The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - QB Tiers 2022: Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert move up, Russell Wilson questions & more with Mike Sando

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Mike Sando's QB Tiers have officially arrived for 2022. Hear where execs and coaches around the league have ranked all of the NFL's signal callers. This year is filled with new faces making the top of the list, and familiar faces falling down. Is this a new era in the league when it comes to QB expectations? Mike Sando joins Robert Mays to discuss the biggest takeaways.Read all of QB Tiers at theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today's Monday, July 25th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, the athletic zone, Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing? I am doing well. I always love it when quarterback tears comes out.

It's a labor of love, and we made it. So here we are. It is quarterback tears day. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is an exercise that Mike has done. Is this the ninth year? It is. going all the way back to 2014.

So we did the show last year. We essentially go through Mike's quarterback tiering process. And I love it for a few different reasons. One, it's just a sign that the season is here. It always coincides essentially with the start of training camp. I'm already on the road. It's July 25th. I'm at my first team today.

I go to my second team tomorrow. We're starting to travel around. I know that you're about to get going as well. I am. I've got crazily. I think I'm doing 10 teams in 12. 12 days. So it always seems good. It's like a red eye flight. It seems like a good idea when you book it. Then when you're doing it, you're like, oh my gosh, what did I do? But I love it. I'm so excited,

Robert. I just, I'm grateful to be able to get back out on the road again. And I love what I get to do. And here we are, you know. I feel the exact same way. I have 10 teams in 11 days. Oh my gosh. Did you read my itinerary? Did you read and you saw I'm going to beat Sando? There was the one team. I think it was the Eagles or the Ravens that were on when no one else was on. And that allows you to kind of stack them up. So I'm very excited. It's going to be a great stretch of the calendar. But I also love that we really get to dig into the position at this point in the NFL season, the NFL preseason. When we're starting to talk about training camp, it's really easy to look at the teams and expectations and what we expect from all of those guys. But I really love being able to sit down

right before that starts and just take stock of the quarterback position. And that allows, you allow us to do that, but the way that you do this, I want you to lay out for those people who are unfamiliar with the way that quarterback tiers works. What the methodology is for how you go about this? Well, the basic methodology, there's two tiers to this methodology. One of them is that I talk to 50 people in the league that are coaches and executives and evaluated, wherever you call it, from GMs to head coaches to coordinators to some position coaches, especially quarterback coaches.

I have some people from analytics realm in it, just a nice cross-section salary cap people. So those are the people that I'm talking to to get their opinions on the quarterbacks. Now, as far as the criteria, basically a tier one quarterback's the best, tier five would not even be a starter. And really, the spectrum or continuum there is how much help do you need from your team to be set up for success? And I think those guys like Aaron Rogers or Patrick Mahomes and now obviously Tom Brady forever and now we're adding some young guys that we'll talk about have risen to a level. to where they can kind of carry more of the load themselves. Everyone needs a baseline level of support, but those guys can really do it.

And I think we'll talk about this too, because certainly you mentioned it yesterday, to what degree you can do it as a passer? Because I think the game ultimately gets reduced to passing. There's a lot of other things you can do to make the game easier on the quarterback from play action to a quarterback who's a great runner, those types of things.

But there's, I think, an evidence-based feeling in the league that still at the end, they're going to make you throw the ball from the pocket. And if you're terrible at that, you're probably not going to be in tier one. So that's really what it is. We can describe each tier. There's a little nuance within each one. But that's the general idea.

And each of the 50 people I talk to in the league will take every quarterback. I'll go through them. I'll say, where do you got Aaron Rogers? And they'll say, I got them in Tier 1. And we'll talk about Aaron. And then we'll go all the way down. and by the end we have 50 tier one votes for Aaron Rogers and none in any other tier. But there's shades of gray for everybody else, right?

I mean, well, Patrick Mahomes has been unanimous and it was 49 to 1. We can talk about that. That was maybe a little silly. But, you know, there's other people like Deshaun Watson, who people are over the map on. He's got a lot of votes in a lot of tiers because they weren't sure what to make of them for various reasons. How much turnover is there in the voting pool from year to year? I'm not sure if I've asked you this before. Yeah, I actually looked that up. It's a fair amount. I should get the exact number. It wouldn't surprise me if half of it turns over every year.

That's great though. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It gives you different perspectives. It keeps it fresh. You're not hearing from the same voices all the time. I'm sure it makes you think about the position and the guys you're talking about it in a slightly different way. Yeah.

I did look at, I did do a thing in the process. I was like, hey, have I had anyone who's done it every year? And there was a short list of people who, you know, I don't know, a half dozen people or something who had been in it the whole time, maybe five people. But, you know, I know so many more than 50 people in the league. that's the thing. And some of this in the off season, too, is, hey, when do our schedules mesh up? There's people that I talk to all the time in the league who aren't in it this year because whatever. They went on vacation when I was working and then I went on vacation. And we just missed. And so five other guys got in, right? That happens a lot too. I may know 150 people so we can't have them all in it.

I'm not, I stopped growing the tears. Okay, Robert, when it first started, I think the first year I had 26 people and then we got to 50 and I'm like, all right. I'm not going to 100. 50's perfect. 50 is great. 50 is a very representative sample size. All right. I want to start with what I think is the biggest headline from this year's group. For a long time, there were mainstays in tier one.

You mentioned Aaron Rogers. Patrick Mahomes quickly got in there. Tom Brady, you know, the old guard. Drew Breeze was in there pretty much every single year. Ben Rathesberger was in there, I think, once or twice. Russell Wilson's been in there a few times. But guys that have been in the NFL for a deck. or even longer.

This year, that is not the case. We have a new group that's jumped into tier one, including Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and Justin Herbert, and those guys definitively jumped into tier one with the voting distribution and the way that you look at it. Were you surprised that it was not unanimous, but so definitive that the votes were skewed almost two-thirds for tier one for all of these guys? A little bit. I wasn't sure because I think for.

I mean, look, we all look at Justin Herbert and know. I mean, this guy's a real guy. But I think when you haven't had team success, that would be an easy thing for people to just hold that and wait, make him wait. Or Joe Burrow really only had one, you know, full season. I think it would have been easy to split it up a little bit more. So, and, you know, I don't think I was shocked, but I wasn't sure either. So when you finally see it, and I also wasn't sure, like, would Russell Wilson kind of fall out? You know, I thought he might.

But, you know, it's pretty. resounding, isn't it? With Joe Burrow, the bottom of Tier 1, 33 votes in Tier 1 to 17 in Tier 2. And all those guys in Tier 2 are, they're just saying, I'd like to see it another year, you know, just before I put him in. It's really what your own standard is, right, for saying, I believe this is going to continue. So looking at Josh Allen's distribution, specifically, he had 11 Tier 2 votes. And in my mind, I was like, oh, that seems like a lot based on the last time we saw him play and what he was in our minds by the end of the season. But then I looked at one of the numbers and the facts that you threw out. He's only the ninth guy ever in this exercise to get

75% of tier one votes. So getting that sort of distribution where your three quarters of your votes are in tier one, that doesn't happen very often, even for guys that end up landing there. So he's in rare company. He is. I think what often happens is you have, what has happened is you have three or four people that are, everyone would agree on. Remember over the years to be Breeze, Brady, Rogers, you know, maybe Mahomes came into it. But, but then a lot of times you'd sort of had that rotational guy. Matt Ryan was the MVP. We don't really think over the course of his career, he's the same as those guys, but dang it, this guy's had on a two-year hot streak, and he sort of cycles in, right? He may have it by a narrow margin. It might be 26 to 24 or something, and that puts him in, but he's

definitely on that borderline. I think these three guys, you're right, people are looking at Alan, Herbert and Burrow and going, yeah, I don't have a lot of doubt. I really like what I see. With Alan, one of the quotes that you threw out that I thought was really interesting was just about how he's not perfect all the time. There are still elements of his game that are somewhat erratic. Stylistically, he's not similar to a Rogers or a Breeze or Brady and the guys we typically see here. What has that been like as you've done this over the last three or four years? And you have a Lamar Jackson and a Josh Allen and a guy that has. has a different play style or feel to him than that golden age of quarterbacks. I'm sure

navigating that space has been tough as it relates to this exercise for both you and for guys in the league. Absolutely, because there's tier one football players, right? I mean, we would all say, Lamar Jackson's a tier one football player. I mean, he wrecks the game every week, but there is a feeling, too, that he's in high tier two because that passing component that seems to be maybe not quite good enough so far, at least to break through in the playoffs and have the type of success that somebody who's as good of a football player as him should have. I think Josh Allen has crossed over enough with his passing ability that people feel good enough to put him in there and do that. Now, I personally felt like, man, they were running him so much. Late last season,

it was such a big component of his game. I mean, he was really running a lot. But look, he's lighting it up in the passing game, too, with some performance. Prolific receivers, and I think that component of it was sufficient to put him in there with, look, let's face it, in the playoffs, he left us on a very high note. There's no way they should have lost that game. Wasn't his fault. He lost the game. He basically was good enough to go to the Super Bowl, you know, as a quarterback driving

a success of the team. How much do you think the last memory we have of guys from the previous season permeates these rankings? Because with some of the guys specifically, it feels like it's just a couple of. commentary on the last time we saw them play. Ryan Tannehill comes to mind. We could talk about that a little bit later. But I'm wondering if you feel that when you're having these conversations. I think it can knock a guy from one side of a fence to the other if you're on the fence. Gotcha. You know, but, but Mahomes had a bad ending, right? I mean, it wasn't like 15 people suddenly,

you know, one guy picked a knit. We can talk about that. But everyone still, it didn't shake it. You know, remember when Deshawn Watson, or I mean, Josh Allen had the game against Houston, where it was a meltdown game in the playoffs. I think that stayed with him a little bit. It did, but probably correctly, right? I mean, that was an important moment, and it was indicative of other meltdown moments that he had had. Tannihill, we will talk about,

but I mean, shoot, he was a completely different player when Derek Henry, for the production wise, when he wasn't there, and it really confirmed what people thought that, you know, the offense almost runs through the back there to a degree that is unusual. So Herbert also definitively in Tier 1, 36 tier 1 votes, 14 tier 2 votes.

I mean, that's pretty strong. That is a definition of a tier 1 quarterback. And that feels right, obviously, based on the way he played last year. It was fun going through this list. There are some guys where a lot of the commentary is the way they play the game. Burrow, right? People talking about Burrow and just his ability to extend plays and his decision-making, just certain kind of intangible aspects to his game.

And then people talking about Herbert and every single person that you quoted, pretty much every single guy was like, when we were playing against him and I saw him up close, it was like, holy shit. And the flavor of those kinds of observations, I always love seeing the different ways that you kind of articulate how people are commenting on these guys. And that's how it feels with Herbert, right? You watch him and it's like, oh yeah, that's him. Like, that's the guy. Like, it just clear his day. It's a visceral reaction. It's a visceral reaction.

Right. And I think, and when I talk about him, obviously, that's how I communicate it. Where you watch it, it's like, oh, my God. Like, what is happening here? And that, it feels so plain when you watch him, right? You watch that guy and like, that is an elite top shelf quarterback in every single way, just the way it feels watching him. It's so inherent in the way that we understand him that it's easy to forget. People his age don't get put into this range in quarterback tiers very often. Absolutely not. I mean, you can think of Andrew Luck probably very, very early in his career, although he may have been older. I don't remember, but it is hard to get in there that early and that resoundingly. The cool thing to me talking people about him is, look, these are a lot of grizzled people that have been around the league and they don't just let somebody into tier one. They're, they're not easily impressed, right? So I think it's really cool when you have the people on the inside almost have fan-like reactions. You know what I mean? When, when someone,

who's, it's just different when you, when a pro golfer goes, oh my gosh, this guy's wedge game is the best I've ever seen. That's totally different than just some fan who says, wow, Herbert sure is exciting, right? I love that component of it. It is unusual. Multiple people with the visceral reaction on him, you know, I think it shows us that, hey, even though the team hasn't done that great lately, you know, they haven't gotten over the top, people know it when they see it with him. And there's just not a, he's two for two. Two years, two different coaching staffs, by the way.

No one's talking about, oh, yeah, the coaching changed. No one's making excuses for why this guy had a bad year. He was the real deal out of the gates with two different coaches. What would that team's record be if they had a tier three quarterback? You know what I mean from the rest of their team? The nugget that you threw out that he's only the fourth guy that's ever been in tier one before he turned 25. and the three other guys in that list, Patrick Mahomes, who won the MVP in his first full season as a starter, Andrew Luck, who anyone who's listened to this feed in the last two weeks knows is the greatest quarterback prospect in a two-decade span,

and Deshawn Watson, who is one of the most accomplished college football players of all time. Justin Herbert, in a lot of ways, doesn't align with those guys were supposed to be in what they were early in their careers. but if you look at the way that the votes went, he is no doubt about it in this group. Yeah, yeah, it's really exciting for the, I just think for the league, because for a long time we could see that these great guys were going to age out,

and you don't really know, you know, until somebody actually plays. We can't project that well that easily, you know, from the college to know who's going to fill us. And suddenly we have three new guys, and by the way, if Deshaun Watson does, you know, get things in order. I mean, he could be, he was tier one last.

year, you know, coming in. So he's an easy one who could ascend. I think Russell Wilson's been there. I mean, we'll see what he does in Denver. But there's a few other people there that either that have been in Tier 1 and are not done by any means in Russell Wilson and Watson. So we could have a nice group. Maybe Brady's gone in the next couple years and maybe it's Watson in there or Wilson in there. I don't want to spoil too much of it, but there's a quote you had from a defensive coach about Top Gun Maverick in the Justin Herbert section. That is my favorite quote in the whole thing. you guys absolutely should go read it. It's also a reminder that this will always be an expression of whatever was going on in the world when you talk to these guys.

The fact that there's a Top Gun Maverick quote in the QB tiers for 2022 feels weirdly appropriate. It's great that these guys break away enough during the out season to actually go, you know, watch some movies. So that was pretty darn good. And I love the quote too. You know, there really is a component to these tier one guys that they can pull the rabbit out of the hat, you know. And look, if you're way behind, you're probably not going to win, even if you're a great quarterback. But they have a way of getting you back into it. And every once in a while, they do put you over the final line like we talked about with

obviously Tom Brady, right? I mean, the greatest comeback of all time. That doesn't happen for just any quarterback. So I love the quote as well. I thought it was really good and fun. Sometimes you just hear, you're talking to somebody and you hear that and you just know you've got a great one, you know. When you talk to 50 people, you're inevitably going to get some decent ones, I think. I want to talk about just how hard it is to get into tier one a little bit later when we discuss some of the guys who are kind of mainstays there.

The last thing, though, with this group, Joe Burrough saw, I think, the biggest jump of anyone in this exercise this year when you look at the rankings of individual quarterbacks. And he obviously went from tier two to tier one, but I think he was 15th on last year's list. He goes all the way to sixth. But when you look back at the commentary in last year's quarterback tiers, I think even the first year's, the last two quotes you had in the borough section, it felt like we might be on the precipice of this. So even though it seems like a big leap, I assume a lot of the guys you talked to probably had an inkling that this might be doable in 2021 for him. There was some visceral reaction on him. And you're right. I think Jalen Hertz might have gone up 10 spots. Oh, that's right. That's right. That's right. But the point stands. There was a visceral reaction to him.

there's an appreciation for how he plays the game and not just from the pocket but the toughness you know i mean he really stood in there and took a beating and when you do that the guys on the field no and so i think one of the quotes in there was like hey our guys came back to the sideline or whatever and we're like this is a real dude you know and so they saw that now i think you have to be careful too like just the style of play or those attributes you know it's not everything right i mean you can like a guy uh for how he goes about his work and then overvalue that a little bit. Now, he took the Bengals to the playoffs.

They had a good defense, but he took the Bengals to playoffs in the Super Bowl. So, you know, I think he's going to be a tier one quarterback. But that's probably the one guy where, look, incredible weaponry that played amazing, didn't make it through his rookie season, is with an organization that I think has made great strides, but still has to prove itself over time.

and had the one great year. So that may be the, and isn't the freakish athlete like the Allen or the Herbert, right? So that may be, I don't know about the most speculative of those, but there's probably a reason why he's sixed and not ahead of Herbert and Allen. Do you sort of feel that?

Yeah, I've always felt that. In the Justin Herbert Joe Burrow conversation, I've always been a Herbert guy, even if I love Joe Burrow. And there are two things I want to talk about with this. One, when you read all these conversations in succession, and you have the feel of how these guys talk about the quarterbacks, those kind of toughness, play style, what is he like on the field elements,

they could really come through in this. Because there are guys, I think Ryan Tannenhill's toughness is something that has been lauded over the years. When you talk to people in the league about him. And that comes up all the time in conversations about Ryan Tannihals. For guys like Kurt Cousins and Derek Carr, it's the opposite. Where there's there are questions about is he going to stand in there when he starts getting hit? How was he going to move through that?

And so that is more of a staple of this exercise and the chats that you're having with people than it might seem for people who just think about this from the outside it. Absolutely. It can kind of, you can have the glass that that has 50% capacity full, right? but you could view it as half empty or half full based on what you think of those things on a person. And no doubt Carr's had to fight that. I mean, he fought that coming out of Fresno State. He won't stand in there. He won't stand in there.

And then we've seen him make some nonsensical throw the ball out of the bounds on four, throw it away on fourth down or some of those things. Those happen a couple of times. And man, it just affirms in people's mind. And then he has to overcome that. And I think Carr actually did overcome that somewhat this year. I mean, the season they had last year, you know, helped him in that regard. Cousins hasn't necessarily had that yet. But Cousins, one of the things I would say when I was talking to the people in the survey was like,

Cousins sort of has tier two production almost, but you just feel like he's a tier three. I want to get to him because he's one of the more fascinating test cases in this entire thing. I think every single year he is. The last thing I wanted to mention with Burroughs, one specific quote that I think you had a quarterback coach say. And it was something I thought was a really interesting observation. It was about Burrow predetermining a lot of where he goes with the ball. And some of that is based on the fact that they spread it out and show him the picture. So they give him choices very quickly by virtue of the way their offense is constructed.

And you can imagine that from last year. Just think about Jamar Chase down the right sideline, single high. I know I'm going here right away. So a lot of the decisions that Joe Burrow made were predetermined based on the look that defense was giving him. Is that something that's going to be available to him as he's starts getting the treatment that really, really good quarterbacks get. And he has some of that. He was not blitzed nearly as much last year as he was early in the season.

I think teams realized that sending pressure on him was a really bad idea. So there are elements of the way that defenses are playing him that align with a Mahomes or somebody like that. But I'm wondering how real that is and what we're going to see from him if we're going to be getting more too high stuff, more coverage-based looks where they're not because their offense was so siloed last. year. That's the case for putting them in the top of tier two. What's the rush? That's the top gun Maverick quote. Look, it takes time in the cockpit here. Let's make someone do that longer. I think sometimes, you know, when you, this could be one where you, you so admire those, the traits of Joe Burrow and the way he stands in there. And he's a great pocket quarterback, which is still what it's about. Ultimately, when it gets reduced down, that people just,

people just love, like I said, the way he plays and, and really the way he leads that team. I mean, he just has a almost Brady-esque kind of determination to him and grit, doesn't he? I mean, he brings a toughness. That thing we talked about last year of this is a real guy, everyone feels that with him. And I think that gives him the benefit of the doubt and is why he clears that hurdle when it would be totally realistic to just say, hey, let's see if that's an issue, right? Let's see if he can make it through a couple full seasons in a row here before we put him in with Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers and these guys. I don't have a problem with him being in tier one. I think he's fine at the bottom of it.

They went to the Super Bowl with the Bengals. And there's nothing about him that I'm totally concerned about. But I think it would be fair to let's see you. You said you're interested in seeing it this year. I am too. He deserves credit for making teams pay when they give him the answers to the test. But this year, are fewer teams going to be willing to give him those answers?

Are they going to try to consciously and intentionally muddy the picture the way they do with a Rogers and a Brady? and what ultimately ends up happening when we see that. I think it's a reasonable question, and I think it's something worth watching. Yeah, like if he had a big interception this year this year, would you be shocked if he had 15 interceptions and it just wasn't quite as easy? I wouldn't be shocked.

I think if he threw 15. But if you think about a lot of their big plays last year, I think it was a lot of quick decisions based on the look and a lot of broken plays. If he's having to move off of stuff and get to secondary throws, consistently, what does that offense end up looking like? I have a lot of faith in Joe Burrow to play the quarterback position at a super high level, but I do think it was just an interesting nugget that was brought up.

All right, a few more tier one notes, I think, are worth mentioning before we move on. The way these guys talk about Rogers is amazing. It goes beyond respect. There's almost like a reverence in the way that they talk about him. And so many guys that you talk to, and I'm not sure if you used every single quote, where this was brought up spoke about how much he just wants to tear you down psychologically. Oh, the smirks and just how much pleasure he gets in doing this. And I think they love him for it.

And I just can't remember them talking about him in this way. It almost feels like it's continued to grow this just weird respect they have for how much of an asshole he is. I had to like, we actually edited out quotes were like, this guy's a supreme prick, you know, In an admiring way, in an admiring way. We're like, we can't really put that in print because someone's going to read this and think, oh, they're calling Rodgers. But that's like, you know, it's said admiringly, oh, this guy's an incredible, you know.

And they're like, and I mean that in the most genuine sense of the word. You know, if you've ever been called a word like that, it's just what he is. And to me, just the complete command of everything. One of the quotes was like, hey, they're sending the field goal team on. And he's like, no, no, no. Like he, I can remember a play against Carolina. a year or two ago. And there was a timeout.

They were down there. It was at Lambeau Field. Ugly game. Yeah, kind of an ugly game, but they were kind of down there, I think, in the red area. And Lafleur was going through his call sheet. And I don't know if he lost track of the clock,

but he was buried in there. And Rogers is looking over. This may be his job for all I know, but it just looked like he was the coach. Rogers is getting over there ready to kind of do the timeout. And then Rogers, without consulting of anybody, goes over, he sees the play clock. and he goes to the ref and calls the time out with the signal.

Because he's in charge of everything. Like, nothing gets past this guy. He's talking to the refs during the game. He knows them on a first name basis, right? They're basically his caddy out there. The guys on the other team, that Carolina game, I remember that too because I watched that game. After I said that, I watched the nuance of Rogers.

He's winking at Kikli before the play. Like, they both know something's going on. Like, he's in such command. There's nothing. this is so easy for him. Like the play for Dallas where the time ran out on Prescott, that doesn't happen to Aaron Rogers, right? Aaron Rogers is in such control, this whole thing

that when he's got whatever, 27 seconds or whatever it was against the 49ers, he makes the throw you can make and gets them down into field goal range in the exact number of seconds that it takes. And then if he's got too much on there, then he knows to wait a few more, right? So he gets it perfect.

Like he manages the game perfect and then makes the incredible throws. And then, like, he's on such a high level that, like, the coaches and the coaches on the other team know certain things that he's doing that we don't even know watching the game. And they're like both in on this. And like the linebacker may not be in on it. He may not know the second year linebacker. He may not even know what they're talking about. But Rogers is like a coach. He is like communicating that with his body language, with the smirk on a level that even other great players.

Like Patrick Mahomes can't be there after five years in the league. You can't do it. Rogers, after all this time in the league, has this ability. And then his demeanor, too. You know, just the way that he does it is I think he's the most fun player to watch in the league for me. I felt like that a lot over the years. I mean, I was calling him a fire breathing dragon in like 2013. I've always felt like he was just in a different class.

And quarterback tiers expresses that. He's been in the top spot in this exercise eight times in nine years. And there were moments over that nine-year stretch where he had some fallow periods. He had some ebbs and flows. But this exercise has always believed in him probably more than every other measure of quarterback play in the NFL. And I feel like a lot of the guys who continue to put him in Tier 1, who continue to talk about him in that way, they were justified that they were redeemed over the last two years, three years, now with two more MVP awards.

I'm curious when I talk to coaches, there is never a more prevalent or frequent aside than when Rogers comes up and even coaches in the league, people in the league have real concerns, not concerns, but commentary, even like offhand about how much Rogers controls that offense. We'll be talking about like offensive schemes and the Packers will come up and they're like, yeah, well, Rogers is there. And it's almost like an offhand thing. They say it and move on. I know we have trouble on this show trying to extricate Matt LeFleur's role in what the Packers are and

Aaron Rogers's role in what the Packers are. But I think that extends to people in the NFL and kind of coaches all over the place. I don't know if you feel that when you have these conversations. I do it. If I'm making the case for Matt Fleur, I say, wait a minute, the production wasn't as good for a couple years there. Now, that could have been the end of a marriage, right? You know, and it was.

And we could see a little bit maybe of that with Russell Wilson and Pete Carroll, too. You could explain possibly that, you know, Russell just didn't seem the same the last year and a half. Well, he was, maybe he's going through the motions of a bad marriage, right? And that could have been the case for Rogers at the end. Certainly, there was not a physical drop-off, right? There was not a physical drop-off for Rogers. So I don't know what it was.

There were certainly, now, I did do some research on why his numbers were down a couple years and there was an insane number of missed opportunities and drops and plays where he put the ball through the keyhole and they didn't the receivers or whatever just had some bad years. I did document that. It was totally different from his MVP years. But I think we sensed the body language or just the joy, the joy he was taking in the game wasn't the same either. So you have to give Matt Lefleur some credit for that. But, you know, realistically, what's Matt Wilfur's record going to be when he has an average quarterback everyone else. He's probably not going to be close to that. And that's just the way it is. So Rogers is number one. Patrick Mahomes comes in at number two, but not unanimous.

I know. One tier two vote for Patrick Mahomes. I was surprised. Like, yeah, and it's a legitimate person too. You know, not that I have illegitimate people in there, but it's like, you know, somebody who's got some time on task and has had success in the league. so, and I made sure that I talked to them. I was like, because they had sent me their ballot. I was like, all right, you're not doing this. You're not just stooping this, man. You know, come on, what are you doing?

But I think some of these defensive guys, you know, are a little crusty and stubborn hard asses sometimes. And I don't really mean that as a criticism. I like that about them. They're very bottom lineish. One time, like, like Robert, I'm sure you've encountered this too. When you talk to defensive backs, they're so grudging in their respect they give quarterbacks.

Like, you know, they're just like. No, this guy can't. This guy's just a run-around guy. He can't beat us. You know, he can't read. He can't read defenses, that type of thing. So, you know, I mean, I don't know how you say Patrick Mahomes isn't a one. I think you could say he's a one, but I saw some things last year that maybe he's not,

that show why he's not Rogers yet, you know, in terms of his management of the game. I think that's totally fair. So, you know, I mean, it would be embarrassing if he was in tier two, wouldn't it? If Patrick Mahomes was at the top of tier two, this year, wouldn't that be embarrassing? There's just no way. Even the two vote. And the commentary was that when you take away some of the unorthodox throws and he has to

rely on his natural pocket presence that you start to see some holes in his game, I just don't think that's true. He's the best quarterback in the NFL against the Blitz over the last couple of years. He never gets sacked. The ways that he manages aspects of the game from the pocket are one of his greatest attributes. So this idea that he's just all flash. actually dig down under the surface, there are some problems with the way that he operates. I just don't think that's even almost reasonable.

Yeah, I don't think he, I think one of the points, even people put him in tier one was, look, he's probably not an elite diagnoser or an elite reader yet, right? I mean, as he will be in the next few years. But yeah, I think I think it's fun to have it in there. I'm totally cool with Rogers being the top guy. I do think that's true. Yeah, I think that's totally fine. Is it back-to-back MVP?

We don't let people grade as a, like I want them to give him a one minus, right, or a one. So it actually kind of works out well that one person had the guts to do that because the ranking, I like the order. I do like the order. I'm fine saying that he and Rogers aren't, like if they were both tied, Mahomes and Rogers, I would say, yeah, but people sort of feel like Rogers is the best. Well, now we got it. I don't even have to say that because it came out to 1.00 to 1.0 to 1.0. two as silly as you know you might think it is to consider mahomes in a tier two. So you mentioned that the defensive guys can be crusty every so often when they're doing this.

Are there different flavors to positions or roles within an organization that you feel are consistent in the conversations you're having as part of this? Oh yeah. No doubt about it. So like quarterback coaches can be flavors of ice cream. They're really into the nuance of the position and they like certain things about a guy. I think that's, frankly, this is one of the issues with evaluation of quarterbacks, because sometimes an evaluation says as much about the person doing the evaluating and what they like. Sure. You know, because you may like a certain style of music, Robert, that makes it harder for you to fully appreciate a different style that's just as good, right? Overall. So I think that personnel people are much, are going to lean towards the traits.

They say, hey, you coach them up, right? But a personnel person is going to be higher maybe on somebody who maybe isn't the greatest peer passer, right? Or doesn't handle that as well. But man, this guy is a physical force. This is what we look for, right? And defensive guys, you really, I think you have to, they really respect if you can beat him from the pocket because they feel like eventually we're going to game plan your gimmicky offense or your quarterback run offense and we're going to make you do it from there. and that'll be the real test and we'll all know whether you can do it or not. And then quarterback coaches are like I said, they could be into the style of the player

or the way the arm slot or different things he can do. They may be a little bit into the weeds about certain things about a guy. Another big one here, Russell Wilson following out of Tier 1 pretty clearly. And I think that what Russell Wilson is in 2022, is one of the single biggest questions associated with this entire season. So when you were talking to people, what drove the drop to Tier 2? And where does the league think Russell Wilson is right now? Yeah, I mean, I think he hasn't played or produced as consistently for the last year and a half.

So that's clearly part of it. I think that people have always felt like he was a certain type of one, that he really did need or benefited from the run game and being able to play off of that. And I think we saw that last year. Man, when they got Rashad Penny going, I mean, he looked pretty good right at the end of the year. So people have known that about him, but even because of that, because he was so great at the end of games and certainly is a good enough dropback pastor, they felt like with the team success and all that in the past, he had to be in tier one, even though they did have some, they did think he was a little bit more dependent on the run for his style of

play and overcoming his height and some other things. It sets a dynamic scrambler. Well, this last year and a half, that run game went away a little bit. I don't think we've seen him to be as willing of a runner or as dynamic of a runner. He's made some decisions holding on the ball. Remember the Chicago game last year? They're going down to a field goal range and he just eats a sack. And you can see the veteran left tackle, Dwayne Brown, stomps his foot and walks off the ground,

like, what the F are we doing here? Like, this is a hundred time this has happened. And you may look at that and say, you know, the bad marriage thing at the end, this was McCarthy and Rogers, and it just didn't look the same. And he may be reborn. And part of me thinks that could be. But I think there's definitely been a falloff there to where it was easier to say, you know what, this guy's still pretty darn good. But I don't think he's been as special lately for whatever reason. Yeah. What he ends up looking like, what that offense ends up looking like, two of the bigger mysteries about the entire 2022 season to me. I am so, this is such a great storyline because Denver is just leaning into the savior angle. Oh, we got our guy. They have to, though. They have, they had to do it and they have to lean into that angle.

Everything that's happened, I totally get, but it doesn't mean it's going to work. So what do you think the odds are greater that they're first in the division or fourth? Oh, I think there's definitely better odds with their fourth in the division than first. Me too. And if that happens, that's not good enough there. I think you have to take the long view. For fans, yes. We do, but people in Denver don't.

People who are there and have been in that building say you do not understand what the culture is there from having had Elway and Peyton Manning, what the expectation is. And you've got Nathaniel Hackett walking in as a first-time head coach. And Russell Wilson has all of this power there. If they don't have a good year, do you think it's going to be Wilson's fault? Do you think he's going to say, you know what, this is me? Do you think it's... Oh, the he'll own it. It's his fault.

Yeah. Or do you, like, that's a place where they could just hit the ground running and be awesome and everything could be amazing. Or like, Hackett could be like on the hot seat at the end of the year. Depending on how it goes, if Russell Wilson is not what they think he is, if he is not the savior, if Russell Wilson isn't as good as Derek Carr this year, there's a chance of that, isn't there? Yeah. I mean, if you could have, if you could put your money on Josh McDaniels with Derek Carr,

Devante Adams, Waller, and Renfro, or you could put your money on Nathaniel Hackett, Russell Wilson, as he is right now, and their weaponry, and you were going to make a two or three year investment. You had to take all of your savings or whatever, all of your chips, and you had to pick one. You could make a case for either, right? Yeah, you absolutely could. We're going to talk about Derek Carr here in a second. And I think that his standing within this has changed. a little bit that makes that conversation a little bit more interesting. It's just interesting to me.

I just don't think it's a given that Pete Carroll was holding him back and now you're just going to turn Russell Wilson loose. I think that narrative was there's some truth to it because of the way Pete wants to play. But I also think that could be the best way for Russell to play. And he had some dang good years there, really good years. If you take his body of work in Seattle, is he going to have a better body of work in Denver? Yes or no? Well, I think the answer to that is no. He's not a boy in Hall of Fame. But if let's say, let's play this out. Let's say the Broncos have a little bit of a slow start, some growing pain, stylistically,

they're trying to figure each other out, trying to understand what the offense should be, what he does well, what everyone else does well. The feeling out process that happens with any new quarterback typically in year one that isn't Matthew Stafford with the Rams, that could happen. And by the end of the season, they're 10th in offensive DVOA, eighth and weighted offensive devoid. They look pretty good, but they end up being the fourth best team in the division. They're nine and eights, and it's kind of disappointing. That's okay. The sky is not falling if that's what ends up happening in Denver. And I think keeping that perspective is important.

I do too. I do too. I just think it's totally fascinating. I think there's, you could, you could, you could question your mind. I mean, Russell Wilson is so into the celebrity culture and all stuff that you just wonder, has you lost his way a little bit because he hasn't played as well? Or is that overthinking it, right? What happened at the end in Seattle? I don't think he looked as good. You know, is he declining? Have we seen the best of him? Is he, is it disrespectful to have him in tier two based on what he's done? One of the guys sitting there, I don't know what these guys are looking at. End of the game, he still moves the ball down the field just like always, and there's evidence that he does. So it's really, really fascinating to me. What is he,

what's he going to be there with a first-time coach under the expectations in a really tough division. That's just a team that's going to be must watch. And you're right. I think we can't just live and die with every week. But, you know, they play Seattle in week one. Isn't that fun? It's great. It's absolutely great.

We're going to have a lot of Russell Wilson conversations on this show over the next month and a half for the season starts. So I want to get to Tom Brady very quickly. We don't spend a lot of time on this. I was just surprised that Brady got so many tier two votes based on the way that he played last year. I thought he was incredible. You could have given Brady the MVP last year. I wouldn't have even blinked based on his production and how in command he was of that offense, how aggressive he was. The combination of pushing the ball down the field and doing it in such a way that he never got sacked, that blend of stuff is really, really difficult to pull off. I think last year was

one of Tom Brady's best seasons. And the idea that he was a tier two quarterback. I know. people was just surprising to me. I know. And I think I put in there, you know, he led the league and past completions, past attempts, past the arts, past touch, you know, it was like all these things where you're like, um, is that a, is that a, is that a tier two player? You know, I agree. I think that's a little bit harsh. I think you could make the case that, look, it looked a little rougher in his last year in New England and now he's, when the cast around him was bad, and now he's got a great cast around him and that buoys him up and certainly the run game helps

him. And maybe you don't feel as comfortable just putting it on his shoulders. to throw, throw, throw, throw all the time. But I don't know. Like I said, he led to league in most passes, I think, last year. Yeah, it's not like this is a system where there's all these yak opportunities and it's play action heavy and he's only throwing the ball 20 times a game. He's dropping back throwing 45, 50 times a game on all these downfield concepts that require him to not just be this brain and a VAC quarterback like Peyton Manning was late in his career.

He's having to make some really like, oh my God, eye-popping throws. And when you combine that with the command he has of the position, it's just really hard for me to imagine putting him into two. I know. I'm looking at who gave him the tier two votes. Like it was it a, you know, so there, I think there's one GM. There's one head coach. There's one like defensive coordinator, two defensive, no, one defensive coordinator, one offensive coordinator, personnel guy, two personnel guys, a couple quarterback coaches. So it wasn't like there was one, you know, I don't know. I mean, it's an overwhelming tier one, but I would have a hard, I would have a hard time putting him in. tier two. I just think he's I think if they had you know, if you subbed in a lower tier two quarterback for them, you know, I just think it's completely different for their team. I totally agree. That's why I just think

he's definitively tier one and based on the way he played last year. There should be more reverence for Tom in here. I know he gets enough reverence anyway, but it's pretty special what he's doing. And when you start thinking about age 45 season, just think about that. Just think about that. He's still throws the ball. He still throws the ball really well. All right. Let's move into tier two here. Derek Carr goes from tier three to tier two. And to me, that feels right somehow. I can't put my finger on why. But based on what he looked like last year, and even when we did our quarterback draft earlier this off season, we were stacking people up

and we're talking about the car continuum and how he's kind of the pivot point fulcrum of where elite quarterbacks go on either side of him. Him being right here in tier two somehow feels correct to me and I can't articulate why. Yeah, I do too. I think last season was very good for him. Yeah. It was a tough year. Look, the chips were kind of down.

Their coach situation was a mess with the Henry Rugg's tragedy. I mean, look, that's an important player for them. And the way he handled himself. And by the way, they got to the playoffs in a division where there's Justin Herbert. They beat out the Justin Herbert team. The Raiders didn't have an amazing defense. or anything like that. And I think that's one of the things I pointed out in there was I did this study last

season of 41 quarterbacks who had had three years of starting in the last 10 or 15 years, 10 years maybe. And none of them had worse defense special team support than Derek Carr. And when you are trying to go uphill and that that's what Stafford had in Detroit, that's what Matt Ryan has had at times in Atlanta. It's really hard to run uphill that way. And sometimes you look at a quarterback from afar and go, yeah, there's just something missing.

They don't get over the top. yeah, it's a baseline level of support. You know, that's what's missing. You need a baseline. Everyone needs a baseline level, just about, I mean, unless you're just really elite tier one. So I think it's totally justified. You know, so right now it goes, in tier two,

it goes Stafford, Wilson, Watson, Lamar, DAC, Carr, Murray, and then Ryan at the very bottom, I agree. I'd put a car there. I think Murray has to prove it over a course of a season, and obviously Matt Ryan's descending some. Well, the difference is that Carr used to be lumped into that group with cousins, all, and just the play action, Shanahan quarterback group for a couple of years. All of them were stacked up in a row. I think the last, in 2021, and maybe even in 2020, you could just kind of throw them into a hat and pick out Garapolo, Tannahill, Baker, all of those guys.

Cousins, they were all in the same grouping. And I think for a couple years, Carr was closer to that cluster than he was to the Tier 2 cluster. And you had a quote from a head coach saying he thinks Carr is close to Tier 1, but similar to Dak Prescott and Matthew Stafford, there's something different with Aaron Rogers and Patrick Mahomes. Even that quote, the idea that he's now being lumped in with Dak Prescott and Matthew Stafford instead of Kirk Cousins and Ryan Tannahill, I think is pretty telling about the step that Derek Carr took in some people's minds last year. Yep. And I think he belongs, I think he does belong below those guys.

And I think, you know, I think guys like Dak and Matthew Stafford just have a natural disposition and toughness and leadership about them that's never been questioned. I mean, their teammates rally around those guys. Those are just real guys, aren't they? You just feel like there's something about their presence and their leadership that is natural to them that I think isn't as natural to everybody, including Carr. I think that's been the thing, right? People have said, geez, is he going to stand in there, right? Does he kind of shies away sometimes? I don't think anyone's ever felt that about Dak or Stafford, right?

So that that has helped buoy them up in the perception here. But the fact that Carr has risen, I think, was part of the way he handled last season. And even people in that division, like I feel like people in that division were kind of down on him in the past and were some of his harshest critics because they saw it twice a year. And they've come around. Those people are giving him more respect now, for sure. Does the timing of this exercise is useful with Kyler's extension last week and then the more potentially getting paid soon and where they fall here.

Lamar's voting distribution from last year to this year was very sticky. And last year was not a good year for Baltimore. Were you surprised that it was as similar in 2022 as it was to 2021? Maybe a little bit. Yeah, I could have seen him falling. I think some of it was that, you know, like Prescott didn't finish as strong. So he didn't really overtake him. But I think what people have thought of.

about what Lamar is, hasn't changed. That's kind of what I mean. The vision people have of him in the league feels pretty sticky. It does. And I think he's very highly respected. He doesn't get into Tier 1 because of the passing component. They feel like when you strip the other stuff away.

And then there's some people who say, look, he's so dynamic. I'm putting him in Tier 1 anyway. But I think there's just, I think he's very easy. It's interesting. I think at times, at times he can be hard to categorize, but when you really get into what the tier definitions are, it becomes clear what he is. And that is a really good tier two quarterback. And so I think people have conceptualized in their mind what he is. And that's not really changing, right? I mean,

what is there to change until that past component really comes in and he seems to be the same as those other guys, he's going to be really solid in there. I don't think people saw, I don't think people literally learned anything about him last year. Let me, that's it. Did you learn something about Lamar last year? I don't know if I learned something about Lamar or the deficiencies of the Ravens passing offense in general and their plan and the answers they have for stuff. Coach you talked to and quoted in the piece talked about that Miami game and how it kind of felt

like that was a turning point for them last year. And it felt like a turning point for me as well. well, where they were just completely ill-equipped to deal with that in real time and ill-equipped to deal with teams bringing pressure at them, period, last season. Lamar was the worst quarterback in the NFL when Blitz last year. And I don't know if that says more about who Lamar is inherently as a quarterback or the lack of a plan that that team had when teams brought pressure at them last year. So this season and what they look like in those circumstances, I think is going to be really

important. I think so, too. But, you know, one of the very interesting components to all this is, hey, Did Pete Carroll and those guys play the way they did because of Russell Wilson? Does how people play with their guy tell you about the guy? Does the Ravens play that way because it's Lamar? Do the Vikings play a certain way because it's cousins? Do the Titans play a certain way because it's Tannenhill?

Or no, no, if we could only get these guys in a different offense, they would really take off. Or do they play the offense because the guys have some strengths and limitations that need to be catered to, right? And I think the people in the league see that clearly with Lamar Jackson. He has some deficiencies that need to be catered. That if they had tried to put him in a totally different offense, he wouldn't even be in Tier 2. That some of the pre-draft evaluations that were so wrong on him

would have been more right if they tried to put the square peg in the round hole, right? But instead, they've put this offense in a certain way. It's brought the best in them. And now people are like, well, if they can only do these other things, they'd be even better. But maybe they're doing this offense because those other things would be harder to do. And that's why this is tough, right? Because the definition of a tier one quarterback as you talk about it is a guy who can succeed independent of almost any circumstances. If you drop him into any situation, he would be able to elevate that team.

But teams should be compelled to build the team, the roster of the plan around their quarterback. So should we ding guys? where the team has done that in a really intentional way. And I think that's a push and pull that you always have to dig into with this. Absolutely. And some people are just going to say he's a tier one anyway. I don't care. But tier one definition can carry his team each week.

The team wins because of him. Expertly handles peer past situations, no real holes in his game. We're not taking out that expertly handles peer past situations thing. It's too important. That's what we're saying in this thing. And if we just said carries his team each week, team wins because of him, it'd be a lot easier. There'd be less nuanced in the tier one.

but I think that's an important distinction for quarterbacks. I think it gets reduced to that a lot for these guys when it really matters. And you have a great game plan defensively and take away some of the make people play left-handed a little bit, right? This is where the playoffs are hugely important. And it's where I think the lasting image we have from playoff failings from guys is something that should influence the process. Because when the game plan is hyper-specific, when you are building a plan to take away

what that offense does well, can this question? quarterback play left-handed. Can they do something that maybe isn't their greatest strength and still beat you? And I think that's why you include that in the way that you do. Yeah. And for those guys at top, you don't see as easy of paths to do that, right? You think that they can get through it more. So it is a fascinating thing. And I think early on, one of the things I love about doing this, Robert, every year is now after nine years, people kind of get it. Like I think initially people were like, you know, I think in some way we've advanced the discussion. around quarterbacks by more clearly defining what is important.

And this has been a learning process for me throughout this too. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have had nearly the same level of appreciation for why people think the way they do. Just think about how different the position was 10 years ago. Absolutely. But that peer past component is necessary the whole time. That's what puts the guys in the tier one the whole time. And everyone in the league has known that forever.

And now we're talking about it. but we weren't talking about it. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, we were saying Joe Flacco might be elite. Okay? That was the discussion around quarterbacks publicly. Well, I think he is elite. He's won 70% of his games.

No, he's not elite. No, no, no. Let's talk about it. We're into the more granular. We're talking about it the way the teams talk about it, and the teams are right. Is that quietly one of the driving forces of why he started doing this,

is to figure out if Joe Flacco was good at football? Not necessarily, but just learning. I've always taken a, you know, I think you're this way too. You know, you're just so curious. Like, I don't come into this thinking I know. You know, I do have a certain level of respect for people who know a lot more and have been around. They don't, some of their opinions are off the wall and you don't like them. But I've just learned so much through the process of this. Um, and I think it's born out. I think, I think this is a good way of looking at it. Like, we haven't changed it. And I, I've a tweak here there in wording, but like, I think it holds up. It's, it is the way it is. And one of the reasons I, I haven't done this for every position is I don't think it's as easy always. You know what I mean? We were going to, hey, let's do this tiers. You know, a lot of people do a lot of tiers.

I think this template for quarterbacks is really the, is really specific to the quarterbacks. Yeah, because even if there are different asks of each quarterback and what they're supposed to do within their individual offense, I still think the band that you want at the position is narrower than it is at receiver, for example, right? There's so many different flavors of receiver and what they're asked to do for their team that I think that stacking them in this way would be more difficult than it is for quarterbacks, even if we do see more different types of quarterbacks now than we would

have 10 years ago. Absolutely. And people are open to those different types of quarterbacks too. I mean, they're, you know, like we said, Lamar Jackson's high. I mean, he's been close to Tier 1. So there's definitely great respect for him. But, you know, like we said, there's a reason why we. have that pure pass component up there. It's really important.

All right. So speaking of different types of quarterbacks, I thought that the timing of a week removed from Kyla Murray getting the second biggest AVAV among all quarterbacks, I think the second biggest highest amount of guarantees, second highest cash flow, and he's

13th in this exercise. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think that says about the choice that Arizona made? Is it just the cost of doing business? Is it something they had to do? Are you not as worried about it? When you think about those two things. That contract plus him being 13th on this list, there's a disconnect there. Whether that disconnect is okay, that's a different conversation. Absolutely. Well, it's a position

where, you know, like, look, if you're a Green Bay and it's not going to work out with Devont Adams, you're going to really miss Devont Adams, but you can find another receiver. You can sign three of them. And you may have a strategy to round out your receiving core. Quarterback is we have a guy or we don't. And if we don't, we all get fired. And that is the biggest dilemma in this whole dang thing, Robert, is like, what do you pay Kirk Cousins? Or, you know, right? I mean, because the alternative is that Mike Zimmer's not even there for five years. He's gone, right? Oh, just go cheap at the position and wait and build your team. Okay, you try it because you'll be fired after your owner doesn't understand any of this, you know, says, I don't want to be four

and 13 with that. So I think the fear of not having a guy and just the price of having a guy, right, you're going to, you're going to pay him. If you're Arizona, your alternative is, is I supposed to wait. But then does he stay away? Does he make it difficult for him? I hate that as a team having to pay number two money for somebody who we don't even know for sure is in tier two, right? And it seems like he's pretty firmly in tier two. He's firmly in tier two, but he got 17 tier three votes.

He's the second to last guy. Matt Ryan barely held on by like one vote in the district. here too. He's a bottom guy in tier two. He's improving, but I don't know that people feel increasingly better about him. I think people sort of, I think they're grudging twos on him. Like, hey, the production's there, but there's no one saying, I just love how this guy operates. I got no questions about his makeup. I think he's a great leader. He's a great representative of that team. And let's hitch our wagon to him, man. This guy is going to get us there. That's what they're saying about Burrow, right? They don't see that in, in Murray. They're like,

man, he doesn't do it for the whole season. I'm not sure, you know, one of the things, wide receiver mentality in there, there's a whole question there. Does that matter? Does any of that stuff matter? Is that just, you just have to be a productive player, right?

At that position. But they're paying him a ton of money because that's the quarterback game. We always see Carr went up there one year. We always see whoever the latest guy is who, put it this way. if you're in the top two tiers, they're probably not looking to replace you, right? Yeah.

If you're not going to replace you, they're going to pay you. If you're not somebody they want to replace, then you're going to get paid. That's right. I think that's exactly right. That's a very good way to distill it.

The last tier two thing I wanted to talk about, Matthew Stafford got 18 tier one votes, okay? He got four last year. Yeah. In some ways, it's understandable. He was a better quarterback last year.

They won the Super Bowl, all of that. But isn't the fact that he needed to change his circumstances to become this player, the ultimate proof that he belongs in Tier 2? Or am I reading this the wrong way? No, it is. It is, unless you think that being in Detroit was like swimming with a 50-pound anchor attached to your, you would have to make the case that, hey, Detroit has had one head coach who

was a non-in-term coach with a winning record since 1973. That means they finished their tenure. That was Jim Caldwell. They're so screwed up that, you know what, Matthew Stafford's been a tier one guy the whole way. But look, if you made Aaron Rogers play with eight guys on the field, he wouldn't look like a tier one either. He'd one or two. He'd be forcing it all over the place. It's a good point. I think your point is fine.

It just depends on how bad prohibitive you think Detroit was. He did get 15 tier one votes going into 2018. That's the most that he got. And then kind of fell off as their team fell apart in the post-Caldwell years. And it looked tougher. And he was getting beat up, missing some seasons. But yeah, I think he's right where he should be. I love them at the top of tier two.

I think that's perfect. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. But if they go to the Super Bowl next year and it's a drop back pass offense a lot of the way like it was this last year, I mean, you know, maybe we need to talk about it. And Matt Ryan's early 30s, early to mid 30s, he was probably right at the top of tier two as well, right? Yeah. Yep. And I think that's where Matthew Stafford is.

I think both of those guys are probably high tier two quarterbacks at their best. That's how I would compare them. Yep. I would too. I think it's a great way of putting it. I'm, you know, I don't have a vote in this, but I'm, as someone who watches as closely, I'm happy with where he's at. I think it's great.

I think it's not disrespectful of him. Matt Ryan, did he ever make it? So Matt Ryan, after 2016, I assume he did. Yeah, he made it into the butt. So that year he got 26 votes in Tier 1 and 24 in Tier 2. So, you know, I mean, that's what we were talking about. That's sort of the rotational.

And that's sort of the rotational fifth guy, right? you know, in the quarterback tears or whatever. That rotational guy in there who isn't going to be there every year but sometimes gets his due. That's sort of, that happened to Matt Ryan. And he was early in his career than Stafford is. So we'll see if Stafford can do it. But clearly we found out Detroit was a big problem, a big reason for why he wasn't more successful and was perceived the way that he was. So you said that you were happy with Matthew Stafford where he landed.

Is there anybody that his placement on this list, you were just shocked by. or like I just disagree with this. Like this is really making me check my own evaluations of someone. Wow, that is a great question. Not in the top two tiers. I'm going through tier three right now. I feel like the longer last season would have gone, maybe the lower Baker Mayfield would have gotten.

I was kind of a little bit surprised that he did as well as he did. I was also a little bit surprised that he was at high as he was. But I think it's good that he is because like, As much as people kind of don't like him right now, like they didn't take it out of them. Like there wasn't everybody didn't give him a five and just dump on them. I think it's a pretty fair evaluation of them, actually. The middle of tier three, he's between Mack Jones and Carson Wentz.

I feel that. Like I might, I'd rather probably have Mac Jones right now than Baker, but I might rather have Baker than Carson, maybe. I mean. Oh, I think I would rather have Baker. I don't know. That's tough. It's a tough one, but, you know, that's why they're so close in there.

But I think his placement was a place. wasn't surprise for me. Is there anyone else? I think the, I kind of feel like this every year. Like there might have been a year in the past where I thought Dak Prescott should have been higher or something. But I feel like it's good. I feel like I look at this and I just go, yeah.

Maybe I'm not as intellectually curious as you made me out to be earlier in the show. Typically when I look at this list, I'm like, yeah, that seems right. It's often a confirmation of my problem. So I think that's why I like quarterback tiers as much as I do. Yeah, but, but it should, I mean, I think you have a good view of, you know, you have a good view of the position, you know, I think we have a good appreciation for it. So, yeah, I like it. I do like it.

I love, I just love it every year, you know, it's just so fun. All right, let's go through tier three and tier four here pretty quickly. So into tier three, J1 Hertz jumped 10 spots. Okay. He goes from 30 last year to 20 this year. He had 34 Tier 3 votes, which puts him pretty firmly into Tier 3. What do you think contributed the most to him taking a bigger jump than really anyone else in this exercise? Yeah, I think part of it is that he barely qualified to be in the survey last year.

So going into this last year, he had four starts. So I had to have him in there because he was going to be a starter. but when there's so little evidence, part of the description of Tier 4 is, this happened to Patrick Mahomes, because Patrick Mahomes was in the survey after one start. Tier 4, usually an unproven player, not enough info, or a veteran who ideally wouldn't start all the games.

So he got a lot of not enough info 4s. It wasn't like, I hate Joe and Hertz. It was just like, you know, he's a 4, I got a 4, you can't put him in a 3 after 4 starts. I didn't think about that. So then the second year, that's a little bit of an interesting part of it. The second year, he makes the big jump. But I think that they had team success around a system completely tailored for him.

Well, that's kind of tier three. Like, you have to legitimate starter but needs a heavier run game and our defensive component to win, a lower volume dropback pass offense suits and best. Well, now after seeing what they did, they remember the first six games or whatever, they were a passing team, and then they totally changed it around. And he sort of hit his stride. And definitely the lower volume dropback is what he needs. I think he fits that description perfectly.

There's no fatal flaw in him that would take him out of tier three. Like people love his professionalism or his approach to it. There's no one down on him. They just see him for what he is. Right now, he's a tier three quarterback. I think it's totally fair. And last year he was a four just because he hadn't played a lot. You had a quote in there, just like you just said,

they did an expert job with tailoring the offense to his strength, but he'll need to grow considerably as a pastor for Philly to content. And I think that's fair. And I think that's why he belongs in Tier 3. Kind of like you alluded to with the guys in Tier 2. If you're in Tier 2, you're probably not, teams probably aren't looking to replace you. But if you're in Tier 3,

if a team has an avenue to replace you for somebody who's better, they might. And that's exactly where Philly might be in a year. Absolutely. And look at Tier 3, so cousins, you know, but Garapolo, they're trying to replace him. This guy's been to the Super Bowl. There was a great, there was a great,

Garopolo related quote in there. This is just the type of guy we always try to chase off our teams. The guy who you can go to the Super Bowl with, but you don't quite get over the hump. I mean, his record's amazing. Tannhill would be another one. You're kind of looking like, geez, do we? They drafted a quarterback in the third round this year. They drafted a quarterback, right?

But they're still easily one of- Carsen-Wetting around teams, all of these guys. But they're easily one of the 32 best starters in the league. Easily. I mean, and if you get things right around them, you might be in the playoffs. The thing that really jumped out to me as it relates to J-1-Hurts is the comparison to Tua. Because coming into this season, I think both of those guys are in somewhat similar situations.

The teams have built up a lot of talent around them. They're getting toward the end of that rookie contract. Both teams have two first round picks next year. And the specter of trying to improve it quarterback is looming. But J-1 Hertz was firmly in tier three and Tua was firmly in tier four. I was surprised that there was so much of a gap between those two guys. Glass half full, glass half empty, you know? Yeah.

I feel like, you know, people don't feel like Tua can do it. And shoot, that's been in Miami too. They've been in every veteran quarterback thing or they've, you know, they've struggled. Basically, they've only really won when their defense and special teams were great. If you go back and look at it, they're not winning games on offense at all. Even when they rallied, it's great defense special teams. So I just don't think he has proven that. he is an integral part of what they do offensively in a positive way.

Whereas I feel like... He's an integral part. It just might be in a negative way, or at least he was last year. Yeah, he limits them, whereas I think at least with Jalen Hertz, you built an offense around him. And that offense, while, like we said, you're not going to probably win the Super Bowl with it, it highlights his skill set, the positives of it.

You couldn't put Matt Ryan in that offense, right? I mean, you have somebody here who is making it work for the way, way they want to do it in Philly. And obviously they'll want to grow up from that. But he's making it work in the air playoff team. Tua, you feel like, God, if they just had, maybe if they just had Jalen Hertz, they would have gotten that one or two extra wins, right? You just, I think that's, Hertz is enabling what Philly wants to do.

And Tua may be inhibiting what he may be forcing them to play a certain way that they don't want to play. Hertz had twice as many tier three votes as Tua did. Tua has twice as many tier five votes as Hertz does. Tua's voting distribution is like the same as Davis Mills, which I don't know if that says more about Davis Mills or Tua as part of this. And some of that too, I think some of this is perception like Davis Mills. Oh, I love Davis Mills.

Yeah, you love him as a third round pick who maybe we're not counting on the start. Tua, oh, yeah, I don't like him. Yeah, you don't like him as a top five pick when you could have had just a. Herbert, right? I do think some of that comes into play. What is the expectation for the player? You almost get evaluated off of yourself a little bit, right? What you're supposed to be. One more thing, a couple more things here in tier three. The gap between Mack Jones and Trevor Lawrence was bigger than I probably expected it to be. Jones was firmly a tier three guy. 41 of his votes were in tier three. Lawrence was more evenly distributed, but he had.

more tier two votes than Mack Jones did. So this is kind of all over the place. Yeah, a little bit, I think there's more upside perceived with Trevor Lawrence, even though less upside than you would hope for number one pick. That was one of the things that kind of stood out to me about this was like, I 100% agree. Some of those quotes that you had in there, I was like, oh man, I mean, maybe it sounds right, but about his ability, like, his natural ability as a thrower. Yeah, and I didn't hear that really coming into the draft. I don't remember hearing that, But a lot of people were like, golly, you know, I did watch him. I'm not going to rip on him because the Urban Meyer thing.

This guy needs to get a pass, a do-over. But, you know, I really wished I would have seen a little more. I just, there were a couple things with his throwing and his accuracy that kind of caught me off guard in a negative way. I'm not going to, I'm not going to say you can't do it. But you know what? I may not see, I'm not seeing necessarily a pass to Tier 1 for him. And we'll see what he becomes, right? I thought that was very interesting.

there. I think that's fair if we're talking about just the physical skills. Because watching him as a thrower last year, the ball doesn't jump out of his hand maybe in the way I might have expected, little things like that. He has more than enough physical ability. But I do think that some of the details of the way he played the position last year, how we navigated the pocket, how few times pressures turned into sacks, some of those underlying aspects of the position that,

often end up becoming really important and are driving forces of guys who really have command, he was better in that area than I might have expected him to be. So I think there's probably still a path for him being a high tier two, maybe low tier one quarterback. I just think that path might be a little bit different than some people expected when his career started. I'm with you 100%. I think that stood out to me as one of the things that was a takeaway where I fell out in the

back of my head. I was like, huh, I was kind of still, you know, in that realm of, hey, the sky's the limit, right? Shouldn't the sky the beat a limit with Trevor Lawrence? That you'd assume, yeah, that that's the way that we talked about. And I think people didn't feel that. I didn't feel that at all. No one said that. Like, I talked to.

So I do think that's interesting, really interesting. What drove Mac Jones, you think, being so firmly in Tier 3? Like, what aspects of his game were talking to people? I think people feel like he's kind of fully developed. in a good and bad way. Like, he's more fully developed, like, hey, this is what he's going to be. And that's pretty good. But I'm not going to bet on it being a lot better than that.

He just seems mature as a player. He was able to handle what they asked him to do. He just seems to have a good feel for the game. And so he, he, like, people can right away see that even if he's just what he is right now, he's a three. You may want to upgrade. You may want to upgrade from him. You may be looking for something, but it's not an urgent need to look for something.

you could go with them too. But you don't feel like he's going to be in tier two necessarily, right? There's nothing about him. There was one comparison to Kirk Cousins, right? Which is so perfect. And I was going to move into that because Kirk Cousins is the tier three quarterback. Like that is who he is. He is the epitimate.

High end three. He's a high end three. Of the high end tier three quarterback. That's how the voting is. That's how it feels. And that comparison to Mac Jones, I think, was pretty appropriate when you think about Kirk Cousins in that way with this exercise. Yeah, and his ceiling, right?

Kirk Cousins is a 2.5 all day, right? If you like him, you could push him to the bottom of two. If you just kind of want, he leaves you wanting more in some way, you leave him in three. Most people lean towards a three. They just don't have a great feeling about him to push him up. So, you know, for Mack Jones to be a three is probably a little bit more positive because he's so cheap.

That'll be an interesting. one, right? If you have to pay Mac Jones, like Kirk Cousins got so much money, I think that's part of it too. It's like this guy got saved the franchise money and everyone knew that it's not his fault, but everyone knew that he wasn't that guy. So now he probably has to, he probably falls short of an expectation or standard and that probably keeps him from getting into two. Makes it harder for him, I would think. He got double the number of tier two votes this year that he got last year, went from seven to 14. I do think we're a little bit harsh on Kurt. Cousins here.

I do too. If you look at the voting distribution, it doesn't seem like he's that far away from the Derek Carr's and the Matt Ryan's at this stage of things. I think he could be a little bit higher on this list. I think he could make a case that Kirk Cousins is as good as Derek Carr. That case could be made. All right. Ryan Tannehill was in Tier 2 last year.

Okay? Last year he was in Tier 2. This year he got five Tier 2 votes. He got the most tier three votes of any quarterback in this exercise. So he went from being tier two to being the tier three quarterback. And that feels like almost a direct response to what happened in the playoffs and what we saw from him at the end of last season. Absolutely. So he went down four spots from 13 to 17 and crossed that border from the greener pastures of tier two into Kirk Cousinsville.

And I think that the issue, definitely what's happening in the playoffs is part of that. I think also last year we saw, I think I put it in there, that he averaged like two fewer yards per pass attempt on early downs when he did or didn't have Derek Henry. I think we've all known that that was sort of set up as an unusual offense where one of the few ones where having that running back actually makes the defense completely play you differently. I think there was some of that, you know, with Russell Wilson when Marshaun Lynch was there. Like you get different coverages probably, right? Because that's the guy you have to stop. So when you play Tennessee, we all knew you had to stop Derek Henry. But for the longest time, Ryan Tannenhill almost had Tier 1 production.

If you just looked at his stats, if we anonymized his stats and just had a wine tasting thing here where we took the labels off the bottle. without you might have to dive into the to the what type of passing action was it was a drop back you might have to look really closely to figure out that this was tannhill you might it might have looked like rogers or something in some ways and i think that wasn't the case as much when they lost tannery and it just sort of confirmed then you have the bad the bad finish to it i think at the end of last season people were like yeah you know he really was a three we had to give him a two before but i always sort of felt he was a three we had to give him a two on that production and the team success, but he really is a three. So he could be a two and a half. Last thing I wanted to hit before we get out of here, Justin Fields was at the top of tier four. He got no tier five votes, which I was a little bit surprised by that,

just because the lows were so low last year, especially when you compare the way that people talked about Justin Fields and what their votes were compared to somebody like Zach Wilson, who was a little bit lower on this list. But both of them are still pretty darn low as high first round picks from a year ago. I'm wondering, is there a history of guys being tier four quarterbacks after one year and ever climbing up into the top of tier two? Well, I mean, there was Mahomes after one start might have been in tier four. Well, yeah, that is a count.

But yeah, that's the usual one. Yeah, did somebody make the jump from being that low in a four? Well, I would have to look and see who's ahead of them, who's up there now. Did they come in as a four? and I, no, because I think like Kyler Murray came in almost as a low two or a high three. Herbert certainly came in early. It's probably, it's a good one.

I should probably look through the history of it. I'm sure that there's been somebody that did. But I didn't feel, like, I feel like Fields is great at the top of four. He's the first guy in four. So what were they saying is like, look, he hasn't yet proven that he's going to be the guy. Like you wouldn't, I'd rather have just, you might rather have Justin Fields

and Kirk Cousins, but like for the next two years, if you had to raise your floor, you're certainly going to take Cousins. You know what he is. I think we don't know what Fields is enough to say that he's a full-on starter for the next two or three years. But we like enough of what we see that we're not down on him. Like if he was down in the Trubisky thing at the bottom of Tier 4, you'd be like, oh, geez, did they whiff on this guy?

No one is saying that I think Justin Fields is terrible. Yeah, which is, you know, makes me happy, obviously. Or as a fatal flaw. No one sees a fatal flaw. They see some flaws, but not a fatal flaw. I think there's some faith in the guy, the person. And certainly his intelligence was something that came up too. Like it's, he can handle it.

You know, there's nothing that's going to prevent him, I don't think, from going into the threes. All right. That's all we got. Guys, obviously, you can dig into so much more of the. if you go read Mike's quarterback tears on The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show if you do not have a subscription. Highly, highly encourage you guys to go check that out. Mike, really appreciate the time.

I love doing this every year. It is a sign that we are back to football, and it is one of the best things that we put out at the company every single season. So thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you, Robert. And here's to a great 2022 season on the Athletic Football Show, too. Really appreciate you having me on. Absolutely.

All right, guys. that's all we got for today. Thank you very, very much for checking us out. We will be back on Thursday. I think it's going to be me, Nate, and Deontay. Really looking forward to that. Just a reminder, starting next week on August 1st, which is a Monday. We will be coming to you four days a week.

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