The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Quarterbacks at a crossroads in 2025

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

There is a subset of quarterbacks for whom the 2025 season is an inflection point. For some of them, it's about their future in the league. For others, it's due to the massive changes around them. For still others, it's about their legacy. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen discuss eight quarterbacks at a crossroads this season on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)5:11 Kyler Murray21:22 Jared Goff34:26 Trevor Lawrence46:47 C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love55:56 Brock Purdy1:03:05 Patrick MahomesHost: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Really excited to talk to my buddy Derek Klesson today about quarterbacks at a crossroads heading into this season. This isn't necessarily guys who have a lot riding on the 2025 season. Most of the players that we're going to talk about on this show are established starters. Most of them, if not all of them, have gotten paid on like massive second contracts. A lot of them are entrenched with their teams.

it's more about whether they'll take one road or another based on some changing circumstances surrounding their teams. New play callers. Maybe they took a step back last year and worried if they're finally going to take the step forward that we might have anticipated for them. So we're talking about guys like Jared Goff today.

We're talking about Kyler Murray. We're having a little bit of a Trevor Lawrence discussion. That'll be different than the one we've already had on this show this week. I promise you that. And a few other guys that we just think this season is big for them in what kind of players they are in the way that we talk about them. There's something riding on this year in a slightly different way, even if it's not contracts, jobs, all of that stuff.

These are guys that we really wanted a chance to discuss in some way, shape, or form that we really haven't been able to dig into that much on a lot of the other shows that we've done so far this summer. So really enjoyed this discussion with Derek Klesson. I hope you guys do as well. Let's get to it right now. Talking quarterbacks at a crossroads today on the athletic football show. We've done some versions of this show over the last couple weeks, just who has the most at stake this season, things like that.

But this is a different sort of discussion. Like a lot of the quarterbacks we're going to talk about today. I don't think they necessarily have a lot at stake. They're guys that have been extended. They're guys that some of them are the best players in the league. They're going to be the quarterbacks of their teams next year. So in terms of like money and jobs, there isn't a lot riding on these guys, Derek. But I just think that a lot of the quarterbacks we're going to talk about today for one reason or another have come to a forecast.

in the road of their career, whether it's year three in a new system, whether it's you have the right play caller now, what are you going to do? Whether it's a changing play caller or whether it's the way that we talk about them, we're going to discuss a lot of guys today that could potentially go in divergent directions depending on how the 2025 season goes. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to this show because I think a lot of these guys, yeah, there's nothing at stake for them in terms of job security. It's like they're going to be the quarterback of their teams for potentially the next 10 years, even if they don't get any better, it's just a matter of, are these guys who we're going to be stuck talking about as quarterback 10 forever? Or like, do they have a little bit more

than that? Or are they guys who have been around 10 and maybe if things don't go right? Maybe they are one of the few guys who might have a little bit more at stake job security-wise. So I think it's a very interesting group of quarterbacks we have here. Whenever we conceive of shows like this, we always do it with a couple guys in mind. How are we going to talk about ex-player this offseason and just the discussion around them and what it should look like? for this show it was Kyler Murray. Kyler Murray is the reason that we are doing this show and then you expand it into a larger discussion.

So let's start it off with Kyler Murray. I feel like Kyle Murray is absolutely a quarterback at a crossroads this off season. And it's for this reason. We've discussed a lot over the last couple months a lot. I mean like two or three times. Where that, okay, above or below the line, are you better or worse than this guy? Quarterback exists right now in the NFL. And the fact that a lot of our previous marks are.

previous markers for that have gone away. And multiple people, I think, have suggested Kyler Murray as the answer to that question. I think that's a little bit different than the discussion we were having about Kyler Murray in 2021, right? When he had a half a season where he looked like the MVP of the league. We're in year three of a new system in Arizona. And I feel like they know him. He knows them.

And the other part of this that I feel like is a worthwhile, a wrinkle that's worth mentioning. No new additions to the offensive personnel in Arizona. So a lot of this, the Cardinals breaking through whatever ceiling has started to form over them, is going to lay at the feet of Kyler Murray. So as you're thinking about Kyler heading into this season, what are kind of the two or three biggest questions at front of mind for you about why he would go one direction versus the other?

Yeah, well, that's kind of what I want to start with is that the reason Kylo Murray is the best quarterback for this and why I think he's actually a bad quarterback for being the line of like what is good or bad is because he is always above or below the line. Like previously, it's been guys who are like, are like Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins, Andy Dalton, who for the most part, we're kind of the same-ish tier, like every single game to game,

week to week, month to month for large parts of their careers. With Kyler Murray, sometimes he is the fifth best quarterback in the NFL. And again, we saw that in 2021. We even see it for stretches of like last season, you know, two or three weeks at a time. And then there are moments where he just doesn't want to play in rhythm of the offense.

He's a little bit too uncomfortable in the pocket. He's spraying throws, especially towards, I think sometimes over the middle of the field that you would prefer a top 10, 12 quarterback to be making a little bit more consistently. And I think that's why he's been such a frustrating quarterback. And that also is why I think year three, again, in an offense that he has a lot of familiarity with now, more so than he has with a lot of other offenses. Obviously, he played with Cliff for a very long time. But I think the fact now that he's three years into this very different offense from what he had

from Cliff and even from what he had in college, I think is very, very important for him. But again, no new addition. So a lot of the improvement of the offense kind of does fall on him. And obviously his first year in the offense only plays about half the season because he's coming back from injury. So you give him a little bit of grace there. And so it really felt like last year was like year, again, like 1.5. So you can excuse away some of the inconsistencies.

Now that you've really had a lot of time to marinate in this offense, get more comfortable being under center, get more comfortable turning your back. This is kind of the year where I want to see like the same Kyler Murray we get in October that we can get in December. I think that's completely fair framing. And you have one full season now of him in the offense. And I think that's enough of a sample size. If you're Drew Petzing and that staff to say, okay, we have a good understanding of

what Kyler is and what Kyler wants and how we can construct the right offense around him. I think that when you come in halfway through, you're not getting reps in training camp. like there's not just a full process like there was last year. And I was in Arizona and I think I'm going to try to incorporate a lot of those conversations into what we're going to discuss with Kyler today. And I asked somebody there, I was like, are you as confident now as you were in 2022 when you guys took the job, 2023 when you guys took the job, that Kyler can win you games when it matters, right?

That Kyler is a guy that you can have absolute faith in. And there was an emphatic yes. It was like absolutely. Like my faith in him has not waned. It's probably increased. because I've gotten more familiar with what type of player he is. So you look at what Kyler was in 2024 and just the limitations of this Cardinals passing game. And it's a lot of the stuff that we talked about coming out of last season.

But why I think that is relevant, it's the same group of players, right? So the same problems are potentially going to persist. You look at the numbers situationally. Kyler was seventh in the NFL last year in passing success rate on early downs and third and short. So whenever the threat of the run was on the table, he was seventh in the NFL in passing success rate. A lot of that is the quality of the play action game that the Cardinals have. But when any play was on the table,

Kyler was a definitively top 10 quarterback if you look at any of the metrics. In defined passing situations, so third and medium to long, 16th in passing success rate. And that to me feels like the most important gap for this offense to close. When teams know we're going to throw the ball, how capable are we of being a good passing offense? And there are layers to why they've struggled in that area and we can talk about that. But that's still another year into the system is the biggest jump or the biggest area of

improvement that we need to see from Kyle or Murray. That's such a great great way to frame. And I do think over the years we have seen some improvement, right? Like I think he's a better quick game passer now than he was, you know, two years into his career. I think he's significantly better at that. And then I think even again, some of the. it isn't really on Kyler-Marie.

Like I think we all had the wise Marvin Harrison Jr. being used this way type of deal. And then even beyond that, it's like they didn't even really have a good wide receiver three for a lot of the season. Like I like Michael Wilson as a two, but their three was supposed to be Zay Jones. He was kind of banged up for a lot of the season.

And other than that, it was throwing a lot of screens to some of the other smaller receivers left over from the Cliff Kingsbury era. And so there's part of the offense that you're going to get some of those issues. But I do again think that like Kyler Murray, to me, I think why he can struggle a little bit on those pure passing downs. One, I will actually give him a little bit of leeway. He said this offseason he feels healthier than he ever has, which a lot of guys are always saying that.

But when part of your game is like a core part of your game is running and scrambling and moving outside of the pocket, that does matter. And I think that can help him problem solve. But then to me, it really just has to be like he has to throw the middle of the field better. And this isn't, this isn't to say like he throws the middle of the field in a way that like above, you know, a sub-starting quarterback would be able to throw it. Like, he's obviously better than that. It's just like when I conceive of the truly best quarterbacks in the league, he doesn't throw the middle like Matt Stafford,

Dak Prescott, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, any of those guys. He's a tier below. And I think if he could access that a little bit more where it doesn't feel like on third and seven, we just have to throw another comeback route to Marvin Harrison, Jr. I think that could really go a very long way for him really accessing a little bit more consistency. So I do think that as they've studied him and they've gotten to know what he likes. There are quicker dropback concepts. They think they can tap into more than they have in the

past. And it's not some of the intermediate stuff. Like I think that's actually where Marvin Harrison is probably best, is some of those deep digs and deep crossers. Kyler's not very good at those throws. And we've talked about that. How's a little bit of a disconnect there? But it's kind of in that eight to 12 yard area. They think like rap routes and him just getting the ball out of his hands quickly, he actually is proficient at that and does like throwing that. And I feel like that's going to be an area of the offense that is going to get turned up a little bit compared to previous years because, again, they've gained an understanding of what he likes and what he does well. The other area where I feel like there's unmind territory for this team is actually not with him

as a passer. It's actually him running the ball. And I feel like they've been a little bit hesitant to do that for a couple different reasons. One, he was coming off of the injury a couple years ago. So now two years removed from the ACL, do you feel a little bit better about running? him more consistently. He's always going to be undersized. So you're always going to have to worry about that compared to a Jalen Hertz or a Josh Allen. And Lamar is slighter, but he's still a bigger quarterback than Kyler Murray. But if you look at the number. Lamar does not get hit. And I do think Kyler's gotten

better at that. But Lamar Jackson is like truly one of one in terms of not getting hit. How many design runs do you think Kyle Hurts Murray had last year in 17 games? And he played every game last year for the first time in a long time. Maybe like three. a game, so what would that put you at, like 50-something? 27. Really? Half of that. 27 design runs for Kyle Murray last year. That was fewer than Daniel Jones. That was fewer than Justin Fields, who played only a handful of games. It was half as many as Jaden Daniels. He had a 50-5% success rate on those runs per next-gen stats. There are objectively good plays

for this team. And I think that for this to be the best version of the Cardinals' offense, as we think about, okay, if you have the same personnel, how do you expand and get better from one year to the next? I think this is a button that they're going to have to press a little bit more because this allows them to be more efficient in the run game, period, if you have the threat of the quarterback run as a more central part of who you are. So I think them being able to really unleash him in this way, and it doesn't have to be crazy. He doesn't have to do it at the Lamar or Jaden Daniels level, but if that 27 number doubles, if it goes to 52, where we are getting 30, three of these from him a game. I think that that's one area where the Cardinals' offense could feel a little bit different and a little bit more dynamic than it has over the last couple seasons.

And I especially think that that's true in the red zone because I think they at times have had some issues being a passing offense in the red zone because I think. Just ask Trey McBride. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Ask their, like the second best tight end in the league why he can't score touchdowns. Part of it is because they struggle a little bit as a passing offense in that area. And I do think a lot of that is like,

Kyler Murray's just a shorter guy. And so when the field is that condensed and there's this sea of bodies in such a smaller area of the field, it can be a little bit harder to see. That's why a lot of his best plays in the red zone are actually the outside of the pocket when he's either booting or he just kind of scrambles that sort of thing. So if they can access the run game specifically a little bit more in the red zone, which I think is what we saw earlier on in the cliff era when he was really, really good, I think that is a way for them to, again, access a more consistent, stable version of Kyler Murray. when you think about again how an offense can break through a ceiling.

The Cardinals finished fourth in offensive success rate last year. Fourth, it's really good. Down to down, it's a very good offense with good players. It's well designed. They were 17th in Red Jones touchdown percentage. So if that can creep up closer to the top 10 and you can maintain some of that down-to-down consistency, again, that's how you see a slightly different version of this offense.

And I think from a personnel perspective, I mean, again, talking about environment and how this could potentially improve, they're aware of the fact that they need to move the players around a little bit more. They know that. And I do think that we're going to see a slightly different deployment of Marvin Harrison, more diversified deployment than we saw last year. The Zay Jones point, I think is an important one. I really do. Because when you think about the construction of that receiver room last year, if Marvin wasn't going to be your ex, it was just going to be Michael Wilson. Like, that's the only other option you really had to go to. And Zay Jones isn't a star. But we talk about that Matt Harmon's sacrificial X type archetype with receivers, you could stay.

say Jones out there. You can allow him to be in that spot and free Marvin Harrison up to get more free releases, to get more access to get him on the move and allow a more dynamic version of Marvin Harrison to manifest this season in a way that he couldn't last year. I couldn't agree more. Zay Jones is not the best. He's not a great receiver, but if he's your fourth best past catching option, and again, you could line him up a lot in more traditional receiver alignments than I think a lot of the shorter players that were having to play. Then Greg Dorch? Yeah, then Greg Dorch, who is like 5-7.

Like you get a lion's day, Jones, like a serious receiver and not just throw him screens the way that they had to with Dorch. And the last part of this, again, when we talk about the environmental aspects of it, the offensive line health is important to recognize. This offensive line is not good. It's never going to be good based on the personnel in the way that they've invested in it. And it's always going to limit the ceiling of what this offense can be. but I do think that it can be better this year than it was last year, which helps you in some of those pure dropback situations.

That's one of the reasons they falter in that spot. It's not just about Kyler. It's the fact that they struggle to hold up in protection when they're not trick them, dick him, we're doing play action stuff, we're getting extra bodies and protection, all of that. So I know that Jonah Williams is not an exciting player. He's better than Kelvin Beecham was last year. And so getting a guy like Jonah Williams back at right tackle, that parents Johnson can take a step, which, They're confident he can't. They think he's on the brink of maybe kicking the door down a little bit.

And we'll talk about him a little bit differently now over the course of this season than we have coming into the year after his first two seasons. So if you start adding all that stuff up, and I do think that there's an argument to be made for why this offense, again, despite not adding any pieces this year can be a more complete, well-rounded group than the one that we saw last year. That's going to be a theme for me for the rest of the show, by the way. Offensive lines that couldn't block with five and their offenses. had to do a lot of eight man protections and stuff like that. We're going to get a lot of that today. You mentioned throwing the middle of the field. I'm curious, are there any other areas of Kyler's game where you think he personally needs to

be better for this all to come together in a way that makes sense? Yeah, again, I would say the middle of the field is a big one. Again, especially with what we mentioned where like that's what you drafted Marvin Harrison Jr. to do, which is like it's just such a tricky, I think, combination there. I mentioned the red zone a little bit. I think he's always been a little bit up and down in the red zone for, again, some height reasons. And then in the pocket, I think he's a better pocket manager than he has been. But again, because of his height, I think when you get interior pressure, he's kind of always going

to struggle with throwing over and around bodies the way that other guys can. And so maybe there's some minor improvements he can make there. But I ultimately think for him, like, it's better off if he just scrambles and circumvents that altogether, which again, if he's healthier, we might get more of. I don't think we've talked about this. We may have on a show. The conversations I'm having off the show and on the show are all starting to run together at this point. But the plan was not for the Cardinals to not add any offensive players this offseason. I think that just the way that certain markets unfolded into your offensive line specifically, the market in free agency was non-existent.

I mean, it was Will Fries and Mackay Bechtin, and that was really all you were looking at. You had either had to pay at the top of the market for up top of this free agent market. You had to have to pay a sticker price for a guy coming off of a broken leg. or other players that had significant question marks. It's why the bears and their pile of money traded for two guards rather than trying to sign one in free agency. And then you look at this draft specifically. And a lot of other drafts, there is like a middle class and like a middle tier of interior offensive linemen in the second and third round. This draft didn't really have that.

It's why the dolphins felt compelled to trade out for Jonas Savinea. And then we get all the way down to like Dylan Fairchild in the third round. So there wasn't a guy that they felt was worth extending for when there was so much defensive line talent on the board in this draft. And they still had what they felt were needs along the defensive line. And so that's how it ends up playing out this way, even if we're a little bit underwhelmed by the current state of the Cardinals guard situation. And they have to land on Evan Brown again at left guard. I was going to say at least at right guard. You've got Isaiah Adams young player.

You can sell me on Evan Brown. And it's like, I think multiple NFC West fan bases have seen enough that they would have liked a little bit more. My next one here, and again, this is somebody doesn't have a lot at stake. He's getting paid $53 million a year or whatever it is. He's played really good football over the last few seasons. But when you think about some of the changing dynamics around him, I do think that there's more on his shoulders now than there's been the last couple years. And it's Jared Goff. Like, Jared Goff has been such a good quarterback under Ben Johnson over the last couple of

couple seasons. Now you have a new offensive coordinator with potentially a new feel to that offensive system. And we can get into some of the details and what the specifics of that might look like. But when you pay a guy at this level, the way that they've paid Jared Gough, and I fully support it in the moment and I fully support it now, you have to be able to sustain success when the offensive environment changes around you, whether that's not being able to retain a Kevin Zitler and free agency because you paid other guys. That's Frank Ragnall retiring. That's Ben Johnson getting hired away to be a head coach. These are the things that happen when your team is good and when young players on your team are getting paid. But when you are a

quarterback being paid at a top six, seven level, which Jared Gough is, you have to be able to maintain your level of play as those circumstances start shifting. And we're going to find out about that with Jared Gough. As Ben Johnson leaves and as some of the other things switch around there, can Jared Gough continue to play at the level that he has over the last couple of years? years. He is such a fascinating guy because we obviously did this with him before, right? Like when he got, well, at the end of his Rams days and obviously when he got traded. And I think it's important to again reiterate like how he's different from those times. I think Jared Goff then with the Rams was a very pretty thrower and he knew the throws that Sean McVeigh wanted to make. But he wasn't

that good of a problem solver within the offense. He wasn't very good at beating the Blitz. A lot of their empty stuff was like the same two or three concepts that he was. kind of just spamming all over again. It was only in particular parts of the field that they were using it. Like, he was a limited player who was just a really pretty thrower playing with at the time, probably the best play caller in the league with him and him and Kyle Shanahan. It was a good balance. He goes to Detroit. And I do think that by year two, three in that offense with Ben Johnson, he's a much better problem solver within structure than he's ever been. Like he beats the Blitz better than he used to. I think he manages the pocket better than he used to. I think he's a little bit more

willing to get to options later in the down than he used to. It's just he still has the remaining issues of like he's not that creative in terms of his arm slots, like the way that a lot of the other top quarterbacks are. And he still can't make plays outside of the pocket. And that's where I think when you change the offensive environment, the way that they're going to, you're just naturally probably going to be worse in structure, which makes those plays that are going to naturally happen out of structure, just a more outsized portion of the stuff that you're doing.

And that's where I get curious about, like, how well can Goff make some of that stuff work? I love the problem-solving term because I think that's exactly right. When I was thinking about it this morning and how I wanted to have this conversation, where I've landed is that Jared Goff is just a far less fragile player than he used to be. Like, he's able to just work through deficiencies when bad play calls, things like that. Problem-solving is a great way to put it. Then he was in LA. I think part of that is, I think that's personally Sean's fault.

And I think Sean would tell you that. I think that there was a rigidity to the way that Sean thought about the position back then that Matthew Stafford has freed him from that ended up becoming detrimental to Jared Goff by no fault of Jared's. But when he went to Detroit, I think that Jared started developing where as to how he understood the position. And I think that is why his game is less fragile than it used to be. Talking to Jared now, I just think that he has such a. nuanced understanding of what he's looking at and how to solve those problems, whether it's how he's looking at certain coverages or body language of defensive backs and just the

rolodex of stuff you start developing is you get deeper into your career. Pocket passers come into their prime at the age that Jared Goff is now because of this exact reason. And I think he's very smart and I think that he's been able to channel a lot of that information. And I was talking to a coach this week, different team, but he has good relationships with and people on that lion staff. And we were just talking about Jared Gough and he's like, nobody understands all the things that Jared does for them.

Like all the motions, all the shifts, all the different details within that offense are possible because Jared can handle all of it mentally. Even some of the protections. Like the protection basis of the Lions is similar to the like the format and the foundation of protection rules and systems like the Niners, like those Shanahan teams.

But Jared has freedom before the play to change. a lot of that stuff and consistently get this team into the right protections. So I do think there are so many things that have allowed this lion's offense to be as good as as as sound as it's been that go beyond Ben Johnson that could still be maintained while Ben Johnson is gone. So I do have faith in this, but there are also some elements that I'm wondering if those change.

And I think that's going to be the biggest question for me. The biggest change that I'm looking for, and again, I think because Jared Goff can handle some more of the protection stuff than I think he could when he first got to Detroit. I think that is why I have some degree of faith that the floor is going to be fine here. The ceiling is where I get question marks about. And the reason that is Jared Goff throws beyond 20 yards fewer, less than any quarterback in the league. Like over the last two years, nobody throws beyond 20 yards less than Jared Goff. Do you know what John Wharton did as a play caller the last time he was in the league?

All they did was bombs away. And again, maybe he's changed. He was playing with Josh McCown. It was. When you had Josh McCown and like Brandon Marshall, it was like, we're just going to chuck it. And so it's definitely part of that. But I just wonder, like, how are they going to marry that? Obviously, I don't expect Jared Goff to become Josh McCown and start chucking it down the field.

But I do wonder if he goes from a guy who throws less than 20 yards, like, at a rate lower than any other quarterback in the league, where like is it going to be like 23rd or 24th in the league this year? And like what how does the offense really change? Does it become a little bit more herky jerky because he's trying to throw down the field a little bit more? I just, that's the part of this that I think I am most curious about. I'm less worried about that. I don't think it's how often are they pushing the ball. I think that's more a feature of the Josh McCown offense than it necessarily is of the John

Morton offense. There are two things that I'll bring up that I do think could change. and I'll be interested to see how they maneuver through those changes. One, play action, right? The foundation of this offense was play action passing over the last couple years under Ben Johnson. Jared Goff, I think that Jared Goff has really improved as a dropback passer over the last couple years.

It's undeniable. But the best version of Jared Goff, one of my favorite aesthetic things in professional football, is Jared Goff turning his back to the defense, putting his back foot in the ground, and ripping that shit. And he's really good at it. and this offense was really good at it. Last year, the Lions had 202 play action dropbacks. No other team in the league had more than 160.

And they were number one in success rate on those plays. So they were the most voluminous play action passing team in the league and the most efficient play action passing team in the league. I wonder, does John Morton drift away from some of that stuff just based on his own personal history? He is a West Coast Sean Peyton, John Gruden guy. That is his background. And I do think those are the layers, some dropback layers that he's going to bring to this offense.

How much they lean into that stuff versus the play action foundation. And if they lean into it too much where you're no longer maximizing this construction, that to me is where it could potentially get a little bit dicey. And we've already heard that from some of the players, right? Like Jameson Williams was on a mic being like, There's the next thing I was going to bring up. I was like, he's like, there's a little bit more freedom in the offense. And I'm like, I don't think the offense was good because you guys lack, like, you need to.

This offense was good because it was the best well-oiled machine in the league. They scored 30 points a game last year. Yeah, by being like very to a T the way that things were done. And it's like, I don't know if inviting freedom is really going to be the thing that kicks this up a notch. And I think that the stat that you mentioned about the lack of throwing the ball downfield, partially is because of how many schemed up throws there are within this offense. not screens like there aren't other offenses, but designed yak opportunities for guys like James and Williams, isolated opportunities for Amun Ross, St. Brown.

And those are detailed, schemed up type plays, right? Like, these are calculated moments that Ben Johnson is hunting over the course of a game. That level of detail drives the success of the Lions offense. Drifting away from that level of detail is potentially a bad thing. So how I think that every year you need to iterate. rate as an offense. You need to figure out how things are going to grow, how things are going to get better. But with this one specifically, how far do you drift away from the DNA that made you arguably the best offense in the league? And what does that do to Jared Goff? That becomes like the

central question other than the personnel changes up front that I have about the Lions offense going into this year. Well, but it like ties into one another, right? Like if they are going to be a little bit more of a dropback team, if they're going to have maybe some more option routes in the offense or whatever it is, but also your offensive line, especially the interior, is probably less set up to be a good, you know, five or six man pure dropback protection unit. It just feels like we're inviting a lot more, again, volatility than we did in previous versions of the offense,

which maybe they are built to handle it, right? Like the skill players are very good, and I think we've, again, seen that Jared Goff is a better quarterback than he was five or so years ago, but it just feels like you're inviting a lot more volatility than we've really ever seen in this lion's offense. I will say that the Broncos last year, where John Morton was the passing game coordinator, used play action at a pretty good clip with Bo Nix.

It was like 28% of dropbacks, which is, I believe, no, they were not a good run game. And that team, it was at like a top 10-ish clip. But you go back to the John Gruden years with Derek Carr, and we're talking about bottom of the barrel type play action rates. It was not a part of the offense that they leaned into. So where they kind of fall there philosophically about how much is going to be rooted in this play action passing game versus a more diverse and larger breadth dropback game. That is probably my number one question, again, outside of what the personnel changes up front

look like. All right. We are going to take our first break and then get back with a few more quarterbacks at a crossroads this year. All right. The next guy is Trevor Lawrence. And I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because you and Dave hit the, this on so many different levels on the I'm ready to get hurt again show that you did a couple

days ago. I encourage people to go listen to that if they hadn't. You guys did a great job, I think, of talking about the larger picture narrative discussions around this when it comes to Trevor. This idea of, okay, it's the pointing at yourself in the mirror meme, it's like, I promise you he's still good. It's a situational problem. I get that. I think that there's validity to that stance. At a certain point, it's going to fall on the quarterback. and as you change the environment and improve the environment, more of it is going to fall on the quarterback. And I think there are still personnel concerns there, especially up front.

But it is undeniable that Liam Cohen has proven he can put together a very well-constructed offense that makes things easier on the quarterback. So in an environment that is closer to what the Bucks had last year than what the Jags have had over the last couple years, what is Trevor Lawrence? That is the main question. And again, we don't have to go over all of that again because I think you guys drilled down on that in a very complete way a couple of days ago. Yeah, I don't think we have to relitigate all of that. I think the only thing I definitely want to drive home is I think because he was the first overall pick and build his generational and all that stuff, there was this expectation that he could be a top five guy.

Truthfully, I'm probably past the point where he's going to be that. Like he's probably isn't going to be Joe Burrow anymore. And that's fine. It's just I think where I get really. tired of the discussion around him is that I think because of the billing coming in and because he hasn't reached that, there's a little bit more just like push the other way where it's like, well, if he's not that, then he must be bad. And I just feel like that's missing so many parts of what he actually does do well. And it just, again, when the team is not winning games, it's very

easy to be like, oh, well, he's just, he's not good enough and he didn't save this franchise. And I just think that that's a discussion that gets very, it just feels lazy to me. And it just feels like, we're not actually watching what Trevor Lawrence is. So you guys did a lot of the big picture stuff a couple days ago. I want to drill down and get to some of the granular stuff based on the conversations I had with people when I was there, which it was last week. And so I definitely wanted to incorporate that because we don't have a Jags beatwriter.

We haven't hit on really any of that stuff on the show so far. So the one area that I feel like is the most obvious that you can point to is just the easy plays within the offense. That's it. Just making things easier when they should be easy. Last year, over the last two seasons combined, 2023 and 2024, Trevor Lawrence has a 34% success rate on screen passes, which is a bottom 10 rate in the NFL.

He has, this is all according to next gen stats, negative 13 total EPA on screens. Baker, over the last two years, had 28 total EPA on screens. That is a six touchdown difference between those two players over two seasons span. To half a point of play, like it's a, a half a point per screen of value in difference.

That's insane. And there's screens, right? Like, the quarterback has some do anything, whether they work, but he does not have a big hand and how they work. Yeah. This is a structural thing. I don't think we will see the Jags lean into the screen game to the extent that the Bucks did last year.

I think that the Buc's offensive line talent is better in the ways that you can wield those guys in the screen game. And, you know, based on talking to people about it, because I was really interested in this, I think that the Bucs' had players with really good awareness and space, their ability to read stuff out. And screens are important in how you teach the details, landmarks, all of that.

But there still has to be like a fluidity and a reaction ability from the guys involved in that for them to really get driven home. And I think the bucks were really special at that last year. We'll see a better screen game from the Jags. I don't think we'll see it quite to the level that we saw from the bucks over the last couple of years. But even if you get to average,

even if you get to decent, there are so many easier completions built into this offense. And we can extend it beyond screens. Over the last two seasons, among 35 qualified quarterbacks, Trevor Lawrence is 27th in the NFL in success rate on throws of less than two and a half seconds. Just quick plays. And so there's a difference between screens, which are schemed up plays where you're getting blockers out in space, and just access or easy throws, bubbles, just spitting the ball out.

And now with Travis Hunter and Diami Brown, they have two guys, Travis Hunter specifically, but I think Diommy Brown was best at this, especially in the playoffs last year, just good with the ball in his hands. Just spitting out, getting easy completions, getting rack opportunities. That is going to be such an easier part of this offense.

And so just being able to lean into more stuff that is very simple and is lifted entirely by receiving personnel and structure is going to be a much bigger part of who the Jags are now than it has been over the last couple years when it's a defined negative of their offense. And I really think the depth of target, like getting some of those shorter throws,

speedouts, bullets, slants, hitches, whatever it is. Like, I'm sure they'll also, they could incorporate more RPL elements to it. But part of the reason I think all of that was the case with Trevor Lawrence where he struggles a little bit with some of those throws, once some of it is on him. He just misses some of those throws sometimes

because his mechanics can get herky-jerkie-jerkie. but he also, and this was especially true last year, had a very low average time to throw and a very high average depth of target. He was doing a lot of like sprinting back in his dropback. I don't want to get hit, chucking it 15 yards toward the sideline. And I think that was a lot of you just felt him more uneasy in the pocket

than we did in like 2022 when he was really starting to play well and come into his own. He was nails in the pocket. And I think we've, last year, we just lost a little bit of that. And I'm hoping with some improvements, he can get back to that a little bit. But that's why I'm worried. I'm worried that it's devolved to such an extent because of how bad the environment has been, that this stuff is now just part of who he is.

For me, it was very easy after the 2023 season to defend Trevor Lawrence. Very easy. After the 2024 season in the limited time that we saw him, it became harder. Because the JAG situation wasn't good, but it was better than it was in 2020. Like it wasn't an embarrassing offense weekend and week out even when Mack Jones was in there. And I think Trevor Lawrence played demonstrably worse last season than he did in 2023. So you're talking about the mechanics in the spring. That to me is where I get worried because the inconsistencies that have come from that,

I don't know if we're raining that back in. The Jags have said all the right things with that stuff, whether it was publicly or to me when I was there. They are really hammering home details, footwork, like mechanics. type stuff with Trevor Lawrence. It's mostly footwork things. Right. So you'll be, the way that it was described to me is his back foot and the way that he was pointing that back foot, it was not toward the target nearly often enough.

And that was causing some of these sprays where he would open up in incorrect ways. And so they've really been honing in on that and working on that. We hear that shit in August all the time. Who the hell knows whether that's going to maintain. And the other part of it, it wasn't just footwork mechanics. it was some of these almost like yippy type things he started doing in the pocket. Like this bounce back to his left type stuff that he has started doing that have really affected his accuracy.

That's the type of stuff that worries me. We've seen guys overcome those sorts of ticks in the past. Baker Mayfield was like this. That's what I was going to bring up. Remember when Baker would just like roll to his right for no reason all the time? Like when you get a better foundation offensively, you can work through some of this stuff. But I do think that there are elements of Trevor Lawrence's game specifically that have started to creep up where I wonder how much we can actually reel that back in.

And I totally get that because I do think with guys, some guys that does just spiral out of control and they do never get it back together. I have at least, I think the reason I'm able to cope with it is that it's not like this was always a problem with Trevor Lawrence. and it's a matter of like will he learn to develop this new skill? It's a matter of can he just get back to the way he was? Because in 2022, he didn't have those weird just jump around the pocket. His pocket movement was actually very thoughtful.

It was very calculated. It was a really strong part of his game. And I think over, you know, 2023, it got a little bit worse. And then again, in 2024, it just felt like some of his pocket movement and then some of getting to these really rushed spots at the very top of his dropback were again, because I think he was just a little bit more frightful of getting hit on a pretty consistent basis than he was even in 2022. The last thing I want to talk about, and again, I'm sure people are like, God, Trevor Lawrence

again, I want to talk about some of the details that we have not really talked about yet. And I felt like this was a really good example when we discussed how to make things easier on a quarterback. It's so simple and stupid to be like, well, just make the offense easier for the quarterback. But when you watch the bucks last year and you watch the Jags, you can feel the difference. You can feel everything for the Jags was hard and everything with the Bucks was easy. And here's the example that when I was talking to somebody, they were really stuck out to me. A lot of the motions and shifts, and especially the fast motions, that these teams,

Minnesota, where Grant Udinski, their offense coordinator comes from, the Bucks last year with Liam Cohen, you're doing that to make things easier on the quarterback. You are moving defenders or you're allowing the quarterback to gather information because of all those moving parts. Trevor Lawrence didn't used to do a lot of that stuff in the previous version of the this offense. They tried to get information by spreading things out and letting him see what the picture was, right? Like, based on spacing and structure, this is where I think I have to go. That's hard to do. It's hard to do in this world specifically as defensive disguises have gotten more lair than they've ever been. And I think it's been a process with him this off season,

but I think he's starting to come around to, okay, all of these bells and whistles and little things that were doing these wrinkles schematically, I'm gathering how. I'm gathering how to, you're they're supposed to help me. And I think that his ability to buy into that and really take advantage of what a version of an offense looks like that includes that stuff, you're going to hopefully see the difference. Like, as we're trying to find reasons that this can look different, it's stuff like that that I feel like we should keep coming back to. And this is very pie in the sky, but like that was something that Matt Ryan had to go through with when Kyle Shanahan got there to Atlanta. And Matt Ryan also, his first year there was like a little bit not fully healthy. So that was certainly part of it.

But there was a lot of like, okay, I used to play quarterback in offense this way. We have this new guy who's doing things a little bit differently. And I think he had to get comfortable with some of that stuff. And so I think obviously I'm not saying Trevor's going to have the 2016 Falcons year in a couple of years. But I just think that like that process is something we've seen quality veterans do before. Just a number to put some context on this. Last season, bucks according to next gen stats, motion at the snap percentage, 40.3%

that was the seventh highest rate in the NFL. Vikings, 33%. That was the ninth highest rate in the NFL. 40.3% for the bucks motion at the snap. Where do you think the Jacksonville Jaguars ranked? Man, I'm going to say like 28th at like 16% or something like that. Dead last at 15.3%. Okay, it's great.

So, again, this is just little tiny things that I feel like could point to us getting a slightly different version of that quarterback this year. And that's what we need. Like, it's nut cutting time, man. We're here. Like, you've hired the guy. You've hired the offensive coach to make this happen. Let's see it happen.

The hope is enough stuff is lining up that will allow that to take place for the Jax. All right. Next one here, these are two guys that we don't have to spend a lot of time on. I think we had the Jordan Love version of this discussion yesterday on the half-bake take show. But I wanted to mention Jordan Love and C.J. Stroud as part of this conversation. for this reason. We alluded to it on the Jordan Love thing yesterday. Coming into last year, I was going to say we.

Let's just say me. I'll blame myself for this. I thought these guys were going to really assert themselves in the quarterback hierarchy. I thought that they were really going to establish that after the big four guys, we're next, right? Like, we are the next tier of quarterbacks. We are, if not the hyper-elite guys, then great quarterbacks who can be the driver of our team's success.

That did not happen for a bunch of different reasons. Jordan Love was banged up. I think Jordan Love plateaued. I think C.J. Stroud devolved in part because of the circumstances C.J. Stroud was thrown into. And we don't have to spend a ton of time on this, but my thought is that path is still available to them, right? Like that just didn't go away.

I think there were probably a little bit less excited about it than we would have been coming into last year. But when I think about the crossroads and the divergent paths these guys can take, staying on the road that they're on or taking that step, I think the latter is still on the table for both of them, and I don't want to overreact too much to what happened last season. I really don't either, because there's definitely part of like, again, we all wanted to see the 40 touchdowns,

them putting up like near MVP numbers. I think we all wanted to see that to feel good about the things that we said. But I go back and watch these guys, especially in some of their best moments, they still absolutely feel like guys that I would say could be quarterback five or six very recently. Like, I went, in preparation for this show, I went back and watched both of the Chiefs games for C.J. Stroud. Dude, he was outstanding in those games outside of the 10 times a game where

George Carloftus has a hand in his chest because he was, by the way, I think Blake Fisher earned George Carloftus like $5 million, by the way. Those two games were not great for Blake Fisher. Well, it's funny. We did Blake Fisher as our, on the second year swing player show that we did and how a couple of these guys heading into their second season that were early draft picks could swing those units one way or the other. It sounds like Blake Fisher is already losing the right tackle job in Houston. So we might get an answer on where that swings

before we even get to week one for the Texans. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe we get to a place where Ursery and Cam Robinson is a better solution for the Texans than having Blake Fisher out there. But it's funny that we were talking about how much of the season may ride on Blake Fisher for the Texans and it's already not going super well.

Yeah, but again, if that just means is that ursery is a good second round pick, then if we get to the end of the road and the right tackles better, that's really all that matters to me. But again, like, I just, I went back and watched both of these guys. They're just so good, man.

Like, I just, I truly, again, I think there were worse individual games than we got in 2023. I think that's especially true of C.J. Stroud. But, like, I still felt on a week to week basis, like these teams were as good as they were because the quarterback is who they, are.

Yeah. And I think that going again to the, this idea of, and again, it's all running together, the conversations I've had on the show and off the show. But this came up recently. Every year we're going to have these offenses that just implode in on themselves, right? It's just over the course of a year, it just implodes. And let's mix metaphors here. The quarterback and everyone is just trying to keep their head above water.

You're just trying to keep yourself from drowning as the season goes a lot. The 2024 Texans felt like the 2023 Jags in that way to me. And no matter what you do as a quarterback, it's really, really hard to escape that. It just swallows you. And so I just think that even if we get back to like acceptable environmental standards for CJ Stroud, I'm not writing it in pen like I probably was before last season, but I'm open to it still being a possibility. Same.

And like honestly, my silver lining with Stroud is I do think there was there was definitely a stretch like in November-ish where he just was not like early December where he just was not like early December where he just was not playing his best ball. But I really do think about the Jets game was frightening. It was frightening. It was like that was, I remember talking us, you know, we did that show that weekend. It was like, should we? Do we need to be worried about C.J. Stroud?

But then I do think by the last month of the season, to me the silver lining was one, I think you saw even just as a pastor, he looked relatively normal. But he kind of became more of a better and more open scrambler, which like was a necessity. Yeah, by necessity, which is a, oh shit, this is my only option thing. but if that's something that he can hone a little bit more moving forward and not it's not just a breaking case of emergency thing. I think that could go a long way.

So again, even in this season that was super disappointing, there was still a glimpse of like, oh, he did get a little bit better at this thing and maybe he can continue to carry that over next year. One more comparison between Stroud and Trevor Lawrence. We're talking about Trevor Lawrence developing some of these bad habits and now we're at a place where we have to untangle some of them. That was my concern about CJ Stroud in the moment last year. If you let this stuff go too long, you start to see those little ticks and issues become more and more pronounced and then reining them back in becomes harder to do.

And that was always my concern if they had let this keep going in Houston. And I'm going to the Texans. The show's going to come out on August 6th. I'll be there on August 7th at the Green Byron, West Virginia. It is one of the stops I am most interested in. I am fascinated to talk to the people there about what, they are structurally doing with the offense to get this thing back on track? Because to me, it is one of the more compelling questions about the entire league is with that defense in Houston,

what can Nick Cayley and that new staff do to get the offense back to a level where at least they're not shooting themselves in the foot consistently, where they're giving themselves an honest chance despite some of the offensive line personnel concerns to actually be a competent unit? If they are what the Vikings offense was last year, where you still can't can't run the ball that well, but you are an explosive passing. Okay. They were only like the 14th best offense, though. That's what I'm saying.

That's fair, but like. But Nico Collins is not Justin Jefferson, but like, there's not that many guys in between them. If they're the most explosive offense in the league with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and one of the best past game coordinators in the entire league, like everything could be great for them. I mean, the quarterback is a lot better. He can do a lot.

I'm just saying, if they can be the 14th best offense and explosive, that's enough. I understand what you're saying. It's just funny. It does sound like that's the bar. Yeah. It sounded a little crazy coming off the bat. How many touchdowns is Sam Donald throw last year? Definitely more than CJ Stroud.

If CJ Stroud can throw, can complete 66% of his passes, throw for 4,300 yards and 35 touchdowns as the most explosive passing offense in the league. The Texans might be okay. I think you can do it. So, you know. All right. Before we get to our last. of quarterbacks here. Let's take one more quick break. This is a name. I'm super glad you threw this

out. And I'm very curious where you want to take this conversation. But your next quarterback you think is at a crossroads this year is Brock Purdy. Why Brock Purdy? It is Brock Purdy. And I think if we did this show a year ago, it would have been how good is Brock Purdy in terms of like, is he just the Shanahan merchant or is he a service of like a serious quarterback? I think now the crossroad to me is like he's firmly a serious quarterback. But like how good can this offense really look with what he really turned into last year. And I think this is important because obviously they're paying him now. The cap hits obviously aren't going to matter until like 20, 28. So the paying him part doesn't really matter that much. But I think just in terms of the way that we think about

him, him getting paid does matter. And so I think there would have been a point again, like a year ago, year and a half ago where I was like, man, I just, I don't feel great about him. But I really kind came around on Brock Purdy last year. And I still think that there are some tough parts with his game. I love that he's aggressive. I think sometimes. he's a little bit too aggressive and does some some stupid stuff and like again Jordan love is like that there are a lot of really good quarterbacks that are like that so I don't necessarily think it's the worst thing and then I do think he's not like that accurate of a quarterback and I've talked about that before I think he works by virtue of shanahan's a very good play caller but then he just gives

very good players good opportunities a lot of the time like the brandon iuk's george kidd george kiddell especially by the way caught like literally everything around him and and pretty gave him some really good chances but I'm just really excited to see how they marry what the offense was in 2023, where they still weren't throwing the ball down the field that much. It was more of this gun team. They were throwing to Christian McCaffrey a lot out of the backfield. It was more of a calculated operation that every now and then Purdy would do that outside of the pocket. Let's have some fun thing.

Last year, by necessity, it was, hey, man, we've got to throw deep digouts. We've got to throw down the scene. We've got to really push the ball down the field as a passing offense because everything else sucks and we can't throw to Christian right now. I kind of want to see how they blend that because if we can get the good parts of what Purdy was doing in 2024 mixed with some version of the efficiency from 2023, this offense could be so sick, dude. And so I just want to see how well he's able to really hold that. I'm curious some of the structural things that defenses are going to do to the Niners this

year. Like, where do we fall on the spectrum with how teams play them in 20203 and how teams played them in 2024? Because there have been some other shows that I've listened to and we're talking about all of the single high that they saw in 2020, compared to 2024 and attributed almost all of that to Christian McCaffrey. I think some of that is true. I don't think any one player, even if it's Christian McCaffrey, is going to dictate coverage

to that extent. And so you look at it, like they were at 61.1% in 2023, which is the second highest of single high, which is the second highest mark in the league. They were at 51.8% last year, which was below average. So you go from like this hyper extreme type of defense that you're seeing to one that is much more varied, and his success against those looks was varied. Like, he was 15th in success, right, Brock Purdy was last year, against two high defenses. So do teams play the Niners the same way this year, even with McCaffrey back in the

fold in order to invite some of that volatility from the offense? Or do teams lean back into a simpler approach against this team and does Brock Purdy benefit from that? So I think there are just layers to McCaffrey being back here specifically that I'm curious about what sort of demands that puts on Brock Purdy as a quarterback. I do think the Christian McAfre part of it is important because I think part of why the coverages were different too is that it feels like they were just in more we got to throw it situations, which I think invites defenses to be in some of the more of the two high stuff.

Whereas previously, again, the best versions of the offense, they're getting five, six yards of pop every time they run the ball. And it's just you could be a little bit more flexible on offense, which I think actually limited defenses where last year they were a little bit more on the back foot. But again, even though the efficiency did wax and wane at times, I just thought it was so impressive that Purdy was a little bit tougher against the Blitz. He was a little bit more willing to hang in the pocket and make some tough throws, really deliver against some of those two high shells. So again, if he can grow a little bit there and then they just don't even need him to do as much of it because they're a more efficient run game, their screen game ends up a little bit better. They can throw to Christian McCaffrey out of the backfield.

It just feels like you're marrying a lot of very, very cool stuff in the way that this offense can function. Yeah, and I think teams were able and willing to play man against them more often last year because Christian McCaffrey wasn't out there. I mean, we talked about this for the first half to see. He wasn't healthy. Like, Pierson wasn't good. Like, it just. And IUC was like the man beater within this offense.

Like that was the entire point of IUC being out there. And so you take him away. And Joanne Jennings can do some of that, but he does it in a very different way. He's not running away from people. No, he's not running away from anybody. He's just bodying the shit out of dudes consistently. So I just think that I'm really curious. where defenses land against this version of the Niners.

And I think that last year was a really good proving ground for them having to work through some of these problems. If defenses are still going to play them this way, are they more able to tap into some answers because of the experience they had last year? Obviously, last year was a shitty deal for that franchise and what they had to go through. I wonder if they benefit from it because of some of the ideas that they had to start mining that they might not have had to otherwise. And I mean, obviously different circumstances,

but we've even seen that with like Sean McVeigh, where you just have a kind of a season from hell injury-wise. And it's like, wait, that kind of helped us get into this new mode of offense. And so I think that's definitely going to be really important for them. So again, the last thing I want to reiterate is this is not a crossroads in terms of Purdy has to prove something this year to, you know, keep his job. And I think he's a good player. It's just a matter of like, if things really hit their stride,

I might get to the point with Purdy where I'm like, yeah, he is just the seventh best quarterback. And I'm not, like, debating myself about it anymore. I think that's fair. And I think that he played well last year in awful circumstances. If the circumstance, I'm not awful, right? Like, let's bring back back. Yeah.

Calshana-Han. He still has George Kittle. Like, it were circumstances than he's ever had to play in before. How about that? Does that feel a little bit better? That was almost as bad as my Vikings thing, but. They will be better this year. And so if he continues to play,

if we see the same quality of player this year as we saw last year, what does that mean? What does that mean for him? What does that mean for the offense? Like, I'm very interested in that. And some of this is the Crossroads is good and bad. That's not what it is to Purdy. I think it's the layers.

It's which layer of Block Purdy do we eventually see with all these things in mind. Speaking of that, my last one here, and I want to be very clear about this before we start this conversation, my last quarterback at a crossroads heading into 2025 is Patrick Mahomes. You explain yourself. This doesn't really have anything to do with Patrick Mahomes specifically. Patrick Mahomes is the player. I think this is more narrative-driven.

If you've paid attention to what this off-season has felt like, and everyone that has ever been associated with sports media has put out their top-10 quarterback list, you are starting to see a little bit of a drumbeat about Patrick Mahomes no longer being the definitive best quarterback in the NFL. You see in a couple different ways. Some people are in pen writing Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen at the top of those lists instead of Patrick Mahomes. Some people are just defaulting to, oh, well, the top four guys are interchangeable.

You know, you could throw any of those guys in there. I don't fault anybody who has done that. I actually understand how that has happened. I think it comes from two different directions. Lamar, Josh Allen, and Joe Burrow have leveled up undeniably, right? I mean, some of the things that set Patrick Mahomes apart, I think all of the, those guys have gotten better in those areas. Lamar, you can't blitzpatch from home.

You haven't been able to do it. He's going to tear you apart. Well, that's what Lamar started doing last year. All of the pre-snaps stuff, all of the things that he's doing to get his team in the right play, changing protection, just everything on his plate before the play even begins. Josh Allen is now kind of at that level. Extending place where you're not just hurting people within the first two and a half seconds, but you're creating pocket movement, being able to get explain.

explosives out of that. That was a version of Joe Burrow we had never seen before. And we got that version of Joe Burrow last year to a bigger extent than we ever have. So I do think all three of these guys have closed the gaps between them and Mahomes over the last couple seasons. And you combine that with the last two regular seasons. I'm going to emphasize this. Regular seasons. I know he won the Super Bowl two years ago from Mahomes based on his standards have been a little bit forgettable. right? They've been underwhelming. We've talked about this. The chiefs have been boring compared to what we normally expect from the chiefs. So if we've arrived at this point where Mahomes is no longer in everybody's eyes, definitively the best quarterback in the league, is that the road that we're just going to continue to go down? Or is he going to have the type of season this year where we take a right turn and we get back to a place where no, no, no.

Those guys are good, but this guy is different than everybody else. And I think there are a lot of things to keep in mind as to how that can happen. But that's why I at least wanted to include him because we really haven't had this discussion this summer in a way that I think a lot of other people have danced around. But we've been able to have Patrick Mahomes like kind of out of side out of mind in a way. In terms of the way that we think about him for a while now. And it's not just that the last two regular seasons have been boring. We're coming off of what is like the most embarrassing game that he's ever played in the

Super Bowl. That or the second half of that being. Also very important to bring up. Yes. And so it's just like, yeah, the youth, your opinion. is based off of the last thing that you saw. And the last thing you saw is that an Eagles defense just beat the hell out of him in every single way possible. I think with Patrick Mahomes, specifically last year, maybe a little bit less true in 2023.

We like really still underrate the fact that this was the slowest offense in the league with tackles who couldn't pass protect. It's really, really hard to play quarterback when that is the case, especially when I think as you were really growing into the league, everything you wanted to do is down the field. And I do think he's obviously grown to be a significantly better like short game and dropback passer than he was early in his career. Not that he was ever bad at it. He's just like the thing I think that really to me exemplifies how good Patrick Mahomes has got at the boring quick game type of stuff. I don't think any quarterback in the league is as good at speeding up the last step and a half of their dropback and throwing like as their back feet like hit the ground. Like it's such this fluid, smooth moment. And it's when everyone in your offense is slow, those little moments that you're creating of time to like make

sure the ball gets there, it really, really matters. And I think sometimes it's just, again, because we're so used to seeing him be so explosive, it's easy to not appreciate the little stuff that he's doing to make this offense even functional, let alone like they were still a good offense last year. They were like the ninth best offense. They were just boring to watch. They were the ninth best offense by DVOA. season with all the things that they were having to work through. And again, it's not some disastrous

situation. They still had four, three really good players along the offensive line. The right tackle was not as bad as the left tackle. But the past catchers, you have Travis Kelsey coming into the season with a body like me coming off of vacation, right? That's what he looks like heading into training camp last year. You have the husk of Kareem Hunt for most of last year. You have DeAndre Hopkins coming in and needing to be like a big part of your offense. You have Xavier Worthy as a rookie when you still don't know exactly what to do with him. And then we've talked about this. I think when you, some quarterbacks, some of the elite quarterbacks, they would prefer

to have sturdy interior pocket integrity over bad tackle play because they can deal with the tackles. Bahomes, based on anecdotal evidence from watching him and from talking to people there, he would prefer to have the tackles be more stout. That affects him more than the interior. And so them going out and getting Josh Simmons, I think really speaks to that. And so if we get to a place where you get average left tackle play,

even slightly below average left tackle play from a rookie, passable right tackle play with a combination of Jawan Taylor and Jalen Moore, Rishie Rice and Hollywood Brown for, let's say, 12 games apiece, right? I'm not even being greedy. Let's say 12 games apiece from those two guys. You have the version of Xavier Worthy we had by the end of last season, and you have Travis Kelsey in like moderately better shape than he was in last year. Let's just see how it goes.

Right. Like all of those minor upgrades make them like the fourth best offense in the league probably. Or better than that. Or better than that. I think they're going to struggle to be explosive on the ground. I think that is where they are going to struggle again based on their current personnel. Pacheco is more explosive than Hunt, but that's still not exactly what his game is. Other than that, I don't know, man.

I feel pretty good about it. I remember what they looked like against the Ravens. last year in week one. I remember that. I haven't forgotten about that. And so I think some version of that offense, and the Ravens defense was a mess. And I get that.

But I do think that there is a version of the Chiefs offense that we're just kind of willfully ignoring. Like they were already the ninth best offense in the league. I think it's absolutely on the table for them to be the best offense in the league. And they were the least explosive offense in football last year. That's not going to happen again. Like getting Rishi Rice and Hollywood Brown. back into the fold with again, and the tackles affect the explosiveness so much because he was so sped

up last year. The decisions he's making, he's getting the ball out of his hands immediately. I think that that sort of tackle play kind of plays into Andy Reid's worst impulses as a play caller. Like there are just so many cascading effects of what that meant for them. You get to a place where you have the 22nd best left tackle in the league and the Holmes is launching bombs again and they're scoring 32 points a game. just wouldn't surprise me. The Andy Reid part of it and the scheme thing is actually what I want to talk about too, because I think he's a good play caller, obviously.

But last year, because of the left tackle play kind of hamstringing them and them not really having any receiver that they could trust down the field, they just ended up in a spot where the run game got really, really dry. Like it wasn't as full in terms of concepts as I think it was in like 2022, 2023. That hurt them. They were spamming RPO's because the run game wasn't very good to begin with. they were spamming a lot of a quick game. And then even when they wanted to throw down the field, it wasn't as much like five

and six man intermediate to deep like drop back concepts that you want. They were having to like, all right, we're getting two or three tight ends on the field. We're going eight man protection. We're just going to pray to God that Xavier worthy can track this ball on this one play again. And that stuff just doesn't really work anymore. No, it doesn't. And so like the fact that like if they can get again, if the tackle play is a little bit better and they have more of their receivers healthy than they did last.

year, if they can just get to being, calling more of like a normal dropback game, you give that to Patrick Mahomes, man. He's just, he's going to be the best in the league again. Yeah, I don't, I want to be clear about this. I don't think Patrick Mahomes has anything to prove to me coming into this year. But I do think there is a little bit of a big picture crossroads moment in how the discussion around him has shifted, even in a subtle way, over the last year or so as all of those other guys in the top four have leveled up their games in one way or another. That's it. And this is natural. We did this with Brady every now and then. We was like, he had not the greatest season. Is he the best quarterback in the league? And then the

next year, it's just like he's the MVP again. It's like, oh, okay. I guess he is. All right. That is all we've got for today. We will be back with a bunch more stuff over the rest of this week. We've got, I think, six shows again coming your guys's way because we're going to do a training camp notebook on Saturday and Sunday because of all the beatwriters that we're talking to. Really excited about those. I've really enjoyed doing those. Very excited about kind of the remainder of my training camp travels here. I'm in Pittsburgh right now. If you guys are watching on YouTube, I'm in like this music room on the campus of St. Vincent College where I actually did one of our first shows together last year. So a little Easter egg for you guys who have watched

the show on YouTube. This is where we did the top 10 defensive show a year ago. I will be in Charlotte tomorrow. Why I did that to myself, I still am not completely sure. I think that's just how the schedule went. I'll be sleeping in Buckley, West Virginia tonight, which I'm really looking forward to. And then I'll be with the Texans on Thursday on August 7th. And now I'll get the Bengals and the Colts by the end of the weekend before getting home on Sunday. So it'll be 17 teams in 17 days. And that's not a complaint. This has been awesome. Like truly, like, one of my favorite times of the year, there is nothing more fun that I can imagine than sitting and just getting to talk to coaches and players about football all day, which is essentially what I've

been able to do over the last two weeks. So it's coming to a close for leg one, but I have very much enjoyed what these couple weeks have looked like. At least two, this stretch seems like it's put together. You've got like a little you going through Texas back up to near home. That at least make some of the other parts of the West Virginia. The Texans are in West Virginia. Yes. Wait, what? The Texans are practicing at the Greenbrier. It's like a resort in West Virginia. That's interesting. Yeah. So it's a many teams. teams have done this over the years. The Saints used to do it. The Browns did it for like a week a couple years ago. So it's just a resort in West Virginia that has a bunch of fields that teams

occasionally will do like an offsite part of their training camp. And so the Texans are there this year. Well, you learn something new from the Robert, the Robert Mays Training Camp circle every time. Very much looking forward to that one. Hope you guys are looking forward to everything else. We got coming on the feed this week. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you soon.