The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - TAFS Goes Camping: Conversations with The Athletic's Seahawks, Falcons and Ravens beat writers

Episode Date: August 2, 2025

Robert Mays began the previous week in Seattle. He ended it in New York, by way of the southeast and mid-Atlantic. So, yeah, he's been around a bit. Robert checks in with Michael-Shawn Dugar, Josh Kendall and Jeff Zrebiec—the Athletic's beat writers for the Seahawks, Falcons, Ravens and Eagles, respectively—on this edition of the Beat Writer Notebook. What's the ceiling for the very good Seahawks defense? What are the expectations for Michael Penix in his first season as the starter? How do the Ravens finally get over the hump? Learn the answers to those questions, and a whole lot more, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)4:27 Seattle Seahawks41:36 Atlanta Falcons1:07:14 Baltimore RavensHost: Robert MaysWith: Michael-Shawn Dugar, Josh Kendall, Jeff Zrebiec, Brooks KubenaExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Michael-Shawn on X: @MikeDugarFollow Josh on X: @JoshTheAthleticFollow Jeff on X: @jeffzrebiecTheme 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 Mayes. It is our next beat writer notebook here on the feed today. We actually have two of them coming your guys away today, one today, one tomorrow. We had so many conversations. We're going to have so many conversations coming over the next couple of weeks that felt like it was just easiest to split this into two shows. Today, three conversations, three great conversations with a few of our beatwriters.

First off, it's Michael Sean Duggar, our Seahawks writer at The Athletic, who does a phenomenal job covering that team. I really love talking to Michael Sean about football. And that team has a ton of intrigue, new quarterback, new offensive coordinator, how the scheme will affect the offensive line, whether that can hold up its end of the bargain with an ascending young defense. Also chat with our Falcons writer at the athletic, Josh Kendall, about what the Michael Pennix era may look like, a new defensive coordinator in Atlanta, whether they can get the most out of some of their young defensive pieces. And we also chat with our Ravens writer at the Athletic Jeff Zerebec.

Ravens are a tough team to talk about this time of year. You're talking nitpicky type things when it comes to their personnel. Who's the third safety going to be? Who's going to win the left guard battle? This is a team that has been one of the best teams in football over the last couple of years and just struggles to break through at the end. So what are we looking for at this time of year? And what is Jeff focusing on as he's thinking about how the Ravens can potentially get over the hump?

Really enjoyed these conversations. Hope you guys do as well. Joining us now, it is our Seahawks writer at the athletic Michael Sean Duggar. Mike Sean, how you doing, man? I'm doing great, man. I always love talking to you. I'm happy to be here, excited to be here. It's an interesting team.

I was talking to, you know, one of the local writers earlier today, just talking about expectations and how we're looking at this team. And, you know, the defense, there's stuff to talk about. And I think the ceiling of that group is really intriguing and could drive a lot of their success. But we kind of know what's going on. Like, the scheme is the same. 10 of 11 starters are back. You know, you have a couple small things changing.

But on the offensive side, I was talking to my friend Minaikam's yesterday. And we're talking about expectations on offense for the season. And I said, if they were the 12th best offense in the league, I could believe that, right? If everything kind of comes together, if the scheme hits, if they were the 28th best offense in the league, I would also believe that. And it's just such a wide range. It's probably one of the widest ranges of any offense in the league. So we've been at camp for three, four days now.

Obviously, not a ton to go on. But your initial impressions thought about the plan on that side of the ball and how it all could potentially come together. Yeah. I'm not as big on gambling as. much anymore, like table games and stuff like that, because I have kids now. I'm expecting my second kid here literally any, any minute. And I bring that up to say they're rolling the dice quite a bit on offense, perhaps more than any other team in the league in terms of one offseason

overhaul, changing QB1, which is already big in itself, changing arguably Y-Receiver 1 with D.K. Metcalf, and then you get rid of Tile Lockett as well, who wasn't necessarily Y Receiver 1 or 2, but to this franchise, that's a very big transaction. A mainstay. Yeah, that's a huge move. He's a safety blanket, you know, third down guy. You can rely on him to get rid of all of that in one offseason and say we're going to get better. That's quite the dice roll. I've done that. That's a parlay. The Seahucks around like a four or five leg parlay and then those can hit. And like you said, you can be really good. You can cash out. And then if it goes bad, you can be real bad, you know. And I think the other part, why it's such a dice roll. Because inherently those moves aren't risky is who you replace them with. Now, if you tell me I'm swapping Sam Donald in for Gino, Smith, and I'm swapping Marquez Valdez Scantling as my deep guy because I got rid of DK. And I'm getting rid of Tyler at age 32, I believe he is, and bringing in 31-year-old Cooper Cup. Who's not really 31?

Yeah. You think about the mileage on his body and the way that he's played over the last 10 years. It's very different. Yeah. I've been watching Cooper Cup since college. I went to Washington State. He went to Easton. So it feels like I've been watching Cup for most of my adult life.

That is very risky to say, let's do all that and get better, you know, and we're not going to change much up front. You just swapping out Lakin Tomlinson for a gray's able rookie who played an FCS level. We're not even talking about swapping for some guy who was like a stud at Bama, you know, it's quite the risk. And I believe that there's a little bit of arrogance in doing all of that and saying we're going to, we're just going to be better. We're going to go to the Super Bowl. We're just going to bring in Clint Kubiak. He's going to bring in this scheme, you know, I do think scheme matters quite a bit in offense. But I do think at the end of the day, you got to have guys that can execute. There's no scheme really to overcome that, you know,

particularly up front. You look at all these rankings preseason everywhere. The Seahawks feel disrespected because this position group isn't ranked here or whatever. That's fine. But you can't really lie when someone had, like Brandon Thorne has the Seahawks, I believe, is his 29th best OLA. I had them as the worst supporting cast on offense in the NFC when we did those rankings. And I didn't expect that.

Like when I was coming into it, I wasn't like, oh, this team's a disaster. They'll be dead last. But I think the group was very strong overall. But then you actually look at it. It's like, there are so many questions here. You're like, I don't understand how I'm supposed to push them that much further up this list. Like, they're in the bottom tier, even if they're not 16th. And I was a little bit surprised by that, but when I actually thought about it, I was like, yeah, this is justified.

Yeah. And Seahawk fans will disagree largely because they're looking at it through these, like, rose-colored glasses. And they see the best version of every possible scenario. Of course. It's, what if Elijah Royo pops and he's better than Noah fan, you know, right off a rip? What if Cooper Cups still has some juice left? What if Jackson's basically as good as all these other wide receivers from Ohio State? He's basically Terry McLaurin good.

You know, he's basically Amon Ra good from the, from the slot. What if Sam Donald could just be what he was last year? What if the O line is a step above because of the scheme? What if Abe Lucas healthy? Like there's all these what ifs, again, it's a parlay. If all of these things hit, then you're walking to the cage super happy with a grin because he's about to get you all this money. But if only one or two of those things goes wrong, which is why comparing it to the parlay,

you're broke. You lose everything. Like they're counting on not just one or two things to go well. You're asking about five or six maybes to all cash. I think Cooper Cup's a big one of those. I think the free agency was kind of diluted this year because as it is generally, because you get, teams get scared when the team that knows a guy best lets him walk. You know, that's typically pretty alarming.

And in Cooper Cup's case, I think that's pretty relevant to say, Sean McVeigh's watched the best of this guy. He's watched his work ethic. He's watched everything. And he was like, nah, nah, let's go try and get Devante. Now, that's a great upgrade. But there was no guarantee they could get Devonte. They were just like, maybe we can upgrade.

Maybe we can't. But we just know this guy's not even worth being our number two. Not just building around him. You could build around Puka and just make him the two. They were like, nah, he's not even worth that. Now, McVeigh could be wrong. He's been wrong before. But I do think that's the other danger here is that they didn't just, they made moves.

They changed names, but I'm not sure they got better. And that's tricky in this division, which I'm still. believe it's good. Let's talk about the moves individually. You and I have discussed this. I want to refresh this conversation. We don't have to linger on it, but just for people who maybe haven't heard us talk about this, just the idea of going from Gino to Sam and why they thought that was in the best long-term interest of the franchise. What would you tell people who maybe don't know as much about the details about their thinking? Yeah, Gino wanted to be here, and they wanted Gino here. But I think there's a caveat to both of those sentences. Gino wanted to be here at a certain price.

they won a Gino's stay at a certain price. And those numbers did not align. And they were like, we can move on without you. You know, Clint Kubiak said when he took the job, said, I took it part to coach Gino. Yeah. You know, and I don't think he was lying. In February before the trade, Mike McDonald said, I believe we can win a Super Bowl with Gino Smith.

I don't believe Mike McDonald to be a liar. I've only known him a little bit. But I believe that. I believe that from him. But they just, the business got in the way. The business got in the way. And they think that Sam Darno can. be as good as Gino Smith was in this scheme in particular.

I think marrying Kubiak and Sam together was very important. Like if it was just Ryan Greb and Sam Donald, that it just, I don't know, maybe we should just pay Gino, use some void years. Let's call Holly Roseman to figure out how we can work the cat. You know, that's John Snyder's boy. But they like Gino. They believe they could go to the promised land with Gino if they supported him properly.

The money just didn't line up. And now they feel like, shoot, man, Sam's got a big arm. Sam's athletic. Sam's, if we support Sam like how we should have supported Gino, we can get there. I think there's some arrogance to that again. I'm a big Gino guy. I just think Gino's combination of accuracy, toughness, and decision-making is just really, really good on a play-by-play basis. You know, Gino's 20 worst plays are bad.

No, so are Sam's. And Gino's 20 best plays, you'd be like, well, that might be the best player in the league if you didn't know any better. So it's a risk. There's arrogance on their part, I think. confidence maybe is the more objective word to use there. But they believe San can get them there, but they believe that about Gino as well. It's a really good way to frame Gino because the 20 plays are bad, the 20 bad, but that's the exact same thing with Sam. And we don't have to relitigate all of this. I'm on the exact same boat as you are here. I think that this scheme

with Gino, I was interested in seeing that. I think you could have done a lot of the things they did this off season and just kept Gino as the quarterback. But this idea of, okay, we're seeing it through those color glasses and all these specific instances. This notion that we got seven years younger quarterback. We maintain more financial flexibility and we get a third round pick and the downgrade is marginal. I'm willing to hear that argument. Yeah, me too. So let's just put

that aside for now and accept that that might be how this works out. And then we go to the Ryan Grub with Sam Donald would have been a different situation. Now we get into, in my opinion, how the offensive line can potentially lift the scheme. Because they didn't do it ton. So you go and get Gray's able and then you have the same kind of

trio of young players fighting out the right guard spot and then April League was just healthy. I think that the line probably would have been better no matter what personnel wise. But when you add a scheme that is now designed to protect the offensive line, I'm willing to concede that it might be a very different situation in terms of how those guys are being set up for success this year, even if the talent still isn't overwhelming. Yeah, I thought Ryan Grub was doing an interesting thing with his O line last year.

It was a lot of my guys are just better than your guys. Which was not true. No, it wasn't. And he didn't adjust later. You know, he tried to be flexible, you know, make it game plan specific, which I do feel like is important, but that also kind of came with a college mindset. Because in college, as you know, you watch college ball, they might have a freshman, registered freshman inside backer on the field. It could be a good team, but that dude, you can just run at him all day. You know, we see that in the NFL sometimes.

Or do you play a team in college? Oh, man, that weak size safety is flat-footed. We're just going to bomb it with Michael Pennix today, and we'll score 40 points. Can't do that in the NFL. There's some weak leaks, but you can't do that. that. And I do think this scheme does protect the O line a little bit. It's in this, Mike McDonald made a good point I hadn't thought of. It's easier to rep this padless. I think you can get the reps better because of what you're doing versus running like power. Yeah. It's about it's about it's about it's about

it's about rhythm. It's about rhythm and timing. And so it's actually the movements in conjunction with one another actually how you rep it. So that does make sense, but I hadn't thought about that either. I hadn't thought about it. So Mike McDonald said it. I think this was at the owner's meetings or something. And he was like, yeah, we can just get more reps at it. and build, like you said, the rhythm of it. And I was like, wow, that, you still got to block the guy in front of you, but it's a lot easier to do that. Everyone take the same step.

Everyone run off the ball. You know, your tight ends get the rhythm of playing next to your tackle versus, man, if we're just trying to hit the A-Gap hard, we can't really do that until, you know, June or July 29th, there's something like that. But I do think what I've been trying to remind people is, because, you know, Robert, last, when they hired Clint Kubiak, they're going to the Saints. Everyone's like, let's watch the Saints film because that's where Kubiak was. I'm like, wow, look all these points they scored before their O-line kind of fell apart physically.

I say, before they fell apart physically, go watch the Eagles game. You know, that's the Eagles game in like week three. Couldn't move the ball. Couldn't move the ball. They lost like 15 to 12 or something like that. That was a fairly healthy O-line, fairly healthy. Alave played, car played. Why couldn't they?

In part because they played Fangio. You know, Fangio knows how to do. Stop Wide Zone. Yeah. Go watch. And play action. That's like truly the benchmarks of the defense. Go watch the Bears versus the Rams in 2018.

Sunday night football. You're a Bears fan. I remember that game very well. Yes, that Ram's team was on fire and they could not move the ball. What Belichick do, use the same scheme Super Bowl that scored three points. So the scheme's not foolproof. That's what I say all that to say. You still got to have the horses up front and that's, again, one of these huge questions with this team. As you look at the offensive line, the pieces and how they're going to shake out, who do you think right now wins that right guard job in your mind? I think Christian Haynes. I think he's got the athleticism that you need, fire off the ball. And he's this strong guy. I was really surprised. last year when they took him, I think 81st out of Yukon. He played like six years at

Yukon, COVID gear and everything. And he was a starter, had a bunch of snaps. I watched him on tape. I was like, this guy's good. He's smart. He picks up games really well. He's seen a lot of ball. And I never saw him at issues with power. And then he gets here. And Ryan Grebs like, yeah, he doesn't have play strength. I'm like, wow, really? You know, I was so confused, but, you know, I never played football. So I deferred to the coaches. But even then I did an interview with Brandon Thorne in the offseason. He said the same things. Like, I don't know. I watched his tape. He wasn't great, but he wasn't getting bullied, you know, every week.

So I think that he does have the play strength. I do think that this, he's a really good athlete. He's a very good athlete, very smart guy. That's why they're trying him out of center as well. I do think his ceiling might be a little low because he's not like, he's not that true mauler. You don't want, like you watch Mikey Beckton last year. Sure. You're just moving guys off the pill.

But I do think he's a starting caliber right guard. Thought that when they took him, thought that all last year. And I think that now, I do think that helps because, Robert, last year, they took the, they took their right competition into like week eight. Listen, I remember watching it in real time and I remember being frustrated about it through the entire year. And that it's important to concede. The offensive line did gel better in the back half of the year when Abe Lucas was healthy.

But there were a lot of stretches last season where it was hard to watch. Yeah. And that backstretch, they had Saltau Laoméa, six-round pick every week. You know, it's just, I understand competition. is everything. I can't repeat Carol, just wrote a book about the Seahawks. I understand. Competition. But eventually, you just need five guys up front. And it just really helps if that guy knows him. You know, if he knows, hey, man, if this guy's stances like this, we already know because we talked about it. You shift that way. You help me out. Those little things matter so much. You do the anatomy of a play.

You know, you watch the NFL films of a team Super Bowl run. It's all those little tidbits. It's always that little adjustment, that little piece of chemistry. That makes the difference. And when you don't know who's going to be your guy, let alone in the game, and practice, you know who you're getting the reps with. I think that's a problem. So, and Mike McDonald, I feel like has acknowledged that. He's like, we want to get this settled way earlier. We don't want to be in week four fielding questions on a Wednesday.

Who's going to play right guard this week? That's terrible. You look at the skill position players. I'm curious how you think the roles shake out. Like when their best collection of guys is on the field, who are they and how do they play? Because this team cut no offense like a week ago. Yeah. Right?

And so you have Elijah Arroyo. You have AJ Barner who, going back and watching, my God, I was watching the Cardinals defense last week. And I was trying to find a Cardinals defense game in the back half of the year. And I was like, who's an offense that, you know, like, is a good kind of benchmark. And they didn't have a really good one of those. So I watched the Seahawks Cardinals game again. In Arizona? Yes.

Okay. And having to rewatch the Seahawks offense again. It was awful. Yeah. But the one thing, one of the things that I clobed on to is that A.J. Barner is a really good blocker. And so having him be in that role with Elijah Royal skill set makes sense. So as you're kind of watching them cycle three. what the skill position players are going to look like.

What have you been paying attention to and what are your main questions? Yeah. My main thing is how are they going to make, how are they going to maximize Cup and JSN together? Because there is some skill set overlap there. You go back and watch Cup last year, which I did. He's good at a few things now. He's like high level good at like underneath.

He understands leverage really well. Stuff that when you're a high level receiver, that don't go away. Cooper Cup at 40 is going to be able to like take advantage of bad leverage. You know, he can do that. Now is he going to just beat someone on a goal? Go ball or something like that? Is he the through route on a two route combination? Is he taking the safety off the top?

Probably not at his age. But how is that going to work? Because as much as I love Jackson Smith and Jigba, he's not like a blow by your guy either. I think he's underrated as a vertical player because I think that his ability on like corners and some of those like deeper digs, like working off of vertical stems, I actually do think he changes direction at full speed well. But the high end speed just isn't there. And you need that in this scheme.

because John Snyder will tell you, go watch the Saints. They made it work because they had Rahid Shaheed, who was, my goodness, like Deshaun Jackson reincarnated down there for a little bit. He had him to take the top off and Alave to work it underneath. That makes perfect sense. That's why I was surprised they traded DK. Because here, that makes perfect sense.

DK runs 4-3. Jackson works underneath. $32 million a year is a lot to pay to speed receiver, though. Yeah. Well, in that case was weird because they didn't even talk money with DK. That was just a DK, not one to be here before the money got there. That's a combo for another day. That was very strange to me because then I would think, okay, replace them with another speech there and they wouldn't got another underneath guy.

I need to see how that's going to look because if you just line cup out at X and say, hey, just beat your guy. You can't do that. You're not going to do that with any consistency, which is going back to the Rams. That's why they went and got not just another receiver, but an X. They went and got Devonte. Schematically, I see the vision there, you know, Robert, something like not to take the skill position combo would broaden it. What I'm noticing that's interesting is teams are, they're building it that way. you have like this really good underneath guy,

Shifty slot guy. And then you still have your X. Whether he's your one or your two, you get like a Devonte and AJ, a Higgins and Chase, you know, like you're getting these Newton, Nakua and Adams, where you got your guy who's inside who might be your one now, but that X still has to win. That's what

makes the whole thing work. And I think that when you look at what the Rams did, it was a question of, can we find a guy who doesn't need help getting open, right? We don't need to create separation for him. Now you only really have Tutu Atwell, is that guy in the offense. And so when you project it onto the Seahawks, the question then becomes, can J.S.N. be that guy. Can he be that guy where you don't have to give him free releases?

You don't have to manufacture that stuff. Even if he's not a true ex-receiver, if that's in his toolbox, I think that the whole thing can come together. The question that becomes, can he do that. Can he be the guy who can operate that way? We've never really seen him be asked to do that. Yeah, and that's tough. And all, J.S.N benefited, and he'll tell you this from D.K. Metcalf's presence. D.K. Medcalf, the reason I call them the number one, because I'm watching the film and I'm watching how they put the safety over there. You barely ever get D.K. Metcalf one-on-one to the backside, and that corner's not getting help. That's just not how it works. And if that corner doesn't get help, that D.C. probably didn't survive the off-season. Because that's just not good football. Cups doesn't demand the type of attention. With all due respect, he just does not. Can J.S.N. do that when he's getting the double teams now.

when you go and play a team, their number, when they practice for you in Seattle, now they're wearing an 11 jersey, you know, that wears a different color in practice to say, we got to find JS Han every week. They probably weren't doing that last year until about week eight, week nine. The Rams looked like they didn't do it in the first game,

which is why Jackson almost had 200 yards, if not for a couple penalties up front. I am very curious about that because I am high on Jackson. I think that, you know, when you're scouting players, you got to scout the player, not the helmet, but I do think there's something in the water in Columbus and down in Baton Rouge.

Like LSU and Ohio State guys are just coming and lead killing it. There's just no denying that. And the Ohio State guys I'm finding are just so technically sound. They don't need to blow by you. They can run any route. But like when I watch Terry, when I watch Marvin Harrison, when I watch Jackson, they just know how to get open. Jackson's going to be able to get open until he's 37.

But there's a difference between, and this is important with the expectations of this team, there's a difference between being able to get open in week seven against the Texans. Can you get open in the wildcar round of the playoffs? Can you get open to the divisional round? Because that's where these guys want to go. They haven't made the playoffs since 2022. As you look at the other guys, the tight ends and the running back specifically, it feels like the Kenneth Walker's team is going to build again where we're, okay, now we're in an offense that feels more cohesive. It feels more put together. Him in this running scheme, can he really explode? That conversation is inevitable. How legitimate and how reasonable do you think that

conversation is. I feel like when you scout players, pre-drafts sometimes, and I know you do this, you and Nate do this a lot, you get a guy. Like, you're just like, I know this guy's going to be good. This is my agenda that I'm going to push. Even sometimes in the face of evidence to the contrary, just like, nah, man, if he puts it all together, K-9's my guy in that way. I remember the first time I watched him. Someone texted me. Michigan State was playing Michigan. I think he scored like five touchdown. They was like, Mike, you got to watch this kid. I was like, oh, if Pete gets a chance, he'll take that guy. And of course he did because I think Ken, outside of the top two running backs in the league, Sequin and Derek, I think Ken is just as talented as everyone else you'll name. That's a fair point.

I don't really think from a talent perspective, athleticism, breakaway speed, strength that he's any less talented than Bijan, Jamir Gibbs. I watched K9 in one of his first carries against the Saints in 2022, just take it like 60 yards to the house. Off the bench. Penny broke his leg that said, hey, you're up. Boom, 60 yards to the house. 70 yards, I think I guess the Chargers like the very next week. So Ken has that breakaway speed. He has the strength, the athleticism. He can do it all. I watched him on Monday Night Football last year,

flip and get a first down off his head. It might be the greatest. Athletically, that might be just as good as a Sequin hurdle to get a flip on your head and get a first down. So I'm going to bang the K9 drum and tell you that if this, one of those, if he puts it all together, i.e. if the line is good, I think K9 can have what we saw, what this scheme do for a Moster?

What is we saw it do for a Todd Gurley where the numbers are just gaudy. You look at their football reference page and you're like, wow, I can see which year he was in the wide zone scheme. He ran for 1,700 yards and 13 touchdowns. I think Ken, no hyperbole, I think Ken can do that. I think he's that type of talent in this offense.

Because you're looking for like value in fantasy football. You're trying to find undervalued guys. I think that finding guys who are moving from a really bad situation to a really good one, that's how you can potentially mind that. I don't think people are going to look at this Ux situation and immediately see that where it's a really bad situation into a really good one because there are questions about the offensive line from a personnel perspective.

But structurally, I do think you can make an argument that this is one of those situations. And I don't think people are going to be noticing or reacting to that quite as quickly as they should be. Yeah. And that's fair. You know, you got to really nerd out to realize that Ken, as talented as he is, he is probably a one-cut go guy. The difference is when he goes, he's gone. You know, watches touchdown run against the charges in 20. 22. That is a, that is a toss to the right. And that safety, forget who it was, had no shot.

No shot. That's a house call untouched. Because he's got that type of speed. His big touchdown, I mentioned, I'm pretty sure that was his own run as well. One cut, go. Ken can do that. Now, reading, when you're talking about powers and stuff like that, he can do it. But he really, he's so fast. Man, 438. Same 40 as DK. That is, that's wheels, man. That is wheels. He's got tree trunks for quads, like AJ Dillon's quads with, you know, J. M. gives his speed. He really is a freak athlete. I think that if things break right, Ken is the workhorse here. He's that guy, whoever gets him in a second or third round on their fantasy draft. It's going to like the fifth round. And I think that's, yes. And so that's kind of why I was like,

I'm going to, like, I'm going to, like, banging this drum a little bit. Because I think a lot of other people are going to as well because the talent is so tantalizing. But I think from an environment perspective, we're probably not reacting to it as strongly as we should be. Because again, the offensive line talent isn't overwhelming. The defense. again, it's pretty set when it comes to the personnel, how they'll use them in Wari is interesting. Marcus Lawrence is here now. What are the big questions you have about this version of the defense compared to what that group looked like last year? Yeah, I think when you're talking about modern defense today, particularly in the too high world,

I'm really looking at your second level defenders because those guys are just in such conflict. You sit down and have a combo with an inside linebacker. Have him walk you through everything he's looking at on first down. First down, the team's under center, you know, just from the 30-yard line. Ask him all the things he's got to watch for. It'll feel like a dissertation. It is a lot.

You're watching for all these motions in this, particularly if you play in this division, you play Shanahan and McVeigh on early downs. Oh, good Lord. It's a lot. So you're talking about Ernest Jones, the 4th, who they read up with Tyrese Knight, who I really like. I'm not worried about them, but I feel like that's a bigger question than maybe people in Seattle realize because that's winning and losing you games.

You know, I look at the Eagles defense that struggled in 2023, in part because they just had me and you out there at the inside backer. They go get Zach Bonn, you know, and Fangio turns him to an all-pro. A guy was a special team. And Decobe Dean was great last year. And Dean, yeah, hadn't done anything prior to last year. You know, he was on the bench a little bit.

Boom, now he's a guy. You feel like you can't replace, you know? So, and I don't think that's a coincidence that their defense was so sound with that part really strong. And you saw it last year. You saw him when Ernest Jones came in and how different the defense felt. And the run defense was huge, right? Like the light box run defense for the first month of the year was awful.

Oh, that was bad. And then having him in the middle of that defense, I was talking to one of the defensive coaches today, the length he brings and his ability to carry vertical routes as part of that scheme, he makes a huge, huge difference. So I think spending a little bit of time and focusing on that is totally right. Yeah. And I think Ernest is really good. And I think he's just a, he's a see-ball, get-ball guy.

Like if you just watch a Seahaw game and you just keep your eye on the ball, you'll see number 13 pop up eventually. Even if you're not looking for him, I think that's really important. The other thing I'm really curious about up front is the Seahawks haven't had a 10-sack edge rusher since 2018, frankly. It's like 48-sac guys. Yeah, it's a lot of nine sacks, eight and a half, which is good. But in this league, you know, guys are getting 15, 16, you know, off the edge. And those guys tilt the scales.

Who's going to tilt the scale for the Seahawks? Will it be DeMarcus, will it be DeMarcus, will it be Cheneuosu who's dealing with a knee injury? Will it be, boy, Mafe. If I had to pick another guy who I'm banging the drum for, it's Derek Hall. Robert on practice, the third day of practice this year, I watched him just take Josh Jones and lift him off of his feet and into the back. I just can't, you want to, I get an in-game example. Go watch the Lions week four last year.

Day Hall just forklifts Taylor Decker and brings Jared Gough down with one hand, with one hand. He's a freak of nature, strong guy. If he pops, another one of those, if he puts it all together, maybe he could be that guy. But I think when you have to wonder who that guy is, there's a question about your front. Mike McDonald, though, I guess he would push back and say, I'm the Sim Pressure

God, so I can get anybody to have, I can get eight guys to have five sacks, so I don't need one guy to have 15. And you look at Baltimore, right, when they were the best defensive league in 23. They didn't have that guy who was like a truly dominant player. Matt at Bake was ascending, but that group was more than the sum of its parts. And I think you can make the same argument about this group

where there may be no superstar involved, but there are no bad players here. Leonard Williams played at near all pro level last year. The combination of the edge rushing group is a diversified skill set. Like, Maffei brings something different than Hall brings, then Lawrence brings. And so I like the group collectively. But for me, the biggest question is about this team outside of the offense is,

can this be like the best defense in the league? Like, what is the ceiling on this group? And I think in order to reach that, no weakness is a good place to start. But who are the difference makers? Who are the tilters? Is it Byron Murphy? Is it Derek Hall? Is it Riegwan?

Is it Spoon, like really becoming a superstar. That to me is at front of mind for how this defense can go from. All right, this is intriguing to, okay, this is changing the season for this team. Yeah, I think a good comp for the Seahawks, like a realistic expectation is the 2024 Chargers. You know, they hired Mentor from Michigan. He ran the same scheme. And that Chargers team, I believe, had one all pro. I think it was Derwin James, who was second team, basically playing the role Spoon plays. So they had, and they led the league in scoring defense, I want to say. So you have the number one defense by at least that metric. on a team that has, like you just broke down, a bunch of good players, but really just the one like

Tiltor, which was Derwin. And boom, now, obviously the playoffs didn't go well, but just over a large sample size, they went from being pretty awful under Brandon Staley to legitimately an elite defense in one year running this exact same scheme. And I think that all you need, if you're going to lean on the scheme to that extent, which I think you can do with Mike McDonald and have a little bit more faith than you can with Clint Kubi at because Mike's more proven in that way terms of scheme lifting players. you can have Leo and Spoon just be your two tilters.

And as long as you don't have a weak link, I think we're kind of in that world as well on defense where you're almost as good as your 11th guy these days. Like as much as your top two, the Bengals are a good example. Like they probably have one of the best players in the league on defense last year, which is awful. But if you don't have,

if you're 11th guy is solid and then you just got one or two tilters, you can legitimately be the best defense in the league. I think the Broncos last year were another good example of that. They had a couple tilters. and then just their 11th guy was fine, and they were elite. And I think they have flexibility on the back end now. Like, you bring in MNWR, you can do a few more different things. But I think the difference is, if I look at that Chargers team last year,

I think it's a lot of like C pluses B minuses. With this team, I think it's a lot of B pluses. I think it's that same idea just lifted to one step above. And I think that's why the ceiling and also the sturdiness, right? Like the Chargers felt a little bit more fragile. You saw that as we went to the season. Yeah. And they were banged up in the second.

and all that stuff. But I think the overall level is taking up one notch with this team. So when you combine 10B pluses, let's say 9B pluses and 2 A's, I think that is with Mike McDonald the complexion of potentially the best defense in the league. Yeah, Baltimore probably has the best secondary in the league. But right now I say Seattle has a good argument for the best one in the NFC. Like I think, man, I'm really high. I think Detroit is also going to be really good.

I'm really high on Detroit. I love DJ Reed. I think they should have Seattle should have paid him. But anyway, I think... Are you worried about that second corner spot? As you think about the 11 guys, is that Josh Joe spot,

the one that is kind of lingering in the back of your mind? I think that when they're in base, so when they're just Rieke, spoon of their corners and then Kobe Bryant, Julian Love, I'm not worried at all. I think that is just,

that is nails in their base defense. Because I think Rieke's thing, he's one of these weird players where talent's not the issue? No. Like, I just talked to Rieke the other day was like, yeah, the biggest thing I'm working on is staying locked in.

He just talked about, you just can't fall asleep at corner. You have to, the one time you think the ball's not coming when the ball comes, and it can be a big play. You look at the DeMarcus Robinson touchdown last year the game winner in overtime against the Rams. Perfect example. He just looked like he didn't expect to get targeted.

Boom, games over. So if Rika's locked in, Spoon, I know what he's going to do. I love Kobe Bryant. I think he's one of those guys with the mentality who could have played in the Legion, Boom. Julian Love is probably the smartest player on the defense. I'm not really worried. Josh Job, actually, he's a perfect example

what I was talking about with your week link. If he's your fifth best DB, you're okay. I think Josh gave up one touchdown last year in the Jets game. That's it. I think he's a really solid player and he's good at what Pete, this is why Pete was a good floor raiser

for DBs. He could teach you to just not get beat over the top. And in this game if you can just consistently not give, even if you ran 4-6, you know, he was out there with the Michael Jackson's of the world, Trey Flowers, you know, he could just teach it, hey man, just don't get beat.

I don't care if you're going to 4 or 5. I can teach you the right technique. You do that down and down and down and down. We'll be okay. And I think that's what Josh Job's his brains. He's just consistently locked in every day thinking that the ball is going to come to him every play. And he works like that, kind of the opposite of Rieke. He thinks the ball's come at every play. So I'm

not too worried about it. I honestly think they're secondary, but we can have this conversation in five months. And I think we're going to be talking about, wow, the Seahawks had a top five secondary. I wouldn't be surprised with that at all. Again, Emin Warre gives you a little flexibility too, and then not even just in those base looks, but if you have five DBs out there and he's playing in a slot for you and Spoon can bump outside. Like, I think there are a lot of versions and iterations of this where it's a really good group. And you combine that with the front that, again, maybe doesn't have any superstar players outside of Leonard Williams, but really well last year.

So, I mean, I think that's important to keep acknowledging that because I think we kind of lump him into that tier based on what his career looks like. He's been a good player, not a great player all the time. Last year he was a great player. So you combine that with, again, not a lot of weak lengths, a lot of diversity, a lot of flexibility. I think there are reasons to be excited about this defense. Yeah, and I've seen countless times that just sometimes the one week link can be everything. We're watching them in 2019. That defense was really good and that Packers game in the divisional round.

Problem was, Trey Flowers that day could do nothing with Devante Adams. Curtains. How was there? Yeah. See, you remember, yeah. I've watched games where even up front, it's like there's 10 good guys on the the game but Darrell Taylor's not set in the edge. So now Christian McCaffrey has 175 yards. Russian sometimes that can be all it takes is that one dude and the good coordinators will find

you, particularly from this tree that we see McVeigh's tree and Shanahan. They'll find you. You know, I watched in 2019 the NFC championship, forget which Green Bay linebacker wasn't good, but they just kept running at him and most of just looked like Bo Jackson. In the NFC title game, like four touchdown 200 yards or something. That can be any team on any given week if you're led with guys in solid. I think the Seahawks are in really good spot on top of Mike McDonald being a psycho. Like when he sits in there, like I can imagine, he's a young, he's a father of a young kid just like me, his son's not even a year old. I can imagine Mike just sitting there, the baby's crying and he's just like, I got to finish dialing up

this blitz. That diaper is just going to have to get full of poop until I finish this, this third medium blitz package because we got Shanahan coming up. I can see that. And you know, I don't blame him. Because being the psycho in that way is going to keep the O.C. is up at night. And that's what this team needs. Like you said, if they're going to be the best defense in the league, which they think they can be.

We could do this forever. This team has always been an endless fascination with me for whatever reason that I can't seem to figure out, but we got to go to practice. Michael Sean Dugar, always appreciate the time, sir. Great to chat with you. Oh, thanks for having me always.

Joining us now, it is our Falcons writer here at the athletic, Josh Kennel. Josh, great to see you. Good to see you. Jeff Oberg today was speaking at the podium after practice, and I figured that would be a good place to start because the offense on this team is the same. There are no new pieces. I don't even look over there.

They, I mean, they're obviously what Michael Pennix is doing. It's a fascinating conversation. And when we'll get into the expectations on that side of the ball, but there are two teams in the league that really added no offensive pieces this off season. One was the Arizona Cardinals and one was the Atlanta Falcons. And so there aren't a lot of moving parts over there to address. On defense, there are a thousand moving parts. You talk about all the personnel changes, the rotation on the defensive line.

and then some of the schematic changes that are obviously coming. As you're paying attention now as we get four or five days into camp, what on that side of the ball have you found most interesting and what do you find yourself paying attention to? The defensive line and the rotation, because for a variety of reasons, they've added two edge rushers and Jalen Walker and James Pierce. James Pierce was, you know, the star of today's practice

with some extracurricular stuff. But they've also got some weird. Weird bodies on the interior. You know, Zach Harrison, I really liked a few years ago when they drafted him as a four-three defensive end. He seemed to fit perfectly. I don't know what you do with him. Rook seems pretty – Rookeroros seems pretty settled in the middle.

But where does Brandon Dorliss go? You know, how much is Contavia street play just because they have to stop the run at some point, theoretically? What does David Anyamata have left? I mean, he's a good football player, but he's also on the wrong side of 30. So how those pieces fit together, I still have no clue. It was one of the more interesting parts of this off season, because if you look at the way this defense had been built over the last couple years and some of the skill sets that they were seeking out, it's funny. With Dean Peas, they were really weird.

And then in year one with Jimmy Lake, they were kind of weird. And now you're going to a much more traditional place theoretically with Jeff Olberg when it comes to body types. So who do you think in terms of the more unique body types that maybe fit previous versions of this defense could be the odd man out. as we figure out this version of the rotation. Brayland Trice, third round pick last year, tore his knee up in the preseason, so he didn't play at all. But he's not Jalen Walker,

and he's not James Pierce. He is a big edge. He's not a super athletic guy. I think they like Lake liked him better than maybe Albrecht likes him. Brandon Dorliss, I just don't know where he fits in. He's a big end, but, you know, Zach Harrison's a big end, too,

and I think he's probably a better big end. I don't know if Brandon Doris eventually gets shuffled out of the rotation. David On Yamada, I think is pretty versatile guy. He comes from that world. I think there's a little bit more carryover from what he did in New Orleans and just his overall background than some of these younger guys who've played in more multiple fronts. And Abacetti is a guy, Arnabaceti is a guy who's been gradually getting better, but there's been no jump. He's just sort of grinded, you know, through the process. and he could end up, if they like the Jews,

or these new guys, Abacetti could end up finding themselves the odd man out. Is there anybody among that group? Obviously, it's really early. We're not even putting pads on yet. But in talking to people about who they maybe expect to take one of those jumps, is there anybody that comes to mind for you among that group? Jalen Walker is a rookie, obviously.

He didn't see him out there today. Nobody, almost the opposite. They don't even talk about him. him in his in their mind he's in there he is going to get plenty of opportunities he is a known commodity already in their head and he's just an edge rusher at this point all the way through camp he is just an edge rusher you you think of him as a great versatile piece in reality i don't know i you know i spoke to some folks in his background who say you know he's an elite edge rusher, despite his size, which may not be ideal, his future is at edge rush.

It is not necessarily in the middle. The Falcons keep insisting, they're going to put him out there and leave him out there. We'll see how it works. Part of it probably will be how successful he is. If they have to move him around because he's just not big enough and he can't play out there full time, then you have to move him around. But I think they think he is an edge rusher. There's a few things to kind of keep in mind there.

Obviously, him and Michael Parsons is a unique player. but there was that time early in Michael Parsons' career where they were moving him around from different spots. And I think the Cowboys eventually landed in. He's an ad rusher. He's one of the best ed rushers in the league. Like doing that and is rolling with that is the best application of him. And there's also a school of thought.

I was talking to people in Seattle yesterday when I was there about Nickyamonwari and the idea even if you have a versatile piece, sometimes early in a player's career, shrinking that scope a little bit, allowing them to focus on one thing. That's the quickest way for them to have some early success. So I think coming from a couple different directions, you can make an argument that limiting what's on his plate early might be the right approach. And I think that's a Jeff Ulbric thing. He and his staff have mentioned several times the idea of putting really good athletes on repeat. We don't want you to have three or four, five different things to do.

We want you to get good at one thing. And if you are, we'll give you a chance to go do it over and over and over again. It's funny him mentioning today. He was talking about how they've gotten 1,100 snaps. out of their base four three front. And the fact that he said that out loud, they clearly are prioritizing how many repetitions they're getting there. And I think when you're moving to this sort of defense,

being able to kind of ingrain that mindset in the defensive line and make it a second nature thing, this attacking mentality, repping that as many times as you possibly can, is the way for guys to kind of naturally adapt that mindset. And so getting him as many opportunities as he can in that exact style play, I get that as an approach. you're the Falcons. And also, you've got a lot of guys that you've got to audition. You've got it. So it gives you a chance, which they have done a ton.

You know, I couldn't tell you right now who they like the best where, because they're rolling guys liberally. And the amount of reps gives them a chance to do that. On the second level of defense, you know, Kaden Ellis is somebody that every coach is really excited about every guy at this point in the calendar. You've got to take everything with like a pound of salt. But to hear Jeff Oldbrook talk about Kade Ellis specifically and just, you know, the strides he could potentially make is more of a true offball linebacker beyond some of the past rush that he's giving. I'm inclined to believe that there is a little bit of inherent excitement about that based on the way that he presented it today.

They love Caden Ellis, who is a seventh-year guy and a 30-year-old who is probably pretty rarely, uniquely adding stuff to his game. I was just looking up his age as Jeff Oberg was talking. I was like, how old is Cade Ellis to be talking about him this way? And I noticed that he was 30. But so, but he almost had three red shirt, gray shirt seasons in New Orleans as they brought him along. He didn't really bust out as a player until his fourth year in the league. There's no doubt.

So he is still learning. And he led the NFL in pressure percentage, not just last year, but over the last three years, nobody has a better pressure percentage than Cade Nellis. Obviously, some of that is because, you know, you're not necessarily expecting that guy to come on a lot. but he's a really good instinctive pass rusher in the interior. There's no doubt about that. I think some guys, they juice up those numbers because they're getting a lot of free runs at the quarterback. He is actually a talented pass rusher who happens to play a linebacker. It is a unique entity among guys at that position in league.

So how much do they send him? How much can they send him? What's the balance there? I think is another interesting thing. There's no doubt because I think in the previous version of this defense, you could do it pretty liberally based on the way that they wanted to play. I think the pressure packages were funcier. The deployment of players was funkier.

I don't want to say this is a more rigid defense. It's just a little bit more traditional. You're just not going to be painting outside of the lines quite as often. And so you probably have to scale yourself back when it comes to those sorts of ideas that maybe seem a little untraditional. Jeff Obrick, exactly. And Jeff Oberg said something interesting in one of his first appearances with us. He said, if my guys come to the sideline and I can't give them. when they get beat and I can't give them an answer as to why.

That's a fireable offense. He says that after replacing a guy who just got fired. And he's saying that, so he talks a lot about a limited menu because I'm going to, you know, I'm going to give you rules for every situation. I'm not going to put so much on your plate that, you know, I can't explain to you in pretty simple terms what went wrong when it goes wrong. as we move back further in the defense, I think the secondary is also like a significant question.

They draft two guys, I believe a third round pick and a fourth round pick, right? Yeah. With the safety use name. Can I remember? Xavier Watts. Xavier Wads. And then Billy Bowman.

A nickel. Yes. And so that was my question. So how do you see those two guys playing into their plans in the secondary? Do you think those guys are going to chance to start a safety and nickel respectively? Or do you feel like there are more depth pieces at this stage? I think Xavier Watts will get half a chance to start. But I don't expect it to happen.

I expect them to work him in. I think he's probably a depth piece, at least to begin with. I think Billy Bowman's got a chance to start at Nicol. Because DeAofford played a lot out there over the last two years and has been a fine player, great story, but not a great player. Billy Bowman is an aggressively willing tackler. He is best suited for that role. And I think that this team that knows it's going to be a nickel, but also knows it's going to have trouble stopping the run, is going to lean toward that trait when it's making business decisions. So I think that does give Billy Bowman a legitimate chance to start at nickel.

It's a really good thing to point out. Dealford, for everything he has brought, he still is an undersized player. He's just not bringing that level of physicality. So that's all three levels of the defense. Just to zoom it back out, what are reasonable expectations for this defense? Because I think people probably assume this offense if things break right for them. The Pennix continues to play the way he did in the final two, three weeks of the season, which we'll talk about. This can be a borderline top ten group.

It's about whether the defense is doing its share of the lifting. So as you think about all of the questions, all the moving pieces on that side of the ball, what do you think is a reasonable expectation for where this group can land? If you can get close to 20th statistically and whichever of the statistics you want to talk about, if you can get to that level, if you can go from bad and a real, you know, disheartening problem, which that defense was at the end of last year, to, that's a generous gentle way of framing. I don't like that. To, okay, we've got a chance.

We've given ourselves a chance. If you can get to that, yes, this could be a playoff team, I think. But, you know, you're not talking about a top 15 defense, you know, top 20, they'd be passing out confetti. It's interesting because I think there are some offensive coaches around the league that kind of bang this drum when I talked to them about this scheme specifically. And the thought is you need players to run this defense. You need talents around this defense. If there's a lack of talent, you see some of the holes. And I think we've seen that with San Francisco a little bit.

And I think there have been some other examples. And so it's an interesting push and pull because even if you have hope for some of the younger pieces on this defense, it's not an overly talented defense. So I think what you're kind of betting on is a change in play style. and mentality as a way to lift this group in a way it hasn't been before, whether that can overcome some of the talent efficiencies to me kind of becomes the central question. I don't know the answer to that. I don't either, but I think you saw them. They clearly have gone from, they clearly wanted to get younger and higher ceiling defensively. James Pierce is a roll of the dice, but if it hits, he's a kind of juice guy that you don't have. Jalen Walker to some degree is that,

Billy Bowman, we talked about gives you a little bit more of an element of that. So they are taking some chances because I do think that they came in, that they looked at this unit and saw a real lack of that, a real lack of even the potential for that type of juice. That sort of urgency, chasing those sorts of talents and then being really aggressive to find them the way they were with James Pierce trading way next year's one. What do you think that says about where Terry Fontno is right now and what sort of pressure there is on him to have pretty good. results with this team this year? Certainly in year five, there is pressure. But he's operated this way the last three seasons. The first two years that he came in with Arthur Smith, their marching orders were pretty

clear, and they've carried them out pretty dutifully. Yeah, there's been like $80 on the roster. Let's turn this thing over. Let's get our cap in good position, get ourselves into a spot where we can now start to. But since then, he's been aggressive to probably a fault. Justin Simmons, Matthew Judon. were mistakes last year, not just because, well, I guess partly because they weren't the players

they thought they might be, but partly because they viewed themselves as a Matthew Judon and a Justin Simmons away, which they clearly were not. So Terry has been an aggressive guy the last three seasons. I don't think this is necessarily an indication of this. I'm going into my final year if things don't change, although that could absolutely be the reality. It's funny. I think that's one of the, quieter impact parts of the Cousins' dual timelines is when you make the Simmons move, when you make the Judon move, those are Kirk Cousin's timeline moves.

And now they're on the Michael Pennick's timeline. And we don't have to relitigate that entire thing, but them deciding to give themselves the insurance there, them thinking he was a special player, you know, we can win both now and in the future. I get it to a certain extent. But now that it's gone definitively toward the Pennix part of it, some of the moves they made last year make even less sense in retrospect.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. They did not expect, they hoped, I believe this is not coming from anybody saying this. They thought, let's get two good years out of Kirk. Let's get Kirk's last, air quotes, last two good years, and then we'll move on to the kid. And they absolutely behaved like that. And for nine games last year, boy, they looked, you know, it looked like it was going to work out swimmingly. And then it all went to hell.

So now you're dealing with that. Do you think there is a price that could pry Kirk out of here? Like, what do you think it would take for somebody to call Terry Fonda right now and be willing to trade him? Not a – I mean, I don't think it would be a prohibitive cost. I think – I don't guess a fourth-rounder – I think if a fourth-rounder got it done, it might be done already. I think that Atlanta is – you know, without being craven about it, is waiting for somebody to be desperate. Yeah. is waiting for an injury, is waiting for somebody to say, all right, here's a three.

Here's a third round. I mean, I think if you came with a third round pick, you'd probably get Kirk Cousins. It's a really interesting dynamic because I think with a lot of guys, I've talked to people about this, people in the league, and Kirk's just not enough of an asshole to be a problem. With some guys, they would just be a problem. And so the two downsides to keeping a guy like this on the roster. One, you aren't giving him $20 million in cash. Like, you still have to write that check.

Arthur Blank has to sign off on that decision. There's real downside to that because that's actual money. Then the other side of it is a guy who has been in league for a while as a veteran who's had some success, there are plenty of examples of that archetype of player. That would be a pain in the ass. They would not be somebody you would want around if you have a young quarterback. Right. And there would be a little bit of venom involved in that.

That's just not who Kirk Cousins is. And so if you're fine with either of those two downside cases, there's not really a reason not to wait to see if something breaks your way and you can get something for him. The third downside, the third potential, you're absolutely right. And I think they feel very comfortable with that. The third downside is the looming specter of Michael Pennix, who has started three games. If he falters. If he is scuffling, if this had been a quarterback competition yesterday at yesterday's practice,

Kirk Cousins would have won the job. Kirk Couss can still play. Kirk Cousins is a good quarterback. So how badly does Michael Pinnock, you know, this staff has painted them into a real corner with Michael Panix as our guy. But if he is stubbing his toe over and over,

and things are going bad again this year, then Kirk Cousins doesn't have to say anything because his teammates are saying, you know, what are we doing here? Based on the kind of the outward messaging and spin and what we saw from him last year, it does feel like there's a

reasonable amount of confidence that their offense with Michael Panics could be really good this am I understanding that incorrectly? A surprisingly amount of confidence from my perspective. I am consistently, I consistently notice the fact that they in this building have left no room for the idea that it's not going to be. Yeah, they treat it as a given almost based on what they've said. Yeah, it's like, yeah, here we go. We're off to the races now.

And maybe they are. But he's played three games. What are your biggest questions about him? I mean, based on extrapolating the flashes we saw last year to an entire season, being able to do that. What do you think are the main challenges that you've been thinking about? I think to a large degree it comes down to accuracy. He has got, I mean, he throws the ball beautifully. It is beautiful to watch.

He is aggressive in a way that this offense rewards. He is smart. He is well liked by his teammates. The moment is not too big for him. We saw all that. He can handle all of that. But he will spray some. Through his career, he has sprayed some.

It's just the way he throws the ball. 58% last year. A lot of factors. We can excuse that to some degree. But that's just not going to be good enough. Can he live at 64 or 65? If he can, I don't know that I have any real questions about Michael Pennix. But we don't know that he can yet.

And if he can't, I don't think you can live at 50. outside of the quarterback, which is obviously a huge question. And I think that's totally reasonable. I think you watch it and he does throw certain throws beautifully as well as anybody in the league. But it is a little bit more inconsistent in some areas of the field than you want it to be. I think there's enough to glob onto where I find myself optimistic. I think there are limitations to his game. And we've talked about it a lot on the show over the course of the summer as we've done a second year quarterback shows and just various quarterback breakdown shows.

I think he's not nearly as mobile. and fluid in the pocket in terms of movement as somebody with his testing numbers would lead you to believe he's a little bit more robotic. But I do think that the arm strength to certain areas of the field and combined with he is a very quick processor for a young player. He'll get to checkdowns in a way that young quarterbacks don't all the time, which he needs to because of the way he plays. If you're going to be a little bit robotic and static in the pocket, you need to know where your outlets are. And I was actually impressed with his ability to do that. And so I think even if he has some limitations with how he moves and throws he can access because of that.

I'm optimistic about where his skill set currently is. As you project the rest of the offensive roster, again, this is all the same guys coming back. Where are your biggest questions? What are the swing points from being the 12th offense in the league where things look pretty good, similar to what they were last year? And this being the third best offense in the league and a group that can maybe dictate a playoff run for this team.

Kyle Pitts fits into that. The eternal question. But I don't even know at this point if he's certainly not the first or second answer to that question. I think Darnell Mooney and Ray Ray MacLeod, DJ Chark, who they just signed, Cadarral Hodge. Drake London, for me, is a known commodity. I think Drake London is a really good player. I'm not sure he's a great player. I think he's really good.

I think he's a fine number one. Those other guys. But more importantly for me, it's Jean Robinson. John Robinson is electric, but they drafted Bejohn Robinson as a quote-unquote home run header. He doesn't hit a lot of home runs. He is long as career run is 38 yards. He's got like four runs in his career, two years, but I'm saying I know it's just two years of longer than 30 yards. He is the most dynamic doubles hitter in the NFL.

But they need to get some easy ones. and they have focused on that this offseason. They're fully aware of that. Bejohn's fully aware of that. They've got to get more easy scores from Bejohn Robinson for as much as he touches the ball. Are you surprised they weren't a little bit more intentional about adding one more pass catcher in that Ray or McLeod spot

just to add some competition even? I mean, DJ Chark is somebody that's played for every team of the league at this point, right? There's a reason he keeps bouncing around year to year. It's getting a little bit older. He has an injury history. Are you surprised they didn't try to seek out one more piece that maybe could be more of a, if not a sure thing than a long-term part of the plan here? Yes, I am. They drafted Casey Washington the sixth round a couple of years ago.

They like him, but I haven't seen him take a step yet to where, you know, you're thinking, yes, he is that guy in the next year or two. I think what it speaks to to me is we love our roles. We love, we know who Drake is. We know who Darnell is and we know who Ray Ray is. And we love that they know it too. Everybody knows where they fit and is happy to play that role. And I don't know that they wanted to cloud that up any. That makes you very vulnerable to injury.

Darnell Mooney is not on the practice field, not seriously hurt, but is not on the practice field at the moment. So you're taking a real risk there. Yeah, I totally agree. Because I do think that they do have crystallized roles and currently stands. And if those guys stay healthy, you can understand that. I actually think Darno Mooney's skill set on some of those like deeper outbreaking vertical routes when what Michael Pennix brings. I like the way that that all fits together.

But if you lose one of those guys, I think you're in big trouble in a hurry. Yeah. I mean, Zach Robinson would, you know, in his perfect world, he'd only carry three ride receivers on the roster. They play 100% of those snaps. Yeah. We don't need to run. They play 80 snaps a game.

Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what the Rams have done for years, right? I mean, like, that's kind of the world that they come from. So I'm not necessarily surprised to hear them say that. The Bejohn thing hitting more home runs. kind of bring me into the final thing I want to ask you about. What are the other priorities as they've communicated them to you guys, where it's like, all right, even if we were pretty good last year,

these are the two or three areas where we are hyper-focused on improvement? I think, you know, Kyle Pitts, we mentioned, is a constant source of that. Michael Panix has said, we want to be the number one offense in the league. You know, you're going to have to get more big plays. You're going to have to be more explosive, not just from Bijon, but from everybody in this. this offense. I think that probably the down the field stuff, even when Kirk was at his healthiest last

year in those first nine games when things were running smoothly, they were pretty, you know, their scatter shot, their heat map on the passing game was pretty consistent and fairly limited. It is not going to be anymore. They feel like, they like their run game, they love their run game, and they feel like they can open it up more this year by getting the ball down the field. The center's name is pronounced to what? Neusel.

That's what I figured. How do they feel about, you know, obviously you're changing out, a guy who got paid a lot of money in free agency at center? The cohesion with that group with a new center, what have they talked about with that? How do they feel about that moving forward? Almost a Pinnock's level of confidence. We'll be fine. Yeah, they love Ryan Neuzel. They've loved Ryan Neusel for a long time.

Kirk Cousin, an hour ago just talked about how much he loves Ryan Neusel and how he was concerned that he's pretty particular about. his center and keeping the same center doesn't like changing. He was concerned last year when Darwin went out because he just, it was getting an unknown commodity in Newzel. They didn't skip a beat. Spoke very highly of him. I think the whole staff feels the same way. Yeah, he's gotten time.

He's gotten time with that group. So it's not like you've never seen him in that spot before. And I think we've seen this around the league in recent years where even if you're losing a center, if you have four quality pieces around him, Denver comes to mind, right? They move on from Christian Berry. They put Luke Wattenberg in there. And that still was one of the more buttoned up put together. offensive lines in the league. And so if you have one piece that you need to integrate and you

have good coaching on that side, which I think Dwayne Lefford has provided them, it's a little easier to overcome one spot being swapped out. And Newzel's been here for three years. I mean, this has been taken these reps with Dwayne Ledford for three, four years. That's all I got for you. Josh, really, really appreciate the time. Great to chat with you. We will do it again very soon. Thanks for having me. Joining us now, it is our Ravens writer here at the Athletic. Jeff's Reback, Jeff, great to see you. Good to see you, Robert. There's always, uh, fun to have a friend out here at practice. I don't know how you guys do the Mid-Atlantic summer.

I truly don't know how you guys do it. It's about 91 today. I lasted about 10 minutes before I started sweating through my clothes. Today was a big one. Today was a real one. Yeah, and they just happened to be on the one field that has zero shades over. So you picked a good one. Yeah, Jacksonville today and then this, or yesterday and then this today, I've been a sweaty person

over the last 48 hours. You and I were talking during practice, and this is a team where, obviously when you reach this point, when you get to the doorstep consistently, there just isn't a ton of urgency to make big changes. And there aren't really any big changes. I mean, this is all small tweaks that we're thinking about. So I'm just curious for somebody in your position who's having to kind of report on the day-to-day machinations of this team and try to keep a fan base interested, like what are the things you're

focusing on? What do Baltimore Ravens fans want to know right now? Yeah. And yeah, that's a good point because, you know, they've been. 11 of 12 starters back on offense. And the one, 10 of 11, excuse me, I've been out in the heat for a while too.

And the one position that's kind of they lost a guy, Patrick McCary, you know, they have a guy there who started week one and kind of lost his job because of injury and Andrew Vorty. So yeah, there's just not a whole lot of changes here beyond some, the addition of some defensive pieces. I think the biggest

thing in my shoes, because look, there's kicker drama a little bit and there hasn't been that. since 2012 when they last needed a kicker and Justin Tucker beat out Billy Kundov. But otherwise, there's just not a whole lot of roster intrigue. Most of the roster spots are set. Now, there's always injuries that change things. And that's usually kind of the focus at this time.

But I think I'm kind of more focused on the stuff that's held them back in the past, like penalties. Like, it's been a big story, this camp. Like, how do we reduce the penalties? The only team that had more penalty yards against them was the Jets, and that's not good company to keep. So they brought in a former ref, Tony McAllick, who's retired this offseason, and he's been kind of watching film with them. And they're working on cadences and different stuff to get it out of the way now. So they're better prepared later this season when they go to different cadences to try to avoid some of the pre-snap stuff.

But some of the issues that have kind of held them back, they've not – a lot's been said about there. turnovers in the playoffs, they haven't created any either. And that's kind of been the part. I mean, they're not taking the ball away at all. And this defense needs to take the ball away. So they're doing a lot emphasizing turnovers, penalties, stuff like that. So those are kind of the topics that I kind of keep an eye on this time of year. This was the best offense in football last year if you look at any sort of advanced metric. And we know that regression comes for everyone, right? Like you can't just bank on that year over year, even if you are bringing back 10 of 11 starters. So whether it's something that you've seen or whether it's something that you've talked to somebody about here,

what sort of layers are they trying to add to this offense to make sure that they're consistently evolving in the right way? Yeah, I think the Blitz at times has been a real problem here, you know, and there's been times where Lamar Jackson's been, you know, the number one quarterback in the face of the Blitz. But then there's been other looks that he's just really struggled. And they're in an offense, like, you know, offensive court, Todd Monk. and, you know, was talking about that earlier this week. And he's just like, we have everything that we need to be really good and to punish bloods. He was so much better last year than he even was two years ago when he won the MVP. Yeah.

That was kind of the thing I had always said, you know, if we're trying to stack up the best quarterbacks in the week, to me, coming into the 2024 season, Mahomes is Mahomes. And then Josh Alton, he was still the number two spot because I just feel like there were fewer areas where you could pick on Josh Allen. Lamar's numbers against the Blitz. And think about that Houston game in the Kansas City game in that playoffs. it's where he had most struggled. Last year he was one of the best quarterbacks in the league at that. So I do feel like it's gotten better, but you still think for them it's something that they're at front of mind. Yeah, I mean, they just, you know, look, defensive coordinators get all offseason to kind of study and how to attack the Ravens.

And that sort of seems to be, especially in big games, people go back to that against them. You know, I think they need to get the backs more involved at times in the passing game, you know, explosives. and they were really good at that last year, obviously, but I think most of them in the run game at times, you know, or just kind of unscripted plays. And, you know, the Lamar, I don't want to say Lamar critics, but people who analyze the quarterback position, people are a lot smarter than me,

just feel like this offense needs to be on schedule a little more. And Lamar needs to be on time a little more and kind of less reliant on some of the, you know, when stuff breaks down, run around and find a guy. Even when it's in structure, a lot of the damage that he does is deep into downs. He will hang in the pocket wait for stuff. And it was to their benefit last year, but that's an interesting kind of push and pull that you probably have to think about. When we think about even if the players are the same, some of the slotting and the hierarchy and how important some of the past catchers are to the plan, it felt like Isaiah likely was going to be more prominent coming into this year.

Now he's going to miss some time. Like, when do you see him getting back? And when he does get back, how do you see his role maybe explain? Binding compared to what it looked like over the last couple years when he was pretty clearly the number two tight end. Yeah. And I think he was the guy and he still is the guy that, you know, all three of their tight ends are contract year guys. And I think he's the guy that they envision heading this tight end group going forward. Now I'm not ruling out though re-sign Mark Andrews, but I mean, likely's what, five years younger.

And I mean, I think he's the guy that's more likely to get the money. So I expected a bigger role from him, more opportunities for him. I also think there's something to be said for going a little easier on Mark Andrew snaps early in the season. I mean, you were out there to practice. The guy plays every play in practice like it's a Super Bowl. And I think we've seen Mark Andrews struggle in the postseason. I always wonder about the cumulative effect of how hard he practices and how hard he plays, how many hits. But no doubt, I think everyone around this team expected likely to make a really big jump.

He's gotten very close with Lamar on and off the field. Lamar trusts him. I mean, he's kind of become one of those jump ball guys. If he's covered, Lamar still feels like he could throw it. So, yeah, this is a little bit of a setback, Robert. I think it is. And the one worry always, I think, when you talk foot injury, you know, how long, you know, yeah, okay, maybe he's back on the field in six to eight weeks, which is what they hope, but how effective is it?

Is it going to nag him all year? And for a guy who's so depends on agility? and athleticism. Six to eight weeks is the time frame, huh? Yeah, six to eight weeks. That's a chunk of change. It is, yeah. So I think if you get him back in mid-September,

but you also look at it as they play one of the toughest schedules in the league out of the box. So, yeah, it's a setback. But one of the things that, you know, I've noticed here, and I just wonder about this team is just kind of the touches. And, you know, there's a lot of mouse defeat on this offense. And both of them had, they're young players, but both Dayflowers and Rashad Bateman had, their best years of their young careers.

Derek Henry, obviously, had a great year. DeAndre Hopkins is their number three receiver, but I don't think he looks at him. You know, the guy's a future Hall of Fame. I don't think he looks at himself like I'm the number three. And, you know, they want to keep Mitchell more involved in the passing game. We've seen it a lot out here. So there's a lot of mouths to feed.

So I think this gives them an opportunity to. And Lamar, you know, kind of when things go down, he kind of looks at those tight ends as a security blanket. So I think this will challenge. them to get other guys involved, maybe not be so tight end reliant. So I think there's a silver lining there too. But I think for this offense to be as good as they think it can be, they're going to need a healthy Isaiah likely down the stretch. A laird of the tight end usage is that this team didn't have Charlie Kohler for a huge chunk of last season. And so now if likely

comes back and you still want to play a lot of 12 personnel, if you want to take some of that mileage off of Mark Andrews, because likely is not a physical inline blocker, then at least having Charlie Kohler in the mix to be able to live that way, but still not have Andrews on the field for 65 snaps. They could theoretically do that. And I think Kohler deserves to play more. He's a nice player. He really is. I mean, you know, it's kind of the, we joke around about it. It's like they always seem to draft two tight ends, the same draft. And the second guy they draft winds up being a better player, you know? Like we saw it with, it was Ed Dixon and Dennis Pitta. And, you know, Pitta turned out to be the guy and Mark Andrews and Hayden Hurst. And it was

Andrews and now it's kind of like Cole you know likely's kind of jumped likely was a guy they they really the story goes they wanted the kid the guy steeler's drafted was Calvin Austin slag guy Calvin Austin that was the guy that was set on picking and the sneeler steeler snaked him right in front of them and they're on the clock I think it was the year they had these five fourth round picks and they're just tossing names around at that point their board was completely taken up and they asked Greg Roman you think you can do anything with this likely guy and he's become a really good player so That's the benefit of having five, four-th round picks.

If you can do that every once in a while, and because you have so many of them, you're going to stumble into a couple of these guys. And that, we were talking about this today. That's me applies to the way the offensive line has been built here over the years, where they've taken so many of these guys in the middle rounds, and Ben Cleveland is one of those guys. He was working with the first team today at left guard. And again, that's kind of the one unsettled spot on the offense.

How do you see that right now? And do you feel like that's still Andrew Voorhees' his job? to lose. I think it is for his job to lose, but, but the Cleveland thing is kind of interesting because, you know, he's a third round pick. He's a guy, kind of one of the guys that John Arbaugh admitted it at the time. He stood on the table to draft him. In fact, he didn't want to wait. He was mad that they weren't trading up to get him. And yet he's, it's kind of felt like he's been in the doghouse ever since he's been here. And, you know, the rub with Ben Cleveland is when he plays in the games, he's been solid, you know, not, you know, we're not talking about any pro bowl. So, he's.

but he's held his own and battled. But yet, there's something about him, I think, that rubs them the wrong way. Like, he doesn't practice very well. He doesn't have that. I mean, the guy is huma. He's a gigantic man. It's just, it's, you know, these guys. All Lele and the same offensive line.

Even with Linderbom, your average are still going to be pretty good. So you watch him in. They just want him to play bigger and be nastier and care more. And, you know, look, I think we're all surprised when they resigned them. but, you know, he had the legal issue in the offseason with the, you know, suspicion of DUI. He could get suspended, you know, like the court case for him has been moved back to November. So that may buy him some time. Usually the NFL waits on the ruling of that.

So maybe he'll be ready there for week one. But he's getting an opportunity that we have, every, for the last three years, we've mentioned him as a potential starter. And yet you get out here to the summer and training camp and he never gets first team reps. So he is getting a little run here with the first team, which is a good sign. But I think it's Vorhe's job, but I think they want Vorhees to be more consistent, to practice better. You know, and he's a guy that lost his starting job this past year in week two. He got an ankle injury, but when he was healthy, he never got it back.

He then played in that final week 17 game against the Browns that meant nothing. But they, you know, they rested a lot of the starters, but he played. And he looked like a completely different player. Now, it's hard to evaluate players in a week 17 game that doesn't mean a lot. the Browns had pretty much thrown in the towel by then. But they're hoping that could be a good momentum builder for him. And it sort of was a show of faith that they haven't gone out and, you know, gotten a veteran there. Like, Sheriff is still available.

So we'll see. I think he's in the lead, but I think he needs to play, be a little more consistent play bearer. On the other side of the ball, obviously, it's a mess at the beginning of last year. You have a new defensive coordinator. And I think the under talked about part of this. I mean, I know we probably didn't talk about it enough, but you're deeply aware of it. it wasn't just the defensive coordinator change last year. It was that so many guys on the second layer of that staff were hired to be

defensive coordinators elsewhere, DeNard Wilson, Anthony Weaver. And so it really did feel like it took them a long time to get their footing on that side of the ball. But then Kyle Hamilton moves back to safety. It all starts to gel a little bit. And you look at some of the metrics, this was one of the best defenses, if not the best defense in football, over the back half of last year. So as you think about that, is that the expectation going into this year? because there are some personnel questions, but none that are overly alarming.

Again, it's kind of like the offense where it feels like we're nitpicking about some of the details here. Yeah, I think so, and I agree. I mean, that was such an underrated part of their struggles last year early was just the coaching. You know, it was just such a major brain drain here last offseason. You know, and not only do you lose all those guys, but you replace them with a guy in Zach Orr

who would never call the defense before. So they knew that. They knew there was probably going to be a learning curve and they feel like Zachor as a star and going to be a star. But they knew it would take time. It's still, you know. But yeah, going forward, I think they feel like they have the pieces to be a dominant defense. One of the top defenses in the league. I feel like that's the standard here for years and years.

The personnel is much improved. I think it's a nice mix of, you know, adding youth with guys like Malachi Stark. and Mike Green, and you have some already young guys like Wiggins in there. And then you, you know, you sign a couple veterans like Ouse and Jair Alexander to kind of augment that group. It's a good group. They need to take the ball away, though, right? And I also think, you know, look, nobody's really talking around the leads, passing league. No one's really talking about run defense.

But, you know, they got blown off the line in that Bill's playoff game for all to talk about Lamar's turnovers and Mark Andrews is. kind of folly in the fourth quarter there. Bills dominated them up front. They just ran the ball down their throats. Now, they didn't average a ton per carry, but they controlled that game with their running game. I mean, Josh Allen really didn't have to do a ton except take care of the ball.

So, you know, they lost Michael Pierce. He retired. So there are some questions there, you know, in the interior of that defense. How do you see that rotation going? I think John Jenkins is going to make this team. Obviously, they signed him, but kind of an older journey.

I mean, I don't expect him. 34, 35. at this point. I don't expect him to play a ton of snaps. You know, and you'll have Manabike and Travis Jones inside. I think Broderick Washington will be part of the rotation. I think that's an area where they're still looking at maybe another veteran at some point. But Travis Jones is a guy that they believe has Star potential. Like, you know, Star may be overstating it, but he was playing so well early in the season.

If you go back to the early games last year, he was given some, you know, the Chiefs game in week one. He was a handful for Cree, Humphrey. And I think he was really gathering momentum, but then he had the high ankle sprain. Didn't miss much time played through it, but that's just an injury. So he wasn't the same player later in season.

I think they feel like a healthy Jones, a bulked up Matt of BK, and Washington's a solid role player with a bit piece of Jenkins worked in. I think they feel like they'll be fine. But that's an area where they're one injury away from major questions. And the edge rotation, It feels like, again, they're prioritizing how physical they want to be against the run on early downs.

Tavius Robinson is somebody that not a lot of people outside of the Ravensman's probably think or know about him, but big bodied guy and was talking to a coach earlier today. He's our best run defender on the edge. And so now he probably is going to get a lot of early down snaps and then you bring my green into the mix. It feels like for the first time in a while, it's easy to feel good about the collection of skill sets they have in that edge room even going into the season before. meeting to sign veteran exile on this 15th. And they're all out there. Clowny's out there. Zadario Smith's out there.

Judon's out there. Yeah, every former Raven is currently available. Yeah, Jehad Ward was just signed, but you could add him to the mix. But yeah, I think that's one of their most interesting position groups. You know, is Van Nuoy and away going to get double-digit sacks again? Like, well, we don't know, but Van Nuoy does a lot for their defense, you know, does different things, not just rush in the past. There's a lot of motivated guys there, always in a contract year, and wasn't exactly thrilled

about the talks this offseason. You know, I think he would have liked to resign, but I don't, I think the kind of Ravens are in show me mode again, you know, like which they seem to just recycle past rushers. And Mike Green, I think, is the one guy who's going to be really interesting. You know, you see it in flashes out there. It's like, wow, he plays so hard and plays with physicality. But you also see him get caught in the wash and have some bad. So he's a rookie.

I think, you know, speculation among Raven fans, he's going to be double-jit-sat guy as a rookie. It's like, geez, he's not going to be able to feel enough to do that. Yeah, I don't think so either. That's kind of what it feels. Exactly. He feels like he'll be used situationally early on. And I think there's parts where Robinson will bump inside a little bit. James Robinson can do that and help. You know, I think we'll see him out of Beke on the edge

a little bit at times. So, yeah, I think it's an interesting rotation. They have a lot of guys, as you said, with different skill sets and different parts of their career, you know, that, that they could kind of utilize to get after the quarterback. This defense, you know, the sack numbers were very high last year, but they need to take the ball away more.

That needs to be the next step here. The other big personnel question on that side of the ball, and to me it's the biggest personnel question, maybe on the entire team, which I know is nitpicking. Losing Ardarius Washington is brutal. Because when you draft Malachi-Starks, I feel like now we have three safeties that we feel good about. You go down to two,

and it just feels like you're pigeonholing yourself a little bit with how you can use Kyle Hamilton now. because if you don't have that third safety you feel good about, which was the case early last year, they needed to move him back there. How do you think that third safety spot shakes out now without Ardarius Washington? And how does the cornerback rotation maybe play into how they're thinking about the secondary overall? Yeah, I mean, I don't think Ardares Washington got enough credit last year. I love, I was just telling somebody today, I love watching play. He's like, truly one of my favorite players in the league to watch.

You want to talk, you know, you want to talk about a guy who's, you know, undersized with sticks his nose in there, just a very smart player. So, yeah, that was an underrated loss. Now, they think they're going to get him back this year, but, you know, torn Achilles. They're saying November. It sounds like if you get anything from him, that's aggressive. The first time I heard that they thought there was a chance to be playing this year. I was like, didn't he tears Achilles like in March?

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I think on paper you look at it and you say, okay, you got Jair Alexander and Nate Wiggins. I don't think there's been a more impressive player here through a week than Nate Wiggins, you know, and I mean, you saw it last year, like the completion numbers against him. He had a really good rookie year. He didn't really play a ton early, and I don't think people were talking about him much, but he had a good rookie year. And then you have Marlon Humphrey inside. And I think he's better in the slot at the stage of his career. And then with the two, you know, Hamilton and Stark's back there. But we know that's just not

how they're going to, you know, they're going to show a lot of different looks. And, They want to load the field with defensive backs. They're pretty thin at inside linebacker. I think they're going to have to in a lot of ways. And they like to use three safety looks. And who is that third guy? Now, the leader in the clubhouse would be Snewcy Kane, who was a seventh round pick out of Purdue.

Second year was one of their most active special teamers last year, but didn't play a lot on defense. Now, he's reshaped his body. He's having a great offseason, but he's unproven. And, you know, you have all these good corners. I just have to wonder if we're going to see, you know, we were seeing it a little with guys like, you know, some of their corners playing safety. Marlon Humphrey can play safety. In fact, some people think that's his future when he gets a little older, but Wusei can play safety.

So I think, you know, they'll be low in the field with DBs and I think we'll see cornerbacks helping out in that safety. But I do think that's the one area, Robert, where they're looking see what else is out there, whether that's a cut later this year, a trade potentially. Eventually, I mean, Justin Simmons is still out there. I know he had a rough season, but, you know, there's a pedigree there. There's a couple other veteran safety still available. I actually thought they were going to be interested in Blackman, who I think just signed somewhere. The New Orleans, I believe. Yeah, and I know, you know, Chuck being in Indianapolis, and, you know, I know he didn't play for him,

but Chuck was obviously very tight-in-in-in-hapagano. Yeah. Yeah, Chuck Baganos. So I was a little surprised they weren't active on him. But I think that's a role where a player not currently here will ultimately. ultimately get or a cornerback will ultimately kind of take over that role. Because they're so flush at corner with having Ouzi and Alexander now. And moving Ouzi at a corner to safety doesn't preclude you from moving it back to corner.

Alexander gets hurt because that's obviously the biggest question. How many games are you going to get out of Alexander? But that's a very deep position group for them right now. So how that third safety spot shakes out in part because it allows you to unlock Kyle Hamilton in a different way, that's why it almost feels like a more pressing question for this team than almost any other team in the league. Yeah, not to mention how much they like playing three safeties, but, you know, look, they don't want Hamilton to be pigeonholed with Hamilton as the deep safety. Like, that's not... You're not getting everything out of him if that's the case.

Like, they had to do it by necessity next, last year because, you know, Marcus Williams and Eddie Jackson just did not work out. And they just needed some stability. And he can do pretty much anything out there. You know, I just, you know, we were watching today. And, you know, these do these one-on-ones. A lot of times, safeties don't like to jump into those. unless because they can look bad. I mean, those drills are, but no, this guy's jumping in against 50 slot receivers.

He just loves it. So, he's a great player, but you need to use him to his strengths. And to know or do that, you need to have a little more stability at safety. The last thing I'll ask you here, I mean, we talked a little bit about this at the combine this year. But now as we're getting a little bit closer to the season, is you take the temperature of people who root for this team. Is there anxiety about maybe a lack of ambition in some of the offseason moves? I don't even think that's fair. Like I, the guys they added, especially in the draft, it all makes sense to me.

But like, is there some feeling of why can't we get over the top? Why can't we break through and how is this going to happen? Like, what's the vibes check and just the overall anxiety level among your readers right now as we get toward the season? I think there's a feeling of I don't, you know, I don't care what happens anymore between September or December December. Yeah, wake me up on January 15th. We know, yeah, wake me up on January 15th. Show us. Why is this year going to be different?

And until they sort of at least get to the Super Bowl. And, you know, just because the nature of their losses in these playoff games are just brutal. Because they're unrecognizable. Like, they go out there and kind of stray away from their strengths. They panic if they get behind. They become sort of a mistake-filled outfit. And just like, where's this been all year? Like, you know, they go into, you know, they go into San Francisco and Christmas, like, very good Christmas.

a very good San Francisco team and just dump truck here. They're like, this team, when they're at their best, is the best team in football. But yet, when they get to the playoffs, we haven't seen it. So I think a lot of it is kind of, look, I don't care. Nothing I see in the regular season anymore is going to make me believe until we, and that's a hard spot to be in. It's such a tough spot to be in. But I don't blame anyone who feels that way because that, like, up and down emotional

roller coaster of, man, we're the best team in football. And then to get the rug pulled out from under you, it would be frustrated to have happen over and over again. But at the same time, if you're the decision makers here, I think that mindset of we're close. Right. Like, it just one bounce the ball, one thing different here or there. Like, there's no reason not to stay the course. I still feel like is the right mindset. Yeah.

No, I do too. And then you got the sect. There's always a sect of fans that, you know, John Harbaugh is holding Lamar back. And they're wasting some of Lamar's, you know, prime years. I mean, this guy played quarterback at a level, you know, had one of the best years ever for a quarterback last year. So I get all that. But the way this organization run,

this organization's always been about stability. Steve Bishadhi believes if you keep kicking at the can and giving yourself a chance of playoffs every year, you're going to break through. So it's not an organization that makes radical changes, really. I think fans are frustrated by that. But yet when they go to the playoffs and are, you know, could win three straight division titles this year,

It's tough to be too critical of what they're doing. I think they had a pretty good draft. I mean, we'll see. But you know, you look out there. They've lost some players already. You mentioned it likely or Darius Washington. But it's one of the deepest rosters of football. There's no doubt.

It feels like they're in such a good spot. And again, it's kind of why it's a hard team to talk about it. You're doing these little tiny details. But yeah, if John Harbaugh is holding Lamar back, I'd love to see how good Lamar would be without John Harbaugh. Jeff Zarebeck, always great to see you. Always great to chat with you, sir. Appreciate the time. Oh, thanks for everyone.

me, Robert, great talking. All right, guys, that's all we got for today. Thank you so much to Michael Sean. Thank you so much to Josh. And thank you so much to Jeff. We will be back tomorrow for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon.