a seven-on-seven drill, and he completed a passing to Albert Wilson, and when Jalen Waddle was coming off, they were having a conversation about what he saw. And that's the kind of stuff you want, right? You want the guy to have ownership over the offense, and they clearly have a relationship to those two.

And those are little things that I do try to watch during these training camp practice. How's the quarterback communicating with people? Who's running with which team? How much run is a guy like Jalen Waddle getting? Every single snap that the first team offense took today, I'm pretty. pretty sure he was out there. Yes. So obviously they're in a weird situation because there are some guys just not practicing

today. So Devante Parker was not practicing today. He was back. He had like very limited. He was in a couple reps early, but not in the full teamwork. Yes. And neither was, Will Fuller is completely out here.

He's not practicing at all at this point. So you have a lot of Mac Collins. You know, it was a big Durham-Smith Day because there were no other tight ends. Matt Collins was his guy. So those, but those are the little things you pick up on. Waddle was in with the ones every single play.

They were doing some stuff where he was running guys off on certain rounds, but also some shorter stuff designed for him. My take is the guy was a six overall pick. He's going to be a part of this offense in a big way from the get-go. The secondary is, to me, one of the more interesting groups of this entire roster. Because if you look at it, not a surprise because of where Brian Flores comes from and you think about the way those New England teams were constructed, they have so many bodies back there.

Xavier and Howard did not practice today. Byron Jones was limited. He didn't do much. she was not in during the team periods at all. So the two outside corners were no Igbonogamy and Nick Needham with Justin Coleman working in the slot. I assume when everyone's back, it'll be Xavier Howard and Byra Jones on the outside, but they have Coleman and Needham in the slot now.

And you see that depth at those spots show up pretty much at every level because now at safety, even without Bobby McCain, they bring in Jason McCordy, who is working with the ones at safety today. And you have Eric Rowe. And you have Brandon Jones back there getting some work for that. and then Javon Holland, their second round pick, most likely will eventually get some of those snaps. They have a ton of depth and flexibility back there, even more than they did last year when they had one of the best past defenses in the entire NFL. Yeah, I mean, I came away.

This was a practice where, like you said, we didn't see Byron Jones. We didn't see Zavian Howard. And I came away thinking like, the secondary could be pretty good. Exactly. And they came away with a couple picks. It was usually the second team, Jacoby Brissette had a couple picks today. But yeah, they were just, they were really active. I spoke with Jason McCordy after, and he's playing more safety now than he really ever has.

But he said he had a lot of position flux when he was in New England. Nature of the Beast. Safety. And obviously that's something that Brian Flores values. And it's going to give them just a ton of options. And they have a good front too. And a versatile front, a lot of different bodies that they can throw out there. So it's going to be real fun to watch.

And they're kind of a hard team to say exactly like where people are going to be lining up from snap to snap. By design, I think. And I think they do that on purpose. And it's funny, I was thinking about this as I was looking as Eric Groh was talking. So he was in New England for one year with Justin Coleman of overlap. He was in New England with one year with Jason McCordy of overlap. So even though there are a lot of new guys on this defense in the secondary, they all know the language of the defense because of where they come from. Justin Coleman was in Detroit.

It's the same kind of deal. Obviously Jason McCordy comes from New England. And then these guys have even played for at least one year together. So they're speaking the same language, and I'm sure they recognize to a certain extent how each other see it. So even if they're moving pieces, the familiarity with the system and with each other, I assume is going to accelerate their comfort level overall as a group. I mean, this team is still, to me, one of the hardest ones to project of exactly where they're going to fall. Certainly. You can really easily make the argument for them to be a really good team because you see these flashes of it.

and then you can see the potential places where it could all fall apart. The wheels could fall off. There's no denying. Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, Zavian Howard doesn't end up playing for this team. You know, we're talking about the secondary where it's Zavine Howard and Brian Byron Jones.

And there's some scenarios where Zavine Howard is not. Brian Flores seemed optimistic about that today. He said that things were headed in the right direction. So take for that what you will. Yeah. Take from that what you will. The one other position group I want to talk about before we move on. The offensive line to me is a huge question with this team.

because, again, a lot of resources invested, right? You have Robert Hunt drafted in the second round last year. You have Austin Jackson drafted in the first round last year. He seems entrenched as their left tackle, which is not a surprise. But there are a lot of moving pieces elsewhere. Liam Eichenberg was working with the first team offense at Guard a little bit today. Michael Dieter was working at Center today. I believe that there's a little bit of a competition between him and Matt Scura,

who is an undrafted, or excuse me, an unrestricted free agent that signed with the team this year from Baltimore. So they seem to be working out a lot of different combinations there to see what works best. Because this team spent a ton of money at receiver. They have the most, the biggest percentage of their cap spent on receiver in the NFL this year. But the line is not quite as solidified as those receiver positions might be heading into the season. Yeah. And they're experimenting a lot. As they should.

It's the right time of year for that. And it's not just experimenting with bodies and like figuring out like which center we want today. Although Deere has taken a lot of the reps talking to some of their beat writers around here. He's gotten a lot more consistent work with the ones. I think then most of these guys were expecting. I think they expected it would be a lot more of an even split with Skura. But they're also moving guys around positionally in figuring out, especially Liam Eichenberg. He mentioned from Notre Dame.

He was a left tackle at Notre Dame. He's gotten reps here at right tackle. He's got those T-Rex arms. I always assumed he play inside in the NFL. And now so they figure out now he's had multiple days where he's lined up at left guard and with the first team. So they're really just trying to figure out what is who are our best five, who are the best five together and figuring out what that ideal lineup is.

So that's definitely something that when we get to Tuesday and the pads come on, I'm going to be, I'm going to have my little binoculars out and I'm going to be watching some line play. You'll be really proud of me, Robert. I was picking out those numbers today without binoculars on. I was ego-eyed. It was impressive because Robert, if you follow his Twitter, you've seen he's had some complaints about Jersey numbers during training camp. Oh, we need to talk about this.

We will talk. So I've had some questions about this, too. But my only issue at Dolphins practice today is that they have their offense were as white jerseys with like a light teal number. Yeah, you can't see anything. And I'm blind and could not figure out. I don't know how many times I asked you. Was that six or eight or 73?

So there have been some some hiccups. When Joe Tryon was wearing number nine for the bucks earlier this weekend, I was extremely confused because he's a pass rusher and that just should be okay. This team, it's a crime. What's going on? You have Alan Hurons is number eight. No egg binogamy is a corner. He's number nine.

Albert Wilson's number two. Will Fuller's number three. It's going to be a disaster. Like I'm going to be all over the place, all of camp, and I think even into the season, because I am, my brain is not ready for this. Well, I was kind of, you know, when Tom Brady, like, took to Instagram or whatever. And I think it was one of the only times that it was probably actually Tom Brady on his Instagram complaining about that because it was very much written like a 43-year-old man with Instagram. And as somebody who is now in my 40s, I can say that. I was kind of like, all right.

He was kind of like the old man get off my lawn, but now I kind of get it, right? It's really confusing. And I'm not even an NFL quarterback. I'm just a man trying to keep track of all of this. All right. So obviously, like I said, to his development and the importance of to his development, it hangs over everything here. There were fans of today's practice.

When he completed a touchdown pass the entire place, acted like they won the Super Bowl, right? That's going to happen. And I think this is a good opportunity to talk about the other guys with a ton at stake this year. And let's start with some of the quarterbacks because obviously that's where everything is. That's where the stakes are the highest. There's no denying that. I want to start with Daniel Jones because like Tua, where this team spent a ton of resources to give him help as they're trying to spur his development along.

Daniel Jones is in the same place, right? Among NFL star, or excuse me, the Giants are eighth in percentage of cap spending on offense. And even that number is misleading because Kennedy is only making $4 million this year on a contract. he averages 18 million. You look at some of the other things. Cadarius Tony is on a rookie deal. Andrew Thomas is on a rookie deal. The resources pumped into this offense are crazy.

They have the number two overall picket running back. They have the number four overall pick at left tackle. They have a first round pick at tight end. They have a first round pick in Tony that they pick this year. And the amount of money they've spent along the offensive line and elsewhere. They have done everything they can to remove the excuses from Daniel Jones. And let's talk about what's at stake with Daniel Jones. his future with the giants.

Like it's in as plain terms as you can put it, that's what's at stake here. I mean, they have to decide after this season whether to pick up his fifth year option. And it does feel like they intentionally try to remove every single reason that he should not be successful in year three.

Although I do have questions. I mean, they're spending a lot on the offensive line. I do have questions about how good that offensive line is going to. Totally reasonable. I would also have those questions. So it could still be an excuse. You're paying guys, but they might not be that good.

But for me, all the Daniel Jones questions come down to ball security. And, you know, it's not so. Yes, it helps that they've upgraded the receivers around him with Kenny Golodei and Cadarius, Tony, who has had a really odd start to his rookie. Rough stretch for Caduce. I believe he didn't show up in the offseason at some point. And then he started camp on the COVID list. I mean, that's about as bad of a start as you can have.

But look, if you're not protecting the ball, it almost doesn't matter who the receivers are, who everybody else is out there. I believe he has 36 turnovers in two seasons, 21 interceptions and 21 games, 15 fumbles. I mean, you can't win with that. And I don't know how you get better necessarily at that. Is it practicing wet ball drills? Is it carrying the football around all of those kind of high school things? that you do. 29 fumbles in two seasons.

29 fumbles and two seasons. 29 fumbles and two seasons, 22 interceptions, two seasons. Last year, through 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Let me lay this out for you. The only quarterbacks in the NFL last season with a worse EPA per dropback than one Daniel Jones were. Drew Locke. No, Drew Locke was better. This is how small.

I was channeling Nate Tice here for a second. Trust me. I initially thought Drew Locke would be on this. list. He is not. The three guys are Carson Wentz, Sam Darnold, Nick Foles. Two of those guys are no longer on those teams. The other is about to be traded to the Colts to play with Frank Rick. None of them are the starter on that team anymore. You can make an argument that among the guys that are going to start for the same team they did last year, Daniel Jones was the worst quarterback in the NFL last season. That just can't happen. And that is what they're trying to

remove from this equation. Because let's say hypothetically, Daniel Jones, Jones is very bad this year. Okay? And they're sitting there next spring with Kenny Galdane and Cadarious Tony and I guess Sterling Shepard and some of these other weapons that they still have. And they've invested in this team and they think our deep and I think their defense chance to be great. Are they in Aaron Rogers team?

Are they the sort of team that thinks if we can upgrade is now the time to do it? Because that scenario to me is not that far off. Yeah. And if you don't have to pick up his fifth year option, you're not tied long term. But yeah, I mean, but then the question too. So, okay, here's the other part of this. If Daniel Jones doesn't have the year that we're, it doesn't have that prove it year, right, that he is bad again.

Who's making that decision? Is Gettleman gone? That's a good point. This is a really good point. I didn't think about that. So who's making these decisions and then is, yeah, coaching staff changes. I mean, I think it all could potentially be on the table for the giants. It's, I, it's kind of unfortunate because I do believe that they're,

defense is in such a good place. And I think that Patrick Graham is a really good coach. I just don't believe in the offensive stuff. I do not believe in the people that they hire to oversee that time. You don't believe in Jason Garrett. Is this what you're telling me? I'm comfortable saying that I don't. This is typically a fairly positive podcast.

Like we try to really pump guys up when we can. It's hard to get excited about the guys pulling the levers on that Giants offense. It really is. And it's interesting. We're, what, a week into training camps right now. And I haven't seen a lot of like positive buzzy stuff coming out of Giants camp. And that's a problem. And if you're the Maras right now, like how long do you let this kind of go on?

I mean, I think maybe one more year. Yeah. I think that's why we're having this conversation. So do you think, do you think Daniel Jones has it in him? Do you think makeup wise, skill set wise, do you think they've done enough? Do you think it's possible that he's going to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to. Again, quarterbacks are so often a product of their circumstances. I just wish we saw him with a different coaching staff and in a different situation.

Maybe he can overcome that and he can be fine this year. But I just, I don't think he's been given every chance to succeed. I know they've thrown a lot of resources at the personnel on the offense. I still don't think he's been given every chance to be successful in the NFL. If you're a fumbling quarterback, like what do you do to stop fumbling? I think you play quicker. I think you try to play a little bit faster. I think that's exactly what it is.

And we talked about this with Nate, I think after the season even when we were talking about Daniel Jones during free agency. when they were signing some of these guys. How do you get better? And I think it's just playing faster than he plays right now. Because I think that clock, when he's getting rid of the ball, the hero plays he's trying to make, I think that it's not short enough. And I think that's where some of those.

And that's where he gets careless. Yes. That's where the ball gets loose, those sorts of things. Speaking of careless, speaking of being loose with the ball. I think the next guy, this list is James Winston. Who. Because to me, 30 for 30.

What's at stake for James Winston this year is his chance to become a long-term viable starter in the NFL. And I would say it's not just this year. I think it's this training camp. Yeah. Because I think we've talked about this before that he should win this quarterback job, right? If it's, if you would hope if you were in any other scenario, any other city, 31 other teams and it's a competition between James Winston and Taysom Hill, James Winston is going

to win that job. That is certainly not an assumption that we should make about New Orleans because who Sean Payton is and the way Sean Payton views Taysam Hill and his roster and what he wants his offense to look like. So, you know, I think we could look at this. It's 2021 on a whole as a whole. But I think it's almost like August of 2021. We're sitting here on, what, August 2nd.

I mean, this month we're going to, by August 30th, August 28th, I believe, is the roster cut down day. I mean, it's just, this is a massive month for him about his entire future. Do you want me to make the case for James. Winston? Yeah. So he came out today. It was the first time he had spoken to reporters since getting.

to New Orleans, I think they said, which has to be shocking. But I think that's what somebody said today. Yeah, I mean, it's so hard because last year was just this weird year. That's a really good point. That's right. So it was still kind of weird to hear that. So he came out today and he said that he's gotten more reps in this camp than he got last season. I believe it. Which sounds right, right? So that, I think that's where the argument starts is him getting a little bit more work, him becoming more comfortable with what they're doing. I mean, you have to really get it down. You have to do it. And it seems like he's getting those chances. Here's the other part of this. The last time we saw James Swinson for full season when he threw 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions,

he had averaged 10.35 air yards per attempt. It was the second highest mark in the league. The year before that was 10.82, also the second highest mark in the league. He has consistently been near the top of the NFL since he came into the NFL, which makes sense because Todd Manken was the play caller in 2018, incredibly aggressive offense. Bruce Ariens, we know It's an incredibly aggressive offense. The structure of the systems he's played in, I don't think it had been very good for a quarterback of his mindset, a guy who is ambitious with the football.

Let's just say that. That's a really nice way to put it. If you're trying to find a system that puts up some bumpers for a guy who throws it into the gutter all the time, he has not been in the right one. Is this the right one? Is this the type of offense where the structure of it can help rein him in a little bit more

than some of the places that he's played before. I don't know if the answer is yes, but I do think that there's a better chance of that happening now with Sean Payton than there was with his two or three other play callers that he's had in the past. Yeah, it's going to be really interesting. I want it to be a fair competition. Like I want these guys to have fresh eyes on them and it should be a completely clean evaluation.

It's just wild how different they are and who they are as passers, what their predigree is, all of these sorts of things. And, you know, it's been kind of wild, like, reading some of the stuff that comes out of New Orleans during these competitions. Actually, I take that back. When I said the Broncos had the only open quarterback competition, I'm wrong. Clearly, there's one happening here in New Orleans. And I think maybe I think that because I don't feel like it should be a fair, an open quarterback competition, but it is. But, like, you know, you get these little snippets of, like, Taysam Hill, like, throwing a deep ball.

And it's like, whoa, who cares that Drew Brees has gone? Look at Taysam Hill. like launch the ball down field. Well, can I see the other 25 reps that he had that day? Can I see him throw in like a little 10, 12 yard pressing ground? Can I see him playing quarterback? Yeah, I want to see all of it. And I probably have some like Taysam Hill like blocks that I need to get over that I have

I have the same blocks. So we got some blind spots for Taysam Hill on this show. I will readily admit that. Unfortunately. Sorry to any. The Taysam Hill heads out there. What are they? I'm sure they're out there in what they call.

themselves. But, but yeah, I mean, this is just massive for James. But like, what if he doesn't win the job? What if? That I think he, I don't know where he goes from here. I mean, that's why he's on this list, because if he is really good this year, they could commit to him. He could be the saint's starting quarterback with Sean Peyton. Like, that's why he signed with him last year, right? I don't know his thinking, but you'd have to assume that was the mindset is that this is a guy who has shepherded, Drew Brees his career. This is a chance for me to completely restart. And get a new opportunity. And that's what's at stake here.

The chance to be the saint's starting quarterback with one of the best offensive coaches in the league for the next two or three years. Yeah, I mean, I think it was smart long-term planning on his part where you agreed and say, okay, well, where is there going to be a very clear path? If there wasn't a clear path to me to start in 2020, which there was not, where do I sign that gives me the clearest path to become a starting quarterback? I think it would have been there or potentially Pittsburgh, who's looking at a situation who there should be a succession plan in place.

They don't have one. That's a whole separate issue that we can talk about another time. I still just can't get over that Drew Brees got hurt last year. And they just gave the job to Taysom Hill, though. That was still a thing that happened. I would love to get six beers in Sean Payton and really ask him. Well, the 2022 combine. Well, it's too late then.

It's too late. I would love to really ask, like, why? Why was Taysam Hill the better? Especially if James wins the job now. And Jamesis is their quarterback. Why did you go to Tastas? I think he's referenced it in some vague terms in the past. But to really know the answers there, I would be fascinated.

So let's continue down this list. You have one more quarterback that you wanted to mention before we get to the non-quarterbacks. Obviously, Carson Wentz is on this list. Obviously, I think Sam Darrell is on this list. We're going to have a different show associated with the guys, the quarterbacks in new places. So we will talk about those guys at a different time. Yeah, and I think you could make the case for like almost every quarterback. Yeah, right.

Exactly. Exactly. But the other guy who is in the news a ton right now is Kurt Cousins. And it feels like basically every year is some sort of like referendum on Kurt Cousins. And it's a make or break year. And the Vikings are financially committed to him in 2022. His salary became guaranteed in March. It's guaranteed for injury only, but $45 million capital.

pit for 2020. So he's going to be on that team next year. But he's a guy whose situation feels very tenuous and growing more tenuous by the day. He was officially put on the COVID-19 list on Monday afternoon. Obviously, he was ineligible to play in their open practice at their stadium, not at the U.S. Bank Stadium, but at their training facility stadium. It's this beautiful place. He was in eligible play because he was on the, he was going to be placed. on the COVID-19 list. Mike Zimmer is growing more and more frustrated, it seems, by the hour. He is done.

He is done. I mean, look, they have been at the center, basically, now of the COVID stuff because Rick Denison, their offensive line coach, had to be reassigned into, like, a senior role because he refused to get vaccinated, did not have any sort of exemption. So that's, like, very disruptive to your offense. And I'm sure it was a massive thing. For first year offensive coordinator who's never called plays before. Exactly.

for a guy who and Rick Denison has been around this system for forever. I mean, Gary Kubiak and Rick Denison have been together since they were both players with the Broncos. In Denver, yeah. It's been like as long as I've been alive essentially. Yeah, no, exactly. And tremendous loyalty from the Kubiak family to Rick Denison.

And this has been, you can only imagine when you see now Mike Zimmer, just how he gives zero Fs anymore, um, publicly, you can only imagine what's been going on. not in private over the last several months where one of his most tenured offensive assistant coaches has been refusing to get the vaccine. And his quarterback now is at the center of all of this. And we don't know exactly how long Kurt Cousins is going to be out. The way that the NFL COVID protocols are written right now, there's a lot of, you can get in a lot of trouble making assumptions about what a guy's status is and trying

to figure out exactly how long they're going to be out. but it's just it feels like a bad situation that is only going to get worse they've invested a ton financially into kirk cousins with almost zero return at this point and Mike Zimmer is not a it's the right way to say this like even when things are going well in Minnesota he's not like a warm and fuzzy happy kind of guy and I just think he's he's over it I think he's over the cousin stuff So I have so many questions about what they're going to do long term. They drafted Kellyn Mond, who also is on the COVID-COVID-19 list. I don't think that's like a long-term plan.

I don't think having drafted Kellyn Mond in the third round, that's going to preclude them from taking a first round pick quarterback next year from exploring the veteran options. We've seen teams move on from a guy with 40 plus million dollar cap hits in the past, if they could trade him, if they could find a way. but barring like a deep playoff run I feel like there will be changes there I think it's a tenuous situation for a lot of people in that building you also did not mention one of the other things Kirkhausen says to worry about and that is case cook is taking his job is that a real person I am so happy that case cookis is now involved in our lives and somehow a little bit of levity we all needed every once in a while and a guy named case cook is being on the Vikings roster is just good for everybody are we sure something tweeted this earlier and I'm now I'm gonna I totally need to give them credit I

might have been our Arifesson are we are we sure that Case Cocas isn't just Kurt Cousins wearing a mustache like Bobby Valentine Oh that's amazing But that's probably why Mike Zimmer invited reporters into the parking lot

To watch them get their wait for their COVID results Because he just wants to show She was a shame everyone This is the ridiculous situation that we're dealing with And I know we kind of talked, we weren't going to make this like a COVID podcast. I was not going to make you make it a COVID thing. But I do it a lot. But I do it.

It's still an issue. It is. We will talk about it a lot. I don't want you to have to be the COVID police on this show every single show. It's not a fair place to put you. All right. Let's talk about the franchise tag guys. Yeah.

Because I want to get some non-quarterbacks. These guys have a ton of stake. Obviously, we know what the tag is. And the tag this year was an even weirder situation because we only saw, I think, I think one guy get an extension right before the deadline, right? Taylor Moten got his contract from the Panthers. Obviously, Justin Simmons was signed a little bit earlier. But at the same time, more of these guys typically get signed. Some of this stuff gets figured out.

But because the cap is down, there are a lot of weird elements to these contract negotiations because agents don't want to negotiate on this year's cap and even next year's cap with some of these guys up for deals. So you have guys like Chris Godwin, Marcus May, Alan Robinson, Marcus Williams, Brandon Shurf, all playing on the tag this year. A couple guys I wanted to get to specifically. Chris Godwin is a really, really good player. I think we forget sometimes how good he was in 2019

because he took a little bit of a backseat last year for a couple different reasons. He was dinged up a lot of the season. He had a finger injury, had a hamstring that he was dealing with, and he had a concussion as well. Two years ago, this guy had 86 catches for 1,300 yards and 9 touchdowns in 14 games. He was at 24 years old, a second team all-pro wide receiver. If he hits free agency next year after having a monster season at age 26 again, he's going to get a really big deal. He could get a $20 million a year contract.

And I talked to somebody on the Bucks personnel side when I was there this weekend. They know there are some painful decisions coming next year. They were able to get everybody in under the cap with some gymnastics that they don't typically do because ownership made some concessions. And they said, all right, we're going to keep this thing together because we won the Super Bowl last year. But eventually the bill comes due. And this team has $18 million in Calf Space next year with Godwin, Ryan Jensen, Carlton Davis, and JPP all hitting free agency. They can't bring everybody back. No.

This is like a very special one time. Yes. Rare. You're never going to see this again where you're able to get all 22 guys from a Super Bowl team back. I think they would love to have Godwin back. I think he might be too expensive. But that requires him to have a really nice year. And I think he could have a really nice year.

I would not be surprised at all if he was getting top of the market. receiver money from somebody next year. Yeah, I mean, I think there were a lot of teams this off-season that were, like, waiting to see who was going to get the tags, what was going to happen, and really hoping that the bucks were going to say, we have to let somebody go. And this is going to be a place because for all of the reasons that you mentioned, I think you would be really, really attractive. There's going to be a couple other receivers, big name receivers potentially coming up.

We're going to talk about another one here in a second. I think it's going to be a much better wide receiver market next year, just the guys. They're working up more money. I think that's going to be the other part of it. Guys are going to have more money and the actual talent. You know, look, we like Kenny Goladay, right? But like, if Kenny, if Chris, if Chris Godwin and Alan Robinson had not gotten Pranch's tagged, there's no way we would have been talking about Kenny Goladay is the best receiver.

That's absolutely right. And look, a lot of stuff happens. There's, there's a reason that free agency can be kind of a downer in the NFL because guys get resigned or whatever. But it does feel like this could be his last. run in Tampa and Tampa's going to be so fun to watch. You've already been there. I'm heading there in a couple days.

The amount of talent on the team is fucking absurd. It's bonkers. It's really, really scary when you think about it. And I talked to, for a story that's going to be running in a couple weeks, talk to their cap guy there about like, how did you do this? And I didn't get as much into it in the story that's coming out. It's our annual 40 under 40. So it's kind of a blur there.

But it was really interesting getting into like, well, what was the mindset? You look at it's March and you're saying, okay, we finally got our cap number. How do we do this? What are the ways that we do this? But you're totally right that it was ownership who said, figure it out. Did he talk to you at all about the decision to franchise Godwin instead of Shaq? No, I did not ask specifically. So I've talked about that a little bit when I was there.

And I think that they did it because got the numbers a little bit lower for the receivers. But at the same time, when you only have one of them to use, it becomes really scary to keep the other guy. And I think that in their minds, they thought they had a better chance of keeping Shaq on the open market than they did Godwin just because he's younger. And the number might be a little bit bigger. But those are things you have to consider. And he's an in-demand player. He's going to be an in-demand player if he plays well this year. So now when we talk about, like, strictly what he has at stake.

So you've already gotten to watch them practice. I'm very much looking forward to seeing them in a couple days. Where does he kind of fit, you think, in this version of the buck's offense? And I know you're going to get into some bucks stuff later. I think he definitely is right there in the start. When they're in 12 personnel, I think it's him and Mike. I don't think that Antonio Brown is going to cut into his two receiver set snaps. That's not how they see him, I don't think.

I think he is still very much a huge part of their offense. I think Antonio Brown is the one that would take a slight back seat when they're in those sets. And they're going to be, right? Like we saw how well they played with two tight ends last year. O.J. Howard is back. So that's my only concern is, do his numbers, are they just not big enough to warrant that monster, monster deal? Or is there some teams sitting there being like, he's only going to get 95 targets on this team? But we know for us he can be that much better.

So I think that's the biggest thing is if he plays really well, are his numbers going to be astronomical the way they were two years ago? Do you have injury concerns about him, given the things he's already dealt with? A little bit. I think that has to creep in. I mean, he missed the final two games of the year in 2019. Last year was dinged up a little bit. But for the most part, I think that he plays hard. He plays tough.

That stuff is going to happen every once in a while. I think he's worth betting on. That's what I would say. Next guy I want to talk about just briefly here. I was in with the Jets on Saturday. Marcus Mayswell spoke to the meeting for the first time since his contract standoff. It was a really interesting dynamic. It was, to put it, to put it, frankly, it was awkward.

Them asking him about what happened and da-da-da-da. He has nothing to say about it because what's he going to say. it was essentially, yeah, I don't really feel valued because they didn't give me a contract. Like I don't know what else they want for me. They didn't mean me where I wanted to be. So now we're sitting here with this guy being a really good player, somebody who's been really good for the Jets. And they threw a ton of money around this spring. They went signed Corey Davis.

They went signed Carl Lawson. And I'm sure Marcus Mays sitting there being like, what the hell do I have to do to get a deal from this team? And he was not drafted by this regime. It's a new defensive system coming in. We've seen other safeties in the past. get the tag, play well, and get extended. It just happened with Justin Simmons. Can that happen with Marcus May if he has a nice year in a new defense with, I think, a really good defensive staff?

I think he could. But there's a lot at stake for him in terms of long-term money here. Yeah, and he feels like a guy who he needs to figure out if he wants to be there. I think with Justin Simmons in Denver, like he knew Vic Fangio. He knew who his teammates were. he could see what else they were building defensively. So I don't think there was ever a question to me. I feel like I know Justin Simmons fairly well that he wanted to stay in Denver.

He had the confidence that it would get worked out. We just don't know that for Marcus May yet. He doesn't know what it's going to be like to play for Robert's Hall long term. What else they're building defensively. So I think there's a lot at stake for him personally, just in terms of his play and driving up his market if he can be, you know, one of the top performing safeties week in and week out. But also I think there's a lot at stake for the Jets with Mark.

as may to become the type of team and build the way that they think they're going to build where he's going to want to stay and he's not going to want to be the next jet who says see yeah i'm out of here there's one more receiver that you want to talk about here want to mention ald romanson i always do your favorite guy well i know you've been breathlessly following tweets out of chicago oh louis riddick's tweet today about justin fields it sent me to a place i'm a very happy man hearing that it's going so well there. I had to dump some cold water on Robert here in the Dolphins media room. I apologize to the PR staff for him to clean that up later.

Yeah, you were very excited. But, you know, Helen Robinson, like, I just want, like, good quarterback things to happen to him. And, like, could this be the year that he finally has a good quarterback in Chicago? I don't know. I think it's going to depend on how quickly Matt Nagy decides to put him in there. Justin Fields, by him, I mean, and not Andy Dalton. you're much more plugged in and what's going on with Chicago. Do you think there's any way that he's going to want to stay with the Bears

or this is going to be like I'm just going to show everybody that I can be a number one elite receiver no matter what the offense looks like and give me as much money as possible. It seems like there is a little bit of a disconnect on how the outside world use on Robinson and how the Bears feel on Robinson. And I just think that if we're sitting in a place where Justin Fields' development is the most important thing for this franchise, which I believe it is. It has to be. I think that if he plays, if Alan Robinson plays well this year, which I think he will,

and they have a connection and there's clearly something there, I think it would be in everyone's best interest to try to get him to sign a long-term deal and stay in Chicago. But at the same time, he's going to hit free agency. Like, unless they tag him again, the deadline is passed. So you're looking at a situation where are you going to pay 120% on the tag value this year, or are you going to let him hit free agency and probably get another decent offer from another team because he's a really good player. He's also only 27 years old. This is going to be his third contract, but he signed a short-term deal as a very young player coming out of Jacksonville.

So he doesn't turn 28 until later this month. His birthday is two days before mine. He's six years younger than me. He is ready to sign another deal. He can get one before his 29th birthday. And that's a huge thing. So I think he's going to have a really big year as he, He often does.

He's a really good player who's a productive player, no matter who's a quarterback. Justin Fields is a guy there, and he has 1,400 yards and 12 touchdowns this season. He could make a ton of money next year. I mean, so now I'm asking you to get inside of Allen Robinson's head, which is always difficult to, like, exactly think, you know, get yourself inside what somebody else is thinking. But do you think that the prospect of Justin Fields and look at everything else? I know their offensive line is still kind of a mess. not exactly sure what their long-term coaching situation is going to be. Would that stuff be enough, you think just Justin Fields, really?

Would that be enough if you're Allen Robinson to say, okay, this, I maybe didn't have the best relationship with the front office already. Maybe I got jerked around about the franchise tag or not. Say, okay, I want to stay. I want to play with this guy. Do you think that's feasible? I think it would depend on the amount of respect you're shown this offseason because you haven't gotten a lot to this point.

If they come out and say, here's $20 million a year, and it's also in the franchises and the front office's best interest. Because if they have a connection and you're sitting there saying, we need to keep this guy because we need to foster the relationship between our young quarterback and his best receiver, then there's a mutually beneficial space that these two could come to. I think that's the biggest question. Is it in the best interest of all the parties involved by the time this spring rolls around for him to be back? And I think that world could exist.

All right. Let's move on here. One I really wanted to mention very quickly because I have Jets on the mind because I was with the Jets on Saturday. Jared Davis is very interesting to me. And I think he's very interesting as a more, like a less concrete idea about certain types of NFL players in their trajectory, right? This guy is a first round pick by the Lions. A team whose defensive strategy, execution, and deployment of its players was a disaster. And during the Matt Patricia era, he signed a one year $5 million deal.

to go play with the Jets this offseason. He's working with Jeff Oldbrook, who is the defensive coordinator for the Jets. He did a very good job with some of the linebackers in Atlanta. Think about what Deion Jones was during his time there. He's like a somewhat comparable player. Yeah, like movement skills, everything else, yes. And so he is slotted in as the starter next to C.J. Mosley

in their starting defense right now. Is this a guy who clearly is talented? Can he resurrect his career? Is this somebody that can show he deserves to be a long-term starter? in the NFL because that's a question right now. And those types of pivot moments and those inflection points for guys are always interesting to me. It's like, all right, this is an experiment.

We're taking you from a defense that has gotten the least out of its players to a brand new scheme with defensive coaches that have done a pretty darn good job over the last few years and a defensive staff that I think a lot of people believe in. And I'm just excited to see how an experiment like that goes. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of, I mean, whenever we look at these kind of list, It's like the free agents. It's the guys in new places. And I know you're going to talk about that a lot.

You have Jadabian Clowny in this list, a guy who's bounced around a bunch, obviously a ton of potential, trying to figure out exactly where he's going to fit. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. And I want to see like the Sala effect because we've talked about him a lot as like the culture changer. Like he's a really good just like football coach too. It was so interesting watching him during practice on Saturday. because, and I really wanted to ask him about this, and I got pulled away to talk to another and assistant, I couldn't ask him about it. His demeanor during practice is very reserved, which you see him on the sideline.

He's so pumped up. And it feels like as a head coach, he is learning how to watch practice. Yeah. And I'm at that transition from watching your side of the ball to having to take everything in. Where did he stand? Behind everything. So he was standing behind the huddle, but off to the side a little bit, taking a ton of notes. And that transition is always interesting to me.

It's like when your scope has to change, how do you change, excuse me, how do you change the way you watch? So I think that he's still learning that, but I do think he's going to be very good at it. And I think that he talked to the fans after practice, like even with Marcus May. And Marcus May said, I like him so far. So can he keep a guy like Marcus May there if he wants to stay there? So the Sala effect, I think, could be very real for this team. Let's get to a team that had a new coach last.

year and has definitely made a nice little cultural transition there are two guys on here for me from cleveland yeah one is judevian clownie judevian clownie can he become a real long-term answer for a team he's it's a one year eight million dollar deal you can play with miles garrett now can he be a guy where the brown say we want him around we want that pairing for the next two to three seasons to me he has a ton at stake this year and the other guy is odo beckham Yeah. He has no guaranteed money left on his deal after this season. Jarvis Landry has $1.5 million of guaranteed money left on his deal.

There is a chance that that wide receiver room in Cleveland looks a lot different next year than it does right now. That staff in Cleveland likes working with Odell. They have a lot of respect for his talent, what he brings to the table. That price tag is very big, though. It is aligned with a superstar player that he was when he signed that deal. Do we see flashes of that superstar version of him this year? I think that's a really big question. And do you think that the Brown's offense is going to be built in a way to get the most out of a superstar wide receiver?

Maybe not in terms of targets, but in terms of structure, yes. I think that they know his skill set is very different to the other guys they have on that offense, and they need to utilize that skill set for their passing game to take another stuff forward. God, their defense here, when we're talking about Jadavia, clownly they brought on a lot of kind of like prove it veteran malick jackson malick jackson mccanley like there's just a lot of these guys they took dice rolls in the front seven that's exactly what they did for whatever reason i saw a picture of malik jackson the other day and he looks fit like i think it's like scary they cannot afford an injury in that area they're really thin

especially i think on the edge because it's those two and then tack at least in in the front or excuse me the defense tackle they have billings they have tommy togeye they have only Jackson, but still not a ton of bodies. That is the one area where they didn't beef it up as much as I thought they were going to because they went corner on the first round instead of edge. That was definitely going to be an option for them where they were looking at the edge rushers. I think they would have considered taking one in the first round if Greg Newsom wasn't there,

but then you get to the second round, a lot of those guys are off the board. It's not as deep of an edge group, and they love JOK. They didn't think he was going to be there. So I think that their plan draft-wise went a little bit different than it might have looked like a week before the draft happened, and that's how you come up with this team. And that's why you need Clowny to be Clowny. You know, for years now, we've had kind of this idea of like, you hear his name. It's like so fuzzy, like, oh, Jadabian Clowny, he's going to sign or the free agent.

But Seattle, he had productive moments, but he wasn't a disruptive force week after week after week. Certainly didn't pan out for Tennessee last year. He didn't have the effect on that defense that they wanted him to. So, can in this situation, with this coaching staff, and with Miles Garrett, who is going to be in the defensive player of the year conversation moving forward, I think, right? So is this going to be the right situation that we'll actually get to see kind of him take that step back to becoming the player that we all think that he is when we hear his name, but he hasn't actually been in practice over the last couple years? I don't need him to be a 10-sack guy, and I don't think they need him to be either.

Does he get seven sacks and 75 pressures and three-force fumbles? I think that pressure number is going to be really important. And does, is his contract, do they sit there and say in the spring, all right, we'll give you three years, 45 with $30 million guaranteed. Because even that is more security and long-term assurances than he's received in the past. He's never gotten that. Yes. It's wild. And that's the big thing to me.

I don't think he's going to be a $20 million a year player. But is he somebody that shows, all right, I'm worth investing in for a multiple year deal? can he become part of this young core that they have working in Cleveland right now? I think that's what it's at stake for him. For Beckham, I think it's his spot in the upper tier of receivers in the NFL. I think that is what's at stake for him in 2021. Their whole position group at receivers is really interesting. Because like you said, Landry doesn't have a ton of long-term security,

but he seems very established as like one of the voices of that team. I think there's a world where neither of them are there next year. I could see that. So then you move forward with what was Higgins's new deal? One year? Well, I think you move forward with who are the free agent receivers next year. I think you move forward with Chris Godwin, Donovan People's Jones and Anthony Schwartz. You're like a Brown's Chris Godwin jersey.

Just order it up right now. That's why you have to consider that because are those good players, yes. But if you can save $30 million from those two. guys that you're about to pay them next year and you have that money freed up, you can take your offense in a different direction, a younger direction possibly. This team has flexibility in those receiver spots. And I think it's up to Beckham to prove I deserve to be a part of this going forward. And, you know, look, the Browns, one of the things that I think Andrew Barry has done so

well is identifying, okay, from year to year, what do we need? What are our weaknesses? Last year it was offensive line. This year, it's been their secondary, filling some holes elsewhere. very much could be next year. So what's, not to make this a fantasy football podcast, but what do you think is like a realistic expectation for Odell Beckham

to make them, make them want to keep him long term? Is it? Numbers wise, it's tough just because, I mean, I think he could legitimately be like, I'm trying to,

like 75 catches. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think like 80, like 80 catches and like maybe like 80 catches, 1,200 yards and, you know, eight touchdowns.

Like that's a nice season. Like that is a nice season. And I also think that because of the way their offense is structured, it's the same as Nick Chubb, right? Nick Chub is a better regular football player than a fantasy football player because of how much work Kareem Hunt gets.

This is still going to be a fairly run-heavy team that uses a ton of three tight-end, two tight-end sets. There's a world where Odo Beckham is a significantly better real-world football player this year than a fantasy football player. And I think that's going to be the question

that they have to answer. All right. That's all we got. We've been going for a while. We've been going for an hour and five minutes. This is a real podcast. We're going to have to bump Bruce Ariens and Byron Leftwich now, but that's okay. We're going to have them on the next show that we are going to do with my friend Nate Tice.

We're going to talk about some breakout players on Wednesday's show. We're also going to talk to Greg Alman, who is our Bucks writer. So it feels like it's a nice place to put Bruce and Byron and talk about their offense last year. Feels like a good way to end it. It's been really nice to do this in person. It has been great to do this in person. I am so glad that our pads crossed for one single day here in Miami as I head north and you stay down here. Yeah, I'm going to be sending a lot more time in Florida, sweating through every article of clothing that I brought with me.

It was very sticky today. It was a muggy, muggy day here in South Florida, but that's what you get coming down here at this time of year. Wednesday, thank you very much. It's always good to see you. Thanks. We'll see you later. All right, guys. Now we are going to chat with Matthew Fairburn.

A good friend of mine covers the bills. This is his eighth camp covering the bills, which was shocking to me, makes me feel very. old. He knows that team as well as anybody. Let's get to our chat with Matt. All right. It is now time for our third stop on the training camp tour. And I will say right off the bat, this is a much better setup than the last two recordings that we did with the Colts and the Browns. I'm here in Buffalo, I guess, in Orchard Park, New York in a beautiful, pristine air-conditioned coaches box at Highmark Stadium with Bill's writer, Matt Ferber. Matt, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing well. You know, we had to really, really,

make sure things were good here because I've been on the beat now eight years. Which is insane to me. We can get into this, but it's insane to me. And this is the first time Robert Mace has made a training camp stop in Western New York. I think it's the true sign for me that this team is for real. That is ridiculous, but I appreciate that nonetheless. This is also the first time that you and I have done something like this in person since we've been coworkers. You and I have known each other for at least a decade now, right?

Yeah, I would say it's around a decade. Robert helped shepherd me along to the business back in, yeah, it would have been 2014 at the combine. So, right, 2014? That sounds right. I think it was the Michael Sam combine, if I remember correctly. And now you're in year eight. And this team has made a pretty serious transition. And it is looked at in a different light. The tone of everything is a little bit different. even just watching what they were like out on the field today, and especially with certain players, which we can get into.

But this is a team that justifiably harbors very real Super Bowl aspirations. And I think that that kind of permeates the mood around here right now. I don't know if you feel the same way. Absolutely. I think for so many years when I covered this team, you know, teams will have joint practices and you'd get to occasionally go to other training camp stops. But for the most part, you're hunkered down.

in one spot. But when we saw like Steelers practice or Panthers practice, teams with legitimate franchise quarterbacks are like, oh, these teams practice a lot differently. Yeah. It looks a lot different when you don't have three quarterbacks or two quarterbacks rotating through. And this feels like, that's what this feels like now. Like Josh Allen, this is his team.

And it's been his team. But it's not only his team. He's an elite quarterback. He behaves like it. He performs like it mostly on a daily basis against a pretty good defense. and he has a lot of really good players around him. And it really makes a different feel day in and day out at training camp practice when the offense is performing at the level that it is.

And I think obviously the conversation around Josh Allen, the jump from 2019 to 2020 and how monumental it was, how much of that is real. And I think there are aspects we've talked about on this show, whether it's under pressure or some of the plays that they made that are crazy plays that out of structure. It's like how much of this is replicable. But then you think about some of the other aspects of it.

Maybe he's just that. talented. That might be true. But I was also talking to someone on their offensive staff today and just discussing how much you can build on it when it's now year three, where when he was starting off, even as a smart guy, which Josh Allen is, you're at a rudimentary level. You can't even spit out play calls. And now you can just tell they're firing on such a level. The way he carries himself out there, the way practices look, some of the throws he was making, even in one-on-ones with receivers and corners down the right sidelineers, beautiful throws. They're really, really clicking. You can feel how comfortable they are with this offense and the way that it looks right now.

Yeah, it's really hard to quantify, like, where all of this improvement came from with Josh Allen. It's like a million different things that have all, you know, created this quarterback who is unlike most quarterbacks. Very much so. Unlike a lot of quarterbacks we've seen in the league in some good and bad ways. But I don't think you can overstate how important it is that Brian Daibel is back calling the shots. and that a large amount of the offense is back.

He is so, Josh Allen is so comfortable with Brian Dable. Those guys are really close off the field. They've developed a great bond and a given take in terms of how the offense is structured, the plays that they call, what they can get away with. Ken Dorsey being thrown into the mix has been a great, great thing for Josh Allen. And then all the work he does with Jordan Palmer has obviously benefited him. I mean, the quarterback science part of it, that has kind of become a thing in the league over the last few years has been a huge benefit

for Josh Allen, the work that he puts in, how smart he is, like you mentioned. They really have the ability to, and it's what's interesting about this entire team. They take that big step, and now it's about how do you keep yourself fresh? How do you build on it? How do you adjust it? I think having Emmanuel Sanders is one way, just personnel, but how do you make sure what teams saw last year isn't easy to stop because you have something. new wrinkle each day or each week. And I think that's the new challenge. It's the new challenge

for this team. For the last few years, Sean McDermott has made it so ingrained in these guys that nobody believes in them. And maybe they find a way to think that again, but it's going to be really hard because they have legitimate Super Bowl aspirations, like you said, and they're one of the betting favorites to win the Super Bowl. So I'm curious to see how all that comes together, especially on offense. The balance to me is so interesting of, all right, we want to keep this core intact. This is the team now. Where Darrell Williams and John Feliciano were stopgap starters for a year as we're figuring out the offensive line. Now they're pieces. The receiving core is intact. This is what this team looks like. So how do you balance retaining what made you good

with keeping it fresh and injecting new talent into it? Let's start with the offense. Because I think a huge question of this is how much of the Josh Allen greatness or success or whatever carries over. And something that has come up multiple times today in conversations with you and other people is how much crowd noise and the different settings are going to affect him this year because even he has admitted he plays a little bit differently when there are fans in the stands and even independent of talking to you that came up again today in how they communicate everything else is that something we're underrating with both Josh Allen and the league at large how much having fans in the stands is going to matter again this year I think so and I think it's going to be

hard to know and measure exactly the impact but We're going to look back at 2020. You know, there's not going to be empty stands, hopefully, ever again. And that was obviously a benefit to the offense. I don't think there's any other way to spin it. Of course, the defense can communicate and all that, but the baseline level of the energy wasn't the same. The noise wasn't the same.

That's going to benefit the offense in a league that already benefits the offense. So now it's a question of how do you adjust as a quarter of, back as an offense to those types of settings because you know what of course people are going to bring up arrowhead stadium you know they have a road game in tennessee this year going to foxborough when that place is full how about playing here yeah in orchard park where of course the stadium isn't rocking when you're on offense but they're all there you're geeked up you still feel the energy you are fired up and and that at times times in his first couple of seasons, he didn't have the best performances at home because he seemed

so jacked up and so he's a guy that loves to please people. He loves to be, you know, that guy. And the fans love him. They adore him. He knows that. And I think there is a little extra juice that he has a hard time containing at times. But that's all part of the maturation process. We may look back and say, we could in five years say, wow, remember that year Josh Allen had? Remember that name? because he goes sideways when there's fans in the stands, or we could look back and say, how fortunate was he that he got to develop and have that crucial year while without that,

without the crowd noise and the fan noise, so that now he comes into this season with more confidence and belief that that version of himself is in there, and maybe the crowd noise isn't as big of a factor, but it's an interesting subplot, I think, to the entire NFL season. I haven't been thinking about it.

enough because it's come up multiple times when I was talking to people in Cleveland about just even with those 20,000 people there during that playoff game, how it affected them. Their offense played differently. They made mistakes they hadn't made before. And the same thing was true of Josh Allen in the AAC championship game. And I think that when it keep harping on that as we get closer to the season, the crowds are going to matter. The crowds are going to matter because it's easy to forget that.

On offense, I think there are two other aspects that are worth discussing. One, the running game for this team last year was not nearly as efficient as they would want it to be, especially with how well they passed the ball. And some people thought, will they draft a running back? How much will they pump into that? And in the conversations I had today, it felt like they didn't think they needed to upgrade it running back in order to inject some life into their running game. And they don't value that idea of balance in the same way other people might.

They think we want to be as efficient as we can all the time and passing the ball is the way to get there. So I don't think they're going to overcorrect based on what other people are seeing as a weakness from what last year's team was. Yeah, I think all along last season, you know, Brian Daibald is an interesting guy because he has some Belichick tendencies and how he behaves with the media

when the microphones are on and all that. But he'll occasionally slip in the moments of honesty. And it happens often when you talk about the running game. And he mentioned, you know, balance isn't worth it if you're not good at one thing. If you're not very good at running the ball. And if one thing is more efficient than the other thing. Or, yeah, or if you're just so good at one thing,

you want to do more of it. And last year, the perceived struggles of Devin Singletary or Zach Moss or the running game, I think we're a little bit overblown because all the coaches mentioned, well, maybe we could run the ball if we did it more often, you know, if we committed to it, but why would we do that? You know, the team is throwing the ball incredibly well. Josh Allen's having an amazing season. Offensive linemen I talked to said the same thing.

all during camp, the passing game was the emphasis. In a shortened camp that was tough on offensive linemen in general, no preseason games to flip the switch and try to be a dominant run blocking unit, it wasn't the mindset of the group. It wasn't part of their personality, even though some of those guys are mallers, they were practicing throwing the ball a lot more often than they were running the ball. So was their running game bad or did they not commit to it?

and should we fault them for not committing to it? The whole idea of a running back in the first round to me, it didn't make a lot of sense because Devin Singletary, he's not a superstar, but he's fine. Zach Moss is a talented player. They were both third round picks. You've invested the capital. In spots, they can be productive for you.

You throw in Matt Berita, who I think can make some plays out of the backfield that hit the occasional home run. You're going to make your bones on offense with throwing the ball to Stefan Diggs a bunch. Throwing the ball on third and three, you're throwing to Cole Beasley. They also don't want to get to third and three. Right.

That's the part of this, is that they're doing everything they can to make sure they're in consistently advantageous spots. And if that means throwing the ball for six yards on every first and 10, that's what they're going to do. And one of my favorite parts about the way this team approaches the game is that they don't run the ball nearly as often as other teams. They run play action at a higher rate than almost any other team in the league.

They understand the benefits of what running gives you. And for the most part, that's making your play action game work and their play action game works. So where the tuners are with this team, I think they're tuned to the right stuff to make this the most efficient offense as possible. Absolutely. It was one of the coolest things last year is watching Brian Dable start to trust Josh Allen more. And they were running four wide receivers on the field as often as every team in the league. Except for Arizona. Arizona bested them, but they were spreading the ball out constantly, and they were running play action, and they were doing these things that smart offensive teams do.

And it was probably the greatest example you could point to of you don't need to run the ball well to set up play action. That's not how it works. It's almost the opposite in some ways. And they proved that because that's why the game against Baltimore was so funny, because they were running play action all the time, but never running the ball. And it was working for them. And you have a quarterback who can move too. That throws in another wrinkle with RPO's. And, you know, they have to account for that.

That's the other thing about their running game. I'd rather have a running game that maybe doesn't do much between the tens. But when they're inside the 10, they're really good because Josh Allen can just take off and run. It's a numbers game. And they have, you know, short guys that get open really quick. You know, if you don't have a running game, you better have receivers who get open. fast. So the running game can replicate your running game.

So it's just a replacement, which I think they do a very good job up. So on offense, the only tweak is Emmanuel Sanders. And that's the idea of, all right, if we bring him in instead of John Brown, what does it do to our offense? And I think it changes the complexion of your receiver room a little bit. He's more versatile. He can play inside. Now you have so many different pieces that can do different things. And I also think that because Diggs is such a vertical threat, now you have somebody that's not as much of a vertical threat the way that John Brown was.

I think pieces fit together with Sanders instead of. of brown. But you move to the defense and you think about those tweaks. It really did seem like with the way they spent their resources, that pass rusher was the priority. They looked at what they were defensively at the end of last season with Jerry Hughes, a young AJ Epinessa, Mario Addison is a mid-tier free agent and thought, we need more juice here. It seems like that was what Brandon Bean prioritized coming into this offseason. And now it's a matter of, is it going to matter? Yeah, they sniffed around on JJ Watt, ultimately got priced out of that. But invested the draft capital with Greg Rousseau, Carlos Basham,

which wasn't the plan from the start. I don't think they planned to come away with two of them. They wanted one and they couldn't believe that Boogie was still there in the second round. And I'm so interested in this defensive line because so many of the guys can play multiple spots. And that creates interesting decisions for Leslie Frazier, depending on how quickly you can get guys up to speed. Epinessa, Rousseau, Basham can all move FAA Obis. who they signed, same thing, can move inside and out. He's really interesting.

He's another one that I said it to you today at practice. Like they might keep 10 of these guys. Yeah. They're that type of defensive line. They rotate so often and they like to have different looks. And now, you know, they have some guys that are one spot only, you know, Star, Lottulele and Harrison Phillips are probably just in one spot. But a lot of the other guys, you can see them moving all over the place. And I think getting longer, getting more disruptive, they've never viewed sacks as the end game.

Like if they're down in the middle of the pack and sacks, they'll live with that if they're getting pressure, guys that can maybe get the hand on the ball, guys that can force quarterbacks off the spot. But to me, this is a lot of pressure on second year defensive line coach Eric Washington because he has, last year they had more money tied up in their defensive line than any team in football. And it was not a strength of theirs. This year they add a couple of high draft picks to the mix. To me, it's on Eric Washington, Sean McDermott, Leslie Frazier to get something out of that group. Even though there's some inexperience there, they need to be better in important games. Because if you watch that AFC championship game, I think the defensive line was part of what let them down on defense. And they're still built in a more traditional way on their defense, right?

Like we're not going to see what teams like Miami or Baltimore or some of these manufacturer of pass rush teams do. This is a four-down team that's going to bring four guys. And that's why having versatility juice, a lot of different types of players, different types of combinations are more important to this team than they would be for a team that doesn't play with this style. So that's going to be a huge story. The other parts of the defense, I think positionally, the biggest question on this team, because the defensive line, the bodies are there.

It's a matter of figuring out who's going to play. On the back end, you could question whether the bodies are there. When I look at this roster, that second corner spot, maybe you could argue two corner spots, that is the biggest question. Would you say positionally, that's the number one concern as we get into training camp here? Yeah, it's been somewhat glaring to me through the first three practices to watch. You know, that was really the only starting job up for grabs is that number two corner job. Levi Wallace, who was undrafted a few years ago versus Dane Jackson, who was a seventh round pick last year.

both decent players, both guys that are fine, but certainly not guys that are no-brainers as starters. But behind them, Taryn Johnson's the nickel, has had a lot of injury problems. Saran Neal has come along as a player that they like can play inside, can play outside, mostly a special teams guy for them. Beyond those five, along with Tradavius White, it's a big guessing game. Cam Lewis is undrafted. Elijah Griffin undrafted this year, Nick McLeod undrafted, Rashad Wild Goose, sixth round pick.

Those are all rookies. Cam Lewis has been in the league a little while, but all unproven. And so you look and say, okay, Levi Wallace, Dane Jackson, that's a good situation to have. Whoever loses will probably still play some. What if one of those guys get hurt? What if both of them get hurt? They had a situation last year where COVID, you know, became a problem in the cornerback room. Then you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

And it's interesting because Sean McDermott came up as a secondary coach and has a lot of belief in his ability to develop corners and secondary players. And he has a lot of hits. He has a great resume in that regard. But sometimes it makes them hesitant to invest the resources. That was the bigger surprise to me in the draft than running back was cornerback because they didn't necessarily need one in the first round, but it felt like they needed one before the sixth. sixth round. And they have not, outside of Tradavius White and Taryn Johnson was a mid-round pick invested high draft picks in that spot. They've had a revolving door at number two corner and Levi-Roehl. And Trey Waite was the first year that Bean was here? Yeah, he was, no, he was

the first year McDermott was here. Bean got hired about him. That's on side. I knew there was a disconnect with the regimes. Yeah. It was not a part of one of those regimes. It was Sean McDermott's first draft pick or Doug Whaley, depending on how you want to, you know, dole out credit. But it was certainly a McDermott pick. It was the saving grace of the fact that they traded out of the Mahomes draft slot and gifted the Chiefs, the superstar quarterback, was that they got a great number one corner. That's what's interesting. They spend their first pick on it. And then they've kind of just pieced the secondary together. Otherwise, great scheme, great safeties. Tremaine Edmins and Matt Milano cover a ton of ground. So at times it feels like they feel like they feel like they can get away

with something that other teams can't because of their scheme. And that's so interesting. to me because that is so apparent. When you look at the way that a lot of other teams in the league have built, I think Cleveland is a great example, right? Cleveland doesn't have the depth of versatility up front. They have it in droves on the back end. They've got three safeties they can play. They drafted a corner in the first round.

Gritty Williams is another fourth corner. They drafted a lineback. They have so much depth and versatility in the back seven. The bills, I think, played in a 4-25 setup in nickel, like with two linebackers more than any other team in the league last year. That's how they live. they don't have that depth and versatility in the secondary. They're relying on the amount of guys they can play in their front four and the fact that

Leslie Frasier said it today. This is the deepest linebacker group that they have had since he's been here. So they're constructed in a very different way than some of the other really good defenses around the league are constructed right now. And it's interesting because I think everybody talks about building up front from the line out. They did the opposite when they got here, signing Jordan Poyer and Micahide, drafting Tradavius White, they went the other direction. And I think they feel so confident in those three and what they can do with those three guys.

And they have some versatility with a guy like Damar Hamlin, another rookie late round pick that I suppose could play a little bit in the slot. Saran Neil, who I mentioned, but they're banking on their coaching, their scheme, their development to say maybe a Rashad Wild Goose develops into a guy that can play for you. or Cam Lewis or Elijah Griffin has been decent early on in training camp. Or maybe they just hope that Levi Wallace and Dane Jackson stay healthy. But it's a spot that has been on my radar to where I think they could certainly add at some point in training camp or before the season starts because everybody talks about it. You can never have enough good cornerbacks. They don't. This team doesn't have enough good cornerbacks.

It really feels like they don't have enough. And it might seem crazy to spend this much time drilling down on one cornerbacks. back spot, but that's where this team is. When you have the aspirations and the goals and the lofty goals that this team has, you have to spend this much time on who's going to be the cornerback depth on this team because if you get a couple injuries, you're not insulated from that when you want to win a Super Bowl. And that's where this team is.

It's one of the only spots, you know, putting together a 53-man roster projection or what are the big camp battles? There's one. Yeah. There's one starting job. They lost one starter from the AFC championship. game and that's John Brown. They arguably upgraded with Emmanuel Sanders and they have a little bit of a competition going with two guys who are very much unheralded and unproven to an extent

Levi Wallace has started in the league. He's been around. Yeah. But Dane Jackson has not. He's made some plays, but, you know, in the short time that he got to play. But yeah, it is an interesting spot. And like you said, it speaks to this team and what they are. It's like, well, here's the one potential weakness. We don't even know for sure if it's a weakness, but it could be. Otherwise, they brought the band back and they're going for it. They feel like they were right there with the chiefs last year, even though it didn't feel like they were to a lot of other people. They felt like they're not as far off as people think from that team,

and they could be in the Super Bowl. And they like what they have. They love Levi Wallace. And they felt that way about a lot of guys. It's why they really tried to bring this band back together and see where it can take them. This is the team that Brandon Bean wants. There's no more shuffling.

There's no more, well, this guy's a one-year stopgap option. There's no Darrow Williams in this version of the bills. I guess Emmanuel Sanders is that. But for the most part, we know what this roster is. We've seen this roster. Now the question is, what do we need to get us over the top? And we're going to see. Yeah, we're going to see who the difference makers are.

Can internal development give them what their cap situation would not allow them to do. It's exactly the question. After the season. And that's where they'll take their coaching staff and their scouting staff and stack them up against any in the league. They have a lot of belief there and they've had a lot of success that way. So I think I'm curious to see how this all unfolds with these new expectations and the new look, you know, of or the new feel, I guess, of how everything's going. I'm curious to see how they stack up. Awesome. Well, it's always good shout with you, but it's good to see you. It's good to be back and doing this.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me. So really appreciate the time. We'll talk to you soon. Oh, thanks so much for having me. All right, guys. That's all we got. As I mentioned, we're going to have Byron Lefwich and Bruce Ariens a little bit on this show, but had a long conversation with Lindsay.

We got a ton of dolphin stuff. So we're going to save that for tomorrow's show with Greg and with Greg Alman and Nate. So please come back and check that out. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. I would sincerely appreciate that. Also, please subscribe to The Athletic. We got training camp coverage. We got training camp coverage every single day.

Lindsay is going to be writing about her time here with the dolphins a little bit later this week. I will be writing next week. We got tons of stuff coming to you guys again. It is impossible to follow the league at this point in the calendar without an athletic subscription. Theathletic.com slash football show. Please go check it out. We will be back tomorrow with Nate and Greg Alman. Talk to you guys soon.

This was the Athletic Football Show.