The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Silver linings for the NFL's bad teams

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Look, not everyone can be a Super Bowl contender. Plenty of teams aren't even playoff contenders. More than half the league misses the playoffs, and many of those teams are bad. Some are very bad. But that doesn't mean they can't take something from the 2024 season. Robert Mays and Conor Orr from Sports Illustrated and the MMQB find silver linings for those bad teams on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.RundownTexans-Cowboys MNF recapJets fire Joe DouglasSilver lining for the 2024 JetsSilver lining for the 2024 PanthersSilver lining for the 2024 GiantsSilver lining for the 2024 PatriotsSilver lining for the 2024 RaidersSilver lining for the 2024 BrownsSilver lining for the 2024 TitansSilver lining for the 2024 JaguarsThe Ball Knower...all Lions, all the timeHost: Robert MaysWith: Conor OrrExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Conor on X: @ConorOrrTheme 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. Great show for you guys today. Our old friend Connor Orr from the MMQB in Sports Illustrated is going to be joining us. We're going to chat a little Monday night football when we saw from Texans Cowboys. But the meat of this show is reserved for a conversation I've been waiting to have on the podcast over the last few weeks. There have been so many teams that are down near the bottom of the standings that we just aren't talking very much about right now. And what we try to do today is we tried to find a silver lining for all of the teams who are essentially out of the standings,

the playoff race of our minds in the 2024 season. So teams hanging in the top 10 of all these mock drafts, is there something else based on what they've put on the field this year, then we can hang our hat on as we move into the 2025 off season. Connor brings great perspective to discussions like this. Really enjoyed having this conversation with him. Let's get to it. Joining us now from the MMPU and Sports Illustrated.

It's our old friend Connor, Connor. How are you, man? Hey, Robert. I'm doing well. How are you? Doing okay. We're 11 weeks in. We've got some fun stuff to dig into today.

I wanted to have you on for this conversation about silver linings concerning bad teams because you always have a good way of framing this stuff in the sense of like, all right, what can we really hang on to here? That might be from your time and just proximity to the New York teams because you're always having to think about things this way, which the timing on this is fantastic because Joe Douglas got fired like 45 minutes ago. So we'll obviously have to fold that into the silver lining about the. Jets if there is one. But I just felt like you had the correct constitution where there's a realistic viewpoint on it, but it's still tinged with enough hope and enough spin that the teams that the people who are fans of these teams are probably going to get what they're looking for in these conversations.

It's funny you mentioned that. I was, I once interviewed for a job to cover the Bengals and they were like, well, you've covered the jets and the giants. So like, can you keep people interested in December? And I was like, I'll try, you know. It's a very. the civic skill. So we're going to get to that a little bit later on the show. We're going to get to the categories that we hit on this midweek show. But let's start how we often do on these

podcasts. And that's with the Monday night football game that happened last night. Here's where I'll start with this. I thought after the 75-yard Neagle Collins touchdown that didn't count and then that drive eventually finishing with a 45-yard Joe Mixen run the first time the Texans had the ball, my first thought was this is going to be bad. This is going to be like a 35 to three-type game. This is going to be a walkover for Houston. Dallas is ready to lay down. That is not actually what happened. This was a little bit more competitive over the course of the game than I expected it to be. Only when the Cowboys lost their entire starting offensive line and had a defensive touchdown scored against them. Did this thing get out of hand? So when you're starting with your

takeaways from the Houston's win last night, where would you kick this off? Well, if you're looking for, I guess, some bit of silver lining for Dallas, you had 20 combined pressures from your big dog pass rushers in this game. Micah Parsons came back and while this team is not whole by any stretch of the imagination, I do think that they'll at least be somewhat more relevant. Like, they're not going to continue to get their ass kicked like they have before. And if it wasn't, again, for that Cooper Rush fumble, you know, this thing looks moderately competitive and kind of generally interesting until the fourth quarter. Do you think that says more about the Cowboys being a respectable football team over the final eight weeks? Or do you think that says more

about the reservations we should still have about this Texans team. I think I'm very nervous about the Texans. And I'm lucky that they don't really have that much of a fan base because they're so low in my power rankings and I just don't have it in me to hear from another group of people for that long. But we've now, I think it's almost been, it's been over a calendar month since we've had a game where C.J. Strouds had 100 plus passer rating. I think over the last six weeks or something like that.

It's like two touchdowns and three interceptions. And that was generally the concern, even before you lose all your receivers, before you get unhealthy, that was generally the concern coming into the season was Bobby Sloak was running 49ers light, and it was still very successful. What happens when it has to be 49ers ice? I don't know what you would call it 49ers heavy, whatever the, you know, 49ers 99 bananas. Just kick a baby up a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

49ers surge. Yeah. This is good. Two guys who do not drink trying to describe the various iterations of beers that you can drink. Yeah. It's been a while. I've been out of the game for a while now. Name an alcohol.

Yeah. I'm with you on this. And I think watching that Texans game last night, there are signs that are encouraging. But I think that you have to put those in context against the backdrop of this Cowboys team that has been a walkover defensively for a good majority of the season. It helps to have Micah Parsons back. But this thing is an absolute mess. and the Texans still did not look like a crisp machine last night offensively. I think two things I would point to.

One, Joe Mixon really does make a difference with this running game. Like, he's lifting this running game in a way that very few running backs in the NFL, I think, consistently are. Down to down, this still isn't an efficient running game. He had a 40% success rate yesterday. They're really relying on some of these explosives, and that's kind of how it's been every time he's been in the lineup this year. We haven't really seen him and Nico Collins on the field together, And I think what we got out of that experience, that was a little bit encouraging because you have Mix and lifting the running game and just having Collins being an outlet very quickly on some of these designs, screens like the one that was called back, some of those short post inbreakers where CJ can just let it rip.

They need those within this offense because of how bad the past protection has been. But watching them last night, they're still just something missing. They're shooting themselves in the foot too often. The running game is not as consistent as you want it to be. The past protection is still not great, even with the tweaks they've made along the offensive line. And even though his numbers look better yesterday, CJ just still feels like a tiny bit off. Ball placement, how comfortable he looks. So I know that the final score and the aesthetics of this are going to look okay.

But I walk away from this game still with some reservations about what the next two months are going to look like for this Houston team. That's why I haven't been able to put away the Colts. I'm just in my mind. I really do think that this is going to be, and I know that's chaotic. and maybe as part of my sunny disposition, but I really do think that this is going to come down to like a nine and eight, nine and eight and eight and nine kind of deal. And I've thought that since the beginning of the season.

But it's crazy when you get to a certain point and you turn around and you say, oh my God, we are incredibly reliant on Joe Mixon, like incredibly reliant on Joe Mixon, a physical running back who does so many things, who breaks open the offense. And you didn't kind of add any sort of, ancillary mixing help at the trade deadline.

And I know every team can say you're one injury away from disaster, but without a serious power running game, like this team is way out on their back sides. And that makes me nervous, too. Where do you lay the blame for this? Because we've talked about it a lot in this space over the first 11 weeks of the year, the fact that the past protection has been an absolute disaster. So personnel has been a concern.

I think there's something left to be desired about the construction of this offense and what we've seen from Bobby Sloak in year two. if you're trying to divvy up where this rests for the Texans and why their offense has been lagging a little bit, where would you start with that? I think you have to start with the front office, but it's complicated, right? It's like anything else where it's almost like the Giants in Brian Dable's first year where you kind of hit the ground running too fast that you become a team that you almost kind of know you're not ready to become and it forces you to react in a way that I don't think you're ready to react. And so Houston did the typical thing, right? They're like, okay, let's go get Stefan Diggs. We're a contender now.

And all the while, there was still masking the issues with the interior offensive line. You know, a lot of this stuff was held up on a house of cards, but you hope that your quarterback can mature and take off and motor through it. But, you know, let's go back to the pre-draft process. C.J. Stroud had holes. Now he's showing us these holes again. We know that they're there. We know it that they existed. So I think it's one of those things where it's like, you know, you can't blame them for not punching the accelerator,

but I felt like they needed like another foundational offseason before we really go to the point where now it's a major disappointment if they don't make the playoffs. I like this. And I think that it was one of the three lines I've looked at with teams that maybe misallocated some of the resources or misstepped in their plan this off season. I connect to the Stefan Diggs and Keenan Allen things together a little bit. And it's not an accident that the Texans were also in on Keenan Allen. They swung and missed and then they eventually went to get Stefan Diggs. And I think that the Texans are in better shape than the Bears were. And I think that the Texans are in better shape than the Bears were. And I think, that Stefan Diggs at this point in his career is a better player than Keenan Allen. He's just not as long in the tooth and there's less erosion in his physical skill set, right? Like we saw that Stefan Diggs could still be productive when he was on the field. But I think that some of these finishing moves and finishing strokes, that's what a Stefan Diggs or a Keenan Allen are. And when the foundation isn't to the point that you needed to be, the last two or three moves to put this

thing over the top matter less. And I think that we've seen that with both of these teams so far this season. Yeah, and you compare it to a team like the Chargers, for example, who I think are doing it in the right order where it's like you're watching these games and it's like, dear God, they're winning games based on two fifth round picks in the secondary, like shutting people down. Like that's the start. That's where you start. Not like we had this incredible outlier season. We have this really good motivational head coach. We got rid of some organizational discord and there's this little tailwind that we're riding. You know, I think it was maybe just a little bit of an overbuy to use a stock term that I don't understand or know anything about, you know.

We're not going to hit the Cowboys and Silver Linings because I knew we were going to talk about them in this portion of the show. If you had to throw out a Silver Lining for Cowboys fans and for this Cowboys season heading into 2025, what would it be for you? That I would say probably for at least one more cycle, it's probably a good job. Like, kind of, right? Like you're probably one bad cycle away from this being a really bad job, right? And so I think that there and that the NFC East, now that we've sort of come to ease with

Jaden Daniels a little bit, like we're starting to settle in the middle, it doesn't scare me necessarily. You know, there's no, there's no dynasty here. Like you could win the NFC East next year. I don't think that's crazy. You could come in as a head coach and win the NFC East next year. Yeah, there's still a level of underlying talent on this roster. And I think that's important.

You start with the quarterback that. is as good as any quarterback who's of a team where there's going to be a head coaching vacancy this off season. And that's indisputable despite what he's getting paid. You still have C.D. Lamb on the roster. You still have Micah Parsons on the roster. There are building blocks here that are hard to find

that this team is walking into next season with. We'll see what happens with my biggest frustration with them right now is just whatever the organizational disposition is toward winning. I don't think that's weird to say. Like if you look at the moves that they have made, made and you look at just the state of things down there and how little aggression there has been and moving money around and trying to get the most out of this version of the roster, that part has been frustrating.

And that's going to be one of my biggest questions heading into next year. If you look at the cap numbers for DAC and CD-LAM, they're unacceptable. They're combined going to make like $120 million against the cap. You have to move some of that money around in order to supplement the rest of this roster. Is there going to be a coach down there? Is there going to be a brain trust down there when they move on? from Mike McCarthy that says, all right, we need to kind of push this thing a little bit. Or are they going to hire somebody that Jerry can keep his thumb on the same way they have

over the last two eras of this team? And we're not going to see that. So I'm just curious what the mindset is with that core of talent and how aggressive they are and adding to it over the next three or four months. It's weird, too, because it's like there exists like the Jerry silo, which is like, I'm going to kick in the door of a meeting that was probably 45 minutes in progress already and say, hey, we're not signing any free agents now. And then there's the group of people who are there that have continuously done smart things.

Like, there are good personnel people there. I mean, you got back-to-back franchise quarterbacks undrafted and in the fourth round. And I know some of that is you stumble into it, but you hit on CD Lamb, which is hard to do. I mean, this wide receiver, you know, this whole wide receiver class over the last five years has been really hit and miss, right? And you get a guy like that. you hit on some of these people you knew how to use micha parsons you had the right coaches you know so there's a lot of right decisions i actually like the mingo trade too i think i'm the only person on earth who thought

that was like a neat thing to do um but uh you know so i think that there's some interesting stuff happening but like you said there's this other just like that we're not going to do anything now thing and and that's what you can't predict and that's going to be the hard thing the big unknown for any coach who comes in here i think if you compare it to the eagles which is easy to do considering they're in the same division the Eagles signed their quarterback to a massive contract extension, it has prevented absolutely nothing in terms of how they've tried to add talent to the team. And the Eagles are obviously in a unique circumstance, and the Eagles are, they take a unique approach with this kind of stuff, right? Like,

they're willing to throw around a bunch of cash. They understand that they have to do that, or that it's a lever that you can easily pull if you're a team like the Eagles. And the fact that the cowboys refuse to pull that lever, they're going to need to start doing that with where DAC is right now. If they're not going to do that, then they're going to be one of those teams. And the fact that the of those teams where the quarterback contract becomes an impediment to adding talent to the rest of the roster. It doesn't have to be if you're willing to spend the money. And that's the strange thing about them is that for the last few off seasons, they haven't been willing to spend the money. And it solidified for me, I think it was two years ago down the stretch for Philly when they signed

Indomac and Sue and Linville, was it Linville Joseph? Yeah, it was the same day. On the same day. And someone sent me those contracts instantly and they said like forget about how we trading for a j brown whatever whatever you know all this stuff this is what makes the difference right here it's that fletcher cox is tired you know all these guys are gassed and so literally the owners just like here's five million dollars here for you because i believe in you like that doesn't exist in Dallas like it's just like here's ezekiel elliott they're just like what the hell we're supposed to do with this And the funniest part about this is, listen, if you're the Bengals, I don't expect you to operate this way. If you're some of these other mom and pop shops, I don't expect you to operate this way.

When you have the rich, the most expensive, the most valuable franchise in professional football, and I've made this comparison. I've done it multiple times over the last few weeks here. The Cowboys are essentially the Bengals with like better marketing in terms of how they're operating this team right now. And that just feels completely unacceptable. I don't need to go on that rant again, but I think that as you think about how things need to change in the next iteration of this, I think everyone's going to point to just not be Mike McCarthy. It is about a lot more than that. And I think it's important to acknowledge that as we're now on the brink of another era of Dallas

Cowboys football. Right. And we're sort of, it's going to be fun. It's going to be a fun thing to live through, right? Because they're almost looking out at like the Saints as sort of a test case for like what this can become if we just keep kind of being weird. about this all? Or, like, is there a way to fix it and to turn it around? So, uh, this is, you know, another silver lining thing. It's what you say when everything's very horrifying. It's like,

what a fun period of time to live through, you know, the dark ages, you know? Speaking of dark ages, let's get to the silver linings for these bad teams. We only have eight teams. And there are some that are probably right on the line that we decided not to include just because they're still kind of in it. And I think that we're going to be talking a lot about those teams in the next couple weeks because they have coaching vacancies. Like the Saints, we're not going to talk about them here. There are two games back in the division. As we talk more about this coaching cycle, the Saints are a team we can instantly go to.

This was to me an excuse to talk about some of these teams that are completely on the back burner and have been for about a month and try to get a sense of where they are and what we can hang our hats on moving forward. We're going to start with a team that is in the news this morning because that's just what they do. and that is the New York Jets moving on from their general manager, Joe Douglas. You know this team very well. You have covered this team.

You are deeply familiar with how this whole thing goes. Your reaction to the Joe Douglas firing first before we get into whether a silver lining for this Jess team actually exists. It's like, I think like people with kids will understand it. Like, it's not like, it's one of those like I don't have any anger left. It's just like when you're sitting on the couch and like your son just kicks you in the head for no reason, you know, and you're just like, why? Like, why would you do that? You know, and I think, you know, just in talking to some folks there, you know, in the immediate aftermath of this, just like, why? Like, he has six weeks left on his contract. Like, he didn't do like he didn't do anything. Like, you know, you were the one who wanted to trade for Devante Adams. You were the one that wanted to trade for Aaron Rogers. Like, he just, he signed the paperwork. Like, why? Why? Why? Like there's no reason to do this. Here, tell me if this is crazy, but this is my first thought. How long do we have until the owner of the team is no longer in the building every single day?

And do they have to get ahead of this? Even if they can't actually talk to anyone is the two months now or month and a half that they have to go talk to the consulting services, to build a list, to have maybe a list that he can look at. These are the guys I'm going to put a checkmark next to that I feel good about before I, not. leave the building again for the second time in the last like six years. Yeah. So yeah, we're at the point of covering the jets where we have to also now look up the like Trump nominee appointment scheduling. And it's just like this is why I sometimes just think about gardening, you know,

and and not doing any of this anymore. But yeah, this, it's a great question. Like, will he hire the next head coach? And I don't know the answer to that. I don't think anyone knows the answer to that. I think there are a lot of candidates who would rather not work for him and would not mind working for Christopher. I don't think that's an outrageous thing to say. You can maybe prefer one brother to the other.

I think Christopher is probably a little less, you know, impulsive, you know, impatient, you know. And so as a head coach, that's what you want. And this job, like if you thought the last ones needed time, like Joe Douglas was on a six-year contract, this one is going to need. time. Like, this whole thing's got to get taken apart. This is, this is a mess. And we might be in the exact same timeline as we were this time, where presidential terms last four years, hopefully. The rules as we understand them, they last four years. How long do we typically see regimes in the NFL? If they get hired in January of 2025, it'll be about four years before you're ready to make a decision about them again, right when the guy who didn't hire them is now back in the

building in charge of the team the exact same way it went this fall. It's like, just try to put yourself in that position. Like, I mean, we work in journalism. We've had some crazy shit happen to us. Like, you know, obviously like top 10 in terms of industries. But this is just wild. And, you know, to have solid taken out of the building by security. Like this was a guy who, you know,

you were a game out of first place, and the anger and the frustration stemmed from a loss to the eight and two Vikings, and the Broncos, who are the seventh seed in the AFC right now, they're actually really good. So, like, I don't know.

Like, this is, uh, they've completely out jets themselves. And I, I mean, God, I lived through,

I did Rex Ryan. I, I, I thought I'd never see anything like that again. And this is like, just unbelievably so much worse. When you look back at the Joe Douglas era, if you have to give like a two or three sentence, what would it be? I think he believed.

Like, you know, like he really did. Like, I think this was a guy that didn't want, probably didn't want to come here, but was talked into it. And it's like, no, this is going to be different this time. I think he had a lot of options. He had a great background. Like, with the Ravens and the Eagles on your resume. Like, you probably could have had any of the big boy jobs that you wanted to. and, you know, everybody comes into this building thinking they can fix it.

And then it's just like, it's like Pompeii. You're just like, it's just covered in ashes when you walk out. It's crazy. If you look back on it, like the 2020 draft is just particularly devastating to pick McKay Backton with the 11th overall pick when Tristan Worf's is still on the board. They picked Denzel Mims in the second round. And then obviously what happened with the quarterbacks. And then some of the picks outside of the big name guys, like, if you'll get the 2021 draft,

Zach Wilson with the second overall pick, which we can talk about. Elijah Moore picked in the second round, a lot of other guys that didn't end up becoming contributors. Like, there are some big name guys that are still on this roster. If we're talking about silver linings, that's probably where you would start. But I think a lot of the underlying moves and a lot of the connective tissue in terms of putting the whole roster together, there was a lot to be desired on top of the multiple misses a quarterback that put you in this sort of position.

And what scares me, and I'll try to get happy in a second, I suppose is that so I lived through the all these decisions basically necessitating the trade of Dorel Rivas and I remember covering the GM search at the time and a bunch of GMs came through to interview and basically the wink and nod thought during this process was hey if you get this job you got to trade Dorel Rivas so sorry like you have to do that you have to trade the most popular player of the modern era and that limited your talent pool right and now some guy's going to come and By the time you fix this, you're going to have to pay Garrett Wilson $35 million a year. You're going to have to pay Soss Gardner $25 million a year, even though he's not had a great season. I think he's going to come up at a time where he's going to want market topping value. He was a defensive rookie of the year at one point. So what do you do? You know, like do you just come in and you trade these guys and you hope that you don't get the John Idzick treatment and then get kicked to the curb immediately for the next guy?

I don't know. I don't know what the answer is here because now you're playing with real talent. You have foundational talent at hard-to-find positions, but what does that get you right now? Also, what are you going to do with Aaron Rogers? That's now the first thing that you have to do as a new general manager is that you have to go in and talk to the Hall of Fame quarterback, a first ballot Hall of Fame quarterback, who is one of the most prominent players of his era. and we know is probably not the easiest personality to deal with in these moments. And you have to talk, then you have to have a very real conversation with him about his future almost immediately. Yeah.

And what's crazy too is I started this whole thing believing that he was sort of like shadow running this whole thing. And it's like, okay, all this makes sense. But I have left it almost as sympathetic for Aaron Rogers, which is hard for people to do sometimes. as I was everybody else. I think he was stunned by the Robert Solofiring. I think that he generally liked Robert. And I think that this is now for him just seeing the totality of what you walked into. Like, holy smokes.

Like, and, and I don't know what the answer is there. Because he probably does want to keep playing. I bet he doesn't want to go out like this. Who does, right? But you, you can't do it here. There's just, there's no way. There's no path forward for you. right now. Do you think there's probably is? I was going to ask you, do you think there's a team that

would be willing to trade for him this offseason? The answer is probably yes. Somebody is probably going to be desperate enough to make that happen. Yeah. I think I think that someone would take Aaron Rogers. And I think that if circumstances change, because right now he's not the player that I think he would be if there's say six and four and they're in the thick of the division race and you know, maybe one of these balls he'll step into right and just take a rib-cracking hit. I don't blame him for not doing that right now. You know, it's just, you know, you're 40 years old. You're coming off an Achilles injury for what?

Like, you know. This is my only concern here is that that was part of the spin about why this is going to work in New York, is that he was completely disinterested and detached during his last year in Green Bay, didn't care about the youth movement, didn't want to be a part of this. If he was more engaged on a team that was invested in him and that had a real playoff potential, what was he going to look like? And the answer is, it doesn't look like he's very invested in this right now. So to just say, all right, if we drop him in.

do a newer sort of better situation, are we going to see an Aaron Rogers that wants to hang in the pocket, that wants to read stuff out, that we can actually rely on if we're a team that wants to be competitive? I think you're telling yourself a story if you think there's a good chance that would happen if you traded for 42-year-old Aaron Rogers. You're telling yourself a story or you're looking at Pittsburgh and saying like maybe we could be the ones to get that last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube. And I think Russell Wilson's a very interesting test case because we're seeing this new group of quarterbacks who are playing longer and longer and longer, right? And they don't want to leave the game looking diminished, right? And so Russell Wilson

had to humble himself in a way that I don't think we've seen from a Super Bowl winning quarterback in modern times. And Aaron Rogers is probably not going to do that. But is there a set of parameters where you could make it look similar, right? Where Aaron Rogers knows he can go out having won a divisional game. I don't know what it is, right? But does that situation exist somewhere? Let's get to the positive spin on this. What is your silver lining for this 2024 jet season if you have one?

I think that the silver lining is that once everything clears out and once you remove all the debris. Like, I remember walking with Sauce Gardner. We were walking, like, the stadium steps at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati. And this was before the start of this season. And he was so defiant in terms of just rejecting prior Jets narratives about saying that, you know, these were solid talking points, but just this idea of that's not us anymore and, you know, how proud he was to be able to be a part of this process to recruit Aaron Rogers. I do think that there's some of that light left. Like, you think that Sala empowered a lot of these young guys and before you just shipped in a truckload of veterans from everywhere else and basically muzzled them, like once you get rid of all that again,

they're still here and they still know what it's like to be part of a team that fought through like almost beating the chiefs when Aaron Rogers was hurt, beating Buffalo on that Monday night game. Like there is a beating heart of that team that does exist somewhere, you know? I think that's exactly how. That's a very good way to frame it on an intangible level. On a practical level, if you look at how fast this can go from a team that was trying to squeeze, let's go back to the toothpaste, the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube, and they're doing it with a 41-year-old quarterback with a 32-year-old wide receiver, with a lot of the other buddies that were a part of this, you signed Tyron Smith for a year,

you get with Morgan Moses for a year, you suddenly become a very old team in trying to get everything you can out of this final stretch. You can become a very young team again quickly. And the guys that you have that are young are worthwhile building blocks. If you're starting over as the next Jets GM, and let's say you trade Aaron Rogers, okay, so hopefully you trade for him and the money, you figure out a way to move it around, you take like a $15 million cap hit for him next year. You move on from Devante Adams because you save $30 million against the cap if you do that. You can walk into this thing as the new Jets GM with like $80 million in cap space, 28-year-old Quinn and Williams, 25-year-old sauce gardener, 25-year-old Garrett Wilson, 26-year-old Elijah Vera Tucker, 23-year-old Olo Foshano, who I know hasn't been great, but tackles are always a crapshoot in year one.

26-year-old, Will McDonald and Jermaine Johnson. That is a pretty decent starting point if you're having to restart an NFL franchise, even if you are willing to take into account all of the challenges structurally presented to you as the general manager of the New York Jets. It's a good starting space and it's a good starting space for a popular kind of roster, right? Like if you're looking for a guy who can run the Shanahan offense, if you're looking for a guy that can run a McVeigh offense, you can come in there and kind of puzzle piece that together and it wouldn't seem out of place. Like there are some teams that just simply could not facilitate that. And I do think that the bones of a good, young, like, outside zone,

team is there somewhere, right? And so if you got a good practitioner in there, you know, okay, you know, maybe you win six, seven games in your first year. This is going to be a consistent question that we're going to have to ask about a lot of these teams because I think it would be disingenuous to paint this all in a rosy way with the silver linings and then not ask this question at the end. Who's playing quarterback for the New York Jets next year? And how do they find that person? I don't, I don't know. Do you think it's a cheap bridge? Do you think that is like the most realistic answer based on where they're probably going to wind up? But what does even the cheap bridge market look like right now?

Because, you know, right now, like Sam Darnold leads it and he sure as shit isn't going back there, you know? Also, I don't, is Sam Donald going to be a cheap bridge quarterback this offseason? He may not be. Yeah, he might be like, he might get a baker deal, honestly, right? And so, you know, if someone starts over in New Orleans, you know, you kind of had your, your, your, hooks in on Derek Carr at one point. Like, is that a guy that makes sense? If things go sideways there, like, if the Rams start to rebuild, you know that that

team at least had conversations about Matt Stafford at one point, but Matt Stafford's not going to want to end his career like this. You know, I mean, I don't know. I mean, the bridge market used to be bustling and really kind of like a fun way to, you know, kind of get a couple of wins on the cheap. But I don't see a bridge market really developing that's going to help this team in any meaningful way. I'm going to read off the free agent quarterbacks that are hitting the market this

off season just because I think it's instructive and I think it's worth keeping in mind as we talk about the rest of these teams. From highest 2024 salary to lowest, let's do this in order. Sam Darnold, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Jacoby Preset, which some team could do that again if they want. That's fine. Taylor Heineke, Marcus Mariotta, Drew Locke, Jared Stidham, Andy Dalton, Justin Fields, Joe Flacco, Jamis Winston, Mac Jones, Carson,

Wents, Jimmy Garoppolo. That's what we're really talking about here. There are not that many appealing bridge options on that list to sell to your fan base. We're like, yeah, we're getting it at the old college try this year. Even like Jacoby Percette three years ago does not exist on that list right now. Okay, so the one way to make me like, again, like going back

to like an alcohol reference that's going to make me sound out of practice. But like the one thing that would like make me take a shot and just be like, okay, let's go. Like I can do this would be if you were like, I'm going to pair Todd Monkin with Justin Fields. I'd be like, all right, why not? Like, all right, get me to the field. I'll do it. Justin Fields is the most appealing answer on this list because at least you can sell excitement if you sign Justin Fields to the same Donald contract from the soft season.

Right. And you get them and you're going to have to. And here's the problem, right? think like we're looking at Todd Munkin. Like if you want an offensive coach, you're looking at a coach who, you know, isn't going to be like Ben Johnson. He's not going to fly off the board, but a coach that will probably take a job that maybe some people would consider like, I don't know, you know.

So that, and I like him as a play caller. So maybe, right? We're going to revisit the coaching conversation in earnest in a couple weeks here because we're going to talk about it today and then the release that is another show. Unfortunately, the Joe Douglas part of all of this through a wrenching everybody. everybody's plans. We are going to discuss that. And the Todd Munkin prominence on that list is a little bit surprising after some of the conversations that I've had. But if you actually think about it, it's not that surprising because there aren't that many ready-made offensive coaches that you're

going to want to hand one of these jobs to. So Todd Manken, I think, is going to be more a part of those discussions here over the next month and a half than people from the outside might think about a mid-50s play caller. And I agree with you 100%. I think that this is a very complicated and nuanced discussion, and it will show the depth of a team's ability to do research and to actually be willing to talk to people. And you're going to have to weigh all that out with Todd, but you're going to get a good offense, a well-called offense. I'm looking forward to having that discussion because obviously you do great work in that space. And I think that that's going to be something that, you know, people are going to enjoy.

Let's get to our next one here. The Carolina Panthers. What is the silver lining in your mind for the 2024 Panthers season? So I think that, you know, I've been a team Bryce person. I think that he looks happier and more comfortable than I've ever seen him in an NFL locker room. I think that what they wanted to see from him privately, the stepping up, the being kind of one of the guys, like, fitting in in that way. I think he's done over the last few weeks especially.

And I think that they've done a really nice job of identifying the kind of like Jalen Coker from Holy Cross. Like this guy is a gamer. And I'd love to see now, we're going to have the second round pick, the running back. He's going to make his debut. Jonathan Brooks. Yeah. So, and this is, this is a guy that they drafted, knowing what they had in Chuba Hubbard,

and they just signed Chuba Hubbard to an extension. So all these things are coming together. Like, Xavier Legget looked pretty good. Like, okay, you haven't, there's a pipeline between personnel and coaching that seems to be yielding young talent on the field, which is like 95% of the battle in a lot of these. things like cool like this this thing has not gotten off gone off the rails so i think that's great what do you think the canales brice young partnership looks like right now in your mind i think if you're bryce right like it's just got like you need to get your confidence back and i think that

i think that a lot of what canales was doing was just giving him some time to see how andy dalton interacted with people to see how andy dalton took that job and ran with it and you just to allow him to reset mentally because, I mean, let's be honest about, you know, Bryce Young has a cool origin story, but this kid has never failed at anything in his entire life before. And so to be at the point now where you're ready to come back and what you're showing Dave Canales are a library of things that you're proficient at. And what Dave can, the reason that Dave Canales got this head coaching job is he can take

that little bit of something and build an entire offense around it. And now we're cooking, right? This is what happened with Gino Smith in Seattle. It's what happened with Baker, Mayfield, and Tampa. So now we have this little library of things that you're showing you're comfortable with. You're confident enough to assert them. Your teammates are ready to believe in you. Now let's go.

Let's win one or two games that we probably shouldn't have towards the end of the season. Do you think that there is a realistic outcome that Bryce Young can become the long-term starter of an effective Carolina Panthers offense? I do. I really do. I like him a lot. I still have my doubts about it. You know what? funny because I just wonder like, you know, we can play this parallel universe game all we want,

but like what we would think of C.J. Stroud if he got taken number one overall right now and the conversations that we would be having. I don't know what the answer is to that, but I mean, this thing has been burnt down so many times. And even now, this is what Bryce Young's second season in the NFL and the two years that he's been in the NFL and then the year before that, the team has gutted offensive talent at the at the deadline and so all this is all you're seeing this is all you're exposed to once this thing just stops and you can start to build from scratch again in a way that makes sense i think you have something like i really like and okay yes we can say that we can say this about mitch trubisky and i have said this out loud about mr bischy before but

there are times in a game when brys young will make a throw and you're just like holy smokes like this kid has it He's so good. And once that unconsciousness clicks in, he's a different player. And so let's get a five or six game sample size where that's the case, you know? I feel like right now what's happening, especially with this quarterback draft, the biggest concern I would have with riding with Bryce Young for another offseason into 2025 is more about opportunity cost than it is about upgrading the quarterback. It's more about, all right, if you are the Carolina Panthers and you end this draft, or you end this season with the third overall pick, and there was a quarterback there that you liked.

I think it would be a mistake if you didn't take that guy because you were still trying to ride it out with Bryce Young. Because I do think that there's enough infrastructure here where you could stumble into 7-8 wins next year, and then that leaves you out of the running for a quarterback. But if there's not in this draft specifically, which I think based on everything I've heard, there might not be,

then I'm a little bit less worried about, okay, what's the downside of rolling with Bryce again? Because I don't think there's a downside from a football perspective. We just listed off to free agent quarterbacks. Who else are you going to get that is a more intriguing option for you in 2025 than Bryce Young in year three? I don't think there is one. It would be more about are you cutting off pathways to a different, better option in the long term? And I don't think heading into this offseason, there is necessarily one of those.

Yeah, I mean, if you want to do what the Eagles did in the Jalen Hertz draft, okay. You know what I mean? Like you want to... That's actually a good idea. Giving yourself a potential off-ramp maybe later in the... the draft or just understanding we can't stop looking for quarterbacks. I actually think that's a good mindset to have if you're this team. Yeah.

And again, I mean, I'm not like a, I'm like a college football. Like I watch it, but I'm not like locked in on the draft until January. But like, you know, Jalen Milrow in the offseason was described to me as like, you know, a guy that might be a nice second or third round pick. If that holds, if that ends up being true and he's there, yeah, sure, put him with Dave canals and see what happens, you know? but play them on third and short. Like, you know, like, let's build something from there.

But I don't know. That, to me, seems like the more likely option. My silver lining here is that outside of the quarterback, I actually feel really good about where the rest of this offense is going. And I think that starts with the offensive line. You know, obviously they poured a ton of resources into it. But this is paid off. You know, you go back and you watch that Giants game.

I still don't love the construction of this running game. And I think that goes all the way back to watching what Canales was doing with Joe Gilbert last year. The Bucks were not a good running team. They did upgrade some of their interior offensive line personnel this year, but I think what they're doing with Liam Cohen and the results that you're getting, you see a little bit of a gap between that and what the Panthers running game looks like. But the personnel and the past protection, I think has been good. And you look at it, even against the Giants, they have Cade Mae's playing center, they have Brady Christensen kicked out to left tackle because Aquano's missed the last couple games, and they

were okay. And I think that's the sign of a healthy offensive ecosystem is when you're not noticing that stuff quite as much. And that's where this team is. I mean, Robert Hunt looks like a real weapon at guard. Damien Lewis has been solid for them. Iquano was even playing better before he got hurt than he was last year. So if you can, whatever you're going to roll with a quarterback for the next two years, the fact that you're starting with that as the offensive line, I think is really good.

Obviously, what Chuba Hubbard has given them. I think this running game has a chance to be something you can rely on. And I'm with you on the young pass catchers. And I think that is kind of the quiet part about the Deonté Johnson trade. Everyone was like, oh, they gave away Deonti Johnson. Johnson for nothing. Like that's trade that the Panthers just lost outright. Well, again, you're opening up pathways to younger players. You're getting him out of the building and just resetting what the second half of your season looks like. And even if you're not getting draft capital back for that,

there is some utility in making a move like that. And I think it's more opportunities for somebody like Jaylen Koker. I think this is, you know, in the beginning of the season, when you're talking to all these coaches and you're saying like, what is this going to look like? What is this going to look like? And one of the cool responses that I got back from anybody that was involved with Caroline is, we'll see. And it's not one of those things that's like, it's not like a smart-ass remark. It's like, we have to find out what this group of people is even good at. Like, and we want to find out on our own. We don't want other people telling us what they're good at.

And that's why you can cross-train a center as a left tackle. That's why you can survive some of these weird games. That's where you can find out another gear in someone like Chuba Hubbard and you can get Jalen Coker to come in and start giving you really quality minutes and great. games right off the bat as an undrafted free agent because they went they did the hard thing they kind of figured out what everybody's good at and now let's see what happens you know i respect people more when they give me that answer on i do too because everyone i've ever talked to that is sure of how their season is going to go and is very confident about how it's going to go those guys are out of a job in like 18 months yes um it was funny because the one and we'll talk about this more during the head

coaching show but the best compliment that I've gotten on a candidate for this year was he understands what he's doing in a given situation and he's like someone was telling me about this about a coach he said you have no idea how many people walk into a room and they're just like let's run the mcvay offense and everyone's just like what on earth are you talking about like we don't have any of those things and you know situational awareness understanding people as people like we make this is so much more complicated than it is, but I do think that Dave Canales is doing a good job at that, too. And Brad Isick, let's, this kid's 33 years old. Like, this is, this is a big job and he's doing well. I think it's an interesting balance, and this is more philosophical when it comes to coaches.

There needs to be some level of humility in the sense that you need to understand that it's not going to go the way you think it's going to go. And how you respond to that is a huge part of being a head coach in the NFL. So, but that level of humility you have to bring into the process is something you can outwardly show to the people that you're in charge of, right? So you have to be constantly understanding that I don't know everything and I can't control everything, we're also trying to convince the 53 people sitting in front of you in the team meeting that they can control everything. Right. And that balance is very, very difficult to strike. And that's why this job is really fucking hard. Yeah. I used to think like I would want to be a head coach of something.

and now I'm like that doesn't, this seems like the worst job in the world. Like it just seems absolutely terrible. We should listen to it. We want to be talking about the coaches, which we're listening to ourselves knowing that we're going to be able to do that later. We're going to take a quick break right now and then we're going to get back with some of these other silver linings teams.

Let's get back to MetLife Stadium. Let's talk about the New York Giants. First question for you here. Again, just extending to the coaching conversation. Do you think that the head coach in the GM of this team are back next year? I think it depends on how the, season finishes. And I think that's always how it's been, right? And it's, it's sort of like, if you're Brian Dable and you're Joe Shane and you blow it now, it's because you are willfully

ignorant of history. Ben McAdoo had another shot. And he just went Haywire when he benched Eli Manning for Gino Smith and then decided to just not dignify it with a response or explain why you decided to sit the most important player in franchise history. Joe Judge had that job. He was coming back until he just like did a random press conference and buried Ron Rivera for no reason. Like, do you remember that? That was crazy. He was coming back and everything was fine. And then he did this massive like 45 minute monologue where he's like just crushing other organizations that everyone's like, what are you doing? And so he didn't come back. And I think that Brian Daibel is walking that fine line. And if you show me a general upward trajectory

or at least steadying of the ship with Tommy DeVito, then I think everything's going to be okay. And I think it should be okay. I'm a dable guy. I think he's a good head coach. I do, you know, can you sell me on a lot of the personnel stuff that they've done to this point? Probably not, not really. But I think he's still a really good play caller.

And you have to consider, if you're John Mera, like still, how hard that is to find in the NFL. Like, you're going to go out. and you're going to be like option four on the market. Like Ben Johnson's, you know, maybe is going to, would think about that. But Ben Johnson wants a quarterback. Ben Johnson wants, you know, a lot more stuff than you have to offer. So what are you getting?

What's the upgrade here? I don't know. I think that's fair. I'm curious, what do you make of the DeVito thing over Drew Locke? This is very funny. And it's only something that you can understand if you live here. Art Stapleton is my friend and he covers the team and there were people on Twitter going nuts yesterday

being like, this is just about John Mayer selling tickets and he's like, how many tickets do you think that Tommy DeVito is selling? How many Italians live in the East Trump of the area? But even if you got every single one to come like that's like what? Like 30,000 people? It's not enough.

And, but I really, the conspiracy theories on this are out of control. The other one was that, oh, they don't want to pay Drew Locke's. 500 grand incentives. It's 15 touchdowns. Do you think he's throwing 15 touchdowns from now until the end of the season? And if he does, if you're, if you're Brian Dable and it may, and I think the tanking thing, that I don't believe in either, just because this is not an organization that's ever been willing to embrace that before. or why would they start embracing it now? Dan Duggan, who covers the team for us,

you know, his theory was essentially Drew Locke looked really bad at the preseason. And I think they're worried about how bad Drewlock looked in the preseason. That, to me, though, speaks to more of the widespread dysfunction that's happening here. You paid him $5 million to be your backup. And now you're just going to bypass him with Tommy Cutlets because of how he looked in the preseason. So you just lit that $5 million on fire. You already had Tommy DeVito on the roster.

Right. And the tanking thing is funny too because Tommy DeVito winning games costs you Jaden Daniels in the first place. So now you're going to put the same guy in to not get you towards the top of the draft class. But, you know, that's neither here nor there. It's a good point. I would assume that Brian Dable thought he had something in Drew Locke that he didn't. And sometimes those things happen. Like you'd get a guy in the building.

It's just like, ooh, this is not working. And this is not what you're comfortable with. And it's not going to happen. And so I don't know. I mean, does that point to widespread failure dysfunction? Like, you know, again, you start developing a connective tissue for all this. And you say, and that's the same people who didn't sign Sequin Barclay. And it's like, you know, again, I think these are, at the time I thought it was a good decision.

I still think it's a good decision. But it just, you know, they could be victims of narrative, which I think is like a dumb thing. And it's a very uniquely New York thing. Yeah, I don't think it's some huge issue that Drew Act didn't work out. It's just one more piece of wood that you're throwing onto the fire. here. Sure. So we haven't gotten to the silver lining part of this. What is your silver lighting for the 2024 giant season? The giants, like, the giants are a good job no matter what. Like, it's a, it's a good place to work. And for at least two years, you know it's going to be a good place to

work. You're not going to get fired after one season. And if the biggest problem is that you have one of the founding father families involved and that sometimes they develop an affinity for a player that's kind of hard for you to bypass, aka Daniel Jones, you know, okay, you can work with that. And I think the one big silver lining to this, someone told me that when Joe Shane got this job, the reason that he got the job is because he was the one that told John Mara, this roster kind of sucks in his interview, right? And we need to stop pretending that it doesn't because this team has- I got bad news for Joe Shane.

Yeah. But they've been kind of pulling the string on this thing. since 2010, right? Like, it's just like every three years, it's been this weird free agency splurge to try to fix a problem. Like, oh, it's signed Damon Harrison and Janoris Jenkins. Let's go do this. Let's go do that. And this was the first time that they were like, no, at minimum, we're getting Darren Waller,

but we're building with young guys. Like, we're going to try to build with young guys. And, you know, Brian Burns, I think, is another young guy. It's just he happened to be available at the time. And so I think that John Mara probably gets it more than he has. in the past, and I think he's a good owner in that he's one that can learn from prior mistakes, whereas other ones just are a caricature of themselves. So I generally do like the Giants as a job, no matter how good or bad the team is. I'm going to go down the route you're trying to

sell me here with the youth movement. And I think that if I was Joe Shane right now, what I would be trying to sell is, listen, we got a little bit ahead of ourselves with the Daniel Jones thing, collectively, us as an organization. We were not in a position where we probably should have given him that contract, but it's not going to really hamstring us that much moving forward. So now you have a young core of pieces, mostly coming from this draft class. If I'm trying to build a silver lining for the New York Giants coming out of this season,

it's that after the 2022 draft was not what you wanted it to be, the 2023 draft is still kind of a work in progress. This year looks like we have started to accumulate a collection of young pieces. League Neighbors hasn't really looked the same post-concution. but we know what we've seen from him as a rookie, and it's very encouraging. Drew Phillips has been there day one starting nickel and has looked like a really nice player. Tyler Nubin looks like a long-term starter at safety. He's played almost every single snap for them on that side of the ball.

Tyrone Tracy is going to be your starting running back for the next couple of years. Theo Johnson has shown flashes. Tight end is a really hard position to play as a young player. I think that that's somebody hopefully can be one of your pieces moving forward. So the thing about this job is, the big time pieces that you want, the positions that are hard to find, they have guys at those spots. They have Andrew Thomas. They have Malik neighbors.

They have multiple pass rushers that they've invested in. The issue is everything else on the roster is barren or was barren when you started this season. You really needed to find some of just those contributing role players that didn't really exist based on the last few drafts that you had. That has started to emerge now. And I think that's what you can sell to ownership of your Joe Shane. Listen, we're now on the timeline we probably should have been on after that 2020.

two season. Give me a chance to find a quarterback that I can pair with Brian. That's his guy. And let's see where we can take this thing because it is pointed in the right direction. Even if I don't necessarily believe that, like wholeheartedly, I understand how you could convince somebody that's true. It is like one of those interesting test cases where it's like, you know, you were almost better off going, winning five games your first year. If you're Brian Gable. Yeah, like a whole like 200% because everyone would have excused it. And it's like, you know, would have made sense. But yeah, I think at the end, if I'm Joe Shane, I'm like, dude, just give me one more draft.

Like, give me one more draft. Give us one more season. And, you know, to your point, it's like, you know, let's try to figure out. Like, let's give, Tyrone Tracy, I think, is going to be a star like next year. I think he's going to be really, really good. Malik Navers is going to be really, really good. If you can find someone to get him the ball, I think this is a more attractive vet QB destination than a lot of the other jobs on the market.

Oh, so you think that's the direction they would go? I think you would do both. Okay. Why wouldn't you do both? You know? Yeah, you can. You would have to do both. Like, I think that you would, what's a good example?

Like, almost like the Josh McCown, Sam Darnold year, right? Or, you know, any of those things where you would pair that guy with a veteran quarterback. And the veteran quarterback understands that he's got two years or a year and a half to earn the job. I mean, the Giants have done that. Historically, Kurt Warner came in with Eli Manning, which a lot of people forget, you know. And I do think that they like to keep those little habitual practices alive. And I don't think it would be the worst thing in the world to pair new quarterback X with, I don't know, Sam Darnold, you know?

I think that's totally understandable and workable. Yeah, I think that's fair. My only, the downside here to the, hey, let's give us one more draft. I've seen this movie a thousand times where I live. A thousand times. So you're Joe Shane. you convince the general manager, give us one more draft. Come on. Let's get our guy. Let's see where this goes. You go six and 11 next year. It doesn't get better. And then the new staff is coming in with a quarterback that you drafted fourth overall. And they're like, I didn't pick this guy. The downside of that is very real. And take it from somebody who has seen it up close and personal way too many times over the last decade. A quarterback that you didn't like that you probably over drafted in a middling class

when the next year's class might be even better. Yeah. Correct. It's a fair. I think that is the problem that you can run yourself into. Yes. Let's get to the next one here. New England Patriots.

This one's very easy for me. I don't know if it's as easy for you. Yeah. I mean, Drake May is awesome. He's really good. He's so good. Like, you know, and what's weird about, like, you know, I don't even think the bills knew that Josh Allen was going to be Josh Allen.

and then, like, the first time he, like, stiff-armed someone, like, you know, cane in WWE and then, like, just ran, like, a racehorse into the end zone. They were like, whoa, like, that's cool. Like, you don't know sometimes how that stuff is going to translate. And I think, like, the first couple times that I've seen Drake May, like, just push someone off in the pocket, literally switch hands and throw the ball left-handed to avoid bad sacks. He's not making a ton of idiotic plays. And the idiotic plays that he is making are excusable, you're like, hell yeah.

Like, this is awesome. I love it. He's already good, and he's not in a good situation. I mean, that's the worst offensive line in the NFL right now in terms of personnel, and he's making it work. I think Alex Van Peltz actually doing a pretty solid job over the last few weeks. He called an awesome game last week, an awesome game against the Rams. He got railroad in that situation in Cleveland, which we can talk about,

and I'm sure we will as we talk about the head coaching opportunities and openings that might happen. But this is a guy who people like him. People really, really, really like him. And I think he's kind of just like a not necessarily happy to be there. But his personality, I don't think he's the kind of guy who's wired where because Defansky was the play caller in Cleveland, he was necessarily seeking out play calling jobs if he were to get one, even though Cleveland's offense was well constructed. So he kind of falls into this job because of where the Patriots were and the fact that

the Browns moved on from him for essentially no reason, but nominally because they needed to change their offense to fit to Sean Watson, whatever. Right. So now he gets this opportunity and he looks pretty good doing it, considering the lack of talent that they have. So you have a coordinator and a play caller that I think is doing a solid enough job and a quarterback that has shown a very clear ability to transcend the personnel concerns around him. And I don't know if you could want more from this Patriot season at the end of the day than this guy looks like he's going to be a potential star. Just watch the first like 10 snaps of that Rams game from last week. and there was this moment where I think it was like the first defensive play of the game.

They ran a stunt and there's just a screamer right in Drake May's face. There's an outlet option. He hits them. A couple plays later, you're blitzing a nickel back. He sees it. He gets rid of the ball. There's all these short completions that are built into the offense. He knows when to throw the ball deep.

Drake May, I mean, we remember that from, you know, a little bit earlier on in the season. Like some of these games, his first start even, like you're losing by 20 points, but you're stretching the field. You know when to do it. There's those calls. and those shots that are built in. I mean, how many of these teams would die just to know that they have a play caller that the rookie quarterback trusts and puts him in good situations?

So much other stuff you can figure out over time. Like, you know, that's such a big one. And so you go into next year where Gerard Mayo survived the calling his team soft thing amazingly. And, you know, he's still standing and seems like people like him. A lot of people like DeMarcus Covington, very popular young guy. So you have this exciting young staff. You probably end up this season winning more games than Bill Belichick did in his last year. And so, all right, like, cool, dude.

Like, what's wrong? Let's let it. Let's go. I think the best case scenario for this Patriots team. I think the defense probably looks worse than you'd want it to, considering what this franchise has been and some of the talent that still exists on that side of the ball. I know Barmore hasn't played. I know you traded away Judon.

I know you've been banged up. Duggers missed a couple games, all that. I think that's totally fair. I still think the baseline level of play on defense needs to be higher than it has been this year for you to say this season is success. On the other side of the ball, what is happening right now is the definition of success. You have a quarterback where, all right, we go out next off season. We have an endless pool of resources. Can we find an offensive alignment or two? Can we try to go get him a real weapon? Do you spend on a T. Higgins in free agency, et cetera? And imagine what he looks

like with a smidge more help. That's all you need from this Patriot season on that side of the ball. And I think that's exactly what they're getting right now. And look what turned around and made defenses historically great. Like Andrew Van Ginkle and Blake Cashman made the Vikings defense awesome. Like, you know, and, you know, so New England can do that. There's an Andrew Van Ginkle. There's a Blake Cashman out there for Gerard Mayo that fits and allows him to run the defense the way that he wants to run it. That one's easy.

The rest of these are harder. Let's get to the Las Vegas Raiders. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, yeah, they might be harder than the Jets. The Patriots one is the easiest one on this entire list. Yes. The Las Vegas Raiders, your silver lining for the 2024 season is what? I was going to say Brock Bowers, but so I went back and I rewatched all of his targets against Miami.

And like, were they going to cover him at all in that game? Like once? He did not get chipped off the line of scrimmage a single time in that game. There was so much free space between him and the nearest defenders. and like you go back to that game and it's like wow this is the greatest rookie performance by a tight end since mark bavaro and you're like how did that happen and it's just they just opted not to cover him so that's cool and i just don't think that's going to happen a lot more um i think that there's a lot of interesting components here um how involved is tom brady getting you know does that change the dynamic i heard he's kind of going to be broadcaster for a little bit before he ends up being power player but i know that there's been other reports to the contrary to that. But, I mean, you know, you have a decent, you have a decent offensive weapon. You have, like, an infrastructure. Like, and what's kind of cool about the Raiders is, like, you can do a lot of really interesting things with two good tight ends. And, you know, it's not the best place to start.

But it's not terrible. And, you know, I don't know. It's, it's a storied franchise. I don't know. The other stuff you got to talk yourself into. So I think it starts with Brock Bowers in just the sense that, like, Literally, the way that it was communicated to me this offseason, the Brock Bauer's pick and why they took him where they did a year after taking Michael Mayer is we just need to put one in the fairway. Which, honestly, there are worse reasons to take a guy at that spot and have some redundancy at one position. The ball's in a fairway. I think it's like a 330-yard drive in the middle of the fairway. It's pretty good right now. Other than that, I actually do watching the game back from last week,

Our offensive line, a lot of moving pieces this year. Guys have been out of the lineup. Andre James has been hurt the last couple games. So now Jackson Powers Johnson was playing center. I am not super upset with what the offensive line looks like right now and where you got those guys. Right. So we'll see what happens with Andre James and Powers Johnson. Andre James somebody they paid a modest amount in free agency to stay, how that ends up.

I don't really care at this point. I think it's more about into 2025. You're probably going to be able to put together an offensive line of guys that you either signed to modest extensions or drafted yourself and get to a workable place. DJ Glaze was a third round pick. He's been your right tackle for a good majority of this season. Jordan Meredith is somebody who is kind of deep on your depth chart and has actually given you some decent play with some injuries on your into your offensive line. So he's an exclusive rights free agent.

What happens there? I think no matter what, they're probably going to be in a position heading into next offseason where you can have a solid offensive line that you didn't have to pay a lot of money. for most of those spots. That combined with Brock Bowers, Jacobi Myers is a decent player. Their offensive infrastructure, I think, is okay. It's not in a terrible spot. And I know that's maybe not the sexiest answer,

but if I was trying to find a silver lining, that's probably what it would be for me. Do you ever clean out like an old person's house and you're just about to do it and you're like, holy crap, like this thing is going to be disgusting? And then you end up finding like three pirate gold pieces that they were just had around for no reason.

And like, I think that's what the Raiders are. And I think that there's going to be like a couple of these guys that a new coach comes in and they're like, I actually really want to work with these players. Like they threw Isaiah Polamau into meaningful snaps like halfway through his third season this year. And he was making impact plays, you know. And so, okay, you know, it could be worse. It could be a lot worse. And I think we always narrativize this. I think that, you know, when you make a decision to hire Antonio Pierce because he didn't hire Rich Besachia, you're going to run into some problems there.

but I think you can get this thing back on track relatively quickly, but it all starts with the quarterback position, and you can't depend on Gardner-Minchu, and you can't. But, like, this team is missing so much talent, and they have been scrappy. Like, they've been, like, a fumble away from scoring a game-winning, game-tying touchdown against the Chiefs a couple weeks ago.

Like, this is, there's something here. There has to be, right? Are you operating under the assumption that the head coach is going to be going to be? at the end of the season. I mean, so all of my instincts tell me yes. I think a lot of people in the industry are penciling it in. Are there still some people who are like, watch out?

Yes, but I mean, I don't know what the long-term thing is here. I think the interesting thing and I think the important thing to remember here is that I would not pencil in like Patriot way. Like, I don't think that's the way that Tom Brady wants to go. And it's certainly not the way that Mark Davis wants to go. I think he's had a snoot full of that with Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler and that whole thing. It's a tough sell. It's a really tough sell.

And a lot, because you know, you just hear people talking now about like, well, Tom Brady's going to hire Mike Vrable. No, he's not. Like, that's not going to happen. I really don't think that's going to happen. But I would say, like, whatever, my New York Times needle, I'm leaning yes, right? So I'm leaning yes on that job. That's where I sit right now, too. I think the thing that would give me pause about the entire situation,

is how they got to Telesco and now the fact that that's what you're operating under, and they're probably not going to move on from him after one year. I just think that kind of the mish-mashed way that this was all thrown together, that would concern me if I was a head coach walking into that situation. I would say the only thing about that is the contracts there, I believe, are set up to be moved on from. So, like, you could, I think they're a little bit easier to get out of than some of your typical HCGM deals.

Next one here. I didn't have one for this, and I'm curious what yours is. Seriously, this is the Cleveland Browns, and I was trying to find one. I was like, all right, what is the actual positive spin that you can put on this Browns season? Here's why it's harder for the Browns, in my opinion, than any of these other teams. The Browns don't have young, cost-controlled talent that they drafted, because the Browns haven't had any draft picks over the last three years. Like, if I'm trying to come up with one, it might be what Cedric Tillman. and Jerry Judy have looked like with competent quarterback play, I guess that's an answer.

But other than that, I couldn't scrounge one up because of where this team sits right now. When they traded for Deshaun Watson, you know, I wrote this thing about like, what happens if he's bad because he's seen a Vic Fangio style defense once in his career before he stopped that long pause and he had a 50% completion rate. And now he's going to come back to an NFL where that's all that people are running. So what happens if he doesn't adjust to that? What happens when Brian Callahan's son, or Bill Callahan's son gets a head coaching job and takes the best offensive line coach in the NFL away? What happens when, you know, by the time you're ready to compete Nick Chubb is 28, you know, what happened, you know, and everyone was like, you're just a hater.

And it's like, no, this could go pretty bad. And it has. My, I, it's just such like, it's so bad now. And I guess my one silver lining is, and this cool idea that I, constructed in my head is that you could probably get a decent haul by trading Kevin Stafansky and promoting Mike Vrable. That's interesting. Because for a lot of reasons, like Vrable could handle the tear down and the buildup.

He would have the equity to do it because Ohio people love Ohio people. He's from Ohio. He wants to maybe coach and stay in Ohio. Everybody in the building likes him. You know, you could maybe he's had a, he has a relationship with Deshawn Watson. so you could legitimize trying to run that out one more time. And you could get, I mean, head coaching trades are pretty lucrative right now. Like, you could get some of the Deshaun Watson stuff back for Kevin Stefansky.

If you were a team that was in the head coaching market, what would you give up for Kevin Stefansky? Like, I would give up a one. What's the going right now for coaching trades? What was the Sean Payton trade? The Saints got a one and a two the following year, and the Saints sent back a three. Okay, so you get a one and a two. I would give up a one and a two. Like if you're the Cowboys, I would give up a one and a two for Kevin Stifansky.

You think the Cowboys would trade a first and second round pick for Kevin Stifansky? You're insane. I don't think they would. I think they should. Like, Kevin Stavansky's really good. That's why this whole thing is just so frustrating to watch from afar, where you have this guy who has put together capable teams with mess a quarterback, four offensive tackles, and because you've tied yourself to this quarterback and because you've

had to make decisions to try to get the most out of this guy over the last two years, you've essentially taken the offensive system and the things that this head coach likes and has been successful with. You've thrown them in the trash can and started over with an entire new offensive staff. And now what are you? Like, you're this thing that makes absolutely no sense when you consider the component parts of it, but you've painted yourself into a corner where you really have no other options. Right.

I mean, Miles Garrett's post, you know, kind of rounding into the, and he could have like a T.J. Waddy and or a J.J. Waddy end to his career and be very impactful until the end, and he might, you know, but, you know, this is like Joe Thomas aged out this way, too. Just a Hall of Fame left tackle with just nothing to write home about in terms of postseason success because of the organization around him. And so that's kind of what you're looking at. But if you're Andrew Barry, the only way to get out of this is to make an equally insane move to recap, recoup some of the draft capital that you spent on Deshaun Watson and to install like a, you know, a coach who can handle a total and complete burned out. Like, do you think Kevin Savansky wants to sit through this?

Like, if you're Kevin Stefansky and you're like, you could either, like if start over somewhere else rather than have to endure whatever the next year or so is going to look like, I don't, I don't think that there are. totally barren in terms of the talent on that team. I think that the way the defense has played this year and just whatever vibes are coming off of that team right now, I just don't like. And typically I would throw that at the feet of the head coach and to people in charge there. But everything there has just been such a mess over the last year that I just don't necessarily know where the buck stops with specifically the way the defense is playing right now.

Yeah. And again, you could come in and you could have a, you, you, You could be a head coach. Like, let's say you decided to completely move on from Deshawn Watson and just nuke that thing off the face of the earth and just decide that we're never going to talk about it again. And, you know, you could have a, like, a big bounce back second year just by virtue of the vibes are probably better. It feels like less of a hellscape. You know, you're still, you have a good defense. You have okay personnel there.

You could win some games you're not supposed to on pick sixes and fumble recovery stuff. like that. But I just don't, I don't see the big, like, long-term Paul D. Podesta picture here, you know. Yeah. What happens there this offseason? Who has jobs at the end of it and which direction they choose to go to me is one of the more fascinating questions about the next two months of the NFL. And until we get those answers, I don't think that there's a lot of, there's not, it's not that productive to speculate about how this is all going to look. But when we do, I'm very excited to have those discussions. If they trade, I'm offering the Kevin Stafansky trade to them as an idea.

Here it is. You could take it. It's not the worst idea because they do need to recoup some of that draft capital in a big way. Let's get to our next one. The Tennessee Titans, your silver lining for the 2024 Titan season is what? This one is harder for me than the Browns, if I'm being honest. Because, you know, all these teams, like there's so many of these teams in the back half where it's like, well, you got to get the quarterback right. But at this point last year, we knew that we were walking into possibly like a really

deep, rich quarterback draft class. And maybe the unknown in the quarterback class erases over time because these guys have so many reps and they're going to start coming out 25, 24 years old and they're all going to look a little bit more like Bo Nicks by week three. Possibly, right? But, you know, the decision-making process that led to the point where you wanted to get to. You get another eval on Will Levis, and you wanted to sign Tony Pollard and Calvin Ridley to big deals. Like, you talk about, like, when has that ever worked? Like, when has that ever worked? Like, that idea. So my problem with it in the moment. Everything they did in terms of how they spent resources this offseason, it's like, what is the Chidobia Woozier contract combined with the

Calvin Ridley deal? To what end is this all happening? And I think we do not have a good answer on that 11 weeks into the season. And it's just, you know, if you were the GM, you put yourself in a bad spot because you got, I mean, this team got rid of John Robinson and Mike Vrable. Like, this is good guys who were really good at their jobs, right? And, you know, you were promising something different, something younger, something better, but then you didn't go youth movement. You know, you went with some of these guys who were just sucking up valuable space on the

roster where these guys could be developing and growing. I mean, you know, you can point to a couple. young players. You're like, okay, you know, those are some arrow up ascending guys. But I really, like, again, I would, I find it harder to find something positive about this job than I do the Brown's job. And this is all, everything about these things is connected, right? So the Titans have to go out and spend all, they don't have to. The Titans choose to go out and spend all that money this offseason because they're looking at the roster and saying, we don't have enough talent. Not surprising when you look at the last three drafts before this regime took over. When you have your Isaiah

Wilson's and Caleb Fairlies and Traylon Berks's and a second round pick on Willis, Dylan Raidens, Nicholas Petit Frere, a third round pick on Malik Willis. All of those guys are not contributing to what you are right now. But to go out and sign a bunch of players that were 28, 29 years old, and Algeria Sneed's a 27-year-old corner who's, I think, going to age a little bit faster than you want him to, I just don't, never understood that plan. So I think that they've put themselves in an unnecessarily difficult position just by virtue of the moves that they made this off season.

This is supposed to be a positive conversation. If I'm spinning it that way, I think my silver lining for this team right now is that the defense is what you wanted it to be when you went out and hired DeNard Wilson to be your defensive coordinator. This is a group that has hovered around the top 10, top 12-ish,

if you look at a lot of advanced metrics, and they've done it without the best luck in the world. Legerius Sneed has missed the past five games. Chidobia Wuzzi has been on IR for most of the season, and you're still getting workable play from your defense, in part because a guy like Jarvis Brownlee, who you drafted in the fifth round, has had some nice flashes.

Devandre Sweat has played very well next to Jeffrey Simmons. So I do think the defensive infrastructure and some of the younger pieces you have and some of the foundational pieces you have, I'm excited about what that can look like over the next couple years with the right guys involved. But other than that, I think it's hard to spin a lot of what's happened with the offense

and a lot of what's happened with your offseason moves, positively 11 weeks into the year. Yeah, I mean, I thought, and again, you talk about bad luck. Like if you went back to the beginning of the season and you didn't have Will Levis as your quarterback and you almost had anybody else, like someone who literally just wouldn't have turned around and thrown the ball to an opponent and let them walk it into the end zone, you would have a couple more wins. You might have upset the Jets earlier in the season.

The vibe might be a little bit different. you'd just be like this young, spunky team, but you didn't get those games because, you know, you were kind of giving yourself the gap year with the quarterback. But has that, has this strange kind of gap year cost you in a lot of ways? And I think it has. I think it absolutely has because it's easy to say, that's year one. You know, these guys in year one, they've got a long leash. I don't necessarily think all owners look at it that way. And I think that what you do in year one goes a long way in setting expectations for the fan base and in building up equity for yourself as a staff, right? And there can be a bad outcome here.

You can win too many games, put yourself in a bad spot, not be able to draft the quarterback if that's what you're trying to do, et cetera. But I think that there's a middle ground to be found where you're instilling some trust and faith in what you're building moving forward while never getting ahead of yourself. And I don't think the Titans have done a great job at number one in that sequence this year. So what someone pointed this out to me like when I was going up and down some of the teams and just having them evaluate them. And it's just like what what are the Titans? Like really, like what are they?

And there's a great question. And I don't know. And there are some bad teams that you can point to and be like, like I kind of know what the Panthers are. And we think we definitely know what the Patriots are. We can say like this is what this team is about. This is where they're going. This is what they're built around. With the Titans, it's just like we knew what they were under.

able. We knew what they were supposed to be. What are they? What are they supposed to be? And this was the year to kind of find that out. And I don't think that we left the season any more certain, or we're leaving the season any more certain than when we started. I would totally agree with that. And I think if you had one indictment of this year, it's this, yeah, maybe you're walking into it. I think their over under was like five and a half wins or something like that. There wasn't a lot of faith for what you were going to do in the win-loss column. But you hope coming out of your one of a new regime, you have an answer to that question. And I'm with you with the Titans.

I do not think that we have one. Stick in the AFC South with our last one here. Is there a silver lining for you for the 2024 Jaguar season? Yes. But it involves like almost everybody that's in charge has to leave. But then after that, I think it's good, right? Like Brian Thomas was excellent in spots this year. Like you hit on, you got, it was like the fifth wide receiver,

fourth wide receiver taken and he was still awesome, right? That's good. Trevor Lawrence, in certain situations, looks awesome and I think has looked his best this year, especially in the game where he lost Kristen Kirk and Brian Thomas in a matter of a couple of drives, and all he had was Evan Ingram, and I thought that was the best he looked all year. So, yeah, I mean, you have the quarterback, you have some surrounding talent. Did Trent Balke build the best Jaguars roster of all time? not even close, but there's enough there.

Like, I think that this is, if I'm a head coach in Canada, I'm like, this is maybe my A job or my B job in terms of what I'm looking out at. And I like a lot of things about this. The division's right. Like, everything is good to me. That is probably my answer, is that if you're a head coach, this might be the number one job on the board. If you look at the Cowboys situation and you have reservations about the leadership there.

If they fire Trent Balke, I think. this becomes potentially the number one job on the board i think if you get like a powerhouse interior defensive lineman here this defense becomes awesome uh i think it's like one good interior player away from being a really good defense i think that it's it's very close and i think that what has to happen is that chad con needs to divorce himself from this idea of i mean look we've gone from having a good thing going to the a fc championship game to them bringing in tom coflin uh to going to Urban Meyer, to go into Doug Peterson. Like, you have to stop listening to these people that are telling you how to get to the

mountaintop and just hire, like, a dynamic young MFer who's going to let it rip. And that'll be fine. Like, you'll be good. This team will be really good. I know that there's been consternation about what Trevor Lawrence is. When you're looking at head coaching openings and you, the biggest question is who the quarterback is going to be. Trevor Lawrence is a very fine answer for who is my quarterback going to be if you're

a head coach in the NFL. You have that. You have Brian Thomas. You have weapons on offense. You're going to have to replace several offensive linemen this offseason. Your left tackle is a concern. I believe Brandon Shurf, his contract is up after this year. So there's still work to do there.

And there's always going to be work to do when you're potentially en route to being the worst team in the NFL. But I think some of the bones of this thing, including the quarterback, is going to be attractive to whoever is going to take this job if you decide to move on from the general manager. That that, that to me is like one of the necessary component parts of all of this. Yeah. And will they? I don't know. But I think that if the Jets can, like, it's so funny, like, how fast we rationalize things just to keep our brain from exploding. And everyone today, like, already, like, an hour after Joe Douglas is fired. It's like, well, his record was kind of bad. And it's like, we can already do that, but we can't get ourselves to the point if in Jacksonville being like, yeah, Trent Balky shouldn't be here. Like, this is. What is the argument for him keeping the job outside of like some misguided nod to continuity? I don't know. I really, I really, I really, don't know. I don't have a good answer. There wasn't a good answer last time. There wasn't a good answer coming out of the Urban Meyer firing about why he should have kept that job. The best player on your team is still one that was drafted by Dave Caldwell in 2019. The best non-Trever

Lawrence player on your team. You don't get any kudos for drafting Trevor Lawrence. There's no, no. You don't get any sort of, you know, there's no, no, there's no, there's no, there's Pat on the back for landing the number one pick in a year where Trevor Lawrence was available, and you use the number one pick on Trevor Lawrence. But I'm with you. I think that there is a world where this is a fairly attractive job opening. And I think if you can get the right guy, then this could turn around in a way that I think is faster than people anticipate. We're going to take one more quick break.

And then we're going to get back with this week's ball and over. And we're going to get out of here. All right. So we do this on all the midweek shows for people who are unfamiliar. Three questions. First question. What is something that you know you know, 11 weeks into the NFL season.

Okay. So as I read the prompt, I know that I know that the Detroit Lions are probably the best team that I've seen of my life, like my covering my NFL lifetime. Like, I don't think I've seen another team. You know you know that? I know that as of right now 11 weeks into the season. But the Detroit Lions are the answer to all of these questions because I know that I know that, but I have also never seen something get to this point this early in the seat, relatively early in the season and this quickly.

And now I'm trying to figure out like what does the rest of this look like, you know? That's what's really interesting to me. So you think that the Lions 11 weeks into the year like better than the 07 Patriots in your mind? I'm saying in my NFL covering lifetimes. So that's 2010 to this point. This is the best team that I've ever seen through 11 weeks of a football season. What makes you say that? Because I think some of the numbers would agree with you, by the way.

There are people who are going to think this is insane. But if you look at what they're doing to teams and if you look at some of the advanced metrics, they are in the conversation with the juggernaut teams that we have seen over the last couple decades. just for context. I think that's important to acknowledge. That's true. And also, I just think like the micro moments where every single moment where this team has struggled either on a very small scale, someone has made a catastrophic in-game mistake

or on a larger scale when you have a critical player that's been injured, nothing hinges on one person. Nothing matters when one person goes. and I think that you've done something that I don't think we've seen any team be able to do. And that is install like an almost unshakable confidence in Jared Gaffu. If you talk to people before that were on the field during the Rams Patriot Super Bowl, they were like, this poor kid is horrified right now. Like he just looks like.

I walked off the field. I walked down the tunnel with him that day. And those are the vibes coming off of it. I mean, that that is what it felt like after that game was over. He threw five picks in 36 minutes and then came out and had like one of the four best games of the NFL season. And even in some of those games like the Vikings game, you go back to it. And the series where he misses a big shot throw that Ben Johnson builds in, Dan Campbell goes right back to him on the next drive and allows him to try a risky third and mid to try to set up a game-winning field goal.

This team transcends all the hokey platitudes that I've ever seen before. And I've never seen anything like it. Like it really is like spectacular. Here is all you need to know about my unshakable confidence of what the Lions are right now. When we were going to have the Giants conversation, I didn't say this in the moment, but I think it's worth bringing up now. My first thought about the Brian Burns trade, even if it's like, all right, Brian Burns has been good for them. Brian Burns has been a productive player. I thought, would the Lions have done that?

would the Lions have traded a second round pick for Brian Burns? Yeah. Or would they have spread that money out to three different guys in free agency and then use the second round pick on a guy that they would have brought along at the right pace and eventually gotten their bang for their buck on four players instead of one? I mean, what the Lions have done for me has exposed this idea. Like, you know, I was talking to some of the players on the team before the season started, And they were like, yeah.

Dan Campbell signed me and he called me on the phone and he mentioned a route that I ran in a game in which I did not catch a pass. But he was like third and ten against the Ravens and you did this thing and it looked really cool. And I don't know why he didn't throw you the ball, but it looked good. You know, that's what we're at. That's the standard, right? And then there's these other teams that are just like, Brian Burns is probably pretty good. Like we should just get him. But like, why?

Why is he good? Why do you need him? why does he help, right? What are you really building? Are you building a team full of players that people's names they recognize, or are you building a football team at the right pace and the right way with the right pieces? Right. And I think that the Lions, if we've learned anything, it's that there's a lot of value in making

sure you're being intentional and thoughtful about all the steps that go into that. And I've just, I haven't seen it done in this way and in a way that doesn't feel like, like the Legion of Boom was close, but it was so, it was such a powder keg that was eventually. actually going to explode. And also, think about all the things that needed to fall into place for you to do that, right? That only works because you get Bobby Wagner in the second round. You get Russell Wilson at a time where Russell Wilson would never be a third round pick anymore, just based on what we do with quarterbacks, all of that.

Like, you needed a couple breaks for that to happen. You needed a transcendent, transformative draft class. The Lions haven't really had that, right? They've drafted well, but I don't think that there are these couple breaks that point to how this was all possible. I think it's been very considered all the way around. And what player is going to get like too big for his own, you know, self to explode the team in some way like, you know, Penae Sewell, I was talking to him before the season and like his grand aspirations post NFL are like to procure a big swath of farmland and just to like grow fruits and vegetables. So it's like, these are the guys. Like this is the team.

It's so cool. I love it. Love it. What is something you think you know, 11. weeks into the NFL season. So I think that it can be sustainable. And I think that we can see this team doing this for a semi long period of time. That's what I think.

And that to me is the big mystery because I think the proof of concept is there. I think we've seen them do it. And I don't know if I'm like totally wrecking the segment by having the two of these things attached together. I love it. I love it. is that I think that it can be sustainable because it avoids, I think, a lot of the typical team building Pratt falls that a lot of these other clubs fall into. And unless Dan Campbell becomes like a caricature of himself and stops watching film and

stops carrying and stops putting his hands in the engine, then, you know, it can always go off the rails. But this is one of those things that it's like, okay, yeah, I think, I think this could work for a very long time. They lose both coordinators this offseason, which I think is, if not a certainty, than a strong likelihood. How do you feel when that happens? I love Tanner Inström.

If they can keep him, then I, you know, is anybody Ben Johnson? He's a passing game coordinator for people who are not familiar with his name. And I think it's kind of been considered the heir apparent there when Ben Johnson moves on. Correct. And you hear a lot of great things about him. I mean, so the way that this thing, this whole thing is built, like even going down to and you talk to people in Minnesota, for example, and it's like, what makes that defense so good and it's like well because the players call it right they understand it and it's kind of theirs it's it

brian floors is doing a good job but it's it belongs to the players when dan campbell got the job he called like the offensive line and was like who should i hire is the offensive line coach like who do you guys want you know and they're like you should keep hank fraily because he's awesome and so he did you know and so i think that we just it's so crazy that it's not run this way everywhere everywhere else but it's run this way in detroit and so i think it can be sustained. And that's in a big and a small picture, right? They've had so many massive, gigantic, emotional high wire games already this season and they've had so many big things happen. I don't see them tiring from this or running out of gas, but that's sort of like the other thing

that I think, right? I think they can keep this going. But we have not seen a team like just destroy people like 2013 Alabama. Like this is awesome, you know? Yeah, I have my doubts about what it will look like when they lose the coordinators. Just because we've seen this movie before. Even if you think the infrastructure is really solid, even if you think that it feels unshakable in the moment and they have the right people to take over for this. I do think that you can make a really strong argument

that Ben Johnson is like a special coach and just the way that they've built this thing and the details all of it. But I think that because the personnel is so sound and because that part seems so unshakable, I have more faith in whoever the next person is to take over this thing where you could just kind of put the key back in the ignition and you're going to get 90% of it. I still think that that's a tougher needle to thread than you want it to be when you move on from McGali, Ben Johnson, but I'm not writing it off as like an impossibility. Last one, something you still want to know 11 weeks into the year.

And I think that that's sort of the thing. It's like, I still want to know if this is replicatable in other places, if it's replicatable beyond a year where you have everybody completely, emotionally dialed in, you know, and I'm, I want to know what the true ripple effects will be for this. Because, you know, everybody's like, well, we got to, you know, when teams are good, you try to build like those teams. But this is the first time that a team has been built that, like, not that anyone could do, but that it's far less daunting than go find an alien from outer space who just happened

to come down to Earth and be available at the 10th overall pick in the draft to play quarterback. for you, right? Like, that for years has been the idea and the story behind it. Dan Campbell's like, you know, let's press all the right buttons at exactly the same time. Let's find all the people who pass this crazy psychological exam of my own making, right? But I think that this is a more sustainable and replicatable plan than anything else that's out there right now, right? Like, and let's see, I would love to know if someone could just study. this and do it because I don't think it's that hard to empower your personnel people and to find a smart coach.

Like there's a lot of these guys that are out there. Like couldn't you do this again? Couldn't some other team do this? I think that this is going to be an ongoing discussion that extends into the offseason. But I think that it's important to start that conversation right now. And we'll do this as like a little precursor to our coach discussion. The fact that if you look at the list that you made and if you talk to people in the coaching industry about who are going to be at the top of these conversations.

there aren't a lot of Dan Campbell types. We're still fishing in the same places we've typically fished in before. And I think that it, I'm curious what the reframing of that discussion looks like. Because if I look around the league right now and I think about the best coaching jobs we've seen in 2024, it's Dan Campbell, it's Mike Tomlin, it's Jim Harbaugh, right? It's these culture guys. And I know that it only works in Detroit if you have the offensive and you have the offensive coach. And that's why teams are still going to be seeking this out because you still need

that as a component piece if you're going to get over the hump. But watching a team play the way the Lions play or play the way the Steelers play or play the way the Chargers are playing right now and how hard that is to pull off. Like we said, like how can you talk to those 53 guys and get them to believe that they can achieve anything while understanding that you still don't have all the answers? It's a very difficult job. But trying to find the right person to do that and have that be the secret sauce, I think that we should be more apt to seeking that out than we have been over the last few years.

and including this cycle based on how it seems like it's going. I agree. Yeah. I'm, I just, it's been so much fun. Like, we have not, we've had like a front row ticket to this. And how many times have we been promised to rebuild in our lives of some sort of magnitude and have bought into it? I mean, I was a Browns fan for a large period of my football life. And, you know, you just, you know, it's like it happened. We saw it happen.

And how cool is that, you know? It is really cool. And if they could potentially finish it off, I think that it would be a pretty neat ending to the story. Connor are always great to chat with you, sir. We will be doing it again very soon, like we mentioned. Appreciate the time. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, guys, that's all we got.

Sincerely appreciate you spending the time with us. We will be back on Friday doing our Week 12 preview with me and Derek. If you have not checked out the first episode of The Money Down on the Athletic Football Show feed, the first of our four-part series about the business of the NFL. This conversation I had with Dominique Foxworth about the stagnation in the cornerback market and just where corners sit in football culture right now. So if you want to go check that out, I'd highly encourage you to find that wherever you get your podcasts. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening.

We'll talk to you soon.